Preacher Says Shoplift, Russians Hack Banks, Cost Of Living. Health, Cough, Cough, Care?
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 What is the big tent? I am wearing a big tent tee shirt because I have a belly like Homer Simpson.
It looks like the Republicans are facing reality and letting the Democrats have their watered down health care plan. I was listening to my boss at work telling someone about how the democrats plan will allow the government to go after peoples bank accounts to pay for the health plan. He didn’t mention that he meant rich people like himself, but then that part will probably be taken out since it is in the House version of the plan. The senate version puts another nail in the coffin of american unionism by taxing the union health plans that are actually decent. You might even remember what a decent health plan did. I remember the golden years of labor when health insurance for one person covered his or her entire family, that was back in the ancient times when one person could support an entire family on one wage.
When I was a young man, back in the early 1970’s I got a job working at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and it paid the kingly sum of $5.00 an hour for a GS-3., the level of civil service job that I had as a waiter in the cadet dining hall. That was when the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour and the rent on my 4 bedroom house was $120 a month in Colorado Springs. Even as recently as 1980 I had an apartment in San Francisco for $100 a month. But alas the cost of living has gone up and up and up and my salary was frozen at about $40,000 a year for a decade. Even though I make more than that now, my income has not kept up with the cost of living and my first job in Colorado at the Air Force Academy was relatively speaking one of the best paying jobs I have had, at least legally. It also had the best benefits, half a day of sick pay and half a day of vacation pay for every 2 weeks of work, full coverage of my family with my health insurance and a retirement plan. Now I don’t even get sick pay. I discovered that when I got sick last week and when the wanted to know if I was taking a vacation day I answered incredulously why? Use my sick pay. Then I was informed of the shocking fact that this well established profitable company had no sick pay. No wonder the owner lives in a $6 million dollar mansion. He is even wealthier than my old boss, and that guy was a tight asshole. This guy is just a cheap bastard. Which is worse?
Personal stuff. But then what do you expect in a world where people talk about Unions like it was some sort of evil alien plot to corrupt your children. Reaganism truly has had its way with the American working class. They now ask how far when told to bend over. I would be upset about this if I didn’t understand that beating myself up over other people’s stupidity is a waste of time. The problem is, I thought that at some point people would come around and stand up to being pushed around. This is America after all, the land of the free and the home of the brave. I guess what they meant was the home of those who can bravely take it with a stiff upper lip while it is being crammed in deeper and harder. I could understand it if we were all bottoms and the capitalist class were all tops, but I simply don’t believe that 99% of the worlds population likes to take it in the ass, no matter what my gay friends want us to believe.
We need a new term for being fucked over, one that is not sexist. After all it is derogatory to sex play to call what the ruling class has done to Americans.
Ok I am going to say something that may seem a little wierd. I want to see Obama succeed in most of what he wants to do, because, for one thing, what the Republicans would do is so much worse. For another thing even though he compromises way too much, health care reform, climate reform and nuclear disarmament are all issues where he is on the good side of the fence, even though he may seem more like he is teetering on the edge. When it comes down too it I don’t want to see him replaced with Sarah Palin or any of the Tea Party right wing wackos because as we have seen people don’t become radicalized by right wing presidents, they become right wingers. The only way to get the nation in line with the rest of the world and to get the corporate interests out of control is to keep pushing to the left. We might even end up with a moderate Republican candidate if the country is consistently more to the left.
An even better idea would be for the right wingers to break off from the Republicans and form a libertarian-christian fundamentalist party. The rump republicans and the democratic centrists form a party of the center and the progressives and greens form a left green-labor party. Now then that would be an interesting situation more like the rest of the world than what the USA has been in terms of political options. If people could see that the political establishment are really one party, Republicrat, then people might be able to choose something different, a minimal government party or an effective government party instead of a government for corporate business interests like we have now. I can dream.
The conservative right is not affraid to break with Republicans to vote conservative. Now we only need to see liberals and radicals break with the Democrats to vote progressive. Then we would have some decent choices, or at least we might be able to get something like that.
There is some hope that Americans are tired of lukewarm soup politics. We might get some really Jesus like behavior here with the milk toast sold out politicos being spat out by a new generation of firebrands. We can hope.
We have seen Fundamentalist Christian politicians calling for prayers to their version of the lord of the universe to stop some pretty petty things, the pulling of a plug on a brain dead woman, the early demise of a democrat to stop a health bill vote, as I said pretty petty stuff. If you can imagine some deity who has to run the whole universe stopping everything long enough to zap a politician with a lightning bolt, then you have the imagination of a primitive primate. Sort of like those Apes at the wall in 2001 space odyssey if you can remember that far back. Or lets bring it up to date, did you see Avatar? Great movie, you should. It shows the Natives, kicking Colonialist, Imperialist butt. They had a literal god in the trees that connected all them together in a biological link up through that thing in the end of their hair, sort of a biological plug in. If you saw Existenz a few years ago, you saw the prototype, a biological-computer hybrid link up. Avatar made it totaly biological and made the network link up through the trees where the collective memory banks were kept. For them killing trees was literally cutting out part of the brain of those people. It makes you wonder if deforestation here on Earth is causing us to lose brain matter.
Tonight on NPR they were talking about interactive gaming. Games where the customers design their own game worlds like Spore. Games that were invented to cut the cost of designing by tricking the customers into doing the work for the manufacturer. The perfect game, an empty space, like a kid playing with the box that some expensive fancy game came in or like some so called terrorist using a cheap off the shelf game to break into an expensive government drone. Why pay at all? The Russian Hackers in the news today that robbed Chase Bank of millions had the idea. Just withdraw from the public ATM.
Warren Olney wasn’t on his show today but the host had a guest who made a great point saying in response to the news that the President has selected a computer czar to deal with things like this. After all it was revealed hackers steal millions from the banks at least 10 to 12 times a year but the Banks don’t like to admit it, They just pass it on as a 1% surcharge to all the transactions the rest of us make. But if you think about it banks get their money for virtually free from the government. The Federal Reserve creates wealth out of nothing after all what is compound interest but creating something from nothing. So if a few over zealous computer geeks decide to take a share, who can say it is wrong or bad? It is all imaginary anyway. Play money.
Or we can follow the example of this Preacher who calls on us to Shoplift.
“English priest: Shoplifting by truly poor sometimes OK
But preacher’s Anglican superior, shop owners and police disagree with sermon.More .ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: 6:59 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009
LONDON — An Anglican priest in northern England says that the commandment that dictates “thou shalt not steal” isn’t exactly written in stone.
The Rev. Tim Jones caused an uproar by telling his congregation that it is sometimes acceptable for desperate people to shoplift — as long as they do it at large national chain stores, rather than small family businesses.
Jones’ sermon drew rebukes Tuesday from fellow clergy, shop owners and police.
At the Church of St. Lawrence in York, about 220 miles north of London, Jones said in his sermon Sunday that shoplifting can be justified if a person in real need isn’t greedy and doesn’t take more than he or she needs to get by.
The remarks drew a summons from Archdeacon Richard Seed, who said the church rejects the view that shoplifting can be acceptable. “The Church of England does not advise anyone to shoplift, or break the law in any way,” he said.
“Father Tim Jones is raising important issues about the difficulties people face when benefits are not forthcoming, but shoplifting is not the way to overcome these difficulties,” Seed said.”
Go for it kids, Gods Vicar says its OK. Wink, wink….