- The workforce participation rate is the percentage of the population that is either employed or unemployed (that is, either working or actively seeking work).
goblin uprising
Friday, August 05, 2016
Four in ten Americans decide to walk the Earth like Caine on Kung Fu
Tuesday, February 04, 2014
Beginning the Case for a More Rational Minimum Wage
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Everybody's Got the Right to Love
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Whose Property? Their Property.
Scene 1: Oakland, CA, January 2012.
Occupy Oakland protesters gather with the stated intent to commandeer an abandoned building, so that the building could be used as a meeting space. En route, protesters clash with police, who fire on unarmed citizens.
Eventually, police dedicate a truly impressive amount of time and energy to arresting 400 people outside of the Oakland YMCA, while violent crimes and emergency calls go unattended.
In the aftermath, City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente states that it’s “terrible” that protesters are consuming police resources, but “when you have hundreds if not thousands of people, and you never know if they are going to break windows or vandalize businesses, you have to respond.”
Scene 2: Truckee, CA, also all across the country, 2010.
Bank of America wrongfully forecloses on the house of one woman, disposing of her belongings without alerting her. She tells the NYT “This is in essence a burglary, but when a burglar goes in, they don’t take your photos and your husband’s ashes.” Yes, dead husband’s ashes.
Today, the federal government reached a settlement with 5 of the largest banks over the offenses related to “robosigning” foreclosures, the practice of rapidly processing millions of foreclosures without proper documentation, which resulted in scenes like the woman in Truckee’s all over the country. The settlement means that the number of people arrested for these crimes will remain at 0.
Says Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, one of the best out there, “Robosigning is not a small offense. It's not a "clerical" issue. It's a mass-perjury issue, a tax evasion issue, a contractual fraud issue, and it's a criminal conspiracy issue (the banks' highest executives were engaged in planning it) and it resulted in millions of errors that resulted in untold numbers of premature foreclosures.”
-----Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that a city leader would state that the possibility of windows being broken totally forces the hand of an entire police force. It’s a fucking window my man, and last I checked we’d figured out how to replace windows. To me, property crime should always take a back seat to people crime, especially violent-emergency-type people crime. Isn’t it just absurd to think of dozens of police in armor guarding an abandoned building while 911 rings off the hook?
But it’s not just that they have a dumbass policy of protecting things before people, because when it’s people’s things that need protecting from businesses, rather than the other way around, no one goes to jail. The banks are allowed to “settle” for less money than they made doing the robosigning in the first place, and as part of it, they get immunity. Them and all the contractor thugs who actually do the burglarizing.
This is what the Occupy movement is really about. It’s about how we’re playing a rigged game, how powerful businesses get a pass on things like “laws,” while normal people who point that fact out get arrested.
I don’t want the movement to get unduly wrapped up with police confrontation; I’d rather concentrate on the real 1%. But the police ARE a symptom of the larger problem. It is impossible for me to consider the two scenes above and not conclude that, when push comes to shove, the police are equivalent to a taxpayer-funded private security force for business interests. As we push for real reforms to the system, how the police approach people’s interests and business interests has to be on the table.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Torture? That's a No Brainer!
Alright, so we've all heard the Response According to Hoyle from the GOP on the water-boarding issue. A great example was given by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, and you can watch it here if you'd like (http://crooksandliars.com), but it's the same thing you've heard a dozen times by now and it goes something like this:
Q: 12 human rights organizations have united to petition this government to keep practices which violate Common Article 3 of the Geneva convention, such as water-boarding, illegal. This law was in fact used to prosecute Japanese soldiers after WWII for that exact practice. Does the senate's "clarification" of the language of that law keep those practices illegal?
A: See, you have it all wrong. The whole point of this clarification is to clarify the very vague language of this law that's been agreed upon by everyone in the world for more than 50 years. If we can't clarify this law, the interrogation of Terrorist suspects, which has saved lives in America, will have to stop, and we can't allow that.
Q: But are the specific practices mentioned by the human rights groups still illegal? You should know since this law is so clear now right?
A: I can't talk about specific practices because that would be giving the terrorists a play book. They could train themselves to endure the techniques that are allowed by the very clear law and terror would ensue.
It's at this point that every single journalist I've seen engaged in this discussion, which is many, then moves on to another topic (or maybe they repeat the last question, getting the same response and then move on, but what's the difference?). This is the problem, they don't follow up with simple questions that would nail it down, leaving the issue up in the air and defined by the GOP spin doctors, which generally turns the "interview" into propaganda.
Here is an easy one for example.
Q: But if water-boarding wasn't allowed in this new rule, wouldn't it be okay for the terrorists to know, since we're never going to do it them? We haven't told them what we will be doing, so they still can't train to get around what we will be doing, so we haven't lost any future information. It almost seems like by saying that you can't tell us whether the practice is in or out, you're saying that it is going to be allowed, and wouldn't that be eroding the law as it's stood for more than 50 years? This is a practice that's been illegal and that the US has prosecuted foreign nationals for, so including it in our interrogation programs would be changing the law, not clarifying, right?
Was that so hard?
-----
thought i'd post it here with this update:
Cheney was interviewd on Tuesday on a conservative talkshow and had this to say of waterboarding (Miami Herald).
''Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?'' Hennen said.
''I do agree,'' Cheney replied, according to a transcript of the interview released Wednesday.
''Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?'' asked Hennen.
'It's a no-brainer for me," said Cheney.
So, it seems that we can talk about individual practices afterall. What a bunch of assholes.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Get to know the DLC
If you’ve followed the news in recently you’ve probably seen some pretty harsh condemnation of “bloggers” (whoever these nutcases are) for their support of Ned Lamont, Democratic candidate for senate in
Cokie Roberts said on ABC that voting against Lieberman would be a “disaster” for democrats.
The Washington Post (1/29/06) reported that “Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.”
Then again, (6/11/06) wondered “whether the often-angry rhetoric and uncompromising positions of the bloggers will drive the party too far left and endanger its chances of winning national elections.”
The Los Angeles Times (6/11/06) shares the worries of “Democratic centrists who fear that the new activists are pressuring the party toward liberal positions that will impede its ability to build a national electoral majority.”
And the paper that the Rush Limbaugh’s of the world smear for it’s liberal bias, The New York Times (4/2/06), wrote that liberal blogs “have proved to be a complicating political influence for Democrats. They have tugged the party consistently to the left, particularly on issues like the war”
So why are Democratic voters being lambasted for voting for a real Democrat rather than a Republican in Dem’s clothing? Why are we being told that blogs and candidates that share the view of 60% of the country,
It’s beyond the scope of this post to give a full rundown of DLC history, but it’s out there, “DLC” into google does the trick. What’s important to know is that they are neocons in the democratic party. Story goes, conservative democrats got together with lots of big corporations (just for support, they’re very supportive those faceless monoliths) after the 1984 presidential debacle and formed the DLC as a way of moving the party further to the right to become more electable, which is where you get all this moderation, move to the middle bullshit now. It’s where we got John Kerry.
Thing is, similar institutes that were also funded by big corporations had just moved the republicans much further to the right in the decade before. It’ was a particularly well played hand in a way. Social conservatives were easy to sway because they were pissed off at the progressives in the 60’s and 70’s who had been telling them that they were wrong and stupid for the better part of 20 years. “You’re a bigot! FREE LOVE!” didn’t play well in the heartland and what were once hotbeds of economic populism became strongholds for “family values” and soon the neocons that would exploit them.
Once that was pretty well locked in, big business played the DLC card, convincing progressives that the only way they’d get elected, so that they can get environmental protections passed donchaknow, would be to follow the lead to the economic right.
Sure I like the environment and education better than bans on gay marriage and prayer in schools, and I guess that makes me more a democrat than a republican. But what WE, all of us, need to realize is that we’re getting played. Big business, and it’s mouthpiece Big Media (see nonsensical quotes above), don’t really give a crap about your cause. In fact, the economic system that they want to see advanced will almost inevitably kill your cause, be it cleaning up the potty mouths or cleaning up the superfund sites. The proof of that is easy enough to see now, look at abortion bans, and gay marriage bans, and all that crap. Hasn’t happened even though that’s what Bush won with. The tax cuts for the wealthy and war profiteering are happening sure enough, but the social conservative stuff seems to disappear when push comes to shove.
They’re plenty ready for you to have your cause if it gets you so worked up that you’ll sell out your own best interests. And that’s what we’re all doing here, we’ve got to be able to see that. Read What’s the Matter with Kansas, conservative or liberal you’ll learn something about what those terms used to mean. Just because you want to end legal abortion doesn’t mean you’re ready to give the national treasury to the richest .001%. Ditto the save the whales crowd.
The sheep’s clothing is slipping off the wolf a little bit with this Lieberman campaign because it’s so absurd. I mean the guy said he’d ditch his party if he lost and then begged voters to be loyal to him because he’s a long time incumbent. The media lockstep for a guy like that just doesn’t add up unless there’s something else going on, and there is. He’s the DLC guy, and they have the power to put that on the airwaves.
Let's all bicker about the surface stuff later, deal? Let's vote for guys like Ned Lamont, who actually represent what most of us are thinking. Let's stop getting manipulated by the mother fuckers! We can sort all that other shit out after we have a decent economic and foreign policy.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Bush Jr., Insult Comic of Presidents
Political and religious leaders supportive of the amendment noted this week that allowing same-sex couples to marry will have disastrous affects on children, family, and society. I take exception to that, for obvious reasons. I do not consider my life a disaster, and while I welcome debate on that point from any politician who would like to make an appointment with me, I'd rather they didnt continue deriding me publicly. My family is not a disaster either; I count on them for support, we're close, and enjoy regular visits and correspondence, so that claim is a sore spot for me as well. Additionally, the work that I and my family do in the health care and education fields, and our active involvement with our church and other charitable organizations, hardly seem like a disaster for society. So that one stings a little too; it feels a little like an attack on my family. It's a personal insult to me and the hundreds of thousands of other non-disasters raised in same-sex households, and not one we should have to bear from our elected representatives.
I'm also offended as a rational person by the presented arguments for this amendment. For example, President Bush has stated that changing the definition of marriage would undermine the family structure. Putting aside the use of the pejorative undermine, this is insulting to a rational mind because it is clear that allowing same-sex couples the benefits of marriage will not change the family structure in any way. Right now, same-sex couples in every state in the union cohabitate, raise families, go on vacation, etc., and none of that will change with this amendment. My childhood is evidence of that fact as my mom and her partner are not legally married. This amendment does nothing, thankfully, to outlaw same-sex relationships, it just makes life harder for those couples by not allowing them the ability to share benefits and by defining them as second class citizens.
Neither does the amendment protect heterosexual marriages in any way, because unless some people arent being honest with their fiancés, husbands, or wives, no currently heterosexual person is going to marry someone of their own sex just because its legal. So the entire undermining the family structure argument for this amendment is illogical, because this amendment wouldn't change one thing save making nearly permanent the denial of equality to a group of American citizens. It is not the legal definitions that make a family, it is the actions of the people who come together to form it, as any rational person knows.
Finally I am offended as a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ that this amendment has been trumpeted as if it were in some way in accord with those teachings. It is widely understood that this amendment is indented to please a particular religious orientation, but it is not in accord with Biblical wisdom like:
In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you,
And,
Do not judge so that you will not be judged.
Clearly this amendment seeks to permanently restricts freedoms and protections, a fate none of its supporters would chose for themselves, and judges those in the GLBT community as second class. Additionally I am reminded of the famous story of Jesus and a woman accused of adultery, a marital sin. While I do not believe homosexuality is a sin, there are those that do, and for them the parallels of this lesson cannot be ignored. To those who would have condemned the woman, Jesus said:
He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.