And now, Huck has a brand new variety show that is destined to "reform" or makeover the face of FAUX News populism! Moe writes:
"Over the weekend Arkansas governor and minister and former fat person Mike Huckabee's new variety show premiered on Fox News. "We may have the first election in history where it's the winner who demands the recount!" he joked. No kidding."
Wall Street Bailout: NOT SO FAST… The Deal’s off for Now
Breaking News
WASHINGTON - Ignore yesterday’s news.Did Democracy get dressed up in trans-partisan clothing and just crash the party on Wall Street?
The House announced that it has now defeated the $700 billion emergency rescue plan for the nation's financial system, ignoring “urgent warnings” from President Bush and congressional leaders of both parties “that the economy could nosedive” into recession without it. They are taking a break over the Jewish Holiday and will return Thursday. Could this defeat signal an actual Democratic revolt or are Bush House Republicans wrestling the Democrats to the mat, forcing them to add every possible “moral hazard” corporate tax cut/loopholes under what’s left of the sun today? Or is this rescue plan being surgically altered to serve as a New Deal style roadmap for new investment regulations with teeth which will garner full House Democratic support? (I predict an Obama win.)
According to MSNBC News Services “stocksplummeted on Wall StreetEVEN BEFORE the 228-205 vote to reject the bill was announced on the House floor. Bush and a host of leading congressional figures had implored the lawmakers to pass the legislation despite howls of protest from their constituents back home. Despite pressure from supporters, not enough members were willing to take the political risk just five weeks before an election.”
Bush/Pinocchio factor. And who can ever believe Bush again, especially now with this “hurry up and sign on the dotted line or we get blown up” hustle after the WMD lies and deception the country has endured since 9/11. So if stocks are tumbling today BEFORE the Wall Street Billionaires Bailout was ever even inked, could this be a sign that it might not have been such a good idea after all? Steven Lendman’s article today entitled Grand Theft America explains the depth’s of the criminal, looting Bush administration’s Pinocchio factor:
“Deregulation unleashed casino capitalism, and bankers made a killing. Now they're in trouble and Bush demands "the biggest bailout in American history....or the world will crumble. He said the a similar thing in the run-up to war" so who can believe him now. Egan quotes a dirt farmer asking why not the same "concerns (for) average Americans."
Lendman also reminds us of what this “timely” financial meltdown as Peter of Lone Tree first brought to our attention regarding “manufactured incidents” and anticipated public “unrest”:
“An Army Times article saying that the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team is coming home (in October) from Iraq as (according to the Times) "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks."
Well, Al, let’s hope all of those “high paying” green jobs and the ensuing, booming economy they are billed to create do the trick.
One of our favorite movies is Head of State in which Chris Rock plays Mays Gilliam, a Chicago alderman running for President of the United States. Gilliam gives an historic speech (for Hollywood, anyway) in which he says that corporations are "stealing all the money."
And the crowd yells -- "that ain't right."
While McCain, Obama and Bush were hunkered down inside the White House over the weekend hammering out the $700 Billion bail out for the crooks on Wall Street, thousands of people protested in NYC and demonstrated in D.C. outside of the White House yelling -- "That ain't right” and “No bailout for Wall Street crooks!”
But today the bailout was given a big, fat thumbs up anyway, despite the prattling plebes who took to the streets to rail against it. But during a presidential election season when both major candidates SUPPORT this bailout and Congressional leaders and the Bush administration refused to negotiate other viable alternatives suggested by leading economists, you have to wonder what is really in that bipartisan Kool-Aid that Democrats are drinking to make them actually believe Obama is a man of the People after he supported the Patriot Act, FISA, Outsourcing/H-1b and now this Fat Cat Bailout.
The corporate welfare twins Obama/McCain, are both for the bailout while Nader/Gonzalez opposed it and are still fighting to get into the presidential debates. The sheeple will, of course, still vote for one of the two evils. Just like they do every four years.
"Self-Absorbed Media Missing the Biggest Story of Our Time"
by Jonah Bloom
It’s not every day that you see an ad man ponder stupendously woeful market moves and deals made with the devil on top of Doubtsourcing, but yesterday one did.Jonah Bloom writes
“Sure, We Can Talk About Who Said What About Lipstick, but Now's a Good Time to Refocus the Conversation.”
Oh sure. We can blame our industry’s slide into dire oblivion on the hubris of this nation’s leading wheelers and dealers all we want, Jonah. But let’s fact it: in the end, it’s not the output from those ethically challenged, shiny, happy, bloody wankers down the Street that makes the cut, but the buzz, man. From anyone, anywhere. 21st Century Malaysian proof readers armed with laptops and English dictionaries who’ve never worked a day in advertising, granted -- poorly executed strategy but who’s to complain about refreshing, gratuitous insights into how raw creativity can land a campaign when the billing department continuously rewards the talent pool with free dinners at Spiaggia? (and I’m NOT talking the Café…)
About this Wall Street fizzle? I feel sorry for no one, with the possible exception of Rod, my broker, who is now packing for Paraguay and is forced to leave behind his longtime mistress in Accounting.
Don’t worry. Who Beat Coke is just a shot away from firing off a tagline about these shocking policies and traditions towards other people’s money (OPM) to put a stop to the weekly outpouring of mistakes from these groaning ghost riders. Yes, it will take fortitude and perhaps a new suit and a month’s worth of Econ 101 cramming and plenty of spit, but Jonah, never fear -- WE CAN DO THIS THING. (Did I leave out strict fraternization rules?) We may not own the agency, but we can, if only for a fleeting moment --- own the disgraceful message without ever having to buy the farm.
So here’s how it works: These virtuous, pompous Republican hypocrites believe in self-reliance and free-market capitalism but when THEIR asses are on the line, they want the big, bad government that they rabidly deride as “evil socialism” to write a big, fat fucking check. Of course, this leaves one to guess what these whimpering bastards would possibly ever do if there was no government at all. Perhaps we should ask Ron Paul… Every so many years, the U.S. government bails out the financial markets (wasn’t there something about a certain Bush family member who ran an S&L into the ground called Silverado?) because these supposed geniuses -- this bastion of high risk taking conservatism --- bets away our money and when they lose, Joe Taxpayer gets to suck it.
that present the sticky details on what lurks behind the $700 billion bailout in what is aptly described as “The Patriot Act of Finance.”
The shift marks the "end of an era" that will transform the free-wheeling, big risk-taking investment bankers who frequently used enormous amounts of debt to drive up profits with very little oversight into fully regulated banks. When does the Revolution start? And what will these masters of the universe get for subjecting themselves to greater scrutiny?
“In exchange for subjecting themselves to more regulation, the companies will have access to the full array of the Federal Reserve’s lending facilities. It should help them avoid the fate of Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy last week, and Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch — both of which agreed to be acquired by big bank holding companies.”
Will hedge fund regulation be next? AND WHY ARE WE NATIONALIZING Wall Street financial institutions such as AIG when over fifty million plus Americans do not have health insurance? Let’s check that logic against the hordes of unwashed taxpayers without it:
“I don’t have health insurance, but these guys have yachts, ten cars and several homes and get to keep it all while the people all around them lose their jobs, homes and access to healthcare.”
That’ll work! Here in CA, a Blue Cross policy holder got leukemia and the insurance giant cancelled his policy. He died eight months later from not being able to receive the treatment necessary to save his life. Who is taking the risk? When these assholes are pulling down millions and millions of dollars in annual salaries, why are they not expected to fold?
In the meantime, Barney Frank called Paulson “entirely unreasonable” yesterday as the Democrats are being pushed by Bush to "act quickly on the bailout."
“RepresentativeBarney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. was being “entirely unreasonable” in pushing for immediate Congressional passage without some provisions favored by Democrats.”
I don’t know what is worse: the hypocritical socialism of wealthy financiers and bankers or the fact the plebes in this country will not rise up against these corporofascists but instead, will vote for yet another president who is down with the whole One Big Money Party program as they do every four years.
“All sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims.”
-William Greider
Are the locusts here yet?
In his article Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic SwindleWilliam Greider speculates that with the Federal Reserve announcement that it's coming to the rescue of American International Group (AIG) to the tune of $85 billion, this may be the last nail in the middle-class coffin to blow the lid off this paralyzed economic corpse of a nation fed up with this WMD of an economic crisis that may finally “bring down one or both political parties, take your choice.”
Former head of Goldman Sachs, high-roller and multimillionaire Hank Paulson’s scheme to save the beast of Wall Street's wooly-mammoth financial institutions is underway. Invoking Job, Paulson breathlessly insisted yesterday "We need this to be clean and quick." Sure we do, Hank! One slight problem: the collective ROYAL WE whom this is “supposed” to help doesn’t include the rest of us!
No, no, not surprisingly, the ROYAL WE instead includes a whole host of wealthy Congressional and insider beltway Democrats and Republicans, too -- the same ones the rest of us are counting on to “just say no” to this colossal corporate welfare plan of mammoth proportions. But who is “we”? Bundlers for McCain/Obama are Among Wall Street's Tumblers. HA! Hank himself (Goldman Sachs is also under the gun) is of course on the list of the Chosen to be rescued. Among them also include Nancy Pelosi who has a quarter-of-a-million-dollars' worth of AIG stock (pin money, I know) and John Kerry's wife, zillionaire ketchup heiress, Teresa Heinz, has more than $2 million (a whopping sum to many -- but quite frankly, that’ll buy you a fixer along the leafy banks of the polluted Potomac).
“Of all the companies making headlines this week, AIG has been the most nonpartisan in its contributions, splitting evenly the $9.7 million it has contributed over time. Sen. Chris Dodd, chair of the Senate banking committee, has racked up the most from AIG, with a total of $281,400, while Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of both the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, takes second with $116,400. Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama collected $103,000 and $82,600 from AIG, respectively.”
Of course, none of this bailout would matter if the same bipartisan House of Representatives and two major corporate presidential candidates weren’t ALSO pledging to sell out our jobs.Real estate priceswill once again start rising when people have the incomes necessary to buy houses and refinance. But so far, Hank Paulson hasn’t yet explained how Joe Homeowner is supposed to make enough money (or any) to pay for the mortgages while jobs are shipped out.
William Greider speculates that this bailout may be the spark of angry rebellion from the bottom up, a long overdue “correction”:
“If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public--all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims. My advice to Washington politicians: Stop, take a deep breath and examine what you are being told to do by so-called "responsible opinion." If this deal succeeds, I predict it will become a transforming event in American politics--exposing the deep deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous anger and popular rebellion. As I have been saying for several months, this crisis has the potential to bring down one or both political parties, take your choice.”
Thou Smell of Mountain Goat Henry –V William Shakespeare
Why does billionaire, neo-liberal apologist Tom Friedman hate educated Americans? And why would any self-respecting plebian blow one red cent on two of his despicable books about a hot, smelly and overcrowded, flat world when he also supported the Iraq war?
During this presidential election season when msm avoid discussing issues by instead expanding their bipartisan nostrils deeply into the candidates’ personal issues such as who their pastors are and what they shoot for dinner, this has nothing to do with the increasing millions of people in this country who are losing their jobs, homes, access to healthcare, constitutional protections and civil liberties.
Today, the tech lobby’s corporate propaganda tool extraordinaire, billionaire Tom Friedman, continues his role in the American white collar cleansing program in today’s article where he weighs in on the current financial meltdown, declaring that “the strong eating theweak” is “good” which is, of course, code for at least on one level -- for let them eat cake. It is no secret that Tom Freidman’s flat world ethics champions handing off every last American white collar job to third world workers to drive down wages here at home. With jobs and resources dwindling, when will Democrats finally demand a stop to importing more cheap labor when there are not enough white collar jobs for our own citizens?
In this article, Friedman doesn’t hold back his unconscionable disdain for the educated American white collar STEM professional, leaving little doubt that he and his inner circle cabal of elites are still popping champagne corks over their wild bubble success in ramming through the Great Labor Shortage Myth scam down the public’s collective throat. Since 1992, Friedman’s tech lobby pals have succeeded in kicking millions of the parents of our next generation of our “mathgeniuses” he derides to the curb by outsourcing/insourcing American jobs to cheap foreign workers. For people like Tom Friedman, there is no neighborhood here -- or at least not one that he would climb down from the mountain to associate with. True to this emerging, have-have-not society sociopathic, neo-frat boy/plantation master/feudal lord form, Friedman insults America’s “math geniuses” by suggesting that this current U.S. financial mess serves as a call for them to work in an engineering field that has been sold off to the third world, enabling plummeting wages here at home:
“Maybe then more of our next generation of math geniuses will think about going into engineering the next great global industry — energy technology — rather than engineering derivatives.”
How can American children who have witnessed the professional white collar cleansing of their STEM parents be induced into studying technology in college when their parents can no longer afford the tuitions after being replaced by third world workers whom the greedy Friedman so wildly supports?
This weeks excellent Wash Tech article entitled High Schools and IT Careers offers several accounts by American high school students all across the country on why the issue of “outsourcing, lack of loyalty in "employing local", and a saturated IT market are all at play as students share why they are choosing to pick or leave IT for good.”
In sum, Friedman is no “man of the people” but a grand provocateur of all things caste system and feudal lord. But the subliminal pitch of Friedman’s article is for government to “police” risk-taking to push for government to shift from oil subsidies to unproven, alternative energy technologies that one would bet he’s got a hefty stake in:
Government’s job is to“police that fine line between the necessary risk-taking that drives an innovation economy and crazy gambling with other people's savings in ways that threaten us all. We need to make sure that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas — and doesn't come to Main Street.” We need to get back to” investing in our future and not just betting on it.”
"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"?Give me a break...this is of course, also code for don't let the plebes know who we, the chosen ones, are all screwing and gluing to rearrange the chairs on this hot, smelly, and overcrowded Titanic while we ride on top like rajas on elephants in this race to the bottom.
London, England (AP)Richard Wright, a founding member of the rock group Pink Floyd, died Monday after battling cancer. He was 65.
In addition to singing and playing keyboards and mixing synthesizers with psychedelic, Miles Davis inspired jazz-infused rock hits, Wright was also the band’s lyricist and composer on two of my favorite songs, Us and Them and The Great Gig in the Sky (the latter, beautiful song has no lyrics.)
Forget the gratuitous “Yes, we CAN!” and make that "It's not the Economy, Stupid. IT'S YOUR JOB!"
Carpe Diem, Barry! Read the news. It's Grey Monday, the economy is tanking and the India lobby wants our jobs and only you, Barry - just like Smokey -- can prevent forest fires! Go for it! Run!
Obama needs a new campaign slogan. And no, not in deference to the safe, pandering commitment of raising the minimum wage at the poverty level but for protecting high paying jobs against this wholesale sell out of millions of American white collarjobs that Obama, just like McCain, pledges to support Congress and their cheap labor agenda.
So why don't Democrats unite against this outrageous job killing agenda that is, as Rob Oak explains, also being “led by the supposed party that wants to help the middle class….is completely about corporate lobbyists, flooding the labor market even while corporations are laying people off in droves and in complete alignment with multinational corporations’ cheap labor demands”?
WHERE IS THE COLLECTIVE RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION FROM THE LEFT?
With the economy continuing its meltdown and white collar jobs literally and legally – yes legally, for lack of any credible, accountable oversight and legislation to stop it --- being taken from our educated citizens and handed to foreign workers who are paid less, Citizen Carrie of Carrie’s Nation offers thisaccount of one HP employee, Clayton Cramer in Boise, ID, who was recently laid off only to find his job being advertised! Hey, Barry, that’s pretty cool, huh?
With Bear Stearns Cos., Merrill Lynch & Co. and more than 10 banks who couldn't survive this year's credit crunch that has amounted to the greatest gutting of Wall Street since the Depression, it is now Obama’s turn to show us what the Democrats have in their arsenal to stand up for Main Street. So far, Obama is just as down with kicking American white collar professionals to the curb as McCain! The Duopoly rocks, doesn’t it?
While holding a CHANGE WE NEED event today in Grand Junction, CO, Obama correctly noted that “too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store.” “Change” for Obama supporters means being OK with kicking white collar Americans to the curb. During this economic downturn when there are not enough white collar jobs for our own citizens, Obama isFOR raising and or eliminating the H-1b visa cap to kill off white collar job opportunities for Americans.
"For eight years, we've had policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans. The result is the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression."
Note that the duopoly corporate candidate and Big Money Obama carefully leaves out ANY mention whatsoever in his smooth speech of how millions of educated, middle and upper middle class Americans are supposed to support themselves once he cleanses America of its white collar professionals:
"Well now, instead of prosperity trickling down, the pain has trickled up -- from the struggles of hardworking Americans on Main Street to the largest firms of Wall Street. This country cannot afford another four years of this failed philosophy."
Whose Main Street, Barry? The one’s where dishwashers work or the ones where white collar professionals like former HP employee Clayton Cramer is now standing in line on at the unemployment office? As I cited in a previous post,Alan Greenspan's feudal lord slavery recipe is to cook up an "INCOME (In) EQUALITY" formula for turning this country into a third world caste system of have and have nots by continual reductions in wages for middle class educated Americans, leaving more profits for the Neo-Frat Boy corporate state.
Ever wonder where all that “Axis of Evil” and “Evil doer” crap came out of the blue from that was used to attack a country that most people here never even knew existed? You don’t think famed born-againer Dubya cooked that up all by himself? Or the inclusion of the deity “God” on our currency as in “In God we Trust”? Whether a candidate belongs to any particular religion or not, it is guaranteed that during election season, we are treated to the bipartisan religious manipulations and hypocrisies of candidates in their shameless attempts to win over “values voters.”
Just as Iran is a country populated with many intelligent, educated people who want nothing whatsoever to do with the control and oppression of their country by fundamentalistMuslim Imams who set the moral and political tone for its citizens, America too, is controlled by an elite (Christian) fundamentalist group at the highest levels in Washington. In his book The Family:The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, author Jeff Sharlet reveals the an influential, secretive group known as “The Family, aka The Fellowship” which has “exerted its influence in an impressive and frightening array of mostly dire events.”
The Family's members have included a vast array of politicians including congressmen and senators, some which chair prestigious committees, Supreme Court justices, CEOs of leading corporations, military senior officers, heads of foreign countries, and at least one president of the United States, Jimmy Carter. The Family hosts an annual event known as the National Prayer Breakfast where they put on a Ward and June Cleaver face to their constituents. But in reality, this group’s once yearly emergence would be more akin to Darth Vader dressed up as MaryPoppins passing out candy and good will sprinkled with just a spoonful of sugar and dash of church lady piety. The Family’s elitist, first charter is to horde money and resources via the halls of government and to keep them out of reach for the majority of the people they so despise. So who exactly comprises the Family? Doug Coe, “special advisor” to President Jimmy Carter, to name one luminary, led the group which has operated quietly in the halls of power, free of democratic accountability. Sharlet explains their not-so-humble beginnings and growth, tracing a greedy, mean spirited disdain for the non-wealthy, mixed with a supreme desire to horde money and resources and wield power at the expense of the public good:
“What is known as the Family began with a clergyman named Abraham Vereide in Depression-era Seattle. Vereide, or Abram, as he is referred to by the Family, looked upon workers who went on strike to secure enough pay to feed their families as agents of Satan. He was convinced that the Kingdom of God would be secured if the best among us, the rich that is, guided by Jesus Christ, made decisions for the rest of us unfettered by such messy things as democracy and the rule of law. If the poor could be made to see that God intended them to be poor and humbly accept their lot all would be well. Abram, as one might have guessed, regarded the New Deal as an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Abram was a very effective salesman for this idea among wealthy businessmen in Seattle. The Family grew through members recruiting new members who were either wealthy or in positions of authority. Over time, the Family's theology has been stripped down to "Jesus plus nothing." Members are expected to have surrendered themselves to Jesus Christ, but are certainly not asked to perform such unseemly acts as giving what they have to the poor or turning the other cheek. A prospective member gets reassurance that he (there are women involved, but with a few notable exceptions they have about as much power as the members of a ladies' auxiliary at a Moose lodge) has got Jesus watching over him, has his sins forgiven, and is now serving Jesus in everything he does. He gets to keep his power, his wealth, and his vices. He is even able to tell himself that he is humble, or at least as humble as a man can be who reminds himself every day that he is one of God's elect.”
The Family makes fraternity and sorority pledges look like a bunch of retarded pantywaists. This group has its collective finger on the banking system, the military, the bomb, civil rights and our personal and reproductive freedoms. Whereas most people think about Religious Right fundamentalism in terms of Joe plebian Public in church every Sunday, this book reveals the invisible, extremely powerful, exclusive and greedy forces operating in the name of “God and Family” behind the increasing anti-people laws and oppression that this country is experiencing as our economy tanks and our civil rights and freedoms disappear. Over the past one hundred years, history has shown how we got to this creepy place where candidates are forced to invoke God and either defend or damn pastors in order to secure the secret handshake of this country’s fundamentalist, secret Mafia which runs our government.
But at the end of the day, the national political apparatus is a wholly owned subsidiary of GlobalCorporation, Inc. which is co-opted by all ruling elites of the world's religions which dictate “In Gre$d We Trust.”
"I’m sick of this High school, with suits on, called the Democratic and Republican parties.”
-Sean Penn
Me too, Sean! This ain't no fast times at Ridgemont High!
This is NOT America!
Actor, filmmaker and activist Sean Penn gave a passionate speech (click here to watch) at the “Open the Debates Super Rally” August 27, which ran parallel the Democratic National Convention in Denver. He demanded that 2008 presidential candidate Ralph Nader be included in the presidential debates and persuasively asked us to not be media’s pawns any longer with this failed One Party System.
“So, the question is, are we going to fight for the public discourse of facts? Or will we be shamed into hiding? Not only by the O’Reilly’s and the Limbaugh’s and the Hannitys, but also by the confident disparaging of thought handed down by the James Carvilles of the mainstream media.”
Read the transcript of Sean Penn’s speech courtesy The Liberty Voicehere.
In his speech, he asks us to see through the ugly prism of what “co-opted thought” looks like as he compares the growing rabid strain of intolerance, unacceptance, hatefulness and incivility toward one another, against original thinking and against the majority of Americans who are “not in the club.”
In Penn’s opening remark’s, he referred to the DNC as “the Prom.”How he got that right…Some people, it seems, never got out of that “what’s everybody else wearing today” and “it’s hip to hate and bully” high school huddling at the lockers mentality as our media and blogosphere increasingly expose a hateful and non-communal “me-tooism” hubris that, as Sean understands so well, would have Dr. Martin Luther King “clawing at his casket”:
“When we are told not to vote for someone because he or she is a spoiler, let’s remember that Barack Obama himself is considered the greatest spoiler of all– by a narcissistic branch of democrats who simply have forgotten their manners, a slip of hubris which most certainly has Dr. King clawing at his casket.”
You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear… What I also know, not from life’s lessons but from the heart, is that no matter what another person’s individual beliefs, background and affiliation including religious, socioeconomic or other, the hallmark of civil society (read civilization) is dependent upon personal character, integrity and tolerance. It is to respect the social contract of affording others the same common decency and respect that we would expect. But these days, our gatekeeping MSM who works tirelessly to distract us and keep real issues from us and the progressive blogosphere who initially banded together to challenge the status quo is coming undone, turning into the hateful, petty people crawling all over it that they set out to “change.”
It reminds me of the homely wisdom in the last lines of Burns' To a Louse, "O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us." A fitting prayer for all of us, media's pawns, might be something like this: "O would some Power the boon bestow / To face the truths we still don't know."
But the record of the Democrats since the 90’s is discouraging. True environmentalists (attitudes and uses of the earth, her beauties, abundance, and destructible resources) and social scientists must be disgusted with the output of the executive and bicameral legislative branches - not to mention certain output of the imbalanced judiciary working hard with corporate America to screw the rest of us.
The really sad thing for all of us -- Democrats, Republicans, and Independents --- must be the ongoing slippage of our once and promising democratic republic into an out-and-out capitalistic, military empire, the one both Obama and McCain BOTH have signed onto. The metamorphosis is undeniable and neither major party dares face or voice that conclusion. Perhaps loss of Empire is where all of this hopeless, mindless, bullying and cat tail-spinning from the Left derives its increasing hostility and call for censorship amongst themselves. Penn reminds us of how a large pool of Democrats has fallen for the proven Rovian “divide and conquer” tactic to once again bring the party down on its own sword:
“In their defiance to the American voter– like little kids losing a game, they take the ball from the field and switch their allegiance to the man who would be George Bush the Third, John McCain.”
An Empire occupies and commandeers other lands and sovereignties as needed or desirable (with a good deal of killing and displaced refugees, whether at home and/or abroad) at the reduction of its own citizenry to pawns, paupers, and peasantry. That, my friends, is history seen and predictable.
But this loss of civility and media censorship going unchallenged is the saddest emblem its pathetic high-school mentality soldiers can wield in this race to the bottom. As Sean Penn sums up, we must demand equal participation for candidates in the presidential debates:
“Let’s demand to hear all the voices for change that represent the needs of all Americans. We must demand it in our media. We must demand it of John McCain. We must demand it from Barack Obama."
Fight the Power -Special thanks to Chris Jack, Dave Hudson, and the fabulous Spike Lee-
When will the Democrats develop a spine and start fighting this war on America’s middle class? You would think that after eight disastrous years of Bush, that Obama’s approval rating would be soaring by now. But noooo…
A new SurveyUSA poll “shows Sen. John McCain leads Sen. Barack Obama, 49% to 44%, among respondents who were asked if you were placing bets today who do you think will be elected president?”
Technology professional Rob Oak of noslaves.com answers the following question posed in this week’s InfoWorld article “Should IT form a union?". And his answer is, of course, “yes”!
Why shouldn’t technology professionals have an organizing body to represent, arbitrate and negotiate compensation plans and labor laws on behalf of its professional members with corporations? After all, technology professionals, in considerable numbers, invest heavily in their educations as do lawyers and doctors. But there is something “blue collar” about trade unions, which have traditionally been the respectable domain for carpenters, electricians, plumbers, steel mill workers and the hospitality sector, which suggest wages not commensurate with the advanced study and economic investment required of many computer scientists and engineers at advanced levels.
Despite the need for techies to have formal representation such as a union, Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild, a nonprofit that works to advance IT issues, best explains how unionizing IT professionals is unrealistic:
"The diversity of employers and job skills makes unionizing IT workers unrealistic, other than within certain large employers. But clearly IT workers need a voice to level the playing field against the powerful industry lobbying groups, like ITAA, Compete America, and NFAP."
For the past twenty years, computer science and engineering professionals have watched their industry’s wages plummet as corporations continue to outsource/insource these once lucrative jobs to third world, cheap foreign workers. Add to that soaring numbers of unemployed and underemployed techies, one has to wonder why the Democratic candidate, Obama, has taken the voracious oath to sell out the nation’s high tech professionals by raising and/or eliminating the H-1B visa cap instead of denouncing this “legalized cradle-to-grave labor management system.”
But just when you thought there was power en masse as the commenters in this WSJ article Government Quietly Changes Rules on Foreign Tech Workers demonstrate, the U.S. government is not only quietly changing the rules on how fast and furiously it can flood the corporate world with cheap labor from the third world and legally get away with driving down wages and not hiring American workers, but it has also quietly changed hands as to who executes the program – none other than Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Isn't that the organization that is supposed to protect us from the evildoers? Since when did the American tech professional get assigned enemy status?
So how can our nation’s techies stand up to these corporate welfare queens to fight the power? WSJ article author Dan Tynan suggests an alternative, subtle yet important distinction for techies to unionize, per se. Instead of computer science, engineering and IT professionals forming a union, Tynan instead recommends that techies follow ABA and AMA models to establish the professional credibility and respectability necessary to fight the power and heft of the corporate world which is hellbent on driving down wages and kicking American technology to the curb.
When it comes to fully understanding how both candidates, McBama, have pledged their allegiance to the expansion of central control over American techie plummeting wages and labor standards, commenter Vicky Davis offers valuable insight into how the DOL and DHS are colluding to against the American middle/upper middle class professional and where the bodies are buried:
“This administrative rule change is actually an implementation of the Guest Worker program. When fully implemented, it will allow central planning and management of the U.S. labor market. You can find the design of the program (National Human Resource Development System) by doing some research on Marc Tucker of the NCEE. The system is a cradle-to-grave labor management system. They will be able to control the price of labor by controlling the supply. They will be able to control “behavior” by controlling the ability to obtain a job. (I’m not making this up - I’m a Systems Analyst - not a fiction writer). Initially, the Labor Department was to have been the manager but apparently DHS has taken over the function. The SAVE Act - once it passes will be the control. Employers are required to participate and it will be illegal to hire anybody who the DHS disapproves. Welcome to the NWO and virtual slavery."
Who are these DHS people, specifically, who decided that “they were the arbiters of public policy” on using our technology professionals as nuclear proliferation bargaining chips with the Indian government?
With less than eight weeks until the presidential election, where’s the righteous indignation and activism to fight the power from the Left? Obama has said that the election is not about him, it’s about us. Whose “us”, Barry?
Remember last year around this time when that Gulfstream II jet which had been owned by an uber wealthy Bush supporter filled with 3.7 tons of cocaine crashed into the Yucatan? You don’t? Read morehere about how the plane has been linked to a Bush fundraiser.
High five to Mark Frauenfelder from boingboing.net as he updates this exciting story about our Mafioso government’s active roll in the cocaine import/distribution business—which wouldn’t be such a bad thing if they would legalize it. (But noooooo…instead, our government officials get to make out like bandits over illegal drug profit sales and then bust and lock up Joe Eightball, criminalizing the sorry asses of those caught using it.) What a racket.
Not only was the plane allegedly used to run tons and tons of the world’s coveted Bolivian marching powder, but new evidence reported in The Mexico City newspaper El Universal reveals that the European Parliament was “investigating the circumstances surrounding the plane, which had previously been used by the CIA for extraordinary rendition flights” to, you guessed it…Guantanemo Bay, Cuba!
“The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects." It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers.”
As The Mad Cow Morning News reminds us how the political conventions not only dominate our consciousness (with vice presidents like Biden who heralded the Bankruptcy Bill and Sarah Palin, tool of Big Oil) but are designed to DISTRACT the plebes from real issues like the economy as everyone asks “where is all of our taxpayer money going?” Remember that
“a major international trafficking operation, like this one, kicks off vast amounts of fungible cash, day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year...
If there is an arena where the battle is being waged for the "soul of America," as Joe Biden suggested last week... it is here.”
Isn’t it a bit ironic that the GOP engages in such elaborate money laundering schemes and supports the criminalization of drug offenders (its citizens who consume their illegal drugs) supports the Bush family CIA hook, line and sinker? Hypocrisy is certainly not on short order when it comes to the Republicans.
But the bigger question with this CIA story is why are Obama and Biden not using this story (and not some pap about the female veep candidate who has declared she deserves Hillary’s18million cracks in the glass ceiling) to expose the Party of Family Values less than eight weeks left to the election? Oh right. Back to the “real” world…they don’t wanna get whacked…
Sarah Palin makes us long for the days of Larry Craig when "GOP" meant that the worst the hypocritical Grand and Gay Old Party could do was offer us Senators who innocently cruise airport bathrooms for blowjobs. Oh, but those were the good old days...
Tongues are wagging as the Wall Street Journal scoops the low-down on Sarah Palin’s penchant for speaking in tongues. Click on the above youtube video for a very special glimpse into what the fundamental future of this nation might look like with a McCain/Palin presidency.
"At the Pentecostal church where Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin worshipped for more than two decades, congregants speak in tongues and are part of a faith that believes humanity is in its "end times" -- the days preceding a world-ending cataclysm bringing Christian redemption and the second coming of Jesus.
The Rev. Ed Kalnins, pastor of the Pentecostal church, Wasilla Assembly of God, says he has told church members that God put President George W. Bush in office...At Mr. Kalnins's invitation, Gov. Palin appeared on stage in June before a youth group at Wassila Assembly of God, where she reminisced fondly about getting baptized there, before asking the young people to pray for a proposed natural-gas pipeline in Alaska ..."
San Jose Mercury News Editorial: Middle Class Squeeze Threatens Americans
What *fun* is celebrating Labor Day around here anymore when Beltway insider elites and corporate welfare whores are working ‘round the clock to cobble legal protections with greedy immigration law firms to kick America’s white collar citizens to the curb?
LWOH looks at an article and an editorial that appeared today in the San Jose Mercury News.
Before we look at today’s San Jose Mercury News editorial below, is anyone else wondering HOW America’s educated white collar computer scientists and software engineers, many with advanced degrees, ended up in the year 2008 to only be worth a whopping $72,000.00 a year? WHO allowed this? Today’s San Jose Mercury News article entitled Tech's battlefor overtime pay moves to Sacramentohttp://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10360947 discusses how the tech lobby, with the help of a few greedy Beltway insiders, insist on turning the industry into a blue collar wage slave one.
Now that Labor Day has come and gone, eight weeks prior to the presidential election, the Department of Disinformation is cranking up the whole “hey plebes, look left now” while they kick the collective sorry ass of the educated white collar worker through the goal post, exit stage right.
In addition to this shining example over the weekend of how one of the nation’s flagship, weekly MSM rags, Newsweek, positions a story entitled IS AMERICA LOSING ATGLOBALIZATION and then proceeds to withhold HOW and WHY this is happening and WHO in our Congress, State Department, DOL etc. are responsible, WHO profits and suffers, we can expect to see a flood of media obfuscation from now until the election until our next dictator gets installed. (And the internet was supposed to be good for whom, again?) So much for those “new media” wannabes, pining to be the next Chris Matthews…show me a “new media” journo and or outlet that isn’t on the sell out the American white collar professional bandwagon/payroll and I’ll show you a bridge to nowhere…Seriously, I’d love to know.
So for the next eight weeks, plebeians throughout these great fifty states can expect to be treated with an avalanche of corporate damage control articles by MSM and “new media” sycophants in their heavily invested attempts to take the average citizen’s eye off the ball. After reading this entire Newsweek article above, the author makes it clear that this “entity” called America may be losing its global luster (but oh, how its elites have made out like bandits) but the whopping 95% plus of its citenzry, you know, as in the PEOPLE – are being screwed and glued by secret backroom deals that these insulated, well-heeled journos have every vested interest in keeping a big fat secret from the average, loathsome, white collar reader…many of whom refuse to believe this war on the middle class could possibly include them.
Today, the San Jose Mercury News offers this article which declares the direction this nation’s corporate overlords wish to take us: a nation of blue (green) collar wage slaves that abandons the nation’s American educated white collar professional.
This editorial -- a typical, perfunctory grand-poohbah appeasement piece with the teaser title Middle class squeeeze threaten American dream is nothing short of a shameless promotional article for Tesla Motors, touting the wonders of a few green technology, blue collar jobs. Oh, how this nation’s elite wants to turn this country into the next Old Colonial empire with its Neo- Frat Boy Corporate State agenda as it works with beltway insiders (hey Al, Nancy, Joe and Hillary, listening?) to push aside its educated citizens.
Not only is today’s San Jose Mercury News editorial particularly disturbing in its shameless, transparent promotion of Tesla Motors (a luxury automotive manufacturer building vehicles exclusively for the upper 1% of residents who can afford them) but most disturbing is its unabashed, ominous however most confident threat to every middle class, educated American:
“The American dream is based on opportunity for all. As the number of middle-income jobs shrinks in proportion to population, so does opportunity. It's something to ponder on this day to honor labor.”
Got that, educated plebes? So WHO are these wizards who declare that the majority of educated white collar Americans can go to hell? Hmm? Of course the SJM is controlled by the Tech Lobby whose charter is to rid the area of educated, American white collar professionals in order to pave the way for their stable caste of H-1b and green card workers who will take their places andwork for less. As always, the best part these days in any of these corporate controlled “editorials” are the comments.
Hat tip to commenter ‘Party Crasher’:
“That's OK, I'd rather those hedge fund managers making $1 billion a year have a 15% tax rate, while my combined state and federal rate approaches 40%. I'd rather work the whole month of August so my European colleagues (who never worry about having health care) can take off the whole month of August. The social safety nets in this country are so frayed, that if you fall off the ladder, it is harder and harder and harder to climb back up. I'm sure that my 52 year old cousin diagnosed with breast cancer 13 months after being laid off would much rather spend her life savings paying for medical care and keeping those collection agencies in business. We all live to serve "business" who can without consequence or pangs of conscience kick us to the curb without notice or a dime of severance, and then you are on your own. We're free all right, free to starve. Look around and see what is actually happening in this country. If you don't like "socialism", then perhaps you should refrain from collecting social security when you are old enough. Don't be taking those government handouts you so despise when you are elderly! It'll make you weak and lazy! Work, work till you drop...I do not understand this selfishness. If you are a social conservative, what ever happened to "as you do unto the least of these, so you do unto Me"? Guess Rush Limbaugh does not preach that. If you are a fiscal conservative, don't you understand the value of investment? Investing in education and infrastructure benefit everyone. I guess you spontaneously learned to read, paid for college without a single loan, Pell Grant or family handout, and you get to work by negotiating with every land owner between home and your office.”
Sure, let's build some stuff here again: green, yellow or blue. But let's put our educated white collar Americans BACK into the program. One thing is certain: the Department of Disinformation understands the subtlety behind “divide and conquer” and so far, it’s working out well as so many plebes – surprisingly on the Left --- are swallowing it like a morning breakfast bowl of “What middle class war? I got mine.”
-Mike Huckabee Weighs In On Wall Street Meltdown-
