This may sound a bit strange but it's something I have been struggling with. You see, as far as I've attempted to answer this question, it has only resulted in unsatisfactory answers. It's a pretty simple question but without a pretty simple answer. That is to say, What makes a salad a salad? What makes something not a salad and by what process can salad become a not-salad?
As far as I can tell, Americans name food to make it appear as if they are eating healthy. Thus the classification of Salad was born. Let's face it, there's nothing healthy about certain types of salads. Do I even need to mention the classic taco salad?
So it begs the question on when a salad is no longer a salad. One clue would be if it's baked. At which point it is no longer a salad and becomes a casserole. In general, a salad should consist of leafs like lettuce, spinach and what not with just a little dressing on it. Olive oil or Vinegar would suffice for this. You may want to toss in some cut up tomatoes, onions, avocado or peppers into the mix. And then adding old bread crumbs called croutons can liven up your cow meal.
Though once you start putting meats in there you're bordering on the "salad in name alone" turf. But then, if that's what is a salad, why do they call it Tuna Salad? How about fruit salad? Even if Tuna salad falls in the field of salads that consists of two parts miracle whip and one part other things.
A fun fact that seldom few take advantage of is that mayo is pretty easy. And yet a lot of people for some reason don't think mayonnaise is something that you can actually make yourself in the course of about ten minutes time. It requires no voodoo magic of any sort, I promise.
Anyhow, my favorite salads are cobb and wedge salad. Which when you think of it, is the laziest salad you could possibly ever make. It's a wedge slice topped with unhealthy amounts of blue cheese, bacon and tomatoes. But again, that doesn't answer what a salad really is.
You do have to believe me though, salads are actually a real thing. It's just that people often attempt to make salads fit within their preconceived notions regarding food by way of tacos and ranch dressing rather than accepting the idea of salad for what it is, if you want salad as a salad rather than a salad as an impossible and personally conceived food-idea, you'll be much happier, if you think about it.
I first came across this story when I was writing a piece about capital punishment a few weeks back and while I was completely shocked by how shitty the system of punishment we live in has, I was more shocked by what I accidentally stumbled on.
Have you ever bought sustainable farm raised fish from Whole Foods thinking that it was a great step in being eco friendly? Well, you may have inadvertently ended up eating prison food.
Now that may confuse you a little but it's absolutely true. It appears that in an effort to keep their prices low-low-LOW! While also being able to charge you typical Whole Food prices, they sourced their farm raised fish from some places that you wouldn't expect fish to come from. Jail. Take a look at the following picture of this terrible prison....
You're probably wondering what those water ponds in the back are. Well, that's where your farm raised fish is coming from. They have reservoirs for the cattle they raise there. Although many prisons have ponds for aquaculture- that's actually where the fish sold at Whole Foods comes from as well as the goat's-milk cheese. Sure enough, they're working for slave wages to crank out your food.
The Cañon City Correctional Complex in southern Colorado is a veritable city of prisoners. More than 8,000 inmates are housed in the complex of 13 correctional facilities -- nine state and four federal -- most notably in the Supermax, a state-of-the-art federal facility known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” But on a recent early spring day, Colorado Correctional Industries (CCi) Director Steve Smith isn’t concerned with inmates. He’s concerned with tilapia.
In a greenhouse in the center of the correctional complex, Smith surveys the fish splashing and thrashing about in a pool of murky green water. “This is their death row,” says Smith, seemingly oblivious to the warm water pelting his gray suit. From here, the hormone-free tilapia will be killed, gutted, cleaned, chopped, vacuum-sealed and ultimately shipped to Whole Foods stores.
This fish-farming program is staffed by inmates, and that’s not the only job performed by the Cañon City prisoners. Across some 6,000 rural acres, low-security inmates also raise cows and goats to produce milk, craft custom fishing rods, train dogs, grow flowers, tame mustangs, recycle trash from nearby counties to resell it, build chairs for state agencies, and more.
So not only do they farm fish but they do a slew of other jobs like herd goats that Whole Foods also uses for cheeses and what not. Pretty wild if you ask me. I mean, most people in Whole Foods would probably shriek in horror in finding out that their farm fresh fish has a prison record.
But then again, isn't this a productive use of both prisoners as well as space? They're going to be in there for a good long sentence and it's not like they can shiv your fish or something. In fact, if they did, then that would be fine as you need it to be cut anyway. The best thing about this in the name of capitalism is that it's dirt cheap. You don't have to pay them min. wage if they're prisoners. You just have to give them literally pennies on the dollar.
It's basic slave wages for slave work. The modern American slave shops. But the question that comes from that is if people can get mad at immigrants for stealing their jobs, why aren't they going bat shit insane over the fact that prison inmates are takin' their jobs at slave wages?
Getting back to the prisons themselves though, imagine your entire life lived out in these concrete monstrosity. You have to have some respect for anyone who holds onto their will to live while in that sort of environment. The sad part is that the one pictured above the food conversation is "one of the good ones." Much like this next one that you can see a baseball diamond in the background.
And is it just me or does the prison look like a giant skull from above? Who the hell decides to design a jail to look like a skull? What target demo are they doing that for? The investors? The prisoners? Because let me tell you, they don't scare easily and most will probably shoot to come here just so they can say they did time in this skull prison.
What's the "best" part of all these designs is that there actually exist a "million" poorly defined "ICE" detention centers, where people are held indefinitely and without charge. So in reality, the skull prison is actually in comparison, one of the good ones. The others that are far worse exist within office parks and since they're considered "temporary" holding sites, they don't have to have things like "bathrooms" or "humane conditions." I'm also sure that you can find many instances where a U.S. Citizen was held under icy-cold AC vents for days on end without bathrooms because "technically this isn't a jail".
So really, there's no such things as secret police jails. At least not in America. These places are just considered Ice holding stations. Puts things into perspective and makes the whole slave labor farming fish and milking goats for some rich person's dinner they bought at Whole Foods look a lot more appealing, doesn't it? x
Your Love Don't Pay The Bills - Poverty In America
Hey unemployed, worried that everyone else is rich but you? Worry no more! It seems that the poverty line has been getting lower and lower like a limbo stick. It's just a question on how low it can go!
Census: US poverty rate swells to nearly 1 in 6
WASHINGTON (AP) — The ranks of America's poor swelled to almost 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment left millions of Americans struggling and out of work. The number of uninsured edged up to 49.9 million, the biggest in more than two decades.
The Census Bureau's annual report released Tuesday offers a snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for 2010, when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. It comes at a politically sensitive time for President Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack H. Obama, who has acknowledged in the midst of a re-election fight that the unemployment rate could persist at high levels through next year.
The overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent, or 46.2 million, up from 14.3 percent in 2009. The official poverty level is an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four.
Reflecting the lingering impact of the recession, the U.S. poverty rate from 2007-2010 has now risen faster than any three-year period since the early 1980s, when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment.
Measured by total numbers, the 46 million now living in poverty is the largest on record dating back to when the census began tracking poverty in 1959. Based on percentages, it tied the poverty level in 1993 and was the highest since 1983.
Broken down by state, Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 22.7 percent, according to calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New Mexico and Arizona. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 6.6 percent.
The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 16.1 percent to 16.3 percent — or 49.9 million people — after the Census Bureau made revisions to numbers of the uninsured. That is due mostly to continued losses of employer-provided health insurance in the weakened economy.
Congress passed a health overhaul last year to deal with rising numbers of the uninsured. While the main provisions do not take effect until 2014, one aspect taking effect in late 2010 allowed young adults until age 26 to be covered under their parents' health insurance.
Brett O'Hara, chief of the Health and Disability Statistics branch at the Census Bureau, noted that the uninsured rate for adults ages 18 to 24 declined last year — from 29.3 percent to 27.2 percent. It was the only age group which posted a decrease. "For the change in uninsured, the law change certainly could be a factor," he said.
The median — or midpoint — household income was $49,445, down 2.3 percent from 2009.
The latest numbers, which cover Obama's second year in office, offer political fodder for both parties as Obama seeks to push a new $447 billion plan for creating jobs and stimulating the economy. The plan includes a proposed payroll tax cut and an extension of unemployment benefits.
Obama is urging Congress to pay for the new spending largely by increasing taxes on the wealthy, which Republicans have rejected emphatically.
On Tuesday, the Census Bureau noted the impact of government safety-net programs on the poor. It estimated that new unemployment benefits passed in 2009, which gave workers up to 99 weeks of payments after a layoff, and did not run out for most people until this year, lifted 3.2 million above the poverty line. Social Security kept about 20.3 million, seniors as well as working-age adults receiving disability payments, out of poverty.
And before I get ahead of myself I must say that I do realize that the American standard of poverty is ridiculously high compared to third world countries. It's sort of one of those things where your mother tells you that there's people less fortunate than you and that's why you must eat your veggies. There's definitely people in the rest of the world that are worse off. Though I have no idea why Fox has to spell it "poverty". Fox News needs to spell it "poverty". Why yes, they do have a flat-screen TV. So what. Do people realize that official poverty level is an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four. Trying feeding a family of 4 on 22k a year. That gets broken down to $347.29 a week after taxes are taken. Then you have to factor in rent. Yeah, there's no way you can house a family for that much unless you are living in a shack in an economically depressed area and then good luck getting to work from there.. if you even have work.
Water is usually included in rent but with Gas and electric plus phone and cable/internet, you're going to be running an extra $100-200 a month.
That image is just beyond fucked. I mean, oh man, they have a fridge - must mean that they aren't suffering crippling poverty.
Then there's the threat of health concerns. Dental is a non-starter. If you've ever got medical covered by your job, then you're lucky. It's something like Kaiser and you have a $10 copay. Otherwise you just don't go tot he doctor at all.. ever. This is why in my city there's a shit ton of homeless people at just about every corner. At least it's not like some cities where the popular solution talked about is banning panhandling. Or to be humane about it, they allow it if you've purchased a license.
Yes. You read that correctly. You need to actually purchase to license to beg. But that's all because of the urban legends and rumors of hobos talking about how beggers make 40k a year "All tax free!" hanging around all day in the sun begging for quarters.
Those terrible panhandlers! They work the street all day and then drive home to their mansions! Is what they actually believe. I don't know why, but that is the theory. It's all about those welfare queens and panhandler princes.
Or maybe it's just a case of the grass always being fucking greener on the other side. They act as if every homeless person is some sort of hyper-competent career beggar who doesn't actually scare the living shit out of white middle class people.
It's sad that this is a super common opinion in middle class suburban and rural America because there are stories about a beggar who lives in a deluxe condo plastered all over the news constantly. But no way are any of those beggars just mentally ill veterans or even worse.
The problem is that most homeless people stay homeless because they're too nice to be thieves. True story, often the cops won't arrest homeless people because that would simply mean that they would have a bed and a roof over their head not made of cardboard for the night.
The will beat the shit out of them though.
And heaven forbid that the homeless guy actually finds some means of entertainment. In Tampa there was controversy because the newspaper reported on a guy that was begging on the street while listening to music on his headphones and had a cell phone. You know, because if you can afford a $10 mp3 player and a $25 prepaid cell phone, you simply can't be poor.
It's just one more step in showing how America is regressing into Elizabethan England, but only with shittier opinions about poetry. Debtors prisons, the lower classes sending money to their imprisoned relatives to buy niceties and now begging licenses, I guess. I'm curious on if the Bishop will outlaw playhouses within the city limits next.
On a final note let's just keep this resonating in your brains..
• In America today, people in the highest income group level, the top 20 percent, live, on average, at least 6.5 years longer than those in the lowest income group. Let me repeat that. If you are poor in America you will live 6.5 years less than if you are wealthy or upper-middle class.
• In America today, adult men and women who have graduated from college can expect to live at least 5 years longer than people who have not finished high school.
So Dexter is back.. but I can't decide if the episode just wasn't made for me or if season 5 killed any interest I had for this show. I can't say I care about any of the plotlines that they started and the forecast for the future just seem like this season.. well, it'll be better than last season, because anything would be better than last season. But it just doesn't feel the same.
Last season was a pile a shit in which you could have watched the first four episodes of the season and then skipped to the season finale and feel not a single bit lost or as if you missed anything that couldn't have been covered in the "previously on dexter" segment.
Well, at the very least Dexter seems to be alright with killing this season. Nothing holding him back now. But that presents a slew of other problems. When is being too kill happy a bad thing? Well, let's start with the episode. Dexter basically lures two paramedics to call their death and no one seems to be concerned about this? Does 911 usually send two paramedics out to treat a stab wound by themselves. You know, when the person who did the stabbing could still be around?
I just don't know about the show anymore. The first season hit the fact that Dexter is smart and covers his tracks well enough to never be caught, as well as balancing out the melancholia and dark comedy aspect. It went from the story of a man trying to emulate normalcy and facing credible threats. Now it's just a sitcom starring a serial killer with Matsuka as the wacky neighbor and a ghost dad.
Because I'm almost 100% sure that I'm watching a comedy show whenever I turn on Dexter. There's no other way of explaining the sheer contempt the writers hold to their audience when it comes to delivering exposition only someone under sedation would possibly need.
"Oh, no. This giant man stepped on my lancet. That means no blood sample."
After the jock fist-bumps him, blowing his ring-poke: "Oh, guess I got a sample of my own blood."
It's a wonder Dexter can plan anything. What with his constant self-narration occupying every neuron in his brain. I guess I should be happy that they got rid of the Batista and Laguerta story line. That was utterly the worse piece of shit story line last season and they quickly wiped away the whole marriage in short time this season.
One thing about Dexter that always bothers me is that they just don't give a shit if you notice that it's shot in California with some b-roll footage or throw an establishing shot of Ocean Ave in South Beach but then you see him on MacArthur Causeway.
Though you probably could have guessed that it wasn't filmed in Florida because Dexter's high school reunion didn't have nearly enough Jewish kids or high-class Spanish people chilling there. Or maybe I just didn't notice because I was too annoyed at Ghost Dad just chillin' there. You know, just shootin' the shit and talkin' bout what evs.
The episode turned into some sort of fan fiction. Was it really necessary for the chick to thank Dexter for letting her suck his dick and then calling it "So good"? I mean, are you fucking serious? All because she cheated off his papers in high school? What fucking lonely nerd is writing this shit.
And why did she take off her top? I mean, I get why Showtime figured they could squeeze in some nudity because they're on showtime, but I'm not an expert in receiving blow jobs, but I'm pretty sure that it's not a given that you have to be topless to give one.
The whole scene just seemed like a random excuse for tits to be displayed.
They also go way overboard with the Ghost Dad bullshit. It's like he's actually a ghost there now. He gives Dexter all kinds of advice his brain shouldn't know and the worse was that thumbs up. Though maybe I should brace myself for not only one ghost father, but two. As it seems that Olmos didn't manipulate anything of consequence. I would feel a little bad if that ended up being a spoiler, but hey at least I can say I called it. Edward James Olmos being the new killer's ghost father would make it a similar situation.
Which leads to another problem. Which is one of the bigger problems with this show is the whole guest stars every season. It removed any sense of doubt as to how things were going to play out and who was going to be getting the needle by season's end. It's just a ton of awkward situations as to figuring out how to quickly write them off the show before the last episode.
I know the running joke is Miami Metro PD is the worst police dept and the writers of this show have evidently never seen an actual police procedural, but it's like Dexter isn't even trying to cover his tracks anymore.
*Steals girl's cellphone to set up murder of popular dude* *Murders popular dude* *Hammertime! This will never be traced back to me.*
It's distractingly bad and I'm usually very willing to do the whole suspended disbelief thing.
Which brings me to one of the final complaints I will state about the episode. The whole sudden appearance of Angel's estranged sister and her bizarre live-in babysitter/incest tension angle. The show is clearly suffering from the standard Showtime problem of painting anybody but the main character in really broad, almost comical strokes before tossing them aside to serve some asinine twist.
Because I'm not sure if it was obvious for everyone else, but I feel kind of dumb fore realizing this just now that Angel and his sister's religious upbringing is obviously telegraphing Angel's sister being a victim of Olmos' little murder cult thing. I guess I can only hope that it's even more cliche than I think it would be and by some strange coincidence ends up having Dexter saving her to instill some spirituality in Dexter that he can impart onto his baby since that was a major point of the whole religious school.
But with all those terrible aspects aside, I'll be a liar if I didn't admit that I'll watch, just like most everyone else who bitches about this show, but I can't help but mourn the show that could have been under a slightly different management.
I seem to have jumped off facebook with the intent of not going back for a couple of days as there was a massive amount of Steve Jobs memories being posted up. I bet there went any main headlines that Occupy Wall Street had hoped to make for the night.
I'm actually a bit surprised that this came as a surprise to anyone. You sort of knew it was coming when they announced that his authorized biography was going to be published at the same time that he announced his retirement. That basically just screams out "It was fun, y'all!"
So yeah. It turns out that there isn't an app for cancer. But hey, at least he died after the market closed, thoughtful to the end. I shouldn't make fun of him, I mean it sucks. Pancreatic cancer is a rough way to go out.
This all happens a day after the iPhone 4s is revealed? I know it was poorly received and the stock price went down on it, but I didn't think he'd take the release that hard. He released it though. Giving them a "one more thing..." for the show yesterday too. What a guy.
Maybe people were actually just looking for jobs? But yeah, this is such a strange mixture of hero fetishism and consumption fetishism all mixed into one. My Facebook feed is just people listing their various apple purchases. In some areas people are going to Apple stores to pay their respects. I mean, that's just strange no matter what.
Boy did he put that liver to good use there buddy. Great job gaming the system in 2009 when you chat cutted your way in line for one. How much time did it buy him? About two years I guess. You have to wonder if they can recover that liver. It gave him a good two years, but man was that some sort of karma. Just goes to show you that the U.S. health care is the best health care in the world! You can just buy your organs.. there's an app for that.
And while all of you stroke the dead man's cock, there's many who believe Steve Jobs is personally responsible for the death and misery of millions and wonder why you mourn him. On the bright side, at least Jobs' fortune of 8.3 billion dollars will actually be taxed.
So what sort of legacy will he leave behind? Well, a bad first day of stocks, that's for sure. But also a legacy that may not be so squeaky clean as he had hoped it would. I mean, yeah. He was great for capitalism, but as a humanitarian he was a bit lacking.
Steve Jobs turned Apple around by turning liberal humanism into a huge marketing gimmick and selling it to hipster college students. He disguised market relations as social relations and made dumb 20-somethings think that the role of seller/consumer is some kind of intimate social bond as long as the company has commercials that appeal to their generic liberalism.
This is why a bunch of people are acting like when some CEO billionaire who sold them a product died, it was like they lost a personal near and dear friend. Right now in New York there's people "paying tribute" to Jobs by going to the Apple stores and paying their respects. To a fucking white washed store.
Remember the famous 1984 Macintosh ad?
Ironically enough those zombies are now the average apple consumer.
It's sad that someone died to pancreatic cancer. That's a harsh cancer to die from. But you can't forget that Steve Jobs is responsible for the inhumane treatment of Chinese workers who keep killing themselves so you can own the latest iPhone.
Oh yeah, and what's his stance on teacher unions again? hee
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs laid into teachers unions Friday at a Texas education reform conference, an Austin, Texas, newspaper reported, saying they're "what's wrong with our schools."
Teachers unions have traditionally represented one of Apple's most loyal group of customers and have largely stuck with the company since the days of the Apple IIe.
Gotta say, he sure had strong opinions on them. The best thing I saw out of it all was the following off the apple website:
If you would like to share your thoughts, memories, and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com
Yeah, there's no way this won't be used for marketing. None what-so-ever.
This news was so big it even got the great Obama to come out and speak about it..
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _____________________
October 5, 2011 Statement by the President on the Passing of Steve Jobs
Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.
By building one of the planet’s most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity. By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike. Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.
The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him. [emphasis added]
I like how Obama will comment on Steve Jobs' passing within an hour of it happening but he has yet to still make any acknowledgment that the Occupy Wall Street people even exist. And what is up with his comparisons?
I don't know. Maybe Da Vinci had thousands of employees coming up with stuff for him? I mean, sure Jobs invented had a big hand in creating the concept of the personal computer, but it's not like he was sitting around in a darkened room, sweat on his brow creating the i[whatever] all by himself. There's teams of scientists, artists, businessmen, and engineers working on this stuff, and then Jobs was all like "that's cool, that's not."
I bet you in some dark and stormy area of Seattle right now, sits Bill Gates in a lightless room alone at his organ. The pipes moan out some terrifying (i)tune. A clap of lightning reveals his maniacal grin.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Was your smartphone made in a sweatshop? Were those diapers made by slaves? Were children in another country forced to put that stitching in your designer jeans?
Consumers will be able to find out after the debut Thursday of a new app and website that measure the forced labor in everyday products.
Created by the U.S. State Department and a watchdog group, the free app and website will make consumers aware of their "slavery imprint."
"This is a new way to create awareness about the issue of modern slavery and empower consumers," said Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. "If we can do carbon footprints, why not slavery footprints?"
Call + Response, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending modern slavery, partnered with CdeBaca's office a year ago and received funding from the State Department to develop the products.
Forced labor is a situation where anyone is forced to work without pay, said Justin Dillon, Call + Response's president.
The "slavery footprint" app and survey will be available at slaveryfootprint.org, at 12 a.m. Thursday.
The survey asks users 11 lifestyle questions. These include: Where do you live? What's in your medicine cabinet? What's in your closet? What gadgets do you own? How much jewelry do you own? Also, have you ever paid for sex?
Afterwards the survey uses a formula based on where the raw materials in the products come from and where the finished products are made, and then assigns a "slavery footprint" score.
Some results: 9 people or "slaves" were used to mine rubies in jewelry; 3.1 individuals were used to make bikes; 1.9 to make diapers; .9 to make cotton T-shirts, and 3.2 to make a smartphone.
Nine is very high, while .9 is low, said Dillon. The ideal number, though, is zero, he added.
"We're not naming any brands because the idea right now is to inform consumers about forced labor behind everyday products and not to put brands on the spot," Dillon said.
Eventually, subsequent versions of the "slavery footprint" tools will allow consumers to enter specific brands.
With the slavery footprint app, the user can snap a photo of a product and send a message to the company inquiring about its position on forced labor. The app also leverages social networks, like Facebook and its "check-in" feature, which automatically lets stores know that the user wants a slavery-free product.
Are you feeling alienated from the product of your labor? There's an app for that..
First off let me say that I'm sick of the word "app". It's not any more hip than saying application. Sure you sound a little less like a dork,nerd or dweeb, but the point is the same - You sound fucking stupid. But the same time that I'm sick of the word App, I'm also sick of slavery, I guess. So perhaps this app sounds really cool...
I'll have to buy an iPhone and check it out! I wonder if it also list the average number of iPhone makers who killed themselves per iPhone made. Talk about liberalism.
Ironically enough I'm sure the moment you get an iPhone, you become a slave to smartphones. I mean, when I'm starving for some grub I know that I want to look up which fast food joint around me has the smallest slavery footprint.
I wonder if you manually set the time period coverage from AD1500 to present, your smartphone will just spew out an unending fountain of blood before committing suicide. But even if you don't set it to such a wide range of time, if it doesn't say 100% for everyone everywhere that capitalism exist, you might as well throw it away as the programmer fucked up somewhere along the way of setting it.
The comments to this piece are also pretty terrible.
HeroicSlug, 1 minute ago Oh my gods. I care so hard about this. {/sarcasm} Life in other countries is crappy, we get it. Stop trying to make me feel guilty, mainstream media.
topgod, 4 minutes ago love stuff made by slaves. cheap
topgod, 3 minutes ago in reply to topgod who wants to pay 30 times for union workers to make the same products?
GQP2, 5 minutes ago Not even going to look. Don't care even a little bit. I'll continue to buy whatever I want, period.
devilsevil, 42 minutes ago Yeah, I buy the sweatshop stuff, and I don't care. It saves me money. So what?
I bet the best way this app will be used is just by a bunch of yuppies who run over to Whole Foods to scan bar codes with their phones and see who can come up with the biggest slave-o-meter score card.
"I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day or the days immediately following, for as long as I can, with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine by occupying Freedom Plaza to demand that America's resources be invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation. We can do this together. We will be the beginning."
From their fact sheet:
1. We will use our anger at injustice as a positive, nonviolent force for change. 2. We will not carry weapons of any kind. 3. We will not vandalize or destroy property. 4. We will not use or carry alcohol or illegal drugs. 5. We will not run or make threatening motions. 6. We will not insult, swear or attack others. 7. We will protect those who oppose or disagree with us from insult or attack. 8. We will not assault, verbally or physically, those who oppose or disagree with us, even if they assault us.
Guys, guys, guys! This is a civil resistance... We're angry but we have to be civil about it, okay?! A great part of me really can't help but laugh at the whole capitalization of non-violent in there and this fixation with that in true liberal fashion. non-violence is the greatest trick that the ruling class has ever played on the proletarian.
Civil disobedience and disrupting government functions, which is an interesting aspect of this, with either go one of two ways - with them going home with their tails between their legs or suicide by cop happening a whole lot more often.
When it comes down to it, this protest to these people just end up being a vacation. They get to say they did something, think about the lame ass white bread version of the 60's they learned about, go home to their privileged, pretty-bourgeois lives, and maybe even schedule another one after they vote for Obama in 2012. To them this is no different than buying fair trade coffee or organic tomatoes.
"I'm really anxious to re-elect Obama... it's not about Democrats." Fucking seriously? What are these wars you speak of? I don't want to talk to you anymore"
However to people like me it is different. A protest cannot be completely divorced from the realm of politics, and the extreme control of this protest by the FBI plant leaders and the government shows that it has the potential to explode into a revolutionary situation. Go throw some bottles at the police around the are where all these idiots are camped out. Go commit economic violence. Start a riot or go cause a police beatdown under the progressive regime of Obama. Because they sure as shit don't believe they can be touched. This was from a forum on the Occupywallstreet website:
The cops beat down protestors the last time we tried a sit-in that blocked Wall Street. I think the one woman's husband is still spoon-feeding her broccoli and cabbage, as we speak. I saw footage of her head getting split. I have a feeling that this isn't going to go well.
the site admin posts in the thread later and just goes "oh dont worry it'll all be fine the police aren't allowed to beat people who just peacefully protest, its against the rules
I'll join these two characters in laughing at this utterly insane mindset.
It saddens me a little wondering how a mass revolution in the US can even be sparked in terms as the labor rights movement, civil rights or even woman's rights. Because it seems that no one is willing to protest an issue they are willing to die for.
But perhaps I'm being to harsh on them. It's not like the type of people who are organizing this protest would be throwing firebombs at the police anyway if it weren't for the white-washing of Ghandi and MLK. These people are middle class liberals, they like the system, they just want it adjusted a bit and, commensurate with the smallness of their desired modifications, they can only be in favor of small-type protests to begin with.
So I guess I'll have to settle with the idea of "Honk if you want to show the most bloodthirsty imperialistic empire in the history of humanity you disapprove of their actions.."
These people need to realize that a protest is not a fucking social outing. This is the reason none of this shit works or has any lasting impact what-so-ever. They take the words and actions of Gandhi as if he accomplished much. Why yes, let's see
"Hey, lets kick brits out of country so us upper castes can exploit the dalits more"
Boy, Gandhi sure did accomplish a shit ton, didn't he? Or maybe the other aspect is what we should be focused on..
"I hate dalits so much im going to go on a hunger strike to stop a reform favorable to them" - greatest soul on earth mohandras gandhi
On the social networking sites it has spread as well. Twitter and other shitty sites like that have embraced it and you get shit like this popping up:
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED #OCCUPYCHI
Oh how I wish that before Gil-Scott Heron had died, he would have said something along the lines of the revolution will not be re-tweeted. Because Jesus, some of these white boy protesters are the worse. Maybe one just needs to shrug their shoulders and do as much minority outreach as possible to mitigate that goofy white boy shit in all of this.
It's all the same boring center-left "don't cause trouble, send good energies" bullshit that never work. Do you know why the hippies failed? It wasn't that their message was wrong. Don't think I'm bashing on peace love and happiness. But the reason the movement failed was because people were too embarrassed to be seen as part of that identity, basically it became uncool to be a hippie and thus the movement died.
One piece of advice about these events, if you do go to them, is to never out yourself as a socialist. It's the worse thing you can possibly do. Even worse than throwing a moltov cocktail at a group of cops. All this is because the word socialism in this country completely discredits anything you could ever say.
It's like all the old folks are still grabbing on to the whole red scare like some comfort blanket. We need them all to die before the word "socialist" becomes less of a boogeyman. Perhaps instead you can just label yourself something like "social and economic justice" as it avoids political labels, yet conveys the strength of the underlying message. Or maybe the American people would take socialism, but they won't take the label of it.
Either way, it's a big matter that a lot of other groups have co-oped the whole Occupy Wall Street movement. It's like when you go to a woman's rights movement protest/march and you see that one guy with the "legalize pot" sign. That's it. A lot of other movements have attached their hitch to this dog and pony show. But hey, maybe that's a topic for another day on this ever growing discussion of what the BBC America is calling the left wing tea party.
Once was a writer, tho, you see words to your left, so I guess I'm still that to some degree.
You can find my scribbles and mind ranting on this and various other places as a means to keep the creative, satirical and costco talk muscles worked out.
Was once apart of the tv industry, but I'm sure the NDA's are still in effect so let's move on from that. Now I spend my time slinging beer and keeping a building in one piece.
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