It's The Corporate Feudalism, Stupid
By nashville_brook

What the teabaggers need to understand: we're all serfs under the new feudalism their beloved leaders have created.

One thing I'd like to ask a teabagger: How are things where you work, these days? My work fucking sucks right now. Compared to 5, 10, 15 years ago, the stress level is off the charts. On the best days there's just a mopey resignation wafting about our cubicles. On bad days it's like we're all suicidal gerbils running for our lives in sharp, rusty wheels, terrified that we'll be the next rat kicked out of the cage.

We're exhausted and the positive reinforcements (raises, bonuses, vacations) that used to mitigate burnout are vague memories. And the kicker is, as much as work sucks it really sucks to be unemployed right now.

With every shitty day, I'm feeling less like a free person selling my labor on an open market, and more like a serf whose labor is coerced if not enforced de facto. No more carrots. Only sticks.

The New Serfdom
Serfs have no "right" to work. Instead we serve at the pleasure of our lords who bestow certain protections upon us (such as living in a house, and seeing a doctor). We enjoy these "protections" only for as long as we please our lords. There is no check on the power that's exercised in the workplace. You either suck it up or get the hell out. Often you suck up as much as possible, and you still get shit-canned. Fail to impress the wrong person at work and you face Depression-era hardships that may include homelessness, and without insurance, dying from readily curable diseases. If there's a better description of the Shock Doctrine I'd like to hear it.

The economic crisis was engineered by the lords of finance who gamed our corrupt system with transactions opaque enough to hide their looting, and the fallout from this has changed the nature of employment. There's no "free market" of labor anymore. We used to have the illusion of a free market during the dot-com bubble when you could quit your job on Tuesday and have a couple of better offers by Thursday. When there's no option other than the grave conditions at your current workplace, then you don't have a choice -- your labor is coerced, and you'll accept longer hours and less pay because there's no alternative. I believe this is fueling much of the rank-and-file teabagger anger. And it's pissing me off too.

Corporate Klepto-Feudalism
Imagine you're a new feudal lord. How valuable do you think our serfdom is? They're balancing their books on our desperation and declining salaries because they know our fealty and productivity are proportional to our level of insecurity. Things aren't going to improve for us without a fight, and right now, the only people riled up are bruising for the wrong side. The elite haven't seen this kind of power since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In a declining economy, our enslavement is jealously guarded with obscene amounts of money thrown at swarms of lawyers and lobbyists...and teabaggers themselves.

So, this is modern feudalism: the tyranny of the quarterly report. The nihilism of free-for-all capitalism has finally trickled down to your cubicle like you always knew it would. Those 29 miners died because their feudal lord was long ago awarded his own Divine Right of Kings by the kleptocracy that protects only those who pay. The judges, lawmakers and regulators whose job it was to keep those miners alive are still more interested in begging for crumbs from Massey's table, and kissing his ring than they are in doing their stated job, which is supposed to be looking after us, their constituents, and the engine of the economy. Massey can do no wrong because lords are not subject to earthly laws, that's what the Divine Right of Kings means. Ironically, this was the fundamental outrage of the original tea party: pushback against King George's divine right to our wealth and labor.

It's tragic that instead of standing up to the real villains, the tea baggers have been co-opted by the very powers at the core of their grievance. But the truth is, they'll only get coverage on FOX News as long as they're doing the bidding of their feudal lords. The second they realize they've been had, there won't be a TV camera in sight. They'll be as invisible as the war protesters and environmental activists. Which is to say, they'll no longer have the King's purse behind them.

And that's when things might get interesting.

I have not been participating in my own blog for a while, as I have been particularly unsettled by recent events. I have not been sure how I feel about it all, so I've been quietly waiting for something to gel. So far, no luck with that...

I watched HCR pass, with some trepidation. Sure, it represents reform - but I am not certain it will actually be reform, since so many of the things necessary for true reform were negotiated away to Republicans in pursuit of a mystical bipartisan compromise...that never materialized.

I watched as Scott Brown tore the Democrats a new one, and watched Ted Dutch do the same to Republicans. What it all means, I do not know. Are we stuck in some Dickensian nightmare of forever repeating ourselves to the beat of an unheard drum? Have our politics become tribally ritualized, meaningless beyond our raised hackles?

Sigh.

Much of what we are doing to ourselves is so senseless, so meaningless, so self-destructive. The same players, the same dance, the same story, over and over and over and over and over again. It is boring the shit out of me...

For a "Christian" nation, we sure don't seem to be trying very hard to reflect the ideals supposedly represented by Christianity. I am stunned by the Tea Party movement - it's obvious racial overtones, it's propensity for political violence, it's sheer ignorance - I find it astounding that people in this country fail to see the contradiction present between the Tea Party and the Tea Party's loudly proclaimed Christianity.

And so here we sit, collectively spinning our wheels, jealously protecting our personal self-interests, full of anger and righteousness, and a complete lack of direction for any of it. I must ask you, dear and occasional reader - where do you think all of this is leading us?

Okay, you anti-government, anti-socialism nuts. Let's do it your way. Let's get rid of government, let's get rid of any program, good, or service that even hints at socialism - and THEN you'll be happy. Right?

So, in the brave new world you anti-everything types are intent on building for us, tell me - how do we cover these things, that are currently being handled by government, with the financial support (socialism) of all of us collectively:

Air Traffic Control
National Weather Service
Water and Sewer
National Institutes of Health
Center for Disease Control
Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
Unemployment Insurance
Fire
Police
FDA
USDA
DOT
The VA Hospital
The Post Office
Prisons
Parks (national and local)
Beaches (national and local)
Libraries
Road, Streets, Highways, Byways, Freeways
Schools
The U.S. Military

Do we just do away with all of these evil, socialized things? Our society can do without them, is that it?

Because I have to say - your brand of American life WITHOUT these things, seems a lot more like anarchy, than the Democracy you claim to love.

BEST Response To The Teabaggers I Have Seen Yet!
By proud2BlibKansan

Oh, hell no!

I've seen so many anti-Obama rhetoric emails come to my PC since he was elected about eleven months now. Here is the other side's rhetoric. What do you think?

We had eight years of Bush and Cheney. And now you get mad?

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.

You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got ousted.

You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq .

You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.

You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown.

You didn't get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.

You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans... oh hell no.

When you get a chance, watch as President Obama schools Republicans in an English Parlimentary style back-and-forth question period. Finally, a Democrat taking the fight to the Right!

SCOTUS decided today that corporations are free to spend as much money as they want on political campaigns. Say goodbye to Democracy. And something else we should say goodbye to is the pointless blame game that seems to be burning up the blogoshpere in the shadow of the new America established by the Supreme Court today.

Stop blaming Nader, and Gore, and Bush, the Repukes, the Dems.

THIS IS OUR FUCKING FAULT.

We are too lazy, too committed to our own personal selfishness, to have stopped things from ending up where we are.

We are - collectively - unwilling to RISK our OWN PERSONAL SITUATION.

So what the fuck did you expect, then? Did you expect Obama to come along and snap his fingers and turn back the flood of corporate power?

Or was it the Dem Congress you pinned your hopes on? That they would have Obama in the White House, and with a wave of their magical pens, stop the power from flowing to where the capital pools?

WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU REFUSED TO COMMIT YOUR OWN LIFE TO THE PURSUIT OF LIBERTY?????

The Founders risked a hell of a lot more than we might have risked by going on a national strike, or stopping to pay our bills to the corporations, or refusing to participate in elections. There are MILLIONS OF WAYS to stop corporations - but they all involve PERSONAL RISK.

So go ahead - blame EVERYONE else. Don't look in the mirror and hold yourself accountable.

I'm not simply pontificating here - I've been advocating such anti-corporate actions for YEARS - and have been, for the most part, ridiculed and ignored.

So it disappoints me to hear people crying about how fucked we are, how its everyone else's fault, and how if so-and-so would have just done something - anything - we would not be in the very real danger we are now in of losing our country to corporate power.

It's not too late to turn back the tide. And until you are finally ready, to paraphrase our Founding Fathers, to risk your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor, it is disingenuous of you to bitch.

THANK YOU VETERANS

I keep waiting for change. Waiting for things to get better for my family, for my neighbors, for our country.

But, it doesn't.

A woman came into my wife's store today. She was completely bald, and she was wearing a wig that kept slipping off her head because it was not a real wig (she could not afford one), but one from an old Halloween costume. She had just finished up chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. She had been given - get this - a ONE MONTH health card by the State, as she had no insurance from her minimum wage job as a BANK TELLER, to pay for her chemo and time away from her job while she was too ill to continue working her wonderful minimum wage job.

One freaking month. That's it.

When my wife told me this today, I had to ask myself: How can our country treat people like this? And then it hit me - because we're disposable.

It explains a lot.

Big companies are not worried about us boycotting their goods or services. Why? Because consumers are disposable. If a boycott actually grabs hold, they don't have to care - just make a few extra currency trades, and they get those losses right back. So why should they care about a consumer boycott? Consumers are disposable, they can take us or leave us at this point.

Why do our Congressmen vote, so often, against our best interests? Why do they side with big business almost constantly? Why is it that big business has a seat at the table, a voice in the room, and we, the electorate, have only sound bites and promises? Because the voters are disposable. All a Congressman has to do is go to their big business patrons, who will promptly create a 527 group. They play the public like a musical instrument, hitting just the right notes of fear, hatred, intolerance, and prejudice, to sway the needed numbers back in their favor. And presto-chango! New disposable voters appear.

How can it be, that a CEO can make 400 times what the average employee makes at their business? How can that same CEO cut benefits, but not executive bonuses? How can these mega-wealthy CEO's pay their employees minimum wage that is taxed at a higher rate than most large corporations pay after they find every loophole possible to avoid paying even their fair share of the tax burden? Because employees are disposable - there are always desperate, disposable people willing to fill the ranks of their companies - they've seen to it.

Don't you get it? WE. ARE. NOT. WORTH. IT. Individually, or collectively.

In the eyes of those who hold the wealth and the power of this nation, WE ARE DISPOSABLE.

We're of no more worth to them than the bag that lines their garbage can.

There's 300,000,000 million people in this country - and maybe only 5,000 of that number, are not disposable.

They are our elected officials, and their wealthy/corporate masters.

EVERYTHING - and I do mean everything - our government is doing today, ultimately works exclusively towards the interests of these few. While some actions of the government actually do good for the people, they are more the byproduct of the need for good marketing OF the government - good PR, as it were.

IF THIS WERE NOT TRUE, the health care debate, would sound quite different. Our leaders would be abhorred.

But are they abhorred? Or are they debating, and stalling, and endlessly discussing? Are they hedging, and pontificating, and making excuses? Are they bolstering, or compromising/watering down/eliminating? What will we eventually see out of all of this sound, and fury?

A watered down bill, that has an impressive sounding name - but that ultimately, will signify NOTHING to that poor woman who came into my wife's store this day. It will mean nothing to her. And it will mean nothing to millions of our neighbors, families, and friends, who continue to suffer under the status quo. We'll continue to be...disposable.

But not everyone will go away unhappy - those few, those powerful, those wealthy indispensables - well, they'll be happy...be sure of that.

As long as our politicians - our LEADERS - are wholly owned tools of the wealthy/corporations, NOTHING is going to change for the better.

We are on a downhill slide; a slide that began decades ago, but was accelerated a hundred fold by Bush.

The very people who are empowered to change things, all find that actually changing things, runs contrary to their own PERSONAL interests.

What are these personal interests? Maintaining, and if possible, vastly improving, their political career.

THEY WILL DO ANYTHING TO KEEP THEIR POWER.

Our political system has become so distorted, so...perverted, that we many find ourselves completely at the mercy of the comparatively few, and the very forces pledged to protect the many against the tyranny of the few - no matter the form that tyranny takes - are no longer acting on the People's behalf.

From our elected leaders to the press, from places where political neutrality is not only proper and expected, but illegal to break that neutrality, comes support for the few, for this plutocracy that mercilessly grips we many...by our collective throat...

As long as we continue to convince ourselves that eventually these same leaders will change things, so that their free lunch ends...as long as we collectively and individually continue to believe that someone else, will make sure things change...

NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

Get out of my country.
By Nuisance Industry

You heard me, get out.  You hate the people here enough that you want them to die.  You want the military to overthrow the government, and you don't want the government to offer basic human services, or even to function.  You express joy when jobs and opportunities are lost.

You are no patriots.  You are un-American.  Get out of my country. The un-American sentiment I refer to has been around for a while, and covered well around here.  Today it is easily crystallized by the reactions to the 2016 Summer Olympics selection.  Before I describe these reactions, I should note that there are certainly valid arguments for not wanting the Games; here in Chicago, local concern over the budget loomed large over the bid.

That's not what this is about.  Today, great joy and celebration greeted America losing the Olympics.  This joy was not in the streets of Rio (where celebrations certainly are underway), but in the offices and studios of people who facetiously claim to be patriotic Americans.  

It's happening in the offices of the Weekly Standard:

Standard blogger John McCormack published a celebratory post on the magazine’s blog, titled "Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!." McCormack wrote that "Cheers erupt at WEEKLY STANDARD world headquarters

It's happening in Glenn Beck's studios, where Herr Beck declared the news is "so sweet."  In Herr Limbaugh's studio, the bloated junkie happily declared this "the worst day of Obama's presidency."

Newsmax, the fascist organization that earlier this week fantasized about a military coup against the president, happily tweeted "ChicagP//n3D!"

We get it.  You hate not just our president, but our country.  You hate us for our freedoms.  You'd rather have our people die that provide them health care that doesn't bankrupt them.  You'd rather risk catastrophic damage to the environment rather than doing something about greenhouse gases.  You actively fantasize about killing the president and hamstringing government from doing the work of government.  (I would have guessed that this Norquistian fantasy would have subsided after you so successfully drowned New Orleans, but that just whetted your appetite for more American blood.)  The United States loses the opportunity to host the Olympics, and you're thrilled, simply because you can't stand that the president is a Democrat?

Tell me this, why the fuck do you stay here?  

You made us pay for this giant embassy in Iraq.  How about we put that place to good use?  You all can move there instead of having to live in our country that you so obviously loathe.  Then we can complete the business of repairing this nation that you fucked up so badly, damaging our freedoms, our budget, our environment, our standing in the world, and our citizens' ability to keep health, homes, solvency, and jobs.  Honestly, it's as if you did it on purpose.  Given your hatred of the United States of America, maybe you did.

This isn't about ideology, this is about hate.  You are the opposite of patriots.  You are sad excuses for Americans, and idiots to boot.  If I hated this nation as much as you do, I would go live someplace that made me happier.  So I conclude with all due compassion: Get the fuck out of my country.