Tag Archives: Class Warfare

Herman Cain’s Greatest Hits

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in 1, Eclectic, eclectic music, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Work

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Mr. Herman "Get A Job!" Cain, at Republican Party of Florida Presidency 5 Convention, Orlando, FL , September 24, 2011. (AP).

Since the allegedly sexually harassing, racism and classism denying, Republican presidential candidate leader of the moment Herman Cain likes to sing, I decided to make a short list of Cain’s greatest hits. Trust me, they’re all doozies. They draw on the experiences of a man about as in touch with average Americans as Marie Antoinette was with French peasants on the eve of the French Revolution.

1. “The Way It Is” (1986) — Bruce Hornsby and The Range: Here, he puts special emphasis on the line, “Just for fun he says, ‘Get a job!,” not out of sarcasm, but out of sincerity.

2. “Another Day In Paradise” (1989) — Phil Collins: Cain tries to get a bit of social consciousness, at least, in emphathizing with “the man on the street,” the poor guy subjected to a worn-out homeless women begging for help.

She calls out to the man on the street
“Sir, can you help me?
It’s cold and I’ve nowhere to sleep
Is there somewhere you can tell me?”

He walks on, doesn’t look back
He pretends he can’t hear her
He starts to whistle as he crosses the street
She’s embarrassed to be there

The real test with this song would be whether Cain’s whistling is as good as his crooning.

3. “O.P.P.” (1991) — Naughty By Nature: Here Cain would need help from ex-RNC head Michael Steele to get his rap game together, as well as from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in interpreting the sexual laden lyrics. But in light of the accusations — and in Justice Thomas’ case, evidence — of sexual harassment and general insensitivity of Cain, Steele and Thomas, figuring out “who’s down with O.P.P.?” is an appropriate question in their bubble.

4. “Cigarettes And Coffee” (1966) — Otis Redding: Cain’s tribute to his campaign manager in his recent commercial as he slows down the pace a bit. “And please, darling, help me smoke this one more cigarette,” Cain baritones to Mark Block.

5. “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head” (1960) — Dean Martin: Cain’s theme song for his campaign. The main lyrical refrain for him would be as much about his rise to the top of the Republican heap as it would be about the people he’s stereotyped, vilified, denigrated and ultimately exploited over the course of his career and campaign.

My head keeps spinning;
I go to sleep and keep grinning;
If this is just the beginning,
My life’s gonna be beautiful.
I’ve sun- shine enough to spread;
It’s like the fella said…

“Ain’t [I] like a kick in the head?” And the 99 percent of us say, “Hell, yeah, where’s the aspirin?”

Occupy Wall Street (and the Fed, and Capitol Hill…)

05 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in 1, culture, Eclectic, New York City, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Work, Youth

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Occupy Wall Street protests, Day 14, October 1, 2011. (Source/Mrwho00tm). Permission granted via Creative Commons v. 3.0.

Folks like me have been saying for years that we need a mass movement of people to stem the tide of economic and racial inequality that this country, the Land of the Thief, um, Free, has been experiencing for more than four decades now. Finally, it’s happening, albeit in a relatively small way, around Wall Street and other cities around the country. This is great, I certainly wish I could be there, but this can only be the start of something. Because if it ends here, I don’t want to wait until I’m in my sixties to see grassroots protests cut across racial, socioeconomic (again, relatively speaking) and other lines that tend to divide us as a nation.

We need to not just occupy Wall Street, or do more than this one-day march that’s suppose to happen in New York today. Or attend rallies hosted by Van Jones. We need to occupy the Fed, Capitol Hill, every Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, AIG, JP Morgan Chase, CitiGroup, SAG, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP

Michael Moore at the 66th Venice International Film Festival, September 6, 2009. (Source/Nicholas Genin via http://flickr.com/photo/22785954@N08/3895119443). Permission granted via Creative Commons v. 3.0.

corporate office in this country. We need to say to these folks, and the corrupt, greedy, soul-destroying interests they represent that were mad and we’re not gonna take it any more.

I just want two other things to come out of this, even if the evil capitalists manage to bash every protester and faceless writers like me in the head to stop what’s been happening over the past few weeks. One is that I want the folks from my youngest sibling’s generation to get credit where credit is due, to not hear from the idiot Baby Boomer crowd about how what they’re doing is just like what they (and by they, about 1 in 50 Baby Boomers, really) did back in the ’60s. It’s not. People born in the ’80s and ’90s grew up in a nation of diminishing resources, increasing economic inequalities, increased acceptance of bigoted, xenophobic, me-first-and-always behavior and a willingness to squander trillions of dollars to go to war in our name.

If anything, these protesters are more like the factory workers at GM in 1937, who sat-in for forty-four days amid violence and threats of violence for their labor union rights in Flint, Michigan. Or like the African

Michael Moore as Pillow Pet Penguin, October 5, 2011. (Source/Donald Earl Collins).

Americans who desegregated lunch counters, boycotted stores that refused to hire them, and staged work stoppages at military ports during the Depression and in the middle of World War II. It’s relatively easy to protest a war like Vietnam from a position of strength, as already enrolled-in-college students. It’s not so easy when your future truly hangs in the balance.

A few months ago, I was playing with my son and one of his stuffed animals, a penguin Pillow Pet. I realized one evening that this Pillow Pet had many of Michael Moore’s facial features. So I began to talk like Michael Moore about the need to stop the greedy folks on Wall Street from eating all of our cake. My son said, “I do not understand what you are saying. But that doesn’t sound nice.” In response, I said, “It’s not suppose to be nice. But then again, neither are the people who’ve put people out of work.” It provoked my eight-year-old, if only for a moment, to think about inequality. The other thing I hope is that this protest provides more thought-inducing moments, for both of us.

When Politicians Say, “The American People…”

15 Monday Aug 2011

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Elephant, as image of Republican Party, bowing to their "American people," the CEOs of Goldman Sachs ans Exxon Mobil, August 13, 2011. (Source/Donald Earl Collins)

Wall Street banker poses on his new rug, February 3, 2009. (Source/JD Crowe, Alabama Press Register). Qualifies as fair use under US copyright laws, as cartoon is of low resolution and is used for illustrative purposes only.

We should all roll our eyes, pick up a snowball we’ve stashed in our freezers since the middle of February, and hit the politician in his forehead whenever we hear one of them start a statement with, “The American people.” Because as many of us have realized for years, they’re not talking about us. As we discovered with the Supreme Court decision about corporate and foreign contributions to campaigns last year, corporations and the wealthy define whom most of our leaders think of when they’re saying “The American people.” Especially since Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil and NBC Comcast collectively count as “American people.”

When Speaker John Boehner says, “The American people don’t want us to raise taxes,” as he did on June 24 during the debt ceiling-blackmail meetings, who is he talking about? Not me. And not most Americans, I’d assume. But, in Boehner’s mind and actual life experience, “most Americans” are people whose last concern is “job creation” or “economic growth.” In fact, they’re the ones who want “government off our backs,” who seem to think “entitlement reform” is good for the country, because it saves them money for another yacht.

Because of people like Boehner, it’s hard to believe President Obama when he claims that eighty percent of “American people want higher taxes” on the wealthy. Why? Not because Obama might not be telling the truth via multiple polls. It’s more because his actions of capitulation let the rest of us know who’s really in charge – lobbyists and wealthy people who are as patriotic as Judas was loyal to Jesus. And corporations who as people might be as evil as Stalin and Pol Pot put together.

My question is, does the Comcast Center in Philadelphia now get the right to vote under the 14th

Comcast Center, tallest building in Philadelphia (58 stories), and physical representation of an American person, January 3, 2011. (Source/Smallbones/Wikipedia Commons).

Amendment, as well as the right to pay federal income tax, as under the 16th Amendment? Really, what is the end game here? Do we each have to incorporate ourselves in order for a politician or some leader beholden to the wealthy notices the rest of us?

No, the end game is a pre-New Deal America. One where the majority of us work the way our grandparents and great-grandparents did in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. Where there wasn’t anything close to a guarantee of social mobility. Where the average person’s income was $1,500 a year ($15,000 a year in today’s dollars). With no unemployment insurance, retirement, health care system or insurance. Without unions, or government regulation curtailing corporate monopolies or excess, environmental damage or employee abuse.

Ultimately, the wealthy and the greedy corporations want to beat 300 million people here into subservience and submission. They want to do what they as people accuse the federal government of doing — controlling every aspect of our lives. Including every breathe we take. And make no mistake. The Supreme Court, most of the Congress, many a state and local politician and leader, maybe even the President himself, represents the interests of those “American people.” We may have to move to a more progressive nation for our interests as human beings to be fully represented. Because even as foreigners, we’ll be better off in the UK or China than here.

Boehner Shares Stage With David Koch At Wall Street Club, May 9, 2011. (Source/AP/ThinkProgress.org).