As I was driving a friend to the airport this morning, I was listening to NPR. Back to School spending wasn't as lucrative as it needed to be. Bad us! Retail spending is below expectations...bad us! The housing market is not rising as quickly as it needs to....bad, bad us! As consumers, the media is quick to point out our weaknesses. If only we'd part with the money we don't have everything would pick up and start humming again.
Corporate greed is insatiable, there is, apparantly, no limit. As CEO, a 20 million dollar bonus on top of a multi million dollar salary seems to be a necessity, so spend more money folks! We're falling behind. Buy more stuff that you don't need. Throw the old stuff in the landfill, there's plenty of room. Uprade your technology, even though you just did it last year, or was that the year before? Whenever it was, there's been inovations that we're told we can't live without. Use those credit cards, get out there and support your local corporation. Because, God knows, they need us. Profits are down. Not gone, just down from the inflated levels of days gone by. The oil companies are doing well, the pharmaceutical companies are cleaning up, and the insurance companies are rollin' in dough. The financial institutions are far from collapsing but... what's happening to the people?
The media would have us think that it's an issue of Republicans and Democrats. That debate keeps us busy, arguing with each other, going after paper tigers. Perhaps, like me, you've noticed that it makes no difference which party wins an election, everything stays pretty much the same. The wars continue, people suffer, money is made.
If President Obama was able to make the changes he wanted to make, he would have. If the Clintons were able to have their way, they would have overhauled the health care system. They tried, they failed, and they paid for it with years of useless litigation over fabricated financial scandals. When that didn't work the powers that be moved onto personal attacks, making Hilary appear to be a man hating dyke (I only wish!) and Bill, well we all know what happened to him.
If President Obama was able he also would have overhauled the health care system to the benefit of the American people. Instead he overhauled it to the benefit of the insurance companies. What made that happen? It certainly wasn't his intention. I'd say it's time to make the corporations stand up and be noticed. Rip the cloak of invisibility off those corporate tanks that are mowing us down while they stack up piles of money. Make them take responsibility for the mess we're in, make them share some of their profits with the little guys who can't seem to be heard over the noise of the money counting machines. Used to be "behind every good man, there's a good woman!" Now, it's "behind every rich man is more rich men!"
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Corporate Takeover of Gay Day
When I first arrived in Seattle, in the eighties, there was a festering rift between the drag queens and the homosexuals. The homosexuals didn't want the drag queens to ruin their image in the gay parade. Can you imagine? If it wasn't for those feisty queens at Stonewall in New York City, this national holiday we now call Gay Pride wouldn't even exist.
Dressed up in their finest, the drag queens hit the streets in protest and marched themselves right down Broadway on Saturday night. My girlfriend and I decided to escort them on our motorcycles and were happy to see that Vik had the same idea. It was a great march full of vitality and enthusiasm, unlike what I witnessed yesterday.
Dykes on Bikes started things off with the usual uproar, flags flying, horns honking, the crowd screaming. It was impossible to not feel proud and gay. But then (yawn!) something terrible happened. Logo encrusted cars, boom boxes blaring, their gay employees waving in their matching t-shirts. Bank of America, Coca Cola, American Airlines, esurance, Microsoft, the radio stations it just didn't stop. After about an hour I was pretty sure there must be a BP float back there somewhere, snuggled up with an Exxon float just waiting to be let out of the gate. I tried to stay the course, I wanted to enjoy the parade, but the logo riddled procession of internal combustion engines wasn't all that interesting. The queers were lining the streets, packing the beer gardens and having brunch on the street corners, while corporate America strutted it stuff in the Gay Parade. What's happened?
Gay Day, historically, is an energizing day of celebration. Gay Day 2010, in Seattle was anything but that. It was a celebration of our acceptance into the mainstream, acknowledgement of our importance as a consumer group, but....... hardly gay at all. I'm hoping the queers were, at least, in the back of the bus waiting their turn to burst out of the gates and hit the streets. I just didn't have what it took to wade through the celebration of the corporate takeover. I found it boring and insulting and left in search of the queers.
If I hear one word in one gay publication about how we're in debt over this event, I'm definitely calling the police because there were enough corporate "sponsors" to pay for three parades.
Dressed up in their finest, the drag queens hit the streets in protest and marched themselves right down Broadway on Saturday night. My girlfriend and I decided to escort them on our motorcycles and were happy to see that Vik had the same idea. It was a great march full of vitality and enthusiasm, unlike what I witnessed yesterday.
Dykes on Bikes started things off with the usual uproar, flags flying, horns honking, the crowd screaming. It was impossible to not feel proud and gay. But then (yawn!) something terrible happened. Logo encrusted cars, boom boxes blaring, their gay employees waving in their matching t-shirts. Bank of America, Coca Cola, American Airlines, esurance, Microsoft, the radio stations it just didn't stop. After about an hour I was pretty sure there must be a BP float back there somewhere, snuggled up with an Exxon float just waiting to be let out of the gate. I tried to stay the course, I wanted to enjoy the parade, but the logo riddled procession of internal combustion engines wasn't all that interesting. The queers were lining the streets, packing the beer gardens and having brunch on the street corners, while corporate America strutted it stuff in the Gay Parade. What's happened?
Gay Day, historically, is an energizing day of celebration. Gay Day 2010, in Seattle was anything but that. It was a celebration of our acceptance into the mainstream, acknowledgement of our importance as a consumer group, but....... hardly gay at all. I'm hoping the queers were, at least, in the back of the bus waiting their turn to burst out of the gates and hit the streets. I just didn't have what it took to wade through the celebration of the corporate takeover. I found it boring and insulting and left in search of the queers.
If I hear one word in one gay publication about how we're in debt over this event, I'm definitely calling the police because there were enough corporate "sponsors" to pay for three parades.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Corporate Pollution
Corporate Pollution:
I like to think that human nature is inherently helpful and cooperative. If someone is up against it, we like to move in and help. If your barn burns down, your neighbors come to build you a new one. If you lose a loved one, people bring food and comfort. If there’s disaster, people rally and stick together. All for one and one for all!
We seem to have extended our human compassion to the corporate world. Unfortunately, they have not reciprocated. . How much profit did that corporation lose? Poor thing, it’s having such a miserable time, and money means so much to it. Let’s give it our money to make it feel better, because if the corporations feel better, everyone feels better.
While thousands of people have been stranded in Europe, hotels doubled their normal rates, the railroads increased their fares, and rental car agencies took advantage of the situation. One hotel in Shang-Hai doubled it’s rates every 15 minutes until the only people who could stay there were people travelling on corporate expense accounts, the same people who sit in comfortable first class airline seats, sipping free cocktails while everyone else is crammed into the back of the plane, paying for pretzels to go with their water.
The atmosphere of greed and fear that’s permeating our lives these days is being cranked out by the television, and funded by the corporations. We don’t thrive in such a negative environment. We get scared and angry and hold on for dear life.
Meanwhile, the corporations are doing well. We hear about it 8 times a day on the news. They’re doing so well that they’re successfully running the country, determining policies that make them even more money. Goldman Sachs is flourishing, the oil companies are making record profits, and the pharmaceutical industry is at the top of it’s game. Over the years, the insurance companies managed to quietly turn healthcare, a basic human need, into a big profitable business. The recent battle was over who owns that business, and the insurance companies won. There is no universal accessible health care in the new plan. There’s no “people before profit” in the new plan. The new plan is insurance, more insurance, mandatory insurance, insurance for everyone. That’s not a health care plan, that’s an insurance plan.
Maybe the government could start an incentive program. Money for Humanity, because it’s clearly money that turns real people into corporate clones, gleefully tossing their compassion and humanity in the landfills conveniently located where the rest stops used to be.
I like to think that human nature is inherently helpful and cooperative. If someone is up against it, we like to move in and help. If your barn burns down, your neighbors come to build you a new one. If you lose a loved one, people bring food and comfort. If there’s disaster, people rally and stick together. All for one and one for all!
We seem to have extended our human compassion to the corporate world. Unfortunately, they have not reciprocated. . How much profit did that corporation lose? Poor thing, it’s having such a miserable time, and money means so much to it. Let’s give it our money to make it feel better, because if the corporations feel better, everyone feels better.
While thousands of people have been stranded in Europe, hotels doubled their normal rates, the railroads increased their fares, and rental car agencies took advantage of the situation. One hotel in Shang-Hai doubled it’s rates every 15 minutes until the only people who could stay there were people travelling on corporate expense accounts, the same people who sit in comfortable first class airline seats, sipping free cocktails while everyone else is crammed into the back of the plane, paying for pretzels to go with their water.
The atmosphere of greed and fear that’s permeating our lives these days is being cranked out by the television, and funded by the corporations. We don’t thrive in such a negative environment. We get scared and angry and hold on for dear life.
Meanwhile, the corporations are doing well. We hear about it 8 times a day on the news. They’re doing so well that they’re successfully running the country, determining policies that make them even more money. Goldman Sachs is flourishing, the oil companies are making record profits, and the pharmaceutical industry is at the top of it’s game. Over the years, the insurance companies managed to quietly turn healthcare, a basic human need, into a big profitable business. The recent battle was over who owns that business, and the insurance companies won. There is no universal accessible health care in the new plan. There’s no “people before profit” in the new plan. The new plan is insurance, more insurance, mandatory insurance, insurance for everyone. That’s not a health care plan, that’s an insurance plan.
Maybe the government could start an incentive program. Money for Humanity, because it’s clearly money that turns real people into corporate clones, gleefully tossing their compassion and humanity in the landfills conveniently located where the rest stops used to be.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Life is a Gameshow
Do you have your rewards card? How about your buy 10 get one free punch card? Or maybe you’re racking up those frequent flyer miles so you can redeem them for free rides. If you book your hotel rooms through hotels.com you’ll get a free night at some point in the future. I don’t remember ever agreeing to be a contestant on this game show of life. But then, my memory isn’t what it used to be. Maybe I took a quiz and didn’t know it. Maybe it’s my punishment for spending so much of my life off the grid. It’s true, I wasn’t paying much attention to popular culture. I do know one thing for sure, although it’s called the free enterprise system, there aint nothing free about it.
According to my spam folder I could be running a business on the side selling all the Viagra I can apparently get for free on the internet. I’d have a dozen free laptops, a couple of dozen free iPods and my bank account would be overflowing with all the money that anonymous millionaire wants to give away. I'd love to be informed if anyone I know, or anyone associated with someone I know has ever actually received one of those free laptops, or a check from Microsoft for ten thousand dollars.
It’s a blitzkrieg of lies lies and more lies. It’s almost a full time job to sort through all the shit, keep track of your place in line, tally up the points on your rewards card, cut out coupons from the Sunday paper and send in the rebate that came with your vacuum cleaner. It's completely insulting to me to be approached in this assanine manner and I do hope I'm not alone. Otherwise, things are way worse than I imagined and everyone is getting what they deserve.
If you see me walking around wearing my motorcycle helmet with no bike in sight, you’ll know I’ve had enough. And if you don’t have a helmet, aluminum foil will do just fine. I hear Safeway is having a special. If you have your Safeway card, you can buy two, get one free.
According to my spam folder I could be running a business on the side selling all the Viagra I can apparently get for free on the internet. I’d have a dozen free laptops, a couple of dozen free iPods and my bank account would be overflowing with all the money that anonymous millionaire wants to give away. I'd love to be informed if anyone I know, or anyone associated with someone I know has ever actually received one of those free laptops, or a check from Microsoft for ten thousand dollars.
It’s a blitzkrieg of lies lies and more lies. It’s almost a full time job to sort through all the shit, keep track of your place in line, tally up the points on your rewards card, cut out coupons from the Sunday paper and send in the rebate that came with your vacuum cleaner. It's completely insulting to me to be approached in this assanine manner and I do hope I'm not alone. Otherwise, things are way worse than I imagined and everyone is getting what they deserve.
If you see me walking around wearing my motorcycle helmet with no bike in sight, you’ll know I’ve had enough. And if you don’t have a helmet, aluminum foil will do just fine. I hear Safeway is having a special. If you have your Safeway card, you can buy two, get one free.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Two Party System
I don't know about you, but I'm completely sick of those boys in Washington carrying on about who's right and who's wrong. Clearly, they're ALL off the wall. The Republicans are acting our like 3 year olds who's favorite and only word is NO, while the Democrats have no backbone and keep looking for a compromise. I've always maintained that compromise is a terrible solution to any situation. Nobody gets what they want, and everyone is unhappy in the end.
A long time ago, there were some guys who were talking about government of the people, by the people and for the people. Those guys are clearly dead and gone gone gone. The only evidence I can find of their revolutionary existence reverberating in today's world, is on our money. It's about time to replace those Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin greenbacks with etchings of AIG headquarters, Wall Street, and Pfizer. The U.S. government, today, is of the Corporations, by the Corporations and for the Corporations. We the people seem to have no place whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, except of course, to hand our money over to the corporations in as many ways as possible. We can buy their products, we can buy shares in their future, we can bail them out when they say they don't have enough money.
I can't hear the voice of sanity in any of this bedlam. It's all brown noise. Where are the people? I can't hear them. Are they asleep? Doesn't anyone care that we seem to find unlimited money for war but universal health care is "too expensive?" Does no one see how ludicrous this is? I used to think things would be better if the power was distributed more evenly among the people. I do believe I've changed my mind about that. You won't find me running in the streets screaming power to the people, not these glassy eyed people sitting in a vegetative state in front of their TV's waiting for someone to tell them what to think....that's over and done.
Like it's as simple as one or the other, Good or Evil, black or white, the Republicans or the Democrats. This two party system is completely broken. Choosing between terrible and horrible is not really a choice, and no one is listening anyway. I think we have to fire them all and start again with representatives who actually represent us, who listen to us, who fight for us. Not these idiot men who are all in it for themselves and their bank accounts.
A long time ago, there were some guys who were talking about government of the people, by the people and for the people. Those guys are clearly dead and gone gone gone. The only evidence I can find of their revolutionary existence reverberating in today's world, is on our money. It's about time to replace those Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin greenbacks with etchings of AIG headquarters, Wall Street, and Pfizer. The U.S. government, today, is of the Corporations, by the Corporations and for the Corporations. We the people seem to have no place whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, except of course, to hand our money over to the corporations in as many ways as possible. We can buy their products, we can buy shares in their future, we can bail them out when they say they don't have enough money.
I can't hear the voice of sanity in any of this bedlam. It's all brown noise. Where are the people? I can't hear them. Are they asleep? Doesn't anyone care that we seem to find unlimited money for war but universal health care is "too expensive?" Does no one see how ludicrous this is? I used to think things would be better if the power was distributed more evenly among the people. I do believe I've changed my mind about that. You won't find me running in the streets screaming power to the people, not these glassy eyed people sitting in a vegetative state in front of their TV's waiting for someone to tell them what to think....that's over and done.
Like it's as simple as one or the other, Good or Evil, black or white, the Republicans or the Democrats. This two party system is completely broken. Choosing between terrible and horrible is not really a choice, and no one is listening anyway. I think we have to fire them all and start again with representatives who actually represent us, who listen to us, who fight for us. Not these idiot men who are all in it for themselves and their bank accounts.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Rapture
I had lunch, yesterday, with a friend, who thinks that fundamentalist Christians don't care what happens to planet earth because they're pretty sure the Rapture is going to come and take them away from all this. I guess some people, like George W, call that "faith". To the rest of us, it's just plain irresponsible.
The fundamentalist Muslims appear to think the promise of a gaggle of virgins in the afterlife is enough to get young boys to turn themselves into human bombs and take as many people with them as possible. I hope there's enough virgins in heaven to go around, otherwise those boys are now finding themselves severely disappointed.
The real question is, do the politicians, the fundamentalist politicians, of the world, really believe these ridiculous assertions? or...... are they simply hoping to convince enough people to look the other way while they fill their pockets. Who knows what you can buy in heaven if your pockets are full when the rapture comes. Maybe they think they've already staked their claim and have a downpayment on a 5 bedroom 6 bath condo up there where the streets are supposedly paved with gold. One thing's for sure, it won't last for long, the gold, that is. These same believers will be scraping it off the streets, claiming it for themselves, hoarding it under their heavenly beds, and feeling like they've really accomplished something big.
And if they're wrong about the rapture, then their earthly greed has managed to set them up nicely for the duration of their time here. Either way they win.
They say universal health care for Americans would cost too much money. That must mean that war is more of a bargain. Besides the official Armed Forces of the United States, there's what used to be called Blackwater International until a few of their boys in Iraq experienced a surge of their own and gunned down unarmed civilians in the streets simply because they were in their way. That incident increased public awareness of Blackwater's participation in the war in Iraq. This wasn't such a good thing for a private clandestine army of mercenaries, started by a fundamentalist Christian retired Navy Seal. It's not that they have cut back on their international activities, it's simply that by changing their name to Xe, they have regained their anonymity, making them more effective in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think I saw a headline in the Washington Post that said: "Rapture Postponed, Live Life Like It Matters."
The fundamentalist Muslims appear to think the promise of a gaggle of virgins in the afterlife is enough to get young boys to turn themselves into human bombs and take as many people with them as possible. I hope there's enough virgins in heaven to go around, otherwise those boys are now finding themselves severely disappointed.
The real question is, do the politicians, the fundamentalist politicians, of the world, really believe these ridiculous assertions? or...... are they simply hoping to convince enough people to look the other way while they fill their pockets. Who knows what you can buy in heaven if your pockets are full when the rapture comes. Maybe they think they've already staked their claim and have a downpayment on a 5 bedroom 6 bath condo up there where the streets are supposedly paved with gold. One thing's for sure, it won't last for long, the gold, that is. These same believers will be scraping it off the streets, claiming it for themselves, hoarding it under their heavenly beds, and feeling like they've really accomplished something big.
And if they're wrong about the rapture, then their earthly greed has managed to set them up nicely for the duration of their time here. Either way they win.
They say universal health care for Americans would cost too much money. That must mean that war is more of a bargain. Besides the official Armed Forces of the United States, there's what used to be called Blackwater International until a few of their boys in Iraq experienced a surge of their own and gunned down unarmed civilians in the streets simply because they were in their way. That incident increased public awareness of Blackwater's participation in the war in Iraq. This wasn't such a good thing for a private clandestine army of mercenaries, started by a fundamentalist Christian retired Navy Seal. It's not that they have cut back on their international activities, it's simply that by changing their name to Xe, they have regained their anonymity, making them more effective in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think I saw a headline in the Washington Post that said: "Rapture Postponed, Live Life Like It Matters."
Friday, February 12, 2010
Believe it or not, there is life without TV
I did it. I had my cable disconnected. What a bizarre feeling. I imagine I'll have a life in about two weeks or so, once the shock wears off. In the meantime, I invaded my friend, Helen's house, yesterday, while she was out of town, and watched three hours of I don't know what, just to get a hit of what I thought I was missing. Guess I was missing commercials...I counted them. during the course of an hour I was subjected to over 70 commercials, most of them repeats. This was on the FX channel, and there were 10 commercials in every slot. Bam Bam Bam...buy buy buy...now now now...
buy Pizza at Papa John's...Eat greasy wraps at Micky D's..don't forget your valentine,
hate your body? join Jenny Craig and on and on and on it went. Meanwhile I kept losing track of the show I was trying to watch because of all the interruptions.
At the risk of showing my age, I do remember when "pay TV" reared it's ugly head. Americans were horrified at the thought of paying for TV. The big selling point was that if you paid for TV you were spared all the tedious commercials. Boy Howdy, that's certainly changed. Now we pay for the privilege of being bombarded with ads, we pay for shirts with company logos on them, we pay every which way. We pay every day in every way.
I'm going through withdrawals, have spent 45.00 this week alone renting movies, but I suspect that will slow down. Meanwhile, I've finished knitting a sock and have started on the second one, I've finished reading a book and have started another one. I'm not falling asleep on my couch everynight, and I'm actually making progress on my to do list. With any luck, I'll wake up enough to start making art again. Part of me is feeling happy and free. The other part is sniveling and whining, longing for the good old days of NO-THINK.
buy Pizza at Papa John's...Eat greasy wraps at Micky D's..don't forget your valentine,
hate your body? join Jenny Craig and on and on and on it went. Meanwhile I kept losing track of the show I was trying to watch because of all the interruptions.
At the risk of showing my age, I do remember when "pay TV" reared it's ugly head. Americans were horrified at the thought of paying for TV. The big selling point was that if you paid for TV you were spared all the tedious commercials. Boy Howdy, that's certainly changed. Now we pay for the privilege of being bombarded with ads, we pay for shirts with company logos on them, we pay every which way. We pay every day in every way.
I'm going through withdrawals, have spent 45.00 this week alone renting movies, but I suspect that will slow down. Meanwhile, I've finished knitting a sock and have started on the second one, I've finished reading a book and have started another one. I'm not falling asleep on my couch everynight, and I'm actually making progress on my to do list. With any luck, I'll wake up enough to start making art again. Part of me is feeling happy and free. The other part is sniveling and whining, longing for the good old days of NO-THINK.
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