capitalism

Affordable Housing? Not If Donny Can Help It…

by MyBaconPress

It’s being hailed as a bi-partisan affordable housing bill. I don’t expect it to do much to make housing more affordable, but it IS bi-partisan and the Republicans, in particular, needed it for the upcoming campaigns. They want – no, need – something positive to run on. Affordable housing would certainly fit the bill. All the pols have to do is hope nobody pays attention to the fact that it won’t really do what they’re promising.

The new bill limits corporations in the number of single-family homes they can own. That’ll do it, right? Well, unless some corporate minion thinks of setting up several corporations under a holding company, allowing each corporation to reach the magic number but still collecting single family homes at a society destroying pace. But what are the odds of that happening? After all, it took me several, well, a few, um okay a couple of seconds to think of it. But maybe the smarter sharks will miss it, what do you think?

Anyway, the point is, both teams wanted to run on the great “success.” Dems should have this election in the bag, but never forget, they’re owned and operated by the same rich people the cons are, so the election can’t be certain. Republicans needed the law far worse. Even MAGA can see that things are going sideways.

They can lie to me all they want to. I don’t even care. But they can’t keep lying to themselves. Are you a MAGA soy farmer? Have you lost your farm to 47’s policies? Are you still MAGA? Okay, that’s stupid. You don’t have to become liberal, but continuing to support the person and policies that wiped you out is, well, stupid. There’s not a single thing Donny touches that he doesn’t destroy.

Like the affordable housing bill. He scuttled it because he wants congress to pass his SAVE Act. It allows him to interfere with elections so he needs it to SAVE his ass in those upcoming. The Dems stand opposed, with the possible exception of DINO Fetterman. Even some Republicans oppose the SAVE Act so cons can’t get a majority, despite Donny’s rants and threats.

Remember my fictional soy farmer from, like, two paragraphs ago? The Republicans in congress look like real-life versions of that guy, to me. Donny is a pariah, but he still wields great power. Cons in congress can see him destroying other politicians careers for the high crime of doing the right thing. They have to choose: do we continue to support the person doing so much damage to our own chances or not?

I suspect they will. So far, spine hasn’t been in evidence when it comes to Republicans. They’re lickspittle boot-lickers and it looks like they’re going to follow him right to the gates of Hell…

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Okay, so 47 certainly brought nothing new to his speech at the so-called ‘Great American State Fair.’ I call it a speech, but it was really just another rant. One lie after another, lies stacked on top of lies, braggadocio and hyperbole, and a few more lies to round things out. Some of the attendees just can’t get enough abuse and they stayed and cheered. Other attendees have seen this speech so many times THEY can deliver it – so they left.

The big opening ceremony was over two hours long with the blowhard speaking near the end. Maybe they were just tired. Maybe they came for the other stuff and left to avoid being associated with a pedophile. But maybe they’re one-time, die-hard fans who just aren’t quite as impressed anymore. Who knows?

Both sides are working it, though. The left is showing people leaving and calling it a “mass exodus.” The right is showing people who stayed and calling the left crazy. Neither side is telling the whole truth. But as always, Donny is only lying. He posted to social media, “The Crowd was incredible last night, packed to the brim — At least 45,000 people were there… Everybody stayed right until the end of my Speech.”

People were there for the ceremony and, clearly, many left during his rant. There were a lot of people, but I doubt 45,000. He likes to make things up. He’s SO terrible at real life, he mostly lives in a fantasy land…

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When is a cease-fire not a cease-fire? When people KEEP firing, instead of ceasing. How weird is it that we get this constant talk of cease-fires and then get the updates of the latest skirmishes, battles, killings, and other violence? That’s not a cease-fire. At best, it’s a little-less-firing…

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The man is just SO yesterday in every respect. It’s like he thinks we’re still living in some mythical past. Coal is king. Gas rules the world. Tough talk gets ‘er done. A woman should know her place. And now? ‘Godless communists.’ That’s a slur that goes back to the sixties and seventies, maybe further. He’s rolling out the term to try and scare the crap out of his followers. Oh, the commies are coming, the commies are coming.

The discrepancy between the socialism the US lives with every single day and the attitude of some of our less inquiring fellow citizens when it comes to the word is startling. I think the Capitalists are starting to notice the far-and-wide public fury where Capitalism is concerned. It’s just a brutal, brutal system designed to enrich a few on the backs of the many.

Capitalism has now, briefly, minted it’s first Trillionaire. One. At the same time, and necessarily, Capitalism has now, long-term, minted millions of struggling and desperate people, concerned about where their next meal is coming from. Countless people can’t even afford a home in this, the so-called ‘Richest Country On Earth’™. Is that the best we can do? It’s fine, if you’re the Trillionaire, I guess. But most of us aren’t.

Nobody is calling for communism, but I would be happy with another heaping helping of New Deal-style Democratic Socialism. That seems to be catching on around the country and it scares the hell out of the people sitting on their vast piles of money, laughing at the victims below them. They’ll use that money to try and convince people that the inequity is a-okay. “Just try harder,” they laugh. “Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, like we never did,” they say. “Hey, maybe if you skip that coffee.”

Unregulated Capitalism has failed the vast majority of us. Communism has failed pretty much where ever it has been tried. But there IS a better way, a middle ground, that takes the best of each and mashes them together. Some people still get rich, but not so much at the expense of everyone else. I don’t understand why some people think that everyone working together for the benefit of everyone is a bad thing…

It’s the Free Market, Stupid…

by MyBaconPress

Capitalist: 1) An investor of capital in business, especially one having a major financial interest in an important enterprise. 2) A person of great wealth. Then, thrown in to try to keep the rest of us on board, 3) A supporter of capitalism. (Uh-huh…)

It’s one of the greatest deceptions of all time. Capitalists have their victims (that’s you and me) declaring themselves capitalists and defending capitalism. And we do, too. If you ask anybody in America, odds are they’ll tell you they’re a capitalist and they believe in capitalism. You can see that one of the definitions is ‘A supporter of capitalism.’ That makes us feel like we’re ‘on the team,’ as it were – but we really, really are not.

Those first two definitions – rich people who have major financial interests in important enterprises – are FAR more accurate descriptions of capitalists, but do you know what THAT means? That means that, far and away, most Americans are NOT capitalists. (We’re the victims of capitalism.) We’re not rich and we don’t own enough to have “major financial interests in important enterprises.” We just get up and go to work, creating the wealth the capitalists keep – and then use against us…

Suddenly, I feel a need to make this point. There are NOT only two systems, Capitalism or Communism. I don’t support communism, either. It clearly doesn’t work – based on the idea that it has never worked anywhere in the world, any time in history. But this so-called ‘Free Market Capitalism’ ain’t working so hot, either, wouldn’t you say?

I support the middle road, once known as New Deal Capitalism. I call it ‘Social Capitalism.’ The rest of the world calls it ‘Democratic Socialism.’ That’s too bad, too. Americans have been fully conditioned, brainwashed really, to believe that the word socialism describes one thing and one thing only: communism, so the instant they hear that word, many Americans crap their panties and dive for the covers to hide their heads. But despite the stupid name, it’s really just managed capitalism, the kind that fights back against capitalistic abuse. It’s better for everyone – even rich people.

Right now, the poster child for the failure of ‘Free Market Capitalism’ is Luigi Mangione, the guy who gunned down the current poster child for capitalistic abuse, Brian Thompson. Mangione shot Thompson in the back, just gunned him down in the street. As of this writing, it appears Mangione shot Thompson as a symbol. That is, he had no personal beef with Thompson. Thompson became the poster child of capitalistic abuse because he was the CEO of the health insurance company that denied more claims than any other company.

Nobody seems to care. I see memes out there of Luigi superimposed by Photoshop into various work environments with comments about how he was there on Dec 4, on-site all day and right next to other workers. Never out of their sight, even for a moment. Why, the memes insist, Luigi couldn’t have done it. Alibi established. Obviously, it isn’t. It turns out, the police have a few photos of their own – and theirs aren’t Photoshopped.

Truthfully, when the shooting occurred, my first thought was “Someone who got denied.” I wasn’t alone. I felt badly that I didn’t feel worse about the shooting. I felt guilty that I was kind of happy to see a little guy get even for a change. As it happens, I’m not alone in THAT, either. I expected the party to end a few days later, as people got past their bubbling anger and re-connected with their humanity. So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, there’s a “Free Luigi” movement starting.

Do you know who IS showing signs of concern, though? Corporate media. The media owned and operated by the capitalists. The message coming from both sides of the dial is the same – it’s poor form to shoot capitalists. Don’t do it. That’s not working, either. I suspect we’ve all noticed that NONE of them are promising to change their ways. They just don’t want people shooting them for the abuses. But people are really angry and most of us seem quite happy that a rich guy got his, for a change. And that’s the key.

Thompson’s program of denial likely killed thousands. THAT was just “good business.” HE was getting bonuses for increasing the bottom line so nicely. Families were planning funerals that didn’t have to happen. We ALL know this. We ALL know we COULD have decent health care in this country. But the capitalists don’t WANT us to have decent health care. They can’t profit if they can’t insert themselves into the process and all they care about is profit.

So, after forty years of living the ‘Free Market Capitalism’ life, one guy has reached the point of shooting someone and the rest of us are cheering the act. There’s even a new movement out there called ‘Board rooms, not classrooms.’ It takes the position that, if you’re going to be a random shooter that goes out and kills someone for fame – at least kill someone whose death benefits society. Don’t kill six-year olds. Don’t shoot up classrooms. Kill CEO’s. Shoot up board rooms. Go out a hero, like Luigi. (I’m only describing, and not endorsing, the movement, here.)

I think Luigi was trying to start something and I think he has. Somehow, this single act of defiance has loosed a torrent of anger at the way our economy works (or doesn’t, in so many cases). I suspect Luigi wanted other people to start shooting right away. That part didn’t happen but the anger is now at the top, not being hidden anymore, perhaps bubbling over. In fact, it’s being celebrated. There WILL BE other shooters.

And now, just to put the icing on the cake, we’re getting the richest political Cabinet in history. We’re already hearing messages from billionaires like, “You Poors are going to have to suffer,” and comments about how Joe Six-pack has it way too easy. Trump has admitted, now, that he isn’t going to bring the price of groceries down and he can’t guarantee his tariffs won’t raise prices. “Yeah, I lied. Whaddaya gonna do about it?” Hey, ask Luigi.

Consider this: So-called “Free Market Capitalism” has created a world in which people cheer when a capitalist is gunned down in the street – and all the while, there have been entities in place pushing back against the abuses of the Free Market. Now, the One Percent (and Putin) have managed to install the richest group of people in history, none of whom have even the slightest idea of what life is like for a working person. Corruption has mostly eliminated the restraints the held them back in the past – even the recent past.

Now? The brakes are off. The capitalists – the true capitalists, not the “supporters of capitalism” – are about to have their way with the economy without restraint. Do you think that’s going to be better or worse for the Small Folk? If we’re already at, “Yes, kill them!” and the capitalists are about to turn the screws even harder – and I guarantee they are – I expect blood.

To be clear, I don’t WANT blood. I wish every self-absorbed, self-serving, self-described “important” blowhard would get visits from three ghosts and see the error of their ways. But John Kennedy’s words are about to explode in front of us. The capitalists are making violent revolution inevitable…