Postal Service in Crisis

The Postal Service provides a vital service for all of us. Can you imagine what would happen if cheap delivery of mail and goods were no longer available? UPS, FedEx and other competitors are only able to maintain their level of services because when private deliveries were authorized, they were allowed to cherry-pick the most lucrative business.

The letter delivery service (especially to rural areas) is the most expensive and least profitable part of the Postal Service's business. Yet they still manage to deliver parcels at a competitive rate with decent services, despite being mandated to take on the most difficult and costly deliveries. It is true that the service is not perfect. But UPS and FedEx drivers routinely just run up to a customer's door and dump a package on the doorstep.

Many detractors of the Postal Service will cite the story of Lysander Spooner and the American Letter Mail Company. It is true that Lysander Spooner made a valiant effort to fight what he percieved as an unfair governmental monopoly on delivery of first class-mail. But Spooner had offices only in the largest cities (New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston) and only delivered in those cities. It would be easy to undercut the Postal Service by taking their most lucrative routes, without taking on the responsibility of delivering to Bastrop, Peoria, Wasilla, and other out-of-the way locales. That monopoly was imposed for a reason...because without it, letter delivery costs would spiral out of control in the "free market." Isn't that what has happened to health care costs?

Applying For A Job In The Modern Age

In this era in which resumes are routinely ignored by "job creators," maybe the resume needs to become a petition? You know, where 1000 people sign a statement that says, "X Company, you should hire Y because..."

"And BTW, we are all consumers of your product."

There's your keywords.

How To Ruin Music

"Musical Stockholm Syndrome":  Insane greedy sociopaths are out to fill a monstrous notch they tore into the fabric of society with whatever vapid extension of pop culture that they think will fly, just so they can buy more crack and helicopters. Creativity has been gunned down like a rival drug gang in Juarez.

Every once in a while somebody will show some documentary about some kindly old producer who brought us all this wonderful band that everybody loves.  Are you kidding? These corporate assassins of art are not promoting creativity.  They are stifling it.  They are using up the oxygen in the room with inbred mouth-breathers of the soul.  Yeah, they figure out just what the latest pop trends were, mix them all together, and stretch them just the right amount to create a new pile of dog turd that they can sell.  And they manage to convince the listening public that this is what they like.  The only envelope that is being stretched in this scenario is the one holding the big ugly wad of turd-covered cash.  And the turds are the only thing drippin' on you.

The Great Whatever

We have an artificially-propped-up "recovery" that is just a pig with lipstick on. Job creation is worse than stagnant because the jobs that are being created are low-paying service jobs, and not full-time, for the most part. Housing starts are anemic, and the rise in home prices is only because of constricted supply of existing houses. Stock prices have been propped up by quantitative easing and are starting to dither. Military boondoggles, student debt nightmares, and exorbitant health care costs are sucking what is left out of the economy. This is not the end of the Great Recession; it is the beginning of something bigger.

Maybe gains are starting to show up in the figures, but if you check with the lower- and middle-class, they don't seem to be benefiting from any alleged improvement.  

No Entry Into The Clubhouse

We are just getting so many messages from the media that have nothing to do with most people's reality, and the disconnect just seems to be getting bigger and more blatant. Ads for multi-million dollar houses that make it seem like everybody lives that lifestyle. Advice columns on how to negotiate raises, when an employer would just as soon replace you with someone who will work cheaper. Houses in movies and on TV that are palatial, when the people (and the actors who play them) on the screen live lives of leisure. Plot lines on TV and movies where people leave their jobs and are immediately recruited by multiple employers. Commercials for expensive medical procedures that show the family next door and suggest universal availability (and, conveniently, don't ever mention the price). Yes, there is an microscopically small part of the population that sees those things in the sphere of their existence. And that is part of the problem--that there is a "performer class" being created so the rest of us can be spectators to a lifestyle we are led to believe we would be part of, but for our negligence in getting into the clubhouse.

Madness At The Texas Capitol

It is unreal that a government can treat its citizens involved in peaceful expression the way people were treated in the Texas Capitol the other night. There were people there who were people's grandparents, their neighbors, their children, their friends--people who have put in sweat equity to build this country's wealth and have watched the fruits of their labor be siphoned away. And does anyone know of anybody who was on the side that got the bill passed who was trapped in a small space, manhandled, violated, or had their property confiscated? They must have been tipped off and led away. They got shipped in as a wholesale effort at the surgically precise time that they needed to be there to provide testimony or feed some inaccurate picture to the media, then they got moved out of harm's way when the hammer of Thor smacked people on the head. This whole thing was orchestrated from the top. There are people who planned this out, and they have names and positions of authority. They even gave us hints by stating early on that this session would be different and dissent would not be tolerated. When peaceful speech is crushed and suppressed by violent means, and the political process is bent into an unrecognizable pretzel by greedy oligarchs for their own selfish ends, that is just wrong. Ethically, morally, legally. We have to make this right.

The Abortion Grenade In The Texas Legislature

One good thing about this abortion bill debacle...it is focusing everybody's attention on this corrupt system that forces itself on everybody with laws that a vast majority don't want. Though this battle is primarily about unwarranted intrusion into women's rights to control their bodies, it is also about anti-democratic corruption that is promulgated by oligarchic entities with an extraordinarily dismissive and warped sense of haughty entitlement.  At the least,  they sure as hell won't get out of this one without some serious claw marks raking their way across their misplaced assumptions that they own you.

Common Ground

There are so many different people with different beliefs and values all over the place. Our biggest challenge is to move beyond, "You have your head up your ass and your shit needs to be stamped out at all costs," to "Let's figure out how to live together and provide for those we care for despite our differences." Of course, all sides would have to acknowledge that.

Really, everybody should have access to what should be the basics of life...food, housing, education, and decent medical care at a minimum, as long as there are the resources to keep that up (and if there aren't the resources to keep that up we are in really deep trouble). Keeping up the fight for that should be a constant thing. But there seem to be so many people who fight back against that every time it is brought up. Everybody can (and will) have their own definition of who they care for...some will be more expansive than others.

Hopefully we could reach a minimum ground that everybody could agree on, and then we can keep trying to get more things that we believe in, while acknowledging that others will believe differently and that they are not necessarily enemies that need to be vanquished because of it. But has human nature become too deformed to even get to that point? When we look at seemingly intractable conflicts...Israelis vs. Palestinians, for example, neither side is willing to reach a minimum common ground and build upon it from there because they distrust the other side too much, and a mentality gets built up that the other side just needs to be wiped out because they are too unreasonable.

Fiscal Cliff?

• People are apprehensive about the "fiscal cliff."  Actually, we tumbled off the fiscal cliff in the 1980s, head over heels, limbs akimbo. We're still trying to mend our broken bones and climb back up.

A New Year, A New Beginning

Here's hoping that 2013 marks the beginning of a trend where those who put in the work to provide materials, goods and services benefit from the fruits of their efforts, rather than seeing them all sapped away by legalized theft. Let's also hope the new year rings in more original music. When every radio station is playing songs that our neighbors recorded at home, not songs that were forced down their throats by big corporations, you can be damn sure we're free.  2013 can be the year of the artist, the poet, the wanderer, the home gardener, and the revolution in neighborly love. Make it so. Happy New Year!

Letters To The Oppressors

Here is a letter sent today to Joe L. Price, Bank of America Executive, via Occupy the Board Room, which allows you to let corporate executives know what you think:

Hello. Kindly abdicate your position immediately and relinquish your misappropriated wealth to the hungry and homeless.

I like you. I want you to be able to support your family and do cool things with your friends. I think that your hard work should be rewarded. But at present, you are supporting an enterprise that (contrary to the propaganda about creating wealth for the economy) dilutes the economy's wealth and skims it off the top for your benefit, all for the sake pushing around electronic “money” that does nobody a whit of good except you and your conspirators. There is nothing being created here.

Except for you and your conspirators, who have purchased the suppression of laws that should be enforced against a possible plethora of criminal acts committed by your cronies (and your employees who get enough crumbs to keep them in your servitude), these activities do not feed anybody. They do not house anybody who needs housing. They do not clothe anybody who has trouble clothing themselves and their families. They do not provide medical care for people who need it. They do not provide college educations for those who cannot afford them. All they do is unconscionably enrich a group of executives and provide them with so much of an excess of luxury goods and property that the rest of us (the 99%) are struggling harder and harder every day to make ends meet.

I do like you, as I said before. I want to offer you advice to help you avoid a fate such as that which befell Marie Antoinette, or Nicolae Ceaucescu, or any of those other misguided souls who allowed their hubris to blind them, and who did things that made others' lives horrible and promoted suffering. People thought they were evil. I want them to think better of you. I don't think anything bad should happen to you at all. I hope that some day we can sit across a table with each other, sip tea, and know that our work contributes equally to the benefit of society, and that both of our families are doing well. Don't you want that, too? I hope so.

Dressing for Success at the Occupation?

There have been a number of people talking about how people should dress nice to participate in the occupation. Playing dress-up is fine for those who want to do it and feel they have to put up some kind of appearance for someone else (the media, the authorities, etc.). But an important part of what many participants are doing here is a rebellion against those whose only competency is in their manicuring skills. That is part of what many of us are doing with our participation. How many of us have been passed over for jobs, promotions or other perks in society, despite skills we might have that would absolutely qualify us for that perk, only to have it go to someone else who is willing to conform their appearance to what the authorities require of a good lapdog?

Those who will tell you that it is not them that require any certain mode of appearance or clothing will always say that it is for the benefit of the OTHERS who require it...it is just what is expected in society. That glosses over deep-seated prejudices that they themselves have, however benevolent they think their advice might be. We love them anyway...they mean well.

There is absolutely no reason why a male should have to wear a false representation of a flaccid penis around his neck in many social circumstances (Thank the stars that this is not required of females!). It's actually pretty darn ridiculous. However, it is a requirement, and a deep-seated expectation, in many situations.

How many news anchors have you seen with obvious piercings? How many contestants on game shows have you encountered with short sleeves showing multiple tattooes? Where are the transvestite police? The political system "looks like America?" I don't think so.

Please, please, please...dress how you like...if it involves a business suit, that is fine for you. If you feel like somebody won't take us seriously if we don't look a certain way, then take it upon yourself to look that way. Just please don't impose it on the rest of us who have lived our whole lives in the shadow of this often unacknowledged and commonly unredressable form of discrimination.

Remembrances for the Occupation

To the 1%: You have looted everything we need to thrive. You have mined people as if they were veins of resources running through the earth. You have raised your champagne glasses in contempt of us. Please make your beds somewhere else, like Qaddafi suddenly did at the request of the people. Maybe you will have a good time trading anecdotes with fallen dictators. We will chase you out peacefully.

We will remember the trolls. We will remember the naysayers. We will remember the people who kept harping that it couldn't be done. We will remember the police who beat the innocent. We will remember the politicians who ordered the arrests. Because we need to show them kindness when the occupation is over, no matter what the ultimate outcome is.

Mr. Obama, Tear Down This Wall (Street)

There have been news sources popping up that have been talking about how the Democrats are trying to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement. It may be inevitable that sources of money and power will eventually try to infiltrate a movement and try to influence its direction.

But one form of infiltration would be infinitely useful to the occupation. Mr. Obama, come lead the protests into the buildings on Wall Street. Be there to protect the protesters from the police. Walk them into the institutions that they have been battered away from by the New York Police. Do you think the NYPD would stop POTUS? Then we will know that your sympathetic comments are not just lip service.

But there is almost no chance of that, since the President has been purchased by those interests. Maybe if they keep contributing to Romney for the 2012 election cycle...

Power to the...Umm...

Why is everybody who runs for president a power-hungry freak? Oh, yeah, because they want to be even more intense power-hungry freaks.

Dangerous Uses of Power

In Mexico, the state of Veracruz’s Assembly recently passed a provision making it a crime to use Twitter and other social networks to undermine public order. It boggles the mind to think of the possible oppressive interpretations of such a law.

Fun Things To Do With Knives

When the deputy chancellor of the Texas A & M System (a former chief of staff of Rick Perry) was fired from his job, he pulled out a knife and refused to turn over his keys and work badge. And then he later said it was a joke. You just can't make this stuff up.

Caring vs. Insuring

Everybody is talking about health insurance. But whatever happened to focusing on health CARE? All that seems to have happened is that we get mined on a monthly basis to be shaken down for a payment to a large corporation. If you dare to stop that payment, it possibly becomes much harder and more expensive to re-start it in the future. Many of us wouldn't even mind making that payment, and even making it larger, if it seemed like it was leading to getting health care covered for ourselves and our families. But those of us who are "insured" can (and probably will) go bankrupt if a major medical event were to happen, despite having "insurance."

"Everyone should have health insurance? I say everyone should have health care. I'm not selling insurance."--Dennis Kucinich

It's All Your Fault

It is amusing (yet sad) to hear about people who shrug their shoulders and say that it is someone's choice to take on some extreme hardship created by external constraints. Like, "It's their choice if they die because they didn't want to have health insurance."

What does that lead to? "It was your choice to get hit by that bus; you chose to cross the street at that moment. It was your choice to not have any food. It was your choice to contract that disease."

It seems to many of us that a lot of people really don't care if there are opportunities afforded to people, as long as they have some. We would probably like to be wrong about that.

They Are Going To Fight Her Tooth And Nail

‎"I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever,'" Warren said. "No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own -- nobody.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory -- and hire someone to protect against this -- because of the work the rest of us did.

"Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless -- keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."--Elizabeth Warren