Capitalism Sucks?

Capitalism sucks!

Anyone who has been on the wrong end of the stick knows this, knows that it only helps those who already have a lot of capital.  I had no idea though, that the word itself is slowly becoming a dirty word, and it apparently has been that way for a while.

According to a Pew research center study about Americans viewpoints on political terms, 40% of Americans think of capitalism as negative, and that number is up 3% from last year.  It isn’t a majority, but it is moving in that direction.

I tell you that sounds kind of odd to my ears, but it is understandable news.  It shows that there are those in this nation who have been screwed so hard that they have begun to seriously question the entire concept behind the system that has caused all the pain and hardship in their world.

And in the same vein, what word is the least polarizing and viewed as the most positive?

Progressive.

There is a great deal more about this poll than just what I mentioned here, if you want to see the rest of it, read the story here.

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Viddy of the day:  Capitalism:  A Love Story – Trailer

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Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be; and this national weakness finds its nemesis in the stock market.

John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

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Capitalism sucks! And here’s your proof.  Verizon tried to make a greater profit off of the people who pay their salaries despite the fact that they pulled in $15,000,000,000 in revenue last quarter by adding a $2 charge to people who pay their bills on-line using the one time payment option. That’s how I pay my bills on-line.  Apparently, a lot of other people do as well.

The backlash was intense, humongous, and overwhelming.  After over 100,000 people signing on-line petitions, and the threat of an investigation by the FCC, Verizon backed off.

Now I am not sure whether it had all that much to do with the internet backlash.  I don’t see them being backed off of a $2 fee by 100,000 people on twitter and facebook, but the FCC biting them in the ass is probably what tipped them in the direction of not charging the fee.

It seems to me that it is clever marketing on their part, nothing more.  They backed off too quickly, it’s a PR move, plain and simple.  They’ll find another way to make their money, without making so much noise.

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Pic of the day:  Pulling Down the Statue of King George III, by Johannes Adam Simon Oertel

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

Rules To Live By

Rules to live by, in no specific order:

#1 )  Be good to the people who are good to you, and to the people who aren’t.  It always feels nice to be good to people, even if some of them suck, and you never know when you’ll need help.

#2)  Sleep and eat as you see fit.  Diets are for lunatics, and losing sleep is always wrong.

#3)  Speak softly and carry a big stick when it is right to do so.  Speak loudly every once in a while, just to remind the world that you can, and swing that stick once in awhile.  Carrying it isn’t enough in this world.

#4) If you love someone, let them know, tell them.  They aren’t psychic, and it feels good to hear it once in a while, and it feels good to say it as well.

#5)  There is no us and them, there is only us.  Leave “them” out of it, “they”  don’t exist, there is only us.

#6)  Ignore the clock, unless you’re on the clock.

#7)  Sweat every day.  Rest every day.  Smile every day.  In that order.

#8 )   Anger is a gift, use it.  If you don’t, you’ll never know if it was right to feel it in the first place

#9)  It’s OK to be a little selfish.  A little, not a lot.

#10)  Learn every day.  If you don’t, the day wasn’t worth it.

#11)  The more we look at the world and the people in it, the less we like the place.  Take a break from the world, you may fall in love with the place again.

#12)  Question everything you hear.

#13)  Play games, but not every day.  Be serious, but not all the time.

#14)  Talk about politics with people you know everyday.  Note I said with, not at.  There is a difference.

#15) Place one weapon where you can find it in the dark.

#16)  Opinion is not expertise, but it sounds like it sometimes.  Listen, but with a grain of salt.

#17)  If it tastes good, eat it.  If it kills you, chances are you were dead meat anyway.

#18 )  Sports only matters peripherally.  Politics is much more important, but it’s harder to root for an economic theory, hence the popularity of sports.  Watch a lot of politics, but keep an eye on the score of the game (Politicians could learn from this.)

#19)  Love your country like an adult.  Criticize it when it warrants, help it when it needs help, and hate the things that drive you nuts about it.  “
Love it or leave it is an idiotic mentality.

#20)  Don’t be a dick.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

There is Bad News, and There is Good News

The Bad news is that Pete Hoekstra is running for Senate.  The Good News?  Pete Hoekstra is running for Senate. The Hoax is a complete nut.  Has been for years.  Doesn’t mean he won’t get votes.  There are enough lunatics in America to make anyone who rants like a schizoid ass clown at least 40% of the vote.

Why do I say he’s a complete nut?  He’s the guy who, despite being ranking member on the select committee on Intelligence in 2006, said there were WMD found in Iraq, despite the fact that the Pentagon said that he was in fact incorrect.  I think The Pentagon would know a little more than the Hoax about that, they having tens of thousands of boots on the ground over there at the time.

He also had a website out at one point that contained detailed information that could have helped create a nuclear weapon.

I thought we the American people had come across a tremendous stroke of luck when he retired from the house of representatives at the end of the last congress.  I was wrong.

Dammit.

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The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

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The bad news is that observers in Syria are seemingly not doing their Job.  The good news is that we know they are not doing it, and with any luck we can do something about it.

The head observer there in the city of Homs, who says nothing is happened there (despite 39 dead in that city the day he said that) is a Sudanese general  by the name of Mohammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi.  This man was the head of, and from what I can tell the founder of the Janjaweed, the strong arm Sudanese nationalists who were at least in part responsible for the massive human rights violation that was the massive violence in Darfur.  The Janjaweed would wait until the PDF(Popular Defense Forces, a government militia) disarmed citizens, and then walk into a village, and attack and pillage.

Thousands died.

Just the guy you want to watch and report on human rights violations.  Things in Syria are a hairy mess to begin with, adding al-Dabi to the equation is just pours salt into the wound that is the government of Syria oppressing it’s people.

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Viddy of the day:  Wikipedia leaves GoDaddy over Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

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The bad news is that Sopa is still out there.  The good news is that opposition is strong.  For those who don’t know what SOPA is, shame on you.  The government is trying to steal your freedom in the name of protecting corporations from piracy. It is meant to stop piracy but it will, because of the vagueness of the language in the bill, restrict non-infringing content, without due process.

And the pirates will still be able to operate.

How?  The bill does not block numeric IP addresses, which means if a site you like, for whatever reason, like flickr for example, gets the shaft, and you know it’s IP Address, you can get around any government block and view content their without any issues.  And reddit users are putting together an emergency IP address list, just in case the government gets stupid and passes this bullshit.

There are a great many more problems with this legislation.  A great many.  More on this as time and space permits.

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Pic of the day:  Truth by Jules Joseph Lefebvre

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

The House Is A Mess

The house is a mess.  But that’s OK, the Senate is too.  And they can afford to be like that as well, being the wealthy people that they are.  We knew that they were wealthy, wealthier than the average American, but the amount they make, and their net worth more than doubling in 20 some odd years, while we the people have stagnated financially over the same amount of time is frankly, angering.

Angering more than anything because we have suffered through hardship after hardship, and these people, who are supposed to be our guardians, have guarded their own houses, but left ours to rot.  To call the state of affairs we find ourselves in here and now, flat broke jobless and seeking a break while they drink Ambrosia anything but insane hurts like hell to contemplate.

It is the way of things though.  Congress has simply followed their corporate masters in this. It is well know that CEO pay and compensation, as well as other higher ups in large corporate structures have gone through the roof since at least the Reagan years.

As always the rich get richer, and the poor get shafted, and then told they have the same opportunities everyone else does, when it is clearly not the case.

But I digress…

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Because the world of politics is a mess.  Ron Paul, noted libertarian and (until recently) closeted racist, has been (again, until recently) been leading in most of the polls coming out of Iowa, first of the states to have primaries. But that lead has been shrinking over the last few weeks, and of all people, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is the one eating into his lead.

With 2 weeks to go, there are only about 8% of Iowa’s voting bloc uncommitted.  And with the Romney campaign gaining momentum, it looks a lot like enough will go Romney’s way to hand him Iowa.  Romney, you will remember, is the former moderate, flip-flopping business man is most well known in business circles for buying businesses, taking them apart, selling their more profitable pieces, and downsizing thousands, destroying the futures and dreams of thousands in the name of profits.

That kind of thing apparently plays well in Republican circles.  Because business acumen of that nature is so much more important than the thousands of people who populated the businesses he destroyed in the name of profitability.  Guess being a racist just doesn’t get you as far as the ability to actually butcher jobs does in right wing circles.

And no, I have no problem with profits.  I’d like some myself, but I have spent my entire life working for peanuts, because that is what my people get paid.  I don’t get profits, I get screwed, just like the vast majority.

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Viddy of the day:  Impact Investing: Saving Capitalism from Itself.

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In the field of modern business, so rich in opportunity for the exercise of man’s finest and most varied mental faculties and moral qualities, mere money-making cannot be regarded as the legitimate end. Neither can mere growth of bulk or power be admitted as a worthy ambition. Nor can a man nobly mindful of his serious responsibilities to society view business as a game; since with the conduct of business human happiness or misery is inextricably interwoven.

Louis Brandeis

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Pic of the day:  The Yellow House (Vincent’s House) by Vincent Van Gogh

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

On An Elevator

We make eye contact on an elevator.  We’ve seen each other before, and it wasn’t good that first meeting.

Let’s go back 2 weeks.

She had, in front of me, pushed past an old couple, nearly knocking them over, in order to do something or other behind both them and me.  She had run into other people, a few of whom I was with,  but she stopped in front of me, and tried to push by me.  I stood stone still, and looked her in the eye.  She looked past me, unwilling to look me in the eye, and I let her through.

I am not this idiots keeper.

Her daughter, ahead of me, and behind her at that point, mouthed something or other to the people I was with.  She was young, brash, and a little stupid, but the excitable type.  She decided to try to start a fight. She failed only because we are old enough to know better.  Experience makes us strong enough to ignore trifles, but smart enough to know that a good swift kick in the ass is sometimes the best medicine.  Since she only uses words, and small ones at that, we do the same. But the thought of kicking this loud-mouthed idiot child is an attractive one.

There are more of them than us, but we are larger and stronger.  I, shortest of the adult males, is taller than the tallest male amongst them.

Fast forward 2 weeks.

We meet again.  No words, I look her in the eye, we clearly recognize each other.  She tries to repress a smile, and again cannot hold my gaze.  But in my turn I cannot hold her gaze either.  I don’t want to see anything good there, anything that I can like.  We say nothing to each other.  She turns, walks off of the elevator.  I behind her.  She moves fast, I purposefully give room on my left.  Several people, whom she was with, the same crew she was with last time, pass me by.  I stare angrily at each as they pass, as is my wont.  They say nothing, and do not return the look.

They pass quickly, the little girl with the big mouth goes to say something, an older female speaks to her, she turns around, saying nothing more. Moving quickly they all perhaps 7 of them, pile into an oversized revolving door, and the thing jams.  The people I am with, the same people as last time, giggle and call them idiots.  These dumbasses can’t even walk through a door without fucking it up, we say to each other.  Morons.

They look back, trying to look like they meant to make the door jam, trying to play it off.  Failing as far as we are concerned, but if it helps them feel better about who they are, that’s fine with me.  We wait until the revolving door un-jams itself, which it does after a few seconds.

We go our separate ways. Which is good for everyone involved.

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Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?

GK Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill

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Viddy of the day:  Take out the Earbuds: Have we Lost our Ability to Listen?

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Pic of the day:  Death of Marat, by Jacques-Louis David

That’s it from here, America.  G’night.