Merry Christmas.....

To start sorry for the delay in new posts I've been busy and I hope to one at least a few times a week, until I have more time on my hands. Now on with todays topic, a very topical (see what I did there) holiday post.

Now certain (crazy) people on a (ridiculously evil) side of the political spectrum believe there is a "War On Christmas". They think that (remember the following is suppose to be scary) Liberals, Secular Humanists, Socialists, Communists, people with an once of empathy in them and there pawns are out to destroy Jesus or something. So starting every September (since Jesus would have been all about starting the Christmas shopping season as soon as possible) on a particular Faux News Channel owned by some Aussie, they start shouting about how the aforementioned suppose to be evil people (as opposed to the actual evil people who push this idea) are trying to take religion out of Christmas (like the Coke a Cola company, and the soulless drones of 5th Avenue and other famed marketing firms haven't all read).

This preoccupation with making sure you tell every one Merry Christmas, to throw it in there face about how into Jesus you are, is well like all religion dumb. For one Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, December 25th is the Roman Holiday Saturnalia, and several other pagan holidays, also the birth date of Horus the Egyptian god. It goes even further than that in Luke's description of the birth (made famous by Its a Charlie Brown Christmas) he mentions Shepard's in the field tending there flock, the thing is the Palestinian winters are too cold. It is more than possible that Jesus was actually born in the Spring. So that's one reason not to take the whole Jesus born on December 25th with a grain of salt.

Now that being said I tell everyone Merry Christmas, regardless of what religion they are. But why would I do that, especially after telling all of you that its a waste of time. Simply, its because I see Christmas as a secular holiday. It's a holiday that's suppose to about caring, friendship, giving and on top of that all the capitalist commercialism that's been heaped on it. That commercialism its self has practically turned Christmas into a secular holiday. So that's the plan from here on out, fuck these Christians and there bullshit, tell everyone Merry Christmas not because you believe in Jesus, tell them it because were all in it together, and telling someone to be merry and have fun, for all not just a select group of people and most importantly remember everyone to have


A Merry Christmas

We Can't Have Anything Nice.

The worst thing about America by far happens to be Americans. For as H.L. Mencken said "The common man is a fool". I fear Mencken may have been right, my proof of that is America itself and the American populace never ending ability to fuck things up for themselves. Which most certainly has to do with how uneducated the American public is, and how anti-intellectual we are in general once again to quote Mr. Mencken "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public". It speaks volumes that if you really want to make money in the country you have to assume that every single America is an idiot. And for the most part they may be right, ye God on High just look at the popularity of a certain politician from Alaska.

Is it so wrong for us to have nice things? In other places the people can have nice things, functioning health care, education systems, clean reliable public transportation system, even clean public restrooms. But why not here? I've given you my answer to that question, that for the most part the American public is too stupid to have anything nice with out screwing it up. But I feel like that answer is too easy and a bit of a cop out. I think its also the fact that Americans are hypocritical again as our friend Mr. Mencken said "The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth". This is most seen in the activities of the Tea-Baggers and many other conservatives, especially Republicans, who preach about virtues of freedom, and liberty but when given the chance to rule do anything but that, and God help us if they were ever given the power they really want, we'd all end up in places that would make Dachau look like a summer camp.

I write this post seemingly without meaning or direction mostly because its nearing 5am and I'm sitting here bored and somewhat depressed. I'm not even sure if I even believe in democracy anymore, because to have one that functions you need an educated population, which American doesn't have. Once more I leave you with the words of H.L. Mencken, I don't agree with everything he has ever said or even some of the quotes of his I have used, but this one... this one, if there were ever a truer statement I have yet to run across it, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard".

God help us all.

And Now A Word From the OBC.

London
19:48

Good evening London, and all people of Airstrip One and this is your daily dose of information.

At the top of our stories tonight, Reginald Blackwell chief Minister at the Ministry of Truth has stepped down today following a doubleplusungood statement to reporters here at the Oceania Broadcast Company, in which he uncorrectly stated that "Our greatest enemy is Eurasia". It will be duly noted that Eurasia has always been our greatest ally against the evil and devious Eastasians. Amid cries that Minister Blackwell was an evil agent of the nefarious Emmanuel Goldstein, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Love had this to say "Even though Minister Blackwell has committed an act of doubleplusungood so grievous, especially coming from an esteemed member of the Inner Party would require action, but word comes down from Big Brother himself, that all is forgiven. See Big Brother is filled with mercy and compassion for all". The new Minister a Minister Roger Ailes, former chief of Oceania's province formerly known as America Fox News Network. Minister Ailes has promised to bring the same quality of news to the Ministry of Truth that he had ensured existed at the former Fox News. Minister Alies has also supported a Mrs. Sarah Palin for the Governorship of the American provinces saying, "Palin 2012".

And that concludes our broadcast for today, remember when life get you down nothing is better than some Victory Gin and the ever loving warmth of Big Brother.

Thanksgiving

So first off I would like to apologize for missing the last few days but well I'm sure some of you know how it is. So today I'm going to not talk about politics and talk about some wider things, todays topic will be Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday in that it is entirely about overeating and wanting to murder your family. I think we can all agree on that, that this holiday is truly about wanting to get together with your loved ones for the sole purpose of reminding yourself why you want to kill them. So in that vein, every one have a happyt Turkey Day and be careful with those knives

The Great Recession.

Lo these many months (over a year now) we have been enthralled in a recession (TARP and the Stimulus package barley saving us from a Depression) caused by Neo-Liberal policies of deregulation, espoused by Ronald Regan, Thatcher, Bill Clinton, formerly Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman (may he burn in hell), Von Hyack (the same for him) and both George Bush's. Over the last 30 years this constant push for deregulation with the added effect of the erosion of Labour has gutted the physical economy. The destruction of Labour and the weakening to almost complete death of the Labour movement can be laid solely at the feet of Ronald Regan. Regan's lasting legacy will forever be that he killed the only hope for the American worker by breaking the Unions, its been over 30 years since Saint Regan (of the Wack-Job Republican Church) was elected president, and unions have still not seen a recovery. As of right now union membership nation wide is at 12 percent ( a half a percent increase from 2008), of which 80 percent of that are government employees. Union membership in the private sector is almost nil, what is even worse is that using his authoritarian populism Regan helped sell the American people on the idea that unions were bad, even though we enjoy the (alleged) eight hour work day because of unions, workers compensation, sick leave, safety regulations, pensions, retirement funds and so many other things that we enjoy in our modern work place because of unions and the labour struggle, which had we left it to pure free market capitalism we would never have. But thats part of the problem that deserves its own post, but be sure that a lot of our economic woes can be traced back to the erosion of labour, the destruction of the middle class and an increase burden on the working class. But this is a topic I will return to at a later date, what I want to talk about today is the lack of a New Deal.

Now I'm a Socialist (its a dirty word here in America, but its what I'm)and I'm for the working class owning the means of production, that the workers can be their own boss (in my view unionization plays heavily into the ability to do this) and one thing that has always made me sad is that FDR and the New Deal "stole the thunder" of the Socialists and the Left in America in the 30s which is one of the reasons we don't have a major Labour Party here in the US. But where I would prefer a full blown Socialist system, I would be more than happy (and part of me prefers) to have a Social Democratic system here in the US like they have in Europe (I say part of me would prefer this over some of my more Marxist tendencies because its more easily defensible since its proven to work in Europe). So one of the reason that I voted for Barack Obama in November of 2008 was I thought we were going to get a Newer Deal. Should I have known better, perhaps, Obama didn't present himself as anything other than just a regular run of the mill "centrist" Democrat, now besides the self projection that more than a few of us on the Left cast on President Obama, there were some clues that he would behave in a manner befitting the New Deal. In December of 2008 Lawrence Summers, who would be the Obama administrations highest ranking economist said

Many experts,believe that unemployment could reach 10 percent by the end of next year.” In the face of that prospect, he continued, “doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much.

So its no wonder that many of us saw a Newer Deal coming, but we have not seen that coming, in fact we've seen the opposite, the sort of actions that FDR took in 1938 when he tried to balance the budget and cut off some New Deal Programs caused the Nation to slip into a recession (Republicans dubbed it the Roosevelt Recession, proving that although they love associating their enemies with bad things, since he was following the advice of Republicans at the time when he tired to balance the budget, but also at one time the Republicans were witty and smart enough to use alliteration). as of right now November 2009 official unemployment is at 10.2 percent, with the unofficial as high as 18-20 percent. So its surprising (more like depressing) when I see President Obama say this in an interview for Fox Noise "It is important though to recognize,that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession". New York Times economist in his most recent article had this to say in response

What? Huh?

You can read the full article here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/opinion/23krugman.html?_r=1 (a warning you may have to register to read the article, but its free to register for the New York Times so its not really a problem)

I happen to agree with Mr. Krugman, that more needs to be done. Its good that the Obama administration has been looking into the creation of Green Jobs, but these are jobs that are yet to come, its good to see President Obama looking forward but there are concerns and problems that need to be reached now, beyond the alleged "shovel ready" projects that are underway. I envision an actual New Deal, a new NRA (National Recovery Administration), a new TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and the entire alphabet soup of New Deal programs, the creation of more trails in parks, pay struggling artists and musicians, poets and architects to create more beautiful things. Find historians and history majors and pay them to write new histories, even if you have to pay someone to dig a hole and someone else to fill it in, it will get people working and that is the only way were going to recover. In a capitalist system that we live in thats driven by consumer culture, unless your consumers have money that can be spent to drive the economy forward, nothing will happen. It has come once more for us to "Prime the Pump" in order to get the economy fixed, and damn the debt, that can always be paid off later when the economy stabilizes. Jobs Now!

Joe Liberman is a Shmuck.

What it up with Joe Lieberman? He's an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats but he behaves like a Republican, this is exemplified by a recent Fox Noise stunt of labeling him a Republican on one of their "News" shows. Generally Fox Noise only mislabels Republicans whom they feel are acting too "Liberal" hence you'll see a banner that says Olympia Snowe (D-Maine) when in fact she is an R-Maine, its a subtle bit of propaganda used to get the Fox Base to hate certain people by having them associated with being a Democrat, the reverse is also true. But Senator Lieberman who liked his job so much he ran as an Independent even after the Democratic voters of the Connecticut said they didn't want him to represent them anymore since they were tired of him acting like a Republican in the Democratic party, he ran as an Independent because he knew that he would never get elected as a Republican.

Now Senator Lieberman has been among the top Democrats (since he does caucus with them) who have been threatening to vote against Health Care Reform and allowing the Republicans to filibuster the bill. By the way this is the same Joe Lieberman who supported John McCain in the 2008 election, proving he's a snake in the grass who can't be trusted. Now somehow he did vote with the Democrats on Saturday night for cloture, allowing the Senate to actually talk about the bill. But today on Meet The Press he made it clear that he still will not vote for it saying that

I voted last night as 59 others did to go ahead with the debate because I want us to begin not only debating health care reform but doing something about health care reform. But I don't think anybody feels this bill, as Senator Reid put it down -- though he made a lot of progress blending bills together -- I don't think anybody thinks this bill will pass.

This is something that has been bothering me as of late, this idea that we need 60 votes to pass Health Care Reform. We don't need 60, we need 51, this whole push that we need 60 votes is bullshit, its more of the Right Wing pushing the goal line further back, not once did you hear Republicans talk about needing 60 votes in order to wage an illegal war, or to cut taxes, or to pass than not fund No Child Left Behind. But this is an aside back to Joe Lieberman.

Senator Lieberman goes on to explain his position.

I don't want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis, either short-term to inhibit businesses from hiring more people, creating jobs, or long-term to add to the debt. And I'm convinced the public option, a government-run insurance company, basically people don't understand what it's going to do. It doesn't offer free insurance. It won't get one more poor person insurance. It won't force one insurance company to give insurance to somebody who has got a pre-existing condition. It won't even lower the cost of health insurance, which advocates said originally it would because the Congressional Budget Office has now said to us the public option in Senator Reid's bill will actually charge more for insurance than the average charge by health insurance companies. I'll tell you one thing I'm sure it will do, if we create a government insurance company, it's going to run a deficit and it's only the taxpayers that are going to pay for it. I don't want to do that.

That is why Joe Liberman is a schmuck. Now you maybe saying that those sound like reasonable reasons to not vote for this bill. They would be, until you realize that the watered down Public Option that is in the bill, that has all of these restrictions, is because of Joe Liberman and the other "Blue Dogs". The fact that it won't cover every person who doesn't have health insurance, is because they had to limit who would be eligible for it, and the premiums will be higher because the "Blue Dogs" and the Republicans have been pushing to make it deficit neutral. So the real reason Joe Liberman is a schmuck is because he's a hypocrite and a snake in the grass, who is selling not just the people of his state out, but selling us all out, so he can get more money from the Health Insurance Lobby.

I Never Did Like Bill Clinton

I hate Bill Clinton. I don't know why even today he enjoys so much popularity among Democrats and some Left-Leaning people. Bill Clinton is the first "Blue Dog Democrat", I think a major problem is nostalgia, especially among the 18-28 crowd, since he was President when they were children and we all hear about how the 1990s was a period of unprecedented economic growth, how he left us with a billion dollar surplus. Now some of you may already be rolling your eyes with thoughts of so what if he got a blow job. I don't care that he got a BJ, that's not my problem, my problem with him are things like NAFTA, and the continuation of the Regan and Bush I Neo-Liberal economic policies. Remember "Work-Fare"? How people who had formerly received welfare (at a rate which made living almost impossible) would have what they were receiving from the government cut in half so that they would go work somewhere for LESS than Minimum Wage, so they were getting double screwed. Than, than there are the things like this that he does http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/20/bill-clinton-blasts-olber_n_366184.html.

That is why I hate Bill Clinton. For those of you who may not want to click the link here's the story. Since October 8th on his shown on MSNBC Keith Olbermann has been promoting these free health clinic events that are to be done in major cities,six of them have already been done, last week they were in New Orleans. This week they are in Little Rock Arkansas, Bill Clinton who, not only being the former President of the United States, is also the former Governor of the state of Arkansas. Mr. Clinton was invited to come to the Health Care Clinic. Mr. Clinton has decided not to go to it following comments made by Mr. Olbermann on his show directed at Arkansas Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor who have been among the top "Blue Dogs" who have been opposing Health Care Reform and a robust Public Option (because it'll be a cold day in hell before the United States ever gets Universal Heath Care like the rest if the industrialized and civilized world. Mr. Olbermann said

I want Sens. Lincoln and Pryor to see what health care poverty is really like in Little Rock.

.

Mr. Clinton (who supports Sen. Lincoln) has stated that he will not go to the Clinic because Keith Olbermann has politicized the event. This is just plain ridiculous, that Mr. Clinton is complaining about a highly charged political subject being politicized. Health care is a major political issue, especially considering that we have so many people among our very own leaders who are fine that 48 million Americans go without Health Care. And this is why I hate Bill Clinton at all times he has to prove himself and so many other Democrats aren't Left leaning but extreme moderates to Right Wingers.

Welcome.....

Welcome all to my blog. I'm looking forward to sharing my views with all of you. That's all for now be seeing you.