Obama Jobs Plan: Where Are the JOBS?

As the political theater continues in this country, I continually see people buying into their own destruction by believing in empty promises and going along with the detrimental actions being taken by the US government.

The latest in this trend is President Obama’s so-called “Jobs Bill” that has yet to illustrate ACTIVE job creation strategies and/or plans other than the usual temporary public works jobs.  As stated by Obama himself, here are the key provisions of this proposed legislation:

The program includes the repackaging of some previous Obama proposals and the extension of other initiatives, including temporary payroll tax cuts that were enacted last year. But he also called for several significant new steps, such as enlarging that tax cut to provide $1,500 in savings for the average family and offering another tax cut for businesses that hire new employees.

“The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working,” Obama said. “It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled and give companies confidence that if they invest and hire, there will be customers for their products and services. You should pass this jobs plan right away.”

The current payroll tax cuts from last year have NOT had the impact that the administration hoped they would.  Unemployment remains steady at 9.1% (a VERY conservative estimate that does not include longtime unemployed people) and extending these tax cuts will probably not positively impact the situation.  The reduction in Social Security taxes being taken out of employee paychecks will give working citizens a little more money at their immediate disposal but it will also decrease their benefits once they retire and collect benefits.  The problem is that keeping the tax cut doesn’t create jobs where they didn’t exist before.

More importantly, the response to this bill by ACTUAL job creators seems to be lukewarm at best.  Here’s how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce responded:

The president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas J. Donohue, said Obama is right to call for “swift passage of pending free trade agreements,” but that while the president discussed several important issues his ideas fell short. “A workable jobs plan must genuinely reduce regulatory uncertainty, unshackle promising American industries, and not be overly reliant on government spending and subsidies,” Donohue said. “Now that many proposals have been put on the table, the time for talking has passed and the time for action is now. Our nation urgently needs an economic growth agenda that accelerates and fires up the powerful job-creating engine of American enterprise. The president and Congress must act faster, be bolder, and put their faith in free enterprise, not in bigger government,” he said.  Source:  Business Journal Daily

Obama may back a national version of a Georgia program that encourages businesses to provide on-the-job training for people receiving unemployment benefits. About a third of the time, the workers wind up getting hired full-time. Offering tax incentives to businesses to hire the unemployed. Under consideration is an expanded version of a law passed last year that encouraged companies to hire the unemployed. The law exempted employers from paying their share of the Social Security tax when they created jobs for those unemployed for at least two months.  But economists say the law didn’t boost hiring much.

Rajeev Dhawan, director of Georgia State University’s economic forecasting center, says the tax break might encourage employers to hire workers they didn’t need, which would be inefficient. Or, he says, it could give them a tax break for something they were going to do anyway. Source:  Paul Wiseman, Associated Press Economics Writer, September 7, 2011

So, the question becomes “What is needed to encourage US businesses to hire American workers other than enacting tax cuts?”  Giving out tax cuts and extending unemployment insurance are NOT proactive job creation strategies.  Surveying our country’s manufacturing and service needs to determine our employment shortcomings so money can be invested in developing those areas would be where I would start.  America has a tremendous wealth of untapped talent and a lot more support for entrepreneurship MUST be on the table.  The days of staying at one company with job security over the course of your career are gone. The push to maximize corporate profits are keeping wages stagnant and are enticing companies to send jobs overseas for cheaper labor prices.

The US workforce has to evolve to navigate a rapidly changing job market that is unfriendly to the job seeker in terms of pay and workload.  Our President and Congress have yet to engage in forward thinking about this matter and things will NEVER change unless we ALL do!

Betting Against America: The Debt Ceiling Farce

Powerful People in Powerless Situations
Volume 1, Article 2

I had not paid much attention about the debt ceiling until the story broke that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) had to remove himself from debt ceiling negotiation talks due to his short bet against the U.S. dollar.  I first heard about this on Free Speech TV’s “The Thom Hartmann Show” over a week ago and since that time, very few people are comprehending the gravity of this situation.  A CONGRESSMAN IS BETTING AGAINST HIS OWN COUNTRY’S CURRENCY AND ECONOMY!!!  Representative Cantor’s bet is tantamount to treason and you can best believe that he is the NOT the only congress member betting against America.

Just a few weeks ago, Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was forced by his own party to resign over him sending pictures of his penis to an online acquaintance.  Though he made the fatal mistake of lying about the incident to every news outlet that put a microphone in front of him, the offense had NOTHING to do with his job performance nor did the incident take place during work hours as far as we know.  Yet, this story proliferated every news broadcast for 3 weeks.  Now, we have this bombshell about a congressman in a key leadership position who has broken his sworn oath of office and is actively betting against U.S. currency but NO ONE is calling for Eric Cantor’s resignation or indictment!  How could this be?    Well,  the debt ceiling talks is the  latest act in the kabuki theater of American politics and we citizens continue on as a helpless, clueless audience seemingly paralyzed to say or do anything about the unfolding drama happening before our very eyes.

Perhaps a lot of us don’t understand the whole concept of our national debt and debt ceiling talks, so let me make it plain for you. The U.S. total debt is currently over $54 trillion and the interest on that debt is well over $3 trillion (source:  U.S. National Debt Clock website).  Currently, the U.S. has a $14.294 trillion credit limit which was raised from the previous $12.394 trillion credit limit back in February 2010 (source:  Treasury Direct website).  Our country is $100 billion away from reaching the new credit limit and we only have a little over $3 trillion in tax and state revenue coming in which will only cover our interest payment.  The gross domestic product or total market value of final goods and services produced in our country which serves as our collateral for obtaining loans is currently at $14.7 trillion.  Looking at this from a personal finance perspective, our country is a horrible credit risk (even though Moody’s Investors Service gives the US a AAA credit rating just like they gave all the toxic assets that led to the 2008 financial crisis) and would be extremely hard-pressed to get a loan.  However, congress and the president have the exclusive privilege of raising the country’s credit limit infinitely despite our inability to pay off the ever-increasing debt.  Once the new credit limit is agreed upon, our government goes about the business of selling treasury bonds (debt) to individuals, corporations and other countries such as China, Japan, and Russia.  Our country also sells large amounts of its debt to other countries that export oil (Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria) and serve as banking centers (Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Panama and the British Virgin Islands).  The countries that are designated in bold happen to be places that are in conflict either with the U.S. or internally.  Who in their right mind borrows money from their alleged enemies?

Why is it that Republicans are giving President Obama such a hard time  about raising the debt ceiling when it could mean that America defaults on its loans?  I am only calling out the republican party because other than Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Democrats have done little to fire up bi-partisan working class support for increasing taxes on the wealthy.  Most economists and many business leaders believe that an inability to raise the debt ceiling would have damaging and potentially catastrophic economic consequences.  Certainly, an already vulnerable American public would suffer, with increased interest rates, delays in payment for military personnel and the elderly, as well as a suspension of a variety of other vital services.  Since our nation is currently occupying/fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya, there also is a serious risk to our nation’s troops overseas and to our strategic international interests. The evidence is strong that our nation would suffer immediate and irreparable harm if the debt ceiling is not raised.  President Obama could issue an emergency executive order to suspend the debt limit since the criteria has been met to do so but what does this mean for our country’s escalating debt?  It means that we will continue to wallow in this debt until the countries we owe money call it in and herein lies the farce all of this foolishness.

The world operates on a fiat currency system meaning that the top currencies such as the U.S. dollar, European euro, the Japanese yen and British pound have no intrinsic value, i.e. they are not based on any physical commodity, but their worth depends on people’s faith in them. If people lose faith in a fiat currency, it will stop holding any value and will become no more precious than the paper it was printed on.  Seeing as the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has a bet against the dollar, it would appear that one of the very people who is paid and entrusted with “bearing true faith and allegiance” to his country, has forsaken it.  The deafening silence about this traitorous act leads me to believe that the rest of congress is in on the same bet.  Sadly enough, average citizens are the ones who have to shoulder the overwhelming burden of endless debt.  Yet, when it comes time to print up our “funny money”  or borrow it from other countries, that same congress always votes to give the majority of it to banks, corporations and wealthy individuals via bailouts, tax breaks and subsidies aka corporate welfare.  President Obama has proposed $4 trillion in deficit spending cuts (nobody seems to give a damn about the $54+ trillion principal) that come from social safety programs such as Social Security and Medicare.  The diabolical formula is to gradually raise the full eligibility age to 70 for workers born in 1973 and thereafter, that would cut Social Security outlays by 12 percent by 2050, which would equate to massive savings in dollar terms.  But, as the Congressional Budget Office has noted, an increase in the eligibility age is, in effect, a cut in the benefits which people are expecting to get.  “Forcing people with lower-than-average life expectancies to delay claiming benefits would reduce their lifetime benefits.” CBO said in a report last March. “For example, someone who died at 68 would collect benefits for four years rather than six. And because people with lower earnings tend to have shorter life expectancies, they would be more likely to be harmed by the change.” Source:  Reducing the Deficit:  Spending and Revenue Options – CBO March 2011

It would seem that the people who are supposed to be working toward our best interests would rather see us die than to force their obscenely rich friends to pay up on a little income tax.  Instead, they keep citizens at each others’ throats with nonsense such as democrat vs. republican, left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal, gay vs. straight, red state vs. blue state, etc.   Meanwhile, the entities who have bought our leadership lock, stock and barrel, laugh at how ignorant, apathetic and self-defeating the only people who can put an end to the suffering, oppression, poverty and war that they inflict upon us.  Though President Obama has backtracked on many things he said on the campaign trail, one thing is true — he can’t do this alone.  Everybody needs to get involved in how this country is being run.  Step #1 – Get educated on what’s ACTUALLY happening and how the world has been working without the input of everyday people like you and I.   The executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government are being paid by corporations and banks to screw over the very people who pay their base salary and benefits.

Our government has already legalized torture, wiretapping, occupation of sovereign nations, bribery and discrimination via the Patriot Act, foreign policy and the Citizens United decision.  How long is it going to take us to do something about any of the myriad problems we face before we find ourselves unable to do so?  Time is ticking very fast.  I hope that Republicans are not “playing chicken” with our economy and that the debt ceiling will be raised before we go into default.   But until then, Security Exchange Commission, Department of Justice, Congressional Ethics Committee, get your damn hands out of the cookie jar and start investigating, indicting and sentencing U.S. elected officials who are betting against America!!!!

Powerful People in Powerless Situations

Volume 1, Article 1

Leadership and Government, Pt. 1

“Powerful People in Powerless Situations” is a new series of articles that questions why we don’t do more to bring about change.  The title “Powerful People in Powerless Situations” refers to everyday citizens around the world who are at the mercy of societal systems such as politics, religion and what drives them most, money.  These things, in and of themselves, have no power other than what we have been conditioned to believe about them since birth for thousands of years now.  Yet, we shackle ourselves to these abstractions willingly without realizing how much we are sacrificing true freedom.  I don’t know why we accept the contradictions of various  systems instead of demanding that we have input into their structures and rules.  However, I have observed that we allow a different set of rules and standards to apply to these systems that are not allowed in our own personal lives.  Though a lot of my observations are nothing new, I hope to convey them in a way that will get readers to think, discuss with others and eventually take action.

The most ancient structure that renders us powerless is leadership/governance.  While there is a clear need for leadership and governance, there is a greater need to develop leadership qualities in ourselves so that we may be able to self-govern.  Unfortunately, egotism has perpetually been an obstacle in developing the mantle of leadership in each and every person.  From the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, we have been led to believe that only certain people are  able hold that mantle.  Back then, pharaohs claimed they were gods or emissaries of gods and were therefore of higher standing than everyone else.  With those decrees, they were able to convince the population that their actions should not be questioned thereby removing the people’s  power of independent thinking.   This was the creation of another abstraction – the concept of divine right that states the right of rules in a monarchy (one ruler) is developed directly from God and is only accountable to God because God created the state. Also that God had given those of royal birth a “divine right” to rule, without consent of the people.  This allowed the pharaohs and those they appointed to other lesser positions of power to create a whole social hierarchy that arbitrarily placed people in subservient roles from soldiers to slaves.  From that point forward, humanity has been subjected to a subservient role both physically and mentally by those who claimed to be divinely endowed and endorsed by a higher power even though there has NEVER been tangible proof of said claims throughout all of history.   To this day, we still elevate those who claim to be of royal heritage to the highest rung on the social ladder and bestow upon them undeserved privileges that we deny ourselves.  In this situation, abstractions of leadership and divine right (religion/mythology-based abstraction) work in tandem in keeping the majority powerless through their own flawed thinking.

Even as more countries turn away from the idea of a monarchy in favor of a representative government elected by the people, we still willingly place people who are supposed to be public servants on pedestals.  How can we be served by our government representatives when have made them into another form of royalty?  What would be their incentive to serve when we have given them power and perks far beyond our own?  In America, the average citizen only participates in the political/government arena when its election time.  An even smaller number participates in town hall meetings.   How can any of us continue to complain about our dissatisfaction with the performance and behavior of our elected officials when voting or asking a question of our representatives every 6 months is the extent of what we do to have our voices heard?  What we expect of people we place in office is pretty unrealistic and we do very little to hold them accountable for their actions when they go against our best interests in their own pursuit of the of legalized bribes called lobbying given out by “special interest groups” (code word for corporate interest) who our government kowtows to on a regular basis.

In order to understand how twisted the dynamic of public service and royalty, we must take the situation and put it in the context of our own personal lives.  If someone were to tell you that you must follow whatever they say unquestioningly because they have been given special “divine” authority, would you just go along with it?  I would hope not but there are those of us mistakenly believe they need someone to lead them simply because no one ever taught them how to truly think for themselves so they could have confidence in their own leadership abilities.  The same goes for our elected officials with the sad, repetitive lies they tell us to get our votes.  The most we do is protest when they do things we don’t like and I must call into question the effectiveness of that tactic in current times.  If your boss doesn’t like the way you perform your job, he/she does not go outside and protest a couple of blocks away about the matter.  They come directly to you and either write you up as a warning or terminates you on the spot.  So, how can we consider ourselves bosses of  elected officials when we don’t go into government chambers or offices and hand them pink slips for poor performance?  To make matters worse, even if we did take that course of action, we could not remove Congress members from office because the U.S. constitution protects them until the next election cycle.  Only 2/3 majority vote from other members of Congress can remove or impeach one of its own.   You can thank those wonderful so-called founding fathers for that catch-22.

See what happens when you don’t have input into the systems that govern your life?  I’m just getting started so look out for the next article that continues where we left off.

War Is Hell

War Is Hell
By Askari Ali

For those of us fortunate enough to not have experienced a military occupation against our countries or serve as a war time soldier, “War is hell” is a cliché.  For those who have been the victims of occupation/colonization and the endless conflicts that arise from that violence, it is a horrifying reality from which they cannot escape.  There are a few other clichés about war that are equally troubling such as “war is inevitable” and “war drives the economy.”  It is our very acceptance of these phrases that has created a reality where mass murder across the globe does not trouble us as much as gays wanting to get married or serve openly in the very institution that enforces deadly U.S. policy on foreign nations.

After re-reading the text of Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech, Beyond Vietnam:  Breaking The Silence, I realized the comfort and peace that I enjoy living in America comes at the cost of countless lives of people on other continents whose existence and demise barely registered in my consciousness until now.  I attribute my insensitivity to how our government sells us on war.  The pop culture justification the public is presented with when making the case to “go to war” invariably is based on the premise that the United States is a force for good in the world and defends the principles of freedom and democracy.  What rational person would argue against such a stand?  Who would not admire such lofty ambitions?  However, a TRULY rational person would question how bombs and bullets directed at a civilian population will gain them freedom and democracy.  Dr. King raised those questions and more in 1967 yet, it still took another eight years until the last American soldier was evacuated from Vietnam despite widespread protests.

My fellow Americans, you have been sold a false bill of goods.  It is so much easier to toss away your common sense and compassion and believe that you live in “the greatest country on Earth.”  Our education and media systems deliberately gloss over global slavery, theft of natural resources, and the wanton massacre of indigenous people who inhabit what is referred to as the “Third World.”  Sadly enough, many of us don’t want to know the real truth about the oppressive nature of imperialist nations such as the United States, England, France, China, Japan, Russia, etc.  Certainly for citizens of western nations, it is far easier to luxuriate inside the safety of empire than to languish outside defending freedom and natural resources that the empire seeks to claim for itself.

From Vietnam to Iraq, the same lying tactics have been used to rain destruction upon countries that have something multi-national corporations deem desirable.  We can no longer sit idly by as everyday citizens are recruited into military service and turned into monsters as they do the bidding of these corporations who control our puppet governments.  Imagine that the safety you take for granted is suddenly threatened because there are natural resources or advantageous military positioning that another country wants for itself.  Imagine that you and your fellow countrymen fight valiantly against the invasion only to have your efforts characterized as terrorism or insurgency by the media to the whole world.  Imagine that you are hopelessly overpowered by military might that mows you down even if you are a civilian non-combatant.  Imagine that no one had sympathy for your plight while you wasted away in a prison cell being tortured and incarcerated indefinitely without any formal charges being filed.  Imagine that the one country that is known for its defense of freedom and democracy declares your country a threat to its national security even though there is no proof to substantiate that claim.  From Vietnam to Iraq and beyond, people don’t have to imagine these scenarios — they live them daily courtesy of U. S. foreign policy.

What we fail to realize in the sensationalism and deception of war is that the everyday citizens who wield no political or military power are always the ones offered up as cannon fodder for their own alleged liberation and/or to protect their freedoms.  Humanity, how can we continue to claim that we are the superior life form on this planet when we continue to oppress and slaughter one another based on lies that our fearful, corrupt and greedy business and political leaders manufacture?  We have repeatedly operated from a place of brute force until we actually believe the old saying, “might makes right.”  Those of us who live in so-called western civilization will someday have to face the consequences of our arrogance, apathy and gullibility when the horrors our military forces inflict on other nations seeking their independence are turned against us.  Even now, we have the opportunity to learn via WikiLeaks how our governments are perpetuating the suffering of people across the globe while betraying the welfare of their own citizens.  Yet, we are so brainwashed that many people are actually calling for Julian Assange and Bradley Manning to be killed for treason.  Are we that much in denial about the dubious activities of our governments or are we that bloodthirsty and twisted that we want to kill people who are trying to free our minds from the lies we are fed daily?

Make no mistake, war is the singularly most destructive concept that humanity has created.  As long as we continue to believe that everyday people we don’t know and who don’t know us are a threat just because our governments say so, we are rushing headlong into extinction.  How can we call ourselves civilized when we keep resorting to oppression and mass murder instead of human cooperation and compassion?  The power is in the hands of citizens like you and I to become educated and resist the lies that lead us into war against our fellow man.

 

Re-dedication in the New Year

The new year is here and I am committed to continuing my duty to be a catalyst for consciousness in humanity.  When I initially started this blog, I had yet to resolve my anger and disgust at those shadowy (and not so shadowy) figures who are manipulating the population at-large into believing that there is lack of natural, vital resources and a need for “winners and losers” in the game of life.  However, I cannot be angry or disgusted with them without feeling the same way about the very people I am trying to reach.

We ALL have a part in the current condition of our world.  Once upon a time, great measures were taken to keep the perpetuation of suffering and conflict covert or throw a red herring to keep people who caught on or saw the charade for what it was.  Now, the truth of our world and those who govern us is out in plain view and I feel encouraged that more and more people are waking up out of their unconscious slumber.  In my eyes, this is a PRIME time to present my views and similar ones from other people to the emerging consciousness.

My journey on the path of consciousness is a life-long one and can be quite lonely from time to time.  Nonetheless, it is the work that my spirit has charged itself with and I have an infinite amount of passion and determination where the liberation of humanity and other life forms are concerned.  If you have been following this blog, I urge  you to continue and share with others you feel may benefit from the information and perspectives presented.

It’s a new year and a new opportunity to transform this planet into a paradise for EVERYONE.

Texas Board of Education Set to Spread Stupidity Nationwide

Texas Board of Mis-Education

If there are any people of influence with common sense in Texas, would you please make yourself known to your State Board of Education.  They recently voted to revise history by altering American History textbooks that will be used by nearly 5 million students in Texas.  Here are a few examples of what children will be learning:

The American Civil War was fought over the rights of states. Yeah, their rights to own slaves.  There had been a proposal to rename The Atlantic Slave Trade to the Atlantic Triangular Trade  but I guess they shot it down because there was never a huge demand for triangles.

Senator Joe McCarthy is an American hero (instead of the paranoid, cross-dressing psychopath who conducted Communist witch hunts).

The National Rifle Association should be lauded for upholding the U.S. Constitution (more like holding it up at gunpoint)

Students would be required to study conservative political figures such as Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly, The Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority. Apparently, watching them make asses of themselves on TV and in print isn’t enough.

References to American “imperialism” will be changed to “expansionism,” and all references to “capitalism” have been replaced with “free enterprise.”

The role of Thomas Jefferson – who argued for the separation of church and state – is minimized in several places, and the standards would emphasize the degree to which the Founding Fathers were driven by Christian principles. Would those be the same Christian principles that allowed them to enslave, convert and kill indigenous people that were already living on the lands they “settled?”

What is more disturbing than the children in Texas being inflicted with an even worse mis-education than they currently receive is the fact that somehow the Texas Board of Education is a tastemaker for the rest of the nation’s public school systems as far as what textbooks they select.  Are you f’ing kidding me?  No disrespect to the intelligent people who do live in Texas but that state has never stood out as an academic brain trust.   Unfortunately, the ugly world of politics continues to rot the foundations of our society because this is directly the result of partisanship.  There is a conservative Republican majority on the Texas Board of Education and they blatantly proclaim that the changes are “a long-overdue correction to a curriculum that too often de-emphasizes religion and caters to liberal views.”

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Blessing in Disguise?

Cartoon Courtesy of SlapUpsideTheHead.com

Before people get worked up and jump to all the wrong conclusions about the headline of this article, let me clarify my position.  As a gay veteran, I believe the current Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is a cowardly political move that should be repealed immediately.   Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen support the repeal.  Mullen called repealing the policy “the right thing to do and said he was personally troubled by effectively forcing service members to “lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”  Gates told the Armed Services Committee, “I fully support the president’s decision.”

So, why isn’t this a done deal?  The military leaders of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force dealt a blow to the compromise deal on Wednesday.  The service chiefs each wrote separate letters to Senator John McCain urging Congress not to act until the Pentagon finishes its study to certify that it can be achieved consistent with the military’s standards of readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion and recruitment and retention.  In my opinion, these service chiefs are dangerously close to insubordination with their actions because their superiors (President Obama, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen) have already concluded that the proposed bill will meet the criteria this study is supposed to certify.  The service chiefs and their flip-flopping congressional ally, John McCain, are trying to drag this out until elections where they hope the right-wing will win big so the legislation can be stopped altogether.

McCain said he would “without a doubt” support a filibuster if the bill goes to the floor with repeal language. “I’ll do everything in my power, I’m going to do everything I can to support the men and women of the military and to fight what is clearly a political agenda.”  Apparently, he doesn’t count the gays and lesbians already serving as part of the military.  Senator McCain’s EXACT words from 2006 were “The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.”  Well John, they just told you verbatim but your old ass is too caught up in bigotry to heed their words.

If and when the ban is lifted, the victory will be bittersweet.  The tragic irony of this situation is that many gays in the Armed Forces will continue to be willing pawns in brutally oppressing the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Beyond a doubt, Saddam Hussein was and the Taliban still are murderous despots who must be stopped.  However, that does not justify the killing of nearly 200,000 innocent civilians in those countries to achieve that goal.  Those people were not “collateral damage.”  They were precious human lives snuffed out by power-hungry, lying politicians (like Senator McCain) and multi-national corporations who could care less about the welfare of the citizens in these countries.  They used the men and women of the military to illegally occupy a country based on falsehoods so they could have access to the huge Iraqi oil fields.

I implore the gay community to not become willing pawns in our government’s aspirations to expand the American Empire.  Wake up and realize that you cannot “spread democracy and freedom” by raining down death and destruction on the very people your are supposedly freeing.  That’s what puts American citizens at risk for terrorist attacks.  The moment you enlist for military service, you have effectively signed away your individuality and free will, two things that I thought were hallmarks of gays and lesbians.  Disobeying orders, no matter how much they go against your principles, will land you in jail or in a body bag during combat situations.  Just ask the soldiers who were jailed for going along with their superiors’ orders to abuse, humiliate and torture Iraqis at Abu Ghraib.  Not one person above the rank of Staff Sergeant faced so much as an inquiry nor did any of the CIA personnel who were also heavily involved in this atrocity.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why gays would want to be a part of an institution that turns them into killers.  Though there are military personnel who are not directly involved in combat such as medics, EVERY soldier must go through basic training to learn how to use weapons such as M-60 machine guns, fragmentation grenades and mines, and over-the-shoulder rocket launchers.  Those things may sound cool but the thrill is gone once you find yourself having to use them to kill another person or being on the receiving end of these weapons be it from the “enemy” or “friendly fire.”

Given all the opposition from military leadership and politicians for us to serve openly for whatever bullshit reasons, why would you sacrifice your life for such a pitiful paycheck?  Is the economy that bad or do you really want to defend freedom and democracy?  If your answer is the latter, you have a hell of a fight on your hands and you won’t need to be deployed overseas.  Spreading democracy and freedom to other countries through military force is nothing more than neo-colonialism.  After all the oppression we have endured and fought against as gays and lesbians, will we now take the opportunity to serve openly in the Armed Forces to continue this vicious cycle and become that which we abhor?

As great as repealing the ban on gays in the military may be, the only reason it will probably pass into law through a congressional vote is because the amount of personnel to staff our government’s foreign occupations is quickly dwindling down.

Senate Chooses War Instead of Jobs

Get with the program, kiddies. Military service is where the money is because we put it there!

I received an email today from the National Urban League’s President & CEO, Mark Morial, asking for my help in getting $600 million restored to the 2010 Senate Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill,  which was fully offset to support over 300,000 jobs for youth ages 16 to 21 through summer employment programs after the Senate Appropriations Committee decided to mercilessly cut that line item in the budget.

After doing my own investigation, I saw just how much money is being set aside for defense projects – $33.45 BILLION!!!

If you think that’s bad get this:  The [Obama] administration requested and emergency supplement of $58,962,697,000 for the costs of overseas deployments and related activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, for increased costs for compensation of veterans, for costs of natural disasters, including the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The Committee is recommending $58,962,089,000 for these purposes.  That means this administration has already spent the over $3.5 trillion originally budgeted and are still operating with a deficit of nearly $1.2 trillion (cue loud timebomb ticking).

Worse still, guess what they named this emergency appropriations bill? Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief and SUMMER JOBS!!! Newsflash to the Appropriations Committee:  We have a HUGE disaster continually unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico due to the BP oil spill.  We also have a nearly 25% unemployment rate among all teens in this country.   Yet, the Committee made no recommendation to fund summer youth employment which typically consists of minimum wage jobs that pay $7.25 per hour.  This is the same minimum wage that many adults have to accept because Congress has continually voted against a decent living wage while voting to increase their own salaries.  For what?  They most assuredly are not representing the people.  This money was safe as recently as March 2010 – Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs press release

The situation required more investigation as to what the members of the Appropriations Committee are deciding to allocate money toward.  Unfortunately, there were some disturbing earmark requests to this body from other senators not on the committee.  Below is a list of requests from just one state.

Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii)

Military Construction authorization requests (Submitted March 9, 2010): $28.11 million LINK

Defense authorization requests (March 9, 2010): $84.6 million LINK

Financial Services appropriations requests (March 25, 2010): $4 million LINK

Defense Military Construction appropriations requests (March 26, 2010): $29.62 million LINK

Homeland Security appropriations requests (March 30, 2010): $61.9 million LINK

Defense appropriations requests (April 5, 2010): $86.3 million LINK

Total earmark request from Senator Akaka:  $294.5 million.

Senator Akaka, you need to relax and/or see somebody about that Pearl Harbor PTSD.  However, it’s probably more likely that the companies that make all those high-tech defense toys you want to purchase are giving you a kickback.  Tragically, that’s just one senator and one state.  The  committee consists of 30 senators from 30 different states and their funding requests/priorities are “interesting” considering the deteriorating financial state of so many citizens right now.  To see the earmarks requests of other senators, click here:  Congressionally Directed Spending Requests

That’s almost half of the funds needed to support summer youth employment for the ENTIRE country inside one elected official’s earmark requests.  Rest assured, there are billions more of OUR money being allocated to projects that don’t benefit the citizens-at-large or address the most pressing issues such as employment and foreclosures.  The amount of these earmarks is also five times greater than the amount that was cut from small business development funds ($60 million) that this bill was supposed to include.  Small businesses are responsible for creating the bulk of jobs these days, Senators!

This speaks to a much larger problem — Citizens do not have ANY control over the city, state, county and federal budgets we fund.  To rectify the youth summer employment and small business development situations,  you can take action.  Call the Unites States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to contact your senator’s office and demand that the $66o million be restored to summer jobs and small business before the Senate goes on yet another undeserved recess for Memorial Day.

There is no excusing or justifying this act of betrayal of the public trust.  Don’t let the pretty and deceptive words that come out of politicians’ mouths sway you.  Instead, think about the impact of their actions or non-actions in your life and the lives of your fellow citizens.   It’s time to change they power dynamic by making our elected officials remember that they work for and are paid by us.

Governors Gone Wild

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer & Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell show off their after work attire

There is something intrinsically wrong when the governors of Arizona and Virginia can just sign blatantly discriminatory laws into effect and there is no outcry for their immediate impeachments.  Arizona, the state where John McCain opposed the establishment of a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in 1983, 1987, 1989 and 1994, now has a governor who seems to be hellbent on making life unbearable for the large number of immigrants (both legal and illegal) who reside there.  It was bad enough when she passed an immigration bill that not only perpetuates racial profiling but exacerbates the practice to a point where people in other states are calling for Arizona to be boycotted.  Now, Governor Jan Brewer has totally flipped out in her xenophobia by signing into law HB 2281 that bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.  School districts that don’t comply with the new law could have as much as 10% of their state funds withheld each month. Districts have the right to appeal the mandate, which goes into effect December 31, 2010.

“The bill was written to target the Chicano, or Mexican American, studies program in the Tucson school system,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Horne in a Los Angeles Times interview conducted by Nicole Santa Cruz .

Tucson Unified School District officials say the Chicano studies classes benefit students and promote critical thinking. “We don’t teach all those ugly things they think we’re teaching,” said Judy Burns, the president of the district’s governing board.  She has no intention of ending the program, which offers courses from elementary school through high school in topics such as literature, history and social justice, with an emphasis on Latino authors and history. About 3% of the district’s 55,000 students are enrolled in such classes.

Horne has been trying to end the program for years, saying it divides students by race and promotes resentment. He singled out one history book used in some classes, “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos,” by Rodolfo Acuna, a professor and founder of the Chicano studies program at Cal State Northridge.  “To begin with, the title of the book implies to the kids that they live in occupied America, or occupied Mexico,” Horne said last week in a telephone interview.

Well, Mr. Horne, if you are not versed on the FACT that America is a group of former colonies of the British, French and Spanish Empires after they stole it from the indigenous people that already lived here (not “Indians” as Christopher Columbus referred to them because his dumb ass thought he landed in India), then you should hand in your resignation IMMEDIATELY!! Horne as the superintendent of public instruction is a glaring example of why our education system is so utterly broken.  While he and Governor Brewer are so busy being paranoid over the possibility of a Chicano revolution, passing such racist and unconstitutional laws could guarantee that such an event will come to pass.

Earlier this year in Virginia, the discriminatory legislation being passed by Governor Bob McConnell and his partner-in-crime, Attorney General Ken Cucinelli, are directed toward the homosexual and Black communities.   Not 90 days after his election, Governor McDonnell took it upon himself and signed and executive order to remove sexual orientation as a protected group from discrimination in the state’s policy.  Cucinelli even went so far as to issue a directive calling on state colleges and universities to rescind their policies banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Cuccinelli says that the schools’ boards do not have the legal authority to enact such policies, and that only the state Legislature has that right.  The Virginia Legislature also voted to reject a law protecting people against anti-LGBT discrimination.

Cuccinelli wrote: “It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.”

Unfortunately, it gets even worse.  Governor McDonnell has also declared that April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia.  McDonnell said Tuesday that the move was designed to promote tourism in the state, which next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. McDonnell said he did not include a reference to slavery because “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery.  It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.”

I can’t really just lay the blame at Governor McDonnell’s and Attorney General Cucinelli’s feet because even the Virginia legislature is backing them up on this foolishness.  The same goes for Arizona.  If you live in either one of these states and you are not white, you may want to get out before you get jailed, deported or find yourself picking cotton for free on somebody’s plantation.  Citizens of Arizona and Virginia, if you find your governors’ and state legislatures’ actions outrageous and unacceptable, are you going to stop these fools in their tracks?  I certainly hope so…

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Benadryl Anti-Itch Gel: Hot, New Cocktail for the Illiterate?

Is there a good mixer for this or should I just take it on the rocks?

There is no way I can dance around the absurdity of this article, so let’s get right to it.  The Food and Drug Administration feels compelled to issue a warning to consumers for them to NOT drink Benadryl Extra-Strength Itch-Stopping GEL.  Now, I understand when companies change the product packaging and people get confused but this is not the case.  Since when did folks start drinking gel?  Apparently, since 2001 as that is the year this strange trend began.

At least 121 people have reported gulping the gel, which they confused with other over-the-counter Benadryl products that are actually intended to be swallowed, between 2001 and 2009. FDA officials said they had received reports of serious side effects from drinking the lotion. In large amounts, the active ingredient in the gel, diphenhydramine, can cause numb lips, unconsciousness, hallucinations and confusion.

The product’s manufacturer, Johnson and Johnson, has taken steps to prevent serious injuries. They’ve changed the product label to add a new, bold statement that says “For Skin Use Only,” and added a sticker to the cap that says the same thing.  They’re also planning to research the problem further to understand why consumers may be mistakenly swallowing a lotion that’s only meant to be rubbed into the skin.

Johnson and Johnson, save your time, money and efforts on this one.  Some people can’t and/or refuse to read.  Then again, I hope this isn’t the latest “get high” fad like huffing or drinking cough syrup.  Don’t get any dumb ideas, folks!