Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Corporate Baggage



Airlines will make around $3B more this year charging for bags. This is a revenue stream that did not exist before deregulation of the industry and another example of a ‘BWC’ fee. That stands for my ‘Because We Can’ invention that covers every raise or surcharge or rate increase the public is forced to endure while the raisers of those costs reap ever increasing profits for ever decreasing services merely, well because they can.  Who's going to stop them?
Gold Mine for Airlines
I don’t have the exact figure on how much the airlines pay baggage handlers whose numbers have dwindled due to corporate cost analyses but I am willing to bet they don’t share in the windfall.
The airlines will say that the increase in fuel costs caused their increase in fees but the numbers don’t completely add up and even if they did why hide the fare increase?
Telling a traveler that he has to pay extra to carry some luggage is like selling a car and then asking the buyer if he’d like a steering wheel with his purchase.
But airlines are not the only culprit in this corporate scheme to milk humans out of every remaining penny they have.
Anyone alive on Long Island is well aware of the inept Long Island Rail Road and it's ever increasing fares to complement their ever decreasing level of service or competence.
Note that the railroad considers its trains to be on time if they are only 5.9 minutes late!
Most riders would not 5.9 minutes late as on-time but rather a miracle!
But I digress.
A quick check into the business world reveals that most corporations have amassed unprecedented and record profits; cash cushions of nearly unimaginable amounts all while claiming that the current administration in DC has left them with a terrible feeling of uncertainty that is causing them to NOT hire new workers.
Does not knowing if you will triple your profits rather than merely doubling them next year constitute an uncertainty?
This absurd rationalization pervades every corner of every industry and threatens to eradicate the middle class completely.
But while I and many others write about the path we’re on nobody seems to have a solution.
One reason is that a major political party doesn't see the above AS a problem to be fixed.
The Republicans feel that the business world and the banks in particular should not be regulated at all, or if so we should allow them to self regulate.
Millions of potholes nationwide
Sounds like Mr. Romney’s call for illegal aliens to self-deport and equally as naive.
One possible solution to the job loss in America is right under our noses or rather under our feet.
Suddenly not an uncommon thing
Our nation’s infrastructure (a word former President Bush had trouble even saying) is crumbling. A no-brainer (The fix, not him although...) would be to start hiring workers nation-wide to save our streets, and highways, and bridges, and on and on.
Disaster on the clock!
The amount of architects and planners alone would take a chunk out of the unemployment numbers and therein is the problem.
Allowing anything to help the economy while the right wing controls the purse strings of the House and President Obama is still in office is anathema.
To paraphrase Senator McJowls, aka Mitch McConnell, an elected official sworn to help America in return for a huge undeserved salary; free health care; retirement funds for himself and family and exceptional perks far beyond his worth, “We simply cannot give this pretender a win.”
So there goes infrastructure repair!
And with it any hope of fixing America.
But I am not just talking about the roads anymore.  Now I speak of the entire experiment that is America.
One political party gets their marching orders only from the wealthiest of the country. They have now brazenly taken to fixing elections so even when the masses rise up against their terroristic-like tactics it will not be enough since their votes will not be counted.
And many on the right feel that is as it should be.  "The poor made their own beds and chose to be poor so their votes should not count!"
Never happen till Congress
finds out how to give
Exxon the profits
It is the ruling class that will decide when and where workers will be hired and what those workers should do.
There are many public works programs and ideas such as alternative energy as a way to ensure that the world as we know it will still exist in 50 years that are being blocked by the ruling class and their puppets in Congress.
They will not give in unless and until we bow to their superior intellect and allow them to reap any profits from any new industry.
We are now used to paying for luggage when we fly but until we divest ourselves of the evil and brain-dead, dead weight baggage in Congress we will never get anywhere!
I hope this is not just a
Pie in the Sky.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Scorpion Effect Vis-a-Vie the 2012 Election


I’m sure you all know the story of the scorpion and the frog but just in case:
The scorpion must get across a river but it does not swim.
The frog is at the edge of the river and the scorpion asks for a ride.
The worried frog says, “But if I give you a ride you will sting me and I will die.”
And the scorpion points out that, “If I were to sting you then we would both die and therefore it would be silly for me to do so.”
Hearing this logic the frog relents.
But halfway across the river the scorpion indeed stings the frog and as they drown the frog asks incredulously “Why?”
“Because I’m a scorpion,” said the stinger “and that’s what scorpions do!”

The above story explains this year’s Presidential election.
How so you might ask.
How is the stinging of the poor unsuspecting naïve frog the same thing as an entire electorate voting to choose the next President?
I’m so pleased you asked.

Hop into the blogosphere time machine and I will explain.
In the year 2000 there was a close vote between former Vice President Al Gore and his Republican opponent G W Bush.
After the voting was complete there was no clear winner. And although it appeared that some irregularities were involved that could have far reaching implications the process of recounting votes was halted and the decision of who would be the President of the United States was taken out of the hands of the voters and given to the courts.
But not just any court.
It was handed over to a conservative think tank organization also known as the Supreme Court of the United States.
This particular political action group of robed ‘deciders’ was stocked with supporters hand picked for just this type of situation. But they could not do a thing unless they were called into action. And that was as unprecedented as, well as blatantly stopping a recount to appoint a winner.
Luckily they were handed the task by a woman, ONE WOMAN who was not-so-secretly in love with her boss who just so happened to be Jeb Bush, brother of Georgie and the eventual recipient of the crown.
The president in 2000 was decided not by the majority of the 105 million plus voters but by a 5 to 4 predetermined vote of conservative supporters nullifying and circumventing the wishes of nearly an entire nation.
Granted the vote was close but Mr. Gore with 48.4% did in fact beat his opponent who garnered only 47.8% but in America as in our Congress it is not always the majority that rules.

Now let’s travel ahead four years and two wars later and review what transpired in the next major election.
In 2004 the conservatives were somewhat afraid to do the same thing as they did in 2000 so they started using voting models more seriously and found what are now quite commonly known as ‘swing states.’
These are electoral gold mines that above all can ‘swing’ a national election in favor of one guy, or gal over another.
And they found Ohio.
History and a keen eye will show how they once again circumvented rules and fair political action (now there’s an oxymoron for you) and stole yet another election for the inept war mongering criminal team of Dubya & Darth Cheney.
So now we are back home in good old 2012 and are heading into another Presidential election that could very well decide the make up of that formerly fair and balanced Supreme Court for many years to come.

But the scorpion has now become so secure in its tactic of stinging America and stealing elections that it is brazenly and openly doing so with every slimy step.
It seems to have figured out how to kill off the middle class while not drowning itself.
And to prove how secure they are in their winning ways if they can pull it off this time they will have placed a President in the White House who is, by their own words the worst candidate ever to run for the Oval Office.
So how can they do this?
Will they bring back Katherine Harris?
Could they possibly hypnotize an entire nation into believing that suddenly Willard is not a rat?
No this time it’s in your face and personal!
The stinger is out and they have no intention of hiding it at all!
If you are or have shown yourself to be a Democrat or are merely leaning in the direction of voting for a Democrat you will have obstacles thrown in front of you every step of the way to the voting booth.

Voter suppression is such an anathema to our country and its tenet of freedom as to be considered a terrorist act and yet the Republican Party, their Governors and their fringe groups are all conspiring to do just that!
And doing it while admitting what their plan is!
Veterans of foreign wars who volunteered and risked their lives to secure freedom for America are being thrown off the voter roles after voting continuously for 60 years merely because they are registered; admitted; or in a demographic that assumes they are Democrats.
In some Republican controlled states such as Texas, Bush's former 'clearing brush stomping grounds,' the unabashed BS of the RW goes as far as to disallow valid student ID cards from colleges and universities but accept gun permits as legitimate identification for voting!
Obviously the right wing has figured out that intelligent students are more likely to vote Democratic than their gun toting beer drinking low life neighbors with tattoos touting second amendment rights.
Of course none of the fears these champions of concealed weapons have been shown to be true under President Obama but since when did truth and logic enter into a right winger's brain.
If Willard Mitt Romney were a better candidate; or even just a man of the people with a sense of what the country needs; or if he even gave a damn about the plight of the majority of Americans then he would have a chance in a fair election of taking the brass ring that is the Presidency.
But he is not!
And as much a puppet as W was Mitt is not even worthy of that insulting label. He is merely a front; an empty shirt; a figurehead to place in the office to do the bidding of his owners of the corporate world.

But the fact that he is undeserving of being on the same ballot as President Obama is not the point of this post.
The point of THIS post is the scorpions that are Karl Rove and the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson and all the rest of the individuals who for their own personal reasons need to have their hand picked stooge as the leader of the free world are fixing to fix yet another American election.
This must not be allowed!
Please Remember in November and do not give the scorpion another ride!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

THAT SAID...


The title should actually be, “That Said, and other warnings of flip flops to come.”
Have you ever noticed how a pundit, politician or talk show personality, host or guest will say something that seems to put forth one side of an argument only to add the words, That Said?
It’s the ‘That Said’ part that signals the complete opposite thought is coming.
Now if you are paying close and complete undivided attention to the entire statement you may be able to parse exactly what side the speaker espouses.
Sadly most of America, myself included has not the patience nor deductive reasoning skills to keep our focus long enough to realize the speaker is generally full of it and merely trying to confuse the listener.
The two words basically mean I want to say both sides of the issue upon which I am pretending to pontificate in the hopes that you the listener will believe I am on your side when in fact I have no side except my own!
It is also a way to get a point across while attempting to stop the other side from debating you since you already stated their supposed position.
If your opponent should decide to go ahead and state his side after you have used the ‘that said’ ploy he will only look foolish repeating what you have already said.
It is similar in tactic to throwing in the, “And as you know,” phrase to get the audience to think you in fact know you are wrong and the speaker is the authority on whatever he is saying.
But there are other ways you can tell when the speaker is lying or fibbing or merely attempting to mislead.
For one his name is Willard Mitt who will never admit he is on one side or the other.
To flip flop is not
bad unless you
rotate!
But in general if a politician has his mouth open then look out!
Lately the Republican Party has been so guilty of this form of constant prevarication as to have the wonderful people at Guinness take note.
That is not to say that Democrats don’t hide the truth sometimes as well but generally when they do so they are trying to hide their allegiance to the so called 99% or the non-super, non-uber wealthy.
If the Democrats come out too much in favor of the common man they run the risk of losing all their funding from the group that can basically buy the country ten times over, as is being shown in the post ‘Citizen’s United’ ruling of the supreme beings of the Supreme Court.
That said I cannot condone any lies from either side of our political system.
That that said I understand that there must be some level of secrecy involved when dealing with matters of homeland security and foreign relations. After all if we the people know what’s on the minds of our leaders and their strategy going forward then there is a fair bet so do the enemies of America.
That that that said I also feel there should be some form of accountability for actions taken by our leaders in the name of country. (Note I left off the words ‘God and’ in front of that phrase.)
I note that our founders never wished America to be run by one branch of government or the church for that matter but rather by three branches. And only the office of the President is held by one individual while Congress, by its very name is a group of hopefully intelligent people to balance and check the other offices.
And my last ‘that said’ is one can only hope that our leaders will come to their senses soon and stop our downward spiral into total and abject stupidity within the halls of all government offices and agencies.
I would like to see one final flip flop and this time it would be toward actual compromised decisions and governance in the spirit of those wonderful words, “of the people, by the people and for the people.” For without ‘we the people’ what good is America?