Why Capitalism is Evil Part I

Capitalist businesses always want more, no matter what. It is never enough. Therefore even if they are raking in billions of dollars in profits they will find an excuse (it is less than last year, less than a competitor, etc) to cut costs in order to make even more. Cutting costs usually means one of two things, 1) taking more away from the workforce (pay/benefits/work environment) in order to throw the extra wrung-out loot on the ever-growing pile of loot, or 2) finding cheaper means of production, i.e. inferior ingredients/parts or less safety in the workplace. In Capitalism there is no room for the concept of ENOUGH. Every parent teaches every child to share and to play fair, but under capitalism these concepts do not exist, yet these same parents who teach these important values to their children, to share and to play fair, are fine with the Capitalist ethos of never sharing, never playing fair, but rather taking and keeping more and more and more and never ever stopping the taking and the keeping and the owning and the hoarding and the looting.

Waiting for Jor-El

In the recent documentary Waiting for Superman David Guggenhiem attempts to explain why our nation's public school system is failing. He reserves most of the blame for bad teachers, immune from discipline thanks to tyrannical teacher's unions. Guggenheim fails to recognize that America's parents deserve a good portion of the blame for why their children are not learning. Quite the opposite, Guggenheim casts the parents as the heroes of his film. Of course there are many wonderful parents who work hard to create opportunity for their children and help their children succeed, but in my opinion one of the major contributing factors to the problems in our schools are the many parents in this country who pay little or no attention to what their children might or might not be learning in school. It is easier for them to let their kids watch TV or play video games all night than to help them with their homework. If children are not read to and do not see their parents reading they will not grow up to be readers. These parents break their children, then send them to the schools to be fixed. It is much easier to educate a nurtured child than to fix a broken one. Guggenheim also fails to address the fact that the public at large seem to value their own bank accounts more than the educational system. The problem is PRIORITIES: the priorities of the citizens, the priorities of the parents. Selfish people. And then there are the teachers, many of whom sacrifice a great deal in order to devote themselves to a noble cause. These are well-educated people who are woefully underpaid, despite what your politicians will have you believe. They work long hours and endure a great deal of stress, despite what your politicians will have you believe. Many, fuck it, MOST teachers are devoted people, and the opposite of selfish. Guggenheim's film does them a great disservice.

Inside Jobama

I just watched Inside Job and found myself face to face with a very harsh reality. The film does an excellent job of exposing who the "financial crisis" culprits were and how they perpetrated massive, widespread fraud, and then, at the end, we get to see Obama appoint half of them to official or advisory positions in his hoax of an administration. No one could watch this film and not realize that we were duped and Obama never was who we naively thought he was. I am shocked and saddened and never expected this harsh reality to unfold, I cried real tears the night the impostor was elected, but at this point it is undeniable--he is not on our side. Our only hope lies in a viable alternative candidate, one that can either defeat him in the Democratic primary or one that can run against the Republicrat conspiracy entirely, I hate to call it a "third party" because the whole party system must go. The battle to break the "two party" stranglehold may be the most significant battle this country will ever face. America exists because of the American Revolution, but America will no longer exist unless we win the battle to end the two party farce. Watch Inside Job--these greedbots were more than willing to destroy the companies they were running in order to enrich themselves and their cronies...why wouldn't they treat the country the same way? They will destroy America in their insatiable quest for unquantifiable wealth. They don't want simply to be wealthy, they want everything, they want imaginary supernatural wealth. The world is their board game and they want to win at any cost. What drives them? Who are these people? I cannot answer these questions. But they want to write the rules then win win win. They want to burn us all and snort our ashes or just swallow us whole. No scraps.

Homeless Children

How could anyone be proud to live in a country where the phrase "homeless children" is even part of the lexicon? According to 60 Minutes the poverty rate for children in this country will soon reach 25 percent, and many of these children are finding themselves living in cars or cheap motels.

In this country "poverty" means a family of four with a combined income of LESS THAN $22,000/year. That means a family of four could be bringing in less than 2000 dollars a month and still be considered ABOVE the poverty line.

Contrast the concept of "homeless children" with the concept of "heir to the fortune." Fortunes are being inherited for the third and fourth time, fortunes that can be traced back to slavery or an era when people worked 12 hour days for pennies. Fortunes that should never have been amassed and are undeserved by those inheriting them.

The more the middle class shrinks the less customers there will be for all of these companies motivated only by greed and shareholder dividends. Eventually, lacking an adequate customer base, the economy will collapse, and finally the wealth will have to be redistributed. I believe that this eventual redistribution was about to take place, the free market was actually working, and then the government handed out billions of dollars, free money, no strings attached, to the vampires and parasites. And so, our undead zombie of an economy will lumber along for awhile, but eventually the head will fall off and the "heirs to the fortune" may find themselves rebranded "homeless children."

A National Disgrace

I keep hearing people complaining that teachers only work nine months out of the year. It is true that the average school year is 180 days. 180 school days. Remember weekends? In actuality the average school year begins in late August and ends in mid-late June. That's closer to ten months. So teachers have two months off, not three.

In every country in Europe workers get at least 20 paid vacation days. In France and Finland, they get 30. In most of these countries it is required by law that workers are granted this vacation. In other words, Americans are suckers, and those American suckers are just jealous that teachers get the time off they would all get if they just had the balls to stand up for themselves and not be duped and taken advantage of.

A ten month work year is simply the nature of the teaching job, and if we want to attract quality people to the job we have to accept the reality of the job. We all hear about how CEOs have to be paid tens of millions of dollars per year because that's the only way to attract quality people to the job (granted, it's hard to find a person devoid of conscience and empathy, willing to give non-stop rimjobs to Wall Street). No one seems concerned that we attract quality people to the teaching profession. At this point anyone who pursues teaching is making a conscious sacrifice. These are people who have rejected other professions in favor of a job that is less rewarding financially and in terms of respect given, but more rewarding in terms of conscience and self-respect. Teachers become teachers because they want a job that means something and is a positive force in the world. Many jobs are just the opposite, and many Americans who pursue those jobs are complicit in evil and should be ashamed of themselves. It pains me that they are not.

The Daily Show recently pitted Fox News shitmouths against themselves and exposed them as the corporate shill Wall Street rimjobbers they actually are. "One point of comparison was the matter of salaries. As Jon Stewart showed via clips from Fox, when a repeal of the Bush tax cuts for those making $250,000 and more was proposed, the Fox pundits asserted that people who make $250,000 a year are not rich. They even made the odd claim that if a family in that income bracket had four kids in college, then they would be close to poverty." They were also defending the scandalous bonuses that the banks and Wall Street were handing out to the scum that just crashed the economy, bonuses funded with money taken from the American suckers, the taxpayers, in the bullshit bailout. What happened to the FREE MARKET? Bank of America and Citibank should no longer exist. They crashed and burned and the taxpayers built them a time machine.

In contrast, "when the same pundits considered the average salary of $51,000 for Wisconsin teachers, they regarded it as a rather excessive amount of pay. This seems rather an odd claim from the same folks who claimed that $250,000 could be regarded as being close to poverty. It seems to be a matter of basic math: $250,000 per year (plus) falls into the “not rich” and “close to poverty” zone, then $51,000 per year should certainly not be rich and should probably be in the poverty zone. After all, $51,000 is a lot less than $250,000."

Americans don't seem to respect teachers or the profession, but of course what they are most concerned about is that money coming out of their paycheck. After all they need that money to buy their children video games and DVDs so the little bastards will leave them alone. Then they send those kids to school but who gives a shit if they learn anything.

FYI: the stuff in quotes was purloined from The Philosopher's Blog...http://aphilosopher.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/fox-news-war-on-teachers/

Phuck Philanthropists Part Deux

Okay, I did a little math and I wanted to share it with whoever might read this. Christy Walton is the 4th richest person in America and the 12th richest person in the world. She inherited this ludicrous fortune from her deceased husband John T. Walton, the son of Sam Walton. So I guess she inherited an inheritance? Anyway, on Wikipedia they refer to Christy as a PHILANTHROPIST because:

"Between 2002 and 2006, she contributed $3.5 million from her then $16.3 billion net worth towards philanthropic efforts."

So here's the math:

3.5 million is 0.2147239263803681% of 16.3 billion. Thus her "philanthropy" is the equivalent of a person with $100,000 generously parting with 214 bucks. Would you call the person donating 214 bucks a philanthropist? If they worked for Walmart you might, since that is ONE WEEK'S PAY. The average take home pay of Walmart employees is under $250 a week.

"The salary for full-time employees (called "associates") is $6 to $7.50 an hour for 28-40 hours a week. This pay scale places employees with families below the poverty line, with the majority of employees' children qualifying for free lunch at school. When closely examined, this amounts to a form of corporate welfare, as the taxpayer subsidizes the low salaries."

In other words, if Christy Walton really wants to be a fucking philanthropist she should pay her goddamn employees a decent wage, not to mention all of the peripheral industries Walmart negatively influences. Christy Walton is not a philanthropist, she is a money hoarder, money she did not earn, money that should be distributed to the many employees Christy Walton rides the backs of. Christy Walton is complicit in evil, thus Christy Walton is evil.

By the way, between 2006 and 2010 Christy's net worth increased from 16 billion to 24 billion. In other words it appears that Chisty is throwing 2 billion per year more on her pile of undeserved wealth. What a philanthropist.

War on Dumb

So where is all the money going?

In 2010 federal and state governments combined spent a total of 40 billion dollars on the War on Drugs, a mostly pointless endeavor and a "war" that they are clearly losing. We have way too many people employed in law enforcement in this country, and they are well-paid and retire young. The hype is that they are all heroes but the reality is that most of them are no such thing.

It's quite simple, we need to prioritize and look to the future. If we do not prioritize with the future in mind, it is my belief that the United States will FAIL. The United States is falling behind every other industrialized nation in terms of education, technology, economics. We need to trade the war on drugs for the war on dumb, OR ELSE.

We must also launch a war on Wall Street.