Shattered Soapbox

Smart Pig: BP's OTHER Spill this Week

2010-05-28T14:48:00.003-06:00

By Greg Palast on Buzzflash.com:

With the Gulf Coast dying of oil poisoning, there's no space in the press for British Petroleum's latest spill, just this week: over 100,000 gallons, at its Alaska pipeline operation. A hundred thousand used to be a lot. Still is.

On Tuesday, Pump Station 9, at Delta Junction on the 800-mile pipeline, busted. Thousands of barrels began spewing an explosive cocktail of hydrocarbons after "procedures weren't properly implemented" by BP operators, say state inspectors "Procedures weren't properly implemented" is, it seems, BP's company motto.

Click here for the whole article at Buzzflash

If you don't hate BP yet, try not to after reading this article. What Palast has been doing for the past decade or so is invaluable; I wish I worked as hard as him to get the word out about shady corporate happenings. Who knows how long he'll be around, if everything he's been exposing has been true.

This article talks about just a few despicable things BP has done in the past which makes the current disaster easier to understand, and also more enraging. He points out that BP is highly responsible for the destruction caused by the '89 Exxon Valdez spill, which transitions smoothly into their anti-whistleblower tactics against one Dan Lawn, who warned BP for over a decade about corrosion of a certain pipeline in Alaska which was finally addressed in 2006.

The overall lesson here, to me, is that we can't expect the private sector to ever regulate itself seriously or safely. There has to be a referee, and the referee has to be neutral. What we've gotten for longer than I've been alive is the largest corporate entities slithering their way into government regulatory positions and doing the opposite of what they're supposed to do. What's worse, the corporate owned media spins this issue so much that the average viewer of cable news will probably tell you that the private sector deals with enough regulation as it is. It's simply not true. I've lost count of the factory recalls of American products in my lifetime, and that isn't even half of the problem. But every time you hear about e. coli in the burgers, or peanut butter, or flipping green beans, that's a consequence of lax regulation. When people die needlessly because of poorly constructed automobiles, there's your free market working itself out. Fuck BP.

The City of Baytown: "We want rich people"

2010-05-24T13:50:00.005-06:00

From my sort-of home town paper, the Baytown Sun:

In the city’s efforts to attract high-end retail and restaurant development, one essential ingredient is having a customer base to support that development. In an early step toward building such a customer base, the Baytown Economic Development Foundation has been conducting a survey to assess the potential market for houses valued at $200,000 or higher.

[...]

In a letter DonCarlos sent to large employers asking them to invite employees to take the survey, he said consultants had recommended “for the City of Baytown to establish a framework that encourages developers to build higher-end housing that would attract affluent buyers and therefore create more demand for commercial and retail activity.”

[...]

“We feel a lot of the white-collar workers, and a fair number of the blue-collar workers—professional and nonprofessional—in some of our major industries have chosen to live elsewhere. We’ve got a pretty concentrated effort under way to try to attract the people who work here in our industries to also live here and raise their families here.”

for the whole thing click here or on the title of this entry

What this amounts to is a desire for white-washing in Baytown. When you have city officials like mayor Stephen Don-Carlos complaining that houses valued under $160k are not "profitable" for them, you're talking about a city that doesn't want anymore non-white people living there. But there are other issues here.

That last quote I put here, about white collar and blue collar workers from "our major industries," is addressing the fact that the Exxon corporation is the only reason why Baytown exists, yet the people at the top of the company making obscene amounts of money don't live in Baytown. This also begs the question, "Why should the city where the most profitable company in recent history is based have any money problems?"

Another question on my mind is "Does Baytown really need MORE suburban sprawl??"

Is there any chain restaurant Baytown doesn't have at least one of now? Maybe we could have the first Karl's Junior restaurant in the region, how exciting! Is there any room left on Garth road to build another fake, over-priced suburban "Italian" restaurant? We got Johnny Carinos, now Olive Garden, is Carabas on the Don-Carlos radar for white people bait? Ah, but that's not enough. The city wants "high end" retailers to set up shop in Baytown. Ooo, let's turn Texas Avenue into the Galleria of East Houston, complete with a Jeffery's outlet and an Apple store! Floor those old historical buildings and local owned businesses and build a place where Rex Tillerson himself may shop, maybe we can make some room where the old hospital used to be!

I think we all know why people move to Baytown. It's Exxon, stupid. Any economic questions about Baytown can be referred to their accounting department. Exxon is Baytown, Baytown is Exxon.

That's the way things are, but that's not how it has to be. There's been a thriving little-music-scene-that-could living there for a while now. They even had their own legitimate venue to play at on weekends. But new owners of the property got tired of the place's slight money problems, being run by a church that lost support from the Southern Baptist Convention because they dared to let a gay-friendly Christian denomination rent the place out during the week. The venue fell behind on the rent, and despite their potential to put on profitable shows, with over one hundred people showing up to one show in particular in August 2006, the following month the owners of the building kicked out Mr. Haney and his brainchild, The Harbour. That's the kind of ethic the city council is supporting--your only value is your profit margin. Pay now or get out.

What's good for the bosses is good for our city. Screw the poor, screw the individuals who have grown up here and are trying to define Baytown beyond Exxon. Lets pave the way for a yuppie paradise. Gee, why are so many young Baytownians moving to Austin? Screw 'em. The oil an gas industry will never die.....

My band and mouth stabbings

2010-05-24T11:26:00.002-06:00

I haven't linked this blog to my band in a long time but I wanted to post the latest news entry from our website:

Second post of 2010 and what happened Saturday night
Damn, I'm a slacker. Only took five months to post a news entry, and to play a show, for that matter. On Saturday night we played at Cecil's Water Park in Crosby which is actually a pretty cool place. There had been some talk of trouble brewing at this show, but there was also some talk that nothing violent was going to go down. We went on around midnight and played several songs until eventually a fight broke out which led to several other fights over the span of about 30 or 40 minutes. Eventually some police showed up and I think took some people away, but I don't know about that for sure. I don't know what the initial fight was about, but the whole night I could sense some tension in the pit. There were probably some people there who either aren't familiar with "mosh pits" or are accustomed to being excessively violent at shows, but there was some kind of clash and eventually it erupted into a brawl. Apparently, someone also got stabbed in the mouth with a knife. Which is not nearly as funny in reality as it sounds abstractly. The people running the show couldn't decide if they wanted us to keep playing or shut it down, eventually there was a drunken consensus that we keep playing. I packed up my gear and left. I half-heartedly apologize for us not finishing our set. We're supposed to be playing in Baytown in a few weeks but I think it's a semi-private event so I'm hesitant to divulge too much info (of which I have little anyway). If you have any questions, comments, concerns, statements, filibusters, rebuttals, proposals, inquiries, conjectures, objections, interjections, testimony, arguments, bullet points, flashcards, musings, ad-libs, asides, asterisks, spread sheets, dinosaurs, or any Powerpoint slide shows, please contact thedraftedband@yahoo.com. That is all.

www.thedrafted.com

Mixed feelings on Draw Muhammad Day

2010-05-20T12:00:00.002-06:00

Today is May 20th, 2010, the first annual Draw Muhammad Day, as decreed by numerous YouTubers and bloggers. It's a response to the response to the response to the response of a joke that was a response to a response, yadayada yada. South Park joked about drawing Muhammad on their show before, and they self-censored. Now they've drawn Muhammad for real and they got death threats and will probably not be allowed to ever re-run the show.

Take it from Wiki: "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is a protest against Islamists who threaten violence against individuals that attempt to depict Muhammad. It originally began as a protest against censorship of South Park episode "201" by Comedy Central in response to death threats from radical Islamists."

here's the whole thing

I'm not sure what an "Islamist" is but I think they mean "Muslim." Apparently, Pakistan has blocked Facebook altogether because of a group on the site that is dedicated to supporting Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.

Of course, illustrators have been threatened and murdered by radical hard-liner Muslims in recent history. The death threats continue today, but I still can't quite get behind this particular cause, if that's what it actually is.

From what I understand about the general religion of Islam, those who practice it are not allowed to depict Muhammad. So a moderate Muslim shouldn't care one way or the other whether a non-Muslim depicts their prophet, although it would be hard to blame them at least for being offended by it. Obviously most Muslims do not support the actions of the murderous radicals, but what are they supposed to think about this particular "holiday?" We all know that there are some crazy Muslims out there (and Christians and Jews and Scientologists and and and...) so I'm kind of confused by this particular effort, which serves to alienate all Muslims, but with the supposed intent of only riling up the few who would kill or threaten to kill someone for depicting Muhammad.

Is it all non-Muslims' job to force moderate Muslims to make the choice of openly denouncing other Muslims or being silently complicit with radical actions? No. Do non-Muslims have the right to do so in the US? Absolutely. For me, this a particular right that I choose to wave. As someone who respects people who actually understand their religion, as moderate Muslims and Jews (not Christians) seem to, I have no plans of drawing Muhammad this year.

Seems like misdirected energy to me.

Civil Rights and Misleading Headlines

2010-03-11T19:20:00.000-07:00

After reading this article, I felt compelled to talk about the US public school system's problem with overbearing social discipline, and the peculiar wording accompanying this Associated Press article on Yahoo.com. The article is about a school in Mississippi that canceled their senior prom because the ACLU demanded that they change a certain policy regarding gay couples. The school has a ban on same-sex prom dates, and an 18-year-old lesbian student was planning on wearing a tuxedo.

It should be duly noted that public school's are not bound by strict constitutional guidelines. Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier was part of a Supreme Court precedent which gives public school administrators some leeway in enforcing certain school rules, such as reasonable censorship of school newspapers, or in this case dress codes. On the other hand, Tinker v Des Moines clearly protects students' free expression, so long as school dress codes are designed to promote educational goals. The latter decision is much older than the former, however, and we have a more conservative Court now than when Tinker was decided.

Some may argue that a public school has a right to deny any student access to a non-curricular school function like that of a prom. The ACLU's argument here must be that the school is interpreting its policy (which is probably vaguely worded as "no distracting attire allowed at prom") in such away that explicitly discriminates against homosexuals. What sucks about this AP article is that they give no insight into what the ACLU is saying about this--more on that in a second. Being government institutions, public schools have ZERO right to discriminate on social grounds like this. If this were a private school, the ACLU would have no case and probably would not have bothered the administration.

The subtitle to this article on the Yahoo.com front page was "Citing 'distractions,' a school district under pressure from the ACLU calls off prom altogether." This subtitle would lead any rational person to infer that the ACLU demanded that the school cancel prom. This is not the case. The ACLU demands that the school change its discriminatory policy, the school chose on its own behalf to cancel its prom. The way this article is presented on Yahoo, and with the articles' stark omission of any detailed comment from the ACLU, those who may not openly advocate discrimination but nevertheless "disagree" with homosexuality can simply fall back on the classic Bill O'Reilly narrative that the ACLU is a bunch of busy bodies who are at war with Christians and Christianity (despite the fact that the ACLU has represented Christians and fought for their free exercise).

This article doesn't cite the school's official policy at question here; is it actually a ban on homosexuals or just against causing a distraction at the prom, or both? The article says:

"The ACLU filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford to force the school district to sponsor the prom and allow McMillen to bring whom she chooses and wear what she wants."

"AP" now stands for Absolute Phailure.

Naomi Klein: How Socialism Protected Chileans from Earthquake Fall-out

2010-03-04T17:53:00.003-07:00

From Alternet:

Just two days after Chile was struck by a devastating earthquake, Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens informed his readers that Milton Friedman's "spirit was surely hovering protectively over Chile" because, "thanks largely to him, the country has endured a tragedy that elsewhere would have been an apocalypse...

[...]

According to Stephens, the radical free-market policies prescribed to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet by Milton Friedman and his infamous "Chicago Boys" are the reason Chile is a prosperous nation with "some of the world's strictest building codes."

[...]

The Chile of the 1960s had the best health and education systems on the continent, as well as a vibrant industrial sector and rapidly expanding middle class. Chileans believed in their state, which is why they elected Allende to take the project even further.

After the coup and the death of Allende, Pinochet and his Chicago Boys did their best to dismantle Chile's public sphere, auctioning off state enterprises and slashing financial and trade regulations. Enormous wealth was created in this period but at a terrible cost: by the early eighties, Pinochet's Friedman-prescribed policies had caused rapid de-industrialization, a ten-fold increase in unemployment and an explosion of distinctly unstable shantytowns. They also led to a crisis of corruption and debt so severe that, in 1982, Pinochet was forced to fire his key Chicago Boy advisors and nationalize several of the large deregulated financial institutions. (Sound familiar?)

Click here for the whole article

Click here for Paul Krugman's piece on the subject

Click here for the Wall Street Journal article about Friedman

Not surprising that free marketeers would try to spin the disaster in Chile in favor of the gangster-style fundamentalist capitalism that got us into this economic mess. Also not surprising that they spun it in a complete 180 to the facts.

Chile's history in the late 20th century is very much a part of our own; it's a shame so few Americans understand what happened there and why the dictator we helped prop up there was so harmful to the working people of that country.

Always a new asshole for white people to idolize

2010-02-19T21:04:00.003-07:00

I heard about the Austin IRS building attack by Joseph Stack the other day and today I found out about a man who has become known among the webertubes as "Epic Beard Man."

Joseph Stack flew his own plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas. He posted an online manifesto which rails against taxation in much the fashion that the Tea Parties have been doing for over a year now. Epic Beard Man can be seen on YouTube, arguing with another man on a public bus and later beating him up (EBM is in his 60s, is probably homeless or retired, and clearly has some mental health issues).

Both of these men have had Facebook pages made in their honor, revering their honorable acts of violence for various causes. Just like Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, a new generation of white supremacist heroes enter the hearts of right wing American zealots.

Joseph Stack

Epic Beard Man

Epic Beard Man interview (pity this man, don't hold him up as a fucking hero)

These men are not to be idolized, nor demonized for that matter. Whether intentionally or not, they each in their own ways acted on deeply rooted white supremacist values. Anyone rejoicing in what these men did is equally pitiful.

SSB Re-Run: Obama calls for National Health care (2007)

2010-02-04T21:52:00.005-07:00

On January 25th 2007 I wrote this about Obama's proposed stance on health care.

-----------------------------------

'Obama calls for national health care' -- [so what?]
[^ link]

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

"The time has come for universal health care in America," Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.

"I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country," the Illinois senator said.

...

Okay, Barack Obama says we should have universal health care. That's what this article is about. But then it also says that John Edwards and Hillary Clinton want national health care too, so why does it matter that Obama was talking about it? What makes him any better of a Democrat than the other two? He's gotten a lot of praise from just about everyone; Time Magazine had him on the cover a few months back as our future president. Don't get me wrong, I want a black president just as much as the next guy, but I just don't see how much of a difference he would really make.

I'm not usually very pessimistic, but there is no chance in hell that the US is going to convert to national health care any time soon. As Obama pointed out himself, national health care always gets set back by "Washington politics." ..I think .. No matter what the Dems say about it, they're never actually going to go through with it.

------------------------------------------------

I'm like a modern day Nostradamus ain't I not?

Hey, don't blame me, I voted for Nader.

A Public Rebuttal to John Cornyn

2010-02-01T14:31:00.007-07:00

As part of a letter writing campaign organized by Amnesty International I sent an email to my Senators from Texas: John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison. I've lost the original message sent to him, but the basics can be inferred from Cornyn's response (Hutchison is probably too busy running for Governor to read many constituant emails). Here are the key points of his response coupled with my own rebuttals:

CORNYN: Many of the enemy combatants being held in Guantanamo Bay—largely members or affiliates of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban—continue to pose a direct threat to the security of the United States. [...] In fact, dozens of terrorists previously released from Guantanamo Bay have already returned to the battlefield to fight against American and coalition forces.

ME: What does it take to be a member or affiliate of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban? These are not legitimate, official organizations; they are basically gangs made up of a few thousand people total. That being said, do you really believe that most of the inmates at Guantanamo are actually terrorists? The reason why groups like Amnesty International are upset about this prison is that it has been consistently shown that a large majority of the prisoners there have been put there for little to no reason, and have not helped Al-Qaeda or the Taliban at all. If "dozens" (more like one dozen, to be exact) of released inmates have gone on to join the insurgency, or Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, does this mean that ALL of the prisoners MUST stay in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, indefinitely? I suspect that this violates the Geneva Conventions.

CORNYN: For these reasons, I am gravely concerned by the current Administration’s efforts to transfer dozens of these terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to a state-run prison in Illinois.Unfortunately, this latest plan follows the emerging pattern from the current Administration, wherein critical decisions appear to be made more for the sake of political posturing rather than in the interests of our national security. This is unacceptable, and I strongly oppose any effort to close the detention facility at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.

ME: For those who are accused of aiding Al-Qaeda to commit the 9/11 attacks, which was committed on U.S. soil, it is constitutionally mandatory that they be tried in the United States. This has nothing to do with political posturing; do you really think that transporting prisoners to the US is politically beneficial? It's the law, Senator! It is the Executive Branch's job to execute the law, and that is why some of the Guantanamo Prisoners must be brought here eventually. To call this political posturing a complete lie: it would be much easier and politically safer for Obama to take YOUR position on this. But guess what, Senator? Obama hasn't talked seriously about Guantanamo since he got into office; he is not bringing those prisoners here any time soon. Turns out you guys aren't so different after all.

CORNYN: Furthermore, all detainees at U.S. facilities are treated humanely and in accordance with our laws. I have visited Guantanamo Bay to observe the detention facility’s operations and the living conditions of detainees. Although neither Al-Qaeda nor Taliban detainees qualify under applicable legal authority for prisoner of war (POW) status, they have been treated humanely and are allowed many POW privileges—including the opportunity to worship, access to correspondence materials, and meals that adhere to Muslim dietary laws. I recognize the complex issues that arise as we work to balance individuals' rights and freedoms with the need to prosecute the Global War on Terror and protect the American people.

ME: To simply state that "all detainees are treated humanely" is to ignore piles and piles of proven instances where this has not been the case. Also, to say that you've visited the prison and that you saw nothing wrong going on does absolutely nothing to support your stance on this. Do you think that the guards are going to leave the prisoners outside in the sun for hours, deface the Koran, and waterboard people while a senator is visiting?

We can't just toss away all of our problems on some island and expect them to go away. If detainees cannot be proven guilty, they have to be let go. If they're accused of a crime on our soil, they have to be tried here. They CANNOT be tortured! Waterboarding is inhumane; if you want to ignore that so you can say that no laws are being broken in any of our facilities, why don't you let someone do that to you and see how humane it is? That is why Amnesty International is urging you to do something about this facility. I urge you to re-examine what our laws and that of the Geneva Convention actually say, and not worry about what it takes to get re-elected in Texas.

King was killed because he supported a labor union

2010-01-18T15:11:00.001-07:00

Tea Party song

2009-10-17T22:21:00.000-06:00

"Having black friends" doesn't mean you're not a racist

2009-10-16T10:19:00.002-06:00

Wow

from AP:

A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

here's the whole thing, you've probably already seen it

Holy bullfuck. Shit. Fucking ass.

This guy IS a fucking racist. Now, of course, he doesn't have to marry any two people that he doesn't want to. But to deny being a racist while saying you don't believe in mixing races.. uuuuuuuhhh, yeah, fuck you, you're a fucking racist. Fuck.

Words Matter

2009-09-04T18:08:00.003-06:00

by Ralph Nader:

Ever wonder what’s happening to words once they fall into the hands of corporate and government propagandists? Too often reporters and editors don’t wonder enough. They ditto the words even when the result is deception or doubletalk.

Here are some examples. Day in and day out we read about “detainees” imprisoned for months or years by the federal government in the U.S., Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. Doesn’t the media know that the correct word is “prisoners,” regardless of what Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld disseminated?

The raging debate and controversy over health insurance and the $2.5 trillion spent this year on health care involves consumers and “providers.” How touching to describe sellers or vendors, often gouging, denying benefits, manipulating fine print contracts, cheating Medicare and Medicaid in the tens of billions as “providers.”

I always thought “providers” were persons taking care of their families or engaging in charitable service. Somehow, the dictionary definition does not fit the frequently avaricious profiles of Aetna, United Healthcare, Pfizer and Merck.

“Privatization” and the “private sector” are widespread euphemisms that the press falls for daily. Moving government owned assets or functions into corporate hands, as with Blackwater, Halliburton, and the conglomerates now controlling public highways, prisons, and drinking water systems is “corporatization,” not the soft imagery of going “private” or into the “private sector.” It is the corporate sector!

click here for the full article

This is a really good point that Ralph's making. Don't buy in to the rosy image of private insurance that the major media and the "tea party" groups are trying to paint. They are screwing people over, all of them. That's the way the game is played and has been played for a long time. The point of health care/health insurance reform is to set new, more fair rules to the game. A public option might be a good start, single payer would be way more efficient.

Don't believe the lies; don't believe any corporate entity on health care or health insurance, even if they say they're in favor of HR 3200.

Hurricane George, Four Years Later

2009-08-27T19:39:00.002-06:00

From Greg Palast:

There's another floater. Four years on, there's another victim face down in the waters of Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Ivor van Heerden.

[...]

On the night of August 29, 2005, van Heerden was shut in at the state emergency center in Baton Rouge, providing technical advice to the rescue effort. As Hurricane Katrina came ashore, van Heerden and the State Police there were high-fiving it: Katrina missed the city of New Orleans, turning east.

What they did not know was that the levees had cracked. For crucial hours, the White House knew, but withheld the information that the levees of New Orleans had broken and that the city was about to drown. Bush's boys did not notify the State of the flood to come which would have allowed police to launch an emergency hunt for the thousands that remained stranded.

Read it all here.

On the anniversary of the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina, Greg Palast reminds us that the Bush Administration was a hell of a lot more Nazi-like than Obama.

The White House knew the levees broke; didn't tell anyone.

My run in with some Teabaggers

2009-08-20T08:14:00.003-06:00

Apparently, no one is "entitled" to any health care.

I posted the other day that these people are not our enemies and that we just need to get louder and maybe get punched at one of these town hall meetings. Well, I didn't get punched, but outside the town hall meeting in Baytown with Gene Green, I'm sure some members of the San Jacinto Tea Party were ready to punch me if I got too out of hand.

When the man with the bull horn actually said that there was socialized medicine in the House bill, I went off. First I yelled, "No it's not!" and a couple in front of me turned around and basically dared me to go up there, thinking I would shut up. But I walked up closer to the mob, closer to the man with the bull horn and kept yelling, "There is no socialized health care in the bill!" The closer I got, the louder I got, and the braver I got. I must admit, regardless of who was right or wrong, it felt good to yell at this mob.

Earlier these people had been chastising Rep. Gene Green about restricting the attendance to this meeting. There were two restrictions: room space, and actually being from Green's district (TX 29th). The really funny thing was that this group of teabaggers wasn't even standing in the line of people waiting to get in, and it grew to be several hundred people long, while the meeting room at Sterling Municipal Library only held about 100 to 150. In any case, they put on the show that they had been specifically shunned from this meeting, as they ralleyed outside.

They pretended to open up the discussion to any and everyone, saying "Come on up to the bull horn and speak your mind [...] Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter." Or something to that effect. Well I was up there, I had something to say, I was yelling it, I was able to get everyone's attention for a few seconds without the bull horn, but I was only met with jeers from the mob and some comments from the bull horn man which I could only make out as, "If you wanna disrupt our gathering..."

The irony doesn't stop there. Many of these people appeared to be of retirement age or getting near it, people destined to be on Medicare. They were all railing away about government insurance as if they weren't, or knew no one, who benefitted from Medicare or Medicaid.

After speaking privately with a few of them who engaged me in some civil discussion, it all seemed to be coming back to the freeloaders who were already leaching off of the system. I was told of people in gold jewelry and Escalades lining up to get their Food Stamps. I was told that these people didn't know how to save money, I was told one man's personal story of working as a young man, supporting his family, not leaving the house "If I couldn't afford to make a phone call or put gas in my care." These people were well meaning, but never considered what it might be like to be a black or Latino person in America. I tried to tell them that some people can't just save money like that anymore, and that the job market is getting worse and worse anyhow; some people just can't afford insurance on their own. But to no avail. I needed to read more on the issues, I needed to support moderate politicians. I was young, ignorant, foolish, and idealistic.

One thing I forgot to say to everyone was, "Don't believe every chain email you receive."

From Reform to DEform

2009-08-17T11:35:00.002-06:00

From Alternet.org on the Administration's wavering stance on a public insurance option:

Startlingly, the clearest signal that the administration is preparing to jettison the public option came from Obama himself. Speaking at a town hall event in Colorado, the President referred to the public plan as merely a "sliver" of his reform agenda and said: "The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of healthcare reform."

On this, Obama is right. The public option has already been so dumbed-down and neutered that it is little more than a sliver. The problem is that it may be the only sliver of real reform in his program.

[...]

That's because the "reforms" currently under consideration threaten to undermine Medicare and Medicaid -- with radical cost-cutting schemes -- while steering hundreds of billions in federal dollars into the accounts of for-profit insurers and the pharmaceutical industry.

This is not "change we can believe in." This is change that serious reformers will find "very difficult" to support, as Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, said Sunday on CNN. Johnson explained that progressives would have a tough time backing legislation that did not include a public option.

[...]

Congresswoman Johnson is exactly right. Without a robust public option, what the Obama administration and compromised Democrats in the House and Senate are talking about is not "health care reform."

It is "health care deform" that does not begin to address the crisis created by insurance industry profiteering -- and that could well make the "cure" worse than the disease.

Read it all right here.

The only reason why it appears that a substantial portion of the population is against a public option, and furthermore a nationalized health care system, is because just enough misinformed and dishonest people are so much louder and in-your-face than the rest of the people who disagree with them and know better.

Anyone who is really disgusted by the lack of progress that is thus far being made by this supposed "liberal" administration ought to GET LOUDER than our deranged counterparts at the town hall meetings. These people are not evil, they're not necessarily stupid, and they're not our enemies. It's not them we need to yell at, it's the Administration we need to reach. We've got to be louder than the people who are closest to Obama who have been keeping him corporate since his campaign started; we've got to be louder than the corporate owned pundits in the "liberal" media who are controlling the debate in such a dishonest fashion. We don't have to punch people at town hall meetings, but we may have to get punched. We ought to be yelling at Democrats as well, but we ought to be yelling the truth and telling them what the true majority of Americans want. We've got to be calling their offices every week and putting in our two progressive liberal cents just as much as the ditto heads are doing now with their chain email false-facts. They are an angry mob of people who have been lied to their whole lives; we can call them stupid all we want but we can't ignore the fact that they are actually having an impact on PUBLIC POLICY!

Let's GET LOUDER.

Nader clears the air on Obamacare

2009-08-15T11:43:00.002-06:00

From Nader.org

"Now Make Me Do It"

Never much of a fighter against abusive corporate power, Barack Obama is making it increasingly clear that right from his start as President, he wanted health insurance reform that received the approval of the giant drug and health insurance industries.

Earlier this year he started inviting top bosses of these companies for intimate confabs in the White House. Business Week magazine, which proclaimed recently that “The Health Insurers Have Already Won” reported that the CEO of UnitedHealth, Stephen J. Hemsley, met with the President half a dozen times.

[...]

Further indication of Obama’s corporate dealings is that he never identified himself with a specific bill with a House and Senate number that he could rally the people around. No wonder people are confused, frustrated and angry. President Obama did not stand for an unambiguous proposal.

He thereby emboldened both the cash and carry Blue dog Democrats to rebel and the Republican yahoos to launch their lies and distortions via Rush Limbaugh and similar trash media.

Read it all here.

It's so bizarre how there's so much debate on the issue in general but not what's actually in any of the bills. There are hoards of ridiculous claims about what's in "the bill," and it seems like no one on either side knows whats in any of the bills. I've only read one of the bills myself, and not very much of it because it's so impossibly long.

But what's not included in any of the debate whatsoever is the fact that Obama has a really cozy relationship with the health insurance and drug industries. This information would come as a surprise to both Democrats and Republicans who are at each others throats over this, if they ever took the time to acknowledge Ralph Nader's existence.

The Great Health Care Reform Debate of 2009

2009-08-08T14:12:00.003-06:00

Holy shit I haven't posted anything in a long time. I don't deserve to have anyone read this blog (and they don't).

Everyone's got an opinion on health care, health care reform, Obama, and "socialized medicine."

What really needs to be said, or rather heard, is that no one is proposing a government take over of health care. The House and Senate bills are proposing a "public option," which would just mean that your medical bills would be paid by the federal government rather than a private insurer IF you choose to be on the plan. This idea is only about money, not actual medical care. No one is forcing anyone to take a public health insurance option, no one is forcing anyone to see any particular doctor.

Some say we don't have the money, Obama says it will be "budget neutral," meaning they will get the money for the plan by making equal cuts in the budget and possibly raising taxes on the higher brackets (probably not gonna happen, wouldn't be much if it did. These are wussy Democrats, remember?).

I think it'd be smart to adopt a single payer system. Here's an interesting quote on that from Ralph Nader that I'll leave you with:

In 1950, when President Truman sent a universal health insurance bill to Congress, the American Medical Association (AMA) launched what was then a massive counterattack. The AMA claimed that government health insurance would lead to rationing of health care, higher prices, diminished choices and more bureaucracy. The AMA beat both Truman and the unions that were backing the legislation, using the phrase “socialized medicine” to scare the people.

Fifty-nine years later, “corporatized medicine” has produced all these consequences, along with stripping away the medical profession’s independence. Today, the irony is that the corporate supremacists are accusing reformers in Washington of what they themselves have produced throughout the country. Rationing, higher prices, less choice, and mounds of paperwork and corporate red tape. Plus, fifty million people without any health insurance at all.

Recent thrift store findings

2009-05-31T15:00:00.001-06:00

Support Clemency for Troy Davis

2009-04-18T19:29:00.002-06:00

Click here to email Georgia's governor and demand clemency for Davis.

Catch my interview on Monday night

2009-03-26T20:01:00.002-06:00

My YouTube videos about racism landed me an interview.

At 8:30 central time on Monday, March 30th I'll be interviewed over the phone by Blog Talk Radio user Victim of Racism and we will discuss my videos, why I made them and the response they've gotten, white supremecy, how to combat it, David Duke (since I live in Louisiana) and other such related things. Calls from listeners will be taken as well so if you wanna call in and chat, let's do it.

here's the link
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Victim-of-Racism

If you can't catch it when it's being recorded, it will be available as a podcast at that same link immediately after it's over.

Banking On Credit Unions [I'm so lucky to have smart parents]

2009-02-21T08:53:00.003-07:00

From nader.org:

While the reckless giant banks are shattering like an over-heated glacier day by day, the nation’s credit unions are a relative island of calm largely apart from the vortex of casino capitalism.

Eighty five million Americans belong to credit unions which are not-for-profit cooperatives owned by their members who are depositors and borrowers. Your neighborhood or workplace credit union did not invest in these notorious speculative derivatives nor did they offer people “teaser rates” to sign on for a home mortgage they could not afford.

Ninety one percent of the 8,000 credit unions are reporting greater overall growth in mortgage lending than any other kinds of consumer loans they are extending. They are federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) for up to $250,000 per account, such as the FDIC does for depositors in commercial banks.

click here for the whole thing

The main point of the article is that there are some "credit unions" that are credit union in name only, basically. Big corporate ones who work like the big loan shark banks.

Lucky for myself and my family, we belong to an NCUA backed credit union. I was recently back in Texas and went in to my local credit union to talk about a CD account of mine that had recently matured. The atmosphere in there was really laid back, just like I'd always remembered our credit union being. Also much like the credit union over here in New Orleans that I use to deposit checks, it's just so quiet and calm, not how you'd expect a bank to be at this time. But, it's not really a "bank" in 21st century terms anyway.

It's not like we're on easy street or anything, because we're surely not at the moment, but it's good to know that my family's banking methods did not contribute to the downfall of our economy.

Not to rub it in anyone's face, or anything...

But if you're a credit union member, make sure they are not tempted to turn in to Wall Street style casinos, because:

The one area that is now spelling some trouble [...] comes from the so-called “corporate credit unions”—a terrible nomenclature—which were established to provide liquidity for the retail credit unions. [...] They invested in those risky mortgage securities with the money from the retail credit unions. These “toxic assets” have fallen $14 billion among the 28 corporate credit unions involved.

An Open Letter to Craig, the Sexist

2009-02-16T14:15:00.013-07:00

Dear Craig,

You've been dating my sister for about four or five weeks now. For the last couple of weeks, your plans have been to move in together and get married, and maybe have a baby.

If you can't see whats wrong with this picture, lets keep looking.

I'm not one for snooping on people's Facebook profiles, but after you added my girlfriend as a friend on that site she noticed a comment you had from the beginning of January, just days before you began dating my sister, from a girl named Mary saying how much she loved you, how you guys were going to be together forever, and that she was so happy that she was "having babygrl." You have yet to explain who this person is and what she meant by "having babygrl." It sounds as if she's expecting a child, but it could be another "misunderstanding," right Craig? I'm sure all fifteen pages of your criminal record are a bunch of misunderstandings too (it's amazing what you can do with the internet and a license plate number, eh Craig?).

If you still can't see whats wrong with this picture, lets keep looking.

Early on, you had some moments of threatening suicide if you didn't get to see my sister. My parents witnessed this behavior with their own eyes. It was at this point that you should have been taken away by some higher authority. But you weren't.

Lets keep looking.

Several details of the past few weeks can be found almost ver batim (that means "word for word" in Latin, if you didn't know) in this article, "Warning Signs That You're Dating a Loser." I don't want to call you a "loser," Craig. Afterall, guys like you have been running the world since the beginning of human history. You guys aren't losers, but you are losing. However slowly, you are a dying breed. Sexism still reigns supreme, but it is in it's final days. It may be many more decades, but your way of thinking is on it's way out.

The difference between you and I is that I have ambition. I have something that I believe makes me a better person when I learn more about it, and that's music. I have recently come to believe that becoming a better musician makes me a better citizen of the world. It allows me to interact with people in a positive way and somehow make the world a little bit better while I'm here. This probably sounds like a bunch of faggy bullshit to you, Craig. But that's your problem.

You, Craig, will never take responsibility for your actions. With you, every problem is a woman's fault. It was your mom's fault that she kicked you out of her house and you had no where to sleep but your car. It was my sister's fault that she "wouldn't stand up for you" when everyone was realizing how dangerous you were. It's her friends' fault that everyone thinks you're bad because they supposedly lie about you. My sister's former best friend really just has a homosexual crush and is trying to get you out of the picture (even if that were true, it would be a hell of a lot better than what's going on now). And I'm sure Mary is just some crazy "bitch" telling another lie about you on your profile, which is why you had to delete her words.

You will probably go on for the rest of your life thinking that you are superior to women, and that controlling them and using them makes you more of a man. You will never realize that this behavior holds down society's progress and enslaves people to bigotry. As I said, this cycle is slowing, but you're a part of what's keeping it going.

That, Craig, is why nobody fucking likes you.

Sincerely,
adam

Prisoners on Parade

2009-02-10T21:49:00.002-07:00

Courtesy of Alternet:

Last week in Maricopa County, Ariz., more than 200 Latino immigrants were chained, dressed in prison stripes and forced to march down a public street from a county jail to a detainment camp in a desert industrial zone outside Phoenix.

[...]

The Phoenix New Times pointed out that Arpaio’s immigrant parade was scheduled for the same day that MCSO Captain Joel Fox was scheduled to appear in court to appeal a $315,000 fine levied against him for channeling an illegal $105,000 campaign donation to the Republican Party in the name of a shadowy entity called the “Sheriff’s Command Association.”

click here for the whole article

This is really fucked up, sick, wrong, racist, nothing that would make me proud as an American.

Just so happens I was studying some prison statistics just before I came across this article. I think I'll be sharing my findings soon, if I get the time to dig further in to it.

What the centrists have wrought

2009-02-07T20:06:00.002-07:00

Paul Krugman, NY Times:

I’m still working on the numbers, but I’ve gotten a fair number of requests for comment on the Senate version of the stimulus.

The short answer: to appease the centrists, a plan that was already too small and too focused on ineffective tax cuts has been made significantly smaller, and even more focused on tax cuts.

According to the CBO’s estimates, we’re facing an output shortfall of almost 14% of GDP over the next two years, or around $2 trillion. [...] So the original $800 billion plan was too small, especially because a substantial share consisted of tax cuts that probably would have added little to demand. The plan should have been at least 50% larger.

click here for the entire article

It's a damn shame you have to have 60% membership of the Senate just to pass a bill that isn't even good enough to begin with, and if you've only got 59% that plan gets watered down even further.

Gee can't say I saw this coming...

Deregulation Caused the Salmonella Outbreak

2009-02-07T09:09:00.003-07:00

From the NY Times
"Wary Shoppers Cause Slide in Peanut Butter Sales"

The Department of Agriculture, which oversees school lunch programs, banned the Peanut Corporation of America from doing any further business with the government. The company’s chief executive, Stewart Parnell, was removed from the Agriculture Department’s Peanut Standards Board, which advises the agriculture secretary on quality and handling standards.

Read further, if you need to.

What was the CEO of a private corporation doing on the standards board of a federal agency meant to regulate his own business?

Sure, regulators should be knowledgeable of their fields, but a sitting chief executive? Is that not a conflict of interest from the get-go? I mean, the Times just nonchalantly mentions, "Yeah, this guy is no longer advising his own regulators, now that his company has spread salmonella all over the country," like it's just a random detail of the overall story. Hopefully Obama understands cause-and-effect more than the Bush administration did, but perhaps a little research is afoot to see who is on the federal agencies and who they're really loyal to: themselves or the People?

Hey, at least Parnell's previous work did not involve Arabian horses.

Is the Entire Bailout Strategy Flawed? Let's Rethink This Before It's Too Late

2009-02-02T20:06:00.003-07:00

By Joseph Stiglitz, by way of Alternet:

For a while, there was hope that simply lowering interest rates enough, flooding the economy with money, would suffice; but three quarters of a century ago, Keynes explained why, in a downturn such as this, monetary policy is likely to be ineffective. It is like pushing on a string.

[...]

What's the alternative? Sweden (and several other countries) have shown that there is an alternative -- the government takes over those banks that cannot assemble enough capital through private sources to survive without government assistance.
It is standard practice to shut down banks failing to meet basic requirements on capital, but we almost certainly have been too gentle in enforcing these requirements. (There has been too little transparency in this and every other aspect of government intervention in the financial system.)
To be sure, shareholders and bondholders will lose out, but their gains under the current regime come at the expense of taxpayers. In the good years, they were rewarded for their risk taking. Ownership cannot be a one-sided bet.

click here for all of it

Joseph Stiglitz used to work for the World Bank. He was basically kicked out for telling journalists like Greg Palast exactly what they do: fuck people over, whole countries even (Latin American ones often).

Stiglitz knows globalization inside and out; he's been on the inside and now he's on the outside. He's probably one of the most important economists there is, because he was a free trade baron who did a 180 in favor of the public interest. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

So I'm saying we should trust Joe on this one, consider this idea, look to Sweden, and fix this mess before we're all standing in bread lines, reminiscing about how we loved our SUVs and MacBooks so much. Maybe when the Senate votes down Obama's budget, this idea can get tabled.

It would behoove all of us to call our representatives and send them this message:

NATIONALIZE THE BANKS!

Obama's Executive Order on Gitmo

2009-01-24T11:56:00.002-07:00

Courtesy of The Washington Independent:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release January 22, 2009

EXECUTIVE ORDER

REVIEW AND DISPOSITION OF INDIVIDUALS DETAINED AT THE GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE AND CLOSURE OF DETENTION FACILITIES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (Guantánamo) and promptly to close detention facilities at Guantánamo, consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice, I hereby order as follows:

[...]

Sec. 2. Findings.

[...]

(d) It is in the interests of the United States that the executive branch undertake a prompt and thorough review of the factual and legal bases for the continued detention of all individuals currently held at Guantánamo, and of whether their continued detention is in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and in the interests of justice. The unusual circumstances associated with detentions at Guantánamo require a comprehensive interagency review.

click here for the whole order

Holy shit that's actually pretty cool.

That's all I got.

Okay, well we'll see how long it takes to get this ball rolling as it's currently written. Likely outcome: nothing. Maybe they'll close Guantanamo, but I doubt many of the innocent people held there are going to go free with in the next year or two.

Who knows?

Obama's appointees: If you're surprised, it's your own fault

2009-01-19T00:01:00.002-07:00

From Alternet:

Ray LaHood: The Obama Appointment You Should Be Really Worried About

Soon, the U.S. Senate will hold a confirmation hearing on the president-elect's choice of Ray LaHood for Secretary of Transportation.

[...]

In case you haven't been following the news, LaHood is a conservative Illinois Republican with little transportation expertise and almost no administrative experience, who has earned a LCV lifetime voting score on critical environmental issues of 27 percent, and who maintains deep financial connections to the very industries he's now supposed to regulate.

click here for all of it

Bu-bu-bu-but Mr. Obama said he wuz gonna change shit......

Anyone who bought Obama's rhetoric during the campaign needs to do some rudimentary thinking about what elections are and what politicians say when they're about to be a candidate on a ballot. In other words, re-take your high school Government class.

There were at least two whole campaigns of hundreds of thousands of people who were "throwing their vote away" on third parties who argued that Obama would be more of the same, that the choice between McCain and Obama wasn't as big of a difference as it seemed on the surface.

I understand the excitement of electing an African American as president of the United States, I really get that. It's got some great symbolism to it, to say the very least, and make no mistake--I was smiling on November 4th, 2008. It really did feel good. But anyone with even a half-assed knowledge of history could have seen this coming: many such people voted for Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney.

Sometimes it really sucks to be right.

Oscar Grant

2009-01-14T18:44:00.002-07:00

From alternet:

On Jan. 1, Oscar Grant, an unarmed 22-year-old African American man, was shot and killed by a white Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer.

[...]

Following the shooting, BART police tried to confiscate all the videos taken by witnesses. They failed. Three clips videos made it onto YouTube, where they were viewed hundreds of thousands of times and eventually picked up and played on the news, bringing the story to national attention.

click here for the whole thing

I'm literally at a loss for words.

Obama Doesn't Plan to End the Occupation in Iraq

2008-12-06T13:05:00.002-07:00

FINALLY from Alternet.org:

The New York Times is reporting an "apparent evolution" in president-elect Barack Obama's thinking on Iraq, citing recent statements about his plan to keep a "residual force" in the country

[...]

It's an interesting choice of terms. "Residual" is defined as "the quantity left over at the end of a process." This means that the forces Obama plans to leave in Iraq will remain after he has completed his "withdrawal" plan. No matter how Obama chooses to label the forces he keeps in Iraq, the fact is, they will be occupation forces.

click here for all of it

It's funny (or not) how everything Obama is doing now was so plainly foreseeable during the campaign, but the liberal blogosphere pretended it wasn't, and you couldn't vote for Nader this time, couldn't even talk about him. We couldn't have "another Bush" in the White House. So we'll settle with another Clinton in the White House instead? Clinton was a better Republican than George Bush! He gave us NAFTA, maintained a bloated military budget and made sure we kicked some brown people's asses in Kosovo while cutting aid to poor people at home. Now, I realize that anything would be better than Bush right about now, but you can't call this real "change," other than the fact that Obama is (half) black.

It just seems like a lot of liberals were just waiting until Obama got elected before they would actually pay attention to his actions. Now he owes us nothing.

(Oh, and this is completely in line with everything that that "crazy, unviable, conspiracy theorist" Ralph Nader was saying during the campaign, once again)

Don't Attack Iran

2008-11-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

The November 5th Movement

2008-11-10T18:48:00.001-07:00

November5.org:

November 5. 2008 from Tarek Milleron on Vimeo.

That's what I'm talkin' about.

Feet. Fire.

Barack Obama is the president elect: IT IS TIME FOR PROGRESSIVES TO GET SERIOUS

2008-11-04T21:36:00.002-07:00

We progressives finally got something that feels good: a victory. Or so it seems.

Sure, it's really awesome to have a black president (elect), but we can't forget that he DID NOT MAKE ANY PROGRESSIVE PROMISES during his campaign.

All you Obama voters: he doesn't owe you anything!

We MUST demand real change from our newly elected leaders, or else they will turn into another Clintonian Republicratic corporate regime who may perhaps balance the budget, but also cut social programs and keep the military budget bloated in the process. And what are they going to do about the war? Nothing, unless we act. The People ended the Vietnam War, we ended the first Gulf War and we can end this one the same way. Now more than ever, we've got the chance to get our troops OUT of Iraq.

We've got a chance to get gay marriage legalized in more states.

We've got a chance to reform the health care system.

We've got a chance to crack down on corporate crime and promote fair trade,

but WE HAVE TO ACT.

and I mean ACT, like get outside, show our faces, raise our voices, sign real petitions with real ink and write real letters to real congressmen. We cannot sit back and wait for these Democrats to do the right thing on their own: THEY'VE NEVER EVER DONE THAT.

The time is now, and WE CAN DO IT.

Steal Back Your Vote

2008-10-27T08:24:00.002-06:00

Greg Palast is involved with a project right now called Steal Back Your Vote. He's trying to get the word out about how the same types of people who rigged the last two elections are at it again. I'm on Greg's mailing list and here's some info from the latest one:

Odd thing about the 207 voters of precinct 999 in Dona Ana County, New Mexico.

Not a single one could choose between George Bush and John Kerry in 2004.

Or at least that’s what their ballots said.

The Secretary of State at the time told me, “Some of those people just can’t make up their minds.” Dirt-poor Dona Ana is 63% Hispanic and the precinct is made up entirely of overseas voters, mostly the Chicano soldiers in Iraq or on duty. The machines say that Hispanic soldiers don’t care who becomes their commander-in-chief.

Or maybe, the machines failed to register their votes.

Few Americans realize that in 2004, 1,389,231 ballots were never counted because they were “spoiled.” How do ballots spoil? They get left out of the ‘fridge?

Here’s an unfun fact: not everyone’s vote spoils the same. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that the chances of an African-American voter losing their vote is 900% higher than a white voter. Hispanic votes vanished at a rate 500% higher than Anglo votes.

www.StealBackYourVote.org

(emphasis mine)

If anyone's going to spoil this election, it's not going to be Ralph Nader, it's going to be essentially the Republican party, more specifically their cronies in the election system.

Now onto researching Diebold.

Debatable Debates / MoveOn delusions

2008-10-21T07:21:00.005-06:00

Debatable Debates
by Ralph Nader

This past spring, the foreign affairs reporters, not columnists, for the New York Times and the Washington Post concluded that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are advancing foreign and military policies similar to those adopted by George W. Bush in his second term.

Where then is the “hope” and “change” from the junior Senator from Illinois?

Moreover, both Obama and McCain want more nuclear power plants, more coal production, and more offshore oil drilling.

[...]

Both support the gigantic taxpayer funded Wall Street bailout, without expressed amendments. Both support the notorious Patriot Act, the revised FISA act which opened the door to spy on Americans without judicial approval, and Obama agrees with McCain in vigorously opposing the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

go to nader.org for the rest

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MoveOn delusions

I'm a "member" of Moveon.org, in that, they send me emails and call me a "member." I've given them a total of like $3.

Here's a quote from the latest email they've sent:

TOP 5 REASONS OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULDN'T REST EASY

1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.

2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.

3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.

4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!

5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.

Yeah it's going to be REALLY hard to pass universal health care when HE'S NOT RUNNING ON THAT TO BEGIN WITH! Barack Obama is not our liberal savior, he's a Democrat. He's a Democrat. He's a Democrat. He hasn't even promised to fight for universal or truly clean energy during his campaign, so it wouldn't just be the big oil and pharmaceutical companies we have to fight, we'd have to fight Obama as well. Just like the rest of the Democrats, if you vote for them just for the fact that they have a chance of winning and you're a liberal and the GOP is "way worse," they're not going to owe you a damn thing if they get into office. The mandate has to be RIGHT NOW.

"BUT HE'S BLACK!!!!!"

Okay, as cool as it would be (or probably will be, but don't rest easy!), to have a (half) black president for once, that's about the entire extent of the "change," Barack Obama would make. Look no further than his voting record, and WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAYS!

As I recall from the piece of shit, canned "town hall" debate, Obama's all for drilling and keeping our military very much present in the middle east (as the Nader article notes as well). Where's the change in that? Chump change, that's what that is.

Chump change.

It's Already Stolen

2008-10-17T09:06:00.002-06:00

From Rolling Stone, courtesy of Greg Palast:

According to an investigative report out today in
Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale.

- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado
have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.

- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.

Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of
'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as
"fraudulent."

- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.

(no link to more, must buy a copy of Rolling Stone)

I fully expect Obama to win but I also fully expect many of his potential supporters to basically be blacklisted, pretty literally.

Meanwhile, conservatives rail away about ACORN, exaggerating their "fraud," trying to deflect attention away from the real disenfranchisement that's been going on since 2000 and probably before then.

Fuck Ron Paul

2008-10-02T16:47:00.007-06:00

Houston Chronicle, courtesy of RealArt:

Some Galveston officials aren't too pleased with
their congressional representative, Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, for voting against
the $22.8 billion disaster recovery aid package on Wednesday.
[...]
"We've worked hard all our lives," said Gene Lossow.
"We take care of ourselves. I don't need FEMA or anything else. We got
insurance."

the rest

It's called an emergency for a FUCKING reason. If Congress can nearly pass a 700 billion dollar bailout for Wall Street, what's another 30 billion for people who NEED IT? Meanwhile dumbfucks like this Gene Lossow guy and way too many people on this articles comment board say, "Deal with it mutherfuckers! I gots my insurance!"

Behind The Deregulatory Curtain

2008-10-02T16:29:00.003-06:00

By Ralph Nader:

Indeed, the right-wing pundits and the revisionists in
Congress are spending an inordinate amount of time falsely claiming that our nation’s current financial disaster stems from the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The primary purpose of this modest law is to require banks to report on where and to whom they are making loans. Community organizations have used the data produced as a result of this law to determine if banks were meeting their lending obligations in the minority and lower-income communities in which they do business. Congress passed this law because too many lenders were discriminating against minority borrowers. “Redlining” was the name given to the practice by banks of literally drawing a red line around minority areas and then
proceeding to deny people within the red border home loans – even if they were otherwise qualified. The law has been in place for 30 years, but the right-wing f ringe claims it somehow is responsible for predatory lending practices that date back just to the beginning of this decade.

click here for the whole thing

Dont' let anyone tell you this Wall Street meltdown was a result of regulation rather than deregulation.

Nadercide

2008-09-19T11:11:00.001-06:00

I've been supporting Nader ever since Kucinich was out of the Dem race.

I've been trying to organize people on my campus who support Ralph. I saw him speak at Tulane the other day (had to skip a class).

And the more people that learn about my support for Nader, the less people are talking to me. Their demeanor changes. I call it Nadercide.

I'm standing strong though. Once Obama wins, they'll realize how stupid their contempt for my candidate was.

Hopefully.

Fight For Workers' Rights [new Nader article]

2008-09-04T17:30:00.003-06:00

By Ralph Nader:

Last year I issued a Labor Day statement noting that the Taft-Hartley Act, one of the great blows to American democracy, had been in effect for 60 years.

[...]

Union officials should speak out for abolition of Taft-Hartley, and not concede this monumental employer usurpation of worker rights.

[...]

Consider the following:

· S&P 500 CEOs now make about 344 times more than the average worker at their firms.

· The top fifth of households own more than 84.7 percent of the nation’s wealth, the middle fifth percent less than 3.8 percent of the nation's wealth.

· The percent of wealth owned and controlled by the wealthiest 1 percent of households, now equals that of the bottom 92 percent.

· Women and minority males earn 69 percent to 80 percent of what White men make.

In addition, more than a third of single mothers with children live in poverty.

Repealing Taft-Hartley would certainly help workers to organize for better wages and working conditions. The fight would be monumental, but so would the gains.

click here for all of it

Last week I was watching the daily rain forecast on some local news station in New Orleans, you know where they show the little picture of the weather conditions for each day of the week? On labor day it had this little picture of a station wagon with a canoe on top. Supposedly, Labor Day is just about not being at work and therefore having time to do something fun, like canoeing. How about a graphic of the Haymarket riots? Or a picket line or something? People literally fought and, yes, put their lives on the line to get labor rights. It's more than just an off day from work and school.

Palin declares holy war

2008-09-04T09:05:00.002-06:00

Straight from the AP news feed on Yahoo's front page:

"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

click here for the whole article

I had a pastor once at my Methodist church who said that when we use terms like "God bless America" in the context of "support our troops," we're essentially declaring holy war. Is that what "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is all about? I didn't think it was. If it is, I'm even more against in than I was before.

Keep in mind, a holy war is how "them there terrorists" see it. Are we above them or not?

My bad

2008-08-19T10:15:00.001-06:00

Yeah, my last post was about breaking up with my girlfriend. This one is about how we got back together.

I kinda flipped out because school was getting closer and I just wanted to go this semester alone. But we talked about what was bothering me and we're gonna try to make it work.

and I'm happier this way.

A weird, sad day

2008-08-08T07:09:00.002-06:00

I broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years last night.

To say the least, it was the hardest decision I've ever made. I never thought I'd be on the giving end of such heartbreak. It's definitely not my thing. It hurt so much to hurt her like that.

It was a problem with committments. I've been trying to commit to so many people since I went off to college: my parents, my bandmates, my teachers, my girlfriend. In the end I was just giving 10% to everyone. Couldn't keep all my promises or anything like that.

What's keeping me going right now is the fact that we'll both move on and be fine with this sooner than we think. I've had people close to me get their hearts broken really bad. I remember a good friend of mine punching himself in the face repeatedly in front of his ex and her new bo. He really did not want to live without her. But he moved on. Both of my older siblings had high school sweet hearts who everyone just knew they were going to marry. Needless to say, neither of them are with those people. They moved on though, and they're both very happy people and in two very different ways.

Still, it hurt like bloody fucking hell walking out on her.

I quote Elvis Costello:

I'm so used to doin' everything with you
plannin' everything for two
but now that we're through
I just don't know what to do with myself

I'm really sorry, Cassie.

Minimum wage increases next month

2008-07-17T20:42:00.002-06:00

The Democrap's greatest achievement (not) since the '06 election: raising the minimum wage, hits its next benchmark next week. On July 24th, all non-tip earning US workers must be paid a minimum of $6.55 an hour.

Aren't you just so excited?

You can so live off of that, huh?

Oo, and next year it goes up to $7.25, how will we manage??

Anyway, sorry I haven't blogged in a month Ron and John. I know you guys just sit on the edge of your computer chairs waiting for me to update this extraordinary page. All self-hate aside, I've been SUPER busy with work and trying to make The Drafted known in Houston.

But back to the minimum wage: Ralph Nader proposes the minimum wage be raised to $10 an hour. 'Nuff said home skillet. Speaking of him, he posted a new article recently, go to Nader.org and read it. Heck I guess I'll post some of it soon.

2008-06-14T07:27:00.003-06:00

From nader.org:

The big time gamblers are on Wall Street and they are gambling with your money, your pensions, and your livelihoods.

Unlike Las Vegas casinos, these big investment banks, commercial banks and stock brokerage houses are supposed to have a fiduciary relationship with your money. They are supposed to be trustees for the money you have given them to safeguard, and tell you when they are making risky investments.

Because Washington, D.C. has increasingly become corporate-occupied territory, the Wall Street Boys have been taking even greater risks with your money. The more they produce cycles of financial failure, the more they pay themselves through their rubberstamp boards of directors.

[...]

Still, there is no regulatory action in Washington which doesn’t even move on behalf of consumers to regulate the New York Mercantile Exchange where rampant speculation, not supply and demand, decides what you are paying for gasoline and heating oil.

click here for the whole thing

I meant to post this back when it was new but I've been pretty busy with work, more so than when I was at school, which I guess is a good thing

Anyway, you're paying more and more for gas because of rich people. Be angry.

John McCain's Gramm Gamble

2008-06-04T16:48:00.002-06:00

By Patricia Kilday Hart of the Texas Observer:

In the early evening of Friday, December 15, 2000, with Christmas break only hours away, the U.S. Senate rushed to pass an essential, 11,000-page government reauthorization bill. In what one legal textbook would later call “a stunning departure from normal legislative practice,” the Senate tacked on a complex, 262-page amendment at the urging of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

[...]

Gramm promised that the amendment—also known as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act—along with other landmark legislation he had authored, would usher in a new era for the U.S. financial services industry.

[...]

Gramm created what Wall Street analysts now refer to as the “shadow banking system,” an industry that operates outside any government oversight, but, as witnessed by the Bear Stearns debacle, requiring rescue by taxpayers to avert a national economic catastrophe.

[...]

Gramm serves as co-chair of the McCain 2008 presidential campaign. As one of the candidate’s chief economic advisers, he is mentioned as a possible secretary of the treasury in a McCain administration.

click here for all of it

Basically, one of the main guys whose responsible for our screwed up economy, the man who enthusiastically made it possible for corporations to run rampant at the publics' expense: good friend of John McCain, co-chair of his campaign.

Will the mainstream media point this out? Doubtful. They surely won't emphasize how TOXIC Gramm has been to our economy. In fact, I guarantee you they're going to spin it as if Gramm's policies had no effect on the economy whatsoever, they'll just blame it on the terrorists or something. That is, if they ever mention his name at all.

I'm not supporting Obama or anything, but for the love of God: don't vote for McCain.

No, really. Don't vote for John McCain.

The Muffs

2008-06-03T17:10:00.005-06:00

A long time ago my brother and I tuned in to 91.7 ktru Houston (Rice University's station) and they were playing this punk/garage set. We caught the latter half of a song that was obviously called "Oh Nina." I was enthralled with this song. The chorus was so infectious to me I just couldn't stand it; the raunchy female vocals strummed my newfound punk rock heartstrings with a strength they hadn't yet felt before. The song haunted and alluded me for years, as I didn't catch the name of the group who performed it. I never even heard the song again or found out who played it until literally about five minutes ago. Funny thing is, I've known about the Muffs for a while but never bothered to check them out.

Without further adieu, I give you The Muffs and "Oh Nina":

..and here's some Wiki info:

After releasing their initial 7" EPs and singles independently and on local labels, The Muffs signed to Warner Bros. Records in the early '90s. After the release of their first album, Warner Brothers failed to promote the band. In spite of this the Muffs set the stage for the success of bands like Green Day, and producer Rob Cavallo. Despite the wide exposure afforded by appearing on a wide variety of movie soundtracks (Clueless director Amy Heckerling, in particular, had taken a keen interest in their songs) as well as a lucrative Fruitopia commercial, The Muffs were eventually dropped from the label. The Muffs have since continued to release new records on various independent labels.

Baytown, Texas has a curb-side recycling program!

2008-06-01T15:29:00.002-06:00

From the Baytown Sun:

“We’re really anxious to get it started,” deputy city manager Bob Leiper said of the long-awaited curbside recycling program that kicks off next week.

Baytown City Council members unanimously approved the program in January and the purchase of 21,000 18-gallon plastic tubs that will hold residents’ newspapers, plastics 1 and 2, (labels can be found on the bottom of bottles), and aluminum cans until they can be picked up and sorted.

click here for the whole thing

OH MY GOD I had no idea about this program until today, when I found this article at the Baytown Sun's website. Curbside recycling makes Baytown like a hundred points cooler in my book. It costs residents only $2.25 a month to get their recyclables picked up by Waste Management, according to this article. Supposedly it was originally going to cost $2.50 but Bayer Material Science supposedly purchased the recycling bins for the city and that brought down the monthly cost by $.50.

Now all we gotta do is petition Exxon and Shell to start getting serious about alternative fuels.

This Brave Nation: new documentary

2008-06-01T12:45:00.002-06:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I'm working back at the power plant again with my dad, making money for school. My band is also kinda busy trying to learn some new material and record and recruit a new sub bass player.

Anyshways, there's a cool new documentary by Brave New Films called This Brave Nation and you can watch it at this website.

War profiteering

2008-05-25T07:54:00.002-06:00

By Greg Palast:

In 1928, oil company chieftains (from Anglo-Persian Oil, now British Petroleum, from Standard Oil, now Exxon, and their Continental counterparts) were faced with a crisis: falling prices due to rising supplies of oil; the same crisis faced by their successors during the Clinton years, when oil traded at $22 a barrel.
The solution then, as now: stop the flow of oil, squeeze the market, raise the price. The method: put a red line around Iraq and declare that virtually all the oil under its sands would remain there, untapped. Their plan: choke supply, raise prices rise, boost profits. That was the program for 1928. For 2003. For 2008.
[...]

In response, Senators Obama and Clinton propose something wrongly called a “windfall” profits tax on oil. But oil industry profits didn’t blow in on a breeze. It is war, not wind, that fills their coffers. The beastly leap in prices is nothing but war profiteering, hiking prices to take cruel advantage of oil fields shut by bullets and blood.

I wish to hell the Democrats would call their plan what it is: A war profiteering tax. War is profitable business – if you’re an oil man. But somehow, the public pays the price, at the pump and at the funerals, and the oil companies reap the benefits.

click here for the whole article

Thing is, it's not enough just to demand that gasoline be cheaper and that those who profit so much be taxed for their greed. We need a whole new fucking system. We need a new way to fuel and power our cars and our homes. There's got to be a push for a fundamental change in how we get energy.

Search for "Nikola Tesla" on YouTube and check out some of the vidoes that come up. Seems like conspiracy theory stuff, I know, but some of them are really interesting. Long story short: FREE ENERGY.

Gay Marriage legalized in California

2008-05-15T11:16:00.002-06:00

This is really a victory for everyone, not just gays. But I'm not going to explain how. Instead, I will simply post a video I made a long time ago about the subject.

It's called "Gay Marriage: Legalize It":

Could the people on Fox be any dumber?

2008-05-15T09:50:00.002-06:00

I don't know who said it, and I don't remember the precise, exact to-the-tee quote, but this is what some idiot said on Fox News this morning:

Diplomacy with Iran would be like throwing a match into a tank of gasoline.

How completely off-the-deep end, stark raving mad do you have to be to think that diplomacy, rather than going to fucking WAR, would be more like throwing fuel to a fire?

Friends don't let friends take Fox seriously.

One Flea Spare

2008-05-08T22:26:00.003-06:00

I'm not going to pretend like I know how to review plays.

But I saw one the other day and I feel compelled to promote it.

It's called One Flea Spare, you can get all kinds of info right here.

This play offers all the great offerings a play could offer: sex, drugs, and classical music (not because it's in the public domain and therefore free to use but because it seems to fit the setting). But really, One Flea Spare is a new piece (written by Naomi Wallace) that takes place in England during the Plague and an aristocratic couple gets locked into their home with a couple of peasants: wackiness ensues!! Just kidding, but there are plenty of funny bits, most of them involving the character Kabe (played by Ron Reeder who pretty much stole the show every time he appeared, rock on, bro!).

There's a strong social message in this play, it addresses the main dividing issues between the upper and lower classes, and it does so with very modern style weirdness. Pretty freaking awesome.

If there's just one reason to go out and see it, it's the building. The Convergence Center for the Arts on Magazine Street is COOL, it's like a million years old and has to have some ghosts in it. It looks like you could hide somewhere in the building and just live there in secret forever, go check it out. Also, the play is performed in the middle of the audience on the third floor, it's just really cool vibes all night long baby.

Yeah, One Flea Spare.

Guess what! The surge didn't fucking work.

2008-05-02T20:11:00.002-06:00

From The Independent courtesy of Alternet:

U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Hits 7-Month High

The U.S. military death toll has reached a seven-month high as America's war in Iraq enters a new phase -- with its troops primarily engaged in fighting insurgents from the Shia rather than the Sunni community.

click here for the article via Alternet

Oh wait, no, it's because of the liberal media. If them damn liberals in the MEDIA would have acknowledged that the surge worked, it would have boosted morale and Iraq would look like Connecticut right about now! 50,000 more troops and we should be able to git 'er done for good, as long as that there faggot terrorist LIBERAL MEDIA don't hurt the troops' feelings!!!!!!!!!!!1

Wright is Right

2008-04-30T19:15:00.004-06:00

Anyone who bitches about Jeremiah Wright after hearing his very name for the first time a grand total of two or three months ago:

shut the fuck up.

How about listen to what he actually says instead of what Fox and NBC say he says? Context. Reality. Stop freaking out after every fucking sound bite you hear on the news, it's DESIGNED to stimulate. Try thinking.

And what the hell does it really have to do with Obama?

Obama was baptized in Wright's church in 1988, after being a religious skeptic for some years. I think it's pretty obvious that he's still a religious skeptic, he just joined a church so he would eventually have a chance at politics, because no president has ever been an atheist or agnostic, and no politician has ever won office with a lot of people knowing they weren't a good, married, Christian straight guy. That's why he joined a church. Hell, if you're going to sit in church every Sunday to make yourself look like a decent guy, you might as well go to a church with an entertaining preacher.

But get this: Reverend Wright isn't crazy. Like, at all, actually. I think about 98% of what he preaches is fricken genius, based on what I've actually heard HIM say.

Weird, weird union stuff

2008-04-24T09:29:00.003-06:00

From nader.org:

Andy Stern, the president of the 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is embroiled in the politics of accepting sweetheart union contract deals that and, ironically is being condemned by the Wall Street Journal. What gives here?

It seems that Stern wants to put heat on the private equity funds that have bought hospitals, nursing home chains and other firms whose employees he wants to organize.

[...]

The California Nurses Association (CNA) is a fast growing union that fights for patient rights, for adequate nurse-patient ratios and bargains for strong contracts with hospital chains.

[...]

In Ohio, the CNA exposed a SEIU deal with nine hospitals owned by
Catholic Healthcare Partners. SEIU let the employer pick SEIU as its chosen union without a single signed union card. The company-union collaboration scheduled elections.

CNA sent representatives to Ohio and sounded the alarm about a
top-down agreement sealed by a mutually imposed code of silence.

CNA’s actions threw SEIU into a rage. Buses of SEIU people from Ohio were sent by Mr. Stern to break up an annual meeting of 1000 labor activists sponsored by the magazine, Labor Notes, in Dearborn, Michigan. CNA’s Executive Director, RoseAnn DeMoro was scheduled to speak to the assemblage.

Shouting, scuffling, overturned chairs and the arrival of the Dearborn Police to impose order led A.F.L.-C.I.O. president John J. Sweeney, to denounce what he called “a violent attack” orchestrated by SEIU.

click here for the whole thing

I had no idea what the dynamics of American labour were like, with the whole SEIU vs. AFL-CIO partition. I thought those people only existed in Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" ....

Restaurants, Mayors Toast Earth Day with Tap Water

2008-04-24T09:09:00.003-06:00

From Corporate Accountability International:

BOSTON – Prominent restaurants and mayors kicked Earth
Day off early this year by cancelling bottled water contracts and instead
promoting local tap water. The move has been part of a nationwide effort, dubbed “Think Outside the Bottle,” that exposes the social and environmental impacts of bottled water.

“Restaurants have always showcased the highest standards of cuisine and new culinary innovations,” said Henry Patterson, owner of The Other Side Café in Boston. “Now we are reducing waste and encouraging more sustainable eating practices when we serve safe, clean and reliable water from the tap instead of its higher priced, bottled alternative .”

click here for the whole thing

Once in a while it's good to think society is actually making some sort of environmental progress.

That's about all I can say.

Matt Gonzales on Democrat complicity in the war

2008-04-23T17:29:00.001-06:00

Eight Reasons Our Changing World Will Turn You Into an Environmentalist, Like It or Not

2008-04-23T09:00:00.003-06:00

From Alternet.org:

AlterNet picked eight topics -- water, global warming, food, health, energy, pollution, consumption and corporations -- that pose real dangers to the future of human life and selected a series of recent essays that illustrate these problems, along with links to organizations and further resources that address these issues.

click here for the whole thing

I haven't read all of this yet but I think it serves as a decent Earth Day oriented post.

I don't know how much the people of Alternet really know about this but they've certainly done their research in finding people who do. It's awesome how passionate they seem to be about getting the word out about environmental crises.

To toot my own horn, I'll share what's been on my mind recently. I've come to a certain conclusion that wind and solar power are the way to go as far as energy, both for lighting our homes and for powering our cars (solar). Well upon reading some of this Alternet article, I'm probably right. Biofuels not only use up essential resources for human life, they might not be as eco-friendly as some would have you believe. When burned they emit carbon dioxide, which is the same compound that humans exhale, BUT according to my biology professor at UNO (Dr. James Grady) there's already an excess of CO2 in our atmosphere. I don't believe we're going to be helping anything by switching to biofuels to run our internal combustion engines. I honestly think that electronic (battery) and solar powered cars are the only way to help the environment, BUT that's only if we also switch to solar and wind power energy generation.

So before we keep building hybrid cars, or any new cars at that, we need to generate clean energy first, so that when we charge our electric cars in the future, we're not relying on a dirty way of getting that electricity. Just manufacturing a new car, hybrid or not, is dirtier than driving that car for a year (no source, that's just what I've heard). All of the machinery that goes in to manufacturing EVERYTHING needs to be running on solar panels, in factories that are powered by solar and wind plants, NOT coal or nuclear facilities.

That's my two cents.

Bush is in town [here's a new Greg Palast article]

2008-04-21T14:22:00.003-06:00

From Gregpalast.net

José Can You See? Bush’s Trojan Taco
By Greg Palast

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania,
the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.

[...]

More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible: The North American
Competitiveness Council.

Never heard of The Council? Well, maybe you’ve heard of the counselors: the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27 other multinational masters of the corporate universe.

And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a
three-nation pajama party? Their term is “harmonization.”

[...]
Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in all three
countries. Or, more specifically, watering down rules – on health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on - in other words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their profits.

click here for the whole thing

I left out a part of the article that says New Orleans still looks like Dresden 1946, which I don't entirely agree with because it's really the outskirts like Chalmette that are still pretty bad, not necessarily New Orleans itself.

Anyway, I overheard that Bush was going to be in town just this morning in the French Market where I work. A few minutes after I found out about this suprise visit, I saw a guy in a car with Ohio plates ride down the street with a bullhorn shouting "George Bush has betrayed the American people!" out the side of the window. Most onlookers thought it was comical, I thought it was awesome. Supposedly he almost hit someone but I didn't see it.

But about the article, it's awesome. Greg Palast is really smart, go read it.

"All done, go home." - IRAQ

2008-04-20T09:07:00.002-06:00

Another one from Alternet, an interview with Jonathan Steele, author of Defeat: Why they Lost Iraq:

Also, people expected great things from Americans, things that were perhaps a bit unrealistic -- electricity and water and jobs immediately. But they had the idea, "It's a superpower; they toppled Saddam in three weeks, how come they can't get the electricity going?"
Encapsulating the mood, about three months after the invasion, a graffito appeared on the plinth of the famously toppled Saddam statue. The graffito said, "All done, go home." I think that summed it up. It's the same sentiment I remember hearing on great march of [Shia] pilgrims through Karbala within three or four weeks of the toppling of the statue -- "Thank you, and now goodbye."

click here for the whole thing

I think American discourse often overlooks the fact that a lot of Iraqis, a majority according to most polls I've seen, want the US troops out of their country, now. Most Americans are against the war now, but as far as I can tell there's not much support for a total withdrawal either. The fact that every reason the White House, CIA, and Pentagon gave us to justify the invasion turned out to be total crap should be reason enough to withdraw all troops yesterday. But let's also not forget what most Iraqis actually want.

"Turns out black people don't even want to be white!"

2008-04-19T21:13:00.003-06:00

From Alternet:

Last month, it was revealed that the New York Times and Manhattan publishing world were deceived by Love and Consequences, a faked memoir by a white girl who claimed to live the life you only hear about in Dr. Dre songs.

click here for the whole thing nigga

This is an awesome, hilarious review of another phony memoir that earned some liar six figures.

Is there anyone still out there who hasn't seen my racism videos?

Union victory in Houston

2008-04-18T15:35:00.002-06:00

From the Texas Observer:

The National Nurses Organizing Committee, née the California Nurses Association, broke through an important barrier last month. On March 28, a majority of participating nurses at the Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center voted to let the union negotiate a contract on their behalf, making the Houston facility the first privately owned hospital in the state to unionize.

click here for the whole thing (scroll down)

Cool. For those who don't know, Houston's no union town. At all. By any means. Whatsoever. So this is really surprising and uplifting.

All I gotta say is, nurses: rock on!

Latest YouTube vid: Affirmaive Action is not "reverse discrimination"

2008-04-16T13:48:00.000-06:00

Damn, he didn't choose my melodies

2008-04-14T21:16:00.001-06:00

I guess there's always next time.......yeah right.

Weezer fans dream comes true

2008-04-13T20:15:00.001-06:00

fucking school

2008-04-11T18:53:00.002-06:00

DAMN fucking son of a bitch there's too much shit to do.

Fucking taxes. Stupid fucking Turbo Tax, pieces of shit.

Stupid ass people.

fuck

New Nader article

2008-04-08T22:27:00.002-06:00

I haven't read much of it but here is Ralph Nader's latest In the Public Interest column.

YEAH.

In other news, one of my combos at UNO is playing with Johnny Vidocovich next week. HOLY SHIT.

"Survival of the Squeebiest"

2008-03-30T12:14:00.002-06:00

By Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, courtesy of Alternet:

The word "squeeb" is a crude mix of squid and dweeb, and by inventing it I mean no disrespect to the squid...

[A squid] has no heart, and its first instinct when trouble comes is to hide in a cloud of its own excretions. This is why a squiddy word like squeeb seems to me to be a good way to describe the American voter during a presidential election season.

That's especially true now, during a "controversy" like this latest flap over Barack Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright. This Wright business is a perfect example of the American electorate at its squeeby worst -- panicky, gutless, acting more on reflex than thought, incapable of retaining information for more than a few minutes at a time. It's also a great example of how the presidential election process has become more about enforcing the attitudes of a cultural orthodoxy than a system for choosing leaders.
Through scandal after idiotic scandal, the election process has become a painfully prolonged, deeply irritating exercise in policing conventional wisdom, through a variety of means keeping the public in a state of heightened, dumb animal panic, and ultimately turning the election itself into a Darwinian contest -- survival of the Squeebiest.

click here for the whole thing

I highly encourage reading more of this article, it's jam-packed with very funny comments about this so-called scandal and the dolts who created it.

Actually, I've got nothing to ad, I just wanted to share this with all the people who stumble upon this blog after googling "eminem backmasking," (there really are a lot of them...)

Is lead overhyped? Doesn't matter.

2008-03-23T20:50:00.003-06:00

I tuned in to some down-home Fox News talk radio this evening, as I do from time to time for laughs.

This particular pundit was ranting in typical Faux fashion about the "lead scare," and about how "lots of parents are freaking out" because of lead presence in children's toys. The pundit said that his generation, as parents, worry too much about their kids. He said something like "many" parents are opting not to buy plastic toys for their kids this Easter, because a Chinese company was found to have Easter eggs with more than the legal amount of lead in the coloring. His argument was that the hype about lead in kid's toys (made in China, of course) is overkill, because lead levels were much higher in the past and everyone turned out relatively well. "Where are th heaps of dead?" he asked.

To scare a Fox pundit you have to have PILES of dead people, not just a few poisoned children throughout the years and scores of mentally disabled people, linked directly to things like lead paint and other pollution...

Anyway, this particular rant really got my bullshit detector humming, and I wanted to document all my thoughts about it right here:

1) ARE "a lot of parents" really freaking out about this, or is Fox hoping that after hearing someone mention the latest "lead scare," that more of them WILL freak out? So, a few articles come out documenting a violation from a Chinese toymaker, some parents post some shit on the Fox Forum, and all of a sudden scores of parents are needlessly freaking out and not buying Easter eggs for their kids. Right, I'm sure Wal-Mart is bogged down with unsold Easter shit (bunnies and candy to commemorate the crucification of your savior? FUCK YOU!).

2) This pundit pointed out that the EPA's standard for lead levels in products was less than .6%, and asked "What IS .6%? I can't see that!" Something like "the average Joe doesn't know what .6% is!" just a bunch of useless whining. At the end of his bitch fit, he was careful not to sound like he was advocating laziness, or carelessness, saying that "they" (the EPA) keep "lowering the standard" of what is too much lead. Yes, the actual percentage of what is legal has been lowered over the years, but most sane people recognize that as raising the standard, not lowering it. This wording, of course, was a lousy attempt at sounding like he wasn't advocating regression in consumer safety.

Country of Laws - Ralph Nader on Spitzer/Bush hypocrisy

2008-03-18T16:54:00.003-06:00

From nader.org:

Eliot Spitzer violated certain laws regarding prostitution and transferring of money through banks—though the latter was disputed by some legal experts—and for such moral turpitude emotionally harmed himself, his family and his friends.

George W. Bush violated federal laws against torture, against spying on Americans without judicial approval, against due process of law and habeas corpus in arresting Americans without charges, imprisoning them and limited their access to attorneys. He committed a massive war of aggression, under false [pretenses], violating again and again treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, federal statutes and the Constitution.

click here for the whole thing

Yeah, Nader is really smart. I'd kick myself for not thinking of this legal conundrum myself, but Ralph is really, really smart.

Bottom line: Spitzer broke the law, he resigned; Bush has broken the law many times, he claims he will leave office with his "head held high."

Free Tibet! (and the rest of China too, damnit!)

2008-03-15T22:28:00.002-06:00

From the AP via Yahoo:

BEIJING - Soldiers on foot and in armored carriers swarmed Tibet's capital Saturday, enforcing a strict curfew a day after protesters burned shops and cars to vent their anger against Chinese rule. In another western city, police clashed with hundreds of Buddhist monks leading a sympathy demonstration.

the whole thing

I had to click this headline when I saw it because I saw a "Free Tibet" table outside the UNO library not but three days ago. When I saw them, I thought about their cause and realized that it's kinda short-sighted. While Tibet probably deserves freedom, so does ALL of China! In other words, don't just free Tibet, free the rest of China as well, it's still a one party state and this is the 21st century.

Read "The China Fantasy" by James Mann.

Happy 400th Post!

2008-03-12T19:36:00.002-06:00

Wow this is my 400th post.

I've been doing this since the '04 election, and now the next election is at our doorsteps.

Let's recap the last Bush term:

still in Iraq
still have disproportional taxes
Supreme Court is basically Margaret Thatcher's wet dream
still aid terrorist states
still have NAFTA
the gears of war are shifting towards Iran
and a whole lot more

Guess I better keep blogging.

An excersize in bullshit detection

2008-03-09T14:46:00.004-06:00

I was looking through some British news sites, ones I don't usually read like The Independent and The Times, and I found this article about Hamas/Iran at the latter 'news' paper. The article is really short and to the "point," and to the average reader, this article would probably present a reasonable excuse for starting a war with, or at least placing sanctions on, Iran. Is it possible that that's what the article is designed to do, make the average Joe who happens to read it feel like the authorities are doing the right thing at that time? Just consult your bullshit detector, here's how:

THE Palestinian group Hamas, blamed for last week’s massacre of eight students at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, has revealed that hundreds of its fighters have been trained in Iran.

So Hamas was "blamed," but were they actually responsible for it? Did they admit to committing the "massacre"? While the subject of the article is aside from that detail, the addition of "blamed for killing school girls," makes sure the reader knows these are the bad guys, regardless of who actually trained them (that's the subject of the article). Let's continue:

A senior commander interviewed by The Sunday Times said 300 of the group’s “best brains” had been secretly sent to Tehran.

You can't tell from just this quote, but the senior commander they're referring to is supposedly a commander from Hamas. This may seem like a weightless argument, but why would a senior commander of Hamas reveal a "secret" to a reporter from The London Times, much less agree to an interview in the first place? Is this a credible testimony? The article doesn't name who the commander was, so if what "he said" was actually true (considering the interview really happened), he must be sabotaging Hamas from the inside. That would make sense, except that the article also says this:

“Iran is our mother,” the commander said. “She gives us information, military supplies and financial support.”

Forgive me again, for sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but isn't that statement kind of.... exactly what certain people want to hear from groups like Hamas, so they can continue to label Iran a "terrorist threat" and therefore legitimize sanctions or even war? and once again, why would a senior commander of Hamas, who says things like "Iran is our mother," expose all of this to a Times reporter if the training was supposed to be a secret?

Enough with my pointed questions, I'll just say this: I think it's highly likely that this article is complete bullshit. There's no way to confirm that this interview even took place, that's the beauty of the story: the guy was giving away a secret about his big bad terrorist organization, he'd be killed if he were identified. But therein lies another contradiction: if this guy is a commander of a big ol' bad schoolgirl killing organization, why hide his identity and protect him? What does The Times owe to this guy, who's part of an organization who supposedly kills innocent people? It is physically impossible that everything in this article is accurate, there's at least one fabrication here.

The Ritter lecture I saw

2008-03-08T18:51:00.002-07:00

This is the actual lecture I attended with Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector/Intelligence Officer/US Marine.

Austin domestic abuse officers more efficient than Houston's

2008-03-08T17:26:00.002-07:00

In this really short article from the Texas Observer, Houston is compared with Austin in terms of how its law enforcement deals with domestic abuse. There's also information about the Bush administration's undoing of legislation that protected undocumented women from the "catch-22" of calling the police after being abused by husbands with legal US citizenship.

It's a good, important read for everyone, check it out.

Gaza Under Siege

2008-03-08T17:22:00.005-07:00

Gaza Under Siege is the latest article from Ralph Nader. Here's the most interesting quote:

Hamas, which was created with the support of Israel and the U.S. government years ago to counter the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has repeatedly offered cease-fire proposals.

Just another example of how spot-on and direct Ralph is on the issues. Here's an idea: vote for him.

Friday Face Time: Instant Runoff Voting

2008-03-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

Definitely Not Safe for Work

2008-03-07T15:36:00.003-07:00

Sitting here in a simultaneously liberal and conservative city, I'm reminded of how equally crazy my home state is.

If you're in a place where you can read a story and watch a video about dildos/sodomy and the legality of owning one/participating in it in the Lone Star State, click here now. The article, courtesy of Alternet, is called "The Great Texas Dildo Wars of 2008."

Bottom line: sexual discrimination is still a problem in this country, depending on where you go.

Commanding Heights

2008-03-06T16:41:00.002-07:00

Go check it out, it's a PBS feature.

I haven't finished watching it so you may see an update on this later.

The US, UN Security Council, and EU are BREAKING THE LAW

2008-03-03T16:14:00.008-07:00

From the AP via Yahoo!:

The U.N. Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran on Monday with near unanimous support, sending a strong signal to Tehran that its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment is unacceptable and becoming increasingly costly.

For the first time, the resolution bans trade with Iran in goods which have both civilian and military uses and authorizes inspections of shipments to and from Iran by sea and air that are suspected of carrying banned items.

Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty circa 1976 (when our puppet leader, The Shah, was in power), and has every legal right to enrich uranium. The UN Security Council is punishing Iran for NOT breaking the law.

Imagine if a police officer gave you a ticket for going the speed limit. That would be illegal. This is the EXACT same thing.

Iran was under the control of the Shah when they signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were there, probably grinning like idiots. Now that Iran is under leadership who don't answer to the United States or United Nations or European Union, all of a sudden it's "unacceptable" for them to enrich ANY uranium AT ALL.

The Shah did studies back in the 70s and concluded that, despite Iran's oil capacity, the country would hit an energy crisis within 30 years if they did not begin to find an alternative way to generate energy. Eager to help, Rumsfeld and Cheney oversaw and approved Iran's signing on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

IT'S A FISH CONSPIRACY

2008-03-02T19:26:00.002-07:00

You know there's a conspiracy afoot when something smells fishy, and this time it's actually fish.

Have you noticed how every single fast food chain (including Subway) has starting featuring their fish sandwiches in more ads lately? McDonald's has the double Fillet O Fish, Jack in the Box has a new fish sandwich, Wendy's has a new fish fillet sandwich, and I just saw a Subway commercial that featured their tuna sandwich.

Is this a result of the beef recall? Seems like it. Probably is. I dunno, it's kinda stupid seeing as most of the recalled supply of beef has already been eaten, and there wasn't necessarily anything wrong with it in the first place.

So maybe it's not because of the recall, maybe there's something else wrong with the beef..... more than the big corporate farms, the fast food chains, and the media tare elling us.......IT'S A CONSPIRACY! That's the only explanation.

(yes this was a joke......) But really, is fish any better right now than it's been before? Could there be something wrong with the current beef supply? I guess it's always better to opt for fish if you're gonna have meat, maybe this is an overall good thing. But that just wouldn't be blog worthy, would it?

The Senate "appologizes to Native Americans"

2008-03-02T17:52:00.003-07:00

It's an election year, and a Republican decides to act as the spokesperson of a heart-warming, feel-good...piece of paper. A piece of paper that says something to the effect of: "The US government apologizes for any misdeeds it committed against the Native American community over the coarse of this nation's history."

Hundreds of years of exploitation, humiliation, subjugation, genocide....."Sorry."

'Yeah, sorry about destroying your way of life and everything, man our great great grandfathers were NUTS! Well, here's a piece of paper that says we acknowledge that people like us did horrible things to people like you, happy now?'

Okay, to be fair, the Senate is putting more money into "health care for Native Americans" or something like that, but I still get this weird vibe from this story. Seems kinda like....a diversion or something.

Happy March - I just found some vodka in the freezer

2008-03-01T20:57:00.002-07:00

I'm feelin' pretty good right now.

I just opened the freezer and saw a bottle of "spring water." I picked it up and realized the stuff inside was not frozen. I took a whiff and concluded that it was some sort of clear liquor.

So I took some sips.

And I'm diggin' some Weezer, I can't wait until their new cd comes out, here's a link to a vid I made about Weezer fans:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wSp5Ov_6Zho

Friday Face Time: Clinton and Obama are Conservative

2008-02-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

I dunno, weird

2008-02-28T19:18:00.002-07:00

There's transition going on in my environment. I feel strange.

But here's an article from the Guardian about the Army. Seems pretty cool.

Also, I've been reading about one of my favorite bands, Weezer. It makes me really, really, really really, really, really, really, really want to play music for a living.

Yet, I still just sit and read.

Spring Break Shark Attack [video]

2008-02-26T22:37:00.001-07:00

I reviewed them the other day and here's the vid from the show I saw:

Clinton and Obama are conservative

2008-02-25T13:16:00.002-07:00

In the true sense of the word, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama are running conservative campaigns.

This quote is in large letters at the top of Obama's "Economy" page:

“I believe that America's free market has been the engine of America's great progress. It's created a prosperity that is the envy of the world. It's led to a standard of living unmatched in history. And it has provided great rewards to the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon for science, and technology, and discovery…We are all in this together. From CEOs to shareholders, from financiers to factory workers, we all have a stake in each other's success because the more Americans prosper, the more America prospers.”
— Barack Obama, New York, NY, September 17, 2007

If you read down the page and look at his actual plans, it says he wants to promote fair trade by "fixing" NAFTA so that it benefits American workers. Sounds great, but how is it possible? I think to "fix NAFTA" to help workers, you just have to outright scrap it, and I don't think that's an unreasonable change to make in trade policy. Therefore I consider Obama's economic plan pretty conservative.

According to both candidates' websites, they want to lower the taxes of middle class families. Super. Neither of them plan to get rid of the breaks Bush gave to the wealthiest Americans, though Obama's site says the tax cuts for the rich are a problem.

It's one thing to criticize Bush's tax cuts, it's another to actually undo what he did. They're scared of saying they're going to raise taxes, so they don't. They just do half the job that needs to be done. That's literally a conservative approach, doing less because it's convenient, conserving time and effort.

Spring Break Shark Attack (a review)

2008-02-23T21:08:00.004-07:00

Today I went to this big block party at the Big Top.

There were like 15 bands, most of them fantastic, but the one who stuck out the most to me was the one who played the second slot on the bill: Spring Break Shark Attack of Baton Rouge, LA.

This band transcends all expectations of what a local band can sound like, but first I'll just explain that they're an instrumental surf rock band. Right off the bat, that's something you don't often see, but something more rare is their ability to take an old style and modify it for a modern audience. This isn't a carbon copy of the Ventures we're talking about, this is a truly unique band who doesn't deserve my pigeon-holing them into the surf rock genre.

Most of their song titles have to do with shark attacks (like "Red Tide" and my personal favorite, "Army of Sharkness"), but these comical touches are just icing on top of the rich cake of pure talent that these guys possess. At times their songs transitioned to fast-beat punk sections, but without actually playing power chords (an impressive feat all it's own). At other times they had more metal sounding riffs, which made sense later when I saw one of SBSA's guitarists, Andy, playing with a down-tempo and severely down-tuned (drop F# to be exact) hardcore band called Thou (I tried to hate them but I just couldn't, I sincerely dug that band in spite of my general disgust with modern "hardcore").

SB Shark Attack also had something of a progressive quality. As a trained guitarist, I can say that both their guitarists rival and possibly excel the picking technique of their well known predecessor, Dick Dale. Their songs are well thought-out as well, and I suspect that these guys are former band nerds (takes one to know one, I guess).

Being a surf rock band, they could have easily written a bunch of songs that all sounded alike, but once again they impress in that area as well: each song really holds it's own, while sticking to the surf rock vibe. Not a task easily accomplished, hell the Ventures themselves could barely do it.

I truly cannot express how much this band's mere existence makes me hopeful of rock 'n roll's future in America.

Maybe we don't have to grow jet black bangs that cover one eye; maybe we can wear jeans that fit properly; maybe bands can actually not suck! Check out Spring Break Shark Attack today and see for yourself (myspace.com/sharkattacksurf).

A news story that doesn't focus on the sex side of McCain's trouble

2008-02-23T08:35:00.002-07:00

Of course, it's from Democracy Now! A legitimate source of legitimate news.

I heard a little bit of it in my car earlier, I've heard NPR many times on many different stations but I was surprised to hear Democracy Now!, I think it was on WWNO, my school's station.

Anyway, here's a link.

Friday Face Time: My immediate response after the Scott Ritter lecture

2008-02-22T14:01:00.001-07:00

Scott Ritter was right: Turkey invades Iraq

2008-02-22T13:36:00.003-07:00

The other night I went to a lecture with Scott Ritter, a former Marine/intelligence officer/weapons inspector. He spoke about Kurdish Iraqis in the north of Iraq and how the PKK (essentially a terrorist group who the U.S. essentially supports) goes into Turkey and kills people (for whatever reasons, because they're terrorists). They use U.S. built weapons and U.S. training.

He said Turkey was about to retaliate. Well, check out this headline from the Associated Press:

Turkish Troops Enter Iraq Seeking Rebels

Holy moly perhaps this guy knows what he's talking about, unlike every pundit you'll find on TV and probably talk radio.

Find out if Scott Ritter is coming near you.

Castro

2008-02-19T15:55:00.002-07:00

Wow, Castro finally had to take himself out of power, since no one else could.

I guess it's best to quit while you're ahead, or while you're old as fucking dirt, either way.

Hey remember when he fell down? Good times.

Holes in the Wall

2008-02-18T13:54:00.002-07:00

From the Texas Observer:

"...a 1.63-mile proposed fence will cut through the backyard of several modest homes and stop at the edge of a resort and golf course."

click here for the article

Fucked up.

Another day, another recall

2008-02-18T13:19:00.003-07:00

Schools and fast food chains were supplied beef from cattle that were "unable to stand at the time of slaughter."

The beef isn't necessarily contaminated but it's being recalled because the beef supplier broke the rules by slaughtering those sickly cows. But the meat has probably all been eaten already anyway.

Oh well, free trade still kicks ass, right?!

NIU Shooting: what's wrong with White culture?

2008-02-15T15:16:00.004-07:00

Please excuse the title if it's a tad disrespectful.

The NIU shooting is definately as strange as it is tragic. If you read a little bit about the gunman, you'll find that those who knew him didn't find anything troubling about him. He studied criminal justice and according to the Associated Press he was interested in political violence and even social justice. There was also no suicide note.

So all we can really do is ask, "Why did he do it?" Because white people aren't violent, are they? Nice, hard working white guys don't do bad things. If Kazmierczak (the NIU gunman) were black, how many headlines would read "What's Wrong with Black Culture?" How many pundits would be asking the same thing?

I'm trying to balance out the universe in some way. I know that this guy was nice, had no criminal record and no history of mental illness, so the question of "Why on earth would he do this?" is certainly a valid one. It's just that I know a black man of the same reputation committing this crime would surely be villainized in the media. So, to keep everything equal, I'm just going to leave it at this: what's wrong with white people (like me) ?

"Which attack would they have hoped that we wouldn't have prevented?"

2008-02-15T12:29:00.003-07:00

Not that we needed any further proof, but Geoge W. Bush is a raving lunatic in every sense.

In a BBC interview, he defended the use of waterboarding, and implied that everyone in Guantanamo Bay is guilty, despite the fact that many, many people there are completely innocent of every charge they have.

Friday Face Time

2008-02-15T12:00:00.002-07:00

This is a video I made a week or so ago just to add a little something different to my YouTube content. I taped myself practicing my transcription because I knew I'd practice for a longer amount of time doing so. Recording yourself is a good way to practice music because it makes you try harder to perfect it.

Nader has a new article

2008-02-13T08:00:00.002-07:00

He admits right off the bat that the subject is a little dry, but nonetheless important.

It's about

hundreds of billions each year of federal government contracts, grants, leaseholds and licenses given to corporations to run our government, exploit our taxpayer assets and lay waste to efficient, responsive public services.

It's from Nader.org, click here for the article.