Wednesday, September 24, 2008

OMG McCain

I can't take it!!! I CAN'T TAKE IT!!!!! OH MY LORD!!!!

So we are in crisis and what we need, let me get this right Sen. McCain, is less ability to ask you questions on how you plan to address the multiple needs of this country?

Uhn huh. Well, many people will fall for that response to your shockingly low polling numbers [and i hate polls] but I won't.

And the people like me - the people with brains - won't fall for it either, I promise you.

I'm a Republican *Ack!

Uhm, so - I think I agree with the Republicans.

My broke behind is not identifying with the rich in order to forget my own circumstances - likewise with race, i.e I hang out with white people; therefore, I am... I still think the Defense of Marriage document is a load of bull, and frankly, against the American ideals of freedom and self-expression -- and other shit that isn't any ones business but your own.

But socialism in Wall street?! I'm afraid not bub...tap that vein and stick in the mind numbing, thought stealing, common sense eroding, community damming republican juices. Yum... (although, if it's an I.V, I wouldn't be able to taste that, now would I?)

I was listening to NPR this morning and this economist guy - former Treasury before the guy we've got now - says we don't have to give them a dime, simply guarantee the bonds for the price they will be worth at maturity. Benake plans on paying Wall street an established price anyway (the pea that began this mess) so simply say that the government backs them and that will liquefy the market.

Such simplicity! Such clarity! Such transparency! (what?! no back,side,front, outside, inside deals?!)

"Anybody in Washington thinking of this plan?" asked the Mr. Lopane

"Uh, no"

Exactly - crooked bastards.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Vacation Day 2

Is anyone still angry that they have no say in this government bailout plan? That they are giving this money to people with clause in the bill saying that there will be no over site by any government (or anyone else for that matter) entity? How the hell do you give someone trillions of dollars of our money and the say all matters pertaining to that money is off limits?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html

Diversionary capitalism...Is anyone else excited about the new Google phone? On T-mobile? http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/live-blogging-from-google-phone-event/?hp
mobile blogging anyone?

to the gym and then back to the couch...

Monday, September 22, 2008

On Vacation...

Scarfing down mike and ike's
Not washing...anything
Not thinking about how fucked up this economic bill is going to be for the little people
Waiting anxiously for the heroes premiere....47 mins and counting...

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Government Bailouts

This is not an original thought, in fact, it is active plagiarism - of Whoopie on The View, no less.

If the economy is tanking because people are not paying their loans (at least that was the original crack - have you heard about the 'future funds' where they make bets on who is going to default on a loan?!? That's how they make profits, by guessing a debt - insane!), and the tax payers give them the owed money, why doesn't that wipe out the debt the tax payer owes? You see? Don't they, in effect, get paid twice - a government check and then whatever your sorry, broke behind pays them? Shouldn't you not owe them anymore....don't we always get the bottom of the muffin....?

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Obama waffles

So have you seen this one? I wanted to just say "enough said" and go watch 'The Biggest Loser', but it isn't enough. I can't say enough about the fact that we are a racist country.

When interviewed, the inventors of this product noted that it was not meant to be racist - they simply thought it was a great way to play up the fact that Obama changes his stance on different policies - his 'waffling'. They even pointed out that they 'loved' Aunt Jemima pancakes and thus it was a compliment to place his face on the box - I suppose the reason why Republicans 'believe' obvious lies, that keep getting repeated until they become truth, is because they do the same thing in their daily lives! - a fucking compliment...they weren't even cracking a smile when they said it.

Never mind that you can't see the caricature of Michelle on the other side, never mind the demeaning history of Aunt Jemima and the obvious cooning highlighted with those pictures, never mind the fact that they enlarged his lips and made them shiny, never mind the insensitivity of using a painful memory of an entire portion of the united states as humor - this is a painful dehumanizing mockery of a man who deserves to be respected. To make history in the way he has, to fundamentally change the way people will campaign for the highest office in our nation forever, to come from a group of people who remain marginalized and discriminated against, means that he gets placed in a category of veneration.

The need and desire to tear this man down, to denigrate him in this fashion truly comes from a vicious spirit - a spirit that needs to believe in the portrait painted on the side of that box. There is an identity whose existence requires that people of color remain that caricature and not the President of the United States of America. What would these racist do, in their small towns (although don't think for a moment that I don't know they are on the train with me, chilling in Saks with me, getting an 8$ latte with me), if they had to face the reality of black intelligence, of black humanity?!? That's the real fight here, and that explains the true source of the viciousness in this campaign - it is a fight for ones identity, the ability of one to continue to say that old joke... no matter, at least I'm not a nigger.

Update: In case you didn't see it coming - Stacy and Adam - the green team A.K.A the black team got voted off the first episode.... because they were the 'strongest'...aka...whatever, i'm going to bed...

Zimbawe

My heart is so full of emotion at the situation in Zimbabwe. I have to say until now that I thought that Robert Mugabe was the bad guy and he certainly is, the vicious attacks, beatings, and murders of his own people, who were trying to stand up for a democratically elected government, fully place him in the 'bad' category. Yesterday, though, listening to him at the power sharing ceremony, lament about the corruption and influence of the western powers on his government I started thinking. Obviously this guy is using the very real corrupting influence of the U.S and other first world countries to convince his people that he should stay in power. The amount of death and destruction for power and influence is staggering, and the idea that you would do that to your own people - they are all Zimbabwean - that is crazy. See in the U.S - when our government mistreats us, we are usually immigrants, or blacks, or poor - few of us have shared a land, a bloodline for hundreds of years...so it's okay - your own blood though- heartbreaking.

The power sharing idea is that Mugabe, president for 28 years,(...i know right - how the hell...) would hold control of the army and Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister, would hold control of the police. While watching Mr. Tsvangirai yesterday, it seemed to me that he was very westernized - shaking his head at Mr. Mugabe's complaints about the west, scapegoating them for the problems in Zimbabwe and Africa at large - but that put me on edge as well. It seems to me that an African leader who identifies closely with the west isn't going to be a good thing either - shit, we can't be trusted.

So then - the choice is between, an obviously corrupted leader in Mugabe - willing to murder and beat thousands of people, willing to corrupt the economic system so that their money is virtually worthless (1 billion=50 cent, don't quote me) - and Tsvangirai, a westernized leader who could bring calm and the manipulating subterfuge of the western businesses. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

(lamenting voice) Oh, the corruption of government and power! Although Zimbabwe has taken it to a new level of evil, am I being dramatic to feel that we will be on a similar path should the republicans take office for 8 more years? I am right? Killing in the streets, in America??? Probably not though I still feel that way.

My prayers go out for the massive death and destruction that those people have survived in their fight for freedom.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Lastly--American Divides

i think it is important to point out that although the republican strategy is divisive, it is merely a reflection of the very real [racial] division that was always there. these small towns that everyone is talking about, the "low-information" voter is such by choice. the decision to "believe" that obama is a muslim and that his first birth certificate is a fake (and i will get that citation for you) is a willing choice. they are not "stupid" or low information, they are racist.

What obama has unwilling brought to the forefront is a conversation about race that america refuses to confront - and although he wants to be post racial - we are not. We shall see on 11/04 just how far we have come since my grandmother, as a little girl in the south, had to get into the street if a white woman was walking toward her on the side walk.

Update:http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/15/ohio/

My fears about Palin

now i have written elsewhere about why Palin scares me but eve ensler has written it so much better than i have, i had to share, my friend sent this to me today:

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke.

In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life? Eve EnslerSeptember 5, 2008

why women can't have it all...

listen - on my way to work this morning i had to hear meridith v. hosting a discussion about why it's so hard for women to have both a career and a family. no one understands why this is a conversation that only women have to have and not men blah blah blah sexism blah blah other nonsensical words and thoughts.

uh duh, we, women, struggle to have it all because men don't pull their weight.

i read a study - no i'm not citing it, this isn't the new york times - that said that when women get married they increase their household work 6 hours... - and get this - men decrease theirs by 2 hours...

its simple - my sisterhood of the traveling intellects - men were able to do both because women stayed home and raised the family. as we moved into the world of work we were expected to both pursue our careers AND the traditional women's roles without the same support. of course you can't do both!

it means that we need to call men out for not being equal partners in the tending of the house and career.

and let me say this - this shit is an issue for middle class mostly white women - black women have been working and taking care of their children, alone, since slavery... welcome to our world sisters.

I'ma control freak...

that's the only reason a person would need to have two blogs. right now i'm at work and my co-worker is bemoaning the fact that i have joined the masses of self obsessed myopic people who think folks give a dam about what they have to say. ah well - it's done.

So give a dam what i have to say and i'll try to make it funny.