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I who am I? Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in fact clouds and obscures who it is that I am really.
Given a front row seat for the generation of the 1960's I lived in Chicago in 1960. My father was a Democratic precinct captain, my mother an election judge. His father had been a Union organizer and had been beaten and jailed for his efforts. His first time in jail was for punching a Ku Klux Klansman during a parade in the 1930's. I never felt as if I was raised in a family of activists but seeing it print makes me think, yes. That is a part of who I am.
We find ourselves today living in a world treed by the hounds of madness, a complicit media covering contrite parties. Multilevel media, giving more access to communication yet stunting actual communication. More noise, less voice, more sound less music, more law less justice, more medicine less life.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 20, 2013 That's why they call it a Police State
As a population we live with an overload of inputs, 9-11, the wars, the shootings and the endless carnage brought about by the political philosophies of those in our government, who are neither Republicans nor Democrats.
SHARE Sunday, March 10, 2013 Somewhere Between Yesterday and Tomorrow
Now, take your average golden lunchbox millionaire earning around $ 400,000 annually. He or she gets that paycheck every week and glances at their gross weekly earnings of $ 7,692.30; they look quickly at their deductions and are outraged. But what they don't ever have to think about is "Oh, my god, how am I going to pay my bills!"
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 18, 2013 Where Do They Go?
Wages rose at the ridiculously paltry rate of 0.5 percent, seasonally adjusted for three months and for the year; compensation rose only 1.9%. A desert sheik should run such a frugal household. At 1.9% wage growth, any plans for an economic recovery should be placed well off into the far distant future.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, February 15, 2013 Praising Money Tonight in the House of the Lord
With that many rich folks all together in one room and all so orgasmic-ally delighted by the appearance of the President one must ask as a poor man, what's this mean to me? I mean, we're talking rich and poor here. Not just my poverty but that of all of us,
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 1, 2013 Lady in Flames
How strange it is that our society can erupt with volcanic outrage at one crime while ignoring another more outrageous crime. Fox News and many of the mainstream media outlets are obsessed with dead-white-girl syndrome. Any young white woman who disappears or is murdered, is always great news copy. A young woman of any other ethnicity, lost or murdered is, well" not so much.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 26, 2013 The War of Terror
So these voices from the past cry out to us in unison, all is not as it appears. We live in a historic age, with an explosion of media power and contraction of corporate ownership. We live in an historic age of near perpetual war, with the slyest cheaters still hiding, with accidents, near accidents, amazing spectacles and subtle slights of tongue.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, January 14, 2013 The Illusion of Freedom
There are no more Republicans and there are no more Democrats; they are merely stage props to create the illusion of an open political system. Mitt Romney was the bad cop and Barack Obama was the good cop, but still, a cop is a cop? It is nothing but an illusion to elicit your participation.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 5, 2013 One in Twelve
The numbers are shocking, except, they aren't numbers; they're flesh and blood human beings. There is no improvement in these numbers because the people in power don't give a damn about improving these numbers. In October of 2009, the Dow Jones industrial average was below 7000 today, it is above 13,000.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 1, 2013 Hobo's Lullaby
Last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that jobs and wage losses from Hurricane Sandy were negligible and therefore would not be included in job or wage loss statistics. See, if the building you worked in was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, your job loss doesn't count. It can, however, be included as a legitimate reason for slow Christmas sales.
(20 comments) SHARE Monday, December 24, 2012 My Fourth Year
There is much to be said about having nothing,
If you can stay alive,
If you can breathe and feel and eat and sleep,
If the pain doesn't catch up to you,
If the shadows don't kill you,
If the loneliness doesn't break you
If the cops don't take you,
SHARE Saturday, December 22, 2012 Rockets Red Glare
Strange the President should think such a thing, especially since Osama Bin Laden was never charged in connection with the events of 9/11. Bin Laden was charged in connection with a series of US embassy attacks in 1998 in North Africa.
SHARE Tuesday, December 18, 2012 The Brick Wall
The august and esteemed members of our elected government have created a financial incident, for the purpose of debasing you, as a person, as a mother or as a father, as an individual and as a human being.
SHARE Thursday, December 13, 2012 Taken at the Flood
The death of democracy is no small thing; its mock replacement is but small comfort. Its death comes not by a swords gushing wound, but by paper cuts. The democracy of the locked door and the midnight gavel,
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, December 7, 2012 Dickensian!
Wonderful, the largest utility in New Jersey estimates damages of over 300 million dollars calling it, the largest power outage in the state's history. The Bureau of Labor Statistics crosses its fingers declaring that storm related unemployment doesn't count.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 29, 2012 The Security State
[I]t is much safer to be feared than loved when, of the two, one must be dispensed with. Because " love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails. -- Niccolo Machiavelli
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 22, 2012 Guns or Butter
Twenty percent of all children in this country live in poverty; sixteen percent of all seniors live in poverty. Forty nine million American struggle to put food on their tables and fifty percent of all Americans will live in poverty at some point in their lives.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 13, 2012 True Definitions
The decided legitimacy of a mandate on the general public declaring they must purchase a product from a private corporation under penalty of law. It doesn't sound very Socialist to me, millions of government tax dollars being filtered from public coffers to private hands?
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 6, 2012 Playing Along?
They never really did have any connection to us, but now, in this new life; it is even more obviously so. In retrospect, the rise of Barack Obama looks trumped up and foisted upon us. The rise of an articulate political unknown young black man, versus a crotchety old white man after eight years of George W. Bush. It's been a long time since I rock and rolled...
SHARE Friday, November 2, 2012 The Song Remains the Same
Another thirty days has passed and the BLS this morning released its monthly jobs report. It's almost lost its thrill, settling into a monthly rehash of filtered numbers, take for instance, Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 171,000 this month, while the numbers of workers entering the workforce increased by 578,000 so from the get go, we're down 400,000 jobs.