Rants and Raves

Human Rights

2009-08-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

I must first apologize for the downward spiral this blog is about to take, away from the fair, balanced, people all deserve a fair shake attitude I have tried to maintain. This piece is 100% opinion, though the facts stated are unfortunately true.

The next time you walk into a store to buy a new pair of jeans, consider this; the jeans you are about to buy most likely came from a sweatshop in China, Indonesia, The American Samoa. In 2001 a factory was shut down in American Samoa after starving factory workers living in Nazi concentration camp conditions escaped to a Christian missionary center. The employees were mostly women, fed on a diet of mostly cabbage and rice, which was withheld for minor, sometimes perceived infractions. One woman was beaten with a lead pipe and lost her eye.

This is so common place it should make you feel like throwing up. Even in the USA over 50% of clothing manufacturers have been found to be violating at least one or two basic labor laws. This doesn't really bring down the cost of your clothing, either, it lines the pockets of rich executives who are consumed by greed. How many private jets and mansions around the world do you need? I don't need any, no rape, armed guards or child exploitation needed. Many times the employees will pay thousands of dollars to be "represented" by a human trafficking organization. These debts basically cause them to be slaves for clothing manufacturing plants, and they can even be arrested if they try to escape.

Additionally, according to a NY Times article, there are 12.3 million people in the world who are slaves or forced into labor. The sex trade is nearly a $30 billion a year industry... That's about the same as Apple computer's earnings last year. Approximately 10 million children are forced to work in slave-like conditions worldwide. In many countries children may be born into brothels, and end up working as sex workers as young as 8 or 9 years old. India imports many Nepalese children to work as prostitutes as they are prized for having lighter skin. In Bombay half the prostitutes are from Nepal, 20% of them are under 18 and at least half are thought to have HIV.

In Africa, where HIV is so horribly widespread, many myths state that child rape will cure HIV., as they believe their purity will cleanse them of disease.

At this point, I honestly have no desire to continue listing the grievances and crimes of humanity against one another. The basic teachings of morality and religion serve as nothing more as things we use to wipe our rear end's with. The lack of respect, compassion or concern for our fellow man is frankly, disgusting. What is even more sickening is that things today are probably the best they have been in mankind's history. Unless the citizens of our world scream for compassion, and force our governments to actively combat such horrors, I eagerly await the end of mankind. We have shown a clear lack of respect for the earth and each other. Unless we can do an about face, I feel we have lost the right to be the dominant species on this planet... and good riddance.

Healthcare

2009-08-20T00:15:00.000-07:00

This whole healthcare issue is certainly a hot button topic today. The reason for this? The media cares more about ratings than reporting the news. It has gotten so bad that pundits are actually making things up... I understand that the constitution provides the guarantee to free speech, but at this point I would be totally in favor of the government imposing laws that require news organizations to have their casters say, "The next things I am going to say I made up," or something along those lines. If news companies are found to continue to make un-sourced claims, the government could shut them down if they did not refute them and pay heavy fines.

Glenn Beck obviously doesn't believe in what he is saying, because when he had a surgery go wrong when he worked at CNN he talked about how poor the current insurance run system is. He continued to talk about his bad experiences with the system even while he was with FOX. Now, because FOX wants the far right ratings for Glenn's show, he has done a complete 180, is saying that this is the best system in the world, Obama wants to kill grandmothers etc. etc. I am not quite sure how that man sleeps at night, saying things that are not only completely untrue, but that he does not even believe at all.

The general healthcare proposal is shaping up to be a similar implementation of the system that exists in Switzerland. The US plan goes something like this:

The government will expand regulation to prevent fraud/overcharges/undercare. They will add an exchange program for people to use to select health insurance, the public option will be included in order to force insurance companies to compete are fairer prices. Depending on how far below or above a family is from the poverty line, they will be extended credits to use on the exchange on a sliding scale. If you make more than 400% above the poverty line, you will not be eligible for these credits. There will be a lot of investment in preventative health care and other healthy programs. There will be more money available to provide people with healthcare training and education, especially in areas that have a need for more health care professionals. Medicare will get an efficiency upgrade. It doesn't sound as though it will be mandatory, I personally think it should be, but I would imagine most people who don't have health insurance will use this system... if it passes... if people STOP MAKING THINGS UP! I am trying to keep this blog fair and balanced, but these crazy people on the right making things up as they go along is really testing my resolve on this one. In the words of John Stewart on Crossfire, STOP HURTING AMERICA!

Smoking Taxes

2009-04-14T17:40:00.001-07:00

First off, I have not posted in quite some time... for this I apologize. Having a bit of writers block, plus, most of my ideas for articles seemed too blow-hard. I am going to try to start out with an idea this time, and just see where it goes.

Quick disclamer, tax percentages are based on Washington State taxes and may not be accurate taken outside of this context.

I recently heard some people complaining about the rising cigarette taxes saying that not only is it an unfair regressive tax but it also is short sighted by the government, due to an assumed loss of revenue based on people quitting due to cost.

First let me hit the obviously true issue. This is an unfair regressive tax. The majority of smokers are in the lower middle to lower class segments of our society. As the tax does not take into account income, and targets the poor far more than it does the wealthy, this does qualify as a regressive tax. One thing you will notice from smokers, is that they tend (in my experience) to make this point as kind of an afterthought, or subtext. Most people who have been smoking for some time would like to quit. Making it too expensive and thus forcing them to quit is actually sort of a relief in many ways. I can say that I fall into this category, sometimes I wish they would raise the tobacco tax to 10-15 dollars per pack... Tobacco is a horribly addictive substance that will latch onto you with more ferocity than I think any non-smoker can understand. I have come accross articles that have suggested nicotine is equally as addictive as is heroin. Basically, I think this part of the argument is a non-issue.

Second the loss of tax revenue argument is at best misinformed. About 20% of the tax goes to the general fund and 60% is going to health care focusing on tobacco prevention and cessation. It is also used for health and treatment programs for low income smokers suffering from tobacco related illness. In Washington State alone, I believe something like 1.5 billion dollars in costs associated with tobacco health care are accrued every year. The tax revenue from tobacco in 2001 was something like 250 million. (I am not taking time to verify any of my sources, everything is from memory; so if I get something wrong, please correct me in the comments.) If the cost of tobacco has then gone up to the point that it is forcing smokers to quit, this money doesn't just go away.

Sales tax (in addition to use taxes) make up something like 50 percent of the general fund that I mentioned earlier. Sales tax is one of the largest contributors to the state's general fund. Chances are smokers are not going to put that extra 7 dollars into savings. This is kind of the same idea behind giving us an instant tax break on our paychecks (program Obama put it place that started this month.) If there really is a significant drop in tobacco sales, that means that over time we will see improved overall health, which will reduce that 1.5 billion yearly pricetag on tobacco related health care. This will eventually result in again, more money in the pockets of consumers. This could also lower insurance premiums for employers in the state. Good things all around.

To sum it up, smokers for the most part would like to quit but can't. The tax helps some smokers get over the hump and actually make the quit. Washington State has shown smoking isn't really all the popular with the citizens, so if we unfairly punish smokers (like me) to the point of quitting... Everyone wins and taxes actually don't suffer as a result, in fact it would seem eventually tax revenue on the whole would go up. Tax collection for treating the health issues of lower income smokers would eventually become a moot point as more and more smokers kick the habit.

As an afterthought. Let's legalize smoking in bars again. Studies have shown that smokers going outside is causing smokers to get sick more often. People who hang out in bars pounding alcohol don't tend to be health nuts. Let the business owner ban smoking in their own bar. It is a legal activity. Bar owners now know that it is financially wise to have non-smoking bars now, so if employees who work at bars don't want to work at a smoking bar, they can go to a non-smoking bar now. Maybe require an additional license to allow smoking in bars now?

Dick Cheney (Torture for Hire)

2009-03-16T02:04:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Today's post is going to be completely opinion viewed from a left wing biased lens.

In the recent interview with CNN, Dick Cheney stated that Barack Obama has made the country less safe by creating "changes to detention and interrogation programs for terrorism suspects." In other words, you should be afraid for your well being because your government is not torturing other human beings. Because we aren't torturing people who have not been found guilty, we are at greater risk?

It is very easy for us to dehumanize other people; we do it so we don't have feelings for them. When a child is kidnapped, the FBI has found that it is useful to say the child's name on the news over and over again; it is much harder to harm someone that has a name, someone you have to see as human. Laozi (aka Lao tzu) said in the Tao Te Ching:

Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint. Peace is his highest value.If the peace has been shattered, how can he be content? His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn't wish them personal harm. Nor does he rejoice in victory. How could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men? He enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if he were attending a funeral.

We have turned terrorists into demons, two dimensional forms of evil. They are many, but have one name, "Terrorist." They share common qualities, they look different than us, their skin is darker, and they speak a language we do not understand. They are not people; they are the embodiment of evil and fear. Thus we can hate, torture and kill them with a clear conscience. We aren't hurting people; we are preventing people from hurting. Or are we? Let's turn it around a little and see if we can ride a mile or so in their shoes.

Imagine that the US government has been toppled; the states are divided between two major Middle Eastern powers for their own purposes. Some citizens are thrown out of their homes to make way for Native Americans who are coming back to their homeland from all over the world. The US citizens who have been thrown out of their homes are treated like second class citizens. Middle Eastern powers install and then topple governments to meet their own goals. US citizens are trained in guerilla warfare tactics, and when they are no longer needed they are labeled terrorists and hunted down, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Christianity has been made a mockery of, and Christians all over the world are now being abused, attacked, and sometimes killed for being “terrorists.” Innocent Christians are thrown into prison camps with no proof of being affiliated with these terrorist groups; tortured into making false confessions. If you want to know more about the real history of the Middle East and why they may be upset, click here. (You can find better sources, but Wikipedia is a bit easier to read if you are just starting out.)

We can't make up for the mistakes of the past, we can't change the things we have already done, but we can make ourselves look better from now on. A terrorist only has as much power as you give him; the terrorist's ONLY real weapon is fear. FDR famously said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." When our fear causes us to dehumanize our neighbor, when terror causes us to lash back and torture our fellow man, we justify their actions far more than we realize. Not only that, but if it was your son, daughter, brother or sister who was being tortured, you would want to fight back against the force that was doing it.

I think that Barack Obama is doing it right. The Middle East may not trust us still, but I think that they are starting to see that we are not approaching this the same way. We are not their enemy, and we will not mistreat them the same way. When will Dick Cheney just go away? The guy is an absolute monster. He can look you straight in the eye and say, torture is okay, it saves Americans. That's some B.S. Dick, it just makes your contractor friends and yourself rich as hell. Nearly 20 billion in a year to CACI and Titan, who brought you Abu Ghraib, and possibly much of the torture that happened at these camps. Human rights groups are trying to press criminal charges against these two companies. We also have Bechtel, who couldn't finish building a hospital, sub-par repairs of schools (making them quite dangerous for children to be learning in), and failing to help rebuild a lot of Iraq's infrastructure, despite nearly 15 billion dollars being dumped into them to complete these projects. The list continues with Aegis (Mercs for hire), Custer Battles (found guilty of defrauding the government), General Dynamics and of course Halliburton (the company Dick Cheney used to be the CEO of.) Dick Cheney already received a $20,000,000.00 retirement package from Halliburton, plus he still has nearly half a million unused stock options.

We don't need to fear terrorist attacks, you have a 1 in 88,000 chance of being killed in a terrorist attack in your lifetime, and a 1 in 55,000,000 of dying from terrorists crashing an airplane (assuming you fly once a month). To compare this with other statistics, as an American you have a 1 in 197 chance to be murdered in your lifetime and a 1 in 55,928 chance to die by lightening. That's right; you have a higher chance of dying by being struck by lightening than you do of being killed by a terrorist, or almost 1,000 times more likely to die from lightening than a terrorist with an airplane. Who do we torture to prevent lightening strikes? How many TV shows try to scare the pants off you about lightening? You don't see it as a threat, because it really isn't. Neither is terrorism, unless we give lots of airtime to terrorists and torture them, thereby making them into martyrs. I am asking you to stop letting fear run your life, stop letting the politicians lie their way into your pocketbook using fear as a catalyst. Let's not forget the great republican leader and war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower who said, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Well we had one of those guys in office for 8 years, and you saw what happened. Let's not give him any more airtime to screw up our great country and destroy lives for his pocketbook. It is hard for me to humanize a person who can stare straight into the eyes of an interviewer, and put the interests of his bulging bank account before the interest of Americans, or the people we are killing and torturing. Is the world a safer place now, or are we in an economic depression? Did giving Cheney and his pal's hundreds of billions of dollars, much of which was borrowed from China help us avoid economic disaster? Doesn't look like it. It looks as though you have lost your home, Hakim is being tortured, the constitution has been used for toilet paper and Dick Cheney and his friends are laughing all the way to the bank. Who here really deserves to be tortured? I don't think it is Hakim, Hakim didn't ruin our country. Screw you Dick Cheney, you suit your name quite well... Dick.

Zimbabwe (And you thought politics in the USA were brutal)

2009-03-12T01:32:00.000-07:00

Zimbabwe has not had a very pleasant history ever since the Portuguese engaged in trade wars (which included sabotage) with the Mutapa Empire (aka the Empire of the Great Zimbabwe). Since then they have enjoyed being forced to pay tribute to other countries, being controlled by Britain, dying in failed rebellions against the British control and a civil war that lasted for 14 years. At the end of the civil war, they negotiated their independence with Britain.

In February of 1980 Robert Mugabe took office as Prime Minister (eventually he took over as Executive Head of State from 1987 onward.) Just a little warning, as hard as I try to fairly portray both sides of the story, I don't think I can do that in this entry... Mugabe's motivation seemed to be simple greed and lust for power. There were several early uprisings against Mugabe out of the Matabeland region of Zimbabwe; between 1982 and 1985 he had murdered 20,000 people in that area, forcing them to dig their own mass graves before he had them killed. There are also reports than hundreds or thousands more were severely tortured as well. Mugabe continued to win elections using falsified results and voter intimidation (that would include imprisonment and torture.) Mugabe's handling of the country, on the other hand, was so horrible that it resulted in wages that are possibly below our ability to imagine, health care that was so horrible and inadequate that by 1997 some 25% of the population of Zimbabwe had been infected with HIV.

Then, around 1999, things really started to go downhill. Due to increasing problems with land and redistribution, food and agriculture production fell sharply. Agricultural exports had previously been the top export out of Zimbabwe, but those now fell to mining and tourism. (To put that in perspective, how many people do you know have vacationed in Zimbabwe?) As a result, the ability of Zimbabwe to import important resources (such as food and fuel) also fell sharply. The current food and economic crisis is the worst crisis this country has faced after the time of the independence. The infant mortality rate is currently 81 deaths per 1,000 (vs 6.3 out of 1,000 in the USA), life expectancy for men is 37 years and 34 years for women. The current percentage of people infected with HIV or AIDs has slightly fallen to around 20%. The military has also been known to kill people working in the diamond mines where conditions are horrible to put it mildly.

In March of 2008 new elections were held under close international scrutiny. Even so, Mugabe did not hesitate to rely on his old tactics of fear, imprisonment and torture to encourage people to not vote against him or his party. Even so, his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai and his party won control of the government. Mugabe threw Tsvangirai into prison, tortured him, withheld the results of the election, imprisoned, tortured and murdered activist leaders, burned one opposition leader's wife alive, and finally conceded to enter into talks on a "power sharing agreement" where Morgan Tsvangirai would basically be second in command. During the time from the election to the talks, a horrible cholera outbreak occurred, claiming at least 1,500 lives.

The power sharing agreement was finally honored nearly a year later in February of 2009. Less than a month later, Morgan Tsvangirai's wife, Susan, was killed in an automobile accident that also injured her husband. During the funeral services Mugabe said to the mourners, "I plead with you to accept it, it's the hand of god." Even though British intelligence says that it looks like an accidental collision, many of the people of Zimbabwe as well as people around the world feel that it is Mugabe up to his old tricks, that it was a failed assassination attempt against Morgan Tsvangirai. Either way, the country will never be able to begin it's turn around without getting rid of Robert Mugabe. My feeling is that the United States and others need to push Mugabe to step down or to force him down. We then need to have the US and other large countries push some aid into the country to help get the health and economic issues stabilized. Sure, money is tight and we are facing a global recession, but most of us can expect to see our 40th birthdays.

Tibet (Why China wont allow autonomy)

2009-03-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

In light of the upcoming 50th anniversary of Tibet being completely under the control of the Chinese government, I decided to write a bit on this subject. Those who know me can say that I am a huge fan of the Dalai Lama, he is someone I attempt to emulate. This article, however, I hope will try to fairly explain both sides of the issue. I am going to have to kind of skim over a lot of the history, Tibet's history is very rich and interesting. For those of you who would like a longer and more in depth history of that region, click here for the Wikipedia article. On a slight side note. Contrary to popular belief, articles in Wikipedia that are mainstream articles with more than three sources are said to be just as or more reliable than any respected Encyclopedia out there. As someone who has tried to change one of these articles to see what would happen, I can tell you that the article went back to the way it was within five minutes.

First a little history. On October 7th 1950, China sent troops into Tibet to begin the "liberation" of the country. On March 17th 1959 the Daila Lama (Spiritual and State head of Tibet) fled Tibet for India disguised as a Tibetan soldier. He crossed the boarder on the 29th of March into India, where he has lived ever since. In 1963 he set up the overseas government of Tibet in Dharamsala. He has been traveling around the world teaching love and compassion as well as informing the world of the plight of the Tibetan people. China has called him a troublemaker, has refused talks with him and claimed that he encouraged violence against the Chinese people. During the 2008 Olympic games, China arrested protestors from all over the world, reporters covering the protesters and possibly even people who were just in the area of the protestors. They shut down access to the Apple iTunes store, because people were downloading an album that was generating money to help the country of Tibet. The Dalai Lama does not want Tibet to be independent of China, he simply wants them to keep their autonomy. The Tibetan language and ways of life are slowly becoming extinct.

We have a little experience with this sort of thing in this country. We all but wiped the Native Americans off the face of the earth. Many native languages have died out, and many only one or two people alive know. Just as with the Chinese, we viewed them as savages who were backwards and technologically challenged. Unlike the Chinese, instead of trying to help improve their infrastructure and way of life, we simply infected blankets with small pox and traded them to the Natives, shot, hung, starved or sent to the worst land in the country in order to wipe them out. Even so, the Chinese refuse to listen to the international outcry, the please of the Tibetan people or the Dalai Lama whatsoever in regards to what they are doing in Tibet. China wants Tibet to be just like any other part of China, completely nationalized.

Now what is the side of the Chinese, do they have a point? Well, many Chinese nationals who are living outside of China think that the government is taking too aggressive of a stance with how they are treating the Tibet issue, but they can give you the Chinese's side of the story none-the-less. Well, China doesn't see Tibet as ever being seperate from China. The see the interference from the west in the early 1900's (the time when Tibet declared it's independence) as the west trying to meddle with the country of China. To add insult to injury, the CIA funded Tibetan covert-ops against China during most of the cold war era. The Chinese view any attempts to separate Tibet from China as being linked to the humiliation imposed by the west and Japanese imperialism. They saw the Olympics as their country being restored to a respectable position in the world community. The protests and hate sent toward China was an extreme insult, compounded by the misrepresented reporting by our friends at the mainstream media. They showed photographs of acts of violence from several countries that had protests going on, and said that it was the Chinese police being brutal toward the Tibetan people, even though this wasn't the case. This irresponsible coverage by the media made the situation even worse. When the riots in Tibet started out, the police stationed there were caught completely off guard, they didn't even have weapons. The Tibetan rioters injured many police officers within the very start. The situation just blew up and got out of control. The Chinese people and government were shocked at the violence being committed against them, and so China pointed the finger at the Dalai Lama. I think this very well could have been more a political play rather than something they actually believed. After all, it did work. The Dalai Lama abhors violence, and said that he would step down as the spiritual leader of Tibet if it continued. This ended up working, but a lot of damage had been done.

Many of the Chinese people feel they have brought the Tibetans out of a type of serfdom, and furthered the rights of women. They also point out all of the money that they have put into the Tibetan infrastructure (kind of like what Japan did in Taiwan, I guess... doesn't change the fact the Taiwanese wanted independence). The Tibetan people would like to be an independent nation, but at this point they are willing to simply retain their culture. Why is China so dead set against giving any ground? If their desire is simply to help out people they view as impoverished fellow countrymen, why do they insist of forcing them to be Chinese? Why wont China even listen to what the rest of the world thinks about this? I think the people of China probably feel that Tibet really wants to be saved, they just don't fully realize it. I think that the people of China probably are not getting the full story. Our media has the freedom to do responsible reporting, they just fail miserably at it. The state controls the media in China, so they have no real choice. I think the Chinese government sees the facts that Tibet is one of the largest producers of water as well as many other valuable products such as coal, silver, food etc. Tibet also serves as an excellent strategic military position. If Tibet could ask fair price for their water (nearly a sixth of the world's population depends on the water from Tibet), coal or any of their other exports into China it could cost China an incredible amount of money. China has already had clashes with India over the rights to water that comes from Tibet. Read more on this story here.

In the 1950's when China was ramping up for and then during the invasion of Tibet the US and other governments made a weak plea to China to let Tibet remain independent. They were afraid to get involved though, and China has become far more powerful since then. Leading up to that, the UN, US, China and most other countries hadn't "officially" even had the courage to recognize Tibet as an independent nation. Unfortunately this really isn't a situation we have a lot of control over. But I would urge every one of you, if you feel that Tibet should be allowed to retain it's autonomy, plead with your political representatives, organize community awareness events and urge anyone in power to make Tibet more of a top priority. Sure we owe China a lot of money right now, and Secretary of State Clinton feels that pushing China on human rights issues right now is too dangerous, but what if we encouraged countries within the UN to at least recognize Tibet as an independent nation officially, and China as an illegitimate invading force. This way the USA isn't seen as directly trying to attack China, and maybe if China saw that kind of worldwide action, they might consider having talks with the Dalai Lama and maybe even allow Tibet to remain autonomous if the world in turn would recognize Tibet as a Chinese provence.

AIG and You (What the bailout is really all about)

2009-03-09T23:26:00.000-07:00

I don't think that anyone on either side of the political fence, in the economics sector or even your average (joe six pack?) would disagree with the following statement (paraphrasing Ben Bernanke). AIG is like a spoiled 9 year old girl who decided to start her very own hedge fund. Due to extremely poor regulatory requirements on the parts of AIG, the US government, the governments of the EU, many Asian governments, fortune 500 companies within the USA etc. etc, AIG has been allowed to make bet after piss poor bet that has ultimately resulted in the companies impending doom.

Banking regulations are confusing to say the least, so I am not going to spew a bunch of meaningless equations and numbers. I am no economics expert by any stretch of the imagination, so I can only say I have a cursory grasp of how it works anyway. The simple explanation is that banks are required to maintain a minimum capital ratio. In the simplest terms, banks must keep a certain percentage of capital assets (cash, bonds, stock, etc.) against their risk-weighted assets (e.g. loans). AIG came in and provided insurance coverage on these loans and other risk weighted assets. This allowed many financial institutions list these risk-weighted assets as capital assets, even though they were actually not capital assets at all. As a result, the amount of actual capital assets that these institutions had was far less than what they were supposed to have. This wasn't illegal, just a gaping loop-hole that AIG and these institutions exploited for quite some time until it literally blew up in everyone's face.

So if these institutions have acted so irresponsibly, have directly aided the meltdown we are going through right now why on earth would we be bailing them out? Well... as it turns out if we let AIG go down, the negative impact to our economy would actually collapse faster and this whole disaster will take much longer to recover from. Some of us may be able to ride the extremely destructive wave that letting AIG would produce, however, AIG insures many 401(k) plans, municipalities, small businesses, Fortune 500 companies (who employ more than 100,000,000 Americans) as well as banks in Europe and Asia. This is one of those painful cases of pick the lesser evil. Basically we have to pay off the mob so that grandma can keep her pension so that Johnny can keep his job, and so that the banks can continue doing business.

Another major problem is because AIG has insured so many of these toxic assets all over the world, the collapse would directly effect the global economy. The inter-bank lending rates would get so high and assets would be so little that granting new loans may come to a standstill... worldwide. This may sound like a good idea, credit is what got us into this mess to begin with, right? Well, one reason banks borrow money from one another is to keep up their assets and continue business while being able to maintain their current loan portfolio. Simple fact is, we kind of need these banks to remain open for many reasons... including the very small fact that they hold our money.

So wait a second. AIG is insuring banks in Europe and Asia as well as their interests in the USA? This is a global issue? Well then, surely the nations of the EU and governments in the Asian countries are putting up AIG bailout money. Of course not. Just like with the UN, worldwide aid etc, the USA is expected to flip the majority of the bill. GM has been pushing for EU bailout money as well, as they employ about 56,000 over the whole of Europe. The prediction of auto related jobs that would be lost throughout Europe if GM fell there could be overall job loss to the tune of something like 400,000 people. Trouble is Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has been digging in her heels when it comes to any kind of bailout packages, even ones that would just be to help countries in the EU. Germany is currently Europe's wealthiest and most powerful nation overall, so Angela has a lot of clout over there.

Here is what I hope my readers take from this article and what I am hoping you will feel compelled to do as a result. It sucks that we have to bailout AIG and all these other morons. It is ridiculous that we have to choose between smashing ourselves in the head with a hammer or tying a rock around our ankle and jumping into a lake. But we shouldn't have to do this all on our own. We the people need to call upon our representatives to not only urge foreign leaders to help subsidize the US bailouts of AIG; granted even if our leaders push for this, it will probably never happen... world leaders know all too well that the USA will always be there to pick up the slack. (This is something I think we really need to work on changing in the long term overall.) I think more importantly we shouldn't AIG or anyone else get a free ride again. Let's push our leaders to close loopholes so these irresponsible practices will never be allowed again, no matter how indestructible our economy seems at the time. Again, the power to make these changes are in our hands. Let's get out there and do something about it!

Media Obsessions (and how they hurt America)

2009-03-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

The media is famous for drawing out meaningless stories that the general public follows greedily. In this post I will explore why we love these stories so much, how they hurt America (and the world at large).

First let me touch on a few stories that are the current love child of media whore Nancy Grace and others. The two major stories right now are "Tot Killer Mom" and the new "Nabbed from White Trashville USA, Haleigh" and of course who can forget "Octumom." This pointless O.J. Simpson fetish that the media has developed seems like a trend that is here to stay, at least at the moment. Probably why so many bloggers are popping up left and right (pun intended). How is it that any of these stories are our business? I can certainly understand the police requesting the local news medias put out bulletins and (Amber) alerts out there in the areas they think a child went missing in. If there is a risk that the kidnapper could be anywhere in the country, sure, put it out there... don't turn the story into a soap opera entertainment drama that we get the popcorn, chips and salsa ready for. Today I watched a couple of pundits argue over Nadya Suleman's, Octumom, call to 911 and if she were a bad mother or not. Then they displayed users opinions of her parenting skills and it was almost like listening to a couple of middle aged, single women argue over the leads in "Days of Our Lives". Do we really need to turn other people's lives into two-dimensional media circuses where we can dehumanize them for our own pleasure? Maybe these people want media attention, but as the acting fourth branch of government, it is their job to not give them media attention. The media's purpose is not to get ratings or make huge profits, the media's purpose is to keep America in check.

Why do Americans care so much about these stories? I think on some level we all find ourselves drawn to this kind of public spectacle. Obviously I have at least paid some attention to these stories, granted they get fed to me through the constant news stream that is displayed 24/7 at work, but I don't tune it all out. Why? It is just how we tribal minded humans adapt in our new city, urban lifestyle. Big cities have not really been around for very long, not really long enough to our brains to adapt to seeing the myriad faces we see on a daily basis. According to a great documentary "The Human Face", we obsess over celebrities in order to maintain what our brains have been used to for tens of thousands of years. In small tribal and community settings, we have been used to seeing familiar faces every day, we hear gossip about these people but we don't really know them. When human populations exploded and large cities developed, we created the celebrity in order to coupe with the loss of every day facial familiarity. In the age of Youtube and reality tv shows, this obsession seems to be bleeding over into the lives of everyday people. In moderation this behavior should be fine, it is simply how our brains function, it could be argued that we need this familiarity in order to function... Unfortunately, in todays profit driven media, we are so focused on the trivial b.s. stories that we lose touch with reality so much that your average high school student can't find Washington D.C. on a map, the average American can't tell you what is going on that is so important in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Chad, Burma, China, Tibet and the list of what isn't well covered in the mainstream media goes on and on.

So why does it hurt America to not cover real world news? Well, to paraphrase Immanuel Kant, two democracies will not go to war with each other. I would amend that statement to two well informed democracies will not go to war with one another. If the American people had paid attention to world events, middle eastern politics etc, the people may not have allowed our country to go to war with Iraq. YES, we do have a choice, YES you DO have a voice. It has been largely forgotten that the American people elect our officials. We decide how our government is run, and the people we elect are supposed to be an accurate reflection of the people who elect them. If their voter base calls in with facts, statistics, history etc. and says we want this, or we don't want to go to war with them... they have to listen. You don't even need the voters to have facts, just let the representative know that they won't be re-elected if they go to war with Iraq, lower tax funding for schools or whatever. The problem is that the wrong people know the power of numbers, so the two great political parties will try to sway the people, give them sound byte tidbits that mean nothing and don't even scrape the top layer off any issue... we go along with the sound byte until something goes wrong and another sound byte sounds a little better. You live in a democracy, you have the power. If you want to see your country shaped the way you want to see it, you need to know what is going on. I understand most people can't be, don't have the time for, or don't want to be as obsessed with the news, politics and current events as I am... and you shouldn't have to be. That is the entire point of a free press. The free press is there to inform you the people so that we the people have the power to make informed decisions when it comes to letting our leaders know what we want to have happen in our country.

Economics is an area that even the top dogs who have been in the business their entire lives don't really get all of. In a country like The United States of America, this is also a very important subject for our people, especially right now. I feel the mainstream media is failing us miserably in covering the current economic crisis. Instead of responsibly conveying to the public that there are different views, the top experts in the field have different opinions and at this point, we really have no way of knowing what plan is best, they instead present the issue as black and white; these big corporations are getting all this bailout money, why isn't the stimulus working and turing the economy around in less time than it normally takes to get direct deposit set up at a new job, etc. etc. Why? These pundits can't possibly be stupid enough to interview all these top economics experts and conclude that the stimulus has failed because nothing has improved in the last couple of weeks... no, I don't think they are. But I think fear sells. I think if they thought they could make more money reporting responsibly, they would. And this whole idea that the DOW is something we should really even care about... creating more panic in an already panicked economy, how can anyone see that is necessary or responsible?

To finish up here, as you know already, the point of this blog is to present real news that I feel matters as well as to trash talk the media and encourage my reader or maybe someday readers to take some action that will change the way the media handles the news. They have such a great opportunity, they have the power to help the public stay informed, to keep our country the greatest country in the world... but they have been failing miserably. Again, we the people have the power, even over the media. If enough people get tired of the tabloid format the mainstream media has been taking on and we can make it hurt their profit margin... we can make them change. Not all media is bad, let me clear this up right now. Reporters, I think, are the champions of our society. NPR is amazing and playing their part just the way the rest of the media should. It is the celebrity mainstream pundits that most people watch on the major networks that play up the soap opera theatre of it all, and have been hurting this great country so much. That is what needs to stop, this is what we need to change. We are not the stupid sheep they market to, and I think your average American really wants to know what is going on... Let us take our country back!