A World Quite Mad

...she's worth 12 million dollars. To top that off, she makes two million dollars a year. And I thought congressional members made an absurd amount of money. That totally pales in comparison to the $174k a year that they make, even with the 26 weeks of vacation. Ridiculous.

These media jackals keep saying that they don't know what these people are protesting. Yeah, they can't say because it would take more than the two second sound byte to do so. The list is fuck-off long as to just how jacked up this system of ours is. I believe it can be fixed though. There was a ton of greed and avarice in the 1920s and our grandparents paid for it with the Great Depression, and it took a while, but things turned around and were even better than before. I just hope that Obama grows a pair and rivals FDR when historians look back on this era.

Herman Cain is an (un)American idiot. If you recall back in July he was clamoring for religious tests before people can serve in government here. Any sixth grader who's taken government studies could tell you that that is unconstitutional, a violation of Article Six of our Constitution. Now he tells ordinary, average Americans that it's all their fault.

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks," he continued. "If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!

Really? I wonder when Herman Cain last visited a ghetto. Maybe he should take a stroll through public housing. While he's there he'd do well to look at all the children living there. Children brought into this world, born into poverty, through NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN, who do not stand a chance with people like Herman Cain running things.

"While Cain dismissed the protests, he stressed in his interview with the Wall Street Journal that he's more in touch with the middle class than the GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney."

O rly? Well, I suppose this could be factually accurate since there's not much of a middle class left here in the United States and what is left is on it's way out. I guess it's easy to be more in touch than your opponent with something that doesn't exist.

"And while Cain has been successful in business, he told the Wall Street Journal's Alan Murray, "Don't spread this perception I'm a kajillionaire.""

This is of course a lie. Only the rich can run for office in this country. I suppose an exception might be made if someone of lesser means sold out and was funded by a Corporate backer *cough* tea party candidates *cough*

Actually, Herman Cain's net worth is reported to be $18,000,000. How many years would you have to work to earn that much money? If I went by my last full-time job, which happened to pay ABOVE the median wage for an individual in the United States, I would have to work over four hundred years to earn what Herman Cain is worth. At the rate I'm going now, since I'm underemployed, it would probably take me closer to a few thousand years to earn that much. There's something wrong with that. But then again, Herman Cain is in the top 1% of people in this country. Besides the non-existant middle class, I'm sure he's in touch with his profit margin.

Judging from his self-serving demeanor, I dare say that Herman Cain would not want to raise taxes on the rich, unlike Obama, since Herman Cain acts like an entitlement whore, in that he's entitled and the rest of us are just SOL.* Herman Cain doesn't care about this country. He doesn't care about our Constitution either, and he doesn't care about you. Unless 'you' happen to be Herman Cain that is, or one of his cronies. And if Herman Cain reads this, since he claims to be Christian, maybe he ought to ponder the second half of the nineteenth chapter of the book of Matthew.

"You know, where it ends, usually depends on where you start." --Everlast, What it's Like

*Hint:Obama is rich too, but still raised taxes on himself.

A single snow flake can start an avalanche.

A single drop of rain can precede a flood.

One person can change the entire world.

I know what you're thinking. The first two are true and the third is bullshit. But it's not. Think about it for a minute. I'm sure you can come up with a handful of people who, if they had never lived, the world would not be the same place. Maybe more than a handful. They may have had help, they may not have done it alone, but without them, things would not be the way they are now.

The corporate media is determined to undermine the Occupy protests. They're dismissing it as a bunch of hipsters who don't want to work. Corporate shills Trolls online are calling them communists, as if they even comprehend the meaning of that word. Communist, liberal, socialist, fascist, conservative etc. have all lost their meaning because of the misapplying of these terms to things/people/movements that do not fit into their definition. The mainstream media are owned by powers that wish to see us made into serfs. If you think this is also bullshit, I suggest you turn off Faux News and take a look around. Corporate profits are up 22% since 2007. Why are so many people out of work? Because they're pocketing the money on the backs of their workers. But that's just the tip of the iceberg and only one of the many problems that are facing us today.

Why are CEOs making more than ever when the average American's salary has fallen? More importantly, why are so many Americans hoodwinked into thinking that if there is regulation of a system it won't benefit them? Why do these same people think that regulation equals communism? Or that providing for the poor equals communism? (Jesus was apparently a communist in that case.) Public education in this country is the first thing cut, and when you think about it, from an almost conspiracy-theory-esque sense, that's been a boon to the Corporatocracy. What better way to control the masses, to make them believe your propaganda newscasts than to give them a lackluster education and discourage critical thinking skills. I'd like to believe that it's a serendipitous by-product of unintended consequences, but after a while discounting the multiple "coincidences" tends to make one question their sanity anyway.

You may also think that everyone is just too lazy or too comfortable to do anything about it. After all when we can sit around and poke at facebook or lose ourselves in online games, why would we want to put ourselves in danger of being arrested, pepper-sprayed by police or worse? But always, always throughout history, there comes a tipping point. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that, "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." What happens when everyone has had enough? What happens when a military you have equipped and trained (and that qualifies for food stamps with what they are paid) have themselves had enough?

The congressmen and women in Washington are no longer working for We the People. They have been bought by the Corporations. They have turned their backs on the Constitution of the United States in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. Except the thirty pieces of silver wasn't enough for them, and the billions weren't enough for their Corporate masters. It's never enough; they must have more. And that "more" comes at the expense of the middle class. At the expense of US. And that is why things have gone they way they have. People may have been willing to forget about it if it hadn't gone so far, if they were able to have a decent life, send their kids to college and have a nest egg for retirement. Instead they have seen their wealth vanish and the price of their home plummet. They give up 40% of their income in taxes, and their children graduate from college tens of thousands of dollars in debt and are not able to find a job. They have seen their hopes and dreams evaporate. And meanwhile, the super rich are getting richer and pay no or few taxes by taking advantage of loopholes in the tax code.

Every single politician in Washington ought to be recalled and sent home. And every single lobbyist should be standing in the unemployment line. Free elections should be called with NO CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP AND NO CORPORATE MONEY. We the People want our country back. We want our Constitutional rights restored to Individuals and stripped from Corporations. We want our jobs back. Those are our demands. We may not be able to Occupy Wall Street because of distance, but we can Occupy our towns. And when we can't do that, we can Occupy the Internet. We are here and we aren't going away. We aren't shutting up. We aren't going to accept serfdom so that 1% can accumulate more and more. We're fed up and we've had it.


"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead

PS. As an aside, if you had asked me in 1995 what the greatest threat to this country was, I'd have told you it was religious fundamentalists. And maybe it still is to some degree because they are the ones who have been hoodwinked by these Corporate bastards. They are the teabaggers and their hangers-on, funded by Corporations. I however would never have thought that business would become so corrupt, and our politicians so enamored by their money, that our very democracy could hang in the balance over money. Ideology yes. But money? It seems so ridiculous. As they say, truth is stranger than any fiction.

Hahahahahahahah.

It would be funnier if it weren't so damned sad.

Let me tell you a little story about the "American Dream." My step-mother developed cancer. Her insurance company dropped her and she needed multiple surgeries to remove the tumor. (Surprise, surprise you say). She kept having seizures and couldn't work obviously, she had to wait forever to get disability. My father and her had to file bankruptcy to keep from losing everything they had worked so hard for. It destroyed their marriage. And they're not the only ones. Their story is the same many times over throughout this whole country.

Meanwhile, these politicians are lining their pockets with lobbying money from the Corporatocracy. Wall street fucks up and they get million dollar bonuses. How does that bitch in the video sleep at night? I'm not sure.

I'm sorry, but if you bust your ass and work hard, you shouldn't be in danger of losing everything if you get sick. When the one percent of the people in the United States are worth the same amount of money as ninety percent of the people here, you have an uneven distribution of wealth. Guess what? Tax the fuckers, because there is a point where "doing well" becomes having an obscene amount of money. Oh, "but that's not fair" whine the idiots who are persuaded by those who it affects (see: the bloody filthy rich) to be righteously indignant. Life isn't fair. Guess what else isn't fair? Starving to death on the streets while Buffy dines in her yacht and complains about having to pay too much in taxes.

Come on, I want to make so much money that I have to pay a lot of taxes on it. I'll do it and I'll be happy about it! Seriously. But then again, I grew up in a ghetto. I know true poverty. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have lived it and I have breathed it. It's ridiculous that in the richest nation on the planet, we have people who are homeless, who don't know where their next meal is coming from, who are laid off after working thirty years at the same place because their job was outsourced to Mexico, where we have people who die because they can't get the care they need. Where Corporations are subsidized with our tax money by the government while they make record profits. WTF America? WTF.

Transcript:

Al: I think we disagree on whether the health care reform we're talking about now in congress should pass. You said that kinda the way we're going will increase bankruptcies. I want to ask you, how many bankruptcies because of medical crises were there last year in Switzerland?

Bitch: I don't have that number in front of me, but I can find out and get back to you.

Al: I can tell you how many it was. It's zero.

*laughter*

Al: Do you know how many medical bankruptcies there were last year in France?

Bitch: I don't have that number but I can get back to you if you like.

Al: Yeah, the number is zero. Do you know how many were in Germany?

Bitch: From the trend of your questions I'm assuming the answer is zero, but I don't know the precise amount and I would have to get back to you.

Al: Well, you're very good, you're very fast. The point is, is that I think we need to go in that direction, not in the opposite direction. Thank you.

Bitch: Do you know the cancer survival rates in those countries?

Al: You know, you've picked on one, and if you look at that study, did you know that we pick easily, much more easily survivable cancer rates. So if you want to get into digging deep into studies, that study isn't legitimate. I've heard that before. That's because we find easily survivable cancers to count as ones that we survive. You can cherry pick stuff to find one little place where somebody says our system works better than the French or the Germans, but we're talking about bankruptcy here today.

Bitch: *deer-in-headlight look*

Al: And the fact of the matter is, you're saying that if we go more to a French system or a Swiss system, that we'll have increased bankruptcies, but the fact is they don't have bankruptcies and we do for medical care. Thank you.