Taser Nation

The recent spate of video showing cops tasering non-violent offenders just makes me fear the people who are supposed to protect me. But more than fear, I feel anger and a desire for revenge against jack-booted thugs who take a sadistic pleasure in doling-out pain to the powerless. This is where "cops" become "pigs" in my book. The only thing worse than pigs taking too much pleasure in their work is the people who laugh and cheer at this kind of shit.

Can you hear that?

The other day CSPAN was asking its callers what would happen if the United States pulled out of Iraq. I never got a chance to call in but here is my answer.

If the U.S. pulled out of Iraq it would mean the end of that massive sucking sound created by 180,000 private contractors drawing hundreds of billions of dollars out of the void of our children's future (see this month's Rolling Stone article) - and it would begin a massive whining sound created by the well-connected Republicons who head those companies when they realize their government tit-sucking festival has finally come to an end.


Anybody with half a brain realizes that the war was an excuse to do what certain families have been trying to do since World War One and our so-called leaders are liars, cheats, harlots and charletans who've left us bitter and jaded. So...

Impeach The President.
Fne the congressmen for derilection of duty
Apologize to the Iraqis and wish them the best.
Take GOOD CARE of our troops health and retirement.
Rebuild New Orleans for the people who actually lived there.
Make sure our security services are playing nice with eachother.
Keep heavy pressure on Islamic assholes who want to hurt people - wherever they are.
Start a NASA-sized program to jump-start sustainable energy resources that won't send our food prices through the roof (e.g. Ethanol)
Find a reason to believe in America again.

God, we need something to believe in again.

-30-

An Open Letter To Chase Bank Visa

Dear Chase Bank,

After twenty-three years as a Chase Visa credit-card holder in good standing, my wife's Chase Visa card was recently cancelled, your company falsely claiming she was 120 days overdue. Not only is this not true, as she did send you checks for hundreds of dollars in the past several months (we can prove this, of course), but I believe this "overdue amount" was a product of your own dubious business practices. On at least one occasion this year, Chase Visa failed to deliver a monthly bill to our home. This, of course, led to no check being delivered to you (or delivered to you late) and conveniently triggered a much higher interest rate and various late fees which I believe may have been agreed to somewhere deep in her original or modified-by-mail (innumerable times) credit contract (which, I'm convinced, nobody but your lawyers has ever read).

When my wife finally did receive a bill from Chase Visa, the minimum amount due was far more than she could afford to pay. You see, recently my wife lost her good paying job due to cut-backs in the ever-popular "global economy" - which was then replaced by a new American specialty known as the "McJob", a service industry gig which hardly pays subsistence wages and, of course, no benefits. In the past, making a double-payment on "the card" due to some oversight on your part, or her part, would not have been a problem. But making such a payment now, at $8 an hour, is, frankly, an impossibility.

No, I think that if you truly want to collect the nearly ten-thousand dollars you claim my wife now owes you (thanks to her not understanding the details of "compound interest" and the ever-deepening debt she will incur even while faithfully making her monthly minimum payment [a crime of "usery" itself, in my opinion] - oh, and by being too proud to come to me for help), you will have to waive this year's late fees and cut her interest rate by more than half. It's the least you could do for a faithful twenty-three year customer from whom you've collected tens of thousands of dollars in interest over the years (and may collect thousands of dollars more from if you treat her fairly) who has now fallen on harder times.

If not, and you insist on sending this collection to a bunch of lawyers whose dubious practices rival even you own, you will not enjoy anything but the satisfaction of marring her credit, which she can't really afford to use anyway.


Your call....


Signed: The angry husband of a very dissatisfied customer.

Dems Support National Passport Month?

Dear Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland),

Thank you for wasting my tax dollars to promote National Passport Month on the floor of the House Of Representatives and for the benefit of the CSPAN cameras. I have to wonder, who asked you to promote more passport sales? Surely, It wasn't the majority of your constituents. Why is it you politicians never seem to get to the needs of the majority of your constituents?

I submit to you, representative, that the reason that only 25% of Americans hold a passport is that only 25% of Americans actually need a passport - most likely to perpetuate our addiction to cheap imports and exand the profit margins of people who used to employ Americans until y'all voted to ship them to foreign countries. Then there's the much smaller percentage of people who can actually afford to travel abroad - it ain't me, sister, unless your talking about the passport you now want me to use to drive to Canada - which is really just a tax increase to me.

Representative, you speak about the great benefits and opportunities that come with holding an passport, like getting to know other cultures and expanding our horizons. Of course, you conveniently omitted the fact that opinion of Americans around the world is now at an all-time low, thanks to the void of leadership left by our president, followed by the void of leadership that the Democratic Party is currently creating - both of which are reflected in your latest approval ratings.

So please Representative Lee, stop trying to sell the American people more crap they don't really need. Have some political courage, stick your neck way out and do the work we so desperately need you to do - create a health care system that works for ALL Americans, protect and create jobs that pay a living wage for those who still want to believe in the American Dream, prevent criminal usury by the banks, maintain our crumbling infrastructure and protect us from going broke over the ever-increasing natural disasters, and for the love of God, stop wasting hundreds of billions of our tax dollars on shady contractors who couldn't build a decent outhouse in Iraq let alone a functioning democracy.

Does anybody have the courage to speak the truth up there? So far the answer is obvious to everyone but y'all.