JAN 31ST 2015
Should never be surprised by what passes by liberals these days as 'progress'. "CORIN TUCKER: I think it has gotten better. Our society has become more progressive in talking about women's issues and safety and I think Obama just really stepped up recently and spoke about talking to survivors of sexual assault, and saying, you know, we've got your back. We need to do something about this. I mean, that's a really big deal. That's something no president has ever done, and, you know, for someone that's in charge of our country to say, "This is important and we need to work on this, and keep working together," that's a huge step forward." How many more dead women are there because of Obama's austerity to the states and increased military action? That doesn't concern us. He just made a pretty speech. It doesn't concern white upper class 'feminists' obviously. I can give some round about stats as to what has happened to women since Obama continued all Bush economics and militarism: LIfe expectancy among the working class has dropped five years. Working class women are at a real unemployment rate of 15% to 30% depending on what area. Working class women have less access to clinics (state budget cuts) and healthcare: despite the rise in people covered by Medicaid. Black women's unemployment rate has continued to rise faster than white, if you stop considering a part time job as a real replacement for a full time job. Obama's budget cuts starting in his 2nd year, resulted in over 300,000 teachers and 200,000 postal workers losing jobs. Full time jobs with benefits. Obama's drill baby drill, is immensely affecting the health of surrounding communities where Fracking is taking place. Obama has ramped up the drug war, resulting in a rise of women in prison. He has continued the militarization of the police force. This does not just affect male people of color of course as we know from Facebook posts. He has massively increased state surveillance on all citizens, which of course includes all radical feminists, female anarchists, and of course has created a database of who to round up. Internationally, only Clinton and Madeleine Albright's support of sanctions and Bush's invasion or Iraq can create of bigger pile of dead women. Though Carter's and Reagan's support of fascist dictatorships in Latin America should be noted as well. Obama and H. Clinton supported the coup in Honduras. At this point it is an outright fascist state, with thousand of female activists, campesinos having been murdered, and tens of thousands being forced into child sex rings, prostitution, and begging on the streets. Obama has ramped up and doubled what Bush did in the so called 'war on drugs' in mexico, which is really a further militarization of the state, and an alignment with many government officials, drug cartel heads and corporations to cleanse half the country of resistance. The murder of women in mexico has doubled under Obama. A case where causation does equal correlation. Mass graves of mexican women, in the liberal USA feminist view is just 'men war against women'. Their own government has no complicity. That's convenient. The facts are inconvenient. In Colombia the story can be easily seen, if one looks. Mass rapes by USA funded death squads, the most dangerous place in the western hemisphere for journalists, and union activists…and where as usual feminists are targeted for assassination. Obama answered to this reality, and the wikileaks cable from a state department official that "yes it is true the people we are funding are responsible for at least 200,000 civilians killed"…by pushing a free trade pact with Colombia, which of course has resulted in increased destitution across all segments of society, and as usual that hits women with children the hardest. Women activists in Colombia are raped, or chopped into pieces as a warning. Lets leave drone strikes out of the argument. That is easy to look up: how many thousands of women Obama and has blown apart in villages in eight different countries. Or more? So then, what about Afghanistan and Iraq? He increased the troop level in Afghanistan, in support of fascists that are no better than the Taliban. Acid is thrown on faces of women by our allies if they are outspoken, political or organizing, women cannot walk alone in most USA supported areas, Women have to secretly escape to what few refugee mutual aid centers there are, as our allies search out transgressors of their patriarchal fascist society. Iraq is not much different in many parts of the country. Obama embraced Petraeus and McCrystal. Both of whom had run JSOC death squads in Iraq. Activist women's bodies were found along roadsides. Shia death squads funded by the USA, thrust women back into the stone age, wherein women under the fascist Saddam, were a hundred times more free, becoming doctors etc. And then there is ISIS, mostly a creation of these Iraqi deaths squads and our support of the Shia govt in Iraq cleansing all Sunni. And of our early arming of 'any enemy of Assad' in Syria. The role of Saudi Arabia is a whole 'Nother subject….an anti women fascist state that is one of the largest benefactors of USA military aid. A place where women are stoned. ISIS, or IL, originators received USA arms and money. They still may be receiving aid from our ally Saudi Arabia. They will get more clandestinely as Obama throws more into 'other' anti Assad resistance groups. From the beginning the groups funded by Obama in Syria have been murdering women, and committing mass rapes. We here, only read of Assad's crimes. We could go on, with the effect of 'free trade' pacts that he pushes, and the overwhelming evidence of how they destroy agrarian based communities, with women bearing the brunt of famine, etc... but I think this is enough. When feminism is reduced to cheering the gender of a mass murderer in office, or a mass murderer who appoints the same, rather than against hierarchies that create the patriarchy, then feminism becomes useless, or must be reclaimed by working class women as a pitchfork against the white/poc upperclass. http://www.npr.org/…/sleater-kinney-2-0-the-band-talks-abou… DEC 26TH 2014
Christmas was yesterday. What next 'get your war on' orgasm for Obama and McCain and assorted other criminals….sorry…. politicians? Sanctions against Russia? Real smart. Ukraine in Nato, when Bush promised in the early 90's, 'we' weren't going to encircle them with airbases and warhead missiles. China and Russia and Iran and others are working on a currency to de link the USA dollar to oil prices. Hubris and arrogance sometimes has consequences. Let's bomb north korea for a diversion. That was a particularly gross grandstanding by Obama. Just to jump on a hack on a corporation. That has nothing to do with any citizen in the USA. Some insider, or outsider did a hack, and then the FBI and Obama follows the lead, or anonymous hackers! This isn't funny. That such a militaristic state can jump on rumors. But we know this script already. Then there is Libya, but lets not talk about that now. Putin the dictator rides horses with his shirt off. Better target. Too dangerous though for now, lets bomb more towel heads, north africans, yemens…..No american even knows where Yemen is. Somali drone strikes must be cuz of that MOVIE we saw..right? Obama gives a speech at the G20 conference that is so Orwellian, I won't even cut and copy. We really are on the threshold of collapse both economically, and militarily, and as usual only the 'left'…seems to notice, with alarming clarity. Then your head hurts. Because the american 'left' has no militant bottom up mass organization. Just millions of people typing comments, or doing great websites, or typing all alone as I am right now. History will call us losers, and shortsighted, and weak. And myopic. Damn this new year. OCT 19TH GOODBYE CIGARETTES: MY LONG TIME PLEASURE
A bit late in the game of life obviously, but it has to end now. At least once a year a cold or flu will turn into a horrible bronchitis cough. Where I don't feel flu like or cold symptoms anymore but just battle a fluid in lungs- a constant hack- and sometimes so violent my throat swells up. This time, after the real cold is gone four days ago….I couldn't sleep more than two hours straight. I'm probably in better shape than anyone else my age in any other way, and that also justified me in putting the quit off so long. I can also still do almost two hours of barking into a mic with a band. But they are killing me now. Still, who knows what will pop up in the coming years, even when I quit now? I hope no one is so moralistic finger pointing that they will bring this up if I get lung cancer or throat cancer years from now. (And if I get butthole cancer, spare me. Smoking will have not caused that. I'll tell you why I know, if you're interested.) I'm sure someone will on Facebook. Just like when I asked "what good credit unions are there in SF?" Two people had to remark how 'surprised' they were I wasn't in one already. As if a credit union membership puts you on some higher moral plane. My god, your money is still invested in the beast. Is this american individualism of the idea that your lifestyle choices make you an agent of real change ever going to go away?!?! Change comes from organizing against power structures with people. Not how you spend your money, or whatever you eat is 'good' and not 'bad'. I am also not less of a radical if I smoke, drink, wear leather, or post cat (and otter!) videos often. So much of this comes form the Calvinist protestant culture of mostly white america and it is so deep, that people will think I am crazy from conflating lifestyle rules with the suffer to be pure tenants of sinfulness of calvinism. Another reason I have kept smoking. AH HA! you'll see I can do it twenty years, while you or some of your clean living friends will die in car wrecks, or from cancer, anyway! Childish, but the reasoning actually came true several times. I have always loved cigarettes. What an amazing package of a satisfying weed. The way one between two fingers on one hand while drinking morning coffee, or your first beer after work is a match made similar to ….tell me…..what other combination? You can't come up with one. A cool smoothing smoke through your mouth that delivers a little pang of nicotine high, while the liquid is a brisk opposite of earthly and grain flavor. Even when you've been smoking too much, or during a virus, the smoke seems to sooth your throat and body. I can see why people with tobacco related cancers continue to smoke to death. The package itself is perfect. A box of 20, enough for one day, that fits in a shirt pocket. They last the time needed to near the end of the satisfaction. One an hour is enough. A satisfying enjoyable and easily transportable vice that can fit all occasions. Waiting for a bus? Don't fiddle your change in a pocket. No need to pick up nervous ticks. Just light a cigarette and lean and sway. Even the exhaled smoke quickens the passage of boredom time. You can watch the smoke move, or in more recent times, you can pass minutes by making sure your smoke is not in other peoples' breathing areas. I am a considerate smoker. Thank me. City people watcher? No other better excuse then to stand on a corner or against a building to smoke. No one even notices you. I have some of the fondest memories of imbedded brain images of San Francisco when I was out smoking. This is the hardest part now that I think of it. Since the new laws and most smokers being more considerate since the 90's, there were so many times I was outside a club, or bar or eatery smoking that I slowed my brain down to watch. Another great thing about that smoke break. You mentally open your eyes to watch. Because you have no other purpose for that time. You have to smoke one cigarette. You don't fill out tax forms, count change for the bus, or compare produce prices. It's ok you stand there and just look. What great little images I have in my head, from outside Mission Records, to outside Doc's Clock, to conversations outside shows, where these people would have never started talking to you the stranger inside that dark loud club. So now I have to find some other way to go outside and stand and be idle. I just can't think of one. This part is going to be hard as the ritual of the one I really need with the morning coffee. So now old friend, standby prop, tight cool fresh smelling package of pleasure, I have to learn to hate you. I have to personalize every one somehow. You are keeping me up at night. You are making a rattle in the bottom of my lungs. And you don't get me really that high anymore. It's more a tactile and soothing mouth thing than a nicotine burst. It must be different for everyone. But when I am in airports for 10 hours, whether I have the gum or not, I am not craving nicotine. I am craving that smoke. The idea of a cigarette. The notion of a time out to reflect. The breaks during guitar playing and song writing….when I can draw slowly and think….what the hell is going on here? Well, now…..I guess I have to make sure I stay alive to find out. OCT 12TH HOW LONG IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO REPAIR THAT FRONT GATE LOCK?
Funny I had no problem with no metal gate before our rented victorian front steps in the 90's. Even then, the nice landlord said "I hate to put up a gate" while most other landlords had already done so. Violent crime was double back then in every city in the country. Now I am getting angry cuz the fix it guy took the buzzer guts out, saying he would replace it the next day and it's been three days. So people can just walk right up our steps! This is how gated security measures whether at property level or state level become so accepted that they become unquestionable. I should add though, that with so many riding bikes compared to twenty years ago, that the locked gate does make it so a thief has to jump over it, which I can sometimes hear since I sleep next to it. Still, you wanna bet absolutely nothing is going to happen while the fix it guy continues to be lame? It's the same mentality about gated upper class neighborhoods. Once one thing happens, the people assume it can happen again. We must increase measures. In the same line of thought, if one cop gets over gunned by an automatic, then every cop in the country must have semi automatics and military rifles, and amoured cars. My only solution is to have full employment, stop deploying people to kill strangers overseas, and universal health care, with affordable dense housing in cities. And saying that, is like saying, things will get ok, when capitalists, the 10%, decide they want to direct investment for a sustainable future. Or like saying, We Will Live on Mars Soon. And then the flat's cat has a mouse in the hallway. Batting it around. Doesn't eat it. Just swats it. Then it dies. OCT 5TH I'M GONNA HAVE A HEART ATTACK.
Could be true without outside forces. I have speed bumps and pumping too late at night. But the real attack is gonna come when I finally give up on all humanity's potential. I promise not to. But the day could come when I fall asleep forever because of idiot actions whack my heart to death. All the pricks and bloodsuckers in office, both parties included here, have ramped up a worldwide war against people in the name of combatting terrorists. Any reasonable person would think that expanding drone bombing, expanding military support to take land from poor people in Africa, and the mid-east, would increase the likelihood that someone would like to kill some people that are citizens of such a government. It's not cynicism to suggest at this point, that the expansion of the 'war on terror' including Obamas addition of fifty or more military bases in Africa, is designed in itself to increase terrorism to then justify a larger imperialistic expansion of the war state. Or we could just give them credit as being sociopaths, and in need of mental health care, after they are all relieved of office. I'd rather lean to that idea. They are not normal. Do you continue relationships with people that constantly lie to you? Why do so with these politicians? If there is a more just and livable world fifty years from now, they will look on this as the age of insanity. And also wonder why populations didn't rise up in rage much more forceful than is happening now. Half of the populations of all first world countries are daily on the internet. The truth of the 2nd casino meltdown is available. Wherein, all central banks, The ECB, the China Central Bank, and the Federal Reserve of the USA have engaged in another unregulated pump for the one percent. Economic suicide. Destruction of what is left of the middle classes of all the first world countries. This is a fact no liberal can appreciate. It doesn't compute. While a liberal can blame rightists for stopping any progress on slowing climate change, they cannot damn their own liberal parties for speeding it up. Though it's just one question and google away. Insanity of party allegiance. Insanity of leader worship. Insanity of just being fucking dumb. Cognitive dissonance is a sign of being dumb. If you change what you are angry about, what you are compassionate about, according to what a party site directs you towards, you are as dumb as any tea partier wanting medicare while holding a sign up denouncing 'socialist obamacare'. When people in 2008 told me that Nancy Pelosi ( who had received over 30 million dollars from health care corporations) with Obama (who had received millions more than her) would enact some type of single payer non profit health care for citizens, I told them they were full of shit. And oh boy. I was being so rude! And so wrong! I was killing the hope! Just by stating facts! Fuck hope. Fuck faith in leaders. Give me cynicism of the heart and optimism of the will. Fight, and live for truth……….never deny, never lie, and don't let your heart attack pass by. SEPT 21ST THE WORLD WILL CHANGE ON A SUNDAY WITH A MARCH OF STRANGERS HOLDING SIGNS!
Today is the worldwide climate change march. A great global say of people. But here in the USA, the Sunday march is as usual run by democratic party front groups and filled with corporate money. That in itself would not get me to damn it and say don't go, seriously, because without a bottom up militant left, who the hell I am to talk? I agree that getting tons of middle class people, and even business people to engage in a awareness march is important, lacking the void of an organized real left here. What I won't shut about though is the lies that 'progressives' write to rally the troops. Nor the false promises. It's disgusting that liberals will still do this, on the internet, when people can easily debunk their claims. Worse then fox news. Or Drudge report etc. Regular people that call themselves liberal or progressive are much more likely to pursue information than people to the right. And here their 'leaders' assume they won't. It's a gross arrogance that 'liberals' only ascribe to the right. Solnit is one example. She has over a thousand followers on FB, and any post can get hundreds of likes. People don't even question the 'little good news' that she posts. Or if you do, she deletes you anyway. Which brings up the question, why do her other followers still stay when they see that happen so often? Obvious answer is she just liberal -splains it away as 'had to de friend another man-splainer'. But it's deeper than that. Unfortunately I see a future that beyond the obvious 25% or so support for outright corporate oligarchic fascism that will come from tea party type rightists, I can see a large amount coming from the democratic hard line base of voters. History is not without examples of this. If a real left arises to threaten the whole idea of a liberal party holding power. Easily debunked lies: (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175896/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_what_to_do_when_you%27re_running_out_of_time ) "The future is not yet written. Look at the world we’re in at this very moment. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline was supposed to be built years ago, but activists catalyzed by the rural and indigenous communities across whose land it would go have stopped it so far, and made what was supposed to be a done deal a contentious issue. Activists changed the outcome." Keystone is running. Only one leg was stopped. A bait and switch. Via other pipelines alberta tar sands oil is already flowing to Texas. There are at least three other companies building pipelines. The other three legs of Keystone are running. "Put it this way: in one country, one party holding 45 out of 100 seats in one legislative house, while serving a minority of the very rich, can basically block what quite a lot of the other seven billion people on Earth want…" Still claiming it is the republicans opposing any meaningful legislation. Bullshit. The democrats from day one of 2009 have not pushed for anything meaningful, and Obama has opened up millions of acres in the gulf for more off shore drilling, and millions of acres of public land for coal. We are now exporting twice as much coal as we did in 2010! " ….and in the U.S. we’ve retired 178 coal-fired power plants, phasing out many more, and prevented many new ones from being built. .." Bullshit, The coal plants that were retired, were because the coal companies saw more profit west, where Obama opened up much more profit intensive land. You can search this fact in ten seconds. Truthful enviro orgs say this as do the coal companies themselves. No new planned coal plants were stopped by activists. The plants that were not built were due to cheaper natural gas production, which the same companies make money off of. Thanks to Obama, fracking has greatly increased. He nor any of his presidential appointees to any relevant state agency have tried to slow, and certainly not stop, this new massive contributor to carbon emissions. What is more odd about this bullshit, there have been many articles on toms dispatch, which is her homesite, that actually counter what she says. No editors. No ethical center. Then right before the march, and like I said, I don't criticize any leftists or liberals trying to rally the troops, it's just the lies that bother me. And false promises. http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/09/20/what-peoples-climate-march-doing-right-and-why-you-should-be-there Justin who gives Skype leadership coaching to you from his website was also a member of the Democratic front joke 99% Spring, that tried to suck all the initiative from occupy towards the party. He is also a 'coach' for 350.org. So no wonder "1. The People's Climate March is a massive action for a massive problem. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we have ever faced as a civilization, and this march is slated to be one of the most significant demonstrations for climate justice in history. Petitions and phone calls have their place, but this is an opportunity to take an action whose size is proportional to the threat." But none of the orgs he represents, nor the business orgs involved advocate any action whatsoever. Walking for one day, on a sunday when no meetings are taking place, to some far away spot, is not action. It is passive sign holding. It is an surrender to power, when the backers all still back half the destroyers in power, the democratic party. No where does he say that the majority of his time, nor the majority of 350.org's time is relying on 'changing' the democratic party. No where does he say, that is the action they expect. The beginning and the end. He and most of the organizations for Sunday merely expect the democratic party to listen. And this is an outright lie: "The groups organizing and resourcing the People's Climate March have supported a participatory, decentralized organizing model and have put a primary focus on front-line communities…" Nope. From this excellent insider article (and many others are popping up…) http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/19/how-the-peoples-climate-march-became-a-corporate-pr-campaign/ "Here’s what seems to be going on. Avaaz found a lucrative revenue stream by warning about climate catastrophe that can be solved with the click of a donate button. To convince people to donate it says we need Occupy-style actions. When the moment comes for such a protest, Avaaz and 350.org blocked it and then when it did get organized, they pushed it out of sight. If you go to People’s Climate March, you won’t find any mention of the Flood Wall Street action, which I fully support, but fear is being organized with too little time and resources. Nor have I seen it in an Avaaz email, nor has anyone else I’ve talked to. Bill McKibben of 350.org began promoting it this week, but that may be because there is discontent in the activist ranks about the march, which includes lots of Occupy Wall Street activists. One inside source said, “It’s a branding decision not to promote the Flood Wall Street action. These are not radical organizations.” And as all of us know, slowing climate change NOW needs radical action. Not a Sunday Walk to somewhere far from both wall street and the UN building. And most of these people will never see each other again. Nor will 350.org take any of its millions to help organize a bottom up resistance that is militant labor and urban based. It's all banners, commercials, and ring around the white house. I think it's great people show up for this kind of stuff, but the cheerleading we 'are changing the world' is absolutely childish. Either start talking about using power against the government, or at the least, making them unable to do more damage, or just admit it's a sincere show of concern. Stop appropriating radical language like a Nike commercial. R. Solnit the night before on FB yes in all caps: "AND OH, BY THE WAY, YEAH, OCCUPY HAD DEMANDS. LIKE THE CLIMATE MARCH. AND WE ALL ALREADY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE. HAVE A NICE DAY AND DESTROY CAPITALISM. THANK YOU." SEPT 14TH OUR LEADERS ARE OUR ENEMIES
A country always at war with some 'other' can never have a reasonable discussion within the forums that advocated the previous wars, or the constant unknown wars. Whether within Congress or the Media. If Obama and the democrats had actually pulled back from their bombing of people that turns some of them into terrorists against the 'west', If Obama and the democrats had stopped building more military bases all over the world, and the journalists and politicians recanted their maniacal leap to invade afghanistan to go after a small band of hoodlums, and recanted over their whole hearted support to wreck the country of Iraq, and in that process killing hundreds of thousands of people, creating two million refugees, and logistically and militarily pitting ethnic groups against each other which achieved cleansing and great hatred that helped fuel groups like ISIS, I might be a little bit hopeful that the morass of constant war could at the least be toned down and ameliorated by a 'liberal' party. If the democrats had not expanded an air war to five other countries, I might be hopeful they weren't 'Bush and Cheney'. But they are of the same fantastical hubris and arrogance of any republican you can put up as a bogeyman. And they all deserve to be labeled enemies of the nation and world. There is no reason to attempt to have discussion within their forums, nor no reason anymore to think that your voice of common sense will be heard. Neither in the 'media', not within the two party democratic process. The sooner that the majority of this country acts on this truth that the majority already knows (!!!), and moves ahead away from the schakles of the gatekeepers and the TINA's….the faster we will get good works done. Don't even think for one second, they are going to come to their senses. Don't even read one doorknob flyer, or click on one 'hopeful'. They all wear the shroud of constant war, and bank funding, and austerity. It's a cloak with no patriotic colors, but often brown, or tan or any color that blends with opacity and anonymity. In the spotlight if you have the hand and thumb shaking capabilities. That sonorous harvard lawyer voice. In the shadows when the blood from your fangs shows up in camera light. They are all the same. Aug 31st
From nakedcapitalism links of the day, the arc of the global finance pump's scythe nears our throats. Macrobussiness short says China property bubble busting for real now. China's central bank seems in a panic to me, despite Bloomburg News and Financial Times typical 'warnings' in typical non -inflammatory language of mainstream economists. Unknown to probably all Americans is the fact that most of the European Union is now in a deep downward slide and already into a 'new recession'. As honest economists predicted years ago, the institution of austerity on Greece, Spain, Portugal, would come back to bite the relatively healthy economies of Germany and France. Germany's relative stability through the crisis of 2008 to 2009, not only depended on a massive public propping up of the banking system, but also relied on Germany having a profitable export sector. Around half goes to other EU countries, and even a third goes to China. We wrongly think of China exporting to everyone else, and don't realize that a recession in China is another part of the squeeze that will hurt both the EU and the USA, just in purchasing imports alone, let alone their massive buy up of USA Treasury bonds keeping the dollar secure, and our deficit manageable. And as honest economists predicted, Germany backing the EU's central bank of imposing austerity on EU countries, would of course cut off consumer demand and tank Germany. Now that is happening. I do know, from Facebook of all places, that many Americans recognize the imbecile 'looneys in the pilot's seat' of both parties pursuing saber rattling in the Ukraine and how this could not only lead to a very stupid conflict, with 'us' supporting many nazi battalions against a massive Russian jugernaught, but also bring us closer to a crash. There are so many other triggers waiting to pull. Equity Funds like Blackstone are now exiting the absurd strategy of buying up over half a million foreclosed homes to then sell the rents securitized in another toxic crap product. These finance bloodsuckers are trying to leak out inventory, but when the panic starts, it will be a flood. Student debt, doubled under Obama is strangling half the people under 30 who went to university, There is a huge subprime auto loan bubble (hence the car makers recent 'profits'), and then we can look at the unbased rise of rents in half the country, while a huge shadow inventory of foreclosed homes, and underwater homeowners still exists. I don't blame most americans for attempting to be optimistic or thinking that we have hit the bottom of the trough. Where can they turn to? What large 'left' clear headed mass movement exists that has a bit of influence about the reality among the working and 'middle' class? I always note, and it sounds mean to harp on people that are doing such good, as much as they can, that activist organizations fighting evictions and gentrification across the entire country are NOT sounding alarms. You would think after 2008, and the dot.com CON that it would now be part of our intellectual fiber to understand, that any rise in rents and housing value, while an actual DECREASE in wages and full time jobs has been going on since Obama took office has to be a Fed Reserve's policy of pumping up another bubble. $12 trillion should be the number on all activist websites. That is the amount that the USA govt has loaned, nearly interest free, to the too big to fail Finance institutions since 2008. Focus on the mutual aid, but goddamit what happened to the idea of education in pursuit of a greater goal? Activism now is so finitely pin point, along the line of totally outdated Saul Alinsky tactics, that it serves in a very sad way to lure people into falling backwards off a cliff. It would be better to dive or leap off it face first, then allow people to be smashed to pieces from a blindside hit and fall backwards. Aug, 24th Both my parents died over the past two years. Not unexpectedly, and not without major rifts in the family including a ridiculous lawsuit by one evil sister. Someday I intend to attempt an 'outsider's' narrative complete with flowery T. Williams prose as a short novel. I thought there would be some kind of resolve, or closing of the curtain, or shutdown of the litany of regrets, the negation of that echo, that memory and repeat of past experiences. Not sure why. I've always been one to be a cynic and declare life is never like hollywood. And the word 'closure' made me cringe back in the 90's, iterated by vile pinched in faces watching executions of murderers. Or chanting outside courtrooms 'kill kill kill'. What we allowed our government to do after 9/11, gave us no 'closure' or peace. Death cleanses you? Not in anyway I can measure. It means loss. And for everyone that dies, there is someone that feels that blank space. When I was young, and for various reasons felt completely alone, even with great friends, in Sandusky Ohio, I fell into exisistialism, which was a normal reading route for much of the 1st,2nd generation punk rock types from 75 to 85..(yes we counted that fast then, things changed so drastically in music and underground politics). Now I'm starting to restart it. The absurdity of rebellion and all that. But most specifically the being as a special actor. Some beings in flux, some in horrible limbo. Some never change. Some of us live two lives. One the servant, the other the schemer. At least my brother and I are friends so late in our lives. We never were before. And us with the 'nice' sister. I can't imagine big all happy parties anymore like we use to have in San Francisco in the 80's and 90's. The truth has settled in on so many faces I see. It's not just the 'space' left by those dead, but I believe moreso, the space the living cannot fill. It may be impossible for payback. The greedy and society sucking vampires win on every count. So it goes… The fathers and mothers gone give another weight. For many of us, there was so much missing; so much lost in possibilities of real close companionship and deep blood. We carry that sorrow, along with the knowing……we too are just drifting off barely connected. Just to say one night, at our last gasp, "call the nurse." May 25. 2014 Carnival is blocking off 24th and Bryant streets. We have at least three of these festivals a year. I don’t go. But happy they happen. You get to see all the neighbors out, all the families, and all the tough kids. Nice to see the colors mixing so much better than the 80’s. Black punk kid with safety pin attached band name on back of jacket with Latinas. Done up white girl hanging with no other white girls, all color crowd, on the concrete bench next to Phils. A little cabal talking that language I can’t understand and poking their phones while talking. Ain’t the 80’s that I miss, but it ain’t the new age that I hate. Still goddamn regular people right out front my window. And little kids yelling for ice creams. These kids are so less violent than my generation, I wish I could get close to them and figure out why. Twice unemployment rate, and full on hate upon them, with the usual hysteria. Twice poverty rate from the 70’s also. Instead, as I should, chose to leave them alone. They don’t want to talk to some old leftist. Some sweaty old socialist holding a book. I went to the corner store trying to maneuver the packed house. Trying to dip into eye level what the hell are they all buying. Very little of those 2.75 rot gut gin pints. Just watered down tall boys and energy drinks and chips. Talk with strangers old and young like you never seen long ago. Everyone holds their own. Young women don’t take shit, but there really isn’t the nasty shit I use to hear. Much more respect among all. All these strangers laughing. All these people that have families just so put upon with rent increases. Good enough. Sunday over. Hold on till the bust. Let the new kids take over. June 1, 2014 Maybe it was a month ago. But still can’t get it outta my mind. I’m reading all these warnings of a global meltdown from nakedcapitalism.org, some Mike Whitney on counterpunch (I think that guy is a goddamn trotskyist, but damn his research is amazing), the margin buying, the P/E of even so called ‘blue chip’ companies, the burst of China’s real estate and manufacturing core, and then I read what Obama and Secretary of State Kerry said about Russian and the Ukraine. And Hillary Clinton comparing him to Hitler. We are teetering on global economic collapse. And our government decides, after the bullshit Syria attempt of invasion, after building a hundred military bases in Africa, after a mess in Libya, after getting all eastern European countries to join NATO along Russia’s borders, and continually being bellicose to China (a country that bought billions of US treasury bonds and could dump them), our goddamn leaders are threatening actual confrontation in Ukraine. Hubris, overreach, or arrogance are words too nice for their folly. Kerry and Obama both repeated the myth about the identication of jews in Donetsk. The NY Times retracted that story two days later…..That weekend our leaders were still repeating it. You can’t use words for these leaders anymore that forgive them. Like ‘overreach’…or even arrogance. They are steering to complete disaster. You can come up with new more stern words if you choose. Perhaps with more alliteration. I would just call them fucking assholes and criminals. I yell sometimes during my morning readings, “fucking pricks.” [ I try to add in the roommate ads, that yes if you take the room next to me, you may hear me going through nightmares, and also early AM yelling. So far Hanna has not complained. ] Well, I wouldn’t shake their hand. Unless I could kick them in the nuts with my steel toe Georgia Boots, now made in China. I guess that’s a felony for even saying that these days. So it goes. I don’t want to get close enough to do so anyway. I would only smell fetid crusted blood among them all. That’s the existentialist in me. I don’t like bad smells, and I don’t like rich people. And I’ve never suffered hypocrite, liars, well. But I have to admit, these criminals are surprising me. I thought Bush and Cheney were the real deal for arrogant overreach. And assholishness. We have to realize it is now a rocket ship to complete fuckery. It’s no longer a twilight, but a darkness. Of unmitigated fuckery. June 8, 2014 Obama announced an EPA directive for coal plants to decrease emissions by 30% in 15 years. Yes, fifteen years. How about closing half down in five years? Meanwhile a huge portion of the Gulf was licensed for off shore drilling to Exxon/Mobil. His secretary of interior use to work for Mobil. This week, Huffingtonpost the day of the reduction of coal plant emissions had a banner “The Green President”. My god, what propaganda. 350.org, a millionaire democrat funded organization, has been doing hysteria about the Keystone XL dirty tar sands from Canada pipeline. They, and their online cheerleaders never mention that three phases of ‘Keystone” are already done, and the tar sands is being moved. Nor that there has been a more than doubling of the transportation on rail of such five times and destructive extracted oil. The fourth leg of Keystone is not ‘game over’. The democrats in power are ‘game over’. Sign waving demonstrations and begging democrats to change is ‘game over’. Not spending your free time every week trying to organize a left militant bottom up social movement based on demands of a shut down of all coal plants, fracking, and drilling and moving to participatory economics and real democracy, is ‘game over’. Those in power will only give even a smidgen of ameliorating capitalism’s destructive apocalypse, when faced with a citizens’ power that will not fall in line for one of the two parties. But since Obama has not bombed Iran yet, I guess we should count our blessings. There’s always some other disaster you can dream up to counter the rapacious apocalyptic reality. Keeps you in line, waiting for marching orders to another Chevron demonstration. Then go home and read about a tea party nutbag. Like driving an electric car to the ballot box to vote for the neck tie or the rough rope noose. Either strangles you. ‘ Sunday June 15th. I was surprised at this Student Debt dress down. I don’t know why. I mean we should remember Obama’s Popeye chicken riff that liberals ignored in 2008. Thanks to Adolph Reeds excellent “Nothing Left” article in Harpers Magazine March 2014 we are reminded. “In a 2008 speech to a mostly African-American audience in the city of Beaumont, Texas, Obama scolded his listeners about feeding junk food to children: “Y’all have Popeyes out in Beaumont? I know some of y’all you got that cold Popeyes out for breakfast. I know. That’s why y’all laughing….You can’t do that. Children have to have proper nutrition. That affects also how they study, how they learn in school.” If a white politician gave this speech to a depressed area, with a median worker income of only near $30,000, and a 20% rate of unemployment even at that wage, all the liberal blogs and sites would have gone haywire. Let alone say that to black Americans. Whose youth unemployment is over twice that of white. So this week, one year after a Obama student loan bill that “the Congressional Budget Office revealed Monday that the federal agency is set to make $127 billion from loan interest payments over the next ten years.”, he gave a speech this week about how maybe you just have to take a lesser job. Let’s make this clear. A year after he made things worse, after he made the government a profiteer off high interest rates on students loans, he then says you just have to take a lesser job. While real unemployments rates at over 15% for whites 15 to 25 and near 50% for black young. He then compares taking a job at a law firm for a year “that he didn’t like” as an example. From the Tumblr conversation: “But the president also added that college is not for everyone and suggested that some young people might prefer to try trade school. He also said they should remain “practical” about choosing a career that will actually pay off their loans." “I worked for a year in a job I wasn’t interested in, because I wanted to pay off my loans,” he said of his time at a law firm. “You know, work is not always fun. And you can’t always follow your bliss right away.” Indeed. The trillion dollars of student debt is due to a bunch of layabouts sitting at their parents’ house waiting for the $80,000 tech job. The guy is out of touch as Bush was. Much of the Occupy movement was fueled by student debt. And he still didn’t hear a word. Keep emailing him. If it makes you feel ‘engaged’. I'm trying to look up what jobs that could pay off a $40,000 student loan debt, but can't find it for the 70% of the population. This is Obama's Reagan moment, when Reagan during a deep recession, declared "well I see many job listings in the newspapers!" Funny how this Obama quote never showed up on Huffingtonpost, Salon.com or CrooksandLiars, or Democraticunderground. As of course, the next day a Salon.com writer just mentioned his mentions of promising of doing good things, and left the quotes about ‘just get a job and pay off the loans,” out. Funny how Yahoo news link actually highlighted that doggeral. With quotes. You can never underestimate the liberal media for how far they will go to rally the troops around a right wing figurehead. We’re on his team no matter what you by life experience, understand. July 11 Getting through Breaking Bad into third season with great long time friend over educated MG, and we always make good pizza. Only thing we demand is that fresh from the garden basil leaves are put on the dough with olive oil, dough is allowed to rise for 40 minutes or so before toppings are put on. And make the oven hot at 425 degrees. Mozarella should also be browned on top. Add green olives and sundried tomatoes, even if from a jar. Lately H. my roommate who knows the whole series watches with us. Good times. L. artist roommate brought ceramics projects to leave on window shelf in back room. Some have penises jutting. One looks to be a narwhale, but there also is a cute mouse and toadstool. I’ve seen some of L.’s paintings, and they are great. I hope she goes back to painting. Though odd and cute ceramics are a welcome addition to the flat. None of us, or any roommates have done real art or crafts here for years. Life among the working class of SF seems to be struggling moreso for work and to cover rent, maybe be in bands, but less of the time consuming arts of writing, painting, and poetry. Maybe not a loss, maybe we need this big bust coming to a reorientation of time spending. Where shit is so bad, the real creative types just create, without any hope of redemption, or gallery consumption. Bring back art as an attack, or a valuation of a bankrupt culture, rather than a foot in, to acceptance within it. Long Live Penis Ceramics. I’ve never made anything I consider ‘real art’ lasting, and inspiring for a long period of time. I hope these coming films can change that. But still I have not believed since the 90’s that the mere act of ‘making something’ is somehow rebellious or anti corporate. The DIY thing of punk rock always seemed a hippie version of boutique capitalism, whose owners would cash in, in a second. There have to be other reasons though, why we have so few great painters and writers coming out of the anti authoritarian punk rock scene from 1976 to present. I cannot offer any answers. The ‘scene’ did and still does offer a nasty vernacular and affront to bourgeois sensibilities to this day. You can give it that. Then I get a penis on a pretty ceramic Narwhale. Better than a roommate bringing home Readers’ Digest figurines. I like that. SUNDAY June 22, 14 Read on some left sites, that Saudi Arabia and Israel are asking USA not to hit ISIS in Iraq. That the idea is to have a larger Sunni explosion to undermine the Shia Iraq govt and Iranian Shia consolidation of power. Could be. And thus the Iraqi people, at least a million still refugees outside the country, are caught in the middle of a power play. Not the first time our government has done dominoes and statecraft at the benefit of right wing élites, to the detriment of the ravaged populace. There are still liberals calling for military intervention in Syria. Even after ISIS has been shown to benefit from aid. What a horrible chess board of a game we live in. And Americans are again always prone to pronounce, “get out of that area, they’ve been fighting for a thousand years.” Not true of course. If you actually try to read history. Even a simpleton, can see that the carnage of inter-European wars (from 1600 to 1945) and USA wars and invasions (from 1900 to 2003) vastly outnumbers what ‘Arabs’ and ‘Persians’ were doing to each other. You could pile the white dead that fought against the white to Mars. The Arab against Their Other casualties wouldn’t even reach to the Moon. A stinking foolish and foolhardy history of euro and USA pile of dead bodies is best left out of the picture. This was true before 9/11. Remember how much we heard about Palestinian suicide bombers in the 90’s, but so little about Iraqi sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of women and kids. So it goes. Empire controls the speech, and actions, and even the reactions. People demonstrate and form organizations about one travesty, as if ameliorating one spot of massacre can stop the juggernaught. Sunday June 29th. I re-read Colossal Wreck, his last compilation he made before he died. Didn’t tell most he was going to die. Good decision. Writing up right to the end. This is too long unless you are a complete nut over Cockburn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2YuQWuYDfQ Daisy is in there towards the end. The ‘president’ of counterpunch, who I don’t recognize at all, has great memories towards the middle. That tower was for rent. Funny, I knew that in the 90’s and wondered if you would be allowed to hang out. He addresses that. I really wanted to go up there, and knew somewhat about the dinners and long talks, something I would have been so enraptured about. It’s a five hour drive. I couldn’t even do it then. Cockburn’s long drives are amazing at his age. He just didn’t stop. His brother Patrick, one of the best English language real reporters on the Mideast, is in this too. That guy has defied death ten times, and still writes the most factual and intelligent reporting. What a family the Cockburns are. You can look in vain to find a similar thread of radicals in the USA. But Alexander moved here and fell in love with the people. I understand how. I am with many. But I think his non native eye afforded a more unattached view and so more truthful. Patrick says here that you must look with an ‘alien eye’. That’s how I am trying to proceed. As Godard said about his choice to begin making film as art, “I wanted to learn to see again.” Sunday the last. Facebook is the bastion of bobbleheads. And I got addicted and still am. Oh please god of commonsense, take me from the venue of ultimate restriction of critical thinking and peoples’ discourse. YOLO, I’m going windsurfing! My ‘little baby girl’ is a cat! Hey that’s a cat! Not your human baby girl! Oh well, I go along. Here’s a picture of me playing with knives and making fusion tators in a perfectly seasoned olive oil cast iron pan. I lay prostrate, I lost. And then a post about hummingbirds. My past says, “you really should be embarrassed about that.” Not nearly as much as the two hours spent on putting the cats in a box in the kitchen and using Final Cut Pro to post that. Got ten likes. Ten more than my post about the coming global financial meltdown. June 6th 2014 Last week another monthly jobs report was answered with “better than expected”. I’ve come to see that only a few nobody lonely commentators on the liberal sites under these reports are better ‘journalists’ than all the big liberal blogs and mainstream media. This was expected during his first four years. And since the republicans sure as hell don’t want to spill the beans about unemployment counts since their corporate sponsors love this part time job economy, and their next maybe president will use the same gauge, you get nothing but chaff and misleading headlines. So lonely commentators on some sites say, “Since when is one part time job gained equal to one full time job lost?” Since the late 90’s. Anyone knows that headlines and sub heads carry the perception of a reader. Drudge report wouldn’t have a million readers if not true, as his headlines often don’t even reflect the meat of the story. After Obama pushed the EPA to do some half ass limit on coal plant reduction, Huffington Post had a headline “Green President.” Which of course couldn’t be any farther from the truth, except Fox News calling his socialist green policies a job destroyer. What is, are, the real job destroyers are the two political parties awash in hundreds of millions of bribes to keep the financial sector pumped with taxpayer no interest loans. Hence the new bubble, and in certain areas of the country, a devastating speculation in real estate and rise in rents, while real income has been dropping since the Clinton years. Anyway, in one month we lost 500,000 full time jobs. This is a continuous trend. A devastation for so much of the middle and working class. Any benefits that full timer had is gone. But since 800,000 part time jobs were ‘created’ we are doing good. A part time job can be from 10 to 35 hours a week. Nothing more needs to be said about our ‘job reports’ and how our media treats and formicas them. The country is fucked. The entire base of ‘consumerism’ and being a market for Chinese and other countries manufactured goods is being destroyed not only by loss of buying power, but by more debt, higher rents, and longer commutes to jobs. See how many people in a year or so can or will pay Obamacares’ mandated insurance. With those deductibles that people are finding out about. We are going to see negative growth soon. Though on any honest standard, that is already happening. There is just so many hidden rats, and leaping viruses, and flying locusts in this basket, that no one can predict what one spark, or two or a hand that uncovers the blankets, will set off the crash. Just remember 80% of the population had nothing to do with this. None of us voted for this. And near that, have been ready for real change for a long time. It’s the 10% we must go after. Rally now, before the night comes. A Wednesday Evening. Shelling of Gaza again. I’ve been paying attention since the 1980’s. I can’t even enter into the American conversation of the arab terrorists. It befuddles me. It enrages me. It is so one sided I won’t go into facts. We are on the internet now, btw. It is a usual progression, that rightist , and often rightist religious extremists can take power when state, or states’ power, support only the right. The secular, or nationalists for democracy and some bit of economic democracy will be wiped out. Iraq is a blaring example. The overthrow of democracy by the USA in Iran in the 1950’s is another. The support of Colombian death squads under the guise of drug war and ‘democracy’ is another. Before Obama was elected he called Uribe of Colombia a ‘great democrat’. Enough said. From Israel support to Colombia to death squads in Iraq that have created more vicious reaction, the USA government is spreading cancer. And the self fulling prophecy of more terrorism will come. And thus more expansion of the war. The war that no one has voted on. That no one can vote out. We are all very complicit. We still keep waiting for another election. As if some leader, or group of leaders can deliver us from this evil. If you bought bad plumbing fixtures, or lethal pet food from some huckster on the corner, you’d post on facebook about ‘never again’, and gonna call the cops. Too bad so many of us, so disgusted, can’t figure out how you call the cops on politicians. It doesn’t work with signs and yelling ‘shame on you’, tell you that. They are laughing at you when you do that. They didn’t laugh at occupy. They, the democrats, had to coordinate homeland security, which we should remind ourselves is supposed to be against terrorism, and with city officials worked to do a massive sweep. Then the NSA has catalogued every email every occupy supporter sent. We can imagine what they will do when we organize for more than occupying parks with tents. And we should. And not be afraid. The whole world watches us, and respects us when we drop fear. People in Egypt, a poor country under a dictatorship for decades sent pizzas just for a union battle in Madison. Time to pay those radicals dying in Egypt a little good time on the internet looking. Sunday July 19 When I first came to San Francisco, there was an excitement, I imagined, it being 1985, with punk rock exploding washing away the detritus of passive hippy stuff, and active social organizations that 'actually' moved the government to action. There was a large swath of the city, made of light industrial mixed with beautiful old homes, in such a relatively small city, and still with unheard of wealthy areas. One of my first jobs was canvassing for Greenpeace with Debbie. I was horrible, increased by the fact they put us in the Sea Cliff area. Million dollar huge homes. All the oligarchs’ and managerial benefactors. I had never seen such homes, nor ever experienced so much ‘help’, answering doors, or dutifully watching you as you walked down their avenues. I remember one afternoon, Debbie always an unquestioning best friend, I said, this sucks lets go drink. And we had pints somewhere in the avenues at an ‘Irish’ bar. I believe she then supported me until I found another job. I came from Ohio. I had never seen such wealth. I'd seen much more poverty though, and laughed when white people/california punk rockers called the mission district the ghetto, and remarked how they had been 'robbed' or 'knew someone that had been robbed'. Heh Oh, you can get robbed in a city? Jeez, how such? I spent the next ten years in the city running around like a fool in love with this city, screaming, picking verbal arguments, going to areas late at night just to ‘prove myself’, but also cuz I enjoyed then as now, what amazing people can be under that shawl or hooded eyelid of the ‘washed up’ and degenerate. I only got robbed once by gunpoint. In all those years. And only one useless frantic beat up by a Latino gang of teenagers on 24th street. Maybe I was just lucky, or looked (incorrectly) like I could defend myself no matter what. Or maybe San Francisco, even in its rough areas, was not really that dangerous of a city. Now I get sick to my stomach even going into the crime debate. And re reading that last paragraph. That is what a city life is? A debate about poverty and crime? How can I allow 30 years of my life to be suckered into a neo-liberal economist framework too? In high school in Sandusky Ohio I read some Kerouac and Burroughs, Not that I got them from the school. Hell, even Vonnegut wasn't allowed in our library. I just can't remember where I bought them. The mall? Beyond the fascination that most first/second generation punkers had with beat stuff, what also moved me was the euphoric writing about seeing bebop ….Charlie Parker etc…in NY and the Fillmore in SF. When I went to Kent State in 81 or so, a couple of guys were already steeped in it. So I heard it more. That, and because of a childhood visit to SF with my parents, I knew I had to move there. I was in a band in Kent Ohio that actually did two tours on just two cassette tapes. Can you imagine that? One tour just deep into Texas, to meet up with really red, my dolls, etc then up to Kansas City and back, then one that went all the way to San Francisco. I'll never forget Mike driving that highway you see in Wild at Heart. Deer were migrating. Blood all over for about an hour. Carcasses had been slid. He drove slow. It was an old Chevy van. Not only did we not want to hit one, but it would disable the van. That was the highway from Austin to El Paso. Ten hours? At night. And remember, nothing was strip mall like it is today. Every little stop, and every little town from there to SF, had an actual personality. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that, yes of course we went to the John Coltrane church run by his wife. You got free good veggie food and she and his kids would play music. It was on Divisidero. The Coltrane you heard then was the 60's free jazz stuff that I don't like anymore, but loved then. Ah San Francisco, so much of you was like a beat bum waiting in the rain for the taxi that never come. Now it’s sandals and artisan tacos. Can you imagine the damage done? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1r9_9VxQA John Coltrane Blue Train Full Album Sunday July 26th Greenpeace and even an Associated Press article document the massive sell off by Obama of public lands to dig out more coal. The Bureau of Land Management has gotten the ok to: "For example, one chart shows the amount of coal leased by the BLM during Obama’s time in the White House. During that time, the BLM has leased off billions of tons of coal from Colorado, Montana and North Dakota, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming alone…".As Greenpeace points out, “This is equivalent to the annual emissions of over 825 million passenger vehicles, and more than the 3.7 billion tons that was emitted in the entire European Union in 2012.” Saw so little of this in the news, though to some of us it was news before the 2012 election while ‘activist left historians’ like Solnit claimed Obama was better on the environment than Bush. The projection and fantasy won’t stop of ‘activists’ wishing rainbows over their democrats. There is the usual, ‘tipping point’, ‘game changer’ slogans over this massive coal export and digging up. I would rather call it for what it is. And point a finger at who is doing it. And who is enabling it. As a USA citizen you have to recognize that all the leaders of the democratic party are burning the planet. Republicans are not making them do this. Obama is proud of this achievement and massive increased domestic oil production. How many times has he said “we are pursuing ‘all of the above’”? Instead of talking parts per million, we should be talking about how the democratic party is part and parcel the master of famine, environmental destruction, and mass expanded war. The more you inundate people with parts per million, and point fingers at specific corporations, you more you demoralize and desensitize people and confuse them with a hundred targets. When most people accept that ‘hopeless’ truth that the democrats are as bad as the republicans environmentally, we might get some organizing going. When most people accept that a third party in no way in hell could stop this two party juggernaught, we might get some real work done. The only ‘tipping point’ we should care about. Mid week late July THE 10% LOVE THE BUBBLE Daily going to Testosterone Pit, Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism financial sites, I feel empowered to foolishly post on Socketsite SF again. If you haven’t been there, this is probably the best most up to date site of planning department ok’s, and planned condo development etc. Maybe you should not got there. 99% of the posters, as well as whoever does the site, are so casino bubble enamored and sure of this continued asset bubble, that they actually plan in the comments section of what neighborhood to hit next. Of course you get the usual doggerel that rent control is the reason rents are high here. Then many posts about the socialist supervisors that are somehow doing a ‘take’ on property rights, while everyone that has invested in property in San Francisco in the past ten years has seen a complete bubble increase of 40% . Seriously, they are complaining about profit. The only ‘socialism’ going on, is socialism for the 10% coming from the democrats (and previously the republicans) lending trillions and near zero interest rates to pump another bubble. I still can’t comprehend that democratic voters don’t realize this. And it will be worse than the ‘Bush’ crash. The most disturbing, though expected, thing about the comments section of this site, is that they really get giddy and excited about pushing the entire working class out of the city. If you doubt me, look at posts on Socket that involve the ‘Bayview’ and third street. Farther in the past there were several posters pointing out, even with pictures!, large tenant housing with rent control flats that should be ‘ellised’ and OMI’ed. With language completely corporate fascist. Absolute vitriol that working class families could get away with paying only $1200 for a flat. How dare they?!? The word subsidization comes up in so many of their posts. The ‘socialist’ supervisors and the voters somehow think that rent control on only 50% of the rentals is a communist taking. While they snatch up property at near zero interest rates. Which of course, the middle class and the working class of the USA will have to pay for soon. There is a poster that shows up, sometimes on SFist and sometimes on Socket, that tells them like it is. He is as foolish as I am, arguing with these people. two beers 2 days ago Limited development? We are in the midst of an epic, historic building boom, and prices keep going up. The glut of over-development in response to the speculation frenzy has only fueled that frenzy. No matter how much is built, prices won’t drop until the speculation frenzy -(i.e. the new housing bubble) pops. The current rapid pace of development not only doesn’t slow down price increases (contrary to simplistic and unsophisticated supply and demand models), it actually fuels the price escalation. . You can always ask these people 2008 was how many years ago, and get no answer. They all think they can exit before it bursts, OR this is an amazing fact when you read these peoples’ posts, they actually don’t think it is another bubble! The rentier class has never, ever, cared about community, or jobs. They are not people to beg and protest against if you think they may be shamed and change their ways. Sooner we learn they are vicious gamblers that value nothing but their own wealth, sooner we can find ways to smite them. And eradication should be an option. It’s self defense. They want all affordable housing disappeared where there are jobs. What more do you want to declare them alien enemies? EARLY JULY MID WEEK. Gaza is a bombed prison. Half the USA now agrees. You can call that progress. I do, with half a heart. Because Obama is running three or four covert resource wars in Africa and……..oh hell look it up for yourself. While we were all getting understandably upset about the 4th Israel invasion of Gaza,…..we were arming …and bombing…….Ok I quit. It IS too hard to wrap your head around. We live in a free country still, somewhat, but with a government that is completely out of control. And the republicans call for even more bombing and war! Which makes ‘liberals’ claim democrats are not as vicious. Oh what a trap. I’m almost of the opinion that the democrats and republicans, so close knit with all military and economic policies under the radar, are just playing this game. August 3, 14 One thing about the 'tech people' that has annoyed me since the beginning, is their bitching about SF public transit. You can see this for years on blogs like SFist, Uptown Almanac, Missionmission, BoldItalic. Their bitching not only shows a superiority complex over old people, the down and out and the regular working and middle class, but shows their COMPLETE lack of desire to actually research urban issues before writing one of their high school level articles. Kevin on UA, once said, "I mean who even rides Muni? Just use a bike." The underlying arrogance, stupidity and laziness of that comment alone should make you wonder if you can trust any 'research' he does/is doing now on Valleywag. To compare NYC subway system with ours is absurd. SF has been a 'walking' small city from the beginning and is 'new' compared to NYC. New York was an industrial hub of the world by 1850, while SF was a small shipping backwater only enlarged because of the gold rush and timber export after. Population now of only 850,000 compared to over 8 million. And of course, none of these complainers attempt to look up federal and state funding for mass transit in the past. NYC got massive subsidies from both state and fed levels from the 1920's on. As it should have with such a massive population and it was a huge industrial center too. Fed subsidies since the late 70's have declined greatly, often with ridiculous tags that public transit must show some 'profit'. Indeed. It would be better to complain about still out sized subsidies for highways as compared to subways and light rail linking metro areas. Or even, my god oh NO, comparing the military budgets increase since Reagan, Clinton and Obama to lets say….subsidies to make cities more dense and green and affordable. But no. Lets just bitch about nasty people on Muni. Funny, here, look how we are second in per capita ridership!! so these little twerps can't even see how many of us use it, and how it must be somewhat working if goddamn most of us use it. What a weird disconnect they have from regular people. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/how-your-citys-public-transit-stacks-up/ San Francisco Bay Area is actually second in ridership. Imagine that. What “fools” ride the buses anyway. Goddamn hipsters. Sorry, but hipsters and punk rockers in the 80’s were NEVER this disengaged from their own neighbors. These people are actually fucking weird in their own seflie abstraction of importance. Hey, I’m riding a bike everywhere, who are all those ODD people…as in more than half the population that take buses? God, sitting next to stinky people! How can they do that? SUNDAY AUG 4TH Even on Facebook you have half aghast. That’ s what I see anyway. Gawker comments half against. So finally Americans are getting a grip about what Israel is doing to its apartheid areas. Too little too late. And with the entire democratic party pledging support again for the massacres, demonstrations and emails are worthless. There is little mention of the non violent resistance since 1967, and up to this day with tons of videos on youtube , but that is expected. It is not just ‘americans’ that are 15 minute attention spanned, but the whole world. If you don’t have an organized and international bottom up left, you will not have a constant support of truth and ‘talking points’, that people need and use to bounce off of to feel at the least connected with coherent and rational voices. At least Chomsky videos get hundreds of thousands of views. It is useless to continue to argue with the right at this point. It’s better to argue with the liberals and point out that our democrats have helped kill and marginalize all left secular Palestinians. That is the reason that the great Edward Said was so hated by the elites here. He spoke the truth. The USA and the Rightist of Israel were very happy with funding fascists, or bumbling fools like Arafat. Anything should be done, including funding your own enemies, to keep a left secular maybe even my god democratic socialist organization from gaining a foothold. Their statecraft and terrorism worked. |
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