I HAVE TO GO GET MY CAR, HERE'S SOMETHING TO NIBBLE ON...

Injured War Zone Contractors Fight to Get Care From AIG and Other Insurers

Searchers, you know I'm no fan of contractors in Iraq...however, I'm less of a fan of huge corps like AIG...if people are paying premiums for insurance, there should be no problem collecting, ever.

NEWSFLASH REAGEANITES! "TRICKLEDOWN" ECONOMICS DOESN'T WORK!!

Wow. What a week. This is an identity crisis, an ideological abortion if you will, for the free market Capitalists.

Ya know, I was raised by staunch Republicans. I remember my mother getting pissed as hell when I brought up a commercial during the campaign season of 1979/80 that suggested Ronald Reagan did nothing for California. I was just a kid then, so I didn't thoroughly comprehend the enormity of the situation.

Reagan ushered in a new era of deregulation and free market free for all that could afford it, with the backing and advice of the Nobel winner Milton Freidman.

What a nightmare. The United States is facing a socioeconomic crisis akin to what other nations have faced in the past, largely with the pressure from the US, the World Bank, and the WTO. It is time to wake up, fellow citizens of the United States-the greed and disdain for your fellow American comes with a price.

I compared the current situation on Wall Street to a Heroin addict needing another shot.

One could arguably apply the analogy of the Alcoholic and hangovers to the current situation. This free market unfettered Capitalism has resulted in a drunken free for all by the right wing, the Christian right, and big business. And now the headache and shakes are kicking in.

Let's throw out the principles of the past 30 years.

Yes I know it's gonna hurt, and your chest is going to feel like it's being ripped open, but that's what happens when your ideology is proven to be a joke. Kinda like the way reality came crashing down to me when I realized right wing Christianity was actually completely antithetical to Jesus actual teaching.

I cannot purport to be an expert in Jesus' thought, but just by skimming over the New Testament one can discern that Jesus was not a Capitalist. In fact, he advocated social justice and welfare, something that is denied by the Right wing Christians. He even advocated paying taxes. You see, he's a lot smarter than the dumbass rednecks that have hijacked the Republican party and injected their Klan-like (yes I said Klan, AGAIN) Christianity in the public discourse.

(Sidebar-I voted Republican/Right wing Christian for the past 21 years, but I am going to rectify this and do my penance for the rest of my life. I apologize.)

The only good thing that has come out of the past 30 year nightmare that we've been dealing with is the realization that Ronald Reagan's policies and that of the Right have utterly failed. And I mean failed. Hello? Are you listening? UTTERLY FUCKING FAILED.

I'm not necessarily happy about the situation, but you have to admit with the nationalization of AIG and Freddy and Fannie, there is a sort of poetic justice...

We need a systemic change in the United States, as well as an impeachment trial for that piece of shit Cheney and George Bush. Let's put them in prison. I know I'm going to get flack for this, but Saddam Hussein was a bigger man than George Bush or Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft,(fucking Ashcroft what a dink), Gonzales, etc. Can you imagine GWB going to the gallows? He'd have a heart attack before the rope could be put around his neck, and his utter disbelief at the situation would put him down before the executioner could do his job. (I remember his daddy, GHW Bush-"I'm the president of the United States! I'm not going to eat any goddamn broccoli!") What a joke. Let's wake up, A-merry-ca, and lets throw out these right wing pieces of crap with their disdain for their fellow countrymen and women and make sure they cannot harm the country any longer, and make sure they have no pension, health insurance, or life insurance, or any of the socialistic perks they have enjoyed while they vote against the same for me, my family, and yours.

Peace and love, Searchers, we are standing on the cusp of history, let's not fuck it up.

OH SNAP! THE BAILOUT DIDN'T PASS

Yet. They're going to pass something, just not in its current form...

BAILOUT BILL

I'm not in favor the the bailout proposal. In fact, this is nothing more than giving a Heroin addict a shot while he is going through withdrawal. It may quell the withdrawal symptoms, but it aint gonna fix the underlying problem.

Here is the problem: Unrestricted and unregulated Capitalism and the greed it nurtures and encourages.

Let's throw away the rig.

It is time for a systemic change in the United States.

Peace

WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO HAVE THE FEDS BENT OVER LIKE THIS?

An excerpt from a post today from the Daily Kos written by Hunter regarding the bailout of Wall Street and the banks:

Their failure would present a liquidity problem for the rest of the market. They can do anything -- they could even burn money on the street -- and the strong preference of government would be to bail them out for it, because the alternative is financial chaos

My goodness-wouldn't that be something?

Read the full post here.

Oh yeah- John McCain's silly ass is going to be at the debate tonight, and he has officially "un-suspended" his campaign.

What did Natalie Maines say about Bush? Oh yeah, "you're a dumbfuck." Ditto for McCain.

Peace-

WRITE YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE

According to the HuffPo, on wednesday, the 24th, the House of Reps voted to give a $25 billion to struggling automakers.
In light of the current situation brought on by the free market neocons, I decided to write my Congressman Brian Baird to ask some questions. I posted the letter. I suggest all U.S. citizens write their congressman/woman to tell them NO BAILOUT!

The freemarket deregulation policies of Ronald Reagan and Milton Freidman are coming back to bite the US in the ass.

Wall Street is the absolute epitome of Capitalism. The right wing economic conservative has pushed policies that has encouraged this financial meltdown, this is what they have worked for, that is free, unfettered "Capitalism."

This is one reason why Congress should send Wall Street, AIG, etc., packing and give that money to the people.

Here's the email:
Feel free to copy it and send it to Baird in your name...

Mr. Baird-

You voted in favor of the 25 billion for automakers. Passed on Wednesday, Sept. 24. News reports relate how heavily the top people in the big three in Detroit lobbied for the loan. This is separated from the 700 billion Congress will most likely approve.

Here are my questions-

When is Congress going to stop bailing out the irresponsible people in big business and start giving aid again to the people who sent them to D.C.?

When is Congress going to allocate funds to keep my family in food, shelter, utilities, while we better ourselves through obtaining a college education?

When is Congress going to wake up and make higher education available to all?

When is Congress going to abandon the failed economic policies of Ronald Reagan and Milton Freidman?

Pay attention to the people Mr. Baird.

We want money for education. Money for doctor visits. We want money for food when we are struggling.

We want education and the support structure to succeed.

Enough with Congress's generation-long experiment with Milton Freidman's horrible economic theories that have thrown this nation into turmoil and is giving us an economy in shambles and discontent with our public officials akin to Pinochet's Chile.
I have made a concerted effort to discuss issues with you, yet I keep getting passed off to your aides.
I am a constituent, as is my wife and son, Mr. Baird, and we expect to be treated with respect.
My address is on the form and my phone number is: (deleted for obvious reasons)Have an aide call me to set up a face to face with me, my wife and my son.
I will be expecting a return call as well as an email.
Sincerely,

Mike

I have plenty to say, and plenty of comments to make. It's things like this that fires me up and gets me to class.

It is time for a systemic change in the United States.

Peace-

MUSINGS

I want a Congressional bailout so I can profit like Wall Street...

If you didn't catch The Colbert Report on Tues 9.23.08 you missed a great show...when I figure out how to put a video in I suppose I will...

However, I suspect you Searchers would rather just have my amazing commentary...

Peace...

700 BILLION BAILOUT

I know you have been following the news, Searchers, with the Wall Street capitalists going to Congress to get a decidedly socialist bailout.

At best I have to question the right wing and Bush's Freidmanite economic policies ( as well as judges and police officers) instructing me to have "personal responsibility" and then going to Congress for a handout when we have veterans living on the street.

When I can't get health care and afford my books for a mere three classes at a community college.

When $1861 monthly gross pay for a family of three disqualifies the family for food stamps. Who can live on that in this society? But these right-wingers and capitalists want to slash all social programs, abolish the Dept of Education, and take away funding for education. What would Jesus do, Capitalist? Pay attention to the book of Acts particularly the account of the Apostles setting up a social welfare system to ensure people less fortunate could be helped out, eat, and live with some dignity.

This is precisely what I want for me and my family. I don't have a rich daddy that throws out thousands of dollars for me and has clout to get me into a top-notch university. But I am intelligent, capable, with a vision. Why do people like Bush and the Christian Right want to take away opportunity from me or my wife or my son? Or deny millions of people health care, funding for education through the advanced degree stage, as well as the support system to succeed?

When the state of Washington steals 51% of my gross pay for child support, then tells me paying child support cannot be an income determining item when applying for social programs. Despite the fact that as a cook in these restaurants top pay is $14 an hour,(I don't make that much) and after taxes and the child support hijacking leaves me and my wife and son a mere $4 an hour to live on. What the fuck?

I have said this before and I will say it again. We need a systemic change in the United States, and TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS DOES NOT WORK.

It is time to oust this Capitalist system, and find a fix. To think a fully deregulated economy-one with no oversight- will have no repercussion (as history teaches in countries such as Chile), in the US as it it did in Chile (when you destroy people's rights and take away their ability to function, when you destroy social programs and give the nation over to corporate greed) is to ignore history as well as the majority of the voters' desire.

We need to take our country back from the policies of greed and disrespect of our fellow human being that Milton Freidman advocated and Ronald Reagan adopted.

Capitalism and it's dependence on profit and selfishness has proven itself to be a detriment on society akin to historical Communism.

Peace-

Mike

P.S. We need a systemic change in the United States.

WHITE PRIVILEGE-REPOST FROM FIELD-NEGRO

Again a post from The Field-Negro:


~By Tim Wise ~ "For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because 'every family has challenges,' even as black and Latino families with similar 'challenges' are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a 'fuckin' redneck,' like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll 'kick their fuckin' ass,' and talk about how you like to 'shoot shit' for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're 'untested.'

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words 'under God' in the pledge of allegiance because 'if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me,' and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the 'under God' part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was 'Alaska first,' and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community ogrganizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or > an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.


White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a 'second look.'

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a 'trick question,' while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a 'light' burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole 'change' thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem. "

I would like to add:

White privilege is AIG getting an 85 billion dollar bailout when the average person in the US is having trouble putting gas in their tanks.

White privilege is vetoing health care for children and cutting education for the masses because your rich white family has always had a doctor and your daddy and grandpa can pull strings to get you in top-notch universities.

White privilege is the president of the United States saying to a roomful of million/billionaires: "Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."

We need a systemic change in the United States.

Peace-

Mike