What's Wrong Here

Reading about and personally experiencing the current problem of unemployment in the US has made me realize that on the sixth day God did not create Adam and Eve the first two human beings, but Adam and Eve the first two human resources. It is a global issue that people are valued only if they can be exploited.

Workers in the US are the most productive in the world according to many sources, mostly due to working longer hours. As a reward for our efforts, many of us are now unemployed or under employed after working for 20-30 years. Many of us are too young to qualify for Medicare or Social Security, or as the song goes, “Too old to work and too young to die.” While official employment statistics put the unemployment rate at 10% it is actually closer to 20%. At the same time there are many needs that are not being met because private industry has no interest in rebuilding New Orleans, fixing a badly crumbling infrastructure of levees and bridges, adequately staffing the nation’s schools or rationally and adequately feeding and sheltering the nation’s people. The spread of “American Culture” around the world through Mc Donald’s and war has disrupted the lives of people in many other countries. These people are forced to emigrate legally and illegally to escape violence and poverty.

In any solution for the above issue that involves planning or government intervention the rabid cry of Socialism is heard loud and wide. When government interference takes the form of subsidies to industry including weapons manufacturers, deregulation, or allowing an American company to send jobs offshore or build factories in other countries, putting the burden of increased poverty on the government, no cry is heard. When companies in India and Africa take water from the ground while the people have to pay outrageous sums or when the World Bank imposes penalties on a country that are guaranteed to keep them impoverished forever everyone feels really bad and some movie stars adopt a child or two, but nothing is done to stop it.

For the problems abroad the solutions are:
• Stop supporting dictatorships, interfering in elections and the business of sovereign countries.
• Stop military aid to all countries in a civil war.
• In a court of law, try corporations who give aid and comfort as well as facilities to governments engaged in the murder of labor and human rights workers.
• Educate the American people on the real history of their country so they can be aware enough to object to these practices.

For the problems in the US, I propose the following:


Education
Public education should be federally funded. Teachers should be trained to find and enhance a child’s’ innate abilities and interests from an early age, communicating them to each subsequent teacher. The goal of education should be a well rounded, happy person who can be productive in an area that serves the needs of society while also being fulfilling to the individual.

Manufacturing
The car, while fun, has been one of the most destructive inventions ever made. Its destructive not only to the environment but to the social fabric to have everyone riding around I their own little bubble or more often than not, huge boat. Instead of bailing out GM and letting them decide what they would produce the government should have tied the bailout to lighter rail and mass transit. GM bought up and dismantled mass transit in many American cities, was given a very small fine when found guilty and circumvented environmental laws by producing SUV’s on truck bodies. The government should have seen this bailout as an opportunity for progress. More jobs would have been provided because transit workers would be needed and railroad workers would be needed to rework or rebuild abandoned rails all across the country.

Federal Prison Industries (Unicor) employed 18,972 “inmate workers” according to their 2009 annual report. They make everything from clothing and textiles to office furniture to electronics. They make many statements about improving peoples’ lives and teaching them skills while they are in prison. I believe that poverty is the main cause of crime and that most of the people in US prisons are poor people there for drug related, non-violent crimes. If they and their parents had decent paying productive jobs on the outside, they probably wouldn’t be in jail. Given the trend of runaway shops and jobs over the past 40 years they are not likely to get a decent job when they get out. While I think working is a good idea for everyone, work release to a decent paying job outside the prison walls along with education and counseling is what should be done.

We have a free source of energy that everyone has access to: the Sun. Many new solar panels have been developed including roof tiles that look just like normal roofing but have solar panels incorporated in them and super thin solar film. This industry should be eligible for research and capital equipment grants so they can produce as soon as possible a reasonably priced product. This industry would employ engineers, workers to assemble and install.

Businesses who locate out of the country should be taxed at a high rate.

Farming
Factory farming does not work, is inefficient and causes environmental and medical problems for the people of this country. The water crisis in the artificially fertile state of California and the outbreak of e-coli in corn fed beef are just two examples of this.
Food should be grown locally and organically. Experienced farmers could be hired to set up and run cooperative farms in every county. Workers of various abilities could be trained and hired to work while continuing their education in related fields. This would not only solve part of the unemployment problem but also stop pesticides from leaching into the water supply and cut down on the amount of plastic packaging and pollution from diesel fuel from the trucks that bring your lettuce from California. This will also help in efforts to stop a chemical company responsible for the manufacture of Agent Orange from creating pesticide laden, dead, seeds.



Building
The documentary “America Betrayed” documented that the problems with levees built by the Army Corp of Engineers does not stop with New Orleans and Katrina. Bridges and levees built to protect many cities across the country are in danger of collapsing. Given the current water crisis and what we now know about the problems with damming a river rebuilding in these areas might take the form of restoring then to their previous state in order for the land to be able to protect itself. In a country of this size this would be a massive public works project employing thousands of laborers as well as engineers and scientists.

Many beautiful and salvageable buildings in our inner cities are vacant while ticky tacky housing is built on farmland that could still be productive. Rehabbing takes more labor than putting up new housing but labor is in abundance now. Working with the farming community to stop rezoning of farmland for new construction would help to use all these resources in a more rational way.
Hire and train field agents to assist homeowners to refinance their mortgages at a fare rate. If a homeowner had paid 50% of the value of his or her home, forgive the balance owed.

There superfund sites in every state in the union. In addition to this there are many other polluted areas that need to be cleaned up and the pollution itself needs to stop. The EPA should hire enough field agents to be able to deal with these issues.


Social Life and Art
Since the 1950’s non-representational art has taken a front seat in our culture. Black painted tarpaulins titled “Thanatos”, white canvases titled, “Untitled”, and a slab of black countertop leaned up against a wall, also “Untitled.” (My suggestion for a title was “On Sale at Home Depot, Cheap) abound in contemporary art museums. Painters like Irving Norman, photographers like Milton Rogovin are not everyday names to most people. People are missing from contemporary art as if we are nothing. I recently saw an exhibit of WPA art in Washington and it was wonderful. Part of the devaluation of people is in raising art to a “higher” level. I believe that each of us has an artist in us but we are rarely given a chance for it to emerge. Art should surround us. It should be projected onto blank brick walls, performed in every public space on a regular basis. Instead of buying schlock institutions should display art made at home by their students, patients, workers. Art therapy should be a growing field. Although most Americans have not experienced the horrors of war as Judith Herman showed in her book “Trauma and Recovery,” many have been traumatized at a young age. In addition to this many of the new immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and the African continent have experienced horrors that my have to be suppressed as they get on with their lives. I think art can go along way in helping people overcome these experiences. The American Visionary Art Museum many times exhibits art by people who have been hurt in some way. A man who was mugged and beaten severely made art from matchsticks, a woman whose house burned down with some of her family in it painted on discarded doors; a woman whose childhood was marred by an abusive, alcoholic father makes tiny dresses out of scraps of fabric showing how resilient people are and how much is untapped within them.

I started this article by saying that American workers were the most productive in the world mostly because they work longer hours. It has been 100 years since workers fought for and won the right to an 8 hour day. “8 hours work, 8 hours rest, 8 hours for what we will,” was the cry of these workers. In 2010 people who still have jobs are working at least that much if not more. We are human beings. We are not here to serve industry nor to be chewed up and spit out when we re no longer necessary to them. We have a right to live and a need to work, but our work should be meaningful. We cannot be real participants in this democracy unless we have the time to read, speak and meet about our social problems. After 100 years of the 8 hour day we should have a 4 hour day with no reduction in pay.




How do we pay for this?

• Return the tax rate to pre-Reagan levels 70% for the top income levels.
• End the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and all interference in the internal politics of sovereign countries.
• Stop the research, production and purchase of drones and other weapons of mass destruction.
• Reinstate the Environmental Superfund contributions from polluting industries.
• Instate a Medical Superfund to fund Universal Health care. Industries such as coal, oil, pesticide manufactures should contribute since they cause a number of preventable illnesses. Also contributing should be the Pharmaceutical companies.
• Time phase the nationalization of the medical insurance companies. As long as the private insurance companies continue to operate tax them at a high rate.
• Stop all foreclosures. Cap credit card interest rates at 4% and allow people to restructure their debt.

These solutions may seem like pipe dreams and for the most part they are. Not because they are outrageous or unreasonable but because the power that stands in the way of solving the problems of poverty and ignorance is enormous. Every town, every state courts business. People say you need corporations to give you a job. These companies are not giving you job out of charity. They are making a profit from your labor. They are not necessary entities. People exist like all the other wonderful things on this planet. We need to learn to celebrate ourselves and use our talents, our abilities, our bodies and minds to make the world a better place, safe from the vampiric ravages of corporate entities.

Bush was handed the presidency twice - once by fraud in Florida and other places, once by the Supreme Court. Even though most people voted for both Gore and Kerry, they were not allowed to win. Somehow Obama was.

I'm beginning to think that that was part of the plan to keep people quiet in the face of the worst economic crisis since the '30's. If we had a Republican president people would have been down in Washington demonstrating against the bailouts, the foreclosures and the job losses. Because Obama is the first Black president people are cutting him slack that he doesn't deserve.

There are a lot of phone callers into the various shows on Sirius Left who express dismay over the lack of change that Obama promised to bring. When's the last time you believed what a politician said? Not too many years after you stopped believing in Santa Claus I'll bet. If you watched the DNC you heard Biden say we have to get out of Iraq and get into Afghanistan. That should have been no surprise. Obama is a Democrat, not a Socialist and what have they brought in last few presidencies - war, NAFTA, GATT, more job losses, continued environmental devastation, bankrupting of the public to subsidize industry and the wealthy. I vote Democratic because it's the lesser of two evils if Nader is not on the ballot.

Workers have never gotten anything from a politician. We human beings - as opposed to human resources - have fought for everything we have and we have to continue to do that in any way we can. The president doesn't run the country, the money that elected him does. How many more people have to suffer? Write letters, talk to people, go to Washington on March 20.

The Entity (a work in progress)

The Entity (a work in progress)

The enemy doesn’t live halfway around the world in a country whose name you intentionally mispronounce to show which side you’re on.

It doesn’t come from another country, work at a low-paying job and speak your language with a heavy accent.It has no interest in dating your daughter or living in your neighborhood.

It will throw you out of a job without a thought and pocket the profit when the market rises due to its efficiency, smiling discretely all the way to the bank.

It’ll throw you out of your house after you’ve paid 20 years on 30 year mortgage and the law will help it because it’s their job. No one will live in your empty house. The pipes will burst, the house will rot. Animals and birds will move in and make it their own. But, ha ha ha ha ha, you can’t have it, even if you have paid double the value of your house already in interest.

Maybe you'll get sick and your medical “insurance” won’t pay for your treatment or you don’t have any insurance because you lost your job. You’ve worked all your life, paid off your house, have no debt. Too bad goody-two-shoes. You lose your house to save your life.

It’s legal.

This enemy can’t be fought with guns because it doesn’t have a body or a face.

It’s an entity. A sulfuric gas that wafts yellow and stinking all around us. A gas that drugs us, blinds us, makes us sleepy and tired and stupid and afraid of anything and everything. A gas that makes us ache for a past that never was and makes it impossible for us to see the future.

It’s name is capitalism. It’s face is the corporation.

Unfinished poem regarding memorials to anti-capitalism

Dig a little here, Dig a little there
Victims of capital are everywhere.
Buried in a mountain,
Thrown into the sea and
Strewn across the fields of every country.

Some were shot, kicked in trenches
After digging their own graves
Some were thrown from helicopters
Into the waves
Some were raped and tortured,
Burned alive in their huts
Some were beaten to death with rifle butts.

They were burned in England,
They were burned in France.
They were burned in Germany (much more advanced.)
They were burned in Korea and in Vietnam
They are burning now in Gaza and Afghanistan.

Burned at the stake,
Burned in the ovens,
Bombs raining from the air
Dozens and dozens.

Some were plowing their fields,
Some were singing a song,
Some were putting on their stockings
For a night on the town.

Some were going to work.
Some were going to school.
Some were in the marketplace.
Shopping for food.

Some were in uniform
Many more were not
Some crouched behind the barbed wire.
Some stirred a pot.

Some were old, some were young
Some were not even born.
Their names we don’t know
But we can learn.


In Argentina, In Chile,
Honduras, El Salvador
Mothers search for the missing
And there’s more

In Spain they’re exhuming
Mass graves of Loyalists
Who were murdered by Franco
And the fascists.

We have our own missing in the US.
The ghosts of our ancestors cannot rest
Until we know the truth about their lives
Whether they lived 200 years ago
Or recently died.

But it’s not just the dead
Of our own families we seek
We need to know History.
So we won’t be weak.
We need to know the names of the people who fought
Right here on American soil for everything we’ve got.

We need to know about the Indians then and now,
To see how we are different yet the same some how.
We need to realize their struggle’s not done
There’s only one way that it can be won.

We need to know about indentured servants and slavery
And how if one is slave, the other can’t be free.
We need to see how hard people fought
In spite of odds so overwhelming it’s hard to give it thought.

We need to understand labor history
And the men, women and children who fought to keep us free
From the greed and the suffering of 7 days a week
Working 16 hour days to make ends meet.

We need to understand that the 1950’s
The Red Scare, union purges, firing commies
Is one of the reasons we don’t know today
How in the heck the world got this way.

We need to study history that’s within our reach
The Civil Rights Era and the dancing in the streets.
The joy and the pain and the subterfuge
That our government directed at anyone who moved.

We need to remember our disappeared
In the jails and the prisons
And remember that Angola used to be a plantation
Then go to the website Unicor.gov
And tell me what it reminds you of.

We are all suffering now, some much more than others
But we have to remember that we really are all brothers
And sisters under the skin.
And if we stick together we really can win

Even if it’s just a few steps forward
Don’t let ruling class push us backward.
To the days when there wasn’t enough to go around
When we fought each other for scraps on the ground.

For we are the people each unique in our way
But we won’t have the power ‘till we stand up and say
In spite of our differences there’s one thing to be stated,
The people united can never be defeated.

We have our differences but we can get along
And make a much better world than the one we’re living in.
We just need to realize who’s the true enemy
And that we don’t need guns to fight to be free.

Fallout after watching PBS Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday

Sorry just understood why I don't like Bruce.

Obesity and HFCS

The July 29th Morning Call carried and article by Kristina Sherry titled, "Selbelius touts strategies for winning obesity fight."

The article states that "the direct medical costs of obesity total $147 billion annually" and "some of the $1 billion in stimulus money...would go toward obesity strategies." Does this direct cost include the subsidies to the corn industry ($243 million per year according to a Tufts University study) which benefit producers of high fructose corn syrup which in addition to extra calories elevates triglycerides since HFCS is processed by the body differently than sugar?

At a time when there is such a need and so much resistance to a single payer health care solution shouldn't someone be pointing out that we subsidize the Archer Daniel Midlands of the world so they can make super profits by making us sick?

Maybe if we stopped doing that we could find the money for healthcare. Maybe these people should be sued for producing and profiting from products that shorten the life of the people of this country.

Mr. Obama, how about some "personal responsibility" lectures to corporate America?

Here are a few links regarding HFCS:

Ramblings

This has been a busy summer. Nora's dying, dad getting sick, Cyndy coming out. I've been really busy. Not complaining. This neighborhood is incredibly noisy during the day between the lawn maintenance and just work at the funeral home and the Scottish Rite/Masonic Temple, roadwork, traffic - it's loud.

I have to get back to walking again-I haven't done it since Cyndy came out. It was nice to see Auntie Del and Phil, nice to go into the city (although I hate the Lincoln Tunnel.)

We bought the kayaks down to Green Lane so we don't have to transport them everytime we want to use them. It's smaller than Nockamixon but I think we will use them more this way. they have to be quarantined for 10 days to make sure they are not carrying zebra mussels.

I watched a cute movie last night with Judi Dench-The Last of the Blonde Bombshells about a recently widowed woman who had been a member of an almost all girl band during WWII. It was very nice. Today I will harvest the basil, make and freeze pesto and plant more basil. I have 3 yellow squash that I have to do something with and I have to go to Elia's for red peppers, fruit and lemons and limes. For some reason I have been off beading. I'm not sure why. We have lots of tomato's but none are ripe yet. The plants are huge. Eggplant and peppers are not so great. I think they are not getting enough sun. I'll have to move the plants on the other side to the front next year or in the fall and make more room for veggies in the back.

I cannot believe that we are not going to get single payer healthcare. I am so sick of these politicians. I haven't heard back from Jimmy since my last email. I hope he is OK. I am not sure if he's in Afghanistan yet. 53 years old and they're sending him into that muck. Why can't this country leave everyone else alone and spend our tax dollars on making life better for the people at home instead of killing them everywhere else? What is wrong with this country?

Reading

Well in the past week I've read Pearl by Mary Gordon, Harvest and The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen (internist turned mystery writer) and The Tempest Tales by Walter Mosely.

The Tempest Tales wasn't the best but the premise of the story was interesting. A black man is killed by the police in a case of mistaken identity. When he gets to St. Peter he is told he has to go to hell because of some of the things he's done. He refuses which upsets everyone because up until now no-one has questioned a sentence. As a result an accounting Angel is sent down to earth to live as a mortal and Tempest is returned to earth in another body to convince the Angel that he should not go to hell. Everything is progressing in an interesting manner until Basel Bob shows up to add another threat to Tempest and the Angel named Joshua.

Tess Gerritsen is a former MD who writes mystery novels set in the medical community. I found her by wandering around in the fiction section looking for a mystery writer with a long line of books.(I've read all of Sara Paretsky's books including the essays and Bloody Kansas; all the Sherri S. Tepper's and Lia Matera's Roger L. Simon's and almost all the Walter Mosely's so I am desperate.) I read Harvest first because it was her first book and planned to continue in chronological order but at a Flea Market over the weekend I found The Surgeon. This is her sixth book and moved a lot faster than the first one. I am going back to the library for more today. I don't even want to tell you the plots because even a few sentences could spoil them for you.

Pearl is the story of a young woman who goes on a hunger strike and chains herself to the American Embassy in Ireland after a friend dies. The other main characters are Pearls single forceful mother and the son of Pearl's father's former housekeeper who is also the executor of his will since Maria (Pearl's mother) and her father were not speaking at the time of his death. I thought Maria was going to get the short end of the stick since she comes across as a force of nature and people are normally put off by that but I was happy with the ending. It really made me cry though. I hope I never have to see my kids in the hospital with tubes all over them near death. I'm not all that familiar with the problems in Northern Ireland but the ethnic, political and religious backgrounds of the main characters meshing in that setting make an interesting story.

I got a phone call last week from a financial services company asking me if I was interested in coming in for an interview. Since I am currently unemployed I said yes so on Thursday morning I drove down to a strip office center about 15 minutes away not sure what to expect.

The hallway was long and dark. I found the suite number and entered a small room with a receptionist where I was asked to sign in and have a seat in another room. I entered a large room with several small offices around it. There were about 20 folding chairs set up in front of a desk and a a large pad on an easel. I took a seat and a man who turned out to be the owner of the company handed me some literature to look over. Eventually 4 other people also came in -all men. The job turned out to be sales for an insurance agency. We heard a spiel about how successful you can be selling supplemental health insurance to people over 65 since 1 person turned 65 every 15 seconds. If you make 15-20 appointments per week and get 2 sales per week you can make between $40-$60,000 the first year. Commissions range from $400 for senior life insurance policies to $9000 for annuities. You can do all this by calling 200 people a week.

We heard about the inadequacy of Medicare, the shame attached to having to go on Medicaid after having worked all your life, the uncertainty of the current stock market and how that is playing havoc with everyone's life savings. Basically you are preying on people's fear.

This is not something I care to do but it was worth going to check it out. After outlining the products we heard about the 12 agents currently working for the company who come from all walks of life; how the only limit on your earning power is you...very inspirational... then a parting remark, "Who else is calling you? How many calls did you get this week?" and a laugh. It was almost cult-like or like buying a car. We were asked to fill out a questionnaire listing 3 questions we would ask at our interview and to make an appointment for a one-on-one interview with the receptionist on the way out. She asked if I would like to come back the following day but I said, "I don't think so." "You'll call?" she asked.

You would also have to use your own laptop, buy your own business cards, calculator, map, planner, direct mail leads, stamps and envelopes and dress in suits.

It was an interesting experience.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

I peeked out the window this morning and saw a panel truck outside. It was a plumber for someone else on the block. "I hear music..." popped into my head, "the murmur of the morning breeze up there, the rattle of the milkman on the stair..."

I walked to the Post Office today in the rain. Walking down Hamilton Street I said hello to several people including a man who gave me a ticket to heaven. He was sitting in front of a coffee shop and I smiled and said hello. He said hello back and then asked me to wait while he fished in his pocket. He said, "It's nothing bad. I'm a good christian man," handed me the ticket and said it was because of my smile that he gave it to me.

There's a new bakery/coffee shop that I didn't know was there. It's on the block before the Americus Hotel. There don't seem to be any slate sidewalks but some of the curbs are slate.

It's very different walking than driving. Even the pink and white house on Linden and 14th didn't look bad walking by. It looks like birthday cake. The landscaping is quite nice too.

I felt like I was in a movie; looking in shop windows-it looks like someone bought and is renovating Grim's Bakery on Linden. I peeked in-it's quite cute inside; hearing muted snatches of music from inside a house; saying hello to man reading the paper on his porch. I want to walk everywhere I can. Just seeing the grass and the sidewalks, waiting for the light to change to cross the street made me remember being young and having time. I even saw "oil in puddles in taffeta patterns," as described by Joni Mitchell in Michael from Mountains. I almost didn't walk because of the rain but I said to myself, you have an umbrella and I really wanted today to be different...to be the start of something new. I would have gone to the library but I have to finish the Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana first.

It looks like rain all week unfortunately. Tomorrow I'll shampoo the carpets and the upholstery on the couches; Wednesday I'll give the kitchen and pantry a good cleaning. Today I'm going to just read and bead.

No New Gun for Me

A security system would cost about $500 more than the $762 Bathsheba Monk spent on her 357 Magnum with ammo, and there’s a monthly fee. A dog, while being an effective burglar deterrent, is a lot of responsibility and also an expense.

Three or four trips to the vet for well care could easily add up to $762. Still if I felt I was afraid of burglars I would choose either alternative rather than buy a gun.

Years ago my husband and I thought about getting a gun. Some of our friends were getting them and would go and practice at a shooting range. It was 1975 and we were living in New Brunswick, NJ. I was just about to drop out of college and was working at the local Gino’s/Kentucky Fried Chicken while finishing the semester. I would walk home at night past a transvestite bar and a housing project thinking it was the safest route. The transvestites were loud, sometimes spilling out of the bar and onto the street, but they were not a threat to me. The project basketball courts were always lit up and adults were out there playing ball with the kids. I had worked in downtown Newark and had taken the bus home from Ohrbach’s at 9:30-10:00 at night and then walked eight or nine blocks from the bus stop under the railroad arch home to Elizabeth NJ with no problems. One night after I passed the projects and was walking past a fenced construction site that was soon to be a gas station, 2 young men came up behind me, grabbed my purse from my shoulder and ran away. At the time, all I could think of was what a hassle it would be to have to get a new college ID and driver’s license. I shouted after them, “There’s no money in there.” (There wasn’t.) They stopped running, turned around and came back. “Do you have any money in your pockets?” one asked. I pulled my hand out of my pocket. “Yeah, a nickel. Do you want that?” “No.” one of them said and they ran away. By the time I crossed the street and got up to my apartment I realized that shouting after them was probably a mistake and imagined what could have happened when they came back and confronted me. That made me a little shaky.

We never got the gun. I thought if we got one, the police could always plant it somewhere and say we committed a crime. In those days there were a lot of stories about political people being set up and sent to jail and we were political people working on celebrating the Bicentennial with the slogan, “We’ve Carried the Rich for 200 years Let’s Get Them Off Our Backs.” When 5000 of us marched in Philadelphia on July 4^th 1976 there were a lot of guns, pointed at us from the rooftops along the route of the march.

Since the 1970’s real wages have declined while corporate profits have increased at a record-setting rate. American factory owners exported labor to maximize profits with no thought of the social cost of that decision, Drug use, drug arrests and prison sentences have increased, particularly among minorities. The latest economic crisis is extremely severe. More and more people will be driven to desperate acts. Should we buy guns to protect ourselves from each other? Was Jay Gould right when he said he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half?

People have the right to food, housing, clothing, education and health care.

They have the right to do meaningful work at a living wage. Those rights were fought for and won by workers who for the most part did not fight with guns but were shot at by the police and the National Guard who acted on the orders of the factory owners. Buying a gun may make a person feel safe for a little while, but it will not protect us from the devastation that an economic system based on exploitation and oppression has created.

An organized conscious working class, a working class that includes anyone who gets or used to get a paycheck, does not need guns. Through a Facebook friend I found out that Acorn is training Home Defender Teams to allow people to stay in their foreclosed homes. Wouldn’t you rather have your neighbor in his or her home than be surrounded by vacant houses? Wouldn’t you rather see people fed, educated and healthy with your help?

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Racism not just about Obama

I just finished watching some of the anti-Obama video’s on You Tube.
Regarding Barack Obama’s association with Bill Ayers I can really see why the media are using this. Most people think the US should have won the war in Vietnam and really hate anyone who protested then and those who protest against the current government. They feel that protests are un-patriotic. Well they are. Patriotism is not good for people or the planet. Protests are humanistic.

I searched on line and could not find anything regarding the number of people who were killed by the Weather Underground. On Wiki Answers I did find this regarding the number of people killed in Vietnam:
• 58, 169 Americans killed (11, 465 were teenagers).
• 304,000 Americans wounded.
• 444, 000 North Vietnamese killed.
• 220, 557 South Vietnamese (this is not precise as the Vietnamese took away their dead.
• 587, 00 civilians killed.
• 6,72,084 ton of bombs dropped (3x the amount of the WW1 and WW2 combined)
• 3,500,000 acres of Vietnam were sprayed with defoliant, the effect lasts more than 100 years.
• Agent orange caused cancer in the people affected and mutations in the third generation.

Many people were against this war and subsequent interventions of the American government in South and Central America. There is no WE in America. America always was and still is divided.
There are people who support and accept anything the government does no matter how horrible it is and there are people who do not. Bill Ayers is one of those people who did not. The use of bombs and guns was not a good decision and I think history has proven that that was a mistake. Organizing, educating and protesting against unimaginable brutality is never a mistake.
There are people who vocally protest against the murder of innocent people and the illegal interventions of the US government in sovereign countries. There are people who protest for health care, education, shelter and food instead of bombs. There are people who write letters to the editor, who go to demonstrations and vigils, who engage their co workers in political conversations. There are people who pray for peace and go to vigils for peace. There are too many people who don’t do anything. Wake up. Get a library card. Go to the internet. Read Killing Hope by William Blum. There is nothing wrong with criticizing the government of the country that you live in-the country you pay taxes in. This is not only a right but a responsibility-a much more important responsibility than pulling a lever once every few years. People are the world’s most important resource. We have brains and talents that we never get a chance to tap because of the oppressive nature of our society. The bail out of Wall Street will force more of us out into the streets, cold, hungry and tired of being chewed up and spit out like we are nothing.

I am voting for Barack Obama because I believe Mc Cain-Palin supporters to be racist not just because Obama is black although that is a big reason, but also because I believe they support the racist propaganda that has enabled the US invasions of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the brutal interventions in Chile, El Salvador and Nicaragua, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. What color are those people and why doesn’t it turn everyone’s stomach to think of these people being tortured and murdered? What kind of person can justify those actions?

Watching the 2nd Debate

How much longer do we have to serve somebody?
"we" have to sacrifice.
"we" have to accept reduction in our "entitlements" like pensions, social security, welfare, health care.

We work for a small part of the wealth we produce. We are taxed on those earnings after we have provided a profit for someone else. Talk about double dipping.
Now these candidates are talking about "us" as though the owners and the workers are one and the same people.

Referring to social security, Medicare and a potential national health insurance plan as "entitlements" is turning reality on its head.

What do you call deregulation if not an entitlement for the rich to rip off the public wealth? What do you call record corporate profits, tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations and their top executives paying no taxes by moving their money offshore? Those are entitlements. Social Security, medicare, national heathcare, affordable education are areas where we invest our wealth and the wealth of our parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren for the benefit of all the people.

Nuclear Power as an option? WHAT ABOUT THE WASTE. DOES ANYONE REMEMBER 3 MILE ISLAND AND CHERNOBYL? How about a 3 day work week? How about shorter hours and sidewalks
so we can walk to work? How about a national public ad campaign urging us to walk to work and save American's lives-like we used to do with the pagan babies and our pennies-walk 25 miles a week to save some 18 year old from having to die on foreign soil for oil profits? What do you think?

Gidget Goes To Washington

While Sarah Palin's performance in the debate on Friday was nothing less or more than awfully perky, I was more upset by Joe Biden's reiteration that we have to get out of Iraq...so we can go into Afghanistan where the real bogeymen are.

He let Palin slide when she said she was against National Healthcare because the government has made such a mess of things-referring to the bailout. It was a perfect opportunity for him to point out it was LACK of government regulation that got us in this mess.

Is there a plan to extend and expand unemployment benefits? Is there a plan for National Health Care into the bailout? Where 's the democracy here?

They both want war.
They both want to drill for oil.
They're both against gay marriage.
They both want to issue tax credits for businesses.

The ticket should have been Dennis Kucinich and Marcy Kaptur. Maybe then we would have gotten some kind of real solution without having to pay through the nose.

Regarding the proposed Wall St. bailout, can I tell you how angry this makes me? Things are bad enough for working people, blue or white collar. Our real wages are less than they were in the '70's thanks to years of Republican rule. We need national health care but we're told there is no money for that. There are people working until they die because they can't afford to retire and people who have lost their homes and gone bankrupt due to heath care costs. This is a sad commentary on capitalist civilization and a tragedy for us all. If this bailout is approved we will be living with more crime, more homelessness, and more poverty. The deregulation of electricity and the high cost of home heating oil and gas will mean more deaths this coming winter. I am sick and tired of the private rip-off of public wealth.

Here’s my proposal:
Raise the taxes on unearned income, lower taxes for people who work for their money.
Suspend all pending deregulation (PPL) and reverse all past deregulation.
Fully fund a decent National Health Care Plan immediately.
Fund public transportation and build a bus shelter at every stop. (Did you ever stop to look around Allentown and see people standing in the rain and snow in the industrial parks or even on Hamilton Street because there are no bus shelters? This is ridiculous. How much can they cost?)
Stop the wars. I am sick of seeing young people die for nothing because there are no jobs for them at home.

The American people have always sacrificed for the greater good, but this is the straw that broke the camels back. For years we have been watching the rich get richer while we got poorer. Enough is enough. We should not have to pay because these people danced like madmen around the golden calf destroying the environment in the process. They are crazy-like King Midas they want everything to turn to gold, but you can't eat gold, you can't breathe gold, you can't drink gold. These people gambled and lost. They should wear the asses ears, not us. I don't even buy lottery tickets. Why should I or any other working American have to pay for their greed? The damage done to the people of this country during the Bush Jr., Bush Sr. and Reagan years should be reversed, not compounded and the only way to do it is to make the rich pay their full share.

Whatever happens with the bailout we must continue to protest against bearing the burden. We are ripped off first when we are not paid the full value of our labor. We the have to pay taxes on what we earn. We have no say in where our tax dollars go or who they benefit. We are forced to allow them to be used to kill people all over the world while Americans also die from cancer, starvation, homelessness and the diseases of despair-drug use and gang violence.

The world could be a beautiful place and our tax dollars could be use to repair the environmental and social damage that unregulated capitalism has caused while employing people in every community. The people who are running this country are sucking all life out of it for their own private profit. They have so much money their crisis is that they have nowhere to invest it. Meanwhile we live in the middle of the bank robberies and shootings working like dogs until we die wondering if we’ll have jobs tomorrow. This is wrong and has to stop.

I sent a shortened version of this post to all my elected representatives. We have to wake up, stay outraged and keep the pressure on to get our money back and turn this country around.

Endless War is not Human Nature

John Brinson in his Oct. 6, 2007 article in The Morning Call about why we must have endless war states, “some people are evil, and seek to take from others whatever they want. They will take the property of others, the land of others, the lives of others, the freedom of others.” I couldn’t agree more with this statement, but I totally disagree with his opinion of who these people are.

Growing up in the 60’s and ‘70’s I was taught that Hitler came to power because he was a charismatic person and a great speaker. The assassinations of the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King very charismatic men and great speakers made me wonder how Hitler got so far toward his patriotic, nationalist goal while these good people were dead. I did some independent research and learned that Hitler had many powerful financial supporters like the notoriously anti-Semitic and anti-labor Henry Ford and the cartel I.G.Farben. I also learned that when people have no jobs and money the way to keep the heat off of the people who have it all whether in Germany in the 1930’s or the US in 2007 is to find a scapegoat. For Hitler it was the Jews and communists, for the US it’s immigrants and the anti-war and environmental movements.

When Franco overthrew the democratically elected government in Spain, in El Salvador in the ‘80’s and during the destruction of Yugoslavia it was necessary for good people to fight. Unfortunately the US was on the wrong side in all of those conflicts. Now it is necessary for good people to fight against those who are using our tax money to kill other people while corporate war profiteers make a fortune. The freedoms that we still have left after the “Patriot” Act were not fought for by men with guns on foreign soil. There were no headlines, “WWI Ends, Workers Win the 8 Hour Day, WWII Ends, Workers Gain the Right to Organize, Korean War Ends, No More Jim Crow.” These freedoms were fought for by ordinary people right here.

Brinson states, “War has always been with us, and as long as human nature gives us human evil, there will be war.” Anyone who is aware of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder will tell you that violence is not a part of human nature. The human evil he should be referring to is the psychopathic need to suck the monetary value out of everything that exists leaving behind nothing but chaos and death. Unfortunately for the evil people who want to own and control everything on the planet chaos and death are preferred.

One Possibility for a New World

Hiss, slither, rattle and bite.
I know what you are.
Hate and greed.
Bloody, viscous lover of death.
Burn it.
Poison it.
Turn it’s womb from sponge to puss.
Turn it’s penis from giver of life to weapon of death.
What life remains spills dead seed from a dispenser after the dollars are inserted into the appropriate slot.

Progress of the paper dollar kind.

What if tomorrow you woke up and there was no money?

No money for anyone. No money for the rich, no money for the poor.

No money for yachts, no money for mortgages.
No money for Beverly Hills mansions, no money for student loans.
No money for war, no money for food.

No food for money, just food for when you’re hungry.
You grow it, you eat it.

No housing for profit, just shelter where and when you need it.
Maybe picking oranges in Florida today, maybe camping in Maine tomorrow.
Maybe Museums in New York today, maybe teaching in Mississippi tomorrow.
Maybe camping at a tent in the woods today, maybe harvesting on a farm in the country tomorrow.
Maybe Pennsylvania today, maybe Mexico tomorrow.
You would live, teach, learn work, live a thousand lives among your fellow human beings.

No utopia - no pre-peeled grapes and bon-bons.
Working, reading, talking with people.

Still a world filled with sexism, racism, homo and redneck-phobia.
But those are contradictions among the people and maybe if money didn’t exist anymore
there would not be a battle in the ring
in any given country
on any given public street in any little town anywhere in the world.

No nukes.
No cluster bombs.
No tanks (or whatever they call them these days.)
No 18 year olds with weapons abroad or in Newark, NJ. (My home town.)

No capitalism.

Just us.
Up for it?

Democracy

Dear Congressman Dent,
The word ‘Democracy” is thrown around a lot these days. The more we hear it spoken, the more the reality of democracy disappears. We need cameras in the street to “preserve democracy.” We need wiretaps to “preserve democracy.” We need wars in Iraq, Columbia and all over Africa to “preserve democracy.”
Right under our noses the wealth that our parents and grandparents created is being stolen to enrich the few. Taxes are lowered for the wealthy and the poor starve while they work at minimum wage jobs with no healthcare benefits. The factories where our grandparents and parents fought for the 8 hour day and decent benefits and working conditions are becoming museums or condominiums, just as farms, orchards and wetlands are destroyed for housing developments named Pheasant Run or Orchard View.
We are told that Social Security is in danger of running out but the military budget is gushing full force with our tax dollars mixing with the blood of young men and women fighting each other all over the world. There are no decent paying jobs for young Americans, but there are plenty for young people in third world countries with no health, safety or environmental protections. American corporations are free to make a profit anywhere in the world. American are free to starve, work until they drop to keep their medical benefits, send their children to under funded, crumbling schools, join the military where they will gamble with their lives and the lives of other human beings or go to jail.
I constantly hear tell of how the military fought for our right to freedom of speech and assembly. Is that the truth? Was our right to free speech and assembly, our right to protest and participate in this democracy fought for on some far off shore? No. It was fought for right here in the USA by working men, women and children not by soldiers or the National Guard (who were usually shooting AT them.) Our freedom was fought for by the people who participated in the Union movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, the Anti-War Movement.
We have not reverted to Fascism yet. As much as many might welcome it, we still do not all follow the leader. We don’t all march in lockstep, hands over our hearts, blinders firmly fixed, yellow ribbons flapping in the breeze while young people are burned to death, torn to pieces or mentally scarred for life. Some of us exercise our rights in our own neighborhoods to stand up for what we know is right. Nine of these people were arrested in your office on January 17, 2006. Your actions in having these people arrested show much more than words what you think of actually existing democracy when it is standing in front of your face. I am asking you to examine your feelings on this issue and drop the charges against these practicing democrats (with a small d.) Focus you efforts on rooting out and jailing the people responsible for ripping off the public trust of its money and its hope for a better future.

Merry Christmas

I know I'm not being politically correct but Christmas is a pagan holiday and since I'm a pagan by way of catholicism and communism I guess Merry Christmas is ok. I. don't like X mas. I know there's a christ in christmas but ... enough on that subject.

I've been really busy between the candy and the beading but I got everything done. We were supposed to have 8 people here for dinner tonight, but someone was shot last night. Three of our invited guests knew the victim and they were up all night.

It was ok though. I was so tired. I still haven't caught up on my sleep from the 2 and 3 in the morning nights doing the candy and then the wrapping of the presents. Then yesterday one of Barry's co-worker's had an open house so I had to finish shopping, cleaning and make a candy tray.

So it was just Barry, Katy, Danny, Berto and me and it was fine. (Berto has 2 teeth!)I couldn't wait to go through my beads and bead books and we are eating again-Barry just made us plates-ham sandwiches and potato salad that I made at 6 this morning-I was the first one up-watching FSTV and peeling potatoes. There were a few good shows on-a documentary about Yip Harburg the blacklisted lyricist who wrote Brother Can You Spare a Dime ( apparantly the Rockefeller Dad was going around handing out dimes to people dring the depression )and of course Somewhere Over the Rainbow. There was one about the mess coal companies are making in the south and another one about the anti-war movement in Amherst, MA at the Republican National Convention (we were there.) We should have been at the Democratic Nationl Convention too the pigs-Leiberman and Madelaine Albright yuch!

Anyway so it's just us now-Katy and Berto are out and Danny's watching TV so we are surfing and blogging and listening to the Four Tops and Stevie Wonder-I love Bernadette-no whores and bitches in those lyrics-
Bernadette,
people are searching for the kind of love that we possess,
some go on searching their whole lives through and never find someone like you...

Ribbon in the sky
This is not a coincidence
And far more than a lucky chance But what is that was always meant Is our ribbon in the sky for our love.

So it's just us-Me and Barry, Barry and me, Barry and Diana.
I am so grateful to have him here still. I think he's gonna be OK.
A few more months-April and the oncologist says he's home free.

I have my Barry and my kids are here and I have 2 grandchildren that I never thought I'd have-they're both boys but you can't have everything...

I'm pretty happy.
Merry Chrstmas everyone.
Love,
Diana

today

My kids are back home. Katy with a baby. Danny without his baby. I like having them home. I don't have to worry about them too along with global warming and the economy and the invasions.
I've been very nervous lately though. I'm not particularly happy with my job. I am working too many hours and I don't have time to think abou anything.
I'm tired, can't do any home improvements and that is making me nervous.