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Open Thread: Show 94
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If you have an idea for show 100, write it in the comment section or email me.

And of course you can always email me your Stupid Boss Tricks!

Oh yeah and welcome the latest network to carry the show, WNY Media!

Ha Ha

Seen by me here, who got it from others.

That's About Right

And of course there's people like me who don't have any work, and who would be homeless if it weren't for the kindness of strangers. And the sad thing is, my wife and I are lucky compared to many people. It sucks to be an American worker today.

Communities
My wife is recovering well and the doctor says she should return home tomorrow. We got flowers from my wonderful sister, who is busy enough these days, what with her getting married soon. She also got a call from one of her friends at Pogo.com, which really made her day. And I got a nice donation from one of my regulars, which is always nice.

My wife is in a semi-private room, and today I found out that the lady in the other bed, whose husband has been there for her as I have for my wife, is from Iraq. I apologized to them profusely for what we're doing, and they were very understanding. "We think Americans are wonderful, and we know the government doesn't always reflect who we really are," they told me, not in those exact words but that was the meaning of it. I told him that I hoped that one day we will recognize that, regardless of what country we come from, we are a community of people, not of nations.

The other day I wrote about how close I am to giving up, but it's people like those I talked to today that give me hope, despite everything. For millenia, humans have been the victims of people whose greed for wealth and power is stronger than their sanity, perhaps one day soon we won't be so easily manipulated. I hope I live to see such a day. One world, one peace, a Pax Liberalis that will outlast the barbarism of our past and present.

Oh Man
I don't usually do things like this, but here's a direct quote from Billmon as posted on Eschaton that I thought was so right on I'd share it with you. You're welcome.

Now that I, too, am a professional whore, I can see that the sharp distinction I used to draw between the working press and the shoe scrapings of the PR industry was simply a vanity of vanities -- a product of my youthful arrogance and the gnawing fear that I, too, might someday end up like the withered fossils I used to see lining the press club bar rail every Friday night. (That much, at least, I got right.) And whatever real distinction there may have once been between journalism and flackery has long since been swept away by the howling, gibbering tsunami of the cable news channels, leaving only a few dazed refugees clinging to the treetops in the print press. And pretty soon they'll be gone, too.

My point, to the extent I have one, is that Gannon/Guckert is going to fit in very well on that NPC panel -- as long, that is, as he's there to represent the professional journalists, not the bloggers. When it comes to blogging, Jim/Jeff doesn't have much to offer other than his cloddish prose and half-congealed "thoughts," which consist almost entirely of recycled Fox News talking points -- recycled in the same sense that cow shit is recycled grass. To be sure, this does put Bulldog squarely in the top IQ quintile among conservative bloggers. But if the press club wanted an authentic representative of the rant and rave right, it should have invited Powerline or Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler or even the gang at Little Green Footballs, who I'm sure would have been happy to attend if they could have brought their flaming crosses along.

No, Guckert is on the panel for the same reason Wonkette is: anal sex. Jeff gets paid to give it and Anna Marie gets paid to talk about it, and the "bottoms" at the National Press Club get paid to . . . well, you know. How anal sex got to be THE ticket to blogging fame and fortune (instead of a giant bottle of Astroglide) I don't fully understand, but I wish somebody had told me when I started out, because I would have bought a copy of this book instead of wasting all my time on those dull reads about Iraq, terrorism, the global economy and so on. Or, more likely still, I would never have taken up blogging in the first place, since when it comes to anal sex, there's no way a rank amateur like myself can compete with the pros.

But Anna Marie, at least, can write -- a good three or four paragraphs worth when she really gets going. Guckert, on the other hand, needs to get it through his head that his most valuable job skills are on the other end of his torso. And if he's counting on getting by on his notoriety as the world's only conservative gay prostitute journalist with a blog, he'd better watch out -- that's a niche market that could easily be overrun by competitors. For all Jeff knows, Wonkette's owner may already be trolling the second and third-tier talk show hosts, looking for prospects. Some of the guys in the RNC press office might decide to get in on the action, too. After all, when it comes to blogging -- not to mention anal sex -- the barriers to entry are relatively low. There's always a prettier face . . . or whatever . . . willing to take on the established brand names.

Seriously, though, the fact that we're all talking about this ridiculous panel session only shows that Bill Bennett didn't know the half of it when he wrote The Death of Outrage. The idea that a guy who posted naked pictures of himself pissing on the Internet -- and became famous for it -- would be invited to get up in front of an audience at the National Press Club to discuss journalism and blogging with a woman who has made anal sex her signature riff . . . well, The Death of Shame, Intelligence, Good Taste and Sanity makes a better title.

Dear NY Times:
Mr. Krugman is wrong to suggest that America isn't yet a place where liberal or moderate politicians fear assassination. John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. were merely the most recent of a history of actual and attempted political assassinations by extremists dating back to President Lincoln.

What we are seeing now is an attempt to assassinate an entire political party: Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry were Presidential candidates that were politically assassinated. Bill Clinton escaped it, but only barely: and he is still the butt of all-too-many jokes. Liberals in general are condemned as unAmerican, even traitorous.

It can't happen here? It already has, sir.

Joseph Vecchio

Down Time
My wife is having surgery tomorrow and she'll be in the hospital for the next few days. That means I may not have any posts for a while, though as any regular reader knows, I'm not the most consistant when it comes to that anyway. I'll try to keep everyone posted on how things go. Meantime, there's a new show to listen to.

Update
My wife had the surgery today at around 10:30 am, and is at present recuperating in the hospital. I left her at about 6:45 this evening, after she had been given some morphine and went to sleep. The doctor said that the surgery went well, and she will be in the hospital for the next few days as a precaution. With luck she will be home this weekend.

Our thanks to everyone who sent messages of payer and support, I will keep you all posted as to her condition.

Down Time
My wife is having surgery tomorrow and she'll be in the hospital for the next few days. That means I may not have any posts for a while, though as any regular reader knows, I'm not the most consistant when it comes to that anyway. I'll try to keep everyone posted on how things go. Meantime, there's a new show to listen to.

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

Open Thread: Show 93
Listen here. Comment below. Who wants to live forever?

Blogger's Market
I got an email from one of Kos' regulars who started a website for bloggers who have something to sell or who want to interact with them in other ways. It's really cool and you should go there now!

Sanctity Of Life, Redux
via this Kos diary:

Man arrested for Michael Schiavo threat
A man has been arrested and charged with offering a $250,000 reward for killing Michael Schiavo.

Richard Alan Meywes was arrested in Fairview, North Carolina by the FBI and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office.

On March 23, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office forwarded an email to the FBI in Tampa which purportedly offered a $250,000 bounty on "the head of Michael Schiavo." The email placed an additional $50,000 bounty for the elimination of a judge who recently denied a request to intervene in the Schiavo case.

There was also a guy who tried to steal a gun to "rescue" Schiavo:

Randy McKenzie, the owner of Randall's Firearms, said Mitchell pulled out the box cutter and broke the glass on a couple of display cases.

"He told me if I wasn't on Terri's side then I wasn't on God's side, either," McKenzie told The Associated Press.

And now this from the Miami Herald:

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted -- but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order.

Maybe one day we'll all stop acting like a bunch of assholes. I can dream, can't I?

Got A Light?

Republicans For Satanism
Juan Cole writes:

But the most frightening thing about the [Schiavo] affair is that public figures like congressmen inserted themselves into the case in order to uphold religious strictures. The lawyer arguing against the husband let the cat out of the bag, as reported by the NYT: ' The lawyer, David Gibbs, also said Ms. Schiavo's religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic were being infringed because Pope John Paul II has deemed it unacceptable for Catholics to refuse food and water. "We are now in a position where a court has ordered her to disobey her church and even jeopardize her eternal soul," Mr. Gibbs said. ' In other words, the United States Congress acted in part on behalf of the Roman Catholic church.

This is kind of a hoot, especially when you consider that hardcore Protestants like DeLay and the overwhelming majority of those who support him and people like Pat Robertson think that Catholics are going to hell just because they're Catholic. In fact, if you listen to what the late Jack Chick had to say, the very act of taking Communion gets you right into hell. Using this logic, since Chick equates Catholicism with Satanism, then the GOP is, by association, promoting Satanism.

Interesting times, indeed.

Animal Country
You know how bad this country has gotten when you hear stories like this:

A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school where she threw books and boxes, kicked a teacher in the shins, smashed a candy dish, hit an assistant principal in the stomach and drew on the walls.

The students were counting jelly beans as part of a math exercise at Fairmount Park Elementary School when the little girl began acting silly. That's when her teacher took away her jelly beans, outraging the child.

Minutes later, the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs.

"I don't want to go to jail," she said moments after her arrest Monday.

And now we hear from the Roachblog that the US is just as bad, if not worse, than North VietNam when it comes to treatment of POW's.

Part of me wants to say, how did we get this way? I certainly wasn't raised to think that war was a good thing, even when it was necessary, and I can't imagine how anyone could have been raised to believe that torture is acceptable. Yes, I know, we have always been a brutal country: killing the natives and taking their land, stealing people from their homes and forcing them to work for us, then even after fighting a bloody war over it, denying them the right to vote. But at least I thought we were getting better. I was wrong.

It's so hard to keep from just giving up. I know a lot of people have, the ones that don't vote or who think it doesn't matter what they do. Maybe they're right. There's a part of me that hopes and prays that there's still something good buried deep inside us, that we can somehow pull back from all this insanity before things go too far, but my fears tell me that we have become a country of animals who kill for sport and entertainment, who seem to take pleasure even in the punishment of little children, or in the torture of innocent people. How do you reason with people like this? How do you fight such raw, primal emotions?

To all my friends overseas, I want to say this: when Great Britain began its struggle against the Nazis, Winston Churchill asked the New World to rescue the Old. The time may come when the Old will be called upon to return the favor. If that time ever comes, I hope you will remember that we are not all like this, that some of us want to be part of the human race and not masters of it. I hope you will remember the things you loved about us, even when you hated what our government was doing. Remember that we once understood that the open hand of peace and friendship was our greatest weapon, and that war was once a last resort and not a first option.

But mostly, I ask you to remember that we were once capable of great mercy and justice, and treat us the same way.

If it ever comes down to that.

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

Open Thread: Show 92
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How do you go about looking for work? Comment below, or email me.

Blasting The "Professionals"
Avedon Carol gets into the act:

We object to the fact that we have to read the entire newspaper to find facts - real, documented facts - while administration/RNC spin finds its way into front-page headlines. We object, for example, to the fact that the headline for the story on the NORC count of the 2000 election claims that Bush won the election when the 43rd graf makes clear that this is not the case. We object to headlines that indicate that the Clintons were responsible for shady business deals in Arkansas when anyone who actually reads up on these things knows they were simply the victims of an associate who had a breakdown and ended up embezzling from them. We object to the fact that, to this very day, falsehoods about Gore and the Clintons and previous Democratic convention speakers (Casey was NOT prevented from speaking because he was anti-abortion; he was prevented from speaking because he refused to endorse the Democratic ticket) are still treated as FACTS by mainstream media.

And Digby reiterates an earlier stance:

Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.

The so-called pros are looking more and more like Pravda every day. How long until people say enough is enough?

Where's The Outrage?
Digby nails it:

I can't speak for everyone on the left, but this is why I cannot trust the mainstream media. It's not because they are biased. I don't know what the individual reporters' politics are and I don't care. I mistrust the media because they get played over and over and over again by the right wing and keep coming back for more. I don't know if they are stupid or weak, but it's clear to me that they are addicted to spoonfed puerile right wing generated gossip and completely unwilling to pursue serious Republican scandals beyond a perfunctory story or two before they move on to the next atrocity. (And I mean right wing generated gossip because it's clear that they will not breathlessly pursue a Republican sex scandal with equal fervor even when it features a gay prostitute in the conservative White House press room who plastered pictures of his erections all over the internet.)

You would think that after a time, reporters would get sick of all of it, but I think the problem is twofold: they've been living in the Fantasyland that is the Washngton Beltway for far too long, and because most of them make the kind of money that many of us will never see, they don't really comprehend how these policies are going to affect people who just don't want to play the same game they do: that is, people who don't have any ambitions greater than going to work, supporting their families, and generally enjoying life in a lower-middle class kind of way.

If you want to see a perfect example of the right-wing machine in action and how the press reacts to it, look at the Schiavo story. How many have died in this country whose would have lived if they hadn't been brought up in abject poverty? I don't mean just adults, but children as well? Do you see the same idiots praying outside Schiavo's hospital or trying to bring bread to her weeping and wailing over these deaths, do you? Of course not. The "sancity of life" obviously doesn't exist for the poor. The hypocrisy goes to stratospheric levels, and the media plays along with the circus.

The GOP, having lost political power for years because of the way they mishandled the economy in the twenties, and seeing no end to liberal policies, simply started to make shit up: "Liberal Media". "Communist Infiltration." And since they had no scruples or morals to begin with, all they needed to do is to keep pushing the boundaries to see what they could get away with. Which is, as we can see, quite a bit. How long can they keep it up? That depends on how long we allow them to.

Digby goes on to, reluctantly, support some kind of left-wing media machine, but I share his ambivalence as to its effectiveness. What we need is to get up off our asses and remember that freedom isn't something given, it's something you have to fight for. Rights earned in previous generation have to be renewed or re-won by the next, because there's always power-hungry people out there who want to take your freedom away from you. One way we have to fight back is to keep on speaking truth to power, like Digby and so many others do. Sometimes that's all we can do.

Looking For Work
This is how I have been spending the bulk of my time over the last two weeks or so, which will explain why there haven't been many posts lately. The time I used to spend updating the blog is now spent on a combination of sending resumes pounding the pavement. I don't particularly like looking for work; I don't know anyone who does, but it goes without saying that I need to find something soon. I'm trying like crazy to avoid the same kind of dead-end jobs I used to have, hoping to get something that pays some real money, enough to pay the rent plus still plenty to put away in the bank.

But as much as I hate looking for work, at least I'm used to it. Having had numerous jobs over the last five years or so, losing a job isn't that distressing to me. I feel sorry for some of the people at Siemens who have been working for years and now find themselves out of the work force. For them, the shock will be harder, moreso because of how much more difficult it is to look for work now as compared to, say, fifteen years ago. Times have changed, and not for the better.

I do have some rather interesting leads, and I will naturally keep everyone posted as to what's going on. In the meantime, email me or comment here about how all of you go about looking for work. I'll use the best comments on the show.

We're Not Family
There was a march last Saturday in downtown Atlanta at the GA state capitol, which I unfortunately was unable to attend due to reasons far too embarrassing to point out here. My new radio partner Rick went, and he'll talk about it on the next show. The march coincided with "Family Day" at the State Capitol, holding a special session on a Saturday and having the families of legislators present. My friends from Defenders Of Democracy went down there in an effort to lobby officials on election reform, but were prevented from doing so. I guess we're not "family". Here's an email I got with more of a first-hand account:

Several thousand people marched under various union, prochoice, anti-blackbox voting and environmental banners Saturday morning to participate in Family Day at the Capitol event. At a rally on the Capitol steps, Georgians for a Living Wage held forth eloquently regarding the dropping standard of living for working Georgians under [Gov.] Perdue. A Sierra Club representative spoke reclaiming the notion of property rights with "We all live downstream of some jerk with a bulldozer", a memorable line and important concept - liberals own property and have interests in public properties as well.

The State Capitol building was open to all willing to pass through the metal detector, prior to filling to its legal capacity of 1750 persons. The Senate session was presided over by Lt. Governor Taylor, and was to do some cleaning of the legal file cabinets by legally rescinding obsolete laws of the past featuring some of the Jim Crow laws; however this citizen was ejected by an official of the Republican State government before he could personally witness this symbolic entrance of Georgia into the twentieth century. So much for progress.

Indeed.

Just Curious
If our elections are being rigged, what does it matter what the polls say?

Rigging The System, Foreign And Domestic
Juan Cole points out how the Bush admnistration manipulates foreign governments as well as our own:

Do you note how if a party has 51% in [a] parliamentary system, it automatically gets to form a government?

So why is the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of Shiite parties that can count on about 53% of the members of the Iraqi parliament to vote for it in the wake of the Jan. 30 elections, not able to form a government? If it were [like] the Labor Party in the UK . . . Ibrahim Jaafari would already be Prime Minister.

The US spiked the Iraqi parliamentary process by putting in a provision that a government has to be formed with a 2/3s majority. This provision is a neo-colonial imposition on Iraq. The Iraqi public was never asked about it. And, it is predictably producing gridlock, as the UIA is forced to try to accommodate a party that should be in the opposition in the British system, the Kurdistan Alliance.

With corporatists, the idea is never to promote competition, because in a competitive system the outcome isn't always clear. So it's easier for them to tilt the playing field in their favor so as to insure that they come out ahead. This could explain why they felt the need to put that little provision into the process.

But while the goals of the Bush administration and its corporate allies (more money and power to them) are fairly obvious, the details of how they intend to go about it are muddier, and it isn't always clear exactly which parts of the operation are going according to plan and which parts have been improvised because things got screwed up totally. Did they want gridlock in Iraqi politics for whatever reasons, or did they just want to prevent the Shiites forming a majority and demanding that US troops leave?

The Iraqi people have a right to detemine their own futures. But the Bush administration and its corporate allies aren't interested in the future of everyday Iraqis, just as they aren't interested in the future of everyday Americans. To them, they are the only people in the world that matter, and what anyone else says is only meaningful to them if we have the power to stop them. That's why they do everything they can to marginalize or otherwise get rid of any opposition. This is the nature of the threat we face from them, and we had better remember that.

Monday Stuff
Isaac gives us The Simpsons Body Count

The Sideshow has even more media media

Atrios asks his readers to pile on Sebastian Mallaby for this column.

Bush picks another croney to try to sucker the Yurpeens into liking him.

And finally, here's a message from Lil' Jinx (via Dave Merrill):

Dear Nicholas Kristof:
I have a nightmare, too.

I have a nightmare that the United States has been taken over by a bunch of radical ideologues intent on global domination and unconcerned with the consequences of their actions. I have a nightmare that serious journalism is dead in this country, replaced by stenographers repeating White House propaganda and overbearing, out-of-touch pundits like yourself who get paid ungodly sums of money for little more than navel-gazing.

The sad thing is that where your nightmare is fictional, mine is real.

Sincerely,
Joe Vecchio

Stuff For Sale
These are some Macross/Robotech kits I'm putting for sale on eBay, if any of you are interested...

Of course I have plenty of Cup O' Joe related items for sale here, or you could always make a donation if you care to. No pressure or anything, but if these things don't sell, wild rabbits are gonna come and chew your ears off. Well, they might.

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

Open Thread: Show 91
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Look Out Below

If You Can't Win, Quit
U.S. Withdraws From World Judicial Body:

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes.

The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the failure of local authorities to allow them to contact consular officials.

The memorandum, issued in connection with a case the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear this month, puzzled state prosecutors, who said it seemed inconsistent with the administration's general hostility to international institutions and its support for the death penalty.

The withdrawal announced yesterday helps explains the administration's position.

Fine example to set for the kids.

Programmers Paid To Rig Elections
From my good friend and regular reader Phil Thompson via Marc Perkel:

This is incredible, and I have no idea why this is not receiving more coverage from the mainstream media. Click here to view the video testimony.

If Clinton were stealing elections - do you think the news media would cover it?

In December 2004, computer programmer Clint Curtis swore in an affidavit that he was asked in 2000 by (now) US Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) to design a software prototype that could "flip" the vote in South Florida voting machines.

That affidavit was first published by blogger Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com. Shortly thereafter, Curtis, in sworn public testimony, shared the details of this story with Democratic members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee who were investigating election fraud charges in Ohio. [video]

In 2000, Curtis was working for a Florida software company called Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI). Feeney, who was then the incoming Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, was, at the same time, general counsel for YEI and its registered lobbyist. He had previously been Jeb Bush's 1994 running mate for Florida Governor and continues to be a close ally of the Bush family.

Feeney has refused public comment on the matter, while YEI and their attorney (Feeney's former law partner) have denied such an event took place. But the alibis of both Feeney and YEI have been repeatedly discredited and debunked by the reporting of Brad Friedman since December.

Clint Curtis, on the other hand, has a solid record as a whistleblower. He told Florida officials that another YEI employee, an illegal Chinese alien named Hai Lin "Henry" Nee, was engaged in high-tech espionage for China. Nee was subsequently indicted by the feds on related charged and pled guilty last year. YEI's CEO, Mrs. Li-Woan Yang, still denies that Nee worked for them, despite federal reports and weekly time records published on The BRAD BLOG which prove otherwise.

The Florida Inspector General who originally investigated Curtis' claims was found dead in a Georgia motel room two weeks after he told Curtis that "this goes all the way to the top." Police called it a "suicide," but Friedman has discovered a number of troubling new facts and inconsistencies about the police "investigation" (which was re-opened after Friedman's reporting emerged on the Internet) including photographs of the crime scene which the police had previously said in their report did not exist.

Clint Curtis' story has quietly rocked top Republicans from Tallahassee to Capitol Hill. Newspaper accounts of Curtis' affidavit and testimony have been published in various local papers (Feeney's hometown letter received a legal threat from both Feeney and YEI when they ran their story), yet the national media has largely been silent on this story despite the reams of public records, court documents and other hard evidence which confirm Curtis' story while continually debunking both Feeney's and YEI's explanations.

Republicans Hate You
This diary on DailyKos gives a historic perspective on how the Republican Party, the party of organized money, has hated working people since 1932. Every time they tried to rally support to end Social Security, they were overwhelmed by the popular mandate to keep it. Even today, with the propaganda machine going full-tilt, with computerized, rigged elections making sure that they face less of a threat from the unwashed masses, they still have trouble suckering any more than their cult minority into dismantling a program that keeps millions of people out of poverty. If you ask me, any Democrat who aids and abets the GOP on this issue in any way, shape, or form ought to be tossed out of the party and hounded out of public office. There is no room for compromise with fanatics who want us to return to the days where the wealthy few ruled over slaves and exploited workers, or worse.

Let's get this straight: If you work for a living, that is, if because you were unlucky enough to have been born into poverty, and are unwilling to sell your soul to Satan in order to gain extraordinary riches, then the Republican Party hates you. They either want to enslave you (if you're young and strong) or kill you outright (if you're old or lame). In their world, it's everyone for themselves, and the government exists only as a tool for the selfish pricks who are born into wealth (or who have no scruples or morals when it comes to getting it) and don't give a damn what happens to the country or to the world as long as they get their money. And any working person who votes for a Republican is a fucking idiot as far as I'm concerned. Sheep voting for wolves.

Republicans hate it when we working people have a real choice, which is what liberal policies gave us, because it makes it harder for them to force people to work extra hours for no pay or cut hours off your schedule, like Wal-Mart does now. Liberalism created the middle class. It did nothing more than give people the tools they needed to make a better life for themselves, and prevent the greedy cocksuckers of the right from stealing your money and your freedom. And as things get worse and worse, the backlash against it will only get stronger. If it doesn't happen politically, like it did in 1932, it'll happen violently, in ways we haven't seen for over a century.

So if you're one of those stupid, mealy-mouthed little punks who suck on GOP jism and spew out crap like "hey hey, ho ho, social security has got to go!", you'd better wake up and smell the coffee, because I have news for you: the GOP hates you, too, and if they get the power they want, they'll squash you like the bugs you are regardless of what you did to help them out. You may not like our Democratic asses any more than we like you, but the difference between us and them is that we're perfectly willing to let you whine and cry about your loss of "freedom", so long as you can support yourselves and live a long life. It's a small price for us to pay to make sure that our work means something.

Boycott Wal-Mart
Anger Management tells it like it is:

Some Wal-Mart associates have drunk the company Kool Aid about how Wal-Mart is a "people company not a union company" and how they don't need unions because Wal-Mart "offers careers that give associates the chance to succeed." I can only hope that represents ignorance, because stupidity is not correctable. To these workers I can only say, "Open your friggin' eyes!". No one is on your side. The company doesn't care. At the same time they are running commercials about how they saved poor Timmy, Wal-Mart is cutting back on worker health care coverage, which already costs the states tens of millions of dollars. Listen, don't complain. There are lots of other minimum wage workers that can replace you. Don't look to the Labor Department for help. The administration is in bed with Wal-Mart. They are, after all, one of the largest GOP donors out there.

And as things roll merrily along for the Bush administration, we can expect more of the same kind of treatment for working people. More work, less money, less security for the future. And what's worse is the poor suckers who say how much they love Wal-Mart because of the low prices, but ignore why the prices are so low to begin with: they just don't pay people enough, and they demand that their suppliers do the same. So great American companies like Levi's are forced to outsource in order to meet Wal=Mart's standards.

Oh and my former workplace, Siemens, is closing shop and shipping jobs to Mexico to pay some poor slob five dollars a week. And how long before those poor Mexicans lose their jobs to people in Thailand or VietNam who are willing to work for five dollars a month? This must end, and the only way to end it is to boycott Wal-Mart. Yes, I know, there are companies that are just as evil, but Wal-Mart is the biggest of the big in the retail business, and if we work together we can force them to change their ways.

Yeah it's a pipe dream, I know. I'll just go bang my head against the computer now.

How It Works

Revenge Of The Deaniacs
Digby nails the Democratic Leadership Council:

The DLC...seems to have over-learned the lessons of the Reagan era and simply slept through the 90's. While they were consolidating their status as DC kingmakers and building their fabulous rolodexes, they forgot to do the basic job that we liberal empiricists are supposed to do and check to see whether their experiment actually worked. The results are not so good..

...the DLC banked on the idea that consensus politics of the old school could be recreated in a Republican era. They were wrong. The Republicans desire total political hegemony. And any innovation they propose must now be clearly seen for what it is --- the radical ideologues want to dismantle the New Deal and create a Randian paradise and the politicos want to further enrich their wealthy contributors. The rest of the rubes think that if the Republicans win they’ll get rich and go to heaven and the hated liberals will be vanquished from this earth. We cannot compromise with people like this. We must defeat them head on.

What the DLC has missed entirely in its approach is that "the base", that is, us, is less interested in specific policy than they are in attitude. However it began, the DLC morphed into an organization that was simply afraid to stand up for what it believed in, and went on to criticize people who didn't share that fear. That they were caught off-guard by Howard Dean, who is a centrist at best, shows how little they know about us: Dean's popularity rose from the fact that he was willing to fight back against the GOP hegemony, and not because of any one specific liberal policy. But as I wrote to the NY Times after the DLC types, with the help of the out-of-touch old guard, did more to destroy Dean's Presidential campaign than the GOP (and a line edited out of the letter they published): Old age and treachery may have won the day for Senator Kerry, but we are the future, and the powers that be had better get used to the idea. To be sure, we still have a long way to go; overcoming GOP propaganda and more treachery from the fading Democratic old guard is a Herculean task. But with Gov. Dean at the helm we at least know that the days of rolling over are coming to an end.

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You
From Labor Blog (via Atrios):

This is as low as it goes, as the GOP fights to expand sub-minimum wage sweatshops across the country. Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum is leading the charge for a GOP bill that would ostensibly raise the minimum wage by $1.10 per hour, but in reality would cut wages for millions of American workers and expand unregulated sweatshops across the country.

As this Economic Policy Institute analysis details, the bill is a trojan horse for assaulting workers rights.

Licensing Sweatshops: While a $1.10 per hour minimum wage increase by itself would help 1.8 million workers, Santorum includes a poison bill exempting any business with revenues of $1 million or less from regulation -- raising the exemption from the current $500,000 level.

The upshot: while 1.2 million workers could qualify for a minimum wage increase, another 6.8 million workers, who work in companies with revenues between $500,000 and $1,000,000 per year, would lose their current minimum wage protection.

And an even larger number of businesses, those with revenues under $7 million, would be exempt from fines under a range of other safety, health, pension and other labor laws. Essentially, the realm of unregulated sweatshops would be expanded and legalized under Santorum's bill.

Killing Overtime: It gets worse-- the 40-hour work week would be abolished and companies would not have to pay overtime if they cut hours the next week. The proposal is called "flex time", but workers would have no say in the matter. Their hours could be rearranged, upsetting child care and other weekly routines, and companies would no longer have the deterrent of having to pay overtime as a way to encourage giving workers a regular weekly schedule.

In 2000, after W got into office and the GOP gained control of all branches of the government for the first time in almost seventy years, I warned people that minimum wage and overtime laws would be on the chopping block. Thank God for the Founding Fathers making it tough to push stuff through, or we'd be wage slaves already.

As it is, minimum wage is a joke: it ought to be $15 an hour, certainly no less than ten. I was making $13 an hour at Siemens and I still had trouble making ends meet with that. But the GOP is going all out to establish their version of an "Ownership Society" while they have a chance, so we can expect more of the same from them. But to all the dumbass working people down here who swallow this administration's jism as if it were ambrosia and nectar, I say you have only yourselves to blame. Because in this "Ownership Society", guess who owns who?

I Get Stuff
From my friend Ben Burch at the White Rose Society. It's a long post, but a good one...

The Republican Dictionary

ACTIVIST JUDGE, n. A judge who attempts to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority.

ALARMIST, n. Any respected scientist who understands the threat of global warming.

ALLIES, n. Foreigners who do what Republicans tell them to do.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES, n. New locations to drill for oil and gas.

BALANCED, adj. 1. favoring corporations (a more balanced approach to the environment.); 2. favoring conservatives (fair and balanced reporting).

BI-PARTISANSHIP, n. When conservative Republicans work together with moderate Republicans to pass legislation Democrats hate.

CIVIL LIBERTIES, n. Unnecessary privileges that you aren't afraid of losing unless you are a God-hating, baby-killing, elitist liberal who loves Saddam Hussein more than your own safety.

CLARIFY, v. Repeating the same lie over and over again.

CLASS WARFARE, n. Any attempt to raise the minimum wage.

CLEAN, adj. The word used to modify any aspect of the environment Republican legislation allows corporations to pollute, poison, or destroy.

CLIMATE CHANGE, n. Global warming, without that annoying suggestion that something is wrong.

COALITION, n. One or more nations whose leaders have been duped, pressured or bribed into supporting ill-conceived, unnecessary, under-planned and/or illegal US military operations.

CONVICTION, n. Making decisions before getting the facts, and refusing to change your mind afterward.

CULTURE OF LIFE, n. A reduction of reproductive freedoms.

DEATH TAX, n. A term invented by anti-tax zealots and referring to a tax used to prevent the very wealthy from establishing a dominating aristocracy in this country.

DEMOCRACY, n. My way or the highway.

DEMOCRATIC ALLY, n. Any democracy, monarchy, plutocracy, oligarchy or dictatorship--no matter how ruthless--that verbally supports American diplomatic and economic goals.

DEREGULATE, v. To pursue greed and exploitation.

DETAIN, v. Hold in a secret place without recourse to law and treat in any manner one wishes.

ECONOMIC PROGRESS, n. 1. Recession; 2. Rising unemployment; 3. Minimum-wage freeze.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY, n. When three out of five software engineers who lost their jobs to outsourcing are able to find part-time work at Wal-Mart.

ELECTION FRAUD, n. Counting every vote.

FAIRER, adj. Regressive.

FAITH, n. The stubborn belief that God approves of Republican moral values despite the preponderance of textual evidence to the contrary.

FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE, n. Christian Right Payoff.

FAITH COMMUNITY, n. Evangelicals, because they are saved, and hawkish conservative Jews, because they are useful. Israel is the bait-on-the-hook just waiting for God to take that Rapturous bite.

FAMILY VALUES, n. Oppression of women.

FISCAL CONSERVATIVE, n. A Republican who is in the minority.

FOX NEWS, n. White House Press Office.

FREEDOM, n. What Arabs want but can't achieve on their own without Western military intervention. It bears a striking resemblance to chaos.

GROWTH, n. The justification for tax cuts for the rich. What happens to the deficits when Republicans cut taxes on the rich.

HARD WORK, n. What Republicans say when they can't think of anything better.

HEALTHY FORESTS, n. No tree left behind.

HONESTY, n. Lies told in simple declarative sentences: "Freedom is on the march."

HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY, n. The invasion of any sovereign nation whose leadership Republicans don't like.

HUMBLED, adj. What a Republican says right after a close election and right before he governs in an arrogant manner.

INSURGENT, n. Armed or unarmed, violent or non-violent Iraqi on the receiving end of an American rocket blast or bullet spray, regardless of age, gender or political affiliation.

JOB GROWTH, n. Increased number of jobs an individual has to take after losing earlier high-paying job.

JUNK SCIENCE, n. Sound science.

MORAL VALUES, n. Hatred of homosexuals dressed up in Biblical language.

MANDATE, n. What a Republican claims to possess when only 49 percent of the voting public loathes him instead of 51 percent.

THE MEDIA, n. Immoral elitist liberally-biased traitors who should leave Republicans alone so they can complete God's work on Earth in peace and quiet, behind closed doors.

MODERNIZE, v. To do away with, as in modernizing Social Security, labor laws, etc.

NEOCONSERVATIVES, n. Nerds with Napoleonic complexes.

OBSTRUCTIONIST, n. Any elected representative who dares to question Republican radicals on the issue of the day.

OFFICE OF FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES, n. Christian Right payoff.

OWNERSHIP SOCIETY, n. A society in which Republican donors own the rest of us.

PHILOSOPHY, n. Religion.

POLITICAL CAPITAL, n. What a Republican president receives as a result of a razor-thin margin of victory in an election.

PRESS CONFERENCE, n. A rare event designed for the President to brag about his prowess as a leader while simultaneously dodging difficult questions.

PRIVATIZE, v. To steal the resources of the national community and give them to private business.

REFORM, v. To eliminate, as in tort reform (to eliminate all lawsuits against businesses and corporations) or Social Security and Medicare reform :(to eliminate these programs altogether).

REFORM, n. Rollback of New Deal reforms, laws, standards and social protections.

RESOLUTE, adj. Pig-headed.

SIMPLIFY, tr. v. To cut the taxes of Republican donors.

SLAVE, n. A person without legal rights.

SMALL BUSINESS OWNER, n. A rich person

SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM, n. Leave no Wall Street broker behind.

STAYING THE COURSE, v., The act of being stubborn and unable to admit glaring policy mistakes; being wrong and sticking with the wrong idea regardless of the consequences.

STRICT CONSTRUCTIONIST, n. A judge with extremely conservative beliefs, who interprets laws in a manner that fits his/rarely-her own belief systems, while maintaining that this was the original intent of the law.

SUPPORT THE MILITARY, v. To praise Bush when he sends our young men and women off to die for no reason and without proper body armor.

TAX REFORM, n. The shifting of the tax burden from unearned income to earned income, or rather, from the wealthy elite to the working class.

TAX SIMPLIFICATION, n. A way to make it simpler for large US corporations to export American jobs to avoid paying US taxes.

TORT REFORM, n. Corporate immunity and impunity.

UNITER, n. A Leader who brings together his followers by fomenting hatred for anyone who disagrees with him.

VERY CLEAR, adj. Modifier used immediately before any preposterous explanation or rationale.

It Ain't Easy
I was thinking about what happened at the meeting with Cathy Cox last week, and how it's an example of what's wrong with American society today, as far as civic-mindedness goes. To me, this fight over election procedures is an indication of how much trouble we're in; that the simple notion of counting all the votes requires such an uphill fight makes me wonder if the United States, as we know it, will survive another generation. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that there are still people who want to stand up for our right to vote. But it seems like too little too late, and that too many people are willing to give up power to people who seek it for the sake of seeking it just because we don't want to be bothered with it. As long as we're left alone, what do we care what the people on top are doing, right? That's what I see as the prevailing attitude today.

Being a citizen of a democratic republic isn't easy. It requires you to think about, and be a part of, something greater than yourself. It means you have to put aside your tribal instincts and trust people you have never met or have little in common with. And it means you have to work at it constantly, because the moment you stop, you slide backwards. You don't have to work at being a peasant or a slave, that's the default state of those who are unable or unwilling to fight for their rights. That's why monarchies last longer than democracies.

There are always going to be people who want more power than they deserve, and there will be a few who are very good at getting it and keeping it. The Founding Fathers understood this when they drafted the Constitution, spreading political power out so that it would be more difficult for one person, or a small group of people, to take over. But the people who want power are always finding newer and better ways to get it, and we have to be on guard against them at all times. That's why we can't compromise on the issue of elections, and on other issues vital to the idea of democracy and self-rule.

History gives us examples of far worse times than today: slavery, civil war, child labor and exploitation are all part of our past, and we overcame those obstacles. It shows the greatness of the human spirit that we can rise above such adversity. But we have handled success very badly: where hardship united us, prosperity has divided us. We got lazy and greedy, and we're only beginning to pay the price for it. The question now is whether we can regain our lost sense of community before it's too late.

The Church Of W

The F Word
Avedon Carol points out how the GOP is branding as fascists those who point out the fascist behavior of the GOP leadership. For those of you who don't know (or care) what fascism really is, let me explain it to you in simple terms: it's corporate control of government. You can have a fascist government that isn't anti-Semitic, you can even have a fascist government that doesn't go around beating up everybody who they don't like. Just saying Well, you're not in prison yet, so you don't live in a fascist government is a bullshit comment from people who are living in denial about what's going on. I, and others like me, are fighting so that we never get to the point where I get a knock on my door in the middle of the night.

Every fascist government that has ever existed (no less than four, no more than perhaps a dozen) has had fourteen defining characteristics, and each of those characteristics are in play right now in the United States. The question remains, how far will it go? In an earlier post, Avedon links to a link that links to a speech by author David G. Stratman, where he points out how the corporatists (and "corporatism" is how Mussolini defined fascism) in America are trying to subvert public education, and now of course they're going after Social Security. They've already launched an illegal war against a country that was no threat to us, and they're looking to go after others. It may get to the point where the rest of the world decides enough is enough and starts going after us: not militarily, but economically. And again, I'm working to avoid that. I love my country, and I hate seeing what's happening to it.

The difference between the days when fascism was in its heyday in the early 20th Century and now is that back then there was no way mass amounts of people could communicate with each other; there was certainly no way to threaten the hegemony of the estalished media. The internet changed all that. But now I hear word from Atrios and Daily kos that the FEC is now looking at ways to shut down political discourse on the internet. Small steps perhaps, but steps nontheless. I realize that the F word has been thrown around a lot, which is a shame because it lessens the true meaning of fascism, but I think the time has come for those who normally stay on the sidelines to start paying a little more attention to what's going on. I realize that not many of them will be reading this blog, but I put it to you reading this, if you know someone like that, send them here, or to other sites. Give them the opportunity to read what we have to say, while we're still able to say it.