Globalization: Spreading Democracy, Killing Your Jobs

In The Lonely Plight of a Visonary, Citizen Carrie at Carrie’s Nation takes an exceptional view of the Scrooge MacDucks running amok who seek to sell out your jobs. Citizen Carrie cites Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column “A Penny for My Thoughts” that describes the aftermath of what “quality” really looks like when journalists, too, become sacked and stacked upon the Slagheap of History.


President-elect Obama campaigned on the promise to tax businesses that offshore American jobs. Americans can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the exploitation of foreign workers and to what one commenter described as “stabbing American workers in the back” by corporate executives who use the “labor shortage myth” to hire cheap labor to drive down wages at home and eliminate jobs for our citizens. Very few Americans, if any outside the billionaires’ boys club -- see outsourcing as an advantageous proposition, as the world watches as The United States slips from its superpower status. Unfortunately, what even fewer Americans understand is that president-elect Obama promised to import workers from India to take white collar jobs by pledging to the same corporations to raise and or eliminate the H-1b visa cap, making his campaign promise of taxing corporations who “offshore” American jobs a moot point, if not an outright, fast hustle. In other words, corporations are now getting what they really want: the ability to import more cheap labor here to drive down wages and further give away the few white collar jobs left for Americans. Talk about stimulating the economy, Barry…

MoDo’s NYT article also includes many insightful comments from people across the country who have had enough here. Below is what one commenter had to say about what it means to restore communities and the economy by putting our own citizens back to work again:

“Globalization and outsourcing will be the death of the middle class and democracy as we know it. It will be a death by a billion cuts as American labor and industry is slowly whittled down to nothing. I ask, what is the value or worth of maintaining a sovereign nation if the people of that nation are not considered as integral to its survival? For surely, as outsourcing and globalization continue to devastate individuals and families across the American landscape, the country becomes increasingly weakened. The only people who benefit from such a process are the business owners. But ultimately, even they will have to pay the piper as there will be no one left with sufficient funds to purchase the outsourced and globalized goods and information. To me, this is a disgustingly pathetic outcome for a people who sacrificed much for independence and freedom. It speaks to a soulless entity where honor and decency and loyalty means little. And that is a place I do not wish to live.”
— Mike B., Carver, MA

When will organizations like MoveOn.org and so-called progressive organizations and blogs start to get the picture? Or, do they revel in the Us vs. Them mentality that is dividing this nation into a country of Have and Have Nots, content to be crushed by the glorious underbelly of globalization?

-2Truthy

We (Big) Three Kings (of Detroit)

We Three Kings (of Detroit)

"We Three Kings of Detroit We Are...
Traveling East (but Not in our Car...)
To Get Some Money
It Ain't Funny
From GS boys Hank and Kashkar...i..."

(Chorus)
Oh-oh-oh...
Star of OnStar
Star of Light
Flying Gulfstreams in the Night
Hands Extended We Intended
To Get the Loot without a Fight.

One of the Kings from GM he knows
A Swashbuckling Backer who Wears Fancy Clothes
Who is a Skipper with a Clipper
With his Eye on the Chevy Vo…olt…

(Repeat Chorus)
*************************************************

The Volt is NOT vaporware! Halleluiah!

Leaders from Detroit’s “Big 3” automotive companies are going back this week for another round of talks to persuade Congress to bail out the ailing carmakers. RideLust.com provides the details of how well the first attempt went and includes valuable insights into how the next round of talks may go as GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner urges Nancy Pelosi to hasten approval of the bailout bill it seeks.

Today’s San Jose Mercury News features an informative opinion by Chairman and founder of Palo Alto based MyProductAdvisor.com, Vincent Barabba, on why the U.S. must not let the “Big 3” automakers fail.

In his article entitled “GM has been innovative, too, despite its mistakes” Barabba, who retired as the general manager of corporate strategy at General Motors in 2003, believes “that taxpayers have the best possible chance of getting their money back” should Congress decide to support a loan package to the auto manufacturers.

Barabba cites GM’s ability to innovate with its OnStar telecom system, which “has nearly 6 million active subscribers and is launching its eighth generation of embedded hardware in 12 years.” In addition, he emphasizes that GM, in particular, has a commitment to cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars as it

“has already invested billions of dollars in developing the Chevrolet Volt — a revolutionary plug-in extended range electric vehicle that will be introduced at the end of 2010. There are currently 100 Chevrolet Equinox Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles on the road to test the viability of fuel-cell technology.”

For anyone trying to tease out the mounting “fact and fiction” surrounding statements that are often “said in the media and around the water cooler,” Barabba also recommends visiting this helpful gmfactsandfiction.com site where LWOH re-confirmed that the Chevy Volt is NOT vaporware.  The site did not, however, confirm or deny our arguably specious and unsubstantiated guess that a certain venture capital firm with a founder known for building the Spruce Goose of all sailing vessels is applying its heft to persuade Congress to oh so potentially and possibly grease the skids to bailout GM.

Whether the stuff of myth, rumor, fact or fiction, whatevs...let’s hope that the leaders from Detroit’s ailing automakers present a wise and viable plan this week that will put American workers first by committing to sustainable, long-term and world-class technologies designed to create substantial job growth once again in the Rustbelt – with of course, a little help from our friends in Silicon Valley.

-2Truthy

Thanksgiving Costumes Banned at Claremont School

FROM THE DESK OF QUINCY

Children's Traditional Thanksgiving Costume Ritual Runs Afoul

Hello Everybody, it’s me. QUINCY.

Oh boy. If it’s not one school trying to put a fork in a child's psyche, it's another.

Did you know that this week, a bunch of kindergartners were denied their inalienable right to dress up in handmade pilgrim and Native American costumes to celebrate Thanksgiving? Well, even if you didn’t know, the important thing is that the kids were “oblivious, as they should be” to all of the angry parents, according to Superintendant David Cash who deployed the ban. Some of the parents were angry because the kids always get dressed up in “handmade pilgrim and Native American costumes” every year at the site of a decades-old Thanksgiving tradition in front of Condit Elementary School in Claremont, CA.

“After a handful of parents complained that the Native American headdresses and vests were demeaning, cartoonish stereotypes, the Claremont Unified School District eliminated the costumes from this year's festivities, but allowed the turkey feast to go forward.”

What a relief, that the Superintendent decided not to ALSO deprive the town’s precious cargo from eating lots of scrumptious turkey and dressing and pie that kids everywhere always love on this most wonderful of holidays where, for one official day of the year, all snickering is cast aside so that everybody, large and small, gets to feast on as much food as you can possibly stuff down the bumbershoot.

I am so happy Superintendent Cash made this wise decision to at least allow the kids to have their feast because if he didn’t, I would have had to forgo my Thanksgiving plans at 2Truthy’s house to drive down to Southern California to smoke him out:

“Why, Superintendent Cash, why wouldn’t you let the kids get dressed up as turkeys and pilgrims when everybody knows that ALL kids, no matter what boat their ancestors came here from, love to play dress up?”

Anyway, now he’s in a pickle, and he even had to call up the police to tell them he is receiving some nasty e-mails and fears for his safety. Well, let’s hope that next year, Superintendent Cash changes his mind and decides to DO THE RIGHT THING.


I have to go now and prepare for 2Truthy’s medicinal marijuana friends who are coming over today. They are supposed to be bringing “dessert” (code for Marin County’s finest ditch weed). I’ll be seated with the beagle and the cat at the animal’s table (code for the backyard) waiting for delicious scraps. Don’t worry, my plan is to wait until all of the unusually loud laughter over nothing dies down and everybody starts staring at the ceiling to offer my clean up services in the kitchen, where I can begin my handiwork under the radar. (After that, providing there’s any pie left over, I’m going to disguise my voice like John Wayne and make prank phone calls to Superintendent Cash’s house and say “You're a persistent cuss, pilgrim!” hahahaha, too.)


Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

QUINCY

Goin' Down: Turn Up the Volume

(Very special thanks to Jeff Beck)

Russian Analyst Predicts Hurricane “Colossal Shitstorm” Headed for the U.S.

“I got my head out the window, and my big feet on the ground.”

-Jeff Beck

We’re goin’ down. Igor Panarin, a leading analyst and professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has confirmed his long-held view that the United States is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts. When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said:

"Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

How many areas of will the U.S. be divided into? Oh, around six parts, as Panarin offered this prediction:

“The U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.”

Ummm…“the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality”? Got that, New Yawkas? And what type of “mentality” might that be? Oh well. Thanks for the heads up, Igor. We have only ourselves to blame.

-2Truthy

Cross-posted at BlondeSense

No More Hyphenated Americans!

(click on above caption to enlarge)

A Michigan Avenue Mel Toast Exclusive

Breaking News

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Melvin Toast, Leader of the League of Uncompounded Americans in Unison (LUAU), unveiled his organization’s new logo today at the Hilton and Towers Hotel in Chicago.

In a prepared statement, Toast assured his followers that, from this day forward, “Americans would no longer need to feel shackled to an ethnicity on one side and a nation on the other, lashed together by an unsightly gash of ink.” After rapturous applause, Toast shouted “Death to the hyphen!” and the assembled masses in the Hilton Grand Ballroom rose to their feet, cheering wildly for their leader, and the death of a centuries-old punctuation mark.

-2Truthy

Obama Picks White Collar Job Killer Queen Janet Napolitano as New DHS Kahuna

(h/t Rob Sanchez at Zazona/Job Destruction News)

There is a war on America’s white collar middle class raging on, and the president-elect is as busy as Santa’s elf-elect-in-chief while he lines up his cabinet with the equivalent of Drano ® to pour into the employment pipeline of every last job opportunity for white collar Americans in this country (sans the few elites with backstage passes to the trough.)

Borrowing shamelessly from Rob Oak’s blog post title at the Economic Populist on president-elect Obama’s choice to head up the Department of Homeland Security, Oak cite’s truthful stats and facts behind the billion dollar question as to why the DHS is actually in charge of selling out America’s white collar jobs:

“Great huh! The post which is supposed to be concerned about national security, border security will once again be used instead as a cheap labor conduit pool against the United States worker. Damn the statistics, damn the facts, let's just put the biggest corporate cheer leader for cheap labor in a critical position and undermine United States Science and Technology Professionals!”

Patrick Thibodeau’s excellent Computerworld article points out how DHS is in charge of kicking educated American white collar professionals to the curb in favor of hiring imported, cheap workers from India under the corporate mafia sponsored myth of a Great American Labor Shortage. Thibodeau writes:

“The person thought to be President-elect Barack Obama's leading choice to be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, has been a strong advocate of increasing H-1B visas -- a stance that could turn out to be a lightning-rod issue during her confirmation.
In testimony, speeches and a letter sent last fall to congressional leaders, Napolitano, a two-term governor, has left a clear trail of support for increasing the H-1B visa cap to address what she has argued is a shortage of "skilled workers.”

As yours truly reported last year when Barack Obama ran against Hillary Clinton, he correctly exposed her ties and allegiance to the India Lobby to profit from the brokering of our jobs to foreign citizens. (Note: my post referenced an Obama oppo research source link that is no longer available – not surprising, now that Hillary is onboard the good ship Obama as Secretary of State, is it?) I guess all that profiteering amongst elites at the expense of the American white collar worker is looking mighty fine to the new boss in chief, too.


There is no shortage of “skilled workers”, but a shortage of job opportunities for the growing millions of educated white collar professionals who are already unemployed, underemployed and this trend is growing at an accelerated rate. Meanwhile, wealthy corporate elites like Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt lobbied for more imported, cheap labor in Washington last week with the usual “oh poor, poor students” disingenuous, cynical and sleazy mischaracterization of how companies like his have no conscience or concern for millions of educated, white collar American professionals their companies deliberately choose to not hire with this deliberately incomplete, villous and twisted propaganda pitch:

“the current policy of forcing foreign students unable
to get a visa to go back home is "bizarre -- it's disgusting."

Outsourced and imported cheap labor has only succeeded in making a few elites at Intel, Microsoft, HP, Cisco and Google along with a host of investment professionals very wealthy creatures of habit, and look at where the market has been of late? These elites have relied on the practice of hiring and lording over third world workers instead of Americans without any concern for what this does to our citizens who have studied, worked hard and played by the rules to find themselves now persona not gratis to the hubris class that Schmidt enjoys his members only privilege. What Schmidt carefully omitted in his loathsome condemnation of American professionals seeking employment is the fact that over the last fifteen years, white collar workers have been increasingly struggling with a net loss of white collar job opportunities and diminishing incomes and benefits, not a surplus. Now that the country is in a recession, the need to employ Americans first and set accountable limits on the number of dubiously “skilled” foreign workers has never been greater.


For anyone still in denial over the carefully calculated, bipartisan, corporate sponsored and DC sanctioned determination to eliminate white collar job opportunities for Americans, watch the above video for a good look at what your president-elect and his Google-if-ied cronies and beltway bandits BFF's have in store for you.

-2Truthy

1929

(photo courtesy Mel Toast)

During the1929 financial crash, some Wall Street stockbrokers and bankers actually jumped from their office windows, committing suicide when confronted with the awful shame of their firm’s and clients’ financial ruin. Awful shame?



The catch phrase “moral-hazard” since then has been downgraded to junk status, with antiquated concepts like ethics and morals taking a backseat to “toxic-hazard” in board rooms from Wall Street to Sand Hill Road. But those were the good ‘ol days.


Many people were said to almost feel a little sorry for them.


In 2008 the attitude has changed somewhat…


-2Truthy

Tom Perkins & GM: Fact or Fiction

The Fate of GM

With all of the intrigue and suspense of a Danielle Steel pulp-fiction novel, the question on everyone's minds these days is "should GM get a bailout?" In addition, will China buy GM or will GM get the bailout it seeks from Joe Taxpayer (courtesy the Chinese) and then pony up the dough to its manufacturing division in China or will it go bankrupt and vanish off the face of this hot, overcrowed, flat and smelly flat earth? Or, will it allow its key, cle$n, gre$n, le$n and me$n design technology (GM Volt) to be absorbed by a swashbuckling suitor?

Detroit area resident and all things expert on what’s going down behind the scenes in the Motor City, Citizen Carrie at Carriesnation.com, goes under the hood of the 25 billion dollar Big 3 Bailout question as she probes a few stealth activities on the mechanics of who’s pining for the Star-of-the-Sea, General Motors in her post “Big Happy Dysfunctional Families.”



When a privately held, luxury hybrid automotive manufacturer (Fisker Motors) which is heavily backed by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm (KPC&B) along with lead investment coming from a Middle Eastern investment fund (Qatar Investment Authority) quietly slips into Pontiac, Michigan with nary a peep, what might this mean for the fate of the tanking General Motors, once known for its scrapped first electric car ever, the EV1?




LWOH operatives have uncovered impossibly revealing, entirely and almost utterly unsubstantiated rumors that a swashbuckling, uber wealthy Silicon Valley venture capitalist who owns an immense and luxurious, high-seas clipper (the Maltese Falcon) with an actual former Vice President as a partner of the vc firm (who also happens to sit on the board of cyber-snoop friendly GOOGLE) has his sails set on locking onto the tanking Big 3, Star-of-the-Sea, General Motors. How do we so outrageously and practically sort-of don't really know this?



For starters, KP is a vc firm which leads the pack in key clean and green technology investments including solar, alternative fuels, biotech, and the automotive. It also doesn’t hurt that in addition to partner Gore’s insider beltway savoir-faire, pal and local resident Nancy Pelosi also happens to be speaker of the House. And of course, it certainly doesn’t hurt that Henry Waxman just got the nod to help pave the way for this enterprising boatload of “best and brightest” investors and technologists to suddenly -- albeit stealthily --- be primed at the pump with all kinds of Doha Round $$$ (QIA) to help grease the skids.



KPC&B and GM? Victory at the high seas of Lake Michigan? Say what you will about the gaping hole in the starboard side of Perkin’s humility (as Lesley Stahl does in her interview above) but with rare exception, if anyone deserves a galeforce wind of alleged hubris and arrogance at his back, it is the truly smart and talented Tom Perkins. (We have learned that TP recently secured an undisclosed partner to hop onboard the MF after taking it off the market. Bets are on that the moolah is whooshing in from Gulf Arab states.)


Whichever way the wind blows, we predict a marriage of convenience for the Captain of Clean and Green & the Aging Suitor of Detroit, GM with just a little help from Congress.


-2Truthy

President 2.0: Authoritarianism without the incompetence

(click on graphic to enlarge)

(Photo credits/special thanks to Dark Wraith @ The Dark Wraith Forums and
Big Brass Blog)

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll cut to the chase: Click HERE to visit The Dark Wraith Forums for an enlarged view of this revealing graphic and insights which depict an "updated" version of what our corporotocracy looks like. The Dark Wraith writes:

"President-elect Obama has formed the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform policy working group to "develop.... proposals and plans from the Obama Campaign for action during the Obama-Biden Administration." So, what kind of people are being put on this important policy formation committee? Among others, Blair Levin, a telecom investment analyst; Julius Genachowski, former chief counsel to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt; and Sonal Shah, head of Google.org, which is Google's "global philanthropy" front. That's right: a telecom veteran, an apologist for a federal agency that has let Right-wing corporatists consolidate control of the American media, and a bigwig shill for an emerging global monopolist. Yes, indeed. These are just the kinds of people we want advising the government on reform and government implementation of technology. Someone please drown out my laughter by chanting something about Obama and that Hope-'n-Change stuff."

Of particular interest are insiders Genachowski and of note, former Goldman Sachs alumnus, Shah:

Julius Genachowski is described as

“a former law school classmate of Obama's and an active and early member of the campaign, has been talked about as a candidate for the nation's first chief technology officer or FCC chairman. He is (sic) venture capitalist, the co-founder of Rock Creek Vetnrues (sic) and LaunchBox Digital. Genachowski also served as a senior executive at IAC/InterActiveCorp, where he was head of business operations.”

To further pave open up the floodgates for more cheap labor from India to take tech jobs from American white collar workers and drive down wages here at home during this time of disappearing white collar jobs, we can trust our new president-elect Obama to ensure that this happens, as Rob Oak of noslaves.com reports "Obama Picks Cheap Labor & Guest Worker Queen Janet Napolitano for DHS!" To potentially help kick to the curb local tech professionals at a brisk pace, Google has the ultimate insider help of Sonal Shah:

“Shah has a lengthy resume on international development issues: prior to joining Google she was a vice president at Goldman, Sachs and Co., developing the firm's environmental policy. She is also the co-founder of Indicorps, a U.S.-based non-profit organization offering one-year fellowships to Indian-Americans to work on development projects in India. Sonal worked at the Department of Treasury from 1995-2002 on various economic issues. She is on the Obama-Biden Transition Project Advisory Board.”

-2Truthy

Tainted Meats

Do you ever sometimes feel like you have to get away?

Tainted Meats point to Superbug C.diff in food

"A potentially deadly intestinal germ increasingly found in hospitals is also showing up in a more unsavory setting: grocery store meats. More than 40 percent of packaged meats sampled from three Arizona chain stores tested positive for Clostridium difficile, a gut bug known as C. diff., according to newly complete analysis of 2006 data collected by a University of Arizona scientist. Nearly 30 percent of the contaminated samples of ground beef, pork and turkey and ready-to-eat meats like summer sausage were identical or closely related to a super-toxic strain of C. diff blamed for growing rates of illness and death in the U.S. — raising the possibility that the bacterial infections may be transmitted through food."

Now, back to my turkey sandwich...

-2Truthy

Hillary Clinton to Accept Obama's Offer of Secretary State Job

Hillz and Barry Sitting in a Tree...

Breaking News

LWOH knew these two lovebirds were meant for each other from the very start, here.

The Guardian has learned today that Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration.

"Obama's advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton's foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem. Clinton would be well placed to become the country's dominant voice in foreign affairs, replacing Condoleezza Rice. Since being elected senator for New York, she has specialised in foreign affairs and defence. Although she supported the war in Iraq, she and Obama basically agree on a withdrawal of American troops."

-2Truthy

Tom Friedman's Flatlined, Flat World Sucks and We're Not Gonna Take it Anymore

America for Sale: And what We Can do about it

Hey Tom, how’s that whole “world is flat” thing working out?

Not so good…Former billionaire Tom Friedman has watched his net worth plummet from $3.6 billion to less than $24 million, and now he wants all Americans to fuel up those outdated SUV’s and go spend borrowed money from China that they don’t really have on inferior goods they don’t really need in any flat, hot, smelly, and overcrowded shopping center they can find “to go shopping to save the economy.”


Flatworlder Thomas “The World is All about Me and other Elitists Only” Friedman’s world is flat broke now, and his fall from the billionaire’s club is a testament to the greed induced downside of the free-market fundamentalism he's been preaching for so long. While he has raked in millions of dollars in “best sellers” and commanded up to $50,000 in speaking engagement fees to stomp an insider cronyism profits over people message to gullible American audiences for far too long, has he reaped what he has sown? As Vanity Fair’s Peter Newcomb reports:

“But based on the bad news coming out of shopping-mall owner General Growth Properties [GGP], it is no wonder Friedman is feeling crankier than usual. That’s because author’s wife, Ann (née Bucksbaum), is an heir to the General Growth fortune. In the past year, the couple—who live in an 11,400-square-foot mansion in Bethesda, Maryland—have watched helplessly as General Growth stock has fallen 99 percent, from a high of $51 to a recent 35 cents a share. The assorted Bucksbaum family trusts, once worth a combined $3.6 billion, are now worth less than $25 million.”

Going shopping is, of course fine – providing one has a good paying job to afford the nation’s former pastime. But the hidden little secret that best-selling authors like Friedman won’t tell you is that for over the past eighteen years, corporate America and the beltway have been busy selling off American white collar jobs to Indian citizens willing to work here for a fraction of the pay, eliminating job opportunities for American citizens and lowering wages in the process. Guess who might think this wholesale sell out of the educated white collar workforce is just swell? President-elect Barack Obama. The Great American white collar labor shortage myth has been propped up by elitist corporate greedsters who view Americans as objects of “trade” to eliminate employment opportunities for local citizens in favor of importing cheap labor.

Today Citigroup announced another cut of 53,000 jobs in addition to the recent 23,000 jobs this year with rival JP Morgan set to slash thousands more jobs. As Obama says, “we are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression” so why would he want to see this country’s citizens replaced by foreign workers? Progressives need to embrace the myth of the Great American Labor Shortage and take the president-elect to task on one of the two most critical issues affecting the welfare of our citizens: jobs and access to quality healthcare.

Where are our ethics? Is the soul and spirit of the “progressive” movement one of elitist groupthink that blindly aspires to be just like the sociopathic corporate executives who pine for imported cheap labor in order to ensure profits for themselves and their cronies? Progressives need to unite against this war on America’s educated middle class and demand a stop to the legalized importation of cheap labor to take American jobs. True progressives need to demand a stop to legalized corporate welfare policies that enrich executives of insurance companies and corporations whose mantra is profits over people.

We don’t need to keep shopping for any more cheap crap. We need to start making stuff here again, and to start valuing our own neighbors to put the spirit of community back into our own communities first. How abundant are the destructive, inhumane forces of so called “free-trade” labor agreements when they seek to destroy employment opportunities at home in exchange for lucrative labor deals that only serve elites of our country and those of third world nations? As countries across the globe struggle with their own deteriorating economies, the only thing we have left in our own is our collective goodwill. I don’t doubt the lack of integrity in people across this country, but I have my reservations about the controlled direction our media are taking to silence the message as they gatekeep a few One World information elites who feed them.

As China’s President Hu Jintao said last week: “Beijing's priority is to "put our own house in order" and ensure domestic stability. Will America’s President-elect, Barack Obama change to put the welfare of Americans first or will he follow through with his allegiance to corporate welfare practices first? Will Obama quit “shushing baby boomers and stop telling them to “get over themselves” and start putting us first?

After eight years of criminal lies and neglect, now wouldn’t that be something?

-2Truthy

Crossposted at BlondeSense

The (Pie) Face of Intolerance

A Nation of Stooges
"I don't care who started it..."

America the Illiterite (sp)

One of the greatest things about our right to freedom of speech is that some people get to call other people a big fat mofo if they don’t think like we do. Or better yet, how about a pie in the face? Why stop at civility when there are fundamental illusions on the line?

This week, Chris Hedges explains in his article entitled "America the Illiterate" how we are living in a country of “two Americas” where one of them cannot differentiate between lies and truth:

“They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.”

Will the Democrats deliver us from GroupThink? Here's to raising this country's discourse above the sixth grade level.

Happy Friday, Loserettes!

-2Truthy
Crossposted at BlondeSense

Time to Beef up the FDA

-China to America: Eat that Shit or we Shoot this Dog-

Of all the new hope and change directives that the Obama administration should prioritize and deliver on, how about the safety of our food supply?

Msnbc.msn reports today that

“the FDA has nowhere near the number of inspectors to fulfill that desire, and instead mainly relies on U.S. food companies to require that their foreign supplier maintain high standards.”

Standard formula: Fox guards chicken coop. Mwahahahahhaaaaa...


Last year, LWOH reported here about all that poisonous people and baby food, dog food, lead tainted toys and all kinds of crap coming in here unregulated, with little to zero oversight. Nothing new, only more people are getting sick from melamine tainted food products only now we have a brand, spanking new president to hopefully direct the resources to ensure safety of this nation’s food supply.

Not only that, but now we implore the nation’s new self-described “First Mom” Michelle Obama, to do something constructive M-F for the plebes and aid this effort while the girls are away at their private, elite boarding school, as we reported last week here.

-2Truthy

Barack Obama means "Flash Fucker"

Does Barry's name mean "Flash Fucker" in some strange, biblical exotic kind of way? Could be!

Today, LWOH pays unadulterated homage to the unrivaled, leading authority on all things The Lightbringer, Joseph Cannon of the one stop-shop for Obama fare, Cannonfire, as he unveils the true meaning behind the name "Barack Obama" in this post entitled "Bam!" Cannon

"strongly suspects that the name Obama derives from the Arabic wabama. In an earlier post, we discovered that "Barack" means lightning, or flash.Thus, "Barack Obama" means "Flash Fucker." I'm not kidding. You may, however, prefer the more Zeus-ian "Father of Lightning." Or maybe the more disco-fied "Electric Daddy."

-2Truthy

Merle Haggard "America First"

Click HERE to watch "America First"

by Merle Haggard

"Let's get out of Iraq and

Get back on the track and

Let's rebuild America first."

-Merle Haggard

-2Truthy

Happy Birthday Neil Young

-Happy Birthday, Mr. Weird-

A SONG ALONE

by Neil Young

"No one song can change the world." But that doesn't mean it's time to stop singing. Somewhere on Earth a scientist is alone working. No one knows what he or she is thinking. The secret is just within reach. If I knew that answer I would be singing the song. This is the age of innovation. Hope matters. But not hope alone. In the age of innovation, the people's fuel must be found. That is the biggest challenge. Who is up to the challenge? Who is searching today? All day. All night. Every hour that goes by. I know I am. My friends write to me don't give up. I am not giving up. I know this is the time for change. But I know that it's not a song. Maybe it was. But it isn't now. It's an action, an accomplishment, a revelation, a new way. I am searching for the people's fuel. Will I find it? Yes. I think so. I don't know why I may have been chosen to help enable a discovery of this magnitude. I know I can only write a song about it when I find it. Until then I can write a song about the search or spend all my time looking. But a song alone will not change the world. Even so, I will keep on singing."

-2Truthy

We're (not) #1! Mel Toast Rants and Raves

Click on above chart to enlarge

A Mel Toast World Exclusive

A Point-by-Point Discussion (please refer to above chart)

Life Expectancy

OK. Go live in Andorra. I kind of like living where I'm living. And just because a few million African Americans and white trailer trash prefer Cheetos and Cocoa Puffs in the morning is no reason to believe that the rest of us won't live to a ripe old age, God willing.

Democracy

OK. Go live in Sweden. Where the muslims control local governing councils and The Public Dole is what attracts them all. The SMR (Muslim Council of Sweden) is in league with the Swedish Social Democratic Party to institute Sharia law in Sweden. Note that while the Swedes may have established their own little socialist paradise for 9 million people, 500,000 of them are muslims who want no part of Swedish history, religion, culture or liberalism.

Freedom of the Press

This is just completely ludicrous! This begs the question, what genius has established this official list? If there is freedom of the press in any nation it would have to be in Denmark where the Danes fearlessly published the Mohammad cartoons when the acclaimed New York Times and Washington Post refused for fear of retribution. Iceland? Please! The nation is bankrupt for the love of God. OK, they've got hot springs. And good-looking women. I will say that much for them.

Internet Speed

OK, so you can't wait an extra 3 seconds to download pictures of young Russian women having sex with a burro? Then go to Japan, and enjoy your 14-dollar Big Mac and 4-million dollar, 50-square-foot condo.

Smallest Prison Population

All the criminals in India are either living in the streets, or processing visas to come to America to open up a Dunkin' Donuts. Is this a surprise? And what . . . this makes India MORE attractive? Statistically, with over a billion people, there should be a hell of a lot more of them fighting over a cockroach in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Lack of Corruption

I agree I would like to see a lot less corruption than I presently see in America. But I am not ready to move to a country where boys and girls consider getting (and wearing) a shiv (puukko), a great honor. Not to mention their high incidence of alcoholism, spouse abuse (meaning wife-beating) and suicide. But go to Finland if you like, and leave your U.S. Social Security check with the U.S. Treasury when you retire.

Effectiveness of Education

Taiwan made most of the toys sold by Mattel and Hasbro in the 1960s and 70s. The Finns drink and stab each other. In Hong Kong they all cheat at blackjack. In America, we have landed men on the moon. We have cured diseases and conquered natural catastrophes. And given billions in aid to thankless countries far less deserving than our own working poor.

Mobile Phones per Capita

So if the Germans want their Teutonic ears to peel off into their steaming bowls of sauerkraut, let them! I will stay in this country and talk to friends IN PERSON or from home as often as I can, and use my mobile phone only for emergencies. Americans are often accused of wastefulness, but do you realize how many electrons are wasted every time someone picks up the phone just to say "Wie geht's"?

Renewable Energy Source

I agree. By luck of their geography, Iceland is the hands-down winner in this category. No competition. Yes, if you like cheap hot baths, Reykjavík awaits you. But Brazil?? Turning the rain forests of the Amazon into a sugar farm to produce ethanol for cars? Now there's a smart move.

Scientific Literacy

I am certain the Icelanders are smart people. But how often to they hoist themselves up out of their geothermal hot pots to pick up a Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Physics or Economics from neighboring Sweden?

Quality of Healthcare

I agree. It's cheaper and easier to have your appendix out in France or Canada. But it is not always better. And San Marino?? Postage stamps. Wine. Cheese. Maybe. But I am not going to this tiny Italian enclave just to have my gallbladder removed. Healthcare is expensive in the U.S. and we need to work on getting that cost down. But it's expensive precisely because it's the best in the world.

Infant Survival Rate

Which infants? Again, pregnant moms on crystal meth and crack who feed their other 6 children cat food and cigarettes for breakfast bring this statistic down upon all of us. Cut them out of the picture and we're right up there with those clever sons and daughters from the Land of the Rising Sun.

Cordially,

Mel Toast

Intel Hopes for Healthy Growth in Medical Devices

Everybody’s a Doctor Now!

Intel in a box or Intel in your shorts?

CnnMoney.com reports today that Intel hopes for healthy growth in medical devices.

America's middle class is disappearing along with access to healthcare, and in its wake is the Neo- Have/Have-Not push by elites to segregate the growing underclass from access to coveted, premiere medical care in America. So far, it is working out just fine.

As president-elect Barack Obama shunned a patient friendly Single Payer healthcare model in favor of supporting busine$$ and profits for insurance and technology company executives instead, it is no wonder companies like Intel are barreling ahead with plans to sell its “Intel Health Care Management Suite” to health care organizations. Touted as a “comprehensive online data-collection system for health care organizations, the Intel Health Guide PHS6000 device is intended for patients themselves to operate, not experienced clinicians visiting the homebound as previously speculated.”

Should corporations like Intel profit on being inside your medical care? “Yes!” says the Oregon chip maker. The chipmaker today launched a patient monitoring device and online interface to connect doctors and their patients remotely. Although this technology is touted as a “monitoring device” and is not meant to be a substitute for a trip to the ER, I do have to wonder if Dick Cheney undergoes remote medical service, or if Barack Obama and his family will forgo 1:1 medical attention.

During this unprecedented economic downturn where over fifty million people in America do not have access to healthcare/ insurance with unlimited and increasing millions expected to join the legions of the uninsured, it is hardly questionable as to Intel ‘s motivation to monitor the sick by selling devices that will remove the majority from the coveted 1:1 doctor:patient model of healthcare that elites will continue to enjoy.

“While many see health care moving into the home through technology, it seems like Intel knows government approval alone will not convince people to trust a tech company to dispense medical advice.”

Although this is a huge profit market that Intel has sought to penetrate for years, the model has yet to gain traction and is awaiting market approval, as trials with U.S. with Aetna, Erickson Retirement Communities, Providence Medical Group in Oregon and SCAN Health Plan are underway.

What will all of this “home monitoring” substitution for real visits to/from a specialist provide when non-medically trained individuals are forced to “monitor” themselves with such devices? How many healthcare jobs for American citizens are poised to disappear with the emergence of such devices? Where will these devices be manufactured and what volume of depleting natural resources will they consume? Many questions surround for-profit technologies and solutions that seek to remove the majority of patients from direct 1:1 contact with their physicians -- particularly those which put the overwhelming majority of non-medically trained patients “in-charge of monitoring” their own health with devices that, like most devices, not only are prone to glitches, but are a poor substitute for 1:1 onsite medical diagnosis and care that reputable physicians provide.

This emerging corporate welfare queen model/union of technology and insurance industry for-profit "solutions" like Intel's are positioned to further define the 21st Century's Have/Have-Not divide of hoarding profits for the elitist few at the expense of the many. But the impetus behind the collaboration between insurance and technology corporations is clear -- wild profits off the growing underclass hordes who are slated to be deprived of superior 1:1 medical care.

For now, I’ll put my trust in Single Payer (a hopeless dream with the Obama plan) a cellphone with 911 programmed into it and my doctor’s office phone number any day.

-2Truthy

Michelle Obama: First Lady of the FDA or Cruise Ship Inspection

(photo credits Jossip)

New DC Private School for Obama Girls?

-Michelle and Barry Exiting Chicago's Spiaggia Restaurant-

"There was a time when we used to say

Behind every great man there had to be a great woman."

-Click HERE for the First Lady of Soul, Aretha Franklin with Annie Lennox-

Chicago, IL Oh, those silly socialist lovebirds…choosing pricey, elitist private schools can be such a collosal pain, but what is an historic First Couple-Elect to do when everybody knows that DC public schools are notoriously shitty and nothing but a bunch of violent hellholes?

Stepping out last night to on Michigan Avenue and Oak with the president-elect for a cozy dinner at Chicago’s infamous Spiaggia Café, Michelle Obama, sporting a black monotone dress/overcoat ensemble with striking black boots looked ab-fab stunning and radiant, proving to the paparazzi that she’s more than capable of fashion rebounding from her now legendary Nov. 4 red and black Narcissio Rodriguez dress and jacket costume.

We don’t know what the two dined on, but yes, we can say that one simply can not get a bad meal in the Windy City’s finest Italian dining establishment. Yours truly highly recommends the Filetto di Manzo in Crosta yada-yada and the finest Chianti your humble waiter recommends. (Insider tip: Each year Spiaggia is the annual destination spot for a certain wedding anniversary celebration where yours truly once rented out the whole place for one hell of a post-nuptial rollicking good time, food and libation.)

The nation's historic First Black First Lady and wife of this nation’s First Black President, Michelle Obama, says she wants the title of “First Mom” instead. But not unlike another First Lady mom, Hillary, Michelle also does not totally impart the vibe of ordinary “stand by your man” first kind of woman, content to stay home and "bake cookies" and klatch with all of those dreadful and neurotic, school-soccer breeders of the Potomac.

Besides, why should the former Harvard trained lawyer, Mayor Daley insider, U of Chicago Hospital big-whig and mother of two settle for the mere moniker of “First Mom”? How about this: Since nobody else is looking out for the welfare and safety of this nation’s precious cargo, Losing the War on Humor nominates Michelle “I want to be First Mom” Obama as the official enforcer for safety of the nation’s food and drug supply (FDA), starting with the leading favorites of our precious cargo -- candy and toys! Should candy and food not be Michelle Obama’s thing, then how about First Lady of Cruise Ship inspection?

And how about appointing Oprah as your official World Health Organization Consigliere? True, true, she’s got her day job but in this grotesquely Tom Friedmanesque, flat-world of Poison for the People, Green Food for the Nomenklatura, it’s time to call in the cavalry!

We know that the POTUS job has been the domain of men, so come on, Michelle! Prove that you are more than just a "First Mom" and get out there and start cleaning up the food chain! Do it for the kids! And their parents, too. Joe the Plumber is not gonna do it…

Time for sistas changing it for everyone else?

-2Truthy

2Truthy's Happy Friday with Phil Lesh: Turn up the Volume!

Unbroken Chain

-The Grateful Dead-

After listening to Phil Lesh’s most hauntingly beautiful masterpiece and this everlasting tribute to Jerry's staccato medley with Keith Godchaux’s jazz infused, classical chops and Donna’s sparkling, angelic siren-soprano backup, I think about Obama’s faux hope and change hustle going around and why more unnamed people than ever are placing themselves in front of Caltrain locomotive engines on a weekly basis.

Unbroken Chain

Lyrics: Bobby Petersen
Music: Phil Lesh


Blue light rain, whoa, unbroken chain
Looking for familiar faces in an empty window pain
Listening for the secret, searching for the sound
But I could only hear the preacher and the baying of his hounds

Willow sky, whoa, I walk and wonder why
They say love your brother but you will catch it when you try
Roll you down the line boy, drop you for a loss
Ride you out on a cold railroad and nail you to a cross

November and more as I wait for the score
They're telling me forgiveness is the key to every door
A slow winter day, a night like forever
Sink like a stone, float like a feather

Lilac rain, unbroken chain
Song of the Saw-Whet owl
Out on the mountain it'll drive you insane
Listening to the winds howl

Unbroken chain of sorrow and pearls
Unbroken chain of sky and sea
Unbroken chain of the western wind
Unbroken chain of you and me.

Happy Friday, Loserettes!

-2Truthy

Three Strikes

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

-Mark Twain

1. Cindy Sheehan lost to "We get the leadership we deserve" Nancy Pelosi.

2. Al Franken demands a recount, and it doesn't look good.

3. Ralph Nader lost to Barack Obama, who is all set to star in a four year long production of Hollywood proportions selling out white collar jobs to India during what he has termed "the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression."

Hey, Democrats, are you awake?

Party on, plebes!

-2Truthy