Apathy Slam

As Anthony, one of the three people in this doc said, in the 'hood if you're just ordinary you'll end up dead or in jail. You have to excel just to survive, and you have to do it with much fewer resources and infinitely more obstacles than someone does who doesn't come from poverty or a lower social class.

OK, now a bit of poetry slam from me (dusts off skaldic origins):

THIS is what I am trying to get through to the haters and the 'personal responsibility' proselytizers out there who find time to pigeonhole the poor and stigmatize the lower class because of their lack of success. YOU had the chance to be ordinary and survive. You had the ACCESS to exponentially more resources at your disposal. You had a SAFETY NET where these kids have none.

So for EVERY FEEL-GOOD RAGS TO RICHES STORY which helps us to feel more justified by our collective bystander syndrome there are the rest who remain in rags or end up in body bags. Every single soul who transcends the 'HOOD in a tear-jerking biopic tends for the 'haves' to cauterize our own inaction. We of the privileged few, 99% or not, who did NOT live in poverty or with the stigma or race, social class, or zip code, have NO IDEA what difficulties lie in the way of success for those we call 'other'.

So it's time to do a collective cranial-rectal extraction, to understand their poignant dissatisfaction, and create an equal and parallel reaction to the grief and the grandiosity of the problem of poverty. We can no longer stigmatize the victims with the condescension of our perspective. In this case life isn't merely about the size of where we put OUR EYES. No, we must find theirs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVdBrv0HjAE

A fb response to an article about criticizing Obama.

A response to a facebook friend who wrote this about the article: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/12/22/the-strategic-failure-of-the-purist-lefts-persistent-attacks-on-president-obama/


'Amen. 'Purists' of any type don't win elections - or continue to win elections. Don't think for a moment that Obama's actions wouldn't have been different thus far, if we lived in a world where doing every last thing he believes in would allow him to continue in office, doing a better job there than anyone else. We all know that we live in a world where appearing Far Left would jeopardize his re-election... and where would we be then? President Romney?? None of it is worth anything if he can't stay another term.'

I'm no purist, but I do think Obama deserves criticism for his failure to negotiate on tough issues. Like David Brooks and others have noted extensively, he caves before negotiations start.

This is quite different than the example set by Ury and Fisher, two most noted experts on negotiation:

"Any method of negotiation may be fairly judged by three criteria: It should produce a wise agreement if agreement is possible. It should be efficient. And it should improve or at least not harm the relationship between the parties. (A wise agreement can be defined as one that meets the legitimate interests of each side to the extent possible, resolves conflicting interests fairly, is durable, and takes community interests into account." 'Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In' -- Ury, Fisher and Patton

I think that Obama does the latter two things well. I think he is an efficient pragmatist who works to improve relationships between his party and the other. But I don't believe that he is very skilled at interest-based bargaining. And he often resorts to positional bargaining.

When he does, he often takes a position then gives it up without much debate or discussion. He is usually the first to concede, and continues to do so until the essence of the original interest is lost.

Instead, he ought to negotiate from a position of combined interests, like with the payroll tax extension, where both parties wanted the same thing. They really couldn't afford not to find a common ground on which to stand.

The President ought to be better able to discern where that is, and work toward it. For whatever reason, Obama hasn't been able to do so, and I don't totally fault him for that. But I do fault him for giving up the things which the American people supported (like a public non-profit option for health insurance) before the dirty work of negotiation actually began.
And I am no lefty. I'm a left-leaning centrist, recovering hard-right religious conservative. Seriously.

A response to Milele Coggs:

In reply to the question of how to create jobs:

Corporate personhood and the dominance of lobbyists must be eliminated from the political process. The economy needs regulation, and that's been prevented by powerful forces which represent what caused the economic divide to become the unsustainable one which exists today.

The corporations always want to make bigger profits, maintain current living standards, even when their workers are stretched to their limits to create an artificial productivity which is also unsustainable. We're doing three jobs now just so people who run these businesses can maintain a boon-level profit margin.

So while Exxon Mobil has made the biggest profits in the history of the world (twice in two quarters in the past few years), they've cried hardship and been granted benefits as if they were struggling to create jobs.

We need economists and elected officials to remind businesses that without a vibrant middle class there is no market for their products. There is no economy which will remain viable. Then again, the long-term business plans of corporations do not really consider the long-time health of this economy. They build for the next quarter.

Regulation can change that.

We need to keep the top market for U.S. goods as the local one. Yeah, exports are great, but without our priority on our own we've got less natural accountability for these corporations. They can build the Chinese ports and economy--knowing that they'll have an emerging market for goods which we won't be able to afford over here.

So we need to shepherd these corporations toward three things:

1) Realizing the new profit-margin reality. Accepting the new normal, and hiring more employees to ease the burden on their employees.

2) Building for the long term. Reminding them that this is their primary market and they should invest in the health of our nation. This should lead to ending outsourcing.

3) Identities as businesses, and not as people. They do not deserve human rights. Humans do.

Fear, Progression, and Time

What I learned in Northern Ireland has enabled me to understand the Scott Walker era in Wisconsin.

When those who have power fear that they're losing it, they do crazy things. This is often the catalyst for conflict throughout the globe. They've already lost. No generation behind them will support their politics in this increasingly connected world. Zuckerberg ought to be given a Nobel Peace Prize--I mean, facebook has toppled despotic regimes and enabled movements which are truly grassroots, like the "occupy" movements.

The Tea Party, conversely, is a puppet organization run with intentionally vague leadership structures, but funded by well-organized financial backers--who have increasingly more destructive intentions for our economic future. They want to keep what they've gleaned unfairly and unjustly, and create a permanent majority which will enable them to keep their dissipating power. We're losing some battles versus this well-funded machine, but we will never lose the war. They're assuring it by their lack of introspection.

This may be their day, and we'll suffer the fears and consequences of the assaults of these cowards who think they're heroes. But the radical right is alienating people, and it is not easily justified to the young.

So even though they legislate to change the rules, break the law, and try to mitigate the shifting tide of opinion among the generations who are younger than them, they will not prevail. Our younger generations are more peaceful, less truncated, and more globally connected, and thus, more progressive.

It is time which is our biggest ally. The world is a more peaceful one right now than it has been, largely due to the efforts of the same U.N. which is demonized by the same. The meek ARE getting ready to prevail, and we will, in time.

Ralph Reed and the Bible

 http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/18/christian-leader-says-when-government-helps-the-poor-liberties-are-taken-away/

Ralph Reed says what an awful lot of evangelicals believe, but in a more direct way. The evangelical church is often suspicious that the government can or should assist the poor--because that is their responsibility. Yet, the poor still exist, and the church in the west is wealthier (and more immovable) than one might think it should be in light of Christ's admonitions.

Increasingly, it seems that the evangelical and fundamentalist church groups are more and more suspicious of the "other", and more justified by their theology with bunkering and not sharing with the same until the "other" comes to Jesus.

 I found this one of the major faults of my own worship experience while an evangelical. I was confronted by how the folks and the churches I worshiped with and at were only willing to serve on their own terms, and in within their own safe spaces.

They avoided the places where sinners actually frequented, and often seemed to shrink from anything which would dirty their hands, metaphorically speaking. The phrase "avoiding the appearance of evil" was used to justify being separate from the world. But Christ had told us to be IN the world, but not OF it. That proved to be a difficult thing for most believers to find the truth of, or understand the nuances within.

I was no hero in this regard. I failed to do what I knew I needed to do, but felt justified by being "right". I increasingly felt as though the world was against me, and that their unwillingness to choose Jesus was the reason they suffered. I would often say that Jesus was the answer to every question.

Now, don't get me wrong. I still believe Christ is my savior. I believe in the gospel.

But I don't believe that I should create  a world view around that truth which obstructs or obfuscates. I believe that I am tasked with much more than that. But, I also believe that it is not about me anymore.

The less I believe that it is about me, or my spiritual performance, personally, the more I have felt that I was able to love and serve God in Christ. I am learning to be humble and quiet in the presence of God, and that I should seek the needy where they are, not on my own terms. For God is with me everywhere, every moment, even in the mundane and dingy places of life.

What the 99 percent need...

is increased wages.


No plan on either side of the aisle addresses an increasingly significant core issue of our economic downturn, wage depression. When the average middle class male makes 1,500 less per year now than he made in 1973, we have problems.

Nothing, apart from regulation and health care reform, can restore the take home pay which has been lost. No business will suddenly decide to pay their employees 20% more after a deal is done. So where must we recoup the lost income? We must find a way to lower the cost of benefits so that people are taking home more money.

We also need to see the cost of health care return to the levels they were at pre-2000. People don't spend money if they have less and less discretionary spending. The CEOs and magnates don't understand that because they don't live that way.

Meanwhile, the stability factor our or state and national economy, public workers and their consistent wages and benefits... and therefore stable tax base... have been diminished and eradicated.

So we're operating with less of a foundation than before. The base is gone, the middle-class is non-existent.

The big businesses are making stable profits due to our strained increased productivity and the deregulation and decreased taxation of the Bush era. But they are not willing to relinquish anything that was granted to them, or open their coffers and hire new employees.

All the talk about small businesses is smoke and mirrors. They're of no concern to the plutocrats. If more small businesses fail our nation will become more and more controlled by fewer and fewer entities, like in the food industry. The "Wal-Martization" of our economy helps no small business. Instead, like what that company did to Rubbermaid the year after they were considered the best-run business in USA, they'll be forced by the massive corporate machines to outsource, reduce quality, and lower costs to the point where there is nothing left of what the previous company was--except for the name.

I like some things about Herman Cain,  but he should know that a 9% sales tax would further stunt our economic growth, even with a lower income tax. Sales tax is regressive because the middle class and below spend a larger percentage of their income on goods and services. So they'll pay a higher percentage price for that plan... which will mean that they will be more hard pressed and afraid to spend each dollar they earn.

Somewhat like the impact of Walker's budget bill on my income at the lowest end of the state income spectrum... it means I lost 16% of my total income. Meanwhile, a professor or a state official might see a 5% loss of income. With sales tax, the rich often don't have to pay it--not unlike the way they've got loopholes for corporate taxes right now. A large percentage of companies pay zero corporate taxes.

We need to create a regulation system which makes it very hard to outsource, which restores fiscal sanity to utilities, energy, and health care. We need for the middle class to be paid for their sacrifices, and for their debts... increasingly created by shrinking incomes and promises of future prosperity, should be forgiven.

The year of Jubilee is NOW.

Uncertain Wants

Have you ever made yourself sick wanting something, only to find out that you really didn't want that thing when you acquired it?