AUSTIN – The federal agency that oversees food stamps wants Texas to stop fingerprinting applicants as a way to save resources and speed up what the agency says is an unacceptably slow application system. But because Texas law requires the fingerprinting, the state’s Health and Human Services Commission finds itself caught between what the Legislature requires and what federal officials want.

“One of the things I think Texas needs to do is streamline their operations,” said William Ludwig, a regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. “Finger imaging is very time-consuming.”

Texas is one of four states with such a requirement, which supporters – including Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst – say prevents people from collecting benefits under more than one name.

Critics have said it is invasive, a waste of money and seeks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

The electronic fingerprinting costs $3 million a year: $1.6 million for Cogent Systems’ contract for the imaging and $1.4 million for state workers’ time. The state and federal governments split the cost.

Last year, the fingerprint program led to the state investigating four applicants for fraud. But state officials say it’s impossible to know how many people are deterred from applying multiple times because of the fingerprinting.

Ludwig told Texas officials last week in a letter that the state’s federal funds will be at risk if it doesn’t speed up its application processing. The federal government pays for all the food and splits administrative costs with the state.

Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission, said officials will consider eliminating fingerprinting but because it is done relatively quickly, “we really don’t think it helps this particular problem very much.”

[reprinted from the Austin American-Statesman 2009-10-02]

Most of the people posting comments are, of course, Conservative Republicans (I am in Texas, after all). Most of the respondents are of the opinion that because some people (a very few) commit fraud to get benefits, or misuse benefits once they have received them, that the program should be gotten rid of completely. This viewpoint is extremely insensitive to fellow human beings and ignorant of economic realities. I will now explain why…

There are some people who commit fraud to get benefits, or who misuse benefits, but there are a great many more who legitimately need help (more every day), mostly due to inflation caused by the greed of those in power who control the wealth and over time charge more for everything but pay the same or less.

The previous times that I have visited my local Health and Human Services office (in McKinney), there were tables to fill out forms, and a few chairs around each, and a few dozen people (max) waiting to be seen. The last few times (in recent weeks), there are only chairs, and hundreds of people filling the room, hungry, and sick with the flu, and wrapped around the block waiting to get in. It’s not because a lot more people suddenly decided to quit their jobs and let you support them with your precious taxes; it’s because the people that supposedly represent them (local, state, and federal) and the people who employee(d) constantly want and take more for themselves, at the expense of the people whose labor makes them rich.

I’m a single parent (white male) who has worked hard all of my adult life, and due to work-related back injuries and trouble finding full time work with benefits, I have had to use public assistance several times, even while working 2 jobs up to 7 days a week, just to barely be able to feed myself and my son and pay rent and electricity.

Here is my message to the hateful who have no sympathy for those less fortunate than themselves:

Those of you who are privileged enough to sit in luxury in big homes and drive around in gas guzzling trucks and SUVs (polluting and promoting the need for war) and cast judgment should count yourselves lucky, but not superior. A few unfortunate events and/or a few little mistakes in life, and you too could need help. That’s a fact that conservatives (fiscal and social) like to ignore. You are brainwashed by your leaders to think that just because you are white and Christian and racist like they are, that you too will someday get promoted up the ladder, or make your small business a big corporation, or get elected to office, or make it big in some other way (as a football player or country music singer?), so you support their selfish, vicious, imperial capitalism either because you also benefit from it, or because you think that you eventually will.

Those of you who spew hate against food benefits and medicaid and health care reform, decrying them as the evil of “socialism” should keep in mind that public schools and libraries and police and fire departments and paramedics and parks and water districts and the US military are socialist, and not private corporate for-profit entities. Should we dissolve these services and make everything private? It appears we already are with the rise of private prisons, police, and mercenary armies. Those things don’t inspire patriotism for American for me.

Those of you who say that there should be no welfare or food stamp benefits of any kind should consider that as time goes on, and more people are unemployed or underemployed and uninsured or under insured and losing their cars and homes, you may be joining the ranks of those you see as slackers and leaches. If you someday get downsized, or ill or injured, lose your insurance, lose your jobs, and end up homeless and hungry in the pro-corporate anti-human system that you propose, perhaps only then will you understand how naive your hateful self-righteousness really is. Let’s see if you still support the same corrupt politicians who get millions in campaign contributions and lobbying and secret bribes from big companies to pass and support laws that benefit the rich when you too, are poor.

I sincerely hope that you either take a look at your ideas and realize how hateful and ignorant and arrogant you are, and realize that you are not immune to the conditions of those whom you detest, and stop discriminating against your brothers and sisters who aren’t as successful, or that bad fortune befalls you and teaches you firsthand what it’s like to be one of the have-nots. Only then will karma be served.

Never consult your products paper or electronic manual, or search for
solutions on the company’s website or elsewhere on the Internet. That
kind of pro-active self help is just plain stupid. Why bother, right?

If the person taking your call has an accent different from yours,
instead of listening carefully to understand them, and appreciate
their help, instead immediately decide that they are less intelligent
than yourself, and are a “rude foreigner”. If the call center taking
your call is in your own country and speaks your own language,
don’t worry, it probably won’t be for long, as mega companies
exploit cheap labor at the expense of their own countries workers
and customers. Thank your political representative for ensuring
that is stays this way.

If you have to wait on hold for longer than you like, or be transferred,
waste even more of your valuable time telling the representative
how much of your valuable time has already been wasted. Make
sure they understand, even if it takes 30 to 45 minutes, that you
are very angry about having had to wait for 30 to 45 minutes. If
you waste as much of their time as you already waited, perhaps
then they will truly understand your situation, and will champion
your cause, all the way to the corporate executive, and get more
reps hired to decrease call times. Or perhaps they will just be
less likely to want to help or understand you. Either way, you can
be consoled by the fact that you have just contributed to the hold
time of the people after you in the queue.

If you are informed, after explaining your issue, that you have
either reached the wrong department, or that due to the info
that you have provided, it has been realized that another
department might better help you, become agitated and
unreasonable, and insist that whomever you are speaking to,
regardless of training, experience, qualification, or authorization,
be the one who helps you. This will immediately ingratiate you
to the representative, letting them know that you are willing to
help yourself to fix this problem. If the rep still insists on escalating
or transferring the call, waste more of your time (and everyone
else’s) by holding for a supervisor, so they can tell you the same
thing and then transfer you anyway, or waste more of your time
by trying to help you, when they have less experience than the
agent who was originally trying to help you.

When a representative is attempting to assist you with your issue,
by all means, do not listen or follow instructions. Skip ahead to
what you think they are going to have you try, start trying random
things, and/or do what the last person you talked to had you try.
This will ensure that your problem becomes worse, strengthening
the desperate bond between customer and agent. Then, while the
rep is explaining what you should be seeing, instructing you where
to look, look elsewhere and repeatedly insist that they are wrong or
that is not on your screen. Then finally, realizing that you are stupid,
say “that’s weird; now it’s there”

While on the phone with a representative, yell at your pets, kids,
spouse or roommates, or alternatively, tell an interesting story about
your life. Technical support is widely known to be a synonym for
“emotional support”. Don’t waste the time of the people at the
dating service or the suicide hotline.

If the agent is of the opposite sex (or the same, if that be your
fancy), then, by all means, make suggestive comments, ask
embarrassing personal questions, and finally, engage in awkward
sexual advances, offers, or boastful claims. If this doesn’t get
you hung up on or transferred, and the rep helps you anyway,
then, regardless of their tone, assume that they are into you,
and ask for them by name next time, naively assuming that the
next time you call, you are speaking to a person sitting next to
them, rather than someone in another building possibly in
another country.

If the agent is of a gender or race or culture that you consider to
be incompetent or otherwise inferior, be condescending and abusive,
or even ask to be helped by someone of your own kind. If the agent
sounds younger than yourself, assume that they are inexperienced
and won’t be able to help you, and be insulting or ask to be helped
by someone else. If the agent sounds older than yourself, assume
that they are antiquated and out of touch with current issues,
products, and techniques, and be abusive or ask to be helped by
someone else. This kind of self righteousness is the kind of classy
that never goes out of style, and when the agent transfers you,
explaining what an ass you are, you can be sure that their friend
will do everything possible to help you!

If you enter and are not immediately greeted by the host, hostess,
waiter, waitress, or a manager, seat yourself and your party and
just assume that someone will know that you need service, especially
when the restaurant is full and busy. This way, when someone comes
to the table, you can complain, or, even better, if you have to wait
a while for someone and/or go looking for help, you can complain
even more.

When your server first comes to the table, be sure to either ignore
them completely, continuing your conversation (which is best if
loud and offensive), or, alternatively, begin the exchange with
some kind of insulting statement or aggressive ultimatum about
how you expect better service and/or food than last time. Just
assume that your server is as incompetent or inattentive as
whomever has served you poorly in the past. Don’t even give
them a chance!

Don’t bother remembering the name of the person helping you,
especially when they have a name tag. That way, when you ask
someone else to help you or to get your server or to let your server
know you want something, you can come up with an interesting,
hopefully personally slanderous description of your server, and
hope the other employee can derive from this whom you are
talking about.

If you find your server physically attractive, make them uncomfortable
by undressing them with your eyes, winking, making inappropriate
(sexually suggestive) comments and/or advances, or possibly even
attempting to grope or fondle them. Assume that if you tip them well,
especially over the course of multiple visits, that they will eventually
realize that they should go out with you, have sex with you, marry
you, or whatever it is that you are dreaming of. This kind of thing
seems classiest when you have been drinking and can blame the
alcohol…

If you are racist, sexist, or ageist, be sure to make this obvious
in your treatment of your server. And be loud enough about it
so that not only those in your party, but even other tables and
workers get the full effect of your small minded abuse.

Never explain up front whether you want one or separate checks.
That makes it too easy. And if the server bothers to ask, so they
can keep track of what each person is ordering (especially for
large parties), tell them it will be one check, and then at the
end change your mind. It takes forever, and is fun for everybody!

Why bother ordering a soda or lemonade when you can just
order water and keep asking for more sugar and/or lemons?
Be cheap. Rip them off. They will remember and love you for
it! It’s also fun to order a drink you’ve never tried, without so
much as asking for a description or sample, and then ask for
something else, and to not be charged for the drink you are
wasting.

Never, ever order anything the way it comes. Always ask for
less, more, or some kind of alteration or substitution. Not only
is it quite often insulting to the chef who created the combinations,
but it’s hard to explain to the kitchen workers and any other
servers who might run the food for your server.

Don’t waste your breath asking that things you don’t like and
don’t intend to eat be left off your order. It’s just food, after all.
The more that gets bought, prepared, and then wasted, becoming
methane producing landfill fodder (contributing to global warming),
the better! It takes way too much effort to ask the server to leave
off that side item you don’t care for…

If you’ve talked to the manager, even once, always tell your
server how you are friends with them, and how they always
let you order things your special way or give you a special
discount. It’s fun for the server when they go to verify with
the manager and get to hear about how presumptuous you
are.

If your server doesn’t come around to check on you often enough
to keep you stocked with what you need to enjoy your visit, instead
of politely asking them if they need to ask someone else for help, or
mentioning to a manager that they look like they are busy and working
hard need less tables or more assistance, instead become irrationally
angry and make a big scene. That will allow your server to run faster
and force their other customers and the cooks in the kitchen to not
make them wait so long on orders, payments, and food, so they can
help you better.

If your server comes around more often than you would like, instead
of politely informing them that you are all doing fine and they don’t
need to worry about you again for “X” number of minutes or until
you signal them, become enraged and complain about wanting
peace, privacy, or whatever, and then inform them that their
bothering you is going to negatively affect their tip. This will
make you a favorite!

When paying your bill, make it unclear whether you are waiting
on the server to ring you out, by not placing your credit card
in the (visible) slot provided. As your server makes passes by
and/or watches from a distance, don’t indicate with any kind
of signal or body language when you are ready to pay, or
when your payment is ready. That way, you waste your time
and their’s, and it gives you something else to complain about.

When paying with cash, either use as large a bill as possible,
so the server will probably have to get change from another
server, the bar, the manager, or the office, or use lots of small
change, and don’t explain that the loose coins will fall out of
the tray (under the bills) or out of the book the receipt was
in. Either way, you waste more time and make the server look
and feel incompetent.

When tipping, if you even bother with such nonsense at all,
always leave the bare minimum. Try to get away with 10%
(or less?), but never go over 15%. I mean, come on, a lot
of these servers are making up to $2.25 an hour! Why
contribute to their unfair wealth by giving them even more?

After your meal, stay as long as possible without ordering anything else.
If you want to have a 2 or 3 hour conversation, don’t bother going to a
bar or home; stay and occupy a table, so the server makes less tips for
the day and thus will have even more problems paying their overwhelming
bills. This is especially helpful if the server has a small section,
and/or other parties are also “camping” at their other tables.

If something about your experience is less than perfect, instead of
letting your server and/or the management know about it, just go
out in the world and talk trash about the establishment, and/or go
online and write a nasty review or blog. That’s mature, and kind!

Be sure to complain to each employee, and possibly management
about how there are not enough workers, even though they know
this even better than you do. Also, delay your own transaction and
those of the people behind you by going off on a rant about how
long you have waited in line, wasting even more of your time,
instead of thanking the person who is trying to get you the fuck
out of the store for helping you. Ignore the evil looks and sighs
and angry talking between the other customers as you make a
total ass of yourself. Don’t bother calling the CEO, who is making
more money by not hiring enough people to help their customers.

While shopping, and using fitting rooms, (where applicable) please
never put anything back where you found it. This makes earning an
unlivable wage all the more pleasant for the wage-slave, and serves
as training for employees, helping them get to know the department.
It is especially helpful, to throw things on the floor. This is
particularly considerate of injured, disabled, and older employees,
as well as other customers who might be looking for the item that
you obviously were not.

If you have any children, please ensure that they are loud, rude,
and completely out of control at all times. Let them climb on
dangerous fixtures, creating massive spills for employees to
clean up, ensuring future job security, as well as a pleasant
experience for fellow shoppers. Also, it is helpful to let your kids
rip open packages and scatter toys about, so that they might
be thrown away, resulting in corporate loss (which helps with
layoffs and lower wages), or discounted severely, which is
great for less fortunate shoppers.

Don’t bother deciding what you are actually going to purchase
during the shopping process, instead bring it with you, and throw
it all around the cashier area, or stand and make others wait as
you deliberate and finally hand it to the cashier for them to put
away your mess for minimum wage.

When you find an item with no price, don’t bother employees
on the sales floor who know the area and items, instead ask the
cashier, who will then call the salespeople to help you while other
customers stand and curse you and the cashier stresses and nods
apologetically to the other customers as they attempt to not hit
or strangle you.

When you find an item without a price tag, say “I guess it’s free
then” and laugh, expecting the employee, who has heard this
several million times to find it as amusing as the first time.

When attempting to purchase an item, always ask if the price
indicated is actually the price. You never know, that $100 jacket
might be on sale today only for $0.99!

When asking for a possible mark-down on a slightly imperfect item,
especially when the said item is already shown to be marked down,
don’t trouble the workers on the sales floor. Instead wait until
checking out, so the other customer in line can benefit from your
entertaining bartering with the manager, when the manager finally
comes out of hiding to help the cashier.

When returning an item, be sure to either misplace the receipt,
(preferably not realizing that until looking through your stack of
receipts in your wallet or purse at the register as everyone waits)
or if you do have the receipt, be sure that it is faded and crumpled
beyond any recognition, so the cashier will be unable to scan the
bar code or read any pertinent information required to complete
your return. That way you can both enjoy the wait for a manager,
together.

When returning an item, also be sure to lose or destroy any and
all original packaging, and preferably also any tag indicating brand,
model, and price. If at all possible be sure the item looks and functions
as if it has been used, so the cashier must wait for a manager to
argue with you but finally give in and give you what you want, which
is of course credit for something that either didn’t even come from this
store, or that you got here and used for months or years, and now
want to get something else with, that you will also return at a later
date, in similar condition, and likely at another store.

When using the restrooms, be as dirty as you wanna be. It is polite
to draw and/or carve graffiti, using markers, feces, knives, or spray
paint. This can be done on mirrors, fixtures (hand dryers, change
tables), and the doors and walls of stalls. Be creative; your audience
will thank you for it. Include misspelled praises of Satan (Satin),
claims of sexual fortitude and prowess, phone numbers of any
promiscuous person you know of, gang slogans and logos, and
racial slurs and threats. Nothing improves the experience of shitting
in public more than a little light reading or writing, and you can leave
satisfied in the knowledge that some poor wage-slave will have to
clean your feces cave drawings, or repaint over your offensive,
albeit quite creative endeavors.

“…Congress can do much more to ensure that companies act more responsibly on executive compensation  by taking a simple, straightforward step: eliminating the tax break for irresponsibly high CEO pay…”

“…By eliminating the deduction for any compensation above $1 million, they can simplify the tax code, abolish the taxpayer subsidy for irresponsible compensation and restore bonuses and stock options to their original purpose of rewarding good performance rather than as a means to avoid paying taxes…”

READ MORE @ New York Daily News

TEA BAGGERS are SWALLOWING WHOLE the Fox News STAFF's SCHTICK

MSNBC’s David Schuster: If You’re Planning Tea Bagging Across The Country, ‘You’re Going To Need A Dick Armey’

This is pretty damned funny! He uses most, if not all, of the innuendo I’ve already heard floating around…

I took the liberty of transcribing it:

“For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15th will be Tax Day, but in our fourth story tonight it’s going to be TEA-BAGGING day for the right wing and they are going NUTS for it! Thousands of the WHIPPED OUT the festivities early this weekend and though the parties are officially TOOTHLESS, the protesters are FULL-THROATED about their goals. They wanna give President Obama strong TONGUE-LASHING and LICK government spending. Spending they did not oppose when they were under Presidents Bush and Reagan. They oppose Mr. Obama’s tax rates which will be lower for most of them, and they oppose the tax increases Mr. Obama is imposing on the rich, whose taxes will skyrocket to a rate that’s about 10% less than it was under Reagan. That’s TEA-BAGGING, in a NUTSHELL. Taking it’s inspiration from the Boston Tea Party when colonists tossed British tea into the sea because the tax on it had not been voted on by their duly elected representatives. That’s exactly the opposite, of course, of todays’ taxes, which is known in some quarters as ‘Taxation With Representation’. But as New York Times coumnist Paul Crudeman points out today, this time the TEA-BAGGING is not a SPONTANEOUS UPRISING, the people who came up with it are a familiar circle of Republicans, including former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, and former house majority leader Dick Armey, both of whom have FIRM support from right wing financiers and lobbyists, as well as Washington prostitute patron, Senator David Vitter who has issued statements in support of TEA-BAGGING, but is publicly type-left. Then, there was the media, specifically the Fox ‘News’ Channel, including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Both are looking forward to an UP CLOSE and PERSONAL TASTE of TEA-BAGGING, themselves at events this Wednesday. But most amusing of all is Neil Cavuto, a member of the network’s executive committee. Neil’s online bio says he joined the network in July 1996, three months before the Fox News channel went on the air. Cavuto, defending his network’s promotion of TEA-BAGGING, said, quote ‘We are going to be right in the middle of these [TEA-BAGGERS], because at Fox we do not pick and choose these rallies and protests. We were there for the Million Man March.’ Can we roll that footage, the footage of Fox News at the Million Man March, back in October of ‘95? Of course the Million Man March occurred, as NewsHounds.org points out, almost a year before Fox News was on the air. We can only speculate why widespread TEA-BAGGING made Cavuto think of the Million Man March… Unless, he got them confused with DICK ARM[E]Y. And in Cavuto’s defense, if you are planning SIMULTANEOUS TEA-BAGGING around the country, you’re going to need a DICK ARMY!”

What David Schuster failed to include in his brilliant report, and what makes me fear for my country, much as Glenn Beck does (or pretends to), is that many of the NUT-JOBS that host and attend these NUT-FESTS to express their opinions in a (hopefully) peaceful manner, and to have a BALL (or two) with some good friends or like-minded strangers are the same people that believe, as many TEA-PARTY websites and flyer’s propose, in a “revolution”, and the same people who are buying conservative t-shirts that say “vote from the rooftops” (with pictures of sniper rifles), inferring that they wish to assassinate President Obama. I saw one conservative t-shirt for sale online that said “R.I.P. The American Dream, 1776-2008″. I thought a black man becoming the president was a pretty clear indicator that the American dream is alive and well. Perhaps these revolutionary TEA-BAGGERS who believe in “voting from the rooftops” (with sniper rifles) are racially motivated? I guess their American dream doesn’t include people who aren’t white. Or maybe it’s just jealousy? They are openly into TEA-BAGGING, so perhaps they are jealous, as black men are popularly known for having larger TEA-SPOUTS than they do…

I’m afraid that many of the TEA-BAGGERS attending the TEA-PARTIES today are lost souls, searching for a new direction, possibly a violent one. As Anderson Cooper said on CNN when describing why it’ been HARD for the Republicans to find their voice after the election, “it’s hard to talk when you’re TEA-BAGGING“

I’ve got to say, whoever created and has promoted this movement really made quite a snafu by not researching the social connotations of their terminology, but, I guess there’s no such thing as bad press. I just hope for the Republicans sake that they don’t, as I saw one guy comment on Glenn Beck’s 9-12 Project website “make up places to protest flag burning and call the Old GLORY HOLES“.

Keith Olbermann also did a funny segment about TEA-BAGGING, including some more good innuendo, including:

“SPILLING into the streets, CHOKING off traffic … pushed their own vision of TEA-BAGGING DOWN THE THROATS of the TEA-BAGGERS … SEMINAL moment … ONE LUMP OR TWO?”

And, for the enjoyment of those who are just becoming familiar with the sexual slang used for decades, and for the enlightenment of those who still don’t get it, I’ve included the following links to some definitions on Urban Dictionary:

TEA-BAGGER TEA-BAG TEA-BAGGING TEA PARTY

I think if my children and grandchildren could grow up in a country where they could breathe, afford to go to college, find a job, and get insurance, that they would be glad to pay for that, versus growing up in a country which, as of now, looks as if it will have clouds of coal and oil fumes to blind and choke my children and grandchildren, who won’t be able find jobs, or afford college, health care, or possibly even food or gas.

I’ve been watching C-SPAN, and almost every Republican repeats this “it’s not fair for our children and grandchildren to have to pay for this” mantra, almost every time they speak. I know what they are really saying: it’s not fair for THEIR children and grandchildren to have to pay to fix the world that THEIR greed and selfishness and shortsightedness have created, even if it means a lower standard of living for MY/OUR children and grandchildren.

These guys weren’t arguing when Bush spent hundreds of billions on the Iraq war, or when the bailout for their rich embezzler banker buddies got hundreds of billions, but when it comes to hundreds of billions to make a better life for the core of America, the working class, the middle (and increasingly lower) class, “NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO SPEND A TRILLION DOLLARS!”

They didn’t seem to be worried about the National Debt before, BUT…

When they hear that it might be spent on solar, wind, and hydrodynamic energy to compete with the coal and oil guys who bribe them to make policies that benefit them, they stand up against spending. When they hear that the big business lobbyists might have to pay taxes to provide health care for the workers who make them rich and die from lack of insurance and retirement benefits (which were reduced over decades to increase the business owners already tidy profits) they stand up against spending.

When they hear that the taxes of the rich might help my poor son go to college to get a good job to not be poor someday, and to compete with their son who is put through the best schools because they profited from friendships with big business that I and my fellow Americans have worked so hard for for so little compensation, and that OUR children and grandchildren, if educated, might want jobs someday that their big business buddies plan on farming to third world countries to save money, they stand up against spending.

Well, I am glad for one that they are standing up! I wish they were standing in line at the unemployment or welfare office, so they would see the need to spend money on PEOPLE!

(You probably thought I was going to say I wish it was against a wall in front of a firing squad, or in a line at a guillotine, or underneath the nooses hanging from the gallows!)

I say, debt be damned!

If Obama wants to spend a trillion a year for 10 years, and it means we can get away from being the bend-over bitches of the middle eastern oil barons, create jobs for our record numbers of unemployed people, and ensure college and health care for at least some of our children and grandchildren, shouldn’t we do it?

These are the same guys who are probably always saying things like “you gotta spend money to make money”.

Well, guess what? Spending money in Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran is not going to make us any money.

It might make your defense contract buddies or your oil stock buddies or you money, but most of us are not seeing a dime.

OUR children and grandchildren need education, jobs, health care, and a clean environment, not more terrorists avenging their dead family members!

I did a search for toys with lead paint on the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website, and got a LOT of results. This is an ongoing problem, but so far, I haven’t heard about anybody doing anything to fix it. Why do we keep doing things this way? Because it’s more profitable for big toy companies and retailers like Wal-Mart to pay a few cents an hour for Chinese labor than to provide jobs to Americans at reasonable pay rates; it cuts into executive bonuses, secret off-shore embezzlement accounts, and political action committees’ lobbying funds, which help pave the way for further offenses against the people.

China also has no environmental protection agency, their energy use is spiraling out of control, and they are quickly on their way to becoming the worlds biggest polluter and the most polluted place on Earth. So, in addition to contributing to American unemployment and health hazards for consumers (especially users of products for babies and children), big American companies using Chinese labor to make their products also helping to pollute the world, speed up global warming, and melt the ice of Greenland, Siberia, the Arctic, and Antarctica, which places 60% of the world’s population in danger of being flooded as global sea levels rise over shorelines in the next few decades. Billions of people’s health and very lives are being endangered so that a few millionaires can become billionaires and a few billionaires can become trillionaires. It is time to say NO MORE!

Our government, who seems to have no problem spending trillions of dollars on wars to get oil, and hundreds of billions of dollars to bail-out corrupt and inefficient financial institutions (whom, after being bailed out aren’t even wanting to loan money anymore), should be willing to spend some billions on the people and infrastructure of this once (and hopefully again) great nation.

It seems to me that any economic stimulus package should take into account the jobs stolen from Americans by big business over the year, and start the process of bringing them back. Sure, it’ll piss of China, possibly ensuring future war with them, but hey, whatcha gonna do? The exporting of jobs to other countries by American companies should be taxed to the point where it is not profitable to take jobs away from Americans.

Take our unemployed masses, pay them to build clean, renewable energy power plants of solar arrays, wind farms, and hydrodynamic devices, and new manufacturing facilities run by this clean power, and then put them, and others to work making lead-free products for themselves and other American consumers.

My message to American corporations and politicians is basically this: It is grossly unethical to exploit the poverty of the people of other nations for cheap labor, and then exploit the people of your own country by charging many times more for items than the foreigners make to produce them, resulting in ever increasing  profit margins for yourselves, growing environmental damage from Chinese manufacturing processes, and ever decreasing job opportunities for the American people, who are your primary consumers, anyway. If we continue to lose all of our manufacturing (not to mention technical support and engineering) jobs to other countries and become a nation of part-time retail clerks and waitstaffers, who is going to be able to afford to buy all your cheap plastic toxic-lead-painted crap?

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The following article contains offensive racial slurs, which I have heard from others and quoted to make a point about the stupidity of racism, and I neither condone, promote, or use these terms myself, as I find them very ignorant and hurtful.

I am a progressive, liberal, compassionate, and logical human being of mixed-race descent (Scotch-Irish and Cherokee) living in Dallas, Texas.

I am often embarrassed to be associated with white people from the southern United States of America. They are, in great part, racists who think that (I quote their offensive slurs, which I do not use myself) “Niggers”, “Spics”, “Chinks”, “Heebs”, and “Sand Niggers” are the reason that they are poor and unsuccessful, instead of blaming the old, rich, white men who claim to be “Christians” while accumulating ungodly sums of money by raising prices of goods and services, lowering wages, salaries, and benefits, and selling our country out from under us, with jobs, roads, and ports going to the highest bidder. If these poor caucasian saps would instead make friends and allies of the African-American AKA Black, Hispanic AKA Latino, Asian AKA Oriental, Jewish AKA Hebrew, and Muslim AKA Arab people living among them, then we could perhaps make some progress in taking back our country from the true terrorists: the Rich! (I use the “AKA”s above to illustrate that it’s hard to be politically correct and not offend anyone these days, because nobody can seem to decide what they want their group to be called from decade to decade.)

In a recent conversation, I expressed a sincere hope that the positive example set by Barack Obama as a person of color who has acheived much and promises to help his country become better might give pause to the more violent and racist elements of the African-American community and inspire some of them to move forward and let go of the past to forgive the whites of the present for the sins of the whites of the past. The person I was talking too said, and I quote, “They were niggers before he was elected, and they’re still niggers after…”  I was offended, and ended the conversation because not only did I think I would be able to change the person’s mind, but my 3 year old son was present, and I didn’t want him to hear another utterance of the word “nigger”, which, when said in a playful way as a term of endearment, I don’t find offensive whether it comes from a black or a white person, but when, used as an insult to dismiss an entire race of people as ignorant or inferior, infuriates me! I later thought of a comeback, which I wish I had responded with at the time: The people who elected Bush were rednecks before he was elected, and they are still rednecks after…

The Conservative media tells me every day that illegal immigrants from Mexico are taking my jobs, even though they are mostly doing  jobs that I don’t want, while the government gets paid by corporations to send the jobs I do want to China, India, The Phillipines, etc. where they can save a few bucks.

I also grow weary of trying to explain to close-minded, racist, hateful, fearful rednecks how not all Muslims are terrorists, just as not all Protestants and Catholics blow each other up in cafes like the Irish and English have done during their spats. For white suburban Texans to assume that all followers of Islam are suicide bombers is just unrealistic and fanatical, and primarily based on poor upbringing. The average John Doe Redneck is as brainwashed by his government, media, parents, friends and coworkers as the many Middle-Eastern Muslims who, after being told by their leaders at the point of a gun that the West is the “Great Devil”, think that all Christians are two-faced, greedy, empire-minded lunatics who go on crusades to convert the world to their faith, although it is true that many of the wealthy and powerful are.

I am complaining here mostly about racism by white people, which is what I have witnessed the most where I grew up and now live, but I am in no way trying to ignore racism by other cultures. It’s just not much of an issue for me. Even when I’ve been places like downtown Dallas, Oak Cliff, and Pleasant Grove, here in D/FW, and also in poor black neighborhoods in Jackson, MS and Los Angeles, CA, I have barely ever had a black person, even among groups of imposing looking young men, ever be rude to me. On the contrary, I have stopped and asked young black men comparing guns and cars for directions and had them call me brother. In contrast, I have had many unintelligent, undereducated, ignorant whites, especially in Mississippi, Lousiana, and Texas, who have started fights with me for no apparent reason. And I look white. Go figure… I guess they can smell intelligence and open-mindedness and it scares them. Babies, kids, elderly folks, and animals love me, so it’s the rednecks at fault here, not me!

I think the best preventative medicine against future racism is to talk to groups of young kids of various races in groups in school, and let them openly discuss how their parents talk about people of other races, and how it makes them feel, and then let the kids of other races tell them how it makes them feel. Then show the kids how much they have in common. I bet most of them will make friends. Kids learn faster than adults.

As for curative measures for people presently already infected with the deadly (in some cases) affliction of racism, I figure until we figure out how to re-program their brains or make a pill or injection to fix them, we should release all non-violent drug offenders from the prisons and put the racists in there instead.

Let them hate and fear and insult and fight and kill each other where the rest of us don’t have to deal with it anymore.

Maybe early on in evolution, racism helped a herd of tribe of people survive and protected them from other competing groups, but racist people are now as obsolete as fossil fuels. Too bad we are still having to put up with both of them.