A Pity Party for the Rich and Appliances for the Poor

Having one of those jobs where you can work at home must be great. The biggest expansion in home based jobs is being a corporate tool and lemming for the 1%. You see their right-wing letters to the editors in your local newspapers and opinions in the comment sections on political websites. You also hear their calls to CSPAN and local talk radio stations. Rush Limbaugh makes $33 million a year being a corporation shill, so you would hope the folks spreading the weekly corporate talking points would pick up a livable wage for their effort. I really can’t believe that folks in the middle-class would sell their soul to spread right-wing propaganda without a nice pay-day. I don’t believe anyone in the middle-class would actually be dumb enough to become a self-appointed guardian of the status quo.

The latest corporate tools have been employed to get the propaganda out about one of their corporate overlords, the poor oil companies (one of our new corporate persons) who they feel need to be worshipped and cherished for the wonderful job they do for a measly 6% profit. I heard a caller to a WKBN talk show the other day saying such to try and throw a pity party for the poor oil companies. Was I suppose to be so moved that I would empty out my credit union saving account, drive down to my local gas station hand over all my money, fall down on my knees and worship the gas gods who have been making record profits? If the oil companies are really only making 6% and want me to cry I’d say close up shop and invest in something else. The corporate tool callers talk about how corporations are locating in other countries because the U.S. corporate tax rate is too high. Why do the corporations even care what the tax rate is as Exxon, GE and 85% of the top 100 US companies pay $0 in taxes? Add in that corporations like Big Oil get incredible subsidies (read corporate welfare) courtesy of the taxpayers. Big Oil is also subsidized by the fact that the US military goes to war for it to secure investments while taxpayers donate their money and children as cannon fodder. Corporations don’t pay taxes: they collect them by using taxpayers as ATM machines. How did oil company’s profits become more important than the needs of the people? That is because the oil industry spent $1.15 billion in lobbying over the span of 14 years. That’s quite a bit for the oil industry that  claims to make a mere 6% profit.

The other propaganda I keep hearing from the corporate tools is that the U.S.’s poor are better off that the poor of any other nation. Will this soon become a rallying chant? I can see Romney (who said he wasn’t concerned with the poor) having a political ad showing the homeless of  say Boston wrapped in three beat up coats in heavy snow jumping up and down with their index fingers in the air chanting we’re number one, we’re number one.  The corporate tools have been using attack propaganda from the Heritage Foundation a right-wing think tank to push the idea that the U.S. poor are just not poor enough. Heritage complains that the U.S. poor have more appliances that the poor of other nations. The late Paul M. Weyrich was the founder of the Heritage Foundation along with Joseph Coors of the union busting Coors Brewery. Heritage got its start at pushing a conservative agenda by defending Bob Jones University’s racially discriminatory policies. Bob Jones University had policies that refused black students enrollment until 1971, admitted only married blacks from 1971 to 1975, and prohibited interracial dating and marriage between 1975-2000. A quote by Paul M. Weyrich shows how like today’s GOP democracy takes a back seat to winning elections: “I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

Heritage and the other corporate owned right-wing think tanks will keep giving their corporate lemmings new propaganda to spread. With the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida you will continue to hear the corporate tools defending the white shooter, George Zimmerman. That will be in an attempt to keep racism alive as a divide and conquer strategy.  As for me I’ll take a wait and see stance on Martin’s shooting, throw a fundraising pity party for the oil companies and pick up some small appliances like toasters to give the homeless and tell them what lucky people they are. Be vigilant and drop me a comment when you recognize the next propaganda from the 1%. It’s not hard to recognize just follow the greed is good stench.

Conscious Plat: Homeless

Land of 10,000 Homeless in Minnesota

” I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.” ~ Robert Kennedy

Sorry, Louie

I’ve mentioned radio station WSOM (600 AM) radio in Salem, Ohio on this site before. It is owned by Cumulus Broadcasting and has a Talk format. The station features syndicated conservative radio host like, Sean Hannity, Rusty Humphries and Glenn Beck. I’ve mentioned their only local host Tracy Winbush’s show, “Tracey and Friends” which is on Mon-Fri from noon-3.  I usually go to my car on my lunch break and listen to the radio.  For a long time I have been listening to WHTX 1540 AM and the local, “Louie b. Free Brain Food from the Heartland Show.” Louie does a fantastic job and I admire his commitment to our valley. I had a friend tell me I needed to listen to Tracey’s show. He described it as either the funniest satire ever on how dumb conservatives are or if it was not a satire the biggest trainwreck on the radio waves. I generally am not a rubbernecker at trainwrecks but I was shocked to find the show was not a satire. I couldn’t believe that people as uninformed as unprofessional as Tracey and her friends would be allowed anywhere near a microphone. Tracey and gang like to scream over callers and cut of their calls as if a bunch of third-graders were playing radio station.

I listened lunch period after lunch period and either got a sore neck at shaking my head at how idiotic Tracey and Friends were or lost my voice laughing so hard at their utter ignorance. I finally realized Tracey was given a show because she filled a need the GOP had. That was to have African-Americans as voices for their party. Tracey and fellow African-American Jeff rewrite history on a daily basis on the airwaves. They both believe that Abraham Lincoln would recognize today’s present GOP as the party of Lincoln. They throw the 1960’s term Dixiecrat around to undermine today’s Democrat party. They fail to realize those Dixiecrats like, Strom Thurman became Republicans. They need to forget the D and R terms and realize it was liberals who fought to bring civil rights to black Americans. It was conservative mentality that wanted to maintain segregation laws.

The other day Tracey was speaking about political spin. She talked about how she helped out in a mayoral race by “exaggerating” that the opponent in the race may favor legalizing marijuana for personal reasons. She then admitted when she ran for office she told some misstatements about her opponent. She wasn’t apologetic and brushed it all off by saying, everyone does it. Later in the show Tracey was bashing parents for not teaching their kids integrity. She said between the parents and teachers they were dumbing down kids and turning out delinquents. Tracey never saw the irony that her involvement in politics lacked integrity. She never recognized that her and her crew’s daily manipulation of history and facts was dumbing down listeners. Noting that Tracey who has no children, hates unions, hates public sector workers and loves vouchers served on a school board makes anything she has to say about teachers moot. I suppose Tracey like a lot of politicians doesn’t give a hoot about kids they just use being on a school board as the first stepping stone of a political career.

On a show later in the week Tracey and her friend fact hater Sticks were trashing people on welfare. They were talking about how something needs to be done about welfare cheats. Being conservatives they were of course not talking about corporate welfare cheats. Tracey and Sticks both claimed they knew welfare cheats. A caller said he turned in a woman who faked a disability and bragged she was going to get a check and never have to work again. He said that Tracey and Sticks needed to do the right thing and that if they know welfare cheats they need to turn them in. Tracey who does a lot of talking about how people need to take action to make their communities better replied, “I don’t snitch, I’m not getting in to trouble.” Sticks who thinks he is Mr. Righteous said, “The cheats I know all own automatic weapons therefore I’m not turning anyone in.” The caller chastised them both for having no backbone. He said they are like everyone else in that they want to complain but don’t want to do anything.

I would imply they were lying about knowing welfare cheats just because they are haters and want someone to hate. They hate unions because unions are about people coming together to make life better for their fellow workers. They hate liberals because liberals put people before profits. Traci and her crew Sticks, Jeff and Ben are not only know nothings they are do-nothings. They spend three hours a day spreading hate for the GOP. They want to talk about others they consider the blight in our country. The truth is it is people like them that distort the truth, point fingers, refuse to right wrongs or fight for justice that set bad examples for our kids. Our country is plagued by these blow hard do-nothings that don’t want things to change and we need to vaccinate our kids against them by speaking truth to power to our children. As for me I can no longer listen to the Tracey and Friends trainwreck and I’m going back to intelligent talk with the best talk radio host in our valley, Louie b. Free. Sorry I left you Louie but I’m turning off the mindless junk food and joining you for some brain food. Harmony and hope make a better diet than hypocrisy and hate.

Steven Emerson: Blue Beware

Wolf Larsen: If I Be Wrong

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ~ Edmund Burke

Ghosts on the Landscape

I’ve come to realize I don’t really write poetry.  I’d call what I do more of an untrained punk format I’d call,”Rantoetry.”

Here is my latest “Rantoetry.”

Ghosts on the Landscape

Our Founding fathers were considered great men.
Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention
26 owned slaves 19 relying on slave labor for their livelihood.
Robert Morris did not own slaves but owned a slave ship
and invested in plantations using slaves.
James Monroe, as governor of Virginia
after rushed trials, executed nearly 30 slaves
because they had attempted a revolt.
Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry,
both whipped their slaves backs
so they’d pick cotton to be used to make
clothes for white people’s backs.
The group of 26 slave owners
were part of those drafting a document
declaring their freedom from England.
Plantation owners were thought of as
good free market capitalists,
proving a product people wanted.
If it produces profit and wealth then it is OK just like it is now
to us who buy products made by third world sweatshop labor.
Women, children, indentured servants,
slaves and the backward Native Peoples
today exists to be exploited by corporations
just like they were by our white, male
property holding Founding Fathers.
The exploited of today’s sweatshops
cry out for justice not unlike
the ghost of 10’s of millions of
brutalized African America slaves.
Like the slaves before them
they will be forgotten to history
while the Founding Father slave masters
will have monuments, buildings,
cities, rivers, parks, and more
named for them so they will never be forgotten.
The landscape is full of ghosts
upon whose backs nations were built
while their tormentors are honored.
The names of the slaves who built the pyramids
are only whispered by the desert sands
for they are lost to history while the name
of the Pharos lying in the pyramids are remembered.

To further expand the America continent
millions of native Americans suffered a genocide
by the descendants of the Founding Fathers.
500 native tribes suffered the violation
of 389 U.S. – Indian treaties.
Like the current mantra of greed
drill, baby drill that calls for
the rape of mother nature
the Native Americans heard,
the only good injun is a dead injun
the terminology for greed for more land
would be eventually be made more palatable
by calling it Manifest Destiny by the time
the country got around to stealing land from Mexico.
The spirits of the real founding fathers
Native Americans still dance the
Ghost Dance and call out for justice
not reservations and gambling casinos.
Most of their names are long gone from history
but the Indian fighters who stole their way of life
are memorialized and have things name in their honor.
Kit Carson whose scorched Earth policy
forced the Navajo to surrender. will long be remembered
as he has 4 elementary schools, one middle school
and a school district named for him,
also:, a trail, a pass, 2 ways, a national forest,
2 campsites, a road, a valley, 2 parks, a mountain,
a river,  an army post, 2 counties and 4 cities.
Gen Sheridan devised a plan to deprive the Indians
of their primary source of food.
He had hunters, trespass on Indian land,
and  kill over 4 million bison by 1874.
Many Indians starved to death before
the tribes finally surrendered.
The ghost of those killed by Sheridan
are over shadowed by the honor paid Sheridan.
He has a fort, two parks, five counties, 7 cities,
a route, a square, a street and a tank all named for him.
Even famed Indian killer Gen George Custer
has many things named after him.
Counties in 6 states, 2 townships, a mine, 2 villages,
2 towns, a military camp, a state park and a few monuments.

Civil war slaves and the ghosts
of union soldiers sing out
about how those who killed them
are being honored today.
620,000 perished in the
war between the states.
Union deaths were 360,000.
Today’s south spits in the face
of dead slaves and union soldiers
by honoring Generals and others
who served in the Confederacy
like it’s president Jefferson Davis.
In Texas 38 counties are named
for Confederate Civil War Generals.
Why just in Fairfax County, Virginia you have:
Jefferson Davis Hospital, Jefferson Davis High School,
Jeb Stuart High School, Lee High School,
Mosley Wood Elementary School, Lee Highway,
Jefferson Davis Highway,  Lee-Jackson Highway,
and Pickett Road.
David Levy Yulee was the first
US Jewish Senator.
He joined the Confederate Congress
and Levy County and the town of Yulee
both in Florida are named for him.
Baker City, Florida is named for
James Baker senator in Confederacy.
There has been some break through to honor
those killed by the confederacy in recent years.
The grounds of the South Carolina State House
are also home to a monument dedicated to
the contributions and history of African-Americans
it’s near the monument to South Carolina’s Confederate dead,
a monument that includes a flagpole flying
a traditional Confederate battle flag.
Nearby is a statue of racist Senator Strom Thurmond.
Recruits from up North some who are the descendants
of Civil War Northern soldiers come down South
and train at forts named after Confederate generals.
Like: Ft. Bragg, Ft. Lee, Ft. Hood, Ft. Rucker, Ft. Hill, and Ft. Benning.
Gen. Henry Benning was actually born on a plantation.
Unlike the slaves who worked that plantation
he has a place named in his honor.

Ft. Benning, Georgia houses the School of the Americas
since it moved to Georgia from Panama  in 1984.
It has been nicknamed, the School of Assassins
since it’s purpose is to train death squads
to serve Third World Dictators and global corporations.
President Reagan was responsible
for training lots of death squads here
for his dictator friends in Latin America.
Reagan financed and trained
a bloody regime in Guatemala
that destroyed four hundred Mayan villages
and butchered 200,000 peasants.
Reagan also supported the Salvadoran military dictatorship.
More than 75,000 people were killed there
including 16,000 unarmed civilians,
Archbishop Oscar Romero,
four US church workers (raped and murdered),
four Dutch journalists and six Jesuit priests.
Reagan financed mercenaries to overthrow
the democratically elected government of Nicaragua.
The resulting war killed over 50,000 people, mostly civilians.
Through out Latin America mothers have stood in plazas
with photos of their disappeared ones asking for help.
The ghosts of Latin American  freedom fighters,
nuns, priests, activists, union organizers
and environmentalist buried in hidden mass graves
scream out for overdue justice against
evil mass murderers like President Reagan.
There is lots in the USA named for Reagan
a hospital,an airport, a freeway, a trade center,
aircraft carrier, a courthouse
and even though he is responsible
for over 300,000 deaths he has a peace park
in Illinois named after him.
While his victims are forgotten by American citizens,
four GOP candidates are running for president
fighting each other over who is the most Reagan like.

No history for America’s victims
only history for her killers.

Racist Bumper stickers.

Words of Wisdom From Native American Elders

The Roots: “Can’t Turn Me Around.”

A country without a memory is a country of madmen. ~ George Santayana

The Valley, Videos and a Vision

I’ve wanted to talk more about the many things in our Mahoning Valley that makes it special. I was hoping to get your ideas and comments about what you love about our valley. I wanted to compile a list of these things that might aid people who have moved to our valley. It would also serve to inform our own residents about many things people haven’t discovered yet. I was mentioning to a couple of people yesterday that I was going to the University at Larchmont in Warren, Ohio for a fish fry. I’ve been going there for over 25 years and these two people who have lived their whole lives in Trumbull County had never heard of it. So you can see there is always lots to discover in our area. Instead of trying to mention the wonderful things are valley has to offer I’ve decided to set something up on Facebook just for discussing things in our valley. I think that is a better medium to have people access. So please check out Mahoning Valley Citizen Promoters and add your comments and suggestions about our valley.

Next week in this blog I’ll get back to discussing issues that frustrate me. I’m never at a loss for words and I have lots I want to comment on. Despite that rather than anything I could say this week I’d rather have you view these two videos. I feel they contain info that gives us a vision of a different way of thinking that would make life in our valley and the world a much better place if we took their messages to heart.

The first one is I received from a few different members of the local Emerging Community group.

Designing for Generosity: Video

The other one was sent to me by my fellow Irishman and friend Mickey:  Live a Life of Victory. If this guy doesn’t touch and inspire you then you must be in a coma.

Hang on to your gentle pains of hope because we as a species can do better and must. Let me know if you felt the above two videos like I did.

Brianna Gaither: Find You

Faithful

An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the courage and love and hope of all. ~ Dorothy Day

Grocery Cart Gestapo

In Charles Dickens’ England the poor were put in poorhouses. In America today the poor are in mansions, driving new Cadillac’s, buying champagne, lobster and partying at strip clubs. Well, the American poor are only doing these things in the minds of conservative politicians. The poor aren’t really buying lobster and champagne but conservative politicians want you to buy these lies. Someone who bought the lies wrote a letter to the editor at the Warren Tribune last Sunday. Her name was Jeri Karr and she was complaining that while at the grocery store she saw the people in front of her use food stamps (Ohio Direction Card). She was angry that they bought two big bags of  brand-name potato chips. She was further outraged that they used cash to buy a lottery ticket. Truth is poor people using food stamps have a better shot at winning the lottery than they do of getting any sympathy, compassion or a prayer from ‘good Christians” like Jeri. Jeri and misguided people like her have become the “Grocery Cart Gestapo.” Jeri ended her attack on the poor saying, “What a world we live in.”

I couldn’t agree more with Jeri about the strange world we live in. We live in a world where we pick on someone for buying potato chips on our tax dollars while we support and patronize someone who steals a billion. I’m talking about the Walton family of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club fame who over the years have collected $1 billion in taxpayer dollars in the form of corporate welfare. Yet, millions of the Jeri’s of the world who trash those on welfare have no problem shopping in a store that is the biggest welfare queen on the planet. I won’t even get into how you shouldn’t shop at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club because they are on the wrong side of every social justice issue on the planet. What a world we live in when people scream because someone on assistance bought a lottery ticket and yet two-thirds of US corporations pay no Federal Income Tax. They don’t pay because they have hit the lottery by having lobbyist who write the tax laws for the politician that the corporations own. In 2010 GE earned $14.2 billion in profits but paid not a penny in taxes. In fact, GE got a $3.2 billion tax benefit. Yet, in the world we live in I’m suppose to ignore that and bash someone on public assistance for buying cigarettes.

The Republican Party of civil liberties and less government wants to ensure in the world we live in that all government assistance is spent on the “right” things. The things that those on the on the right want money spent on are; corporate welfare, defense contractors, tax cuts for the rich, taking care of oil companies and more foreign wars. In the world we live in Wall Street wants the government to keep their nose out of Wall Street’s business. Yet, when Wall Street crashed because of their greed Wall Street put their hand out for the government to bail them out. I didn’t notice the GOP objecting to the greedy corporations and banks using bailout money to pay large bonuses and vacations to the executives who destroyed their businesses. But we live in a world where hands outs are for the truly greedy not the truly needy. In the world we live in we take care of the CEO’s and blame their victims.

In the world we live in we give bonus money to failed CEO’s and make the poor take piss tests for public assistance. Florida spent $45 testing each welfare recipient for drugs. If they failed the test they had to pay the $45. Testing showed 2% of test takers flunked the test. For a puny 2% Florida has wasted time, money, resources and personnel. Yet in the world we live in 23 other states have rushed to establish such testing. Why?  It’s because in the world we live in bashing the poor sells to the Jeri types of the world. In the world we live in it makes the Jeri’s feel powerful, because they have someone to look down on like the poor. They like being able to feel disdain for the poor. That way in the world we live in the Jeri’s won’t feel the hand of the 1% up their anuses controlling them like the puppets they are. Does it really help the Jeri’s feel better to blame those who need the most help? The corporations and the think tanks and the media they own hate competition for tax dollars. In the world we live in corporations think of social welfare dollars being spent on the poor as dollars stolen out of their corporate welfare fund.

Don’t you think that if those on public assistance were driving new Cadillac’s that the 1%ers would all own Cadillac dealerships? Especially when their goal is to move everyone in the middle-class to the poor class. The world we live in would be a better place if the Jeri’s of the world would take some time off of “Grocery Cart Gestapo” duty and volunteer at food pantries, homeless shelters and soup kitchens and find out the truth about poverty. If we would quit being controlled by the greedy and help pull up the needy what a great world we would live in!

An example of the way GOP politicians spread hate for those on welfare.

The Decemberists: This is Why We Fight

Down by the Water

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles. ~ plato