From the moment all of America and the world were shocked to their collective core by the events on September 11, 2001, 120,000 Americans have died at the hands of "terrorists".
This terrorism of which I am speaking is for the most-part native born. It is supported by a vast minority of our elected officials. Anyone who should dare speak out against these terrorists and their instruments of death is labeled "liberal", "anti-American", "communist", "for big, instrusive government."
The proselytizers of this cause legally give money to get officials elected. They are permitted to invest millions into smear campaigns against anyone who might dare infringe upon their ability to earn money. The people earning money from this industry are about .5% of our population. They employ directly or indirectly about another 1%. Yet, the reach of their industry, the fruits of their labor, devastate communities, ruin lives, support criminals, turn places into anarchic nightmares of violence, of lost dreams and dashed hopes.
Poisonous Fruits
The poisonous fruits of their labor can effect any American at any moment in any setting every 17 seconds: at home, at school, at church, at Michael's Craft Store, at McDonald's, in college, sitting on the front porch of a neighbor sipping iced tea making plans for the upcoming summer. At any moment, a bullet that you had no way of knowing about had your name on it, can find its mark are you are no more.
While I am writing this and while you are reading this, 52 Americans were gunned down--some in fights between gangs in a ghetto; some in a school because father forget to secure his weapon and little Joey found it and decided to scare the bully. Some person left her home to run errands and when stopping for a coffee, marvelling at the new spring flowers, she didn't notice that the coffee-shop was being held up. This woman is no more, yet, a minute ago she was.
Why? Why does living in America mean that someone else has the right to manufacture products which permit others in drunken rages or acts of "temporary insanity" or "true insanity" to kill the rest of us who are struggling to make the best out of the one life we have been granted by the Lord?
Oh, yes, the "Lord". I almost forget. The overwhelming majority of these people who support the makers of high-powered rifles which are sold to young men with a lot of testosterone raging through their veins are Bible-thumping, hypocritical, red-neck Southerners or Southerner wanta-bes or anti-government freaks from places like Montana or Kansas, etc. There may be no gay marriages in the Bible but there are also no guns!
Old Number 2
The poor Second Amendment states the following: the right to keep and bear arms. In 1789, this was a very pertinent concern for Americans; there was the danger of the wilderness to be contended with; and, there was the fear that if all the power was to be in the hands of a government then again, Americans could eventually become victims of that government as had been the case while under the rule of the English.
By maintaining weapons, we could defend ourselves from criminals, wild animals and disgruntled Native Americans and from a government which was not yet ready to be trusted. Also, the concept of the "citizen soldier" was a real and needed one.
It is 2009. We have an army. We have police. We have laws. We have a civil society that promotes trust, neighborliness, good will and a belief in one nation. Despite the Republican Party, we are a religious nation. Weapons stored at police precincts that would be checked out for sport: hunting, target practice, etc. make sense.
Weapons sitting around homes waiting for a "criminal" but usually used on everyone else sooner or later, at any chance, every 17 seconds is madness. It is government-backed terrorism. It is amoral. Permitting the NRA to do what it does, permitting the manufacture and sale of guns in the manner that they are being sold today is madness: the blood of the 35 people killed since I wrote about the previous 52 killed is on the hands of anyone and all who support the sale and manufacture of handguns for the sole reason of having one.
Texas
In Texas, they are seeking to pass legislation that would permit college kids to carry concealed weapons. College kids, the most rational and sober thinking people in the world: if this happens deaths will occur nto every 17 seconds but more like every 9! I would have been killed a few times when I was in college and probably would have killed a few people--by accident, course.
Terrorism is the art of striking at the enemy in any setting at any moment and never permitting the enemy to be prepared for the attack resulting in a heightened sense of fear and a decreased quality of life as a result. Sounds very familiar to America today.
Why do we the people tolerate this absurdity? Because too many people with too much power are making too much money and so we are lulled into silence the way the lobster is lulled to sleep as the water warms and warms until it boils and then the lobster is no more.
Some legislator in Texas said that "kids on campuses without guns are like sitting ducks." And, we call ourselves a civilized nation? And we invade other nations because we consider them uncivilized, backwards...another American was just murdered and someone else's bottom-line improved.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
In 1979
In 1979, despite having just come off the embarassment of the Vietnam failure, America was still the beautiful, the skies for the most part were spacious and the grain was amberish from sea to shining sea. And, a little of 1/3 of the world's economic might was concentrated in the collective hands of the US nation--it's people and it's government.
And then, he came to town. With a mix of Andy Griffith meets Timmy and Lassie; Laverne and Shirley grit mixed with a dash (a big one I might add) of The Walton's, Ronald Rea--GUN, as he was so lovingly known to many of his droids, set forth the downfall which has led us to where we are today: the end of the Post-World War II era, the end of the American Century; the end of Pax Americana; the end of our empire of good-will and common-good and good-manners and good-wine and good-music, and, well, everything that could be "good"...good riddance, I say.
Many today who support President Obama as he tries to revive our nation after the worst 8 years of governance since the 4 years of missing leadership under James Buchanan, our 15th president and the last president before our nation was pulled into the vortex of Southern emotion, hate and rascism that led to the premature deaths of over 1,000,000 (direct battlefield deaths of soliders were around 618,000), believe that Reagan was a great president.
Nutshell
Let's assess in a nutshell. Ronald Reagan took office and immediately began to cut social programs that he complained had been bankrupting America; our so-called welfare state, the least developed of all industrialized nations, was creating a culture of poverty: those born into poverty would remain poor because the "system" wasn't giving them the needed stimuli to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" so they could pick up and get out of the ghetto.
In order to give America its winning edge back, Reagan started to cut back on federal funding of this "welfare system." His cutbacks, really, were quite small compared to what would happen under W.; however, the demon seed under Reagan was the combination of increased goverment spending on things like defense and the massive tax-cuts that his economic witch-doctors had proposed to feed the hunger of the voodoo-economic's swamp-thing.
Ronald Reagan's appeal to the masses was similar to an Amway meeting; in some random Hyatt ballroom, hyper-hair-sprayed southerns with names like Robertlee Davis and his sparkling wife Crystal Maryjoy would take the stage and start telling stories to crowds of lower-middle class followers of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" about how they had flown to this meeting (which each Amway member had to pay $35 for attendance) in their "own private jet!"
To hoots and hollers and high-fives between people whose rating in Amway were based on the rareness of stones--the gem level, the diamond level, the rock level, etc.--the Davis' would brag about their worldly possessions while deftly sprinkling in words of gratitude to the greatness of "our Lord Jesus Christ" and, of course, to the American way.
Yes, this was the effect that Ronald Reagan has had on Americans who formerly knew pretty much where they would end up on the economic side of life: middle-middle class (or lower-middle class), happy with a set of kids for whom some government funding would be made available to send those kiddies to college; a job in some factory or company and some very limited health care; and, of course, a pension from their employer and an SS check each month. But, Reaganway told us that extreme wealth was just around the corner for all: just need to cut taxes and live as if we were all Donald Trumps.
So, given that we are all potential Trumps, such a "welfare state" would've been simply too generous. They also felt that our streets had too few weapons so by manipulating a so-called heartfelt respect for the Constitution, they claimed that being anti-handgun was the same as being anti-American. What it really meant was real big profits for their friends the gun manufacturers. What it has meant for us future Trumps is not just the deaths of over ten of thousands of Americans each year from handguns; but, now on our boarder we have a northern state in Mexico adrift in chaos as a result of unprecedented violence thanks to weapons that just pour south from Americans whose only moral compass is the bottomline: oh, yes, and the "Lord Jesus Christ."
As the foundation for the economic and moral bankrupting of our nation was laid, Reagan made it acceptable to "hate" and "ridicule" anyone who sought any kind of federal support or protection. Support and government investment in the infrastructure and the people that really seemed to fall so obviously under the lead of a federal government, were suddenly squeezed from federal budgets until eventually everyday, American life for us, the average, struggling, working Joe's became like a walk through the Atari game "Pitfall." If you don't know the little secrets, then you fall through the cracks.
The newly-Christened-enactors of his "revolution", people who desparately needed those "Happy-Day-esque" emotive umbrellas like "Evil Empire" and "culture of povety" started to dismantle any government oversight whose chief task was to have ensured that middle America could live in a safer, cleaner and happier America: eating breakfast can be as dangerous as Russian roulette nowadays due to the missing-in-inaction Food and Drug Administration.
And then, he came to town. With a mix of Andy Griffith meets Timmy and Lassie; Laverne and Shirley grit mixed with a dash (a big one I might add) of The Walton's, Ronald Rea--GUN, as he was so lovingly known to many of his droids, set forth the downfall which has led us to where we are today: the end of the Post-World War II era, the end of the American Century; the end of Pax Americana; the end of our empire of good-will and common-good and good-manners and good-wine and good-music, and, well, everything that could be "good"...good riddance, I say.
Many today who support President Obama as he tries to revive our nation after the worst 8 years of governance since the 4 years of missing leadership under James Buchanan, our 15th president and the last president before our nation was pulled into the vortex of Southern emotion, hate and rascism that led to the premature deaths of over 1,000,000 (direct battlefield deaths of soliders were around 618,000), believe that Reagan was a great president.
Nutshell
Let's assess in a nutshell. Ronald Reagan took office and immediately began to cut social programs that he complained had been bankrupting America; our so-called welfare state, the least developed of all industrialized nations, was creating a culture of poverty: those born into poverty would remain poor because the "system" wasn't giving them the needed stimuli to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" so they could pick up and get out of the ghetto.
In order to give America its winning edge back, Reagan started to cut back on federal funding of this "welfare system." His cutbacks, really, were quite small compared to what would happen under W.; however, the demon seed under Reagan was the combination of increased goverment spending on things like defense and the massive tax-cuts that his economic witch-doctors had proposed to feed the hunger of the voodoo-economic's swamp-thing.
Ronald Reagan's appeal to the masses was similar to an Amway meeting; in some random Hyatt ballroom, hyper-hair-sprayed southerns with names like Robertlee Davis and his sparkling wife Crystal Maryjoy would take the stage and start telling stories to crowds of lower-middle class followers of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" about how they had flown to this meeting (which each Amway member had to pay $35 for attendance) in their "own private jet!"
To hoots and hollers and high-fives between people whose rating in Amway were based on the rareness of stones--the gem level, the diamond level, the rock level, etc.--the Davis' would brag about their worldly possessions while deftly sprinkling in words of gratitude to the greatness of "our Lord Jesus Christ" and, of course, to the American way.
Yes, this was the effect that Ronald Reagan has had on Americans who formerly knew pretty much where they would end up on the economic side of life: middle-middle class (or lower-middle class), happy with a set of kids for whom some government funding would be made available to send those kiddies to college; a job in some factory or company and some very limited health care; and, of course, a pension from their employer and an SS check each month. But, Reaganway told us that extreme wealth was just around the corner for all: just need to cut taxes and live as if we were all Donald Trumps.
So, given that we are all potential Trumps, such a "welfare state" would've been simply too generous. They also felt that our streets had too few weapons so by manipulating a so-called heartfelt respect for the Constitution, they claimed that being anti-handgun was the same as being anti-American. What it really meant was real big profits for their friends the gun manufacturers. What it has meant for us future Trumps is not just the deaths of over ten of thousands of Americans each year from handguns; but, now on our boarder we have a northern state in Mexico adrift in chaos as a result of unprecedented violence thanks to weapons that just pour south from Americans whose only moral compass is the bottomline: oh, yes, and the "Lord Jesus Christ."
As the foundation for the economic and moral bankrupting of our nation was laid, Reagan made it acceptable to "hate" and "ridicule" anyone who sought any kind of federal support or protection. Support and government investment in the infrastructure and the people that really seemed to fall so obviously under the lead of a federal government, were suddenly squeezed from federal budgets until eventually everyday, American life for us, the average, struggling, working Joe's became like a walk through the Atari game "Pitfall." If you don't know the little secrets, then you fall through the cracks.
The newly-Christened-enactors of his "revolution", people who desparately needed those "Happy-Day-esque" emotive umbrellas like "Evil Empire" and "culture of povety" started to dismantle any government oversight whose chief task was to have ensured that middle America could live in a safer, cleaner and happier America: eating breakfast can be as dangerous as Russian roulette nowadays due to the missing-in-inaction Food and Drug Administration.
Because the fire lit by Reagan and stoked by Bush-I and then set ablaze across the West Texas prairie by W, America has lost its true moral compass. FDR said in his second inaugral address (to paraphrase): a nation needs to be economically moral. Wealth is not a virtue.
The Collapse
From Reagan until this most recent and final collapse of our economic way of life, wealth had become virtuous. We were not economically moral. The "virtual wealth" that had been driving our economy for the last 20 years has so rapidly lost it steam, that the government was forced to seek ever new places for savings; eventually, with the poor safely off the political radar screen, the GOP began manipulating and attacking the backbone of America: the middle class.
Today, being in the middle-class is such a rarity that it is almost comporable to being in the upper-class 100 years ago. And the criteria for being poor and thereby "not virtuous" have been so expanded that many who had traditionally been middle class are now at best "the working poor."
Over the past 28 years (except for the 8 under Clinton) our government has inflicted an economically amoral way of life upon our nation. The virtue of wealth as they see it, which should be gained at any cost regardless of what it takes from our nation and regardless of how it enriches other nations, has driven the vast majority of widget-manufacturers to seek cheap labor elsewhere. At the same time, the elected officials, usually republicans, have repeated like a mantra: tax cuts, tax cuts, less government, less government, more guns, no abortion, no family planning, war, war, no immigrants, no head-start for kids in poverty, less government, eavesdropping on Americans (the Patriot Act, Orwell at his best!), etc.
The drive for virtuous wealth has made American businesses more myopic than ever and today despite still so many brilliant ideas that are spawned in America, our industrial infrastructure, with the ability to create jobs for Americans and to refortify the disappearing middle class, is so weakened after these 28 years that again it is Asia, not just China, which will lead the next economic revolution. The republicans under the guise of Reagan's revolution have weakened our nation in every possible way for their own personal gain. We are an economically amoral nation.
A perfect example is the lack of federal response to Katerina. This was because the Bush White House had no privately-owned, politcally-reliable company that could move fast enough to get into New Orleans and clean things up. There had been no time for funneling billions in rescue efforts to crony-companies because no one expected the hurricane to be so bad. Because the government and its ability to respond to crises had been so stripped of any resources it might need, FEMA, run by an incompetent with no prior experience in any such organization (a Party man), just sat (an in some cases flew) and waited for the waters to recede. This is the nation that is ours today and 11 weeks of Obama hasn't changed this.
That natural disaster showed us why Reagan was wrong; why all of these Reagan-worshippers are not true patriots but selfish and even anti-American. They would rather guarantee their own wealth and comfort and America be damned! It is exactly this kind of love/hate that the Communists in the Soviet Union had for the Party and country--they loved the party because it made them wealthy but hated their country. This relationship led many of them to abandon their Party when it stopped enriching them and then their country, the USSR, collapsed.
America's refusal, let's say, the Republican refusal, from Reagan onward to take responsibility for its citizenry is treacherous. If in a wealth beach-front neighborhood, homes are damaged by hurricane seas, the Army of Engineers, using tax-payer money, will rebuild the beaches to not only return the lost value to the wealthy but even increase the value of that property. What is New Orleans today? Why is it still so abandoned and bleak? Because those people, the sufferers, are not wealthy and therefore, they are not virtuous.
We the People...
As Americans, we should all be ashamed of ourselves. We have not been true to those who lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. Those boys did not leap into cold and violent seas to charge machine-gun nests for what we have become today. The boys whose lives have been lost in all of the wars, except for those who fought for the CSA (Confederate States of America) did not die or kill for this loss of economic morality.
Resetting our moral compass will not be easy and a lot of people who are now realizing that the last 28 years of our nation's history have been the single most wrong period of our development might just become sore loser's and do something foolish.
I say, beware of the the losers; beware of Dick Cheney; beware of anyone who says Ronald Reagan was a great president. These people don't have America's true interests at heart.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Dear Europe...
Dear Europe, how do I say this? Um, it's difficult for me to say, but....well...here goes: Kiss my American ass you whining, ungrateful, boring murderers and snobs!
I like Europe. I like going to Germany to drink the best beer in the world. I like going to France to eat wonderful cheeses, amazing salads and good wines and ciders. France has great roads. Bavaria is God's country.
The rest of Europe, especially Italy, I love also. It amazes me that how by just traveling a mere 5 miles, the languages are so different that they really can't understand each other. The foods are so different between those two villages just 5 miles apart; they might even have hated each other so much in the past that they have repeatedly tried to kill each other. Barns are even contructed differently! Europe is truly amazing.
SINCE WWII
Europe since the end of World War II, a war which began at the conclusion of WW I when the bitter and nasty French and the English sore losers (they really got their asses handed to them in that war. The Germans just hung out in their trenches and fired artillery into the brave but foolishly charging English troops, slaughtering them by the ten of thousands.) mocked President Wilson in his naivete and forced upon the Germans a horrifically unfair "peace treaty." Well, the seeds were sown by those upper-crust Europeans and the result was the slaughter of another 100 million a mere 20 years later.
In the ruins of this world, where the formerly differing barns were now gone and in their place were mass graves and perhaps strewn body parts from a late war mine explosion, Roosevelt and Churchill met at Bretton-Woods and drafted what would become the world's economy going forward after the final and ultimate destruction of the German nation. It was based on fairness for most and goodness. Sure, America would stand to make a lot of dough because we were the last man standing at the end of the war.
But, it was a system based on friendly cooperation. It wasn't the system of societal destruction and abuse forced upon Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. It wasn't the genocidal and evil wrought by the Japanese and German nations. It wasn't the pompous and boring British way of rule. It was a helpful and relatively fair and economically supportive system based on free trade.
And, whilst we were laying the foundation for this world, Americans were pumping millions into the bombed out world, Europe and Japan. We had offered to help Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union. Stalin, however, forced the communists in charge in those countries to decline the badly needed aid. In their typical suspicious way it was believed that the American offer was really an attempt to overthrow those nations (ones that had been overthrown by Soviet agents just years and in some cases months earlier).
I TOLD YOU SO
Europe, despite saving them during two world wars and then rebuilding their nations and the world economy after the second one--and really, never saying "I told you so" or so pompously and arrogantly (in a truly European way) lecturing them on their inabilities to coexist peacefully despite their so-called belief in God (that same God that the republicans so fancy)--these inbred, bad-toothed, frogs and krauts and many more swamp type nationalities, have the balls to tell us that we, the Americans, the suppliers of their peaceful and prosperous ways of life since the end of WWII, have screwed the world simply disgusts me.
During the peak of cold war anxst, the American taxpayer was investing $346 per capita for European defense compared to $86 they were spending on their own defense from the thousands of Soviet tanks parked across the boarder in Czechoslovakia. Their amazing and simply fat social safety nets were their reward for waging murderous war against all who spoke or ate differently from them for centuries.
A LITTLE GUILT
Yes, we should take a lot of the blame for this economic collapse. The Reagan revolution was a house of cards. It created fake, virtual wealth that drove millions across the globe to quote that line from Jerry Maguire ("Show me the money", I have heard this spoken in 7 different languages!). We abused our brand essence as the world's financial lords and simply led the world down the rabbit hole which turned out to be a septic tank.
But, to have those backstabbing, want-to-be's lecture us about our failings; to tell us that they wouldn't invest money into stimulus programs because "we don't need to, we have already created sound social safety nets that you Americans didn't feel your citizenry needed." (Because, we were busy investing in your defense and rebuilding your economies, you ingrates!) This just makes my blood curdle.
So, to Europe and the whining and weak French with their spoiled boy president who threatened to walk out of the G20 meetings, I say this: Remember D-Day!
To the Germans and their oh-so-arrogant way of lecturing others about what is right and what is wrong, I say this: Remember D-Day!
To the Czechs, the Brits and anyone else kicking us while we are down, I say this: Remember D-Day!
Oh and also, I say this: Kiss my ass!
I like Europe. I like going to Germany to drink the best beer in the world. I like going to France to eat wonderful cheeses, amazing salads and good wines and ciders. France has great roads. Bavaria is God's country.
The rest of Europe, especially Italy, I love also. It amazes me that how by just traveling a mere 5 miles, the languages are so different that they really can't understand each other. The foods are so different between those two villages just 5 miles apart; they might even have hated each other so much in the past that they have repeatedly tried to kill each other. Barns are even contructed differently! Europe is truly amazing.
SINCE WWII
Europe since the end of World War II, a war which began at the conclusion of WW I when the bitter and nasty French and the English sore losers (they really got their asses handed to them in that war. The Germans just hung out in their trenches and fired artillery into the brave but foolishly charging English troops, slaughtering them by the ten of thousands.) mocked President Wilson in his naivete and forced upon the Germans a horrifically unfair "peace treaty." Well, the seeds were sown by those upper-crust Europeans and the result was the slaughter of another 100 million a mere 20 years later.
In the ruins of this world, where the formerly differing barns were now gone and in their place were mass graves and perhaps strewn body parts from a late war mine explosion, Roosevelt and Churchill met at Bretton-Woods and drafted what would become the world's economy going forward after the final and ultimate destruction of the German nation. It was based on fairness for most and goodness. Sure, America would stand to make a lot of dough because we were the last man standing at the end of the war.
But, it was a system based on friendly cooperation. It wasn't the system of societal destruction and abuse forced upon Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. It wasn't the genocidal and evil wrought by the Japanese and German nations. It wasn't the pompous and boring British way of rule. It was a helpful and relatively fair and economically supportive system based on free trade.
And, whilst we were laying the foundation for this world, Americans were pumping millions into the bombed out world, Europe and Japan. We had offered to help Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union. Stalin, however, forced the communists in charge in those countries to decline the badly needed aid. In their typical suspicious way it was believed that the American offer was really an attempt to overthrow those nations (ones that had been overthrown by Soviet agents just years and in some cases months earlier).
I TOLD YOU SO
Europe, despite saving them during two world wars and then rebuilding their nations and the world economy after the second one--and really, never saying "I told you so" or so pompously and arrogantly (in a truly European way) lecturing them on their inabilities to coexist peacefully despite their so-called belief in God (that same God that the republicans so fancy)--these inbred, bad-toothed, frogs and krauts and many more swamp type nationalities, have the balls to tell us that we, the Americans, the suppliers of their peaceful and prosperous ways of life since the end of WWII, have screwed the world simply disgusts me.
During the peak of cold war anxst, the American taxpayer was investing $346 per capita for European defense compared to $86 they were spending on their own defense from the thousands of Soviet tanks parked across the boarder in Czechoslovakia. Their amazing and simply fat social safety nets were their reward for waging murderous war against all who spoke or ate differently from them for centuries.
A LITTLE GUILT
Yes, we should take a lot of the blame for this economic collapse. The Reagan revolution was a house of cards. It created fake, virtual wealth that drove millions across the globe to quote that line from Jerry Maguire ("Show me the money", I have heard this spoken in 7 different languages!). We abused our brand essence as the world's financial lords and simply led the world down the rabbit hole which turned out to be a septic tank.
But, to have those backstabbing, want-to-be's lecture us about our failings; to tell us that they wouldn't invest money into stimulus programs because "we don't need to, we have already created sound social safety nets that you Americans didn't feel your citizenry needed." (Because, we were busy investing in your defense and rebuilding your economies, you ingrates!) This just makes my blood curdle.
So, to Europe and the whining and weak French with their spoiled boy president who threatened to walk out of the G20 meetings, I say this: Remember D-Day!
To the Germans and their oh-so-arrogant way of lecturing others about what is right and what is wrong, I say this: Remember D-Day!
To the Czechs, the Brits and anyone else kicking us while we are down, I say this: Remember D-Day!
Oh and also, I say this: Kiss my ass!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Barack FDR Obama
The times demand bold actions. In a similar way that FDR played with the price of gold from his bed each morning in the White House, so too must Obama continuing doing what he is doing. He is writing new rules to the US economy and there is simply no playbook--they are like the rules we all have applied when we made up games in childhood: "ok, if you tag me but I am eating my ice cream at the time, then I am not it."
President Obama's strategy is a multi-layered one. Complainers who claim his increasing of the deficit threatens to ruin our nation--and on this bandwagon are some reknown economists--are the same people who sat back and enjoyed the deregulation ride; and, in the case of the economists, failed to predict the imminent collapse of the Anglo-American Economic system as set to stone at Bretton-Woods in 1944.
FDR
FDR did a lot of things wrong actually. He was tinkering with the fate of the world's economy because he really had no idea what needed to be done. There was no existing panacea for that era's woes and the same holds true today: our world is a lot different from what it used to be thanks to hyper-deregulation and the creation of "virtual wealth" (VW).
We, the prostelytizers, the white, we-know-everything, God-fearing, Christian-for-the-most-part Americans were wrong! And today, the entire world is gripped by seeds of greed planted by these God-fearing Christians. What boggles my mind and truly empassions me to despise these fat-asses is that they really do pretend to believe in God--"God Bless", they say like others say "hey, what's up"--and they truly believe that they are right in every belief they hold. Many of these knuckleheads would have supported slavery and fought for the Confederacy had they been alive.
The wonderful thing about Obama's attempts at getting our nation running again is that is what they are: attempts. He is trying! He is giving it the old college try with hefty doses of creativity and small pinches of compromise. Interest groups on both the left and the right complain that he isn't doing enough. Repigs will say that he should be cutting taxes to stimulate business (yeah, like that will fly in this climate of hate towards those wealthy widget-makers; afterall, we have seen what they were making for the past 20 years, VW--see above).
Armadillos
Unlike W. who was frozen like an armadillo in the headlights, Obama has been shaking things up and in the vein of FDR, first, you float it out there and get the talking heads chirping and then make some corrections (granted sometimes they have only changed the name of their remedies and not altered the content). They are churning out programs, weaving together long-overdue reform that will not only create jobs in and of itself but will also benefit the expanding ranks of the working poor (and the vanishing middle class).
Mythes
The Depression of the 1930's was not ended by the onset of WWII: that just served to be a great jobs program and then we sort of forgot about the depression. No, FDR paved the way for a better America and a then a dreamy, young man who received the benefits of that America, Ron Reagan, came along and commenced the financial dismantling of our government.
As I write this today, pistachios are being recalled for salmonella; yet, another example of our government failing to protect us from greedy businessmen. It used to be the ghettoes were only the real and living example of Republican anti-government programs; today, eating peanut butter or nuts can result in death. Our own ktichen cupboards have become as dangerous as a ghetto, a post office, a Michael's Craft Store (no gun control) or an abortion clinic (those Christian people, save a live by killing).
Anyhoo...President Obama should be praised for trying and sooner or later, like FDR, he will find the right mix and we will recover. Unitl then, anyone with tired ideas--anything heard from a conservative, a repig or on Fox TV--should move to Bermuda or somewhere.
We need a new TVA; actually, we have it and it is called wind power!
President Obama's strategy is a multi-layered one. Complainers who claim his increasing of the deficit threatens to ruin our nation--and on this bandwagon are some reknown economists--are the same people who sat back and enjoyed the deregulation ride; and, in the case of the economists, failed to predict the imminent collapse of the Anglo-American Economic system as set to stone at Bretton-Woods in 1944.
FDR
FDR did a lot of things wrong actually. He was tinkering with the fate of the world's economy because he really had no idea what needed to be done. There was no existing panacea for that era's woes and the same holds true today: our world is a lot different from what it used to be thanks to hyper-deregulation and the creation of "virtual wealth" (VW).
We, the prostelytizers, the white, we-know-everything, God-fearing, Christian-for-the-most-part Americans were wrong! And today, the entire world is gripped by seeds of greed planted by these God-fearing Christians. What boggles my mind and truly empassions me to despise these fat-asses is that they really do pretend to believe in God--"God Bless", they say like others say "hey, what's up"--and they truly believe that they are right in every belief they hold. Many of these knuckleheads would have supported slavery and fought for the Confederacy had they been alive.
The wonderful thing about Obama's attempts at getting our nation running again is that is what they are: attempts. He is trying! He is giving it the old college try with hefty doses of creativity and small pinches of compromise. Interest groups on both the left and the right complain that he isn't doing enough. Repigs will say that he should be cutting taxes to stimulate business (yeah, like that will fly in this climate of hate towards those wealthy widget-makers; afterall, we have seen what they were making for the past 20 years, VW--see above).
Armadillos
Unlike W. who was frozen like an armadillo in the headlights, Obama has been shaking things up and in the vein of FDR, first, you float it out there and get the talking heads chirping and then make some corrections (granted sometimes they have only changed the name of their remedies and not altered the content). They are churning out programs, weaving together long-overdue reform that will not only create jobs in and of itself but will also benefit the expanding ranks of the working poor (and the vanishing middle class).
Mythes
The Depression of the 1930's was not ended by the onset of WWII: that just served to be a great jobs program and then we sort of forgot about the depression. No, FDR paved the way for a better America and a then a dreamy, young man who received the benefits of that America, Ron Reagan, came along and commenced the financial dismantling of our government.
As I write this today, pistachios are being recalled for salmonella; yet, another example of our government failing to protect us from greedy businessmen. It used to be the ghettoes were only the real and living example of Republican anti-government programs; today, eating peanut butter or nuts can result in death. Our own ktichen cupboards have become as dangerous as a ghetto, a post office, a Michael's Craft Store (no gun control) or an abortion clinic (those Christian people, save a live by killing).
Anyhoo...President Obama should be praised for trying and sooner or later, like FDR, he will find the right mix and we will recover. Unitl then, anyone with tired ideas--anything heard from a conservative, a repig or on Fox TV--should move to Bermuda or somewhere.
We need a new TVA; actually, we have it and it is called wind power!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
China Owns Us--This cannot be Good
It had been a nice but short vacation. Ever since that cold January day when Mr. Potter was wheeled to his car and tossed into the back seat for his ride home, America hadn't seen much or heard from the evilest person in America: Dick Cheney.
Last Sunday, he was on the Sunday talk-show circuit telling us (actually, sort of spitting out through that "I just ate a lemon look") how President Obama had weakend the US by regarding terrrorism as a law enforcement issue instead of a strictly military one.
In perfect Repig-speak, with a oink-oink here and littel piggy went to the market there, he had the audacity to say that he and his buddy, W., only took actions that were took in line with the Constitution: yeah, maybe the Russian one.
Really, so much of what he was spewing was rhetoric, pure and without pulp. But, the words that have stuck in my head and continue to ring like a massive and intricately carved church bell bonging and bonging and bonging are these: "he has weakened our country."
A Deep Breath
I have taken a deep breath and now I am ready to continue. Today, China owns 60% of our government paper. That is not good. Somewhere some economist is saying that in the new world where all economies are linked together in a web of cooperation, this does not matter so much. This same economist will tell us that China cannot hurt us because then they will lose their investment. This same rationale is used by the mafia when someone owes the a lot of money--kill the guy and you never get your money. I really don't think we should want our nation being compared to a degenerate gambler, for example.
As the largest single investor in the America, China has almost a right to be involved in Washington's affairs, more than so than even the tax-payers. China is bailing out our failing system; financing the rebuilding of our faltering nation. China owns us, feeds us, clothes us. What else?
Now, my question is this: who blazed this trail to massive government debt? Who made it not just acceptable but patriotic to run up massive government deficits? Which president started the bankrupting our nation via the shredding of budgets needed to keep our food safe, our roads safe, our air safe, our schools safe, our cities safe? Um...let's see, it wasn't Jimmy Carter. It wasn't Bush I--he actually raised taxes, God love him.
No, it wasn't Clinton who actually managed to balance the budget while investing in our nation's infrastructure, while making our cities safer, while overseeing drops in teen pregnancy and a decreasing mortality rate of children under 5 (we lead the industrialized world in this category today!!).
Well, let's end the suspense: yes, it was old silver shoes himself, Ronald Reagan.
Since 1981, we have had 20 years of Republican presidents and 8 for Clinton. In that time, our nation has rocketed itself into debt. We have spent the past 28 years rewarding the rich for creating wealth for themselves, only to be divied up amongst people who look very much like themselves. The American worker, despite his amazing levels of productivity, has grown poorer and poorer during this period; except, for a brief respite during Clinton, and the weatlhy have amassed ever more power.
And, all I need say is W. and most sane Americans can readily recall the 8 years of theft, corruption, dishonor and bankrupting that has taken place thanks to the leader of the GOP his fat, white friends like Dick.
We Are Weaker
Again, I write these words: we are weaker than we have ever been (and I am not talking about missiles or numbers of aircraft carriers); we are broke; our nation has been auctioned off by the GOP for the benefit of a very small amount of really wealthy Americans--many who have lost sunstantial sums in this crisis but, still have millions and even billions to keep them fed and clothed.
Nothing good can come out a world with a weak or irrelevant America. Irrelevancy, however, is nothing we have yet to worry about. We are so relevant that when our economy went sour so did the world's economy! The Chinese, however, with their wealth, the Russians with their gas and oil and the Indians with whatever they have won't let us pull them down again in the future.
Barack Obama has made our nation stronger from the very second the polls closed on election night. By making so many of us believe like we have not believed, feel empowered like we have not felt in so long, he has already done more good for our nation than the republicans have done since their policies of hateful-economics and then economics-dictated by politics took us astray in 1981.
For many of us, for the world's sake, America is again united. History shows us that a united America is a strong America, a good America and fair America. Now, today, once again, it is so important for us to let President Obama lead as he has been leading to let him take our nation, with our help, back to the prominent place the world wants for us: leadership.
Cheney's World
Dick Cheney's world is one where there is silence except for the whining music of a violin. Some random Hungarian ballad is being plucked to life while in this sepia version of Cheney's world good and evil are clashing in cataclysmic battles. Yet, what we learn in the end of this thriller is that the "good" are Cheney and his corporate friends from the big military industrial complex and the "evil" are all of us.
Kind of reminds me a little of "The Matrix."
Last Sunday, he was on the Sunday talk-show circuit telling us (actually, sort of spitting out through that "I just ate a lemon look") how President Obama had weakend the US by regarding terrrorism as a law enforcement issue instead of a strictly military one.
In perfect Repig-speak, with a oink-oink here and littel piggy went to the market there, he had the audacity to say that he and his buddy, W., only took actions that were took in line with the Constitution: yeah, maybe the Russian one.
Really, so much of what he was spewing was rhetoric, pure and without pulp. But, the words that have stuck in my head and continue to ring like a massive and intricately carved church bell bonging and bonging and bonging are these: "he has weakened our country."
A Deep Breath
I have taken a deep breath and now I am ready to continue. Today, China owns 60% of our government paper. That is not good. Somewhere some economist is saying that in the new world where all economies are linked together in a web of cooperation, this does not matter so much. This same economist will tell us that China cannot hurt us because then they will lose their investment. This same rationale is used by the mafia when someone owes the a lot of money--kill the guy and you never get your money. I really don't think we should want our nation being compared to a degenerate gambler, for example.
As the largest single investor in the America, China has almost a right to be involved in Washington's affairs, more than so than even the tax-payers. China is bailing out our failing system; financing the rebuilding of our faltering nation. China owns us, feeds us, clothes us. What else?
Now, my question is this: who blazed this trail to massive government debt? Who made it not just acceptable but patriotic to run up massive government deficits? Which president started the bankrupting our nation via the shredding of budgets needed to keep our food safe, our roads safe, our air safe, our schools safe, our cities safe? Um...let's see, it wasn't Jimmy Carter. It wasn't Bush I--he actually raised taxes, God love him.
No, it wasn't Clinton who actually managed to balance the budget while investing in our nation's infrastructure, while making our cities safer, while overseeing drops in teen pregnancy and a decreasing mortality rate of children under 5 (we lead the industrialized world in this category today!!).
Well, let's end the suspense: yes, it was old silver shoes himself, Ronald Reagan.
Since 1981, we have had 20 years of Republican presidents and 8 for Clinton. In that time, our nation has rocketed itself into debt. We have spent the past 28 years rewarding the rich for creating wealth for themselves, only to be divied up amongst people who look very much like themselves. The American worker, despite his amazing levels of productivity, has grown poorer and poorer during this period; except, for a brief respite during Clinton, and the weatlhy have amassed ever more power.
And, all I need say is W. and most sane Americans can readily recall the 8 years of theft, corruption, dishonor and bankrupting that has taken place thanks to the leader of the GOP his fat, white friends like Dick.
We Are Weaker
Again, I write these words: we are weaker than we have ever been (and I am not talking about missiles or numbers of aircraft carriers); we are broke; our nation has been auctioned off by the GOP for the benefit of a very small amount of really wealthy Americans--many who have lost sunstantial sums in this crisis but, still have millions and even billions to keep them fed and clothed.
Nothing good can come out a world with a weak or irrelevant America. Irrelevancy, however, is nothing we have yet to worry about. We are so relevant that when our economy went sour so did the world's economy! The Chinese, however, with their wealth, the Russians with their gas and oil and the Indians with whatever they have won't let us pull them down again in the future.
Barack Obama has made our nation stronger from the very second the polls closed on election night. By making so many of us believe like we have not believed, feel empowered like we have not felt in so long, he has already done more good for our nation than the republicans have done since their policies of hateful-economics and then economics-dictated by politics took us astray in 1981.
For many of us, for the world's sake, America is again united. History shows us that a united America is a strong America, a good America and fair America. Now, today, once again, it is so important for us to let President Obama lead as he has been leading to let him take our nation, with our help, back to the prominent place the world wants for us: leadership.
Cheney's World
Dick Cheney's world is one where there is silence except for the whining music of a violin. Some random Hungarian ballad is being plucked to life while in this sepia version of Cheney's world good and evil are clashing in cataclysmic battles. Yet, what we learn in the end of this thriller is that the "good" are Cheney and his corporate friends from the big military industrial complex and the "evil" are all of us.
Kind of reminds me a little of "The Matrix."
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Stop Playing Games
In 1929 and 1930, when the economy started to sputter, President Hoover started to tinker. Truth be told, despite the fact that history has given him a bum rap on his handling of the period, Hoover had a pretty fair understanding of things economic. Hoover even tried some very creative things; many, of which were then expanded by FDR to make the "New Deal."
Yet, as we all know, due to his "tinkering" a sound and unified policy was not formulated in time and the economy tanked. In came FDR and after a continued period of tinkering the sputtered economy started to crawl forward. By the time the war was over, we were the world's economy.
Obama's Stim
Today, President Obama's stim, which by all accounts should have been larger, is proving to have been not enough to save our economy from the direction it went in 1930. What separated the country then, however, from now is that the Democrats (Hoover was a Republican) did not want the president to fail. In 1930, people knew that when a president failed, the country suffered.
Today, still the most effective weapon for most republicans in the war to defeat the economic downturn is the tax cut. In order to understand the effectiveness of the tax cut, one does not need to understand economics. The tax cut, whispered like 10 Hail Mary's after confession, is no longer an economic instrument. It is and will be for the next decade solely a political one. One whose sole reason is to give more wealth to the wealthy.
Our nation today, is for all intents and purposes bankrupt. 30 years ago, the middle class worker's wage was closer to his boss's by 20 times. The 20% wealthiest today control 84% of the naitons wealth. When the republicans give them tax breaks, that wealth increases. And the wealth of the nation shrinks on two fronts: a) we lose that money that should have been collected; and, b) the nation loses the benefit from that money that would have been invested in something like a bridge, a school, etc.
Rush is the GOP
Today, staring down the barrel of a shotgun that has not been seen since 1932, President Obama is trying to save our nation. Yet, the republicans led by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and that scattering of Christian, in-bred misfits and walking dead in Congress, are doing everything in their power to destroy his attempts; to play politics as usual.
We are beyond politics. Politics are what the GOP have been playing since 1981. Their political games tried to destroy Clinton and we can argue that their tireless efforts at proving he and his wife were thieves might have been just enough to have weakened his attempts to combat terrorism. W.'s game even made scientific facts on the environment doubtful--despite being proven by scientists all over the globe that global warming was real.
Today, as millions lose their jobs, the republicans continue their polical game by calling for tax cuts. They look at it like this: their objections to his stimulus package were enough to have made it smaller and less effective than it should have been. This battle, they have they won. Their strategy now is such that if each month 600,000 jobs will be lost, by the end of the year Obama will almost be a lame duck. This would mean yet a another victory for them, for the republican party!
W. was absent when the economy started to tank and under the guidance of Newt Gingrich the republicans refused to support a bail out in October. Today, they refuse to help America because they want us all to fail so they can go back to playing games.
If you ask me why I hate the republican party it is because the games I like playing, yatzee, scrabble, hearts and others are usually fun experiences shared with family and friends while have some chips, salsa and some beers.
The games the GOP lives for result in destruction of families; economic dismemberment; societal collapse; environmental collapse; rising crime; and, probably may have resulted in the 10 deaths in Alabama yesterday by a distraught man: he probably had lost his job, was economically irrelevant, and, oh, he also had ready access to very leathal weapons (whose sales support an organization that has great power over the GOP, the NRA).
Game over. Tax cuts are politics and politics are games. The next time you hear someone speak out in support of them, walk up to them and scream at the top of your lungs: STOP PLAYING GAMES WITH MY COUNTRY!
Yet, as we all know, due to his "tinkering" a sound and unified policy was not formulated in time and the economy tanked. In came FDR and after a continued period of tinkering the sputtered economy started to crawl forward. By the time the war was over, we were the world's economy.
Obama's Stim
Today, President Obama's stim, which by all accounts should have been larger, is proving to have been not enough to save our economy from the direction it went in 1930. What separated the country then, however, from now is that the Democrats (Hoover was a Republican) did not want the president to fail. In 1930, people knew that when a president failed, the country suffered.
Today, still the most effective weapon for most republicans in the war to defeat the economic downturn is the tax cut. In order to understand the effectiveness of the tax cut, one does not need to understand economics. The tax cut, whispered like 10 Hail Mary's after confession, is no longer an economic instrument. It is and will be for the next decade solely a political one. One whose sole reason is to give more wealth to the wealthy.
Our nation today, is for all intents and purposes bankrupt. 30 years ago, the middle class worker's wage was closer to his boss's by 20 times. The 20% wealthiest today control 84% of the naitons wealth. When the republicans give them tax breaks, that wealth increases. And the wealth of the nation shrinks on two fronts: a) we lose that money that should have been collected; and, b) the nation loses the benefit from that money that would have been invested in something like a bridge, a school, etc.
Rush is the GOP
Today, staring down the barrel of a shotgun that has not been seen since 1932, President Obama is trying to save our nation. Yet, the republicans led by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and that scattering of Christian, in-bred misfits and walking dead in Congress, are doing everything in their power to destroy his attempts; to play politics as usual.
We are beyond politics. Politics are what the GOP have been playing since 1981. Their political games tried to destroy Clinton and we can argue that their tireless efforts at proving he and his wife were thieves might have been just enough to have weakened his attempts to combat terrorism. W.'s game even made scientific facts on the environment doubtful--despite being proven by scientists all over the globe that global warming was real.
Today, as millions lose their jobs, the republicans continue their polical game by calling for tax cuts. They look at it like this: their objections to his stimulus package were enough to have made it smaller and less effective than it should have been. This battle, they have they won. Their strategy now is such that if each month 600,000 jobs will be lost, by the end of the year Obama will almost be a lame duck. This would mean yet a another victory for them, for the republican party!
W. was absent when the economy started to tank and under the guidance of Newt Gingrich the republicans refused to support a bail out in October. Today, they refuse to help America because they want us all to fail so they can go back to playing games.
If you ask me why I hate the republican party it is because the games I like playing, yatzee, scrabble, hearts and others are usually fun experiences shared with family and friends while have some chips, salsa and some beers.
The games the GOP lives for result in destruction of families; economic dismemberment; societal collapse; environmental collapse; rising crime; and, probably may have resulted in the 10 deaths in Alabama yesterday by a distraught man: he probably had lost his job, was economically irrelevant, and, oh, he also had ready access to very leathal weapons (whose sales support an organization that has great power over the GOP, the NRA).
Game over. Tax cuts are politics and politics are games. The next time you hear someone speak out in support of them, walk up to them and scream at the top of your lungs: STOP PLAYING GAMES WITH MY COUNTRY!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Starbuck's: The Revolution from Above
In 1929, Stalin launched a revolution from above which resulted in thousands of top party people being slaughtered. Most were already guilty of atrocities so they probably deserved it. Stalin, also, having sought the cult-following that the dead Lenin had, wanted to rid the present of anyone who had known him prior to the revolution in 1917.
So too, Starbucks' the former great place for a good coffee and an even better cappuccino is now forcing change and altered perceptions from above in an attempt to draw away from the caramel-laced atrocities of the past 8 years.
There was a day, not too long ago, when the nation was perculating along under the prosperity created by the steady hand of Bill Clinton and Starbuck's was coffee. And then, as if with the appearance of the financial derivative, the "buck" lost its way in its caffeinated-inspired reality: sugary and cold frappuccino's and macchiatos with nice margins and really milky cappuccinos that no Italian in his worst nightmare would drink took front and center on the chalkboards. Gooey and diabetes-inducing caramel pressing against Jetson-esque plastic lids replaced cool, white with green logo-ed cups smelling pleasantly of coffee, steamed milk and a hint of chocolate shavings.
But I don't Want an Egg Sandwich
This week, in Starbuck's across the nation, in an attempt to fight back against the so-called unfair tatics of McDonald's where they say that all coffee at Starbuck's costs $4, the $4 breakfast is being introduced.
The breakfast to me means nothing: I have stopped eating anything of empty-caloric value for breakfast since 10 January of this year. The coffee means something still but even too, my super veggie-drink with muesili threatens to push this out of the picture also--simply no room for a coffee after one of those drinks.
Yet, I do watch the "buck" with great interest. For me, this company is the epitome of excellence in many respects. All companies make mistakes yet somehow, when it came to their core identity, the good cup of coffee in a pleasant setting, they always seemed to protect themselves. Until, that is, they like the nation in the late '90's and up until the crash of our economic system, found the brilliance of expanding margins thanks to the use of things like corn syrup and ice, simply too sweet to resist.
Yes, Howard Schultz, the coffee addict with the original vision in early '80's, lost his way in the world of greed. Money and the endless pursuit of getting more so you can sit and count those meaningless numbers (numbers for the sake of numbers) led him astray. And, thanks to Schultz's walkabout from the CEO-ship of the company, from 2000 to 2008, many, many Americans grew a lot fatter than they would have thanks to those hyper-caloric non-coffee drinks (one caramel macchiato with Breve milk has close to 600 calories and 42 (26 saturated) grams of fat!)
Now, in an effort to regain its lost coffee aroma, Starbuck's has introduced the $4 breakfast (actually $3.95 breakfast). Ok. Fine. I am sure it is tasty. But, Howard, you know as well as I do that it is not the absence of food that led you guys astray. It is not the economic downturn that has forced you to make deals with chicken-owners instead of coffee plantations (sure, some people have stopped going there but not as many as you may think).
It is greed. It is greed that drove you and your stockholders to the macchiatos. Now it must be a commitment to your original vision, to the idea that got your heart racing with excitement, to the passion you poured into this formerly almost-perfect company, that will take you back to where you should be: a great cup of coffee, a perfect cappuccino in a great setting whether alone over un giornale or talking with a priest about pre-Cana classes in a corner whilst seeking confidence in that frothy latte.
That is what Starbuck's used to be. Bring it back to those of us who now only find that same dedication to coffee-excellence in place as far away as Moscow! The caramel macchiato has not yet been introduced there.
Make Us Proud
I don't want Starbuck's to vanish. But, until this great company realizes that focus should not be on the bottom-line but on the values that made it the world's leader, the hard times are going to continue. In the meantime, a great Vienna-based company, The Coffeeshop Company has opened near me: the best cappuccino I can drink outside of Italy. The next best cappuccinos are being made by McDonald's in their "MacCafes".
Like our nation which has lost its commitment to the core values that made us what we were, so too a great company was seduced by the fatness of modern society. Shame on you Starbuck's. Now, go on back out there and make us proud!
So too, Starbucks' the former great place for a good coffee and an even better cappuccino is now forcing change and altered perceptions from above in an attempt to draw away from the caramel-laced atrocities of the past 8 years.
There was a day, not too long ago, when the nation was perculating along under the prosperity created by the steady hand of Bill Clinton and Starbuck's was coffee. And then, as if with the appearance of the financial derivative, the "buck" lost its way in its caffeinated-inspired reality: sugary and cold frappuccino's and macchiatos with nice margins and really milky cappuccinos that no Italian in his worst nightmare would drink took front and center on the chalkboards. Gooey and diabetes-inducing caramel pressing against Jetson-esque plastic lids replaced cool, white with green logo-ed cups smelling pleasantly of coffee, steamed milk and a hint of chocolate shavings.
But I don't Want an Egg Sandwich
This week, in Starbuck's across the nation, in an attempt to fight back against the so-called unfair tatics of McDonald's where they say that all coffee at Starbuck's costs $4, the $4 breakfast is being introduced.
The breakfast to me means nothing: I have stopped eating anything of empty-caloric value for breakfast since 10 January of this year. The coffee means something still but even too, my super veggie-drink with muesili threatens to push this out of the picture also--simply no room for a coffee after one of those drinks.
Yet, I do watch the "buck" with great interest. For me, this company is the epitome of excellence in many respects. All companies make mistakes yet somehow, when it came to their core identity, the good cup of coffee in a pleasant setting, they always seemed to protect themselves. Until, that is, they like the nation in the late '90's and up until the crash of our economic system, found the brilliance of expanding margins thanks to the use of things like corn syrup and ice, simply too sweet to resist.
Yes, Howard Schultz, the coffee addict with the original vision in early '80's, lost his way in the world of greed. Money and the endless pursuit of getting more so you can sit and count those meaningless numbers (numbers for the sake of numbers) led him astray. And, thanks to Schultz's walkabout from the CEO-ship of the company, from 2000 to 2008, many, many Americans grew a lot fatter than they would have thanks to those hyper-caloric non-coffee drinks (one caramel macchiato with Breve milk has close to 600 calories and 42 (26 saturated) grams of fat!)
Now, in an effort to regain its lost coffee aroma, Starbuck's has introduced the $4 breakfast (actually $3.95 breakfast). Ok. Fine. I am sure it is tasty. But, Howard, you know as well as I do that it is not the absence of food that led you guys astray. It is not the economic downturn that has forced you to make deals with chicken-owners instead of coffee plantations (sure, some people have stopped going there but not as many as you may think).
It is greed. It is greed that drove you and your stockholders to the macchiatos. Now it must be a commitment to your original vision, to the idea that got your heart racing with excitement, to the passion you poured into this formerly almost-perfect company, that will take you back to where you should be: a great cup of coffee, a perfect cappuccino in a great setting whether alone over un giornale or talking with a priest about pre-Cana classes in a corner whilst seeking confidence in that frothy latte.
That is what Starbuck's used to be. Bring it back to those of us who now only find that same dedication to coffee-excellence in place as far away as Moscow! The caramel macchiato has not yet been introduced there.
Make Us Proud
I don't want Starbuck's to vanish. But, until this great company realizes that focus should not be on the bottom-line but on the values that made it the world's leader, the hard times are going to continue. In the meantime, a great Vienna-based company, The Coffeeshop Company has opened near me: the best cappuccino I can drink outside of Italy. The next best cappuccinos are being made by McDonald's in their "MacCafes".
Like our nation which has lost its commitment to the core values that made us what we were, so too a great company was seduced by the fatness of modern society. Shame on you Starbuck's. Now, go on back out there and make us proud!
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