Trust No One

These are terrible times. It's hard to feel good about anything because the bad news just keeps coming.

Anxiety:


In this country, we divide the world into mini-segments, and assign responsibility for understanding or managing each segment to different groups of people. That means most of us are ignorant about most things in our lives. And the people who are supposed to be responsible for understanding and managing an area too often betray the public and instead act only to profit themselves. Then when we see the full effect of this betrayal, such as people now realizing that Bush and Cheney have looted our country and left us in serious trouble, we feel betrayed, afraid, angry.

Separation:
For example, we assign to the doctors the responsibility for our health and medical care, then are battered and bruised by doctors and drug companies pushing us into needless procedures and serving as guinea pigs for the drug sellers. Generations of women had hormones pushed on them with stern warnings that if they did not take them, their heads would fall off. Turns out the hormones have now been implicated in the radical increase in breast cancer as well as heart disease and stroke. But in the meantime, the drug dealers made a fortune selling women drugs that would kill them. And this happens every day.

Scream:

We have a 24-hour media, or entertainment/media system of TV, radio, and newspaper. And they in turn have stables of people they identify as "experts" who are called upon to explain to all us ignorant folk everything we should think about other fields. For example, every newspaper has a real estate section, and the articles are written by or quote extensively professionals who make a living buying, selling, building, financing real estate. What do you think they always say? It's a great time to buy. Can't lose money on real estate. They always say that because if people stop buying, they will go out of business. And then they've always got some clever excuse when people follow their opinions and lose everything. It's like you can't trust anyone.

Melancholy:
We also have a business section in the newspaper, and now we have 24-hour business TV stations. They are financed by advertising purchased by the Financial Cartels. If the talking heads say bad things about the Wall Street big boys, the Financial Cartels won't buy the advertising and the talking heads will be out of work. As a result, the only thing we see "reported" is what Wall Street has either written or pre-approved. They always tell us it's a great time to buy. You can't lose money in the stock market!! Or so they say.

Well of course you can. The people who make money are the Wall Street criminals and the Financial Cartels. They make money when we buy. They make money when we sell. They make money when the market goes up or down. They've just paid themselves millions more in bonuses, and they could care less that the country is broke. The insiders have hidden their money in private equity funds and secret bank accounts in Switzerland.

It was just reported that 47,000 Americans have secret accounts in one Swiss Bank -- just one of their banks. The understanding is that each of those accounts contains illegal money: somebody didn't report it and didn't pay their taxes; drug money; sex trafficking money; bribes paid to politicians. And the Swiss banks says they won't tell us who owns the accounts. What if it's everyone in Congress? We should go to Switzerland, tell them we've got bunker busters and we'll blow their banks up. Or they can give us the names. One way or the other. Their laws about secrecy should not be honored when that would serve to allow people to get away with crimes.

All the insiders have been looting our country during the entire period of the Bush-Cheney administration. And last September, when it became clear the Republicans were going to lose the White House and Congress, they did their best to clean us out. They sent Hank Paulson to Congress with a note saying "Give us all your money or we'll blow the whole place up." And Congress gave Wall Street an additional $350 Billion of my money, which those scum immediately paid out to themselves and put on private jets to Switzerland to be hidden away in their secret accounts. I say let's go get that money.

Despair:

Before our economy collapsed, the insiders had cute terms to describe attitudes towards Wall Street. Somebody could be "bullish" (like Merrill Lynch was in its official slogan) which meant they thought the future looked bright. Or they could be "bearish," which meant they thought the market was going to go down. I don't think that Thumper and Bambi cutesy little names really do us any good. I prefer something a little bit more honest. Those who see the future of our economy with horror could be called "horrorists." Those who see it with great fear could be called "Great Fearists." Those who simply despair could be called "Despairests." But no more with the woodsy animal names. We're way too old and bitter for that.

Paintings are by Edvard Munch, from Norway. He used his art to express many of the fears and anxieties of humans during other difficult times in the world. "We do not want to paint pretty pictures to be hung on drawing-room walls. We want to create, or at least lay the foundations of, an art that gives something to humanity. An art that arrests and engages. An art created of one's innermost heart."

Rush Limbaugh Is The Elephant In The Middle Of The Republican Party.

You've heard people talk about the elephant in the middle of the living room. It's a popular phrase that means there is an enormous problem in a family, but nobody talks about it or admits it. It's like having an elephant sitting in the middle of the living room, but all the family members just walk around it, decorate around it, never acknowledge it, maybe throw a floral slipcover on it and pretend it's a sofa.

Rush Limbaugh is the elephant in the middle of the Republican Party. He's crapping all over them and stinking up the place. The democrats are laughing gleefully: "Did you see that elephant the Republicans have got in the middle of their party? They don't even seem to smell the stench."

Rush just sits there taking up all the space, eating all the food, getting bigger and bigger, stinking up the place, and the Republicans at best are throwing a floral slipcover over him and hoping the rest of the country won't notice. But we do notice. Everyone notices.

The whole world is looking and wondering when and how the Republican Party got so debased that they would let an elephant come in, take over, and piss all over everything. Maybe somebody should throw a fence around him and charge admission for people to come in and watch the gross elephant show.

Indian Women Fight Back.

In India, as in most countries, the people who suffer most from poverty are the women. In one northern state in India, the women have banded together to create a women's gang, called the Pink Gang because they all wear pink saris. The gang was started by women because the local government is corrupt, and women are routinely beaten by men, mistreated, married off at very young ages, denied any opportunity for an education or a decent job, and then may later be abandoned by their husbands.

There are several hundred women members in the Pink Gang. They have their own system of justice because the local police do nothing to help women. They train their members on how to fight with sticks and axes. They have been known to attack and beat up men who abandon their wives, beat their wives, or participate in government corruption which deprives the poor of scarce resources. On one occasion some of the gang members stormed a local police station and attacked a policeman for his refusal to register the complaint of an "untouchable" man who was a member of the poorest class of India.

When asked why they have formed this gang, the women say that no one in the country comes to their defense, nobody helps them. The police are corrupt, the government is corrupt, so they have to take the law into their own hands and enforce it against wrongdoers.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7068875.stm

"A rambunctious and fearless posse recognizable by their pink-colored saris, the Pink Gang is the nemesis of violent husbands and inept government officials. Having personally suffered abuse, members of the vigilante club thrash abusive men, wife beaters and rapists, confront and shame wrongdoers and storm local police stations to accost lackadaisical cops."


"Formed in 2006 by Sampat Pal Devi, 45, who was sold into marriage at nine and became a mother at 13, the gang challenges everything that is unfair and unjust, like some gang of desperados for justice on India’s wilder fringe. "

"The emergence of a women’s vigilante group in Banda is a symptom of deeper social ills. “If elected representatives refuse to heed the voices of ordinary citizens,” says New Delhi-based sociologist Dr Prerna Purohit, “then people have no choice but to take the matter in their own hands. It’s a wake-up call for the government in the world’s largest democracy.” http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=993&Itemid=34

"(So popular are these local folk heroes that neighborhood shops can't keep up with the demand for pink saris, which women in surrounding villages have taken to wearing in support of their Banda sisters.)

Devi says there are fewer rapes in the area now and more girls attending school. "We don't use violence much anymore," Devi says, beaming. "Now just our name and that we are coming are enough." http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/international/gulabi-gang-poor-indian-women


Thanks to my friend Jean for bringing this story to me.

I'm Sick Of Reading About The Madoff Victims. And Octo-Mom.

Attorneys know that it is critical to present their clients as individuals. Talk about their home, their marriage, their children. Details. Put a face to the name.

700,000 Americans lost their job last month. Name one.

Most Americans have no money to invest. And they certainly never had Bernie Madoff's phone number, nor would he have been interested if they had called. The people who invested with Madoff have been robbed. But so have most of the working people in this country, yet we hear nothing about the average joe and jane who have lost everything.

I'm beginning to think this deluge of stories about "Madoff's Victims" is designed to pressure the politicians to give these people back their money, while the rest of us get nothing. Those of us who just invested in institutional funds, those who have lost their homes and jobs, the faceless, nameless, we get nothing.

The Madoff stories are as tedious as the octomom coverage.

Why not talk about the criminal enterprise that was run by all of Wall Street, and the looting and plundering of our entire country? You know -- the losses by the "people" who are nameless, faceless, but represent the majority of the victims of the Bush-Cheney crime wave.

No bailout for the Madoff victims. No bailout for Octomom. Let's stop the nonsensical weepy gossip-rag level of coverage about an institutional and international crime against the majority of people in this country, and much of the rest of the world.

For example, we should demand the following:

1. Every politician who accepted any money from any business in the Financial Cartels (banks, stockbrokers, insurance companies) should be ordered to pay all that money into a public fund. Too bad if they already spent it. Sell one of their homes, and use the proceeds from that to pay back the public for the bribes they accepted. If they had not been taking bribes, maybe they would have done their job and stopped this crime before its completion. This is both a Democratic and Republican issue.

2. Every employee of any Financial Cartel who earned over $100,000 in any year during the past 8 years should be ordered to pay into a public fund the money in excess of $100,000. Or seize their assets and bank accounts. If the assets and bank accounts cannot be found because they are off-shore, in private equity accounts, throw the people into prison and give them an opportunity to think carefully about where they might have put all that money. If they can't remember, they can stay in prison.

3. Remove the top management in every one of the Financial Cartels. Replace them with reasonably bright lower-level employees and tell them that if they take one penny for themselves in excess of $100,000 per year at the maximum, the public will hunt them down and hang them by their toes in a public square. In a snowstorm. Naked.

4. Every person who cannot pay their mortgage should be given 6 months to move out conditioned on them paying a specific amount (fair rental value) in rent, by the first of the month, into a special account. If they don't pay, evict them. If they do pay, they've got six months maximum to move out. Then let the banks foreclose, take back the property, and take the loss which represents the deflated bubble. Let the banks take the loss, not the taxpayers.

5. Immediately pass and enforce laws requiring each city to build (maybe in a public-private partnership) new moderate-income rental units sufficient to house 10% of their current population, to rent those to current residents of that city at no more than 25% of the average family income (about $12,500/year rental assuming $55,000/year average income). This will relieve the need for affordable housing on an immediate basis, and allow for planning for additional units as appropriate. Instruct the federal government to do a study to determine the number of moderate income rental units that should be available in each city, then make arrangements for their construction.

6. Prohibit banks and lenders from making residential loans for more than 80% loan to value, and/or no more than 3 times gross income in total. No more no-doc loans.

7. Prohibit banks and lenders from loaning money to anyone who is buying foreclosed homes which have been purchased by speculator groups. Let the speculators lose the property, then we'll start all over.

8. Any person who loses their home will be forgiven the difference between the value of the home and the amount of the loans, and that will not considered taxable income or gain to the former homeowner. Anyone who took money out of their home on a re-finance, and used it for other purposes, will be taxed on that amount. It will be considered gain or income to the former home owner.

9. Pass a law to eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction over a 15-year period. Phase it out. All it does is allow the real estate developers and Financial Cartels to keep jacking up the price of houses and convincing buyers that they aren't "really" paying for it because it's a write-off, and it takes money that should be paid in taxes, and gives it to the real estate developers and financial cartels instead of having it available to pay public expenses.

10. Increase social security contributions to 20% (10% paid by the employee, 10% paid by the employer) and remove the cap from the income subject to social security taxes. Increase the monthly payments to replace the lost savings and pensions of people whose money has been stolen by the Financial Cartels as allowed by the corrupt politicians.

11. No special deals for the Madoff victims, no matter how much press they get. Throw Madoff in prison, seize his assets and distribute them to his victims. But that's it. They lose just like the rest of us do.

12. Stop hounding the woman with 14 children. Leave her and her children to the appropriate authorities and any oversight or involvement they may consider appropriate. These are children. Even if their mom is weird, leave them alone.

We Love Our President

NBC News and the Wall Street Journal just released their most recent poll which shows that Obama’s popularity is soaring, and the Republicans remain in the gutter where they belong. Some of the amazing results are as follows:

President Obama

68% have a favorable opinion of Obama.
67% feel hopeful about Obama’s leadership.
60% approve of the job Obama is doing.
57% support the current stimulus package.
76% believe the economy will continue falling for some period of time (so they don’t expect Obama to save the country from the Bush-Cheney recession within a month of his taking office, but think he will succeed in time).
84% believe Obama inherited these economic problems from Bush and Vcheney.
67% think Obama has at least a year to try to improve the economy before it stops being a Bush-Cheney problem and starts becoming an Obama problem.

Republicans

Only 26% have a positive view of the Republican Party.
56% believe Bush and Cheney are entirely or mostly to blame for the partisanship in Congress. 41% blame Congressional Republicans.
56% believe the Republican opposition to Obama is “just politics,” not based on principles.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493021/

Rush Limbaugh Wants The United States To Fail.

Some people have proclaimed Rush Limbaugh to be the new Quarterback for the conservatives and the Republican Party. I don't think so. This man was born a waterboy, and shall die one as well. But the fact that the politicians in the Republican party listen to this guy just shows how corrupt, stupid, and moronic these Republicans are.

Rush Limbaugh is either a college drop-out (after 2 semesters) or a flunk-out. He avoided service in Vietnam. Rush chose not to sign up to serve his country. Perhaps that was because he came from an exceedingly privileged background, from a long line of lawyers and judges. His own academic failures must have been a source of tremendous humiliation for his parents.

Rush Limbaugh has been married and divorced three times already. Is that "family values?" He not only is a drug addict, but he used his maid to score drugs for him. And apparently because the Republicans run the criminal injustice system in Florida, Rush got a pay raise ($33 million/year) instead of a prison term when he was nailed for purchasing drugs illegally, and should have been nailed for running a drug operation out of his home.

So exactly what qualifies Rush Limbaugh to become the leader of the Republican Party, the spokesperson for everything right-wing, waterboy for the conservatives, cheerleader for those who enjoy ridiculing people with disabilities, fund-raiser for the right, chief promoter of hatred of women and minorities. Why is it that this man can publicly say that he wants the United States to fail, at a moment when our economy is a disaster after years of Republican plundering, when millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are close to being broke, why can this man stand up publicly and cheer for the complete failure of our country, and yet continue to receive support from Republicans?

If Rush did not have a face for radio, he probably would have run for political office and lost, and maybe the world would have been rid of him. But knowing that he was only a waterboy at heart, a seller of propaganda, sower of hatred and division, Rush stuck to radio where he sends out a message of hatred to his rabid followers and uses his best efforts to cheer on the total destruction of our country.

But he is not original in this. He is at best a cheap copy of a man who first invented the idea of using the radio to try to bring about the destruction of the U.S. Father Coughlin.

Right-wing hate radio was first invented and made profitable back in the 1930s, by another ignorant white man named Father Coughlin, a Catholic priest who loved Hitler and Mussolini and hated Jews, and had tens of millions of loyal American followers who tuned in every week to listen to his hate radio.
Father Charles Edward Coughlin was a Catholic priest born in Canada, but assigned to a parish in Michigan for most of his working life. He became very well known in the 1930s due to his radio program which was estimated to have reached forty million listeners per week. He initially supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, but soon switched his position and began supporting Nazi views including anti-Semitism, and other policies of Hitler and Mussolini. He preached anti-communism and "Christian" values, which included a support for the fascists. Deja vu all over again.

He was an isolationist, along with Charles Lindbergh, and opposed the U.S. getting involved in any way in supporting European allies against the spread of the fascists. He was rabidly anti-communist, and used that to justify supporting fascism. He echoed the speeches of Goebbels in attacking Jews, athiests and communists, and claiming they were responsible for communism and the destruction of capitalism (as well as being responsible for capitalism, in an odd contradiction that apparently was not a concern to this ignorant man). He quoted Goebbels in his speeches and writings. He reportedly began using the Nazi salute at public gatherings. Not surprisingly, he was very popular with the German-American bund, a social-political organization of German immigrants that openly supported the Nazis.

Two weeks after Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues, and persons were attacked in Kristallnacht, Father Coughlin claimed that "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted." This is, of course, the exact same propaganda that is put out by the right wing in this country, always claiming "Christians" are under attack, and using that as justification to attack and murder others. His supporters opposed any efforts to allow Jewish refugees from Germany to come to the U.S. [Although if Roosevelt or Congress had wanted, they could have landed anyway. This blame must be shared by the people in power].

Coughlin became a supporter, and was partially responsible for the creation, of an organization called the Christian Front. No, I’m not kidding. Sounds like something Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson would have put together. Oh that’s right – they did. Christian Coalition. Anyway, the Christian Front was eventually shut down when the FBI discovered that the group was arming its members and planning to murder Jews, communists, and politicians, and to establish a dictatorship inside the U.S. similar to Hitler’s dictatorship in Germany. Don’t you love the Christians.

Why the Catholic church didn’t shut him up is a subject of controversy, much like the question of why the Catholic church failed to tell its followers throughout Europe that they must stand up against the slaughter of Jews. The church’s version, not surprisingly, is that they couldn’t, for some reason. Others claim the church did nothing because the church’s official view was consistent with the anti-Semitism being preached by the bigoted padre. And it probably was a great fund-raising tool.
After the U.S. was attacked in Pearl Harbor, Father Coughlin and his followers became less popular because they were perceived as supporting the enemy. Finally, in 1942, the Catholic church ordered Father Coughlin to shut down. And he did. See Pope? It wasn’t that hard after all. If only the church had stood up to Hitler a little bit sooner.

Anyway, Rush Limbaugh didn't invent the idea of hating the United States and wishing for it to fail. He's just a johnny-come-lately, a cheap imitation of the madman who started the whole thing: Father Coughlin.

The Republicans Want Obama To Fail So The Private Secret Off-Shore Billionaire Equity Funds Can Buy Up Everything In This Country In A Firesale.

Limbaugh's mantra, now followed by most Republicans, is that he hopes Obama fails. No stimulus, do nothing to help the people, do nothing to save jobs. Just let the entire nation collapse and become a failed state without any funds for the government to do its job. Gangs will control the streets with automatic weapons (like in Mexico) and the only "enterprise" will be criminal. No schools, no cops, no sanitation, no water, no trash pick-up. Nothing but misery and desperation. There will be no laws, just a ruthless deadly piece of land where people die fighting for a bite to eat.

Who would want such a thing? The Republicans would. Remember, Milton Friedman is the god of gods for the Republicans, and he preached throughout his career that the government should have nothing and do nothing. He believed governments should be eliminated and replaced by corporations. You know how those CEOs are so good at running things. Into the ground. If the country is broke enough, the government will be forced to sell off everything: the streets, the highways, the water, the oceanfront, lakes, schools, airports, everything, to private buyers.

Most of the rich people in this country have been robbing us blind during the Bush years, looting the treasury, looting every business they touch, lying about their earnings, not paying taxes, then hiding their money overseas, taking it out of here in private jets and piling it up in secret locations outside the U.S. What do they want to do with that money? Buy everything. Own everything.

Do you want a drink of water? Are you thirsty? Is your child thirsty? Can you imagine all the water in the country being owned by some corporation that will charge for every drop. Thirsty? That will be $5.00. Want to take a bath? $30.00. No more toilet flushing, clothes washing.

This is exactly what has happened in every country that has been taken over by Milton Friedman cultists, such as Chile, Argentina, the former Soviet Union, South Africa: everything the state owns is taken by a small wealthy elite, and then they turn around and charge the citizens a fortune just for the right to breathe air. They call it "privitazation." I call it theft, and fascism. When the government turns the control of the people and the resources over to corporate control, that's fascist enough for me.

That's why Limbaugh is pushing for the country to fail. After all, his sponsors are the same corporations that would profit from the complete failure of the country. What is the definition of treason? Is rooting for your country to be destroyed good enough?