thoughts

because the economy is in bad shape, more people are joining the military. now, if i guy turns to crime because he needs money, we throw him in jail. but, if he joins the military, thereby accepting that he may have to drop bombs on people, he will be called a credit to his country. personally, i prefer my criminals out of uniform. at least they don't pollute the environment, they tend to do their business locally, hence putting more money back into the communities they live in, and they are independent contractors.

the u.s government is telling us that the world needs to do more about the situation in zimbabwe. well, just what is this situation? and while the world is doing something about it, what will we do about the situations in iraq and afghanistan? could we at least stop bombing people before we claim to be concerned about other countries?

the government is now saying that, because of the 500,000 jobs lost in november, they have to bail out the auto companies. as if they weren't going to do it anyway. these companies shouldn't be bailed out; they should be taken over and run by the workers and a team of experts in the fields of transportation and the environment. if we sustain the auto industry, can we also sustain, and improve, mass transit, fuel efficiency standards, local job creation, bike paths, and more? yes, workers need to keep their jobs, but in an ideal society, what kind of work would they do? would they make weapons for boeing and raytheon? would they produce suv's for gm? these workers have skills that could be used to produce different things. furthermore, we know that one of the reasons the auto industry struggles is that their workers have costly health insurance. therefore, if our country instituted a sensible and humane system of nationalized health insurance, that cost would no longer be an issue. and let's not ignore the class warfare going on here; while hundreds of billions are thrown at banks and other industries in the financial sector, without comment, we hear about how it is actually "overpaid" blue collar workers and the unreasonable demands of their unions who have helped to drive the auto industry into the ground. this 25 billion for the auto companies, whether you agree with it or not (and i don't, under the current "bailout" structure) has drawn way more attention than the many times more money thrown at the banks. i can't help but see this as anti-working class.

a new book called "the big necessity" is out, which is about human feces, and how it is dealt with around the world. i can't wait to get a load of this crap.

why is it that the same people who are so pissed about how much black and latino ball players make never seem to get angry at how much it costs to bomb people? isn't the fact that the war in iraq costs 720 million a day worse than the fact that manny ramirez makes 20 million a year? of course, both are wrong, but it strikes me as hypocritical, and perhaps even racist, that these people who are so offended by sports salaries don't seem to extend their criticisms to the real centers of american political and economic power. hey, what did warren buffet do to be worth 500 billion dollars? i wouldn't know because the same guy who can't shut up about arod's salary hasn't found the time to inform me. furthermore, these angry whites who can't get enough of sports even as they condemn the very same athletes they spend half their day watching, seem to be much more bothered by the money that a few hundred black and latino athletes make, than the extreme poverty that millions of blacks and latinos are still forced to cope with. why don't these guys build anti-capitalist organizations, or at least, do anti-poverty work? in truth, many of these guys are only bothered by some people making money. these same jokers never seem to rant about how much the networks make from sports, or the owners, or how much stores profit from the sales of overpriced hats and jerseys. oh yeah, that's right; these guys are too busy buying this shit to complain about it. the fact is, sports operates within the disgusting parameters of capitalist america. yes, the players are paid way too much. yes, they should take most of what they make, and pool it to help those still in the communities they came from. but, these guys don't operate alone. our failures are systemic and individual, but to only focus on the individual blinds us to the much larger systemic issues. in a capitalist economy, there is gross economic inequality. that is built into capitalism. therefore, the problem is capitalism; it is not this or that ball player. a sane economy would not reward those that entertain us with outrageous sums of money. for that matter, a sane economic order would not spend 600 billion dollars on the iraq war, or produce low wage service jobs while reducing its manufacturing base, or pollute the earth, or have a system of privatized health insurance, or charge $40,000a year for college, or produce luxury houses while millions sleep on the streets, or spend more money on prisons than higher education, or do a million other things that our economic system does. and we want it both ways; so, when a great cuban entertainer leaves cuba to make millions in the u.s, we use this fact to condemn cuba and to demonstrate what a great place america is. at the same time, many of us knock our entertainers for being wildly overpaid! well, which is it? if entertainers are overpaid, doesn't it make sense to pay them less, as cuba does? and if cuba does play its ball players less, isn't that more an issue of sharing the wealth, and not one of depriving an individual's freedom? so, why aren't these guys who deride our overpaid athletes supporters of the cuban revolution?

viva fidel!