Elections...

So we had an election in the US yesterday. My state (Wisconsin) is now officially a red (republican) state and I am pretty....shocked? Disgusted? Angry? Yeah...all those things.


So when I was around eleven or twelve, my older cousin recommended the book 1984 by George Orwell to me. If you haven't read it, it is about a guy who is living in a dysutopian future where everything is controlled by a war hungry government.

When I read that book, I really got into it. After that I started looking for other books with the same plot-line which led me to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and then Anthem by Ayn Rand...which led me to Ayn Rand in general which eventually made me pick up the communist manifesto. (I know Ayn Rand has become the figurehead of the teabaggers but she is a good writer, she made up some evil philosophies but she's still a good storyteller).

Anyway, sounds a little convoluted but that is, in a nutshell, how I got started thinking about societal inequality and what kind of governmental system I think is the most moral. In other words, that is basically how I became a socialist.

So back to my point...the election.  I've been a socialist since around eighth grade, I am pretty aware of the fact that most people in the US equate socialism to devil worship. Joe McCarthy wasn't all that long ago and the red scare is something that people still remember so it never shocks me that there aren't socialist candidates on the ballots. I mean, sure I would love to see them there, but I know basically you have a choice between democrats and republicans. Sure you can vote for an independent (and I have) but when you do that you kind of know that your candidate isn't going to end up in office.

Now I have some friends who are socialists who don't vote at all out of principal. Their belief is that the lesser of two evils is still evil and that a democrat or a republican is just going to help the rich no matter what promises they make in their campaign. And they are usually right.

However, this my analogy for why I vote democrat. Ok, say you are starving to death and even though you are entitled to a full meal, even though you have worked very hard for it and totally deserve it, you are told that you can only have either a slice of bread or a few bread crumbs...what are you going to pick? The slice of bread right? Is it as good as the meal? Obviously no...but isn't it better than the bread crumbs?

My point is, I don't think that the democratic party will end up giving the American public what it deserves. Its just that I think the Republican party will give us even less. And it isn't just theory. I have a good friend whose family will now be without insurance because Scott Walker(R) was elected Governor instead of Tom Barrett (D). I mean, that’s a tangible thing. She will no longer have access to healthcare based on this election.

I know that my vote will never change the system. I don't really think that capitalism will bite the dust until more people wake up to the fact that the American dream isn't reality, but I still can't not vote. Not when things like my friends healthcare or my sister's disability funding or abortion rights hang in the balance.

So OK, now that I justified why I am arguing for democrats, let me get back (again) to the election. The only politician that I really every trusted, Russ Feingold (who isn't a socialist but is brilliant) has just been voted out of office. The REPUBLICANS won. They won the congress seat, they won the governorship and they won the senate race.

And the only thing I can think to say about it is WTF?! Seriously?? Good god, we chose the bread crumbs.

 
 
P.S.
My sister also had a baby last week, she is gorgeous and pretty much the most amazing baby ever so things aren't all bad.

I'm back...(maybe)

So I have started but then stopped writing about a million blog posts in the last few weeks. Part of the reason I haven't written so long really is because my work schedule changed and its been hard for me to adjust to normal people time. Part of the reason is also because my computer was having problems, but to be honest a big part of the reason is because I got burnt out.

Not on writing, I pretty much love to write. What I got burnt out on was following politics. When I first started this blog, that wasn't going to be the central focus of what I wrote. I was just going to write about my everyday life and see what I came up with. However, it was not a huge surprise that what I came up with was politics.

Since I was a kid, economics and discrimination and woman's rights issues has always been something that fascinated me. Fascinated seems like a weird way to put it, but it seems so simple to me the way that poverty and racism and sexism are all inherent traits of capitalism and I have always been compelled (much to the annoyance of my friends and family I'm sure) to convince everyone around me why it all needs to change.

So when I started writing on here, it was really neat to find a way to connect with other people who felt the same way. I would write on here and get comments about people that thought about the same stuff I did. I would go on other blogs and learn about stuff I'd never be exposed to otherwise. Overall, it was cool.

So anyway, after writing for awhile I started to spend more and more time looking about stuff about these issues. I started watching mainstream media more trying to get a sense of why everyone else has such weird ideas about things (i.e. teabaggers). I started reading more essays by people that disagreed with what I thought. And the end result of all that was that I got so disgusted that I needed a little time away from right-wing equals family, freedom and hard work and left-wing equals fascism, baby murder and high taxes. Overall, I got cynical and burnt out.

It seems like instead of seeing the recent depression as a clear sign that the rich screw over the poor at every chance they get, the super scary teabaggers have convinced the working poor to become their foot soldiers.

 They throw around words like family, “real” Americans and freedom and suddenly neoliberalism is this fancy new idea thought up around a roaring log fire by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. They are literally proposing that the problems caused by neoliberalism and rampant, non-regulated capitalism can be solved by even less regulations, lower taxes and fewer social services. And of course by getting rid of undocumented workers...because obviously THEY are the reason that wall street fell apart.

Anyway, the conservative movements stance on the solution to this country's problems is basically like saying the way to put out a fire is by dousing it in gasoline. And people are buying it...hook, line and sinker. And the political ads for the midterm election? GA-ross. They're idiotic.  No one says what their politics are, they just say that they
for: hardworking Americans, freedom, change and against; Washington, job loss and pork barrel spending. 

here is an example of one:

Ron Johnson

What the eff does that even mean? I will tell you what it means, nothing.  It is basically like me saying that you should vote for me, if you vote me into office I will be against toddler beating, stealing from old people and making McDonalds illegal and I will fight to make donuts free, a six day weekend and spending Christmas with your loved ones.

My point is, all that modern political ads say are that the candidates are against vaguely
bad things and for vaguely good things. They never get into what they would concretely change or what their own political history is. Its disgusting. And fyi, it isn't just the right that do this, all politicians are guilty of it.

Anyway, back to the point I was making, the fact that the conservative movement in the US is nutso isn't exactly breaking news but what does this have to do with this blog? Well, last weekend I was visiting my dad and I said to him that I was fed up with politics....And I got a very,very, very, VERY long lecture. Now to put this in perspective, my dad is not a lecturer. He is about the most laid back person you could find but a few hours after I made that comment, he knocked on the door and basically gave me an hour long speech about how doing nothing was about as useful as hopping on the teabagger train.

Now don't get me wrong, its not like I think that this little blog is going to swing an election (VOTE FOR RUSS FEINGOLD!) but my dad did have a point. Even if the only difference I can make is to educate myself, (and of course N. who is forced to listen to just about any interesting/aggravating thing that I learn) at least I'll be able to fight back if I am cornered by a rabid republican. Ugh, I guess we'll see. Anyway, hopefully my readers haven't completely given up on looking at my site.

Bookish, English Orphans.

I'm rereading Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. Such a good book, the beginning reminds me of Jane Eyre and Dickens (are all English children little orphaned waifs who usually live with wealthy and resentful relatives? Seriously, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, Vanity Fair, Oliver Twist, this book..even Harry Potter. Where the eff are all the English parents?). Anyway there is a quote in OHB that I absolutely love,

“Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of everyday a source of bitter disappointment.”...brilliant.

Is it weird that I tend to love books about impoverished children? I mean, not like I like to hear about people being poor but there are pretty much two genres I always like; kids in poverty (like Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Angela’s Ashes, Bastard out of Carolina etc) and dis-utopian stories (like 1984, Brave New World, Clockwork Orange, Fahrenheit 451, Anthem etc). Ugh, I am making myself sound depressing.

N. (my roommate/soon-to-be-husband) is reading 1984 for the first time. He is usually a nonfiction sort of guy but has been raiding my bookshelf lately. I try not to talk about it to him because I really love that story and I am afraid I'll be talking about the plot and give away the ending, he seems to like it so far.

Speaking of Harry Potter (and I was a few paragraphs ago) I've read those books and the whole time I was reading them, I was like why does this story seem so familiar? Then, when my dad moved a few weeks ago and made me clean out my room, I found a box of YA books I hadn't seen in years. In it was a book called, Wizard's Hall by Jane Yolen.

Ok, so here is a story plot. An eleven year old boy goes off to wizarding school. He befriends a girl and boy who know more about the school than he does and they form a little trio. He doesn't do very well, but because of a legendary story about the boy, everyone expects him to be great. There is this wizard who used to be a student there but then grew up and now he hates the school and wants to ruin it. There are many times when the importance of saying the bad wizard's true name is discussed. Anyway, the bad wizard manages to sneak in to the school (did I mention that all over the school are pictures and paintings where the people walk around and talk to passersby and to each other?) and after he sneaks into the school he almost kills everyone until the little boy defeats him and saves the day. Yeah, the little boy in THIS story is named Henry and this book came out years before the Harry Potter series. Weird right?

Anyway, you are probably asking yourself, what was the point of this post? Well, sorry, it was mainly just rambling about English orphaned kids. I just got off a double shift and I am too tired to write anything more substantial...

Also, are you wondering why I haven't written is sooo long? Its because I now work days, usually over eight hour long shifts...hopefully I will get back into the swing of things now. Also, my computer has been working crappy lately but its fixed now....

work-work-work....

Sorry for the lack of posting, in the last week I have literally worked 65 hours. Not cool, job, not cool. I am about to have a four day weekend starting tomorrow and I promise you all that after that I will be more consistent. (Hopefully).

Speaking of work, tonight is the very last time I will ever have to do a overnight shift. For the last year, I have worked from ten o'clock at night until six in the morning. There are some perks to it, like never having to wake up at the crack of dawn, being able to watch a few hours of TV every day (my work has cable, I don't.), and being able to work by myself. But for the most part it has sucked.

N. works during the day, so when I was on that schedule I would come home at six and he would be asleep. I would fall asleep and by the time I woke up, he'd already be at work already and I'd have to leave before he got home. So yeah, unless we had the day off or one of us got up way earlier than usual, it felt like we never say each other. We lived in the same house, but in different time zones.

So anyway, that will be pretty sweet to work during the day (although I am still not excited to wake up at disgusting five o'clock in the morning.)

WTF is Neoliberalism?

Do you want to know why the Wall Street crashed? Because of neoliberalism. Do you want to know why there are so many illegal immigrants in the US? Because of neoliberalism. Do you want to know why you can’t find a job? Because of neoliberalism. I could go on, (and I will, this is one of my longer posts) but you get the picture.

Neoliberalism is the theory that an economy and state have the ability to function the most effectively when there are no market barriers in place. There are five main points in the theory of neoliberalism. The first is establishing a market that is completely free of regulation. The second is the eradication of public spending for social services. The third is the deregulation of any government intervention that imposes upon the gain of profit. The fourth is the privatization of all government run services. The fifth is eliminating the idea of the “public good”.

In the eighties, a new economic theory emerged called neoliberalism (sometimes called neoconservatism or reaganomics or teabagger craziness). Anyway, this new policy basically said lets make the only role that the government has on the economy is make sure that no one tries to regulate any kind of trade. Some examples of trade regulation are tariffs for imported goods, making it so companies can’t outsource, or having a country charge taxes to a corperation that wants to operate in their nation.

In neoliberal theory, the whole idea of government changes from an institution that makes laws and provides services to its country to one that is only in place to make sure that there aren’t any trade regulations. For example, if there were a country or group of people who were working against a neoliberal state’s free trade, the state would use violence or the threat of violence to force them to allow free trade.

There are definite problems when this idea is put into practice. For example, in a completely “free” society, a company would not have to follow labor standards or environmental standards. The theory is that if the workers were being treated badly, they would have the freedom to not work there. If the workers quit because they were being treated badly, the business would fail and the problem would be fixed. In that scenario, the “freedoms” of the company wouldn’t be infringed upon and the free market would continue to flourish unrestricted.

This theory, of course, does not work in practice. From a realistic point of view, one realizes that workers need payment, even if conditions are bad and that a high percentage of businesses will do anything to increase profits. Even though there is obvious proof that the end result of this practice is harmful, many classic neoliberals maintain that it is still better the state does not intervene. They believe that the “cure is worse than the disease.” (Check out David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism, “

The classical neoliberal theory, as discussed earlier, is that if people have complete and total freedom, then the market will become a self-regulating entity and everyone working within it will have an equal chance of social mobility. Like the example stated earlier about the ways neoliberals believe labor standards will regulate themselves, the idea of a free market ensuring equality fails just as miserably. The ideal economic climate that neoliberals envision is one wherein a person would have the freedom to use their monetary capital in a way that will afford him or her the best life possible. In practice however, neoliberalism only works to create an economy where the elite have the freedom to increase their capital to amounts previously unseen and the poor are forced to live at a lower and lower standard.

So, to answer the questions I posed in paragraph one in a bit more detail… Because neoliberals took almost all of the regulations out of the banking industry, people on wall street were allowed to do whatever they wanted and what they wanted to do was to get a huge personal profit and they didn’t really care who’s pension they were ruining in the meantime.

Because neoliberals went into Latin American countries and ruined their economies by forcing deregulation of trade, now no one there is able to get a job. Basically US industries went in, took everything they could and left. Now the people there are forced between starving to death and seeing their children doomed to lead a life of poverty or illegally immigrating to the US were they can at least be able to send some money home. In short, the reason that the US has jobs for immigrants and their own countries don’t is because the US stole all their capital.

Because neoliberals forced free trade down everyone’s throats, companies are now allowed to go anywhere in the globe to look for the cheapest workers. Before neoliberalism, if say Nike wanted to make all their shoes in China, the labor would be a ton cheaper but Nike wouldn’t make such a huge profit because they would be forced to pay China taxes to operate there and they would be forced to pay tariffs (money to the government that could be reinvested in the United States) to import cheaply made goods. But since we decided to throw away any kind of trade regulation, companies can go make shoes in China and then sell them in the US for 500 times what it cost to produce. And since its so much cheaper to find labor overseas, American lost all its jobs.

So whenever you hear someone complaining about big government or trade regulation or the “socialist” agenda, just remember that the neoliberal agenda is what got the US to the state it is in today. I don’t know about you, but I am totally willing to try something different than this.

Sidenote, if you want to know more about neoliberalism, email me or leave a comment because I have a totally amazing list of articles and books about this topic!