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The Horatio Alger Problem

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Horatio Alger is the reason that 50% of the 1.7 million Americans whose unemployment benefits have been disrupted because of republicans in the senate, will vote republican in November. I’ll go a step further – Horatio Alger is the reason why the republican party still exists today.

Horatio Alger was a late 19th century author who wrote happy, clappy rags to riches stories aimed at young working class men. He wrote his inspiring tales during a time when the American dream was actually somewhat viable. Sure the legacy rich have always had a significant advantage in the American “capitalist” system but in Alger’s time, hard working nobodies had some measure of a shot at moving into a higher economic class than the one they were born into.

But his happy claptrap has been coming back to bite us in the ass for decades now. The American dream has been dying a slow and painful death for at least the past 40 years. Income inequality in America is reaching Gilded Age (1880) levels.

Here are some interesting facts about where we’re headed;

-Between 1979 and 2000, the real income in the bottom 20% of earners in the US grew by 6.4%. During that same period, real income for the top 20% of earners grew by 70%.

-The family income of the top 1% grew by 184%.

-In 1979 the average income of the top 1% was 133 times that of the bottom 20%. In 2000 the income of the top 1% had risen to 189 times that of the bottom fifth.

-Thirty years ago, the average CEO made thirty-nine times the pay of the average worker. Today, it’s over one thousand times the pay of the average worker.

According to an OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) study released earlier this year, 47 percent of the economic advantage that high-earning fathers in the United States have over low-earning fathers is transmitted to their sons, compared to 17 percent in Australia and 19 percent in Canada.What does this mean? It means that if you’re born rich in America, you’re more likely to stay rich regardless of ability or intelligence (think George W Bush or the Koch brothers). And when people that are born rich have an advantage by virtue of being born rich, that means they’re taking opportunities away from everyone else (Google: nepotism).

Here’s a little spreadsheet that paints a VERY clear picture of what’s happening to America:

Are you seeing a pattern here between wealth distribution and which party has the white house? 99% of Americans got fucked by Reagan, Bush 1.0 and Bush 2.0.

The wealth inequity in this country is growing, and it’s happening fast. This brings me back to the Horatio Alger problem and republicans.

See, republicans have completely stopped pretending to be a populist party. Between their “slush fund” mantra, when referring to the funds that President Obama secured from BP, to their choking off unemployment benefits to people that desperately need them, their message is clear; we don’t give a shit about average Americans. If you don’t have a butt load of cash to donate to our reelection fund, you can go fuck yourself.

That’s not hyperbole; that’s a very clear message from republicans. Just yesterday, Jon Kyl (the other douchebag senator from Arizona) said that the Bush tax cuts should remain in place regardless of their impact on the deficit. And yet, he will only agree to sanction unemployment benefits for struggling Americans if they’re paid for. His deficit hawkiness evaporates when it comes to paying for tax cuts for his really fucking rich donor buddies. But if you’re one of the 1.7 million Americans fighting to secure one of the 370,000 jobs that are available, then you’re clearly a lazy slacker who deserves to starve. Republicans aren’t hinting at the fact that they think you’re a loser that should just go away already, they’re saying it outright. Sharon Angle has said it, Rand Paul has said it, Jon Kyle has said it, and Tom Delay has said it. That’s just naming a few among a vast sea of republicans that have contempt for struggling workers (see an older post of mine here).

But when it comes to alleviating the suffering of the rich, there’s nothing that republicans won’t do or say. You know how they always champion the elimination of capital gains tax? Let’s take a look at who has capital gains in America, shall we:

Let me explain what “capital gains” are. Capital gains is essentially the money that your money earns for you. It’s the appreciation in value of your investments. This includes property, stocks, and the value of your business. It’s the money that you make from the extra money that you had lying around to invest. Well not you (as we can see from all the data), you’re broke. We’re talking about Paris Hilton. She’s making a shitload of money off the money that her grandfather made. She didn’t even need to be born to smart parents. Her parents aren’t that bright. No, all she needed to do was to be born to the children of a smart guy. Everybody knows Conrad Hilton. Does anyone know the name of Paris’ father? No, me neither. And the best part is that Paris doesn’t have to do anything to make money. That whole celebrity whore thing she does is purely for her own enjoyment.

The fact that Paris and her parents can stay rich, despite having no discernible intelligence or talent, makes them the beneficiaries of another favorite republican cause; eliminating estate taxes. Republicans believe that while you’re working your whole life, amassing no capital with which to create gains, Paris and her family should be able to inherit a crapload of money that they shouldn’t pay one thin dime in taxes on. And Jon Kyl doesn’t care how big of a deficit we have create in order to preserve this “right” for Paris. She was born lucky and dammit, Jon Kyl is going to do everything he can to extend her luck because she’s obviously going to create millions of jobs with her ill gotten gains.

So why would anybody that isn’t among the richest 1% ever vote republican? Because of Horatio  Alger and the myth of the American dream. Never mind the fact that you’re on unemployment right now, you’re definitely going to be filthy rich someday, and therefore need to make sure that your kids don’t get hosed by having to pay taxes on the billions that you’re going to leave them in your will. Some people (roughly half of us) have to buy into the thinly veiled republican bullshit in order to keep the illusion of the American dream alive.

The sad irony is that those people are the ones that are killing the American dream. Supporting the republican effort to let rich people keep all of their money (whether they earned it or not), ensures that Americans will get poorer and poorer.

They need to get over it.

Horatio Alger is a fucking fantasy and Paris Hilton will not create a job for you, no matter how charitable you are towards her.

You need to start voting in your own best interest because the illusion you’re under isn’t going to feed you.

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You’ve Already Lost

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Meg, Meg, Meg. 81 million dollars out of your own pocket, just so that you can click the “buy now” button on the governorship of California. That’s only the beginning. That 81 million is just what she had to sink into the primary. I’m fairly certain that she’s going to be pulling out her credit card at least 80 million more times before the general election.

Guess what Meg? Even if you pull off buying the governorship, you’ve already lost. You conceded to being an inferior candidate the minute you dipped into your personal fortune to buy the primary. You couldn’t even get your stinking rich robber baron friends from Goldman Sachs to pony up enough cash to make you attractive to California republicans. They apparently don’t feel that you’re a good enough investment. I’m sure they know that you’ll give them a lot of bang, but you simply cost too many bucks. You’re a loser Meg. The really pathetic part of this whole thing is that you were born really fucking rich, which means that you were given every advantage in life. You were a guaranteed winner. And now you’re a loser of monumental proportions. You may well win the governorship of California, but you and I know that you’re a loser and we always will.

Speaking of losers, how bout that Jim DeMint?

Before I get to Mr. DeMint, let me give you a little background on the South Carolina senatorial race. The winner of the democratic primary in that race was a totally unknown man named Alvin Greene. Alvin didn’t campaign at all. He didn’t run a commercial, he didn’t put up a single lawn sign. He’s piss poor and yet, he somehow managed to cough up the $10,440 filing fee to register his candidacy. Alvin was arrested on an obscenity charge back in November. Since he can’t afford an attorney, he filed the necessary paperwork in order to obtain a public defender. And we have some allegations (not yet confirmed) that republican operatives helped Mr. Greene. There are also some allegations of voter tampering, but we don’t yet know if that’s the case or if Mr. Greene simply won because his name was first on the ballot.

The whole situation smells bad. Something fishy is going on here. I’m sure that democratic party in South Carolina will get to the bottom of where the $10,440 came from. I’m fairly certain that the trail will lead back to South Carolina republicans, which brings me back to Jim DeMint.

LOSER. You’re a loser senator DeMint. We don’t know yet if he was involved in this whole Alvin Greene sleaziness or if republicans in South Carolina acted without his knowledge but either way, someone doesn’t think that Jim DeMint can win this election without cheating. That’s pretty pathetic when you consider that incumbent senators have won 78% of their elections since 1914. When add that kind of advantage to the fact that you’re a republican in a state that generally doesn’t vote for democrats, your victory should be a slam dunk.

And yet someone had to create an Alvin Greene situation in order to secure your victory. You’re a loser. And the worst part is that you’re a loser that has no respect for the people you “represent”. Whether the election was tampered with, or an assumption was correctly made that South Carolina voters would ignorantly vote for the first name on the ballot, the contempt for South Carolinians is clear.

These people are fucking losers.  We all know it, and they know it. And yet, we’re going to have to tolerate their insufferable superiority and joy when they “win” their elections.

Americans need to wise up to these losers if for no other reason, than to spare me the indignity of having to witness their smugness. If you’re not going to vote in the best interest of your own community, please vote in your own self interest. Trust me, you don’t want to experience the dizzying heights of bitchiness that I will reach of I have to watch a Whitman or DeMint “victory” speech!


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The Little Apologist That Could

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I am SO over apologists, I can’t even tell you. Corporate apologists, political apologists, national apologists, I’m fed up with all of them.

People need to understand that apologizing for their “team” necessitates more apologizing. You’re not doing your ideology any favors by making apologies and excuses. You’re just compounding the problem. And you’re insuring a lifetime of apologizing.

People often accuse me of being too hard on Obama. I firmly believe that there’s no such thing as being too hard on something that you support or supported. If supporters don’t speak out against the thing they support when they fuck up, they just guarantee that more fucking up is coming. We should demand more from the people that we support. Why would anyone actively set the bar low?

Our country is in financial ruin. Our middle east policy is an unmitigated disaster. Our money would be virtually worthless if it weren’t for the fact that our financial “big wigs” were greedy enough to ship our fiscal malfeasance all around the world. Our kids are getting dumber and dumber every year, as we drop further down the world rankings for education. Our military is on the brink of collapsing. And it’s all happening because of apologists.

We all watched Bush (2.0) get away with murder for eight long years. That didn’t happen because there wasn’t a strong opposition. It happened because his supporters were willing to go along with every single bit of bullshit he served up to them. He didn’t care about the opposition because they were irrelevant. They were never going to support him. He was going to be just fine as long as he didn’t lose his supporters.

And to make matters worse, liberals and democrats (they’re not the same thing) were so busy hating him that they weren’t paying attention to what democrats in the senate were doing when they finally regained power. Nothing changed in the senate when democrats took over. The house improved nominally, but not nearly the way it should have. The “emergency” supplementals  that were putting our country in financial ruin continued. Troops levels in both the war and the occupation didn’t go down. Deregulation of fucking everything kept humming along. Nothing changed because democrats weren’t paying attention to how Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and about a half dozen other democrats in the senate were helping Bush ruin this country. They were all too busy screaming at Bush.

Supporters need to be more vigilant and critical when it comes to their own side.

We’re seeing this at play with Obama right now with the gulf oil spill. Although the damned thing is still gushing uncontrollably down there, we now know that there are engineers from all around the world working on it. We have engineers from Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Russia working on this finally. Three weeks ago, we seemed to have only BP working on this. We didn’t see much action until the public outrage over Obama’s handling of the situation began. It didn’t look like he was going to spring into action until we made him. Now I don’t know of we’re just getting better communication from the white house or if we’re getting more resources working on the problem. But either way, we’re getting more than we were before the outrage.

Refusing to accept either the half assed communication, or the half assed efforts at fixing the problem got us some results. We need to keep it up. We, the supporters of Obama are ultimately responsible for what we do or don’t get our of him.

This isn’t just relevant to Obama. This is extremely relevant to the situation in Israel at the moment.

People who are apologizing for Israel today will never be done apologizing for Israel. Jewish apologists in particular will find their children and their children’s children apologizing for Israel. The Israeli government is spiraling out of control in much the same way that the German government spiraled out of control under Hitler’s rule. I don’t believe that Hitler apologists from 1925 ever imagined, in their wildest dreams, that their great grand children would be apologizing for what happened there.

Israeli apologists, particularly in the US have the power to stop this before it goes any further. I’ve been reading far more criticism for what Netanyahu is doing in Israeli newspapers than I am in the American press. Haaretz is doing a fairly good job of presenting both sides of the story. There are even a few even handed articles in the op ed section of the Jerusalem Post, which is surprising. But the main stream American press has almost unanimously taken a pro-Israel stance on this issue.

I don’t believe that apologizing for what Israel is doing in Gaza is ultimately good for Israel. And I believe that apologists apologize for Israel at Israel’s peril. You don’t support a people by allowing them to do anything they want, regardless of international law or sentiment. You support them by forcing them to correct course when they’re driving off a cliff. Aiding and abetting criminal action is not love, it’s enabling.

I criticize because I love.

We need to stop this epidemic of apology.

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Who’s Your Daddy?

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I love FOX News. I love the pundits, I love the “reporters”, I’m only mildly amused by the commentators (but that’s because they’re all dimwits). I mostly love them for their talent. Yes, I said talent. You have to be a pretty talented broadcaster to repeat the same talking points that have been repeated over and over again for the six hours preceding your show, and still make it fresh. Like it or not, it does take a high level of skill to parrot what you’ve been told to say, while making it your own. They’re talented in the same way that hosts on QVC are talented. Not everyone can talk about some worthless trinket for ten minutes, while still keeping the audience engaged.

Yesterday’s talking point was predictably, about how Obama was the loser in the elections on Tuesday. He lost big, because the two candidates (Specter and Lincoln) that the administration backed both lost. It was odd that they didn’t apply the same logic to McConnell’s boy losing in Kentucky, but that’s beside the point. All day on Wednesday, different pundits and reporters were bandying about the phrase “referendum against Obama”. Some of them spoke of this referendum authoritatively, others listened intently as their guest made this assessment, and yet others delivered their analysis as if they were making a brilliant point that had not yet been made. The entertainment lies in the different forms of delivery. It’s fascinating to watch it go on and on, hour after hour.

But style points aside, I have a newsflash for the people on FOX News. Obama is my president, not my daddy. I don’t take marching orders from him and I don’t consider a vote against the candidate that he supports to be a slight against him. He backed two candidates that weren’t liberal enough for democratic voters. If anything, Tuesday was a win for progressives who are doing what they can to move Obama leftward. He won his election by promising us change. We’re going to make him honor that promise whether he likes it or not. Voting for someone other than the candidate he stumped for is not a referendum on Obama. Voting for Obama’s opponent in the next election is a referendum against Obama.

Republicans have a hard time with the concept that your president isn’t your daddy because they generally go along with what their leader tells them they should go along with. Warrantlessly wiretap me? YES DADDY, I love small government! You’re going to drive up the biggest deficits this country has ever seen? YES DADDY, I’m a fiscal conservative! You want to funnel billions of my dollars to your corporate cronies at Haliburton? YES DADDY, I believe in the free market! They were happy to contradict every single tenet of conservatism because daddy told them to.

So now they’re left with nothing, other than to project. We’re not mindless lemmings, happy to go along with everything our president tells us to do, so we must hate him. We voted for candidates that were to the left of the ones he backed so we must all be turning against liberalism, thereby proving that we’re a right of center country.

Republicans don’t understand democrats and independents at all anymore, which is becoming problematic, since their voters don’t trust the establishment anymore. Daddy has slapped them around one too many times. When you simply don’t understand 60% of the country, and you’ve abused another 20% one too many times, you’re in deep trouble.

I sound like a broken record, but get it together republicans! I can’t have a country with only one viable party.

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The Apple Did Not Fall Far From The Tree

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I’m referring to Rand Paul. It’s barely been thirty six hours since he won the republican primary for the open senate seat in Kentucky. Since his victory, he’s said some things that make him seem a little bit racist.

Before I can share my opinions on Rand, I must first begin with Ron Paul. I do have to preface all of this by telling you that I do not believe in blaming the son for the sins of the father. I believe that doing so is unfair, and generally unfounded. When I bring up Ron Paul, I do so because I believe that it’s important to understand the ideology under which Rand Paul was raised.

Ron Paul first registered on my radar during the first debate for the republican primary in 2008. It became very clear in the first ten minutes of that debate, that Ron Paul was not your typical republican. He said a lot of things that made sense. I felt as if he was the republican counterpart to Dennis Kucinich in that, he was a conservative truth teller, impervious to party talking points and corporate interests. There were many points in which I vehemently disagreed with Ron Paul, but I definitely felt that he merited a closer look.

So I started to do some research. A few hours into my research, I came across the newsletters that Ron Paul published monthly from 1978 to 1999. I found this article about the newsletters from a January 2008 story in the New Republic. Let me short hand the article for you with some quotes from the newsletters;


“opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions,”

“if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be,”

He claimed that black representative Barbara Jordan is “the archetypical half-educated victimologist” whose “race and sex protect her from criticism.”

“Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist philanderer, Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day”

One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” were better alternatives.

But don’t worry blacks, you’re not alone in Ron Paul’s world of the unworthy;

In 1990, one newsletter mentioned a reporter from a gay magazine “who certainly had an axe to grind, and that’s not easy with a limp wrist.”

In an item titled, “The Pink House?” the author of a newsletter–again, presumably Paul–complained about President George H.W. Bush’s decision to sign a hate crimes bill and invite “the heads of homosexual lobbying groups to the White House for the ceremony,” adding, “I miss the closet.” “Homosexuals,” it said, “not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”

“Homosexuals, if admitted, should be put in a special category and not allowed in close physical contact with heterosexuals.”

Feeling left out, Jews? Don’t worry;

A 1987 issue of Paul’s Investment Letter called Israel “an aggressive, national socialist state,”

Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, “Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little.”

I could go on and on, but you get the point. Being the skeptic that I am, I had to assume that the reporter on the New Republic story might have had an axe to grind with Ron Paul so I kept looking until I found actual copies of the newsletters. You can look at them here, here, and you can download one here.

I don’t want to keep going on and on about Ron because this post is about Rand, but if you want to know more about how Ron reacted to these revelations, just Google “Ron Paul” + newsletters.

Back to Rand. Here’s an interview that he did with Rachel Maddow last night;

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And here’s part 2;

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A few things struck me about Rand after having watched this interview.

The first thing is Paul’s cowardice. He lacks the courage of his convictions. If you truly believe something, it’s presumably because you think that your belief is the right thing. If that’s the case, there should be no need to evade directly answering questions about what you believe. The way he evaded answering the question tells me that he KNOWS that his views should be suppressed. If you know that you’re right or righteous, there’s no reason to obfuscate. You should believe that your correctness has the power to persuade others.

The next thing that struck me is his intellectual dishonesty in the gun example he brought up. A gun is something that you CARRY. You have the option of leaving it at home, and doing so won’t prevent you from going to a lunch counter.  You can’t leave your “blackness” home. It’s WHAT you are, not what you do. That equivocation was absurd.

There was also a comment on Wednesday. A reporter asked Rand if he was concerned that holding his victory party at a private country club would “send mixed messages”. Rand responded by saying, ““I think at one time people used to think of golf and golf courses and golf clubs as being exclusive. But I think in recent years now you see a lot of people playing golf. I think Tiger Woods has helped to broaden that in the sense that he’s brought golf to a lot of the cities and to city youth, and so no, I don’t think it’s nearly as exclusive as people once considered it to be.”

I thought that it was a little bit unusual that he interpreted the question to be about race. My interpretation would have been that the question was about populism, since he ran as an allegedly populist tea party candidate. The mixed message lies in having your victory party in a venue that appears to be elitist.

I am not a person that feels comfortable labeling people as racists. I have lived in the most liberal parts of this country so racism is not a natural concept for me to wrap my mind around. So when Rand made the Tiger Woods comment, I didn’t jump to a racist conclusion even though I knew how he was raised. I was not willing to combine a seemingly innocuous comment with the sins of the father to conclude that Rand Paul has racist views. When I look at the Maddow interview and silo it apart from everything else, my inclination is to view his comments as staunchly libertarian rather than inherently bigoted. His platform is after all, one of libertarianism.

But when I put the totality of the information about Rand Paul together, I can’t avoid the conclusion that he is a racist.

Here’s the problem with racism today; it’s subtle because it isn’t tolerated in mainstream society anymore. Overt racism isn’t socially acceptable anymore so racists have to go undercover. They have to be subtle. A great example of this is the birthers. Clinging onto the belief that our black president wasn’t born in America, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, is just a subtle way of saying that he’s not one of us.

I really resisted concluding that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to Rand Paul, but I can’t avoid it any longer.

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Little Help, Republicans?

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So everyone knows about Faisal Shahzad by now. He made a lame attempt to detonate a bomb in Times Square last Saturday night. He parked an SUV which contained a bomb that didn’t really have a snow ball’s chance in hell of detonating properly, right in the heart of Times Square.

As an aside, he parked that SUV exactly one block away from where I was hanging out two nights earlier. As a New Yorker, these attempts are personal.

Back to Shahzad. Once he was arrested, fifty three hours after he attempted to detonate the bomb, a couple of troubling and confusing narratives emerged.

The first wave of reporting on this story after his arrest came with questions about how he was able to get on the plane. The criticism over this continues as I write this. I cannot be more perplexed by this attitude. Color me stupid, but I see fifty three hours between attempting to set off a bomb, to being hauled off in handcuffs as a giant victory. I take great comfort in how this was handled and I slept like a baby last night, with the knowledge that NYPD, the FBI, and Homeland Security moved on this so quickly and effectively. And I must say that this is a refreshing since I’m used to the perpetrator of an attack on my city never being put into handcuffs.

I know, I know, there’s one big difference between the Shahzad situation and the Bin Laden circumstances in that, Shahzad was in the US. Okay, I’m willing to make a concession for that. But who sent the anthrax? How long did it take to catch that guy? And where were the people that are unhappy now, over the fact that Shahzad got on the plane back then? I don’t recall hearing much criticism from them, over the fact that the anthrax sender was never apprehended. And where were they when we lost Bin Laden on Tora Bora, because we only had him surrounded on three sides? Where was the outrage then? Good lord, a fucking sheep herder could have pointed out the flaw in that genius plan! Where were all of those crack journalists then?

The other confusing issue that I’ve been hearing is a debate over whether Shahzad should have been read his Miranda rights. This made me wonder which part of US citizen was confusing to these people. Are we seriously debating over whether a US citizen should have access to our justice system? What I found more confusing is that the crowd that is advocating for denying due process are republicans. I’m not sure that they understand their own rhetoric.

Do they distrust the government, or are they so certain the government got the right guy, that they don’t feel due process is necessary? Which is it? Do you irrationally hate government, or do you have unquestioning faith in it?

Is there a republican out there that can help me out?

My confusion leaves me with the impression that you don’t believe anything that you say because what you believe in seems to change, based on who you’re saying it about.

Here’s the problem with this tactic; When you’re willing to contradict yourself to the point of embarrassment, you end up with a very tiny crowd of people that are willing to keep listening. In going after Obama like rabid dogs, you’ve completely eviscerated any credibility you may once have had.

I’m talking to you, John McCain. In ten short years you went from a rational republican that occasionally voted his conscience, to a crazy old man that may well lose a primary to a politician that we already know is corrupt. Peter King and Joe Lieberman, you both get a pass for your hypocrisy because you’ve both always been self serving fools. Embarrassing yourselves is a natural state of being for you. Senators Cornyn and Kyl, you are an embarrassment to your party. Marco Rubio has added his name to the list of republicans that hate the American justice system.

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m not shy about spanking Obama when he deserves to be spanked. But what’s going here isn’t rational because it has very little to do with Obama. When you criticize how this whole thing went down, you’re denigrating New York and I won’t have it. To quote Jon Stewart, “Go fuck yourselves”.

This was a victory for America. It was a victory in that, the community sprung into action minutes after that SUV was parked. It was a victory in that, the police immediately realized that they were facing a serious situation and acted accordingly. It was a victory in that, the suspect was apprehended two short days after his attempt.

I’m sorry for everyone that can’t celebrate America’s victories, because they’re so embroiled in their petty bullshit, that they are incapable of taking pride in their country anymore.


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Unacceptable!

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I’m referring to the merry band of miscreants that we have to choose from this November. I don’t know about where you guys live (I’d love to hear your stories), but here in New York, we’re forced to vote for another crappy senator. It doesn’t matter who we vote for, they’re all crap.

Kirsten Gillibrand is very likely going to win the senate seat she currently holds because republicans have nothing, other than a former Chief economist for Bear Stearns. Yay for us! In one of the most liberal states in America, we get to pick between two conservative corporatists. Gillibrand has spent the past year trying to “left it up” in order to secure any votes in Manhattan, but she recently showed her hand by doing her part in eviscerating the financial reform bill. She’s getting a TON of money from Wall Street to fund her campaign, which means she takes marching orders from Lloyd Blankfein. She hasn’t even been elected to that seat yet, and she’s already made it clear that her interests trump those of New Yorkers and Americans at large. What is she going to turn into after she’s obtained six more years of job security?

The sad thing is that my situation in New York isn’t even the the worst of options that Americans must make. Poor Nevada has to choose between the very the ineffective pussy that is Harry Reid and the crazy chicken lady! Arizona gets to choose between the filthy, corrupt JD Hayworth and crazy, bitter John McCain. And let’s not forget California, another liberal bastion of America. You’ve got Meg Whitman, who somehow finds time to run a campaign between board meetings at Goldman Sachs and Carly Fiorina, who was paid $45M just to get the fuck out of Hewlett Packard.

Why is this happening to America? These are not candidates that anyone can get behind, regardless of party affiliation and political ideology. No true conservative can possibly find JD Hayworth palatable if they’re being honest with themselves. And Kirsten Gillibrand, the corporatist Annie Oakley should make any self respecting democrat wretch. If we voted our conscience and our real ideology, rather than being herded by our political affiliations, we would all see that none of these people are acceptable. None of them give a fuck about protecting our interests.

Both parties have completely gone to shit, and it’s not going to stop unless we stop it. Every time we vote for one of these assholes, we’re ensuring that the next wave of candidates that our party puts in front of us is going to be worse than the last.

I have found another Senatorial candidate to support here in New York. He doesn’t have a snowballs chance of getting the word out in the face of the big money that Gillibrand is getting from Wall Street, but I’m campaigning for him. If Jonathan Tasini can siphon off 10% (I know, that’s a lot) of the votes in the democratic primary, we can send a message to the DNC.

Sadly, I feel lucky to even have another option since that’s not the case in a lot of races across the country. My plan was to just go in and undervote, meaning that I will vote on everything else, while leaving my senatorial choice blank. Trust me, undervotes do not go unnoticed. Not voting at all is completely ineffective because it appears as if we just don’t give a damn.

I fundamentally believe that the only way to change the sad state of political affairs that we find ourselves in, it for us all to work for change within our own party. I don’t believe that democrats can fix the republican party or vice versa. But if democrats send a clear message to the DNC, they’ll listen. This will never be accomplished by holding you nose and voting for the piece of shit candidate that the party has put in front of you. It certainly won’t be achieved by drinking the party kool aid and convincing yourself that piece of shit isn’t a piece of shit, simply because they’re representing your party.

It’s our responsibility to find better candidates and to support them with our votes, our time, and our money. And if you can’t find another option, maybe you should run! I’m not kidding. But barring those two scenarios, I believe that an epidemic of undervoting would send a message to our parties. We have to stop tolerating the unacceptable.

I am never going to leave the voting booth with that feeling of needing to boil my body just to clean off the stink of what I was just forced to vote for again. Are you?

Please, feel free to share your crappy candidates! It’s hard for me to stay on top of local races across the country, but I an curious!

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Contempt

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That’s what republican legislatures have for America. No, I’m not being hyperbolic.

For two election cycles now, the American people have overwhelmingly voted democrats to represent them. All across the country, Americans have voted for democratic congressmen and democratic senators. We all collectively, by a large majority, voted for a democratic president. The will of the people has been abundantly clear here. And yet, we have republican legislatures filibustering EVERY major piece of legislation since President Obama was sworn in. We voted for a platform but republicans are more interested in their own agenda than they are with the will of the people. They’re blocking financial reform as I type this, despite the fact that 65% of Americans are in favor of it.

They don’t give a shit what democrats OR republicans want. This should be a major concern for all Americans, regardless of your party affiliation. And republicans that support these tactics are (I’m being kind here) ASSHATS! I understand the urge to support any efforts to block something that you don’t support, I really do. But condoning and supporting these tactics shows a lack of big picture thinking. You should care more about your country than you do your party. These tactics literally discount the will of the people and threaten to destroy the system of governance that the founders created. Anybody that supports this clearly hasn’t considered the fact that these tactics will eventually be used to eviscerate a platform that you voted for.

But the contempt that I refer to isn’t just about preserving power for republicans. They have actual contempt for Americans.

Last week, South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer said that unemployment is caused by “flat out lazy” American workers. FYI – South Carolina has a 12% unemployment rate. This wasn’t the first time he made this sort of comment. Back in January he said this;

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that.”

Charming, right? Before you chalk that up to one stray asshole, let me continue.

Back in March, the other douchebag senator from Arizona, Jon Kyl made this statement;

“Unemployment insurance doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work, because people are being paid even though they’re not working.”

As a quick aside, I want to let Arizona know about a law that you may or may not know about. This is an old Arizona state law that has been on the books for a very long time. If you live in Arizona, you’re only allowed to own two dildos. I’m not kidding! So here’s a thought; you may not want to squander your allotment on your two senators!

Need more? Check out Tom DeLay in an interview with Candy Crowly last month:

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I can give you several more examples of these opinions from republicans, but you get the point. These aren’t isolated opinions, they’re an example of the ideology that republicans have about Americans.

They have contempt for you if you have the temerity to be unemployed because the ponzi schemes that their biggest contributors in the financial were running collapsed, therefore robbing you of your job. That’s right, to republicans, you’re the asshole here. And as long as you’re getting a few hundred dollars a week in unemployment benefits from the federal government, you won’t be seeking the six figure job that you just lost because you’re fundamentally lazy.

Trust me when I tell you that I would find this unacceptable if it came from democrats. This is not a partisan thing for me, and it shouldn’t be for you. This should be about preserving a system that made America great. Allowing a party that was elected into a minority position by the American people to hijack the system isn’t going to turn out well for democrats or republicans. Allowing the Bush administration to wiretap phone calls and monitor all electronic communication in America completely unchecked, didn’t turn out well for us since we have no evidence that the Obama administration has shut that program down. Why would a party willingly give up power that another party obtained? I don’t trust Obama with my privacy any more than I trusted Bush. And I don’t trust democrats not to use these tactics when they’re the minority.

This is unacceptable and republicans and democrats have to come together to let our representatives know that we won’t stand for this.

How can this possibly be something that we don’t all agree on?

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Capitalism And Leprechauns

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I am constantly amazed and confused by people that wax poetic about American capitalism. I can’t tell whether they just don’t understand the fundamental principles of capitalism, or if they’re simply not paying attention to what’s going on in America today.

So let’s clear a few things up by starting with the definition of capitalism:

An economic system based on a free market, open competition, profit motive and private ownership of the means of production. Capitalism encourages private investment and business, compared to a government-controlled economy. Investors in these private companies (i.e. shareholders) also own the firms and are known as capitalists.

In order for capitalism to exist, you must have a situation where the shareholders who have invested in a company partake in the profits of that company. We don’t have anything resembling that anymore. We have a system where executives of a company take all the profits that are left after purchasing a congressman, leaving the shareholders with nothing.

Everybody is aware by now, of the exorbitant bonus structures in the financial industry. On the day that the FEC announced that they were filing charges against Goldman Sachs, the company announced that it would be paying out $5.4 billion in bonuses. This, just 15 weeks after they had paid out $16.2 billion in bonuses. If you take a close look at the readily available financial disclosure information for all of the big banks and investment firms in the US, you’ll see a pattern emerging. Executives seem to be shifting most of their compensation into cash pay outs, rather than accepting stock grants. They’re obviously looting the companies for every cent they can get, while they can get it. None of the five biggest banks in America currently have any assets. You read that right, they’re not worth anything. Their liabilities far exceed their assets, making them “zombie” banks. I’m not going to get super financial wonky on you because this would be a really long post, and I want to focus in on what corporate executives are doing to America. But trust me, I’ve done a lot of research into this, and listened to all of the economists that correctly predicted the subprime collapse. They are all in agreement in their assessments that our banks are worthless. They are also all in agreement that another major collapse is eighteen to thirty-six months away. But more important than what these very smart economists with solid track records of forecasting our economic situation, is what the executives are doing. The fact that they’re suddenly shifting compensation packages to cash payouts tells me that they don’t want stock in the companies that they’re running into the ground. If you don’t want to believe the “doomsday” economists, then look at the evidence and apply a little bit of common sense.

So as these executives are looting the companies that they’re running into the ground, they’re royally fucking their shareholders, who are seeing none of the fake profits. I say fake because the banks are leveraging taxpayer bailout money to show liquidity that doesn’t really exist.

Who are the shareholders? That would be anyone with a 401k in America. Your 401k is invested in virtually all of the companies in the Fortune 500. Because of the way 401k investment options are packaged, most people have no idea what exactly they’re invested in. It’s safe to assume that you own some Bank Of America stock and some Citibank stock and some Goldman Sachs stock, as well as bundles of tech stocks and retail stocks. One of the many shitty things about this system, is that Goldman Sachs is moving most of your 401k money around. They are one of the biggest investment firms in the world, which means that they’re steering your 401k investments. They’re the reason why the dotcom bust happened. They were IPOing total crap companies, in an effort to create imaginary money so that they could amass real profits for themselves. When that well went dry, they created imaginary money in the form of inflating the real estate market. They drove up the value of your house by “qualifying” a pizza delivery guy to buy the house next door to yours. It didn’t matter that the pizza delivery guy couldn’t really afford to buy a house. Goldman Sachs figured out that they could sell the pizza delivery guy’s debt to you, by investing your 401k money in real estate bundles that were worthless.

They got you to create debt on the basis of imaginary equity that they then got you to buy! Amazing, right?

And while they were creating huge profits for “the company”, they weren’t creating any profits for you, the shareholder, because they were taking the lion’s share of the profits out and paying themselves enormous bonuses. The more they understood the precariousness of the financial structure they had created, the more imperative it became for them to grab all the cash they could while there was any cash to grab.

This isn’t limited to the financial sector. Here’s a great story that got on my radar thanks to The Young Turks. It’s a story about Abercrombie & Fitch, whose profits have plummeted in the past 2 years. In 2009, the company netted $254,000, way down from $273M in 2008 and $476M in 2007. Their CEO’s (Mike Jeffries) compensation package for 2008 totaled $71.8M. Think about that for a second, he got paid about 1/3 of everything that the company made in 2008! But that’s just his compensation. We’re not even adding perks into what he cost the shareholders. His travel expenses in 2008 were $1.3M! We don’t know what his total compensation for 2009 was just yet (I’m DYING to find out), but we do know that the board of directors took some steps to tighten his belt. They decided to limit his travel expenses to a mere $200,000 per year. But before you start weeping uncontrollably for his terrible fate, you have to know that in exchange for amending his employment contract (which expires in 2013), Jeffries received a lump sum of $4M! Yes, he got a lump sum that amounts to sixteen times what the company made in profits last year, for simply agreeing to amend his employment contract. A little quick math tells me that if he continued his lavish travel through the end of his contract, the cost of the tab to the company would have been $2.6M. By amending his contract, they brought that cost up to $4.4M.The worst part is that he’s going to walk away a very rich man as a reward for bankrupting the company that he works for. It’s the same racket that Carly Fiorina ran with Hewlet Packard. She got a golden parachute which cost the shareholders $45M just to get her to leave! And now this stupid bitch that failed her way to massive wealth may become the next US senator from California? Unbelievable!

See what I mean about looting? And once again, who gets fucked? That would be the shareholder (i.e. you).

We don’t have capitalism in America, anymore than Ireland has leprechauns. We don’t live in a country where hard work pays off anymore. We live in a place where the system is gamed to favor the rich, while sticking you with the tab when they fail.

Take a look at this lovely chart, which shows the ratio of CEO compensation to the average worker’s salary.


Charming, right? A CEO today makes 319 times what the workers in their company makes. I predict that we’re going to see a huge spike in CEO compensation for 2009 and 2010 because of a last ditch effort to squeeze every cent out while there’s a there there.

Oh yes, the people out there screaming for capitalism confuse me. I wouldn’t be confused if they were all Carly Fiorinas, but they’re not. They’re the people who work hard, only to earn less than they were earning ten years ago, while their retirement funds are routinely looted by a handful of very powerful people.

Don’t worry, this post isn’t all about doom and gloom. The good news in all of this is that I still believe we can turn it around (although that window is closing). We just collectively need to realize that we have all the power. We still get to vote every year.

I know that our government sucks. Our system has entirely too much corporate money in it, thereby eviscerating its efficacy to actually do something good for the people. But the alternative view of trusting corporations to do right by us is completely insane. I can’t do anything about Mike Jeffries, but I can vote out Charlie Rengel. I understand that I have more power over the government than I do over corporate executives.

The first thing that we can all do, is to move our money out of the big banks. If our government won’t stop them from becoming “too big to fail”, then we can. Move your money is an excellent resource to help you find a good community bank.

The next thing we can do is to start collecting signatures in each state to put a “clean election” measures on the ballot. If we mandate that our elections are publicly financed, we take the first step in taking back our government. The biggest problem we have right now is that it costs an average of $8M to win a senate seat that pays $175,000 a year. Does anyone else see a problem with this? If our representatives didn’t have to whore for corporate cash just to get elected, they just might start representing you for a change. Keep in mind that this culture of CEO looting didn’t happen without the help of the government.

And lastly, we can keep ourselves informed. We have to keep a close eye on the people we elect. You can’t just assume that your congressman is “the good guy” amid a sea of corrupt politicians. And it shouldn’t matter if your representative is they guy you voted for. That should be more of a reason to keep an eye on them. Democrats didn’t keep an eye on Clinton. What did we get in exchange for our blind faith? We got NAFTA and a massive deregulation of our financial institutions. How did that work out for you? Republicans didn’t keep an eye on Bush. We’re all to familiar with what they got in return. I’m not going to go through all of the damage that he did. This post is long enough!

My point is that we would all be better off if we policed our own party, instead of policing the party that is never, ever going to get our vote. Doesn’t that make more sense to everyone? We’re not getting anywhere with partisan attacks on the opposing team. It’s just not working. We need to let our team know that they’re going to lose a vote that they previously had if they don’t represent us well. And we need to mean it.

I guess what I’m saying is that we need to get proactive! I really believe that if we do, things will get better. We are not as powerless as most of us believe we are.

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We Are Not A Divided Nation

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Anyone that tells you that we are, probably has an agenda that ultimately isn’t going to serve you well.

Indiana University just completed a survey on health reform and came up with results that some may find surprising. You can see the study here.

Most democrats are going cite this study to point out that republican representatives are liars because republican representatives are going to point to one finding that, when taken out of context means exactly the opposite of what it actually means.

Let me break it down to show you what I read into the results.

Let’s start with the broad question of, “Do you support efforts to repeal the health reform legislation that was passed?” Here’s a graph that maps out the responses:



This graph tells me one very important thing; democrats are just as emotionally invested in the bullshit that their party feeds them as republicans are. This is a broad question that allows the subject to give an ideologically based response. In my opinion, the independents have it right. This bill is a mixed bag. On one hand, it does absolutely nothing to control the cost of purchasing insurance. On the other hand, it does eliminate waste in the medicare system and incentivizes more people to get insurance.

Something interesting happens when subjects were asked if they wanted congress to stay focused on health reform.



Virtually everybody agrees, regardless of party affiliation. This tells me that republicans don’t really want a repeal since they want to keep working on it, and that democrats aren’t as happy with the bill as they appeared to be in the first question. This is where Bitchy’s sunny optimism starts to come out. We AGREE!

Something even more interesting happens when respondents are asked, “ how important they thought it was for Congress to work on “establishment of a public option that would give individuals a choice between government provided health insurance or private health insurance?”. 67% of respondents rated this an important topic to address. 59% of those that favor repeal feel that this is an important topic to pursue. The majority of Americans want repeal because this bill doesn’t go far enough.



Once again, we basically agree regardless of party affiliation. When it comes down to it, Americans know what’s not working for them and they know how they want to fix the problem.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if republicans had joined in on the fight for a public option? I don’t know if it would have changed anything, given the fact that our representatives are clearly all serving their corporate masters first and foremost . But damned it, I wish we could have found out.

And while I’m on the topic of putting self interest ahead of ideology, let me make a point to democrats. You’re going down the same slippery slope of accepting any crap that your party puts in front of you. This is how things went horribly wrong for republicans. If you keep going down this road, your party will start to serve up nothing but crap. Republicans have been happy to accept the village idiot (Dan Quayle, George W Bush, and Sarah Palin) for three elections in a row now, happy to accept the idea that this is the best that republicans have to offer. How much kool aid drinking do you think you have to do before this guy becomes your democratic nominee for president?

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