How Much Would It Cost To Kill Your Town?

Question: How much would it cost a company to kill a town, destroy the livelihood of most its current inhabitants, and change the landscape forever?

Answer: $500,000,000 - or approximately $15,000 per resident after twenty years of waiting for a so-called "speedy trial".

Reason: It helps if this happens during the lawless reign of an oil-man and more than half of the highest court owe their lifelong cushy gig to like-minded individuals.
Details can be found here.

Moyers Takes On Media Reform

If you believe the mainstream media has serious problems, in particular telling Americans of any particular political persuasion what they want to hear (e.g. CNN=tending toward Left of Center ideas/Fox News=tending toward Right of Center ideas) and not what they need to hear (i.e. facts, convenient or otherwise, and not advocacy), then you should probably watch this video of Bill Moyers addressing the National Conference for Media Reform '08. One quote I find particularly poignant:

'So it is that Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent while enhancing the powers of the state and the privileged interests protected by it...

In essence, the mainstream media have been the willing mouthpiece for those looting our treasury, the PUBLIC treasury, for very powerful private corporations - instead of being the watchdog who should bite their greedy little hands.

Hillary Supporters Chant "NoBama" and "McCain"

I fear our country, my own party rather, the party of my father and his father, is still too racist to allow Barack Obama the presidency. According to a story in The New York Times (Democrats Approve Deal on Michigan and Florida), Hillary Clinton's supporters showed they would rather elect John McCain than allow Barack Obama the Democratic presidential nomination. My own father, I'm ashamed to report, feels the same way and has no problem admitting to his racism. When Hillary supporters didn't get their way with the rules committee yesterday, they chanted "McCain!McCain!McCain!". Makes me sad for my country - again.

Dear Working-Class America

....please take a look at your future. That is, unless you're willing to take your rage out on those who are responsible for your slide into poverty.

What happenss when banks have too much money?

In the last few years around where I live there has been a glut of new banks opening. Every available corner and shopping complex has one if not two banks located there - and most within five miles of their nearest branch. It's getting pretty ridiculous and every one I know has commented on their viral spread.

Then, as you may have heard, the mortgage crisis came. The real crisis was, from the perspective of those with truckloads of money to invest in real estate, was that there was more money available than there were loans to invest in. That's when the banks started underwriting some pretty sketchy loans to anyone fool enough to take one - and eventually the default of the same master plan.

You and I, as taxpayers, will bail them out undoubtedly.

Douglas Rushkoff, author and futurist, has written an interesting piece on his blog about this whole mess. Check out
WILLING DUPES: Douglas Rushkoff on the credit crisis at Arthur Magazine.

The American Prophet, Franklin D. Roosevelt

I came across someone else who came across this FDR quote on wikipedia:

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."


Word.

Unsavory Christian "History"

So I get back to work on Tuesday after taking a vacation day for Monday and settle down at the work computer to check the weather, etc... When I say etc.. I mean checking my personal webpages for a few minutes - which is, of course, a no-no at work, right? Sure, but everybody does it and my supervisor, who uses the same computer to do his banking and correspondence with his church homies on a regular basis, is on a Christian retreat for the next three days. The big boss is gone for the week so I figure I'm in the clear. But just to be on the safe side, I clear my history on the browser. To rationalize my bad behaviour, I decide to get nosy and check the browser's history to see what kind of nonsense my supervisor has been looking at - since he hordes the computer to himself the whole day while we're all out working.

That's when my mind was blown.

But before I go any further, let me tell you a little bit about ShitBrick. He's a beast of a man who, in the past three or four years, has gotten very serious about his Christianity. And since his ego is as massive as his body, no one can escape his gravity (kinda like Jupiter). So he brings Bibles to work, listens to sermons and Christian books on the work computer and sniffs at anyone who isn't an evangelical Christian (he particularly dislikes Catholics and Muslims). He also spends a lot of time shaming the trappings of popular culture; secular movies, secular books, secular politicians, secular culture in general. And he's also probably the most homo-phobic dude I've ever come across. This guy REALLY detests "fags".

Which is why I found his tastes in websites particularly interesting.

Seems our Christian Soldier has developed a taste for transsexual escorts (I know!). And this was no minor dalliance. He was several pages into this website, all transsexuals, all looking for local action - which means he was looking for a date, or at least toying with the idea of hooking-up. And since our network connection at work is dial-up (snore), he was also extremely patient in his quest. I'm pretty sure nobody else had access to that computer on that day. I checked with my other co-worker (who, btw, gets shit every time he even uses his personal phone, not to mention the work computer).

Thank You Ted Haggard - Poster-boy for self-righteous Christian hypocrites everywhere who end up spending their evenings with crack-smoking homosexual prostitutes while spending their days projecting their fears and pathological baggage onto everybody else.

Truth is, I don't know why he was looking at transsexual escorts. For all I know, he and the Christian Taliban were planning on going downtown to partake in some hate crimes (I'll be watching the news). But I do know that this information could #1. Damage if not end his marriage. #2. Damage if not end his association with the church. #3. Damage if not end his career.

Of course, I would never tell anybody, save for you anonymous blog reader. I don't care what he does for entertainment, as long as he's not hurting anybody. That's the difference between liberals and those uptight, hypocritical, religious-right-wingers. We're not going to bust somebody's balls for how they get their kicks. We ALL have skeletons. We're ALL hypocrites to some degree.

American SICKO - A Bitter Citizen Vents

The wife and I watched Michael Moore's SICKO last night. I already knew the arguments that he was going to use so I wasn't really that excited to watch it - but it blew me away anyway.

Sure, Sicko's all in support of Moore's persepective. Is it "balanced" journalism. No, but I don't give a shit. Is Fox News balanced journalism? Give me a fucking break - yappy little dogs and their Stepford Wives who do the shameless bidding of the right wing. If Michael Moore wants to pull a publicity stunt like driving sick 9/11 workers on boats down to Guantanamo Bay to make a point about the need for universal health care, more power to him.

Michael Moore features working-class problems in his films, shines a light on those problems and gets people talking about it - which is a public service as far as I'm concerned. He pisses off the establishment because he gets the working folk all riled up by telling them the pitiful truth about their so-called representatives and the corporate crooks who've bought and paid for them. Personally, I hope Moore gets fabulously wealthy from his films so he can buy a congressman of his own. Then, maybe, finally, the working stiff will have half a chance in this cuntry.

Moore illustrates the plight of the 911 emergency workers who can't get insurance or affordable treatment, people who had to quit their jobs because of chronic breathing problems or work at the convenience store until they die because they can't afford to retire. Sure, they were our heroes when it suited a moment of nationalistic pride or helped the administration's publicity campaign. But when they want payback for their broken bodies it's right back the the good 'ole American ethic of every man for himself. Fuck you, go back to work. Stop bitching and pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Pitiful and sick.

One of Moore's theme in Sicko is that, compared to the rest of the developed world who provide worry-FREE health care, our system and the way we treat our most vulnerable is completely FUCKED UP. In one scene we are shown a U.S. hospital worker dumping-off a sick and confused senior citizen because she can't afford her bill. I've heard of this happening in Detroit. Just dumped off on the curb near another facility. There, it's somebody else's problem now. That's how fucking sick we've become in this cuntry. Health care for profit is a fucked-up way to operate.


We should all be beating down the doors of Congress over this BULLSHIT while they waste our money on Wars nobody wanted and massive tax giveaways to the rich - and don't even fucking tell me that isn't happening. Every fucking time we turn our backs on these cocksuckers we're getting ripped off by some secret cabal of CEO's who used to be checked by regulation or, gasp, by congressional oversight - but now, under Bush and his ilk, they have carte blanche to loot the treasury until there's such massive damage done to our economy we have to bail them out with our taxes - AGAIN.

If you don't believe me I've got two words for you "Savings & Loan", or how about "Hedge Funds". Here's two more for you: "Mortgage Crisis". If you don't put a short leash on these fucking bankers and whip there asses now and then it just happens sooner rather than later. Enron - there's one word for you. And why does this shit happen? Because the foxes are in the hen house, writing all the fucking legislation while you're watching American Idol and farting in your chair. We should be dragging our so-called representatives out into the street for a righteous lashing, putting the fear of public humiliation back into their crumbling spines.

Okay, I'm done ranting - for a moment.

But Sicko made me realize how myopic and mentally ill we've become in the U.S., unable to believe that things could be different in this country. If only we had the will to act in our best interest. God knows we've still got the money laying around, but the power-players out there spend a lot of time and effort keeping us afraid, worried, anxious, unwilling to make trouble in fear of finding ourselves on the street without a job. Well, you know what friend? They've shipped all the good jobs out of the country anyway! Whatever labor jobs are left go to illegal immigrants - supposedly doing the jobs that nobody will do (well, I do them on a daily basis, so don't tell me that bullshit, George). THEY SOLD YOU OUT for cheap labor in other countries you silly, nostalgic American fool. Wave your red, white & blue and see if you get your standard of living back, Jack. Need to get re-educated for the new economy? Well, they've jacked the price of education through the roof too! Need to borrow money for that necessary re-education? Fine, but the bankers have seen to it that you'll be paying interest so high it'd make a fucking gangster blush with envy. Need to drive to that educational institution? Well, they've jacked up the price of gas so far you'd be better off stealing it. Sure, there's opportunity in the U.S. - but it comes at such a high price you'll never see the light of day in your pursuit of it. The only growth industry in this cuntry will be surveillance and security for the fat-cat mother fuckers who will need to keep you and me outside their gates.

Fucking Free Trade. That's what killed the working man in this cuntry. I can't tell you how many local companies I've seen move their manufacturing plants to Mexico since Clinton opened the floodgates. And every time Big Business promises free trade will benefit domestic manufacturers in the U.S. and create more jobs. You believe that and I've got a war to sell you. Now republicons want "free trade" with Columbia (Asia must be getting too expensive). But free for whom? They want you to believe it will be good for American manufacturers who will sell what to the Columbians? What the fuck are we going to sell the Columbians that they can afford to buy? How 'bout a Caterpillar tractor? Every Columbian peasant needs a Caterpillar earth-mover, right? So some fucking Agri-Giant like Monsanto or ADM can be free to bulldoze what's left of the rain forest to make room for more cheap beef or corn for ethanol - which will be grown by Columbian peasants who will work like slaves. Fuck Caterpillar. Let Caterpillar pay a huge tariff for that kind of shit. But I've got a better idea...

Let's put Caterpillar deep in the black by re-building the crumbling infrastructure in the U.S. How 'bout that? What's that? There's no money for that? Why not? Oh, right, the TRILLION dollar fucking war for......for......what the fuck do we want from Iraq again? And who's brilliant idea was this shit? Wolfowitz. Cheney. Rumsfeld. You fucks...

Okay, I'm getting too pissed off. Back to health care. By the way, Cheney and Rumsfeld both worked for Nixon, you remember, the crook who resigned the presidency rather than face the musc? - and Nixon is the fuck who gave the green-light for all this privatized, profit-based health care in the first place. So his buds could get rich. It's always the same. In Sicko they show Nixom admitting it, on tape, that the only way to profit from health care is to provide less care for more money. Nice plan. Thanks for watching our backs, you DICK!

Sicko also showed, by contrast, how life in America can be better, less anxious, more life-affirming, by showing us how Europeans live. We can't even imagine life here anymore without being strapped with worry for our health, for our safety, for our jobs - high anxiety everywhere. We're in a constant state of hyper-vigilance and FEAR thanks to the worthless lies of our so-called leaders and their lying, cheating, asshole friends. It's not like that in Europe. Not yet anyway. Why? Because they don't WANT to live like that. They REFUSE to live like that. They'd rather burn their cities to the fucking ground than live like that. And their politicians know it. They fear their population - which is as it should be and as our founders wanted it way back when. Face it, the emperor has no clothes - and he has a little dick too.

So I'm ranting again, but it pisses me off. The difference betwee the America I grew up in and America now is such a stark contrast it makes me sick to my stomach. And, regardless of my lack of credibility in the scheme of things, I mean, nobody listens to a working stiff, it's true: The health care providers and the pharmaceutical companies are ripping everybody off while they can - while Bush, or any other establishment shill, is still in office. Want proof? How about this article in today's New York times.

On a personal note, I've got a friend who hasn't had health care in years. His fucking teeth are rotting out of his head; he's missing two front teeth now. He got laid off from his government cable job a couple years ago and has been working at a fucking Wendy's to pay his bills. And Wendy's, a national chain, doesn't offer affordable health coverage. Hell, if it wasn't free he couldn't afford it anyway. He can barely pay his personal expenses, not to mention his mortgage which is being paid by his elderly father's savings. He only makes, like, $8.50 and hour. He'd be on the fucking street if it wasn't for his father saving his ass. But his father is in his eighties now. I keep asking my friend what he's going to do when his dad dies? He doesn't know, doesn't like to think about it, and it's all he can do to drag his ass down to Wendy's every fucking day to survive. He's got a broadcasting degree, but nobody's hiring someone with only government cable experience. He's fucked and he knows it.

The sad thing is, he, and most others in the same position, will probably take his economic-induced angst and depression out on himself instead of the fucks who sorely deserve it. He'll commit suicide, or freak out on some poor, unsuspecting schlubs who are just trying to survive this bullshit too - instead of organizing and directing the anger where it should go - to the greedy mother-fuckers who perpetuate this system of degradation. But more and more you're going to see mother-fuckers taking shit into their own hands and lashing out at the establishment - you can count on it. History is replete with examples of the people rising up to eat the rich when they've got nothing else to eat.

So sharpen your forks, Sickos. America is going to get ugly in the years ahead.

Shake That Piggy Bank, There's Something Rattling In There!

What a cuntry.

Not only has the Bush administration emptied the U.S. taxpayer's treasury for the benefit of their war profiteers (even the big Dick hiding behind the little Bush made off with a cool 31 million in Halibucks, I'm told), but now it's evident that the mortgage bankers will make off with whatever is left.

The Federal Reserve not only has taken action unprecedented since the Great Depression — by lending money directly to major investment banks — but also has put taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars in questionable trades these same bankers made when the good times were rolling.

....and Republicons and Wall Street bankers have the audacity to whine about proposals for new regulations to prevent another near-collapse.

But both President Bush and Mr. Paulson, a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, remain philosophically opposed to restrictions and requirements that might hamper economic activity. NYT link

..."economic activity" no doubt defined as money flowing out of our treasury into private bank accounts. Personally, I'm "philosophically opposed" to illegal wars and getting ripped off by bankers and their predilection for fine print. Somebody needs to watch over the hen house because congress sure as hell isn't doing it.

Everything You Need To Know About The U.S. Government But Were Afraid To Believe

More money for defense, particularly well-connected private defense contractors who regularly and predictably gouge the very government that feeds them.

More money for the rich, particularly in the form of esoteric tax cuts that get passed in the middle of the night before a holiday so they can write off their Hummers and the cost of heating their multiple McMansions.

Less money for everybody and everything else.

Fuck the little people who pay for it all with their income taxes.

Fuck their educational opportunities, fuck their general welfare and fuck their pursuit of happiness.

Fuck their jobs and fuck their misguided ideals about loyalty and country.

It's all for sale and nothing means nothing.

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.

NBC ABC Wrangle Over Paris Hilton Interview

The New York Times has reported that NBC and ABC had allegedly been in a bidding war with the Hilton parents (and I use that term loosely) to be the first to interview Paris Hilton when she gets out of jail.

If I were either network I'd be embarassed to be involved at all. And apparently, and appropriately, they are embarassed -having nixed the idea of pursuing the interview.

Give it to FOX NEWS where that sort of pap belongs.


Source: New York Times; June 23, 2007; "ABC and NBC End Race to Interview Paris Hilton"

The World is The Way It Is.....

.....because of people like Norman Podhertz.

Corruption in China = Death

Boy, those Chinese don't screw around. When they Chinese FDA commissioner Zheng Xiaoyu pleaded guilty to corruption and accepting bribes that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people around the world the gov. sentenced him to death. In the U.S. we'd pat him on the head, throw him in a private country club and set some ridiculous fine that would never get paid. Then CEOs around the country would figure out how he did it, perfect the technique, then try to get rich themselves.

Economic Chauvinism: Good 'ole Boys Woman-Haters Club

So I'm talking to my well-to-do brother-in-law about the economic meltdown Michigan is currently experiencing due to the flight of manufacturing jobs, the shrinking domestic auto industy and a budget crisis created in part by the removal of almost two billion dollars in revenue from the single business tax. I was quite blown away by his response. He laid the economic blame squarely on the head of our FEMALE governor. He said we'd never be taken seiously in the business world as long as our leader was a woman.

Huh?

You're kidding me right?

He wasn't kidding.

My response: "My god, are we still that unsophisticated?"

By the time the words left my mouth I realized two things. One, the money men who run this state couldn't possible be that unsophisticated, but they realize the mass of us are and need convenient target for their money problems- and without a minority or foreigner to blame, a woman will suffice nicely. And two, patriarchal Christianity probably has a lot to do with my brother-in-law's attitude, that whole Promise Keepers, Man In The Mirror shit that places the man at the head of the pack, firmly behind the steering wheel, as the captain of the team and as the leaders of the free world - because God supposedly wants it that way regardless of the economic, social or ecological ruination he brings to the planet in the process.

The Internet Has....

....turned us into pathological narcissists.

A Letter To News & Notes Re: Dr. Julianne Malveaux

I was shocked by the careless words of columnist and author Dr. Julianne Malveaux, newly named president of Bennett College, regarding a preceding story on News and Notes about the Shaquanda Cotton criminal case (News & Notes, Roundtable: Black Colleges; Candidate's Lives, March 29, 2007). In reference to the comments of Gary Young, the district attorney who helped prosecute Ms. Cotton for shoving a teacher, Dr. Malveaux said...

"...that person, you could see the red on his neck - through the radio."

Later in that same story, Dr. Malveaux said in regards to Newt Gingrich's affair during the Bill Clinton scandal, that, 'when hypocrisy is involved, the public should know about it.' - which is why I'm writing this letter to News and Notes.

I think The United States has come to a point in its history where hypocrisy will no longer be tolerated - even by the victims of historical injustices. Two wrongs don't make a right and Dr. Malveaux's careless comment about "red necks" should no more be tolerated than the recent remarks by Don Imus' about "nappy heads" - maybe even less, because we expect more from a college president than a shock-jock who relies on controversy for ratings.