A Little Blue Blogging

The following will include coarse language. If you are highly sensative to that sort of thing, you've been warned.

I see good signs in the world. I think a lot of them are brought on by the once bitten twice shy phenomenon coupled with the extraordinary information repository called the internet. People get lied to, ripped off, cheated and treated like dog poop all the time. Not the hard stuff that's easy to scoop either. I'm talking about dog fed from the table dog poop. I mean the abandoned burrito-eating dog poop. The steaming, smudge the grass, smell it all the way across the yard, pooper scooper staining dog poop. Who likes that? Nobody, that's who! Yet we all have been treated like that directly or indirectly. For a long time. Whether we've noticed or not.

*** At this point I will have to ask anyone in the billionaire class to stop reading my blog because this has never happened to you. But it is high time it did. With any luck it WILL happen soon. But please stop reading now. Adios, Scrotie McGoldbrickers! ***

We've all been told the fairy tales designed to keep us working and consuming while not really getting anywhere. Like wealth will trickle down. Survey said... BZZZT! Fell for that one and don't believe it any more. In fact we the unvarnished have our own saying and at the risk of overscatologizing my blog I shall now type it: "Shit rolls downhill." No money, just shit. And not the hard stuff that's easy to scoop either. The half roll of toilet paper, stain the bowl, courtesy flush, chocolate soft serve type you might have after chicken wings and beer. So it doesn't really "roll" it sort of creeps like a landslide or molten lava. One might even say SHIT trickles down, but not wealth. Certainly not wealth. We've fallen for that placebo before.

Then there are the placating phrases and cliches that have outlived their misdirecting efficacy such as "tax shelter," "government," "bank," "capitalism," and so on. I read recently that we know of 199 B-B-B-Billion dollars of Canadian money being hidden in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Barbadoes and places like that with "relaxed" banking regulations. Those places continue to exist BECAUSE OF those regulations! We're not idiots! We know that for all the money we know of there is a lot that we don't as well. These places are the playgrounds of the super rich. They ain't cheap!

Government... Is that even happening any more? Are we being governed or exploited? Most countries nowadays are run exactly like corporations. Bring up the fact that there is at least 199 billion Canadian bucks not bing taxed and how much good the tax on that money could do for Canadians, (if tax money were actually used to help Canadians), and some jagoff will pipe up and say that according to corporate, and much more ambiguously, capitalist definitions, those money hoarding corporations as well as the governments who allow them to stash that filthy lucre away, have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders and electorate respectively to do exactly what they are doing. A shark is a shark. Corporations and capitalism are both designed to concentrate all efforts on one thing: money. "Capital" means money, folks. Buddhism is a lifetime devotion to Buddha. Taoism is when you give your life to the pursuit of the "tao" or the "way." So what, then, is capitalism, Grasshopper? "Capitalism is capitalism." "It's just business." Heard the shit outta that... tired of it... how 'bout let's change it? Duh? Hiding money overseas so it won't be taxed is illegal. Bam! New law. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. While we're at it let's patch up all the gaping holes available to the rich in the Canadian tax code and let's make sure what is supposed to be done with tax money IS what is done with tax money.

And where do banks fall into this web of deceit? They're not banks. They're loan sharks. A shark is a shark. Government, banks and corporations are highly glorified gangsters. "You need us to govern you or something bad might happen in your neighbourhood." I can just see Harper confronted about this 199 billion in the voice of Fat Tony from the Simpsons, (and Joey Zasa from the Godfather, Joe Montegna), saying, "Tax shelter? What is tax? What does shelter mean?"

You might ask, "If it's really that simple, how can they get away with it?" Well for years all it took was a reasonable control on radio, newspaper and TV to make sure we were more interested in the Brady Bunch to notice what was going on. Now, with easy access to all kinds of damning information a mouse click away, things had to literally get more complicated. Bury the average citizen in a mountain of paperwork every time he/she has to apply for a job, drive a car, go fishing, buy a house, build a house, improve a house, vote, get a bank account, travel, get married, pay taxes... take a shit!!!! and they are so awfully tired of paperwork, they just won't have the time, energy or inclination to read your 1500 page tax code and find out that taxes are illegally levied; or read any of the giant "omnibus" bills, ( "omnibus" is Latin for thick enough to choke a mule ), and find the sneaky, little addendums or riders or whatever they're called that DE-protect Canadian waters or get us into a 99-year economic enslavement deal with China. Combined with the longer workweeks Canadians need to put in to stay in the black, the gangsters who own us probably thought they were safe for a while longer.

But people are finding out! The internet is power! Gee, wonder why governments are in such an all fired hurry to get control of THAT too! But it ain't gonna happen! This is a spectacular speech given by, gasp, a politician from parliament discussing how transparent the C-51 anti-terrorism, control the people by manufacturing fear bill is. If we don't want to sacrifice our Canada, our birthright, our "home and native land," to the money-grubbing capitalists and make it easier for them to ravage it, we're now "enemies of the state." So what do you do to enemies of the state if you're a dispicable group of gangsters? Well, it's difficult and costly to kill them. Creating wars isn't as easy as it used to be. And in Canada, it's really a tough sell. So you throw money at them. Taxpayer's money cuz you've collected WAAAAAAYYY too much of it! And STILL there are heroic groups of Canadians who are saying, "Nope. Been down this road before. Not happening again. Take your money and shove it up the hole in your soul." I absolutely loved reading THIS story! Those guys, the Lax Kw'alaams aren't too far from Smithers. Homeboys! Woot! Turned down 267,000 bucks apiece to give a big old fuck you to Malaysian energy company Petronas. And the Harper government who were no doubt falling all over themselves to expedite the Petronas blight on our pristine, Northern B.C. wilderness.

It's encouraging to see this stuff! Both in Canada and the U.S. Support for Bernie Sanders is gaining momentum. With any luck he'll be the next POTUS and subject the poor American people to the socialist hell of free education, affordable healthcare, equitable taxation, proper care for elderly, vets and the poor, lowering unemployment by improving infrastructure, maybe 4 years or more of reasonable government. He's got all kinds of obvious ideas. That's why he's probably considered and enemy of the state as well. I'd like to see him get in though. I really would. Maybe if Canada could get someone into government like Bernie Sanders, and if we could unfuck all of what Harper fucked, then do the obvious things that need to be done, I'd return to Canada.

Meanwhile I've been in Korea for a month now. Time sure is flying! And speaking of mountains of paperwork to get anything done, I think the Koreans might be following the experts in Canada in this way. I can't get a phone, my own place, a bank account, and definitely a job without following a lot of torturously unnecessary rules. Mostly involving forms filled out and sent somewhere, (along with payment of course), and a healthy waiting period. I have sent away for my criminal record check and hope to get it late this week or early next week. That would be the two weeks I was promised. It did take 5 days for my fingerprints to arrive at the agency that is doing the CRC so I'll allow for that much more time. When I finally get that document I'll be taken seriously by people advertising teaching jobs over here. HOWEVER, I don't yet know of the procedure I'll have to go through to get the proper work visa to do any work here. Since I'm just visiting Korea it's going to be more complicated. I'll probably have to leave Korea for a day to get a visa. Then if it's a kid's camp it might be a different visa than a one-year contract. When I get a one-year contract I may have to do another visa run to Japan or wherever. I'd go down to the Canadian embassy in Korea to ask them what my options are, but the Canadian embassy in Korea, where they deal with this stuff, has been moved to Manila. I've sent them an email asking about all this but as yet have received no reply. This may be why those advertising teaching jobs here prefer people with visas already. That's right, I may have to get a job to get a job!

But I know I can always work at a hagwon. Trouble is, I'd like to work at a college or university. I've been applying to those jobs but they all start in Sept. I'd like to work at a hagwon or part time gig until September but most of those places want one year contracts or people who already have one year contracts. The camps want people already working here or people who are in other countries. It's easier to do the visas. GGGRRRRRRRR!!!!

So the plan is to get my CRC, scan that bad boy, then submit it to as many jobs as I can including jobs I've already applied to and recruiters, and see what happens. I'm positive I'll get lots of offers to teach triple splits from 5 AM to 10 PM working with kindy and elementary kids for 1.5 million a month 60 hours a week. But I'll try to find something a little bit better than that. I think I'll be able to work at YBM or Pagoda hagwons but they'll want me for the entire year and may not let me break the contract if I get a uni. job in September. I am hoping things will work out soon though because I am sliding deeper and deeper into debt every day here.

I'm having fun here though. My friends have been really great! They're keeping me entertained. I know they'd like to see my freeloading arse get working as much as I would though.

As far as Indonesia goes, I am still a few weeks away from work there. They still want me but since almost anything over here would be preferable in many ways, the second I get a halfway decent job offer I'll forget all about Indonesia and Wall Street. Although, I just might apply to Wall Street here in Korea. That would be hilarious! I'll let you all know when I get the CRC and start doing interviews. Shouldn't be long now...