The Omega Grub Station--An Uplifting End to 2011

Everyday on my way to work I pass dozens of small (lower case s) businesses.  The Bread Basket Deli.  Motel McGuire's.  Joe's Country Oven Restaurant.  The Hot Spot (not what you might think--sign says they offer coffee and company).  Mel's Grill.  La Bella Salon.  Dawn Donuts (which offered ice cream and lotto--some definite outside the box thinking for a doughnut shop).  Uncle Ed's Oil Shoppe.  And the tiny restaurant mentioned in the title--The Omega Grub Station.

The one thing that always amazes me (other than the fact that they've all survived the Great Recession, lest, sadly, Dawn Donuts which closed in the past couple of weeks) is the gumption it must take to start your own business.  I pass auto shops, electrical shops, and plumbing shops on my way to work, too, and while I imagine it takes a certain gumption for them as well, they're selling a skill that most of us lack (just ask us--we've tackled two minor plumbing problems since we bought our house in the fall and thoroughly botched both).  But what nerve it must take to think to yourself  "I can make coffee good enough and provide a pleasant enough atmostphere that I can make enough money to pay not only the rent on the building that houses my business, but one for a roof over my head as well."  Or to think you can make a breakfast good enough (as The Omega Grub Station's sign proclaims), that enough people will want to buy, so that the fears of failure and bankruptcy and unemployment don't overwhelm your confidence in your abilities.  Or to think you can make doughnuts so good that they will overcome the name recognition and powerful ad budgets of Dunkin' Donuts or Krispy Kreme.   What about health insurance costs?  The safety of working for a large corporation?  Like I said:  lots of gumption.

And it's a good thing, too.  Surprisingly, 99% of American businesses employ less than 500 people--and 52% of Americans work for those companies.  (There's that 1% again!)  Small business provides more opportunities for women and minorities in entry level positions.  And frankly, as I drive past these little businesses everyday I think they are the future of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

William Deresiewicz ran a piece in The New York Times a couple months back that has stayed with me concerning the millenials, those born from the late 1970s through the 1990s.  He calls them Generation Sell, but sees in their desire to run and create businesses that offer real value and transformative products a starting point for the 99%.  In the end, despite conservative misreading of the Occupy movement (and what a surprise that was), isn't that what the fuss was all about?  Businesses that are about people--both customers and employees--as much as profits?  Businesses that bring about all of our better selves?

From Isaiah 11:6:  "Wolves will live with lambs. Leopards will lie down with goats. Calves, young lions, and year-old lambs will be together, and little children will lead them."

The future is in the rearview mirror and gaining on us...and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy 2012!

Peace,
emaycee

Bullet Points--The Year End Downer

Well, here's some bitchin' news:  nearly one half of all Americans are now considered poor or low income.  Remind me again what the American dream was?  Not too hard to figure out why, though:

• There are currently 4.25 job seekers for every job opening.  Despite record corporate profits, private America is not creating new jobs.
• The number of people comprising the middle class in California has fallen to its lowest level since 1980, and is now less than half for the first time (49.7%).  The number has consistently fallen since 1980, which, shock of all shocks, happens to be the year the Great Decimator, Ronald Reagan, was elected President.  So much for the antointettes theories of less government enriching all of us.
• Income inequality is not only a problem in the U. S. but across the globe.  Surprise, surprise, surprise:  overpaying executives does not trickle down to the rest of us.
• Over the last three years, corporate tax dodging has cost states $42 billion.  Wonder how many folks were kept in poverty because social benefits were cut, education funding was cut, and government payrolls were cut so the 1% could get even wealthier....
• Thinking about donating $25 to a beloved Progressive candidate?  Might want to think again:  between 2008 and 2010 thirty corporations spent more on lobbying than they paid in income taxes.  That $25 ought to get you a neat one way ticket to Palookaville.
• Since the start of the Great Recession, the number of households in America that are food insecure (not able to eat three squares a day) has risen 30% to 17.2 million households, or 48.8 million Americans.  What the fuck?  How does this happen in America?  One in six people?  A sign of a great nation is not that business is booming at food banks.

And yet...we're getting a few politicians to talk about the plight of the 99%.  The traditional media is at least acknowledging that income inequality is a growing problem.  The republicans are at least a little scared that the gig is up on their class warfare malarkey.

All the more reasons to keep fighting and writing in 2012.

Peace,
emaycee

Everywhere a sign

Meteor Blades has some interesting charts from 2011--most of which show the path to victory for President Obama:  republicans are for the rich and for fucking the rest of us over.

Think Progress has the top ten craziest economic policy ideas of 2011--I'd like to say these are talking points for running against republicans in 2012 (most of the ideas are truly batshit insane), but with the traditional media we have and the fact that the antoinettes are running the republican party, I'm not sure it would do much good.

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."  Plato

More light, please.

Peace,
emaycee

The ghost of elections future

Rick Snyder has been governor of our beloved Michigan for almost a year now.  It is not unfair to say that it has been an unmitigated disaster for 99% of us.  While unemployment has fallen slightly (and a case can be made that this is more a result of Obama's auto bailout than anything Snyder has done), our seniors are having their pensions taxed,  the time unemployed Michiganders can collect unemployment has been shortened (plus they can be forced to take a lower paying job in lieu of unemployment checks), workers compensation laws have been tilted heavily in favor of corporations, and state and local governments can no longer offer domestic partners benefits.  The one project that could have been good for our state--creating jobs and improving our living conditions--the second bridge through Detroit to Canada, Gov. Snyder failed to get passed.

On the bright side, he did manage to swing a tax cut for big Business that has done nothing so far to either create a major increase in jobs or improve our standard of living..

I mention this because recent polling here in Michigan shows President Obama losing to Mitt Romney, 46-41.  While it's early, one has to wonder what the fuck Michigan voters are thinking.  Mittens and Gov. Snyder are birds of a feather--pampered rich boys whose loyalties lie with the 1%.

In simpler terms:  Rick Snyder ran as "one tough nerd."  In reality, he has been "one complete bozo."  No reason to believe Mittens will be any different.

Peace,
emaycee

When will we ever learn?

While George Bernard Shaw has famously remarked that we learn nothing from history, it's amazing that we can't even learn when it's right in front of our faces.

Hunter from The Daily Kos has an excellent piece (a little long, but worth the time) on the utter failure of austerity measures in the European debt crisis.  Rather than expand economies--the conventional and incorrect wisdom--they've actually contracted the economy and made it worse.  But you cannot pick up a newspaper or watch a news show without idiot after idiot (including plenty of Dems, and our fearless leader, President Obama) saying we have to get the deficit under control.

No, we don't.  We have to get people jobs.  We have to fix our sorry ass infrastructure (how come so many people don't want to leave their children a huge federal debt but seem to have no problem with leaving them with crumbling bridges, debilitated aqueducts, and roads with zillions of potholes, all of which pose a much greater danger than a red balance sheet?).  We need to train and educate the workforce displaced by the Great Recession.

It takes money to make money.  Do that, and the deficit will take care of itself.

Peace,
emaycee

In the rearview mirror

The war in Iraq is over.  While I understand those that served and felt it was worth the effort to set up democracy there, I can't say I feel the same.  My initial thought when the war started--which I opposed from the start--was that a lot of American boys and girls would die for a lot of nothing, and nine years later that pretty much sums it up.  That it also played a major part in destroying our economy just adds insult to injury.

It amazes me how many people will say it was worth it to free an oppressed people (and why were the Iraqis so special?  plenty of oppressed people on this planet).  Anyone want to guess the American people's reaction had that been Bush the lesser's reason for invading Iraq?  Thanks but no thanks is the polite answer.  It was about WMDs, we were told.  Hussein's connection to 9/11.  Our need for safety in wake of 9/11, our thirst for vengeance.

In the end it was just another rich man's war, another in a series of unnecessary wars we have fought since the War to End All Wars, that resulted in lots of American deaths for reasons that are at best dubious, and at worst, a lie.

Peace,
emaycee

Happy Birthday

Wouldn't have known it if I hadn't been sent an e-mail, but the Bill of Rights is 220 years old today.  A couple of sites have bemoaned its dilution or poked a little fun at its imperfections.  It's hard to say what America would be like without them, but one thing I'm pretty certain of is that the odds of  little ol' me typing this blog tonight are considerably lessened without them.

So Happy Birthday--and with a special thanks to the littlest Big Man in the history of our great nation:  Mr. James Madison.

Peace,
emaycee

The Big Payback

While I appreciate the effort by Senator Sanders to overturn Citizen's United with a constitutional amendment, and I believe firmly, as Digby notes in the link, that devotion to this cause would be about as important of a movement as liberals could undertake, we are absolutely kidding ourselves that this amendment will ever be anything more than a pipe dream.

It takes a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to move an amendment forward.  We couldn't manage 60 votes in the Senate for a measly Public Option in the healthcare debate, and we're going to get 67 for this amendment?  And 350 (approximately) votes in the House?  Of course, two-thirds of the state legislatures could call for a constitutional convention to propose the amendment, but it has never happened in the country's history and considering the conservative strain running through the south, this isn't likely to be the amendment to be the first.

So smart ass, you're probably wondering, what do you propose?  Simple:  attack it like religious right has attacked abortion.  Sue, sue, sue.  If corporations are indeed people, they should have no more rights or privileges than the rest of us.  Start with tax deductions--if a corporation is a person, they should get no more deductions than you or I.  When a corporation is charged with a crime, they should have to stand trial as any other person would.  If convicted, shut down the corporation.  If a person is convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, he or she doesn't  get to keep going to work.  The possibilities are endless.

My guess is, after a short while of being treated like an actual  person, minus the privileges they're accustomed to, corporate America would be begging to be only a business entity once more.

Peace,
emaycee

A Dyslexic Heart

This is about as disheartening of a poll as I've read in quite some time--64% of Americans think Big Government is a major threat to the future of America, while only 26% think Big Business is.  A mere 8% think Big Labor is a major threat (thank heavens for small miracles).

You have to wonder if there is any hope for the poor and the middle class in America at all.  If after Enron, MCI, Lehmann Brothers, the Wall Street meltdown, Citizen's United, ad nauseum, which resulted in millions of jobs lost and an ever decreasing standard of living for 99% of us didn't make us question the motives of Big Business, maybe nothing ever will.

I've said it before:  Big Government may oftentimes be inept, but Big Business is vrtually always evil.  And when mortals dance with the devil, eventually Mr. Lucifer will get the better of them.

Peace,
emaycee

Welcome to the fight, my friend

Today Time magazine declared the Occupy Movement as the number one story of 2011--considerably surprising, at least to me, as the traditional media is usually a day late and a dollar short on issues that matter to 99% of its readers.

Yesterday, President Obama took the unprecedented step--for him, anyway--of telling a group of Americans in Kansas that the trickle down theory republicans have embraced since I was a young man doesn't work, and never has worked. (He could have asked me--I've known it since the mid 1980s.)

President Obama has let us down numerous times before, and I have no idea if he'll continue on this tack or not.  But I hope he does--win or lose in 2012, I'd much rather do it fighting for what's best about the Democratic Party's ideals than merely paying them lip service and fighting as republican lite.

Peace,
emaycee

Arguing with the irrational

There's a group known as the American Legislative Exchange Council which is basically supported by the likes of the Koch Brothers and Wal-Mart (among others) who write or help to write legislation concerning environmental, health care, and corporate regulation, obviously to the detriment of 99% of us.

This week ALEC noted that it was an acceptable risk for 12-15,000 children a year to ingest rat poison.  They did this for the betterment of d-Con--and not for the betterment of America.  (Want to guess how many d-Con products I'll be purchasing for the rest of my life?  It's the same as the average IQ for republicans:  zero.)  Ingestion of this product leads to internal bleeding, bloody urine, bleeding gums, and blood coming out of the ears of children.

I'm all for the Kumbaya movement, but how do they expect to argue income inequality and for a fair chance for the poor and middle class against people who deem it "acceptable" that 12-15,000 children will be hospitalized yearly with internal bleeding all so d-Con can make a few more fucking pennies?

Peace,
emaycee

When you look up pathetic in the dictionary...

...or bonehead...or braindead....it would have to have excerpts from this article about the losers in Scottsdale, Arizona who are paying money to have their pictures taken with Santa while holding guns.

Look, I've come to accept the fact that in America gun control is never going to happen.  Americans are in love with their guns and have convinced themselves that firearms are their God-given and (mistakenly) Constitutional right.  You want a picture of yourself holding a gun with scantily clad babes surrounding you?  Fine--you're an idiot, but fine.  You want to plaster your facebook page with pictures of yourself holding your slew of weapons?  Fine--good waste of time, but fine.  But fucking pictures with Santa?  What's next, selling the opportunity to have your photo taken with a creche? The baby Jesus, Me, and an AK-47--only $10!

How pathetically sad and mundane does your life have to be that having your picture taken with Santa while holding guns gives you a thrill?  Santa--and Christmas itself--are the very antithesis of guns.  It's about peace on earth and good will toward men.

I'll tell you one thing:  I'll never call myself a loser again.  These fucking bozos are beyond compare in that department.

Peace,
emaycee