Be careful who you vote for. He just might stick it to you like he has been for half a century.

Did you ever wonder why there are only two main candidates in the presidential election? Why do we have just a two-party system? Do we have a two-party system? There are others out there. Some independents actually win elections. Jesse Ventura became a Reform Party governor. Bernie Sanders is an independent Senator. Sanders is one of the few voices in politics that ever bother to criticize the status quo. We need more.

Cindy Shehan, Rosanne Barr, and Jill Stein all have very active political voices and followings in the current election. So why do people think there's only a two party system? Why do they think that voting for a third party candidate is a waste of a vote? Why do they think they are stuck with the best of two evils? It's amazing to me that so many people think this way. They only do so because those same people all think this way. It's like saying I believe I suck because I believe I suck. If only I believed I was good, I'd stand a chance of being good, maybe great. If even just a majority of people were to start thinking in terms of voting for the best of all instead of the best of evils, there would be no more two party system. There would be no more worst of evils. There would be no more independents that don't stand a chance.

We see decade after decade, at least since Johnson left office, that both parties are pretty much the same. Good cop - bad cop. We see people tricked by the political money controlled media into believing they have to accept the tiny little bits of what they perceive as better in one candidate over another. Why do people accept this?

When you go the market, if you have a choice only between milk about to expire in five days versus milk about to expire in four days, do you just go with the five day milk? Are you that lazy that you can't find another store with fresh milk, good for a month? If you keep buying the five day milk, why should the store get fresh milk like the farmer's market down the street? They have no incentive because you accept their crappy milk. The minute I hear someone admit they vote for the best of evils, they lost me. To them I say, it's your fault, because you keep voting for assholes, and I resent it. You're screwing this country. You're screwing me. You're screwing yourself. Why?

OK. Enough food analogies (from the root 'anal'). You get the point. There are only two major candidates because you, the people, believe there are. It's all in your head, as it was in mine for a long time. You have the power to unseat the two party system and make government work for you, and all you have to do is know that you have that power, because you do have that power.

It's a great thing that a black man became president. Unprecedented. It's wonderful. But is this really what the presidency is about? The color of skin? All Wall Street has to do to win you over and make you roll over like sheep is to put a black man on the ticket with the word "change" and you are sold. How easy is that? I voted him in too. I was excited. But then what did he actually do? He maintained all of Bush's policies. He broke his promises. He keep GITMO open. He signed a law that allows arrest and conviction of American citizens without due process in direct violation of the Constitution. He escalated war. Bush could never get away with all that without massive protest and outrage. I doubt Romney could either. You think Occupy was protest and outrage? Imagine what it would have been with Bush still in office. Imagine what it will be if Romney wins? Does that scare you?

Would you prefer a totalitarian America? Doesn't that scare you? Are you not bothered that police departments across America now have military grade weapons and tanks that they roll out against nonviolent protesters? Does it not bother you that police continue to be held above the law, commit murder of innocent people and get away with it scot free? These people in office have absolute power, like a dictator, but with the sham of a staged election to lull you into complacency. Because he is Obama, we all just roll over and accept this police state on the brink of totalitarianism. He gave us a few tidbits of crumbs of change to make us believe that this is how it has to be when you go up against the system. And you accept that?

Do you think the new health care law (ACA) actually helps people? There are a very few token cases cited in the media of people whose lives were actually saved by this band-aid law. This law was passed to shut you up. Doctors and nurses continue to press and protest for better reform for all Americans, not just a select handful. We see this year that 48,000 Americans die every year from lack of health care, compared to 45,000 in a 2009 Harvard study by the same scholars. While the law helps a few, it actually cuts out many more in the name of insurance profits. As long as profit is tied to people's health, people will die for the profits of the investors. But because it's called 'Obamacare' we accept it as teeny tiny little baby step in the right direction. Is it really? Insurance companies have the system rigged in their favor. That's what they do. It's all they do. Don't take my word. Ask doctors.

Do you think not voting is a vote for the opposition? That's negative logic. That's a con man's logic. You're being conned. If it's Romney or Obama it doesn't really matter. It's not Republicans against Democrats. It's fat cat politicians against actual working people like you who feed them with your life blood and sweat; you who send your sons and daughters off to a useless war for oil and war profits at the expense of poor education, poor health care, and a dismal economy. Keep working for the man, keep being exploited and the man will keep on doing it to you. You keep him in his ivory towers with his white tie galas to celebrate your stupidity. He keeps taking your money, borrows from your future, and your children's futures, to pay for his luxury, and you accept it. You cheer for it. You keep asking for it. You get what you ask for. Be careful who you vote for. He just might stick it to you like he has been for half a century.

People are not Savings Accounts for Bankers

Whenever someone says money is the problem, someone else will invariably say, no it's not money, it's the way people deal with money. It's the people who abuse money. Wrong. It is money. If there were no money people wouldn't have an option to deal with it, right or wrong. It's not about people. I mean just look at all the upstanding (mostly white, mostly male) people on Wall Street.  They can't help it if the system works the way it does. They're just trying to survive on a minimum mid six figures. They're just giving their clients what they want. So right there we know it can't be the people who deal with the money. It's the money!

In this clip from Margin Call, Jeremy Irons, perched in his ivory tower, says that without money we'd kill each other for food. Bullshit.  The second I heard that line I suspected this film was Wall Street propaganda. But I haven't seen the whole thing yet so I'll limit my criticism to Iron's dialog here.


As long as money exists as a universal exchange for almost anything you need, even your own health, there will always be people who exploit it and hoard it. Money has only been around for a few thousand years. Humanity got along just fine with out it for many more thousands of years before that. You might look back at bartering and say, 'so am I supposed to trade cows for a living now?' No. People traded livestock because that's what they owned. People own many more things now; computers, cell phones, TVs, cameras, art, music. Barter today might not be so bad an idea. In fact EBay is just one step away from modern day barter, and Amazon and others have simialr operations were people sell all kinds of possessions on the open market.

Is it really so absurd to live without money? What would happen? Would people resort to crime to just take whatever they want, like how we see Wall Street taking people's lives at the rate of 45,000 annually for health insurance profits? Or how the military industry takes millions of innocent lives, devastates millions of American and foreign families, and proliferates and perturbs more wars just to make exorbitant profits?



I think we need to guarantee all people a minimum standard of living, even regardless of citizenship. If war profiteers didn't need to spend hundreds of trillions on useless wars, sucking up over half the federal budget, we could easily afford this. But without money, there would be no affording things. Everything would be resourced based. Do we have the resources to house, feed, educate, and maintain people's health? Of course we do. Do we have the resources to build war machinery and award padded contracts? Without money there is no padding. You provide your services in exchange for comforts and necessities of life. Maybe there could be incentives for more resources for people who earn them. But what would be eliminated is the making of money just for the sake of accumulating money.

Money is not wealth. Money is simply a medium of exchange. If we can't limit money to being only a medium and not a commodity in itself, then it no longer works as a medium, because it is hoarded. A phone line is a medium. If phones were commodities then they could be hoarded and only a very few could have a phone. People try to hoard phone lines by having monopoles. But it hasn't worked yet. There are still many competitive ways to have a phone line. A phone line also has limited value, while money has universal value as long as everyone accepts it.

There's no easy answer. I've heard about individual based currencies where people issue their own money in exchange for someone's goods or services. That currency would have limited value. If the person has a good reputation their money becomes valuable. But they control it. Not the government. And there is no making money on the exchange of money.

Another idea might be to remove interest charges, or at least to limit them to a flat rate and not an annuity. You borrow money for college, you pay it back when you can at a flat 5% interest rate that doesn't increase year after year. If you borrow $10,000 you pay back $10,500 forever. No interest accumulations. People are not savings accounts for bankers.

Are you desperate for Obama?

Chris Hedges: '...when you reduce people to a level of desperation, they're much easier to control...'