Fundamental Flaws: On The American Dream

Between them these two books sum up our present predicament. Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war. Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war. There is no way out of this unless a planned economy can somehow be combined with the freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the concept of right and wrong is restored to politics.
---George Orwell

If you listen to anyone on the right side of the aisle you know two things 1) You should be afraid of European Socialism and 2) If you just work hard you will be rich and successful. That second point is the basic foundation of the so called "American Dream' and the basis for the Anti-Welfare Argument. Hard Work equals Success thus Failure equals Laziness. Read that sentence again. Now, does that make any sense?

I found a Howard Zinn quote that sums up my point here, if I may,

---Why should we accept that the "talent" of someone who writes jingles for an advertising agency advertising dog food and gets $100,000 a year is superior to the talent of an auto mechanic who makes $40,000 a year? Who is to say that Bill Gates works harder than the dishwasher in the restaurant he frequents, or that the CEO of a hospital who makes $400,000 a year works harder than the nurse or the orderly in that hospital who makes $30,000 a year? The president of Boston University makes $300,000 a year. Does he work harder than the man who cleans the offices of the university? Talent and hard work are qualitative factors which cannot be measured quantitatively. ---

Right now the richest person in the world, according to Forbes Magazine, is Carlos Slim. Now Mr. Slim was not born into wealth and, in his own way, worked his way up from the bottom. But, and this is key, he is an investor, meaning he makes money by giving people money. To suggest that giving people money is harder than, say, building a road, saving someone's life, or fighting in the military is a little ludicrous. Now, just to be clear, I am not saying that Mr. Slim has done anything wrong, he made his money in a perfectly legitimate way. He has also been generous with his money(he has donated four billion, yes billion, dollars to his charitable foundation however this is the core of my problem.

If a child complains that something is not fair what is the first response that pops into our heads? "Life Isn't Fair" and that's correct, but creates a problem with the so-called American Dream. The assumption that Hard Work=Success and Laziness=Failure is that the playing field is level which it just simply is not.

You may wonder why I care. So what if the American Dream is silly, so what if it makes no sense, it's just a cliche. But, it isn't. It's a way to view the world that many people have and if you view the world in that way then you will oppose welfare, because we're just subsidizing laziness. But, if we agree that the American Dream is flawed and Failure does not equal Laziness, then it is impossible to say that welfare is equivalent to subsidizing laziness.

2010 Midterm Democratic Fight Song

About 40 days away from the midterms, the Tea Party winning primaries right and left, Republicans poised to make gains, you know what it's time for?

That's right the 2010 Midterm Democratic Fight Song

2010 Midterm Democratic Fight Song
Tea Party keeps marching forward
with their insane economic agenda
and their candidates seem to get more fringe every day
and it seems like all hope for the dems has just gone away

Hey Hey
Let's Go vote now
Hey Hey
Vote for the Democrats

Liberalism is still around
We're ready to rise when we see the point
We are the progressive coalition
we love FDR and are real fans of Freedom of Religion

Hey Hey
Let's go vote now
Hey Hey
Vote for the Democrats

Republicans held the country
hostage to their filibuster
they shook their fists no, no to the military, no to health care
no to their own ideas no to making the economy a little more fair

Hey Hey
Let's go vote now
Hey Hey
Vote for the Democrats

rap bridge

I get that they didn't get much done
but the democratic party we shouldn't shun
if the moderation of Congress makes frown
imagine what things will be like when the Tea Party comes to town

I agree that the best way to prevent a conservative takeover
is to give the Democrats a makeover
to make 'em liberal again
maybe we'll get some movement then

but right now we gotta be happy with what we got
so vote for the Democrat even if you don't like him a whole lot

end rap bridge

Hey Hey
Let's go vote now
Hey Hey
Vote for the Democrats

vote against palin
and her divisive rhetoric
and her total lack of substance
and the far right idea she's trying to sell us

Hey Hey
Let's go vote now
Hey Hey
Vote for the Democrats

vote for the freedom
that we we guaranteed
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
and let's not tax the rich any less

Hey Hey
Let's go vote now
Hey Hey
Vote for the Democrats

vote against the talk show hosts
who yell and scream
when a Muslim wants to pray
or when a soldier who's fighting for us happens to be gay

Hey Hey
Let's go vote now
Hey Hey
Vote for the democrats

In which I am so freaking angry

Warning: The Following Post Contains Graphic Ranting Which May Offend members of the mild-mannered public

Alright so I'm mad. A new poll came out which says that 1/3 of Americans believe that President Obama is a Christian, down from 1/2 last year. And 1/5 of our wonderful nation think that Obama is a Muslim. A different poll has 47% for Christian and 24% for Muslim. Also 61% are opposed to the "Ground Zero" "Mosque" with 26% favoring it.

Soooooo, It is now official: We are total freaking idiots. I'm glad that's wrapped up, we can all go home. Ta-ta.

Seriously, did aliens visit the participants in that poll and steal their brains? I try very hard to be accepting of people with different beliefs and opinions than me, but this time I just can't. This is so ridicules and so crazy and so dangerous that it's time for me to stand up. We have people talking in the Senate of The United States of America about repealing the 14th Amendment! We have a law in Arizona that is blatantly racist!

We don't like Obama because he hasn't done the stuff he said he was going to so we're going to vote in a bunch of people who totally disagree with everything he's ever said. Does that Make sense? Heck no, but we're Americans, We don't think we just do!

None of this is Obama's fault. It is the Republicans who have perverted the Constitution so that you need 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. Their new motto is "No. I don't care what the question is, my answer is no" or as James McMurtry said "A Little Bit of Hope is a Dangerous thing"

In some ways I hope that the Republicans do win back the Congress this year so every day, every freaking day I can trash them. I will desimate them and I hope the Democrats do too. They won't be able to pass a single thing. But then Fox News will say that they're being "Obstructionists who are un-American". We just can't win.

I hope, I really hope that the American people will see sense and ignore the storyline that the media is creating and vote for the people who they agree with. The people who they think will do the best job.

Here are some lyrics to get my battle against the right started. These are not some of my most sophisticated lyrics but they get my point across.

Burn The Flag

Hey yeah

hey yeah we just got into congress
hey yeah it's time to rule the nation
it's time to destroy the nation

hey yeah it's time to fill our pockets
let's forget what our founders would have wanted
let's forget about what they would have wanted

let's shove our own insane agenda
down the throat of the USA

Hey let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and torch the white house
let's get together and topple the monuments

let's get together and build big bonfire
take the constitution
and toss it on it

let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag

hey yeah we are republicans the GOP
and we don't really care about economics
unless we can't fill our pockets

let's shove our own insane agenda
down the throat of the USA

let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag

come on let's go find old Maddison
dig em up stick em' on
a pole and burn him

let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag

I am a talk show host
and I don't care what I say
I just want people to like me

let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag
let's get together and burn the flag

let's shove our own insane agenda
down the throat of the USA

let's get together and burn the flag

a few words on sampling and the census along with some ideas for the 2020 census

Census are being mailed out and filled out this week so I decided to give you, surprise, a few words on sampling and the census along with some ideas for the 2020 census. So here we go.

While there are undeniable flaws in the Census system we have now, I don't think that sampling is a fair solution. I do not say that for political reasons, on the contrary my political party would be helped by sampling, I just have this crazy idea that when you count you should start at one, go to two, and then to three, and so on. I believe that no matter the expense we should make sure that everyone is counted. The government needs to reach out to leaders in the minority communities to help with getting minorities counted.


When you think about it there is really no reason why the census should cost 2.6 Billion Dollars. I mean basically you're(yes I know I'm talking directly to the government while before I wasn't, deal with it) mailing a ton of letters. I mean, come on, you guys own the post office can't you say to your employees “ don't charge us for these. We pay your salary after all.”? The government paying for postage is like a restaurant owner having to pay for dinner. It's crazy.

You could also probably find High School or College kids to volunteer or work minimum wage ringing doorbells or reading the letters or whatever it is census workers do. Then you get a paper company to donate paper for you, they can put in their commercials “Official paper of the U.S. Senate.” and find an ink company to donate the ink. So basically you're not paying for postage, paper, ink, or help. So it won't have to cost 2.6 Billion anymore. While we're on the subject, how the heck did you manage to spend 2.6 Billion Dollars. That is, and I worked it out on a calculator, $118.308,879,863 for every person in the united states. Surely paper and ink and postage couldn't have cost that much. Now that you don't have to spend 118 bucks per person you can put more money into making sure that minorities are counted and that people aren't counted twice. Now that I've brought it up I just wanted to ask how did you manage to count people twice. I mean it's kind of hard to do it accidentally.

The Supreme Court ruled that sampling was unconstitutional and I don't see any need to stir up trouble, resentment and anger over something that will become unnecessary if we are able to make the current system cost effective and able to count everyone.

Attention America, I'm about to be very unpatriotic

Like many other people I went to see fireworks with my family on the 4th, and I realised something....Fireworks are a big waste of money!! We spent approximately $193 Million to import fireworks from China. For what? Some pretty lights in the sky? Famvin reported that 9.1 million people died of hunger last year. Bread for the World reports that a child dies of hunger every five seconds. And we are spending $193 million on fireworks.

I like fireworks as much as anyone, but what purpose do they serve? They are pretty, but didn't China prove last year during the Olympics that CGI can work just as well? Let me hit you with some more statistics, God I love the Internet. The National Institute of Health reports that 1500 people die of cancer everyday in the US alone. America is ranked worst in preventable deaths, with 100.7 in 100,000 people died last year, according to commonsense. To make a long story short, people are dying and we are spending millions to set off pretty lights! People are dying, and no one seems to care!!

Alright I'm getting carried away, but come on! When you look at the figures it is hard to argue that it is worth it. But if you do think that it is worth it, then please tell me. Comment and tell me why you think that way. I will accept your opinion even though I might disagree with you. All I ask you to do is think about it, nothing more.

As-Salamu Alaykum