Occupy ALL the Things

I have been silent for quite a while on here.  I've been teaching myself web design (HTML, CSS, Javascript).  The first two went quite well.  The third is more complex and will take a bit more to fully grasp, and then eons more to master.

But I return to my ranting forum for one purpose: the Occupy movement. (I capitalize out of respect)

I have had many political, fiscal, and generational discussions in my life but I don't think I've ever come across a topic that is misunderstood in such a unique way.  The Occupy movement is an outcry from Americans disgusted with their ultra-partisan, auction-block of a government being allowed to bully their citizens (and citizens of other countries as well) and then expect thanks for it.

Many revelations have come to light in the 2+ months since Occupy began.  We see that Congress and the White House still don't seem to take it seriously.  Employees of the banks themselves have nothing but taunts.  ("Get a job." seems to be the most prevalent and misinformed comment.)  We see that police departments are allowed to use any force necessary to move people where they want them.  We have seen 25 year old punk cops use excessive force, and on many occasions pepper spray and tear gas, against war veterans.  Just yesterday I saw a photo of an 84 year old woman who was pepper sprayed in Seattle.  With all due respect, I can't imagine she was much of a physical threat.

But the most disturbing part is that many Americans can't be bothered enough to look past the flashy headlines and see what is actually happening.

If I got all of my information from official police department quotes and the evening news I would think that Occupy was made up entirely of unemployed, slacker college hippies smoking weed and looking for a handout.  This could not be further from the truth.  The Occupy movement is incredibly transparent in their makeup and motives.  People of all ages and backgrounds are part of Occupy.  Jesus, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie showed up in support. (Combined age: 156. Or 2167 depending on how you read the previous sentence.)  Occupy Wall Street had organized a library of an estimated 4000 books.  These books were electronically logged and searchable.  I use the past tense because Billionaire Bloomberg had most of these books, along with any possessions left behind when fleeing officers in riot gear, destroyed while forcing people out of Zuccotti Park.

I find it difficult to focus my thoughts on writing coherent sentences on this subject.  I am so incredibly disgusted by the hypocrisy and uncaring nature of nearly anyone in power in my government.  President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton had nothing but praise for protests in Egypt, as well as other countries involved in the so-called "Arab Spring".  But when our citizens attempt to use identical forms of protest (and much more peacefully might I add) that support is conspicuously absent.

I don't hate money or corporations.  In fact, I quite enjoy the former and have several corporations that I fully support.  But neither should be allowed to influence the votes of our lawmakers.  When debating tougher regulations on investments, environmental issues, even school lunches, the interests of the citizens of this country should ALWAYS come before the interests of the companies involved.

(Warning: From here on out is political and semi-obscenity-laced.)

Can we please stop verbally blowing Ronald Reagan?  His trickle-down plan was horseshit from the start.  If you want to help poor Americans you have two options: 1) Stop taking so much of their money. Or 2) Give them more money.  I'm not big on handing out money so I particularly like option 1.  Notice how neither of those approaches are "Give money to banks, corporations, and the wealthy and they will fix it for us by creating jobs and doing what's best for everyone" because that is ridiculous.  It didn't work then but apparently we are too fucking stupid to learn from the past. (re: two gulf wars)

Bailing out the banks was exactly the same approach as Reagan's trickle-down bullshit.  If you have banks failing and people losing their homes because they can't make their payments you, once again, have two approaches.  (I'm not mentioning that the banks created the problem on their own while government oversight was so feigned that the practices were almost endorsed.)  1) Give money to the banks to ensure they don't fail.  Hope they use this money to pay off some of their own domestic debts and then ease the crunch on their homeowners.  2) Give money to the homeowners themselves.  Have stipulations and restrictions that the money can only be used for mortgage payments.  Give them the option to use that money to make their normal monthly payments or use one lump sum to lower their overall mortgage amount.  People who wanted to keep their homes would probably choose the monthly payment route to ease their monthly financial burden.  People who wanted to sell their homes would probably use the lump sum amount so that the total amount of their mortgage would more closely resemble the actual value of the house, therefore dropping the asking price and making the home more attractive.

Both of the above options end with our government's money in the banking institution's pocket.  But the first way bypasses any regard for the homeowner.  It is completely reliant on the bank making the "right decision" and helping the homeowners they already showed they were willing to screw.  In fact, a good deal of this money went to pay for bonuses for executives and outstanding debts the bank had, many from over-seas lenders.  Meaning, the money that was meant to help homeowners actually went to executives and over-seas lenders.  Meanwhile, our government couldn't even be tasked with tracking where the money actually went.

You're telling me that no one in the entire fucking United States government thought that the banks would look out for themselves rather than the homeowners?  I don't know whether I hope Congress was so inept that they didn't see that possibility or that they allowed it because they were corrupt.  I honestly can't decide which is worse.

Option 2 in the above scenario allows homeowners to keep or sell their houses while easing their entire financial burden.  Having help paying your mortgage means you don't have to feed your kids $.89 hamburgers from McDonald's.  In one move you have helped the money crunch and potentially helped with peripheral issues such as childhood nutrition.  Freeing up money in the household is good for the homeowner and businesses alike.  If all your money is going to your mortgage then you don't have money to spend anywhere else.  And is this scenario the "bailout" money STILL makes its way to the banks for them to use on bonuses and their own debts.

Why was option 2 not an actual option?  Why have the banks not been held accountable for their illegal business practices that brought the entire country to the brink of financial ruin?  Why has Congress not been held accountable for their actions enabling the practices and then cleaning up the mess afterward?  Why are these banks and corporations allowed to manipulate the tax code to minimize, or even eliminate, the need to pay taxes while the average American has no such loopholes?

These questions along with many others including healthcare (How can a government force a citizen to buy a product? Why does Congress get better healthcare for free than their constituents can purchase?), foreign aid/wars (How can we shovel cash at dictators who openly commit acts of violence on their own citizens, and then turn on them and take them down when they show a weakness?), and corporate influence on Washington (see above) are what Occupy is all about.  You can't boil it down to one point that can be bastardized into a Red or Blue argument.  And that really pisses off the opponents of change and the defenders of the status quo.

I'm not talking about the individuals that make up Occupy.  If you go to each person and ask them to name their top three issues they want addressed you will get a myriad of answers spanning every conceivable topic.  Because Occupy is NOT about banding together to occupy Wall Street, or Boston, or any specific thing.  It's about pissed off Americans banding together and telling the U.S. government that the status quo is no longer acceptable.  Occupy doesn't expect Congressmen and businessmen to have epiphanies of the soul and suddenly find the goodness in their heart.  Occupy's success will not be anchored by how many politicians and celebrities join the movement.  Occupy is about having an informed public, conscious of its governments' actions, that is willing to hold elected officials and businesses accountable for their actions.

An ignorant public is an easily manipulated public.  Occupation does not destroy its target.  In its current incarnation, to Occupy something means to observe, illuminate, and become knowledgeable about it.  And knowledge is power.

So, regardless of your financial, political, sexual, generational, or any other affiliation, I say:  Don't Occupy one thing.  Occupy ALL the things.




(image source: http://nycfaultline.com/2011/10/08/occupy-all-the-things/)

American Debt

The United States of America is a country that is head-over-heels in love with debt.

Governmental, business, and personal debt are necessary for nearly everything.  The government borrows money from other countries to uphold fiscal promises it has made to businesses and citizens.  Businesses borrow money from banks and the government (sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, and sometimes there's not one) to purchase product so they can continue to operate.  Citizens borrow money from anyone who will listen for every imaginable expense.

Think of a "middle class" (quotes are necessary because the middle class doesn't actually exist) high-school student looking at his future.  His parents don't make enough money to pay for college but they make too much for him to qualify for grant money. His grades are okay but not stellar.  He starts looking at the cost of schools and sees that he really only has four options.

1) Go to college using a mix of government and personal loans. (Side note: Personal "student loans" are legalized loan sharking)

2) Join the military.  Once he's done spreading democracy/doing Big Brother's dirty work/occupying countries that haven't seen conflict in 70 years/protecting his country (You can pick which one of those you like best.  It's fun.  It's your very own Choose Your Adventure) he can let Uncle Sam pay for his college.

3) Magically find a job, with zero higher education or experience, that will pay for his college education.

4) Don't go to college.

If you've read my post on college, you know how I feel about that racket.  But realistically, your chances of being financially successful without some form of college education are pretty slim.

This kid chooses option number one.  While he is attending school he meets a lady friend and gets married.  Now, he doesn't want to start his new life by living with his parents, so they begin looking at apartments and houses.  House payments are less than rent payments so they buy a nice little home to start their family.  Between the mortgage and school loans he's now sitting at $150,000 (quite conservative for certain areas of the country) in debt...at 22 years old.

You know the story from here.  Money gets tight, credit cards become a necessity, and no matter how much they pay the debt never quite seems to get any smaller.  Notice how I haven't mentioned his wife's potential debt or any children.  It's out of hand enough without that.

This is American culture.  This is the American way.  This is the American Dream.

And when the government as a whole starts trying to help everyone accomplish their own American Dream, it becomes disastrous.

We (You included. Congressmen/women are elected. They even let ladies vote now. It's a new thing they're trying) have gotten ourselves into our very own Kobayashi Maru situation.  There is physically no possible solution that will allow us to continue our current borrowing/spending, uphold our current financial obligations, and maintain our current income.  Improvements MUST be made on all three fronts.  Bickering with your millionaire colleagues over minor tribbles quibbles helps no one.

Borrowing/Spending

This will have to be the main focus.

• Foreign aid has to be reigned in.  More spending does not equal more help.  Analyze where the money goes. Cut the middlemen or cut the program. 
• Unemployment benefits simply cannot last for 112 weeks. (I may be wrong on that number. It may actually be higher) If they're unemployed for that long then something other than their resume is suspect.  I don't want to see anyone lose their belongings, but handing someone money for over two years enables fiscal irresponsibility and puts the financial burden on other Americans. I am not demonizing the citizen here.  If you can collect unemployment, and use that money to pay your bills for two years, why would you want to get a job?
• The security theater that is the TSA has to be stopped.  Feeling up a six year old girl does nothing to keep me safe.  And spending millions upon millions of dollars for machines to take pictures of her naughty bits while her clothes are still on is insane. 
• Governmental salaries/pensions need serious cuts.  
• A simple version? 5% budget reduction for EVERY government program to start.  Then reevaluate from there. 

Financial Obligations

• Are we seriously still planning universal healthcare?  Does anyone honestly want to give more responsibilities to the assclowns in Washington right now?
• Corporate tax incentives are completely out-of-hand.  GE is in the 35% tax bracket.  They made $14.2 billion in profit last year.  Not income, pure profit.  They paid as much taxes as my cat did. (Just for giggles, 35% of $14.2 billion is $4.97 billion.  GE cheated the American taxpayers out of nearly $5 billion.)

Income

• Can we please stop pretending that illegal immigration is something that can be stopped?  The only way to stop someone from trying to make a better life for themselves/their family by coming into our country is to shoot them in the head.  Many people actually suggest that.  Would you stop breaking another country's ill-conceived and selectively-policed law if you thought that doing so would provide a better life for your children?  Of course not.  Personally, I think having Americans line the border and fart at people trying to come over would be more effective than our current tactics.  Illegal immigrants are here working, driving, getting healthcare, and doing everything else that other humans do.  Can we please give them a simple way to become an American citizen so they can start paying their share?
• Bonus Round: The above suggestion would also provide a huge, giant, gargantuan new source of income for Social Security, Medicare, AND Medicaid which would in turn mean we would need less cuts for those programs. 
• I previously mentioned GE and the tax code.  A huge chunk of their income was reported as overseas income.  We cannot compete with labor costs in other readily-exploitable countries.  When companies move jobs offshore they save on labor and taxes and America is left with fewer jobs and tax revenue.  I don't have an incredibly insightful suggestion here because, quite frankly, I don't have the time or intelligence to piece together just what the hell our tax code says.  I just wanted to mention that our current tax code REWARDS companies TWICE for moving jobs out of the country. 

Some of these suggestions may be completely unfeasible, or mildly insane.  But are they really any worse than the ideas our elected officials get paid to tell us we want? 

Society = MMORPG

This post will be one giant metaphor.  You were warned.


I have come to the realization that society has become an MMORPG, a game with no ending that is impossible to "win".  No matter what you do, how much you collect/accomplish, there will always be more.  Finding happiness in life is being able to leave quests unfinished.  Whether you solo your way to 80 (years old) or you combine forces to raid the high level boss task and gain fame and fortune, you will never have everything.  It's just not possible.

Being under the burden of adulthood is killing me.  To me, being an adult is synonymous with a 9-5 job, mortgage payments, being functional in the A.M., living through your kids, 401Ks, talking politics, and cutting ties with anything that gets in the way of those tasks.  That sounds like hell.  I never want to end up like th....wait.....I just described me.  I am the mid-level off-tank who sacrifices dreams of DPS and loot to carve out his own support role for his guild-mates.


Here's what I'm trying to say:  Most humans have entirely too much stuff.  Some of that stuff may be physical, some intangible.  Keeping your vault and quest log full at all times does nothing but clog up your life and hinder you from seeing the beauty around you.

Before a few days ago, I could not have told you the last time I mono-tasked.  THAT is what was killing me.  Not the mortgage, or the kids, or the 9-5 job, or financial stress.  It was the ever-present feeling that I was missing something.  If I'm watching TV then I'm wasting time where I could be reading.  If I'm on Facebook then I'm missing a great conversation on Twitter.  How can I read all the comics and novels I want to read when new ones come out all the time?

This never-ending cacophony of white noise in my head was the root of all my problems.  My son wants me to get him some more orange juice.  But to do that I would have to stop reading before I'm done with this chapter.  And if I do that then I it will put me 14 seconds behind on my quest to read everything by this author.  And what if someone brings up the next chapter at work tomorrow?  I won't know what the monster said to the protagonist because my son wanted some freaking orange juice!

Put some things aside.  Remove some quests from your log.  You can always go back to the quest-giver and start again.  Sell, or give away, those 14 broken dwarf axes in your vault.  You're never going to need them for anything.  Minimize your chat window and take a walk through the starting area for your character's race.  Look at all the amazing artwork that took someone countless hours to create.  You missed all of it.  All you saw was a waypoint to the next quest hub.  What you missed were the seven trees arranged in a semi-circle meant to signify the burial plot and memorial for a great warrior that time forgot.

Okay, the metaphor has served it's purpose.


What makes humans different from other animals?

Self-control?  You're kidding right?
Superior intellect?  see: Jersey Shore
Compassion?  Maybe you misunderstood me.  I said HUMANS.


I only see two things that humans excel at more than any other earthly creature: Creating/experiencing art and having opposable thumbs.  Music, film, novels, comic books, dance.  These are what defines humanity.  Unlocking the achievement of "Read All Asimov Novels" shouldn't be the goal.  Unlocking the enjoyment of experiencing, analyzing, discussing, emulating, evolving, and sharing Asimov's art should be the achievement.

SO...To hell with titles, SUVs, McMansions, and $80 t-shirts.  I'm looking forward to a life filled with imaginary creatures and mono-tasking.

Andy Boot Camp Update 06/10/11

I'm still chugging toward a weight-loss goal that is seeming nigh impossible at this point.  As I speak (type?), I am 80 pounds from my goal.  To meet my goal that would be an average of 13+ pounds per month.  Assuming that my goal in this whole endeavor is to become healthier I think cutting that much weight per month might be just as unhealthy as being a walking behemoth.  Alas, I shall stumble forth on my quest for purchasing my garments at a fine retail establishment, rather than a catalog for shapely individuals.

Here's the latest weigh in numbers:


04/11/11          309.6 (Small improvement from the last weigh-in)
04/13/11          311.8 (Rapid-fire weigh-in FTL)
04/17/11          309.4 (Then again, more numbers means more chances for success?)
04/30/11          309.0 (At this rate, I'll hit 300 sometime during Sasha Obama's 3rd term)
05/18/11          310.8 (Three weeks later....)
05/25/11          306.2 (Shit got real. This is my true beginning) (#existentialism)
05/29/11          305.4 (NUMBER GO DOWN!!) (The Hulk wrote that synopsis)
05/31/11          303.0 (FAT BAD!!!!) (Tarzan this time) (R.I.P. Phil Hartman)
06/06/11          302.6 (Still headed in the right direction)
06/08/11          301.8 (At this point, I really need to think of a name for myself after 300)


That's it.  I'll check back in after a few more weeks after I inexplicably reverse course and start my journey toward the Fattest Man Alive crown.

Filesharing Rant 3.0

I try to see the artists' plight when they go on misinformed rants about how illegal downloading is destroying the music industry but I'm starting to see new reasons why they're wrong.

First, the claim that illegal downloading is hurting the music industry is false.  It may be hurting overall ALBUM sales but it's definitely not hurting the industry.  Buying a $.99 single on iTunes just doesn't provide the same income as an entire $12 album with 8 filler songs.  I would argue that legal sales of digital singles have done FAR more to hurt album sales than pirating ever will.  The people buying $.99 singles are the same ones who used to buy $12 albums.  The people downloading albums now are the same ones who used to copy their friends' cassettes.  And, as I've stated before, illegally downloading an album can, and does, lead to new ticket buyers, t-shirt purchasers, and, yes, even future single/album buyers.

Second, the music industry was built on impossibly inflated prices and unsustainable excess.  The old model of "release an album > sell millions(?) of copies > stop producing anything and live off the profits for years and years" sounds a little silly when you try to apply it to other professions.  I can't set-up and mail-out 20 computers in a week and then say "You know what?  I had a pretty good week.  I think I'll not come into work for a few months.  Just keep sending the royalty checks for my groundbreaking work to my home address."  That's ridiculous.

Artists should get paid for their work.  But don't expect us to make you a millionaire because you bought a thesaurus and auto-tune.  From my perspective, as a non-millionaire/aspiring professional musician, I would think that touring should make up the majority of profit for a band.

Also, let's talk about the lawsuits.

I'm going to start by saying that the RIAA is one small step away from the mafia.  They will attack 12-year-old girls and repeatedly wrongly accuse others.  They have a history of "sue first, then find actual evidence".  And now it seems that even when they win a judgement against known infringers they will be keeping the settlement money rather than sharing it with the artists they supposedly represent.

It is unfortunate that great new artists may be cut early, or not signed at all, because of lackluster album sales. But here's to hoping this will lead to a new breed of artists utilizing the very digital structure that took down the media conglomerates to start a "creation > self-distibution > self-promotion > profit" model for success.  And then maybe we can cut out the money-grubbing, exploitative loan sharks and pimps that permeate throughout the music industry.