Trolling Conservative Propaganda I Found on Facebook, Part One

I'm sorry, but where on this planet are the rabid conservatives getting their information from? Observe:


I want to start by saying that I'll regard "capitalist USA" as the U.S. pre-Obama and Republican-only because I think that's what this picture is trying to get across since they use a picture of Obama and "Democrat" in the last column as a point of reference opposite "capitalist USA." I'm not even going to take on the misrepresentation of America under Obama and other Democrats compared to communist, socialist and fascist governments in other countries because that would be a whole other rant. I am however going to reserve the right to use history to disprove this chart since historical governments are used within the chart.

So, with out further ado, let's go down the list, shall we..

1. Takeover of private companies, over the objection of shareholders:
Actually, the some of the biggest trust-busters were republicans like William McKinley and Howard Taft and private companies were not too happy with their policies.

2. Rounding up detractors (critics) and putting them in concentration camps
While we may not have called them concentration camps, plenty of dissenters were rounded up by our government with both democrat and republican leaders in office and put in deplorable conditions.

3. Allow people to succeed on their own merits:
Okay, cool, but what happens when people's merits aren't in coming into the picture because institutionalized racism, sexism and classism keeps their merits from ever being put on the table? I'm all about people succeeding on their own merit and the best people for the job being selected, but what happens when the best people don't even get an interview because their names are associated with a certain race that the interviewer is biased against? What then? Allowing people to succeed on their own merit necessitated anti-discrimination laws, but I don't think that's what the green check-mark under Republican Capitalism means to the maker of the chart.

4. Party members given special privileges:
Again, total disregard for US history. All presidents gave positions and privileges to party members (AKA the Spoils System) prior to reforms passed after President James Garfield was assassinated for trying to clean up widespread government corruption.

5.Treat all people as equals:
Well women, looks like we missed the memo. We're still only getting $.77 to every $1.00 a man makes in the same position. Is that equal?

6. Dividing people by race, using stereotypes and identity politics...
I could probably find 20 conservative-oriented pictures in two minutes that use racial stereotypes to try to toward portraying Obama. The U.S. has a long history of amplifying racial stereotypes in order to keep different groups of people from defining the enemy as the same person. Indentured servitude was ended in part to elevate the status of poor whites over blacks because slaves and indentured servants were getting too friendly and started to work together and realized that they were both being treated unfairly by the same people at the top.

7. Requires state control over the media in order to stay in power:
Actually, SOPA was introduced by a republican in Texas. If Obama censored the media, Fox news would be off the air by now and Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would be in jail. The media isn't being censored by the government, it's being censored by the corporations that control it and, with only a few exceptions, they mandate that mass media tell the audience whatever they think is going to raise the ratings and have a bigger pay-off that week. Good try though.

8. Controls the educational system to indoctrinate youth before they are capable of critically thinking:
Wow, you  just defined organized religion. Wait sorry, that was a little mean. But the largely republican Texas Board of Education tends to make textbook decisions that influence textbook choices for the whole country. It's impossible not to "indoctrinate youth before they are capable of critically thinking." Children learn from their surroundings long before they actually recognize what they are learning, whatever those surroundings may be.

9.Can be sustained without bankrupting the country with debt:
Hmm...Great Depression anyone? It was in large part due to unchecked and unbalanced capitalism. Need a more recent example? Ronald Regan, Republican hero extraordinaire,  increased the country's debt three-fold during his presidency while trying out Reaganomics.

10. Extols freedom and the private ownership of property:
Capitalism, when unchecked, extols freedom only for the very rich at the expense of all others, which isn't freedom at all. In fact, total freedom is the definition of anarchy. As for the second part of that, I tend to regard my own body as my own, not anyone else's property. If you're a woman, conservative republicans are at odds with this idea, saying that we don't have the right to determine what's best for our bodies if we ever become pregnant.

11. People are rewarded for how hard they work, rather than what some arbitrary central committee decides:
I might be wrong, but being a single parent with three minimum-wage jobs seems like pretty hard work to me for there to be no "reward" of  an affordable health care system. In this country, many people are rewarded for how hard they work others rather than how hard they themselves work. If this statement about hard work correlating with reward were the case in actual terms, people would receive much closer to the full value of their labor.  I agree with hard work as a good general philosophy, but it falls short when you try to relate it to larger society and the reality of the economic status of workers.


Note: I'm not here to say Democrats and liberals are the saviors of the U.S. I think that  mostly everybody sucks. The people I agree with aren't doing enough and the people I don't agree with are doing too much. I want the record to state that, even though I've never voted for a Republican, I'm registered as independent. 

I'm back na na na na na na

It's been a while, but I'm back. Look out for some new snarky posts coming soon :D

Tea Party, Economy and Killing the Middle Class

First, watch this video:
 This, along with watching Maddow tonight, the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, and paying attention in my Early American Working Class history class has brought me to this rant. First, a small history lesson:

 In Colonial America, we had something called an “assize of bread.” This set the weight and price of a loaf of bread in the colonies. This ensured that every working American could afford to feed their family. If anyone proposed anything like today, they would be called a socialist. We also had laws against these actions:
 • “forestall”: Buy provisions before they reach market
 • “regrate”: Buy at market and resell at a higher price
 • “engross”: Buy a crop still in the field (speculating)

Again, today, if you suggest any regulations like this, or any regulation in general to be imposed on businesses and corporations, you’re a socialist.

 Back then, working people really felt like they were entitled to a voice and a piece of this country. They knew their power and acted on it by forming unions and striking for fair pay and shorter hours. They participated in their government. We don’t do this anymore, at least not until the situation is too dire to really do anything.

 Yes, the Boston Tea Party was an act of revolt against the British telling the colonies what to do. Yes, the colonies wanted their own government and they participated in it. But they also wanted to do so to impose a moral economy, which is clearly not the task of today’s Tea Party. Moral economy, above all, opposes free-riders, people who only take and do not give. What’s one of the biggest tenants of the tea party? Don’t tax the rich. Working class people, unionized people, formed the core of resistance against the British. What does the Tea Party want to do? Attack the middle class and take away collective bargaining. When you lower the taxes on the haves, the have-not’s have to pay for it. The national debt is going anywhere, and republicans aren’t going to budge on cutting some defense funding. The money has to come from somewhere, and it’s going to be the middle class.

 Trickle down economics doesn’t work. Corporations take the money they save and raise their own salaries. If you want to give tax breaks, keep an eye on the corporations you give it to. Require proposals. Make them tell you how many jobs they promise to create.

 You can try to make a case that our county now is not our country then, and I completely agree. But if you’re going to claim one piece of the American Revolution, you had better take a look at the whole picture. And we do need regulation, right now, because our largest corporations aren’t living a couple houses down the street, where we can talk to them about our concerns or have any real input on how they do business. They are huge entities with a strangle-hold on this country. They’re not committed to a moral economy. They don’t have a conscience that would make them possible candidates for self-regulation.

 One of my coworkers said, “Corporations should regulate themselves. They’re not going to do things to hurt us because they would lose money.” On the contrary, they constantly do things to hurt us because it saves them money, and no one cares enough to pay attention. Halliburton, case and point. Mountain top removal corporations. Wal-mart.

 I don’t get what’s so hard to understand. If they want to move oversees, whatever. There’s always someone else to do the job, and you can provide incentives for them that you were wasting on the ones that left. Let’s grow businesses that care about workers. Deal?

On the Republican Debate

Dear Republican candidates,

I would really appreciate it if you could pull your heads out of Reagan's ass long enough to listen to some points I need to make following your most recent debate:

1. Lowering taxes on the rich doesn't do a damn thing other than overburden taxes on the rest of us. I get that you want to create jobs. Great. Require business to apply for tax breaks with a proposal detailing how they're going to make it count. That way, you can make sure you're not just throwing money at people who aren't going to use it wisely, and so it can be monitored.

Also, the lack of jobs isn't the only problem. The lack of jobs that provide a living wage is, along with people not learning the skills necessary to excel at their jobs.

2. Stop messing with education. It's been proven time and time again that education advances cultures and people in general. It's your job to provide affordable education, or else our best and brightest are going to be America's biggest exports. Focus on science, not religiosity in our schools. The rest of the world is laughing at us.

3. Stop chipping away at women's health. It's not helping anyone and it's not going to fix any of your problems.

4. I'd rather be eaten by rabid wolves than live in a country where Michele Bachmann is president. Please don't let this happen. The entire world will laugh at us and, if she gets her way at all, we will revert back to the 1950s. Her role model is Phyllis Schlafly...the woman that worked tirelessly to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, describes herself as an anti-feminist and once said, "If marriage is to be a successful institution, it must…have an ultimate decision maker, and that is the husband." Oh, and she also said that Roe v Wade was the worst decision ever made. Great role model.

5. Has anyone else seen the recent increase of energy-related commercials? Do not let these vultures gain any tighter of a grasp around the neck of this country. We need regulation. Without it, it's just a matter of time before disaster strikes. I want jobs, but not at the cost of our well-being.

6. I'm pretty sure universal health care will not bring about the apocalypse. Does Obama's health care plan need work? Yes. But everyone should have access to affordable quality health care. It should be a right, not a reward.

7. This one's to Rick Perry in particular: Global warming is real. The science IS settled. Same with evolution. You would know these things if you ever picked up a book or read a scholarly article. You can't get your science from Fox News. There are outliers, but almost all respectable scientists can agree on these two things. If something were to come along and disprove them, the science would definitely shift, but none such things ever has. Also, your use of Galileo in your response about climate change was in total opposition of the point you were trying to make.

8. Reagan is not your savior. For more info read this post.


Please keep these things in mind when you're attacking each other on stage the next time. We all know my vote goes to Obama, but I don't know about the rest of the country. If one of these clowns gets elected, the consequences will be toughest on the working class. "Let them eat cake" comes to mind.

Teaching Creationism

Haha, here's an unpublished rant I found in my drafts:

Want to teach creationism in schools?

Fine with me. But teach all creation stories. Every single last one, especially Pastafarianism, because they all have the same thing in common, they rely on faith , not any kind of measurable data or scientific truths.


Deal?

Also, while you're talking about education reform, let's talk about Thanksgiving and Christopher Columbus.


Columbus didn't find America. It was here all along, with people living on it. People were living meaningful, good lives long before that evil villain of a human, Columbus, came here.

Want to know about genocide?! You don't have to look outside of U.S. borders.

Oh, Thanksgiving, we were so thankful that we massacred Native Americans in droves, sent many young Native American children to horrible Christian assimilation camps in Canada, drove them off of the only land they ever knew, and forced them to assimilate into a culture where it was damn-near impossible to make honest money doing something they didn't have to throw away their whole culture for. It wasn't just a little moving around an re-locating. It was extermination. Recognize it. Call it what it was.

Want to know what I'm thankful for?! I'm thankful that I have access to education so that I can un-learn all of the nonsense perpetuated by the textbooks of my youth, no doubt handed down by the sadists at the Texas Board of Education. (Also thankful for my family, animals, coffee and friends. Moy awesome)

But, really...

History matters, and how you teach it matters. Stop lying to our kids.

Where to draw the line between art and mass production...

I just watched a documentary via Netflix titled "Exit Through the Gift Shop." It was about street art, and also about the nature of art. After buying a book of Banksy's work while I was still in high school and hanging a poster of several of his locations in my room, I was definitely interested in what I thought was going to be a documentary about art's role in cultural critique.

The documentary was really interesting, though admittedly not what I was expecting at all. Thierry Guetta was the central figure. He was a French guy that live in LA and was obsessed with videotaping everything. Just by chance, he started taping one of his relatives that was Invader. From there he met and started taping Shepard Fairey and others on a pretty obsessive basis. He told them he was taping for a documentary though this wasn't true. Due to the nature of street art, things don't remain permanent, so it's easy to see why videotaping the art and its process had such an appeal. Guetta began pursuing Banksy. Eventually he met him and became one of the few people Banksy trusted with protecting his identity.

After shooting a ton of Banksy work, and seeing the huge response to Banksy's exhibition in London, Banksy asked Guetta to actually put together the documentary he had been saying he was going to do. The commercial success of Banksy's work meant street art as a whole was being commercialized and sold at extremely high prices, and its roots were being forgotten. Guetta took his boxes upon boxes of video tapes and produced this drawn out, heavily edited, unwatchable, almost schizophrenic compilation of some of the footage he had taken of street artists. Guetta seemed to have viewed it as his own creative endeavor rather than a showcase of street art talent.

Upon seeing it, Banksy told him that he should try making his own art. Well, he did. Starting off small, he used the same stark stencil designs and pasting techniques that other artists had. He called himself Mister Brainwash. Using mostly Photoshop and a horde of outside sculptors and designers, Guetta made his own army of artwork. It sounded like everything started off as his ideas, but that he hired outside people to make everything actually happen, which is something I have a problem with. Using all of his money and resources, even refinancing his house and using other more extreme measures, Guetta produced a lot of stuff in a very short amount of time and found a space to showcase his work. He got a promoter, convinced Banksy and Shepard Fairey to endorse his work, and gained a ton of hype overnight. He never took the time to develop as an artist, or pay his dues so to speak. He drove his construction team crazy because he just didn't know much about much. He had no experience with anything, he couldn't make decisions and he seemed to resent listening to people who did know what they were doing. His work sold for outrageous amounts of money. His art show had a huge crowd and was well-received. It made him a millionaire.

So what it art? What makes Guetta different from Banksy or a graphic designer, or some mass-produced snarky silk-screen tee-shirt? Where is the line, if there even is one? As for me, I don't know, but I've never thought of art in this way. I have a problem with anything made with a computer being considered art, but I can't really articulate why. I like Guetta prints as t-shirts, but I don't know if it's art.

The documentary also raised a lot of questions considering how modern technology is changing art. Just today, I read about how Urban Outfitters is stealing designs from indie artists. I could paint or write something, put it up on the internet, and someone on the other side of the world can see it instantly and use it if they want. Copyright exists sometimes, but it gets kind of hazy. Everything gets kind of hazy. Art seems to have this essential primitiveness, but essential elitism built in. But is that putting an emphasis on the process and not the result? It that right? I'm really not sure. I'm not an art student, so I don't know what theories and such are involved in these questions. I'm not even sure if any of this makes sense. But, until this documentary, I never really thought of art in this way.

Oh, I should also mention that some people think that Guetta isn't actually Mister Brainwash, that this whole documentary was furnished by Banksy as some sort of meta critique of the nature of art. I don't know if I believe that or not, though it would make it even more interesting.

But whatever. Just go watch it. It's cool.

Casey Anthony Trial and Hockey Rage

It's been a while since I last updated this, I think it's entirely ridiculous how people are foaming at the mouth about the verdict of the trial. I work at a pizza shop, and at least five people today were STILL talking about the trial. It's still all over the tv.

It's terrible that a little girl died. But, the case against Casey Anthony was not strong. Their entire body of evidence consisted of photos of Anthony partying. No DNA. No fingerprints. Nowhere near enough to put her in jail. The DA was entirely too sure he was going to get a conviction, and he and his team didn't make a strong enough case.

I'm not saying she didn't do it. I have no idea if she did. But our justice system works in a way that you have to prove guilt, not necessarily innocence. That's why we have a trail by jury. They did their job, rightly I think, by deciding that the prosecution didn't prove guilt. If you don't like it, you can go to a country where a fair trial is not a constitutional right. If you were on trial, you would want a jury to do their job too.

Thanks for this, but you're dead to me now.

So, about hockey....

Max is going to by a Flyer. Believe me, it took everything in me to not put the f-bomb in that sentence. I get the whole, "he's a young player, he's still looking to make some money," and even the "Pittsburgh couldn't offer him what he was worth." To that, I still say bullshit. We gave Kennedy and Duper less than they could have gotten elsewhere, but they strayed because they believe in the team, and they love our city. But you turned down a 3-year deal to play with the Flyers for 5 years and 9 million dollars. You weren't too great last season, and you didn't step up like other members of the team to fill the holes left by Geno and Sid. Thanks for helping us get a cup in 2009, but you're dead to me now. Sorry it had to end like this. It feels like a bad breakup.

As for Jagr, he's an idiot. If you want to play games and act like a jag-off, you don't deserve to be a Penguin. Have fun in Filthadelphia with Max. I sincerely hope someone throws nachos on you when we play you at home in December.

And Rupper, I love you. I'm really sad Shero didn't sign you again. I hope NY is good to you, and you deserve all the money you're getting. Also, you're on my list of favorite people ever for many reasons, including this tweet from you:

"3 things will stay true.... 1) I won't like the Miami Heat (LBJ) 2) grown men shouldn't ride scooters 3) I will hit the Mullet,for all fans!"

So, I love you. So much. Have fun in NY.