President Oblaahma

I just cannot convey how much Mr. Oblaahma annoys me. He talks a good game, but that's it. He has no fight and no follow through. Do folks really think he's going to get some fight in 2012? Is there something magical about about 2012 that when the clock strikes midnight January 1st  Oblaahma is going to take on the Washington establishment Elliot Ness style?

Please.

People have been starving, losing their homes, losing their apartments, losing their jobs at an almost free fall rate in this country for almost three years now; Oblaahma is just now getting around to devising a jobs bill. When we said to the president "We are starving; we can't feed our kids; we have no money, because we have no jobs--he gave us health care reform. "Reform" that mandates us to make an expensive purchase when we have no jobs. Most people don't need a doctor, an emergency room, or medicine everyday, but they do need to eat everyday. Common sense would have told him that the first order of the day was to create jobs. 

Now with 2012 around the corner he has an aha moment: jobs!  I don't care what he says; he is campaigning. He can grandstand and say he is trying to sell his jobs bill to the public, but I know campaigning when I see it. He needs to be in Washington with the democrats and republicans trying to figure out and implement ways to get this economy back on its feet. You mean to tell me during a deep crisis he only has one plan and it's this jobs bill, that he came up with in the eleventh hour no less! I just can't with this man anymore.

I told folks in 2008 they were not going to get anything, especially change, from this man. Now I'm going to tell you that in 2012 you still won't get anything from him except one flowery speech after the other. The real unfortunate part is there is no independent ( that I know of at this writing)  running for president. 

So I guess I won't be voting.

Dear Barney Frank, To Hell With the Democrats

I was watching the Rachel Maddow Show and her interview with Barney Frank. Frank was talking about the Occupy Wall Street Movement, advising the movement that if it doesn't express it's anger at the polls, like the Tea Party does, then their protests will not yield the changes they seek. Of course, this is a not so subtle way of saying to the movement that it needs to vote for Democrats in 2012 if they want things to change.

As I stated in an earlier post, do not let the Democrats co-opt the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The deal is this. It was President Clinton, a democrat, that  repealed regulatory laws (Glass-Steagall in particular)  that allowed the financial sector the unbridled recklessness that resulted in the current economic meltdown. That same president also gave us  NAFTA, the start of a mass exodus of American jobs overseas and elsewhere.

The Democratic Party had the majority in 2008 and did not do anything towards helping the 99%. Some of you may argue that the democrats gave us health care reform. Is it really reform? The majority of Americans were down for single payer and if they could not get that, they would settle for a public option. We got neither. We got a piece of legislation written by the insurance industry which guarantees them billions of dollars. The  current president did not even fight for the public option. Moreover, President Oblaaaaahhma just signed a trade agreement with Korea and Panama that has no provisions to guarantee fair trade.

Do not be hoodwinked. Neither party is going to do a damned thing for the 99% because the 99% ain't got no damned money. You can't line their pockets, fill their campaign coiffures, pay for expensive gifts and vacations, or guarantee them a six figure salary in corporate America after their congressional tenure is done. Don't fall for the rope a dope. The only way the movement will remain powerful and effective is to remain grassroots and non partisan.

Something to Think About

Politics without principles, education without character, science without humanity, and commerce without morality, are not only useless, but positively dangerous.--Sri Satya Sai Baba

Don't Let the Democrats Co-opt The Occupy Wall Street Movement

 The Tea Party started as a grassroots movement largely composed of folks who were clear that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were representing the people's interests. They believed that there was no real meaningful difference between the parties, and in fact believed that we really only have one political party which many called the Republicrats.

As far as the grassroots Tea Party was concerned, only the interests of huge corporations were being served by the political parties, and these corporations were buying elections and legislation. Much of this legislation worked against hard working people, particularly the middle class. The Tea Party deemed that the marriage of the American executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government with corporations  resulted in corporate fascism which was threatening to destroy democracy and the republic. This marriage was unconstitutional, and the Tea Party wanted the United States to return to  being governed by the laws of the U.S. Constitution and not by  the desires of corporate America.

Hence, these folks banned together and called themselves the Tea Party in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party in which tea was dumped into the harbor to protest taxation without representation. So in the 21st century, a Tea Party was born to protest taxation without representation, because the people awere being taxed while only the corporations are being represented.

Then comes the aftermath of the 2008 election, and the Republicans are all but dead and stinking in the water. They were in desperate search of a lifeline. They found one: the Tea Party. By this time the Tea Party knew back then what many of us know or feel now. Obama was not about change; in fact, he was about the status quo. It was evident in his administration where big business, former lobbyist, and the Democrat establishment were over represented. The Tea Party was vocal in their concern and anger about the direction they felt the country was continuing to go. It was just what Republicans needed: some folks that were organized, angry, and distrustful of government, and what good fortune that a democrat was now the head of such government. It was the lifeline the Republicans needed. Very quickly they infiltrated and then co-opted the Tea Party. In the process, it went from an effective non partisan grassroots movement to an extremely conservative wing of the Republican Party.

As a conservative wing of the party it is effective, but as a grassroots movement fighting corporate fascism it has been effectively neutralized. There was some infighting between the grassroots folks and the infiltrating conservatives, but the grassroots folks didn't have the seemingly unlimited financial resources  or access to the mainstream right wing media to prevent their takeover. Every now and then you will hear people make reference to" the real Tea Party," but not many people, and certainly not mainstream media ,know what the "real Tea Party" was or what it stood for.

Now fast forward to the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The left wing mainstream media and MoveOn.org, an appendage of the Democratic Party, are desperately trying to co-opt the movement. This, although when the media has repeatedly asked protesters about the movement's political party preference, protesters have overwhelmingly stated that the movement is not political/partisan. Yet when the left wing media spins it, the OWS movement is the left's answer to the Tea Party.

Some democrats are beginning to express jubilation that the masses are out in the streets. These are the same democrats that when they were in the majority did nothing to alleviate the suffering of the same masses they are so thrilled to see in the streets.

 Like "the real Tea Party," many in the Occupy Wall Street Movement feel that neither party is doing the work of the people but is instead solely doing the work of the corporations. Sound familiar?

My advice, not only to the Occupy Wall Street Movement but to all of us, is do not believe the hype! Do not continue to allow the political parties  and their corporate media ringmasters tell us who we are and what we want so that they can infiltrate our movements. If we are not cognitively vigilant, they will co-opt us and sucker us  into the impotent,brain numbing, couch potating  left/right paradigm all over again. Whatever you do, STAY AWAKE!

Collective Bargaining: A Tool Solely for the Rich?

I am amazed at how many working stiffs are banding together with big business to destroy collective bargaining for the average working Joe and Jane. The powers that be have done  a good job convincing folks that collective bargaining that is responsible for budget deficits in many states.  The powers that be who are doing all of this convincing are some of the same folks, along with their rented politicians, who created the  global financial meltdown that depleted the pension and 401k investments held by many cities and states. Yes, many cities and states invested heavily in the market and lost tons of money when the market went bust. Some of us have forgotten this; I don't know how, but we have.

It is amazing to see how the richest groups and corporations have pit workers against each other. I listen to call in shows and hear people complaining about their tax dollars going to pay bloated public sector union benefits. Some callers go so far as to say that those union workers should not get pensions because said callers do not get such benefits. ( What??!! Talk about crabs in a barrel!). We will complain about our tax dollars when it comes to our neighbors; we will even go so far as to deny them the opportunity to collective bargain. However, we not as vociferous and determined to end collective bargaining for the rich. Think about it. We, the little folks, union and non union workers are now paying off the reckless gambling debts of financial  monopolies, and we NEVER demanded that they give up anything!!

All over this country states are telling the little people that we have to give up something; we have to sacrifice. So folks are giving up percentages of their pensions, heath care benefits, and wage increases, and many have done so as a collective.

What did the banksters give up? A few weeks after the bailout we were all jumping up and down because the banksters were still receiving their extravagant bonuses. Did not the banksters collective bargain? Of course they did. AIG did not come in front of congress to ask for money alone. Neither did Citibank, Bank of America, nor J.P. Morgan Chase. They knew better. No one would have entertained them had they come individually. Their recklessness would have cost them their businesses--as it should according to capitalism.

No, they came as a collective to bargain because they knew they stood a much better chance of getting what they wanted. GM, Ford, and Chrysler used collective bargaining as well. No one asked these multi-billion dollar entities (persons *sigh*) to give up anything. They weren't asked to liquidate any assets that many of them hold worldwide to bail themselves out.

So the have's do not have to sacrifice; they do not  have to suffer the consequences of their actions, but this is not the case for the have nots: the average working Joe and Jane. No, we have to sacrifice and make concessions and submit our first born to corporate serfdom for generations to come. And yet, we blame our neighbors' use of collective bargaining for our ills and want a stop to it.

 I don't care how you feel about unions. The issue of collective bargaining goes beyond unions. What is being considered (or attacked) is whether or not average working class citizens can negotiate or bargain as a collective with a powerful, and/or multi-million or billion dollar entity if they wish to do so.


Unions are not the only instances where Americans come together as a collective to bargain and negotiate. What about class action lawsuits where multiple injured parties come together to seek redress from an injury or death caused by a company's product or service? How long do you think the average working person would be able to successfully sue a large corporation for restitution on his own? I betcha not long.

In fact, we have recently seen the the U.S. Supreme Court place such limitations on class action suits that some political pundits are sounding a death knell for such suits.
(Google: ATT vs. Concepcion  as well as Dukes vs. Walmart)


 Neighborhood associations, block associations, community organizations, professional associations, trade associations, tenant associations, PTAs, these are all instances of people who bargain and negotiate as a collective. It doesn't matter that  these organizations are not necessarily always negotiating salaries, health benefits, or safe working conditions. The point is is that they work as a collective because there is strength in numbers.


So some of us may want to rethink this zeal to end collective bargaining for unions, because  it is likely that unions will not be the only ones deprived of such a valuable and useful tool.

A Two Party System Is a No Choice System

 I'm sorry, but the only real difference between the Republicans and Democrats is that the Democrats at least use grease when they give the people the shaft. The bottom line is that special interest are the primary interests of  both parties and as long as they keep us duped and trapped in a left/right paradigm, there's not a damned thing we WILL do about it.

As long as we hold onto their left/right paradigm we will never get any real change from the powers that be. Do not, kid yourself! There is no incentive for them to do anything in the public interest, because what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? When you're upset with Republicans you vote Democrat and when you get upset with them you go back to voting Republican. Neither party really loses. They just wait for their turn at power to come back around.

The two parties are not worried about you and your needs because they know they've got the game on lock. They have effectively, with your permission (silence condones), continued to make it nearly impossible for third and fourth party candidates to get on the ballot and they have locked third and fourth party candidates out of the national debates.

The two parties are smart; they know that making sure that people identify with being either a Republican or a Democrat makes the people suggestible and gullible.The parties can present their ideologies knowing that once these ideas take root  as a a subject's identity, the subject will be open to accepting the suggestions of their political parties practically without question or critical examination. So the parties can decide the public discourse, candidates for elections, talking points, and the  issues that are supposed to be important to voters.

Furthermore, the left/right paradigm insures that you will remain on your couch waiting for the day your party returns to power and puts things right. But probably the most destructive thing that the left/right paradigm has done is to make we the people forget that WE are the government. Those folks on the Hill are our representatives. We are the government, and we need to come out of our trance. We have to break the strange hold the two parties have our political system.We must, we, must, we must, first THINK!!!! and then do whatever needs to be done to open the political system to third and fourth parties. America Elects 2012 may be a step in that direction. Check out the video below.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/ThirdPartyPresi

Plantation Inc.

I am always amazed at what is considered the middle-class these days.  I grew up in Brooklyn, New York before the construction of the "working class" or "working poor." Back then you were either poor, middle class, or rich. The poor were those who worked but were barely making it. They had just enough to get by. The rich, as the old folks used to say back then, were "Those folks who don't have to work much because their money is working for them." So,  if you were somebody who had to bust your hump working everyday like the rest of us, you damn sure weren't rich: even though you had fine house, new car, and your kids attended private school. No you were not rich; you were middle class.

The economic/financial criteria for middle class status seems to have been much higher than it is now. To buy a house you had to have at least a 20% downpayment and excellentsuperfantastic credit. You had to have things like assets and collateral to get bank loans. Financing and credit cards were not so easy to obtain. You had to demonstrate a high level of credit worthiness, have a certain level of steady income and savings in order to get a credit card. Shucks, back in the day, if you had a credit card you were considered  to be "big time" (or what the kids would now consider "living large") because institutions were not giving out credit cards to all comers.

So cash was king! "Cash and carry" was a popular saying; if you had enough cash to pay for an item in full, you could carry it out the store with you that day. If you didn't have enough cash to pay for an item in full, there was financing for the middle class and layaway for the rest of us. Then something changed.

I don't know exactly what it was except to speculate that financial institutions figured out they could increase their profit margin significantly by keeping a large amount of people in a never ending cycle of debt. Everyone wants the American dream of which legends and Madison Ave advertisement firms speak. After all, you are not successful, not worthy, not good enough, not a real American if you can't continually amass an array of material things: most of them absolutely needless.  But, we have been duped into believing that our self worth is in direct correlation to the types and sizes of things that we buy, and the financial institutions know this. So, they began to extend credit to practically any and everybody with little regard for their ability to pay.

What a racket! High interest rates, exorbitant late fees, sub prime mortgages, adjusted rate mortgages and no money down was the new order of the day. Make a late payment or miss a payment, and your interest rate went through the roof. Still people had the urge to buy more to "be" more, and buying on credit made it so easy. It also made it easy for people to live above their means.  In many cases, as the interest rates and credit card purchases were increasing, wages  for some  people remained the same or decreased. Now add a recession, a few wars, mass unemployment,  the near extinction of the American manufacturing base, bailouts, and the bursting of the housing bubble, and here we are--a nation of debtors.

We are stuck paying for wars, and bailouts in addition to our own debt, and we are to do this even though jobs continue to be outsourced, we continue to run a trade deficit, and corporate lobbyists continue to buy AND WRITE legislation that favors the corporations at the expense of the American people. The deck has been stacked against the people. We seem to be stuck paying off Wall Street's debt, the government's debt and our own debt as our savings and investments draw little interest, the value of the dollar continues to plunge, and everything costs more.

I am so sickened by the amount of elders I see working in Walmart and fast food restaurants. These are people who are well past retirement age and here they are standing on their feet all day working. I know that most of them are there because they have to be. There is no way they cannot be there and survive. The scary part is they may have to work until they die, especially if the powers that be get their way and  all but eradicate social security.

Then there are those who have been lucky enough to have a steady job for years who still can't afford to retire because their 401k's  lost so much money during the financial meltdown.

 Then you have the college graduates with advanced degrees who are underemployed or can't get a job. Many of them were already behind the eight ball when they graduated because they have so much student loan debt. Now they have no job or not enough job to repay their loans.

So how are many of these people trying to make ends meet? Some are using credit cards for necessities in between pay checks and/or using the services of title loan and cash advance companies. Others are borrowing money from their pension plans, 401k's, and taking out home equity loans. It is a continual cycle of debt that waaaaay too many people will be trying to pay off practically until they die. There is a talking point that is so overused I could spit every every time I hear it, but it is so true. We have created so much debt as a country that our children and grandchildren will be trying to pay it off. Don't kid yourself ; there is no more middle class in this country and hasn't been for quite some time now. The majority of Americans are the working class (translation: working poor).  1 in 6 Americans is living in poverty.  Too many Americans will never get out from under. Their paychecks are spent before they even receive them.

Welcome to 21st Century sharecropping.

No! It's Not the Corporate Tax Rate

The biggest problem with continuing to buy into the left/right political paradigm is that we the people allow the two political parties to determine the public discourse rather than we the people speaking truth to power. I am amazed at how day after day so many of us believe the hype that the reason many big American  businesses are not hiring in America is because the corporate tax rate is too high. This, even though in recent months we have seen instances of  of mega corporations making record profits and paying little, if any, taxes.

Let me break this down . Yeah, the high corporate tax rate argument may have some merit, but it's not the primary reason as to why many American corporations are not hiring in America. Taxes my foot! The bottom line is that they don't want to pay YOU--period!  Why? Because YOU Americans will not accept less than $7.25 (minimum wage) for your labor, and you have the nerve to want $7.25 for every hour you work. Are you crazy!? They can go overseas and pay somebody $7.25 for a whole 12 hour day.

(Now you and I both know that even in the most rural areas of this country you could barely take care of a goldfish for $7.25 an hour. If you are living some place like New York City, you couldn't afford a good corrugated cardboard box under the Brooklyn Bridge for that money, but I digress.)

Not only do you want at least $7.25 an hour, you want  to share  in a portion of the wealth that your labor generates for the company. Most of you want your portion in the form of of healthcare benefits. You also want a safe work environment, protective gear, a 35-40 work week max, and vacation time. On top of that you want these companies to spend money to safely dispose of any toxic waste they produce when it would be much cheaper for them to just dump industrial waste in your water supply, local landfills, or some  wooded area or vacant lot in the community you live in. HELLO! Do you think they have all of these nagging costs and considerations in so many of these places overseas? Please.

I am always amazed at how many people will call C-Span's Washington Journal demanding that the U.S.lift environmental regulations, and Americans accept lower wages to lure jobs back America from places like China and India. I always wonder who these callers really are. Are they really willing to work in an environment for a wage commensurate to that of many Chinese, Indian, and Mexican workers? Really? Are they watching PBS and reading alternative news sources that more  and more often are reporting about  Chinese citizens protesting the dumping of toxic waste and debris in their villages? Are these callers really willing to live under such conditions?  Please.

However, I do think such calls are very telling in that they reveal a profound truth. A  high corporate tax rate is not the primary reason many American corporations don't hire Americans. The real reason is you want a living wage, safe drinking water, and healthcare. You want to be treated like a human being. Unfortunately for you, that just costs too damned much.