Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me again, call me a GOP voter

They don't care about us. They just want us to do their bidding, march for their causes and die in their wars. Nothing could be more apparent with this propaganda campaign surrounding "Obamacare". They keep telling us it is about "personal freedom" and the individual mandate that requires people to have health insurance, something that was originally proposed by conservative thinktanks and isn't really an issue to them, although the opposite is what they want us to believe. What the issue really is to them is the part of the bill that requires them to spend between 80 and 85 percent of revenue on actually paying for the medical services their clients signed up for.

As it stood before, there was no reason for an insurance company to have any interest in paying out claims, especially when it came to medical bills. In 2006, I was a victim of a hit and run driver who totaled my vehicle and caused spinal and nerve damage which will haunt me for the rest of my life. The day after I made the report to my insurance company, an adjuster came out to my house, told me I looked OK and after looking at my vehicle, told me he would cut me a check for $2K on the spot if I just signed a waiver. Even after I involved an attorney, I still wasn't paid even a dime of the additional $25k insurance I had paid into above the basic $10k auto policy I purchased.

Same goes for health insurance, home insurance, etc. This law requires them to pay out a portion of revenues to instead of paying incentives to agents to deny or delay as many claims as possible. Yet, the people opposing the healthcare law want you to believe it is about personal liberty, but want you to forget they were the ones who originally proposed the idea of the individual mandate which forces people who may not need coverage to get it in order to pad the profits of the insurance corporations. This is a far more complex game than the average voter grasps but it continues to boil down to the old shell game where the working class person is once again tricked into voting for having money taken out of their wallets in the name of "liberty".

What's next for Occupy Wall Street?

As I've said in a previous article, Occupy Wall Street has already won by shifting the national discussion. It has gone from the thoughtless drumbeat of "let's cut taxes and shrink the government" to a more in depth dialogue of what our tax structure is like, how we're spending our money and 800lb gorilla in the room which is income disparity.

At first, it was easy for the media to ignore it. Certainly a few hundred people camping out in a New York park to protest the excesses and crony capitalism of Wall Street wouldn't last more than a couple of days, or so they thought. A couple of days turned into a couple of weeks, then a couple of months. An occupation of one city turned into the occupation of hundreds of cities worldwide, and a few hundred protesters turned into hundreds of thousands.

Occupy Wall Street has woken some of America up but we still have more people to reach. The TV pundits who initially looked the other way, have now realized that this is something they couldn't afford to ignore. It was intellectually lazy, as is much of our national conversation tends to be, to just dismiss the protesters as just a bunch of homeless people, students with useless liberal arts degrees, "dirty, lazy hippies" and spoiled kids who didn't want to work for a living. In fact, it presented a very convenient target for the likes of Breitbart, Coulter and Limbaugh to lob their freshly-squeezed verbal feces at, similar to a bunch of demented monkeys in a zoo.

Yet, when veterans like Sgt. Shamar Thomas or retired police officers like Capt. Ray Lewis stepped into the picture, the detractors lost their credibility.

Granted, there will always be the people who will believe whatever is spooned out to them from Fox News and Redstate.com but even people who would have never thought they had anything in common with left-leaning folks like Michael Moore have realized that there is something seriously wrong in this country that needs to be fixed. When you have Code Pink lefties standing next to working class moderates and Ron Paul libertarians, you know something has shifted massively. Even some of the more sensible Tea Party folks have come to the realization that while they may not agree with the dreadlocked guy beating drums and calling for the banning of animal testing, they have found some issues they do have common ground on, and for those who are profiting from and driving the status quo, it scares the hell out of them.

We've been a nation divided for quite some time now. We've been pitted against each other as pawns in a much bigger game. We've been fighting the wrong enemy and perhaps now folks are starting to wake up. Yes, it may be hard for a West Coast vegan to realize that many of us Southern, gun-toting, truck-driving meat lovers have something in common with them other than being a carbon based, oxygen breathing multi-cellular organism. It can be hard for some Ron Paul libertarians to accept the fact that not all Harvard-educated government employees want to take away their AR-15 rifles and not every government regulation is a plot to force their children into Communist re-education camps. Every day, a few more people figure this out on both sides and understand that this is beyond the classic trench warfare of "Left vs. Right". Then they see peaceful grandmothers, college students and war veterans being peppersprayed and teargassed. They get the point that this isn't just disgruntled kids looking for the "next big thing" and they're willing to have a hesitant, but honest conversation about what we need to do put our differences aside for awhile to fix things.

It's getting cold throughout most of the US and much of the Northern Hemisphere. For many, the prospect of camping through blizzards and sub-freezing temperatures is not a viable one. I speak for myself when I say that the tent cities have served their place in time but it is just the first step. A movement that does not evolve and adapt, is doomed to eventually fade into insignificance. By all means, we should continue to protest. By all means, we should be out there on the streets against the barricades, constantly reminding those who control the puppet strings that we are on to their game. We need to let them know we know the game is rigged and that despite whatever they say, the system does not work for the rest of us 99% of the time.

However, if all we do is protest, then nothing changes. Things change when people take protest and turn it into action. We will get a government "for the people, by the people" when we put together a coalition which agrees on a few basic principles and demands our elected officials follow them or seek employment elsewhere. I think that's the next step.

The Zombie Apocalypse fantasy

One day you get up, put on the coffee, wake up the kids and drive to school. Your neighbors are a little extra haggard in appearance this morning but in this recession, you just figure they're either really hungover or perhaps they're just "dirty, lazy hippies" who just need to get back to work. As you swing your SUV up to the school, you are suddenly surprised to see your child's teacher isn't a "brainwashed Communist", they're actually a real zombie. In fact, the entire population, as far as you can tell, has turned into zombies.

Finally, all those canned goods and ammo boxes you've stored away are going to get to be used. As you dispatch that Subaru-driving art teacher you never liked anyhow and her partner with that 5.56mm assault rifle you bought during the height of the "Obama is gonna take all of our guns" hysteria, you remind yourself that even though you paid double the real price for it, it's worth it now.

You may chuckle a little but haven't we all enjoyed the last couple of seasons of "The Walking Dead"? Zombie films are very popular, but why? My theory is that they play to a darker side of us, a part of us which decent society frowns upon. We all have people we dislike or have been taught to hate. However, in a functioning society, we can't dispatch them without repercussions such as a lifetime in prison, lethal injection, or having to flee the country forever. But what if chaotic anarchy reigned? What if that person was suddenly no longer human and/or there was no government to enforce any rules?

As I've said before, there's people who cannot wait for the day that they can turn their guns on their neighbors and others who don't share their religious or political beliefs. The "Zombie Apocalypse" itself isn't a real scenario but it is sort of a code word for those who joke about hunting zombies while stockpiling guns and bullets. Just a little something to think about...

The monster under the bed

This week, a photo went viral. It showed a sticker on a man's truck stating that he wouldn't be hiring anyone until President Obama was out of office. While this showed a lack of basic economic and business management sense, both of which he was completely free to practice, it also peeled back the lid on the bubbling cauldron of racial bigotry which continues to stew just below the surface of the media's view. The comments by people supporting him, and the subsequent postings by this clown, proved enough for a little visit by the Secret Service.

People like Mr. Looman aren't uncommon. Sadly, they're a little more frequently found in the southern range of their habitat although the northwestern subspecies tend to be more violent and prefer swastikas whereas the southern subspecies prefers white hoods and crosses.

In their minds, a "Racial Holy War (RaHoWa is their code word)" will explode shortly and they will finally get to rid the United States of the racially impure (all non-whites). Of course, that's the basic version. What they also intend on doing is pretty much what Hitler did and eliminate the intellectuals, gays and anyone else who isn't a white heterosexual who subscribes to their bizarre and lunatic ideology. Meanwhile, I secretly giggle as their kids pop out bi-racial children.

In the general population, folks who truly believe in this racial purity nonsense are a very small portion. However, there's plenty more who in some ways, sympathize or partially agree with some of the bile they spew on local cable access programs, internet forums like Stormfront, or Facebook pages like the very one Mr. Looman set up calling for an armed uprising should President Obama be re-elected.

They love to pull out a Bible and the Constitution and point to their interpretation of these documents as justification for what they want to do, while conveniently forgetting the parts about separation of church and state or anything else that directly contradicts their lunacy. These are people who harp on about "smaller government" because smaller government or anarchy means an environment in which their ilk can survive. They want the government "out of our lives" so they, with their stockpiles of weapons and ammo, can form their own version of government to dictate to us how we will now how have to live our lives.

Don't believe me? Just cruise a couple of their sites for a few minutes. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The #OWS "Crucible"

There is a grueling final test at the end of Marine Corps bootcamp known as "The Crucible". For 54 hours, potential Marines march day and night, endure severe weather conditions, evacuate and care for simulated casualties, etc. Only after this is successfully completed will a recruit have finally earned the title of a Marine. You don't show up at Parris Island or San Diego, put on a uniform, pose for a photo and automatically get to be a Marine. You have to endure weeks of hell, tear gas, being woken up at ungodly hours and other unpleasantries in order to get there.

So it goes with the folks who are out at Occupy Wall Street and other protests across the world. Change doesn't just happen because you stand on a corner with a sign for a couple hours on the weekend or make a cool "99%" sign which makes the rounds on the internet. Don't get me wrong, a collection of those actions moves the dialogue forward and every bit helps and it is appreciated.

My hat is off though, to those who have gone through the "Crucible" of being a protester. Being arrested, beaten, peppersprayed, shot with rubber bullets and coming back for more abuse is a sign that the repressive tactics aren't working. In fact, they're backfiring and the frustration of the oppressors is showing. They are ironically building a more determined group of protesters and support for the Occupy movement at the same time. Whether it be waves of pepperspray rolling in with the Pacific mist in Seattle or batons clanking against barricades in Manhattan, every image or video clip of a grandmother being sprayed or a retired police officer being arrested makes us stronger, more determined and it's free publicity.

The thing is, the powers that be don't seem to grasp that this like aikido, as I wrote in a previous article "The Strength of Peaceful Protest". They don't understand that their overwhelming strength and weapons are their greatest weakness. They can't just walk away because they believe that means they lost. So they keep on fighting us, we keep growing stronger and more disciplined. They've taken "lazy, dirty, entitled rich kids" and turned them into politically aware and motivated individuals who are all leaders. These people who may have been politically apathetic before are determined now, more than ever, to change the status quo.

So keep on pepper-spraying, keep on arresting, keep on making us realize why we are doing this. We'll thank you one day.

All is fair in love and war but this is revolution!

Recently I was sent to jail. No, not the jail where you go after a night of doing shots with your broskis and then making the mistake of trying to drive home, only to wake up with a splitting hangover and being spooned by a large tattooed man. I went to Facebook jail where I cannot comment on other pages or share links with them for 15 days.

However, there is something in common and that is in both cases, someone got something up their ass. One figuratively, one literally. It seems that some groups got such a case of butthurt that progressive and independent groups were banding together to recall politicians who were busting unions. I guess the vote in Ohio to repeal the anti-union law (SB5), the recall effort under way in Wisconsin and the spread of the Occupy movement was more than they could handle.

For weeks now, blog pages such as mine, and other independent/progressive pages have been under attack on Facebook. Before, we just dealt with the occasional troll who showed up. We'd play with them like a cat toys with a mouse before we finally banned them. Then they realized that if enough "spam" reports were filed against certain users or pages, they'd manage to silence that person for a couple weeks.

Facebook has a certain formula or algorithm to determine who it will suspend or ban. I am not sure what it is exactly but my guess is that if a user and/or page posts more than X number of times and gets more than X number of spam reports filed on them, they get suspended. Posts and/or links that mention a certain controversial subject are high on the list, right now OWS is probably leading the pack. There is a certain ratio of posts to complaints in this formula and multiple spam reports on the same post probably move you up that list.

I have learned that all pages are infested with trolls to some extent and you can never be rid of them completely. Some will even lurk on your own page, follow your activity, and then report every one of your posts outside of your page. However, you can possibly limit your liability by not posting on pages that are in direct conflict with your own. Posting on Rick Perry's wall is a good way to get possibly 50 reports for "spam" in less than an hour.

If you are a page admin, monitor your users, especially new ones coming in. While you may catch potential troublemakers at the door, it doesn't hurt to check up on random people and what they post elsewhere. I've banned quite a few people within minutes of them joining my page when I've seen them on other pages starting trouble, before they even got the chance to post on mine.

I believe in the freedom of speech and while Facebook and other social media sites are privately owned, suppressing the rights of others to share their political ideas is just fucked up. I hate to be hypocritical but I think it is time to use the tactics of our antagonists right back on them.

Shrugging at "Atlas Shrugged"

When you read "Atlas Shrugged" at the age of 16 or 17 to rebel against your parents or your Berkeley-educated teacher, that's one thing. When you are in your 30's or older and live your life by it, that doesn't make you counter-counter-culture any more, it makes you a sociopathic douchebag.

Self-interest to some extent is normal and healthy. Of course you're going to look after yourself to make sure you stay financially stable and ensure that you aren't being taken advantage of. Normal and mature self-interest dictates that you take care of yourself, so that you can take care of others.

However, the self-interest of Ayn Rand goes beyond self-preservation and headlong into the pit of narcissism and greed. It doesn't say "I'll help you so one day maybe you can help me". Instead it says "Fuck you, I got mine." It doesn't say "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as Jesus said in the Bible. Instead it says "Do unto others before they do unto you." It is an unhealthy atheistic nihilism which dictates that the ends justify the means and that he who dies with the most toys wins. It teaches that there is no moral code which binds us as species to look out for the less fortunate and that crawling to the top on the backs of others is ok.

I suppose if you are a complete nihilist which believes in no higher power, authority or any responsibility to those you use on your way through this life, maybe "Atlas Shrugged" is your thing. Yet, you cannot call yourself a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim or a member of any other religion without acknowledging that you are ignoring the teachings of that religion by being an ego-centric prick. Man is not an island. We weren't predestined to start making "good choices" and working hard at the age of 3, we had help along the way. Nobody got to where they are today without a little help from the right people at the right time. There's many people who worked hard for decades, only to see their jobs shipped overseas or people like myself who worked hard and did the right thing, only to have it come back to bite them in the ass.

Remember how I said in a previous article that the "Anti-Christ was already here"? Well, that entity is here but it isn't a person, it is an idea. It is the perception of the vast majority of the public that they are number one, that they are the most important entity in the universe. It is the belief that the individual is responsible to no one and fucking over other people is OK if that is what it takes to survive.

Personally, I would prefer to shuffle off this mortal coil with a clear conscience and poor, surrounded by people who love me than to die rich and alone. I hope I am not the only one.