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Store front in North Park, San Diego. What are YOU lookin' at?

Occupy the USA

I've been contemplating these fantastic demonstrations the last week or so.
Someone mentioned the other day that it was sometimes hard to take these people seriously who are taking aim at corporate America and the most wealthy 1 percent because there is video of them using a laptop or standing in line to buy a cup of Starbucks.

And of course, the fact of the matter is that most Americans DO contribute (and it's hard not to) to the greater corporate machine, but we are also all part of the 99 percent that DON'T have a say in policy anymore. Starbucks isn't the problem, Apple isn't the problem, Chase and Citi are.

I don't think faulting the entire world of corporations is really an issue for the movement as a total. The real issue is WE would like to have a say for once in the last 30 years..

I have to admit, most people that I know and my own little family of me, my wife and the dogs are very fortunate for what we have and could very easily dismiss this movement IF we had no empathy for the very real struggles of many of our fellow Americans.

That's the goal of the corporate media right now (particularly Fox). To dismiss this and to get other working Americans to dismiss this whole thing as a bunch of hippies who should be at work.

Rather, the real issue is that we've all had our pockets picked and we are in danger of becoming a third world nation with nothing but two classes. The power to decide policy and the gap between the rich and the rest of the USA has radically changed for the worse in the last 30 years. I think that's what this is about.

These people, mostly pretty young and the bulk of the rest of gen x like us are in the middle of a recession/depression for the first time as working adults and it's scary.

But the scariest part is that it was avoidable, it was deliberate and we have no way to stop it, fix it or compel those WITH the power to do something to change their policy. I think that's why people are marching in the USA. They want a real voice.

Nice one (found on the 'tubes)

Celebrate labor this weekend

Don't believe the lies from those that fight against labor. Remember what was done in the past for YOU!
The corporate/ruling class along with DC successfully beat down the labor movement with efficiency and with the help of our own labor force.
They convinced your average working person that unions were outdated, were taking money from them in the form of higher prices, etc.. or even better THEY were getting something YOU were not. And they convinced people to look the other way at "social issues" while they kicked everyone that earns a paycheck in the teeth.
Let's face it, your average American is not that bright. These people that turned their backs on their own fellow American working people couldn't and don't connect the dots - that what they DO have (such as it is now) - was fought for with collective bargaining. Or just plain fought for with workers' own busted heads and busted knuckles.
We have all benefitted from what those tough people fought for and America was better for many decades because of them.
I joined a union in 1984 at 18 years old (United Food and Commercial Workers Union local 428) and was a member until 2000. When I first joined, I didn't understand the importance, but I learned quickly and have always supported the labor movement. I moved into the high tech world and have been very fortunate to have what I have now. But I will NEVER cross a picket line, will never begrudge what someone else makes working for a living and understand all that was done for me in the past to make sure we all have better working conditions (and more) because of hard won battles.
We can only be strong as a nation when we have a strong middle class.
Support our fellow Americans! Happy Labor Day weekend!

Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?

That is the title of Matt Taibbi's new article this week in Rolling Stone.

I suggest you have a look at the whole thing here, but this is probably my favorite quote:

"The destruction of records by the SEC, as outlined by Flynn, is something far more than an administrative accident or bureaucratic fuck-up. It's a symptom of the agency's terminal brain damage. Somewhere along the line, those at the SEC responsible for policing America's banks fell and hit their head on a big pile of Wall Street's money – a blow from which the agency has never recovered."

Megyn Kelly shows why she's a soulless automaton.

And she does so while being both correct and showing her blatant hypocrisy here.
This is a full on example of what we have become as a society. Selfish idiots like this. It only would have been better if she had screamed "keep your damn government hands off my maternity leave!"
How else do you explain a time when working class people will condemn their own class for wanting to be in a union, or collect unemployment benefits?
They're fired up about greedy teachers and fireman and the police that help and protect them, but never take a swipe against the crass one percent of Americans that own most of the wealth or bankers that worked hard to bring down our economy. Sorry, "job creators". Job creators sitting on 2 trillion dollars of cash who reward their executives millions in bonuses for laying people off and not hiring while they are profitable.

Margaret Thatcher and Reagan successfully started a revolution that told people that there is no society, that you are a society of one. Don't you dare start giving a crap about the rest of the world or the community around you. Those greedy folks that are living in your neighborhood who want to earn a good living, stay protected from dirty air and water or get a hand up when they are down are STEALING FROM YOU! But don't look at the Wall Street bank that actually did pick your pocket.

The Daily Show - Lactate Intolerance
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Happy Birthday, USA!

Very filthy and NSFW!

A gay teen describes her experience at a Utah brainwashing facility

Found this one linked from boing boing today. It's a reprinted story of a teenager that was basically kidnapped with the help of her parents to go to a place for "troubled teens". Which is really just a for-profit prison.

My only hope is that the fellas that show up in the middle of the night to drag someone away occasionally get shot in the face or something.

We can do better than warehouse human beings that don't fit in - whatever that means.

First paragraph quoted below:

"On May 10th of 2007 at around 2:30 in the morning two strangers barged into my bedroom. I started screaming and crying, as in my mind I was sure that these two strangers had broken into my house and were going to abduct me, rape me, kill me, or in some way harm me. They immediately told me that if I did not shut up that they would handcuff me. I was not being in any way violent or threatening. I was reacting in fear for my life by being vocal and hoping that someone would come to help. I had no idea what was going on. I stopped screaming, still in fear for my life. They started going through my closet digging out clothes as I was only in a night gown. They still had not explained what was going on. I asked, frightened, what the wanted from me, trying to see if I could in some way appease them and get them to leave. They then explained that they were going to take me to a school. It took me a second to understand what they meant by this, as this was an extremely bizarre way to introduce a child to a new school. It then occurred to me that this was what my mother had arranged for my brother several years ago when she had him shipped away to Cross Creek. The two strangers were from Teen Escort Service, a for-profit company that transports teenagers, usually by force, to WWASP (World Wide Association of Specialty Programs) facilities."

Countering the liars in their war against Americans

100 years later and people are still dying in sweatshops

High and low points in our great country

I was watching CBS Sunday Morning and two stories really struck me.

The first one was about people in the town of Prichard, Alabama who have had their pensions basically stolen from them.

The second was about John Glenn's amazing life including his Mercury orbit that happened on 49 years ago this weekend on Feb 20th, 1962.

Almost 50 years ago, we were all working towards being the greatest country on earth. Still with a lot of work ahead, of course, but what a time. Launching a man into space. Imagine the wonder.

Today, all around us, America is attacking teachers and firefighters and police and the entire middle class after bankers on Wall Street and elsewhere brought the entire world to its collective knees with their shenanigans. They defrauded the entire world (other than the already wealthy) and perpetrated the greatest wealth transfer in history from working people to the already rich and no one goes to jail. Amazing. And sad.

And on that topic..
The war on working people and why certain assholes should be in jail:

Beck doing what he does best.

In top form. Taking the long train ride to Crazy Town.
Even for him, this one is something to behold.
Best quote I read about it: "Like Howard Beale on hydrocodone"

Then Colbert does what HE does best.

A new low for someone in the "Christian" right:

This is almost like an April Fools post.
Just the title alone: "Native Americans morally disqualified themselves from the land"
The land, meaning America, of course.
Honestly, this is almost (and I do mean almost) hard to believe. Other than the fact that it was posted on the racist, ugly, bigoted AFA site.

Here's some samples:

"The native American tribes at the time of the European settlement and founding of the United States were, virtually without exception, steeped in the basest forms of superstition, had been guilty of savagery in warfare for hundreds of years, and practiced the most debased forms of sexuality."

So we must kill them all.

"The only question that matters today is this one: how much time does America have left to repent of its superstition, its savagery and its sexual immorality before it is too late, before we will have filled up our own slop bucket and will have morally disqualified ourselves from sovereign control of our own land?"

Not sure, ass hat. I'm sure there are plenty of so-called Christians banging whores or hanging out in the closet when they're not doing other dudes, or supporting wars of aggression waged on other savage brown people who can help us answer the question.
What a fucking idiot.

Egypt

This is what 50 years of US foreign policy looks like when the chickens come home to roost.
We prop up a dictator who is "friendly" to the USA (ie, does whatever the military or huge corporations want) and in exchange, we look the other way at their horrifying treatment of the people of said country. Or better yet, when they torture people in our name in the so-called "war on terror".
Now they are rising up (and rightly so) and this dictator could easily be replaced by some religious nut or other kind of fanatic.
It happened in Iran. And similar things have happened in Central and South America (just not the religious nut part). It's long past the time for the US to stop acting like an Empire.
When will we ever learn?
Also, guess where the Chamber of Commerce stands? Yea, that's what I figured.