Return Of The Blog Of The Working Man!

Well after a few weeks of seemingly pointless job search I actually managed to land a job today! OK granted it's not very much: part time work at a pizza place for six bucks an hour, but hey it's the first steady income I've had for almost a year. I have an orientation class on Saturday and start on Sunday, and I'm looking forward to it. I hope it's the start of better times.

Fundraiser Update: Thanks to everyone who donated, and the last minute rush put me well over the top! Thanks to your generosity I was able to pay the rent, utilities and phone bill plus enough left over for a bus pass and a decent lunch at a fast food joint! It's nice to know that what I do has value to people, it helps keep me sane in an otherwise crazy world.

Last Chance For Love

We're in the home stretch of my help-me-avoid-eviction fundraiser: I'm still $155 short of my goal of $600 that I need to reach by Wednesday. I know how tough everyone has it right now, but if you have it to spare please drop a buck or two in the hat. I've had a rough year and the last way I want to end it is by getting kicked out of the house. I have no doubt that the future will get better, and when it does, those that helped out will be remembered, and I of course will be as generous to others in need as you all have been to me. Thanks again.

BTW, new show this week.

Being Thankful

It's been such an utterly horrible year it's hard to find things for me to be thankful for. Regular readers know what I'm talking about: unemployment, poverty, and of course the loss of my wife. Needless to say, it's not a year I am going to look back on with a great deal of fondness.

But as bad as things have been for me, the really sad thing is that I'm still far better off than so many other people in the world. I have a roof over my head, I don't have to worry about food, and even though my wife is no longer with me, she at least is out of pain. More importantly, even in these dark times there is reason to believe that the future will be more hopeful: not just for me but for everyone else. And for that, at least, I'm thankful.

Pissed Off

OK what I'd like everyone to do is to glance through this article in the NY Times which talks about the "political risks" for the Republicans. Go ahead, just thumb through it and then come back to read the next paragraph. I'll wait...

Okay, did you notice anything missing? Was there any mention of a particular Congressperson's name or the word she used to describe a decorated Marine? Go back if you like and look again. I'll even help: Do a text search for "Schmidt" or "coward". Nowhere to be found.

Instead, we get assorted whining from Republicans about how nasty things have gotten. Here's an excerpt:

Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, said he thought the war debate was worthwhile because it sent a reassuring message to troops in Iraq. But he found the tone "absolutely unnecessary, demeaning and potentially destructive."

"We have so many huge problems, and it is frustrating to somebody like myself when we are reduced to partisan fire with bazookas," said Mr. Foley, who added that the House was as polarized as he had seen it during his decade in office.

Duh, ya think?

OK, granted the article was about political risks for Republicans, but you would think that even the most brain-dead reporter might at least make a mention of the fact that the Republicans have been doing this sort of thing for the last thirty years or so. For them, it started with Newt Gingrich calling Democrats traitors and cowards to an empty chamber which warranted a rebuke from then Speaker Tip O'Neill. And it continues today: even to the point of attacking the war records of decorated military men like Max Cleland and John Kerry. When they wore those Purple Heart band-aids during the GOP campaign they were spitting in the face of every veteran who ever fought in a war.

If anyone wonders why the Republicans consistently get away with this behavior, it's because so-called professionals who ought to know better let them. Throughout the Clinton years, one made-up scandal after another was paraded across the front page of the Times and other so-called respectable news outlets. Now, even though we have (and have had for some time) pretty conclusive proof that the Bush people lied their way into murdering tens (perhaps hundreds?)of thousands of innocent Iraqis, any mention of that gets people labeled as "moonbats".

I know I shouldn't get angry over this because it's nothing I can really control, but getting kicked in the face like that time and time again tends to piss people off, and it's worse when any time you say something in return, no matter how moderate, all of a sudden things get too "partisan".

I'd like to say that the tide on this will eventually turn, I used to think it would. But history has shown that as a nation grows wealthier and more powerful, this is what happens. The Athenians were unable to prevent their leaders from destroying their country, the Romans were unable to prevent themselves from becoming an Empire. Now it's our turn. Can we prevent this? Can we break the cycle of history and begin a new era of human history?

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Fundraiser Update: Only $175 to go in order to reach my goal of $600 by December first! Don't let up now, it's the final stretch!

The Cup O' Joe Report

Starting this week, I've been putting together two-minute segments (or "drops" as they are apparently known) to be used as drops on different radio shows called "The Cup O' Joe Report". The segments will be produced five days a week (Monday-Friday) and are available for anyone to use on their radio shows.

My thanks to Bob Kincaid of Head On Radio for being the first to use these drops, and for the compliments he gave me on his show (he called me a radio pro! If only he knew!). Bob is one of my neighbors at the White Rose Society along with many other great radio shows.

The shows can be downloaded here courtesy of my good friend Julius in Denmark The Netherlands (sorry Julius). Yes, The Netherlands. Isn't technology wonderful?

And don't forget, there's a fundraiser still going on!

Open Thread: Show 108

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

Listen here. Comment below. Thanks again to Phyllis Huster for being a guest, the new "studio" works great.

Fundraiser Update: Less than two weeks to go and I'm still $225 short of my goal of $600 by December 1st! I know a lot of you out there have other priorities and believe me I understand...but if you can spare a couple of bucks here and there, it would be very appreciated. Again, don't send the rent or the grocery money, only send what you can afford to.

And just so everyone knows, I have a list of everyone who has donated and when I finally get back on my feet financially (which I believe will be soon), your generosity will not be forgotten, Whether you've donated $5 or $500, every donation is meaningful to me.

Birthday Blues

They say that when a loved one dies, the first holidays without them are the hardest. Today would have been Cathy's 46th birthday, it's my 44th. If she had survived we would have gone out somewhere nice. She wasn't used to that, of course: she was always poor and wasn't used to going out for, say, a steak dinner. Even though we were always broke I still made sure she got to eat in a nice place every now and again. Everyone deserves that. There's a big DNC event tomorrow: a national conference call with Howard Dean, at this point I'm not too sure I'm going to attend, we'll see. At the very least I need to get my driver's license renewed, I'll probably make a day out of it.

You'll notice that I took off the notice about the fundraiser: at this point I have raised $375 of the $600 I'll need to make the rent this month, I hope to raise the other $225 in two weeks. Now that I'm more focused on the job search I should have a job of some sort before the end of the month. I hope so anyway. I spent some time reworking and updating my resume, I'll need to get a lot printed up. In the meantime, if anyone wants to send me some love for my birthday, I won't complain.

If We Want To Win, Leave

As more and more information reluctantly trickles to top of the media food chain about how the Bush administration lied about going to war with Iraq (information which had been apparent to anyone outside of the personality cult the right wing has become and the insulated world of the so-called "professional" media), the sad fact is that our soldiers are still there and no one with any real authority seems to have a clue as to what to do next.

I'll admit there was a time, not so long ago, too, when I believed we had to stay in Iraq for as long as it took because we had a responsibility to make things better for the Iraqi people: in other words, the "you broke it, you bought it" philosophy. I believed that then because I believe we need to be responsible about cleaning up our own messes. But if we were that noble and mature to begin with, we would have never invaded Iraq in the first place. So after careful consideration I think the best thing we can do is to just get the hell out as quickly as we can.

But that doesn't mean I think we should just leave and then forget that Iraq exists. We have a moral obligation to right this wrong, and part of our penance has to include accepting some harsh realities: the biggest one being an Iraqi civil war and the likely emergence of an Islamic state that may ally itself with Iran. And we have to take responsibility for our actions by punishing not only the leaders that brought it about (the Bush administration, the leadership of the Republican Party and their chief financial backers) but also those in the professional media who either failed in their duty or worse aided the administration in their deceit.

The former ought to be removed from power and brought to justice, either here or in an international court. Wars of aggression are crimes against humanity and no nation, no matter how nobly they have behaved in the past, should be above the law. Those in the media who openly collaborated with the political leaders in this conspiracy ought to be tried as well. News organizations that behaved irresponsibly should have their licenses revoked, and the assorted "journalists" whose lazy and irresponsible reporting kept the public in the dark about what was really happening ought to at least be shamed out of the business altogether.

In attacking Iraq, we reacted exactly as Osama bin Laden predicted we would, legitimizing him in the eyes of many in the Arab world who believe that we want nothing more than to kill them, take their oil, and convert them to Christianity. Our moral authority, built up slowly over the fifty years before the turn of the century, was smashed in only five years. It may take another fifty years to get that reputation back, and the only we can even begin to do that is to leave Iraq, admit how wrong we were and make amends. Once we get rid of the neocons, we should publicly apologize to the world and begin the process of building a global structure in order to fight terrorism the way it ought to be fought: by building the kind of world where no one would even think about blowing themselves up. It's not such an easy sell as Hey there's an enemy! Get him!, but in the long run it will be better for all of us, even if we won't see the results of it until after we're dead and buried.

And finally, we have to learn that we can't go on living the lifestyles we live. This war was as much about saving suburbia as it was about anything else. We were lied to, yes, but all too many of us wanted to be lied to because we love our big cars and cheap gas. The party's over as far as that goes and the sooner we figure that out the better.

I believe that if we do these things, we will win: because I guarantee that while many people hate the American government, they love Americans and American pop culture, they love the idea that life can be fun. I think we've lost that sense of innocent enjoyment, we seem to take even our fun seriously.

Will any of this happen? Recent election results were a good sign, but I am going to remain skeptical just for the sake of being skeptical. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and the powers that be aren't going to give up easily. They work hard and tirelessly for their beliefs, we need to match them every step of the way.

Ism Ism Ism

A couple of websites (first here and then here) have taken issue with my definition of Libertarianism. I concede the fact that I was perhaps being a bit over-general in my assessment of Libertarians, however in hindsight it seems to me that any ism whose adherents have such wildly disparate definitions doesn't seem to be much of an ism at all, but that's not what I really want to talk about here.

In both cases, the websites in question attack me for my support of the New Deal, though what that has to do with my original post escapes me. Now I admit I am not as well-read as others, and I'm not making any claims of being smarter (or dumber) than anyone else out there. I haven't read every book on the subject, my opinions were formed based much more on personal experience. What I do know is that because of the New Deal my father, an unskilled laborer who had no desire to be anything more than a good husband and father, was able to work and earn enough money to support a family of five, and still save up enough money to buy a house to retire in. That might not seem like much to some people but for people like my father, who lacked even a high school education, it was significant. It certainly could not have happened before the New Deal, or in today's world.

Was the New Deal perfect? Of course not. The benefits of it went mostly to white males: women and minorities were still second class citizens. And organized labor came to be as corrupt as any corporate establishment. That's just human nature, something that's not going to change overnight. For all the New Deal accomplished, there was and is still much more to be done. But just because it wasn't perfect doesn't mean it wasn't good: the New Deal brought financial security to millions of people who would have otherwise spent their lives in poverty and misery. People like my father.

The main thrust of the attacks against me was that some of the New Deal was written by big business and benefited them as well. I'm not going to argue the point, because as I mentioned I'm not as well-read as some others. But regardless of the truth of that, the New Deal was still far better than what went before, and I have no objection to businesses making a profit. That is, after all, why they exist. But I still hold that we have a right to regulate business to lessen or prevent the worst aspects of it. The only way we can do that is via government, and then only if the government is powerful enough to deal with these huge corporations, and even then only if the public is aware of what's going on. Being a citizen of a free Republic is an enormous responsibility and face it some of us just aren't up to the task. It's just something we have to learn to live with, hopefully we can outgrow it before we wipe each other out.

And one more thing: making money is a specialized skill. Some people are very, very good at it, others aren't. There are a lot of people who simply cannot handle money, and I count myself in that group. Were I to ever win the lottery, I'd have to be very careful not to become one of those people who wastes it away in a year or so. I accept that and can live with it. I also don't mind letting the rich and powerful play their little games, all I ever asked is that they make sure that those of us whose ambitions don't include more than putting in a good day's work and coming home to dinner and TV, the occasional night out, a decent vacation once in a while, and a chance to retire don't get screwed over because some corporate weasel can't stand the fact that some people have money they can't get their greedy little hands on.

I don't give a damn about this ism or that ism. The subtle differences between "real" libertarians, "royal" libertarians, "Georgists" and all the other little splinter groups are lost on a single mother trying to raise a child. That's the bottom line. I hope that one day we can live in a world where "success" isn't measured by the size of your bank account, perhaps even a world where money as we know it doesn't even exist. But until that day comes, I want to make sure that working people aren't driven into poverty and de facto indentured servitude while self-important yahoos debate which is the best of all the isms.

The Nickel Tour

Since I went through all the trouble of rearranging the room this last weekend I thought it would be nice to give everyone a glimpse into what Studio Al looks like, and where some of your donation money went. I don't have any pictures of what the room looked like beforehand, and thank God for that because it was very cramped and pretty dirty. I live an a very small apartment in the basement of a house. There's a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen and a small hallway and that's it. But I don't have a lot of needs so where I am suits me just fine for right now. And Cathy and I got along so well the lack of space wasn't a major concern. With her passing I felt it was important to have new structure. I couldn't take a picture of the entire room to give you an idea of scale. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger picture.

This is the new, improved Studio Al. The computer desk is one of those assemble-it-yourself pieces which is pretty much the only kind of furniture I have. Getting it turned out to be a big pain in the ass: I saw it at an Office Depot but I didn't have a way to get it home with me that day. I went back to the store later with a friend but by then they didn't have one. I finally just ordered it online and had it delivered. The desk is incomplete: there's supposed to be a small shelf above the main desk, but if I used that I couldn't get the scanner on the desk like I wanted. What's neat about the desk is that it's on wheels, which will turn out to be very helpful the next time I have to vacuum.

The mike is on the left, I should have taken a picture of the mixer, which is just to the left of the TV: it's a Eurorack MX802A which I got for about $80 from eBay some time back. There's a small file cabinet with the printer sitting on top of it just out of view on the left.

This is "Cathy's Corner" on the right hand side of the headboard of the bed. Right hand side as you're looking at the bed that is, left if you're laying down. As you can see, Cathy loved wolves and angels. The clock, which I purchased in Japan almost twenty years ago, is now permanently set to 9:10, the time Cathy died. The bowl with the fish design was the feeding bowl for Miss Nelly, our late cat. Nelly was left at the doorstep of the animal hospital where Cathy's last job was, a very old and very sick cat who we cared for in the last year of its life.

That TV was actually given to us about three years back when a family "adopted" us one Christmas and gave us gifts. It's on PBS, but to be honest that's just the channel I stopped at, I wasn't really watching it. That shelf is going to go, I hate the way it looks, I'm going to replace it with something a bit more decorative, probably something I'll get from a thrift store somewhere.

Here's a closer look at the stuff on the shelf above the TV. Kong is holding a "Give 'Em Hell, Howard!" keychain/button and wearing an Arale hat: Arale is the girl on the right, the green-haired thing next to her is a Gatchan, they are from one of my favorite anime series, Dr. Slump, by Akira Toriyama who's best known for the truly awful Dragonball Z series.

Anyway that's about it, not much to it really. I was going to take some pics of the hall and kitchen but I figured, why bother? Hope you enjoyed the tour. That'll be a nickel, please.

Monotonomania

A thought occurred to me: the Bush people seem to value those who never change their minds about anything, and judging from the childishness of everyone involved, from the trolls (paid or unpaid) that are starting to show up in the comments section to the fuck-ups in charge, it's like they really did learn everything they needed to know in Kindergarten...

Greed

The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most cherished belief of the war’s ideological architects: that greed is good. Not good just for them and their friends but good for humanity, and certainly good for Iraqis. Greed creates profit, which creates growth, which creates jobs and products and services and everything else anyone could possibly need or want. The role of good government, then, is to create the optimal conditions for corporations to pursue their bottomless greed, so that they in turn can meet the needs of the society.
Naomi Klein: Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia, Harper's Magazine (via Juan Cole)

I can't say I agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Klein's assertion that the neocons believe what they're doing is "good for humanity", I guess it depends a great deal upon who they want to define as "human". Certainly not the innocent people of Iraq, who are the ones suffering most from all of this, and who in retrospect would have indeed been better off if Saddam Hussein were still in charge. I can't imagine that they think the poor people of New Orleans, who suffered the most because of the incompetence or indifference or perhaps even maliciousness of the current administration, qualify as "human" in their eyes. I can't prove this of course, it's just a feeling, but it seems to me that people who are fighting tooth and nail for the "right" to torture people (and doing so secretly anyway) don't seem very concerned about the "humanity" of others.

And we are their enablers. We are used to a certain lifestyle here in America, and cheap gas is something we've taken for granted. But that lifestyle comes with a cost. The US has been interfering with the Middle East for over sixty years because of the fear that someone will come along and turn off the spigot, and we've turned a blind eye to it because we like our cars and we like cheap gas. As Jim Kunstler of Clusterfuck Nation put it:

You want truth, Progressive America? Here's the truth: the War to Save Suburbia entailed an unavoidable strategic military enterprise. Saving Suburbia required that the Middle East be pacified or at least stabilized, because two-thirds of the world's remaining oil is there (and in case you haven't figured this out by now, Suburbia runs on oil, and the oil has to be cheap or we couldn't afford to run it). The three main oil-producing countries in the Middle East, going from west-to-east are Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. We had serious relationship problems with all of them at various times, and they with each other, leading at frequent intervals to a lot of instability in that region, and consequently trouble for us trying to run Suburbia on cheap oil (which they sold us in large quantities).

The history of Empire is the history of organized theft. The Athenians began the Delian League on the idea that they could work together with their allies to create a better venue for trade, eventually they got greedy, took it over, and were destroyed in their attempt to conquer Sicily. In Rome, a new Caesar was required to conquer more territory to bring more money into the Empire. The Europeans set up colonies all over the world to bring back wealth to their own nations. Columbus stole slaves from the New World to enrich the Old. The United States economy for the first century was based to whatever degree on slavery, and even after the slaves were "freed", they were denied the humanity and dignity that according to the Declaration of Independence was their inalienable right. And lest we forget, we were hardly the first people here to begin with.

One thing I agree with the right wing on is that choices count. We had a choice in this country after the end of the Cold War; we could have become the greatest of free nations in a united world, or we could, as the neocons want, use our military might to create a Pax Americana. But as history clearly shows us, no amount of military might is ever enough, no permanent peace can be had through force of arms. In the short term, the greed of the neocons has enriched them, but in the end it will destroy them, weaken the nation, and make it more difficult to create a real peace, a Pax Liberalis of free people working together to build a better world.

I happen to think that it's a good thing for the US to get slapped down a bit. Why do we want the burden of Empire? Who needs all that hassle? Better to live in peace with your neighbors than to exploit them. The neocons don't see it that way, of course. They believe that he oil in Iraq is theirs because they want it and they have the military might (or so they believe) to take it. We allow them to get away with it because we like the gas. But the longer it goes on the more expensive it becomes, in terms of money and in terms of life. It's a hard lesson to learn, but maybe someday we'll figure it out: greed is bad.

La Vida Loca

As those of you who read this site on a regular basis know, there's really not much to who I am. I'm just a guy with an opinion and a means to spread that opinion around a bit. Nothing more, nothing less. It hurts me sometimes that I don't get a little more attention (after two years you'd think I'd be doing a bit more than 100 or so hits a day), but hey that's the way it is, and while I may bitch about it sometimes I think I have a good idea why that's so.

But whatever you all think of me, however you feel about what I write and say on the show, I think all of the regulars understand that when I put something into the public sphere I do so because I believe it. I'm not trying to get a rise out of people or just pass on talking points to benefit a political cause. OK sure I'm nominally a Democrat and a liberal, but I never look at an issue and say to myself "what is the Democratic take on this?" or "how does a liberal respond to this?" I feel how I feel and if I identify myself as a liberal Democrat it's because that's where my opinions generally lead me. And unlike other radio show hosts, I never claim to be totally correct on every (or even any) issue, but at least when someone reads the site or listens to the show they know quite clearly that I mean what I say.

This attitude comes natural to me. It's who I am. And I naively think that regardless of what other people's opinions are, that represents how they really feel about something. Which is why, regardless of how often it happens, it constantly amazes me when I see people say or do the most ludicrous things just to further a cause or because that's what they're supposed to think. Like the people who put together the Swift Boat ads on John Kerry, or the pundits bending over backwards to defend George W. Bush. Of course some of that is at least understandable in the context of that's what they get paid to do though I don't see the attraction of any job that requires you to lie or demean someone else. And the more money you get for doing that, the more (and more outrageously) you have to lie. Sounds like a pretty crazy life to me. I hope they enjoy the money because it can't be doing their mental health any good.

But even despite the money, don't people see how dangerous some lies are? Take the Plame thing. It's pretty clear what happened: the Bush people knew all along that Iraq would be a hard sell, so they lied and exaggerated and basically made stuff up to justify it. And then when Joe Wilson calls them on their claims, they react by revealing that his wife is an undercover CIA operative. And while such things are hard to prove in a court of law (in part because of the political power of the people involved), I think it's fairly obvious to everyone with a mind unclouded by ideology that pretty much everyone at the top, from Rove to Cheney to Bush, not only knew about it and condoned it, but were active participants.

I don't say that because I think that bringing these people down would advance liberal causes or Democratic politicians, I say that because I believe it and I think if a lot of people looked at it honestly, especially considering the history of this administration, they would believe that as well. And I think it's important to look at what happened because of what it's doing to the country and the world as a whole. How does it benefit Republicans if there is more terrorism? How does it benefit the wealthy few if they live in a more dangerous world? Again, that's crazy. There are reasons some things should be above politics, but I guess the drive for power blinds people to that. You'd think that after a few thousand years of this nonsense we'd have learned a little more.

But again at least they have a motive for what they do, or at least they think they do. What does it say about a poor working person who votes Republican because they have been led to believe that the Republicans are fighting for them? Have taxes gone down for the working class since the GOP took over? Are they going to go down for them any time in the foreseeable future? No on the former, highly doubtful on the latter. Only two things prevent these people from voting for Democrats if only to get these people out of office: one is the timidity of the current Democratic leadership (though maybe they're showing some signs after all? I'm still in a wait-and-see mode on that), but the other is undoubtedly a desire to stick to ideology, and that's just nuts. I know gay people who vote Republican. Why? Two percent of blacks vote that way as well. Huh? Crazy, crazy, crazy.

Even worse are people who ought to be united against a common enemy yet demand their own form ideological purity in choosing their allies. I see this all the time on the boards: petty bickering and pointless mind games. Are we the Judean People's Front or are we the People's Front of Judea? Does it really matter?

The enemy isn't George W. Bush. It's not Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. These people are just symptoms of a greater problem, and if we were honest with ourselves, if we looked past the raw, tribal, instincts that drive us and try to rise above them, we can build a better world. Or a less crazy one.