The Titanic Trio of Tyranical Turpitude - Politics

In my quest to "joyfully participate in the suffering of this world," I try to keep on top of exactly who and what the causes of that suffering are. I have found it is easier to participate in the trials and tribulations they render unto us, (AND CHARGE us for!), when you know more about them. And when you know who you are dealing with, though they DO NOT make it easy, it's a step toward finding a tiny tidbit of joy in their existence.

There are three giants in the field of evil that account for most of the problems in the world. These three are all dependant upon the tennuous foundation that we the people find them even the slightest bit necessary. And that foundation continues to hold inexplicably firm. They are as follows: 1. Corporations 2. Banks 3. Politics. I've only said that about a million times in life and in this blog.

Now before I am too hard on we the people, it has to be said that the orchestration behind the perpetuation of the myth that these three evil entities are not only necessary but the most important things in life is Kimjongillian! I shit thee not there are North Koreans who believe Kim Jong Il scored at least 5 holes in one his first time golfing who see us getting paid a minor fraction of the money we make for our companies, keeping it all in banks who charge us to get rich off our money, then paying almost all of it in taxes, the great majority of which are voluntarily paid and probably illegally levied. Then the North Koreans say, "Stupid Canadian! Sooo brainwashi!"

In North Korea they have speaker stacks all over Pyeongyang and other cities cranking out Spinal Tap volumed propeganda from early in the morning till late at night. "In North Korea, OUR propeganda speakers go up to 11!" In the western world we have TV and computer sites that blast us with ads, (LOUDER THAN THE VOLUME WE CHOOSE), telling us we need to work for Coca Cola so we can drive a new Toyota, wear Adidas runners, eat at the Keg and watch our propeganda on a spectacularge thousand inch Sony flatscreen 3D LCD EIEIO. And in between the ads we have sit coms, day drams and rom coms that model the life we could have if we owned all these products and get us so fired up to get them ASAP that we can't even use full words any more.

The same but different. Remember that OTHER theory of relativity.

Right now everybody in Canada is collecting tax statements from employers from the last fiscal year called T4's. I figured with tax time upon us in Canada it is the perfect time to blog about the T4's of evil. That is, the "Titanic Trio of Tyranical Turpitude." But I can't deal with all three now so I'll start at the appropriate place: the bottom. The third of the T4 evils is government/politics. "Poli" means many and tics are blood-sucking parasites. That's really all you need to know about politics and there is no evidence that leads me to believe it is any different in any country. But why DO the masters of the dark side of the Force, (Greed), always end up in the political power broker positions? Hello? If there weren't mounds, heaps, piles, scads, (what is a scad? is that like a missile? Actually I think it's a fish. Well there must be oodles of them! So many that they use the name of a fish to just mean a large number. Actually they can lay up to 161,000 eggs in a spawning season. If there are so many of them why haven't I had scad? hmmm... And this ends our etymological parenthetical. Tune in next entry when we trace the origin of the word, "lozenge."), absolute shitloads of excessively excessive tax money at the end of the politicking rainbow these scumbags wouldn't even be interested in running for office. The more they want the job, the more we should tell them to get a job selling cars or snake oil or three overinflated basketballs for 10 dollars so you can win a 50 cent prize.

I think it's guys like Jonathan Swift who we should force into politics. He was a political mediator for the Tory government of England in the early 1700's when England was at war with France. Before too long, (before HE could be corrupted), the Whigs gained power and tried his political cohorts for, get this, conducting secret negotiations --- WITH FRANCE! It was because of the corporate-like corruption he got out of politics and he sums up his political career as follows: "Alas, alack he broke his back when politics he tried. For like a fart he played the part: cracked loudly, stunk, then died." Ha ha ha. Who says "fart" in 1700? I tell you if a guy like Swift were ever to run I might even vote. I am certainly NOT going to vote because some jerk-off says to me, "If you don't vote, you have no right to complain about your government." It's the same jerk-off who says, "If you don't pay taxes, you have no right to complain about your government."

I wonder if it ever occurred to this jerk-off that it just might have been the government who, (probably BEFORE 1867 when Canada first got government of our own), created and maybe not with North Korean speakers but with megaphones, telegraphs, newpapers, carnival barkers, billboards, etc. first broadcast these pithy little sayings to the oh-so-suggestible Canadian public. And since then they've become so entrenched in our culture that we don't even think before saying them. People who vote are enabling the corrupt politicians, and people who pay excessive taxes are enriching them. THEY are the Frankensteins who created these monsters.

And then you have these people who say, "Well hold on now. There have been some good politicians." You gotta love the life-embracing positivity of these people but for all of you lawn-sign erectors, poll-participators and election tune-inners who are still blinded by these baby kissing, flesh-pressing, suit and tie-wearing, sparkly-toothed long con artists, read this next message very carefully:

There have been politicians who have done good things. But if you do ONE good thing after 100 bad things, just so you can get one night of sleep unimpaired by attacks of conscience, does that make you a "good politician?" Well perhaps only if you can make SURE everybody sees that one thing and it distracts them from the other hundred. Adolph HITLER did one good political thing out of 100 I'm sure. These 100 things, for modern politicians and probably for Hitler and the guys Swift worked with are predominantly things that weren't included in campaigning, things that are done unbeknownst to the public after the election win and things that are done to make sure even MORE of the money is funnelled straight to the corporations, banks and government.

But I'm not going to talk about THOSE sources of suffering right now. It's tax time so I'm gonna complain about taxes. I am in a unique position to bitch about government and taxes since I haven't voted OR paid taxes for such a long time. I feel like I'm more qualified to do so than all you OTHER Canadians out there who keep perpetuating these antiquated rituals by following them. When are we gonna learn?

I'm not even going to talk very much about GST, (if you're gonna give it back to me, why make me pay it to begin with?), PST, (PSSSST! Hey Canada! Why are we paying this?) HST, (talk about your all time euphemisms: harmony?), BST, (geez I wish there WAS a BS tax. Then the government would owe US money!). I'm not going to mention excise taxes much. You know those taxes the government levies on us because it cares so much about our moral and physical well being. Taxes for our protection. Sin taxes. Like the ones on cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, and I heard soon to be cable, internet, and when they legalize pot and prostitution, those too. Taxes on anything that makes life livable for those who aren't livin' the life. Hell lotteries are just a big excise tax aren't they? I bet they bring in the second biggest payday for politicians every year in Canada. And by the way, these taxes are added to products BEFORE the other taxes so that we are paying GST, PST, HST on the product price, other random mark-ups, AND the tax. Taxes on our taxes. Mathematically this opens the possibility of a person actually paying OVER 100% tax! Other examples of double taxing will follow.

But I just want to bitch about our government's biggest source of revenue: income tax. Now I know I've bitched about it here before, but I got new stuff! It never ends! As mentioned before it's a tax that was created to help in the war. For almost 100 years the Canadian people have continued paying it and the government hasn't told us to stop. I have never heard of anyone going to jail for not paying it. In fact if there WAS a trial I don't think the government would have a leg to stand on. Even with the courts as corrupted as THEY are they just wouldn't be able to say anything but, "This tax is long since defunct so nobody can be jailed for non-payment of it." THIS is why people aren't aggressively prosecuted for not paying income tax in Canada. CUZ WE DON'T FUCKING HAVE TO! It's been a voluntary tax for almost 100 years. How stupid ARE we?

If you figure out all the other taxes, including the hidden ones, that Canadians pay, there is PLENTY of money to run this country just fine. Income tax is just an Andre the Giant Huge bonus for our hard-working politicians. And I'm not going to get into the only actual hard work they do: figuring out ways to steal and waste all that extra cash then draw up the highly artistic fantasy novel called the budget every fiscal year. We've all heard horror stories of misapporopriation and we have seen but the tip of the iceberg.

The worst thing about income tax is that it's pretty much the only time we ever spend money, (a LOT of money), and we really have no earthly idea what the hell we're buying. You gotta love the hooray-for-everything, pie-in-the-sky folks who say, "Now wait just a doggone minute heah! I know where my tax money goes! It goes to pay for roads and schools and health care and such. Why we live in a country that has the best of all that stuff." Well if you know someone like that, and while you're at it find all the people you know who say, "I know how that magician did that! He used smoke and mirrors!" please refer him/her to the following message:

The government covers all that stuff with just the tax collected from the residents of, oh I dunno, Moosejaw, Saskatchewan. What they do with the majority of the wads and stacks and droves of cash they collect every year remains a mystery to all of us.

But this is not governmentally administered sodomy enough for OUR politicians. No, they have the nerve, the unmitigated gaul, the stones, the friggin' GAUL STONES to actually make US go through the cruel and unusual punishment of figuring our own taxes out! The Canadian tax code is more than 1500 pages! Even explanations of summaries of the Canadian tax code read like the pictures in text form on blogger.com. Seriously, who does their own taxes?

Most of us go out and find some temporarily set up and staffed tax prep. business, or an accounting student who can do it for a cut rate, and get them to take that burden from us. As promised, another example of tax we pay on our tax. And it ain't getting any cheaper. If you have really complex taxes you may have to hire an accountant and that can get REALLY expensive. According to an article in the local paper here in Victoria, Canadians spend 4-6 BBB Billion dollars on tax assistance services every year at this time. That is all double tax.

AND every year at this time the government in the form of the Canadian Revenue Agency hires 18,000 people to check our returns. This costs an extra 4.4 BBB Billion dollars of taxpayers money.

Let me stop here. I need to sum up. We are paying tax dollars for people to check the people we hired to check the tax we are paying that we don't have to pay. Incredibly that's TRIPLE tax on a tax to support our heroic soldiers still fighting the world war.

I'm not finished. In a lot of countries, Britain for example, precise amounts are deducted from workers' paychecks so that most people don't have to fill out tax returns. Why can't we do that in Canada? When asked some government official will tell you, "Well we can't do that because our tax system is too complex." It's kind of like that old standby they use when asked why we can't just vote for ideas instead of people. "Too complex. And oh boy it's so very very costly!" BULL CA CA!

The CRA already has pre-recorded and precise statements of our personal income from employers, banks, (see how they co-operate?), etc. They also have a computer program that they just plug the numbers into to check our returns. So why, in the name of fucking fuck do WE have to do anything if they're only going to do it all anyway?

STILL not finished. So what DOES happen when you don't pay income tax if you don't get thrown in jail? In my personal experience it is something that might even be worse than living in a cell with a transvestite necropheliac named Ben Dover. Collectors! And let me make haste to insert right now, let me rephrase that, to add right now that my personal experience is with collectors and not, (thank God), sharing a jail cell with Ben Dover. The dreaded collectors who call you up at the least convenient times to make you feel inferior and like a loan-defaulting zero.

But there's something even WORSE! Interest. Here we have yet another example of tax on top of tax. How can the government charge interest on tax? It's just evil. And what's their interest rate? Anybody know? And let's not forget that this is a double tax charged on an excessive tax the collection of which is morally reprehensible to begin with!

Ooooohhh the suffering of this world! Calgon take me away! Look for the joy Davey. Remember Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. He shot an albatross with an arrow and was forced by the gods to wear it around his neck and tell his story to all he met until one day he looked into the sea and saw some slimy, stinky, disgusting, putrid, creepy, slithering eels and noticed their beautiful green colour. Bam! The albatross dropped from his neck and he was free from his punishment. I just need to find, or manufacture, some kind of joy related to the yearly overtaxation our government foists upon us.

All right, I have an idea. If you don't believe any of this why don't you call the CRA yourself at 1-800-959-8281 and ask if any of this is even close? Better yet just call them up and say, "You know I don't think I'm gonna pay income tax this year." If even one person takes me up on this idea maybe this damned albatross around my neck will drop. I can only hope.

Work pics

Yes as you can see I finally took some pictures of myself at work. I just never take pictures of myself. And they're usually not good if I do. So anyhoo these are the stylish yellow jackets all the Paladin Security guards wear. Like they need the reflective stripes! EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! All in a days work. Just keepin' Victoria safe. I like the casual look of the black sweater. AND black is slimming. If you look bottom right you can see the 4L. jug of water I wrote about in the previous post. I like this shot. You have to really zoom in. These are flowers in front of one of the office buildings where I work.And this is a video of the area. You can't see much of the mall but these are the office buildings and the upper harbour. If you look closely you can see some rowers. I see them almost every day. It might make you dizzy though. I really like the job! The pay - not so much. I think I get paid what I'm worth mind you. Now if only EVERY SINGLE THING in Victoria wasn't more expensive than it's worth. I may be the only good value for the money in this city! And I guess it WOULD be good to work normal hours instead of 6PM to 6AM but that's when security is most needed. Oh crap I forgot, the video uploading doesn't work for this blog any more. I don't know why. I used to be able to do it. It stopped working when they improved the site. I guess you'll just have to imagine the vid. I'll tell you now that you have no way of knowing, it was Academy Award winning cinematography!

Dave's Theory of Relativity

With all due appologies to the incomparable Albert Einstein, (and before I'm finished, I expect a great many appologies will indeed be due), I have a theory of relativity that I believe is more important, and light years, (ar ar. apology #1), more accessible to the average manjack and womanjill of us. My theory of relativity doesn't have the major flaw, (apology #2), that Einstein's has: it is not dependant upon science. It doesn't deal with abstract theory way over the head of the average layman; It can't be expressed as a mathematical equation; It's something almost anyone can see but I'm not going to make the claim that it can withstand the rigours of "scientific" method and replication; it's something that can do mankind a helluva lot more good than e=mc squared, if we all stopped our socially self-imposed tail-chasing for long enough to really, REALLY think about it.

I am absolutely not one of those people who believes science can solve all the problems of the world. In fact I would liken a person putting all his or her faith in science to make everything okay, to someone fixing a flat tire and reaching for a, I dunno, a kangaroo. Wrong tool for the job. Not even a tool. The person reaching for it, however... (and in a lot of cases I'm talkin' REALLY reaching), well I won't get on a, (nother), rant about that.

You see scientifically "proven" ideas and previously believed to be unassailably, unimpeachably, undoubtedly, unquestionably factual theories, (and pardon the parenthetical but doesn't it seem like these, what should I call them, "scientheists", are great at getting away with blatant oxymorons like "factual theory", "natural selection", "scientific objectivity" and such? Woah Nelly, I guess I DID go on a mini rant there didn't I?), the very building blocks of science are falling like dominoes, AT THE HANDS OF SCIENCE! And unless innovations are suppressed and breakthroughs are buried, for our own "protection," (boy I'm glad I found the quotation marks on this keyboard!), it won't be long before somebody at CERN accellerates a particle to a speed beyond light speed, then GM buys the technology and creates a sporty, fun, fuel-efficient, full-sized sedan that can get you and the whole family where you're going, BEFORE YOU DEPART. Yes, (appology #3), Einstein is going down. Neils Bohr too. Newton? Durn tootin'.

Don't get me wrong. I think science is useful and interesting. I even think a lot of it is right. But I wouldn't base MY theory of relativity on something so, (appology #4), nebulous. I also think we are closing in on the golden age of science when scientists at long last humbled by their own discoveries of sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub... atomic particles and larger and larger systems of universes, of which ours is a miniscule, insignificant sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub... universe, (not to mention the significance of the inhabitants of one tiny planet in it), will finally admit that the foremost purpose of science has been in illustrating how un-scientific science really is. Then maybe it will be relegated to its rightful place as an interesting hobby and people can get on with the study and pursuit of all the more important things we've been neglecting in favour of science for so long.

Among those things will be my theory of relativity. My theory of relativity is about the importance of relativity. Nowadays if you are asked just about any question you could likely get away with the answer, "It depends." You have heard the saying, "Everything is relative." It is very true. And I believe it's very unfortunate. Wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world where everything WASN'T relative to country of birth, sex, race, religion, family, village, body type, job, language, looks, nose length, football support, eye wear, or the stupidest, and biggest one of all, wealth? Maybe that's not plausible, but I believe, it is my theory, that if we all pull together as a planet we could at least diminish the degree of relativity to some extent in some areas.

I'll explain what I mean with the events that inspired this post. The other day I was at work and ran out of bottled water 4 hours before the end of my shift. And I was thirsty. Since I work graveyard shifts and it was 2 A.M. there was no way for me to buy water from any nearby store. I don't work near a 24-hour convenience store so I reluctantly took the elevator to the 4th floor of the office building where I work, went to the bathroom and filled my jug with enough tap water to last me till the end of my shift. I took a swig from my jug and said, "Yuck!" The water where I work has a mild and mildly unpleasant aftertaste, which is the reason I buy bottled water to drink while working.

I am quite sure I could drink the tap water from work for the rest of my life and it would do me no harm. Without a shred of scientific proof, I'd bet there are a billion people on this Earth who can't get drinking water as good as the water I was grimacing at. Many who can't get bottled water as good. Most disturbingly, there are probably millions who take great pains to get filthy, unhealthy water. And some who can't get any at all. I thought to myself, after saying, "Yuck," if one of these people, who are water-deprived through relativities that are no fault of their own, came up to me, (we'll call him Noah from Djibouti because it's my blog and I like the names Noah AND Djibouti), if Noah from Djibouti asked me for some water I'd say, "Sure! Drink as much as you want, it's free." Noah would be ecstatic to get a drink of, (relatively), fresh, clean water! It might be purer water than any he'd drunk before. And flowing, (relatively), cold and free from a tap! Compared to living in a desert climate slowly dying of thirst drinkig faucet water from my workplace is the stuff of daydreams and fantasies for Noah from Djibouti. For me it's, "Yuck."

And I am no water snob! I don't drink the blue-bottled melted down shavings from glaciers that predate pollution. The truth is I was well into my 20's when I first saw a friend actually BUY a bottle of water. Back then it was probably only a quarter but I remember telling him I thought he was an idiot for wasting so much money. I still do! At that time just about anywhere in Canada you could turn on a tap and get water so pure it is embarrasssing to mention.

Now, take your bottled water snob who pays 50 bucks for a bottle of Bling H2O or a Japanese businessman who uses water from an arctic glacier he towed to Japan so that he could drink water that has never been consumed, (or passed), by man or beast before. Not me, I pay 79 cents for a 4 litre bottle at Save On Foods. Take a water snob like these and compare him to an 8-year-old kid walking 10 miles to get water from a Cholera, Typhoid, Dengue Fever infested mudhole somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa who, if she survives the journey, has a very good chance of dying of diarrhoea, the number one killer of kids there. Is THAT how that word is spelled? Diar hee haw. Who knew?

Here we have a breadth of relativity that without statistical, mathematical, or scientific study, we can easily see something needs to be done about it. And let's not forget about Noah. Imagine Noah came to 655 Tyee where I work and he didn't come alone. What if he brought a few freinds and relatives. 100 of them. I would still have said, "Okay, single file, one at a time. Help yourselves." I think even if he brought some withering livestock blinded by thirst I would have had no problem. I KNOW I would have let them all drink. Noah's animals could drink two by two. Sorry. And, "Come back any time," I would have said. I think anyone would. Wouldn't you? It depends, right? It is relative to location. If Noah were there I would give him water but he is way over in Djibouti so out of sight, out of mind. No, I know it's more than that. There are logistical and maybe political reasons too but for the love of God, why DON'T we give water to people dying of thirst. We have LOTS!

Well I think ALMOST anyone would give Noah et. al. a drink. To ALMOST anyone it is a natural thing to share abundant water with people who are desperate for it, even dying for it. But to a very select few that life-or-death desperation is DEMAND. That abundant water is SUPPLY. And the fact that it's pretty much free represents unlimited profit potential. The trick is to get some start-up capital, hire some workers, iron out the logistics and costs of delivering water to Djibouti and set this international ass raping in motion. This is what I referred to previously, (and less coarsely), as "tail-chasing." And it is an even larger distraction from doing what is right and natural than sceince.

The vast majority of us would see how much we had helped Noah and his animals with the water. We would see the joy we had given them and how little skin off our noses it was and we would get caught up in the warm, transcendance of doing that which is unquestionably, (though unscientifically), right. Apparently this is why WE don't run the show here.

But before we just dispatch with all the money-grubbing, greed-addled, antisocial psychopaths who are the respectable class in our societies, they can actually be a great help in making things less relative on earth. They just have to be a little more creative and caring, or at least hire someone to be creative and caring for them, when planning business deals. All businesses should have a person who is the relativity planner for them. Their responsibility should be to find some of the wider differences between peoples, countries, regions and devise ways to make money by tightening up the inequalities. Tim Horton's coffee is served 20-minutes fresh. There are lots of homeless people in every area there's a Timmy's who would be glad to have the 21-minute-old coffee that's poured down the drain.

People in Asia love the worn look on their jeans. If a fella bought about a million pairs of new Levi's jeans, GAVE them to some folks who could never afford them, then after a couple years of wear exchanged them for another new pair he would be heroic. That person would also be rich because he could sell the worn looking jeans throughout Asia for triple what he paid for them.

Surely relativity planners throughout the world could come up with thousands of ideas like these that would make it possible to let the amoral corporate world have their filthy lucre so long as they earn it in ways that are beneficial to others. They could serve as consciences to capitalists. Selling electric cars. Harnessing tides for power. There are some untapped gold mines waiting for capitalists with a bit of creativity to start digging. But the world is stuck in the tried, true, financially safe and socially disastrous methods of making money. Hey, it only took about 60 years to go from the Wright brothers to the moon landing. In 60 years maybe people will stop thinking of other folks as competitors and start thinking of them as brothers and sisters. RELATIVES!

I think we can make plenty of money being nice to each other. And if somehow we can reign in the people that just can't be satisfied with "plenty" the world could be a, (relatively), beautiful place. As Sri Chinmoy Ghose, (and Jimi Hendrix), tells us, "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will be at peace." I'll finish off with a similar sentiment in a nicer language. I dunno why I still haven't learned to speak Spanish. I love the way this sounds, "Amor cuerdo no es amor." It means "Cautious love is not love." Last time I drank shots at the bar I learned that amor Cuervo no es amor. This pic kind of reminds me of that learning experience but it's a story for another day...

You can't be prudent. There's no science to it but it's the way to change the world. Revolutionaries like Che Guevara, Sri Chinmoy and Jimi Hendrix are the kind of guys we associate with a sentiment like this. They're busy chasing happiness and freedom and not their tails. Here's what the rest of us are doing: