A true legacy

There are millions of sports fans across the world who celebrated the retirement of Kobe Bryant yesterday.

I wasn't one of them--mostly because I'm not a big fan of rapists.

I can't say I was particularly surprised that the traditional media managed to spend an entire season lionizing Bryant without mentioning his greatest legacy in America:  turning the act of slut shaming into an art.  In the process womens' lives are ruined and sports stars go on being superstars making their millions instead of being sent to prison where they belong.  Thanks to Bryant, Steelers' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger got away with sexually assaulting two women, Blackhawks' forward Patrick Kane got away with one, and no one's really sure how many former Florida State, and now Tampa Bay Buccaneer quarterback, Jameis Winston got away with.

Fortunately, there is still a thriving alternative media and Think Progress yesterday called into question all of the hoopla surrounding Bryant's last days in the NBA--calling out the ignorant idolatry while a guilty man goes free just because he has lots of money (well worth the read).

For those who think the women involved in these cases were merely gold diggers, I highly suggest reading the Think Progress piece--to a person, each of these women's lives were ruined and some even had to go into hiding.  They are not victims once, but victims again and again because rich men can afford lawyers that get paid to destroy their reputations, lives, and families to protect sexual deviants.

As noted at the end of the article, it's highly likely that had Kobe Bryant been Kobe Bryant, janitor, or Kobe Bryant, shoe store manager, he'd be in prison.

And for those who still choose to celebrate his accomplishments, I ask you this:  would you be comfortable having your wife, your mother, your sister, or your daughter in a room alone with Kobe Bryant (or Roethlisberger or Kane or Winston)?

I know I sure wouldn't.

Peace,
emaycee

Shudder

As of this week, republicans control pretty much everything in America.

Shudder.

Think Progress ran a piece last week highlighting four republican predictions about our economy for the year 2015 if Barack Obama was re-elected.  To wit:  five dollar a gallon gas, unemployment over 8%, a stock market collapse, and an overall collapse of the American economy.  The reality?  Two dollar a gallon gas, unemployment at 5.8%, the Dow last week hit a record over 18,000, and the American economy is probably at its strongest (though still needing some serious improvement for the working class) since before the Great Recession.

Shudder.

Vanity Fair recently ran a piece wondering if republicans were ever right over the last thirty years.  Want to take a guess at the answer?  From the debacle in Iraq, to tax cuts paying for themselves, to raising taxes causing a recession, to Obamacare, republicans have been wrong, wrong, wrong...and wrong again.

Shudder.

On a national level, their opening salvos this week have been to strike at Social Security disability payments, Keystone XL, a national ban on abortion, and to cut the number of people with health insurance through Obamacare.

Shudder.

Am I the only one who's wondering if the arctic freeze blasting through America this week (didn't get out of single digits here today on the outskirts of Detroit) as republicans take over the country is a coincidence or the fates warning us of what's to come?

Shudder.

Peace,
emaycee

Where we're at

I'll be the first to admit that the ins and outs of spying on Americans is not my forte (not that much else I write about, other than living a middle class existence, really is) but with the amount of Liberal anguish this week over the NSA spying and PRISM revelations, I have a few observations.  Note that in no way am I defending what was done--just pointing out a few things that seemed kind of odd:

• There sure was a lot of  "Can you believe they did this?" that really should have been, "See? I told you so!"  Once the Patriot Act passed, and with each subsequent reauthorization, this kind of spying on Americans was not a matter of if, but of when.
• A lot of people sounded as goofy as Tea Party paranoids in going on about how much we should be worried about the government spying on us.  There's some serious ego out there--I mean, my guess is about 99% of Americans have absolutely nothing going on in their lives that the government gives two shits about.  I mean about 90% of internet content makes NCIS look like fucking Shakespeare, and judging from the inanity I've heard in people carrying on cellphone conversations as if the rest of humanity doesn't exist, the government would need enough No-Doz to fill Lake Superior just to stay awake.  Doesn't make the spying on the 1% who may have something going on in their lives that the government cares about right, just means a lot of people really lack perspective.
• The funniest one I read was this one (which even goofier, Digby actually bought into) by one James Fallows, who because he's watched 24 (among others), presumes to tell us that the rationale behind the spying, ferreting out terrorists, actually is false, because terrorists are such criminal masterminds that they won't fall into the government's trap.  Like the Shoe Bomber setting fire to his heel, the Underwear Bomber setting fire to his dong, and the Boston Marathon bombers who managed to get caught in all of three days.  This is not even mentioning that for all their planning, the 9/11 terrorists missed half their targets.  La Cosa Nostra  they ain't.  Can't even begin--even with his disclaimer--to understand the whole TV show rigamarole.  Man, I watched 24 religiously from its first episode to its last, but I never once believed it bore any more resemblance to reality than your average episode of The fucking Flintstones.
• The piece that scared me the most was this one on Think Progress (which after this The Nation piece on corporate sponsorship of their think tank, the Center for American Progress, may not be so surprising) in which corporate spying was basically played down and government spying was treated as if it were the Bubonic Plague.  Swear to God, it could have been written by Louis Gohmert.  I fear corporate spying exponentially more than than the government--American corporations are only interested in my overpaying for their services, and paying me as little as they can for mine.  At least the government gives a fuck if I live or die--it might be tremendously inept, but it does have my best interests at heart.
• I think sometimes we forget the responsibility that rests on the shoulders of the President.  I have three kids, and if I knew someone wanted to harm them, I'd do whatever it takes to keep them safe--and sleep like a fucking baby at night.  President Obama is responsible for the safety of over 300 million Americans.  I'm not saying that this makes any of this week's revelations about spying on Americans right, just that I can understand his wanting to leave no stone unturned.

In the end, I think what bothers me the most about all of this is that last week the Internation Human Rights Clinic of NYU Law School released a study that showed that 50 million Americans, 17 million of them children, did not have adequate food, and it didn't receive a tenth of the blog space, article space, or TV time as did the spying on Americans.  We're talking an essential necessity of living--eating.

I don't know if we Liberals have become numb to it, feel helpless in the face of it, or are just too interested in showing how intelligent we are, but frankly, it bothers me a whole hell of a lot more knowing that one in six Americans is going hungry than it does that the NSA knows we went to Taco Bell last night and then came home and watched reruns of The Big Bang Theory on TNT.

Peace,
emaycee

With a fountain pen

"Yes, as through this world I've wandered,
I've seen lots of funny men.
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen."

Woody Guthrie, "Pretty Boy Floyd"

It'd been years since I heard this song, but when I heard it today (Bob Dylan on the Folkways:  A Vision Shared tribute) for some odd reason this factoid from Think Progess that I'd read a short while ago popped into my head--since 2008, coroporate profits have risen 20% faster than workers' incomes.

I've heard tell there was a time when average workers shared in the prosperity of their companies, but those days disappeared after the Reagan Devolution.  Record corporate profits don't happen without dedicated workers, and you have to wonder how long that dedication will last without some financial reciprocity.

It only takes the removal of one card for the house of cards to come tumbling down.

Peace,
emaycee

All the playing's stopped in the playground now

When I got home from work tonight, the Beautiful Boy was sitting in his mother's lap watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see the twinkle of the lights on our Christmas tree, and I turned my head and looked at it like I probably haven't since we put it up a few weeks ago.  I noticed the stockings hung above the piano, and the Christmas cards lined along its top.  At the first commercial break the Beautiful Boy came up to me and I beckoned him into my arms and I kissed him and squeezed him again and again.  He, I am certain, had no idea why those hugs and kisses were especially needed tonight.

There are twenty parents in Newtown, Connecticut this evening--not to mention the families of the six murdered adults--who would give everything they own and more to have these simple few moments that I shared with my family tonight.  They will never have them again.

The blood of the children killed today is not, as one gun rights organization suggested, on the hands of gun control advocates. It's on the hands of gun advocacy groups like the NRA who lie to the American people about the efficacy of guns and insist that, unlike any other right we possess via the U. S. Constitution (speech, assembly, press, etc.), that somehow the second amendment is sacred and cannot have limits that keep the peace.  The killings today are not the result of taking God out of the classroom, as Mike Huckabee so callously said today.  They are the result of pseudo-Christians who can quote every picayune detail of the Bible to support their agenda (usually interpreted incorrectly) but always seem to forget Christ's admonition that we love each other as we love ourselves; God-loving people who sold their souls to further their beliefs and in the process proved that they are not pro-life, as they claim, but rather, pro-birth.

I was very glad that Barack Obama is the President of the United States today and not some soulless republican who would have stood before the American people this morning and babbled on while still keeping their lips on the teats of the NRA.  As much as I appreciate the President's acknowledging that we need "meaningful [gun] reform" I don't hold out much hope that change to our gun laws will be coming any time soon (especially since an administration spokesman almost immediately responded that today is not the day to discuss such gun law reforms--and to which we should all respond, "why not?").  I don't believe this will make our will any greater.

And so we'll sit in our cars at lunch and cry while we're chewing on a bologna sandwich, and give thanks that when our workday is done, we're going home to a family that's still in one piece.

Peace,
emaycee

The day's biggest surprise

...had to be the way the Liberal blogs have rallied around the President today.  I mean the folks on MSNBC, with the exception of the Reverend Al Sharpton, absolutely crucified him last night, and I was pretty much expecting the same from everyone today (especially with President Obama's comments on Social Security) except for Markos Moulitsas (Obama could go streaking buck ass naked down Pennsylvania Avenue and Markos would find a reason why it shows the President's brilliance--and I love him for it).  Even fucking Digby, who usually treats Obama like an ugly stepchild, was pretty darn tame and fought back against Romney's lies.  And the Detroit Free Press' Stephen Henderson only acknowledged Romney's victory as one heavy on style but light on substance.

Good to see that we just might be seeing the utter catastrophe of a Romney victory on November 6th.

Peace,
emaycee

Exhibit A

Hate to say I told you so but I gotta:

And it's just the normal noises in here...

1)  Barack Obama did his Presidential duty with his usual flair in Colorado this weekend.  Mitt Romney was nice about it.
2)  The Governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper (a "Democrat") pretty much refused to even consider stricter gun control laws.
3)  Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (Republican) said that by refusing to allow troubled individuals to have guns it will restrict our freedoms.  Outlawing murder restricts our freedoms, too, but I think the trade off is probably worth it.
4)  On an American Family Association radio show, evangelicals blamed the Aurora shootings on Liberals, the media, and lenient churches.  Bad news for the non-Christian victims, too.  You're going to a "terrible place."
5)  John McCain says we should look at "everything" concerning the shootings...except gun control.
6)  Former Arizona state senator Russell Peace said the men in the theater lacked courage for not trying to stop the shooter.  How exactly the men in the theater were supposed to stop a madman dressed in full body armor, with tear gas in the air, while sixty rounds a minute were being fired from his gun, Pearce doesn't say.
7)  A republican candidate for sheriff in Tucson, Arizona has done his part to keep nutjobs in the news by claiming (falsely) that the shootings show why we shouldn't let the UN take away our guns.
8)  In a "No Shit, Sherlock" moment, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) who herself lost her husband and had her son permanently injured by a gunman on a train seventeen years ago, said Democrats lacked "the spine" to move forward on stricter gun control laws.
9)  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called on both President Obama and Willard Romney to seek tougher gun regulations.  Ha, ha, ha--good luck with that one, though if terrorists were going to kill 48,000 Americans over the next four years you can bet your ass at least the President would have a plan to stop it (Willard doesn't have plans for much of anything and it's hard to believe his staff would take the time to fuck with that either).

Let's see...republicans exploiting gun tragedy to fire up their base?  Check.  Dems running away from gun control like little girls?  Check.  Far too many Americans convinced guns are the answer?  Check.

It's hard not to be cynical, it really is.  And it's only a matter of time before we get another list like this one, telling us snippets of the lives of heroes and those who died long before they should have.

Peace,
emaycee

Say You, Say Me--Part II

Say You:

Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon-Mobil and multimillionaire said this week when speaking to the Council of Foregin Relations in New York City that we, as a society, could "adapt" to global warming and that its effects would be "manageable."

Say Me:

Let's ask those 300+ families in Colorado whose homes have been destroyed by the recent wildfires how well their homes "adapted" and if having all that they own destroyed by raging fires is "manageable."  This is just another in a long line of self-serving sentiments from corporate America, entities which do not give a good goddamn about America or Americans.  Frankly, the effects of global warming on someone of Mr. Tillerson's wealth would probably be manageable--but when you're watching 90% of your family's net worth float into the Atlantic Ocean or a sand dune in your backyard that used to be a grassy hill your kids could sled down on snowy days in winter ("Mommy, what's winter?") in a home that's worth pennies on the dollar because its in the middle of the fucking desert, it won't seem so manageable.

I do have a solution to Mr. Tillerson's thoughtlessness, though--since he will more than likely be long gone by the time the full effects of global warming have decimated the planet, let's make a pact to tie his descendants to the Saharan palm trees dotting what used to be New York City, and let them eat all the sandburgers they can stomach.

Peace,
emaycee

Good intentions

I once toyed with writing a post about how republicans would respond if the movie Dumbo had been released in the last twenty years--unwed mother, underage drinking, positive modeling of hallucinations--but decided against it in light of Dumbo becoming a gazillionaire at the end because of his ability to fly with his ears.  The end of the movie would fit nicely into the republican worldview that being born with a gift most of us don't have (a la the silver spoons in the mouths of Bush the Lesser and Romney) is somehow inherently the fault of the poor bastard living paycheck to paycheck.  After all, if he'd been born with jumbo fucking ears perhaps his life wouldn't have been so miserable.

Ahem.

This is the kind of piece we Liberals write that I hate railing against because a) the author, Alyssa Rosenberg, is most assuredly right, and b) it's a thoughtful and well-written piece.  Still, rail against it I will because it's just another example of Liberals getting off track and looking silly.

Ms. Rosenberg's central thesis is that we should not judge a woman's sexuality by her gender performance, i.e., a woman who enjoys athletics is no more likely to be gay than a woman who enjoys gardening.  A+  for accuracy, right?  Unfortunately, Ms. Rosenberg uses the movie Brave (haven't seen it) as an exemplar of this, mostly in anger from a piece written by some joker from Entertainment Weekly. (Note to Ms. Rosenberg:  People who write for magazines like EW suffer from a common malady known to common folks as "Lack of Brains and Talent"--who starts college thinking, "You know what I want to do when I grow up?  Watch and write reviews of '2 Broke Girls!'"--and it's best to ignore them.)

Look, I'm the parent of a seven-year-old, and now that school is out for the year, the only things he's interested in are the Wii, "Phineas and Ferb," and Legos.  If perchance we take him to see Brave (and we might, it looks entertaining from the nine thousand or so commercials we've seen on The Disney Channel over the course of the last month) the only things he wants is a few laughs, some exciting scenes, a few moments to talk about on the ride home, and his share of the popcorn and soda.  And as a parent, the only thing I'm looking for is a little above average entertainment for our son (or a little cat nap if it's below average) and a little family time with a fun outing that we all recall fondly a few months from now when we're buying the DVD.  Sexuality?  Gender performance?  Fine and wonderful things, but not looking for them in a theater full of kids, mostly ten and under, who are making mental notes for their "What I Did Last Summer" essays when school starts back up in September.  (Note I also have a grown daughter and would feel exactly the same had this occurred when she was seven.)

I appreciate Ms. Rosenberg's passion and intelligence, but sometimes it's best to remember that if something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.  And sometimes a children's movie is just that, a children's movie.

Peace,
emaycee

The price of American citizenship

One of Facebook's founders, Eduardo Saverin, has renounced his American citizenship in a move widely viewed as a means to avoid paying taxes on the Facebook IPO this week.  Saverin's Facebook shares are estimated to be worth more than $3 billion, and by renouncing his American citizenship he is expected to avoid at least $67 million in taxes.  Needless to say, this has drawn quite the outrage on the Democratic side with Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Bob Casey putting forth legislation to stop such shenanigans in the future. 

It's entirely predictable that Forbes magazine would defend Saverin by denouncing U.S. tax policy saying it drives entrepreneurs out of the country (really?  tell it to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) or that Rush Limbaugh would declare it's not unpatriotic (um, bullshit, it most certainly is), but what's surprising is that John Boehner would go on TV today and say he would support the legislation (though he believed another law already on the books accomplished the same).  I almost waited a couple of days on this post to see what kind of a backlash he drew and how quickly he'd withdraw his support--but then I remembered it was an election year and letting a multibillionaire get away without paying a pittance of his earnings in taxes wouldn't win a lot of Independent votes....

Besides, it will be fun watching republicans choke on this one for a few days because you know there isn't a goddamn one of them that wouldn't sell their American citizenship for a whole hell of a lot less than $67 million--especially when it comes to paying taxes.

Peace,
emaycee

You, too, can pay zero in taxes

...if you're a mulinational corporation that makes billions in profit.  As noted in Think Progress, 26 out of 30 major coporations have paid zero in taxes over the last four years.  This despite the fact that your taxes paid for the roads their products traveled on, the police and firemen that protected their plants and office complexes, the military that kept them safe from foreign threats...you get the picture.

I'll be damned if I can figure out, if as Citizen's United declared that corporations are people, why in the hell they don't pay taxes just like ordinary people.  Methinks it's probably the all too often left unsaid truth that in America there are aristocrats who are just a little more special than the little people like you and me.

It's not enough that we're forced to shop at the company store--they want us to run the fucking register and clean the place up, too.

Peace,
emaycee

Yes, Doctor, there is a pulse...

It's been a tough past year for those of us on the Democatic side here in Michigan--Gov. Snyder, with strong majorities in both the Michigan House and Senate, has rammed through anti-worker legislation (shortened time for Unemployment Insurance, Workman's Comp  rules changed to favor businesses, taxing seniors' pensions, Emergency Managers who can rip up union contracts, trying to destroy public workers collective bargaining agreements) and because he balanced the budget quickly (big fucking deal, right?) he's basically been given a free pass by Michigan media.  And to make matters worse--especially with seeing the recalls in Wisconsin and the victory of SB5 in Ohio--the Democratic Party here, still led by the same man who led us to such humiliating defeat in 2010 (Mark Brewer), basically rolled over and played dead.  Sure they voted against most of Snyder's and his republican cronies proposals, but it was with a decided lack of loud vocals.

And this week in the lead up to Gov. Snyder's State of the State address last night (yawn--it was brutal, but a harbinger of republican groupthink, i.e., "I balanced the budget, that will take care of everything!"), the Free Press ran nothing but puff pieces, other than this hard-hitting letter to the editor which the weenies edited so the comment concerning Snyder and the 1% did not appear.

Depressing.

Until I came across this--naturally not in the Free Press--Michigan Democrats are proposing free college tuition for Michigan students paid for by...wait for it...eliminating corporate tax credits.  No raising taxes, and it fulfills a key piece of Snyder's "agenda"--attracting business to Michigan by improving the level of talent in Michigan through better education.  My guess is it has zero chance of passage--but we can certainly use it in November to show just who it is greases the republican's (limo) wheels.  More kids in college or more corporate welfare:  you decide.

That's a battle we should love to have.

Peace,
emaycee

Who gives a rat's ass?

Sorry, but for all the media coverage of yesterday's caucus in Iowa, I'm having a real tough time giving a fuck.  I understand that a close election between President Obama and whatever joke of a candidate takes the republican nomination will be worth millions of dollars to the traditional media, but it's really going to take a strong stomach to withstand the puke that will come from the traditional media to make it so.

Let's face it:  the top three candidates from yesterday's vote in Iowa are equally pathetic.  Romney is a pampered rich boy with all the character of a wet fart.  Santorum is so far to the right he's falling over the cliff (not to mention he's the Catholic Church's  fave--enough reason to vote Obama just on that point alone).  I know he makes the republican primaries interesting at least for a while, but here's Kos on Santorum as the nominee:  "If Santorum is the nominee, Obama romps to reelection, we take the House and have a good chance of holding the Senate. This is a guy that barely got 41 percent of the vote in his 2006 reelection campaign in swing-state Pennsylvania. And he's freakin' nuts. It's our best-case scenario."  In other words, not going to happen.  And Ron Paul?  I don't even need a link--the mother fucker is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

On the bright side, President Obama reminded us today of why he won in 2008--his people run a hell of a campaign.  His recess appointment of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three new members to the NLRB serves the double purpose of taking attention away from the republican's caucus yesterday as well as feed into the meme of protecting the 99% from the 1%.  Doesn't hurt to feed the Dem base a little red meat, either.

Republicans, schmepublicans.  More good news on the Democratic Party, please.  It makes my day so much more pleasant.

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

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

Look for the union label

This day--Labor Day!--is right up there with MLK day (take the virtual tour of the new memorial--the Beautiful Boy loves it) as one of the best days to be a Liberal.  Everyone (not counting the traditional media) wants to remind us all just how much unions have done for us--and how we need to get back to where we started from.

The biggest lie American workers have been fed in the last thirty years?  That post-industrial prosperity was right around the corner.  It isn't ever happening--and as Mr. Meyerson notes in his piece, that prosperity isn't coming back until we get back to that which made us great:  manufacturing.  And I might add, with a healthy dose of union labor leading the way.

Did you know that Daily Kos has a new site devoted to Labor?   This piece by Laura Clawson (who has done a lot of wonderful pieces on the labor site) is a call to arms to setting the record straight.  Because of corporate lies and traditional media incompetence, a majority of Americans believe Unions make the standard of living worse for non-union workers.  Nothing could be further from the truth--today Think Progress gave us a handy-dandy chart (in addition to a nice cheat sheet on everything unions have done for all of us--the usual suspects:  the weekend, health benefits, an end to child labor, a robust middle class) which clearly shows that as Union membership has waned, so have middle class wages. 

And this year we had...Wisconsin.  From small things mama, big things one day come...

And speaking of music this year brought us Tom Morello's "Union Town" and the Dropkick Murphy's "Take 'Em Down" (in support of the Wisconsin workers).  There's even this--the commercial from which I stole this post's title.  Hell, there's even a site devoted to union songs.

There is no Business Day or Corporate Day.  No one writes songs about the glory of business or the free market, and if they did, very few would give a fuck.

There's a reason for that:  it's called having a soul, and those of us who proudly support Unions, and those who belong to them, and those who believe in looking our for their least of their brothers, have got one that's shining as bright as the sun in all its glory.

Peace,
emaycee

Hate to say I told you so, but I gotta

Welllllll....that didn't take long.  As reported by Think Progress, the republicans are already doing their best to make sure that Obama--who did in a little more than two years what Bush the lesser couldn't do in seven--doesn't get the credit he so richly deserves.  Hell, the mother fuckers actually think we planned it  to help Obama's re-election chances (damn--did you know we were that good?  I didn't).

And, of course, to go with the birthers, Andrew Brightfart is giving credence to the "deathers," a group of conservative numb nuts who think this is a conspiracy and bin Laden is still alive.  Whoever first said truth is stranger than fiction was really onto something.  Myself...I prefer to describe it as pathetic and disgusting.

If I wasn't so paranoid, I'd think the republican response was a plot to keep us from the real discussion we should be having:  is it time to speed up the timetable for the troop withdrawl from the quagmire that is Afghanistan?

Peace,
emaycee

Smile on your brother...

Unless of course, you're a republican....

I mention this because of a couple of pieces that have appeared in our dear old Free Press in the last week.  The first involves gop efforts here in Michigan who want our universities to send them reports on stem-cell research (which we as citizens passed in 2008); the second involves the gop outcry over a study which shows how medical marijuana (which usage we also passed in 2008) is being prescribed in Michigan.  In a nutshell, Michigan republicans are not happy with the outcomes of initiatives they lost badly, and now want to use bureacratic mumbo-jumbo to end them (or make so hard for researchers and citizens to use that they might as well have been banned).

My initial reaction to this was...a shrug of the shoulders and "...hmmph, typical republican hypocrisy."   Until I saw this piece in Think Progress which outlines at least six cases of the gop subverting the law to serve their own anti-freedom, anti-worker, anti-middle class agenda.

After some thought, it seems to me that republican hypocrisy doesn't begin to describe their actions.  For all their talk about the will of the American people, they couldn't care less about what the American people want or believe.  They don't trust us little plebes to make decisions for ourselves, so they're going to make them for us.  It's usurping our democracy, and in the end, our ability to defend ourselves from tyrants such as those in the republican party.

And those who believe in the rule of law, need not apply.

Peace,
emaycee

April fools...

...which would be us, the man and women of America who actually do the work that keeps this country going.  Guess what?  Last year, your CEO got a 27% pay raise, while you my friends and neighbors, got a measly 2%.  Is your CEO worth that much to your company?

Didn't think so--mine isn't either.

Peace,
emaycee