and now, the 300th blog is near

the next time an obama commercial comes on, look closely. he is the only black man in them. the cosby show comes to the white house. yeah, i know he's just trying to win, but couldn't he have at least thrown in a latino or asian? would that have doomed any chances he has of taking office? question; why would anyone want to be president of a country where even showing a black person on a commercial would possibly doom their chances of winning?

the stock market is doing better now that the u.s. government has agreed to nationalize some of the banks. isn't it nationalization that makes fidel and chavez evil? come on guys, have a little faith in the free market. of course, we are nationalizing the banks to save our system, while fidel nationalized to introduce socialism. but think about it. isn't it crazy to nationalize the banks to stabilize the economy, and then, once the economy is stabilized, to turn it back to the same institutions that created the crisis in the first place? insanity. all a corporation cares about is profit. that's what it is built for, and as long as our economic system is capitalist, this will be so. our economy is like an alcoholic who is hungover. in order to feel better, or to "stabilize" the situation, the alcoholic doesn't drink for a while. he then feels better, and goes back to drinking, which then leads to another hangover. well, that's the economy. nationalizing is a good thing, but not if it is done with the idea of stabilizing a bad economic system. so yeah, nationalization will make the economy "feel better." stocks will go up, and people will relax. they will start to borrow again, banks will lend credit, interest rates will level out. we will then think all is well, until the next time we are told that all is not well. meanwhile, while something called the economy improves, thousands of children throughout the world will continue to starve everyday. we will still have close to 2 million homeless, over 2 million in prison, close to 50 million uninsured, and we will still be wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in order to kill people who have done us no harm to better take their resources. police will still brutalize youth of color, and immigrants will still be deported everytime they attempt to form or join unions.

so yeah, it will likely get back to normal soon.

i am fascinated by this thing we call the economy. cuba can eliminate homelessness. it can guarantee health care and education to all of its people. it can evacuate millions of people to safety everytime a natural disaster strikes the island. and yet, their economy is "struggling." this proves yet again that the state of an economy has been completely disconnected from the needs of real people. economies have no basis in reality. when pinochet was killing thousands and creating a police state in chile, we were being told that the economy was thriving. even hitler, we are told, fed the people and put them to work. this begs the question...who are the people? certainly hitler wasn't feeding the jews, and while he may have been putting them to work, this isn't what is meant when you hear this statement. when it is decided that an economy is doing well or not doing well, we need to ask "for who?" we are told the economy is doing well when something called "growth" is happening. ok. so, when nike grows, this means more sweatshop labor is producing more goods for low pay which will then be sold at a high cost to consumers. when mcdonalds grows, this means more underpaid workers sell unhealthy food to poor, overworked, and obese citizens. when walmart grows, more sweatshop labor produces more goods that are sold by underpaid, nonunion labor to poor and overworked citizens. when ge, raytheon, and haliburton grows, that means wars are being fought by poor and propagandized youth who are killing poor and brutalized members of the "third world." when general motors grows, this means more overpriced cars are being produced that will negatively impact the environment, helping to bring about climate change that will eventually doom us all.

so, i'm not that into growth.

well, at least that kind of growth.