For those of you who came to see "Gangsta Othello" it is the post below this one and is genius! It now holds the record for the most views of any post on this blog (completely crushing the old record) and was not written by me. My friend Steve generously donated it to us and leads me to believe that you want more guest writers and less me and to that i say .. too bad! Or maybe we'll take what we get and see where it goes, so as my wife says to pacify my children when they want something, "We'll see."
Today's post is really serious and if you want to laugh then go and watch this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpevc2t_Frw&feature=popt16usit's really funny no matter where you stand on the whole health care thing. Here's where i stand; I once lived in Germany and while i was there i scratched my cornea and had to go to the doctor and my father's insurance (although great) did not cover children being idiots in continental europe. I wonder why? So in Germany they have the dreaded "socalized medicine", and i didn't know what to do, but i lived with a great family while i was there and they made me a doctor's appointment and sent me to the doctor with my "sister"'s medical ID card. When i got there the office girl slid the card and sent me in to see the doctor (the wait was not long enough to sit in the waiting room chair). The doctor diagnosed, treated and gave me prescription medication for my eye in about 15 minutes and i was on my way. In Germany they pay about 55% of their income in taxes, and they have trains and busses and trolleys and a school system that makes sense and doctors and crazy unemployment/disability benefits (can you say extra vacation money for the unemployed?) and probably other stuff too. But you must remember that they have no old men and haven't had any for a long time (between 5 and 7 million dead from 1936-1945), so that lowers costs. So i don't know what to tell you about the health care thing, but if you want the German system you have to raise taxes a lot and if you raise my taxes i want to ride a train to work!
On to the big serious news. Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United Stated ruled that Congress may not pass laws restricting the free speech of corporations as it pertains to election politics. The ruling basically says that corporations are people too and that if they want to spend a gazillion dollars to tell you that Sarah Palin is the anti-christ then they have every right to do so. The Democrats hate this and the Republicans love it. Here's why.
Democrat view: Corporations will spend money endorsing republicans and denouncing us because we have spent the better part of 30 years telling the American people that they are demons and to hate them. Then we passed laws that made it illegal for them to fight back. Now they're going to fight back. NO FAIR!
Republican view: Ha, ha the dumb democrats are gonna get it now!
So that's where everybody stands. And they are both right, the other concern is that now the elected are going to have to be the puppets of corporations in order to remain in office. Honestly, i hate huge corporations, but if you think for one minute that all the people you've sent to Washington are not already in bed with special interests you are fooling yourself. Nothing is going to change with this except that you'll have more dumb commercials before an election (do you decide who to vote for based on those commercials?). The other thing is that corporations all care about different issues and the influx of information is going to, in large part, cancel itself out. In short, they are not going to all agree. And for those elected officials who claim to be crusaders of truth and principles, you just keep on being a pompus ass Chuck Schumer and see where pretending to be "for the people" gets you now. Chuck Schumer is for the people like Pol Pot was for Cambodians. And before all my liberal readers get mad at me please remember that i am a COMMUNIST! This is what the first amendment to our constitution says;
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It means many things, just look at all those commas, i love commas! It says that the federal government MAY NOT pass laws that interfere with the exercise of religion, restrict speech, restrict the written word, stop people from meeting or stop people from suing the government, the first part means that they can't establish the Church of America and fund it with taxes. So, when a judge erects a ten commandments monument outside a court house it is off limits for the federal government to do anything about it, when kids pray in school, when i write about how they are going to invade Yemen any day now, when people march on Washington DC, when you shout about the government being a crummy bunch of nincompoops outside your house ... all of it is untouchable by the feds. Clearly the federal government cannot make a law restricting my ability to create a campaign commercial for my favorite candidate and paying to have it on TV. -So, what's the problem? The problem is not what anyone would have you believe if you're reading the news about this, the real problem for the American people is that the Supreme Court continues to recognize that corporations are equal to PEOPLE in the eyes of the laws of our country. Microsoft, Pfizer, Walmart, Citigroup and ExxonMobile are not people! To suggest that they should be equally protected is exactly what is wrong with this government, they continue to operate under the assumption that with out these megalithic businesses our nation would crumble. Our nation was not founded nor does it stand as a collection of corporations. If they were all gone tomorrow we would be fine, if we operate under a market driven economy (everyone tells me we do) then the market dictates demand and suppliers are inevitable. Bank of America goes bust? A new bank takes its place or existing banks expand ... that is the only advantage to a market economy, no one is essential. What percent of long distance use was through MCI Worldcom when they disappeared in the middle of the night in a poof of smoke and fraudulent accounting? Can those people call long distance now? They can? Oh, the market works, there was no price escalation, no chaos, nothing ... just the quiet implosion of a multinational that took an instant. It is treating corporations like people that leads our government to give them bailout money rather than let them fail, buying GM is not necessary in a market driven economy. Gm goes bust, there is a demand for their unique product and someone will step up and fill the void (no UAW you don't get $85/hour and 100% pensions after 25 years at the new company, but neither do the rest of us so welcome back to reality ... maybe paying you is what busted them out?). C'mon people you're the capitalists, you're supposed to understand this stuff. Treating corporations like people is what allows them to sue in court, treating corporations like people is suggesting that they have inherent value as individuals, which they do not. They are CORPORATIONS whose sole purpose is to make profit and the entire deck is stacked in the favor of the largest and most aggressive already ... let's strike down this old thinking that individuals do not rank light-years ahead of companies in value (my baby is worth more than GE) and get it over with. By the way, as far as i'm concerned they can still make all the commercials they want to.
Happy Friday!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment