My Dialogue with a Bank of America Associate Banker

BOYCOTTING BIG BANKS – YES WE CAN OR NO WE CAN’T

My Dialogue with a Bank of American (BofA) Associate Banker

Last Thursday I walked along Park Avenue South with a fellow formerly employed companion heading to another Noble Desktop Publishing seminar on Broadway. My companion spied some lollipops on a desk in the lobby of a Bank of America we were passing along our way. She decided to drop in to grab a couple, and while she was there, to find out why BofA had decided to start charging her $5 per month to use her debit card. The lollipop station was manned by a young Master of the Universe type (we’ll call him MaOu: pronounced – ‘may owe you’) and a young woman who appeared to be the master’s administrative assistant.

My formerly employed friend asked, “Didn’t BofA realize how many people were unemployed and how they couldn’t afford any more charges?”

The apparent assistant had just begun to shake her head in affirmative empathy when MaOu stepped out from behind the desk to take control of this situation. He cut off his assistant with a quick, dismissive glance and, straight from Power Move 101, grabbed my formerly employed friend’s hand and firmly led her back toward the door with an unfriendly handshake.  He introduced himself as Mr. WhoGivesaFlyin, a BofA Associate Banker. He then, beamingly, explained away BofA’s new charges and any responsibility towards its customers. He said “blame it all on Dodd-Frank. That’s a little piece of legislation that the government passed that requires us to raise our fees.”

That set me off. “Everybody should boycott BofA’s debit cards.” I countered. He just smiled and smugly said, “All the banks were adding the surcharge.” I answered; “then we’ll use the unaffiliated debit cards offered at the local drug and convenience stores. We’ll use the Rush Card. We don’t have to accept consumer abuse.” Well, he didn’t like that answer one little bit. In fact, he got downright indignant at the suggestion.

He said; “Look, you can do that if you want to but we’re a private business and we have to make money for our shareholders. I’m a shareholder and I want the company to make profits. When the government passes these regulations it hurts our profits so we have to charge our customers. We’re in business to make money. He then gave our walking along the street in the middle of the day, most probably on the government dole, brown faces an accusing look and added

“The government doesn’t give us money we have to earn our money.”

Okay, that’s when I blew my top. “WTF was TARP, that $700 billion with a B wasn’t government money. Then WTF was it, was it Monopoly money.” Yes, I was yelling at him. But he had an answer for that too. “Yes,” he said, “TARP was government money, but we paid back every penny.”

Can you believe that shit? I put my hand on my hip and my neck into action, and in my best poor black girl from Brooklyn, NEGRO PLEAZZZE voice (he wasn’t black, but it suited the situation), I asked “Should I give BofA a cookie for repaying a loan it never should’ve gotten.” Better, I asked; “If some bankrupt, mismanaged, credit defaulted, small or medium sized business, or person, had come to BofA to get a low-interest, flexible repayment, ten times greater than their net worth loan, would BofA give it to them?”

I turned on my heels, grabbed my formerly employed friends arm and stormed out of that lollipop lobby without waiting for an answer. I mean, what else was he going to say? BofA was handing out the lollipops; but once again, we were their suckers. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to anymore. I was in the mood to fight. It was time to make him, all his other MaOu friends, BofA, and all the other Big Banks listen to us.

We were no longer going to let them require us to have to earn money for them to pay themselves bloated bonuses or their shareholders irrational profits. We were no longer going to let them privatize their profits and socialize their losses. We have been sucked dry. It’s time to take the Universe back. It’s time to Boycott Big Banks.

That’s right, after what that eMeFer said to all of us through me and my formerly employed friend and how he said it. After he showed us how un-sorry and unrepentant BofA and all the others were about the damage and loss they had caused, it was time. We would have to bring them down to build us up.

This is the moment we all must decide to dedicate ourselves to fighting these MaOu fools. It’s the moment we all need to join the Occupy Wall Street Movement and spread it as far and wide as we can until we bring all these Too Big to Fail or Give a Shit banks (and businesses) to their knees where they brought us.

It’s time to Boycott Big Banks. We survived the crash of ’29. We’ll survive this too.

Stand-In - Opt Out:

Take your boycott big banks signs to your nearest lollypop lobby today.

Michelle, My Bell

Okay, who else loves Michelle Bachman. Come on, come on, you can tell me. I think it's the eyes and the true believer conviction.

The Budget, how about this fix

Anyway, about the budget, the deficit and what we need to do to fix it. Well, in America you are right if you hate poor people and the needy and blame their plight on their own lazy asses. You are wrong if you blame rich people or the greedy and fail to appreciate that the rich are rich because of their merit and unique specialness. Never would one be caught in the thought "there but for the grace of God go I."

Okay, that leaves the rest of us here in the ditch. 'Us' being the majority of the American population who are apparently without merit, and therefore, the riches that make us too big to fail or too powerful to tax. The budget for anything for poor people and almost anything for the middle class will be subject to as much cutting as possible. Well, save that amount that would deprive any rich people of any significant source of wealth from the consumer goods and services they so graciously provide and profit from when they make and sell them to the rest of us burdensome, lazy people at, apparently, the government's expense. Also, any portion of the budget deficit that a tax on the richest of the rich would reduce; will not be reduced because no such tax will be charged or collected. The minions of merit will not allow it. In fact, any effort to collect will "force" the rich-by-merit to further assault the middle-class by reducing the numbers they will allow to serve them on their industrial plantations and thereby increase the numbers of these less than meritorious citizens on the under and unemployment lines.    It looks like we're trapped, but what about this.

They've been harping on Medicare and Social Security breaking the bank (not to mention the pensions of non-elected public employees) and saying they need to raise the retirement age. They haven't set a number but seem to have actuaries figuring out the age by which most of us will be dead as we speak. They say it's all because there are too many old people and not enough young ones and there will only be 3 workers for every 1 retiree any day now - 3 when we need 30! Well, I think a solution is staring us right in the face.

The wholesale embrace of all illegal aliens, I mean undocumented workers, in the United States already with a deal that they pay a certain amount of taxes to qualify for status as legal immigrants over a future period (say a 15, 20 or 30 year work life) and from whatever date they arrived in the United States (well 7 years back as we don't want to be unreasonable). They too will be eligible to get benefits; but only after putting in a certain minimum number of quarters added onto the number already required of legal immigrants. (You know, enough to make sure they die before they can collect as originally intended for all). We should and could then also require that they disclose the companies they worked for and have their bosses pay back payroll taxes into the pool. Many of the undocumented immigrants are children and many of the families are larger than the average American family. The families, and eventually their children, will greatly expand the number of legal, tax paying workers in the workforce and could be a gold mine for the budget. It seems to me that we could get back to the 30 to 1 ratio within 15 years if we include all the able bodies already here. I mean isn't the 3 to 1 versus 30 to 1 problem solved with this plan well before we run out of money?

So, we cure rather than kill two birds with one stone - Immigration Reform and the Budget Deficit. What do you think about it?

The New Year 2011

2011, sounds so Sci Fi, right? Well, let's all hope they're all off base about that 2012 thing. However, if you should hear some rumors or conspiratorial theories concerning escape pods or such, please, share.

Have a Happy Decade,. On my agenda: exploring this whole new Republican Trumpet Call so nationalistically dubbed, American Exceptionalism and why it brings Hitler and his Germany so strikingly to my mind.

Sdanielle Out

ESTATE TAXED

Can you imagine Americans surrounding the limos and helicopters of its CEOs like the English surrounded their Prince and his Camilla in protest of their excess or, at least, their disproportionate share of the pie? I really can’t imagine it. We never see the violence of the greed of the traditional American millionaire and billionaire like we see it when a cop beats in the head of a suspect and it’s caught on videotape. We don’t take notice of the violence done to a mother and her son or a man and his new wife or an enthusiastic graduate, young and optimistic, when the captains and barons of industry withhold labor and wages until they get the tax breaks they demand - because they can.

We’re all too sedated by our own greed, our dollars and our dreams. Our hallucinatory belief that we too will become one of the over indulged, excessively compensated 3% at the top so effectively deludes and sedates us that we’re blinded to our true place. We’ve been bought and sold with the dollar and the dream and now laws pass to forever bind the wealth to the few, a wealth bulging beyond the boundaries of even what the baron’s wealthy benefactor country can afford. But, the few know to count on us to disregard our permanent place amongst the other 97% of all the rest of us lost together in the mirage of opportunity and drowning in debt pools of over consumption.

And you, my fellow Americans, they can always count on to give your assent once they cite our new God – Capitalism, the panacea of all the ills of mankind. Do you disagree?

Well then, please tell me, who was that voting and NOT voting in the mid-term election? Better than that, tell me, will you be among hoards of New Americans protesting the severity of the austerity measures like the citizens of Europe and surrounding vehicles of American Royals or, more likely, among the typical American grasping onto whichever item they’ve sold you as your lottery ticket to the top when the slashing begins?

{You can click on the word “comment” below and reply}.

Sdanielle Out

Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama and Affirmative Action:What If You Stood Them Side by Side

I wonder why Sarah Palin is so obsessed with Michelle Obama. Do you think it’s because Mrs. Obama is everything Sarah should’ve been before she was even considered for any of the political jobs she’s had handed to her starting with Mayor of Wasilla. Is it because she knows in her heart of hearts that, side by side, she can’t really stand up beside the First Lady? Is it because when she looks at Mrs. Obama she sees both style and SUBSTANCE?

I imagine when Sarah’s home dreaming of living in the White House she can’t help but compare herself to its current First Female occupant. Oh, how dim her light must appear. I figure it must really piss her off to know she can’t hold a candle to this Negress or why would she spend so much time fighting with herself trying to put Ms. Obama down. I mean, after all, I know that Sarah is small minded and beyond bigoted, but the First Lady ain’t running against Sarah for nothing. Surely, Sarah must see Mrs. Obama ain’t paying her any damn attention. She’s got to realize that the First Lady has faced plenty ‘Sarah Palins’ in her life time and ‘still she rise.’ White girls like Sarah who thought that the First Lady shouldn’t have some thing or some place or some one that they wanted and figured they had more of a, let’s say, right to have - these Sarahs - must’ve been a dime a dozen back when the First Lady was just Michelle, a little Black girl, matriculating at a Ivy League University. I remember all those reverse discrimination battles led by folks who never could recognize discrimination until it was ‘reversed.’ I have no doubt the Sarah’s in those crowds were mad at Michelle too figuring she was occupying some white boy’s rightful place and out of her own.

I suppose it may be possible that Sarah don’t know that if Mrs. Obama had only accomplished what Sarah has accomplished in her own self development; she could never have had any of what Sarah has had. Yes, I accept that Sarah could be that purposefully dumb. But, do any of you believe that Mrs. Obama could have had any chance, as an unqualified Black woman, of getting one of the jobs that Sarah, an unqualified White woman, has had -- Mayor of Wasilla, Governor of Alaska, and Vice Presidential Candidate of major political party, with or without affirmative action?

No, you don’t and, on second thought, neither does Sarah. She ain’t that damn dumb.  She knows better, down in her heart of hearts, and that’s why she so damn mad. She can’t stand what she sees when she imagines herself occupying the White House and compares herself side by side to its current First Female occupant.   

But, don’t ya’ll think its Michelle, not Sarah, who ought to be the one who’s mad.

Who are the normal Americans?

Needed - Founders of New America Chapters throughout the country to counter the reactionary response too many "Normal Americans" have shown when they legitimized Sarah Palin and the Tea Party and made John Boehner the majority leader.

SEE NORMAL BLOG POST DIRECTLY BELOW

Add a recommendation to for the platform under the New America Movement Tab @ http://www.consciouslyamerican.com/
in reference to: Blogger: Consciously American - Stats (view on Google Sidewiki)

NORMAL AMERICANS IN NEWT GINGRICH'S AMERICA

Newt Gingrich, former Republican Congressman, said that President Obama had only a limited ability to “cue off of normal Americans.” It seems Newt sees Obama as “a very aloof type of personality.” You see how nice these Conservative Reactionaries have learned to say “Uppity Nigger” in this new millennium.

And call the rest of us who aren’t dumb enough to follow them abnormal. Right, since only those who can’t “cue in” to President Obama are normal, what does that make the rest of us?  You see how good these damn Conservatives are with the subtle weapon of words.   It’s time to talk back and speak up. I’m translating their codes and spitting them back at them in a loud, clear voice and I ain’t sorry. Let them prove I’m wrong and their words are innocent.

What he talking about, Normal Americans, normal my ass; there ain’t a damn thing normal about living in a state of delusion fighting to bring back Glory Days.

Anyway, it’s time to build the Platform for our New America Movement. Here’s an item. You add one too. I think I’ll start a page under its own tab.

Platform Item for New America:

-          Give birth to the new Normal American who will hold the old Newt Gingrich Normal Americans responsible for giving us GWB of Decision Points - twice - and for creating a Newt Gingrich and a Sarah Palin.

o   How, I don’t know yet; but so far I’m good with the poverty pain they’re feeling from their self-imposed Great Recession. Yeah, I know we’re all feeling the pain too (us being the non-normal “others” who would never be fool enough to follow any one of these three “Leaders”). But, take courage, because to give birth to something truly new, we’ve got to experience a bit of pain. Let it make us stronger. In the meanwhile let’s figure out how to make the pain, let’s just say, formative to change we can believe in for all old Newt Gingrich “Normal Americans who can’t cue-in.”

Sdanielle Out

GO TO THE WORD “COMMENT” BELOW, CLICK & ADD YOUR OWN 2 CENTS AND SUGGEST A PLATFORM ITEM. I WILL ROUND THEM UP UNDER THE NEW AMERICA MOVEMENT TAB TO COME.

EXIT POLLS – THROWN INTO REVERSE OR TIME FOR NEW AMERICA

EXIT POLLS – THROWN INTO REVERSE OR TIME FOR A NEW AMERICA

You have seen the election maps covered in blood red, haven’t you?

The Majority has spoken. They want to go back, way back. The good ole’ boys and girls of the American South and the Heartland –the Majority- have put their cars and trucks into reverse and rammed their feet on the gas. I wish I could say that they surprised me, but they didn’t. I’m sure most of you weren’t surprised either. Maybe you were a little disappointed, you know, because you couldn’t help but hope. Disappointed, but not surprised.

After all, you remember the American Majority, right? They’re the ones that elected George W. Bush twice; then got mad at him because he was George W. Bush and he did just what they should have expected him to do. Now, they’ve re-elected him and all his best and brightest ideas in new and different bodies with new and different names and faces. May God help us! Now they’ll all sit back and await a different result. Do you think they’ll get mad again when who they chose turns out to be just who they chose - again? It’s likely. The Majority always finds a landing pad for all their anger and it’s always on the head of someone or something other than themselves. They never blame themselves.

So I think it’s time that we blame them. Us, the Minority, who dwell on the coast of the East and the West and in the towns of New England and in the cities across America that dot the election map with a splatter of blue here and there. It’s time we hold them accountable for their choices. It’s time we get mad. It’s time we question whether the Majority, created and sustained by so many artifice, is a real majority and whether we should continue to allow empty population clusters to dilute the rightful political power of crowded population centers in a so-called representative democracy. This is a fight for power – raw and unadulterated. You may not like the fight, but you can’t afford to lose it.

There’s no more time to delude ourselves with feel good footage of America electing its first Black President or aspirations of compromise with the opposition party in a nonexistent post-racial America. It’s time we deal with, no we confront, the fact that 47% of the American electorate of 2008 voted for the senior Senator from Arizona, John McCain, the former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin and their own fond memories of yester years gone by. It’s time to deal with why Boehner (and Bush) are back. They’re back because too many of the country’s citizens do "cling to their bibles and their guns" and to the much more insidious notion of an ‘Old America.’ The ‘Old America’ where they all knew where they stood in the pecking order and there were always some others (i.e. racial or ethnic minorities) beneath them.

The Republican Party invented and advanced a movement, the Tea Party Movement, and used it to give false comfort to and stir the animus of the Majority yearning for the 'Old America.' The Grand Old Party advanced a movement mired in an obsolete notion of Americans from a time when they were a victimized, oppressed, colonial people who suffered at the hands of an arrogant empire. The GOP shamelessly promoted this movement to reclaim its hold on power and to recapture its control of the distribution of the nation’s resources. I was amazed to watch the media frenzy over this unremarkable movement. But I was more amazed to see how unable its followers were to see how much of the world, including their non-Tea Partying fellow citizens, could view them as pining for a repugnant America. A nation that would itself be seen as an arrogant, oppressive empire, especially when combined with the constant conservative talking point of American Exceptionalism - a concept that sounds too much like Hitler’s talk of the superiority of the Aryan Nation.

They, the Majority, just refuse to acknowledge the obvious and the inevitable. We are living in a time of great and irreversible change. The Industrial Age replaced the Agrarian Age like the Iron Age replaced the Stone Age. Now the Knowledge Age is replacing the Industrial Age. It is causing a de-industrialization. It is causing the dispersion of capital and labor and much of what is going will never come back. This time of change is a revolution in culture and economy as great as the Industrial Revolution was, and as revolutions do, it will cause some to clash and leave others as casualties. It will also create a new pecking order.

We cannot go back. We need to move forward. I don’t know how you feel about it; but I want to live in a New America in the new age. The Conservatives have the Tea Party Movement for everybody who wants to go in reverse. But I want to join a different movement, a movement that is moving forward. I want to join a New America Movement. How about you?

S. danielle Out

Why Wave the White Flag Jon Stewart?

I love Jon Stewart and I had great expectations for his Rally to Restore Sanity (see my post dated October 16, 2010). However, I was greatly disappointed once the Rally was over. Why, mostly because of Jon’s speech at the end. It was filled with all that nice ‘can’t we just all get along’ right things to say shit. And it all sounded so right. Too damn bad it was all so wrong. Jon, no, ‘we can’t just all get along.’ This isn’t a forum, this is a fight.

Listen, it’s nice to sit around the campfire and sing Kum-ba-ya; but if you think sitting around singing peace songs and sending smoke signals is the way to deal with bullies circling you singing; ‘we’re going to kick your ass,’ then you and President Obama should compare notes to see how very well that went for him with the Republicans in Congress. I say if you’re going to end up with knocks and bangs and blacks and blues, at the very least, you should've been trying to fight your way out of the circle.

Although, I can’t stand the Tea Partiers, the Birthers, or the Republican Party; I will say this, I give them credit for knowing the difference between a Declaration of War and an invitation to the signing of a Peace Treaty. What will it take for Democrats, their supporters and yes, even Jon Stewart, to learn that Peace Treaties need TWO signatories. When only one side wants peace and sticks a white flag up in the face of its self-declared enemy; then it’s called SURRENDER not peace.

Aside

And by the way, President Obama, you were finally right to identify the Republicans as the enemy and would have been wise to go on to decry how they have been an enemy to all Americans for the last two years. It’s too bad you once again let their false fury make you second-guess yourself. I see a pattern, do you?

FIGHT BACK - VOTE DEMOCRAT ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND

Sdanielle Out

I’m Tired of the Tyranny of the Middle Class

I’m tired of all this pandering to the middle from Democrats and the Republicans. It’s sickening to watch how both parties fall all over themselves to please the narcissistic numbed skulls in the so-called middle. They tell them whatever they want to hear in exchange for their votes; which really wouldn’t piss me off so much, if they had the good sense never to fulfill the foolish promises they make every cycle. Like ‘read my lips, no new taxes.” But they don’t.

 No, instead, they feel compelled to fill the pandering promises they make to this thankless, carnivorous clan by actually adopting the stupid, promised policies; no matter how piss poor, hurtful or costly. Not a one of them has the cajones to adopt policies based on real, meaningful principals and/or what’s in the best interest of the country as a whole. Hell no, not if it means possibly pissing off this tyrannical voting bloc and, truth be told, President Obama has been no exception. Hell, even Bush asked them to get up and go shopping. What if Obama asked them to give up their great big empty houses or gas guzzling cars that they can’t afford anyway or one (1) year of their retirement or $1 a month, yeah, a whole $1, to pay for the wars? Why hasn’t he asked The Middle to stop wallowing in its own self pity and get up and DO SOMETHING?

It’s amazing how indignant everyone is about the overburdened middle; but no one gives a damn about overwhelmed poor. No, you can’t get them to utter a word of compassion or comfort for the American poor. Shit, even in the mega-churches they talk about the poor of the world…in those desperate, god-forsaken, other countries. You know how it is in America, if you poor that’s your fault.  If your poor ass was worth a damn you’d have the good manners to go get cop-shot or, at the very least, locked-up for life for selling 5 vials of crack so you can provide some nice middle-class prisoner guard a job in some deserving real rural American town in need of industry.     

Damn, it would be nice to see a leader stand up to these, your fellow Americans, on G.P. and say?

Look, shit cost money, if you don’t want to pay; then you can’t have shit. And by the way, shit includes a bunch of shit you want or need and not just welfare for those lazy MFrs. To list a few: cops, teachers, schools, highways, hospitals, disease control, soldiers, firemen, streets, highways, trains, buses, ports for air and sea, water and sewerage treatment, courts, jails, communications and electronic grids and a bunch of other shit that the profit motive just ain’t going to provide; at least not at a price your selfish-ass can afford to pay! Shit like domestic tranquility and peace.     

sdanielle Out

Why Isn’t the Failure of Business Business’s Fault?

They need the damn politicians to stay out of business’s way – George W. Bush did just that – so why didn’t business take care of business? How did business, in all its wisdom, pull America into the ditch of the Great Recession? And, why exactly, ain’t business expected to do more to pull America out of it? I mean damn, hasn’t it crossed anyone’s mind that American business should have to reinvest all of its profits into the U.S. labor force until it kick-starts the economy.  After all, business did collapse the economy. I say they did it and they should undo it. Explain why it’s okay for them to just pick up where they left off and make and show profits for Wall Street Week only.

Why isn’t it okay to demand more? Shit, we should insist that they put up or shut up. Who gives a damn if they call you a socialist; they took that bail out money from your socialist ass, didn’t they? We bailed them out and now it’s time for them to bail us out. Hell, they were too big to fail and we were given no choice. Well, we’re too many to stay broke and we don’t need to give them a choice either.

Especially when they so cocky that they go around adding insult to injury; how does it make any sense for business to have so much to say about the future of the U.S. agenda. Hell, following their last agenda, their ally George W. Bush and his party, made the U.S. plummet into the black hole where we now find ourselves. Are we really going to listen to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the current crop of businessmen/women wannabe politicians as they claim that they have the solution to our problems that the ‘professional politicians’ don’t have. If they have these solutions; then why the hell they hoarding them in their back pockets only to whip out upon us crowning them Kings and Queens? Where is the evidence that we should trust these ‘profit prophets’ to lead our nation to the promise land of prosperity?

Remember, “Where’s the beef?” Shouldn’t we be asking these ‘profit prophets’ where’s the jobs. If they weren’t able to lead the business community to job creation and to fuel economic growth; then what makes you believe they’ll be able to lead the political community to do it. Do you believe it because they told you so or, is this like that song, “you’ve got to believe in something - why not believe in me?” I mean, really, where the hell you think they’re going to lead us other than to developing nation status? Where will you be when they finish deregulating every industry, polluting every stream, foraging every forest and outsourcing every job? Hell, I thought businessmen (& women) were supposed to know how to create jobs and innovate in a so-called business friendly environment. How could George W. Bush and his boys have been any friendlier?

American big business has already breached the capitalist exchange contract and I’m not making any new contracts with them until they pay off the debt from the original agreement. You know in the original capitalist exchange agreement they got to make huge profits and control vast amounts of the nation’s wealth and resources. The rest of us were to get to have jobs for two income families, homes with 2 car garages, 4 by 4 trucks, big screen televisions and enough food to guarantee obesity. This was the American way. This was capitalism at work. Too bad that big business, and its aspiring businessmen and women politician wannabes, didn’t live up to the other end of the bargain. They created no jobs and made no innovations. Rather, they showed they could get blood from a turnip because they were too big to fail. If you haven’t figured it out; America is the turnip. Oh, wait a minute; they also showed that they knew how to buy, shake down and blame it all on the ‘professional politicians; especially any daring or dumb enough, to out them.

Never thought I’d long for something from the good old days. Then I found these articles about business people who valued separation of business and state like some people value the separation of church and state – none of whom are in the Tea Party.

 The Times Articles from 1956 and 1962: Businessmen & Politics

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,864132-1,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873724,00.html

Sdanielle Out

Suppressing the Vote – One Good Turn Deserves Another

I’m looking for some poll watchers - the bigger, the blacker, the better; but everybody’s welcome. If you’re a warrior; then sign on. It’s time to fight the good fight down to the last man standing.  It’s time to stop throwing up your hands and waiting to overcome.  Infantries of Birthers and Tea Partiers have dispatched to the blackest and brownest precincts in America to suppress the Democratic vote and ain’t anybody from the other side doing a damn thing about it. So, I’m asking you to do something. I’m asking you to go to your poll, cast your vote, pick up some folk and take them ALL to your nearest working-class white & tea partying town to watch their polls too. I feel one good turn deserves another.  Don’t you?

I’m tired of folks bemoaning how the Republicans are up to their old tricks - suppressing the vote and misleading the voters. The Republicans know the measure of the American Electorate and the electorate lives down to their expectations most of the time. Republicans never give the voters the respect they don’t deserve or waste any time or money appealing to their non-appearing ‘better angels.’ No, they leave that shit to the Democrats. Republicans get right down to the business of making stuff up, stirring scared- angry-simple people up and running up their score. When are Democrats going to get wise and get with the program?

Who gives a damn that, consistent with their history and histrionics, the conservatives have made up a mythology that elections in the ‘hood are corrupt and fraudulent unlike the clean, god-fearing-ly fair elections in their own hard-working, real American towns. What matters is that they can and they do use this mythology to justify going into the ‘hood to cause havoc and interfere with the people’s vote under a cloud of ‘legitimacy.’ It’s time for us to do the same, but do it better and worse.

 Shit ya’ll, I ain’t mad at them; but I do want to get even.  Let’s take a page from their play book.  Let’s send some ‘watchers’ to their polls too - the bigger, the blacker, the better.  This way we could interfere with their voters too and, if all goes well, diminish that ‘enthusiastic voter’ gap with some well placed, effective discouragement. We can justify our ‘watchers’ by making up something like – Tea Partiers are standing outside with guns drawn scaring off anybody who looks like an ‘illegal’ or a ‘felon’ because they might vote the other way. Or we can say they going around telling Latinos to stay home and not to vote. Or we can say hey we here, we don’t care and we ain’t got to say nothing but you at my polls and now I’m at yours because One Good Turn Deserves Another.

S. Danielle Out

World Life Expectancy

World Life Expectancy

Umph, people dying to work.

Dancing with The Stars, Bristol Palin & the Members of the Pregnancy Pact

How did Bristol Palin get to be the unwed, teenage mother "star" for Dancing with the Stars? I think the members of the original 'Pregnancy Pact' of Gloucester, Massachusetts earned the right to the title of Unwed, Teenage Mother Star over Bristol. Surely, it's one of them who should be twisting and twirling around that stage for the number 1 show in America. Picking Bristol Palin because Sarah's her mother just ain't fair. Ain't nobody doing no movie about Bristol. She ain't have no original idea about a 'Pregnancy Pact' to get pregnant on purpose like those plucky pregnant Gloucester girls. All Bristol did was accidentally get knocked up. That's old and tired. It's been going on for centuries. But wow, that 'Pregnancy Pact,' now that was a truly bold and original idea. I say, if we gonna recognize getting pregnant while an unmarried teenager in high school as a "talent" worthy of making you a "star;" then let's, at least, make it a "talent" only if you can be bold and original about it -- and inspire a movie.

sdanielle Out

I Wish We Could Work With Working-class Whites

Wouldn't it be nice to build an alliance between working-class whites (the Double Ws) and working-class people from all races (the Single Ws). I wish we could; but we just can't.

We can't because were not dealing with a demographic group defined by their socio-economic status and reality (like the name "working class whites" impies); but rather a group defined by its insistence to cling onto its 'most favored nation' status.

The family of Representative John Boehner (aspiring Speaker of the House if the Republicans take the House after the mid-term elections) and the Representative himself makes this plain. The Republican Representative grew up with 11 brothers and sisters in a working-class white (double W) home of Catholic Kennedy Democrats in a small Southern Ohio town. According to one of his siblings all 11 became Republicans. I think the sibling was a sister who said when they all started working and saw their paychecks and noticed how much was taken out in taxes they all switched to Republican. I would have felt better (and like we could work with the Double Ws) if she had said her brother had convinced them that the Republican philosophy and approach to governing were superior. But no, she said it was looking at the taxes taken from their paychecks. I thought, funny, but don't they take the same amount of taxes out of all working-class people's paychecks - black, brown, red, yellow and white? Why does it have such a powerful effect on the Double Ws?

Maybe somebody out there can help me out and provide an explanation. One of Boehner's boyhood friends gave a glimpse at an explanation when he mused in an article about the Congressman's small town white working-class social background. He spoke wistfully of their little town in their little corner of the world and noted that they never had to deal with such things as gay rights or abortion rights. He didn't specifically mention it; but he also well implied that they didn't have to deal with a diverse population either. I think he also sheds light onto what else motivates the Double Ws to go Republican. The Republicans don't want to talk about it now because it's gone out of vogue and would lose them the ever elusive "independent" voter; but it is a culture war. Could it be that the Double Ws believe the Democrats have let too many "others" into the tent and these "others" threaten the Double Ws rightful claim (in their minds) to 'most favored nation' status and their illusory American as Apple Pie Culture?

Ya'll maybe they decided first and a long while ago that they just couldn't work with us.

Get On The Bus: Thanks Jon, Stephen & Arianna - The Rally & The March Woodstock 2010

Buses will Roll to Washington, D.C. on October 30th, 2010

Babies, ya'll know about the Rally for Sanity & the March to Keep Fear Alive, right. I feel that sanity is highly over-rated and the Tea Party has the "Keep Fear Alive" thing all locked up. I mean, let's admit it, the fear thing is going way better than that lefty, socialist, foreign infiltrated,'Hopey, Changey' thing isn't it? But that's no reason not to fight to "Keep Hope Alive;" even if you think you're fighting a losing battle. It's not too late to turn this thing around and, in this context, a little display of sanity (even if induced with mental meds)is sorely needed. This isn't just a battle it's a war, a war for what kind of country we'll live in for generations. Will it be a country spawned and constricted by fear or inspired and expanded by hope? Mr. & Mrs Smith, it's time to go to Washington. GET ON THE BUS. The Huffington Post (well Ariana,really) will sponsor busloads from NYC. See the HuffPost Social Network.

On the count of three ... 1 - 2 - 3, "Keep Hope Alive." (Solidarity Fist in the Air). A la Regina Belle,'I don't care how you get there; but get there if you can.' Drag 2 friends along with you to the Washington Rally and to vote.

Pondering Polls for President Obama: Great Expectations or the Black Tax

 October 11-13, 2010 Gallup Daily Tracking Poll showed President Obama with a 45% job approval versus a 47% disapproval rating. One year earlier the poll showed the President with a 52% job approval versus a 39% disapproval rating. The numbers haven’t quite flipped; but they’re on that slope. In October 2009 the poll showed a 56% favorability rating for Obama and noted his favorability was down 22 points from a high of 78% in January. By July, 2010 the poll had his favorability rating at 52% versus 44% unfavorable and by October, 2010, a CBS News Poll had him at a 42% favorable versus a 39% unfavorable rating.

 What happened? How did Obama fall into such disfavor?  Was it really Healthcare Reform or stopping the meltdown of the financial industry or failing to win friends and influence people in the Republican Caucus? Was it because he didn’t live up to being the Great Black Hope he promised to be or always pay the Black Tax (i.e.: 110%)? Or was it months and months of the thunder and theatre of the Sarah Palin (and her progeny) led Tea Party rallies and the Birther movement.

 Or, maybe it was (and is) because “It’s the economy – stupid.” But, then, that wouldn’t explain the resurgence of support for the Republicans. It isn’t possible that memories of American’s are so short that they’ve already forgotten and forgiven the Republican sponsored Great Crash II. If it’s the economy; then the Republicans ought to be out of favor and office for a generation or forget about the economy and just call Americans - STUPID. 

I think the real cause of the Republican threatened resurgence is all the Americans who say, “I need a job” and “I’m willing to let the Republicans blackmail me into giving them my vote in exchange for them telling their rich friends who control all the jobs and the money to loosen their purse strings, put a little cash into the economy and “create” a few jobs for their modern slaves.” Well, if that’s what you want; then you should go right ahead and vote Republican and continue to work as a modern slave, at least until they take your next job away. I hope that someday you will come to see that they will take your next job away as soon as they find a cheaper modern slave or build a better machine. I hope that you will come to learn that in the archaic philosophy of the Republican Party and the old economy you will always have to put profits ahead of people and that this flawed philosophy is incompatible with the new economy. Sadly, you’re far more likely to fall victim to Republican masterful misdirection and focus your anger and frustration on some designated scapegoat.

 Of course, I really hope that you see there is a better way and refuse to go backwards and continue to move forward. I hope you will continue to (or start) supporting the Democrats and help to move them to make real compassionate “Change You Can Believe In;”change that is constructive, realistic, inclusive and compatible with the new economy and a new millennium society.

If you’re tired of being a modern slave and ready to join the new economy; then send me an e-mail. Listen to the show Friday,October 15, 2010 at 5 p.m. at www.allblackradio.com and FM 90.3 in Brooklyn/New York. Add your comment to this blog. If you have a new economy opportunity to offer; list it here.

S. Danielle Out

Successful Republican Strategy for Mid-Term Elections

“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” Albert Einstein.

REPUBLICAN TALKING POINTS MEMO: George W. Bush was one of the finest Presidents ever and when he was in charge and we were in charge no jobs were destroyed, no wars were waged and no attacks were launched on the Homeland. America enjoyed peace, prosperity and freedom. Oh, and we never bailed out Wall Street instead of Main Street. All of that was the Democrats and President Obama's doing......

Don't they remind you of the Shaggy song telling the boy to tell the girl (when he's grinding on the floor caught in the act), 'It wasn't me."

REPUBLICAN STRATEGY - Ride to victory on a wave of rage. 

S'danielle's Point of View: 

Ya'll mad at the wrong person, at the wrong time for the wrong reason. Somebody need to tell ya'll them jobs ain't never, ever coming back; find another program. Do you have a plan?

If you don't then check out www.aplanbforme.com and get yourself one.

Write or send me your comments at sdanielleself@gmail.com and listen to the show Friday at 5 p.m.

S. Danielle Out

Conservative argues for Identity Politics & The Kneecapping of Barack Obama

Today I read the author of Right Wing News 6 Reasons Why Conservatives Should "Play" Identity Politics in their "Townhall" e-zine. Yes, I found both the blog (which proudly exclaims" "kneecapping Barack Obama at Every Opportunity) & ezine, repugnant. Still, I read a few items in both because I figure you need to know what your enemy is thinking and plotting against you. And, friends, they are plotting.

I love how right-wingers always coin a phrase, accuse the other guy of maleviolence and feign self-rightous indignation. Their coinage and usage of the phrase "Identity Politics" is a perfect example of how this works. Oh, they whine, it is so unfair that so-called minorities view them as racist or bigots. Oh, they sigh in fabricated frustration, it is so unfair how minorities and left-wingers wrongly accuse them of every "ism" under the sun. The article encourages conservatives to "start" playing the "Identity Politics" game too (i.e.: the plot). Listening to the writer you would think there was and is no such thing as a Southern Strategy and that Republicans and conservatives didn't invent the whole concept of  so-called "Identity Politics." Maybe they just don't consider it identity politics when it's aim is to appeal to angry white voters. It's too damn bad no one is out there writing articles encouraging conservatuves to abandon all their dearly beheld "isms" and open their narrow minds. But, if they fear what they call "Identity Politics" as much as they seem to based on the amount of time and money they're willing to spend to disparage it; then I say come on everybody and let's develop this "Identity Politics" strategy to the nth degree. Whose with me?              AND

I also need to mention that I just love how "The Kneecapping of Barack Obama" is openly professed on the Right Wing News blog. Let's face it, this has been the Republican strategy since January 21st, 2009. They've shamelessly practiced it. They didn't care that kneecapping Barack Obama also meant kneecapping the vast majority of Americans. Babies, we were all just a bit of collateral damage. They did what they did purposefully and with malice aforethought and it included sabotaging any economic recovery. The Republicans did all of this so they could regain power and continue to benefit the few over the many. Right now they're holding any economic recovery hostage with the help of their corporate friends because they intend to blackmail the vast majortiy of Americans to be content with the crumbs that trickle down or risk losing even the crumbs by demanding at least a slice. Socialism they scream.

Now the only question is: Are you going to let them get away with this shit?

Sdanielle Out