American Idle: Jobs, Lies and Taxes

Unless President Obama caves to the Republican agenda on the tax issue, we’ll be hearing the usual empty rhetoric from the GOP and the Koch-financed tea baggers. The refrain will go like this: taxing the rich is taxing the “job creators;” we are taxed enough already; taxing the rich is class warfare; we have the highest corporate tax rate of any industrialized nation.
Below is an explanation why the above are well-orchestrated lies calculated to keep us from taking to the street and demanding the government (and especially the hijacked Republican party) dismantle themselves and start from scratch:
1. The so-called “job creators” Obama wants to tax are NOT the legions of small businesses Thomas Jefferson thought (along with yeoman farmers) would be the backbone of this nation: they are multi-gazillion dollar corporations that, besides reaping obscene profits, create their “jobs” in third world nations where they can pay “employees” (read wage slaves) barely subsistence wages. These “job creators” behave as companies did in this country before unions made it possible for working people to earn enough to form a middle class. The corporations, ever ready to exploit and profit from the labor of others, just moved their jobs offshore and recreated what the 19th century looked like in America: child labor, people getting fired on the whim of bosses, expendable workers earning just enough to keep them alive, 80-hour workweeks and all the other dehumanizing conditions the “job creators” are reenacting in other nations.
2. Regardless of whether or not you believe “we are taxed enough already,” the critical issue is WHERE our taxes go. The question is not how much we pay in taxes, but if we are seeing any value for our “investment.” Because, as unlikely as it seems, it is possible to consider taxes an investment. The question is: do we want to invest in American schools, clean energy, research, affordable housing, healthcare, job creation, or do we want to see our taxes pissed away in pissant nations such as Pakistan?
3. Anyone who believes the bogus charge of “class warfare” is simply an idiot. There is no other way to say this. The rich have been sucking the blood of the poor since people put words (or characters) on parchment. In this so-called “warfare,” the wealthy hold the power; not what one would call a “fair fight.” However, there is no real “warfare.” What there is, is a carefully contrived campaign of deceit calculated to keep people pissed off at the wrong target. It’s Wall Street, boys and girls. Get rid of Wall Street and we have a shot at retaking our government.
4. Finally, it doesn’t matter worth a hill of treasury notes what the corporate tax rate is if there are enough loopholes so companies such as General Electric manage to avoid paying one devalued penny in taxes, while corporations and CEOs sock their lucre away in offshore accounts and anyplace else they can conjure up to avoid paying their share.
Tax the rich. Now. Cut corporate welfare. Now. Close tax loopholes for the wealthy. Demand it now. Do it now.

Tuttle Bytes "Bridesmaids"

I want to like this movie. Considered as entertaining brain candy, I do like it. But my appreciation of the cast’s talent, hilarious script and physical comedy is tempered by a couple of things.
I get that the opening and closing scenes can be viewed as visual spoofs, but really? Did the film need this degree of explicit body bumping to be successful? The answer is no. Any number of alternatives might have earned the movie an unqualified yes rather than a mildly disappointed one. And do we need another movie scripted on clichéd versions of female characters? (Melissa McCarthy, from television’s “Mike and Molly,” is a welcome exception.)
Yes, the movie is funny. There are memorable scenes I’d like to see again and a movie generating laugh-out-loud, tears-streaming-down- your-face, hold-your-belly laughter has merit. Still, I’d like to see a film about women as comedically successful as this one that goes beyond formulaic. Now that would be a breakthrough.

Free Market Fiction

By any other name, capitalism still smells the same and the smell is greed. Call it "the free market." Call it laissez-faire. Call it what you will, it's all swill. The "invisible hand" Adam Smith believed would keep capitalism in check turns out to be a grasping fist. Anyone who tells you America's so-called economic "system" is intrinsic to our "freedom" is lying, or delusional. Capitalism is not your friend.

Cupcakes, Culture and Capitalism

Where once cakes ruled, cupcakes have conquered. Kids at birthday celebrations nowadays get their own, personalized, individual, puny cupcake. Forget about "Happy Birthday Jennifer" scrawled across the top of a 12-inch cake in unhealthy pink icing; forget about the magic of a clutch of candles illuminating the expectant faces of a crowd of children waiting for the birthday girl to make a wish and blow out the candles. Forget about the subtle lesson of group consciousness and sharing manifested in that gooey confection. The replacement? One's own cupcake. Cupcakes too teach a lesson: We are all separate and alone, not part of a greater whole. What better lesson for the young inheritors of the capitalist behemoth?