Dayton Fights For Us
Posted on | July 1, 2011 | No Comments
Democratic Governer Mark Dayton of Minnesota wanted to close part of a deficit by charging the 7,700 MN taxpayers that earn more than $1,000,000 per year (the top 0.3%) some additional taxes. Since they pay a smaller percentage of their income to state and local taxes than everyone else in Minnesota this is entirely fair. But the Republicans won’t agree to this. Well, finally a Democrat had the balls to stand up for what’s right and at midnight last night, Minnesota shut down because they couldn’t agree on a budget. Here’s what Dayton said:
“I cannot accept a Minnesota where people with disabilities lose part of the time they are cared for by personal care attendants so that millionaires do not have to pay $1 more in taxes.
I cannot accept a Minnesota where young people cannot afford the rising tuitions at the University of Minnesota or a MnSCU campus, so that millionaires do not have to pay $1 more in taxes.
I cannot accept a Minnesota where elderly widows are denied the at-home services that permit them to remain healthy and able to live in their own homes. Or a Minnesota where local governments have to further slash their firefighter and police forces. Or a Minnesota where special education is being cut, so that millionaires do not have to pay $1 more in taxes. That is not Minnesota.” – Governor Mark Dayton, 30 June 2011
I’m going into the 4th of July weekend in a great mood and it’s because one Democrat finally stood up for All the people and not just the rich people.
Public Schools and Private Prisons
Posted on | June 21, 2011 | No Comments
I stumbled across a post today which pointed out that Pennsylvania is trying to cut $1B from schools while spending $600M on building prisons. This is class warfare at its finest. All across the land states are chopping Billions of dollars from their education budgets. I don’t know what the total is, but a short web search shows that in addition to the end of the $80B of K-12 education focused stimulus (spread over 2 years) there is at least another $3-5B (more probably $10-15B I suspect) of cuts being made at the state level. Here is a good link to some of the cuts being made by 46 states. Think about that for a while… We are going to cut about $50B from public schools in one brutal summer. Those cuts will be spread between teachers, administrators, facilities, support staff, etc but at the end of the day, the all recombine to be taken directly out of our children’s hides. According to the NEA, in 2008 there were about 3.2 million teachers making an average of $54K per year. So if we take the entire cut in teachers, we will fire about 30% of the K-12 public school teachers in America this summer. I haven’t heard any national leader say word one about this. I guess they all send their kids to private schools and like the thought of raising a generation of uneducated cheap labor.
Now look at prisons. As of 2008 7.7% of the prison population in the US was in private prisons and the percentage is growing as virtually the only type of prison built in the last 5 years is private prisons. There have been a number of recent studies that suggest that private prisons cost just as much per prisoner and provide less safe and effective imprisonment so we are not getting any benefit from these prisons. But lets examine the favorite subject of our oppressor class, the profit motive. How does a private prison increase profit? One, they charge us more per prisoner. So unless we are very careful and regulate the heck out of them, they will simply increase the price on us. Two, they reduce expenditures per prisoner. This is why the studies are showing that private prisons don’t have any better outcome in terms of prisoner safety, recidivism rates, etc. than public ones. And finally, they increase the prisoner count. Why do you suppose the US leads the world in percentage of population behind bars? I contend that a big driver for this is the private prison industry. By definition, they are “The Man” and they are tapped into all the other power brokers. Their profit motive aligns perfectly with the desire of the Oligarchists to keep us afraid and docile. If you are poor and you commit even a tiny crime (using nacho cheese incorrectly for instance) you go to jail. If you are rich, you can literally get away with murder.
It just fits together nicely that we can spend less money on education thus making it more likely that our children will become criminals while we spend more money privatizing prisons so our tax dollars can add to the profits of rich people.
Do You Know The Enemy?
Posted on | June 19, 2011 | No Comments
Woke up this morning with Green Day playing in my head. It’s easy to say that we are our own worst enemies, but there are also very real enemies in this fight. Some of them are easy to find, but some hide away in the dark, and some put on false friend faces. Examples:
Obvious Enemies: The crop of rabid republiCon (thanks Norman Goldman) governors like Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Rick Snyder, and John Kasich. They are so obvious and over the top that they come off like comic book villains. I will arbitrarily add Dick Cheney because anytime I think Evil Comic Book Villain he is at the top of the list. The bad news is that we don’t have very many obvious comic book heroes to fight these guys. The good news is that the people of their states are putting up reasonably effective fights and may actually win a few battles.
Shadow Enemies: Some of these are easy. The Koch brothers have been getting a lot of press lately and so we have some knowledge of all the harmful things they have done and continue to do to America. But my guess is that this is an iceberg situation and we only know the tip of it. Plus the millions of voting citizens that get all of their news from Faux probably never heard of these two. The Koch brothers have largely stayed out of the spotlight for years and there are certainly other rich families conducting similarly sleezy hidden influence campaigns. We know there is a family in Michigan that has been attacking the public school system for instance. We know one of the Bush Crime Family made a bunch of money off of standardized testing. There are many more out there.
We also have a ton of conservative think tanks and foundations. Mostof these are readily identified and its easy to see that the reports they publish are heavily slanted or even outright lies, but I wonder how much damage they are doing where we can’t see it. I was listening to the radio Friday (apologies I don’t remember which show) and heard a discussion that the Heritage Foundation pumps millions of dollars each year into many of the rightwing talk shows. Not as advertising which would at least be visible, but as behind the scenes money that buys topics and talking points. I haven’t verified that, but it sounds about right. So I’m figuring that there are millions of dollars from these outfits promoting all sorts of anti-middle class ideas.
Fake Friends: Multiple types of these, but the two that worry me the most are the fake grassroots movements and the fake/timid democrats. The teabaggers truly are their own worst enemy, but they don’t realize it. These people are on the front line of this war. They know that the oligarchy is screwing them over royally and they are upset enough about it to do something. Unfortunately, Americans For Prosperity and other oligarch funded front groups have co-opted the teabaggers and convinced them to fight on the wrong side. Rachel Maddow has talked about this a lot and it is amazing to me to see so many people so determined to fight the wrong enemy.
The fake friend democrat poses a dilemma. Blue Dogs are easy. They call themselves democrats but clearly align with republiCon principles and should be drummed out of the party. The hard ones are people like Harry Reid. I’m sure that Harry actually believes in supporting the middle class. He is just too gutless to ever act on it. He won’t ever call a vote if he thinks it might lose. He won’t disband the filibuster. Here’s one: the republiCons kept the senate in session over memorial day so Obama couldn’t make any recess appointments. I’m not a senate rules expert, but you can’t tell me there wasn’t some way for Harry to say “Fine. You want the senate in session then we will all stay here around the clock through the whole weekend. Oh by the way, we will spend it discussing real life examples of the millions of Americans that will die if You RepubliCons cancel Medicare and Medicaid.” Yes the recess appointments would still be blocked, but their would have been some visible fight for our side out of the democrats. I really wanted Sharron Angle to win last time. I didn’t want to lose the democrat majority in the senate, but I don’t see that the majority does us any good if Harry is too afraid to use it.
Bonus Enemy: Ayn Rand. Started reading one of her books many years ago and dumped it in boredom. I may have to actually read a couple at some point, but I don’t have to read the books to see the damage this Cult Leader and her Disciples have caused to our country and to the world. I am so pleased to finally start seeing Rand followers called out as being un-Christian and immoral for following her. If you forced schools to hand out free copies of Mein Kampf and publicly stated your intent to promote the policies and beliefs of Hitler you would be drummed out of politics. But if you do this with Rand who idoloized a murderer and thought non-rich people should be left to starve on their own, that’s okay. I’m not saying that Hitler wasn’t evil – I’m saying that Rand’s policies would probably end up killing just as many people but it would simply take longer.
Its Not Paranoid When They Really Are Out To Get You
Posted on | June 16, 2011 | No Comments
It’s bad enough that the republicans do the oligarchs bidding and attack us every day. It really gets depressing though when the democrats do the same thing. There are very few people in Washington that fight for us. Two of them are being sold out by the democrats this week.
First we’ve got Elizabeth Warren. Everyone who doesn’t have their lips pressed to a banker’s buttocks agrees that she is the right person to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Her critics warned that she didn’t have enough managerial experience to run the bureau and she quickly proved them wrong. She knows what she’s talking about, she’s not afraid to stand up to congress or the banks, and she actually cares about consumer protection as opposed to rich bastard protection. So Obama is desparately trying to find someone else to nominate as head of the bureau.
Then we’ve got Anthony Weiner. I don’t hear anyone else in congress calling out Clarence Thomas for his blatant and unethical conflicts of interest and tax fraud. But I also didn’t hear anyone else in congress stick up for him. I’m not asking them to condone his actions, but how about staying neutral or at least saying that the resignation decision is between him and his family and his constituents. Based on congress’s unfavorable rating in every poll ever taken, I suspect most voters are like me and assume all of our politicians are texting, fondling, groping, screwing, and stealing everything they can get their fat little fingers on. We know they screw us every minute of every day. So here’s one that got caught NOT screwing anyone. Abnormal behavior for a congressman to be sure, but really a firing offense. Now the only person that thinks Clarence Thomas should be investigated and possibly impeached is me and they won’t let me make speeches about it on CSPAN.
Worst of all, Weiner sold himself out. Here’s the press conference I so wanted to hear from him but didn’t:
Please accept my apology. I did some stupid things and I’ve learned from them and will be a better person, a better husband, and a better congressman in the future because of that. However, I didn’t do anything illegal, I didn’t hurt anyone, and I’m not planning on resigning. The people of New York are my bosses and if they want to fire me in 2012 then they will do that and I will accept their judgement. Now, if that’s not good enough for you and you want me to resign before then, I will make a deal with you. I will resign when prostitute fucking, diaper wearing David Vitter resigns. I will resign when Tom Coburn resigns for aiding and abetting Senator Ensigns illegal activities. I will resign when congenital liar Paul Ryan admits that his budget is a piece of crap that will destroy our country. I will resign when Fox news actually is fair and balanced. I will resign when pubic hair joker, crazy tea party wife, tax defrauder, conflict of interest justice Clarence Thomas resigns. I will resign when 100 rich assholes at AIG that almost took down the world’s economy are rotting in jail or executed. I will resign when the bankers that forged paperwork, and took houses from millions of hard working Americans are in jail. And finally, I will resign when the admitted torturer’s who lied us into a war that has killed over 4000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children George Bush and Dick Cheney are in jail. Until then, You Are Stuck With Me and I’m Not Going to Ease Up. If you have any questions, tweet me.
Hello Fighters
Posted on | February 7, 2011 | 2 Comments
Welcome to middle class warfare! In case you didn’t notice, we’ve been losing.