BartBlog

March 22, 2012

Corporate Goliaths: Have they now become unstoppable?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — Jane Stillwater @ 1:02 pm

When David went up against Goliath back in the Bible, Goliath was really truly HUGE. But just how did this guy manage to get that big in the first place? I’m assuming that he started out by eating up everything in sight. At first his mommy probably fed him. But as he grew larger, he started grabbing his weaker neighbors’ food for himself. And as he continued to get more massive, he started getting more greedy — and he soon wanted it ALL. All of it. All of it for him. Nothing for anyone else.

And that’s when David stepped in.

American and international corporate giants have become very much like the old biblical Goliath. So here we are today, getting sucked up by their endless appetites, like we were Skittles or potato chips or something — but there are no modern-day Davids in sight.

In both America and worldwide, these corporate Goliaths have kept growing and growing. How? By lowering our wages so that they can make more profit at our expense, seizing ownership of our media so they can get us to believe that what they’re doing is right, and taking over our government so that it can happily feed these monsters our lifeblood.

These snowballing Goliaths have taken over our armies, our treasury, our healthcare, our food, our regulatory systems, our ability to be industrially self-sufficient, our churches and synagogues, even our children’s future, and are pushing all of it into their endlessly massive gaping maws. Yuck. And the more money and resources that the corporatists take, the weaker the rest of us become.

Have these Goliaths finally grown large enough to become completely unstoppable? Surely, even against such great odds, there must be SOME way to stop this vast, terrifying and still-growing avalanche of Goliaths? But how? Perhaps by finding another source of power, something beyond what they consider important? Perhaps their unwieldy Goliath model has become outmoded? Perhaps they too can be slain by an opposing avalanche of nimble Davids?

It worked back in Biblical days. Why not now?

Since the advent of the internet, what it means to be a society has changed. What it means to be an individual has changed. What it means to be a country has changed. We are no longer powerless and alone. And we too can become Davids. We can do this. We are doing this already.

PS: Just look at what happened to one of the first Goliaths to fall: Rush Limbaugh.
antm

July 26, 2011

The Greatest Generation speaks up: “Hands off our Social Security!”

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Jane Stillwater @ 12:13 pm

Why does the White House and Congress seem so hell-bent on killing off what is left of America’s “Greatest Generation” — by making cuts to the Social Security payments that we depend upon to stay alive?

I consider myself to be a junior member of the Greatest Generation and I am truly pissed off that “Death Panel” legislators in Washington who are probably too young to have even served in Vietnam — let alone in World War II — can be monstrous enough to even consider shutting down Social Security’s lifeline to all the veterans who fought in that great war to keep the world safe from corporate control of government (as Mussolini once described National Socialism), and also drastically cut payments to women and children who bravely manned up the Home Front while our soldiers were away fighting Nazis.

Mine is also the last generation to have been raised without television.

And now folks on TV are telling us that, for the sake of balancing the federal budget, we must now give up the Social Security that we all worked so hard for, stop making a fuss, forget our proud legacy of service, die quietly and go peacefully into that great good night. Screw that.

My father fought the Nazis. My mother manned the Home Front. I helped plant our freaking victory garden, had my own personal ration book and collected scrap metal in my little red wagon all throughout World War II. We all put our shoulders to the wheel during World War II and then we worked our arses off for our Social Security benefits after that.

And now some generation raised on the Flintstones is now telling us that THEY are going to cut our Social Security? Screw that.

And now I’m spending at least two hours a day watching TV — and another eight hours a day on the internet. That’s ten or more hours a day that I used to spend HAVING A LIFE. And I bet most of you spend even more time watching TV than that. In fact, do any of you ever even turn the damn thing off?

And what has all this boob-tube-watching gotten us? Nothing. We’re losing our homes, we’re losing our jobs, we’re watching our grandchildren get forced into poverty by a system that wants us to become dumb and uneducated and in debt. Now young Americans are supposed to suffer under the burden of school-loan debt for the rest of their lives just for wanting to go to college and better themselves? When a college education doesn’t even matter any more anyway? Screw that too.

Just keep your dirty little corporatist hands off my Social Security, Washington DC.

I don’t know where all of you modern DC corporatists were during World War II. You probably weren’t even born yet. But if you cut Social Security, then you may find yourself right in the middle of the next war against National Socialism (aka corporatism) — even if the heroic survivors of World War II have to go out and start it ourselves.

PS: Spend too much time in front of your computer? Here’s a simple way to keep back pain from piling up — just snag a buddy to help cover your back (literally). And you can also cover theirs in return: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgNbvJ0AN0M

In this video, I used only one hand to demonstrate this technique because I had to use the other one to hold the freaking camera — but do try this using both hands, one on each side of your spine.

PPS: And what’s the matter with Berkeley too? It’s not just our national priorities that seem to have lost their way these days. Local priorities are also at risk. For instance, the Berkeley city council just cut all kinds of programs for lower-income folks recently — but will keep paying out large entitlements that benefit those who already have benefits coming out of their ears.

Berkeley used to be the home town of choice for all kinds of artists, writers and visionaries. Not any more. People like Jack Kerouac, Philip K. Dick, Mario Savio, Tre Cool, George Takei, Whoopi Goldberg, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Prior, Gregory Peck, Jimmi Hendrix and the 21 Nobel Peace Prize winners who lived here and made their creative contributions to America back in the day, probably couldn’t even afford to live here any more. Heck, even Patti Heart probably couldn’t afford to live here any more!

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February 14, 2011

The Tattlesnake – New Definitions from the Askewed Dictionary Edition

Glimpses Behind the Curtain of Our Blutocracy

“Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!”
Sen. John “Bluto” Blutarsky, from the film “Animal House” (1978).

BACHMANNALIA: 1. The sound wild-eyed gibberish makes in a rubber room. 2. An election-year holiday celebrating the unity of corporate money and gullible voters with sensibilities as squishy as wet teabags. 3. A sexless outdoor orgy in Minnesota in mid-winter, the quintessential Republican idea of how the public should be treated.

BACHMANNLINESS: 1. Putting on your ‘man pants’ backwards, while staring at the wrong camera. 2. Having the balls to misquote the Constitution on national television.

BLUTOCRACY: 1. A plutocracy as operated by Sen. John Blutarsky, the fictional ‘Bluto’ character from the film “Animal House,” and those who are likeminded. 2. The USA today, and not the newspaper. 3. Wall Street week.

BOEHNALITY: 1. Crocodile tears shed by one who is only half-crocked. 2. Pretending you’re in control of something you plainly are not, such as a bus when the steering wheel has come off in your hand. 3. The illusion that you stand for anything beyond your own personal gain and your next putt.

CALIPHATE: 1. In a ten-gallon hat, combine eleven-gallons horse manure with equal parts leftover Cold War fear and carbonated Holy Water; add a hefty scoop of Islamophobia, smother with nuts, and top with a lemon slice carved into the shape of a swastika and a cherry carved into the shape of a star. Strain through Fox News and serve at the temperature at which blood boils.

CONAGRA: 1. What polite Southern Republicans call the only conservative black guy in the county after he’s left the room.

CRAPITALISM: 1. An unregulated form of capitalism practiced by well-dressed carnival pitchmen that turns everything it touches to pure shit, commonly ruining the lives of a few million civilians in the process. 2. The hypotheses adhered to by many of the financial elite that the light at the end of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public’s tunnel must always be a privately-owned oncoming train in order for them to prosper. 3. The theory that enough taxpayer money, filtered through a nation’s banks and large corporations, can persuade the political class and the media to do anything, and that much of that money must then be used to prolong the ignorance of the taxpayers from realizing they are financing the scheme.

FOX FIRE: 1. An event that never occurs at Fox News, no matter how inaccurate or disturbed the opinion expressed, unless the speaker happens to slip and tell the truth.

THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS: 1. The assortment of adjectives, verbs and adverbs Jonah Goldberg uses to, without irony, accuse liberals of fascism and blame them for all of the misery visited on the public in the past 30 years by those who think like Jonah Goldberg.

KOCHAINE: 1. Money secretly doled out by the wealthy to influence public opinion in their favor, opinions which are usually contrary to the public interest or even common sense. 2. The primary addiction of Washington lobbyists and prominent politicians of both parties, causing them to lie, cheat and commit desperate degenerate acts to continue their dependence, that is strangely not included on the DEA’s list of dangerous drugs deserving long prison terms, but certainly should be.

LUNTZTITUTION: 1. The creation of government policy or public outrage based on buzzwords or catch phrases invented by Frank Luntz that have little or no relationship to the reality of the subject; e.g.: describing an orange as a ‘bad apple,’ or a grapefruit as a ‘cancerous lemon,’ or smog as ‘clean air.’ 2. Any doomed political party or corporation that believes such linguistic concoctions are anything more than a thin disguise for its true purpose of picking the public’s pocket or skinning the yokels to the bone.

POLYPSYCHOTIC: 1. Capable of jabbering delirium in more than one medium. 2. The conservative media endlessly parroting the same right-wing talking points.

PROLESSIVISM: 1. “Two For Me and None For You.” A game played by the US Chamber of Congress – excuse me, ‘Commerce’ – their financial backers and various politicians, such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. The point of the game is to convince voters that balancing budgets and lowering taxes for the over-privileged is more important than their jobs, pensions, homes, or eating regular meals. It is akin to the “Sure I’m Jobless and Broke, But at Least I Don’t Have Worry About Bank Overdraft Fees Anymore” game indulged in by millions of less fortunate Americans every day, except much more profitable for the major players.

SOLIPSIMPSONISM: 1. The belief that the best way to clean the ears is by passing a handkerchief through the head while wearing a blindfold and a shoe in one’s mouth. 2. The conviction that unworkable remedies that cause public suffering will resolve budget ills if inartfully expressed at length. From Solipsimpson: A dried-up old boob with 300 million nipples.

“My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.”
Sen. John “Bluto” Blutarsky, from the film “Animal House” (1978).

© 2011 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

July 19, 2010

FDR to Obama: Listen to the Past

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May 27, 2010

News of the Future, Rand Paul Edition

Sen. Rand Paul Dead; Author of Controversial Bill

Special to the Louisville Courier-Journal
July 5, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) died yesterday afternoon from food poisoning that investigators say he contracted from contaminated meat at his favorite Washington restaurant, the exclusive Le Petomane. Autopsy results concurred that the filet mignon cooked medium-rare consumed by Sen. Paul contained large amounts of deadly E-coli bacteria.

Sen. Paul will be remembered for co-sponsoring, with Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the controversial Paul-Bachmann Restoring Our American Freedoms Act that, as well as allowing racial segregation in private businesses open to the public once again, also eliminated the Dept. of Agriculture and ended government inspection of meat and other food products. President Palin signed the act into law just a month before Sen. Paul’s untimely death.

The Senator’s life might yet have been saved, but public ambulance service was discontinued following passage of last year’s Republican-sponsored National Personal Responsibility Act, which Sen. Paul also avidly supported. A spokesman for Paul’s office said he had forgotten to renew his private ambulance subscription due to his hectic Senate schedule. Instead, a very ill Sen. Paul was put into a cab by his wife and died in transit to the hospital, stuck in rush-hour traffic made worse by the crumbling roads that have not been repaired by their new private corporate owners.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that a donation be made to the Club For Growth’s Accidents Happen Fund. Private services will be held Wednesday at the Exxon-Mobil Memorial Cemetery in Louisville.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

May 23, 2010

The Amazing Randy Paul & the New Republican-Tea Party

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May 21, 2010

Teabaggers Take Over!

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April 12, 2010

The America of Profits Over People Equals Death

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January 22, 2010

Welcome to Fascist America — An Unfunny Cartoon

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October 18, 2009

Tales From the FOXholes, Part 9

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April 16, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Short Cuts in New Ruts Edition

Double-Dipping Teabag Hag: The Ol’ Tattler’s failing peepers can’t be sure, but I believe I saw the same woman who was sporting the insulting ‘Kerry Band-Aid’ at the GOP convention in NY circa 2004 wearing a hat adorned with hanging teabags yesterday at one of Fox News’ corporately-sponsored tea parties. Just a quick impression: She’s probably the head of the Pig Whistle, Louisiana, chapter of the DAR, the treasurer of the local ‘I Love Sarah’ Fan Club, chairwoman of the county Republican Party, and a good Southern Baptist who, in the name of the Lawd, beats her kids regularly “just to keep the li’l buggers in line.”

BTW, shouldn’t the videos of these astroturf ‘spontaneous events’ be repackaged by some bright young Republican sociopath into a TV reality show called “Just How Stupid Are You?”

Meantime, over at Rachel Maddow last night, a good point was made – I think by Ana Marie Cox — about the anti-tax FNC Teabag Party nonsense. She pointed out that most of these dismal events were held in public parks – in other words, land paid for and maintained by taxpayer funds. If you hate taxes and government so much, go hold your damn teabag party or your own private property and don’t make those who think you’re nuts foot the bill, not only for the land, but the clean-up afterwards. And would all of those tax-haters sprouting gray and white hair at those FNC rallies please return their Social Security checks and refuse medical treatment courtesy of the government?

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