Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
No Offense, But You're a Moron.
What most people don't seem
to "get" about Occupy Wall Street is that they are shifting the
conversation. Before OWS everybody was talking about the national debt.
Now they are talking about income inequality, and campaign finance
reform, as well as the fate of our social programs. They successfully
have shifted the focus. They aren't camping out on Wall St. because
they think the big banks and financiers are going to give in and start
valuing people over profit. They're drawing attention to issues that are the essential source of all of this country's problems, and expressing rightful outrage at the injustice of the system. In a way, they are educating voters.
Unfortunately, there seems to be this untoward brand of bourgeois liberalism among my twenty-something peers that leads them to opine that OWS is "complaining to the wrong people". If they really think that we still have any control over our so-called democracy, they are clueless. We live in a corporate state. No real change is possible until we reclaim control of our country and wrest it from the hands of the corporate machine. I hope that until then, people wont stop protesting, marching, demonstrating, and participating in acts of civil disobedience.
I remember when I lived in St. Louis, we had a handful of housemates living with us. They were all recent college graduates who considered themselves liberal-leaning. I assumed that these young, well-educated people would have a nuanced grasp of the issues. I was deeply disillusioned when on issue after issue I discovered that they had a "tip of the iceberg" superficial view on just about everything I brought up with them. Not only weren't they "well-versed" on things such as institutionalized racism, prison privatization, global warming, police brutality, and the right-wing propaganda machine, but they were unwilling to consider anything that might be disturbing to them. One night, I was listening to the radio in my room and painting. The radio program, which I believe was a Christian radio show about the bible, went to a commercial break and a disturbing message played over the airwaves. It was a man saying that The Kyoto Treaty was a threat to our national security and sovereignty. I believe he described it as "insidious" and urged listeners to call their elected representatives and keep the US from signing it. I couldn't believe my ears. I was so upset and depressed by that. Unlike most of the listeners of that radio program, I actually knew what the Kyoto Treaty was, and I was horrified to hear it referred to in those terms.
That was 2005. It is now 2011, and the United States is still the only country not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which is an agreement to limit greenhouse gasses and "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."
"The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol.[4] The only remaining signatory not to have ratified the protocol is the United States. Other states yet to ratify Kyoto include Afghanistan, Andorra and South Sudan, after Somalia ratified the protocol on 26 July 2010." {emphasis mine}
Doesn't that just say it all? Who stands to gain from climate change-denial/ non-ratification of the Kyoto Treaty? Big business, that's who. The corporations who have their greedy fingers in every policy we choose to adopt or not to adopt, as in this case.
Being 22 in 2005, I desperately wanted to curb climate change, because I'd really like the planet to be FUCKING HABITABLE. The fact that we had not adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which was a watered-down, barely passable effort to address the problem, depressed and frightened me. I was even more depressed and horrified that outright lies were being put on the airwaves in a "public alert bulletin" paid for by special interests and aimed at Christians and people who don't know the facts, in order to trick them into being against it. I took a long walk and when I got home I was still despondent, because everything I saw led me to believe that this country was headed straight to hell in a handbasket. When I explained to my housemates why I had such a glum expression on my face, they said they didn't think it was so shocking or such a big deal. They didn't care about the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" being abolished during Reagan's administration, they didn't care about the war in Iraq, and they simply ate up everything the Wall Street Journal published and accepted it as fact. I realized that this was exactly the kind of attitude that was leading to the deterioration of our very civilization.
They were the college graduates described in Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" to a T. I see the same attitude and superficial grasp of issues from my former schoolmates and assorted peers in response to the Occupy Wall St. movement. The left is so watered down and impotent now that it's an utter sham. Just like Obama's policies. For more on this issue, read Chris Hedges' "The Death of The Liberal Class."
Unfortunately, there seems to be this untoward brand of bourgeois liberalism among my twenty-something peers that leads them to opine that OWS is "complaining to the wrong people". If they really think that we still have any control over our so-called democracy, they are clueless. We live in a corporate state. No real change is possible until we reclaim control of our country and wrest it from the hands of the corporate machine. I hope that until then, people wont stop protesting, marching, demonstrating, and participating in acts of civil disobedience.
I remember when I lived in St. Louis, we had a handful of housemates living with us. They were all recent college graduates who considered themselves liberal-leaning. I assumed that these young, well-educated people would have a nuanced grasp of the issues. I was deeply disillusioned when on issue after issue I discovered that they had a "tip of the iceberg" superficial view on just about everything I brought up with them. Not only weren't they "well-versed" on things such as institutionalized racism, prison privatization, global warming, police brutality, and the right-wing propaganda machine, but they were unwilling to consider anything that might be disturbing to them. One night, I was listening to the radio in my room and painting. The radio program, which I believe was a Christian radio show about the bible, went to a commercial break and a disturbing message played over the airwaves. It was a man saying that The Kyoto Treaty was a threat to our national security and sovereignty. I believe he described it as "insidious" and urged listeners to call their elected representatives and keep the US from signing it. I couldn't believe my ears. I was so upset and depressed by that. Unlike most of the listeners of that radio program, I actually knew what the Kyoto Treaty was, and I was horrified to hear it referred to in those terms.
That was 2005. It is now 2011, and the United States is still the only country not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which is an agreement to limit greenhouse gasses and "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."
"The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol.[4] The only remaining signatory not to have ratified the protocol is the United States. Other states yet to ratify Kyoto include Afghanistan, Andorra and South Sudan, after Somalia ratified the protocol on 26 July 2010." {emphasis mine}
Doesn't that just say it all? Who stands to gain from climate change-denial/ non-ratification of the Kyoto Treaty? Big business, that's who. The corporations who have their greedy fingers in every policy we choose to adopt or not to adopt, as in this case.
Being 22 in 2005, I desperately wanted to curb climate change, because I'd really like the planet to be FUCKING HABITABLE. The fact that we had not adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which was a watered-down, barely passable effort to address the problem, depressed and frightened me. I was even more depressed and horrified that outright lies were being put on the airwaves in a "public alert bulletin" paid for by special interests and aimed at Christians and people who don't know the facts, in order to trick them into being against it. I took a long walk and when I got home I was still despondent, because everything I saw led me to believe that this country was headed straight to hell in a handbasket. When I explained to my housemates why I had such a glum expression on my face, they said they didn't think it was so shocking or such a big deal. They didn't care about the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" being abolished during Reagan's administration, they didn't care about the war in Iraq, and they simply ate up everything the Wall Street Journal published and accepted it as fact. I realized that this was exactly the kind of attitude that was leading to the deterioration of our very civilization.
They were the college graduates described in Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" to a T. I see the same attitude and superficial grasp of issues from my former schoolmates and assorted peers in response to the Occupy Wall St. movement. The left is so watered down and impotent now that it's an utter sham. Just like Obama's policies. For more on this issue, read Chris Hedges' "The Death of The Liberal Class."
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Amazon Payments, please kiss my ass.
Dear Amazon Payments,
I signed up for this service to give my customers more options. I deeply regret that decision.
I have an art micro-business that brings in tiny amounts of money and only every once in a while. If my customer buys something for $9.00 I can't withdraw the money unless I purchase an Amazon Gift Card with it. When a customer buys something over $10.00 Amazon Payments holds my money for weeks, despite the fact that they already take a cut of the sale itself.
Maybe this service works for larger businesses, but for my small home business, it's an outrageous nightmare. The obvious greed and underhandedness of these policies has aggravated me to no end, and I would like to close my Amazon Payments account immediately. I have already removed the option from my shop, and I will be making my grievances known publicly.
Thank you for your time, motherfuckers.
I signed up for this service to give my customers more options. I deeply regret that decision.
I have an art micro-business that brings in tiny amounts of money and only every once in a while. If my customer buys something for $9.00 I can't withdraw the money unless I purchase an Amazon Gift Card with it. When a customer buys something over $10.00 Amazon Payments holds my money for weeks, despite the fact that they already take a cut of the sale itself.
Maybe this service works for larger businesses, but for my small home business, it's an outrageous nightmare. The obvious greed and underhandedness of these policies has aggravated me to no end, and I would like to close my Amazon Payments account immediately. I have already removed the option from my shop, and I will be making my grievances known publicly.
Thank you for your time, motherfuckers.
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