T-4 days and counting...

Well, I kinda feel like I should consult my Bucket List for some crazy shit to fill these next four days...sky-diving? spontaneous travel? tango lessons? eating monkey brains...well, maybe not that last one. But I do hear they're quite good chilled.
Regardless, the final countdown is upon us. And judging by the news blasts I get from various sources, we're full steam ahead towards a default and every damn politician's too proud to reach for the break or cut the wheel.
As it stands right now, the Senate has rejected Boehner's debt plan and Obama is pleading with everyone to move forward with a plan.
The way I see it: the right, who's stance has become hardened and far more immovable by extremist Tea Partiers is going to force the left to cede on several points, making the eventual deal absolute dog shit. If that doesn't happen, we'll default. And you know what, why not?
Maybe we need it. Maybe as a country we need to fall on the cold, hard surface of concrete failure to wake up and fucking give a shit! To demand that this ridiculous juvenile banter NOT be a part of democratic governance. To become engaged, or at the very least, have the slightest fucking clue as to what's going on. Maybe it will take a massive default to make that happen. Because the way I see it, either way, things will get worse.
I really hate to be so pessimistic but let's look at the options. As I suggested, new taxes won't be on there in any useful form. Loopholes for the rich and greedy will remain in tact, because both sides are up to their necks in corporate shit. Government spending will be annihilated. In fact, anything remotely "Keynesian" will be flushed.
Keynes, as you may know, was the British economist who among other things, founded the IMF (the original one, not the debt hauling colonialists of today) and built up an economic theory based on choice government spending to bolster a sagging economy. It was this mentality that the New Deal was founded upon. Even Nixon once said, "We're all Keynesians now." Well Dick, not so much anymore.
Nope, now we're Freidman fostered, free market corporate junkies, and anything government can do, big business can do better. Cut government spending, cut taxes and hope by pulling the regulation rug out from under the market, it'll be stable enough to find footing. Well, it's not! For fuck's sake, look at the facts: for example (again, I urge you to do research as well - not hard facts to find), according to JPMorgan Chase - a corporate heavyweight - U.S salaries are at a 50-year low relative to the GDP and company sales. Simultaneously, profit margins of big corporations have soared to almost 13%, the highest since the 60s. And why are profit margins so damn high? Well, at least 75% of the reason, is because wages are low. In a nutshell, pay people less, keep more. Makes sense. Is that any way to boost an economy? Fuck no! Does anyone give a shit? Apparently not.
As Harold Myerson says in the Washington Post, "Where's the rage?"
I'm with you Harold, where the hell is it?
We may not have the ability to pull out a New Deal, but we certainly have the ability to cut tax loopholes for the rich and raise taxes to boost revenue, WHILST boosting government funded infrastructure projects. That in turn would provide jobs for the now 9.2% of Americans out of work, who would then be taxed according to their wages, and in tiny steps, the economy would pick itself up off the floor, begin to lick it's wounds and maybe, just maybe sneak out of the House before right wing Tea Partiers beat the ever loving shit out of it.
But I fear that view is too Utopian. At least for where we stand right now. And that is why I play with the idea of a default, play with the positive aspect of giving every single American a kick in the ass. Because that's who's gonna get it. You don't think the pansy political players in Washington are gonna feel a pinch. No, no. They're career politicians, pockets deeper than pre-historic caves. They'll be fine. It'll be you, and it'll be me. The ones who have up till now, paid for it, and due to our laissez-faire response, will continue to, because we make no motion to object.
So for the next four days, enjoy apathy, enjoy the nonchalant carefree attitude of a citizen with no woes. Because the gigantic cloud of woes hanging above us, will drop. If not on August 2nd, at some point in the future. We will be forced to care. Unless by some miracle, we wake up before we are woken...

The fine print

While I make it a point to point out the weaknesses and ills of our country, I'd like to point out that in actuality, I am a patriot. I wholeheartedly believe in the United States, in its potential to promote justice, freedom, hard work and the pursuit of dreams and happiness, not only to its own people but to the rest of the world.
I just don't think we do any of that. Like I say to many people, I love the idea of my country, I hate what it's turned into.
And I know many people out there feel the same way. We cling to good news, the glimmers of our advancement through economic trenches, the lights at the end of the tortured war-mongering tunnels. So of course many of us were very excited last week to hear that in February, the Labor Department happily announced that the US had added 192,000 jobs, the most in more than a year.
You're probably thinking - fuck, she's not gonna rain on that too? - yes, yes I am.
The fine print:
Private Sector jobs added: 220,000
State and Local government jobs added: -30,000
But, but - yes.
The public sector lost 30,000 jobs in the month of February while corporate America surged ahead adding over 200,000.
So what? Jobs are jobs right?
Wrong.
Put simply, this is bad news.
As many of you have noticed, what's right for corporate America is rarely right for the 95% of us who don't enjoy multi-billion dollar salaries. Someone asked me the other day, what's the difference between politicians paid off by unions and politicians paid off by corporations?
Well, think about it. Unions, although they can be a royal pain in the ass, are there to protect the rights of the worker, the public sector worker, the middle class (if we still had one). Corporations are built on the concept of protecting their bottom line - it even says so in the definition for fucks sake!
That's the difference, and just by looking at the facts, you can see it in action.
Have you noticed the rising food prices? Oil prices? The continuous failing of our infrastructure, our schools, government jobs and public services? Police may not be able to get to you in time - but I bet if you had the phone number to a private security firm rent-a-cop, he'd get there quicker than you can pull money out of an ATM.
Unfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon. What Naomi Klein named "Corporate Shock Treatment" is actually a tried and true method, tested back in the 70s and 80s in places like Argentina, Chile, China and Poland. The CIA backed coups and corporate run revolutions to secure funds that democratically elected leaders in those countries didn't feel like coughing up. The IMF is effectively a global corporate loan shark, something John Maynard Keynes would start a war over if he was here to see it.
And now, these lab tested theories are coming to work at home. What better way of making money than reaping from your very own crop? With total control over a still-considered superpower, corporate America, without rules and regulations is free to continue pillaging without worry from government interventions. Why did the Supreme Court rule that corporations are people? Why would Obama lift even more regulations from corporate rulings? Put simply, government is corporate. The US government is not a free enterprise run by the people, for the people and of the people. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it is frighteningly true.
Government regulations on corporate actions help keep people safe, and a country functioning properly. A free market economy, a la the Chicago School and Milton Friedman does not fucking work. Friedman is a greedy hawk, not interested in how the free market will regulate itself but in the corporations he can make rich by giving them the reigns to regulate it themselves. Markets don't regulate themselves, they're not artificially intelligent beings that can dictate how to effectively price bread and oil. Humans made the market system ergo they need to regulate. Period.
The attack on the unions is yet another step in breaking down the public workings of a state and then rebuilding it with corporate agendas. Just like you would electro-shock a patient suffering from anxiety and then attempt to rebuild with pills and therapy.
The blank slate idea doesn't work for humans and it doesn't work for governments. It breaks them down and causes mass poverty and hysteria.
Sorry to say folks but that's where we're headed.
I urge you to look into the happenings in Chile, September 11, 1973 (ironic...), Argentina, March 24th 1976, China, June 5th 1989. Check into the shadowy caverns of the Internet and find our involvement - it's there, the arrogant pricks don't even try to hide it. Read up on it and then compare it to what's going on now.
If you see, as I did, the eerie similarities and the fucking terrifying foreboding of events to come, let me know. Leave a comment, an idea and let's start this revolution.
We can still fight for the rights we have and steal back the ones that have been taken. But, we, the people, have to Do Something.