Turning off the Television

These days it is hard to watch the news because of the dire economic situation that continues to pile up daily. Not only the grim reality of bailing out one industry after another but the realization that this all occurred due to votes taken by our 'representatives' makes it very difficult to tune in to. There is also our own complicity in the collapse based on ignorance, laziness, and self-absorption. It doesn't add up to programming that is pleasant viewing.

While taking all of the above into consideration it is understandable why many people, me included, decided to take in the NCAA basketball tournament. This year was made even more interesting for us locals because the Washington Huskies were a 4th seed. We also had our across state perennial NCAA Tournamenters, the Gonzaga Bulldogs, to watch. The Huskies made it to the 2nd round before falling a little short against Purdue. The Bulldogs battled there way into the Sweet Sixteen before falling to the clearly superior North Carolina team.

The departure of Gonzaga ended my enjoyment of the tournament and not because I'm a homey. The reason was because the entire time that I watched I was forced to endure commercial messages from some of the biggest robber barons of the 21st century! More importantly, as a taxpayer, I was paying for it! Talk about having the bad news shoved down your throat.

Let's examine some of the tournaments big sponsors and why I find them so galling. Number one robber baron, Exxon. These incredibly long, expensive, and self-serving appeals by Exxon is enough to make me throw the remote at the television. Exxon made record breaking profits during the Bush years while enjoying generous tax breaks from the American people. The American taxpayer also assured Exxon of as much oil it needs in the future by occupying another country on their behalf. Aren't we nice?

For Exxon to use some of the money accumulated during their record breaking profit years to spin the American people into thinking that they are thoughtful, concerned for the environment, and the welfare of the everyone on the planet, takes remarkable balls. That is because out of all the oil companies they are the least of all of those things. They haven't spent any of their profits on forward thinking or in seeking or developing other energy sources. They have spent their money telling us lies about themselves. Are we that stupid?

Next on the list of American Robber Barons with annoying commercials is GMAC. Howie Long can pound sand up his behind for all I care about his opinion. Talk about a company with no shame. They take billions of tax payer dollars so they can continue doing exactly what got them into this mess in the first place and then they run expensive commercials. The most appalling of them all is the commercial where they mention the stimulus money that will be spent on our infrastructure. Apparently they think that in order to rebuild our infrastructure correctly we all need a big, gas guzzling, GMAC truck to do the job with. That way they get money from us both coming and going!

Other annoyances were the Charles Schwab animated whiners. I never liked the format before and now that they're all crying about their 401K it's even less attractive. Besides the fact that taking advice from any "money" expert anymore sounds like seeking medical advice from Dr. Death.

The bottom line is any corporation that seems remotely involved in swindling the American people I have a problem with. The food advertisers for the tournament like Sonic, Applebee's, and Taco Bell are only trying to make us fat not steal our money. The gamers, beer sellers, and deodorant folks just want to sell us their product. But oil companies, financial institutions, and failing auto manufactures should keep a very low profile with outraged Americans.

Dick (The Penguin) Cheney

In a way it resembles a cockroach creeping back into your kitchen the minute the lights are off and your back is turned. Just when you thought it was safe to go outside again Dick Cheney has re-emerged from under his rock to do a round of talk shows. He, of course, has used the opportunity to espouse his tortuous philosophy on international relations.

Why the media thinks that anybody in America is interested in listening to The Penguin again is a mystery to me? It is not as if the media is unaware of his popularity ranking of 9% when he left office so I have to assume that they just get a jolt out of having well known people to talk to. He wasn't that anxious to talk to the media when he shot his friend in the face after a drunken luncheon, or the cops, for that matter.

So once again we've been forced to listen to The Penguin describe how he is the only one on the earth who can be entrusted with our safety. The fact that he is using his air time to criticize the President for whom he and GWB left the biggest pile of dog poo to pick up since dogs were Brontosaur's is almost too painful to swallow. The only good thing about it is that the President took the opportunity to hit back!

His response when questioned on 60 minutes about The Penguin's comments was quick, decisive, and completely on point. Without getting personal (something I would find very difficult to do!) the President pointed out that he was surprised that DICK would want to defend policies that make people hate us. President Obama makes clear that the Penguin's method was completely unsustainable and he asks us the question "How long were we supposed to keep locking people up and torturing them? Until the entire Arab and Muslim world hated our guts?!"

Good question and clearly not something that The Penguin has given any thought too (along with an exit strategy for Iraq). There is a part of me, however, that wants the Penguin to keep criticizing our President. That is because I'm hoping that he manages to really piss him off and that Obama's current policy of not delving into the past will be put aside for some useful revenge! How about answering a few questions in front of a Congressional panel on illegal torture, Mr. Penguin? God speed the day!

There Ought to Be a Law!

Recently our new President has talked about skipping the practice of giving companies tax breaks for sending US jobs overseas. This is a very good idea. It isn't rocket science after all and one wonders how we got into this situation in the first place. If your constituents are people who need jobs in the United States then why would you pass a law that rewards companies for sending them some place else?

The answer is that for the last twenty or thirty years we have been replaced by a much smaller and richer constituent - the corporate lobbyist. Why else would Senators and Congressman refuse to listen to the public cry for health care? Because they don't answer to us anymore. They aren't afraid of losing their jobs because of the endless sums of money the corporate lobbyists give to their campaigns thus insuring their re-election.

We need President Obama to take on these corporations in the same way that Teddy Roosevelt did. Removing incentives for them to move jobs out of the country is just the tip of the iceberg. Let's consider some other changes that he should make. Many things need to be done in health care, the environment, and energy to name just a few. Why don't we start with the environment?

A couple of decades ago corporate marketers needed to find a new way to make people buy more of their stuff. In the past creating things that were made well and lasted the longest was the manner in which manufacturers attempted to retain a person's patronage. But somewhere along the line a very smart and very evil person recognized that if something worked well and lasted a long time then there was less need to buy another.

This person pointed out that the corporation could have the same thing produced cheaply, sold cheaply, and then when it broke sell another, and another, and another. They would make more money in the long run and the silly patrons would think they were getting a bargain. It has worked beautifully. Now you only have to pay $59.00 for a vacuum that runs a year, breaks, gets tossed into a landfill, and then you get to purchase another one. You think you're getting a good deal while the corporation laughs all the way to a Swiss bank (wouldn't want to pay any American taxes on all that American profit!)

Another evil person decided that the best way to get people to spend more money per person at McDonalds was to make the portions much larger (at almost no extra cost to them.) This allowed them to charge more but left the customer thinking they were getting a better deal. It was so successful it became an industry trend and has single-handedly altered Americans idea of what is a proper portion for a meal. They must be very proud and very rich!

And now for one of my greatest corporate annoyances - Disposability! Perhaps the most evil person of all came up with the brilliant suggestion that if you made things disposable then they would need to be replaced all the time. It might be hard to make consumers understand the benefits but that's what they pay advertising agencies for. Those clever people use every trick in the book to sell their products and guilt is their number one tactic.

Here are some classic arguments put forth by the disposable people: You will be a terrible Mother if you use that stinking washcloth instead of this 'sanitary' disposable one. Your children crawl around on these floors that you've just washed with that horrible reusable mop - be very ashamed and go out and buy a disposable mop with additional cloths right away. Your children never get a hot breakfast of Bisquick pancakes so you must buy this one use only plastic Bisquick container to make your kids pancakes in the morning!

All of those things end up in a landfill. Now doesn't that make you feel guilty? Everybody needs to watch the movie Wall-E at least ten times until they get the message. Once the people get the message then they can start boycotting these products and perhaps forcing them to adjust. But in the meantime their ought to be a law.

So, Mr. President, along with removing tax breaks for companies that move jobs how about penalizing the serial polluters out there? There would be a number of ways to accomplish this. Let's charge companies additional tax dollars for producing items that are not environmentally friendly. We can also reward companies that produce items that are environmentally responsible. We can change the direction we've been going in but it will require all of us to participate, the people and the government.

Newsweek Story Hits the Nail on the Head

I just finished reading David Frum's story in Newsweek today and I couldn't agree more with him. The man is a conservative and he supported the Iraq War but in this case he shows remarkable sense. His argument is that if the conservative movement doesn't make some changes in it's philosophy it is going to become irrelevant.

More importantly he takes on Rush Limbaugh. He makes an excellent analogy when he says that Rush Limbaugh is to the Republican Party today what Jesse Jackson was to to the Democratic Party in the 1980's. Although Jesse never held sway over such a large and adoring constituency that Rush does he still was the only real voice for African Americans in politics at the time and he needed to be respected. The problems begin for a party when respect turns to fawning and the individual begins holding their own party hostage.

This has clearly become the case for Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans. If anybody says anything that might be offensive to him they 'rush' to apologize and the result is that it confirms his 'leadership' of the Republican party. Even though Rush has the undying loyalty of 20 million Americans the rest of us mostly find him offensive and repulsive. We showed that in a very specific way during the last election. So if the Republicans continue to allow Rush to make their argument for them then they can expect to receive about 20 million dittohead votes in the next election and watch their butts get kicked again.

Believe me when I tell you that is fine and dandy with me. Nobody deserves it more. If any party deserves to serve long term political purgatory then the Republicans are it. They played along while GWB rode this country to ruin and they deserve what they get. But if they decide to let their more intellectual members play a role they might live to fight another day. It was difficult listening to Meghan McCain yesterday on Rachel Maddow's show but I did appreciate her message. She has been writing against another Hate Monger - Ann Coulter. I just wish, like, she had, like, expressed that opinion, like, without so many likes.

In any event it should be fun to watch. At this point it doesn't look like the Republicans are getting the message. They still say outrageous things on the radio and on Fox Noise. These thing are said with the specific purpose of making people think that there might be more than one truth about a subject out there. It's called muddying the waters. As long as they believe that they can trick the American people into believing things that arent' true they will continue to attempt it. Perhaps a few more election cycles will deliver the message more effectively.

I Really Don't Care What the Republicans Think Anymore

The media is still looking out for the Republicans. All of the major sources for news are clearly still receiving their talking points every day. When the announcer at NBC opens the news story of a new stimulus package by mentioning the number of earmarks that are in it then we know it has been slanted to the right. The other day on NPR they began a news story about how John McCain thinks there should be more corporate tax breaks in the stimulus packages. Am I the only one out there who wants to scream at the radio/TV "I don't give a crap what they think anymore?"

For eight years the American people have been subjected to government at it's very worst. A government that will go down in history as the most ruinous in history. This government was run by Republicans. They were not passive participants in the failure of our economy. Some of them may have been too stupid to have read their history about the unregulated greed that led to the Great Depression or to recognize the danger signs of our current economic catastrophe but they were fully aware that the benefits of their policies were delivered to Corporate America not Middle America.

If you need proof of where the Republicans bloody, tiny hearts lay, please witness the upcoming battle over the Employees Free Choice Act. Now let's ask ourselves who might benefit from a law that allows you to create a union in your workplace? Hmmmmm, let's see, the worker! A union accomplishes workplace stability, a living wage, decent working conditions and a happy middle class. So now let's ask ourselves why this would be bad? Because it cut's into company profits, CEO bonuses, shareholder dividend checks and Swiss bank accounts. Please watch carefully on which side of this argument the Republicans fall on.

Then ask yourself why we should care about them and their ideas when they've shown us over and over that they are not on our side.

Humor Will Help Get Us Through This

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Elizabeth Hasselbeck is an Idiot

Actually she's not which is why it is clear that she is in a deep state of denial like most of her fellow Repubs. She seems like a caring person and somebody you could have a laugh with until she starts defending somebody like Rush Limbooger. Does she have any idea some of the things that this man has said?

Thirty one days ago when President Obama was sworn in Elizabeth Hasselbeck said on The View that even though she didn't vote for him she would hope for his success. Well, hells bells, that sure as heck didn't last too long. She now hopes, along with Rush and almost every other Repub, that the President fails. Quite a turn around wouldn't you say?

And, of course, what does that say about her morality that she would actually wish for her President to fail when her country is in the worst peril it may have ever experienced? I believe it says a lot which brings us back to the denial thing. Elizabeth is terribly concerned, along with Rush, that Obama is spending too much money in his attempt to bring this country back from the brink of the cliff - a cliff that he inherited. Where was her deep concern when GWB was bringing us to this point by borrowing billions from the Chinese to finance his war of choice against Iraq? In Elizabeth's moral world it is okay to spend money on killing innocent Iraqis but immoral to spend it on rescuing the country. Interesting.

Her failure to articulate her opinions in any manner that makes sense is brought home everyday by witnessing her method. If you cannot win an argument based on the facts at hand then you better be prepared to a. talk loudly, b. talk non-stop, and c. don't let any of your more intellectually capable co-hosts get a word in edge wise. I think that Repubs actually take classes in this method since the facts are never on their side.

If Rush Limbooger and Elizabeth the Hypocrite are what the Repubs have to offer these days then their party is hurting.