An answer to the right-wing pundits and tea-baggers:

Since reading the news about the Occupy Wall Street protests I noticed a few common themes in the comments from tea-bagger types. I'd like to take this time to refute the corporate shills' tea-baggers' ideas (which are absolute nonsense).

Teabagger: Aren't these protesters just a bunch of whiney rich kids with nothing better to do?

Me: Um, no. If they were rich they'd be on a yacht off the coast of Monaco thinking about all the ways they can get out of paying any taxes on their capital gains.

Teabagger: The government would have an easier time of it if they just didn't have to pay everyone their "entitlements" like Social Security.

Me: Last time I checked, Social Security is not an entitlement. The government has been taking money out of my check since I was sixteen years old. When I retire, they give it back plus interest. Maybe the teabaggers should take a simple course in economics before they decide to lecture about it.

Teabagger: These kids took student loans out of their own choice and therefore it's their problem.

Me: No, it's really society's problem. When millions of Americans desire an education and cannot afford it and therefore must go into debt to get it, something is terribly wrong with the system. Australians and Europeans get free higher education if they do well in school, and are not saddled with debt the second they get out. We have twenty-something year olds in debt before they even get started in a career path, and then add to that the massive unemployment and the fact that possibly 50% of recent college graduates are either unemployed or working in jobs that do not require a degree, and we (yes we!) have a huge problem on our hands.

To add to that, we waste human capital (not that that matters to the Corporate elite, although it should). Just because you're born into poverty doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a chance at things. Isn't that what the so-called American Dream was all about? If someone is intelligent, they should be given an education free of charge. The teabaggers are a cabal left over from feudalism, wishing to see us return to a time when (corporate) lords protected people (serfs) from the ravishes of the world in exchange for absolute bondage to them. They stand for something that is the very anti-thesis of a free and democratic society.

What is wrong with these teabaggers and those who share such ideology? I'd start with the fact that besides the psychological problems and ignorance they obviously have (signs held up at their "parties" about government staying out of Medicare say it all), they also have no empathy. Why else would you boo a veteran of our armed forces? Or cheer because someone without insurance dies? Or absolve yourself of all interest in your fellow Americans.

Obama was quoted as saying that's not who "we" are. I want to know who these asshats are. Is it just ignorance? Is it that they can't think for themselves so they just parrot whatever they've been spoon-fed by Faux News? Whatever it is, it's refreshing to see that there are still intelligent people left in this country.

"Because if this is gonna be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition -- and then admit that we just don't want to do it." --Stephen Colbert

Let Them Eat Cake

So, on BookTV they're going to be talking about a book, "Generosity Unbound: How American Philanthropy Can Strengthen the Economy and Middle Class". Whenever I hear something that sounds like it's advocating making the filthy rich, richer, alarm bells go off in my head. Now, I obviously have not read the book, and to be honest, probably wouldn't waste my time now that I have looked up who the author is. Or rather, who she's affiliated with. Her name is Claire Gaudiani, and she's a senior fellow at a non-profit, the 'Institute for American Values' (guess who's probably paying her money to say that there should be no regulation of non-profits, you get three guesses). They don't want divorce, they want "traditional values" (again, I say alarm bells go off in my head every time I hear these words), and they have a 'Center for Marriage and Families' that promotes such homophobic people like Maggie Gallagher. They say that gay marriage isn't good for children, and I think, imply that it would be better for a woman to stay with a husband who's beating her "for the sake of the children." Bull shit. Absolute utter tripe.

I don't need to say that the last thing we need to do is make the uber-rich, richer is it? What is this? Serfdom? In America? So that the poor can go and ask for alms at a church service like our ancestors did in Europe seven hundred years ago? What's next, are we going to have to swear fealty to some overlord? Really?

This shit is the antithesis of everything democratic. Making the rich, richer, does NOT strengthen the middle class. A lack of regulation means that those with the money get away with things they shouldn't, and they trod all over the poor. No middle class means no more democracy. No middle class and you have France prior to the French Revolution (gee, how did that turn out for the uber-wealthy?) or Mexico today. And they're trying to pander to the Center and Left by saying that it's "for everyone". Bull shit. I call it a bunch of lies. They can take their right-wing, facist tendencies and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.