A New Hope #5: Being hopeful in bad times

 Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

It's getting more and more absurd

So I'm browsing the headlines in AOL News this morning and come across a piece about Bruce Springsteen and his battle with depression.  Having suffered from depression at one time in my life, I usually take a peek at such pieces to get a fellow sufferer's take on an absolutely soul crushing illness.  As I get to the end I scroll a little too far and end up at the comments section of the piece (which was also a plug for his upcoming memoir, entitled appropriately enough, Born to Run), which I don't usually read because the world is full of far too many deliriously dumb people and it turns out that republicans can't even let a puff piece hawking a book go by without turning it into a racist hatefest because Springsteen exercised his right as an American and supported Barack Obama not once, but twice, for the Presidency.

For fuck's sake, Francis, these people really need to get a fucking life--anybody paying attention knows that Springsteen has made his political affiliations very public at least since his Nebraska LP which Springsteen himself said was a reaction to the damage he saw Ronald Reagan doing to America's working class (and was also inspired by A People's History of the United States  by the democratic socialist historian Howard Zinn).

Besides, it's not as if republicans don't have their own celebrities to turn to.  Don't like Springsteen's politics?  You can always listen to "Wango Tango" by Ted Nugent or watch reruns of Scott Baio's Charles in Charge.

And don't be pissed at Democrats because our celebrities are American icons and yours are such herorrhoidal lame-asses.

Peace,
emaycee

You say you want a revolution

If you read no other piece this week, read this one by David Atkins--Atkins wonders about a tactic that has been on my mind since I read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.  As Liberals, we lean more toward the passive resistance side for fighting our battles--Atkins cites the book of Matthew from the Bible or Atticus Finch as exemplars of this trait (and, of course, Gandhi and MLK).  However at the end of his piece, Atkins has the audacity (fuck you, Mr. President) to question how much longer we walk down this road before we realize that we have to punch back.

Although Howard Zinn was somewhat skeptical of the rewards rebellions throughout our history have achieved (he believed our rewards were more in the form of voting rights rather than, you know, actual cash money, and to use a recent example, say of Mr. Obama, we all know how well voting works out for, you know, actually helping us get our share of the cash money), it does seem that throughout our history about the only time the poor and the middle class get a bigger share of the pie is when the wealthy elite have reason to be worried over theit future safety (Shay's Rebellion, Whiskey Rebellion, Colorado Labor Wars, the Labor battles of the 1930s, the L. A. riots of the early 1990s).  One need look no further than the recent uprisings in the Middle East (Egypt, Syria, Libya) to realize that you can only fuck people over economically for so long before they get mighty pissed off about it.

In the comments section of Atkins piece there seemed to be a good deal of push back on the idea of using more agression, but frankly, after watching what the last thirty years of capitulating to the republicans and the wealthy elite just to keep our jobs, I'm a bit more inclined to believe that the peace, love, dope faction of our party is a lot of horseshit, and that perhaps a swift kick in the balls will go a lot farther to help reduce the ever widening income disparity that is slowly but surely destroying America.

Peace,
emaycee

There's battle lines being drawn

A couple of thoughts have come to me over the past few days, mostly as I ponder what the good union people of Wisconsin are doing for us, and I think both of them say a lot about what is wrong with republicans, what is wrong with the tea party, and what America needs most: an all-out, no holds barred, class war.


The first is the sheer audacity of conservatives when it comes to how much money people make for the work they do. It amazes me how they will scream public sector workers are overpaid at $40-50,000 a year (if that much) for giving our children an education, keeping us safe, plowing our snow covered roads, and putting out our fires, but when it comes to ending tax cuts for the wealthy, well, you know, $250,000 a year just isn't that much money (aside: what the motherfucking fuck?). How long before the MSM points out (a good guess would be never) the obvious: republicans think it's good for people to not have jobs and to be paid as little as possible. If you are not among the wealthy elite, they do not care if you live or die. Period.


The second has been over who is helped by raising the retirement age--because it's certainly not those of us who are ready to retire fucking yesterday. Frankly, it's dawned on me that what raising the retirement age actually should be called is the Wal-Mart Greeter Movement. Because that is the only constituency that is going to be helped by raising the retirement age--very few people in their late sixties are going to be working construction jobs, picking up trash, or laying asphalt. Very few industries are going to continue to pay the kind of salaries that forty years of experience would require. Ergo, the only jobs that will be around for people in their late sixties and early seventies will be door greeters and cashiers. Excitement city--but don't forget the minimum wage pay rate (federal--$7.25)! Woo-fucking-hoo.

The assault on the middle class (and even more, the poor) has become a tidal wave (and teaches us all too well the importance of thinking through the ramifications of your vote before you vote--exactly what were the republicans plans for creating jobs...oops, there weren't any!):

1) Campaigns for right to work laws (a misnomer if ever there was one) have increased despite the fact that a) median weekly wages have fallen for high school and college graduates, when adjusted for inflation from 2000 to 2009, and b) of the top ten states for average wages one is a right to work state, and of the bottom ten, seven are. Right to work laws help us how?
2) This is how far off the deep end the republican party is: they want to roll back Child Labor Laws. Seriously--the abuse of children by corporations is one of the most egregious stains on American history, and these idiots want to fucking return to it. One can only guess that rolling back the laws ending slavery is next on the republican agenda.
3) American businesses no longer need nor care about American workers--shipping jobs overseas means corporations can force American workers to work for less. The powers that be are increasingly forcing on us a service economy, and as anyone who has ever worked in the service industries can tell you, the pay is shit. How long before we have had enough and realize that just having a job isn't enough and that we want to get ahead, too? My guess is not long.
4) The weakening of our democracy. Paul Krugman channels Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine to explain Scott Walker's actions in Wisconsin: "Right wing ideologues exploit crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with these crises and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society." Bob Herbert laments a system where our government representatives are more responsive to corporations and the wealthy elite than to its average citizens and how this is corrupting our democracy. It can seem a bit frightening...

...but being a good Liberal, and the antithesis of conservatives and republicans everywhere, I will not live in fear. Wisconsin--and I have no idea if we will win or not, though I'm guessing not--shows that we're ready to fight back and that there are plenty of people who are seeing unions in a new light. Mark Sumner, in a spirited defense of unions, wrote this: "Union is not just a means to oppose tyranny, it is the only means." Dean Baker wrote a nice piece about how Liberals need to start reframing the economic debate--and a good beginning would be to constantly refute the republican argument of government vs. the free market; republicans use the government just as much as Democrats to get what they want--mostly to distribute more and more income to those who already have the most. And as we're seeing in Wisconsin, Republicans are overreaching--it amazes me on a daily basis how horrifically tone deaf republicans are about their victories this past November. People wanted jobs, not bullshit. Bodes well for 2012....

But the most hope of all comes from us--what we're seeing in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and sure to spread is people power speaking truth to power. In the Bob Herbert column I noted earlier, Herbert recalled words Howard Zinn spoke to him shortly before Zinn's death: "If there's going to be change, real change, it will have to come from the bottom up, from the people themselves."

Get the troops ready.

Peace,
emaycee

Don't know much about history...

Other than being a gem of a tune by Sam Cooke (as was the cover version by Simon and Garfunkel with James Taylor), there's not much pride in being an idiot. Unless, of course, you're a conservative... A frightening piece appeared in the Free Press (on Easter Sunday, no less--what the hell, a little gift to the Christian right on their day) on conservatives' attempts to change history. It seems everything we've been taught has been skewed too far to the left, so conservatives have decided to just make shit up that better suits their world view. And where else other than Texas, where everything is big, including the idiocy, should it happen? In fairness to Mr. Thomma, he did a nice job of attempting to debunk the Texas conservatives bullshit. Still...when you consider that this is being done in textbooks that will be sent to kids all over America (and makes me think that home schooling for my young 'un might not be such a bad idea after all), why isn't this being given more prominence? I have seen pieces here and there, but this has the feel of one of those conservative ploys that falls under the radar until we're fucked and our kids have been indoctrinated once again into conservative bullshit that lessens their lives (see also, Reagan, Ronald--great President if you're rich, completely fucked over if you're the other 99% of America). To wit: Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Indepence upon which our revolution was begun is being downplayed because he strongly believed in the separation between church and state. What the fuck? Don't these idiots realize how many of our forefathers came to this country to escape religious persecution--and our founding fathers were prescient enough to make damn certain that didn't happen in our fledgling country? *Aside* Funny how conservatives love Jefferson, though, when they get to use that "peeing on the tree of liberty with the blood of 'patriots'" bullshit. Did you know that FDR caused the Great Depression? No shit--didn't have anything to do with Republican Hoover sitting on his ass and believing the corporatists would fix everything (which has never been the case), it was the work projects, social security, and all that government spending. It was a "manageable" recession until Roosevelt took over--if you consider 24% unemployment "manageable." Hell, it's no wonder conservatives are shitting themselves over the stimulus package--we've only got 10% unemployment now. So a few kids starve to death--let's make sure the wealthy are taken care of first (they provide the jobs so they say, all evidence to the contrary). Frankly, if it weren't for FDR the lifestyle we enjoy now (and are in increasing danger of losing) would never have happened. Ever hear of the Anti-Renter movement? Or Dorr's rebellion? Me either until the last week--basically they're the real American history (both occurred in the mid-nineteenth century), the poor getting fucked over by the rich until they have had all they can take, fight back, and get tossed a few crumbs while the basic system stays intact. This is the history that our kids should be taught--maybe it will eventually sink in that the wealthy aren't our friends and are not the backbone of our economy. They are the enemy. "The farmers [Anti-Renter movement] had fought, been crushed by the law, their struggle diverted into voting, and the system stabilized by enlarging the class of small landowners, leaving the basic structure of rich and poor intact. It was a common sequence in American history." (Emphasis mine.) That's a quote from the only American history book our kids need: Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. That "People's" in the title, by the way, is you and me--the real backbone of America. Peace, emaycee