2011 - The Year of the Not About the Budget Budgets

[Cresent City Kid]

Let's say Jim and Jenny are a married couple. Jim likes heavy metal CD's and Jenny likes vampire novels. They get behind on their bills and immediately, Jim goes off on Jenny saying the first thing that has to go is the fucking vampire novels. They never get to the big ticket items, like the vacation home, or God forbid Jim's discretionary spending on CD's, mostly because Jim won't shut up, or listen. He even berates her about checking out books from the library.

That's where we are with these "budget" battles, at the state and federal levels. From 2001 to 2007, the republicans had all three branches of government in hand. In that time the surplus became a deficit, with barely a peep about screwing future generations with the bill. They didn't even use the deficit as an excuse to defund liberal causes like they are now at a time when they could have passed almost anything. Maybe they wanted to keep the deficit on the down low since there was no one else to blame at the time.

Taxes for the rich were cut, we started two wars, bailed out Wall Street, and then passed a stimulus package, all hits on the federal budget. Now it's used as the rationale behind fulfilling every right wing wet dream like ending NPR, Planned Parenthood, and labor unions to mention a few. If ACORN had survived, it would be on the list now.

Anyone who read the first paragraph could deduce that Jim just doesn't like his wife reading vampire novels, and the money problems were an irrelevant backdrop. Plus he's a prick about it. That's the mentality we're up against.

[Newest Reality]

1. Corporate America,

is what we are now. Multinationals are calling the shots from your TV viewing to most of the political landscape you observe, but don't really participate in. This is the vampire novel, not the world around it or the readers or the budget for the books.

We stand at a clear precipice. Either we continue to play this loaded game and support it because it owns and provides most of what we need to live the lifestyle it molded and sold to us, or we develop the tenacity and strength to begin a long, hard path of breaking away from what it has created for us and told us we are supposed to live. It has come to an easily definable and observable dichotomy now. It is a fork in the road and we do get to choose one way or the other. We do get to play a part and one is to go along with this road to techno-Fascist-tyranny, from which their may never be an escape, or go with the real Tea Party of old, and throw it off by questioning our current lifestyles and making difficult, informed decisions about where we are heading and how we might poise ourselves to survive and determine the outcome.

They know that, in the Century of Self, we cling to life so much that we are unable to say boldly, and without reservation, give me liberty or give me death. It would behoove us all to consider what we truly want for ourselves, our fellows and our friends and family, now. This is a critical and crucial point where we either make history or, we become history made by the Orwellian powers that be as they capitalize on their efforts and lead us all into a dystopian future where we become nothing more than numbers and resources controlled by a few with lives determined by nothing than a statistical average based on a profit motive.

[Cresent City Kid]

3. I agree that the path out will be long and hard

In the early 20th century, the nature of labor required people here in America in large numbers to satisfy the profit motive. Back then we could eke out a few concessions by shutting down the whole thing with stikes. We used to be machines, now we're more like crops to be harvested. We play by their rules, and the fridge stays full. How long before they don't need us at all?

[Newest Reality]

4. Life as a Coppertop?

Well, we see that the so-called, consumer-cycle was a myth. American workers and consumers are not what they were led to believe they were. Production as exploitation and new and emerging markets allow multinationals to shift their operations and profit wells as needed like an algorithm.

So, I would respond they don't need us much here at all in relation to how much we have found ourselves needing them. If we could manage to get the strength, courage and determination to not need them, we could break this cycle based on global, economic dynamics. We could then start the long, arduous path towards re-localization and the kind of sustainability that our current, growing understanding of environmental impact and diminishing resources demands.

[Wabbajack_]

2. Jim should just "illegally" download the songs

Jenny could find .pdfs or .txts of most popular books too,

[Cresent City Kid]

5. He probably does

But his real joy is taking her joy away. Since they're both made up, I could have them win the lottery, but that breaks the analogy. Unless... hey, the government could by billions of lottery tickets, a sure thing!

[Wabbajack_]

6. Haha

That's hilarious. :D