WHEN MONSANTO OWNS YOUR SPERM

(Published by CounterPunch)

Should have learned by now but how were you supposed to know you should always read the fine print on your cereal box. 

You sit down at the kitchen table. Pour breakfast kibble into a bowl, add milk, and eat. That’s how it’s done. Maybe you take a glance at some cartoon character on the front of the box, but that’s about it. Nobody expected you’d need a law degree before a post-dawn get down with good ole Cap’n Crunch.

You don’t expect to hear someone knocking on your front door at six o’clock in the morning. At least you shouldn’t. Cops, bill collectors, and religious zealots sometimes pick that time in the morning since they know you’re probably home. They don’t particularly care if you think they’re entirely obnoxious for waking you up from a sound sleep. Oh, and process servers like early morning visits as well.

CEASE and DESIST

Well, that’s certainly plain enough. You open the front door and a funny looking little guy, resembling the Cap’n himself a bit, hands you official looking papers, smiles, and strolls back to his car. CEASE and DESIST. Well, you can’t please all the people all of the time.

You pour yourself a second cup of coffee and read the damn thing. Blah, blah, blah, your name, blah, blah, Monsanto, CEASE and DESIST, all activity involving, fluids, your body, blah, blah, implied consent, CAP’N CRUNCH, your supermarket reports. You live alone...read the cereal box. CEASE and DESIST.

You need more coffee and your reading glasses. On the back of the Cap’n Crunch box, in infinitely small letters, you read, “By consuming this Monsanto GMO product, you agree that Monsanto shall retain all rights to all material produced in conjunction with this Monsanto product.” You wonder if that isn’t just the slightest bit odd.

Back to the CEASE and DESIST order. “Blah, blah, blah, all products produced by ingesting this Monsanto product including, blood, muscle, flesh, bone, hair, nails, internal organs, ejaculate, sweat, tears, and manure. Use of any and all of these Monsanto products by you without suitable recompense....”

Reading further you are delighted to discover that you need not immediately stop using the Monsanto products which now constitute your body.  Upon monthly payment of one hundred dollars, for a single gentleman such as yourself, every 30 days Monsanto will allow you to maintain control of up to one inch of fingernail clippings (per digit), the equivalent amount of fluids and solids commensurate with up to four flushes a day, one inch of overall hair,  the product of 15 ejaculations, and the donation of a pint of blood to charitable organizations. Any use above these limits must be shipped immediately to the Monsanto processing facility nearest your home.

This seems relatively fair to you. After all, you did eat the cereal and failed to read the small print on the package. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” as they say. And since Sergeant Scalia maintains that corporations like Monsanto are human, and you’ve got the product of Monsanto seeds in you, in a way you’ve been royally screwed and Monsanto wants its child support, or something like that. Threats regarding dragging you through every court in the land and hounding you until the end of time are most definitely implied. 

On the final page of the CEASE and DESIST order are instructions for proper payment as well as an offer for additional use of your Monsanto body products. For an extra fifty dollars a month, you are allowed unlimited use of the Monsanto products which now constitute your body. You don’t think you’ll be donating more than a pint of blood, or growing more than an inch of hair, but you decide to kick in the extra fifty anyway.

Not the best way to start off the morning, but you feel better once you’ve authorized your bank to pay Monsanto on a monthly basis. You figure it’s cheaper than court costs. Being jerked off by a lawyer would probably cost at least twice as much.

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BLOOD MONEY

(Also published on Dissident Voice)




BLOOD MONEY means different things to different people. In some cultures it’s the price paid to the victim’s family by the perpetrator, after a family member is murdered. Elsewhere it can be a fine paid for committing libel, theft, physical harm, or rape. If you employ a contract killer, their payment is also BLOOD MONEY

In cultures influenced by Christian traditions, BLOOD MONEY refers to an historic market transaction. When you talk BLOOD MONEY there, you’re talking about those infamous thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas Iscariot for squealing on his boss. After the fact, when Judas tried to return the money, even the bankers wouldn’t have anything to do with those particular shiny silvers. Business leaders back then thought those coins would pollute their existing supply. Money earned by a heinous criminal act. BLOOD MONEY. What a concept! 

Today people are divesting from those international criminal corporations whose business models depend upon the massive combustion of carbon based fuels. It’s been over forty years since everyone with a conscious mind realized the world was overdosing on oil and coal. For decades those involved in profiting from combustible carbon have worked their damndest to disguise the inevitable conclusion that their currency is BLOOD MONEY, and their industries, if not reigned in, might well destroy human life on Earth.

But these are not the only organizations where BLOOD MONEY flows. No pharisee would ever touch the BLOOD MONEY of a nuclear weapons manufacturers like General Electric. Insurance corporations, pharmaceutical companies, and like minded criminal operations who ration healthcare, with profits as their major consideration, should be committed to their own circle of hell as well. Cartels pushing oil, gas, and coal aren’t the only merchants of death.

As in the case of Conflict Diamonds, civilized society should turn their backs on the BLOOD MONEY generated by businesses that are acting against humanity’s best interest. When today’s investment bankers say the money is all green, and everything fungible is of equal worth, they are participating in a convenient lie. Just as trade in diamonds from countries involved in brutal wars has been outlawed; financial dealings with, or stock ownership in, corporations that engage in activities detrimental to the lives and human rights of all homo sapiens should immediately cease. If you do business with a criminal organization, knowing full well their crimes, you become as guilty as they.

Simply coming into contact with BLOOD MONEY corrupts us all. Like Ebola, letting BLOOD MONEY even touch you, can be fatal to all of humanity.

At the present time in the United States, there is little hope of a legal remedy to eliminate the activities of these corporate merchants of death, so a cultural solution must be found. Those dealing in BLOOD MONEY: oil company executives, and those trading in their stocks and bonds; nuclear weapon manufacturers, and for-profit healthcare rationers should be shunned as the criminals they are. If you know someone who owns shares in a petroleum company, turn your back on them, and tell them why. If your doctor is a part owner of a for-profit hospital, take your business elsewhere, and explain that healthcare is a human right, and a the person’s freedom, should not be traded in the marketplace. If a business is dripping with BLOOD MONEY, their employees shouldn’t be given awards by the PTA. 

Extremists will say that some corporations will always do some harm. On occasion some people will kill other human beings, but that doesn’t mean murderers should be accepted in a civilized society.

If you’re doing business with merchants of death and their BLOOD MONEY, there is really no way to wash the blood off your hands.

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Ahab Shorts the Market

(published at Dissident Voice)


Imagine owning warehouses full of second rate bootleg hooch at the very moment Prohibition is repealed.

Imagine still owning a buggy whip factory.

Imagine possessing  billions of gallons of oil, just as renewable energy sources begin chopping major chunks out of your market share. Watching as the worth of your reserves decreases day after day after day.

With every advance by alternative energy industries, the potential price of the world’s oil reserves decreases.

Today, 30% of Germany’s electric power is being produced by alternative sources. How do Germany’s new power producers effect the value of known oil reserves? Replacing oil based energy generators with renewables very simply reduces the value of the known oil reserves. The same supply with less demand equals lower value. It’s a rudimentary equation.

Will a tipping point soon arrive? In the near future, will there be a time when renewables control such a share of energy production that the demand for oil might be so low there is no financial incentive in opposing laws restricting carbon based fuels? Will there soon come a time when the wealth of some nations is not measured by the amount of oil beneath their sands?

Perhaps. It’s one possibility.

What would happen then? Many things. You might be witnessing some of the inevitable results right now.

For decades upon decades the Middle East has been the industrial world’s oil bank. Keeping that particular neighborhood in turmoil has been of extreme benefit to oil consumers. The Oil Crisis of 1973 was just one illustrating instance of how expensive it can get when oil producing nations agree on anything. Middle Eastern instability has been a key element in keeping energy prices low.

But what if the price of oil becomes so low that the instability of the Middle East is of little consequence to the industrial world? What if there is no financial benefit in keeping those nations in turmoil? What if alternative energy sources turn the current flow of oil into a glut on the market?

For many years Israel has been America’s forward base in the Middle East. What if, when oil becomes a too plentiful commodity, the United States no longer cares about events in that portion of the globe? Would Israel remain such a valued ally to its greatest benefactor? What would Israel do if it realized it would soon be of decreasing value to Imperial America? Would it seek to annex certain real estate immediately, instead of waiting until a time when its currency is of decreasing benefit to its benefactor?


Change of any kind involves cost. As renewable energy sources continue their march to eventually replace oil, markets will shift, the earth’s atmosphere may well change, and nations will reevaluate their geopolitical alliances. Some will see the future and act upon it sooner than others.

When employing disruptive technologies such as today’s renewable energy generators, there will always be consequences.


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Thank You, Justice Alito

Thank you, Justice Alito, that for once and for all you’ve produced irrefutable proof that five members of the current Supreme Court are entirely bat shit crazy.

Thank you for illustrating how extremists can carry any insane notion to a logical conclusion. The conclusion being, in this case, that you and those other four judges are indeed bat shit crazy.

But I really want to thank you for something else entirely.

Hey, Secretary Clinton, how would you like to make the Supreme Court decision mostly moot, help women receive affordable healthcare, while submarining a leading light of the Republican Party and playing havoc with the opposition as well?

Secretary Clinton should support Republican Governor Bobby Jindahl in his call for having the FDA classify oral contraceptives as being available for purchase over-the-counter.

Isn’t that pretty simple?

Now nothing other than a few retirements will undo the harm done by the Moron 5 currently holding sway on the Supreme Court, but making oral contraceptives available over-the-counter will certainly make Alito’s decision a little more meaningless. And at the same time we could all thank Hobby Lobby for assisting in making oral contraception more easily available. (Them old pesky unintended consequences.)

Secretary Clinton would remain a champion of human rights. In associating herself with Jindahl, she would compromise the governor forever in the eyes of most Republicans, eliminating one of that party’s brighter lights. And Secretary Clinton would make a life saving drug available to as many women as possible give present legal circumstances. This can be done right now.

Which begs the question: Why didn’t Democratic Presidents have the FDA classify oral contraceptives as over-the-counter in either the Clinton or Obama administrations?

It could have been easily accomplished by either Presidents Clinton or Obama. No need for legislation or anything complicated . All it would have taken was the stroke of a pen by a department entirely under the jurisdiction of the President of the United States.

It would take a fairly cynical person to come to the conclusion that Democrats refuse to classify oral contraceptives as over-the-counter drugs when they have the chance because they want to keep the argument with  Republicans over contraception raging as long as possible. If oral contraception being easily available ended a fierce debate that has brought more women to the Democratic side, perhaps the Dems really don’t give a damn about the health and well being of women, as long as they keep voting Democratic.

But that’s probably too cynical. A less cynical reason is Democratic Presidents are far too dependent on the cash criminal pharmaceutical corporations send their way.

Or perhaps both.

So here’s your chance, Secretary Clinton. You can immediately aid women all across America by insisting oral contraceptives be more easily accessible, while at the same time compromising the opposition party .

Or, you can do nothing and show that like most national Democratic leaders, you’re more interested in winning elections and accumulating money than in the lives and well being of American women.


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Are All Capitalists Scumbags?

We have become unstuck in time. The dj plays the same eight bars over and over and over again. There is no progression. Immature minds dominate the discussion and an entire nation has become fixated on problems which at one time would have been decided in moments and now explode upon the national consciousness in an eternal loop of noise and flashing lights. The accountants have taken over the asylum and all they know how to do is count pennies.

When Jesus Christ drove the money changers from the temple, how was he to know they would all end up on Wall Street and in the Oval Office?

For the record there are certain occupations which will exist for the foreseeable future. There will be firefighters. Probably police. Certainly garbage collectors. And sewer workers. And, one way or another, there will be money changers.

Money is simply a tool. Like interstate highways or contract law, money exists to facilitate social existence. Money is not an end to itself. It should never be a reason for either vetoing or promoting vital national interests. When was the last time someone immediately created a spreadsheet when a major hurricane hit? Were accountants the most necessary professionals following Pearl Harbor?

Jesus Christ has already put these bean counters in their proper place, and it’s not anywhere near where major decisions should be made.

The United States has become a nation which focuses on the sewer system at the expense of creativity and stability. When those in charge of designing Paris sought to put their vision into effect, of course they kept the sewers in mind, the sewers will always be a factor, but first came the vision. In today’s U.S., the sewers of money have taken over the conversation and the vision has been discarded by those who can only see as far as the pennies in their hands.

Are all Capitalists scumbags? Probably not. But anyone who describes themself as a Capitalist might very well be. Citizen. Parent. Republican Democrat. Conservative. Liberal. Progressive. Golfer. Humorist. These are some of the choices one might take to describe oneself. Why the hell would anyone describe themself as a Capitalist? “Hi! My name’s Fred and I’m a Capitalist. I believe we should pile together all the money we can, take as much as possible for ourselves, and fuck the rest of you. Hi! I’m Fred, and I’m a Capitalist.”

Never forget that Wall Street isn’t filled with the masters of the universe, it’s populated by immature egoists who think the money is all green, and as long as they can get theirs, who gives a fuck? That’s about as elegant a thought as you’ll ever get from those money changers.

Think about it this way. We all have to stop Global Warming. That’s the goal. If we don’t, there will be billions of dead grandchildren. How to do it is the problem. Shut down coal. Solar. Wind. Geothermal. All of the options have to be taken into consideration. These are critical times. Life and death.

And if some Capitalist says coal is cheaper and we should keep those smokestacks blowing cause there’s a market and all that, well, what can I say, that’s pretty much the definition of a scumbag.


Money is an important tool. But only scumbags put it before the air we breathe and the earth from which we derive our sustenance.

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The Affordable Care Act - The Human Rights Violation for Liberals

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

Unalienable Rights. Self-evident Rights. You might say the modern definition of Human Rights springs directly from that unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. You probably wouldn’t be given much of an argument. 

President Obama on healthcare. “Well, I think it should be a right for every American.” Obviously healthcare as a right isn’t self-evident to President Obama. 

Let’s make this all very simple. Healthcare is a Human Right self-evident to most of the world. Healthcare is as much of a Human Right as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. This self-evident fact might not be evident to President Obama and his ilk, but that does not mitigate their Human Rights violation. 

What is Slavery, if not a Human Rights violation? A human being is commoditized and their right to Liberty is forcibly taken from them and sold in the marketplace. Slaves are perpetrators of no crime but, often legally within a state, their right to Liberty is bought and sold like so many shares of stock.

What is it called when a person’s self-evident Human Right to Healthcare is bought and sold? Certainly not slavery, since that’s when the Human Right of Liberty is bought and sold. Murder is when Life is taken for no justifiable reason. And the ability to deny a human being the right to dream has yet to become marketable.

We don’t know what crime to call the “for-profit” Healthcare system in the United States, where the ability to ease pain is withheld until a certain price is met. “Pay or die” comes very close to the situation at hand. Simple extortion. The protection racket. The most base terrorism. The AMA. The for-profit medical insurance business.

And that’s where the Human Rights violation for President Obama and the rest of the Affordable Care Act’s supporters comes in. The ACA, at its core, is a funding mechanism for the present corrupt for-profit Healthcare system. 

Imagine for a moment, a 55-year-old man in the center of an auction ring, the bidding is expensive and furious. Various hospitals vie for the right to slice him apart like a salami. They can run up the price of any operation as much as they wish since the sucker at the center of attention and his friends are the ones who are paying these cartels to cut him up. The 55-year-old paid good money so these doctors and businessmen could exorbitantly profit from withholding life-sustaining procedures until their price is met. 

What the Affordable Care Act does is pool all the extortion payments into one big pot where insurance providers (Human Rights violators) skim 30% off the top before making inflated payments to for-profit extortionist hospitals and doctors (more Human Rights violators) so that the next year they can up their premiums in order to continue making 30% off the top. Simple, isn’t it?

In other words, ACA simply tosses more fuel onto the fire which will eventually make wage slaves out of an entire nation. Obama and friends are abetting the anti-Human Rights for-profit Healthcare industry. If this were the old slave system, the ACA would be the Yankee clipper ships plying the Triangular Trade, keeping the slave markets profitable. 

So there you have it. The Affordable Care Act helps maintain the anti-Human Rights for-profit Healthcare system as it continues to plunder the American people, “your money or your health.” 

ACA supporters - the New Anti-Abolitionists.

Healthcare Slaughterhouse 5

The common cow. In the best of circumstances all of a cow’s needs are met from birth to the final reckoning by businesspeople who shell out real money to maintain its good health, and fatten it up before the final knife. There are many expenses involved before the big payoff, when the fully grown bovine amiably strolls into the slaughterhouse.

Now imagine, if you will, that same cow having to pay for its own feed and medical services out of its cowshit minimum wage while doing all the work. Basically, the industrial rancher would be paid for the cow to serve him its entire life. Wouldn’t even need to send the cow to the slaughterhouse. The cow just pays the last of its wages for a few shots of morphine at the end and is buried to fertilize where the next cow will grow its own feed.

It’s the perfect market, for the industrial rancher.

It’s the perfect market for the American Healthcare system.

Now, instead of the lowly cow, imagine that you are the profit center for the delightful American For-Profit Healthcare system.

From the moment you are born, from before you are born, the insurance companies, the for-profit hospitals, the pharmaceutical companies, take 20%, 30% off the top from every dime spent, on every transaction, for your medical care and well being. X-rays, vitamins, consultations, money goes through the insurance companies (who encourage price gouging in order to continue to raise their rates and skim their sometimes set percentage from a higher gross), to the hospital administrators (who enjoy all the benefits of interlocking boards of directors), to the pharmaceutical companies (get as much from the healthy, sick, and dying as a docile government will allow), eventually dropping a set fee on your friendly neighborhood MD.

Every day for the rest of your life you will pay a fee to the For-Profit Medical Establishment so they do not withhold life saving drugs and procedures. Don’t think for a second that you will ever work for yourself. You are working for them. They are literally holding a scalpel to your throat. Don’t assume for a second that the present horrific situation is as bad as it will get. There is a distinct possibility of things becoming much, much worse.

Imagine, for a moment, if all the members of the For-Profit Medical Establishment had their way and could charge as much as they wanted, as their brothers and sisters in the pharmaceutical companies already do. Hospitals would be able to demand as much as they wished, because the insurance companies profit each time the hospitals charges more since they get to charge higher premiums owing to increased expense. And the insurance companies are supposed to control costs! Whoopsy! It’s such a lovely racket. Whoopsy! It’s already happening. But now that everyone has to have insurance, where is next quarter’s profit increase coming from?


Right now hospitals all over the United States are performing useless, expensive procedures on the terminally ill in order to inflate their bottom line. This type of scam will continue and spread, given the for-profit nature of our Healtchcare establishment. There is a distinct disincentive to control costs. It’s only going to get worse. Much worse.

Similar to the way Capitalism doesn’t care one way or another whether a product is produced using slave labor or not, a For-Profit Healthcare system doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the health and well being of any individual. It’s For-Profit, you moron, it’s not For-Humanity. If a For-Profit hospital could get away with it, they’d hang the terminally ill up on a hook in cold storage, barely keeping them alive, and perform every outrageously expensive procedure they can imagine. The insurance companies encourage this. The pharmaceutical companies will always be in for a cut and, unfortunately, there are probably enough MDs around willing to line their own pockets at the expense of those about to die and the general public.

This is already happening. Rest assured these business procedures will only spread to every aspect of America’s Healthcare system. Shouldn’t be long before little Jane and Johnny are going in for an MRI every single time they stub their toe. Can’t be too careful these days! Suckers.

And then, surprise, surprise, everyone starts paying half their wages to the insurance companies. The structure is already set. Who do you think is going to stop it?

Just remember, to any For-Profit enterprise you are merely a cow.

And “To Serve Man” is a cookbook.


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There Will Be More Blood

The question is no longer what, the question is when.

Very soon, income inequality in the United States will reach such a critical level it is likely violence will be viewed as an acceptable response to America’s social ills.

Unlike Depression Era bank robbers, assaults will be aimed at soft human targets. After all, who uses cash anymore?

Extortion. Kidnaping. Arsons. A crime wave of epic proportions might well be the only way those running America will come to their senses and realize that no democracy can continue to exist where so much is controlled by so few. The present system of representative government has failed in such a spectacular fashion to protect the rights of the majority that the government itself has become the criminal.

Do not kid yourself that the present resource inequality will do anything but get much, much worse. Do the math. Tax rates for the extremely wealthy being so extremely low can only lead to the further accumulation of massive fortunes by the select few. That wealth  will be taken from those lower on the economic food chain and so the disparity can only become greater.

Let them eat cake.

Public discussion of the critical problems currently facing this nation is so infantile it might as well be Medieval monks chattering on about the number of angels that can fit on the top of a pin. Bridges collapsing. People literally starving. Jobless working class. A country without hope. Yet the rulers natter on about reducing the rations of the most needy while at the same time they loot every household  in the name of a putrid for-profit medical system and drone bomb the hell out of any country they wish.

How many military bases does this country have outside our borders? How many countries have U.S. troops stationed in them?  Only criminals need those many guns.

Serious problems. There is a total disconnect between those charged with keeping this country on an even keel and reality.

The United States has become a kleptocracy. And criminality is the lesson it is teaching its citizens. Those living outside of the law, whether in skyscrapers or shacks, bring only pain and deprivation to those who strive to maintain a civilized society. When the government itself is the criminal, cutting up the pie solely for itself and its cronies, an equally criminal response will be inevitable.

What to do? It’s Robin Hood time. It’s only a question of who becomes the outlaw of Sherwood. People will only allow a boot to press against their neck for so long before the violence being done to them precipitates a like response. Unless those in positions of power tax the rich until it hurts, there will, like night follows day, be a violent response from those being oppressed against those they see as inflicting their pain.

If this government keeps shirking its responsibility to the vast majority of its citizens, this country is dooming itself to a bloody future.

It’s Time for Stewart and Colbert to Retire

The King is delighted when the Village Idiot is mocked by the Fool. The King is delighted when anyone is mocked by the Fool other than the King. Unfortunately for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, their job is to mock the King and they have failed to do that for quite some time.

How would today’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have covered the Irish Potato Famine?

“Stephen, did you see this piece in the Fine Outstanding Xenophobian today? I mean really. Blaming all the famine deaths in Ireland on a Papist pact with the devil.”

“Jon, how can you appear shocked? Those drooling cretins come up with the most ludicrous stories every day. Please, aren’t we above such things?”

“Stephen, true. We are above all this, but it doesn’t make their rants any less hilarious.”

“True, Jon. I mean really, do you see where they say Papists all have tails like the devil, which is why God is punishing them with this famine?”

“Stephen, you are so right. Everyone knows Papists don’t have tails. Even imagining Papists with tails has to be the silliest thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Jon, Papists with tails. The Xenophobian has done it again. Aren’t they just the village idiot? We are so much cooler than that.”

“Right, Stephen. Now, moving right along to today’s silly cat drawing.”

Not a word about the suffering Irish. Not a word about where the surplus food in Ireland was being shipped. Not a word about all those profiting from this particular genocide. Instead, they discuss the alleged flaws of the British propaganda system. Jewels before swine. Parody gold ignored for cheap laughs.

And there you have it. Even back then the Fox network would have decided the topic of discussion. And Stewart and Colbert would be more than willing to echo the distraction of the day. Fox tells you where to look, classic misdirection, and the two of them, for whatever reasons, are all too willing to follow Roger Ailes commands.

At times it feels like half of their broadcasts are wasted calling the Fox Village Idiot an idiot. Pitiful. Lazy.

It’s as if Stewart and Colbert were in high school and instead of mocking the principal, they decide to pick on the special education kids, who the principal encourages to smash ice cream cones against their own foreheads.

If Roger Ailes and his paymasters at Fox aren’t paying Stewart and Colbert, they should be. If they’re not being paid by Fox directly, they’re either complete morons or being reimbursed indirectly. "I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right." Fox thanks both of them whenever they broadcast.

Satirists have to be held to a higher standard than the obvious low bar Stewart and Colbert have now set for themselves. They keep reveling in the awards received from those who benefit from their harmless (to them) form of social criticism. At the moment neither are worthy to lick Russell Brand’s boots.

We know they’re both middle-aged men with families, well, that probably says it all. Family men often have good reason to act in ways that others might call cowardly. It’s the same type of knee jerk fear which Fox feeds upon. Perhaps it’s time for both to pull a Chappelle and simply walk away. They’ve lost their edge. Leave it to younger or older people to carry on the attack. Leave before they become caricatures of themselves. Leave before they become even more of an embarrassment.

“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Not long ago that quote cited by Peter O’Toole was brought to mind. Comedy is hard, gentlemen, and the two of you have gotten far too soft.

America's Criminal Medical Profession

It appears that all many people can talk about is the price of slaves. They say the slave owners should keep getting as much money as they can while others are saying the slave market shouldn’t exist at all.

There should never be a market for human rights. Neither freedom nor healthcare should ever become the subject of market haggling. Neither single payer nor Obamacare address the problem of the rights of human beings being held hostage by the for-profit healthcare system. In a way the present system is more insidious than slavery. Slavery was a bit easier to identify while today the smiling face of your family doctor may very well be the front for organizations which might as well be selling body parts. 

Single payer, Obamacare, doesn’t matter as long as healthcare professionals can charge as much as they want while keeping a scalpel to the throats of the American people. 

Keep haggling about whether you’re going to be working in the house or the fields. That’s what the present system wants you to do.

Withholding healthcare until a certain price is met is as criminal as criminal can be. And that is how the price is set by the medical profession in the current system. Doesn't matter if the individual, an insurance company or a government forks over the money. The crime begins with the medical profession creating the market.

License to Heal or License to Steal?

It’s time to take some of the profit out of the for-profit healthcare system currently victimizing the people of the United States. This is a small step and one which can be implemented on levels which do not necessitate the consent of an entire nation.

If you’re not intelligent enough to already have realized that the present for-profit healthcare system in the United States constitutes a human rights violation, you might as well go back to watching black and white 1950s sitcoms on your smart phone, and stop reading altogether.

“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgement and never do harm to anyone.”

That’s one translation of the Hippocratic Oath. “First do no harm” is one way of saying it.

Let’s face it, the for-profit healthcare extortion system in the United States is doing a lot of harm to a lot of people.

When a doctor asks a high price for their services, they are saying one thing. They are saying that if you don’t meet their price, they will withhold their services. That’s how a market is supposed to work. Unfortunately, when doctors withhold their services in order to get more money, people have been known to die. It’s pay or die when it comes to the present healthcare extortion system in the United States.

Individual states license doctors to practice their discipline within that state’s borders.  States currently allow licensed medical professionals free reign to charge excessive amounts for their services. The argument that the medical profession exists within a free market and doctors are worth whatever they can get remains entirely bogus. In reality, the for-profit medical profession is an extortion racket where, unless a patient meets the system’s financial demands, something very bad might very well happen to them. Has anyone, anyone ever, compared prices when they needed brain surgery? The states through their licensing powers become willing partners in this extortion racket. Doctors in the present system are asking their patients that most delightful of questions, “Your money or your life?”

If a licensed hunter is limited in the number of deer he can bag in one season, certainly a state has the authority to limit the profit margin on licensed professionals within its jurisdiction. If states and local governments can regulate the prices charged by cab drivers, those same licensing authorities most certainly have the capability to cap the incomes of medical professionals whose entire careers depend upon the state issuing them a license to practice.

A modest proposal. Allow doctors to make as much as they want through earnings and investments within the current healthcare system. However, if their income is more in a year than the governor of the state which issues their license, they will be charged a fee of 75% of those overage monies, which will be paid to the licensing authority. On the plus side the licensing authority will take those monies and initiate a program which reimburses doctors 5% of their outstanding student loans if they perform two weeks of non-profit medical community service each year. Of course there will be other trivial details which can be worked out rather easily once this concept is accepted by those of good faith.

It’s time for individual states to stop participating in the healthcare extortion racket. If any doctor says they will leave the state if they can’t make as much money as they can extort from their captive audience, well, here’s your scrub hat, what’s your hurry?
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Obamacare Coronates New Welfare Queen - The Insurance Industry

Now that the entire population can go online and shovel even more money into the anti-human rights money pits which is the for-profit health industry, it might be nice to see who really benefits from this new “entitlement”.

Previously uninsurable. Yeah. Now they can give Wall Street cash out of their own pocket.

Previously unaffordable. Now the government can pay Wall Street directly, instead expanding Medicaid and cutting bankers out of the loop.

More of the new poor on Medicaid. See above.

Cocktail napkin numbers: 50 million uninsured today.  Estimated that 25 million will become insured under Obamacare.

Let’s say half of that number goes to Medicaid. Fine. That leaves 12.5 million. Let’s say the average payout by the Feds is $200 a month per policy. Remember: this is actually a new corporate welfare program since the government subsidizes premiums depending upon the citizens income.

$200 a month times 12.5 million. That’s 2.5 billion a month going directly from the United States Treasury into the pockets of the for-profit healthcare industry. That’s 30 billion a year, for starters, looted from the people of the U.S. by agents of the insurance racket.

Remember: cocktail napkin numbers.  Of course these numbers more than double with the citizens’ contribution to the monthly premiums. 

So Obama and the Democrats are subsidizing the insurance companies by a few billion a month. Somebody should get the award for insurance salesman of the millennium.

“Healthcare should be a human right.”

That’s Obama pretending to be a law professor while being President. He says it should be a human right because if he said healthcare was a human right, he would have to do something about it. So he sort of says healthcare should be recognized as a human right and therefor he can continue to do business with the for-profit health insurance industry as they violate everyone’s human rights from the jump. Somebody should put “courage” on the Oval Office’s Word of the Day calendar.

Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, healthcare. These are human rights. Half a million died during the Civil War in order to restore the human right of liberty to those in slavery. Denying the human right of freedom for profit is called slavery.

For-profit healthcare and slavery have a lot in common. They both restrict a human right so somebody can make a buck. For-profit healthcare and slavery both treat human beings like commodities from which the last single cent should be wrung. Neither system is concerned about the people they harm.


Withholding vital healthcare in order to increase profit is the moral equivalent of allowing slaves to die to increase profits. The business of rationing healthcare for profit is equivalent to owning slaves. 

If you are in the healthcare business simply for the money or if you profit excessively from the suffering of others, you might as well consider yourself a slave owner. 

Slave owners and healthcare profiteers should always be ostracized.

So there you have it. Obamacare will soon be pumping billions of dollars a month into a corporate healthcare system designed to profit by withholding a human right from everyone. Obamacare is pumping billions of dollars a month into the moral equivalent of the slave system. Congratulations.

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Medicare for the Unborn

Let’s begin with everyone agreeing on one point. Good prenatal care should be available to all who make the choice to avail themselves of it.

How many people in this country would never consider applying for “goddamn Welfare” even if their lives depended upon it? Quite a few American citizens were raised to believe, and still think to this day, that “goddamn Welfare” should be avoided like the plague and it might even be sinful to receive “handouts” from the government. Sound like anybody you might have met?

The way the present system is set up, if you are relatively non-affluent, you really can’t afford to pay for medical insurance. If you aren’t willing to get on your knees and beg the government for “goddamn Welfare”; well, the odds are you’re going to end up without any medical coverage at all, including prenatal.

Medicaid is “goddamn Welfare” to a large segment of people in this country.

In most instances, who cares?

But there are circumstances where the individual who refuses to utilize adequate medical treatment, for financial or philosophical reasons, is putting not only themselves at risk but also the potential life of a future United States citizen. Should the health and well being of fetal possible voters be risked simply because their parent refuses to beg for “goddamn Welfare” and are too non-affluent to afford adequate medical care on their own?

Of course not. Once a choice is made, potential citizens have the right to arrive in this world without being physically or mentally damaged by their parent’s neglect. Who will protect the rights of these potential citizens? Who will assure they come into this world without the stigma of “goddamn Welfare” being attached to them in perpetuity?

Proper prenatal care should be a guaranteed right for all those who need it. Lack of medical care should never be a factor in anyone’s choice.

Future citizens have rights too. Prenatal care is a right these potential citizens should never be denied.

Knowing that this right is being enforced by the government might very well be a major consideration in whatever choice the adult might come to make.

Which is why prenatal coverage should be part of Medicare. Already Medicare covers senior citizens and disabled citizens. Why shouldn’t Medicare cover potential citizens? After all, Medicare isn’t “goddamn welfare”. Having prenatal coverage become a recognized as a right under Medicare would help those who despise welfare and who don’t have enough money to pay for private insurance make choices in the best interest of themselves and future generations.

And while we’re at it, children shouldn’t be forced to suffer owing to either the idiocy or the moral choices of their parents. Children, future voters, should maintain the right which brought them into the world and be covered by Medicare as well.

All children have the right not to suffer due their parent’s particular point of view or income.

Paying for it would be simple. Raise the income limit for the payroll tax and let those making over $125,000 a year pay taxes at the same rate as the rest of us. If it helps pay for prenatal care, and helps folks make the right choice, you’re damn right those swimming in bucks should pay their fair share.

If you want people to make the right choice, you have to help them out. Recognize that prenatal and childhood healthcare is a right for all Americans.

Start from there.

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Tokenism

Imagine a large city somewhere in the northern United States where one night 2/3 of the population relocates to warmer climes.

Boom! Out of nowhere a massive number of houses are left abandoned. Boom! In an instant municipal tax revenues are insufficient to fund basic necessities of civilization. Boom! Everybody left in town has to stop what they’re doing and start bailing 24/7 because they know they’re on a rapidly sinking ship.

Now imagine instead of so many people leaving in one day, the process involves decades. You know what I’m talking about.

When a municipality’s survival is based on a single industry and that industry fails, for whatever reason, you know there’s going to be big trouble. When the mine goes dry, when buggy whips become obsolete, when auto companies are more attractive to oil cartels than to their customers; and the mine shuts down, and the buggy whip factory burns to the ground, and the Big Three falter and almost fail; there’s a good chance a new ghost town will come into existence.

Suppose that in this same suffering town that for every dollar spent on cheap food, three to five cents was immediately taken and shipped overseas. Sort of like yea olde tea tax but instead of taxing tea and sending the money to King George, today’s modern consumer buys from Burger King (or other mega-brands) and at least a 3% tax levy is immediately sent to corporate headquarters, which exists somewhere outside the reach of the municipality’s taxing authority (and probably outside the reach of the IRS as well). Would you object to 3% of your dinner bill going to support governments or corporations over which you have no control? Congratulations! you’re already doing just that (and probably more). Goodbye money!

Can any suffering community survive if a sizable amount of its treasury is systematically plundered?

Is there a way to stop this? Is there a way to keep a community’s cash within the community, where it will, if not stop the ship from sinking, at least increase the chances sailing into a safe harbor?

Yes, there is.

When people say “buy local” the response is usually “yeah, sure”. It’s a nice thought but unless a community’s survival is at stake, not many people care much. In struggling communities where that 3-5% burger drain is vitally important, “buy local” is simply picking up a bucket and helping out.

How to do it.

Stop eating at national chains. They do next to nothing for your community and funnel vital currency to banks in the Bahamas (you get the idea).

Create a local currency which will only be accepted where it is most needed. Governments all over the world, from Switzerland to Brazil to Oregon, have created their own local currencies and success ranges from moderate to fantastic. The idea is to keep the money flowing within the community for as long as possible, leading to substantially more sound local fiscal health.

Here’s one way for any city to start printing its own money. (Variations of this idea have been successful all over the world.)

When municipalities find themselves on shaky financial footing they often decrease payroll. Cops, firefighters, teachers, garbage collectors, etc., etc., take pay cuts. Fair enough, if there’s not enough money, you have to spread the pain. Unfortunately, less money being paid to citizens means less money can be spent in the community and the economy becomes even more depressed. A downward spiral is created.

What if there were a way to minimize any mandated payroll cuts within a hurting community by a city issuing its own currency? What if instead of a 20% payroll cut in U.S. greenbacks, there were a 20% cut in U.S. greenbacks but half of that cut was made up by issuing those employees local currency?

How could a city afford to back up a local currency?

Let’s play with some numbers. Joe Smith is about to have his pay decreased from $600 a week to $480 a week. Ouch. Ouch indeed. $120 less a week is killer. What’s a city to do? For any number of reasons the city can’t keep paying Joe that $120 but it can do something. To make the pain a little less it can pay Joe an extra $60 a week in bus tokens.

What is a dollar bill other than a promissary note? What is a bus token other than a promissary note? A dollar bill is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government while a bus token is backed by the full faith and credit of the local government and the local municipal bus company. We’re not talking high finance here, we’re talking about maximizing what resources remain in suffering communities.

How would it work? Say Joe gets his reduced pay check and a voucher for thirty $2 bus tokens. Say he cashes in his voucher for tokens. He can ride the bus thirty times if he wants. Joe wins. The city wins because it really didn’t cost them much and Joe is a happier employee. And the bus company, previously underutilized, shows that it can do its job and Joe becomes a good spokesman for its services.

Or Joe can take his bus tokens to the local farmers’s market and see if the merchants there will take his tokens in lieu of U.S. cash payment. History has shown this works. Why not? Farmers take buses too. Or Joe could take it to his local Ma and Pa restaurant and see if they would like some of his tokens. Why not? Ma and Pa know that the tokens are backed by the full faith and credit of the local bus company and besides, they can give their busboy a couple at the end of his shift because he’s been such a fine worker. And you know busboys ride the bus, right?

And so these tokens circulate within the community. Local businesses are supported because they take the tokens. International conglomerates are SOL because banks in the Bahamas don’t take local buses. Cash is kept within the city. Local commerce flourishes.

Suddenly everyone in town feels, and is, a little bit richer.

This is not a new idea. Do some research. Struggling cities can save what few greenbacks they have left for necessities which cannot be produced locally.

There is a vast economy within local areas which does not need multinational companies to survive. This isn’t a barter system, it’s better.

Besides, it might only be fitting if public transportation could save mining towns, or buggy whip boroughs, or even motor cities.

In Praise of New Jersey

As a tenth generation New Yorker, one might imagine that extolling the virtues of the Garden State is a task which I do not particularly enjoy.  New Jersey is often unnecessarily abused and that has usually been fine with me. But today I have arrived at a crossroads and have come to praise New Jersey, not to bury it.

Last week while driving along the Eastern Seaboard, I pulled into what was once known as a gasoline service station. I turned off the ignition, extracted my credit card, opened the door, and headed to the pump. Suddenly, I was confronted by a black man who demanded my credit card, and fuel requirements. Startled by this unexpected confrontation, it took me a moment to remember I had crossed the border and was now in New Jersey.

New Jersey - Home of the Gas Jockeys.

There are over 3,000 gas stations in New Jersey.

In a recent poll conducted by myself, over 99% of respondents agreed pumping your own gasoline is a pain in the ass. It’s not the worst thing in the world but it’s a dirty, smelly, inconvenient, and ultimately a dangerous job that the oil companies recruited you to do for them for free. Pump your own gas, sucker?

Around 1970 or so, most of the United States was bamboozled into thinking donating their time and effort to the oil companies would be a good thing. Mr/Ms Average Consumer would save a few pennies per fill up and what could possibly be wrong with that? New Jersey did not agree with this get rich quick scheme by the oil companies, and retail delivery of gasoline was kept in the hands of professionals.

Let’s say the average gas station in New Jersey employs four Gas Jockeys full-time over a week. That’s over 12,000 jobs. And that’s a conservative estimate. That’s 12,000 people kept off the welfare rolls. 12,000 jobs over a forty year period. Are you beginning to get the idea? 12,000 taxpayers as opposed to 12,000 welfare recipients. The State of New Jersey kept over 12,000 people off the welfare rolls for forty years by not allowing Ms Average Consumer to pump her own gas. The State of New Jersey prevented hundreds of possible service station explosions and fires by not allowing Joe Sixpack to handle volatile, explosive fluids on his way back from a Giants tailgate. The State of New Jersey helped thousands of young kids help keep food on their family’s table while possibly paying for their higher education.


The State of New Jersey (along with Oregon and Huntington, NY) did not allow the oil companies to turn their citizens into unpaid employees. New Jersey kept jobs in New Jersey, increased their tax base, reduced their welfare costs, reduced the number of gas station robberies by having more people around, kept neighborhoods safer by having more eyes on the street, and made everyone smell just a little bit better by not having that noxious gasoline aroma on your hands and clothes.

Until the 1970s, full service was the norm and self-service was rare.

As much as I hate to say this, congratulations New Jersey! You did the right thing forty years ago and you keep doing the right thing today.

My question is why doesn’t each state demand that explosive liquids be kept out of the hands of unqualified amateurs? Let’s say that states average 2,000 gas stations a piece. Let’s say an average of two full time Gas Jockeys per station. That’s four thousand jobs created instantly. Any state legislator who turns down the chance to create four thousand jobs in today’s economic climate should be recalled.

And for you free marketeers, remember, the price of goods isn’t created by the cost of goods, the price of goods is what the market will bear. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. But not at the same time you’re pumping gas.

This country messed itself up forty years ago (except for New Jersey et al). It’s time to atone for our sins. Bring back the Gas Jockeys for a safer America, for a more prosperous America, and, of course, for a less malodorous America.

Bring back the Service Station. Employ hundreds of thousands of Americans as Gas Jockeys right now. Stop pumping your own gas, the oil companies should work for you, not you for them.

“Hey, you know your left rear tire looks a little low?”

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Grilled Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Something worth the bother.

Grilled Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
 
PB&J, fried, what more could you ask?

What you’re going to need is a frying pan or an electric skillet. These pieces of equipment have been mentioned previously but since you’ve probably forgotten all about them by now, a frying pan is usually used for comic relief in old movies and an electric skillet plugs into the wall and has a thermostat attached. (See Chapter 6, A Kitchen Contains More Than a Beer Chiller)

How about some bread? By the end of all this you should be able to bake a loaf of your own but right now just buy the best loaf you can find. A bread bakery is good, a supermarket is where you’ll usually get what you pay for. White, if you like, or if you insist on being a classicist, but spend a few more pennies and get some bread with some weight to it.

Butter. Real butter. No discussion here. All the money you lay out buying quality ingredients will return to you the first time you pass by McDonalds, drive home, and make a meal for yourself, and whoever else you invite to join you. Best to have the butter at room temperature, but, realistically, we both know you just took it out of the refrigerator. Nuke it for five seconds. No more. The bar of butter will be spreadable soon enough.

Peanut Butter.  Ingredients listed on the jar, one thing only, peanuts. Get the idea? You can play around with imposters, posers, and the rest, but go for the pure, the unadulterated, the epic, 100% or nothing.

Jelly or jam. The sweet thing. Your preference. Whatever you decide will fill the need. Experiment. Or use what you know best. It’s your show.

Ready?

Or not.

Set that electric skillet to 350 degrees or put some heat under a frying pan. Warm them up.

Take a slice of that good, solid bread you paid a couple of extra cents for and butter one side. Do the same with another slice. Two slices of bread. Two buttered sides. We are talking a sandwich here. (See Chapter 2, Buttering a Piece of Bread)

Spread some peanut butter (the pure) on the unbuttered side of one piece of bread. How much depends on you. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Same goes for the preferable jelly (or jam). Unbuttered side of other slice. Get that scrumptious spread all around that carbo delivery system.

Now if your skillet is at 350 degrees, you’re there. If you’re using a frying pan, I usually use the little bit of dancing spit method. If you spit in the pan and it dances, you’ve arrived.

Put the buttered side of the jellied slice on the pan. Take the pb slice and place it on top of the jellied slice, butter side up.

Now some folks think you should put a brick on top of this, but that makes it far too squished for the pb&j. Decompression is the theory involved here.

Let it fry for three minutes or so. It should start to brown a little.

Pick up your spatula (Chapter Five, What is that Stuff?), flip it over and let it cook for another three minutes or so until it’s a light brown, toasty and warm.

Peanut butter and jelly. All warmed up.

Eat.
-

My Life in Pictures

Jerry Nadler on Obama's Dereliction of Duty

Nadler: Bush Memoir Proves Criminal Use of Torture, Requires Accountability for the Sake of American Principles and Safety

Nov 9, 2010
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Today, in response to President Bush’s admission in his memoir that he had personally authorized the use of torture while in office, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) blasted the Bush Administration’s illegal policy and renewed his longstanding call for full accountability for the criminal use of torture. Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, urged Attorney General Eric Holder once again to appoint a special prosecutor with a robust mandate to investigate torture committed during the Bush Administration and, if necessary, prosecute those at all levels of government who were complicit in its use.

Nadler issued the following statement:

“I am outraged by President Bush’s own admission in his newly released memoir that he personally authorized the use of waterboarding on detainees while in office. This admission, delivered without remorse or regret, reminds us disturbingly of the persistent lack of accountability and resolution in confronting the crime of torture committed by our own government. The only way forward is to appoint a special prosecutor with a broad mission to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute these known cases of torture.

“Waterboarding has long been considered torture – a view shared by the Obama Administration – and committing or ordering torture is a severe crime under both international and U.S. laws, for which we have convicted foreigners and Americans in the past. The President is bound by the Constitution to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ Failure to order a criminal investigation would be a serious dereliction of duty. With President Bush’s admission, no further excuses or evasions are conscionable.

“Failure to provide accountability for torture will reduce American credibility among foreign nations and endanger American troops by enabling terrorists and future enemies to justify torture using Bush’s own words. We already have extensive evidence of how American torture has enraged foreign populations and recruited fighters for Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and various Iraqi militias who have killed and maimed our troops.

“The perversion of our laws and treaty obligations in order to support an illegal campaign of torture is a stain on the honor of our nation, and it is essential that those who committed these misdeeds be made to answer for their actions. As I have long said, it is imperative that the Department of Justice ensure that a special counsel fully investigates the commission of torture, follows the trail wherever it goes, and, if warranted, prosecutes accordingly. There is no legal or moral reason to insulate those who authorized or ordered the torture of detainees.”



http://nadler.house.gov/press-release/nadler-bush-memoir-proves-criminal-use-torture-requires-accountability-sake-american



Dereliction of Duty from Wikipedia

Details

In the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), dereliction of duty is addressed within the regulations governing the failure to obey an order or regulation.[2]
§ 892. Art. 92. Failure to obey order or regulation
Any person subject to this chapter who— ... (3) is derelict in the performance of his duties;
shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
Outside of wartime, the maximum punishment allowed is a Dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 1 year (10 years for service members receiving special pay under 37 USC 310[3]).[4]

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And that's for starters.

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My Love Affair with Barack Obama

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