foolish teabaggers

A guy named Chris replied to all today on an email sent to some 20 people of a political nature. You see the subject at hand was those so called "tea parties." A few people had expressed some reasonable views in response to a youtube link of a foolish man dressed up as Thomas Paine and waxing in pained philosophical expressions about how outrageously high taxes are and how truly responsible President Obama is for this state of affairs.

Chris replied to all in a reasonable tone and wrote about how our country, like many of our citizens, was living beyond its means. He conjured Americans subscribing to the premium channels on the TV, maxing out their credit cards, and ultimately giving to charity in spite of this level of spending being beyond their means. Chris is a true believer. He knows the government has been irresponsible and that the federal budget is inflated and must be cut drastically.

Given the nature of the messages average Americans get, from marketing and our schools, from our politicians and media and so on, it is understandable that Chris would believe as he does. There are a million messages out there and the one that portrays taxes as devilish and outlandish is pervasive if not ubiquitous in our society.

What is strange to me however, is the sense of privation I get from Chris’ message. Why does he automatically assume it should be okay for most people to do without? Without the goods purchased on credit, without HBO or Showtime, without the top sense of giving a neighbor money to pay their gas bill... Why?

I have more questions for Chris. If 70% of Americans demand a public health option but our representatives to government are beholden to corporate entities who fund their candidacy and so, refuse to vote as their constituency would dictate, where did the corporations get all that money to give, (to give,) to the politicians?

They get it from Chris, and everyone else. Once the software has been developed and the wires and satellites are in place, how much does it cost to deliver those premium channels daily? What if we nationalized that? Couldn’t we get all of the channels to be free or perhaps like 60 cents annually on our tax bill? That would probably cover the maintenance of all the technology it takes to deliver premium cable to all households in America.

Instead Americans are beyond willing to pay what amounts to exorbitant amounts of money as part and parcel to the sacred recurring revenue model of and for the private companies that have effectually purchased the wires and satellites, (and buildings and infrastructure,) and purport to maintain them.

Americans think they go to Walmart, (for example,) to get a great deal. Meanwhile three Waltons perch amidst the top 10 wealthiest Americans and Walmart invests vast sums of money into our political system. How great a deal are those Walmart products now if the company generates that much surplus capital? Couldn’t the prices be significantly lower?

To date Americans have been prone to accept the mark-up from Walmart and other similar companies but the federal government, despite running some of the most efficient and accountable systems in our society, is given the cold, lower-my-taxes shoulder.

It is laughable to blame President Obama for high taxes. In fact it is thinly veiled partisan politics at best considering the recent history of Republican administrations spending us into deep debt and Democratic administrations acting responsibly by digging us out.

Still, Chris is missing more key points. The American corporations which charge the prohibitive prices Chris alluded to also do not contribute to the tax base in a proportionately fair amount. Rather, American corporations pay amounts far below what is required by the tax code because they prefer to pay large amounts, (though relatively less,) to high-powered tax attorneys who shelter their money in a variety of creative ways. And yet Chris feels undeserving of these amenities?

I called my provider of high speed internet access yesterday to explain and describe in detail the error message I am getting when I try to send an email. I expected the technical support would be able to help me get everything working but on the contrary the person I reached by phone told me I should go to the Microsoft support website to look up the error message. (He could address a problem related to my connection or my IP address but he was not familiar with Microsoft Outlook.) I am going to fire my internet provider this weekend. They provide the connection, which cannot cost them much, for about $35 per month, and yet they provide almost no support. It seems their infrastructure is primarily occupied with billing.

Chris went on in his email to decry those who receive welfare benefits. He said he is a recovered drug addict who eschewed public benefits and quit his addiction through sheer will power. Chris makes no mention of those in our society who do nothing but rather have money which makes money for them.

I guess if I asked Chris if he thinks it is okay for society to collect an amount, a small amount of taxes to go to those who have addiction problems, I think he would say yes. Rather he is expressing an idea that we give people with these types of problems, problems of choice or pleasure, (we could call them,) too much assistance. This is odd from one who has suffered addiction. I mean what else should he spend his money on? By giving we receive a great feeling that makes our daily walk light. It is a reward. It’s better than a slightly better car.

Chris says nothing of the corporations which charge high prices for all the things he expects people to value, (cell phones and services.) He would prefer to blame the lowly and troubled who make poor choices, which they pay for one way or another, (through karma, health, hook or crook.) Even if it does our essence or spirit good and even if they are sometimes us, Chris looks in another direction Well, you know, maybe he is just expressing that he misses his addiction?

I understand how Chris ends up with the attitudes and opinions he espouses. Opinions are bought in large part. Money has been spent on spin in America. Corporations spend vast amounts of money on grass roots advertising, (as well as more conventional advertising,) again because of the outlandish amounts they charge for their wares, in order to impact the thought processes of Americans. Right wing talk radio, which jumped out to a head start on any liberal version of the same by about 15 years, daily gets the best radio ratings and pounds ideas into people’s brains along the lines of:

*taxes are bad
*the government is inept at operating any venture whatsoever
*tolerance is bad, or differences should be feared
*Clinton is evil because he represents the opposite of family values

That’s just the first four that come to mind, but all four of those are exact opposites of the truth. They are ideas that are sold and bought en masse everyday in America. Funny how a majority of Americans will suggest a majority of Americans are somehow dumb or ignorant and yet, few admit to being in that class.

The notion that modern "teabaggers," are in any way analogous to our founders who revolted against a higher tax rate than their English cousins and also lacked representation is like comparing the Chicago "Black Sox," to the righteous revolution of Fidel Castro in the Cuban Sierra Maestra. These are comic but dangerous partisans compared to a movement of men who lived lives fat with accomplishment and deserve to be admired.

street sweeper social club

this is clap for the killers, a track from street sweeper social club, which features tom morello and boots riley. it is unfortunate there is nothing to look at above but i wanted you to be able to hear the song so...

i can't help but contrast this record with any of the audioslave records. where audioslave songs had power chords and an arena rock sound, sssc has tom morello's signature innovative guitar so reminiscent of rage against the machine. as much as i like chris cornell, everything he has done since soundgarden has sounded contrived and as if he has been trying to find a certain formula or voice of his own sans his former bandmates.

i bought one of the audioslave records, (as well as cornell's first solo record,) and i enjoyed some of the songs on it. still, for both morello and cornell audioslave was rather pedestrian.

boots riley, (formerly of the coup,) is gifted as rappers go. he has a style that is distinctly his own and he has the ability to make rhyming seem somehow fresh in an age when rappers have blended together and become largely irrelevant.

street sweeper social club further combines the political roots and ethos of both morello and riley with an accessibility heretofore unseen. here in los angeles, sssc can be played on kroq, power 106, kiis fm, 100.3 the sound, klos, kcrw, pacifica and perhaps star or any of several other softer stations on the dial. this gives the idea of their music being the bombs and machine guns of a new revolution all the more authenticity. the mass appeal sssc is capable of could contribute to the further edification of the youth of today.

things are changing and there are many forces at work in the world contributing to this end. consider street sweeper social club yet another one of those forces.

nervous time

do you have something you do when you are nervous or uncomfortable? i do. i smile.

no, this is not some device i have learned to handle these uncomfortable situations gracefully. it is simply a nervous response. it has been happening my entire life, too.

once when i had to appear before a judge after being apprehended for failing to appear on a traffic ticket, i smiled as the judge finished speaking to me and a certain look of disgust came over his face. i think he doled out my punishment without regard for my inopportune smile but i also think that for just a moment he wanted to throw the book at me.

once when breaking up with a girlfriend the nervous smile took over my face. she was enraged. her sadness gave way to anger and i stammered trying to explain it was just nerves that forced me to smile like it was christmas morning but that was sort of unbelievable because after all, i had a huge smile on my mug. who wouldn't be pissed?

i understand some people stutter when they are nervous. others sweat, or turn red. some can't talk and others can't stop talking. as for me, i grin.

today i had to counsel an employee of mine. i am quite fond of this employee and think she does a great job and brings real value to my team, but an incident occurred which was fairly minor but needed to be addressed.

i told my employee that this was not yet a disciplinary action but that if something like this ever happened again, it would certainly result in such an action. first her eyes turned red. then she started to sniffle. i explained that i wanted to talk through the events that had led to this meeting so that we could come to agreement on the unacceptability of her action and never have it happen again. she began sobbing, tears rolling down her face like raindrops on a window.

i felt the smile welling up in me. the thought of the message i was working to convey as clearly as possible wavered in my mind, giving way to thoughts of how to stifle this smile. several thoughts raced through my mind in that moment. i heard the chorus of x's 'i must not think bad thoughts,' echoed momentarily. i imagined grim determination as a force of gravity pushing down on the corners of my mouth.

alas, nothing worked and as i focused in on her eyes and the words she spoke through a steady stream of tears, my furled brow relaxed and a smile popped onto my face so that i suddenly felt like jimmy stewart, suddenly awakened from a bad dream, fedora pushed back up over his hairline, smiling a broad, country smile of utter contentment. i was nervous but from looking at me you would have thought i was secretly tickling myself under the arm. it was uncomfortable staying on message despite my employee's obvious state of distress.

after only a moment i regained control of my face and pushed the smile away. i finished the counseling session and all was well that ended well. my employee did not remark on the smile though i saw a visible awareness of it come over her face in that moment. damn i wish i could control my nervous smile but so far, i have not been the best at this.

so what do you do when you're nervous?

debs

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right. - Eugene V. Debs, 1855 - 1926



i read this quote this morning and was struck by how true it really is. i thought about the grass roots movements of recent history. i thought of the vast majority of proponents of slavery in the american south. i thought of those who believed women belonged in the home, and those who thought there should be two sets of public facilities for first and second class citizens.

20 years ago a majority of americans opposed equal rights in the form of gay marriage. 10 years ago cracks in that facade began to appear. now, from iowa to maine to new york, (and in spite of prop 8 in california,) this breach of civil rights seems ready to crumble soon.

the majority are wrong. they are often wrong. it is encouraging however that the minority leads the way and in time, what is right has been accepted by the masses.

noble man

some season gone by i knew a man who was noble. i don't recall his name and i did not know him well, but the primary sense i got of the man was simply that he was a noble man.

i was working as a trainer in a large customer service call center. i trained hundreds of people yearly in those days, 9-12 classes of 15 to 25 csr's for two weeks at a time, plus ongoing classes periodically for already working csr's on specific skill sets such as empathy or selling or how to operate a new desktop telephone. call centers tend to have high turnover which is calculated by a churn rate.

i knew virtually every person in the call center because i was connected to management and i trained every person who worked in this 150-seat center. the man i refer to worked as a csr for no more than two months.

he showed up in my class one day and he was a good student. he was about 40, i would say-i was probably 31. he was kind of regular in as much as he was a white guy of average build who did not have any tattoos or attention-drawing features or style choices whatsoever. in a class of about 20 this man was not one of the top two i would expect to have in any new hire training, who would be highly involved in the training and who would take to the computer system with intuition. he was just below that group, being respectfully involved in the training and taking to the computer system with aplomb.

he explained to me one day that he had his own business in auto glass. he operated as a mobile service somewhere in the valley and had an ad in the yellow pages. business had slowed to an uncomfortable level however, and so this man took a job as a customer service representative in a call center for a water service. he took in the company's values, learned the computer system, brushed up on open and closed ended questions and took to representing a corporation's interests by being its ears and mouth for 28 to 40 hours per week.

the man also told me he had a wife and two little girls at home. he had a mortgage and he had bills and he was doing what he had to do to provide. this was not a hellish job in any regard. a csr with some skill and effort could completely divorce his person from the conversations, employ empathy and follow instructions and have a relatively resistance free group of conversations daily.

as a csr this man made about $11 per hour. he showed up for work every day. he put effort into his interactions with the water customers and he was cordial with his coworkers.

i was always impressed by this man but more so after he had returned to his life as he knew it. he came to me one day and shook my hand, explaining that his auto glass business had been picking up and so he had resigned. he thanked me for the training and said something nice about how i worked, said he wanted to be sure to say goodbye to me. the respect was mutual.

professionally i might have been remiss about this resignation as this man had not been a cost effective investment for my organization because of his premature departure. but i understood his perspective. he had been struggling financially. he had a family to provide for. as business slowed, he decided to take a second job and figured speaking to the customers of a water company and working on behalf of a staffing company, he could augment his income in order to pay his bills and allow his family to continue living in the manner to which they had become accustomed.

when business picked up again, he could not take on the work without quitting his second job.

this man's action was noble. he is not someone i know today or will ever know again. he is common, proof even of the basically good nature of man. i respect him just as i respect all good men.

ujam

i stumbled across this youtube video quite by accident and was sort of blown away. it is two of my favorites collaborating to "make poverty history." u2 and pearl jam have been standing up for what they believe in for something like a combined 50 years and i respect both bands immensely for it. still, at the end of the day they are both rock bands and how they rock is what they will be judged on.

in this video of what appears to be pearl jam with the edge and bono performing neil young's 'keep on rockin' in the free world,' all parties rock and rock hard. i love live music-it is easily my favorite art form. i can recall seeing both of these bands from great seats up close and there is just something about live rock and roll pulsing through one's body, coursing through the bloodstream in rhythm with a thump, thump, thumping of the bass guitar and the bass drum and the energy of the groove of the rhythm and melody and a voice rising above it all to sing something of real meaning, that moves me.

what is more is the feel of a mass of humanity exhibiting some sort of like-mindedness by jumping and bopping and contorting and singing along in a sort of unison to and with the performer. it is something like the riot mentality contained and when u2 and pearl jam are involved, it is the riot mentality, the exhibition of humanity as a fabric acting in concert outside of the confines of a single body, all hopped up on positivity, infused by the music and the sensation of oneness-it is in my humble estimation the highest form of this phenomena.

having seen a great deal of live music in my day it is difficult to get too excited about video recorded live music. still, when i viewed this video i was moved. i did get excited. i enjoyed seeing a couple of my favorites performing together and the song just drives forward throughout, gaining momentum just when it feels like a crescendo has been reached. it is a classic rock song and together with alternative "stop poverty," lyrics, u2 and pearl jam accomplish what most rock bands set out to do to begin with. they kick ass.