Tag Archives: COVID-19

Political Rants

When labor remembers how to say no

Leave a comment

What keeps a worker going to the job, day after day, even if s/he hates it like fire? The need for money, mostly. During the pandemic, however, that need was outweighed by something more basic – namely, the desire to stay alive.

When going to work began to entail risking your life for a broad swath of workers, those who had a choice in the matter chose to remain at home. The government made some effort to facilitate this, at least in some segments of the economy. There were those deemed essential workers who were compelled to risk their lives. This included many undocumented immigrants who picked our food and cared for our elderly while we hid from COVID.

Now that Americans are being strongly encouraged to return to their desks, their machines, their stations, etc., many are reluctant to do so. No doubt some folks have decided that this was an opportune time to drop out of the workforce entirely. Others are not convinced it’s safe. But I suspect many are holding back from returning to their crappy jobs because, frankly, they’ve had it with that shit, and who can blame them?

King Tut-Tut

Enter Donny Deutsch, some second-generation ad man who shows up on MSNBC every five minutes to share some rhetorical pearls of dubious provenance. Deutsch squeezed out this gem on Twitter the other day, then expanded on it when he appeared on Morning Joe:

Has the American work ethic softened? Maybe a little too much coddling of employees going on… just saying

So apparently this trust fund baby feels like capital isn’t disciplining labor sufficiently in the wake of the COVID shutdown. He feels like employers are being too flexible and are letting their workers work from home, etc. That’s undermining the “work ethic”. (I know he doesn’t own his dad’s business anymore, but if he did, I could tell you exactly why HIS employees wouldn’t be returning to the office. )

Green Solutions

It likely wouldn’t occur to someone like Deutsch that there is an obvious capitalist solution to the problem he’s describing. It’s called pay people more. It’s called treat them better.

Most of the jobs he’s talking about are ones that can easily be done remotely. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that all this driving back and forth to office complexes is a tremendous waste of energy and resources. Even with many people choosing to stay out for a variety of reasons, I imagine a large percentage of those who’ve returned to the office work for an employer who is doing what Deutsch so admires – demanding that they sit at their workstation and look busy.

Times like these, I truly think that capitalism only survives by virtue of worker complacency, hopelessness, and cynicism. When some outside factor, like COVID, shakes things up, for a hot moment they can see the stupidity of this owner-wage slave relationship and start demanding more. There’s your silver lining.

luv u.

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Uncategorized

Unmasked at the CHENEY Hammer Mill (again).

Leave a comment
2000 Years to Christmas

Hey, I heard the regulations have changed. So you can take the damn thing off, now. That’s right, it came down just a few days ago. Some dude in a tie said so. So this is from the suits, man. What do you mean that’s weak sauce? I’m hip, dude, I’m hip!

Oh, man … why does everything have to end up in an argument around this place? Something to do with the atmosphere here inside the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home. It gets a little stuffy, especially in the warmer months, and that contributes to a kind of contagious psychosis. I’m not a doctor, of course, but I play one on the internet, and where I come from, this is a bad thing!

Old news is good news

Anyway, we get our news a little bit late here in this forgotten corner of the world. We’re only now hearing that the COVID regulations in New York have been relaxed, and we can start dropping the mask when we’ve gotten our vaccinations worked out. (And we did, by the way – the shots were free, so our attitude is basically gimme some of that.) How liberating, right? What a welcome relief … right?

Wrong, apparently. At least according to some of my squat mates. Several are refusing to drop the mask, for a variety of reasons. Now, I tend to discount the claims of Marvin (my personal robot assistant) and the mansized tuber, as neither one of them needed to wear a mask in the first place. (Not that disputes with them are anything new – see, for example, this post from 2007.) But when it comes to the mammalian members of our entourage, it’s a different story entirely.

You see, the thing is … all of the human members of Big Green, as well as our various hangers-on – I mean, assistants – feel that the masks generally improve our looks. I don’t disagree. We’re getting a little crusty around the edges, and unlike artisan bread, not in a particularly appetizing way. I for one have taken to drawing more attractive facial features on my masks, like a full rack of normal teeth or a mustache that isn’t dominated by gray hair.

The anti-Lincoln project

Take anti-Lincoln (please!). He needs an oversized mask to cover his festering gob. Frankly, it makes him look like an old-time bank robber. Or a railroad industry lawyer, which … well …. the actual Lincoln in fact was. Frankly, I think he and the others just don’t like the smell of the Hammer Mill in Spring. Why they don’t just say so, I don’t know. This place reeks! Say it loud!

Political Rants

To the rescue.

Leave a comment

Congress approved the 1.9 trillion-dollar COVID rescue package this week, and while the final version didn’t include everything I would liked to have seen in the bill, there’s some decent stuff in there. What’s more, it is generally on a scale that approaches that of the problems we face. This is a departure, and one would hope a trend, away from the post-Reagan neoliberal consensus and towards a broader notion of what government may be called upon to accomplish on behalf of ordinary people. We have often heard pundits spin a false dichotomy between “big government liberalism” and “small government conservatism” – the fact is, conservatives and the right more generally are all in favor of big government, so long as it serves the interests of the powerful. The fact that the rescue package turns this on its head is an indication of how far we’ve come in recent years, despite all the resistance.

We’re overdue for that sort of turn, frankly. We’ve been living in the Reagan economic universe for forty years – essentially my entire adult life – with labor under siege, bloated military budgets, corporate-friendly multilateral investor rights agreements (popularly known as “free trade agreements”), and imperial swagger on the world stage. Obviously one bill is not going to change all of that, but it’s a step in the right direction, and a relatively bold one at that, compared to what we’re used to. Sure, the COBRA subsidies are kind of stupid and a massively inefficient way to extend health insurance to unemployed people. Sure, the checks should have been $2000 because that’s what everyone – including Trump – was calling for just after the election. Sure, they should have kept the $15 minimum wage because it was a solid provision that would have pegged the rate to inflation instead of giving employers a gradually increasing discount on the cost of labor. But what’s there is mostly good.

Biden and others have said that provisions in this bill will cut child poverty in half. I think that’s great, but it’s kind of like dividing the baby. If we can cut it in half, how about spending more and eliminating it entirely? So much of what’s in the legislation addresses inequality in a substantive way, but the solutions are almost all temporary ones. It’s incumbent on progressives to push the administration and Congress to build these initiatives out into more permanent benefits. We will see what kind of an effect this bill will have on families and individuals. If it’s dramatic enough, that could create the kind of popular momentum needed to push a broader agenda forward. We know what some of that will look like – the minimum wage, labor reforms, etc. We need a wealth tax, not so much to generate revenue (it will do that) but to reduce inequality and lessen the power and influence of the ultra wealthy. I’m talking about an upper limit on assets – something well south of a billion dollars. That’s the kind of tax system we need.

This could have come out much worse, and I think a lot of credit is due progressives like Bernie Sanders and some of the great people in the House. Their fingerprints are all over the more progressive pieces of this, and that’s cause for celebration.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Usual Rubbish

Red Planet.

Leave a comment
2000 Years to Christmas

Come in, Rangoon … I mean, Marvin. Jesus, this is hard! C-Q, C-Q … Marvin, do you read me? Come in, come up, come over …. come on, man! Hey … is this thing on?

Oh, hi, out there in the land of Big Green listeners, readers, etc. It’s your old friend Joe, locked away here in the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our longtime squat-house concealed in the forested hills (or hilly forests) of central New York state. An easy place to seclude yourself in … to. No one would ever think of looking for you here. That’s largely because, well … no one ever thinks of looking for anyone or anything here. In fact, most people don’t even know this place exists. (Except for you, of course … because you keep coming back.) What better redoubt in a time of COVID, right? Complete isolation …. the secret to good health. Who knew?

So, what are we about this week? Well … people have to occupy themselves somehow. That applies to everyone – washed out musicians, animated vegetables (mansized tuber), antimatter ex-presidents (anti-Lincoln), and of course, mad scientists (Mitch Macaphee). And it is in the settled order of things that some people’s pass times have a greater effect on those around them than those of their fellow time-passers. So when Mitch knocks about the mill looking for something to do, he’s partly looking for someone to do it to. In this case, it was Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who, I feel it’s important to point out, was created by Mitch in the first place. And if he can create him, he can … well … you know. Do I have to draw you a picture? I do? Damn it!

squx.

All right, so Mitch got a little obsessed this week, watching the goddamned television. They did multiple stories on this Mars Rover “Perseverance” mission, how it was going to land, how risky it was to enter the Martian atmosphere, how forbidding the terrain on the red planet promises to be, etc. Each mention of this NASA mission seemed to make Mitch madder and madder. It was like watching one of those old pressure cookers heat up, the dial on the top flipping over to red, steam pouring out of every join. Anyway, long story short, he decided to stuff Marvin into a makeshift rocket and send him to Mars ahead of the NASA rover. Marvin’s mission: take a selfie with the rover and post it somewhere that NASA scientists could see it, just so that he could rub it in their face that he had gotten there ahead of them. Yep … Mitch seriously wants to own those fuckers, and he’ll do it if it’s the last thing Marvin ever does.

That’s why I’m cranking away at our distressed old ham radio, hoping to raise Marvin’s personal communication channel. (Not that it’s worth much, as Marvin is famously non-verbal.) If I raise him, I’ll let you know.

Political Rants

That happened.

Leave a comment

This is the first blog post I’ve posted since the end of the Trump presidency on Wednesday at noon. Congratulations, America – we got the stiffs off the property. That’s the good news. As in previous years when presidents I despised were defeated and sent packing, my inauguration day focus was on the departure of the jackass, which I watched this week with great pleasure. In the end, Trump slunk away out the back door of the White House, into his government provided chopper, over to Joint Base Andrews where he gave a farewell address that, one would hope, every school child will learn by heart … just so that there’s a chance we will never have to do this again. (Fat chance, right? This is America, after all.) “Have a good life,” said the now ex-president in one of his last utterances as Chief Executive of the nation. Like that’s a choice, right? He’s had one, but that was preordained by the gods of money.

The network coverage of the transition of power was about what you would expect. The focus tends to be on the pomp and circumstance, the traditions, the contrasts between the incoming and outgoing administrations, the bipartisan spirit of continuance, etc. Inasmuch as the riotous attack on the Capitol building took place only two weeks before the inaugural ceremony, it was impossible for them to avoid the inherently divisive nature of what was taking place. No matter how much they show Mitch McConnell grinning ear to ear (behind his mask, of course) or Roy Blunt joking about Amy Klobuchar, the fact remains that the Republican party was all-in for Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election, that more than 145 members of the House caucus voted not to accept the electoral count, and that more than eighty percent of registered Republicans believe the president handled himself well during the transition period. It takes more than a little bunting to conceal that magnitude of support for, frankly, what amounted to an attempted coup.

Still, let’s dwell for a moment on the fact that Trump and his minions are gone. Let’s take a moment to celebrate the fact that this would-be autocrat no longer has his finger on the nuclear trigger, or the other vast powers of the presidency. Let us rejoice in the fact that his attempted coup was a failure, even though it provides a road map for future coup plotters. Let us be thankful that there has thus far been no replay of the pitched attack that took place on January 6, though many of the responsible parties remain at large and their enablers in Congress remain in office. Let us be hopeful that the new administration will deal seriously with the COVID crisis and other priorities, even though we know we will have to push them to do the right thing.

Indeed, the best way for us to celebrate this transition – and the end of that awful thing that happened these past four years – is to stay on our toes and remain active. That’s the only path forward.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Usual Rubbish

Breach.

Leave a comment
2000 Years to Christmas

Are they still up there? Hmmmm. I can’t hear them right now. Maybe the stereo drove them out, or the garlic, perhaps. I always thought those people would be trouble. Did I say “always”? I meant, uh, sometimes.

Well, this has been one hell of a week for everybody here in America, am I right? Here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, we might have been glued to the television all week if the cable company hadn’t discovered our illegal tap and pulled the plug on us. And then there was the electric company with their so-called “unpaid bills” and such. What part of abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill do they not understand? I mean, just because it’s a derelict, long-condemned building doesn’t mean it should be stricken from the grid like at scofflaw. I mean, we’re the scofflaws, people … it’s not the building’s fault that we’re squatting in it. Not really.

Anyway, as you know, over the past couple of years we’ve had some dyspeptic neighbors living upstairs in another section of the mill that we seldom visit, though it is often spoken of in legends. That notwithstanding, they have been problematic in the past with regard to, I don’t know, agreeing to little courtesies, like … not shooting us or not setting the mill on fire for kicks. (They like their kicks, these upstairs neighbors.) It was worst early on, but in recent months it had quieted down quite a bit, perhaps because of the COVID pandemic, but more likely because they got bored with intimidating us and turned their evil attentions elsewhere – to our friends squatting in the abandoned storefront across the street, for instance. Whatever misfortunes they may have visited on others, all was peace and contentment here in the hammer mill.

Holler all you want, dude. We don't have any bacon.

But that was not to last! (Dum, dum, dum!) They got all feisty with us again this week, and this time with the help of outside confederates. Now, when I say “confederates,” I’m not using that as an alternative for “friends” or “accomplices” – I mean confederates, like, the southern kind, waving the stars and bars. Those dudes as well as other denizens of the far right descended on this place like locusts. It took us a while, but we eventually worked out that they had mistaken the Cheney Hammer Mill for the federal building, which isn’t even located in our township. No matter – these MAGA hatted crazy people started scaling up the sides of the mill with those climbing cables. Not sure why they didn’t just come in through the open door and take the stairs up, but to each his own. They overran this place with as few as thirty people and started making themselves at home, except for one guy who stumbled upon our studio and started shouting “Olympus has fallen!” over and over again. (Seriously, I think these people are majorly confused about where we’re living.)

Yeah, so now we have a houseful of right-wing rioters, and nothing to offer them. My guess is that they will eventually get bored and go find someone else to kill, but until then …. hope they like banjo music!

Political Rants

Who’s the client?

Leave a comment

As the Senate moves closer to a veto override vote on the $740 billion defense authorization act, I’ve been thinking about how eager our national legislators are to spend money when it comes to military hardware, consultants, logistics, etc, and yet how reluctant they seem to be to provide working people with the means to, I don’t know, feed themselves and their families, keep a roof over their heads, maybe see a medical professional if they need one, all in the midst of a once-in-a-century (up to now, at least) pandemic. Of course, this $740 billion doesn’t represent the full price tag of our national security posture – no, indeed, there are many billions more going into intelligence, covert operations, and of course the after-market costs of war, such as the Veteran’s administration and so on. All this money to “keep us safe”, and yet here we are – more people dying on a daily basis than in any previous armed conflict.

We have an administration that has dragged its feet on the Coronavirus since the very beginning. They are currently falling way behind on their vaccination campaign, having committed to 20 million Americans vaccinated by year’s end – it looks like they will struggle to achieve ten percent of that. When challenged on this, they shrug – it’s the states’ fault, you see. What a pathetic joke. Take the goddamn money you’re shoveling at the Pentagon and use it to get those fucking vaccines into people’s arms … now. COVID is the national security threat, fool, not a resurgent Russia or China. People are dropping dead all around us, like there’s been an invasion of invisible killer aliens, and fat boy is out golfing while his Coronavirus coordinator Veep is enjoying a skiing holiday. From the start, this phenomenal lack of urgency has been a reflection of the president’s priorities – there’s simply no perceived benefit to him in pursuing this virus, and so he pretends it doesn’t exist.

Someone on Facebook shared that photo of Trump in the oval office with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, going over the presentation of military hardware that the Prince was committing to purchase from U.S. arms manufacturers. It struck me that what I was looking at was an image of a vendor (Trump) with his client (MBS). Trump was using his office to broker a deal with Saudi Arabia – one that is currently being extended, by the way – so that they will continue to patronize him after he leaves office. How does this serve the interests of the American people? Saudi Arabia is a repressive, dictatorial regime that’s killing thousands of people in Yemen, using our weapon systems and our military’s logistical support. The jobs supported by these purchases are not worth the lives lost – far from it. The only benefit that comes from this relationship is realized by Trump, who has bragged about the money he earns from the kingdom. His entire presidency has been a branding exercise, and he’s ready to start cashing in his chips.

This is a level of cynicism beyond anything we’ve seen before. We are losing thousands of lives every day, and our leaders are too busy feathering their nests to even notice, let alone act.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Death and taxes.

Leave a comment

Anyone who’s been reading this blog and listening to my podcast Strange Sound for any length of time knows that I’m a sometimes harsh critic of the institutional Democratic party. That same anyone would be aware that I am even more critical of the Republican party. The reason for this is fairly simple: whereas the Democratic party has some individuals within it – albeit a minority – who are principled progressives who want to make a difference in people’s lives, the Republican party is now literally a death cult that wants to cut rich people’s taxes. This week we exceeded 300,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, and you would barely know it by listening to GOP lawmakers or their idiotic president. (And yes, he is their president, lock, stock, and cracker barrel. I’m of the opinion that Trump is the purest expression of Republican values – selfishness, ignorance, bigotry, and self-aggrandizement.)

I know both parties have a lot to answer for, but frankly, Republican politicians are almost universally out of their minds. As I write this on a day when more than 3,400 people died of this virus across the country, we’ve seen further evidence that the administration was explicitly pursuing a strategy of “herd immunity” with regard to the Coronavirus. As reported in Politico, part-time Canadian college lecturer Paul Alexander was helping to press the CDC into adopting a strategy of having everyone become infected … or as many people as possible. This was the crack-head notion they shared with Dr. Atlas that somehow everyone getting the disease was a good thing. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how “herd immunity” should work – the idea is to keep people from getting a disease by inoculating large numbers of them against it. Infecting people to prevent disease is like jumping off a building to avoid falling. These people are seriously cracked.

I can’t quite work out why Trump would choose to align himself with these people and take the hands-off approach he took to this virus when to do the opposite – investing heavily on safety and prevention – would possibly have made him a much more popular president and perhaps earned him re-election. The only thing that seems likely to me is that he thought the emergence of this novel Coronavirus was just unfair, and that like a five-year-old he didn’t want to accept it. And of course, because he is, as president, the head of his party, Trump set the tone for everyone else. But make no mistake – the Republican political class would have gone there anyway. As I’ve said before – every time they come back, they’re worse. Reagan was worse than Nixon, Bush Jr. worse than Bush Sr., and Trump worse than them all. Each one of these presidents was backed up by a party that supported practically every move they made.

With all of the challenges we are facing, we need to keep them out of power. We can no longer afford to play defense on these terminal issues.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Smash and Grab.

Leave a comment

This is another one of those “while you were looking over there …” moments. It’s not surprising – Trump is denying the results of the 2020 election, refusing to concede, refusing to cooperate with the transition to a Biden Administration, filing bogus law suits, and so on. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic is going through the roof, infecting many, many thousands of people each day and getting worse. These are enormous stories that demand coverage, but because our media tends towards myopia, we really only hear about these stories, while other important stuff falls through the cracks. This is in fact what is happening right now, as the Trump administration enters its final days, reaching for its final opportunities to remake our federal government in its own contorted image. Here’s some of what they’re doing.

First, Trump is placing some of his political hacks into posts deep within the bureaucracy of key federal agencies, as reported by the Washington Post. By placing Trumpists in these posts, the president is extending his influence far beyond his tenure. These appointees will benefit from Civil Service protections, which means it will be difficult for the Biden Administration to root them out from posts where they can actively sabotage any attempts at progressive policies. The Post cites the example of Michael Ellis, a former aide to Devon Nunes, as General Counsel at the National Security Agency, a non-political post. Ellis is the guy who came up with the secret server where transcripts of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders have been secreted away. This and other similar postings are deeply problematic.

In addition to that, the Trump administration is commencing a kind of fire sale of public lands, rushing to put the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the auction block, inviting oil and gas companies to pick out their favorite patches of the now-endangered wilderness area. They’re hoping to take bids on the refuge lands before inauguration day so that claims may be locked in. And according to the Texas Tribune, leases on half a million acres of public land in the Gulf of Mexico have been handed out to oil and gas companies in recent days. The pace of these transactions has been increasing and is likely to get even more frenetic as this grisly administration rolls to a stop.

The combined effect of these efforts and Trump’s stonewalling of the transition is to defy the will of the people as expressed in the November election. Trump is a lame duck, like it or not, and as such his ability to implement massive changes should at least be mediated by the process of preparing for a new administration that does not agree with his policies. We need to demand that they stop this last minute smash and grab, and we need to do it now.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Usual Rubbish

Designated shopper.

Leave a comment
2000 Years to Christmas

Okay, I know I drew the short straw. Let’s give it another go, shall we? Best two out of three. Ready …. steady … pull. Damn. Short straw again. Best three out of five?

Oh, hi. I’ll be honest – I’ve never been much of a gambler. And yet here we are, drawing straws to see who will go out and do the weekly shopping. Now I know what you’re going to say – “Joe!” you’d say, “You have a personal robot assistant. Why not send HIM out to shop?” Very good question. The trouble is, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is a dead ringer for some rogue ripoff automaton that has been terrorizing the local shops for a good six months. No matter how we identify Marvin as distinctly himself, the store owners around here lack the … um … subtlety to imagine that Marvin might not only be a totally different robot but, in fact, one that shares none of the nefarious habits of the nasty robot. Appearances can be deceiving! Look at us, for crying out loud. You’d think we were a band or something.

Why do we need someone to do our shopping? Pretty obvious, isn’t it? I mean, this whole county has gone COVID crazy. Frankly, I wouldn’t walk across the street in this town without a hazmat suit. Or maybe one of those survive-a-balls the Yes Men came up with a few years ago. It’s getting hairy out there, people – very hairy indeed. Who would blame us for sending Marvin out with a couple of sacks and a claw full of dollars, our shopping list written in grease pencil on his brass belly? That’s what any reasonable people in our circumstances would do, right? I mean, picture yourself in an abandoned hammer mill with a bunch of out-of-work musicians and some oddball hangers-on (including a robot and a man-sized tuber) … what would you do, dear reader? I mean … aside from getting a life?

Wow. I feel safer just looking at those things.

Actually, it turns out that the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill is probably the ideal location for quarantine. Think about it – it’s isolated. Nobody comes here except bill collectors. The place is riddled with holes, so air flows freely throughout the structure – all of the air is replaced every 45 minutes. (Trouble is, it’s replaced by Cool Whip.) Frankly, they should be sending COVID positive people here to ride it out, or folks that have been exposed and need to stay our of circulation for fourteen days. In fact, I’m surprised the local officials haven’t thought of that. Unless, of course, they’re reading this blog. Yikes! FORGET I SAID ANYTHING. THIS IS A TERRIBLE PLACE …. DON’T COME HERE.