Obama Resistance

I was on a social networking site, and noticed this image in use as a profile picture.

It is so sad when you think about the emotions that Sarah Palin and her ilk spread throughout this election. Small minded fear, racism and hate. You can't imagine it's just a political thing, because I don't recall Gore or Kerry being vilified in the same way that Obama was.

As you might expect from the kind of narrow individual who would make or distribute an image like this, there are some pretty obvious issues with it.

What's the deal with the hammer and sickle? It's a symbol of communism, you know the political system they have in China, the country we have sold our soul to.

What has it got to do with President-elect Obama? Has he even once claimed to be a communist? Or is it just a random accusation because in this day and age it isn't socially acceptable to call him the N word?

Then there is the red star, which is at least more relevant to the campaign smears against Obama. These days the red star tends to encompass socialist ideology. The only problem is, Obama is not a socialist. He never has been, and is not proposing socialism.

Rolling back tax cuts that Bush introduced (and McCain originally opposed, before later flip-flopping on the issue), would simply mean that we don't give people earning $1.5m per year a $40,000 tax break. Since when is that socialism?

It's sad that across America there are still those with so much hate in their head, there is no longer space for logic and reason.

I'd bet all the money in my 401K right now, that the person who posted this as their profile picture does not earn $1.5m a year. In fact I doubt they are in any kind of tax bracket that will be harmed by tax increases. And let's also be real, if you are making well over a million dollars a year, a 3% tax increase isn't going to hurt you anyway. But someone has to pay for the Bush spending.

The notion that we can get by in this country without paying tax is such a stupid misnomer. The last time Americans were suckered into believing this, they elected George Bush the first, who famously said, "Read my lips; no new taxes." But once in office, added a bunch of new taxes.

So it's time to get real. Barack Obama IS your president, even if the color of his skin upsets you so much.

GM - Can We Have Some Socialism Please?

General Motors, the world's second largest vehicle manufacturer, announced today that they have been hemorrhaging money for so long, they will be in serious financial trouble (AKA broke) by next year.

So they are now calling for the government to bail them out, handing them a big chunk of cash because they ran their company into the ground.

It should be noted that their CEO Rick Wagoner earns about $5 million a year. Has a pension worth about $19.7m. And when he leaves the company he is likely to get a golden handshake of $15m.

As you might imagine, I have several issues and opinions with all of this:

• GM make shit cars. They have for years. Their cars are unreliable, depreciate like a stone, guzzle gas, are not innovative, and there are far too many different makes and models. Given the sheer cost of creating a new car these days, you can't be making such a wide variety and still make profits. Better to produce fewer makes and models, and do the job well.
• How the fuck is the CEO making five million dollars a year (or about 500 times what a minimum wage worker makes), when he is doing such a shit job? I'm pretty sure you could grab a random guy off the shop floor of one of the factories and they'd do a comparable job, and wouldn't demand a $5m salary.
  
• I have very little sympathy for this company. They shafted American workers. Started buying parts from Canada, assembling cars in Mexico, all while advertising that people should buy American.
  
• What's with this sudden push for socialism? We heard all election about how the evil Obama was a socialist. But now all these rich Republican CEOs are going to the government cap in hand after their poor management decisions have led to the destruction of the companies they looted.
  

Sarah The Socialist

We've been hearing a lot of nonsense about socialism, terrorism, Marxism, and various other 'isms' designed to scare Americans.

Republicans like Sarah Palin are on the attack for Barack Obama's heinous plan to roll back the ridiculous Bush tax cuts on millionaires. You know, the ones that helped dump our economy into the shitter.

The McCain camp jumped all over Obama's comment that he wanted to redistribute wealth by making the rich pay a shade more, to give relief to the middle class.

But let's look at this hypocrisy for a moment. Let's look at what Palin has been doing in Alaska.

Governor Palin taxes the rich oil companies operating out of Alaska, and gives that money directly to citizens of Alaska. In fact last year she raised taxes on the rich oil companies again, and gave a record setting $3,269 to every eligible man, woman and child in Alaska.

Alaskans also pay no state income tax or sales tax. They just get a nice big government hand out from a $30 billion dollar pool, created largely by taking money from big oil.

Despite all this Palin commented, "Friends, now is no time to experiment with socialism."

I guess she doesn't need to experiment, she seems to have already learned all about it.