As we've been pointing out for several weeks now, and as we addressed pointedly last week, the Occupy movement - which is beginning its fourth week today - doesn't appear to be a temporary event. It continues to grow, with Occupy movements even popping up outside the U.S., in places sympathetic to the American worker.
Unlike the Tea Party movement of the last couple years, this movement has NOT been paid for by wealthy, secretive corporate backers. In fact, the Occupy movement is - in some ways - an answering call of reality to the ginned-up outrage of the Tea Party. Tea Partiers were mad - but they either weren't really sure of why they were angry, or they were angry for reasons many of them still refuse to honestly admit, like their own disgusting racism and classism.
What the Occupy protestors are angry about is the social contract they were sold - and on which most Americans have now been shorted by their own country.
There are those who expect the protestors to deliver some kind of list of demands, as though disgruntled Americans were simply another specialty group to be placated and then ignored. As another editorial over the weekend put it, "It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself."
Politically, it's easier for politicians today, especially members of Congress, to focus on evil-sounding boogeyman ideas, like voter fraud - which really doesn't exist in America today - than the real issues that are dragging our economy down, and keeping the middle class hanging on by a thread.
One of the biggest single economic problems facing us is the irresponsible conduct of the banks, that was allowed after we got rid of the laws like Glass-Stegall, which were put in place after the banksters screwed the country the last time and plunged America into the Great Depression.
The disastrous real estate crisis for which the banks are responsible has yet to be dealt with in any serious way. Until the banks are forced to eat, swallow - and quite possibly choke to death on - the lies and the unheard of pile of debt they sold to unsuspecting Americans to feed their own greed, they can't honestly clear their balance sheets. Until the banks can get a grip on their situation, they truthfully shouldn't be lending - which means borrowers can't really get a grip on their much smaller portion of responsibility in this mess either.
The sociological problem we face is also a massive one. Even more than the massive economic issues, this is what the Occupy protestors are really railing against.
As George Carlin said in his legendary rant about the American dream: the super-wealthy in America don't give a damn about the working people in America, or really anyone else. They've bought off the system, and they think they can do what they want. "It's a big club - and you ain't in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.
"By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head... with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy... Good, honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good, honest hard-working people continue... to elect these rich... suckers who don’t give a [damn] about you..."
Far too many of the 99% of Americans have been conned into thinking our politics is a football game, and they must root for the team that might someday help them - if they can somehow, magically become wealthy. The fact is, there is no magical way to become wealthy - and as we've said before MANY times, politics is NOT a game.
As Carlin reminded us, "It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it." These protests are Americans finally waking up. That they are rightfully angry terrifies those who stole their opportunities away from them while they were asleep.
One of the scariest things about this whole situation is that many of those currently in power don't yet seem to realize - it is they, and not the middle class, who is hanging onto their status by a thread.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
Friday Funday: Just Figure Out What's Next
As we're certain you've heard by now, Apple co-founder and innovator Steve Jobs died this week, after an incredible eight-year battle with pancreatic cancer.
There have been so many stories shared about Mr. Jobs; how he and Steve Wozniak began Apple; how Jobs got fired from the company he created, which spurred Jobs to create NeXt computers; and how he built Pixar into the company we've all come to love.
Of course, Mr. Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford has also made the rounds on the internet, and in conversation, quite a bit these last two days. If you haven't yet read or watched Mr. Jobs' Stanford address from 2005, we highly recommend you do so now.
For all you may have seen, read, and heard though, there's just... one more thing... at least one more story about Mr. Jobs that we're fairly sure that most of you haven't heard yet.
There's a story told among some of Apple's most veteran fans, those who remember Apple before the Mac, who know that Lisa isn't just a girl's name, and who were once called 'Apple evangelists - like our web guru, Shawn. The story goes that, shortly after Steve Jobs had dropped out of college, he went to India and got lost looking for a wise man. After some searching and stumbling through somewhat rural towns in India, Jobs had yet to find the guru - but, in a strange twist of fate, the wise man found him instead.
When the wise man 'discovered' Jobs, he ran up to the young American and screamed, "You!" !" - not in a hateful way, or the way you'd call out a thief, but in the way someone would exclaim if they had just found the one person they'd been looking for all their life.
This wise Indian yogi put his hands on Jobs' head - which Steve thought odd, but went along with anyway. After a few moments, the wise man stepped back and told Jobs, "Someday, you will change the world."
And he did.
As Jobs himself once said, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
As we head into a weekend filled with travel, P.O. Pears burgers at the UNL Dairy Store, and maybe even checking out a few Occupy rallies, we hope you'll remember something else Mr. Jobs once said, in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams.
When Williams asked Jobs to think of where he would fit, in the great pantheon of American inventors, Jobs tried to beg off, not wanting to truly answer the question. Williams pushed the legacy query though - and Jobs' answer is one we hope sticks with you as much as it has with us.
Steve said, "When we [humans] finish doing something that we're really proud of, we want to get onto the next thing. So, you know, I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful and not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next."
We hope that whatever is next for you turns out pretty good too.
There have been so many stories shared about Mr. Jobs; how he and Steve Wozniak began Apple; how Jobs got fired from the company he created, which spurred Jobs to create NeXt computers; and how he built Pixar into the company we've all come to love.
Of course, Mr. Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford has also made the rounds on the internet, and in conversation, quite a bit these last two days. If you haven't yet read or watched Mr. Jobs' Stanford address from 2005, we highly recommend you do so now.
For all you may have seen, read, and heard though, there's just... one more thing... at least one more story about Mr. Jobs that we're fairly sure that most of you haven't heard yet.
There's a story told among some of Apple's most veteran fans, those who remember Apple before the Mac, who know that Lisa isn't just a girl's name, and who were once called 'Apple evangelists - like our web guru, Shawn. The story goes that, shortly after Steve Jobs had dropped out of college, he went to India and got lost looking for a wise man. After some searching and stumbling through somewhat rural towns in India, Jobs had yet to find the guru - but, in a strange twist of fate, the wise man found him instead.
When the wise man 'discovered' Jobs, he ran up to the young American and screamed, "You!" !" - not in a hateful way, or the way you'd call out a thief, but in the way someone would exclaim if they had just found the one person they'd been looking for all their life.
This wise Indian yogi put his hands on Jobs' head - which Steve thought odd, but went along with anyway. After a few moments, the wise man stepped back and told Jobs, "Someday, you will change the world."
And he did.
As Jobs himself once said, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
As we head into a weekend filled with travel, P.O. Pears burgers at the UNL Dairy Store, and maybe even checking out a few Occupy rallies, we hope you'll remember something else Mr. Jobs once said, in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams.
When Williams asked Jobs to think of where he would fit, in the great pantheon of American inventors, Jobs tried to beg off, not wanting to truly answer the question. Williams pushed the legacy query though - and Jobs' answer is one we hope sticks with you as much as it has with us.
Steve said, "When we [humans] finish doing something that we're really proud of, we want to get onto the next thing. So, you know, I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful and not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next."
We hope that whatever is next for you turns out pretty good too.
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Will Do Anything For Office
There have been a lot of news stories in the last 24 hours, not the least of which is the death of Apple computer founder Steve Jobs, one of the topics we plan to address tomorrow. To his family, friends, and fans, we add our condolences to the millions of voices thanking him.
One of the biggest pieces of news in the political world, is that Sarah Palin, the former half-term Governor of Alaska, has announced her decision not to run for President in 2012 - as we were certain was the case. Of course, the highly lucrative paycheck that we're sure Gov. Palin receives from Fox News probably also helped sway her decision this time around - even if Fox President Roger Ailes only hired Ms. Palin because she's "hot and got ratings" for his television network.
So Republicans are stuck with the group of candidates they have - which, for many Republicans, means the Republican version of John Kerry, in Mitt Romney, except without the war hero record and long history of solid national policy experience.
The fact is, if Mitt Romney can be judged by his record as a governor, and his actions as president and CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, he appears to be a somewhat socially moderate, somewhat fiscally conservative, corporate-friendly Republican.
While the totality of his policies and past actions don't sit well with most liberals, if he were positioned as a reasonable moderate, more than a few moderate progressives and centrists might be able to be won over by a candidate with Gov. Romney's background.
Instead, for months now, the regressive right has continued to deny what most of them already know, deep down, to be true: Romney is the most likely candidate for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination.
That hasn't stopped Republican partisans and pollsters from claiming - in vain - that the decisions of Chris Christie and Sarah Palin not to enter the race are going to make things easier for Herman Cain. Or Rick Perry. Or someone. After all, as noted polling and statistics expert Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight.com, mentioned earlier this week, "Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Trump, Giuliani, Romney, Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee, and Christie have all led at least 1 national poll this year."
If this were a political landscape not already ravaged by hyper-partisanship and toxic levels of propaganda, we can honestly see at least two candidates among the current GOP field that sane moderates and even a few conservative Democrats might vote for.
The problem is one we pointed out on Wednesday - that the extremist far right has been purity testing every candidate that comes before them. Their fanatical insistence that each and every item on their checklist of dogmatic loyalty be met means that Romney keeps trying too hard to prove his worth to people who will never really like him anyway.
That isn't to say the Republican partisans and those on the far right won't vote for Romney in the end. If they vote at all, they'll vote for Gov. Romney, only because they can't stand President Obama.
Just because they vote for him, though, doesn't mean they have to like Mr. Romney.
And no matter what he does, or what positions he takes, that's not likely to be something that changes.
One of the biggest pieces of news in the political world, is that Sarah Palin, the former half-term Governor of Alaska, has announced her decision not to run for President in 2012 - as we were certain was the case. Of course, the highly lucrative paycheck that we're sure Gov. Palin receives from Fox News probably also helped sway her decision this time around - even if Fox President Roger Ailes only hired Ms. Palin because she's "hot and got ratings" for his television network.
So Republicans are stuck with the group of candidates they have - which, for many Republicans, means the Republican version of John Kerry, in Mitt Romney, except without the war hero record and long history of solid national policy experience.
The fact is, if Mitt Romney can be judged by his record as a governor, and his actions as president and CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, he appears to be a somewhat socially moderate, somewhat fiscally conservative, corporate-friendly Republican.
While the totality of his policies and past actions don't sit well with most liberals, if he were positioned as a reasonable moderate, more than a few moderate progressives and centrists might be able to be won over by a candidate with Gov. Romney's background.
Instead, for months now, the regressive right has continued to deny what most of them already know, deep down, to be true: Romney is the most likely candidate for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination.
That hasn't stopped Republican partisans and pollsters from claiming - in vain - that the decisions of Chris Christie and Sarah Palin not to enter the race are going to make things easier for Herman Cain. Or Rick Perry. Or someone. After all, as noted polling and statistics expert Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight.com, mentioned earlier this week, "Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Trump, Giuliani, Romney, Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee, and Christie have all led at least 1 national poll this year."
If this were a political landscape not already ravaged by hyper-partisanship and toxic levels of propaganda, we can honestly see at least two candidates among the current GOP field that sane moderates and even a few conservative Democrats might vote for.
The problem is one we pointed out on Wednesday - that the extremist far right has been purity testing every candidate that comes before them. Their fanatical insistence that each and every item on their checklist of dogmatic loyalty be met means that Romney keeps trying too hard to prove his worth to people who will never really like him anyway.
That isn't to say the Republican partisans and those on the far right won't vote for Romney in the end. If they vote at all, they'll vote for Gov. Romney, only because they can't stand President Obama.
Just because they vote for him, though, doesn't mean they have to like Mr. Romney.
And no matter what he does, or what positions he takes, that's not likely to be something that changes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)