repaying the wrong ones, screwing working america, my minimum wage,and judicial red herrings...

goldman sachs made a profit such as it has never seen in its century and a half of existence. an obscene amount of money once again for doing basically nothing...credit is still non-existent, money is not going to its most productive uses, and the trend followed by every economic hegemon before us continues - worship of financialization for finance's sake at the expense of actually making anything tangible and retaining a manufacturing base that can be utilized at times like this. (how wonderful would it be to still have a strong manufacturing sector at this time and factories that might actually be opened to make things and put people back to work?) and so what is goldman sachs doing with all this money it is raking in now that the taxpayers came in to prevent collapse of the financial markets? well, it paid about $10 billion back to the government...and it is setting aside even more than that (between $11 and $12 billion) to pay out to obscenely rich people so that the average salary of their employees will near $1 million. and this is why class matters in america as it has in every nation since the dawn of civilization. there has class warfare waged in this nation since its founding...only never up the ladder, always down. and so now, long after americans fought and died for the right to a decent living and enough to eat and a roof over their heads we are heading right back to square one. uber-rich with no concept of good ol' fashioned christian morality or good ol' american equality and community spirit. and they are trying to scare us into accepting it because that is just the price of "prosperity." except that it isn't. we have had true prosperity before, in a way that benefited a hell of a lot more people than the current raping and pillaging of all but the richest. and they have the audacity to scold us about "soaking" the wealthiest of the wealthy, the people that have built walls and iron gates around their communities so they don't have to so much as look at the horror they are promulgating. since the dawn of time they've been soaking us...and the last 30 years it has turned into a tsunami. so excuse me if I don't feel so bad about making them run through a sprinkler so that my neighbor's don't lose their homes, their jobs, their health and their dignity.

which brings me to the latest sell-out of the american working class by the democratic party...the abandonment of the card-check provision in the labor bill being drawn up by the senate. (for those not in the know...this provision would allow unions to be recognized as soon as a majority of workers indicate they want one...making it much more difficult for the walmarts of the world to destroy the working class). even though anyone with the tiniest bit of context understands the historical significance of unionized labor in america and the immense benefits it bestowed upon the nation and the reality that as labor has been squeezed by the "free" market bullshit fuckheads that have no understanding of humanity and believe that we are all greedless rational beings the gap between the haves and the used to haves and the have nots has become enormous - the democrats decided it is more important to have 60 votes than to do what is right. and it is because they are scared of their campaign contributions drying up. they don't give a shit what is good for those of us that need the most help...they only care about what is good for the next election cycle. and while the republican party eats itself alive, I have to wonder if the democratic party is not far behind when the inevitable thunderstorm of severe economic distress comes upon us and the masses of america once again let their displeasure known.

and one of the things they consistently fuck us on is the minimum wage (even though a ridiculous super majority of americans think it should be higher...including card-carrying republicans). well, I've come up with a solution. forget having a minimum wage set at a real dollar amount. let's open it up for Big Business, let it float and fluctuate...with a catch. as a corporation, the lowest paid employee must make at least 1/50th of your CEO. you want to pay your CEO a $1 billion dollar bonus...fine. but then your mail-room clerk is going to get a $20 million christmas vacation. watch in amazement as CEO pay comes back to earth.

I'm am entirely sick of roe v. wade being the issue that they want us to give a shit about when it comes to who sits on the supreme court. I know that it is not nearly as important to me given that I don't have a uterus...but trust me, every day there are far more important issues being decided by the court that have serious effects on all of our every day lives. if we are going to insist on grilling about shit they won't answer...how about their views on how it is that a fictional entity concocted for the sole purpose of making money is considered a human being under the law, even though it never has to suffer the consequences that a human being would have to suffer when it breaks the law (capital punishment, jail time - side note, why the fuck don't we revoke corporate charters for 0 to life when business breaks the law?) how about their views on how spending is speech? how about their views on whether the founders meant it when they called the first states "commonwealths"? how about their views on the right of access to courts?

not that any of the condescending patronizing fuckheads could understand any of the answers. even with my lack of a uterus, I managed to be appalled at the attitude these fuckwads showed towards a woman. why the fuck are "conservatives" concerned with whether or not they are nice to lawyers all of a sudden? I thought us lawyers were evil encarnate. or is it just that this one has a vagina and so it makes her "moody" and "bitchy" where with scalia it makes him decisive, strong and intelligent. (and not that conservatives are the only ones...thank you sen. boxer for pointing out that the black guy before your committee might not have been expressing a view consistent with a NAACP resolution or another black guy from atlanta. its always lovely to see someone express their crackerness in such a pathetic way). despite the insane lack of substance that came out of four fucking days of nothing before the committee...one thing was abundantly clear. that woman that sen. graham "likes...really, he likes her" properly considers you fucking bozos mental midgets and she could run intellectual circles around your asses after a three day scotch binge.

that's when I reach for my revolver...