My oh my, where to begin, where to begin? Oh yeah, the REVOLUTION has arrived, and just in time for my return to doing this "weekly" blog! Well, it's not been quite a weekly thing, but I believe it's fair to acknowledge to my loyal followers that you don't give a rat's ass and neither do I. Okay, back to the REVOLUTION.
As I've often wondered aloud in many previous blogs, how much shit will the masses of this country eat before rising up? Apparently less than many thought, like the douchebag Eric Cantor who called the Wall Street Occupiers a mob of anarchist youth set out to destroy the country, or something like that. That's exactly the response we want from the majority leader of the party that is owned by the top 1%. Please sir, may we have some more.
Yep, there's a revolution underway, and it seems to be picking up momentum as the message grows with the exponential power of the Internet. There's even a rally this coming weekend in largely apathetic Phoenix for hell's sake. It's exciting, it's growing and it has, with apologies to some Canadians who actually came up with it, the lamest name and an agenda that's, well, muddled. Come on people, this is the revolution I've been wondering and writing about forever and the plan is apparently to just hang out in the lower west side of Manhattan until corporate greed evaporates - or everyone gets a job and goes home. Now, I applaud this spunk and actually doing something is a hell of a lot more than I'm doing, but it's borderline sad to hear and read about the total lack of message so far. Sure, great political movements of the past have started with a rag-tag collection of people pissed about something/everything, but truthfully I really can't think of a single one. Looking back, there's been the Vietnam War protests, civil rights protests, labor protests and the birth of unions, etc. - all more or less singular causes that people could understand and get behind. But corporate greed??? It's been around since the first caveman fucked another out of his stash of dino meat in some kind of mesozoic Ponzi scheme.
These occupiers know things aren't right in the world - chronic unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcies, bailed out banks and no one going to jail for their part in fleecing millions. At the heart of this is the greatest income/wealth gap in this country's history. But from the interviews with many of the occupiers that I've read lately, it's not hard to reach this conclusion - many of these people are struggling to define a cause and affect that would actually address the "corporate greed" they're rallying against and do so with something that make sense.
Interviewer: "What do you want"?
Occupier: "To enforce the corporate tax code.....corporations do everything they can to find loopholes in the tax codes to avoid paying their fair share".
Huh?? The loopholes are in the fucking tax laws already man! Is anyone at GE going to jail for tax fraud when they paid zero 2010 taxes? No. The tax laws must be changed, not enforced as they are to obtain a "fair share" situation.
Unfortunately, as I have read and listened to many of the occupiers, these types of responses seemed to be the rule, not the exception, and the comments posted from those reading these interviews highlight perfectly the sophistication of those in opposition to the occupiers. Example: "How much you want to bet this group of young dupes was raised in the era of getting a trophy even if they failed". Ummm, if they're young there's nothing to bet on Einstein as they were raised in the easy trophy era. Others then comment on what this jackass said with shit like "you're right on man, they're just lazy slackers and just want to live off the government". Yeah, that's what it is.
So, at this stage of the revolt, it seems clear the occupiers have a problem defining the movement. To that end, I humbly offer the following ideas that are actually real solutions to the economic mess I believe these protesters are protesting about.
1. MOST IMPORTANT. Pass an amendment to the Constitution that states, simply, corporations are NOT people. This idiotic relic of an idea came out of the late 1800's when railroads ruled the roost and wanted more clout with Washington. With this amendment, the recent disgusting ruling by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court that states corporations enjoy free speech and can donate unlimited money to political campaigns could be overturned - would be overturned! This would be the beginning of campaign reform and weaning politicians from corporate money. Attention occupiers: an amendment to the U.S. constitution requires 2/3's of both houses of congress to ratify it or 2/3's of state legislatures to call for a vote, which has never happened before. You need to know this going forward.
2. SECOND MOST IMPORTANT. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act (you're welcome Ron Paul). The repeal of this law in 1999 was the beginning of the end for banks that were allowed to become casinos. Fucking Bill Clinton signed the change, proposed by Phil Gramm and a bunch of other scum-sucking Republicans who convinced even Democrats like Kennedy, Dodd and Reid to sign on in a pathetic suck-up to the banking industry by both parties.
3. Uphold anti-trust laws that are already in place. As has been demonstrated to a most painful degree the last 3 years, bigger is NOT better. Bigger is bad, bad, bad. Example: ATT is currently trying to swallow T-Mobile and the FCC has some concerns it may lower competition. I have a message for you FCC - it will lower competition you bought-and-sold piece of shit bureaucrats. These mergers always do, and they also eliminate thousands of jobs which is not a real smart thing to do right now. This merger idea should have been DOA.
4. Re-regulate industries. Airlines, ALL utilities and the gas and oil exploratory divisions of oil companies. This concept requires it's own blog to adequately explain, but I'll just make this one point. Remember the names Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, Braniff, etc. All gone - flew away into the sunset with deregulation. And of the remaining airlines guess which one is both the most profitable AND the most heavily unionized. That's right, Southwest Airlines. 'nuff said.
5. Make the case, loud and clear, that trickle down economics does not work! Again, a point I've hammered to death already on these pages and will continue to do so. The money goes sideways people. The nobility on top don't trickle down shit to the peasants folks, they just buy another house or two, another airplane, a bigger ranch or take a more costly vacation. These people are not job creators, they're job destroyers. Example: Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard fame rammed through the acquisition of Compaq Computer about 10 years ago. Tens of thousands of jobs were lost. She eventually left with millions in her greedy little hands and last month H-P announces they are getting completely out of the PC market. Huh??? Such vision!! Such a fine example of trickle down!! Old man Reagan would be so proud.
6. Kind of related, but certainly not on the radar screen. Two term limitation for Senators. The merits of this are so vast and intuitive I won't say anything more.
7. Abolish free trade agreements with every country that has not lived up to their end of the deal, starting with China. Then slap tariffs on everything and anything they try to import here that is not on equal footing with what we are trying to export to them (like solar panels). "Oh, but that will create a trade war and prices will go up at Wal-Mart". Yes they will, but it will force China to right their currency with the rest of the world as their biggest customer (us) will stop automatically buying all their government subsidized shit. Consumers are in a trench anyway trying to pay down debt, which is good, so let's put the squeeze on now. This would also be the beginning of stemming the flow of manufacturing jobs overseas. We have to start somewhere.
If I can figure out the fucking way to do it (see Blog #1), this blog will be e-mailed to someone (with some slight editing first) who claims they have a say in this movement. I will preface it with this: people, we need a new name for the movement and I'll get back to you on that. Also, you're not scaring anyone, especially the Wall Street bunch, with the current mixed bag of generalities. Besides, that's the tea baggers approach (I'm for Liberty and Justice!) and god knows we don't want to emulate them. Right?
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