We are the 13%

I appreciate what the Occupy movement is trying to do...

But I am not the 99%.

No - I am not a millionaire. I am barely a thousand-aire. Most months I am lucky if I am a hundred-aire.

The reason I am not part of the 99% is that there is no such thing as the 99%.

Do you know why there are so few in the parks for the Occupy protests?

Not because most people like to bathe daily or get sick of drum circles - which also happens to be true.

The fact is that there is no movement no matter how broad that could hope to cater to 99% of any population. Think about how hard it is to make dinner for a family of five to agree to the same food items.

Yes - there are plenty out there who think that the rich and some of those "bankers on Wall Street" (whoever that really is) are living off the backs of the middle class and the poor.

There are also those who resent the financial crisis and the ensuing bailouts who think there is something inherently dangerous about the coziness of the government and the financial sector.

And there are those are unemployed and are pissed that some people make oodles of money for what seems like little work.

So then why is it that there is not MORE rage in the streets.

Two reasons that I can see:

1. Many, if not most, people somehow believe that they will make it into the 1%. This sounds dumb.  But how many times have you thought about how you would spend your lottery winnings?  Don't deny it. The American Dream PROMISES us that if we work hard we will be rich.  Not comfortable. RICH.
2. The Occupy movement is not just about bailouts or financial ruin. It is also about unemployment, out-of-control capitalism, legalizing marijuana, pretending to be a hippie, sticking it "the man", yelling at those guys that two years earlier drove a Beamer on campus and popped their collars, political impotence, lack of voice, etc... In short - people are pissed about a lot but they are not quite sure how to phrase it or where to go to the bathroom - and is that incense? Or at least that is how we see the Occupiers.

So to #1. Many people believe that someday they might become rich.  And therefore they want to protect their future wealth from those jerks the middle class (which they are) so that they can stay as the elite (which they will never become). We want to believe that we can all make it big.  If we just save enough, if we work overtime a couple times, if we just have a brilliant idea.

Yes of course I want all leather seating in my car.  I deserve it.

So many in the middle class - while definitely drowning in debt - are also in many ways comfortable.  They have a house which they pay a mortgage, they have food, they have two cars and two kids.  They just can never save anything and they can never pay down the debt.  But even this is not enough.  We deserve more.  The Joneses have it - 'and you know we work harder than they do'.

Is this everyone? No.  But then again that is my point. The middle class and the poor represents a full spectrum of wealth and possession. One may easily be in poverty and yet have cable.  Others may not live in poverty, but are one missed paycheck from insolvency.

As to #2.  Occupy ____________ (your city here). You know those crazy kids and their pot and their peeing in the streets.  Nothing exemplifies liberal movement better than this clip from the Daily Show (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-16-2011/occupy-wall-street-divided). I apologize if this link is no longer active.  But it is great to watch true democracy in action...which is hopeless inaction and debate.  Even the people in the same protest are divided on strategy, message, purpose - everything!

That's why I say "We are the 13%".  What that 13% is, I would be hesitant to say... but I do know one thing.  13% is still bigger than 1%.

Muppets Take Stalingrad

"What's actually going on there? Is liberal Hollywood using class warfare to brainwash our kids?" anchor Eric Bolling said of the new Muppets movie.

The Fox Business news anchor posed this question because the main villain of the new Muppets movie is (spoiler alert) an oil tycoon.  An EVIL oil tycoon. And Eric Bolling is taking this as a Marxist conspiracy against the American public.


Except that even children understand that muppets are...well...not real.


Let's be fair.  Yes - the muppets do have a more "left-ist" ideals like tolerance, working together, and friendship. But the plot involves the oil tycoon wanting to tear down the Muppets theater to drill for oil. But then the Muppets try to raise money through hard work to buy back their home.


That sounds like a capitalistic dream of working hard to make money to purchase things to make things right.  The Muppets weren't rounding up humans to work on a communal farm while forcing them to burn Bibles.


But... even if they did - which would be a cool movie  - THEY'RE PUPPETS.


Now I am not naive enough to think that stories like this have no effect on children, in fact the morals of all stories do work to shape our values.  As does basic parenting. This story talks about standing up to unfair practices and someone who is "evil" - which is about the most common theme in all of story-telling.


Eric Bolling however is not saying this because of being really concerned about the movie, however. In fact I would bet he has not watched the movie (and granted I have not either). He heard that the villain was an evil oil tycoon - and he objects to the fact that oil tycoons are vilified and treated as such stock evil characters.


By the way did I mention that this is a MUPPETS MOVIE! 


This is not Russian literature where we can have hundreds of pages to explain each thought. Stock characters are what you use. The evil businessman is a good villain because...well they exist and are easy to identify.  If you believe in the good of capitalism you have to admit to the fact that capitalism also does create winners and losers.  Not everyone wins.  And to the losers, the winners will seem to be villains.  That's just how it works.


What's next?

• Is Sesame Street bad because it teaches tolerance?
• Is Dora the Explorer a threat to English as the official language?
• Are the Teletubbies threatening the sanctity of marriage?
• Is Spongebob Squarepants bad because he doesn't go to church (that I know of)?

Here's the thing. They are stories. They teach tolerance, love, and critical thinking. Just like that guy...oh what was his name...something of Nazareth...I don't recall. Jesus. That was the fellow.

Veggie Tales and the Chronicles of Narnia are "right leaning" religious, Christian allegories. Which is fine.  I don't think, at least I would hope, that no one thinks that these stories should be somehow banned or warned against.  What most liberals realize too is that the Christian ideals in most of these stories are good morals - things like toleration, love, etc. (That's right kids. Jesus was a socialist.)

The end point is that the point of a story is not always what the villain does (oil baron) as much as what they are doing to be the antagonist (holding the Muppet theater for ransom, and being a jerk). 

I think the oil industry is fine.  We want oil.  We like what it does.  The "BP bans" lasted like a week following the Deepwater Horizon accident - and people then went to places like Arco...which are supplied by BP as well. 

Oil executives do not need protection from the Muppets.  Nor do Wall Street executives need protection from the Occupiers. They will continue to make boatloads of money. They will buy influence and power. The only thing that taking shots at the Muppets does is unnecessarily stir up misdirected anger and weaken any other argument you may make.  For if you feel the need to defend your friends from a kids movie with puppets, you probably don't have better arguments in general to make.


Original article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-muppets-fox-idUSTRE7B51MS20111206

That Darn Kentucky Church

While no one in their right mind would believe that racism, either overt or covert, is actually over, it still serves as a shock even to me when pronouncements of such bizarre backward thinking can actually make it to the national news stage.

Of course right now I am speaking of an article that is circulating through Facebook concerning a little church in Kentucky which held a vote to effectively ban interracial marriages and any participation in the church of interracial couples.

Now I am not naive to think that there are not whole communities out there that might not have issues with having "outsiders" joining their ranks.  What I do find amazing is the sometimes obliviousness of the people involved.

Here is what the former pastor who pushed for the vote said:

“I am not racist. I will tell you that. I am not prejudiced against any race of people, have never in my lifetime spoke evil” about a race, Thompson said earlier this week in a brief interview. “That’s what this is being portrayed as, but it is not.”

Huh.  Not a racist - just we don't want anybody not white to be married here. You'll notice he does not mention then what the ban's purpose was then.  But speaking of racism not existing...

Let's go over to Herman Cain, until recently the darling of the Republican Tea Party:

“I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way,” Cain said on CNN’s "State of the Union."

He did go on to admit there were SOME elements of racism.  But now with the facing of sexual harassment, he finds that the racism is actually the work of the left-wing media.

Which would be fine if the media did not smell blood on sexual scandals no matter what the race (reference Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, Mark Sanford, Anthony Wiener, Larry Craig, Eliot Spitzer).  The media doesn't care if the person is white, black, straight, gay, or with a prostitute.  As long as there is sex outside of marriage involved...whoa boy - it's a story. Especially when that story can bring down the man (or I suppose a woman as well).

Please excuse my Cain rant.  But there is a reason I bring that up.

But let's refer back to the scandal of the ban on marrying interracial couples. The National Baptist Free Will spokespeople have been quick to say that this is not the official policy of the church and that they are working to reverse this. But the fact still remains that this specific belief that a congregation can vote who can marry who is a very disturbing notion.  Could they vote which god to worship or whether to move Christmas to January?  While I certainly understand a church's right (or desire at least) to not believe in certain types of marriages on religious grounds, the theological basis for banning interracial marriages escape me. Was that the 11th Commandment that I missed?

The point here I make with both the church in Kentucky and Herman Cain's position on racism (not a big deal except when he thinks it is attacking him) is that so many of us want to believe that racism IS no longer as big a deal.  Granted there are far fewer lynchings and most racism is much less overt in many places (though not all). But instances of benevolent racism and color-blind denial seem much more on the rise.  It is not that issues between races have disappeared, more they have morphed into something much more nebulous, much less tangible, and in a way much more frightening.  The more we believe that the treatment of people is no longer affected by skin color, sex, orientation, or other means, the more complacent we become.  And the more shocked we become when overt racism does occur, for we believe somehow that this is some weird anomaly of an action.

And it is not that I want to say that you should not be outraged by these types of racist actions. But I do believe that there is much more this should remind us of than just one isolated instance.  There is still a lot of work and time that must happen before racial relations are in any way believably equal and without prejudice. 

As for that church I only hope that they can find it in their heart to actually read that book that they preach about.

•  More on the original story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/small-church-in-rural-kentucky-looks-to-reverse-ban-interracial-couples-after-uproar/2011/12/02/gIQAykLIMO_story.html

Post-Stoic Rage

There was a time when I believed that all arguments could be won be reason, logic, and academic argument.  A time when I felt that emotion only clouded issues that could be better solved with stale reasoned thoughts.  But the problem is - most people do not exist in a world where logical explanations will settle any doubts, fears, and prejudices.  Emotion is in fact more important than truth itself.

And to that I yield.  I give in to the rage within. If the cost of freedom of speech is a near deafening din of noise - then I add my screams.  Not to win an argument or to convince anyone - for what can I give to convince anyone of anything - I speak because otherwise I must live in a more twisted place.  A place without a voice.  Almost like living in the United States without a vote. Kind of like living in D.C.

Of thee I sing...