- Yesterday things seemed to be turning the corner. GWB
announced that we could be expecting 2.3million new jobs-this year! I tried
to figure out how many new Walmarts-Prisons-and McSlop food fast food joints
that would mean-then decided to wait for clarification.
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- Didn't take long...Feb 18-04, Lou Dobbs CNN update on
the hemorrhaging of jobs- scrolled down the hundreds of names of companies
taking off for other lands where labor is almost free-no medical coverage-pensions-unemployment-vacations-or
the environment to worry about. Then a short piece on the newest wave of
a 1000 Bank of America jobs-(joining the already thousands of others)....going
to Russia-China-and India.
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- Today GWB stated that he was sure employment was going
to pick up--that its hard for people to suffer these downturns. No-GWB
never suffered a downturn in his life-so the words are detached meaningless
script...maybe given in his earpiece? Then he went on about the thrill
of small businesses opening and filling the gap. Huh! That should do it-most
especially with right-to-work (for less) states, overtime cut and medical
insurance coverage (thanks to state legislators) rising for the little
guy.
-
- Yes we're all going to be gainfully employed at Dollar
Stores-Ski Resorts-Yacht Clubs (scraping boat hulls) Golf Courses-Convenience
Stores-Barber Shops-Dumps-Incinerators-Scrap Yards-Junk Stores-Health Clubs
(cleaning up after sweaty pigs)-Tanning Salons-Security Guards-Bouncers-Strippers-Blackjack
Dealers-Snow Makers-Septic Tank Cleaners -Prison Guards-Groundskeepers-Car
Washers-Dishwashers-Short Order Cooks etc. That should get us back on our
feet and put the kids through college-buy that first home-hey, and maybe
take in a carnival and movie.
-
-
- The newest round of job training has us all as "scientists-health
workers". Used to be back in the old days (70s-80s-90s) that computer
training in this new world of technology would take us out of the factories-mills-auto
plants and assembly lines. So we all got retrained or had our children
become technologically savvy. Here we go again now that those jobs are
gone to India, China, and Russia. It appears that the only cradle to grave
jobs left are politician-lobbyist-or expert (at something).
-
- No GWB doesn't have a dust as to rents, utilities, medical,
food, fuel or costs of college. That was all handed to him on a velvet
cushion resting on a silver platter trimmed with gold leaf. Lifers ( encrusted
mildewed legislators) have long lost touch with the real world-if they
indeed ever knew it. In the rarified marbled halls of Foggy Bottom (built
appropriately on a swamp) politicians jockey for the most sumptuous of
offices, have full medical coverage (we pick up 72% cost), housing allowances,
automatic raises, laden tables of food in the Congressional/Senate dining
rooms, an on site health club, clinic (should they suffer gas from stuffing
themselves), expense accounts, some with private security guards, and exotic
vacations called "fact finding missions"....usually abroad and
ascetically pleasing with exotic sights.
-
- All this posturing and lamenting on caring, feeling the
people's pain, and empty clanging promises every four years is getting
kind of old with the script unchanged. Both parties have voted for job
exports, trade agreements, most favored nation, visas (to bring foreign
workers in to replace Americans) telecommunications (giveaway to airwaves
to corporate interests) act, subsidies, off-shore banking and reneging
on their responsibility to declare war--giving it over to the Executive
Branch. The only thing they're good at is the blame game-- getting jobs
for their relatives--holding hearings, after the fact, of everything from
Gulf War Syndrome--contracts awarded without bids, billions gone missing,
defense spending, fraud by corporations etc. They take up hours of time
with never any actions taken, nobody fired, and the billions just (shrug)
gone! But the important thing is--they look busy and important.
-
-
- If any of us were to walk out into our yards every morning
and find them knee deep in $50-$100-$1000 dollar bills do you think we'd
be buying those economy light bulbs-turning the thermostat down-buying
our rags at thrift shops-eating hamburger helper without the hamburger-chicken-tuna
salad-and spaghetti? Do you think we'd be getting only $5.00 worth of gas,
getting the cheapest haircuts, cutting pills in half or not buying them
at all? Do you think we'd be checking the want ads daily for that second
or third job?
-
- Well that's the difference. A Senator retires and goes
into a multi-million dollar lobbyist job. With no responsibility or accountability
for the people's hard earned monies it's a party every day for these guys.
The Capitol lawns are filled with money.tax payer money. $100.00 haircuts,
best of suits, steaks, lobster, free gas, and no going through body cavity
searches at airports for them. If they feel bloated, tired, need a rest,
they can check themselves into a hospital for whatever length of time.
No drive through giving birth, brain operations, or mastectomies for them
or theirs. In the real world your holding the bloody gauze to your gut
trying to make it home! As for birthing it's a wonder they don't cut the
umbilical cord in the parking lot.
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- It is nothing short of depraved indifference and cavalier
insolence to proclaim "times are tough-we're in a transition period-this
is a global economy-goods are cheaper-people need to retrain to keep up
with the changing world". Tell this to the auto worker, the miner,
the farmer, the textile worker, the fisherman, the steel worker, the machinist,
the small business, the information technology employee....sitting at their
kitchen table with shut-off notices, the rent due, the car broken down,
a feverish child and no medical coverage. Tell them to retrain as a scientist,
or hey, maybe a heart surgeon. Tell the kids that daddy will get some
food, as soon as he, at 50 years of age, with scarred, gnarled hands and
black lung gets that astronomers degree or becomes a surgeon. Tell the
utility company, bank, grocer, fuel man, and landlord you'll get back to
them as soon as you get that degree and the money starts rolling in. This
is how removed-detached-malignant-depraved-indifference thinks. Total disconnect.
The lights are on but nobody's home.
-
-
- But GWB with his lucrative paycheck and government housing
says he thinks employment is going to improve. GWB says whatever his alter-ego
Karl Rove tells him to. Like Noam Chomsky says, "Karl Rove is GWB's
mentor the one who teaches him what to say and do." GWB refers to
him by the nicknames of "Boy Genius or Toad Bloosom". Karl Rove
is to GWB as Mark Hanna was to President William McKinley. Hanna held
corporate interests above national interests and its no different now.
No need now though to influence-corporate honchos reign -in their appointments
to high places.
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- Nobody argues globalization in a changing world. What
the people's of all lands be they Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chili, England,
Thailand, Korea, Canada, Russia, India, Philippines, Japan, Africa, Haiti,
Poland, France, Germany, etc., is a place at the table in these giveaway
trade agreements. Trade agreements made of, for, and by the corporate interests
behind closed door barricaded summits. Agreements that have nations rushing
to the bottom in wages and environmental protections. Agreements that plunder,
despoil, drill, clear cut, and rob the people of their resources (including
water) and their dignity. The earth belongs to all of the people to nurture,
protect and guard. Not to the insatiable depraved clowns with hatchets
with their Machiavelli twisted mind sets. The Prince-by Niccolo Machiavellia---might
be the foundational stone of today's policies.
-
- Chapter 6 "is necessary to take such measures that,
when they believe no longer, it may be possible to make them believe by
force."
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-
- Chapter 8 "For injuries ought to be done all at
one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought
to be given little by little, so that the flavor of them last longer".
-
-
- Chapter 9 "Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt
such a course that his citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance
have need of the state and of him,and then he will always find them faithful."
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- Chapter 15 "a man who wishes to act entirely up
to his profession of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so
much that is evil. Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his
own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to
necessity".
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- Chapter 16 "We have not seen great things done in
our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed."
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-
- Chapter 18 "You must know there are two ways of
contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is
proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is frequently
not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second. Therefore
it is necessary for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the
beast and the man. If men were entirely good this precept would not hold,
but because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are
not bound to observe it with them. Nor will there ever be wanting to a
prince legitimate reasons to excuse this nonobservance."
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- Chapter 19 "And here it should be noted that hatred
is acquired as much by good works as by bad ones, therefore as I said before,
a prince wishing to keep his state is very often forced to do evil; for
when that body is corrupt whom you think you have need of to maintain yourself---it
may be either the people or the soldiers or the nobles---you have to submit
to its humors and to gratify them, and then good works will do you harm."
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- Chapter 25 "because fortune is a woman, and if you
wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it
is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather
than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like,
a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and
with more audacity (bold daring) command her. He who is the cause of another
becoming powerful is ruined."
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