The obligatory 9-11-11 post

10 years a long time. Of course we've been engaged in perpetual war since then, so it's even longer for the men and women who are keeping America "free" by being sent to occupy other countries. I find myself often asking if things are really as different now as they seem, or if it's just that I've had the wool removed from my eyes. I am not sure of the answer to that. But regardless, the world that we find ourselves in now is, to put it bluntly, horrible. And, in very blatant ways, the terrorists won.

We now live in a world where the act of getting on an airplane is considered criminal enough that we forfeit our rights against involuntary search and seizure. Big ole trigger warning on the link, btw.

We live in a world of extraordinary rendition, though I am not sure we haven't been doing things like that for a long time.

We live in a world where a Democratic (ha!) President renews and expands all the horrors of the Patriot Act.  And the rabid Obots ignore and ignore and ignore. Assassinating American citizens in the way we've always assassinated non-Americans is now considered solid anti-terrorism policy.

We live in a world where the cruelty done to the poorest and weakest of us by that same Democratic President and the Republicans who help him, make the Republican Revolution of 1995 look like a fucking cakewalk.

The list could go on and on. But the biggest take away is we now live in a world of unending fear. Fear of violence from the state. Fear of abject poverty. Fear or religious zealots (both Christian and Muslim and and and and and). All fear, all the time.

That's how the terrorists won.

Back To (Home) School

I feel like I've spent the last few weeks in a whirlwind of capitalist ecstasy. I have been shopping, y'all. And not a package of underwear here and a t-shirt there, but full fledged (well semi-full fledged. I'm still a poor person and I still love thrift stores) back to school shopping for the Kid. I haven't been able to do that since 2007. I have had to do things in tiny pieces with crossed fingers that the Kid wasn't going to have a growth spurt and suddenly not have any pants that fit. Kid needing new shoes would create a fiery pit of fear and worry in my belly. And then there was the incident just a few months ago when I asked the kid where he was going to store his socks and underwear in his new room and he said "you mean my 3 pairs of underwear?" Oh the heartbreak and guilt and shame of not being able to properly clothe a rapidly growing child is something I hope none of you all ever has to feel. But thanks to employment, the Kid is clothed. New(ish) pants and t-shirts and long sleeve t-shirts and button down shirts and jeans and hoodies! And a dozen new pairs of boxers! New school supplies, and books. Oh I might have gone a little crazy with the books. This year's science is biology and because my favorite part of biology was making the cell drawings, I got El Nino the biology coloring book. And the Outsiders. He's a good age for it and Hinton is a woman who wrote the book about teenage othering of poor kids while a teenager. Better than reading Catcher in the Rye, in my opinion. And then there are the many "how to write a paper" books, since that is definitely an area that the Kid hates but that must be done this year. And Howard Zinn's illustrated book on empire and and and. Today was the end of it. Kid got new shoes and socks. Provided he doesn't have a freakish growth spurt, he's all set till spring. I don't even. What. How. I.. Shit. The long running list of shit that MUST. BE. BOUGHT. is down to half a page of notebook paper, and except for a memory foam pad for my bed (hello fibro-fucking-myalgia! Thanks for making sleeping torture!) it's all want and not too much need. Is this how normal people live? I can't even remember. It's been so long. Now I have to do some serious saving of the money for the most extravagant of luxuries- dental work. There will be root canals and crowns y'all. And cleanings. Think about that.

Discovered at the Grocery Store

Cherrums- plum shaped and sized fruit that tastes like a plum-cherry hybrid. So fucking awesome I may eat a dozen right now (not really, that's like drinking a week's worth of prune juice in one go).

I have discovered, after years of subsisting on one meal a day plus copious amount of coke(a cola), that I actually function much better if I 1) drink coffee and tea 2) eat lots of little snacks like a cut up piece of fruit or a yogurt 3)eat an actual lunch, no eating the convenience store muffin I tossed in my bag just because it was easy and calling lunch, that I feel much better. And do my job better too (I get graded on job performance every. single. day. So I know when I am slipping).

Good lord, I hope I am not on the verge of becoming a virtuous foodie. Feel free to shame me if I do. But until then, try a Cherrum! They are way better than pluots!

It's Labor Day!

And I should write a big, meaty fucking post on that. But I am just burnt the fuck out from work. Thank the FSM that I have today off. Thank the FSM that I have a job and today off (paid, shocking, nez pas?) Thank the FSM that I have a job, today off, and make almost a living wage.

And we all best be thanking an imaginary deity for that shit, cause lord knows the weasels-in-charge of governance of the masses for the elites ain't doing diddly fucking squat for the unemployed, the semi-employed, the employed but not making enough to live on, the employed but my heath insurance ate my paycheck, etc, etc.

Alternatively, thank a Union. For it is to the mighty (not so much anymore) Unions that we owe 40 hour work weeks. Thanks to the Union, I earned 60 bucks in overtime last paycheck. 60 bucks, that's a half a week of groceries. Used to be a whole week of groceries, but wages as we all know, have not kept up with inflation the last 30 years or so.

Speaking of groceries, I am off to buy some. This working full plus time really cuts the fuck into my dinner making time. So I am stocking up on sammich makings and frozen pizzas. Truth is, Americans eat like shit because we don't have time to shop and cook and pay tribute to the mighty gods of Corporation Welfare.

We need shorter work weeks. If our productivity is so high now that we produce an extra month's worth of work every year, we should both be making more actual money and working fewer hours. But that seems way too logical to the weasels-in-charge to get.

Isn't he precious?

Oh look, President Fuck You has declared today as National Women's Equality Day. It would mean so much more if he didn't treat equal rights for us female types as a bargaining chip. Keep the meaningless holiday, I'd rather have non rapey cops, equal pay and sovereignity over my own damn body.

Not time to post, but time to bleg

Not for myself this time.

Arthur, patron saint of us disabused, disenchanted and disappeared folks is having a rough time of it. I know how gut-wrenchingly awful it is to have to bleg for a living, and I don't put out damn near the quality of righteous anger and analysis that Arthur does. I've said it before, if the world were just he'd be a national hero. But alas.

If you've got something to spare- send it his way.

It's a tiny consolation

It took, what, 3 years for the big name left-ish* types to figure out what we've all known about Obama since the primaries. He's the second coming of Hoover. A stand in the face of history, shrug, and potter around with meaningless bullshit type.

We've know this for so long. And trust, I would have been super happy to eat crow had I been wrong. Had Obama shown that he was more than just empty speeches and kleplotcratic, I would be the first person to sign up for phone banking come 2012.

I wanted, and still want, a government that functions by the people, for the people.

But I am not going to see that anytime soon. My Kid is looking at a world where he may be my dependent well into his late 20's because job options and education options for a child of poverty, even a straight, white, male, tab child of poverty, are growing smaller everyday. And the president can't be assed to seriously talk about it.

The one tiny consolation I have is the "told ya so" consolation. It's mildly petty, sure, to be standing in the middle of the street while Rome burns yelling about how we all should have invested in fire fighting programs, but I still want my little bit of credit. This path that the president has led us down seems so shockingly out of character to the johnny-come-latelys of anti-Obama-ism. But for us old hands, TOLD YOU SO. FUCKERS.

So I am more than a wee bit peeved that they are calling it "firebagging" after Fire Dog Lake. If I remember correctly, quite a few people got kicked off that site for cautiously suggesting that Obama might not be the messiah, and now they get the credit for disaffection. Fuck you. Oh, now you want to primary Obama. Tough shit. The only people that primary sitting presidents are unelectable attention grabbers. You voted him in. You gave him legitimacy. The next chance we have of changing that won't come until 2016, or more likely 2020 after a few years under President Bachman-Perry-Paul-Romney. Bad political decisions are very long lasting. You cheerleaders for Hope and Change just fucked over an entire generation. Suck it up, you unthinking douchenoodles.

We have a president who veers to the right of Warren Buffett. Let's all remember that Buffett's ONLY claim to leftisness is that he doesn't believe in inherited wealth. He doesn't actually think the government is all that good at providing services. But he also doesn't like the volatility of a stock market in the grips of rating agency madness over the national debt. Tax the rich to pay the debt, don't hand children billion dollar inheritances. That's Buffet, and that's Obama on his right.

So I am taking my little consolation. I was right. You all were wrong. If I vote at all in 2012, I'm voting for Rosanne Barr. I like her. She's funny. She's feminist. She gave Joss Whedon his first writing gig. She don't give a fuck about what you think of her. And I'd be making a more productive use of my ballot by voting for any joke candidate than by giving it to an asshat only because the other side's asshat is less eloquent in describing just how he/she plans to fuck us all over.

*left-ish. They aren't the bastions of progression they like to claim to be.