As Black Friday descended across the 3 times zones that make up the continental US (CONUS), eager, hungry (not in the literal sense because they probably had eaten a full late-snack/real-early breakfast prior to leaving their homes), motivated Americans (read: shoppers) waddled to cars that many could not afford and heaved themselves into cold seats.
They laughed and giggled at the not-so-common prospect of going shopping so late (or early). The were in their best sweat pants with Champion sweatshirts. Many had sandwiches with them and massive, plastic coffee-cups filled with all sorts of stimulants. Many stopped off at the 7/11's and Circle K's to load up on 22-ounce cokes, pepsi's, dr. peppers.
Likening themselves to the Hollywoodian superstars who are also often forced to shop at night, so they won't be molested by adoring fans, excited words in warming cars gave way to deep thoughts of dancing $299 plasma tv's, $23 microwaves and $399 designer suits. They too fancied that that the impossible was now suddenly possible because in the glow of hundred's of millions of dollars worth of marketing analyses and advertising genius, they felt priveleged to be alive at such a "great moment in history." They were, they mused, because they are!
Hobbling and wobbling they went from cooling cars whose overhead lights dimmed ever so slowly, ensuring safe exits into brightly-lit lots. Despite chronic backpain and carpal tunnel syndrome, despite knee braces and obesity, despite acid reflux and restless leg syndrome, these hordes of patriotic Americans with the best interests of their family's in mind, stormed stores across the nation.
A young man, a warrior on the front and a happy associate of America's largest employer, with turkey still digesting in his lower intestine from a great Thanksgiving dinner, opened the doors to greet these God-fearing, soul-enriched Americans, tax-payers, voters, moms and dads and sons and daughters, Americans all, and in their dash for plasmas, microwaves and suits and cuddlely kittens made in China, they knocked him down.
Despite their knees, hurting wrists, gurgling stomachs and ever-twitching legs, they knocked him down and ran, herded foward until this young man, a 34-year old American, was crushed to death. His last act was to open the doors of the Wal-Mart where he worked on Black Friday, November 28, 2008.
We consume to live and we love to consume and we love to live to consume and so why then do even bother to live this life we so love as love for consumption is not life but a prison sentence from which parole is not an option until death, the end of life, does it's part and our final act is to be consumed into a box sold to us as the last act of a dying consumer. Amen.
Have we not lost our way?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Now Is the Time to Make Them Pay!
$25 billion is a lot of money. Although, nowadays, it is not that much. A bad cappuccino in St. Petersburg, Russia already costs $7; a plane ticket home for the holidays $1500 and a movie ticket in NJ with popcorn and a coke runs around $16--that is for one person!
So, with $25 billion having been put safely into perspective, it is now time to assess the true value of this "lump of money" that the automakers are beggin us for.
GM and Chrysler are incompetent. Ford has at least made efforts at breaking with its past managerial mistakes (read: American corporate greed). All three of these companies have lavish corporate dining rooms. Top managers travel about the nation in clouds of ingorance and Bush-like indifference as their companies struggle to pay their employees, current and past (pensions) and focus their thoughts, conscious and slumbering, on quarterly profits.
Ah, yes, the quarterly profit! This is an extremely inefficient tool for determining a company's performance. It's sole raison d'etre is for providing top management with the most possible opportunities (4 each year) for securing their extravagant bonuses.
Quarterly profits do not permit for management to study trends, consumer fickleness, effects from bad weather, breath, hair or anything else that might dissuade a consumer from making a purchase. Imagine, a woman gets breast augmentation surgery. The money she may have spent today on her new vehicle is now sitting rock-like upon her chest like a hood ornament.
5 months later, she goes to buy that cute little car she so liked but it is gone because not having sold X number of units in the first 4 months, the automaker decided to come out with yet another new model! The result is decreased consumer satifaction; a massively ineffecient procedure for the studying of consumer wants/needs/likes; and, a complete waste of money that had been invested in R&D.
So, back in the corporate dining room (today being T-Day the chairs will be empty), with the china polished and glistening, some of America's dumbest, greediest corporate idiots will be sitting about--and I have a dollar that says the most common accent will be Southern amongst those big-wigs--laughing how they have once again duped the American public. Again, we will be paying for their cruises, their big, fenced-in homes, their kids spending sprees, laced with ectasy and hookers, throughout Amsterdam and other party cities of Europe, their wives 45th faceliftlipaugmentationasspullup operation.
And so many former employees of those companies will be celebrating with a Spam-sculpted turkey this year because they have been laid off as a result of flagrant, corporate greed and treacherous mismanagement! Dear Joe and even Dear Fatass-Christian-Bush supporter, get a buzz today, TIVO the football game and then pack up some of that Spam and send it to the corporate headquarters of Chrysler, GM and even Ford. Let it rot in their mail rooms for a month or so, 15 tons of the stuff!
As for these low-life, slightly-in-bred cream of the country-club scene, who will always be the first to cry foul when a "colored person" is on the receiving end of government hand-outs, I say this to our in-coming President-with-a-brain: Stick to your guns about getting the fossil-fuel monkey off our backs! Get tough with these corporate Mr. Potters and link their receipt of credit to the similar conditionality that the IMF imposes on countries.
But, whereas the IMF demands macro and micro restraints and "no pain no gain" type conditions, President Obama and the Congress should demand that the US (and with the receipt of this money, these companies truly become US) auto industry become the world leader in green-techologies! We have the brain-power, despite the Bush Administrations attempts at outlawing individual and intelligent thought, to accomplish anything in the world! America is still the smartest and most talanted nation in the world!
With goverment backing and will-power, with the talant and the mandate of a young and truly smart President, we can FORCE the auto industry to bend to the ways of GOOD, BUSINESS SENSE. We will forbid them from making SUVs despite what consumers may want. It is time we realize that the greed and abuse of our nation, our environment by rude, selfish hypocrites is National Security Issue Numer One! That monkey on our backs is chipping away at our national sanity and like real-life crackheads, soon the average Joe will be offering unheard of "services" just to buy a gallon of gas so he can move that SUV 10 feet!
The industry as well as consumer groups will certainly claim that this is all anti-free market and heavy-handed goverment intervention, etc. (the words "God-less communism" will be used more than once) but these clowns have run their companies in every way that is counter to good, business sense (counter to Business 101 as taught in any Community College in the US) and so they no longer have the right to use that old crutch for support.
If they come crawling (or shall we say flying in their $36 million jets) to Washington seeking hand-outs, then they will abide by the wishes of the new Board of Directors. On this board, all Americans sit and now, we will make the changes the industry refused to make and the Bush Administration didn't require and America's auto industry 5 years from now will again be the glowing example of business genius, top management and superior products--we will again be the leaders but only this time there will be no more Edsells.
Yes, counter to current economic trends and the falling value of the US dollar, this $25 billion hand-out could truly be more valuable tomorrow than it is today. I say: GIVE IT TO'EM!
So, with $25 billion having been put safely into perspective, it is now time to assess the true value of this "lump of money" that the automakers are beggin us for.
GM and Chrysler are incompetent. Ford has at least made efforts at breaking with its past managerial mistakes (read: American corporate greed). All three of these companies have lavish corporate dining rooms. Top managers travel about the nation in clouds of ingorance and Bush-like indifference as their companies struggle to pay their employees, current and past (pensions) and focus their thoughts, conscious and slumbering, on quarterly profits.
Ah, yes, the quarterly profit! This is an extremely inefficient tool for determining a company's performance. It's sole raison d'etre is for providing top management with the most possible opportunities (4 each year) for securing their extravagant bonuses.
Quarterly profits do not permit for management to study trends, consumer fickleness, effects from bad weather, breath, hair or anything else that might dissuade a consumer from making a purchase. Imagine, a woman gets breast augmentation surgery. The money she may have spent today on her new vehicle is now sitting rock-like upon her chest like a hood ornament.
5 months later, she goes to buy that cute little car she so liked but it is gone because not having sold X number of units in the first 4 months, the automaker decided to come out with yet another new model! The result is decreased consumer satifaction; a massively ineffecient procedure for the studying of consumer wants/needs/likes; and, a complete waste of money that had been invested in R&D.
So, back in the corporate dining room (today being T-Day the chairs will be empty), with the china polished and glistening, some of America's dumbest, greediest corporate idiots will be sitting about--and I have a dollar that says the most common accent will be Southern amongst those big-wigs--laughing how they have once again duped the American public. Again, we will be paying for their cruises, their big, fenced-in homes, their kids spending sprees, laced with ectasy and hookers, throughout Amsterdam and other party cities of Europe, their wives 45th faceliftlipaugmentationasspullup operation.
And so many former employees of those companies will be celebrating with a Spam-sculpted turkey this year because they have been laid off as a result of flagrant, corporate greed and treacherous mismanagement! Dear Joe and even Dear Fatass-Christian-Bush supporter, get a buzz today, TIVO the football game and then pack up some of that Spam and send it to the corporate headquarters of Chrysler, GM and even Ford. Let it rot in their mail rooms for a month or so, 15 tons of the stuff!
As for these low-life, slightly-in-bred cream of the country-club scene, who will always be the first to cry foul when a "colored person" is on the receiving end of government hand-outs, I say this to our in-coming President-with-a-brain: Stick to your guns about getting the fossil-fuel monkey off our backs! Get tough with these corporate Mr. Potters and link their receipt of credit to the similar conditionality that the IMF imposes on countries.
But, whereas the IMF demands macro and micro restraints and "no pain no gain" type conditions, President Obama and the Congress should demand that the US (and with the receipt of this money, these companies truly become US) auto industry become the world leader in green-techologies! We have the brain-power, despite the Bush Administrations attempts at outlawing individual and intelligent thought, to accomplish anything in the world! America is still the smartest and most talanted nation in the world!
With goverment backing and will-power, with the talant and the mandate of a young and truly smart President, we can FORCE the auto industry to bend to the ways of GOOD, BUSINESS SENSE. We will forbid them from making SUVs despite what consumers may want. It is time we realize that the greed and abuse of our nation, our environment by rude, selfish hypocrites is National Security Issue Numer One! That monkey on our backs is chipping away at our national sanity and like real-life crackheads, soon the average Joe will be offering unheard of "services" just to buy a gallon of gas so he can move that SUV 10 feet!
The industry as well as consumer groups will certainly claim that this is all anti-free market and heavy-handed goverment intervention, etc. (the words "God-less communism" will be used more than once) but these clowns have run their companies in every way that is counter to good, business sense (counter to Business 101 as taught in any Community College in the US) and so they no longer have the right to use that old crutch for support.
If they come crawling (or shall we say flying in their $36 million jets) to Washington seeking hand-outs, then they will abide by the wishes of the new Board of Directors. On this board, all Americans sit and now, we will make the changes the industry refused to make and the Bush Administration didn't require and America's auto industry 5 years from now will again be the glowing example of business genius, top management and superior products--we will again be the leaders but only this time there will be no more Edsells.
Yes, counter to current economic trends and the falling value of the US dollar, this $25 billion hand-out could truly be more valuable tomorrow than it is today. I say: GIVE IT TO'EM!
Monday, November 17, 2008
Spit on an SUV Day!
It really makes me want to vomit. I mean, I am so angered and so damn sick of the injustice of the past 8 years--well, really pretty much the past 2 decades since Reagan sent our nation adrift into the realm of governance for the sake of Big Business.
Personally, I feel that people who drive those massive, gas-chugging, noisy and grostequely oblong pick-ups trucks--the kinds that gargle and choke just to go from a stand-still in the mall parking lot to move up 8 feet to the wall of glass doors so that a monstrous, waddling woman with 2 baby whales in her tow can climb in--are selfish, people-haters! They are earth-haters! They are anti-Christian (and all of you fat, God-fearing racists who drive one should go to hell!), send-my-daughter-to-the-bizarre-girls-under-9-beauty-pageant anti-Americans!
Ok. I am now calm and can proceed forward with caution.
Reading over the weekend about how more corporate welfare is likely to be handed out to the automakers, I came undone at the screaming injustice of "it all." "It all" in this case, is not a general "it all" but a precise and neatly defined "it all." (Read: I have mismanaged my company, abused consumer's, lied to the public about the safety of my product, lobbied for having taxes lowered on those who by my death-trap vehicles, earned hundreds of millions in profits which I did not invest in making my product safer, better for the environment or more fuel-efficient and when as a result of my own myopic and selfish business decisions I find myself losing money, I beg the goverment for a bailout.)
Automakers of today, are like the Krupps, Bosch and others who competed for contracts on making the crematoriums and ovens for the concentration camps during WWII: they are driven by greed with little moral link to their communities. They make short-term decisions in order to maximize this year's profits and all in the "race" for a better bottom-line; they can justify laying off workers; lowering promised retirement packages; shutting down any R&D programs that might make a better and more "earth-friendly" product just so their already stiflingly wealthy world becomes even more so.
They sock their money away in personal accounts around the globe, buy massive homes and apartments and live like true feudal lords of yesteryear. And then, when they find their ways of life threatened by their own incompetence and greed (and I will bet my balls that most of these top managers are "God-fearing, dumb-white Bush-voters" who go to church every Sunday), they stretch out those flabby white arms with their inherent carpal tunnel syndrome and say with no sense of shame: "give us some dough or else we will screw this US economy by going under." Oh, and I forgot the "Amen" at the end the sentence.
Are not such veiled threats treacherous? Should not these incompetent managers and politicians who voted to make the growth of SUV's possible be held accountable? Why is it that once again, the frat-boys of Wall Street and Detroit are being rewarded for their incompetence and greed and there still is not enough money for poor Americans to have--AT LEAST--health care?
There is a great Repiglican argument that says: "I don't want to pay taxes to support unemployed and lazy (read: black) people." Well, if we were to add up all of the tax-payer money that has been paid out on the S&L crash of the late 1980's; the bail-out of Chrysler under Reagan, the bail of Wall Street last month and now what will be the bail of the auto industry, it would all be about 500 times more than has been spent by the US Goverment on the "lazy blacks" since the end of Reconstruction.
When I go to America, I walk (despite the lack of sidewalks). Unless I get $100,000, I will stop walking. And, the local economy of Freehold, New Jersey will be about $3000 poorer as a result. Where is my bail-out?! Give me money now!!!
Personally, I feel that people who drive those massive, gas-chugging, noisy and grostequely oblong pick-ups trucks--the kinds that gargle and choke just to go from a stand-still in the mall parking lot to move up 8 feet to the wall of glass doors so that a monstrous, waddling woman with 2 baby whales in her tow can climb in--are selfish, people-haters! They are earth-haters! They are anti-Christian (and all of you fat, God-fearing racists who drive one should go to hell!), send-my-daughter-to-the-bizarre-girls-under-9-beauty-pageant anti-Americans!
Ok. I am now calm and can proceed forward with caution.
Reading over the weekend about how more corporate welfare is likely to be handed out to the automakers, I came undone at the screaming injustice of "it all." "It all" in this case, is not a general "it all" but a precise and neatly defined "it all." (Read: I have mismanaged my company, abused consumer's, lied to the public about the safety of my product, lobbied for having taxes lowered on those who by my death-trap vehicles, earned hundreds of millions in profits which I did not invest in making my product safer, better for the environment or more fuel-efficient and when as a result of my own myopic and selfish business decisions I find myself losing money, I beg the goverment for a bailout.)
Automakers of today, are like the Krupps, Bosch and others who competed for contracts on making the crematoriums and ovens for the concentration camps during WWII: they are driven by greed with little moral link to their communities. They make short-term decisions in order to maximize this year's profits and all in the "race" for a better bottom-line; they can justify laying off workers; lowering promised retirement packages; shutting down any R&D programs that might make a better and more "earth-friendly" product just so their already stiflingly wealthy world becomes even more so.
They sock their money away in personal accounts around the globe, buy massive homes and apartments and live like true feudal lords of yesteryear. And then, when they find their ways of life threatened by their own incompetence and greed (and I will bet my balls that most of these top managers are "God-fearing, dumb-white Bush-voters" who go to church every Sunday), they stretch out those flabby white arms with their inherent carpal tunnel syndrome and say with no sense of shame: "give us some dough or else we will screw this US economy by going under." Oh, and I forgot the "Amen" at the end the sentence.
Are not such veiled threats treacherous? Should not these incompetent managers and politicians who voted to make the growth of SUV's possible be held accountable? Why is it that once again, the frat-boys of Wall Street and Detroit are being rewarded for their incompetence and greed and there still is not enough money for poor Americans to have--AT LEAST--health care?
There is a great Repiglican argument that says: "I don't want to pay taxes to support unemployed and lazy (read: black) people." Well, if we were to add up all of the tax-payer money that has been paid out on the S&L crash of the late 1980's; the bail-out of Chrysler under Reagan, the bail of Wall Street last month and now what will be the bail of the auto industry, it would all be about 500 times more than has been spent by the US Goverment on the "lazy blacks" since the end of Reconstruction.
When I go to America, I walk (despite the lack of sidewalks). Unless I get $100,000, I will stop walking. And, the local economy of Freehold, New Jersey will be about $3000 poorer as a result. Where is my bail-out?! Give me money now!!!
Friday, November 14, 2008
"I am sorry, who is calling?...Barack...who?"
Jesus Christ was not an idiot. When he was speaking Arameic to his followers, they were awed by his words. He inspired masses of people and He was good and kind.
In the run-up to the 2004 elections, I listened to an interview on a Cajun radio station. The interviewer in his lovely Cajun draw asked a woman with a standard Southern accent why she was voting for George W. Bush? Her response was that it was "like having Jesus Christ in the White House."
Well, for those of us who knew he was idiot when his father's Supreme Court selected W. over Al Gore, I am sure today that even that dumbass woman has reconsidered that statement. Jesus Christ was good and articulate (I imagine) and W. is completely inarticulate and really just plain stupid! I even believe that he and Dick are evil people.
That leads me to the following: Barack Obama is so articulate and his words are so inspiring that I actually fear the backlash of his gift.
Barack Obama is only a man. 6 years ago, he was just like most of us except that he was in the Illinois State Senate and not working in a typical 7 to 4 job. Barack Obama up until very recently was taking out the garbage, balancing a check book, stopping at the 7/11 to get a 16-ounce coffee and a NYTimes.
While driving to work, with the paper in the seat next to him and his coffee sitting snugly in the cup-holder, he was thinking, quesitoning, preparing for how he could influence events in America so as to make it truly a better place; how he could return it to its place of stature should he be given a chance. The Bush people, it seems when you live out of America as I do, hated our country. They tore our nation, it's reputation, it's wealth apart brick by brick.
Mr. Obama, while sitting in traffic in Chicago, imagined what he would do and how he would make changes to get us back on track. He daydreamed like we have done and do. He may have imagined becoming the President but like we all have imagined, he also knew that this was a very, very long shot in the America being dismantled by Bush and Cheney and the fat, dumb and pre-dominately Southern religious right.
Barack Obama has so quickly become not the man who was just in the 7/11, picking up the Times and a Slurpee for his daughters. He is now a rock star. He is now looks like the greatest President in the history of our nation and he only became the President-Elect 10 days ago.
Barack Obama is only human and such pure and unmitigated adulation cannot be healthy for anyone alive. He has gone from being cut in line at the movies while he chatted with his wife to being the Great Black Hope for the entire civilized world! Every nation, except Russia (the Russian government is too envious of our participatory style of government and our ability to correct our mistakes to admit they like Obama) is going crazy. It is like VE Day in Europe.
What is amazing is the extent to which people hated W and the just how much America is needed by the civilized world still, despite our failiing economic way--the fact that the world still "wants/needs to have a good America" is another reason the Russia government is so envious.
Also amazing, is how quickly Mr. Obama can fall from grace if he doesn't live up to half of what the myth coalescing around his image determines him to be. Then, he could go from having so much potential influence to truly make our lives better to suffering the animosity of people who suddenly feel "used" or "foolish" for having believed in this new "god."
I am an estatic supporter of Obama despite my initial desire to have seen Hillary Clinton elected president. I hope he accomplishes all he has set out to do. However, I think it is time we all take a deep breath and remember that 8 years ago, this guy may have been sitting at a stop light and not moved as quickly as you felt he should have. So, when the light turned green, in your hurry and frustration you shouted, "asshole" as you tore past. In other words, Mr. Obama is a human being and that is all and now he has the hardest and least enviable job in the world. Let's truly make t easier on him and let's cut him a break.
In addition, in the haze of victory and expectation, will we even know that President Obama has made a mistake? Making history as the first black president is great, but,the standards by which we will judge his work (and which were denied us over the past 8 years) must be renewed and the scales for balancing our nation's powers must be recalibrated.
Let's all take a step back, take a deep breath and let's do what we can to make his job easier and not expect miracles.
In the run-up to the 2004 elections, I listened to an interview on a Cajun radio station. The interviewer in his lovely Cajun draw asked a woman with a standard Southern accent why she was voting for George W. Bush? Her response was that it was "like having Jesus Christ in the White House."
Well, for those of us who knew he was idiot when his father's Supreme Court selected W. over Al Gore, I am sure today that even that dumbass woman has reconsidered that statement. Jesus Christ was good and articulate (I imagine) and W. is completely inarticulate and really just plain stupid! I even believe that he and Dick are evil people.
That leads me to the following: Barack Obama is so articulate and his words are so inspiring that I actually fear the backlash of his gift.
Barack Obama is only a man. 6 years ago, he was just like most of us except that he was in the Illinois State Senate and not working in a typical 7 to 4 job. Barack Obama up until very recently was taking out the garbage, balancing a check book, stopping at the 7/11 to get a 16-ounce coffee and a NYTimes.
While driving to work, with the paper in the seat next to him and his coffee sitting snugly in the cup-holder, he was thinking, quesitoning, preparing for how he could influence events in America so as to make it truly a better place; how he could return it to its place of stature should he be given a chance. The Bush people, it seems when you live out of America as I do, hated our country. They tore our nation, it's reputation, it's wealth apart brick by brick.
Mr. Obama, while sitting in traffic in Chicago, imagined what he would do and how he would make changes to get us back on track. He daydreamed like we have done and do. He may have imagined becoming the President but like we all have imagined, he also knew that this was a very, very long shot in the America being dismantled by Bush and Cheney and the fat, dumb and pre-dominately Southern religious right.
Barack Obama has so quickly become not the man who was just in the 7/11, picking up the Times and a Slurpee for his daughters. He is now a rock star. He is now looks like the greatest President in the history of our nation and he only became the President-Elect 10 days ago.
Barack Obama is only human and such pure and unmitigated adulation cannot be healthy for anyone alive. He has gone from being cut in line at the movies while he chatted with his wife to being the Great Black Hope for the entire civilized world! Every nation, except Russia (the Russian government is too envious of our participatory style of government and our ability to correct our mistakes to admit they like Obama) is going crazy. It is like VE Day in Europe.
What is amazing is the extent to which people hated W and the just how much America is needed by the civilized world still, despite our failiing economic way--the fact that the world still "wants/needs to have a good America" is another reason the Russia government is so envious.
Also amazing, is how quickly Mr. Obama can fall from grace if he doesn't live up to half of what the myth coalescing around his image determines him to be. Then, he could go from having so much potential influence to truly make our lives better to suffering the animosity of people who suddenly feel "used" or "foolish" for having believed in this new "god."
I am an estatic supporter of Obama despite my initial desire to have seen Hillary Clinton elected president. I hope he accomplishes all he has set out to do. However, I think it is time we all take a deep breath and remember that 8 years ago, this guy may have been sitting at a stop light and not moved as quickly as you felt he should have. So, when the light turned green, in your hurry and frustration you shouted, "asshole" as you tore past. In other words, Mr. Obama is a human being and that is all and now he has the hardest and least enviable job in the world. Let's truly make t easier on him and let's cut him a break.
In addition, in the haze of victory and expectation, will we even know that President Obama has made a mistake? Making history as the first black president is great, but,the standards by which we will judge his work (and which were denied us over the past 8 years) must be renewed and the scales for balancing our nation's powers must be recalibrated.
Let's all take a step back, take a deep breath and let's do what we can to make his job easier and not expect miracles.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
“Jingle bells, jingle bells, the Waltons smell...”
Santa Claus has been found and the North Pole has melted. Long live Arkansas!
By opening their massively ugly box stores in former corn and sod fields throughout America’s interior, the small-town, corner-store dream of Sam Walton has succeeded in turning vast swathes of America into factory towns similar to the coal and steel-mining past that gave way to places like western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other not so “booming” parts of our nation.
Having crept in during the evening twilight whilst mom and dad were carting Bobby and little Peggy to and fro between soccer practice (team paid for by local taxes for the school) and gymnastics (privately owned center), on the wonderful patch of land upon which the sun left fading and lingering bits of purple and orange across a darkening sky, the bulldozers started hacking and coughing away at the land.
“Gee, I wonder what’s going up out there?” Such an innocuous question posed by mom to dad as they drove their conventional family of 4 to the Outback Steakhouse for a nourishing and really big dinner.
“Don’t know, Helen, can’t be anything really. That land is off-limits to any building and cannot be zoned.”
Background: Hartsville, Any State has a population of 14,678. Most of the people in this traditional glimpse of America are either self-employed in shops or restaurants up in the center of the old town; or, they are working at the bicycle tire plant; or, they are working in some company that is servicing the bicycle tire plant. In any case, the town has been functioning with the same businesses, give or take a few that close down and reopen with a new “commercial offering”, for the past century.
The bicycle tire plant has been running since it first opened it doors back in 1896. For better or worse, surviving good times and bad, the factory has been the backbone of the community. Until that fateful dinner at the Applebee’s between a town councilman and a Business Development VP from Wal-Mart: promises of no-taxes were made, an envelope passed beneath the table and voila!
Suddenly, on land that was never supposed to be used for commercial purposes, massive cinder-block-like buildings took shape in the night and the field was hidden beneath a desert of blacktop.
Around the new Wal-Mart, a string of fast-food joints popped up: Boston Chicken, McDonaldsBurgerKingWendy’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, Friday’s, Olive Garden, etc. Business at the fun little family-run places in town started to decline and a few closed. Employees, who had been part of these businesses for decades, were suddenly faced with unemployment or join the “team” at the fast-food places with mission statements and motivational speeches.
With their decreased earnings in hand, these new “team members” of fast food America started going to Wal-Mart because really, “you can’t beat the prices!” As result of increased business at the Wal-Mart, some of the family-owned shops in town, closed. Now, these unemployed former employees of “Al’s Bootery” (first opened in 1947 by a returning WWII vet) found themselves filling out applications at the Wal-Mart.
Suddenly, “dad” (Bobby and Peggy’s father) is told that due to that “great contract” the bicycle tire plant had gotten for fitting bikes sold in Wal-Mart, the largest retailer of bikes in America, the company had to close its doors.
74% of the bi-cycle tire plant’s finished product was for tires being sold in Wal-Mart and one fine day Wal-Mart demanded that the prices for the bikes be lowered by 15%. The bike plant asked the tire manufacturer to drop his prices by 20%. They couldn’t and the bike maker started buying tires made in China.
Having lost 74% of its business, the company had no option left but to declare bankruptcy. Suddenly, with their severance checks in hand, the good, patriotic Americans of Hartsville went shopping—at the Wal-Mart. They even had dinner at the hotdog stand inside!
Business started to boom for Wal-Mart and so they absorbed the recently laid-off from the bike tire plant. With their first checks in hand, the new proud “associates” of Wal-Mart became loyal shoppers at their place of employment; simply because they could no longer afford the prices at the shops in town and for the most part all had closed anyway: filling the vacant storefronts now were a pawn shop here, a Walgreens there, a CVS across the street (economically dislocated people need more over-the-counter drugs to make up for the ailments caused by poor eating habits, stress, smoking and no health care).
The cycle spun round and round until eventually 85% of the people in town were working at Wal-Mart. They average salary was around $1350 a month which forced many people to take second jobs at the fast-food places and even at the Sam’s Price Club.
The only thing missing is the dormitories for our Wal-Mart associates and “company scrip”—and then, Wal-Mart will be even a better provider than the US Government.
Merry Christmas from Sam Walton’s multi-billion dollar family to your $2189-a-month-after-taxes family! “Jingle bells, jingle bells…”
By opening their massively ugly box stores in former corn and sod fields throughout America’s interior, the small-town, corner-store dream of Sam Walton has succeeded in turning vast swathes of America into factory towns similar to the coal and steel-mining past that gave way to places like western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other not so “booming” parts of our nation.
Having crept in during the evening twilight whilst mom and dad were carting Bobby and little Peggy to and fro between soccer practice (team paid for by local taxes for the school) and gymnastics (privately owned center), on the wonderful patch of land upon which the sun left fading and lingering bits of purple and orange across a darkening sky, the bulldozers started hacking and coughing away at the land.
“Gee, I wonder what’s going up out there?” Such an innocuous question posed by mom to dad as they drove their conventional family of 4 to the Outback Steakhouse for a nourishing and really big dinner.
“Don’t know, Helen, can’t be anything really. That land is off-limits to any building and cannot be zoned.”
Background: Hartsville, Any State has a population of 14,678. Most of the people in this traditional glimpse of America are either self-employed in shops or restaurants up in the center of the old town; or, they are working at the bicycle tire plant; or, they are working in some company that is servicing the bicycle tire plant. In any case, the town has been functioning with the same businesses, give or take a few that close down and reopen with a new “commercial offering”, for the past century.
The bicycle tire plant has been running since it first opened it doors back in 1896. For better or worse, surviving good times and bad, the factory has been the backbone of the community. Until that fateful dinner at the Applebee’s between a town councilman and a Business Development VP from Wal-Mart: promises of no-taxes were made, an envelope passed beneath the table and voila!
Suddenly, on land that was never supposed to be used for commercial purposes, massive cinder-block-like buildings took shape in the night and the field was hidden beneath a desert of blacktop.
Around the new Wal-Mart, a string of fast-food joints popped up: Boston Chicken, McDonaldsBurgerKingWendy’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, Friday’s, Olive Garden, etc. Business at the fun little family-run places in town started to decline and a few closed. Employees, who had been part of these businesses for decades, were suddenly faced with unemployment or join the “team” at the fast-food places with mission statements and motivational speeches.
With their decreased earnings in hand, these new “team members” of fast food America started going to Wal-Mart because really, “you can’t beat the prices!” As result of increased business at the Wal-Mart, some of the family-owned shops in town, closed. Now, these unemployed former employees of “Al’s Bootery” (first opened in 1947 by a returning WWII vet) found themselves filling out applications at the Wal-Mart.
Suddenly, “dad” (Bobby and Peggy’s father) is told that due to that “great contract” the bicycle tire plant had gotten for fitting bikes sold in Wal-Mart, the largest retailer of bikes in America, the company had to close its doors.
74% of the bi-cycle tire plant’s finished product was for tires being sold in Wal-Mart and one fine day Wal-Mart demanded that the prices for the bikes be lowered by 15%. The bike plant asked the tire manufacturer to drop his prices by 20%. They couldn’t and the bike maker started buying tires made in China.
Having lost 74% of its business, the company had no option left but to declare bankruptcy. Suddenly, with their severance checks in hand, the good, patriotic Americans of Hartsville went shopping—at the Wal-Mart. They even had dinner at the hotdog stand inside!
Business started to boom for Wal-Mart and so they absorbed the recently laid-off from the bike tire plant. With their first checks in hand, the new proud “associates” of Wal-Mart became loyal shoppers at their place of employment; simply because they could no longer afford the prices at the shops in town and for the most part all had closed anyway: filling the vacant storefronts now were a pawn shop here, a Walgreens there, a CVS across the street (economically dislocated people need more over-the-counter drugs to make up for the ailments caused by poor eating habits, stress, smoking and no health care).
The cycle spun round and round until eventually 85% of the people in town were working at Wal-Mart. They average salary was around $1350 a month which forced many people to take second jobs at the fast-food places and even at the Sam’s Price Club.
The only thing missing is the dormitories for our Wal-Mart associates and “company scrip”—and then, Wal-Mart will be even a better provider than the US Government.
Merry Christmas from Sam Walton’s multi-billion dollar family to your $2189-a-month-after-taxes family! “Jingle bells, jingle bells…”
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Either he Will or he Won't--A Failed Obama Presidency all before April, 2009
On May 8th, 1933, President Roosevelt signed the TVA Act. With the swish of his pen, the Tennessee Valley was put on the modern map and lives would change virtually over night. Over the course of the ensuing decades, modernity would stick its toes into the river valley and bring, hints of prosperity to the region.
For all intents and purposes, the TVA Act and other such broad and sweeping acts and programs put into place in American during the New Deal proved successful. Of course, a timely world war also prodded the US economy into world leadership; but, nevertheless, the progressive mood of the FDR Administration and his coterie social liberals like Harry Hopkins and Elenanor Roosevelt (and many others) proved to be the medecine that an American lined with capitalist greed needed to lift our nation to greatness.
Well, if not greatness, then at least potential greatness--greatness was on the horizon. The mood of sacrifice prevailed during the war years and then was quiantly set aside in the half-century that followed and culminated in the Bush-Cheney abuse of power.
The day has come to again call forth with the help of a ouija board the souls and spirits of the progressive 30's. Having coalesced around a dynamic and tireless leader in the face of the handicapped FDR, America strode forward boldly and succeeded in remaking our society--America became a friendlier and more responsible society.
Threatened by world domination, the "greatest generation" again was called and it went forth to accomplish feats of personal sacrifice rarely seen in modern society and the great Nazi nemisis was defeated. Peace, a good peace, was achieved and the peoples of Western Europe--except for many of the French including many of the Normans--to this day express gratitude in annual celebrations of their independence from the Nazi occupation.
We are today occupied not by racist murderers but rather our insatiable diets, our need for having everything in big, energy consuming shapes and sizes. This addiction to consumption, as is well known, is destroying our world. America, and only America, can do something about this on the scale that will matter.
President Obama has tapped into the vast resources of the American people. They look to him for change and it would seem, they too are willing to change. Wheras the Europeans States tend to be selfish and obsessed with their own interests; whereas Russia is simply irrelevant when it comes to doing anything good for anyone including it own people; whereas the other players are also from BRIC nations and little or nothing can be expected from them in altering the world's march toward armageddon. It is up to President Obama to put forth legislation for a new "TVA Act."
President Obama should appoint Al Gore as the Global Warming Czar. This position should be an "extra-cabinet" position in that it will not be tied to the infighting and bureaucracy that exists between other cabinet members. President Obama must give Mr. Gore the power to make change and the change must be radical. The investment must be substantial and the sacrifice all Americans will be asked to make should be on par with that which was experienced by most Americans during WWII.
A real, top-down drive for altering the effects of global warming will create millions of jobs. A government requirement for receipt of funding for private business initiatives should require that all jobs stay in the US. There cannot be the destructive race for ever-increasing bottom-lines at the expense of the American worker. The new, massive TVA Act will tap into America's greatest resources: brain power, entreprenuership, hard-work and the messianic belief that our country was created to make the world a better place for all to live in.
President Obama has until April or May to make a committment to this initiative. If he kicks it around until the summer, it will simply be too late and nothing will happen. A small investment will be made, somewhere along the lines of $150 billion and then the irreversible will be really irreversible.
For all intents and purposes, the TVA Act and other such broad and sweeping acts and programs put into place in American during the New Deal proved successful. Of course, a timely world war also prodded the US economy into world leadership; but, nevertheless, the progressive mood of the FDR Administration and his coterie social liberals like Harry Hopkins and Elenanor Roosevelt (and many others) proved to be the medecine that an American lined with capitalist greed needed to lift our nation to greatness.
Well, if not greatness, then at least potential greatness--greatness was on the horizon. The mood of sacrifice prevailed during the war years and then was quiantly set aside in the half-century that followed and culminated in the Bush-Cheney abuse of power.
The day has come to again call forth with the help of a ouija board the souls and spirits of the progressive 30's. Having coalesced around a dynamic and tireless leader in the face of the handicapped FDR, America strode forward boldly and succeeded in remaking our society--America became a friendlier and more responsible society.
Threatened by world domination, the "greatest generation" again was called and it went forth to accomplish feats of personal sacrifice rarely seen in modern society and the great Nazi nemisis was defeated. Peace, a good peace, was achieved and the peoples of Western Europe--except for many of the French including many of the Normans--to this day express gratitude in annual celebrations of their independence from the Nazi occupation.
We are today occupied not by racist murderers but rather our insatiable diets, our need for having everything in big, energy consuming shapes and sizes. This addiction to consumption, as is well known, is destroying our world. America, and only America, can do something about this on the scale that will matter.
President Obama has tapped into the vast resources of the American people. They look to him for change and it would seem, they too are willing to change. Wheras the Europeans States tend to be selfish and obsessed with their own interests; whereas Russia is simply irrelevant when it comes to doing anything good for anyone including it own people; whereas the other players are also from BRIC nations and little or nothing can be expected from them in altering the world's march toward armageddon. It is up to President Obama to put forth legislation for a new "TVA Act."
President Obama should appoint Al Gore as the Global Warming Czar. This position should be an "extra-cabinet" position in that it will not be tied to the infighting and bureaucracy that exists between other cabinet members. President Obama must give Mr. Gore the power to make change and the change must be radical. The investment must be substantial and the sacrifice all Americans will be asked to make should be on par with that which was experienced by most Americans during WWII.
A real, top-down drive for altering the effects of global warming will create millions of jobs. A government requirement for receipt of funding for private business initiatives should require that all jobs stay in the US. There cannot be the destructive race for ever-increasing bottom-lines at the expense of the American worker. The new, massive TVA Act will tap into America's greatest resources: brain power, entreprenuership, hard-work and the messianic belief that our country was created to make the world a better place for all to live in.
President Obama has until April or May to make a committment to this initiative. If he kicks it around until the summer, it will simply be too late and nothing will happen. A small investment will be made, somewhere along the lines of $150 billion and then the irreversible will be really irreversible.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The American Dream—but whose?
Yesterday, I was watching CNN and three girls were being interviewed in New York City. They were thrilled about Obama’s victory and telling the interviewer how once again they were able to believe in their country, in the “dream of America”.
I was happy. I listened and was in total agreement with these words; I was amazed at how those three girls held so many of the ideas and hopes that I held so dear. And then it dawned on me like a hot, August morning: how can I have anything in common with these three cows!?
Each of the girls, ranging in age from 25 to 30 and in height from 5’4’’ to 5’6’’, was tipping the scales at anywhere from 175 to 240! I listened to their words and tried to imagine the amount of food that had been consumed prior to their appearance on the camera that day: the amount that would be consumed off-camera, after their “15 minutes” were up and they sat, cheeks glazed in donut oil and sweat later that evening, reliving the moment with friends.
The time has come for us to wake up. We must face the facts. If you voted for Obama and are what we call nowadays “obese” then you really don’t believe in what he is all about. You can’t be. Obama’s dream, his vision is about making America great again. His dream and his vision have a new world etched onto the horizon in which greenhouse gases are being reduced through responsible consumption; through international cooperation led by a progressive and active America.
If you are obese, I don’t want to hear that you have a “thyroid problem” or some other made-up ailment (of all obese or overweight Americans, only about 3 million can legitimately blame an underactive thyroid). The odds that you are obese is because you EAT WAY TOO MUCH and move WAY TOO LITTLE—in other words, you are taking in way too many empty calories and burning off way too few.
Let’s put excess consumption of bad foods under the microscope: empty, high-fructose, heavily-advertised food stuffs, probably from China are consumed hand over fist in large amounts from the moment the fatso rolls out of bed and shuffles to his car; where he then drives to a diner or Dunkin Donuts, and eats white breads with butter and layers of cream cheese or maybe greasy eggs with fried potatoes; then, after some sweet, sugary drink to carry them through their withdrawal by around 10 AM, they shuffle to lunch where they eat nasty, fake foods that have been chemically created in New Jersey: a massive burger with a massive fake white-bread roll, with processed cheese and a massive side of fries that was proceded by nachos and all washed down with a few massive cokes.
Fatty is full for an hour or two until it is time to get a snack around 4, a can of diet soda and a brownie, and then they make their way home for a lite-dinner: a pizza-hut pizza delivered whilst watching Dancing with the Stars.
And then, in their moments of disgust at the Bush regime’s incompetence in governing, they declare that America is off-track and “we need to rebuild the America dream”. What for them, however, is this dream? A nation where up until 2 years ago Wendy’s offered massive burgers with large Frosty’s and fries all for $1.99? A nation where gas is $.89 a gallon? A nation where massive bags of frozen tater tots cost $3.79 a Sam's?
Or is this dream something that we must recreate and not expect to come on a plate or in “great sales after Christmas”? Is it an America where we start to walk to work, church, the corner store for the paper and a coffee? Is it an America where we realize the beauty of sacrifice and that to want for something (and not have everything thanks to credit cards) actually builds character? Is it an America where will start walking up steps at work rather than cramming into an elevator to go up 5 feet?
Is it an America where we start making food at home? Where people start buying produce locally and making dinners where everyone sits at the table and not in front of the TV? Is it an America where people starting gardening? Saving? Is it a dream where we stop making 55% of the worlds waste in a single day?
Is this an America where we start to once again take responsibility for our faults and shortcomings instead of blaming our parents, a bully at school or society? Is this American society that the fat girls in NYC believe in anew one where carbon emissions will be decreased thanks to their lowered consumption/abuse of resources which they waste solely on their own, insatiable desires to eat (and then pass into the overtaxed sewage system), consume and spend?
Is this America a nation where should we cut just 15% of the extra weight off of overweight Americans then we could save 1 trillions dollars each year lost due to slower movement, more fuel used to carry heavier people, to transport more food to farther away places, more lost productivity due to sickness, etc, etc.
Yes, big business and marketers are guilty for making it all look so good and seemingly so cheap, but, we have free-will…we are not cows in the field chomping away until the farmer herds us back in. We can say no but we are lazy.
We are eating ourselves into poverty. Economists say more consumption will get us out of the recession. But then again, it was more consumption that got us here in the first place.
Time to say it: being obese is not ok. It is anti-American.
I was happy. I listened and was in total agreement with these words; I was amazed at how those three girls held so many of the ideas and hopes that I held so dear. And then it dawned on me like a hot, August morning: how can I have anything in common with these three cows!?
Each of the girls, ranging in age from 25 to 30 and in height from 5’4’’ to 5’6’’, was tipping the scales at anywhere from 175 to 240! I listened to their words and tried to imagine the amount of food that had been consumed prior to their appearance on the camera that day: the amount that would be consumed off-camera, after their “15 minutes” were up and they sat, cheeks glazed in donut oil and sweat later that evening, reliving the moment with friends.
The time has come for us to wake up. We must face the facts. If you voted for Obama and are what we call nowadays “obese” then you really don’t believe in what he is all about. You can’t be. Obama’s dream, his vision is about making America great again. His dream and his vision have a new world etched onto the horizon in which greenhouse gases are being reduced through responsible consumption; through international cooperation led by a progressive and active America.
If you are obese, I don’t want to hear that you have a “thyroid problem” or some other made-up ailment (of all obese or overweight Americans, only about 3 million can legitimately blame an underactive thyroid). The odds that you are obese is because you EAT WAY TOO MUCH and move WAY TOO LITTLE—in other words, you are taking in way too many empty calories and burning off way too few.
Let’s put excess consumption of bad foods under the microscope: empty, high-fructose, heavily-advertised food stuffs, probably from China are consumed hand over fist in large amounts from the moment the fatso rolls out of bed and shuffles to his car; where he then drives to a diner or Dunkin Donuts, and eats white breads with butter and layers of cream cheese or maybe greasy eggs with fried potatoes; then, after some sweet, sugary drink to carry them through their withdrawal by around 10 AM, they shuffle to lunch where they eat nasty, fake foods that have been chemically created in New Jersey: a massive burger with a massive fake white-bread roll, with processed cheese and a massive side of fries that was proceded by nachos and all washed down with a few massive cokes.
Fatty is full for an hour or two until it is time to get a snack around 4, a can of diet soda and a brownie, and then they make their way home for a lite-dinner: a pizza-hut pizza delivered whilst watching Dancing with the Stars.
And then, in their moments of disgust at the Bush regime’s incompetence in governing, they declare that America is off-track and “we need to rebuild the America dream”. What for them, however, is this dream? A nation where up until 2 years ago Wendy’s offered massive burgers with large Frosty’s and fries all for $1.99? A nation where gas is $.89 a gallon? A nation where massive bags of frozen tater tots cost $3.79 a Sam's?
Or is this dream something that we must recreate and not expect to come on a plate or in “great sales after Christmas”? Is it an America where we start to walk to work, church, the corner store for the paper and a coffee? Is it an America where we realize the beauty of sacrifice and that to want for something (and not have everything thanks to credit cards) actually builds character? Is it an America where will start walking up steps at work rather than cramming into an elevator to go up 5 feet?
Is it an America where we start making food at home? Where people start buying produce locally and making dinners where everyone sits at the table and not in front of the TV? Is it an America where people starting gardening? Saving? Is it a dream where we stop making 55% of the worlds waste in a single day?
Is this an America where we start to once again take responsibility for our faults and shortcomings instead of blaming our parents, a bully at school or society? Is this American society that the fat girls in NYC believe in anew one where carbon emissions will be decreased thanks to their lowered consumption/abuse of resources which they waste solely on their own, insatiable desires to eat (and then pass into the overtaxed sewage system), consume and spend?
Is this America a nation where should we cut just 15% of the extra weight off of overweight Americans then we could save 1 trillions dollars each year lost due to slower movement, more fuel used to carry heavier people, to transport more food to farther away places, more lost productivity due to sickness, etc, etc.
Yes, big business and marketers are guilty for making it all look so good and seemingly so cheap, but, we have free-will…we are not cows in the field chomping away until the farmer herds us back in. We can say no but we are lazy.
We are eating ourselves into poverty. Economists say more consumption will get us out of the recession. But then again, it was more consumption that got us here in the first place.
Time to say it: being obese is not ok. It is anti-American.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Infinity Found!
Hello Fatties (today is Election Day and many of you may have for a moment put down those moon pies and Dr. Pepper just long enough to cast your votes for good, old-fashioned white rightness)! But, I too, must admit that I had some "fatness" on my bones in years past. It all began with my "search."
It wasn't a long search. It wasn't a long count. In the literal fog of those nearly-post Vietnam War days (they used to spray the town with mosquito repellent and you could get lost in the fog), somewhere around 1972 or so, we would always be in the midst of some mid-summer's evening "hide-n-seek game."
Some wise-assed kid would always lure some sucker into counting to infinity. An older relative or neighbor would happen by and they would break the news to the kid: "infinity, little Tommie, is endless."
So too, was our American way-of-life (A-WOL). The one in which we all wanted whatever we wanted, whenever, where ever and at the lowest possible price and in unbounding sizes, shapes, colors, etc. Our A-WOL had led, and continues to do so, so many Americans that never leave the continental US to ask returning travelers: "what are they like in Switzerland (Italy, France, etc.)? Don't they want to be Americans?"
I will admit that despite my own time living in a Swiss household as an exchange student in 1984, I too held this belief up until about 1994; most of the world's people, deep-down inside wanted to truly be Americans, I felt.
This is an amazing success story, really. American business in collaboration with American government (note the lack of a determiner before "American goverment") created a lovely little scenario where true patriotism was linked with consumption. Granted this was not always the case, mind you, but once the evils where let out of the box and corporate America became so intertwined with governing America, brought about by the WWII, the two became inseperable. America's interests became big business's interests and the interests of the average, working Joe became less and less the interests of our elected officials and it ultimately ran amok under W's regime.
So, when sales began to bottom out and stagnate in America, we needed to find those endless markets overseas. We needed to create "want" and "neighborly envy" with massive, multi-billion dollar advertising budgets with wonderful little "all-American" consumption messages buried in movies, songs, etc.
Whereas America became Columbus, Ohio (85% of fast-food joints prior to going national will open a store in Columbus, Ohio. If the store succeeds then it is a near certainty that it will succeed in most other states.) and we quickly began to lose regional identities, so much of what used to be so "German, so Italian, so Russia, so English, etc." has now become the same or very, very similar to something you saw somewhere else--they all became in ways AMERICAN!
And the mantra that has lulled the world to sleep in favor of sameness, big portions, bright lights and perfectly-packaged everything in "infinity" colors, sizes, shapes and flavors, has been that everybody has a right to live like an American: two cars, a home, 4 tvs, in-door plumbing, disposable everything, etc.
And, if an American, or anyone in another country is against this "mission statement of Big Business," then they get the ultimate label: "un-American" which is the same as being UNFASHIONABLE.
But, guess what? There can only be so much wealth divied up amongst the world's peoples. There can only be so many cars permitted on the roads. There can only be so many toasters thrown away. There can only be so many people living in homes with electricity, running and clean water. Not everyone can live the life of excess of most Americans and now most of Western Europeans, 200 million Chinese, 150 million Indians, 15 million Russians, etc.
This American business model has collapsed and THANK GOD! Now, it is time to accept world poverty, do what we can to alleviate the suffering of the poor and the starving but MORE CONSUMPTION is not the answer! Buying the god-forsaken Frappuccino (with its 800 calories), of which a single penny is then invested into "helping poor people throughout the world" only makes matters worse.
The waste of the cup, the excess calories that "selfish consumer" is imbibing, the fact that most likely he/she/it drove there, the fact that this selfish consumer will likely then have also a big, hyper-caloric lunch; and, statistically I am sure it can be proven that anyone who drinks Frappuccinos on a regular basis probably has a larger carbon footprint than others all leads to more indirect (and already, direct) harm to poor nations and people by depleting the resources which we are not capable of reproducing because American Government (and World Goverments) is more concerned with next year's profit (and election cycle) and less so with a dying world.
America is capable of everything. We make mistakes and our wonderful system has an amazing ability to correct itself. We can do truly amazing things but in order for this to happen, 90% of Americans must start tomorrow by cutting back on 50% of everything they consume or waste in a single day and immediately, we will see positive effects. Yet, is this possible? No. Why? Because, the Frappuccino is so tasty, that WaWa is just too far from the house (half a mile and besides, "you know how much time I will lose by walking there?") and because infinity is boring, anyway.
Maybe with Barak Obama, the counting will start again and infinity will truly be endless.
It wasn't a long search. It wasn't a long count. In the literal fog of those nearly-post Vietnam War days (they used to spray the town with mosquito repellent and you could get lost in the fog), somewhere around 1972 or so, we would always be in the midst of some mid-summer's evening "hide-n-seek game."
Some wise-assed kid would always lure some sucker into counting to infinity. An older relative or neighbor would happen by and they would break the news to the kid: "infinity, little Tommie, is endless."
So too, was our American way-of-life (A-WOL). The one in which we all wanted whatever we wanted, whenever, where ever and at the lowest possible price and in unbounding sizes, shapes, colors, etc. Our A-WOL had led, and continues to do so, so many Americans that never leave the continental US to ask returning travelers: "what are they like in Switzerland (Italy, France, etc.)? Don't they want to be Americans?"
I will admit that despite my own time living in a Swiss household as an exchange student in 1984, I too held this belief up until about 1994; most of the world's people, deep-down inside wanted to truly be Americans, I felt.
This is an amazing success story, really. American business in collaboration with American government (note the lack of a determiner before "American goverment") created a lovely little scenario where true patriotism was linked with consumption. Granted this was not always the case, mind you, but once the evils where let out of the box and corporate America became so intertwined with governing America, brought about by the WWII, the two became inseperable. America's interests became big business's interests and the interests of the average, working Joe became less and less the interests of our elected officials and it ultimately ran amok under W's regime.
So, when sales began to bottom out and stagnate in America, we needed to find those endless markets overseas. We needed to create "want" and "neighborly envy" with massive, multi-billion dollar advertising budgets with wonderful little "all-American" consumption messages buried in movies, songs, etc.
Whereas America became Columbus, Ohio (85% of fast-food joints prior to going national will open a store in Columbus, Ohio. If the store succeeds then it is a near certainty that it will succeed in most other states.) and we quickly began to lose regional identities, so much of what used to be so "German, so Italian, so Russia, so English, etc." has now become the same or very, very similar to something you saw somewhere else--they all became in ways AMERICAN!
And the mantra that has lulled the world to sleep in favor of sameness, big portions, bright lights and perfectly-packaged everything in "infinity" colors, sizes, shapes and flavors, has been that everybody has a right to live like an American: two cars, a home, 4 tvs, in-door plumbing, disposable everything, etc.
And, if an American, or anyone in another country is against this "mission statement of Big Business," then they get the ultimate label: "un-American" which is the same as being UNFASHIONABLE.
But, guess what? There can only be so much wealth divied up amongst the world's peoples. There can only be so many cars permitted on the roads. There can only be so many toasters thrown away. There can only be so many people living in homes with electricity, running and clean water. Not everyone can live the life of excess of most Americans and now most of Western Europeans, 200 million Chinese, 150 million Indians, 15 million Russians, etc.
This American business model has collapsed and THANK GOD! Now, it is time to accept world poverty, do what we can to alleviate the suffering of the poor and the starving but MORE CONSUMPTION is not the answer! Buying the god-forsaken Frappuccino (with its 800 calories), of which a single penny is then invested into "helping poor people throughout the world" only makes matters worse.
The waste of the cup, the excess calories that "selfish consumer" is imbibing, the fact that most likely he/she/it drove there, the fact that this selfish consumer will likely then have also a big, hyper-caloric lunch; and, statistically I am sure it can be proven that anyone who drinks Frappuccinos on a regular basis probably has a larger carbon footprint than others all leads to more indirect (and already, direct) harm to poor nations and people by depleting the resources which we are not capable of reproducing because American Government (and World Goverments) is more concerned with next year's profit (and election cycle) and less so with a dying world.
America is capable of everything. We make mistakes and our wonderful system has an amazing ability to correct itself. We can do truly amazing things but in order for this to happen, 90% of Americans must start tomorrow by cutting back on 50% of everything they consume or waste in a single day and immediately, we will see positive effects. Yet, is this possible? No. Why? Because, the Frappuccino is so tasty, that WaWa is just too far from the house (half a mile and besides, "you know how much time I will lose by walking there?") and because infinity is boring, anyway.
Maybe with Barak Obama, the counting will start again and infinity will truly be endless.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
The First Frappuccino-American President
Dear White Big Asses (and fatbacks)!
Last night for Halloween, I was Barak Obama the day after the election: he had won and so was in pjs relaxing around the "house."
As I prepared to transform myself from a whitey to a near-blackie, it suddenly dawned on my that Barak is not black. Barak truly is an AFRICAN-AMERICAN! Really, he is not even an African-American but a Kenyan-American! To take it even further, he is actually from the Luo ethnic group--in Kenya, one is not "Kenyan"; you are either of one "tribe" or another. The Luo's are hated in Kenya and a running joke there says that a Luoan has a better chance of becoming President of the US than he does have of becoming President of Kenya!! (Those crazy Kenyans! ))
So, Jessie Jackson, African-American? Come on!? He is as African as I am Irish-German-French or whatever other mongrel, European blood is pulsing through my viens! Come on, this whole pile of crap that has been forced fed to us since the birth of PC-ism back in the mid-sixties about "black" American being actually "African-Americans" has to stop now that we actually do have a president who is half African! The "blacks"in America are so far removed from African and they have been so mixed into the big melting pot that really, they are simply BLACK AMERICANS!
What my fellow whiteys and my non-fellow pc-ers (I would actually have a bbq chicken with a FatAss Christian than with a Columbia or Berkeley educated pc punk) are really wanting to say is that "African" means black. But, "African-American" black is not really black but a HUE OF BLACK. Just like most blacks are not true black, no whites are really white--we are actually more colored than the so-called "coloreds".
Let's pull the curtain back on the wizard and put an end to these adjective of origin. Barak Obama is not black. He is of African origins but really of Luon origins--so, the first Luon-American president. That is confusing, so, let's take it back to the realm of color with which we Americans seem to be so obsessed.
Colors are so varied and fun, why limit ourselves to the prism or the standard rainbow--Frappuccino is one of the hottest drinks in America, so let's use this word to describe our soon-to-be-new President, if you hold up a Frappuccino next to a picture of Obama you will see, he really does look like a Starbuck's Frappuccino!
Barak Obama, the first Frappuccino-American President!
Last night for Halloween, I was Barak Obama the day after the election: he had won and so was in pjs relaxing around the "house."
As I prepared to transform myself from a whitey to a near-blackie, it suddenly dawned on my that Barak is not black. Barak truly is an AFRICAN-AMERICAN! Really, he is not even an African-American but a Kenyan-American! To take it even further, he is actually from the Luo ethnic group--in Kenya, one is not "Kenyan"; you are either of one "tribe" or another. The Luo's are hated in Kenya and a running joke there says that a Luoan has a better chance of becoming President of the US than he does have of becoming President of Kenya!! (Those crazy Kenyans! ))
So, Jessie Jackson, African-American? Come on!? He is as African as I am Irish-German-French or whatever other mongrel, European blood is pulsing through my viens! Come on, this whole pile of crap that has been forced fed to us since the birth of PC-ism back in the mid-sixties about "black" American being actually "African-Americans" has to stop now that we actually do have a president who is half African! The "blacks"in America are so far removed from African and they have been so mixed into the big melting pot that really, they are simply BLACK AMERICANS!
What my fellow whiteys and my non-fellow pc-ers (I would actually have a bbq chicken with a FatAss Christian than with a Columbia or Berkeley educated pc punk) are really wanting to say is that "African" means black. But, "African-American" black is not really black but a HUE OF BLACK. Just like most blacks are not true black, no whites are really white--we are actually more colored than the so-called "coloreds".
Let's pull the curtain back on the wizard and put an end to these adjective of origin. Barak Obama is not black. He is of African origins but really of Luon origins--so, the first Luon-American president. That is confusing, so, let's take it back to the realm of color with which we Americans seem to be so obsessed.
Colors are so varied and fun, why limit ourselves to the prism or the standard rainbow--Frappuccino is one of the hottest drinks in America, so let's use this word to describe our soon-to-be-new President, if you hold up a Frappuccino next to a picture of Obama you will see, he really does look like a Starbuck's Frappuccino!
Barak Obama, the first Frappuccino-American President!
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