Wishing upon a Star

I suppose such a poll was bound to happen since Hilary Clinton ran such a solid campaign in 2008 and just came up short, but numbers like these showing her crushing Obama's likely rivals in 2012 (and Obama not performing nearly as well) are about as fluffy as a Stay-Puft marshmallow.  I'd be the last person to defend President Obama's record, but anyone who thinks Hilary's agenda would be any better is kidding him/herself.  The Clintons have always tacked to the right side of the Democratic party, and are about as corporate friendly a pair as one will ever find.  God bless them for rescuing the Democrats from the Presidential wasteland in 1992, but thinking that the economy or the country would be on a better track under Secretary Clinton is wishful thinking.

And that doesn't even consider that if there is one American whom the republicans hate more than Barack Obama, it's Hilary Clinton.  One can't even imagine the money they'd throw to defeat her, the scandals they'd cook up, and the stories they'd make up on the fly.

My guess is--though, she, too, would probably win in the end--it would be a lot, lot closer than the numbers they're projecting.

And besides, we've got to play the cards we're dealt.

Peace,
emaycee

Make my cake chocolate, please

As the Occupy movements continue (somewhat surprisingly, to me at least), this piece by Ian Millhiser (entitled, appropriately enough with Halloween just around the corner, "What If the Tea Party Wins?") of the Center for American Progress delineates just how important this movement is, especially as the antithesis to the Antoinettes.  For the Antoinettes, the idea of the United States providing any kind of assistance (FEMA, food stamps, Medicaid) to its people in need, is unconstitutional.  The idea of the government providing any of life's necessities (healthcare via Medicare, retirement income via Social Security, education of any kind) is unconstitutional.  And they won't stop until these programs--and with them, America as a viable nation--are destroyed.

I've had my ups and downs with Bill Clinton throughout the years, but he can always be counted on when the chips are down.  And I think President Clinton knew exactly, from a timing and factually relevant standpoint, what he was saying when he made this point:

"You know, there’s not a single solitary example on the planet, not one, of a country that is succesful because the economy has triumphed over the government and choked it off and driven the tax rates to zero, driven the regulations to nonexistent and abolished all government programs, except for defense, so people in my income group never have to pay a nickel to see a cow jump over the moon. There is no example of a succesful country that looks like that."

And these two things are why, despite the disappointments, we need to keep fighting the good fight, to keep Americans living up to our ideal of "e pluribus unum."

Peace,
emaycee

Trust no one

You know, it's not bad enough that they want to overwork and underpay us, but they've got to insult our intelligence, too.  Apparently USA Today (the gold standard in U.S. journalism, I'm sure) ran a piece featuring wisdom from one Laura Laing, and her book, Math for Grownups.  According to Miss Laing, getting a raise isn't always a good thing (what the fuck?) because, horror of horrors, you may end up paying more in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Please, dear God, can I pay more in taxes?  In fact, I'd like to pay millions more.

Because then, me being a grownup and all, I'd be FUCKING MAKING MORE MONEY!

Peace,
emaycee

St. Peter don't you call me

While the Catholic church has always leaned left on economic issues, this statement from the Vatican today calling for economic equality and stricter financial regulation was a welcome reminder--especially with social issue only Catholics like John Boehner and Paul Ryan leading the republican party these days.  Still...

You have to wonder just how much more effective the church's stance would be if it (and its members) hadn't spent so much time (and political capital) kowtowing to the right over the years for their stances on a woman's womb and who individuals choose to sleep with.  Sometimes when you make a deal with the devil it comes back to bite you in the ass, and the growing poverty rate and the widening income equality worldwide are pretty powerful nips in the fanny.

I just don't think "...give us this day our daily bread..." means the same to greed is good republicans as it does to the rest of us.

Peace,
emaycee

Available for a limited time

I originally had interest in this piece about workers' attitudes because of its opening--which showed that American workers are more discouraged and unhappy than they have ever been before. 

And what a fucking shock that was.

But rather than stop at the initial premise, I read the whole article and came away more than a bit bewildered.  Quote:   "...progress in meaningful work is the primary motivator, well ahead of traditional incentives like raises and bonuses."  Now, I'll be the first to admit that since I read Matthew Stewart's The Myth of Management I've been a big skeptical when it comes to studies on what motivates workers (Stewart uses one Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of scientific management, as an example--Taylor's studies clearly showed money to be the prime motivator but to appease his corporate benefactors Taylor fudged the studies to show workplace culture--what the fuck?--as the prime motivator).  But still....

The title of the article "Do Happier People Work Harder?" was a bit odd in and of itself--I never went to the Harvard Business School, but I'm reasonably certain that with no study of any kind, the answer to that question would be an unequivocal yes. 

The study was undertaken by the Harvard Business School (Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer)--which makes me even more skeptical.  Just a wild guess, but I'd be willing to bet many of American corporations best and brightest came out of said school (not too many of its graduates end up an Assistant Manager at Wal-Mart, I'd suppose)--and one doesn't bite the hand that feeds by showing that share and share alike is better than greed is good.  I mean really--does anyone doubt the Harvard Business School is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America?

"...progress in meaningful work" strikes me as one of those bullshit phrases like "thinking outside the box" or "metrics" that corporations are so fond of using (my least favorite is using the word "issue" for the word "problem"--I'm not Noam Chomsky so this might be a bit simplistic, but abortion and taxing the wealthy are "issues"; the host of glitches your new system has are fucking "problems").  One wonders if the study's authors have ever considered telling the titans of Wall Street that those seven figure bonuses aren't really all that important--they could take a hell of a cut in pay and be a lot "happier" if only they made progress in meaningful work.  It doesn't take Einstein to conclude that should such a statement be made to such a titan, the study's authors could quickly find themselves studying the work habits of the Emperor Penguin in the bowels of Antarctica.

Better still, let's ask the poor souls working for minimum wage which they would prefer:  progress in meaningful work or a raise that doubles their salary from $7.50 to $15.00?  Progress in meaningful work or a bonus of $1000?  What do you suppose the fucking answer would be?

What I hate most about these types of "studies" is the legitimacy given to class warfare at its ugliest.  They are little more than bullshit facades to keep the rich richer and the rest of us buying at the company store.

Harvard should be fucking ashamed.

Peace,
emaycee

They're not laughing anymore

I actually read the entire excerpt  from an Antoinette on the Occupy Wall Street movement (as presented by Digby).  I only made it through the first two paragraphs of Nolan Finley's take on the same subject.  Oddly (for me, anyway) it wasn't anger or disgust that made me stop reading--it was complete and utter boredom.  The pieces aren't really that dissimilar--and both share several traits.  For one, you can feel the apprehension:  the tea party only appeals to the few; Occupy Wall Street has the potential to appeal to the masses.  How do the Antoinettes fight strength in numbers (my guess--strength in cash money)?

Second, both pieces have a feel of just being mailed in, i.e., a fucking yawnfest.  There is nothing in either piece that hasn't been heard before, nothing that isn't anything more than the rantings of some old fart white guy, who thinks he'd be a millionaire if only the government hadn't taken all their money in taxes (never mind that, like most of us, they just weren't talented or smart or lucky enough).

But mostly what they share in common is complete and utter desperation.  Both pieces have the look of a fighter sapped of his energy, throwing weak ass punch after weak ass punch even though he knows he's beaten in some farfetched fantasy that one will land in the sweet spot.  Good fucking luck with that--much like the tea party has lost faith in the ability of government to ease our woes, a solid majority of Americans have lost faith in corporate America to cure what ails us--and by nearly 20% support the aims of Occupy Wall Street over the aims of the Antoinettes.

It's far too early to declare any sort of victory, but it is fun to watch the Antoinettes stagger around and try to explain that, all evidence to the contrary, they are right to a large number of Americans who are working harder (if they're working at all) and having less to show for it (if they have anything left at all).

And to stare mute at a real populist movement.

Peace,
emaycee

Let them eat cake

It's dawned on me of late that by naming themselves and their movement the "tea party" (fuck the acronym, it's just more republican idiocy), they've given themselves an inherent sense of legitimacy. The first image that pops into any of our minds when we hear the words "tea party" (in a political context--in a literary context one might conjure images of Alice in Wonderland) is of the Boston Tea Party, and even the most jaded of Americans has some sense of pride from the history (if nothing else, it's led to our Sunday afternoons being spent drinking beer and watching football instead of having a spot of tea during the soccer match).

The other day while doing a crossword puzzle (I always knew eventually all that puzzle solving would pay off) one of the clues involved Marie Antoinette and her famed quote.  And the first image that popped into my mind while writing the words "Let them eat cake" was of the American tea party.

So...from here on out, in this blog, the tea party will now simply be known as The Antoinettes.

Just a touch on the fitting side.

Peace,
emaycee

There's something in the air...

I have no idea whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will turn into an actual movement or will peter out and become a fond memory for those of us view America as empathetic and not pathetic.  But I must admit, the fear running rampant among republicans is about as heartening of a development as I've seen since the Dems opened a can of whoop ass on the republicans in aught-six and aught-eight.

A little cheese with the whine:

• Eric fucking Cantor, wimp extraordinaire, calling the 99%ers a mob and accusing them of dividing America--why is it that republican protests are patriotic and ours are divisive?  I smell...bullshit!
• Rep. Peter King complaining that if we give it legitimacy it will be the 60s all over again (like that's a bad thing?).  Considering that I've heard members of the 99% Movement repeatedly referred to as "dirty hippies" by the right, it will be by their voices that it is so.  Note to the dumb asses of the right:  the sixties called and it wants its fucking lingo back.
• CNBC--you know, the money "experts" who completely missed the collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008, hell-fucking-o!--calling the protesters freaks and their actions bizarre.  Don't know about you, but I'd take being called a freak by Jim Cramer or Larry Kudlow as a fucking compliment.
• The illiterati in the traditional media--Fox, CNN--doing their best to paint the protesters with the sterotypical conservative brush.
• Scott Brown's utterly lame putdown of the high priestess of the movement, Elizabeth Warren (whose speech arguably stoked the flame and makes one proud not just to be a Liberal, but also a human being) and the may be even worse defense of him by republican spin doctors, asking  Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Kelly Ayotte to walk the plank for a pig.  Anybody want to wager a guess at how badly Warren beats Brown among women in Massachusetts in 2012?  I'll wager 65-35.

Funny thing is, as demonstrated by thereisnospoon, the tea party may have fallen on its own sword by making protests viable again.

I don't think this necessarily helps the Dems in 2012--the movement seems pretty disgusted with both parties (thanks President Obama!)--but anything that further delineates the differences between those of us who think America should help the have nots more than the haves certainly can't hurt.

Peace,
emaycee