I keep putting my two cents in on other people's blogs and now have to speak up on my own.
The impossible beauty of the occupation protests is that the governments and the protesters know what is wrong. Both sides know what has to be done in order to make things right.
It is just that the scope, magnitude, hue, chroma and intensity of the global and national collapse is too large in scale.
The catastrophic consequences of the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration have become so comprehensive that activists cannot afford to a shine special light on any one group, special interest, individual, or component of society.
Except for the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration.
Except for the lobbyists who order up laws from our national and local leaders like they were shopping at a cheesy online store.
Except for the Veteran's administration and the do-nothing "Service clubs" that are only serving themselves. None of them care to process claims against America's contract with her damaged, entitled, and injured soldiers.
Except for the elected extremist freaks who are paid by secretive entities like the Koch Brothers to destroy any hope of a national recovery from disaster.
Except for the banks and financial instutitions who commited fraud against the national treasury. They have not stimulated the economy and we need to take the money back.
Except for the President, who is too weak, distant and ineffective to sit down and write an executive order for jobs and projects that will start repairs on our crumbling infrastructure.
And screw this obsession with "construction" work! Most of us do not do construction work. The greedy and corrupted construction industry is already planning to divert the funds to enrich their own investors and executives.
Here is my stuff and nonsense. I expect more than 4 ratings and I expect a rousing set of comments, disagreements, and additions.
Let's have a talk.
GOOD DAY, AMERICA!
Hire auditors to take an open source look at the past 14 years of greed, corruption and excesses of our government.
Hire investigators to ferret out fraud, waste, neglect and abuse in all institutions of our national government.
Let the auditors create a national database of their findings that is accessible for all to see. Have them put together digests and summaries that make it all easier for the average citizen to understand.
Hire Americans to do a census of our quasi-government corporations, most of which we cannot even identify! Have them create a comprehensive list that goes to the lowest level of lighting, sewage and water districts.
Put each and every education "administrator" back into the classroom for a period of no less than two years. Let's cut their current bloated salaries until they complete their two years. When these ivory tower academics get back into the field and see for themselves what is going on, their programs might be more realistic.
End the wars now. Bring our troops home to scour our borders clean of the mess that the drug cartels and our own government are making of things.
Bring home the soldiers and dislocated American workers who are the most expensively trained and experienced professionals in the world. They, not opportunistic immigrants, can give that "spark of innovation" that we refuse to credit ourselves for having.
Fine and tax the profits of companies that have moved our jobs overseas. Let them pay for handing over jobs that we invented, refined and perfected so that India and China can profit.
Make offshore tax dodging a criminal offense.
Create social networks that the government cannot influence, control or shut down. Create social networks that do not take our personal information and sell it to the highest bidder.
Cut foreign "bribes" disguised as "aid" to governments that steal it all, then send their poorest to America, or harbor terrorists, or harbor the drug cartels, or stab us in the back, anyway.
Eliminate all aspects of corporate person hood and never let it happen again.
Make corporate and other "lobbying" of government officials a criminal offense.
Establish a "people-razzi" that stalks lobbyists like the paparrazzi stalks celebrities.
If a corporation, financial institution or bank took stimulus funds and did not actually stimulate the economy, then take the money back and stimulate the economy with government programs.
Tax the wealthy at a higher flat rate, eliminate all loopholes, and outlaw offshore tax dodging.
Eliminate subsidies for profitable corporations. Turn any necessary subsidies into loans and make loan approval a competitive process where the best company wins.
Want some examples of "necessary"? The private firms that are building the ships that will replace the Space Shuttles are being subsidized. Superfund toxic cleanup operations have to be subsidized.
Big oil sucks, and should never get another penny...in fact, the industry needs to pay some money back because their speculative bids drove up prices in the first place.
GOOD DAY, PEOPLE OF AMERICA!
Recall your local knotheads who have made pledges or threats that conflict with their oaths of office. Recall extremists. Recall the clowns. Recall the self serving. Only you can do this.
Impeach Thomas and Scalia from the Supreme Court. The government won't, so we have to do so by petition.
Get ready for some simple "general strike" tactics that starve the banks and big Pharma of cash.
My favorites:
Pay a bit for Visa or Mastercard gift cards and put a week's supply of spending cash on the cards. This is a safe way to take some money out of your bank.
This will keep your bank from earning and hogging the interest, while charging you for spending your own money! The more trustworthy card companies will earn a bit, but the greedy banks will be hurting.
Imagine if only five million Wells Fargo, Chase Bank and Bank of America customers did this just once.
Buy generic medicine if your doctor approves. It's been known for a while that big Pharma is losing patent protection for their most expensive and widely prescribed drugs.
A month's supply of a generic medicine can now be gotten for about $3-$4 in some grocery stores and drugstore chains. Shop around.
Invest in the underground economy. The local giant flea market extravaganza, craft fairs, fundraisers, and farmer's markets are obvious choices for a week of starving the pigs!
I'm going out to take advantage of the free Sunday parking and to see what's going on downtown...Be back later.
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Keka
skypixie0
Theresa Rice
SheilaTGTG55
Eljekar
Erica K
Salon.com
Comments
What the hell are these governments doing? Some people sell on ther to make a little extra.. But lets stop that and throw the people out of occupyny park because it got 300 million in government donations and the list goes on and on.
You go girl
HUGGGGGGGG
Zuma, everywhere is feeling the squeeze, even in good ole' Scandinavia. I left BoA two years ago for all the f'ing fees I got stuck with, even for errors that weren't mine, and went to BBVA. At the time, they had free checking and were not a TARP bank, good to small business owners like myself. Since then, not sure, since it seems the customer service has gone down, I was talked out of applying for a mortgage, and it is no longer free checking. I may just have to relocate, again, to all credit union, all the time. I have two savings accounts there, but haven't had money to put into them.
I have always done my best to support smaller businesses (since living in Crested Butte, back in 1991) when I first learned of Walmart. So, I know what the government should do, and I will do my part. Of course ,no one has noticed me not buying their stuff. I am pretty much a waste of advertising $$.
Oryoki: We just got our amazon back on HubPages since Jerry Brown backed off.
It's so sad about your credit union It seems that once people start moving to and supporting the little guy, the little guy either can't keep up or someone gets greedy. Sad.
Fingerlakes: and the same to you! I missed this place.
There were no civil rights until a city or two burned and Malcolm and Stokley got their attention.
"If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal"
Right on girl. / R
I spoke with a couple who were arrested last night. They told me how filthy the jail was and that it was nothing nice. They had never been in jail before. The police were very nice in Sacramento, but the jail folks were a little hard and nasty. Not too bad, though.
Here's a story on this:
Report: Repatriation Tax Holiday a 'Failed' Policy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203633104576623771022129888.html
♥R
No. You’re too sincere for me to laugh at these ideas........ I’ll just cry....
Zuma, one little thing about making demands. There must be someone who has the power to comply with them. The US has no one with the power to do any of what you ask/demand. Who, pray tell, are you demanding these things of?
Anyone who might possibly be able to do anything along these lines is already part of the problem and definitely won’t cut their own throats to comply with any of these demand.
There is no one to ask.....
There is no one to demand from.....
There is no one - no one - no one - no one.........
If you know of some way to convince the wealth/power elite to cut their own throats, why now is the time to bring it on.
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Just saying!!
(Yes, I'm in a mood!! PFFFT!! :D)
fusun: Thanks for reading the tags! They keep me from crying!
Myriad: I went to occupy Sacto and just got back on the computer. Believe it or not, I met a couple of people who are doing the crimes against our food. I also talked with a couple who got arrested with Cindy Sheehan and a couple who could talk about all sorts of things.
Skypixeo: When are you going to figure out that if we are not the greatest generation, then there will be no more generations? I never got away with letting anything be too big for me to handle, or I would most definitely be dead by now. Seriously. I would be dead.
What will survive? The Morelocks who live deep beneath the crust and who await their time to burst forth and eat the remaining remnants of humanity by crushing our bones and sucking out the marrow! Yarrr.....Halloween!
I don't know what all this will bring, but I know I hope it's NOT revolution and I also hope it's not nothing.
I hate to break the news but we are on a direct path to a sudden and complete breakdown of our governmental, legal, economic and social order.
Life and society as we know it is on the brink of ending. We can no longer anticipate or predict when this will happen and this means that we can no longer afford to wait for someone else to fix it all.
We can no longer just wish for things to work themselves out. WE have to fix this soon, or it will get much, much worse and will do so very rapidly.
Very few Americans are prepared to survive for even a week on their own, let alone a month.
One more major natural disaster will ruin us. It's earthquake weather in California. I haven't seen weather like this since the Loma Prieta.
One more major terrorist attack will ruin us. The Obama adminstration has done a hell of a job so far.
Here are the realities:
In 11 years, we have exhausted 3 generations of capable adults who can be made ready for combat. Very few are left who could be drafted into service. No civilization has ever survived such a pitiful state of military weakness.
Our aircraft drones, the major non human military hope of the future, have been computer hacked, and no one has figured out the problem yet. So much for Afghanistan and Iraq.
We cannot control our massive borders.
We have suffered an accelerated and volatile end to our large middle class and we are a society that depends upon a large middle class.
Our economy no longer follows any rules and is exceedingly volatile. Soon, the center will not hold. If the wealth is not accurately and properly redistributed soon, the inbred Siamese economies of the entire world will fail.
We have unrest in every state of the union and in every nation of the planet that could erupt into rioting and violence at any moment.
We have no funds to respond to another major natural disaster, let alone recover from any of the past disasters.
We have no resources to protect ourselves from a major invasion.
We can't even protect our satellites or our planet from the next M class solar storm. The last one wreaked havoc with those state-of-the-art telegraph systems in the 1800s. Read about it, because we will probably be without power or any electronics for a time.
No one knows where all the fucking cold war Russian nukes have been off to.
For every day that our first responders have been laid off from their work, they have suffered a month's worth of deterioration in the finely honed skills and discipline that is required for them to effectively carry out their duties. Do the math. We have no time or money to train and orient new ones.
Citizens who cannot deal with massive loss are already losing their minds, going on killing sprees, creating underground societies, creating underground economies or are otherwise operating outside of the law. The real scary folks will have a field day with us.
The law is no longer capable of handling those who are forced to operate outside of the law because there are too many of them. The big giant federal "pot" nonsense in California is a joke, considering the Mexican and other drug cartels exert wealth, power and control over most of the communities and the affairs of our nation. No one outside of the southwestern border states is even aware that whole cities and towns are controlled by the drug cartels.
We are in big trouble, girl. There is no superhero to save us. There is no longer any magic. Too many atheists, anarchists, and psychopaths are ready to do their work, and so many of us have no spirituality at all.
But still, we pathetic wretches are the only superheroes available.
This is serious and this is real.
I'm sorry.
Really, pay attention to the discordant hatred you show of immigrants. They are not the banks, the politicians, the powerful. Attributing this country's problems to those who bust their asses for low wages, do jobs that you don't want to do, pay into Social Security without a hope of ever getting back a check, and generally get fucked over by everyone, is simply irrational. If you want to know who stole your money, look for someone who actually has some.
I am through, permanently, with any more immigration.
I’ll wait for you to get your equilibrium back.
And yes, I will be holding my breath. I dearly hope that you are not another who has become unhinged by that horrific mixture of weird times and religionist beliefs. Remember that old atheist adage, “When all else fails, as it inevitably does, try reason.”
.
What I don't get is why people who believe this also want that same government (the one many of them also think is covering up the JFK "killers" and either stood by and allowed or actually planned 9/11) to run their medical care.
It must be me.
My first big job was to pick prunes in an orchard at age 12. A white man tried to buy my sister in that orchard. We almost killed him. Don't tell me about jobs Americans don't want to do. A lot of Black Americans did farm labor back when we did farm labor for free. We can't even get hired at those jobs now. Are you nuts?
My second big job helped to keep at least one immigrant from being drafted into the military. That sucker got a decade of better income and opportunity, and lives off of a better retirement than I ever will have. But the joker whines incessantly at the idea of paying the very income taxes that give vets their benefits. Immigration? hell no. Not until one of his or her children do service to this nation. Military or Peace Corps. No other options. I am sick of the self serving crap.
My last job involved the biggest aircraft purchase in airline history and I did the analysis that made the deal. Some of the most overt and nasty sexists and racists that I had to suffer at that job were immigrants.
White immigrants were hired while my father, with his college degree, was refused work at the port of San Francisco.
All races think that they are superior to, and are treated as superior to the descendants of Black American slaves. I can fake an accent and instantly get better treatment anywhere I go.
Until that crap ends for good, and it won't, I am anti immigration, except for asylum, compassionate, medical or exceptional cases. I will always fight for rights for those immigrants, even when they will probably be advised to despise and hate me because I am black.
If you are confused, think of your family being the ones who are last hired, first fired. Think of your family contributions being ignored and discounted. Think of the overload of self serving opportunists destroying all that my ancestors built for no compensation and no pay.
Barbara: What medical care? The government has no plan to run medical care. The government only plans to get people insurance coverage for medical care. Geez. We got the Repugnicans cheering at the idea of letting a patient die because he didn't get medical insurance. Schizoid!
And here come even more people who are furious that there is still not universal health care.
As you have very good reason to know, I am no “ultra-conservative” by any definition you care to use.
As a citizen of North America, I suffer when you folks do, for the same reasons you folks do.
As to serving in the military, I’d prefer to shoot myself in the gut and die a slow and painful death. My sister served in the military - at age 21 she committed suicide. My brother served in the military - at age 21 he committed suicide. Tell me about military service!
The brainwashing is intense and thorough. Very few even figure it out, and then only after decades away from it.
I have been proud to know you, if only through computer communication. I don’t know what kind of a trip you are on today but this is not the woman I thought I knew a little about. In fact this is not a woman I want to know about. This is a monster, perhaps created by the fear of imminent social and economic collapse of the economy. A collapse that will take down most of the world. A collapse that the US of A is almost solely responsible for. My country shares your guilt. We have been the tail to your dog for decades, perhaps centuries.
What hurts more than anything is that only a very few of you are looking for solutions to these problems. The vast majority are merely “marching and demanding”. Shit, y’all don’t even know what you’re marching for or who can meet your demands. Or how.
But you’re going to demand that “something" be done. Yeah right. That’ll do a lot of good.
And don’t you ever tell me, or anyone else that we have no business talking about events in your country until we’ve made the colossally stupid error of becoming one of you or serving in your military of insane terror.
This is my last word to you. Good-bye.
"Eliminate all aspects of corporate person hood and never let it happen again.
Make corporate and other "lobbying" of government officials a criminal offense."
Yes! Money shouldn't be equated with free speech, and we need to get legalized corruption out of politics, both in election campaigns and during the legislative process. 'Til we institute serious campaign finance reform and ban lobbyists from the halls of Congress and from state governments, no real change for the better is possible.
I'm beginning to wonder if both sides: the one percent and those who claim to represent the 99 percent, don't have a finger in the undue influence pie.
Stacey: I am glad that there were comments for once. I was sick of working my ass off just to get no real discussion. I didn't do all those undergraduate and graduate units of study to come here and goof off alla time!