Category: Class War

99

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Go read the rest:

I’ve finally arrived. End of the line. My last benefit check comes next week. The finality of it is chilling. With no job, my house teetering at the edge of foreclosure and with no prospects to speak of, I could easily fall into a white hot panic right now. But as an inspirational poster once told me: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the control of it.” So I must have control. I’ve got to be the rock climber on that poster.

Between anxiety attacks, I’ve been thinking. Big questions. What am I doing with my life? Mentally and emotionally speaking, have I become a ward of the state? Is now the time to reinvent myself? Should I follow my passions? Do I have passions anymore? Has being unemployed for over two years diminished my self image and my capacity for hope so significantly that I’m just a zombie now? Partly, yes. Sadly, the fear and the anxiety have taken a toll. I’m chronically depressed. I second guess myself all the time. And in interviews, I feel like I’m asking for a handout. The list of side effects goes on. But is this psychological deformation reversible? I hope so. It has to be. I cannot let my worth and my identity be prescribed to me anymore. In a cruel way week 99 is helping me see that.

Virtually Speaking tonight

~ susie

I love this guy, he’s one of the few mainstream economics writers who gives a crap about poor and working people.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
THURSDAY, Feb 3, 6pm pacific | 9pm eastern

David and Jay plan on an extended discussion about our economy, its rules and who benefits.

LISTEN and comment on the web at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtuallyspeaking/2011/02/04/david-cay-johnston-virtually-speaking-with-jay-ack

Background here: http://blog.virtually-speaking.com/

ABOUT DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
A Pulitzer prize winning journalist- for exposing tax loopholes and inequities – best selling author and Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Syracuse University College of Law, where he teaches the tax, property and regulatory law of the ancient world.

David’s newest book, The Fine Print, is about price gouging by corporations, will be out later this year. The Fine Print supplements earlier books on tax and economic policy:
• Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense; Stick You With The Bill, about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism;
• Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else, was a New York Times bestseller and won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award.

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/j/david_cay_johnston/index.html
http://www.facebook.com/davidcay?ref=ts

Instant karma

~ susie

It’s really gratifying to see totalitarian tactics turned back against the people who use them:

The online group Anonymous said Wednesday that it had paralyzed the Egyptian government’s Web sites in support of the antigovernment protests.

Anonymous, a loosely defined group of hackers from all over the world, gathered about 500 supporters in online forums and used software tools to bring down the sites of the Ministry of Information and President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, said Gregg Housh, a member of the group who disavows any illegal activity himself. The sites were unavailable Wednesday afternoon.

The attacks, Mr. Housh said, are part of a wider campaign that Anonymous has mounted in support of the antigovernment protests that have roiled the Arab world. Last month, the group shut down the Web sites of the Tunisian government and stock exchange in support of the uprising that forced the country’s dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee.

Mr. Housh said that the group had used its technical knowledge to help protesters in Egypt defy a government shutdown of the Internet that began last week. “We want freedom,” he said of the group’s motivation. “It’s as simple as that. We’re sick of oppressive governments encroaching on people.”

Claire McCaskill

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Of all the blue dogs in Congress, she really annoys the hell out of me, and often doesn’t even know what she’s talking about — probably because of her eagerness to swallow wingnut talking points whole:

Senate Republicans sponsoring a bill that would make dramatic cuts in spending – including caps on Social Security – were joined Tuesday by an atypical ally: a Democrat.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.,introduced the bill along with chief co-sponsor Bob Corker and other Senate Republicans.

“I will try to be as obnoxious as possible trying to get more Democrats to join this cause,” McCaskill said. “It’s a little lonely right now, but I’m convinced there’s merit in this proposal that is reasonable.”

McCaskill is up for re-election in 2012 in what’s expected to be a close race.

The bill would put caps on all spending, including mandatory spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, gradually reducing it from the current percentage of the gross domestic product from the current 24.7 to the 40-year historical level of 20.6 percent.

If Congress fails to meet those caps, the bill would authorize the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to make cuts throughout the budget to reach the prescribed levels. The cuts could only be skirted by a two-thirds vote on both the House and Senate.

“If we don’t [make the required spending cuts] OMB does the job for us, which I think will be very, very painful,” said Corker.

McCaskill predicted on Tuesday that she may catch flak for backing the Republican bill.

“I know this is going to be controversial,” she said. “And I know there’s a real political risk here because I guarantee you in Missiouri–in the not too distant future–there’ll be a 30 second commercial saying I’m trying to take Social Security away from seniors. Just the opposite. I’m trying to make sure Social Security remains.”

I’ll support any real Democrat with a pulse who runs against her.