How The 1% Force Austerity

Workplace efficiency & austerity are weapons used by employers to master employees. Those seeking to maximize profits demand increased work at lowest possible compensation. Reducing public officials & taxes, the wealthy pay only for selected services.

Stress invades every workplace. We pee-ons struggle to keep meager jobs.

But this can be different.

To add more workers may cut profits, but to improve customer & worker satisfaction can boost revenues & profits. Employers may argue high payroll is unsustainable, but so is worker enslavement. Where labor can demand & achieve minimal standards, more people can be employed. Those threatening to take production overseas should be encouraged to personally pull out as well - let them emigrate to China. Why should our communities harbor & support a selfish 1% undermining our health?

Corporate-owned media paints progressive change in the workplace as socialistic, communistic, or worse. But the bottom line is not shared wealth - it is a shared demand for minimal standards of health & safety. This is attainable & affordable, but don't wait for the greedy and those of hallowed wealth to lead the way - too many of the 1% are now parasites.

Mental Pollution

 
Mental Pollution: A chronic syndrome causing great damage to human life & communities, and often infecting large groups of people.

Sheepsighted: when mental pollution victims are surrounded by others in similar conditions, and fail to recognize extreme distress.

Bullshitter: those deliberately inflicting mental pollution upon others.

The Corporate Parasite

A cancer runs amok throughout our world. We must curtail the corporate parasite. Humane living is more than competitiveness, bickering among ourselves & least cost short-term profits.

HallowedWealth has pee-on fighting peon, while these weasels & hired buttboys make the 99% of us pay their bills.

Occupy Your Future

Interested in money?   How about talking & having fun in English or Swedish -- even at 4AM? Got questions on Sweden you'd like answered? Looking for love? Don't miss this great chance to Occupy Your Future any time, day or night.

Brunkebergstorg is one block southeast of T-Centralen in Stockholm. An international group of people is encamped in front of Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden's National Bank Building, the world's oldest central bank). In solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, it's an informal gathering to build awareness of big banks unfairly taking huge wealth from 99% of the population. Dodging accountability & disregarding lesser folk, mega-wealthy Financiers overplayed their hand. Don't allow bankers & politicians to again betray us.

All people welcome - bring a snack for the campers or air your opinions. Or talk about something else (yesterday morning's discussants included a Swedbank banker, a homeless dude and some friendly cops). Drop in and hang out and interact with cool people. Bring your own sleeping bag if you'll camp - tents are set-up & available as of now, and private supporters have donated free food. Again, it's informal and without controlling leadership. All welcome. Check it out now -- b there or b □

Visit Camp 99% yourself. English widely spoken!

Key websites (mostly in Swedish):
• Occupystockholm.org (link)
• Occupy Stockholm - United for global change (Facebook link)

Wider background (links):
• Adbusters.org
• We are the 99 percent.
• CommonDreams.org   (progressive news consolidator)
• Project for Public Spaces

Bushwhacked & more...

 

Live stream from independent journalists

 
        Turn it up!      (this opens muted)
Nonviolent protest around the world.

Poem for The President

 
Madelyn Dunham meets Nancy Hanks
    by   Genki

If Tutu Madelyn
Returned as a ghost,
Seeking news
Of the one she loved most,
She'd ask first
Of her grandson:
"Was Barry successful?
What has he done?"

"Can I now rest,
With God above?
My family's pride
A sign of love?
Is Barack strong,
To help the weak?
Could he find lasting
wealth to seek?"

"I wonder now
How he's got on...
Help light a path,
When hope is gone."
 

Hillary Clinton on the Fence

Weeks have passed, and the movement to Occupy Wall Street has become bigger & more determined.

Hillary Clinton, former Senator for New York, has been largely quiet about the 99% movement. She sits on the fence, expecting to scavenge useful morsels. Disgusting !     Poorly imitated emotion... She's an animated dancer solely for those who fund her wealth. Hi Sugar Daddy!

A Man Called Boy

Dear Diary,
I go to work everyday, happy to be employed. My employer knows of many hungry outside willing to work, so while this job sucks -- it'll probably get worse. My duties require wearing a jacket & tie (what's the function of a necktie anyhow?) and dealing with the public. Always professional, our clientele looks at me with a mix of respect, fear & envy. I read of friendly small town life, but here all is sterile, semi-efficient, & dull.

My boss and her boss speak to me in flat measured tones. They also seem to dislike their jobs. I'm ordered to complete work tasks and follow directions. My boss's boss's boss once visited our branch and ordered me: "Boy! - help me with this copier!" He yelled "Boy!" though I'm 41 years old and he's younger... I ran to help him. I dislike the name boy, but I heard him angrily yelling at my boss & called her "slut" - so I feel lucky in comparison.

When my wife & I go out to dinner, we wear nice clothes and look prosperous. Walking from our car to a restaurant, or for shopping, I notice more & more ill-dressed people eying us, perhaps with revulsion. Recently one asshole cursed me for no reason. When I told him to "Get a life!" he sort of choked & sobbed.

I sometimes wonder: Is this a Wonderful Life?

Death of Jobs

Is there a lesson?
Why's our world so tough?
dog eat dog & death

Understand the Press as Parasite

"The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion..."
    -- Jack London (1908) The Iron Heel. Macmillan, Ch.7


"The revolution will not be televised."
    -- Gil Scott-Heron (1970)


(On the Occupy Wall Street movement) "Sure we're scared. But admitting weakness is suicidal. We've got strategy teams working round-the-clock developing ways to defuse this situation."
    -- Anonymous source (2011) Speaking 'on background' to avoid responsibility & accountability, and to increase the sinister fear of unseen forces quickly ready to powerfully strike & stifle dissent

Our Unknown World

It is worthwhile to think about & appraise how much in our world we do not understand. Those with great hubris might imagine almost all is known. The more realistic will acknowledge that many systems and processes are still poorly understood, or almost wholly unrecognized. Curious scientists, trained to recognize anomaly, seek regularly to refocus their perspectives. We re-explain to a better fit reality.

Perhaps we actually understand just a small percentage of that happening around us. We create hypotheses and stories, but are largely blind.

This scenario better explains mass foolishness. And deliberate mis-education to perpetuate mass bewilderment. Ignoring a few key processes can result in virtual enslavement. Many enter a world with no right to rest peacefully - from the instant of conception starts a struggle to exist in a world "owned" by others. Immersed in Social Darwinist survival strategies, we eke out life. Personal well-being requires addressing a few central elements, including health care, freedom of communications, equal opportunity vs. the social impact of inheritance & privilege, investment in community, etc.

This explains how exploitation can exist in a systematic way. We're delivered at birth into a world of institutionalized criminality - many accept it, some exploit it; a few will always fight it.

Occupy Wall Street

rejoice
have fun !
freedom to disapprove
dissent without aggression
identify contradiction
decline conform
hinder violence

Land of the Cree
Home of the Slave

McDonalds News Network

Would you be well-informed if all your nutritional news & background information were supplied by McDonalds fast-food franchises?

An independent press is essential - but most media outlets in the USA are owned by wealthy corporations. Americans are typically unfamiliar with press independence, and 99% of the media consumed is owned & controlled by the 1% richest people.

Too many people unthinkingly rely on the huge corporate news machines -- which clearly distort, omit & manage information. In the USA, official brutality is deliberately hidden when possible. Democracy is threatened when a large proportion of people are fooled, deluded or deceived.

Pre-digested infosnacks offered by corporatist networks are not "free news" -- docile media endangers the health of the world & the survival of future generations.

Neglecting media's importance is costly, but blame yourself. Civic media is an available alternative in many nations, but people are captivated by corporate-supplied buzz.

The below site offers a different view of the news:
http://commondreams.org

I Feel Different About Obama

I had some envy for Barack Obama. He's younger than I am, and he is The President of the United States. I've a far simpler life.

Yet Barack Obama is a hypocrite, and he surely knows it.

He's dirtied our world in significant, highly important ways. He's clever & must deeply feel his deceit.

His grandmother would be shocked, his parents disgusted. His wife should feel shame.

So happy I ain't Barack Obama.

Let My People Go

Palestine leader Mahmoud Abbas raised havoc this week at the United Nations in seeking statehood for his people. But efforts for Palestine were no surprise. A year ago (25 Sept 2010) Abbas spoke to the UN General Assembly,  seeking to end escalating Zionist settlements in the Israeli military-occupied West Bank. Over this past year ... the world did nothing.

World Crisis: UNSC Reform

Why should a handful of nations enjoy non-elected membership in the United Nations Security Council? It is wrong.

Ten elected members must contend with the five fat noblemen, each with unilateral veto power. This anti-democratic system emasculates decision-making & stifles debate.

2012 Election Day

The new US President-Elect appoints former Pres. Barack Obama as White House Spokesperson for the upcoming administration.

"Over the past four years he's performed admirably. He ain't said much for himself. We want him to keep working."

Self-Image

Exceptionalism !

The US Republican Party rallying cry has become "American Exceptionalism" - a fine & noble sentiment, stirring patriotic passions & grand visions of divine grace and unique heroism. But unilateral assertions of greatness are dangerous, especially when created by PR & advertising professionals. Such self-declared nobility is ridiculous. It's a threatening world we create where "Chinese exceptionalism" and "Jewish exceptionalism" and "German exceptionalism" and the "exceptionalism of inherited wealth" and other bold brash ideologies savagely compete for dominance. We might be convinced of our own true exceptionalism, while others exaggerate; far better to keep such views to oneself. Those trumpeting their own exceptionalism are dangerous narcissists, sadly all too common.

  You're #1 in line for reaming.   Prepare to be volunteered...

Rep. Dennis Kucinich & Obama

Can U.S. President Obama be reelected? He's betrayed the hopes of most who voted for him. Obama has been a bureaucratic tool of Washington politics rather than a progressive voice for change.

But he can still do good. Surely his Supreme Court appointments are far better than the Republicans would have offered. But how about some other enlightened appointments? Why does Big Barry want to be the only leader's voice in his government?

Obama might start with high-profile appointments within his administration for US Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former US Sen. Russ Feingold.