Occupation Preoccupation

I have loved over the last couple of weeks watching the "Occupy Wall Street" movement grow. I admit it-- that directionless group of Americans has me thinking they are the real patriots of my lifetime. I don't have any idea what will become of it. But I tell you this-- this event will change us as a country just as much as 9-11 did-- and for the better.

It's always been the rich against the poor. The rich bribe and employ others to join their cause, and protect them from the masses. Sometimes the lies are really good, and can seperate whole classes of people-- black against white, protestant against catholic, men against women. As long as they keep the masses divided, they can continue to win.

But this group in New York have no division. I see all colors, and all ages, all types of people arm in arm. Through Facebook, videos and pictures surface daily. It's almost as if the internet saved our concept of Free Press, because the mainstream media ignored it-- until they thought it meant ratings.

Don't be bashful when 'class warfare' is mentioned. Hell, it's only warfare because we started fighting back. Before that, it was 'class suppression'.

Education and healthcare are two of the most pivotal issues in anyone's lifetime-- and both are tilted so far in favor of the rich that some people might think that there are those that would prefer the poor dead.

We are one of the worst developed nations at providing health care and education for our population. We were supposed to stay in our semi-comatose state, watching Jerry Springer and the Jersey Shore. But somehow, somewhere, one person said 'enough is enough'.

And they said it loud enough someone else heard it, and said it again. And again.

I don't know what the Occupation intends to accomplish, but I am with them. We've been aimless so long in this country. At least this action shows that we, the 99%, are fed up with the abuse of the rich.

Barack on the Rebound

Since the last post I made about our president had a basketball theme, I thought I'd start this with one, too. And even better than last time-- there will be no mention of Lebron James. Except to mention that there won't be any mentions.

It's been a few days since the dramatic news that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a Navy Seal raid. Estimates are out that say bin Laden cost the U.S. 3 trillion dollars over the last 15 years.

But the history books seldom have a balance sheet. What will be remembered is this: Obama got Osama.

There should be no mistake about it-- give him the credit that he is due.

Does this change decades of failed foreign policy that caused this backlash in the first place? No. Does it change that I am paying $4 a gallon for gas? No.

But it does change the public's perception of Obama as an egghead. Now he's got a little bit of John Wayne goin' on, and a side of don't-mess-with-me is on the menu.

This could easily be the turning point that allows Obama to get re-elected.

Now if he could only get gas to $2.50 a gallon.

What If?: Confession of a Conspiracy Addict

I have thought The Thought. I have done The Deed. The Unthinkable, I have pondered upon. And with great fear, I ask myself-- What If?

What If all the conspiracy theories are just that-- cockeyed fabrications made up to cruelly hoax the gullible?

What if aliens aren't coming to rescue us-- or our favorite deity? What if we don't all die in 2012?

What if there is just a six billion person pinball game going on, and the whole planet is just cause and effect?

What if there are no real conspiracies, and one person really could make a difference?

And what if every person were expected to make a difference? What if people's name were written on a wall if they didn't vote?

What if voting made you feel empowered, because people you trusted came through for you once they were in office? Instead of coming through for their biggest contributors?

Is it easier to believe in Bigfoot than that?

What if it all was real, and we all got engaged, and we all were involved?

Half of video game time, volunteering. Half of Facebook game time.

And no conspiracies, unless confirmed first by WikiLeaks.

It could like, change the world.

As long as we don't let the Illuminati get hold of it.

Barack and Lebron

What a difference two years makes.

Two years ago, I was thrilled. A sweet talking Democrat had just been elected, and filled my political heart with hope. And a sweet playing basketball superstar had my sports heart dancing on clouds.

I just knew we would change things. Our country would be on the mend from the worst president in our history. And the curse of Cleveland sports would be lifted by an NBA championship.

Both men could tell you what you wanted to hear, all right. Both men seemed like the champion that a true underdog needed.

Both men, it turns out, were just liars looking to make their money and glory, with no loyalty, no character, and no fighting spirit.

Today is the day Barack Obama decided to give in to the Republicans, and give Bush era tax breaks another shot. Because, presumably, it worked so well last time.

Sure, we went from a balanced budget and a healthy economy to a recession and the biggest deficit ever. But let's not look at the numbers.

Barack Obama, just like Lebron James did with "The Decision", showed his true character today. And it turns out, the two men are remarkably alike.

They both work for billionaires. They both decided to look out only for themselves, and stab their supporters in the back, in the worst way possible.

And both have suffered the most dramatic loss of popularity that I have ever seen. Lebron was contesting for most popular athlete in the world, and now sportswriters everywhere say he is the most hated. And Obama has sunk so low, I don't think he could even win the Democratic nomination today-- let alone the election.

Obviously, with these men, character amounts to nothing. Fighting for a noble cause means nothing. Doing what is right means nothing.

Oh, but can those men bank? Hell yeah.

So, to take off on Lebron's commercial, I can just see Obama asking, "What should I do?" I could see him asking that into the camera, and then giving us all his lame ass reasons why this is a good move. Just like Lebron did.

Maybe he should ask Bill Clinton. It still amazes me that he balanced the budget with a Republican controlled Congress. But that was, of course, before Dubya showed us what great profits lie in calamity, war, and spending money like you had a mint printing the stuff in your back room.

I laugh when Barack talks about splitting his lip while playing Lebron's game.

I sure wish he could put out that kind of effort for regular Americans.

Reality is an Illusion

I've been having some very fun arguments on Facebook lately. Well, fun for me-- I think some other people are getting pretty agitated. Agitation is sort of a normal state of mind for me, so I feel like it's my 'home court advantage'.

But that's the kind of brain I have. As you will see, I am about to blend the latest WikiLeaks scandal into totally separate discussions on global warming, alien visitation, giant human fossils, and the metaphysical nature of our very existence.

You see, I believe in a 'common thread' theory to life. I believe that Truth probably does exist, but it's scattered across the globe, in little tiny bits, in different religions, mysticisms, scientific studies and philosophies. Sort of like one big existential Easter egg hunt, if you will. And in the end, the more I investigate, the more I find one predominant common thread.

Reality is an illusion.

What we call reality is just a commonly agreed upon perception, after all. We say “the sky is blue”-- but it's not to a blind man. Sure, the same particles are in the air, refracting light in such a way that most of us see the same thing, which we have agreed to call 'blue'.

But really, it's just a nerve signal from our eyeballs to our brain that gives us an impression. That's all. We see people that have lost limbs in accidents get faked out by their brain, with nerve signals telling them that the limb is still there. How do we really know that a portion-- or perhaps all-- of our reality isn't the same thing?

I know fans of the “Matrix” are getting all giggly now, thinking of that paradigm-shifting scene where Keanu Reeves wakes up in a pod, and finds out his reality is only computer generated scenes from a master computer. Presumably, this same computer also told him he was a good actor.

Somehow, I find a direct correlation to this and the leaking of diplomatic emails that our country is currently in an uproar about, and with which the whole world will soon be abuzz.

Let me trace my thoughts: We talk bad about people behind their backs. We lie to their face, and act like nothing's wrong. And then we get upset when the truth of what we say and do is found out.

See? Reality is an illusion. The objectionable part, according to our government, is not so much the lies, bad talk and dirty back-room-dealing actions-- it's the fact that we blew their cover.

You see, they were struggling very hard to create a perception amongst certain people, and then got mad when their reality was exposed as an illusion. They scream, 'people's lives are at risk!'-- as if they were not at risk with every deceitful action this government has made in it's history. People's lives weren't at risk in Iraq and Afghanistan-- at least, not until now. They weren't at risk in Vietnam. Or Korea. Or in the World Wars in Europe, and around the globe.

No, no, no-- bombing countries, stealing their natural resources, making agreements to wipe out cultures, crippling economies, defrauding entire classes of people-- that's OK. But telling on us for doing it in nasty little semi-illegal underhanded ways-- THAT'S the problem.

Because ever since Hitler, the world has known that it's the BIG LIE that gets believed. And so therefore, how dare anyone expose the BIG LIE? Or any of our small ones that form the steps to the peak of deception that they have so carefully lead us to, for so many years?

“BUT WE'RE THE GOOD GUYS!”, you might scream. “We have to do this because everyone else is doing it, and how naive can you believe to think otherwise?”

That equates, in my opinion, to a George Bush-like preemptive bombing of the truth. And don't get me wrong-- it's both parties, it's most or all nations-- it's just the government way.

It's the lies that risk people lives, not telling the truth. It's the back room deals. It's the choosing of national sides, instead of choosing the human race.

History books have been re-written so many times that pages don't even get a chance to turn yellow anymore. Truth is forgotten, dooming generation after generation to repeating it's own mistakes. Our past is myth, people will say-- unless it reinforces something we want to believe now. And worst of all, people aren't really concerned about truth. They are far more concerned about being perceived as right. Passion exists for personal pride, rather than humility inspiring camaraderie in our species.

Basically, a huge part of the human population should just walk around with t-shirts on that say “I AM RIGHT!”. But history, sadly, proves we are not.

So don't try to prove or disprove global warming, or alien visitation, or giant human fossils. Just ask Hillary Clinton, and she will tell you the rubber-stamped official answer. Because we all know we can trust her-- and look, I saw her smile once! Therefore, I know she is honest, and nice.

Oh, I know one has nothing to do with the other. But there is the common thread-- reality is based on perception. A certain amount of the population will believe what they are told to believe. Theory becomes fact to those who believe the theory. Lies become truth to those who believe the lie. How dare anyone actually show courage, and have an independent mind, and do something honest-- lives are at stake!

Most importantly, the lives of the liars are at stake. The lives, the livelihoods, the prearranged deceptions, the back-room deals-- that's what's really at stake.

Reality is an illusion. Especially if you work in government.

There's a Bible verse that says basically “your back room lies will be shouted from the rooftops!”.

Today, in your presence, this prophecy is fulfilled.

I say-- Hallelujah!

Cannibal Capitalism- the Rich Must Eat the Rich

(originally published September 2006 on AssociatedContent.com)

We live in a world that increasingly is becoming one market. In this new global economy, the disparity between rich and poor grows. Through the increased communications of our time, the gap between rich and poor is more clearly exposed than ever before.

In this new world, millionaires are simply secure bystanders. The truly rich must be defined as those who have reached billionaire status. It is this class of people who bear the obligation to create positive social change.

Free market economics has never had a playbook that included a social conscience, however. Supply and demand has a limited set of rules, and playing nice has never been among them.

Public opinion can have an effect on market trends—from making a supplier less popular, and less profitable, to causing the creation of government legislation that will negatively impact the bottom line. And while this impact cannot be overlooked, it is probably balanced out by the billion-dollar business’s ability to effect government and legislation through financial influence.

I believe that the true opportunity for social progress lies through the framing of such progress in profitable terms for the super rich. I believe that the true profit potential in a market place that has become as extremely financially polarized as the current world market is through the cannibalistic invasion of markets by successful businesses into other markets.

Let me explain this principle with an example. The Wal-Mart Company is truly a financially successful company. They face several public relation challenges, most notably their practice of not supplying health insurance to their employees, and paying wages that do not empower their employees with sufficiently livable incomes.

The Wal-Mart Company has also established a business practice of controlling costs by controlling as many possible circumstances in the cost process as possible.

In my vision of cannibalistic capitalism, the Wal-Mart Company would take the following steps:

They would analyze the medical market, and find that the reason they cannot afford to supply medical coverage lies in the exorbitant profit margins of the medical services market.

As Wal-Mart well knows, when any industry has too high of a profit margin, it leaves itself open to drastic invasion by a competitor willing to cut costs.

In the medical industry, this is true in multiple areas. First, medical colleges charge huge fees for schooling. This contributes to the process of doctors and staff who graduate from them, charging huge fees for their services.

Secondly, the insurance industry, which pays these doctors for the insured, also has huge profit margins.

And third, there is the pharmaceutical industry, which has perhaps the highest profit margin of all.

Wal-Mart has just this week begun a national price war on generic drugs, offering many at $4 for a month’s supply. I would suggest that this should be just the tip of the iceberg.

What Wal-Mart should do is begin a takeover of the entire medical industry.

The Walton family, who now boast four members with fortunes of over $30 billion each, should found a series of medical colleges, where they supply free tuition, in exchange for lifelong contracts of the doctor and staffs they train. These doctors will then work at Wal-Mart funded medical centers across America, at reasonable wages.

By controlling the cost of education, and the cost of medical staff, Wal-Mart would cut out two huge profit centers—middlemen, so to speak—that currently help drive medical costs beyond the reach of many Americans.

By lowering costs in this fashion, they could create a medical services industry, which would allow Americans to bypass the insurance industry altogether—and eliminate another middleman, and huge profit center—the hospital industry.

And with this new medical service industry, now low cost, like everything else Wal-Mart does, they can provide free health care to all of their employees.

By taking the next step—purchasing pharmaceutical companies and lowering costs and prices—they can lower their cost of employee benefits even more.

Similarly, Wal-Mart could also increase employee benefits by building apartment buildings above their current stores, and offering low rent housing. Current employees would benefit from low rent and easy access to work, and other residents would increase shopping time.

By supplying these human resource benefits, Wal-Mart would not only answer their public relations critics, but increase profitability, and branch into new areas of revenue that currently are ripe for invasion because of their bulging profit lines.

Increasingly in the 21st Century, I believe that it will be the companies that invest into human benefits, which will survive. Companies with skyrocketing profits who do not re-invest them into human benefits will be cannibalized by companies who do.

Human concerns—the cost of living, food, rent, medical needs, utilities, and the basics of life—are the true growth market of the 21st century. With possibly 40% of the world’s population living in poverty, it will be the companies who successfully address these needs that remain powerful, and grow into the giants of the next century.

Companies who look to expand fields of revenue by invading markets that are bloated with excessive profit margins are the ones who will grow fastest, and run the least risk. If there is a defined need—such as pharmaceuticals—and there are companies posting almost obscene profits, it only makes sense for someone else to come along and do the same thing cheaper, and take away their business.

In a free market economy, where supply and demand rule, there need be only a clever analysis of supply for obvious demands for a company to grow. If a company has it’s own capital, it can always find a market where it can provide quality for a lower price, and thereby automatically create a superior demand.

And in a world economy where there is a growing divide between rich and poor, the smart companies will learn to feed on the well-fed carcasses of the rich. Every industry that cheats consumers through excessive profiteering should become the prime target of any company that has the resources to produce for the same market.

In the end, the only argument that will convince billionaires to help society is profit. But, with clever analysis of the free market, the best profit will inevitably be found in long-term benefits made to society.

Diversity or Perversity?: the 2008 election

(originally published January, 2007 in The Burro magazine)

America is in for a very interesting couple of years. The national pursuit of nomination for each party’s candidacy for president should bring out every diversity, and possibly, quite a few perversities, which America has to offer.

The Democratic Party should offer the most interesting array of diversity ever beheld on the American political scene. Hillary Clinton is already prominently mentioned as the front-runner in the race. Of course, a woman has never been nominated for a major party’s candidacy for president, let alone won the White House.

But then again, before this year, we have never had a woman as Speaker of the House- and now Nancy Pelosi (Dem., CA) holds that honor for the next session of Congress. Locally, we have just completed a historic election campaign that saw three women Democrats win office in the state congress.

So is it time for a woman to win the White House? Certainly, the idea has never had more support. Many people have commented that with women in power, our country would be far less likely to go to war. And having Margaret Thatcher and Indira Ghandi in power didn’t seem to hurt England or India. In fact, both women leaders were well respected during their time in office, and have fared well with historical evaluation.

But Hillary Clinton is not the only history-making potential candidate for the Democrats. Barak Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, is drawing huge raves with his charismatic speechmaking, and his intelligent, sincere approach to the issues of the day. Could our country be ready to accept an African-American as President of the United States?

From many sections of the country, the answer would be a resounding “no” to that question. But these same factions, still rooted in a prejudice that our country is in denial of, would also reject Clinton for being a woman.

Until the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, the Deep South of America was traditionally solidly Democrat. That alliance switched when democrat Lyndon Johnson pushed significant civil rights bills through Congress, immediately after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

So history would tell us that, if the Democratic Party feels that they are doing the right thing, they would do it in total disregard for isolated factions of public opinion, like racists of the Deep South.

Perhaps the Democrats will decide that the best one-two punch is the most diverse, and to the prejudiced, the most controversial. Perhaps the campaign bumper stickers will read “Clinton-Obama: Because Bigots Cause Drama.”

Other Democratic hopefuls offer a less diverse, more mainstream potential as candidates. One of my personal favorites is General Wesley Clark. I have long held the opinion that wars should be led by people who know what they are doing, and not by people who spent their National Guard duty snorting cocaine and skipping service time (yes, that is a reference to Martha Bush’s baby boy).

John Edwards has also announced his candidacy. He could quite possibly be the best mainstream candidate available for either party. His meteoric rise from trial lawyer to senator to VP nominee in the 2004 election speaks volumes for his potential. His current weakness is fundraising, but with major party backing, that could be resolved quickly.

No other possible candidate stands to make a realistic play, at this time, for the Democratic nomination, at this time.

The same cannot be said for the Republican Party. This is a wide-open field of potentiality, and while there are legitimate candidates available, there are also several possible nightmare possibilities for the future of our country.

The worst possible scenario would be that Vice President Dick Cheney actually runs for president. Never in the history of mass media has there been a man who was so incapable of presenting a pleasing public face. His vicious replies to the press are legendary. And his real life actions are just as bad. From his accidental shooting of a Texas party member while on a beer-guzzling hunting trip, to his cursing outbursts at press conferences and speeches, this man has shown his true color. It is Black, as in Black Mood, Black Cloud over his head, and the Black of the clothing of the mourning families of the over 3000 American service people who are dead in the Iraq war, which has only served to fatten the wallets of Halliburton, Cheney’s former company, and Cheney’s many friends in the oil industry and military industrial complex.

Another nightmare would be the continuance of the Bush Dynasty by running the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. Yes, Jeb Bush of the 2000 Florida voting scandal, and of the Teri Schiavo fiasco, which attempted to ingratiate the younger brother to the religious right wing fanatics that form the base of the New Republican party, by highlighting him in a case of “right-to-life” versus legal rights to govern medical care by responsible family members.

While certainly Jeb would make a better president than his brother has (rumor has it he actually has a vocabulary over 100 words, including many words with more than two syllables), he would also be just another puppet to Pappa Bush’s CIA-led war machine advisors.

After being the head of the CIA, then Vice President, and finally a one-term President, Pappa Bush moved his son Dubya into the White House (through some cleverly managed voter fraud in Florida in 2000, and Ohio in 2004), while he took jobs representing the military industrial complex as a liaison to Saudi Arabia. Is it any wonder we are now at war with Saudi Arabia’s biggest competitor for the international oil trade-- Iraq? Don’t forget, 11 of the 14 terrorists responsible for September 11th’s tragic happenings were identified as Saudi Arabian.

One possible candidate for the Republicans who generates a lot of local interest is Arizona Senator John McCain. Recently ranked as the most influential senator in Congress, McCain has shown signs of moving away from the independent views that have made him a top choice for the White House. After publicly criticizing the religious right’s stranglehold on his party, he has appeared to ‘kiss-up’ to leaders such as Jerry Falwell. And even though he is a former Vietnam prisoner of war, he has sided with Bush in war plans, including recent suggestions of raising the number of troops in Iraq.

It may be just my impression, but McCain also seems to have gone through some recent plastic surgery. In November’s election analysis segments on national television, he was a frequent guest, and seemed to have a shine around his face that resembled an exhibit at Madame Toussade’s Wax Museum. Was it Doc Hollywood, to the rescue? Could a new face, and kissing up to the Right Wing, actually help win McCain the White House?