25 search results for "disparity of wealth"

Disparity, What’s Your Policy? E Deplorable Unum: Out Of The Tax Plan Rides The One Percent

The U.S. just received one of the worst disparity of wealth scores among developed countries by the World Economic Forum, and this dismal achievement occurred before the pending carnage of Trump’s new tax plan. Luckily Republicans can’t discern if any country, or if any thing is even developed [Roy Moore joke removed by the editor]. Today our nation’s disparity trails even Russia’s …you know, the country at least partly responsible for our current State of the Union. From Russia with Lube? St. Petersbugger? Katherine the Make America Great Again? [Roy Moore’s horse joke removed by the editor].

Sorry, it’s a condition, please continue…

The Shit Heard Round the World

Mick Zano

Another faction finally emerges, Occupy Wall Street. A rocky start, fer sure, and I condemn their recent attack on the E*Trade baby. But how does one bridge the gap between the Tea Party and this new group? We need a revolution that resonates with more, not less people. Thus far one group seems to be railing against Wall Street and the disparity of wealth, while the other attacks taxation and a growing government. One demands entitlements and the other wants to put an end to them. What’s the answer?  The Transcosmetic Party, that’s what.

Will this revolution condemn both the banks and the government? Sean Hannity doesn’t like them, which is a good thing. Sure they’re directionless, but it’s better than going off half-cocked in the wrong direction. Of course the Tea Party is more organized—with 40% of the country armed with only Fox News talking points, you’re guaranteed consistency…consistently wrong. The real deal is going to start off a little sloppier, I’m afraid, but you can’t make an integral omelet without breaking a few legs.

Joe Biden said these two groups have a lot in common. He’s wrong, but someday perhaps they will. Thus far President Obama is being criticized for sympathizing with this faction. Meanwhile, Fox News sees it as a threat to their very foundation of greed, fear, and stupidity.

Before we discuss the new kid on the block, why did the first revolution fail? Well, this Discord cartoon sums it up nicely:

No Regulations, No Unions, No Taxes?
No Regulations, No Unions, No Taxes? ...Excellent
…Excellent

That’s a real nice revolution you have there.  Now go home, lie down, and let someone with insight lead the disenfranchised masses. Hey, but maybe Mr. Burns can be your spokesperson? He funds your rallies already.

The Tea Planeters have clearly delegitimized themselves. But will this new group address all of our government’s flaws wherever they lie? Only an integral movement can work here…have I mentioned that?

I think if their platform is built correctly and they incorporate the few valid points the Tea Party has to offer, this could be the wave that propels us into the future. The Tea Party is useless.  Will they still negatively impact elections? Probably, but do they have any real relevance in 2011? Hell no. They had a premise not entirely without merit, but they chose to hand their microphones over to the criminally insane, not to mention the people who got us here. This, of course, coincided with Fox News championing their cause. Fox News is arguably the most damaging media group this country has ever seen, besides the Daily Discord, of course. 

Blogger Juan Cole found one Transcosmetic type at one of these rallies. He noted how not everyone there was anti-business.

“One woman had a sign saying that she liked business and she liked freedom and she wanted to find a way to combine the two,” said Cole.

Are we finally ready to do what needs done? Is this the birth of a faction beyond ideology? Are we sick and tired enough of both parties? Will a real viable third party emerge from this? I have my doubts. MSNBC will likely try to pull what Fox did with the Tea Party. And Obama can wink all he wants, but this bunch needs to watch special interests and challenge every talking point. Most of all, this group must learn from the Tea Party’s mistakes.

What does this group stand for? Who the hell knows? Adbusters started it and interviewing this disenfranchised generation is not netting much—except maybe that free weed the Crank was talking about…which, by the way, the legalization of pot needs to be a key platform item. Talk about helping our economy and our society with one long overdue statute. I love how supposedly fiscal conservatives throw gazillions of dollars at lost causes, like the George W. Bush Liberry. He’s never going to spell or even say that correctly, no matter how much you donate.

This new group can still embrace a smarter, more integral platform. But if it simply bellyaches about entitlements and jobs, and parallels some mob in Greece, it will merely add to the chaos of a country in its death throes. This new faction needs to embrace those few aspects of the Tea Party that make sense. Our deficits are unsustainable and many functions of our government are mired in dysfunctional bureaucracies. Entitlements need to be given only to those deserving; they should not be of the irresponsible/enabling variety championed by pluralists.

This revolution needs to be about responsibility, a group unwilling to be governed by special interests and an outright refusal to allow the continued corporate rape and destruction of our planet. America as we knew it is dead, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use this crisis to produce something of long lasting value, like internet porn. This could be the turning point, or the final chapter. It’s up to us. I have been patiently waiting for the real revolution. Is this it? Only time will tell. 

If handled properly, this group is more likely to bridge these seemingly different worlds. They could lure those few functional aspects of the Tea Party over to their cause and galvanize a new approach, one of no party or clique. They need to become a non-partisan, or even post-partisan group willing to think outside of the two camps currently mired neck-deep in idiotic ideology. 

The problem with media and its insane levels of spin is this: it’s so deeply entrenched in ideology it would take a proctologist a week to find it. The Discord has been attacking the media since its inception…um, the Discord’s not the media’s. They are a big part of our collective confusion and, worse than that, they’re profiting from of our downfall. And the result? We are now effectively two nations. Trying to convince a liberal to curb certain entitlements is next to impossible, and trying to convince a conservative that more of Bush’s policies are not the answer is even harder. Most of our collapse is history for us, yet we still can’t seem to agree on what’s happened and happening. Why is this? Eisenstein over at Reality Sandwich said it best:

Reasonable people can, depending on their vantage point and life situation, look at the same set of events and form different beliefs about them. These beliefs then become a filter that determines what they see and, indeed, what they look for. It is as if they enter separate but parallel realities.

—Charles Eisenstein

Way back when I wrote an entire post on the cognitive distortions inherent in the human condition and nothing epitomizes those separate realities more than switching between MSNBC and Fox News. No group is more detached from reality than the right, of course, thus the gist of many of my posts. But everyone is currently drifting away from the truth at light speed. The only difference: the left just broke the sound barrier, and the right invented warp drive.

I have asked the right, very nicely, to stop the whole upping-the-idiocy-ante thing, but they insist on a level of media bombing that makes the attack on Dresden look like a day at Jellystone Park. I would love to focus on the left, but did you see what Rick Perry just said yesterday? Holy shit! But let’s not forget how entitled the progressives are to entitlements; how prone they are to support senseless bureaucracies. Let’s face it, folks, both parties suck!

I feel like I at least still have a foot in both worlds. There’s about four of us left. Unfortunately, this is why this new revolution is a long shot.  Their leaders will be the key. These new spokespeeps need to act from a selfless, integral perspective if they hope to truly bring about a transformative society. They need to, above all else, promote an underlying responsibility that embraces a world centric approach. Again, not off to a great start. But look at it this way, if our technology continues to grow without some comparable growth of human consciousness, we’re doomed. From a spiral dynamics perspective, the movement needs to allow people to remain in any level of consciousness they happen to be operating. But this new society should be the best vehicle for anyone who desires to springboard to the next level. In such a culture fundamentalism will not be condemned (er…like I often do), but it will be kept in check as not to interfere with anyone else’s growth potential.

The Crank and I are not at polar opposite ends of the political spectrum as our posts might suggest. He just has a much thicker filter than most. It’s stunning, actually. Moving to a new phase of Americana, based on true, not false assumptions, is completely alien to a Foxeteer. Unfortunately, Foxeteers base their world from the perspective of their stock options and a romantic view of America long extinct. If Sean Hannity gets his way, we will allow this suicidal sociopathic society to barrel onward toward a hasty end. Some of his ilk even believe Jesus is literally coming again, so why worry about resources, and why worry about other cultures? They’re all going to hell anyway, right? Sure there will always be fundamentalism in our world; it’s an important part of spiral dynamics, but they don’t have to be our leaders! We don’t need people praying before they bomb the shit out someone in 2011.

Sure the right will criticize this faction and much of it will stick, but the right will dismiss an entire movement because someone takes a shit on a police car. It’s how they roll—and I never would have even done that if someone had thought to provide some god damn port-a-potties at this thing! And that’s how I roll without a roll.

In all-or-none thinking land, every Tea Partier is a model citizen, fighting for truth, justice, and the American way and everyone in this new movement is a liberal stoner. That’s the way they always approach the unknown, not with a healthy skepticism but with a disproportionate condemnation. The right is not going to understand the impetus behind this movement.

You see, the Tea Party will only remain a viable force when a Dem is in power.  But they will always reemerge, like a superhero with Alzheimer’s, to battle conditions created by their last candidate.  Very helpful.  This new groovy scene is somewhat liberal but it is actually forming when a liberal is in power.

If you remember, I watched the Tea Party form with a skeptical encouragement, but quickly moved to disdain and disgust as their leadership emerged. In other words, I can understand the Tea Party and then rightly marginalize it, but the Occupy Wall Street movement will remain incomprehensible to a Foxeteer. They will immediately marginalize it without understanding it.

For the record, this is when it all started.  At the same place where Al-Qaeda knocked down the Twin Towers.  Sure this revolution will change, morph, quiet down, resurge again, adapt, maybe even throw up on a senator, but it’s finally a group truly disgusted with everything.

Those unintended consequences you were talking about, Crank, might just surface, but not in the way you think. Sure it will backfire on the Dems, and it should, but this rag tag group could well morph into the real deal. As an aside to the last Crank post, I will stop making fun of those with mental disabilities when you stop electing them to public office! And no one is trying to edumacate you, Cranko, but at some point it’s going to become necessary for you to get out of the way.

We do not need great historians to tell us the fact that our society is crumbling; and there must be new architects, new builders, to create a new society. The structure must be built on a new foundation, on newly discovered facts and values.

—J. Krishnamurti

Republicans Must Defend Their 1st Amendment Right To Lie

Republicans don’t give a damn about free speech; they only want to defend their own bullshit. They’re intent on dismantling our Constitution in the name of greed, and if a side effect of this post-truth world allows for a criminal kingpin to occupy the oval office indefinitely, cest le vie. Caveat emperor? Defending the republican’s right to lie is where the rightwing allegiance to our first amendment begins and ends. They’re not constitutionalists; they’re snake oil salesmen. The GOP is fixated on suppressing voter turnout, keeping America white, expanding the militarized-industrialized complex, and accelerating the disparity of wealth. And amidst that busy schedule, they found the time to dismantle our 1st Amendment. My friend and blogvesary, the Pokester, is pointing to the liberal attacks on our first amendment and, as usual, ignoring the elephant in the room. Wake up! No, really, if you’re supporting a Trump-redo you’ve obviously sustained a serious head injury and if you fall asleep you could suffer a cerebral hemorrhage.

No Coverage? I Thought This Was America! Thanks Obamacare!

My republican friend and blogvesary is on a “strengthen your immunity system” kick, presumably to stay healthy during COVID long enough to vote for the Trumpocalypse. That’s like intentionally fasting on the lead up to a famine. A stronger immunity system is crucial, but it doesn’t replace a competent government and a more comprehensive universal healthcare system. Do you really think Guatemala could join the G7 if they just take their Flintstone chewables? Besides, there’s so much stacked against our kids today, including the bombardment of hundreds of toxins, in utero no less. Babies arrive with so much pollutants all the superfoods in Whole Foods couldn’t put Trumpty Dumpty back together again. Encouraging people to boost their immune system is never a bad idea, but to not understand the series of unfortunate republican-led events contributing to our nation’s health decline is suicidal. What are we going to do with you folks? In 2020 you’ve simply missed too many classes. It’s like walking through the front door of your Quantum Physics class while simultaneously riding out of the backdoor as a wave. Yeah, they’re not gonna get that either.

The Discord’s Decade In Review: The Fine Line Between Questioning Authority And Questioning Reality

Perusing the Discord files was an enlightening trip down memory-impaired lane. It was a great reminder of the staggering consistency of Republican ignorance. The Ingraham-style Angle is always a distraction and it’s an astoundingly cyclic and repetitive one. An event happens, Republicans draw the opposite conclusion, then they’re proven wrong, then they’re too busy being wrong about something else to notice, and then Reince, Priebus, Repeat. So what were they going on about six months ago? According to our archives here. How about this time last year? Pizzagate! Remember that slice of cheesy crapolla? How about two years ago? In 2015 Pokey was Caliphate fear-mongering for Christmas. Holy Crusades Batman! How about this time in 2013? Oh, yeah, Travelgate. Wow! Check out that overblown pile of Traveloshitty, here. It’s harder to go back in the archives further from our old server, but dammit, let’s do this! Yep, it gets worse as you go back …for them. Over the years my predictions seem to be spot on, so there’s must be spot off …which is fine if you’re a carpet cleaner.

As Trump Implodes I Would Like To Take A Moment To Remember The Brain Trusts Who Made Trump Possible

As Trump flares and burns across the night sky like a shooting star with too much beta-carotene, Fox News recently tweeted this gem. Last week, instead of covering the news, they got tens of thousands of people to retweet something that should be an embarrassment to their brand. Granted, finding Republican accomplishments is fast becoming Bigfoot rare, but this is absurd even by Fox News ‘standards’. Look at that above image again …take as long as you need. Sure Bush and Trump inherited strong economiesoperative word ‘inherited’. Simply put, history will grade Obama and Clinton’s economic prowess and accomplishments light-years ahead of Dubya and Trump’s. So you can shove the rest of your 24/7 anecdotal drivel up Hannity’s America (Mick drop).

The GOP’s TrumpUPence? The Dynamic Dookie Heads For Cleveland

dumb-and-dumberML

I’ve been predicting the demise of the GOP for years, but is it inevitable? How do we shift toward more meaningful discourse? How do we bring the marginalized back into the conversation, you know, before they form the Christian Republican State In the South (CRSIS)? …with CRSIS comes opportunity? These racial divisions are symptoms of a greater illness. The paranoia and neurotic nationalism gripping our planet is the growing pangs of the inevitable shift toward globalization. Fear and bigotry are fueling this Brexitesque romanticism. We have one group struggling to muddle forward and the other scratching and clawing their way back into some cave. How do we embrace the future with nearly half our country is still swinging from the trees and thumping their chest at trespassers? Republicans in the Mist?

We The Discord, In Order To Form A More Perfect Onion

constitutionzanonMLI’m not changing the Constitution, Pokey! I just added the beer mugs. The Founding Fathers would eat that shit up, or in this case drink. Thursday’s Dem debate showed two conscientious people who understand the intricacies of today’s problems. They offered real strategies, solutions, specifics and even the historical context behind each issue. Republicans, meanwhile, sound like no one studied for the middle school debate final. I think if you asked them to define Glass-Steagall, they’d say, “Isn’t that the department store across from Macy’s?” They have a few prepared talking points—rehearsed in front of a mirror with an air guitar, no doubt—and then they insert these gems randomly into the discourse. It’s like listening to someone with Tourette’s contract encephalitis during a brain fart.

“Sure some things are ideologically driven on the left, but EVERYTHING is ideologically driven on the right, and when I say driven, I’m talking Captain Ahab with roid rage. And what is the result? The Republican candidates’ domestic policies are incomprehensible and their foreign policies are unconscionable.”

This is a response to the article: It’s The Constitution, Zano, Not Your Articles Of Degeneration.

Points: Why Republicans Don’t Seem to Make Any

The only thing Pokey and I can agree on these days is how we both speak different languages. Ich habe es dir gesagt, Herr Pokey! My friends list of top concerns is, in and of itself, very concerning. In 2015 we can all do better than conspiracy theories wrapped in delusion. Crappetizers? There’s clearly some stuff worth hashing out from his last post. Speaking of which, hopefully that “candy” will come in handy during this endeavor.

Polarization Nation Watch

Mick Zano

I want all eleven members of the Zano Nation to pull out your pens, your Microsoft Word programs, and your inhalant-ready-markers (IRMs). There’s going to be a test. We are now officially a divided country and for those coming late to the party, fear not, I already have a solution. Gin! But we must garnish this batch of fermented junipery goodness with the pimento-filled olives of Freedom! Shaken not slurred. Yes, the Discordian Zanofesto has arrived, just in time for Christmas.

First, let us delegate the appropriate blame for our divided country:

“Republicans have moved further away from the center than Democrats. The graph below shows a histogram of the House and Senate distributions in the current 113th Congress…There is a clear hump on the right that is comprised of mostly new members of Congress like Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY).”

congressional Polarization Histogram
Quote and graph from Voteview blog.

The real reason republicans are to blame for our polarization involves the last three thousand news cycles. And, yes, the Congress that proved far lazier than any do-nothing-congress in history just won the midterms, seriously. This is the alternate universe in which we must all now reside. I admit the mainstream media is sliding down to Fox levels. I can’t even watch MSNBC anymore as they shift further ideologyward. They are a reaction to Fox News, but simply the wrong kind. I predicted, long ago, creating a Fox-left would be an abysmal failure. The likes of MSNBC doesn’t somehow vindicate the right, it just means the left is starting to catch up on the suck-o-meter.

Congressional Polarization

I’ve already posted this graph. It suggests republicans have been shifting further and further batshitward since the Rutherford B. Hayes Administration:

Historical Slogan Flashback (1887): a kettle in every kitchen.

Why this ongoing rightward drift? Where’s the positive reinforcement that tells people, “yeah we want more of that magic”? In part, it’s certainly the fear of becoming a browner nation, here, but that’s not the whole picture. Are there any graphable advantages to conservative policies?

“I’m not a graphamatician, but bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.”

—John Q. Republican

Republicans are good at taking trends that they’re responsible for, like the growing disparity of wealth, and flipping the script and re-designate the blame. “It got only worse under Obama!” Riiiight. The stimulus went mostly to the rich, but it did narrowly avoid utter disaster. And at least Dems try to create policies that address our nation’s problems. The GOP hides these problems under endless layers of crapola. Or sometimes conservatives simply focus on one element of our economy, taken out of context. It’s a sad but effective approach. I think I do understand their dilemma. I wouldn’t want to remember things accurately if I were them either, but, to be clear, this nation will not survive a republican resurgence. Hell, we may not survive under a Dem—as I’ve said all along, our entire financial system is on borrowed time post Bush. More Zano hyperbole?

economic Recovery

 “Much more than a series of descending lines can really convey. If it’s right, it means that the Great Recession has made us permanently poorer. That the economy will never get back to its pre-crisis trend. Instead, it will stay stuck in a “new normal” of slow growth that feels like a slump—forever.”

—Larry Summers

The new norm is something I have been talking about for over a decade. So a Cliff may well be the new Norm. Sorry, that’s a Cheers’ joke. The GOP will say they have the answers, but history says otherwise. I still maintain general elections will elude these whacko-doodles. In the end this extremism will ultimately hurt them, in fact, I’m counting on it.

“The more the party is rewarded for extremism, the more extremist the party will be. GOP primary voters didn’t nominate pragmatic centrists to run in Senate races this year; they nominated very conservative candidates who are arguably to the right of the median in the current Republican Senate conference.”

Steve Benen

Any shift toward republican moderation in recent elections has been greatly exaggerated. There is a faction of our society becoming radicalized, here, and this is a trend that will likely continue in this polarized environment. Sure it hasn’t reached ethnic cleansing levels but liberals and conservatives prefer to associate with and live near their fellow partisans.

“They would be unhappy if their children married someone with a different political viewpoint. The result isn’t just polarized politics, but a divided society where liberals and conservatives increasingly keep apart.”

Nate Cohn, NYT

There are some who still believe most people remain in some moderate middlesylvania:

“We can argue about the size of the political center in the United States since the answer depends on various ways of measuring it, but whichever measure one chooses, the conclusion is the same: the country as a whole is no more polarized than it was a generation ago.”

Morris Fiorina

Two words, Morris, D-Nial. Sure there’s still a disenfranchised middle, but how long will that last? It’s time to choose sides, in fact, it’s long overdue. I am optimistic that eventually even republicans will not be able to successfully bend reality to their will. Their truth is already twisted into a pretzel that would make Plastic Man wince. Eventually society will demand to see the man behind the curtain, aka, Ted Cruz jerking off to Atlas Buggered.

I want to remind folks, I’m not against basic conservative causes and values. I grew up in a conservative household. I just want a healthy republican party that’s still linked to reality. We have nothing of the sort today, which is not good for our country. Andrew Sullivan championed this cause long ago with his book The Conservative Soul.  He gave up on this premise and is essentially a liberal now. It’s really hard to see where the GOP has helped. In many ways Reagan was a terrible president. He birthed a lot of the stuff that’s blowing up in our faces today, but, yes, I agree he was their best. Their best just sucks real bad.

Can republicans regain their ability to reason? Will things settle down? I gave up on that premise, long ago. If they could absorb things they would understand how voting against their own self-interests is just that.  They could point to a whole host of liberal policies that helped them at one time or another: from bankruptcy laws, to food stamps, to expanded healthcare, to protection for the mentally ill, to wage equality. But I maintain it’s very difficult to find a conservative policy that has ever helped anyone except the Mr. Burnses of the world. Their policies are all designed to keep the super-rich, super richier. I know that’s sounds like all-or-none thinking, but is there an example I’m missing? There must be one, right? Hit the contact button and let me know what I’ve missed.

Is every republican governor or legislator useless and dangerous? No. But their underlying ideology is disturbing and their next generation of candidates seem even less insightful. So I am creating a new Transcosmetic Party to counter the Dem supermajority to come, which is all part of my Zanofesto! Okay, I haven’t really written it yet, but I do have a good start:

Pee The Weople…

Fine, I’ll work on that.