Merry Merry!

I AM SANTA CLAUS.

Escape from the Soul-Sucking Cubicle of Death

I did it. It's my own fault. Went back to the corporate world under pressure of financial needs and my peers who have been advocating me to apply for and accept this job for years, a lay-up due to my skill set but with risks.

 I lasted 6 weeks. Great job, great company, above average pay, good benefit package - or as good as it gets these days, good co-workers, friends I've known for years.

I couldn't wear one of these every day. I couldn't get up at 5:30 AM mon-fri, my meds don't even kick in until about 10:00. I clean up pretty well and do corporate like the best of them but at my station in life right now, this is not right for me or as they would say - "this is not a good fit for me right now". They were happy with my work, I was good little do-bee with a resume a mile long with certifications up the wazoo. Knew my shit unlike 90% of the workforce in the office.

I woke up with a gorilla sitting on my chest one morning that just would not get off. Thought I was having a heart attack... nope, just anxiety. Did you know a panic attic resembles a heart attack? I couldn't move. I knew it was over.

I'll fire up my little independent business fixing PCs and small networks. It'll be OK. I am taking the week to heal. But will be back on Monday.

Anyone got a PC on the fritz? I know you do because everyone has one and they're all broken or just been fixed. I am a MCSE and all kindsa other alphabet soup with (holy shit) almost 25 years in this business.

Is this really the future of the now?

Arm Everyone!

 What the heck, arm the teachers, arm the kids - those husky 12 year olds can handle any attacker as long as they are sufficiently armed.

Arm the Poor! They are one of the most persecuted populations in this country. Defense for all! Can't say that they may not turn those guns on the people who stole their pensions, retirement, houses, and eventually eat the rich. Heaven knows that there needs to be equilibrium. It is a LAW of physics denied by the majority of Christians and Republicans. The parties of  "Most people are less than", and then have jump through the financial needle to be acceptable. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." We'll meet them in hell or where ever the sinful go.... probably to New Jersey.

ALL people are acceptable. Some need a little help. Give them guns. Send them into the pharmacy and see what happens when the prescription for life saving drugs is denied by some insurance company. According to Wayne LaPierre all citizens have a right to own a gun and defend their lives. The Medical Industrial Complex will lose some of those battles....  <BANG> ok, give me my cancer drugs fucker or I'll blow the other kneecap off.

Shoot 'em out at Rite Aid.

This is a ridiculous argument. The proliferation of guns are a cancer on our society. They kill a lot of people without reason. Money and political influence seems to be the driving force, not what is good for the country and it's people.

The fact that this kid could kill 27 people is just not right.

Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand up?

Next:

Hmmmmmm.... just thiniking sideways on a Friday night..

A Win at What Cost?

Thank the FSM that sanity prevailed Tuesday and PBO was re-elected as were many progressive candidates. Now - we can push for an agenda that favors the middle class and not just the privileged and the rich job destroyers that ship jobs overseas for profit without conscience. Capitalism without conscience is Fascism in sheep's clothing.

Now, what is it going to cost us? That is the question...

Here we go again... a doofus who no-one thought would win against an intellectual superior who actually knows how to run our country. Don't forget to vote. Remember what happened last time. I had a discussion with a romney supporter and they are intractable. We need to vote. Dont' let another Florida or right wing supreme court give our country away to the oligarchs.

More here:

First: the etch-a-sketch candidate

Next: The Stench

Then: 27 Myths in 38 Minutes

When Manufacturing Died in New England

I remember it well. In the mid-nineties I was teaching computer skills at a mid-sized training center with three schools and a strong alliance with the Vocational Rehabilitation bureau. At one school I had 30 seats mostly filled with Voc Rehab clients whose jobs had been off shored, most of them laid off from the local shoe factory where they had made upwards of $15 to $20 an hour doing piecework with a minimal base wage. Most of these folks had worked in the mill all their lives - like their parents before them, made a decent living wage and lived the middle class life promised by the American Dream. Then came NAFTA and Ross Perot's giant sucking sound of medium skill, high paying manufacturing jobs being off shored en-mass by people like Fucking Mitt Romney. After my class they would be competing for minimum wage, entry level jobs with some paying a little more for those lucky enough to have some technical skills. Broke My Heart.

Plants like this one in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts that employed thousands of workers and support staff are now empty.

 

 Plants like this one in Hongqingting Shoe Factory, Wenzhou China are now packed and very busy.

What happened here? The Oligarchs made a decision that the middle class was not as important as accumulating more wealth than they or their heirs would ever be able to spend. So they spent millions of dollars lobbying for NAFTA and the ability of owners to establish factories overseas for a fraction of the cost, none of the environmental penalties, tax breaks, and near-slave wages. Once that had been achieved and they had exponentially increased their revenue, power became the cocaine of choice for the ultra-rich and the accumulation of power to buy the American political process was the next "I have more than you" cocktail party line and to prove it they bought the American political process, lobbied to pass even more destructive legislation (for the middle class) and moved all manufacturing jobs overseas that they possibly could. The least money paid and the most profit earned became the bragging rights of the ultras. The American people were turned into chattel - expendable like just another piece of machinery, thrown into the wall of financial fire like Pickett's Charge without consciousness or morality. Only money and power are important to the Oligarchs. Even the known fascist Henry Ford wanted his employees to make enough money to be able to buy the products they made. No More.They no longer care about the American worker. They have moved their sights to overseas, expanding markets whose workers take raw materials usually exported from "developed" countries like the U.S. then they actually "build things" that add value then sell them back to people who have the money to buy their products - i.e. the local people who are making money working in manufacturing or the rich Oligarchs in the US. American buying power has stagnated since the 70's, the ordinary American no longer has a chance to earn a living wage without a college degree, (and even that is no guarantee) and our economy shows no signs of recovering. We no longer have the economic muscle to exert any power over foreign markets and curtail currency manipulation so the emerging markets are having their way with us. But you already know all this.

For the one millionth time - we need to make things here at home with our own raw materials, add value, pay workers, tariff the shit out of anything imported and bring back manufacturing so the many, many people in this country without a college degree can make a living wage.

OK Doc - I'm done... BP still within acceptable range.

Atlanta - September 11th, 2001

That's where I was when the shit hit the fan. Thousands of miles from home, working a booth at a trade show. I was with a customer demonstrating how my software would help him manage his network when a couple of the folks who were working the booth with me starting gasping and staring at their computer screens. That's how it started. As the events of the day progressed, the convention center was shut down around 2:00 and we were told to go back to the hotel to await further instructions. My fellow engineer, Rich, and I had had no lunch and were ready to find something to eat. As we left the hotel the first thing we noticed was that the city looked like a ghost town, no cars, no people and most of the stores and restaurants closed down. We finally found a mid-sized pizza house that was still open and were seated in a booth. It was about half full of patrons. Our waiter, visibly shaken and high on something more than booze and weed, came to the table to take our order. The busboy brought some water and we waited patiently for our lunch, understanding that this was a difficult time for everyone and top level service was not expected. About 45 minutes later, we had still not seen our lunches and I snagged the waiter as he floated by. I asked him how much longer it would be before our lunch would be ready. He paused for a minute, checked his backlog of orders and apologetically told us he had forgotten to place our order. Without malice, I stood and asked him where his order entry station was and had him walk me to it. Then I had him show me how to put our orders into the system. After that I had him walk me to the kitchen where I checked with the chef to make sure our order had arrived. It had. Ten minutes later, the owner of the restaurant came to our table with our pizzas, (delicious brick oven) and beverages. He apologized profusely and told us it was on the house. We told him that we understood that this was a difficult time for everybody but he would have none of it and we ate for free that day.

After lunch, as we exited the restaurant which was located on Peach Street - the main street in Atlanta - I was struck by the surrealistic silence in what should have been a noisy, busy city. Still no cars and few pedestrians. We walked back to our hotel without speaking, each lost in our own thoughts about what had just happened in New York and speculating on what was going to happen next.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Kwanza and Everybody Else

Wow. I just realized that I haven't posted anything since Thanksgiving. Have to admit that the shorter days and the colder weather tend to drain my limited resources. Now that the days are getting longer and the "Holidays" are almost over I am looking forward to having more energy to funnel toward continuing the fight against corporate governance, political malfeasance, and not forgetting to have a little fun. Geeze, I didn't even have a post for Zappadan this year.

Anyway - here is my favorite Christmas Story, "A Wish for Wings that Work" by Berkley Breathed. In the 80's Bloom County was a staple of my daily comics page, bringing the Reagan years into a budding progressive's perspective - poking the bear from time to time. Then I saw this Charlie Brown style cartoon special which I think only aired once, not because it wasn't good, it was GREAT but it was too subtle for the general public and offended many with the adult nature of the art, dialogue and characters. Please take a few minutes and check it out and you'll see why it only aired once. I think the "cross-dressing cockroaches in crisis" line may have done the trick. Or it could have been Truffles the Pig who thinks he's a rinoceros accusing Bill the Cat of snorting "Little Friskies". Those are not lines that you will hear in many Christmas specials and there are many more excellent lines in there. One has to watch for the cool little effects like a guy in a picture yawning and listen for the subtle ironies that Breathed is so good at pointing out. Spoiler Alert: Opus the Penguin does indeed save Christmas. So sit back with the favorite beverage of your choice, maybe something leafy as well and enjoy. Seriously, this is very well done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

If only....




And don't forget Arlo..

Please Make This Happen

Fox News is the most rabidly dishonest of the corporate media. It's about time someone did something.

From Politicususa:
Anonymous Vows to Shut Down Fox News

By Anomaly100

"Remember Remember the Fifth of November"

Working Class Hero or Zero?

I was skeptical of the Occupy Wall Street movement, concerned that it might only be a flash in the pan kind of spastic unorganized protest that shorts out in a week or so. But then it expanded to other cities, started to get some press/media attention - negative at first - then some in the press actually started to get a few things right. As soon as there was a WHIFF of legitimacy to the movement, the corporate conservatives mobilized to try to control the message through their massive corporate media machine. They have been flinging anti-hippie poo at the wall from all angles and so far the best they can get to stick is the 53%-ers - like this guy who really should be the poster boy for OWS:

As per KOS in response to this poor sucker's letter: [excerpt]

I understand your pride in what you’ve accomplished, but I want to ask you something.

Do you really want the bar set this high? Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week? Is that your idea of the American Dream?

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week? Do you think you can? Because, let me tell you, kid, that’s not going to be as easy when you’re 50 as it was when you were 20.

And what happens if you get sick? You say you don’t have health insurance, but since you’re a veteran I assume you have some government-provided health care through the VA system. I know my father, a Vietnam-era veteran of the Air Force, still gets most of his medical needs met through the VA, but I don’t know what your situation is. But even if you have access to health care, it doesn’t mean disease or injury might not interfere with your ability to put in those 60- to 70-hour work weeks.

Do you plan to get married, have kids? Do you think your wife is going to be happy with you working those long hours year after year without a vacation? Is it going to be fair to her? Is it going to be fair to your kids? Is it going to be fair to you?

[snip]

And is this really your idea of what life should be like in the greatest country on Earth?

Well it sure as hell isn't mine, or over 200 million Americans who haven't been brainwashed to the point where they are working themselves to death and think they found a pony. Dumb Fucks all. Social engineering at the corporate and media level - very effective.

Here's to you the dumbfuck 53% - keep up the good work! Nose to the grindstone, those corporate yachts aren't going to buy themselves you know...

Amanda Palmer playing cover of John Lennon's Working Class Hero song on Liberty Plaza at Occupy Wall Street.