Genetically Modified Sheep

I was going to write about what Congress did this year… But we all know that Congress accomplished almost nothing – to be magnanimous – and that it will go into the annals of history as the laziest, most incompetent Congress in history. Quite an accomplishment!

The whole world is a mess!

2013 has proven to be quite a disastrous year, where the poor get poorer and middle class is quickly disappearing, if it hasn’t disappeared already.

During 2013, we were witnesses of the greed and lack of compassion from almost every government around the globe. The rich is getting richer, most reporting profits never seen before and yet, there are no jobs, here or anywhere else.

What’s more, while these fat cats are purring in content with their accomplishments, they are reducing salaries, laying off more people, forcing people to work harder for less… and we silently obey.

In this country, at State and Federal level, many bills have been presented by the insensible Right wing to change the laws of this country to allow for children to earn a living. Of course they dress up the bill as a way to help families in need, so there is more money coming to the family and all that crap that they think will make them look “compassionate.” Of course, a child that works for any company (no limitations in the type of work or hours worked) will earn less than an adult… isn’t that grand? That will create more lay-offs of adults, since we do know for certain a corporation will not give a damn about a worker’s needs, if they can hire someone else to do the job for far less, they will do it without hesitation... after all for corporations, all it matters is to keep the shareholders happy.

Several attempts by the GOP have been made to privatize education… There is a collective effort to squash the middle class, to create more and cheaper labor to please the elite class. And we are doing nothing, we remain silent.

During 2013, they went as far as claiming that a person can survive, perfectly well, on $4.50 a day. Of course, for them it didn’t matter that nutritious food couldn’t be purchased with $4.50 a day; you won’t go hungry, you may not last long, but you will have your tummy filled with ramen soup and some slices of bread, good enough for the poor. So they slashed food stamps, damn poor people! How dare they get $4.50 a day?

Abortion is another issue where bills are being introduced all over the country, repeatedly. They need more people, more cheap labor and they are doing all possible to get them, as fast as possible. Of course, no health insurance for these indigents, that’s why they have tried to repeal “Obamacare” so many times and they are completely against single payer… who do we think we are for them to “pay” for anything that will benefit the masses? They want us broke in spirit and financially, ignorant and in masses, the more the merrier, after all… the more poor and broken people there are, the cheapest the labor for their masters.

Not satisfied with creating Citizen's United, turning Corporations into people as far as contributions is concerned, various bills have been introduced by the GOP and Teabaggers in Congress giving corporations the right to vote! Fortunately, these bills have died on the floor... but we know they'll keep trying and pretty soon, "We, the People" will be referring only to corporations as we will become "We, the Parasites."

The above wasn’t sufficient, so Congress closed the year with a bang. They ended unemployment benefits for over a million people and went on, to what in their opinion was a well-earned vacation, to enjoy Christmas and New Year’s with their families, at their mansions and with their stomach filled with the best the country has to offer. Theirs is a life of luxury: a good job with great salaries and benefits, a good future even if they are voted out… if they are, they’ll tour the country giving speeches for a few hundred thousand dollars and life will keep going, as grand as ever.

I truly hope for the sake of this country and my own, that 2014 will be different… But as long as the people are dormant, ignorant, condescending and sheepish nothing will truly change. We will still be extremely happy at the dry bone they throw at us and we will lick their hands in appreciation. We cannot conceive any other way of life but to be slaves for the rest of our lives while others earn in a year, at minimum, ten times more than we will ever earn in our lifetime and for far less work… No, it doesn’t matter, as long as we can pay for a roof over our heads at ever escalating prices, a car that won’t last for more than 10 years, insurance that when needed doesn’t cover much, electricity that keeps rising, water which is contaminated, food which has been genetically modified and the list goes on and on, but we are happy… at the end, we work and we work, but no matter how hard we do it, we will not have money left over for a decent vacation or to save for when we are too old to continue with the madness.

What would it take to change our fate? Basically a miracle! We must accept that we are either cowards, conformists or we have been genetically modified to be sheep.

Baaaah!

For Sale

Mitt Romney doesn’t waste any opportunity to claim that while he was the governor of Massachusetts he brought down the unemployment rate.  He keeps mentioning that during his reign, I am sorry, his governance of Massachusetts thrived and everything was peachy.  For that reason, I decided to research how much truth there was to those claims and see for myself what the unemployment rate was in Massachusetts compared to the rest of the nation. 

I was not expecting what I found.  It really took me by surprise.  I know he is a lair, but this information is easily obtainable to anyone who looks for it and the chart that I am providing is easy to re-create if you have basic knowledge of how to use excel.  It turns out that Romney’s “success” was no better than that of the nation.   We must take into consideration that the nation’s rate is an average of every state; it also reflects any natural disaster that has taken place in any of the states that affects the unemployment rates.  From 2003 to 2007 there were at least 10 natural disasters that affected the national unemployment rate, which didn’t affect Massachusetts.

I often wonder why Mitt Romney served only one term as governor and didn’t seek re-election.  After the research I did today, I came to only one conclusion:  Simply put, he walked away before the shit hit the fan.  In other words, he knew that the unregulated banking expenditures and the uncontrolled mismanagement of the Bush administration were going to bring chaos to every state and ultimately the country, and he was going to fail miserably at trying to weather the storm that was approaching.  Mitt Romney is an expert at bringing revenue to big corporations at the expense of the working class and small businesses; I think it’s safe to say we all know that.  What he has no experience at is taking a corporation that is bankrupt and make it wealthy again.  As proven record of his capabilities Romney always brings up his years at Bain Capital, the proverbial big fish that swallowed all the small fish it could find not the other way around.  Most of the companies acquired by Bain Capital were successful small companies that Romney drove to the ground to liquidate and produce the big revenues for Bain Capital, not once did he acquire a company that was failing and made it successful… Romney has no idea how to accomplish that huge task.  It amazes me to see that there are so many Americans that believe that he can take this country out of the recession it is in now.   Romney will not bring us out of the recession, instead he will drive this country to the ground; the question is… who will he sell us to?   

** data obtained from http://data.bls.gov

The Aryan Whore of Deutschland

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor who is often compared to the conservative British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 Margaret Thatcher, has been under scrutiny lately because of her refusal to relax the economic austerity imposed on the European Union. During a depression that has affected most countries in the world, including ours but more severely the European Union, Merkel has chosen the path of financial austerity. We can say that Merkel and her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), are the European version of the Tea Party that keeps demanding reducing or eliminating costs at all cost, pardon the redundancy, and by the results we can say it’s a path that has miserably failed.

One can argue that Merkel might be doing what is best for Germany, after all Germany is not suffering as hard as Spain, Greece or Italy. Merkel has refused to bail Greece or even readjust their loan’s interest rates, leaving Greece in complete chaos and in a state of desperation that will probably cause their secession from the Union following Iceland’s path since there is no way for them to pay what they owe. Spain will soon follow, the unemployment rate in Spain is almost 25% and if things were bad before, with this austerity the Iberian Peninsula is not likely to improve their chances of succeeding. It is easy for Merkel to demand austerity; Germany’s unemployment rate is not among the highest in the European Union. Following is the latest unemployment rates by country, from the highest to the lowest rate:

Spain	24.44
Greece	21.7
Portugal	14.9
Ireland	14.3
Slovakia	13.7
Slovenia	12.4
Estonia	11.5
Italy	9.8
France	9.8
Finland	8.5
Germany	7.4
Belgium	7.2
Luxembourg	6.0
Netherlands	5.9
Austria	4.3

As we can see above, Germany is not suffering as hard as the other countries in the European Union but Merkel’s refusal to assist or restructure the debts of these countries is taking these countries in a downward spiral from which they might not recover, at least not any time soon. Perhaps these countries should declare themselves bankrupted after all, their working force is diminishing by the day, their debts continue to increase, their credit ratings are dropping and no money is fluctuating to revitalize the economy. It is not difficult to realize that unless something it’s done to stimulate the economy of these countries (Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain) their only alternative will be to seceded from the Union and declare financial bankruptcy.

This austerity plan is the one that the GOP and Teapers advocate for in this country, and that so many of our citizens applaud... Is anyone in this country paying attention to what is happening in Europe?  Has anyone here noticed the fiasco this austerity plan is?

The GOP has been screwing up America for the last decade and if they get elected this coming elections we might face the same scenario we are seeing in Europe where Angela Merkel might not be hurting Germany too bad, but she surely is fucking Europe and unless stopped, the World.

The Elephant in the Room

The Koch brothers and the extreme religious fanatics, usually Evangelists, own the GOP who are following the desires of their true masters and ignoring the needs of their constituents. The GOP is evolving from a Party that loved this country, even when they have always shown favoritism for Corporations it was never to the point of sacrificing the well being of the regular American, the working class to a Party that is only loyal to the elite and fortunate few, the 1%.

For the last twelve years, the Republicans have been giving tax breaks to large corporations, the famous trickle-down economics that has never worked but that the Republicans keep insisting stimulates the economy. For twelve years the largest corporations have paid little or no taxes but have received a hefty sum from the government to promote job creation. Basically, the working class is giving the wealthy money to create part-time or under paid jobs for the working class. The working class is the one paying the taxes that provide these incentives, does that make any sense to anyone? You don’t believe me? Let me begin by saying that for 2011, the total Revenue of the United States collected from Individual income taxes was of $1,091 billion vs. $819 billion from corporate taxes. There alone is a huge discrepancy. At a time where unemployment is high and salaries are low, the working class is the one providing the largest amount of revenue for the country. Let’s not forget that those billions are only from income tax, after the government takes those taxes from us, we still have to pay sales taxes, state taxes etc. Corporations pay sales taxes too, but since they have the ability to purchase in bulk the sales taxes they pay are usually lower plus they can claim an infinite amount of things as expenses and losses, the regular working person can't. So no matter how you slice it, the working class is being squeezed to the max for every penny the government can get from them, and the GOP likes it that way just fine. They don’t want to fairly tax Corporations or the wealthy; at least we can say they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them but a country cannot flourish economically when its economy it’s mostly carried on the shoulders of the weakest. It is unsustainable.

The GOP is constantly claiming that the tax cuts they request are for small businesses. When we hear this, we all think of the mom and pop’s store in our neighborhoods, but we are wrong. Most people don’t know what constitute a small business, the ones benefiting from these tax cuts. Everything that I write here can be traced and confirmed and I will supply the links to support my statements.

The list of the top 200 “small” business listed in Forbes magazine even includes oil companies. I must admit that these oil companies are not Exxon, Mobil or BP but still it is not what most Americans consider small business. The list of small businesses show sales ranging from a minimum of $5 million dollars to $750 million, that is definitively not a mom and pop’s store, yet the tax cuts are geared towards them.

Another thing I heard from the Right is that Democrats are against development, growth and capitalism. I have no idea where they get their information (well, yes I do) but this is not true. Democrats are considered progressives and as such we are in favor of progress, whether this progress is manufacturing, science, development or anything else if it is to improve the lives of all of us. We are not against capitalism, we want everyone to have a chance at succeeding in life and have a fair shot at a better future. What we are vehemently against is for the working class to be abused, taken advantage of on the name of capitalism. There is a big difference there. There is no excuse for a CEO to get a salary in the millions of dollars, a great retirement plan, stocks, bonuses, expenses paid etc. while the worker gets more responsibilities, lower benefits, longer hours and their salaries see little or no changes, and if they get a raise is at best an extra dollar an hour. That is simply a modern way of slavery and that is what Democrats are against. I will never understand a middle class worker justifying such injustice.

Republicans don’t understand what Regulations and Unions do either. They like to blame the high unemployment rate on this. Nothing could be further from the truth.

President Ronald Reagan, the GOP’s demigod, inherited an unemployment rate of 8.5, and during the first year of his administration it peaked to 10.8; we can say that this was not his fault since he inherited an unemployment that was increasing from Jimmy Carter. To his credit, he managed to bring down the unemployment to a 5.4, which is commendable. Of course, we all know that Ronald Reagan would be considered too liberal to be part of the GOP as they are today. President Bill Clinton inherited an unemployment rate of 6.3 and after implementing some tougher regulations he managed to leave the White House and pass to President George W. Bush an unemployment rate of 4.0 and a sound economy. During the eight years that the country had to endure all the damage inflicted by G.W. Bush, he left office with an economy in shambles, an unemployment rate of 5.0 and rising as well as the collapse of Wall Street and the banking industry. This collapse didn’t happen by chance, it started by Reagan deregulating the banking industry and culminated with Bush deregulating almost any other industry, it was and still is the GOP opinion that businesses can regulate themselves even when the results has been a complete failure of our economic system. Yet, the GOP it is still pressuring for deregulation.

The GOP has also made sure to paint a devil out of Unions. Unions are the only force that can truly look after the worker. The only reason why companies can’t get away with hypothetical murder is because of Unions. The regular worker can’t afford legal representation against giants such as multinationals, many times they are not educated enough to negotiate for themselves a raise or defend their seniority within a company or an abusive and dangerous work conditions and that is when Unions come in. Without Unions large corporations would take advantage of workers – after all, all that matters for them is their shareholders, can you imagine what these companies would do to us if we didn’t have Unions?

To demonstrate how compassionate these corporations are, one only has to look at the cost of living during the last 30 years. It has increased 300% during that time. Three hundred percent, that is a lot. In the same token, the minimum wage during the same time span has increased by a little more than 100% ($3.35 in 1980 to $7.25 today); there is no way that a person earning minimum wage can survive on one salary, and everything keeps raising, everything except salaries.

I can’t understand a moderate Republican. I can’t understand how can they shoot themselves on the foot and continue supporting a Party that keeps stealing from the poor to give to the rich; the party that believes that only the wealthy deserve a break, good medicine, a good education and a sound future. Can some one explain it to me?

We must vote Democrat in November. President Obama deserves four more years but we must help him by giving him a Congress that will help this country, not obstruct any progress!  

Vote for Obama and Vote 100% Democrat in 2012!

Reject Keystone XL Pipeline!

What Republicans Want             What Americans Need

I don’t know if it is the solar flares that it’s said to have taken place yesterday, I don’t know if it is the news that Kucinich lost his seat – he is a great democrat that calls things as he sees them, even when his opinion sounds crazy – I don’t know if it is the predictions of the seats that Democrats will lose in Congress (yes, you read correctly, the “experts” predict that Democrats will loose a minimum of 4 seats in the Senate and at least one in the House) but I am down today, so down that my enthusiasm it is resting comfortably in my emotional basement.

After spending all day in this mood, with what is commonly known as "writers’ block", I came across a some news that, even though I cannot say it has brighten my day, I certainly can say my mood has come out of the basement and finds itself on the first floor… An improvement, don’t you think?

I was very pleased by the news I read yesterday in MSNBC. The article was about the Keystone XL Pipeline project, the “baby project” (more like the monster) of Boehner, Cantor and the whole pack of opportunistic Congressmen that support it because their personal financial interests in TransCanada. They excuse their relentless efforts for the pipeline with the well-known phrase that it creates “jobs” and obstructing it will deprive the American citizens of the much-needed jobs. These are the same hypocrites that consistently oppose building new roads, new bridges, new highways and that reject any "clean or green" project that will generate jobs if those are being promoted by President Obama or by any Democrat, translates into that they really don’t give a damn about Americans going back to work. The only thing that really concerns them and they are worried about is that if they lose their positions in Congress before the pipeline gets approved, loosing the payouts from TransCanada in exchange for their arduous support.

They're nothing but thieves with congressional seats!

Obama is campaigning to the Democrats in Congress for them to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline. He has lost the support of two Democrats: Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Mary Landrieu from Louisiana, who are obviously siding with the republicans. We must remember them when voting in November, their behavior makes me think that they have the same ‘motivation’ as Boehner et. al.. President Obama is committed to stop the Keystone Pipeline and we have to show him our support, let him know that we, the American people, approve and appreciate his efforts. He is not giving up and neither should we. We must write to every Congressman, we must let them know that we will not accept the construction of the pipeline – at least not without the proper study from the EPA; previous experiences have shown us that we must not overlook regulations, we have to make sure that there will be no damage to our environment, after all, this pipeline will literally cut our country in half; we should not do what we always do: worship the dollar and ignore our planet. It is time to set our priorities straight.

To all of those that spend days posting in Facebook, Twitter, and every social network out there shouting how disgusted they are because they keep hearing that the Keystone XL Project will go through, your President is doing all he can to stop it. It is time for us to show our support to our President, to let him know where we stand, and that where we stand is with the President of the United States, Barack Obama.



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