Did you read the title? If you didn't, read it now. I'll wait. Okay, now what country came to mind when you read that? Did anyone NOT think of the U.S. of A? America FUCK YEAH!!!
I've done some reading and some of my friends have done some reading and I've read their reading and so on and so forth, and the upshot of it all seems to be the U.S. is going to war with Iran. Or they're doing their level best to anyway. I'm not talking about Uncle Traveling Bolton who's had a hard on for Iran for years. Oh okay, here's Uncle Traveling Matt from Fraggle Rock and John Bolton side by side:
Or at least on top of each other. The blog regularly shuffles my abilities. I don't know why. Today I can't put pics side by side. Inneresting.
I'm talking about TLC. And that doesn't mean Tender Loving Care either. Quite the opposite! Au contraire mes amis! Although, you could say the Trump Leadership Council DO show a lot of Love and Care for legal Tender. It's pretty much ALL they Care about. Where did I hear tell of such a group of repugnant capitalists run amok? Why, in Rolling Stone Magazine of course! Props to my bud Jack Large for posting it before I read it. You gotta check this out! Please read it!
I dunno who Andy Kroll is but he's going to win a Pulitzer if he keeps this up! To me this is WORSE than Watergate! FAR worse than Monica Lewinsky! And in my opinion, what we already know about Trump is more impeachable than Nixon and Clinton combined! What the fuck will it take to get this assclown bum-rushed out of the White House? Hopefully not much more than this. The last paragraph is particularly chilling:
"Whatever happens in 2020, Trump’s all-out assault on regulations will long outlive his presidency, whether it’s four or eight years. At a time when the climate crisis threatens the future of humanity, Trump and his corporate backers have taken the country in the opposite direction. 'This administration’s agenda was set well before Trump was elected,' says Brune of the Sierra Club. 'Just about any safeguard to protect the country’s air, water and climate is up for sale. And if it makes Trump’s polluter friends happy, that’s what he’s promised to do and what he’s going to do.'"
Laws were "up for sale!" Making new ones and erasing old ones. And Trump has really done that, hasn't he? He had to be stopped by a judge from re-opening offshore drilling; he has promised to bring back coal; plans to open up private land for fracking; he has aggressively rolled back environmental rules; he wants to totally scrap Obama's clean power plan; provided MASSIVE tax breaks to oil companies so that many paid zero; issued executive orders to speed up gas and oil pipelines; and these and many more, were just favours he's done for the "energy" members of the TLC. The hardest group on the environment.
However, my money is on this group of far right extremists destroying the human race with war before they pollute us all into extinction. Stephen Moore, dubbed the far right's go-to economist was at the inaugural meeting of the TLC in 2016, the year this madness started, and he said the members were not conventional Republicans, but far right maverick businessmen. Moore himself wants to get rid of child labour laws so kids can start working at 11 or 12 and he thinks women shouldn't participate in sports... unless they're hot. Are these the type of 100-dollar-bill cigar lighting, back slapping, pussy grabbing, Mother cheating, greed is good, amoral monsters that we all kinda reckoned Trump was going to for advice and getting advice from? Are these his Mar-a-Lago men who consider Trump a minor league wannabe but like his hound-like loyalty and will take all the free rounds of golf, and all the presidential favours, he will give them in hopes of joining their boys club? Well now we have a LIST! We can find out.
In keeping with the coming out of the super rich who seem decreasingly concerned with hiding their corruption, I guess Andy Kroll just asked some of the people who were at that meeting and they proudly gave him a list! 48 names FFS! We know the members of the shadow cabinet! This is huge! UUUUUge even! If Trump were a football coach, this is his playbook! And as if to conveniently drive this point home, no sooner was this list published than Trump got rid of his Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, and replaced him with Mark Esper. Now there's talking about Shanahan failing some sort of vetting procedure but he went on record saying that the U.S. needs to use diplomacy and deterrence not war in dealing with Iran. So he got turfed. And in comes Mark Esper the chief lobbyist for Raytheon. That's a 27 billion dollar ('18) weapons and warfare company. Do you suppose 2019 will be more than 27 billion if they somehow got a Secretary of Defense who was sympathetic to their needs? That's not a big leap of logic to make. And pretty much simultaneously, HEY, whatdoyaknow? an act of aggression by Iran! An "unprovoked" act of aggression. Well we should know by now if we're paying attention, "unprovoked" is U.S. militaryspeak for "provoked."
U.S. military: "We were just flying a few inches from Iranian air space, andthenalittlebitover, then just flying innocently really, really, really close to Iranian air space, andthenalittlebitover, and we might have been playing some harmless voice messages, likefuckyoudeathtoallahandflight655, and suddenly, completely unprovoked, our passengerless drone got blown out of the sky by the evil Iranians! Nothing to do but declare war. Our hands are tied." You know, I bet Raytheon MAKES those drones! Now they gotta make the U.S. military another one. Already Esper is cashing in! I read that the war was already declared by Trump and strikes were planned but for some reason cancelled. If you actually think all of this is mere coincidence, then go to the bottom of that Rolling Stone article and check out the list. Right there, fifth under the "Aerospace and Defense" group is Dr. Mark Esper, Vice President, government relations, Raytheon.
I don't think it'll be long before this war gets underway, congressional approval or not. It'd be awfully nice if he got impeached before it happened... wouldn't it?
Well it's been a year and a half since I returned to Korea for the Winter Games and ended up staying for the summer drudgery. Yes, I've just signed on with Carrot for work until mid December. And this means I'm working all summer AGAIN!
I figure I should update you on my recent adventures into the dank, sweaty wilds of Korea. Some things are the same, some different. I could show you some pictures of the native women I took but they weren't developed. It's okay, I'll take some more in a couple years. An old Groucho Marx joke. Sure wouldn't get away with that nowadays! Not even in Korea! Which is one of the things that has changed the most. The Me Too movement has caught on. The recent gay pride parade had fewer protestors than ever. Koreans are getting more worldly and woke all the time. As for the ESL industry, in some ways, like ESL teachers' salaries, it's a virtual time capsule of the way things were as far back as 1997 when I first arrived. In other ways, like the price for an hour of ESL teaching, things have greatly advanced! The one word explanation for that - middlemen. Recruiters and ESL businesses, like Carrot, who find teachers and people who want teachers then hook them up have insinuated themselves into an ESL environment where they weren't needed and have created few if any advantages for the student, lots of disadvantages for the teachers and soaked up 100% of the rise in ESL rates.
A little ditty about what it's like to work for one of these uber-hagwons: I may not have shared this because I was worried about my job, but I think now I'm in the clear. Nobody from work reads my blog. And the 5 people who do won't tell them. If you look at their webpage, you can see some pretty impressive clients where Carrot Global has loads of teachers teaching executives one-on-one like I'm presently doing at SKhynix. Press the "more" icon and the list gets even MORE impressive. These are all ESL jobs that in 1997 companies like Mcdonald's, 3M, Lotte, Doosan, Hyundai, Samsung, GM, Starbucks, Nike, LG, Korean Air, and so on and so forth, could have easily advertised and a guy like me could have easily found, applied for and landed. No extra expense required for the company, no extra hassles for the teacher, and cheaper for the customer. But since the government has required Master's degrees or F visas for people to teach at these businesses (or more accurately, they have started cracking down on foreigners without Masters' or F visas who are teaching for them) a Korean entrepreneur was needed to see the viable niche of a Korean company, run by Korean people, making extra money from Korean clients, to hire foreigners without Masters', and sometimes without F visas, to work for THEM and then illegally put them to work for clients like Mcdonald's, 3M, Doosan, Hyundai, Samsung.....
The contract I signed had a false address, false workplace, false hours, false dates and left out some pretty important details. Standard for a Korean ESL contract. All I did was make sure it included in it that I would receive reimbursement for my Japanese visa run (which, if you'll remember, was a month and a half late) and severance pay. It only took Carrot 8 months to pay me the visa run pay that I was promised before I started work June first of 2018, and I still haven't received my severance pay even though my first contract finished three weeks ago. But I trust they will pay me. THIS is one area Carrot is good. Not prompt or timely, but they pay.
At any rate, the contract mentioned that there would be some "content" expected from the teachers. We all contributed some of our own lessons between June and December and I didn't mind that. I didn't like the texts enough to use them much so I used a lot of my own material. Also, I contributed a couple lessons for the textbook for the final quarter of the year. I was not informed until the last minute that I would be partially responsible for providing the texts for the next year. That's 4 texts with 25 lessons each. 100 lessons. I was to go into Seoul, to the offices of Carrot Global, sit at a computer that they would provide (the ones Carrot provided in our office are all SHYTE) and bang away for 8 hours a day producing lessons. It takes at least an hour and a half to get to the office from where I lived at the time so that's 3 hours of wasted commute time every day plus 8 hours at a desk. There's no wonder I wasn't informed of this at contract time or at any time after until it was time to do it!
But I was not game. I had my own internet, my own computer and I could see no reason why I couldn't just stay at home and do it. I talked to my supervisor and he said I had to do it or I could just not work for the whole month. We had a long telephone conversation at the beginning of which he said he'd ask his superior if I could work from home and at the end of which he said that he had told me 100 times that he'd already asked his superior and he said that I couldn't work from home. I told him many reasons why it would be better for everybody if I did but I was called a trouble maker and a complainer for doing so. I even told my supervisor I had a medical reason why I couldn't do it. That was ignored or not believed. See at the time I was unable to go more than an hour without rushing to the toilet. I've since found that that was caused by diabetes, but at the time, you can see how two 90 minute commutes a day that were entirely unnecessary were just not gonna happen for me. I also told him that I could whip up a lesson in half an hour on my own computer with which I was very comfortable. No way could I do that with one of the Carrot computers! And after our phone call was finished, I did exactly that. The lesson was entitled "Why Working From Home is More Than Just a Trend." Trends was one of three topics we had to use. Hilariously, the lesson appears in the Q2 textbook, the one we're using now and I tell my students this story before I teach it.
In the lesson it talks about how people who work from home are more productive, less stressed, better rested, they call in sick less, quit less, don't commute so save fuel and reduce traffic, save the company real estate costs (like offices and computers), it's the wave of the future with automation coming, technology is making it easier and easier, most people would be willing to sacrifice something like wages to work from home, and a few other things, most of which I had brought up in the conversation with the supervisor and were taken as "trouble-making" or "complaining." I didn't even include that I could do the work in my underwear, listening to music and drinking beer! Which I fucking DID!
I thought about it for a few days, applied for a few kids' camps, found one that wanted me, then told my supervisor I'll just not work for the whole month. But requested a letter of release so I could teach at a kids English camp during that time. I had already booked 7 days off during this time because a) I suspected some double-cross like this was up and b) I wanted more than one day off for Christmas/New Year's. So I actually had two weekends in there and ended up with 11 days off. I only had to work 3 days from Dec. 15-17, then had my 11 days off including Christmas, then had to work the last week of the year. But I said, "Nah, just give me the whole month off."
The next day I got a call from HR. A girl named Heather I think. She said they needed me to do the book. I couldn't have the whole month off. But I told her that my supervisor had told me I could. She said he shouldn't have told me that. So I said he's telling me things that are against company policy? That was downplayed. I said to her that I already had a camp that wanted me. So she launches into how it is illegal for them to give me a full month off on an E-2 visa or some crap like that. I calmly said that we both know my whole job is illegal so let's not pretend that's the reason why you want me to go into the office. She agreed. I said it's because the supervisor doesn't want me to. But I don't want to cancel on the camp. Let's see if we can both do something we don't want to do and make this work. So she immediately suggested I work from home. They never had a problem with that nor were they asked by my supervisor if I could. So we agreed. Also I told them I had made a doctor's appointment so I could only work 2 1/2 days of the first three. All was agreed.
I was expected to do 3 or 4 lessons a day. In my 2.5 days I did something like 16 or 17 and everybody was super impressed! So much so that the other teachers were told that THEY could stay at home and make THEIR lessons too! They did and were very productive. In the second week I did some online travel curriculum. 20 lessons in the week. Every day I finished by noon.
I was told by one of my students here that Carrot charged him 85,000 won per lesson. That's pretty close to 100 bucks Canadian. I don't know how much SKhynix pays but it's probably up there. I have 13 students. If ONLY my students used my lessons that'd be 22,000 bucks I earned for Carrot. But there are several teachers here using my lessons. They may also be included in the textbooks for other locations. To say nothing of my travel curriculum! And don't forget the other lessons I've used and Carrot claimed as my "content." I might have made the company enough to pay my yearly salary many times over for all I know. Plus I dragged my supervisor kicking and screaming into the advent of making these texts from home that will save the company untold amounts of money and hassle! He's probably going to take credit for that at the next supervisor's meeting too. Add to that a year of never being late or absent and getting superior evaluations from students. Not only that but other than my supervisor, I am the only person in the office or teaching staff that has been here over a year. Second in seniority in under a year! So when it came time to negotiate a new contract I felt I should get some recognition.
"Same salary," I was told. I replied, "Will I get severance?" They had to wait a couple weeks to give me that answer. Nope. So I would actually be making considerably less than last contract since severance is 1/12 of your salary extra. I was able to negotiate a little higher salary but no severance. And now that I have to pay rent on the apartment, yeah, I'll be making less. An E-2 contract requires the employer to provide acceptable accommodation. I'm not so sure the dorms I was in qualified. Three guys to a room, no stove or washing machine. No I'm certain I did Carrot a favour putting up with those accommodations for the full year. Did they offer to pay for even part of my rent? No. And I've since discovered that they DO pay rent for at least one of the other teachers! WITHOUT an E-2 visa!
But I made the mistake of getting the apartment before signing the new contract. And since I still haven't yet totally solidified my next 6 months at immigration, they are still trying to get more out of me. Offering me new classes ON THE WEEKEND. I got news of a new class today, THAT STARTED TODAY. In the absolute worst slot in my schedule. But I taught the class and changed the time. I certainly won't tell anyone I did that!
This is all because, despite making the company a ton of money, making the supervisor look good, providing lots of lessons the students like and making things generally better around here, the supervisor hates me because I'm a "complainer" and a "trouble-maker."
THAT'S what it's like working for one of these places.
Having said that, it's been pretty good. I've socked away more than ever before, the workload is pretty low and I like my students. No marking or assignments. Yet. If Carrot gets the next contract, I'm ready to sign on for another year too! I'll work here till they boot me out. If that's scotch in that proverbial glass, it's a double, right? How's that for lowered expectations? Remember that old Mad TV staple?
You know, there are probably lots of good things you could say about this lady! She likes sucking on things. Not an expensive dinner date. Easy to buy gifts for. She's a peach!
It's been a while. This is because I'm trying to figure out Venezuela. And that has not been easy!
The reasons I've been studying Venezuela are varied. It is in the news a lot recently and along with its heart-breaking tragedy, the story of Venezuela includes a lot of lessons that can be applied to other countries. It is of great interest to me for the sheer extremities of riches to rags that have few equals in history. Hyperinflation is fascinating! Today a banana costs what a house would have cost 15 years ago! People don't count money any more, they weigh it! What once was the richest nation in the continent, as recently as the 80's, is now a nation in economic and political upheaval so great it is causing a mass exodus of people into neighbouring countries. What the frig happened in Venezuela and how did it happen so fast?!?!
I guess a secondary reason for my efforts has been the ever vigilant fearmongers who wish to blame Venezuela's downfall on socialism in order to convince voters in their respective countries that people like Bernie Sanders and Alex Ocasio Cortez or any other people who voluntarily associate themselves with the evils of socialism will just do to their countries what Chavez and Maduro did to Venezuela. Saying socialism was the main problem with these guys, as you will hopefully see, is a bit like saying Donald Trump's Christianity is HIS main problem. If either of these two dudes knew any more about socialism than Trump knows about Christianity, they didn't show evidence of it. It was a means to an end, nothing more. Bernie Sanders and A.O.C. are not Castro or Mao or Hugo Chavez. Get over your shameless selves! The comparison is hilarious! Can you see Sanders in a military uniform or AOC smoking a cigar? Well... maybe the second one... Actually scratch that, I CAN see that and it's an oddly sexy image in a political Clintonian sort of way. Oh yeah... ANYwhozits….
For those who don't have the time or inclination to read all the details, here's a vid that covers most of the recent stuff.
80% of the country hates its current president. Well, there's even debate about that. Should he really even be called the president? He only got elected in 2013 after Hugo Chavez's death by a slim 1.6% margin. And soon after the economy went into a freefall caused primarily by (some say strategically) reduced oil prices, but not helped by Nicolas Maduro's policies whatsoever. Conversely, Chavez became president in 1998, right before oil prices spiked from $25-$160 per barrel between '99 and '08. No wonder he was so beloved! At any rate, in 2018 Maduro got re-elected for 6 more years in a sham election in which many opposition candidates were barred from running. Others were jailed or fled for fear of jail or worse. Many consider the leader of the National Assembly during the time of the unfair election to be the legitimate prez. That's Juan Guaido. Many countries including the U.S. and Canada support Guaido's claim. China and Russia still like Maduro. None would even give half a crap if Venezuela didn't have the largest oil reserves in the world.
In 2015, Maduro felt threatened by a 2/3 majority against him in the Supreme Court and a fairly elected National Assembly. So he stocked the supreme court with his cronies. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Then he stripped the national assembly of its powers in 2016. This resulted in massive protests so in 2017 he just replaced the national assembly with the National Constituent Assembly. Again stock it with cronies, allow them to re-write laws and kiss his ass. You can see why the NC Ass is not recognized and why so many people hate this dude.
In 2004 while oil prices were still high, Chavez used oil money to provide food subsidies and improve education and health care. Since 82% of the population of Venezuela were poor, they loved him for this. THIS is the socialism people equate with him. But he didn't do it because he loved the people of his country. If he really loved them, he wouldn't be keeping all their county's bounty for the other 18%. Which, of course, included him. He did it to get re-elected. And it worked like a charm.
Maduro hasn't even tried to pretend like he cares about the people. He just fixes the elections. Again, sound familiar? Of the 18% privileged class, who are the only ones with access to real money/business, the military, who he needs to protect him, are in charge of the food. They make huge money by gauging citizens on this buying it cheaply and selling it at hyperinflated prices. Thus keeping most of the country hungry and broke. By 2018 inflation was such that prices were doubling every 19 days. The N.C. Ass will make up the rest of the 18% given all the plum positions of power and wealth. But it won't last long and the world knows it.
Basing a country on populist government and oil is known as an unsustainable model. It has been speculated that some countries may be lurking in the weeds waiting for Venezuela's collapse in order to apply vulture capitalism to the country in shambles and suck up all its oil. Here's a description of why oil prices fell so drastically in 2014 and the countries you'd expect, U.S. Saudi, China, Russia, Canada, might all be in on this. Much like Syria, a proxy war for natural gas and oil which Russia seems to have won, Venezuela is shaping up to be much the same.
Originally, Hugo Chavez marketed his military takeover of Venezuela as a people's revolt against the corrupt elite: the 18% or whatever it was at the time. Obviously most people wanted the money to be spread around more evenly since they were poor. In this way it was a brand of socialism he was offering. His military and political moves purging government officials who probably WERE corrupt, again, it looked like socialism but wasn't. It was less about helping the people and more about removing potential checks on his authority. They were presented to the public as fighting for freedom with predictable success. This article gives some examples of how instead of getting rid of corruption and greed and sharing the wealth, Chavez just turned the country of Venezuela into a corrupt capitalist corporation. "After running on smashing the corrupt elite, Chavez had merely established his own."
Now, when you read an article such as this, written by a guy from China, comparing the socialism of countries like China, Cuba, and Venezuela, to what Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez are offering, can we agree? Apples and bowling balls? But there will be people who fall for this propaganda! Smart people!
The definition of socialism he bases the article on may be the rub. I think the word "control" meaning government checks and balances and other regulatory responsibilities to govern business, as opposed to absolute and total control where the government IS business, seems to be the disconnect. When means of production are kept under control by government, socialism works. When the government has carte blanche, it fails. Presuming Bernie Sanders and AOC are advocating socialist carte blanche shows a clear ignorance of their platforms. But it's a great way to rustle up fear of socialism and/or drum up support for any non-socialist organization. Because people fall for shit like this. They don't want to do their research, they would rather find someone like the writer, who shows some knowledge, and trust that they've done stellar research for them.
Aaron Tao, the author, is an entrepreneur and a wannabe businessman. This could be his capitalist manifesto written with the hopes of joining a firm that will operate exactly like the corporation of Venezuela, screwing poor people to make a few rich. No matter what banner it's done under, it's just as despicable. That's my main point.
His strong hyperbole ventures off into just pure inaccuracy when he says socialism has failed everywhere it's been attempted. Even people like Gloria Alvarez who rails against the same models of socialism, at least admits there are successful models in Scandinavia.
They're talking about two different things and acting like they're agreeing. She's from Guatemala and talks about Venezuela among other countries and the danger of this style of socialism in the world. The dipshit interviewer (who doesn't speak fluent Spanish) desperately tries to bring it back to America again and again. Saying a bureaucrat doesn't know as much about business as a businessman. She separates the two models AGAIN saying if the bureaucrats have absolute power, it's dangerous. Then he talks about how childish it is for people to believe they don't have to earn shit. The people in Gloria's model who are relaxing and not working for their shit are the rich scumbags like Chavez and Castro who she says live like kings. Then taxes. He's talking about raising taxes on business punishing "hard" working Americans and she's talking about how despots and dictators use the people's money to put their cronies in positions of power and wealth.
I like the idea of nothing is free, but it's not the poor, but the rich who have this childish idea. Entitlement it can be called. There are no businessmen left who believe they are good businessmen if they work for everything they get. Sanders/Cortez want to cut into the vast amount of corporate welfare we give to the rich and share it with the hard working regular people who can't make ends meet despite their labours. At the very least make them PAY the taxes they don't pay.
Alvarez says in another video that in Scandinavia, where they have the model Sanders/Cortez want, the reason they're succeeding there is the FREE market. If she'd only follow her own advice: NOTHING IS FREE. This is a phrase people use for their own purposes and that has never been precisely defined. Presumably it involves more privatization and less government involvement in business. You cannot get a situation of less government interference in business than when the government IS the business. That's the dangerous model Alvarez describes in all the countries she mentions. It's not the model in Scandinavia nor is it the model Sanders/Cortez are promoting. Markets NEED rules and they need people to enforce those rules. Otherwise things like the 2008 stock market crash or the 1930's depression happen.
Let's not forget that what FDR did with his New Deal to drag America out of the depression into a few decades of what were the glory days of the U.S. was socialism. Those were the days in Canada too. What both countries have deteriorated into through corporate greed and government lobbying to set up big business as the Hugo Chavezes and the Nicolas Maduros of North America is just as dangerous. What we need is another good shot of socialism to save capitalism once again. Or we could just keep it and enjoy some longer term prosperity.
And if you really believe in the economic miracle in America right now, first of all I'm surprised you've read this far and second of all, it's all a mirage. Trumped up one might say. It's largely based on two things: jobs and the stock market. Jobs are up and unemployment is down. But job quality is down. I've read this about the U.S., I've experienced it personally in Canada. I don't want to hear another person tell me there are plenty of jobs for a guy who wants to work. I KNOW that but I'm looking for the jobs for guys who want to survive, thank you.
And the stock market is something I don't know much about. Never owned stocks. I know it's great right now for people who own stocks. The rich. So goodie for them. But it's not an indication of prosperity for the vast majority of us. And IT seems to be all smoke and mirrors too. It's falsely bolstered stock values as a result of tax cuts and stock buybacks. Wealthy corporations COULD use tax cuts to increase wages to their workers. They just don't. Like Walmart. The Roosevelt Institute in May released a report estimating thatWalmart, for example, could boost hourly wages to more than $15 an hour with the $20 billion it was using for a buyback. A separate study from the Roosevelt Institute released in July found that companies spent nearly 60 percent of net profits on buybacks from 2015 to 2017. It estimated that with the money allocated to buybacks, companies such as Lowes, CVS, and Home Depot could give each of their workers a raise of at least $18,000 a year.
The SEC or any regulatory entity has practically no power to do anything about this kind of thing either. Which brings us back to Gloria Alvarez. It seems to me the dangerous socialism she is describing resembles the capitalism at work right now in America and Canada FAR more than the kind of socialism being practiced in Scandinavia. If she looked closely, I think she'd see that it isn't the "free" market that allows these countries to prosper under socialism, it's the proper and strict regulation of it. I'd LOVE to see a round of corrupt bankers thrown in the clink like they did in Iceland. I'd LOVE an education system like Finland! I'd LOVE to see Canada tax America (who gets 99% of our oil) like Norway and contribute it to Canada's pension fund. I'd LOVE to see a day fine system implemented like in Sweden.
Having said all of this, most of these countries don't really consider themselves socialist. They all still like to own things and they do. They have thriving markets, which the capitalists worry about losing along with socialism.
So... now that you know all this, maybe the popularity of the Sanders/Cortez type of socialism isn't based in ignorance. Maybe the opposition to it is.
The Bob Loblaw Law Blog. Comic genius! I love "Arrested Development." The show that also brought us one of the best boat names ever, the Seaward (C-word). Is there a better name for a lawyer than Bob Loblaw? I guess perhaps Blah Blah Blah would be better, but only just.
I've been thinking of Bob recently reading about one of Canada's largest companies. And I don't even know if it's Loblaw or Loblaw's. I rarely saw either being from the west where we got the Real Canadian Superstore, which is owned by Loblaw(s). The reading I've been doing has got me wondering if Loblaw(s) is really Canadian or if that's just a lot of blah blah blah.
Galen Weston is the owner and he's worth a reported (and we all know this means he actually has a lot more in offshore tax shelters in the Cayman Islands or somewhere like that) $13.55 billion dollars making him the second richest Canadian. Loblaw(s) made a reported (ditto) 754 million in profit last year. That seems modest given their reported (ditto) 11 billion dollar revenues per QUARTER year, but it's probably just the number they want us to believe. That's all.
I've been reading about Loblaw(s) lately because they seem to be a really good example of the kind of corporate greed and scumbaggery I've been railing on and on about in this blog, but using mostly American examples. If you think I'm exaggerating about the Cayman Islands comment above, they are, if I'm not mistaken, still embroiled in a 400 million dollar tax fraud case. But that was not the issue that has been bugging me most about Loblaw(s) recently. Hell, it's EXPECTED! I've stated more than once on this blog that in Canada, if you're rich, you just DO this. I admit to possibly only mild overstatement on that account.
Then there's the scandal over Loblaw(s) (or come to think of it, is it "Loblaw's? Who cares?) receiving 12 million loonies of taxpayer money to install some more environmentally friendly refrigeration units in its more than 2300 locations across Canada. The Liberal government has been under fire for throwing money at large corporations and this looks like a good example. Why were they even allowed to apply for this help? Why not give the help to smaller grocery stores? It's what Liberal opponents call "corporate welfare," but as I've explained, my definition differs a bit. I consider corporate welfare to be not just giving corporations money, but allowing them to raise prices so they never have to pay ANY expenses. We'll get to that later.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has been defending the decision by saying they got the free dough (ar ar (you'll see why that is almost Arrested Development hilarious a little later)) by basically saying they're big. Getting more efficient refrigeration in Loblawses (?) across Canada would be, she says, the equivalent of removing 50,000 cars from the roads. She also says it only pays 1/4 of the price of the new units and that Low Blows will be paying 36 million out of its own cavernously deep pockets. Well isn't THAT nice? Paying to improve its own stores? A lot of people are upset that the government is paying ANY of the cost at all. Doesn't seem right using our tax dollars to support a crooked corporation, does it? But since Canada is warming at double the global average (she says) there is a need to think big right now.
Then there's the story of Loblaw(s) crying the blues about minimum wage increases, which they SAY will cost them 190 million bucks next year, but we KNOW if we understand simple economics that just the extra money spent by the employees in their 2300 locations across Canada AT Loblaw(s) now that they are earning more, will ease the expense a great deal. Loblaw(s) employees will have more money to spend at Loblaw(s). To say nothing of the snowball effect it would have on the economy. Loblaw(s) would most likely make more money by raising their workers' salaries. And I'm not even going to mention (well I guess I am) the same old question: why the hell aren't they paying their workers more? They can't afford it? Bullshit! Stop your pussyaching and pay your workers for making you filthy rich! Nope. The board voted against it.
But even if a government with balls forces them to pay their workers a living wage, they will do what I have exhaustively explained EVERY corporation does in thoughtless reaction to any perceived expense (and remember, this will more than likely NOT be an expense but a profit for Low Blows) they will raise prices, cut jobs and they're even stating that they will need to resort to automation. Really this will likely just be a convenient excuse for it.
But that's not what's been giving me agita about this corporation lately either. It's bread. A very basic staple of Canada throughout our history. I remember when I was about 11 years old going down about a thousand stairs from our house on 6th Ave. in Nelson (a beautiful city built in the mountains of B.C.) to Super Value and buying loaves of freshly baked, uncut bread 4 for a dollar. That's a quarter a loaf! 25 cents for white or brown. Bread. (same price for everybody) And then I had to walk back UP those thousand stairs smelling one of the best smells in life - freshly baked bread - without gnawing on one of the corners as I walked.
Well times have changed. I don't even know if Super Value exists any more in Canada. No doubt Low Blows took it over or forced it out of business. Part of making the supermarket business more concentrated and less diversified in Canada, which enables the price fixing I'm going to get into now.
Bread rose in price from $1.42 to $3.04 between 2001 and 2015. I was in Canada for only a short time during that period and even I noticed that. Well this was beyond the general inflation of most food products in Canada by about a dollar. So it should have only gone up to $2.04. This doesn't sound very significant, but given the importance of bread, it's downright un-Canadian! In this article they say the cost to a loaf a week consumer would have been $400. I go through about 3 a week and given the dollar extra over 14 years, I calculate it to be more like $2,184 to me. This is not including hamburger or hot dog buns I'm assuming?
Now over 14 years even a couple grand is not noticeable. Even to a struggling Canadian like me! But when you figure it out over 2600 stores with thousands of customers a day, most buying bread, that is a hefty profit! On an important, nay SACRED part of Canadian culture!
Canada began as a Christian culture and Christianity is still the main religion today. To Christians, Jesus is the bread of life. Bread is used in the Bible to mean "food," or "spiritual sustenance" at times. Jesus broke bread with his disciples at the Last Supper, he fed the 5000 with it, the Israelites got manna (bread from heaven) when they were wandering through the wilderness and starving. The Lord's prayer includes daily bread and, of course, bread represents the body of Christ when eaten during the sacrament. It is a major part of Christian, and Canadian culture.
Bread, lechem in Jewish, was synonymous with food in general. In Korea they have a greeting which means, "Did you eat rice today?" Here, rice is as important as bread. It just means, "Are you prospering? Do you have enough money to eat?" That is how bread is in Jewish custom. When baking large amounts of bread still today a portion of it is set aside and burned or buried as a sacrifice to God just as the ancient Jews made in the Temple.
In Islam too "bread" is synonymous with "food." Wasting food or destroying places where it is produced, including oceans and farms, is forbidden. If bread is dropped on the floor, eat it if it is still clean, but if not, feed it to the birds. Don't throw it in the garbage. Muslims try to eat sparingly like Muhammed. Unlike the Chinese, they eat all of their food and try not to leave any leftovers.
Food is central to all cultures and religions and bread is sacred to almost everyone in Canada. It was a low blow for Loblaw(s) to screw the people of Canada by overpricing their bread. Jesus would whip Galen Weston like a Temple money changer if he met him. I have no doubt. But what did the government of Canada do when they found out about this treasonous behaviour? Under the Competition Act, penalties for price-fixing include fines of up to $25 million and imprisonment to a maximum term of 14 years, or both. Nope. They received immunity from criminal prosecution because they admitted guilt. REALLY????
Oh, they're giving out $25 dollar gift cards, but even THEY come with flimflammery. Many think it's nothing compared to the money they got screwed out of over the years. And they're right. Also, you have to register for them, giving address, telephone number, probably email address, information that CAN be sold. AAAANNNNDDDD ( I think you might know what's coming) there's absolutely no doubt, though this article doesn't say it, fucking Lowblows will just offset this card expense with higher prices.
When it comes to the corporations screwing Canadians, and the government just doing nothing about it, we really need to fight our own battles. It'll be easy for me being in Korea, but I'll never shop at Loblaw(s) again. You shouldn't either. I've already boycotted Nestle, which is VERY difficult to do. They're everywhere! And I've heard they're teaming up with Starbucks. Their overpriced coffee won't be too hard to cut out of my life. I guess I'll chuck this Starbucks (or is it Starbuck's? Starbuck?) gift card I got from my employer for my birthday in the garbage. This is the way we need to start fighting this corporate bullshit in Canada! Some people are launching class action lawsuits against Loblaw(s) for the bread thing, but they won't get much, it'll take years and they won't hurt such a rich company. Boycotting them CAN.
Or you can be like those dumbasses who got their cards and said, "Oh goodie! Free groceries!"
There is still a lot of confusion as a result of misinformation and misdirection surrounding the proposed Canadian carbon tax. Having more leisure/research time than the average Canadian, I thought I'd clear that up. Consider it expat patriotism for the country that made me an expat.
Here are some examples of things I'm seeing posted by Canadian friends:
I shudder to have this puss spewing ass boil sully the clean confines of my blog, but here's the right dishonourable former PM Harper lying about it:
This is from an interview about a book he wrote. We're supposed to trust this forked-tongue paleface now because he wrote a book? I'm not gonna get into the laughable comment about how his government "protected" (as he says) the environment, hoping Canadians have forgotten about his environmental protection act axing bill C-38 that was actually nicknamed the "Environmental Destruction Act." I will concentrate on the main lie, and a catch phrase conservatives are trying really hard to make happen: "tax grab."
As always when this corporate whore opens his mouth I am infuriated on multiples levels. He's astoundingly adept at constructing compound lies! 9 years of fucking up my country probably honed that skill. So let's peel this onion of a lie one layer at a time.
First of all notice how smoothly he avoids the major distinction of who is going to be taxed for carbon output. When he says, "tax grab," overtaxed Canadians instinctively become defensive and think this will be more of THEIR taxes the government grabs. This is the intention of the phrase. But who will be paying the carbon tax has been a piece of information that has been terribly well covered up in Canadian politics. Some Canadians are talking like the government is going to personally tax them. Well this is not the case. If you read this article, you will see that the expense regular Joe Canuck fears from the carbon tax is price hikes in things like home heating and gassing up their vehicles. These are essential things to almost all Canadians and they are understandably angry that they will become more expensive.
But it will be large polluters, namely large corporations who will be taxed, i.e. charged for polluting. I especially draw your attention to this part: A $20/ton carbon tax translates into a 16.6 cent per gallon surcharge on gasoline. So, in 2022, the $50/ton carbon tax will increase Canadian gasoline prices by about 42 cents per gallon (11 cents per liter). For comparison, the average price of gasoline in Canada is $1.43 per liter, so that would be about an 8% gasoline price increase in 2022.
The price of coal would more than double, with a carbon tax surcharge of about $100 per ton in 2022. Natural gas prices will rise by about 10 cents per cubic meter in 2022 compared to current prices of around 13 cents per cubic meter – about a 75% increase. This will increase demand for cheaper carbon-free electricity.
No matter what political party in Canada, NONE of them will properly express what is actually happening here. If you look at the above cartoon on the left, "libtards" are seen as stupid for supporting the carbon tax while the intellectually superior conservatards KNOW that the carbon tax raises the price of gas. Prices don't just magically rise! Taxes don't just "translate into" price hikes. The corporations just automatically raise prices. This is the corporate welfare tax of Canada. It's our largest and it is what has transformed Canada from an imminently liveable country to one that is tax weary to the point of exhaustion. This is something the very same people who love this cartoon AND the ones who hate it, unanimously complain about all the while completely oblivious to the source of their suffering. And conservatives and liberals will fight about things like this even though they are nothing much more than distractions from the major hidden issues that should concern them both.
The major issue that seems to be either ignored or accepted is the endlessly tax-free existences our major corporations enjoy. New tax - price hike. Higher minimum wage - price hike. Higher cost of raw materials - price hike. Tariff - price hike. Every expense they encounter is passed on to the consumer/taxpayer without thought. And without thought, the dutiful Canadian taxpayer pays those expenses. Is it because we have grown to accept the sand-in-the-eyes business bogus that "well it is the fiduciary responsibility of the corporations to the shareholders blah blah fucking blah..."? Or is it the equally bogus but pithy little axioms spouted by the brainwashed like "If you don't vote/pay your taxes, you have no right to complain about government." I think it's partially those things but more so the fact that no political party in our lifetime has done anything about it. The infuriating idea that if corporations didn't automatically raise prices to offset expenses, they would make more money and Canadians would have more money just makes this lie that much more despicable.
And no matter what party you support, not only have they consistently downplayed the free rides for corporations they support, they have systematically defunded and destroyed all government agencies that could force these filthy rich companies to PAY their taxes and freeze their prices to stop them transferring their expenses to the poor taxpayers. Why have they done this? What else? Money! Campaign contributions and corporate lobbying to government officials is only the tip of the iceberg.
This carbon tax is a great example! While Canadians are working hard to recycle, use less fuel and lower their carbon footprint at the encouragement of our government, it's almost futile. Trudeau's Paris Agreement goals won't be met. Carbon tax or no. No matter what the citizens of Canada do. Why not? Because industry will obliterate the goal. WITH THE FULL SUPPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT. So in one way, that corporate dick duster Canadian Trump is right: the carbon tax won't help. But again he doesn't point out that the reason for that is industry. He also doesn't point out that one industry all by itself will pollute Canada well beyond our Paris Agreement goals, and... ahem... oh geez guess what, it's HIS fault!
Expansion of the Alberta oil sands all by itself will put us past the Paris Promise. That's right, Trudeau's pursuit of a pipeline through the most beautiful country of Canada and maybe the world, not his idea. The deal with the Chinese for the bitumen piped through that pipeline, not his baby. These were all things that happened during Harper's term as PM. Read this if you want support.
And when this 2014 deal was struck between Harper and China, and it locked us in for something like 39 years giving China a Foreign Investor Protection Agreement that allowed them to sue Canadian taxpayers if the oil didn't flow, at that time Harper was quoted as saying, "I know this is a very, very unpopular deal, but we're going to do it anyway." Or something to that effect.
Now I ask you, how much do you think Harper has in an untraceable Cayman Islands account (probably in RMB) for brokering THIS ass rape of a deal? He's a god in China! Even has food named after him. And evidently he has the leisure time to write a book. Hmmm...
A carbon tax is something that is designed to make polluters pay for polluting. Ideally they pollute less. The proceeds of the tax, if handled by an uncorrupted government, will go directly to regular people as a rebate and will partially fund other things the majority of people want. The refunds will cover the price hikes for most and maybe pollution will go down. What is evil about this? Why do so many Canadians hate this? Because their blame is misguided. The oil companies and coal companies and natural gas companies are lighting Canadians on fire and some of us are blaming the government for not regulating their use of matches.
Smarten up Canada! You're too educated a country to be acting foolish like this. This is not Trudeau's fault. Although he's not blameless, Harper is FAR more to blame. And even Harper is not the main culprit! It's the true powers that be in Canada. Corporations raping our country for personal gain and distracting you by creating discord over secondary issues.
If we don't check this runaway corporate inflation of prices, the government will just start printing more money (they already have) and we'll end up like Venezuela. Today a banana costs as much as a house did there 10 years ago. Merchants don't count money any more, they weigh it. The government there MIGHT be more corrupt than in Canada, but 10 years. That's all it takes.
Finally, in response to the meme above on the right about putting the carbon tax up Trudeau's ass, I would submit to you that it is not the carbon tax but the puppet hands of corporate Canada up the PM pooper and this is no different from any Canadian PM since I've been alive.
I stumbled across this character in both my research and work lately. Do you recognize him?
He's an Indian dude who is suing his parents for giving birth to him. His name is Rafael Samuel, which doesn't sound very Indian, but his YouTube persona, Nihil Anand does. I've known a few Indians named Anand actually, and the Nihil might be because he's a nihilist and believes in nothing? Just guessing that one.
Nobody knows if China or India has the world's largest population. Most think China, but it's impossible to believe any statistics (or in my experience, much of anything at all) that comes out of China. As early as 2017, Time Magazine suggested that because of years of the One Child Policy in China, and nothing of the sort in India, China may have fallen to 2nd place back then. It's a victory that the above maniac, and I, believe should not be celebrated, but grieved.
He's definitely a troll using extreme comments like, "marriage is blackmail," "your parents had you instead of a toy or a dog," "your parents should support you your entire life," "you owe your parents nothing," "infertility is sexy," "blame the factory, not the product," "history keeps repeating because idiots keep reproducing," "parents are brainwashed into having children," and his stunt of suing his parents for giving birth to him, to get people arguing, fighting, and thinking. He's from Mumbai, a hugely overpopulated city, and maybe at 27, he's experiencing friends and family pressuring him into marriage and having children, but I wonder which is more responsible for his above statements.
I've lived in overcrowded cities like Beijing and Jakarta and the deluge of humanity is unrelenting day after day and one cannot remain unaffected by it. I don't know how many times I was stuck in traffic even after having left early for work in Jakarta, knowing I'd be late and knowing it would harm work relationships there. Can you imagine having a 1 or 2 hour period of work but knowing that included as much time as that or MORE in transit, virtually cutting your earnings in half? That's immeasurable stress. And while in the taxi, you have lots of time to think, nay fantasize, about just snapping your fingers and eliminating half of the people in the overpopulated country where you are. How glorious it would be! More jobs for everybody! Cleaner air, happier people, common courtesy, and lanes on the highway would just start opening up like magic! It sucks waiting in lineups for exactly everything, having little to no hope of actually SITTING on the sardine trains they call subways, glacially slow internet lines, more pollution, more poverty, more selfishness, more competition for E VRE THING... it's total misery. And that's exactly what Raphael believes. So his premise of, "what kind of parent would bring an innocent child into this kind of suffering?" may not be so crazy.
Now I know every time I broach this topic people consider the source and call bullshit or sour grapes and accuse me in their heads or to my face of just trying to justify my situation being unmarried and childless. But I've often thought about, and talked about reasons for childbirth. There are a few that have a tiny bit of merit, but maybe, in a world in which 4 kids are born every second, maybe it's time to start recalibrating some highly outdated thinking on this issue. Maybe it's getting a little bit irresponsible to be having kids for the many, MANY bad reasons that we do. And in a world where we are all very good at justifying our life choices, could it be the people who are having children who are the ones we should be calling bullshit on? Here's an intellectual clip on the topic (jump ahead to about the 1 minute mark):
Hahahaha! One of my all time favourite quotes from the Simpsons: "I've noticed your country is dangerously underpopulated." But the better quote for our purposes was, "The decision to have children is not to be made lightly. On the other hand, monkey see - monkey do." And later, Apu says he needs someone to float his body down the Ganges. Is Raphael right? Are the reasons Indians have for reproducing really dumb? Did 2.8 billion Indian parents have 1.4 billion kids for their pleasure?
I don't know about India, but here's a good graphic about why people want and don't want to have children. Presumably this is people all over the world, and as we know, countries vary in every category, and a lot of these categories have "it depends" qualifiers but it looks about right to me.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against having kids. And I think some of the reasons against them are about as misguided as reasons FOR them. For instance, overpopulation. To be honest, the WORLD isn't really overpopulated. People are just gravitating to the cities and overpopulating those areas. So if you live in the country on a farm and you need some free labour, get busy makin' babies! You are not being irresponsible. Frankly, if you go down the list, the country is the best place to fulfill the majority of the common reasons for having kids. Start a family? Better and less lonely for country living but more inconvenient and expensive for city living. Give your kids a chance to enjoy existence? In my opinion, the country is also better. Give meaning to your life; mold another life; fix the mistakes of your parents; carry on the family name and values; social pressure... I'd say the country is best if these are your reasons. You get more freedom and less social pressure to do all of these things in the relative privacy of the country. But nobody lives in the country any more. So we're left with babies are cute; unconditional love; and nature. The first reason is the pet or toy reasoning. Grow the hell up! Your baby will! The second also could (and let's be honest, probably WILL) end as the kid grows up. Right about middle school in most cases love becomes conditional. The only really solid reason I see on the list is human biology. We ARE predisposed to multiply. So just look at the other side of the list and use a condom. Or move to the country. That's my feeling.
However, this was not my purpose for the blogpost. I was intrigued by some of the smaller details. Mostly, the religious, cultural and political aspects of having children and some of the other things to be considered that don't appear on that list. Let's tackle religion first. India is a great place to start. Generally Hindu but also the origin of Buddhist thinking. Hindus make up the majority of India and I think they are the targets for a lot of the shocking statements our friend Raphael made. Their purpose is to go forth and ADD people to the earth. Hindus actually have a prayer they call the Garbhadana that they say to encourage conception and fulfill their "parental OBLIGATIONS!" They are obligated to marry and have kids. Hence, the population problem. Raphael actually says that Indian people are hypocritical saying they need to do something about the problem and continuing with this religious tradition. I agree. But then again, I'm not a Hindu. Politically, I'm sure the businesses in India are doing all they can to encourage this religious observation since, like China, with such a huge market, it makes business super easy. And with the large workforce comes massive competition that makes business owners omnipotent and workers vulnerable to shit wages and treatment. Again like China.
Buddhists agree with Raphael that life is suffering. But they advocate the almost impossible life purpose of finding joy in your suffering. This makes me think of parents who all like to say, "Oh having kids is SO rewarding!" They too are trying to find joy in their suffering. Practicing Dhamma or Dharma or Tao or Dao is the goal of every Buddhist. It's the way of nature or the truth. When you reach a point of full understanding, you attain enlightenment. Then you don't have to come back to earth any more. The human realm is the best to practice Dhamma and obtain enlightenment. So in a way they are encouraging humans to go forth and SUBTRACT population from earth.
In the Bible after the flood, Noah told the animals to go forth and MULTIPLY. All but two snakes obeyed. Noah asked the snakes what was up and they said, "We can't multiply, we're adders." Christians believe they too, like the animals, are commanded by God to multiply. This is why businessmen and politicians who see babies as customers or consumers, very often pretend to be Christians. Jesus spoke more about the evils of greed and the lust for money than any other topic, yet it is seen as a virtue even amongst Christian businessmen/women and politicians. This has always baffled me.
Muhammed said, "Marry those who are loving and fertile, for I will be proud of your great numbers before the other nations." Muslims definitely favour numbers as a defence against enemies and are wary of "specious arguments" like overpopulation or birth control that try to reduce fertility. But if you think it's any more because they are trying to take over the world than, say, the Mormons, I'd have doubts about that.
I want to refer you back to the part of the Simpsons clip in which Apu states that he wants kids so that he'll have someone to float him down the Ganges. In many cultures there is a similar ethic, often non-religious, that requires parents to care for their children when they are too young to fend for themselves and children to care for their parents when they are too old to fend for themselves. I think that is beautiful. It's one of the only other reasons that I feel is partially legitimate for having children. This, our friend Raphael Samuel does NOT agree with. He suggests parents should care for their kids and PAY for them forever since it was the decision of the parents to bring the children into the world. There are actually some cultures, and I'm living in one, in which the exact opposite is practiced. Children are often held responsible, when they grow up, for expenses and suffering the parents endured while bringing them up. This I DON'T necessarily consider beautiful.
Here's a story about a dude from Myanmar who walked 7 days barefoot to escape into Bangladesh while carrying his parents in baskets! Beautiful! IF he did it out of love and gratitude. But if he did it out of social pressure and obligation, not so much.
"Nuoi con de nho," in Vietnamese means "raise your children to rely on them." In Korea it's customary to give your parents your first paycheck. Often parents have a sort of Keeping-up-with-the-Kims type of pressure they use comparing other family's kids and how much money they give their parents or how expensive the gifts other parents receive. I guess it's not much different than kids saying, "Well Tommy's Mom lets HIM play hockey," or "Tammy's Dad bought her an X-Box for Christmas." But then again, these are things said by kids. The parents should know better. If you have kids who are helping you, don't calculate what percentage of their paychecks they give you. This is something an adult should understand.
One last thing: As you know, I believe the powers that be in our world are doing everything they can to DIVIDE and conquer us regular people. Social inequalities are at their highest. The concentration of the majority of wealth, resources and power is in fewer hands than ever before in history. Things like caste, status, race, religion, culture, nationality, political party, overpopulation, lack of employment, business monopolies, private education, taxation and many other things are being used to keep people more individual and less unified. We are in increased competition and we are fast approaching, if not, in the midst of the age of automation in which we will lose jobs and money to machines. We need to unite as a global unit to make sure industry and politicians do what is right and adjust our cultures accordingly. This will require them to act counter-intuitively. The business mind rebels at the idea of giving. It rebels at the concept of paying higher wages for less work. After centuries of paying lower wages for more work and charging higher prices for the same product, the captains of industry will not automate at their expense, but at ours. In the new global value system "success" boils down to the capacity for manipulation. They will keep us placated through manipulation to enable themselves to extract the maximum profit from the maximum population until they are forced to change the business culture or there is global disaster. Having more children, whatever your reasons, will only make automation more difficult and global disaster more likely.
I'm just saying let's be smart about this.
In case you think Raphael is very different from you and his situation in India doesn't compare with your life at all, I think the most interesting thing about his story is that his parents are BOTH lawyers. That would likely put him in an upper caste in India, but I think his family might be less different than they are supposed to appear. His mother proved that she's probably a very good lawyer by winning the lawsuit in one sentence. She said, "I admire my son's temerity... and if Raphael could come up with a rational explanation as to how we could have sought his consent to be born, I will accept my fault." Probably followed by, "Oh that boy...tsk tsk tsk."
On camera when interviewed by the BBC News Kavita Karnad Samuel said she was proud of her son, but Raphael says she told him that if she had met him beforehand, she wouldn't have had him. LMAO! Like every Mother in the world! And here's a pic of young Raphael:
He DOES say a lot of bizarre things that make him sound like a looney, but he gets hits for his YouTube site. Enough hits to make money! So maybe he's crazy like a fox. Plus he IS drawing attention to a very real problem in India. And that is a good thing. I don't know about you but I'd bet the farm he's just a spoiled only child. Eh? He was probably a handful for his parents, but he can't be all that bad, he plays hockey!
Another week, another rash of stories in which politicians, particularly American politicians, are brazenly and unabashedly illustrating their continued assault on democracy.
I sometimes predict things in this blog that don't happen (or at least haven't happened yet) but I like having some things on record here for the "I-told-ya-so" effect. On this occasion I just didn't feel any thrill. What I felt was outrage. It instantly occurred to me that Meuller was done. Not just done, but after two long years, his report was going to be a huge disappointment. A few people cajoled me and said to be patient, he's a good man and all that, but I saw the dump truck in the sky. And sure enough about a month later he DOESN'T release his report, he gives it to the absolute LAST person he should give it to and says, "Here ya go, William Barr. YOU tell the world what's in my report." What the fucking frigging fornicating FUCK?!?!
Here's what I wrote back then based on something someone else had written well before then: "How much of a stretch is it to imagine Vlad seeing Trump holding out his small hand for a loan and thinking, "He's not gonna pay this back, but if we could make him president and have him in our debt... hmmmmmm..." I've heard unconfirmed estimates that Trump, through Deutschebank, borrowed 4 billion from Vlad the Enabler. Or one of the various banks and businesses he rules with an iron fist. With what we know about Humpty Trumpty, when he falls off his little wall and all of his shady dealings are exposed and he finally gets the real estate he has earned, (a jail cell), he'll be yelling through the bars, "I'm a great man! You can't put me in here! I wasn't afraid of the banks! Fuck them! I wasn't even afraid of Vladimir Putin! You think I'm afraid of jail time?""
Back then I still believed his shady dealings would be exposed. But a month ago, the idea that I could be THAT far ahead of the Meuller investigation made me realize it would soon be over and it wasn't going to be a success. If he's just now looking into this issue it had to be a last straw. And it appears that it was.
But why did he give his report to this William Barr character and who is he? I believe the answer to both questions is the same. Let's do some history: First of all, why did Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions recuse himself from the whole Russian collusion investigation? The rule that Sessions cited — 28 CFR 45.2— states that DOJ employees may not "participate in a criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship with any person or organization substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution, or who would be directly affected by the outcome." This is one of those little rules that guilty people add to political protocol that allow other guilty people to get away with what they're guilty of. That's all. "You can't add your guilty testimony that will make the investigation a slam dunk to the investigation because it will make it a slam dunk and you will be found guilty." That's 28 CFR 45.2 without the legal ambiguity. This and many other little gems like it are the very fucking core of modern politics because banks and big business need dirty people to protect their dirty business.
Anyway, Sessions had had two conversations with Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, denied having had dealings with the Russians before being sworn in as attorney general, then after the truth was revealed, assured us all that they weren't talking about anything naughty. And why wouldn't we believe him? Well, because (as a possible audition for the position) he was lying. Now let's not forget, let's not fucking forget, that this doctor of douchebaggery fired James Comey, the FBI director who was the first to start investigating Donald Trump's collusion with Russia to fix the 2016 election. What's that called, children? That's right! Repeat after me: "obstruction of justice." Goood!
I'm getting ahead of myself. So the Mueller investigation started in response to the firing of James Comey because it was obvious that Trump didn't want anyone investigating his collusion with the Russians. Once again, he wanted to OBSTRUCT JUSTICE. He didn't want anyone finding out about his withdrawals from the Bank of Putin. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Then after Sessions recused himself, making it impossible for him to fire the NEW investigator into Trump's Russian collusion, he was, for that reason, bullied and belittled into resignation. Well good riddance on the one hand but on the other hand, who was his replacement? Matt Whitaker. And why? Give THIS a gander:
I like the word that one guy uses: preposterous. But par for the course (sorry bad Trump pun) for the anti-democracy Trump administration. Whitaker was a Trump flunkey and Trump loved his plan to starve the Mueller investigation of funding. So welcome to the team new attorney general and hot tub scamster! You're just the kind of guy Trump is looking for! A guy who (and I'm not sure this is true but it's out there) once promoted toilets that are deeper so as to allow well-endowed men to take a leak without their penis touching the water or porcelain. Not sure how much this contributed to the Trump/Whitaker bromance but... moving on...
And in keeping with bromance, I guess Whitaker fell out of favour with Trump for not being able to halt the Mueller investigation or for some other gross overestimations. This guy's name is very close to "Whanker."
But on February 14th, Valentine's Day 2019, William Barr was appointed as Trump's newest sellsword to triumphantly behead the Mueller monster that was threatening the kingdom. Why did he get the appointment? Well it probably had something to do with his 19-page article about how Mueller has no right to investigate Trump, or how Barr worded it, "submit the president to interrogation," on Russian collusion. Folks, I read this thing and there is a lot of legal jargon that would impress some weak-minded people, but there are also grammar mistakes in practically every paragraph. This guy is citing laws like he understands them but clearly exhibits difficulty with the language in which they are printed. In paragraph 4 he says "designed subvert" instead of designed to subvert then goes on to explain (rather coherently) how obstruction laws are designed to prohibit "bad acts." Acts like witness/jury tampering, destruction/alteration/falsification of evidence, or anything depriving the proceeding of honesty.
He goes on to say that unlike Clinton and Nixon, Trump's actions cannot be defined as obstruction of justice. He then contradicts paragraph 4 a mere 3 paragraphs later with the following flimsy reasoning: He says that public officials exercising constitutional (that's debatable) discretionary powers in a lawful way, like removing an official (James Comey), giving direction on a case (like suggesting the Mueller investigation be cancelled), or using pardoning power (which Trump suggested he may use for Michael Flynn), is NOT obstruction of justice and the perception of this as a crime means the president can be accused of a breaking the law based on a subjective reading of his state of mind.
Presumably because of their positions as public officials and some perceived constitutional endowment of super-human morality, William Barr is suggesting that determination of public officials' actions such as the above as "bad actions" is too subjective to allow even though it is, as he admitted, what obstruction laws are designed to do. Did Trump fire James Comey because he was investigating Russian collusion? According to Bill Barr, why, that's just too subjective a call for normal human beings like us to make about a president. Even though he admits it, and even though it absolutely would be depriving the proceeding of honesty. You can't really have an honest investigation if you fire the investigator. I don't see any subjectivity in that call. The exact same can be said of cancelling or starving the Mueller investigation of funds. Obviously, and totally objectively "bad acts."
So just like the little rule of law Jeff Sessions used to recuse himself lest his guilt cause him to be found guilty, Bill Barr is promoting the exact same defence for Donald Trump in his 19-page manifesto. And this is what got him hired. This and his past performance of keeping bad people committing "bad acts" out of prison that goes way back to the Reagan administration and the Iran/Nicaragua/Contra scandal. He was in on the George Dubyuh Iraq WMD debacle too.
So now you get an idea of why it might not be the smartest thing to trust this wizard of wankery's summary of the almost two year investigation that Mueller compiled. And where these came from:
However! Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters have been probing this whole Deutsche Bank thing and they are convinced of collusion and obstruction of justice. I submit to you they exist, it's just decades of these little legal rules that are designed to allow the guilty freedom from prosecution for their crimes that are hampering the whole investigation. Here's a guy who basically says that:
And now, guess what? ADAM SCHIFF NEEDS TO BE FIRED! How long before reasonable doubt is gone? It's no longer there. People just want it to be. Bad people. Who do bad acts.
But wait, that's not all! What about THIS douchebag?
I specifically chose a pic that has the stupidest thing in all of politics: the presumption of honourability amongst our thieving politicians. The only honour amongst these thieves is right there. That antiquated thoroughly unwarranted and I'm going to use that great word again, preposterous title these people get when they cheat, lie and steal their ways to the top of the political food chain.
This abortive rooting hog? All she did this week was take funding away from blind kids, deaf kids and the Special Olympics. "We had to make some HAAARD choices," said this lump of foul deformity. Only thing hard is your heart Betsy. If you were the philanthropist you pretend to be, you'd cover the cuts you claim were so hard to make. You can easily afford it.
But her mission (from God?) is to separate the highly fed and lowly taught from the refuse of society. And they ARE lowly taught because private schools suck. In fact they lead directly to the presence of rich people who don't understand, trust, or tolerate regular people in positions of power and leadership in politics and industry. And this whole post is the tangled web of deceit they weave.
