You've got to fight for your right...to get paid

Dana Nessel--championing your family's economic well-being

Another in a long line of reasons Democrats are better for Americans than republicans:

Wage theft costs American workers over $50 billion dollars every year ($200 million a year here in Michigan), and Michigan's Attorney General Dana Nessel has drawn a line in the sand...and it's not for corporations or greedy business owners to step over, but rather blocks them from not paying their workers their due wages.

The Payroll Fraud Enforcement Unit has thus far brought suit against 10 Michigan businesses for cheating their workers out of their pay, and it may prove to just be the tip of the iceberg.  Two hundred million dollars of earned pay in the pockets of average Michiganders will make a big difference in their family's health and happiness.

Want to guess how many republican Attorneys General we had in Michigan prior to Nessel (republicans have held the office since 2002) who tried to make sure our citizens were not getting cheated out of pay they earned by their sweat and toil?

That would be zero.

Here's hoping Nessel  not only gets Michiganders paid their due wages, but that businesses that are stealing from them are rightfully vilified and stigmatized.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Blood simple

Though most Americans don't know it, the courts over the last thirty years have put a serious hamper (specifically, though not singlehandedly through, AT &T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors) on our ability to seek recourse against corporations via the courts.  With a simple click of your mouse on one of those Terms of Service agreements, you often sign away your rights to sue, replacing it with an arbitrtation hearing, with the arbiter being chosen by the corporation.  Which is like playing a board game where you have to roll the dice, but your opponent gets to choose his numbers from the dice (also known as, heads I win, tails you lose).

David Atkins discussed this in a piece at Hullabaloo yesterday, and posited that one day we would have laws against it and wonder why we ever let ourselves suffer through it.

Myself, I wonder how long before someone realizes that the deck is stacked and starts blowing corporate offices up as a means of extralegal recourse.

My guess is not very fucking long.

Peace,
emaycee

Hey, what's goin' on?

It's enough to make you want to holler--it's being reported again this week that profits for corporations in America are at record levels, and yet wages are at an all-time low.  And how does it follow that extreme poverty (defined as income less than half the federal poverty line) in the United States has increased by 50% since 2000--from 4.7% to 6.7%?  (On a related note, how can anyone not be bothered by the fact that at least 1 out of 20 Americans lives in extreme poverty in the richest nation on earth?  Other than Antoinettes, I mean....)

I know plenty of others are reporting on this, but still, you have to feel for all the young folks who still have lifetimes of dealing with corporate America knowing that they're pretty much guaranteed to draw the short end of the stick when it comes to benefits and wages.  There was a time when all Americans shared in corporate prosperity, but those days have disappeared.

We are traveling in uncharted waters, not such as those searching for the New World, but those that seek out the evil creatures of the deep.  It's downright scary.

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

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

Going Underground

On November the 8th, the Occupy Wall Street movement polled as being nearly twice as popular as the Antoinettes.  By November 17th, 43% had a higher opinion of the Antoinettes as opposed to 37% for OWS.  Three little words:  what the fuck?

One would have to assume the clearing of Zuccotti Park was probably going to happen eventually (as well as other locales), but the numbers cited above sure had to hasten the actions of the police state, as well as make the powers that be's coordinated actions against the various Occupy movements seem less nefarious.  Conservatives favorite Liberal media whipping boy, The New York Times, immediately went into typical traditional media chickenshit mode and sanitized the military raid on peaceful, Constitution following protestors.

That Chris Hayes reported that a lobbying firm for Wall Street is planning to spread their usual bullshit and make Democrats pay for Occupy Wall Street support--so republicans can do what they do best:  fellate the 1%--also doesn't come as a surprise.  Nor is it a surprise that Antoinette media is lying out its ass with its dirty hippie schtick--one would think some enterprising son of a bitch in the tradtional media would point out that the 60's are long over and that most of us (i.e., those with a brain) have realized that enjoying sex is a good thing, it's okay for women to work, and the Viernam War really was a fiasco.

Look, I agree with Matt Taibibi--one of the true joys of watching the OWS movement is that it is a bunch of ordinary Americans who are just sick and tired of politicans who don't care and everything being just another product to be sold to all of us.  I'm glad the OWS protestors in New York City didn't give up and came back fighting to shut Wall Street down.  But I think we are absolutely kidding ourselves that we're going to Ghandi our way to success with this movement.  For one, the movement lacks a Ghandi (or an MLK)--larger than life leaders are the backbone of any movement.  For another, as this last week illustrates, the 1% have the money, own the media, own the police, have just enough dimwit Antoinettes willing to eat the fatty scraps from their tables, and have no qualms about outright lying or cheating to gain and keep their economic domination.

For fuck's sake, at least Ghandi and MLK only had to overcome hate--we've also got to fight our way through an irrationality that's like Dante's Inferno on steroids.

Peace,
emaycee

The Unspectacular

Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table.
                                                                      W.H. Auden


I've felt for some time--since at least Reagan the dullard was President--that all of America's problems begin and end with corporations.  Their money has corrupted our government; their greed has lessened the standard of living for 99% of us.  Anyone who has seen a Wal-Mart (or any other corporation) commercial about the happy family who saved x amount of money by buying some shit or other has to know by now that all Wal-Mart (or any other corporation) really cares about is what's in the family members' purses or wallets.  But they run these commercials and sell their images through groups like the Antoinettes to make themselves seem, as Mr. Auden suggested, that they are just like you and me.

They are not.

If there is any one point that Occupy Wall Street needs to make inroads on it is that there is a clear difference between the 99% and the 1%.  They do not share our beds--they shackle us to them.  They do not eat at our own table--they eat us for lunch. 

They have corrupted the system.  It is our duty to clean it up.

Peace,
emaycee

Here's a thought...

After the two competing plans for how best to cut the U. S. budget deficit have been unveiled in the past couple of weeks (not that I'm convinced this is necessary at this time--I've just become inured to its inevitability), I wonder if anybody will ever take a look at shit like this.  Christ, look at some of the corporate names--and they paid zero in taxes.  How many more are there?  Shouldn't somebody be looking into this and figuring out a way to see that they do pay taxes like the rest of us peons who make a lot less?  I mean, after Citizens United, corporations are people right?  And don't people (e.g., people like me and you) have to pay taxes unless they're certifiably poor?  Do any of these corporations look poor to you?

Just, uh, wondering.

Peace,
emaycee

Johnny Potatoes

Not really sure where the phrase came from, but my Dad used to say it to express something good (e.g., "Man, winning the lottery would be Johnny Potatoes"). In that spirit....

Man, we're going to miss Russ Feingold--if you read any piece this week, read this one in Think Progress (of if you've got a little more time, the whole shebang in The Nation). The "gilded age on steroids" would probably be the best description of the times we live in that I've heard. Plus one has to admire a man who even in defeat says, "Bring on 2012." Feingold doesn't just lament the corporatization of America, he encourages the reinvigoration of the Progressive movement and tells it to never stop screaming, "Fuck you, we've had enough!"

Still...the power of corporations has to give one a bit of trepidation--they have the money, they control the media, they have the jobs we need to E-A-T. As the Queen of Punk, Ms. Patti Smith, has noted, "People have the power." There is strength in numbers--and these are some pretty good numbers.

Progressives need to harness the mistrust and anger that a vast majority of Americans feel toward corporations right now to further their agenda--reducing poverty, creating good paying jobs, rebuilding infrastructure, improving education, and protecting ordinary Americans from corporate malfeasance. Difficult times call for difficult choices, and our choice now is to fight the corporatization of America or watch our standard of living continue to sink.

Me, I've already started shadow boxing....

Peace,
emaycee

I've had all I can stands...

It finally happened--after months of threatening to start a blog (out of sheer frustration with Repugs, Conservidiots, and, of course, the new movement named for the act of putting a man's scrotum in your mouth--and the mainstream media that enables them and fucks over the rest of us), the final finger poked in my chest came from, of all people, the CEO of the company I work for. In his letter to shareholders, our esteemed leader chose to use it not for the big fat raises we'll be getting (guess again!), our obscene bonuses (not!), or, hell, even for the possible hiring of some co-workers to ease our burden. Nope, this pinhead used it for a conservative screed about an unfettered free market, anti-government rhetoric, and praised Thomas fucking Sowell as a brilliant thinker (for those not familiar, when you look up the words "fucking idiot" in the dictionary, Sowell's picture is next to it).

In the immortal words of that great philosopher, Popeye, "I've had all I can stands, I can't stands no more!"

It's not enough that my wages don't keep up with inflation, my health benefits are more expensive every year, that I do the work that was once done by two people, and that with all their "plans" my job is more robotic than ever, I have to read this bullshit, too? From a poor, put-upon billionaire, no less.

In a word: No.

So I signed a piece of paper that said I wouldn't say negative things about the company I work for. Fair enough. But I signed nothing that said I wouldn't fight for what I believe is right--they can have my brain, they can have my body, but my soul isn't for sale.

Don't know if anybody will ever read this. Don't know if it matters. But I do know that those of us who live paycheck to paycheck have been eating corporate shit for far too long--and it's time to fight for what we deserve: a chance to get ahead, without the encumberment of corporate rules.

There's a line toward the end of the movie Platoon where Keith David tells Charlie Sheen: "The poor's always been getting fucked over by the rich. Always has, always will. All you got to do is make it." He might have the first half of it right, but I have no intention of settling for the second half. I'm not Rocky--just to be still standing at the end isn't enough of a victory. I want to knock the mother fucker out.

Peace,
emaycee