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.

It’s 9:00 AM…

… and here I sit, feet up, crossed on my writing desk, writing…err…  Typing, I mean.  Close enough, using words in a creative way.  Or if not creative, at least some small attempt at it.  Something like that.

I have xm radio on, listening to, of all things, the Grateful Dead.  There is other stuff on, but not much. Some crap on the metal stations I’d rather not hear.  Classic Vinyl is playing the one Jethro Tull song I don’t like.  The ONLY one.  The classical stations were… talking about classical music instead of playing it.  No political stuff just yet, I just woke up, don’t wanna get worked up quite yet.  So here I sit with feet up listening to a live version of “Ramble on Rose”

oooOOOooo Black Sabbath just popped on.  Ramble is nice but Sabbath is better.  NIB. Nice.  My name is Lucifer, please take my hand. Turns to RAT Machine, Bullet in the Head.  OK, it’s Rage Against the Machine, I just like calling them RAT Machine. 

Thrash around until… the music just got bad, so I turnoff the crap and turn on the Stephanie Miller show.  Politics.  She’s funny, she’s smart, and dammit, listening to her talk politics gets me fired the hell up.  But I’m not gonna pull the trigger on it, not gonna rant, not yet anyway.  20 minutes have gone by, I just finished my coffee, and I’m not ready to yell… err… type in a strident fashion (that sounds silly, which I like) about politics, or anything just yet.

The most political statement I will make now is, for all you union haters out there, Reagan was a union president before he became a union hater.  The people who are talking about breaking the unions in Wisconsin do not have the best interests of all the people of Wisconsin at heart.  These tea party nutbags are greedy, self-interested, self-centered, and are unwilling to take the pain that the man Walker created, and want a small segment of the population to suffer so they don’t have to.  Like that segment of the population is somehow doing so much better than everyone else.  Like they are somehow responsible for the problems that exist.

I don’t remember hearing any of the union members at the protests in Madison getting a free ride into town so they could protest.  Only the rich bitch conservative tea party patsies got that privilege. 

ENOUGH… Just found some Iron Maiden. Where eagles dare.  Turning that up on the headphones. Nice.

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Iron Maiden – Where Eagles Dare (Live at Ullevi)

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On a more serious note (read at your peril)…

With the music as a backdrop, I let my mind wander, go through all the more serious things that have happened the last few days.  On Friday, a cousin of mine, a man I have known all my life, 2 years my junior, had a heart attack.  According to stories I have heard, he “checked out” on the table.  Twice. People often use euphemism when they fear the strength of the truth.  I don’t know that he died twice and lived to tell the tale for certain though.  I have no need for that kind of  information, and pass it along here merely to make the point that information I have gotten is, at best, spotty.

I’m just happy that he’s alive.  Get better Bill, I’ll be up to see you when they allow me up.  Love ya much, man. Get strong.

Then yesterday my wife goes to the hospital.  She tried Yoga a few days ago, unbeknownst to me, and did something to her back.  She’s been complaining about her legs feeling numb in spots, feet feeling cold, losing feeling below her waist.  After a few days of this, she’s scared enough to want to see what it is. 

After having my cousin bill, a man I have called my best friend when no one else would even talk to me, back when I was drunk, stoned, and barking fucking mad, to have my wife, my best friend now, go to the hospital to have herself checked out for even the slightest thing, was almost too much for me. I pleaded with her to not go.  I begged.  No.  Just be fine. You’re OK, hon.  Seriously, just…. stop… don’t… please.

Irrational I know, but I am a human.  All humans are irrational, and if you think otherwise you are being irrational, and barking fucking mad as well.

She went.  I went with her.  I brought trepidation with me.

I did not explode.  I did not scream at heaven.  I did not promise eternal war upon civilization, and screaming, violent, bloody fucking murder to anyone in arms reach until I died if anything happened to her, though I thought of all of them. 

But I did go barking fucking mad for just a second.  Just one.  One is enough. Once you go to that evil place, you never get lost traveling to it.

Ends up she’s OK.  I returned to the land of the living, smiled at my wife, and all is right with the world, or at least I pretend that it’s OK. 

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It’s now 10:15am, and I am going to get ready to run. Getting pumped listening to some nice relaxing DEATH METAL.

Go do things America, It’s a nice day, the sun is a star, and if it doesn’t impart heat, there is at least light, and that is enough.  Go enjoy it while you have eyes to see the world around you.  Have a good one.

We Haven’t Forgotten Ya, Dubya

The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along.  

Douglas Adams, Last chance to see  

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I was actually thinking about doing a Debunking Propaganda III, and attacking the Hitler references that are so prevalent in society today.  I decided against, at least for tonight, because there is a lot of minutiae to that particular logical fallacy that needs to be looked at, and probably needs either it’s own series of articles, or at the very least more time to put the article together than I have at hand right now.  Arguments about fallacies of irrelevance and petitio principii, and talk of attempting to place guilt by association upon other people takes time, time I will take.  

Just not now.  

The “Debunking” series will continue soon.  But tonight I go elsewhere with this day’s article, about an interesting poll result I read about.  

Links and a viddy first.  

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Friday’s links:  

Republicans fundraising rivals democrats for midterm congressional races  

Rubio spent most of what he raised  

U.S. Senate race: Reid takes lead on Angle; new poll shows republican losing support among every voter group  

How to go from sedentary to running in five easy steps  

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Viddy of the day, from the fine people at TED; with Dan Ariely, talking about cheating and stealing, from March 9, 2009.  Good stuff.  You can ignore the last two minutes of the video, those last 2 minutes are a long commercial.  

  

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What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts.  

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters  

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IT’S STILL DUBYA’S FAULT.  Ok, now that I have your attention, let me make a statement to you.  In a news article out in bloomberg today there was a story that referenced a poll that basically said IT’S STILL DUBYA’S FAULT.  

We haven't forgotten

 

The poll out early today said that Americans find that Dubya is more to blame for unemployment, illegal immigration, Afghanistan and even the budget deficit. Fifty one percent of people said that President Obama has handled The Gulf oil spill better than Dubya handled hurricane Katrina.  The percentage of blame assigned in this poll as far as the deficit goes is actually fairly close, 32% of the respondents said that Bush was to blame for it, with 24% saying it’s Obama’s fault.  President Obama gets the credit for the increases in the stock market, by 15 percentage points.  

There are a great many more numbers in the article, click here to read it.  The article implies a number of things.  One, the most obvious, is that people have not forgotten what happened in the previous administration.  Two, President Obama, while he is not necessarily the scapegoat for all of America’s problems, clearly does not have that much more leeway as far as some of these issues go.   

The reason should be self evident, nearly 1 in 4 Americans blaming him for the deficit despite the fact that he walked into office with an over $10,000,000,000,000 deficit.  The stimulus, while effective, has been unpopular, due largely to (ahem) the negative propaganda about it, because too many people have argued that the jobs created, and the things done, are simply not enough. Saved over 3 million jobs, but it hasn’t been enough.  

Go fig.  

The other takeaway is that the President really is doing  pretty damn well.  With a war that most people think of as a lost cause in Afghanistan, with a deficit that we have had to run through the roof just to keep pace with all the economic issues surrounding the recession, which still isn’t over(not that anyone was expecting it to be over by now, no one credible has ever said that), with the single greatest environmental disaster ever unfolding before our eyes, we still think our President is better than the last guy to hold office.  

Which is frankly, pretty damned incredible.   

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Don’t buy the negative hype, things are going to get better. Catch ya later, America.

Anagram: Interesting/ Intense Grit

     Joe Lieberman.  Not a Republican,  not a Democrat,  an independent, and he is showing that in no uncertain terms, though independent in what way besides the obvious Americans have yet to work out.  Despite being in a democratic state, and starting his career with the party, and currently caucusing with the Dems, he has said that he will align with the Republicans in fighting the public option.  He will fight it so far as to join a filibuster the republicans toss out to fight it.

     A curious thing that.  Connecticut is a very blue state and by and large pro public option.  All five congressional districts  show support for it.  The smallest amount of support for it is 52% for/ 38% against in Connecticut’s second district in the eastern part of the state.  The largest amount of support is in the Hartford area, the 1st district, where 67% of the populace is for the public option, with only 26% opposition to it.

     One wonders then who exactly Sen. Lieberman is representing.  I have always thought that there is, or should be at the very least, some type of tie between what the people in a state or district want, and what their representatives in Washington deliver to them.  I can understand a principled stand by a senator or representative, but it does look kind of funny for him to do this when he has taken over $100,000 from Purdue Pharma, over $70,000 from Aetna for 2010, and these numbers are somewhat small in comparison to other years, when he was generally given around $220,000 per election cycle between them.

     Both companies witha vested interest in this fight, both headquartered in Connecticut.  This, from this vantage point doesn’t look like a principled stand

An oldie but a goodie

against something he thinks in reprehensible and morally improper, but someone who knows where his bread is buttered.  I would like to think that our representatives are untouchable, not capable of being bought, but looking at the amount of money he gets from these people each election cycle, one cannot help but think that maybe there is a connection between these companies, their money and this particular vote.

     If these are his principles, I would ask that those who live in the nutmeg state give a long hard think to the type of people they vote for in future.  Now no one is perfect, and there is corruption everywhere, but when we see it, and this looks like a vote that has been bought, we should do our level best to root it out.

     Independence is a good thing, and Joe is an independent.  But what exactly that means is a matter of interpretation.  One interpretation is that he is independent not only in matters of political affiliation but of judgement.  Any man who would take over $200,000 per election cycle from Aetna, an insurance company who could well lose out if there is a public option, and Purdue Pharma, a leading manufacturer of Oxycontin, who would lose out if drug prices dropped thanks to health care legislation, could not to this writers mind say he was unswayed by the money in making this decision.

     That doesn’t sound like independent thought to me.  Shouldn’t independents think independently of moneyed interests?

     And money from big business in essence making decisions on legislation this monumental is tantamount to heresy.  I don’t want business writing my legislation.  I know it happens, but this is about as public and overt  a vote buy as one could imagine.

     But then again, Joe has been a schmuck for years, so it really isn’t a surprise that he’s being one now.  It’s the money here that burns my ass.

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     That is about it from here, except a second viddy.   Rep. Bart Stupak talking about abortion funding and health care reform on C-span from Tuesday morning.

Later!

Today’s nuggets, from Supreme court Justice Louis Brandeis, via wikiquote:  There is in most Americans some spark of idealism, which can be fanned into a flame. It takes sometimes a divining rod to find what it is; but when found, and that means often, when disclosed to the owners, the results are often extraordinary.

It is, as a rule, far more important how men pursue their occupation than what the occupation is which they select.

We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.

Anagram: One Year at WordPress/Peasants Erode Worry

       OK, It was Yesterday that marked my one year anniversary at wordpress, but my mind was elsewhere yesterday.  I had been thinking of doing an anniversary write-up yesterday, but i never got to it, in large part because, well, I got lost in the news.  It happens.  A short look back at the last year.

    1) Rhino as political animal:  I have always been into politics, but never the policy wonk type, never the guy to really look that deeply into the affairs of the day with anything but a casual eye.  Until this year.  This is the year where i got out my old copy of Tom Paine’s “Common Sense”, an old copy of ” The Federalist Papers”, and really started to delve into politics as strongly as i dove into fantasy sports, and before that, drinking.  My political philosophy hasn’t changed, if anything, it has been strengthened by this long hard look I’ve taken into the American political machinery.  

       I am of two minds about our country.

        In one way, I am more convinced than ever that America needs a much smaller but still strong government, that the rights as given us in the constitution have been severely abridged, that the biggest threat to our rights and freedoms is our own stupidity, and our inability to reign in government power, and more than convinced that we will not get what we need.  The power of government is not in the people, or even in the people in the government, but in the machinery of the government, and that those few who realize that are not keen to change things.  We are only superficially a democracy, and in some ways an oligarchy, and it doesn’t matter that you know it, because you are powerless to stop it, short of armed revolt, and the people are too content to be called to arms, or at the least too busy with their lives to listen and act in accordance with their real needs.

        In another, I am convinced that we have the power, at least superficially, to make positive changes to the world we live in through what democracy we have, and changes for the better.  We can still make changes to those who represent us in Washington, and in that way alter the power structure somewhat over both the long and short term.  Just because they run our government doesn’t mean they run our lives.  The Constitution and Bill of Rights, weakened as they are, are still in force, and still strong enough to help ensure that the freedom our forefathers purchased for us with their blood over 230 years ago will still exist for our children and grandchildren.

   2) Rhino as Injury plagued runner:  I’ve been running for the last 6 years, and I have run into more injuries this year than any of the previous five.  No less than 7 times have i been stopped by serious injuries that required me to take off several weeks.  I am in one of those injury stops now.  Well it’s not really an injury, it started out as a week off due to severe calf cramping, and I just got ill. I’ve been fighting a cold and crappy sinuses for the last two weeks.  And i tell you this, if I have a headache or a hard time breathing, I can’t run, and that’s where I’ve been these two weeks. 

     I’ve also had shin splints, hip pain, back pain, pulled hamstrings, Strained quads, and a sprained ankle.  The shin splints were the worst.  I think that’s what they were anyway.  There was so much pain that my left leg’s anterior compartment (that’s the lower front leg muscle, for those who don’t know) actually felt like there was pressure buildup in the muscle and it felt weak and i would get pins and needles in my lower leg.  That kept me off of my feet for the better part of two months.  And i will NEVER laugh at an athlete who has to take a few days off due to a strained Hammy again, that shit HURTS!

    3) Rhino as Musician:  I’ve since stopped playing as much as i was playing maybe six months ago, but i still play every day.  But there were days back then where i was probably playing one and a half hours a day maybe more, and the playing I was doing was, for me, amazingly complex.  My finger-picking, such that it is, has gotten much better, my picking is much cleaner and faster, and my left hand/right hand coordination is head and shoulders above where it was a year ago.  I was very much a legato player when i restarted in earnest, and while i still use that legato playing as a base, my staccato playing capacity has gone through the roof. 

     And if I lost you there, no worries.  I’ll explain.  I wasn’t a very fast or very good speed picker or player when i started up again.  Now I can rip with both speed and accuracy that simply did not exist 12 months ago.  My finger dexterity has improved, and dammit, I’m just a better player. 

    4)  Rhino as Writer:  This is what I am most proud of.  For all that there are a million things I probably do wrong, and a million things that I need to do to become a real writer, I think my writing, both in style and technically has made great strides over the last year.  But I will not speak of achievements here, since I have so much more to learn. 

     5) Rhino as Husband:  Ummmm….. You don’t need to know about this, that’s between me and my wife.  suffice it say that  I love my wife and she loves me and that all that could be good is good. 

     It’s been a good year.  Here’s to another good one coming through.

     A Viddy, a few quotes, and I am done.

    Former Senator Bob Kerrey, President of the New school, and Pulitzer prize winner Linda Greenhouse, talking about Supreme court appointments in the next few years.

    

That’s It for me.  Later!

Today’s Nuggets, Via Wikiquote: I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.  Douglas Adams

I do not believe in freedom of the will. Schopenhauer’s words: “Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills” accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of freedom of will preserves me from taking too seriously myself and my fellow men as acting and deciding individuals and from losing my temper.  Albert Einstein