The Death of Civility - What Being American Used to Mean

Why would I lead off a post titled The Death of Civility with pictures of legendary University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant?  Yes, I'm from Alabama but I'm not a rabid Crimson Tide fan.  I chose this picture because it perfectly illustrates the point I will be making here.

In the photo to the left you see The Bear in his typical houndstooth fedora.  He was one of the old school coat and tie coaches.  Never in a ballcap or anything casual when he was on the sideline.  And the signature headgear was always in place with one exception.

When Alabama squared off against Penn State in the 1979 Sugar Bowl in the Super Dome the head was bare (no pun intended).  When asked why the hat was missing Coach Bryant replied that his mother had told him to always take off his hat when indoors.

Super quaint right?  Well actually it was just considered common decency once upon a time.  There were always situations where men were expected to remove their hats.  It was seen as disrespectful to wear your hat during the playing of the National Anthem, going inside anywhere, and certainly never at the dinner table.

Of course it may just be me going through the standard routine of getting old.  You see more and you learn more.  Things you did when you were younger seem like a distant memory.  Even though kids are acting a lot like you were at their age you no longer have a tolerance for it.  But there are differences.  I'm pretty sure it's not just me.

I was raised in a wealthy family.  We were members of an elite country club and Mobile Mardi Gras related clubs.  There were ample opportunities to assume proper attire and put my lessons in manners and etiquette into practice.  But my mother's side of the family was not wealthy.  They were decidedly blue color, working class folk.  In the late 60s and early 70s, however, the same manners applied to everybody regardless of class or background.  Maybe it was because so many more American adults at that time had gone through some sort of military service.

But I even remember back then, I think it was in Scholastic magazine, there was a recurring strip featuring characters named Goofus and Gallant.  Goofus was a jerk and nobody liked him because he had no manners, was insulting, self-indulgent, etc.  Gallant was the kid everybody wanted to hang out with.  He was mannerly, courteous, kind.  Well you get the idea.  But the point is that it was meant to be a simple course of instruction on good, civil behavior.

Somewhere along the way in the past few decades these lessons have been lost.  Parents aren't going out of their way to teach this stuff to kids anymore.  I was barraged with it.  If it wasn't from my grandparents it was from magazines like Scholastic or in school or from Sesame Street.  In other words I was getting it from society in general.

Maybe it was when the 70s was dubbed the "Me Generation".  Maybe it was all the guys coming back from Vietnam with questions about why they had gone.  Maybe it was the feeling following Watergate that you couldn't trust anybody any more.  Maybe, and I think this is the greatest cause, it was the Reagan years when so much emphasis was placed on the American ideal of rugged individualism.  It was certainly in place when Hillary Clinton came out with her "it takes a village" message in the 90s and was widely ridiculed by the conservatives.

But when I was a kid it was a village.  All of my life lessons were coming from a wide variety of sources.  I really took it all to heart.  It meant a lot to me to be mannerly and to know how to behave in public.  We as a society were better for it.  Back then it seemed like being an American meant being part of something larger than yourself.  Of course John Kennedy expressed it best when he said "ask not what your country can do for you".  Really the same sentiment as it takes a village.  We were like one big monolithic thing.  Civic duty meant something.  Being polite and courteous meant something.

I won't say that liberals are any shining example of civics in action.  But the Republican party these days represents solidly that idea of self and the individual.  The pull yourself up by your own bootstraps American of the wild West.  And the antagonist is the "you didn't build it yourself" progressives like Elizabeth Warren.

I can identify with Elizabeth Warren.  To me she is a crusader for the little man.  She seems above politics.  Something like a modern Teddy Roosevelt.  She seems like someone who came from that same background of civic personality as I did.

That attitude of self above all that permeates conservative ideology is exemplified around me all the time.  The same people who love Alabama football and Bear Bryant can be seen in any restaurant wearing their ballcaps at the dinner table.  They don't like to use their turn signals in traffic because they know they're turning why the hell do you need to know?  They don't turn on their headlights at dusk because they can see where they're going.   There's no thought that one turns on his headlights at dusk so other drivers can see him.  They don't feel the need to give a lady their seat on the train.  There's just no sense of being a member of a community.  There's no sense that, as an American, you have some civic duty to help other more unfortunate Americans.  Slash food stamps, slash education, slash art spending, slash everything so they can keep more of what's theirs.

Really nobody seems to give a crap anymore.  You go to WalMart and people are walking around in their pajamas.  Where I live people literally wear flip flops year round and drag their feet while they walk.  Boys are wearing their pants halfway down their asses.  Little girls are working to make as much of their cleavage as possible and wearing clothes no self-respecting hooker would wear.  And their parents don't care.  The parents are so busy living their own lives that they choose to let their kids raise themselves.  Just bring them into the world and throw them in the back seat of the SUV with the DVD player while Mommy is on the phone making weekend plans.

I think my grandfathers and grandmothers and even my parents to some extent knew that they had a responsibility in raising a child.  Not just to feed and clothe and educate the child but to send out into the world a responsible citizen.  Back when that term citizen had some literal meaning.  As an American citizen you were expected to have a sense of what being a citizen meant.  Being part of something bigger than yourself.

It still means something to me.  I behave in public as if nothing has changed.  One of these days when I have a child I will do my best to raise them with the same sense of citizenship I have.

Groups like the NRA have even turned something like the 2nd Amendment into an individual rights issue.  In the time of the writing of the Bill of Rights things like city police forces were rare or nonexistent.  The first part of the text of the amendment is "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state".  It was written with a sense of communal responsibility.  In its current interpretation it's mean to imply that each person should be allowed to have any type of gun they want.  There is no longer a sense of having a weapon to insure the safety of your city or government.

People and corporations will go to outrageous lengths to not pay taxes.  They have no sense that taxes are meant to make our country strong.  That they can give us a feeling of cultural community with museums and parks, police and firefighters, streets and bridges and sidewalks.  All the things that make a community a community.  There is only the concern for keeping as much of what is yours to yourself.

NRA Banquet with Ballcaps.

Of course the conservatives have the opposite idea of what the problems in our society are.  It's the moochers who feed off the work of the bootstrappers.  It's the gays and women's groups and their agendas of inclusion and acceptance.  But I assure you I would rather be around an army of polite gay men than with some teabagger NRA member wearing his ballcap at my dinner table.  The idea of "no one is going to tell me what to do" and "I'm a grown man so I'm going to do what I want when I want".  Those are the attitudes that destroy a society.

But that's the liberal side of the message.  I feel the same way about immigrants, legal or not, who come to the U.S.  If I moved to France I would learn the language, embrace the culture, have the same pride in community that I was raised with here.  So, yea, I think there are things like common language that enhance the strength of a nation.  You can still have ethnic pride.  Hell, I got married in a kilt but I'm not going to ask a government worker to give me a driver's license test in Gaelic.  There is room for individuality but for a country to stay strong there should always be the knowledge that you are part of something greater and that there are times when the self is not as important as what the self is part of.

Pep Boys Screws My Mom - In Defense of WalMart Pt. 2

Those who know me know I have been going through some pretty trying times financially.  Recently one of the most amazing people I've ever met gave me $1,000.  Seriously.  There are so many ways in which it has helped.

One thing my mother and I have both been needing is tires.  I drive a 2004 Jeep Wrangler and the back two tires have been running on Fix A Flat for the past year or more.  When I hit 50 mph the Jeep would start to shake uncontrollably.  My mother has needed new front tires on her Kia Optima as well.  So we figured we could both handle $200 or so per vehicle to take care of that while we could.

I went to WalMart.  I usually go there for my car care stuff.  They are pretty quick and usually do a good job.  I had been before to get a new battery.  The battery I had had corroded the terminals.  The guy who replaced it cut out the old terminals and installed new ones at no cost.  So I trust those guys.  I just needed back tires and they had Goodyear Wrangler radials for like $85 each.  There were minor additional costs but I walked out in less than an hour with two new brand name tires on my Jeep for like $210.  No muss and no fuss.

The engine light has been on on my Jeep for a few weeks and my Mom told me that Pep Boys had an ad that they would check engine on lights for free.  Turns out it's my catalytic convertor which I can't afford to fix right now.  But she thought it was a nice gesture so, hating WalMart as she does, she went to Pep Boys for her tires.  As you can see in the screen grab above they have a deal for buy three get the fourth free on some off-brand tires.  They talked my Mom into this deal after telling her it would be about $85 a tire.

Let's forget that we're comparing freaking off-road capable, brand name, radial truck tires at WalMart with off-brand, small passenger car tires for the same price.  Over an hour later when they're done putting them on they give my mother the bill.  It's over $500.  I'll let go the fact that she could have gotten four tires installed and probably a brand name at WalMart for around $250.

Here's the small print on that Pep Boys deal which they neglected to fill my Mom in on before installation:

Offer requires purchase of tire installation package which includes, road hazard warranty, valve stems or TPMS reseal kit and balancing.

So say what you want about WalMart but you know what you're getting when you go there.  Their automotive department has never tried to rip me off.  In fact they've given me added value just about every time I've been.  The $85 price at WalMart meant $85.  The $85 at Pep Boys literally meant almost twice that in real terms.  Seriously, how is that not criminal?

Places like Pep Boys are just waiting to get you in the door so they can rob you blind.  Especially if you're a 69 year old lady who really doesn't expect to be ripped off at every turn and trusts people to be ethical.

And many automotive repair, tire, brake, oil change and tune up places are like this.  Not WalMart.  This blog won't be the only action we try to take against Pep Boys.  The Better Business Bureau and State of Alabama Consumer Complaint Division will be contacted as well for what that's worth.  But I would like everyone who reads this post to please forward and repost it.

Our society shouldn't be one of buyer beware.  Businesses should be held to ethical standards and those who don't uphold those standards should be punished accordingly.  I know that's called regulation and it's a bad word to some out there but it's the right thing to do.

The Myth of Affordable Care for the Poor

One of the biggest lies put forth by conservatives to argue against the
Affordable Care Act is that the number of new people coming into the system will overwhelm it.  One of my greatest arguments against the ACA is that it is more a boon for the insurance companies than for the average American it is intended to help.

The conservatives are wrong; I am right.  I can prove it.  I just picked a company off the top of my head, United Health Care, because I have had company provided healthcare with them before.  Coverage through them was no better or worse than that provided by other insurers I had through employer paid programs back when I used to be able to get that sort of job.  Claims were frequently denied out of hand.  I frequently couldn't afford the copays or deductibles.  My employers put in much more money than I took out in services.

I haven't followed United Health Care stock or any healthcare related stocks in quite some time.  But, without even looking I knew I would be able to prove my point by pulling up a chart of the UNH stock.  To whit:

UNH Stock - 2005 - Present courtesy Yahoo! Stocks

This chart shows UNH stock from 2005 to the present.  Like all stocks it plummeted in value during the market crash.  If you believed the conservative hype machine the only logical result of Obama's election and the enactment of the ACA would prohibit the stock from going up in value.  UNH like the rest of the healthcare companies would be preparing for devastating results from the rollout.  Well obviously the stock is doing quite well, thank you.  And why?

Well the market knows what is obvious to all but the most fierce opponents of the ACA; companies like UNH are about to be stacking some pretty hardcore cheddar.  Unless you just don't want to believe it, the reasoning is terribly obvious.

Most people who haven't lived paycheck to paycheck in this country don't understand what that means.  They hear that poor people will have access to healthcare in unprecedented numbers thanks to this new socialist healthcare program which of course means the insurers are about to be bled dry.

The reality of what is about to happen is actually quite the opposite.  The government will be subsidizing quite a large amount of the payments for these plans for which everybody is being forced to sign up.  And the expansion of medicare in the states allowing it puts even more money up for grabs.

People who have to work paycheck to paycheck have to make many decisions week to week as to how their money will be spent.  All too frequently that decision is made for them paying back payday loans but that is a topic for another day.  There's the rent, maybe a car note, utility and phone bills, groceries.  The paycheck is usually gone long before all needs have been met.  Unfortunately healthcare is typically a luxury these people still won't be able to afford.

Many will still not be able to afford even a small copay much less prescriptions, uncovered lab costs, deductibles.  When you have to make a rent payment you ask yourself if you can just hang on.  Is my medical problem really that serious?  Do I really hurt that bad?  Can I still eat with a broken tooth?  You know you need your phone so you can keep trying to get a job or be called in to work.  You can work with a broken tooth.  You can work with a cold.

So, money is being poured into the system for the insurers and the majority of the people the insurance is for still won't be able to take advantage of it.  They will still allow their conditions to get to the point where they will have to go to an ER.  Most of their claims will still be denied.  So the end result is that insurers will just be making more money.  Common sense understanding of this situation is reflected in the rapid gains in their stock prices.

Insurers understand this basic poverty math.  That's the reason for the existence of co-pays in the first place.  They are a simple deterrent to keep those living paycheck to paycheck from taking advantage of services.

The more cynical out there, and I would certainly count myself among these, can quickly see the ruse being perpetrated by Republicans in the House of Representatives in their crusade against Obamacare.  Republicans receive much more money in the form of campaign funding from insurers than do Democrats.  So why would this be the case if insurers are set to gain so much from Obamacare?  Why would they be paying those who are fighting against their own best interests?

Well that's easy to explain and immediately recognizable to those who have read the amazing book What's the Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Franks.  The Republicans and their backers know and have known that there aren't enough votes in the Senate to pass any rollback of Obamacare.  They also know that anything that could pass would be vetoed by the president.

So the Republicans in the House can cater to their bases back home with their fight with no danger to the lucrative payout awaiting their real financial backers.

In the meantime the poor, uninsured, underinsured, will still not be getting the care they need and the insurance companies will continue to see record stock prices.  That's why Obamacare is not the answer.  In reality it's nothing more than an entrenchment of the status quo to the benefit of the 1% who know how to game our system like no plutocracy has in the history of mankind.

Oprah Gets Medal for Wanting Old White People Dead

Old white man (left) applauds his executioner.

And now that I've got your attention.  On November 20 sixteen Americans were given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  According to Wikipedia (emphasis is mine):

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with the comparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors".[3] The award is not limited to U.S. citizens and, while it is a civilian award, it can also be awarded to military personnel and worn on the uniform.

Some of the notable awardees this year:  Bill Clinton, Sally Ride (posthumously), Loretta Lynn, former University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith, former Republican Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, and Oprah Winfrey.

The medal is given to people across a broad range of disciplines:  politicians, musicians, artists, writers, poets, athletes, businesspeople.  As noted above, the politics of the recipients don't always match the politics of the person handing them out.  But there are obviously incidents where politics are a factor.  In his last month as president, George W. Bush bestowed the honor on former Australian Prime Minister John Howard.  Howard was notable as being a conservative friend of Bush's and a supporter of the invasion of Iraq but little else.

If you personally don't like Oprah Winfrey because of her politics or her race or whatever your gripe is, that is one thing.  But it would be hard to make a case that she didn't qualify according to the "world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors" mentioned above.

I subscribe to the Daily Beast on Facebook.  They had an article about some funny tweets that had been put out regarding Oprah getting a medal all related to her famous on show giveaways.  What absolutely kills me is the comments given to the post on Facebook.  It was nearly 100% racist, hateful, disgusting trolling.  I was so embarrassed.  Embarrassed to be white.  Embarrassed to be a male.  Embarrassed to be from the South.

Oprah had already been in the news this week.  Represented to be blatantly racist by the U.S. right due to comments she made in an interview for BBC.  Discussing whether racism would ever disappear Oprah said that "There are still generations of older people who were born and breed and marinated in that prejudice and racism and they just have to die."

Of course what she meant was that racism might have to die off with this older generation.  That it's just too ingrained in older folks and they won't change their minds.  She wasn't saying that we need to have some sort of pogrom to take care of the old racists.  Of course maybe that's why the death panels were set up? (joking I assure you)

Right wing media picked up on this immediately as you can imagine.  I mean her words were easily spinnable for those wanting to spin them.  That's inevitable.

But I really do think she's just being naive.  I don't think any amount of time will eradicate racism.  Every generation has a fresh new flock.  You can see ample evidence in the rise of the tea party and the backlash against Obama before he had set foot in the White House.

A really sad incident happened to me in the past year.  I have pretty much deleted all the "friends" I had on Facebook who were posting tea party/anti-Obama stuff.  There were quite a few of them but I found the blatant racism and ignorance to be insufferable.

I had made friends with a sixteen year old kid in Sacramento, California through working on some online music projects.  Really talented kid and seemed nice.  He was very privileged, wealthy family, elite private school, all that.  One day he posted a meme along the lines of "What does an Obama supporter say?  Would you like fries with that."  It really broke my heart.  Here was a kid who will never have to work at a McDonald's.  Hell, in reality he won't have to work until he feels like it.  He is totally insulated from that sort of career path.  And to so totally lack the empathy of which I thought him capable.  I unfriended him and boy did it hurt.

But the point is that here is a young boy being raised with those same feelings that Oprah thinks may dissipate over time.  Not some Southern redneck with ties to a KKK past.  But, in all likelihood, a future business leader.  A decision maker.  A hirer and firer.  Not in Mississippi or Alabama but in California.

Current political discourse is all about the memes and the trolls.  This is the milieu of kids like my former sixteen year old friend.  It's what used to be called bumper sticker mentality.  Maybe a newer term should be coined?  Memetality?  At any rate, racism doesn't seem to be abating.  Rather it's becoming gentrified.  Egalitarian.  With a black president it's okay for any conservative from farm to suburb, from midtown to uptown, high end to low end to be just a little racist.

No, Oprah, I'm afraid it's here to stay.  But Oprah getting a medal on top of calling for the death of the white race in one week was just a little too much for the nutwingers.  

In Defense of WalMart - Well, to a Degree

I have many friends who won't shop at a WalMart.  Their reasons are two-fold.  On the one hand my more liberal friends who can afford a conscience in matters such as these would contend that WalMart is a bloated corporate entity that hurts mom and pop businesses, pays sub-living wages, and tries to bust unions.  My wealthier and more conservative friends just don't like shopping with the riff raff.  WalMart to them is a place where the poor people shop and it's below their station.

I get both sides.  I don't like the union busting and, as broke as I am, I feel even poorer when shopping at WalMart.

But let me just touch on some issues.  For me, being broke most of the time, WalMart is a savior.  I could go to one of the other grocery stores in my area:  Winn Dixie, Publix, Piggly Wiggly.  I could save money if I were to buy something at one of these stores when there was a good sale going on.  But groceries at WalMart are almost always cheaper.  How they get there is of little consequence when it's saving me money.  And over the past several years the Great Value branded food items have gotten really good.  They are almost always equal to whatever brand name they are trying to duplicate.

In short, I would guess that over the course of a year I literally save hundreds of dollars by shopping for my groceries there.  Ditto on other items like my awesome 100% cotton Misfits t-shirt.

I was just denied a job at WalMart due to a very old felony conviction.   That hurt.  I would be a stellar employee for the company and would stand out enough to be in a management position in no time.  The argument that WalMart doesn't pay a living wage and kills mom and pop shops needs to be addressed though.  I don't know how many mom and pop shops have been driven out of business by WalMart.  But I have given thought to it and I am trying to imagine what those stores would have looked like.

WalMart sells just about everything from hunting and fishing supplies, clothes, batteries which I just realized I forgot to buy at WalMart earlier, there's a pharmacy, vision center, cell phone store, electronics, well you know what all they have.  Perhaps some mom and pop pharmacies may have gone out of business but I wouldn't blame that on WalMart.  I could stand in the WalMart parking lot and spit on a CVS, Rite-Aid, and Wallgreens.

Everything that was in Foley, Alabama prior to the opening of the WalMart super center is still there.  The old Rexall's drug store with soda fountain still intact, still there.  There are new businesses.  Across the street from the WalMart automotive center there is now an O'Reilly's, a Pep Boys, and two quicky lube places within one block.  There's a huge Ace Hardware and down the street a Lowe's and a Home Depot.

In fact the only things that disappeared are the Movie Gallery and the Blockbuster and there are Red Boxes everywhere you look.  Both of those movie rental businesses employed maybe twenty people.  There's probably one guy who maintains all the Red Boxes.

To all appearances the WalMart super center has caused businesses to spring up around it.  Businesses that hire people and provide services.  But the big question is regarding all of the people employed at that WalMart.  I don't have a number but I would guess it's in the 300+ range?  If that store wasn't there where would these people be working?  Foley is an economically depressed area.  I honestly can't think of an answer to that question.  If the WalMart wasn't there I would guess that at least 75% of those employees wouldn't have jobs.

Let's face it, if you've been to a WalMart you know what kind of employees we're talking about.  You can try but it's hard to imagine some of these people being able to work anywhere else.  I'm not trying to make a joke.  I mean a good percentage of these people really aren't qualified to do anything.

Before the felony thing caught up with me the job I was being offered would pay $8.80 an hour.  That's $1.55 over the minimum wage.  The last mom and pop restaurant job I had paid $9.00 an hour with no option for any benefits whatsoever.  After working for a period at WalMart you are eligible for health care benefits.  Advancement at mom and pop stores is usually limited because management is mom or pop or family.  The guy who interviewed me at WalMart had been there for three years.  He got his start unloading trucks.  Now he is the manager of the lawn and garden center and makes $40,000 a year.

That kind of salary in Foley is unheard of.  The possibility of advancing to that kind of salary in a mom and pop business is maybe impossible.  Mom and pop may not even be pulling in $40,000 a year running their own business.

Another argument against WalMart is the made in USA vs. made in China thing.  Yes, WalMart is full of made in China items.  They do make an effort to carry items made in this country but obviously, if you want to help people save money it's hard.  If you want a profit margin it's hard.

It is lost in the argument that mom and pop retailers these days also carry mostly made in China items.  It's the nature of globalization.  But there are still many businesses that carry higher end, made in USA items and do well.  For example, in Foley where hunting and fishing are a big deal, there are several stores that carry more expensive gear that WalMart doesn't carry.  There are expensive clothing stores and sunglasses and jewelry stores.  Most are franchises but they are frequently owned by mom and pop types.  The businesses that don't seem to make it are the ubiquitous ladies' consignment shops that every housewife with money seems determined to open.

A lot has been made this week since a story has emerged about a WalMart in Canton, Ohio that had some bins in the back of the store where employees could make donations of canned goods to other employees who could use the help.  I just honestly say so what?  Maybe the employees need help because they had a spouse who got laid off?  Maybe there was a storm that affected a lot of employees?  Whatever the case, those employees in need, where would they have been working if not for WalMart?  Well odds are at another job paying the same wages and offering the same hours.  We're not talking about skilled workers here.

So I guess my point is that the arguments against WalMart kind of turn to dust when held up to the light.  If I had the money I would most likely do my grocery shopping at Publix.  It's so clean and organized.  The carts literally feel like they're levitating as you push them down the gleaming aisles.  The courteous check out people offer to carry your groceries out to your car for you.  It's literally like grocery heaven.

Maybe someday.  But for now I'm too poor to be politically conscious enough to pay more for groceries.  There's a larger argument to be made here regarding raising the minimum wage but this isn't the space for that.  In my world it seems like WalMart is only a positive.

Marsha Blackburn - Soring, Campaign Funds, and Evil in the Service of Capitalism

For those who follow the news regularly, cable news that is, Marsha Blackburn, the Republican congresswoman from Tennessee's 7th district is an immediately recognizable face.  She's a regular on Fox News and is frequently shown on MSNBC making the case for some far right cause or legislation.

Recently she's in the news for being against proposed legislation to strengthen laws meant to stop abuse of horses.  The issue that is coming to the forefront of the debate is the practice of soring in the trade.  Soring is the practice of using acid and other chemicals to soften the hooves of horses then binding the hooves in chains so that the mere act of walking is extremely painful for the animal.  So painful that the horse lifts his legs up as high as possible to avoid the pain.  

The practice has been illegal since 1970.  But recent reports have demonstrated that it is still alive and well and too frequently employed in the training of horses to be walkers.  So bills are being introduced to strengthen regulations and try to curb the practice further.

There is, of course, widespread backing for the bills and it's a pretty sure thing they will be passed.  Marsha Blackburn is not one of the backers.  Rather she is backed by the Tennessee Walking Horse lobby.  She and they argue that the industry is already heavily regulated, the practice is no longer common, most breeders are in compliance, and any further regulation would place undue burden on the breeders.

Rep. Blackburn does contend that she is against the practice of soring.  That's not the point.  In fact this particular blog isn't even about the practice of soring although I do want to bring attention to it and have included a link to one of dozens of petitions to strengthen regulations to fight it.

Rather it is my intent to point out the timeless arguments by politicians like Marsha Blackburn against any form of regulation and enforcement of regulation by inspection.

Let's be clear, the reason businesses and their lobbying groups fight regulation does have to do with expenses to the business.  It's generally cheaper to not have to worry about having a safe workplace.  It's generally more lucrative to do things that are illegal.  It's generally a pain in the ass when you get caught.

So if you're saying it's an undue burden to have to prove that your business is operating according to the law it's hard to be sympathetic.  I think many people who think regulation is a bad thing don't really understand how regulation came to be in the first place.  Most people have not read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.  Most would be surprised to learn little facts like it used to be okay for sausage to be made with a certain percentage of sawdust as filler or that whole rats might be in your hot dogs.

Regulation came into being in this country as a reaction to businesses doing whatever the hell they wanted to do in the name of making a profit.  Workers were treated as poorly as you wanted to treat them because if they needed money they just needed to grow a pair and deal with it.

Somewhere along the way, long into the era of regulation, a belief came to be that businesses were these benign things.  That businesses were nothing but a boon to their communities.  They were models of capitalistic altruism.  Of course they did the right thing because otherwise they would be weeded out of the marketplace.  Very Randian views.  They came to a head during the Reagan years when deregulation became the rule of the day.

It continued through the first Bush and Clinton years.  Hospitals began to be bought out by companies like HCA who would guide them with a capitalist hand.  You know, private sector people who would keep prices down through competition and effective administration.  Drug companies were allowed to begin advertising their products.  Turn out that the target demo for those ads is predominantly men's penises.  Banking and insurance companies were deregulated so they could start being everything they wanted to be.  We know how that is working out.  We're doing so much better because of the competition.

What Marsha Blackburn is doing really doesn't have anything to do with animal cruelty.  It's just a steady beating of the deregulation drum.  The problem is that there are a large number of people out there who are poor or from what's left of the middle class to whom the argument makes perfect sense.  You know?  If a business isn't so regulated it will hire more workers and that sort of thing.  Regulation is a form of socialism and inherently bad.  A bigger government with expanded regulatory authority is a weight around the neck of the virtuous businessman just trying to get by.

I have worked for a variety of businesses and every single one of them has been doing something illegal.  That's no exaggeration.  Well except for the music instruction business of which I was part.  The illegalities were matters of degree but honestly there was always something sketchy going on.  All of these businesses were gambling that they wouldn't be caught and the gamble usually pays off.  The U.S. government isn't big enough to enforce or even inspect every business in this country.  We could never afford to have the number of inspectors required at any rate.  

To be fair a lot of the shady stuff really doesn't affect anybody in a negative way.  But just for example.  I was working in a seafood restaurant in Orange Beach, Alabama.  We had a chef there for a while who had no scruples at all.  He put an item on the menu that was a grouper roulade stuffed with crab meat.  Yummy right?  But the owner of the restaurant wouldn't buy grouper because it was too expensive.  Like most seafood restaurants the fish we normally used was swai.  Swai is a type of catfish raised in farms in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.  People who come to eat at a restaurant on the beach of the Gulf of Mexico should legitimately assume they are getting fresh caught Gulf fish.  My boss was perfectly fine using the swai and calling it grouper.

Big deal right?  I mean yes you're ripping your customers off but everybody does it.  Well one problem is grouper is okay if you're on a kosher or hilal diet; swai is definitely not.  I guess that's cool if you don't care about a person's religion?  A person with a palate for seafood would know the difference but most people just assume they are not being lied to.

They would be wrong in many cases.  There's nobody going around and checking what's be cooked and sold on a regular basis.  A shocking report not too long ago by a team with DNA testing equipment found that something like 75% of fish sold in seafood markets wasn't what it was being advertised as.  This wasn't a government study.  The government can't afford to run these kind of spot checks.  

The point here is that the majority of businesses will try to get away with what they think they can get away with.  They will do whatever it takes to make more money.  Capitalism is not a beautiful and honest system.  It's a way to make money and do it any way you can until you get caught.

People like Marsha Blackburn are the front line defense against people wanting to try to make businesses do the right thing.  There is no such thing as a frivolous lawsuit.  All lawsuits are by definition inherently frivolous.  Lawsuits are an undue burden on businesses.  Of course they are normally the only way a consumer can try to make a business be held accountable for bad actions.  

So frivolous lawsuits, undue burdens, the terms are the weaponry used to defend bad actors in the business community who pay good money to the politicians who serve them.  In my eyes this makes Marsha Blackburn just pure evil.  She is a syndicate enforcer.  A mouthpiece.  

It's all covered for her by her interpretation of the Bible.  The capitalist Bible, the one used in the Prosperity Christian churches across this country, is redacted to the point where you and I may not recognize it.  All the stuff Jesus said about the poor being blessed and how corruptive wealth is is gone.  Any place where there is mention of being blessed by God is interpreted as being material and financial reward here on earth.  It's a disgusting lie.  But it's used to keep the poor and middle class teabaggers and conservatives in line.  They are shown the carrot and stick to keep their support.

Sidebar here.  When I say carrot and stick I am using the old analogy.  It used to be that carrot and stick referred to a meme where a man would be sitting in a horse drawn buggy powered by a stubborn horse or mule.  He would have a long stick with a string on the end.  Hanging from the string was a carrot.  He would hold the carrot just out of reach of the animal's mouth and the it would walk after it not realizing it was an unobtainable or unrealistic goal.  Sometime during World War II Winston Churchill said when someone suggested a stick and carrot plan with the Italians Churchill said if they wouldn't eat the carrot they should beat them with a stick.  The saying has been used in this way since but isn't as good as the original meaning.

In the case of the people being mislead by the business community and its political and religious propagandists the are being shown an unobtainable or unrealistic goal.  Just keep supporting us and you will have your reward.  But they keep just getting screwed.  They suffer from a severe form of Stockholm Syndrome.  It's like sheep voting for wolves.  

I'm certainly not saying that this doesn't happen on the Democrats' side of the aisle.  But, my god, you wouldn't see a Dem fighting to preserve something as barbaric as soring.  

Maybe it's getting so flagrant that these people will wake up and see that regulation isn't a threat.  But religion truly is the opiate of the masses and odds are the status quo will just get worse.  After all, my Socialist, Marxist, Kenyan president has almost killed the stock market.  If he's going to kill it by loving it to death and that death comes as the brokers explode from joy as it hit 16,000 for the first time in history today.

Here's video on the subject of soring.  Be warned it shows some animal cruelty and is pretty disturbing.

And the link to sign an anti-soring petition.

http://www.petitiononline.com/u2r4hpa/petition.html

One Little Blue Dot's Take on Obamacare - Spoiler Alert: It's Not a Good One

This is a huge topic, the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.  As a titular socialist I have long called for a single payer system similar to what they have in Canada.  I have been known to call the American healthcare system the best that money can buy but I don't even know if that's true any more.  So much to address here.

Like most Democrats I was expecting big things when Obama came to office.  I think most of us were expecting a real attempt to do something to change the way healthcare is distributed in this country.  Well, that among many other things. 

Despite the rantings of the Right we literally got nothing.  The level of disappointment with this president is so strong that I don't even feel I can support a Dem in the future (except Elizabeth Warren).  Not that I would consider voting for anybody on the Right but I am just numb right now.  And I know I am not alone. 

Since Obama has been in office we've gotten nothing but rhetoric on reigning in the financial service and banking industries.  Guantanamo is still open.  Well you get the picture.  Nothing has been done to control the gun violence in this country, people are still being ripped off at a record rate by any number of businesses out there.  I have no idea what has been happening over the past five years.

The amazing healthcare compromise has been just that.  A plan that was created by the Heritage Foundation, one of the most conservative DC think tanks, and implemented in Massachusetts by a Republican governor was the answer to our prayers for healthcare reform.  From a president the Right describes as one of the most radical leftist politicians in the history of the presidency if not US history in general.  See stories on record stock market levels in answer to this.

Everything is still in place.  Same hospital administrators, same insurance companies.  All that has changed is young people can stay on their parents' plans longer and people can't be turned down or cancelled for pre-existing conditions.  I know there are other things in the act that make policies better but here's the rub:

I really don't know what's in there.  I watch the news every day.  Literally.  If not MSNBC then Al Jazeera America.  You would think I would have some clue.  I read USA Today and the Huffington Post daily as well.  Nothing.  I am totally in the dark.

I went to healthcare.gov within the first few days of it being up and had been trying to read up on how I should go about getting coverage through the Kaiser Family Foundation website.  The healthcare.gov website I won't dwell on.  The problems there have been well covered.  But it really seems like some amateurs put that thing together.  I mean things where if I had gone to one of the offices where they were putting the thing together I would have said in the first thirty minutes oh hey, that needs to be fixed.

An example, just entering my freaking name.  Yea that early into the experience.  My name is the same as my great grandfather so I am a second, you know, II.  There was no option for that on the drop down menu.  There was Jr., Sr., III, IV.  That means that whoever was doing that basic coding thinks that Jr. and II are the same thing.  This is a common misconception but it is a misconception.  A junior is named after the father.  A second is named after another ancestor.  Pretty basic.  I mean how could that glaring of an error slip through the cracks?  And that's probably a thirty second fix. 

After selecting junior just to get through that part of the process I got hung up on identity verification like most people did in the early going.

Okay, well I'm in Alabama and from what I understand, when I am working I won't be making enough money to be eligible for Obamacare.  The subsidies would be too costly.  So I am one of many who should be using Medicare instead.  Well Alabama is one of the several red states who chose not to set up public exchanges or expand Medicare for people like me.  So ....

I'm not eligible for anything.  Well technically I am now because I'm unemployed but when I do find work I will be back to being in that red state hole.  So what do I do?  Will I have to pay a penalty for not having a plan?  No clue.  Three years in and I can't find an answer to that.  Nobody is covering that on the news.  How many people are there out there in my situation?  I would guess millions.  But it's not being addressed. 

I am on the Obama mailing list.  I received a questionnaire from them a couple weeks back that I agreed to answer.  It was all about public response to Obamacare.  Did I know anybody signing up, that sort of thing.  The answer was no.  Nobody I know is talking about anything but how screwed up it is.  Maybe it's just because I am in the middle of a patch of ignorance but literally nobody I have known is talking about signing up at all.

To add insult to injury, asking me to leave comments at the end of the questionnaire which I know won't be read by anybody, I was directed to a page asking me to give money to help spread the word.  Seriously.  You can waste time on questionnaires that are utterly meaningless when I still don't know what the hell is going on?  And then ask me, an unemployed and disgruntled to say the least Dem for money?  You really need a huge pair to go there.

Three years into this program and there has been almost no attempt to educate people on a large scale.  I would be willing to bet that the majority of people who will end up on some kind of plan have no idea what to do right now at all.  It's understandable that sign ups to this point have been so low; nobody knows what they're supposed to do.  If a news consumer like me doesn't know then I can only imagine the general ignorance of the topic in the mainstream. 

I do sincerely hope that things work out and in the future all of this turns out to be a boon to the average American.  But as of now this is just a debacle of epic proportions.  The administration needs to come up with a real and workable strategy of public outreach.  I think, at this point, every mailbox in this country should have received a mailer explaining at least what the first steps should be for every American with a number for a hotline to answer questions.   Perhaps something on the scale of the census going door to door to explain things. 

Instead I fear that there will be a huge number of Americans who have to find out what to do after they receive notice of their first financial penalty. 

At the very least the administration should be sending out a team of people to hit the major networks and try to explain everything instead of letting the usual pundits on the right and left spin things on their own.  Right now I'm watching Chris Matthews ask liberal pundits their reaction to Republicans calling this Obama's Katrina.  The answer to that is it doesn't matter; he's not going to be running again.  Talk about people like me who need to know if it will feel like Katrina to me.

The Truth About Santa - Weighing in on the Sasha Fleischman Story

A couple of weeks ago, in East Oakland, California, an 18 year old was asleep on a bus.  A 16 year old set fire to the skirt the other was wearing ultimately causing severe burns that will necessitate skin grafts and painful rehab.  The 18 year old was Luke Fleischman, a senior in high school.

Luke prefers to be called Sasha.  He refers to himself as "agender" or "nonbinary gender".  Whether the actions of the 16 year old were a hate crime or merely a prank it's obviously an act that should be prosecuted and the perpetrator punished. 

Here's an article from the Mercury News on the attack:  http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_24457005/oakland-man-stable-condition-after-set-fire-aboard

That's not the point of this blog.  Yesterday I read an open letter from the victim's father on the Huffington Post which you can read here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-fleischman/a-letter-to-my-community-after-my-child-was-lit-on-fire_b_4269089.html

The letter explains Sasha and his beautiful spirit and the father goes on to express that he hopes what happened to his son was an accident.  He doesn't want to believe that somebody would willingly hurt his son.  The father is a grade school teacher and discusses the difficulties he's faced trying to explain these events to his students, ultimately choosing to discuss fire safety.

I would love to just let this story go and wish Sasha best wishes and a speedy recovery.  What I want to address though is how this all happened and the problem with the father's reaction and, indeed, the way Sasha has been raised.

It's pretty common to find people who are either willfully naïve or simply unaware that the world can be a nasty place.  It's full of intolerant people and bullies.  Though it would be nice to believe otherwise this will probably always be the case.  I would go so far as to say it is delusional to believe that, at some point in human history, there will be a mass epiphany and tolerance will shower down from the heavens. 

I want to stress fully once more that I in no way condone the actions of the kid who set Sasha on fire.  I condemn it vehemently and if I had been there I would have tried to stop it.  I need to say this again because what I'm saying here is heresy in the liberal community of which I am a solid part.  But I am also a realist.

Luke/Sasha was raised to believe that he could be whatever he wanted to be in life.  He was raised knowing firmly that he had an absolute right to pursue whatever lifestyle he chose and his parents were behind him 100%.  That is a beautiful sentiment and an admirable one.

But, it's like having a child who believes in Santa.  One day you know your child is going to find out the truth.  Maybe you will be the one to have to break it to them.  It's a moment that carries a ton of weight because it's separating your child from an innocence that is pure and beautiful.  But, in fact, it is a lie.  Not a bad lie.  It would be amazing to have the story be real.  Just as it would be amazing to think that people would be universally tolerant of everybody else's lifestyle choices.

Let me add here that, hopefully obviously, I'm not saying that Luke/Sasha was asking for what happened to him or deserved it.  And I know my liberal brethren and know my message will still be misread god bless them.

The thought I want to get out there is that the world isn't a bubble like you find on HuffPo message boards, or gender studies classes at your local university, or in the books you read regarding cismale/cisfemale issues or LGBT support groups.  Though attitudes are certainly changing, they haven't changed to the point where you should feel comfortable being yourself when you go out into the stew of humanity.

There is no way this boy should have been comfortable travelling alone or falling asleep on public transportation.  His parents should have instilled in him the knowledge that, although it should be okay for him to pursue whatever path he chooses, there are many people out there who are uncomfortable with it and may react in a hateful manner.

No number of hate laws or awareness raising events or writings will make this world a fully illuminated place.  There will always be potential for backlash.  Always. 

When I was young and growing up in Mobile, Alabama, not the Bay Area of California mind you, I was playing in bands and we would have rehearsals in run down buildings downtown.  This was the early '80s in the Deep South.  Downtown Mobile is a vibrant entertainment district these days.  Back then it was abandoned buildings and a few gay bars.  My friends and I, all straight to the best of my knowledge, would go to these clubs after rehearsals to dance and hang out.  We were accepted and we were tolerant and gay friendly.

It was pretty common for a carload or truckload of rednecks to come to downtown Mobile on any given night back then to throw bricks, scream "faggot", the usual stuff you would expect.  The denizens of these clubs would frequently make the unwelcome visitors pay the price with smashed windshields, bloodied faces, etc.  I found it quite amusing to see the tables turned.  But the people who came to these clubs to dance and get away from the hetero world new that outside the club was the real world.  They knew what they could get away with.  It was a matter of turf. 

I'm sure it's easy living in California and being raised by liberal parents to believe that the whole world will accept you as the beautiful child you are.  They will see the pure spirit inside and celebrate it with you.  But it's a disservice to the children to let them believe that Santa is still out there somewhere.

On a side note but related, a couple of weeks ago there was an awesome segment on the Daily Show where a reporter and two men pretending to be gay were sent to Mississippi and Alabama to gauge reaction to their open gayness.  They were shocked to discover that nobody seemed to mind and even received open applause when one proposed to the other in a Waffle House.  See?  There are more people like me in Alabama.  Little blue dots with open minds and hearts.  But for god's sake don't think this is the norm.  In Alabama or California.

Here's that Daily Show segment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/the-daily-show-alabama-mississippi-gay-video_n_4177839.html

How We Support Our Troops - Except the "Big" Ones

Post 9/11 I was pounding the war drum with the vast majority of Americans. As liberal as I am I had a Gadsden flat, albeit the naval version which is thirteen red and white stripes behind the snake and the Don't Tread on Me text, on my desk at work well ahead of the Tea Party's co-opting of the image. The invasion of Afghanistan was something for which I had been calling since the latter years of the Clinton administration. The ousting of the Taliban was way high on my list. Then the whole mission changed. Iraq became the target and the Bush administration created all sorts of reasons for why that mission should have full backing of the American populace. The invasion of Iraq was obviously wrong for so many reasons. As Democrats and even some Republicans in D.C. questioned the new war front, backers of the Bush administration cynically began to get the PR machine rolling and pumping out the "Support Our Troops" yellow ribbon stickers. The ubiquitous symbol wasn't about the troops at all. The message conveyed through these and the American flag lapel pin was that if you're against Bush and his policies you're against America; you're against the troops. You're against the soon to be over 4,000 Americans who paid with their lives to exact revenge on the man who shamed George H.W. Bush. The 40,000 plus who would come home injured. Those who would speak out against the Bush policies were shamed into silence. That was a very dark period for public discourse. Of course that changed once Obama was elected and it was once again okay to pillory the president for whatever reason you wanted. The reason I've jumped back on the soapbox today is directly related to the attitude fostered by the Bush PR machine. The conservatives who pushed that vision of America are mostly associated with the Tea Party these days. And in the deep red Alabama in which I live they are alive and well despite the rising backlash against their sort of conservatism. Though the most hardcore of the Tea Party types are of the middle class to poor variety who are more interested in social issues like abortion and LGBT issues, the money to fund the movement comes from business owners and an entrenched landed gentry who have made fortunes off of real estate. These are the people who control the local economy. I don't have figures but I would guess that of the small business community in Baldwin County where I reside, roughly 75-90% would identify with the Tea Party movement. At least that's what I get from what I hear from people like that personally. Say something about Obama and it's pretty likely you will get the usual socialist, Marxist, Kenyan talking points out of them. But these are the folks who "Support Our Troops". And that's what I'm getting to. I have neighbors who are both veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. They have a toddler aged daughter and are fighting to get by. The mother is pretty, personable, bright. She also survived an IED attack in which her Humvee was flipped three times. She and I are both currently unemployed. We try to keep each other posted on who's hiring and that sort of thing. She recently told me a story that filled me with so much anger I really had to work to control myself. She has experience, as do I, waiting tables at the many touristy restaurants in the area. The Redneck Riviera as it's called; where thousands of red state tourists flock for their version of family beach fun. Conservative "Christians" who don't mind talking to you about their thoughts on that "nigger" Obama. So my neighbor went to a local restaurant, Tacky Jacks, to apply for a server job. Tacky Jacks is owned by an old family with considerable real estate holdings in the area. Conservatives across the board. Tacky Jacks has several locations and is a thriving business. My neighbor is overweight. Not morbidly obese, just big. If you had her as a waitress, even if you were a shallow douchebag, you would overlook it immediately as soon as you saw her outgoing personality and sense of humor. She was told at Tacky Jacks that they wouldn't hire her because she's too big. Yea, too big. A woman, a mother, who risked her life and nearly paid the ultimate price in service to her country is too big to wait tables at a crappy restaurant in Gulf Shores, Alabama. A restaurant run by "Support Our Troops" types. To add insult to injury here, I have eaten at Tacky Jacks a couple of times. Both times I had very pretty waitresses who were from Romania and Ukraine. These Eastern Europeans are all over the area working in the hotel and food service industry. Moldovans, Russians, Bulgarians, etc. They are brought in because these industries claim to not be able to find locals to fill the positions. "Support Our Troops". Baldwin County is a poor county. Except for the wealthier folks who live near the beach the vast majority of the rest of us are paycheck to paycheck. The wealthy fight to keep their taxes low and buy politicians who will guarantee that. The result of that is little to no public transportation. The poor frequently don't have reliable vehicles so they can't get to open jobs at the beach. Instead of working on a solution to link these people with open jobs the hotels and restaurants bring in foreign labor and put them up in condos and apartments they own or rent for that purpose. Of course the workers brought in aren't too big. They only bring in attractive and young men and women who frequently overstay their visas and job hop while they are here. I just want to call out these "Pro American" Tea Party folks for what they are. They don't give a crap about our troops. They don't care about anything but an America that lets them keep their chunk of the pie at whatever cost. They call themselves Christian. Yet the Jesus I know about and have read about, his words not mine, would have nothing to do with them. This is Jesus: store not up treasures on earth, turn the other cheek, render unto Caesar, if a man should take your cloak, easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle, blessed are the poor, etc. Their Jesus is one that says if you pray you will be wealthy. Blessed with material things. Don't pay taxes. Keep the blacks out of power. God loves America. Kill your enemies. And don't hire the mother, the vet, who almost lost her life serving her America because she is "too big".