Why aren't you angry?

Here's a rather graphic representation of the growth in income inequality in the USA since the 1960s; plotted on a chart where the income growth of the bottom 90 percent is represented by an inch-high bar; the growth of the top 10 percent needs a 163 foot-tall bar; while the top 0.01% need a 4.9 mile-high bar to represent their real wealth growth in the same period.

If you still aren’t convinced that the elite in America have rigged the game in their favor over the past several decades, here’s a startling graphic that should change your mind in a hurry.

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing makes this observation:

“The top 1 percent enjoyed 81 percent of all the increased income since 2009. Just over half of the gains went to the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and 39 percent of the gains went to the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. Ponder that last fact for a moment -- the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent, those making at least $7.97 million in 2011, enjoyed 39 percent of all the income gains in America. In a nation of 158.4 million households, just 15,837 of them received 39 cents out of every dollar of increased income.”

Aided and abetted by Washington, a thimbleful of Americans are hauling in truckloads of cash while the rest of us stress over paying the rent each month. And we shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing this is only a Republican failing. There are plenty of Democrats who are willing to play along. Who do you think finances their campaigns?

Why does this not anger us to action?

Good Friday

Arbitration: A lose/lose for consumers

One of my favorite Texans (and that’s a very small group) Jim Hightower writes a long, devastating critique of the arbitration clauses that are now a mandatory part of so many contracts we sign on a regular basis. Hidden deep in the fine print when we apply for a credit card, purchase an item or sign up for a service, very few of us even know these clauses exist until there is a problem, and then it’s too late.

Arbitration has been sold to us by companies and pro-business organizations as a fairer, faster and less cumbersome alternative to litigation, but in reality these clauses are a “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” card for corporations who, surprise, almost always come out on top. Hightower provides background on the slow and insidious way that corporate America rigged the system and left consumers virtually helpless when it comes to getting justice. 

Current Affairs Quiz

It’s time to play, “Guess the real headline.” They say truth is stranger than fiction, but who are “they” and why don’t they identify themselves? Anyway, one of the headlines below is the real deal, ripped from today’s news. The others will probably be real headlines in a day or two. For successfully identifying the authentic headline, a toothless hermit living in a Bavarian cave will light a candle in your honor.

1. North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Says He Will Start WWIII If Adam Sandler Does Not Receive An Honorary Academy Award
2. Tea Party Boycotting FOX News for Being Too Liberal
3. Rick Perry Appoints Himself President of Texas
4. NRA Claims Guns Don’t Kill People, Bullets Do
5. Chicago Cubs Preseason Pick to Win It All
6. Ford Is Bringing Back the Edsel

(If you picked number 2, you spend too much time internetting)

Batty Bachmann Behaving Badly

Minnesota’s favorite loon, Congressperson Michele Bachmann, is facing a congressional ethics probe. The article in today's Daily Beast offers a laundry list of accusations being leveled against Bachmann from people who worked on her recent presidential campaign.

Shit happens when you live in an alternate universe. Confusing right-wing propaganda and slurs with facts, the Tea Party Darling is a living legend when it comes to jaw-dropping misstatements and hallucinatory pronouncements. If you have heard only a fraction of the ludicrous, fact-challenged utterances from Bachmann over the years, you know that she is a proud member of the unreality-based world. So it should come as little surprise that she would ignore the rules and regulations of a reality that she does not acknowledge.

One can only hope she is ultimately saved from herself and admitted to an institution that is equipped to deal with people who are untethered from the existence in which most of us find ourselves. Congress, unfortunately, is filled with far too many enablers.

Who are the adults in the room?

One of the interesting tendencies of many on the far right is to portray themselves as the adults (read “patriarchs”) in the room, while liberals and progressives are the noisy children with their heads stuck forever in the clouds. Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly et. al and countless Republican politicians have all used this metaphor at one time or another as a way of framing themselves as (to use Krugman’s words) Serious People.

The problem is, when you look at the evidence, a thing Serious People don’t have the time or inclination to do, you find that the metaphor doesn’t really pan out. Surprise, surprise. No. In fact, when it comes to childlike behavior, well, you know where I’m going with this. Ask yourself who more often displays these traits, the Loony Left or our friends on the far right edge of the scale.

• The schoolyard bully: Derides you if you don’t agree with him. If you prove him wrong, he becomes irrationally angry and hurls threats and insults. Likes to intimidate people. Believes violence is an acceptable way to settle disputes.
• The kid who claims he’s going to hold his breath until he gets what he wants: Doesn’t listen to reason, he only wants what he wants when he wants it. Won’t accept any alternative to what he feels he deserves. Sees himself as the center of the universe and his desires as more important than anyone else’s.
• The kid who laughs loudest when someone trips and hurts themselves: He lacks empathy and has a child’s sense of humor, which is broad slapstick that usually involves somebody getting hurt or embarrassed. Doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to appreciate subtlety or satire.
• Teacher’s pet: Slavishly worships authority. Will do or say whatever it takes to ingratiate himself with the person in charge. Has no moral compass, and will side with authority figures almost without question.
• The snotty rich kid: Feels those who are not rich are beneath him and deserve what they get. Refuses to believe that there are real-world obstacles that keep people poor and powerless. Only rarely says it out loud, but believes the majority of people are lazy and unmotivated and that he deserves what he as acquired because he is more gifted than most.

Here we go again. This time it's Syria.

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a totally unnecessary war that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and trillions of dollars, we have a cadre of armchair generals in the Capital (both Republicans and Democrats) calling for America to intervene militarily in Syria based on second-hand reports of rebels using chemical weapons. Some are already calling for boots on the ground.

Jesus H. Christ. Where do these morons come from? Why are they in positions of power? Why do we keep sending soulless, callous, clueless dolts to Washington to vote on matters of life and death? No country that continues voting for people like Michele Bachmann, Lindsey Graham, and yes, even Dianne Feinstein, can stand the test of time.

Our elected officials seem determined to keep us in a state of never-ending war, constantly sending young men and women off to a jungle or a desert to die or be maimed for life to satisfy the blood lust of a fading empire and war profiteers who are already rolling in piles of gold.

I make a modest, but serious, proposal. Any elected official in congress who votes for war or any military action involving violence must either a) have served in the military or b) have an immediate family member serving in the military. They are so anxious to send off faceless, nameless Americans to die in foreign countries, maybe, just maybe, they might be a bit more reflective and cautious if they were involving someone they loved in the bloodshed.

It will never happen, but maybe someone has a better way to stop the war madness that plagues America’s elites. 

Ten Years After

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, this is Donald Rumsfeld's Twitter post for today:

"10 yrs ago began the long, difficult work of liberating 25 mil Iraqis. All who played a role in history deserve our respect & appreciation."

Thanks Donald. Here's what you deserve:

Beyond Atheism

They say as you grow older you tend to become more religious. This makes some sense as one draws closer and closer to life’s exit door. I’m just the opposite. Organized religion looks more and more childish to me as time passes and I wonder how anyone with any education can really believe such contradictory and unsubstantiated nonsense as that found in the Bible, Koran, etc. Religions are basically collections of stories, many of which have been passed down from the dawn of human consciousness. These stories are attempts to explain the unexplainable and ease the terror of those living in a world that on the surface makes very little sense.

 The questions are profound. Why do we die? Is death final? Why do good people fail and bad people prosper? Why must we suffer so much? Does life have any meaning? We still have no answers to these questions, but we do have stories, and if you believe they are true, they provide structure to the universe. God created us. Yes we die, but after our physical bodies fail, our spirits go somewhere else that is wonderful. In that spiritual world, good people are rewarded and bad people are punished. Life does have meaning if you follow God’s rules.

Comforting stories, but stories nonetheless filled with magic and contradictions. For instance, we are told in the Bible that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, the seeds of the human race. They had two sons. Think about that. Make sense? It’s an origin story and there are hundreds more like it from different cultures and parts of the world. Stories of a great flood predate the Bible. Noah and the ark? Forget about it. So does rejecting organized religion make me an atheist? Not really.

I think science is slowly leading us to the realization that there are other realities that exist beyond, or perhaps alongside, the one which we experience. Just think about the past 100 years and the new worlds we have discovered from black holes to DNA to subatomic particles to the recent confirmation of the Higgs Boson, the so-called God Particle. We’ve unlocked all of these previously mysterious worlds in a mere century of scientific research. Think what the next century will bring.

What animates living things? Some call it a soul or spirit, but I call it energy. We exist in an animated form for 70 or 80 years and then we die, our physical bodies wear out, entropy, and our energy leaves our corporal being. The promising part of this scenario is that science tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only take another form, so the energy that animates us when we are alive is not destroyed when we die, but merely takes another form. It’s possible that our energy simply dissipates into the universe, but it is also possible it exists in another reality. Based on the trajectory of scientific discoveries, I think we will someday come to the realization that our reality is only one of many that exist in time and space.

Ironically, science is taking me beyond atheism. I don’t make any claims to know what exists beyond our own reality—no streets paved with gold or 72 virgins at my beck and call, and I think at this point it is unknowable, but I am growing convinced that our energy, that thing which animates us, exists beyond our physical death in some state. It doesn’t seem implausible to me anymore, but then, that exit sign is closer today than it was yesterday.

Crystal Ballz

I got an email today from something called Gold Psychics offering me a free opportunity to ask a psychic a question. I wrote back saying, “The answer is 32. What is the question?” Haven’t gotten a response yet.

Drones Over Peoria?

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration began asserting the need for a stronger executive branch (dusting off their “unitary executive” theory) under the guise of the threat of terrorism. A president needed to act quickly and decisively to protect the country from another devastating terrorist attack, they argued, and, according to Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld, that meant giving the president new powers to capture and kill real and potential threats to the U.S. So over the remaining years of his Administration, Bush, with the help of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act, assumed, more power to act unilaterally, resulting in Guantanamo Bay and black sites worldwide.

Of course, Bush’s second term ended in 2008 and a new President was elected. Unfortunately, the powers that Bush’s team coopted in the heat of a terrorist attack were quickly adopted by the new President, Barack Obama. And what would you expect? If you were the CEO of a company and your board of directors gave you sweeping new powers, would you, as the new CEO, rescind those powers? Probably not. One thing rulers are loathe to do is give up powers that they have. So fast forward to today, and you have the announcement that the Obama Administration believes it can use lethal force against American citizens on American soil under certain circumstances. This means if the President feels you are a threat, he can use drones to wipe you out. In Peoria or Denver or New Orleans. No arrest. No trial. No due process. Just “boom,” you’re dead.

Now Barack Obama seems like a sensible guy, and I’m sure others in his administration are just as sane and mentally stable as he is. They have all convinced themselves, and are trying to convince us, that of course no one is going to have to order the bombing of a house in Peoria. We’re sensible, rational people. You can trust us.

Uh, no we can’t. And that is why we have a Constitution. The Constitution is supposed to be our (the people’s) safeguard against the accumulation of too much power in the hands of too few leaders. That was the point of creating three branches of government as opposed to simply appointing a President (or king) to rule as he or she saw fit. Thanks to Bush and his posse of neocons, we now have an executive branch that thinks it has the power to be judge, jury and executioner under certain circumstances. And they get to determine the circumstances.

While Obama may be reasonable, what about the next President or the next? What if we elected a shoot-first-ask-questions-later cowboy like Rick Perry? Do you want him deciding who’s a threat to America and who isn’t? During the Occupy movement’s brief kerfuffle, the FBI categorized them as a terrorist group. The potential for abuse here is massive.

Defenders of the drone decision like to use hypothetical situations as evidence that the President needs this power. What about a guy strapped with explosives walking into a football stadium? That kind of thing. We are a nation of laws. The police already have the power and authority to stop a madman from hurting others, either by arresting him or, if the threat is imminent, shooting him. If there are people plotting terrorist attacks, they should be arrested and tried. Let the justice system determine their guilt and punishment, not a small cadre of government employees in a White House office.

The drone decision is frightening in its implications and we should all be letting Washington know that it is an unacceptable abuse of executive power.

Eight former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs want the federal government to immediately sue states that legalize marijuana to nullify the legislation

News or Propaganda? Who Cares?

If you missed the story late last week, Breitbart.com editor at large Ben Shapiro broke a story indicating Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel took money from a group called "Friends of Hamas.”  The “scoop” was picked up by FOX News and reported as fact. Unfortunately for everyone involved, there is no group called Friends of Hamas and the story was blown up from a joke made by someone to a GOP source. What’s interesting in the aftermath is that a) Shapiro and Breitbart.com reject the idea that they did anything wrong by publishing the story as an allegation, and b) FOX News had the sketchy editor Shapiro on a show acting as a knowledgeable Washington pundit.

What the Media Matters article fails to point out is that in the conservative media bubble, news and propaganda are the same thing. What we consider news; reasonably objective stories based on verifiable facts, is not what the conservatives consider news. For them, it’s only news if it embarrasses Obama, makes liberals look bad or makes America look good. Facts are not part of that equation. Studies have clearly shown that FOX News viewers are the least well-informed consumers of television news. So it should come as little surprise that Shapiro sees nothing wrong with his unfounded smear of Hagel. 

Worship me or I'll hold my breath until I turn blue

Iraq: An Unwelcome Anniversary Approaches

There has been a hew and cry over the past few years that no major Wall Street honchos have gone to jail related to criminal acts leading up to the 2008 financial meltdown from which this country is still trying to recuperate. And so there should be. However, as much as I think these white collar criminals should pay for their crimes, and as much damage as they did to ruin the financial futures of millions of Americans, they did not send our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, off to a foreign country to kill and die under false pretenses.  

Ten years ago this March 19, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. Aided and abetted by administration neocons Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney and others, Bush lied us into a war that went on for nine years, cost $3 trillion dollars, and resulted in the deaths of nearly 5,000 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis. There were no WMDs, and Saddam Hussein was not working with Al Qaeda. What a decade of investigative reporting has uncovered, is that far from the blundering incompetents they are made out to be by some, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others knew they were starting a war under false pretenses. They had planned to topple Hussein from the earliest days of the Bush Administration.

If anyone should be tried for anything, it should be Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for instigating a disaster of epic proportions that continues to have negative ramifications for our country a decade later. These people are war criminals and should be treated as such. They used 9/11 as a pretext to rain war down on a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on America, and had the gall to ridicule and marginalize those who disagreed with their rush to battle.

The roadblock to justice is that there was such widespread collusion among America’s elites and the media that no one wants to open up that Pandora’s Box of embarrassment. Not to mention that even though he opposed the Iraq war, President Obama seems to have no desire to pursue criminal charges against an ex-president, especially now that he has drone blood on his hands.

I’m afraid our only hope is that we will have history on the side of truth, but even then, it’s a toss up at this point as to what the “official” history of the Iraq war will be. George Orwell knew well the dangers of relying on history for truth when he wrote, “He who controls the past, controls the future; and he who controls the present, controls the past.”

2013

I want to write a sequel to Orwell’s 1984. I’m going to call it 2013. Clever, huh?  Basically, it’s set in a country where the citizens are under the influence of very subtle and sophisticated mind control techniques that, like a drug, lull them into believing they live in the greatest country in the world, when in fact the government is very evil and corrupt.  

I’ve been jotting down some notes about this fictional country. It’s an updated version of Oceania, where the techniques used to control society are much more modern and sophisticated. Here are some thoughts:

• Although the government does not control the media outright, the major media channels—newspapers, magazines, television, radio—are all owned by a small group of companies that tightly monitor content. Despite the appearance of a free flow of information, messages are limited to those that support unfettered capitalism, corporate ideology and the status quo. Alternative views and dissenting voices are marginalized and ridiculed. 
• A huge, bloated military establishment is sold to the people as necessary for the country’s defense. It is unpatriotic to criticize the defense industry or its budget. Small-scale wars are fought continuously around the world to justify the trillions of dollars spent on the military.
• Whistleblowers, those who speak out against government and corporate abuses and excesses, are punished.
• Groups opposing the status quo are treated as terrorist organizations.
• The richest 1% of the population, the true elites, control the vast majority of the country’s wealth.
• Elections are tightly controlled so that only candidates who support the status quo and the aims of the capitalist elites are considered serious contenders to be the country’s leader.
• Leaders of the country claim the right to kill suspected enemies anywhere in the world at anytime.
• Intelligence agencies routinely monitor citizens by tapping telephones, intercepting Internet communications and mail, and infiltrating organizations based on nothing more than hunches and guesses. Presumption of innocence no longer exists.
• The government operates behind a thick veil of secrecy, which people are told is necessary for the country’s defense.

So what do you think? Too outlandish? I realize it is a stretch to create a country like this where the citizens would allow such treatment and not rise up in revolt, but stranger things have happened. 

Look at Obama's Actions, Not His Words

Many liberal publications have gone ga-ga over the President’s SOTU speech last night. “A liberal agenda for his last term.” A progressive road map.” People, people, people. Haven’t we been through this before? Like, oh, the 2008 presidential campaign? Change. Lofty ideals. Progressive buzzwords. Changing the way Washington works. Transparency. Bring the troops home. Help for the middle class. What did we get? Drone wars. Less transparency than the Bush Administration. An administration stacked with Washington and Wall Street insiders. Capitulation. Half-hearted economic policies.

The SOTU was the classic Obama bait and switch. He presses all the liberal and progressive hot buttons in his speech, but when he gets back to the Oval Office it’s Washington business as usual — more war, candy for Wall Street and the head-smacking insistence on trying to negotiate with an opposition party fighting intellectual battles the rest of the world moved past in the nineteenth century.  

Obama is no liberal. As Chomsky noted, Obama would have fallen into the category of moderate Republican not too many years ago. It is way too premature to get excited over a speech with lots of pretty liberal words. The President has given many speeches. It’s his actions that are important. We can start by looking at whom he’s appointing to fill open cabinet vacancies. It’s hardly a bunch of liberal firebrands, but old Washington war horses who have zero interest in changing the way things work in the nation’s capital.

It was a nice speech last night, but Obama’s initial actions are not a promising start to a new term.

A Match Made in Hell

On the heels of his announcement he would be attending tonight’s State of the Union Address, rocker and NRA board member Ted Nugent made a startling revelation this morning that is sending shockwaves through the conservative pundocracy. According to a press release from Nugent’s publicist, he and author and right wing pundit Ann Coulter are engaged to marry.

According to Nugent, he and Ann met at a mock lynching of President Obama at a survivalist compound in Montana. “I have to tell you,” writes Nugent, “It was love at first sight. When she touched the barrel of my AR-15 I thought I was going to lose it. Fortunately, the safety was on.”

The Motor City Madman says that the wedding ceremony is set for August 15 and will take place at San Antonio’s Alamodome during halftime at the 2013 Monster Truck Marathon. “I’m a bit of a romantic,” says Nugent. “Everyone coming into the Alamodome will be given an air horn, and when Ann and I kiss after the ‘I do’s’, ten thousand air horns will go off. It’ll be epic.”

The press release also details the newlyweds honeymoon plans. Immediately after the ceremony, the lovebirds will fly to Haiti for a helicopter peasant hunt and then it will be off to Brazil for an adventure on the Amazon River stalking animals on the endangered species list. “It’ll be an awesome opportunity to kill things together and really bond as a couple,” says Nugent. Finally, the couple will fly to North Korea where they will be the guests of leader Kim Jong Un, who will detonate a nuclear device in their honor. “We have much to learn from these people,” said Nugent.

Attempts to reach Coulter for comments were met with death threats. 

Bush in the Bathroom

So someone hacked George Bush’s email and we are treated to two recent paintings by the former President, one of him in the bathtub, and one of him standing in a shower.

I am not a painter nor am I a psychologist, but that won’t stop me from looking at these paintings and asking WTF? Technically, the work is amateurish and almost childish, but, of course, that’s not what makes these pieces so interesting. It’s the subject matter.

Let’s just say that I had a hankering (we’ll pretend I’m a Texan) to start painting. After buying my canvases and brushes and paints, I need to decide on something to paint. Fine. What’s the first thing I think of? Perhaps a nice still life. You know, a vase with some apples and pears lying around on the table. Or a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Too boring? How about a nice landscape of the Texas hill country or the dramatic plains of West Texas? No? Okay, then what do you think of naked pictures of yourself in the bathroom?

You have to wonder what in the world George was thinking when he decided to paint pictures of himself lying in a bath and standing naked in the shower. Was it a joke? Is there some context to the pictures that we simply don’t get? Otherwise, huh?

Water, especially running water, is a symbol for spiritual cleansing. Think baptism. The water is running in both the tub and the shower pictures. In the shower painting, we see his face reflected in a small mirror. Cleansing. Reflection. Could these paintings be George’s inner desire to be cleansed for his past sins (of which there are so many)? Is he hoping the Almighty will forgive him if he washes his soul clean of his past worldly mistakes? Could he be suffering from a guilty conscience?

Not likely, at least not consciously. Perhaps the tub/shower paintings are part of a bathroom trilogy, and the third will feature Bush sitting on the toilet reading the latest issue of Guns & Ammo. Makes as much sense as any other explanation.

How Does Washington Work? It Doesn't.

Read a good Rolling Stone review of the book Bailout from one of my favorite political writers Matt Taibbi. Bailout was written by Neil Barofsky, the TARP Inspector General in the years following the 2008 economic blowout. What Taibbi finds most interesting about the book is not so much the procedural details involved in the bank bailouts following 2008, but Barofsky’s anecdotes about how Washington works; how people in positions of power do or do not interact with each other. As Taibbi notes in the article:

“… it's a bizarre, almost tribal mentality that rules our capital city – a kind of groupthink that makes extreme myopia and a willingness to ignore the tribe's ostensible connection to the people who elected them a condition for social advancement within.”

The article helped clarify my understanding of the idea that our government today is not really in the business of solving problems. Those of us in the outlands may think that our elected officials and the people they choose to run various government agencies are working night and day to fix things that are broken, but that is a naïve and simplistic view of how Washington actually works.

You see, solving problems means making decisions. When you make decisions, it means that there are going to be people who are happy and people who are unhappy. The question is always: Who will be unhappy with the decision I make? Who will I alienate? Now, foolish you might think that the primary question on the minds of our officials should be: Will this benefit the people of the United States or not? Silly person. As insider Barofsky makes clear, the real needs of the huddled masses outside the beltway are far down on the list of political priorities among our government bureaucrats.

If Washington is not about solving problems, what is it about? It’s about the appearance of trying to solve problems. Officials make adjustments, recalibrate, fine-tune, issue course corrections and modify policies in an attempt make it look like somebody is doing something, when in fact they are merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  

With the iceberg fast approaching, the captain and his crew are more worried about keeping the first class passengers comfy than steering the ship to safety.

Gun (debate) Control

Solid, straightforward, factual article in today’s Mother Jones refuting the top 10 pro-gun arguments you hear from the NRA and others. One of the problems in America with trying to have a reasonable debate on gun control is that the media, both FOX News and the mainstream outlets, allow opponents of gun restrictions to make outrageous claim after outrageous claim without challenging them to provide any research or data to back up their assertions. If you are not a well-informed viewer and you hear someone with a position of authority in the NRA or a congressperson make a statement as if it is a proven fact, you might be inclined to believe it is true. Anyway, the article is worth a read.

Civil Obedience

Thanks, Dan.

It's the Stupid, Stupid

It’s startling and apparently newsworthy when a prominent Republican says something that doesn’t sound like a quote from Forrest Gump’s evil twin. As the keynote speaker at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal chastised his party and its dismal performance in recent elections, saying, "We've got to stop being the stupid party. It's time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. I'm here to say we've had enough of that."

Mmm, okay. Good luck with that.

Seriously Bobby, let me offer a simple observation: You will always be the stupid party as long as your party embraces stupid ideas. I’m afraid simply gagging the most obnoxious and outspoken Republican wingnuts isn’t going to quite do the trick. Just so you know I’m not merely a partisan hack, I am willing to offer you and your party some free advice that I believe will help you shed the, “I’m with stupid” vestments your party has worn since Lincoln…slept in Lincoln’s bedroom. Remember, don’t get discouraged. You have to start somewhere. Ready? Okay.

1.     The Economy: Trickle down economics doesn’t work. Gross income disparity is a bad thing. Policies that hurt the middle class are bad for the economy. Americans want to keep social security, Medicare and Medicaid financially strong entities run by the government, not private enterprise.

2.     Corporate America: Running the government and running a business are different. Government workplace regulations that protect workers are necessary. Unions have their place and should not be demonized. The private sector does not do everything better than government. It’s only right that corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes.

3.     War and Peace: It is not in our best interests to be the world’s police department. We need to spend less on our military and more on encouraging peace. We should stop being the world’s leading exporter of weapons. Supporting brutal dictators because we believe it is in our national interest is always a bad thing. Drone bombings, indefinite detention, torture—these actions do not win the hearts and minds of people in other countries.

4.     Security: We should never give the American intelligence community carte blanche to spy on anyone at anytime. Fences don’t work. Suppressing legal dissent or treating protestors as terrorists is wrong.

5.     Social Issues: America is not, and should never become, a theocracy. Christianity is not the national religion. Imposing your religious beliefs on others through public policy as a bad thing to do. More guns is not a viable solution. Health issues should be between a patient and doctor; the government should not be involved. The War on Drugs has been a colossal failure and should be ended.

6.     Misc.: The world is not 6,000 years old. Religious beliefs should not trump science. Man-made climate change is real and should be immediately addressed. FOX News is not your friend.

Wow. That’s enough for now. I know your mind is reeling, Bobby, but if you really want your party to stop being considered “stupid,” this is your chance. Start spreading the news today. No need for thanks. Just know I’ve got your back. 

A Day of Irony

The beautiful irony of today is that we observe the inauguration of an African-American President on Martin Luther King Day. I think this would be a very bittersweet moment for King if he were alive to witness the day’s events. Could he have imagined a black man in the White House within 45 years of his death? Perhaps, but I think he would be pleasantly surprised to know that we went from Jim Crow to Barack Obama in a single generation.

At the same time, I think he would be dismayed to see what has become of America in the intervening years. Were he standing at the dais giving a speech today, he would certainly be speaking out against the intolerable income disparity that exists in this country, where a small cabal of billionaires controls the vast majority of the nation’s wealth. He’d lament the weakening of labor unions and the ongoing hemorrhaging of investments and jobs to overseas destinations. He would heap scorn on the greed and avarice of Wall Street as it continues to turn its back on Main Street.

 And I have no doubt he would lament the extremist security and national defense policies that have been implemented since 9/11. He would surely scold Washington for creating a perpetual state of war that fulfilled the Orwellian prophecy declaring war is peace and dissent is treason. Drones, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, a bloated defense budget, it would all draw King’s ire and condemnation. As others have pointed out, King was a radical both by 1960s standards and perhaps even more so by today’s. Calling Obama a socialist is laughable. Calling King a socialist would be much closer to the mark. In his later years, he was more and more critical of the abuses inherent in modern capitalism and accurately predicted were our greed and arrogance would take us as a country if the problems of economic disparity were not addressed. And of course, they weren’t.

I think King would take time to celebrate today’s inauguration, and would, if he were here, no doubt be a featured speaker. But he would tell us that as far as we had come, we have a very, very long way to go to fulfill the promise of the America he once foresaw in a dream. 

Killer Toys for 2013

The United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with the CIA, unveiled the first die-cast metal toy in a new line of products being sold on Amazon under the name, “America Owns the World.” The initial offering is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) RQ-1 Predator shown here. This indiscriminate killing machine has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, and Yemen, killing and disfiguring women, children, and the occasional terrorist, since 1995.

On the schedule for release this spring is 1/12 scale replica of a CIA waterboarding operation, complete with paid mercenaries, buckets and leaders of the international community standing outside the facility covering their eyes and ears.

Future releases include a model black site prison in Bosnia (includes pliers and death metal CD), the Abu Ghraib hooded prisoner doll, and “My First Shredding Machine” with copies of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and other useless documents for your child’s shredding fun.

To Pee or Not to Pee, That is the Question

More and more states are considering drug testing as a condition for receiving unemployment benefits. Bills are being introduced in statehouses across the country by Republicans who offer a variety of muddled rationales for their actions that defy the simplest tests of logic. As civil liberty activists have pointed out time and time again, Republicans are spending taxpayers’ time and money addressing a non-existent problem.

This drug-testing frenzy is an interesting and telling contrast to one of the top stories of the moment, gun control. On the one hand, you have fervent gun owners who insist that any infringement on their right to own weapons is government intervention and intrusion of the worst kind, while on the other you have Republican state legislators wanting to know what you’re doing in the privacy of your own home while you collect unemployment benefits.

The irony is painfully apparent. Although Republicans claim to be the party of personal freedom and limited government, they have no problems using the federal or state government to pursue their ideological goals, whether it’s drug testing or abortion or prayer in schools.

Actually, I’m all for drug testing, if it includes our state and national political representatives. Pee away.

Barack, we hardly new ye

How are we to understand Barack Obama’s transformation from an idealistic, highly intelligent, progressive, socially conscious young American black man to today’s marionette of the industrial/military complex’s puppet masters? 

Today’s issue of AlterNet features and article by Alex Kane, “5 Ways President Obama Has Doubled Down on Bush’s Most Tragic Mistakes.” One of the primary reasons why many of us voted for Obama in 2008 was the clear indication in his campaign that his administration was going to move in a new direction AWAY from the previous eight years of secrecy, militarism, isolationism, antagonism, and aggression. However, as Kane points out in his article, not only has Obama extended many of Bush’s most reviled policies, in many cases he has expanded on them. Programs related to the use of drones, warrantless wiretapping, proxy detentions, Guantanamo and indefinite detention have all been expanded under Obama.

And now, as his second term administration begins to take shape, we see Obama once again going to an establishment-friendly, change abhorrent list of nominees like John Brennan, a Bush era supporter of that President’s most controversial anti-terror tactics, as new Central Intelligence Agency director, and conservative Republican former senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. This was Obama's modus operandi at the beginning to his first term, as well, much to the dismay of his supporters.

Why? Why has this president gone out of his way to endorse policies and nominate cabinet members that so glaringly represent everything that was and is wrong with American domestic and foreign policy? I can’t explain it. There are days when I feel like I’m reading a Tom Clancy novel about an idealistic new president who is threatened into compliance by an evil cabal in Washington, D.C. to do their bidding. I’m not sure what other explanation makes sense. The Obama who sits in the Oval Office today is not the Obama I voted for in 2008. That person never made it to the White House.

Dawn or Dusk in America?

I wish I felt more optimistic as I watch the dawn of a new year unfold. Unfortunately, as the “Whew” factor many of us felt after Obama won reelection fades, we’re faced once again with the overarching reality of our present condition — rather than a “dawn,” we’re watching the sun setting on a once great democracy.

A short quote from an upcoming interview with Matt Damon in Playboy brought me back to reality. He says, “It’s easier now more than ever in my life to feel the fix is in, the game is rigged and no matter how hard you work to change things, it just doesn’t matter.” Not an earthshattering insight, but it nonetheless drives home the fundamental state of our nation. Corporate interests — Wall Street, the Fortune 500, defense contractors, gas and oil companies — drive national policy through their many tentacles wrapped around Washington, D.C., and their primary interest is not with the welfare of American citizens or even with the health of our economy, but with profit.

Like others, I was caught up in the moment of Obama’s recent victory, thinking that the good guys had won and they were gonna ride into town, clean out the riff-raff and save democracy, but I came down from that acid trip pretty quickly. The “fiscal cliff” lunacy looms over us, but that’s only one symptom of a serious illness that has infected the body politic in America. Our government is a corporate subsidiary. Forget the quotes of Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln. The only quote that continues to carry any weight, and the one quote that should be chiseled into the monuments and porticos of D.C. is from Charles Erwin Wilson, Secretary of Defense under Eisenhower and CEO of General Motors in the 1950s, who said, “What’s good for GE is good for America.” This is the mindset that is dragging this country down to its knees.

Change? It’s not in the cards, at least, not in the near future. What kind of a country have we become when the Occupy Movement, last year’s minor blip of protest against the current political machine, was treated as a domestic terrorist group by the FBI? In today’s world, simply protesting the status quo can get you lumped together with those organizations that would blow up planes or perpetrate suicide attacks. Our phone conversations and Internet usage are monitored, our movements tracked, our privacy stolen.

Americans are complacent and deluded, and it will take a much larger shock to the system than even the 2008 financial crisis to shake them out of their trance. If nothing significant changes in Washington, D.C., and there’s no reason to believe it will, that catastrophe will happen. The only questions is; will it be too late? 

George Will: The Eloquent Buffoon

Conservative columnist George Will cracks me up. Here’s a guy with the vocabulary of an English Professor, but the mental capacity of a chimpanzee (apologies to chimps everywhere). He’s a gold-plated Timex. A Neanderthal in a tuxedo. In a recent editorial, he argued that low voter turnout in U.S. elections was actually a good thing and no one should be concerned about it, especially not our intrusive, bumbling government, which could one day mandate voting.

He uses high-point Scrabble words and a quote about Carl Sandburg to argue that one of the pillars of a true democracy, citizens voting in elections, just isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, and people who are apathetic, people with “weak motivation,” shouldn’t be voting anyway. And of course, he drags in the Nazis. He seriously argues that high voter turnout is not necessarily a good thing because the Nazis won elections in Germany with high voter turnout.

Let’s start with the fact that 60 million adult citizens in America are not even registered to vote. Then consider that in the 2012 presidential election, only 57.5% of registered voters turned out at the polls. Do the arithmetic and it means that 94 million eligible Americans did not cast ballots for the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet. Ninety-four million. And to George Will, this isn’t an issue.

Well, gosh. I certainly ain’t as smart as Mr. Will, but it just doesn’t make any sense to say that low voter turnout is a good thing in a democracy. Unless you’re a Republican. Traditionally, the lower the voter turnout in an election, the better Republicans do. George Will wouldn’t possibly be arguing that up is down and black is white simply because he’s a card-carrying Republican, would he? He wouldn’t be trying to enchant us by wrapping a partisan, undemocratic turd of an idea in satiny words, would he?

Maybe we should just do away with elections altogether or — and this is probably an idea that Will would embrace — we only allow citizens of a certain high net worth cast ballots for our leaders. George Will could make even that idea sound good.

Maybe the world did end

Best headline of the day: NFL Star Offers Kids Financial Advice. Mmm. Who on the planet would I never, ever want to take financial advice from? Bernie Madoff, John Boehner, my Uncle Al, and…any professional athlete. Maybe the world did end and I’m living in a parallel universe. If I see the headline, Rush Limbaugh To Teach Logic and Critical Thinking at Harvard, I will know the Mayans were right.

Goodbye everybody

Well, it’s been a busy last day. I quit my job, closed out my bank accounts, maxed out my credit cards, sent goodbye emails to all of my loved ones, made my ascension clothes out of an old bathrobe, and I’m writing this from a mountaintop near Sedona, Arizona. I will ring in the apocalypse with finger symbols and generous quantities of scotch. My only source of concern is that I don’t know which direction to face. I don’t want the end of the world to happen behind me. There are several people up here with me, all obviously tripping on acid.

I’ve been chanting and drinking all night. Sun’s just now starting to come up.

A lot of people told me I was crazy, but

Will We Finally Come to Our Senses on Gun Control?

As you would expect, there has been no shortage of insensitive, offensive and downright ridiculous statements from conservative pundits regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Anyone who says that those children died because there wasn’t a Bible in the classroom or a cross hanging on the wall should be involuntarily committed. However, the most Orwellian war-is-peace claim is one we’ve heard before after tragedies like this; if teachers had guns, the murderer could have been stopped sooner.

More guns would have helped. Right. On the surface this is a genuinely illogical argument. But let’s go just a step deeper. Police carry guns, but they also have extensive training in how to use these weapons, and perhaps more importantly, they have training and experience in how to react in stressful situations. Showing a teacher where the safety is and how to aim a weapon is only one part of the equation. Are they also going to go through training on how to react in the event someone enters their classroom and begins shooting? Will they be confident and calm enough to NOT start spraying the room with bullets? Expecting teachers to act rationally and with restraint in an irrational, highly emotional, life and death situation is a fantasy.

More guns in the hands of more people is absolutely not the answer. And I am guardedly optimistic that the horror of Sandy Hook may actually motivate our leaders to start implementing some common sense gun laws in this country. We are, unfortunately, a violent country when compared to other first world nations. We need to do a far better job of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

Just one related note. On the same day that Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six adults in Connecticut, a man in China attacked school children with a knife. There were 23 injuries, but no deaths. The Chinese children will be scarred for life, both mentally and physically, but they are still here to grow up, have families, find rewarding careers and live long lives. The 20 Sandy Hook children are gone forever because instead of a knife, Adam Lanza had a gun. 

The Criminal Side of Political Correctness

Two years ago, someone held up a bank in Sterling, Virginia wearing a Hillary Clinton mask. Yesterday, the same branch was robbed by a person wearing a Mitt Romney mask. As a precautionary measure, bank employees have been given photos of all known national third party candidates and Ralph Nader. 

Too big to fail. Too big to prosecute. Too big for justice.

British-based HSBC, the largest bank on the planet, laundered billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and sanctioned governments like Iran. But no one will go to jail. Instead they have been ordered to pay a fine. Granted, the fine is $1.92 billion, but for an institution that has assets of $2.5 trillion and yearly profits of $22 billion, it’s a write off.

U.S. prosecutors decided that actually punishing the white-collar criminals who oversaw these illegal transactions would ruin the bank’s reputation and destabilize world economic markets. So the British and U.S. executives at HSBC who took part in this criminal enterprise get to stay in their mansions, keep their Rolls Royces and sleep in their satin sheets.

If I go out on the street today and get caught selling an ounce of coke, I would face a mandatory minimum 5- to 20-year jail term, with a possible maximum term of life imprisonment.

I’m too little to win.

Republicans have created a monster

Writing in the Huffington Post today, Bob Cesca makes a good post-election point in his blog. Republicans have spent the past thirty years creating the fear ridden, fact denying, corporate shilling, religiously fanatical, conspiracy loving, racist, homophobic base, and now, like Dr. Frankenstein, they are faced with the reality that they created a monster that cannot simply be ignored or traded in on a new model.

What you sow, so shall you reap, says the Bible, and Republicans are learning that what they have reaped from their efforts is a fanatical and uncompromising core of voters who in no way represent the views of the majority of Americans. The dilemma is if they stick with their monster, they will never generate enough votes at the national level to win the presidency, but if they turn toward the center, they will alienate their valuable cadre of blindly obedient foot soldiers as well as the billionaire corporate ghouls who fund the whole shebang.

It will be interesting to see in which direction the Republican party goes in the next few years, and how the Democrats respond. 

A High-Five for Washington State

California in general, and San Francisco in particular, are about to lose their cult status among Conservatives as the Mecca of liberal madness as Washington state decriminalizes the possession of marijuana and legalizes same-sex marriages. Wow. Bill O’Reilly is going to bleed out his ears over this. Glenn Beck will need a blackboard the size of a tractor trailer to connect all of the evil dots inherent in this master plot to overthrow his Father Knows Best hallucinations about America.

            As many of us have noted for years, most politicians and the U.S. Government in general are way behind the curve on both of these issues. The war on drugs has been a violent, money-sucking, crime inducing failure from the moment the words were first uttered by Nixon in the seventies. This futile fire has been stoked by a wide array of people and institutions that have no interest in the logic of the policy itself: politicians afraid of looking weak on crime, police departments who take in millions from confiscating money and property from the accused, the prison industry, the wine and beer industries, and the military. Finally, finally, after nearly 40 years of this lunacy, the people are starting to be heard, and despite the bluster from the feds, this is a ship that is simply too big to be turned around.

            This is equally true of same-sex marriage. The incoherent arguments of the Religious Right have lost even their entertainment value as people realize the simple truth that love cannot be confined in archaic parameters imposed by the few on the many.

            I came of age in the 1960s and it was a tumultuous and eventful era full of progress, but I would argue that those of us alive at this moment in time are in the midst of an equally momentous time as we experience the slow and painful demise of the white patriarchal cultural hegemony and enter a new period of progress, equality and acceptance.

North Korea, unicorns and the free market

Many people are surprised to learn that blogging is not my main source of income. Although I could certainly live comfortably from my earnings as a nationally beloved political pundit, it is an unfortunate reality that writing will never be as lucrative as my primary business: smuggling unicorn horns out of North Korea for an Armenian revolutionary group.

Called a criminal organization by the U.N., I’ve found the members of the Armenian Socialist syndicate (A.S.S.) to be ethical, hardworking businesspeople who happen to work in an environment where carrying weapons is an unfortunate necessity. They were early entrants into the unicorn horn market in the late 1990s, initially promoting it as an additive in commercial glittery and sparkly products and a value-added ingredient for cutting heroin. After several years of research and development, they created a family of sex toys from the horns that became extremely popular among the wives and mistresses of top Chinese officials, and that has been A.S.S.s bread and butter product line ever since.

My work necessitates spending a lot of time in North Korea, particularly in Pyongyang where the “unicorn lair” was recently rediscovered by North Korean researchers. When I use the word “smuggling,” people tend to assume that my work is done behind the back of the government, but nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve gotten to know the young leader of the country Kim Jong Eun quite well, and when I arrive in the capital city in our Boeing C-17A Globemaster III filled to capacity with missile parts and pastries, we are greeted as dignitaries.

There are those in the international community who are trying to ban the sale of unicorn horns, claiming that the unicorn is a rare and priceless animal that is close to extinction. To these people, I say pshaw. The harvesting of unicorn horns is done under the strictest of international animal safety laws with ultra-hygienic saws and pliers. North Koreans treasure their unicorns and raise them on a strict diet of four-leaf clovers, fairy dust and ground peasants. And, according to officials in the Unicorn Division of the Institute of Propaganda, cutting out a unicorn horn from the animal’s head is completely painless, and unicorns grow back their horns in the same way a lizard can grow back a tail.

Even though my business dealings may not please everyone, and I am unable to travel to many countries for fear of arrest, I am a proud capitalist, entrepreneur and spreader of magical, glittery love sprinkles. Regulations being considered by the international community to protect the unicorn are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to stifle the free market and handcuff the economic risk takers of the world. Stand with me. Don’t let them turn the unicorn into a mythical creature seen only by the North Korean elites, eight year-old girls and people on hallucinogenic drugs.

Thank you in advance for your support.

It’s the end of the world as we know it….

So the world is ending in about two weeks. Regrets? I’ve had a few…but I did it my way. At least I don’t have to worry about Christmas shopping. The question is, how should I spend my remaining time on earth? I’ve got about 14 days to accomplish the things that I’ve been too lazy or incompetent to achieve over the past five decades. I have thought about it, and here is my list of “Must Dos” before I’m incinerated in an earth-sized fireball or whatever it is the Mayans said about the end. I know my aim is high, and my goals may seem impossible, but hey, I’m going to give it my best shot.

1. Make the Nazi zombie beach party porn musical film I’ve got in my head
2. Wiggle my nose like Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched
3. Buy something advertised on a television infomercial
4. Twist Rush Limbaugh’s ear until he apologizes for every breath he’s ever taken
5. Dance naked Gangnam style through the Mall of America
6. Become an Iron Chef
7. Give Al Pacino a noogie
8. Find Waldo
9. Learn to speak Urdu
10. Increase the fiber in my diet