Greetings from Calico Blackie!
This is not your beautiful house!
As we move deeper into the 21st Century, we are seeing an era of global financial failures, wars, and an end to the middle-class as we know it.
Our world is falling apart.
The rich are still getting richer, while we, the people get poorer. We’re awakening to the fact that our politicians and their owners, the financiers, will not act in our best interests. Our system has failed us.
Yet, we still have hope for tomorrow because there are still those among us with the courage to OCCUPY.
As I stated in my last column, we need to keep active with the cause for the sake of humanity. We need to talk to the homeless, the poor, the middle class, and all of the people currently struggling under the burden of making the 1% even richer than they already are at our expense.
They’re killing us and they don’t care.
We need to show the people how this is happening and explain why this situation MUST change.
Throw off the old Democratic and Republican partisan affiliations and OCCUPY.
Work outside the “approved and accepted” traditional channels until we’re a majority whose voice will OVERWHELM the cruel and inhuman system set up for us by the oppressors.
BE A PATRIOT!
So……
What is your definition of “obscene”?
What is your definition of “evil”?
THIS IS OBSCENE AND EVIL:
WHY ISN’T THIS STORY IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA? Where are Fox, MSNBC, CNN and the other propaganda machines when it comes to this?
The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America’s Middle Class
This could be YOU, if it isn't already
“Every night around nine, Janis Adkins falls asleep in the back of her Toyota Sienna van in a church parking lot at the edge of Santa Barbara, California.”
“On the van’s roof is a black Yakima SpaceBooster, full of previous-life belongings like a snorkel and fins and camping gear. Adkins, who is 56 years old, parks the van at the lot’s remotest corner, aligning its side with a row of dense, shading avocado trees.”
“The trees provide privacy, but they are also useful because she can pick their fallen fruit, and she doesn’t always have enough to eat. Despite a continuous, two-year job search, she remains without dependable work.”
“By the time Adkins goes to bed – early, because she has to get up soon after sunrise, before parishioners or church employees arrive – the four other people who overnight in the lot have usually settled in: a single mother who lives in a van with her two teenage children and keeps assiduously to herself, and a wrathful, mentally unstable woman in an old Mercedes sedan whom Adkins avoids.”
“By mutual unspoken agreement, the three women park in the same spots every night, keeping a minimum distance from each other.”
THIS IS WHAT'S HAPPENING WHILE MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE BECOMING HOMELESS IN AMERICA EVERY DAY. DON'T STAND FOR IT ANYMORE!
Each evening, 150 people in 113 vehicles spend the night in 23 parking lots in Santa Barbara. The lots are part of Safe Parking, a program that offers overnight permits to people living in their vehicles.”
“The nonprofit that runs the program, New Beginnings Counseling Center, requires participants to have a valid driver’s license and current registration and insurance.”
“Some 5.4 million Americans have been without work for at least six months, and an estimated 750,000 of them are completely broke or heading inexorably toward destitution.”
“In California, where unemployment remains at 11 percent, middle-class refugees like Janis Adkins are only the earliest arrivals. “She’s the tip of the iceberg,” says Nancy Kapp, the coordinator of the Safe Parking program. “There are many people out there who haven’t hit bottom yet, but they’re on their way – they’re on their way.”
THIS is what our leaders are doing and care about while you're losing everything
“When you come to me, you’ve hit rock bottom,” Kapp says.
“You’ve already done everything you possibly could to avoid being homeless. You maybe have a teeny bit of savings left.”
“People are crying, they’re saying, ‘I’ve never experienced this before. I’ve never been homeless.’ They don’t want to mix with homeless people. They’re like, ‘I’m not going over to those people’ – sometimes they call them ‘those people.’
“So now they’re lost, they’re humiliated, they’re rejected, they’re scared, and they’re very ashamed. I’m worried about the psychological damage it does when you have a place and then, all of a sudden, you’re in your car. You have to be depressed just from the fall itself, from losing everything and not understanding how it could happen.”
We've got to start standing up for ourselves and our country. Stand up in groups AND as individuals
“However long it takes to lose everything, to get to the point where you’re driving away from your repossessed home, the final unraveling seems eye-blink fast, because there is no way to imagine it. Even if you’ve been unemployed for a year and are months-delinquent on your mortgage, you still won’t have a mental category for your own homelessness; it’s impossible to project yourself into the scenario. The reality, when it occurs and endures, seems to have sprung from nowhere.“
Link to full story is here: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-sharp-sudden-decline-of-americas-middle-class-20120622#ixzz1z64MMHsR
Calico Blackie says:
In the “land of plenty” this is a DISGRACE. Where is the “plenty” for we the PEOPLE? It’s in the hands of the 1%. And what are our “leaders doing about it?
Have you seen this story? It’s being repeated across America:
Reno OKs tax breaks for proposed Apple project
THIS IS WHAT OUR LEADERS ARE DOING WHILE WE ARE GETTING THE SHAFT
“The Reno City Council is considering tax breaks meant to coax Apple Inc. to open two facilities in Northern Nevada as part of a $1 billion investment over 10 years.”
“At a meeting today, councilmembers are considering their portion of a deal that includes $89 million in county, city and state tax abatements.”
“Analysts say that’s a 79 percent reduction in the Cupertino, Calif., company’s tax burden.”
“Apple is proposing a 350-acre data center east of Sparks to house servers for its cloud computing service, and a business and purchasing center in Reno’s Tessera District, a blighted area on the northeastern side of downtown.”
“A report on the so-called “Project Jonathan” said the data center would eventually employ up to 41 full-time employees and 200 long-term contract employees. Construction is estimated to create 580 temporary jobs, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.”
“But of the $105 million in tax revenue the project is expected to produce during that period, state and local governments would see just $16 million of it after various tax breaks and endorsements, according to the Las Vegas Sun.”
Link is here: http://www.rgj.com/viewart/20120627/BIZ05/306270128/Reno-approves-tax-breaks-proposed-Apple-project
Calico Blackie says:
Are we willing to settle for this? HELL NO!
Tax breaks for major corporations and our civic leaders are falling over themselves in a competition to see who can suck the corporate dick the hardest?
Oh, I know what you’re thinking…..
“If our city doesn’t offer the breaks, they’ll go somewhere else.”
I SAY: LET THEM GO!
I SAY: NO TAX BREAKS FOR THEM OR ANY OTHER CORPORATION ANYWHERE IN AMERICA!
Now, you’re saying……
“But, they’ll just pack up and move out of the country and we’ll get nothing.”
I SAY: GOOD! GOODBYE! DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE ASS ON YOUR WAY OUT THE DOOR WHEN YOU GO TO CHINA!
Here is what we need to force our “leaders” into doing:
KICK THEM OUT! Do we really need Monsanto poisoning us? Do we really need FRACKING? Do we really need corporations raping the land and turning America into a wasteland for THEIR profit while we become homeless?
Pass laws stating that if a corporation moves out of the country, they can NEVER return. THEY and all the chosen employees that go with them give up their citizenship and can NEVER return.
THEY can NEVER sell their products in this country again.
Now, you’re saying…..
“But this would create a “brain drain” in this country!”
I SAY: IS THIS THE TYPE OF “BRAINS” WE WANT IN THIS COUNTRY?
Brains that are poisoned by greed? Brains that will pass on their greedy and cruel tendencies on to their children? Brains that will perpetuate cruelty, lack of compassion, and greed? Brains that have ruined America with their quest for ever increasing wealth at the cost of the rest of us?
THEY’RE BRINGING YOU AND THE REST OF AMERICA TO IT’S KNEES.
LET THEM GO! They’re defective. Let some other country have our garbage.
LET THEM GO RUIN SOMEWHERE ELSE
Have our “brains” work on renewable and sustainable energy. Have our “brains” work on non-polluting industries which provide durable and safe products that we want.
Have our “brains” be the ones that stay in this country because they care about WE, THE PEOPLE.
Have our “brains” be the ones that stay here because they LOVE THEIR COUNTRY MORE THAN THEY LOVE MONEY.
ASK YOURSELF….
Do you really want this in your community?
Do you want tax breaks for big corporate entities that provide very few jobs for the locals and does very little for your hometown?
Do you want militarized police forces with tanks and machine guns?
HOW ABOUT THIS, INSTEAD:
Portland Police Officer John Maul
How about having well trained and compassionate beat cops who are willing to help you if you “fall down”?
How about using Officer John Maul as a national model for police recruiting?
Read his story here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/03/portland_officer_john_maul_hel.html
How about having larger, better equipped and more modern fire departments, with armies of firefighters ready to go out and battle these forest fires, instead of having armies of “peoplefighters” ready to go into the streets and brutalize peaceful citizens for exercising their constitutional rights?
It's time we "FORECLOSED" on Washington, DC. They're not paying their debt to our society
How about we abolish all these useless and redundant “agencies” such as the DEA and ATF (both serve a function which can be perfectly performed by the FBI) and put the money we would save towards helping we, the PEOPLE?
How about we tell our congressmen and senators to abolish all of their goddamned worthless committees and sub-committees, stop wasting OUR money, and make it illegal to take anything but their salary?
If they can’t get the job done without forming a committee to “study the issue” or if they can’t afford to live without a “speakers fee” or other such bribe, then they’re fired.
How about making lobbying illegal?
How about all of these things? Does it seem like too big of a task for us?
BANKSTERS: WE ARE COMING
We’re not powerless. Our numbers are ever-increasing.
With every lay-off.
With every sell-out.
With every foreclosure.
With every instance of police brutality.
With every new person joining the ranks of the homeless.
With every parent who’s lost a child in a war for profit.
With every person who’s health has been ruined by the corporate rape of the environment.
With every new voice that takes to the streets and says:
OCCUPY WALL STREET!!!
Our numbers are increasing.
The scene at Occupy Los Angeles TODAY
WE SHALL PREVAIL
Fight greed.
Fight injustice.
Fight evil.
REPOSSESS WALL STREET!
TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY
Keep the faith, fellow Occupiers
Calico Blackie @kidakita
