DON'T LET THEM BLAME THE VICTIM

    
     Getting screwed by a company is one thing. Catching them at it and letting them know you’re wise to what they just did raises the stakes. Once caught, look out, because here comes one of those underhanded curveballs. Don't you just love it when they screw you blind and then turn on a dime and blame you when you catch them in the act. That's grounds for justifiable homicide. When you tell them that you know what they're up to, they hate you for it. Don't ever let them get away with blaming the victim; it's the oldest trick in the book.

     My method for getting back at the bastards, since murder is considered illegal in many of our states, is to inform them that I will spend the rest of my life letting the world know about their poor behavior. I will dedicate whatever time I have left on this earth to putting them out of business. It will be my sole reason for living, my only motivation. "So you see, sir, what you did to me will prove to be pennywise and dollar foolish. Are you sure you do not wish to reconsider and pay me the $1.29 you and I both know you owe me?" And since they're not sure whether you're out of your mind or dead serious, they usually come to their senses rather than risk the unknown.

February 8, 2010

WE'RE ALL JUST RENTERS IN THIS WORLD

     Have you noticed that people who own land feel very strongly about their ownership? They build fences around their property and put up "NO TRESPASSING" signs on some of the trees that form the perimeter of their possession. "KEEP OUT!" gets nailed up quite a bit, as well, along with "PRIVATE PROPERTY" and "BEWARE OF DOG." Friendly chaps, these land owners. Of course, the bigger the piece of ground they own, the more Conservative the owners are likely to be. Thinking you own something turns people into Conservatives in a big hurry.

     Since I am a photographer of old barns and other such wonderful architectural antiquities, I am repeatedly faced with the dilemma of whether to cross the line on to somebody's property in order to get the picture. In days gone by I used to dutifully knock on the landowner's door and ask him whether I could take some pictures of his barn. But I quickly learned that anyone with a camera was deemed to be highly suspicious and untrustworthy. And the more I explained why I wanted to take such a picture, the less likely I was to obtain the permission I sought. "Well, you see, sir, the barn is particularly aesthetic; it has an exquisite combination of form and color that seems to glow as if with a soul or spirit, if you know what I mean." At that point I was invited to leave at once or the proverbial sheriff would be called. And so now I've come to no longer respect so called "property rights," and I simply walk on to the land surrounding the old farm buildings in the name of art——–with the hope that while I shoot my pictures the land owner will not do some shooting of his own and ask questions later.

     Of course, it's out West where the big shots, you know, the ranchers, really take their right of ownership to heart. They get pretty nasty when you step over the old barbed wire. I had one particularly notable run in with a well known rancher/politician out in Wyoming. This character owned more land in one contiguous piece than there is in some entire countries. And he had no sense of humor about his land. "What the hell do you think you're doing walking on my land? This is my land, and you better get your ass off of here or I'll blow your butt full of buckshot." Charming fellow, I thought; filled with love for his fellow human beings. And what a delightful humorist. "Shut up, you asshole," I said. "You don't own this land anymore than I do. We're all renters in this world. Get it? Short-term tenants and nothing more. Trouble is, some of us do irreparable harm to the land during our brief tenancy." He looked at me with a hatred I'd never before encountered.

February 8, 2010

THIRD PARTY, ANYONE?

     I think we can all agree that the Democrats and the Republicans are not the answer to the country's escalating problems. Indeed, both parties are part of the problem. By being in the hip pockets of the "banksters," the health insurance industry, the drug companies, the auto makers etc., they have provided us with hard evidence that they are not participating in a representative democracy.

     Webster's definition of a conspiracy is: an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act. I call the agreement between Corporate America and our government officials "Conspiracy Capitalism." It is quite simply a process where the Executive and Legislative branches of government, who were elected, or, in some cases, appointed, to represent the American people and do the people's business, represent, instead, the interests of large corporations who pay them to do their business. As such, the system is dysfunctional and needs to be fundamentally changed.

     Of course, it is easy to agree that the Republicans, in their total embrace of Conservative theology, are worse than the Democrats and have become wholly irrelevant. But the Democrats, presented with an opportunity that they may never again enjoy in our lifetime, have shown themselves to be incapable of governing. Did someone read Obama the "riot act" as he prepared to take office? (After all, the Banker terrorists do not play softball). The naming of his Cabinet, most of whom were around and even partially responsible for the financial meltdown, should have been a great big red flag for all to see. Was he threatened? There's no other way to explain the stunning difference between Obama's inspirational rhetoric of his presidential campaign and the dismal Right-leaning action of his presidency..

     The only other possibility is that the Democrats are scared to death to be Democrats. Like Clinton before them, they tend to throw some grass up into the air to see which way the wind is blowing. Since the wind is a constantly shifting force of nature, the average wind is blowing from the center. And Centrists don't stand for anything. If you don't stand for anything and you're in bed with the special interests who run this country, then you're not that much better than a Republican.

     The country needs an independent third party. Americans, disgusted with the performance of both Democrats and Republicans, are registering to vote in huge numbers as Independents. They are searching gamely for someone to represent them as actual public servants instead of colluding with big business. They are scanning the horizon for a third party.

     As Progressives, we can cede that independent third party to the Tea Baggers, or we can be that voice of reform and fundamental change that Obama promised in words but has not delivered in deeds. The wimpy, ineffective Democrats have created a vacuum into which a new, revitalized Progressive party should rush in and fill with strength and purpose. Do we really have a choice?

February 7, 2010

THE TOOTH FAIRY LIVES

    

     We had a customer come into our art gallery the other day and use the “S” word. She turned to her husband, and I distinctly heard her say, “Dear, I think maybe we should try to save some money.” Although it was a private conversation not meant for the likes of my ears, I felt compelled to let them both know that saving money is positively un-American and cannot be tolerated in any form whatsoever. I further personalized the issue by appealing to their patriotism. “If you truly love your Country, and I’m sure you do, then you have a moral duty to go further into debt by continuing to buy things you don’t need with money you don’t have.” They stared back at me with a glazed expression, which was a signal for me to continue their education. “Our Federal Government sets a good example for us all and expects every citizen to do his or her part in following its lead.”

     Having paused in my monologue, I asked them whether they were ready to repent over their use of the word, “saving.” “Surely, you must know that the alternative to going deeper into debt is ongoing recession or worse, and you certainly don’t want to have that on your conscience.” I concluded by begging them never to use the “S” word again in public, as it could turn out to be contagious. The couple did a quick 180 and accelerated out the door never to be seen again. But I felt good that in some small way I had at least tried to do what I could to keep the myth alive that the economy is recovering, business is getting better and there is no inflation. The Tooth Fairy lives!

February 4, 2010

THEY'RE NOT MAKING MUSIC ANYMORE

    
     You can tell a lot about a society from its music. Our music ceased to be music around 1980. Being of a Liberal persuasion, I like to equate the death of American popular music with the coming of the Reagan presidency. Of course, he didn’t set out to do music in; it’s just another symptom of the disease that came into being when corporations assumed power, labor unions all but disappeared and the ordinary citizens lost hope. And so you can add to that equation: the disappearance of good music.

     I define music as being comprised of melody, rhythm, harmony and sometimes lyrics. After 1980 melody disappeared altogether and lyrics became either violent or meaningless. Why write something and call it a song if it has no real melody. Just write a poem or a very short story and get it over with. But don’t make believe that you’re creating music because you are not.

     I was fortunate to grow up on Mozart, Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein and his Young People’s Concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Lerner and Lowe, Johnny Mercer and later on Paul Simon, the Beatles, early Elton John and Steely Dan. (In many ways I consider the Paul Simons and the Steely Dans of the world to be the Mozarts of the second half of the twentieth century). In any case, I know music when I hear it, and folks they’re not making music anymore. They try to cover up that fact by producing those elaborate, expensive videos which are the definition of “much ado about nothing.” It’s all a lot of glitz and extravagance with your eye unable to focus on anything for more than a nanosecond before it changes to something else and then to something else until they repeat the cycle of something elses until it mercifully ends. All that fuss just to hide the fact that the song itself is not a song at all. And, of course, the younger generation thinks it is music because they don’t know any better. They don’t know the difference between music and noise. Like they’re really going to be singing any of those bleak rap or hip hop songs 50 to 100 years from now.

     Your Honor, the prosecution submits exhibits one and two in the form of the following two popular song lyrics as evidence of the decline of American culture:

Exhibit One:

“THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY”

BY Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin

The night is bitter,

The stars have lost their glitter,

The winds grow colder,

And suddenly you're older

And all because of

The man that got away.

No more his eager call,

The writing's on the wall,

The dreams you dreamed have all

Gone astray.

The man that won you

Has run off and undone you.

That great beginning

Has seen it's final inning,

Don't know what happened

It's all a crazy game.

No more that all-time thrill

For you've been through the mill,

And never a new love will

Be the same.

Good riddance, good-bye.

Every trick of his you're on to -

But fools will be fools and where's he gone to?

The road gets rougher,

It's lonelier and tougher.

With hope you burn up,

Tomorrow he may turn up.

There's just no letup

The livelong night and day.

Ever since this world began

There is nothing sadder than

A one-man woman

Looking for the man that got away . . .

The man that got away . . .

Exhibit Two:

“Ain't No Thang”

By Outkast

I'd do it if I have to

bustin caps with this a heat and load it clip up after clip

I'm packin my gauge, if I feel it

The glock, the gat, the nine, the heaters

See I be bustin caps like my amp be bustin speakers

So how do you figure that Big Boi be scared to blast ya

You 'posed to be quickest draw, but man, I hail em faster

1-2-3, you need to think about the future

Before I shoot your ass and dilute your blood with lead

From my hollow tips, I'll send you to an early grave

Your honor, the prosecution rests.

January 28, 2010

SELLER BEWARE !!

    

     I guess it’s apparent that I have a problem with Corporate America. That fact must bring great trepidation to those individuals within the highest echelons of Big Business. They live in fear of my every plan to take them down and the great power I wield over them.

     My disappointment in their species intensified back in the 1970’s when I participated as a photographer in Project Documerica, a photographic project that attempted to document in pictures the environmental crisis in America. It was organized by Gifford Hampshire under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency when that Agency was still young and idealistic, actually trying, on occasion, to protect the environment instead of the polluters. It was a throw back to the Farm Security Administration project that hired artists, photographers and writers to capture the essence of the Great Depression in drought-stricken rural America. The F.S.A. project remains the highest example of what can be achieved when the Federal Government establishes a meaningful collaboration with artists and writers for a worthy objective.

     What I discovered with my camera was that the General Electric Company along with numerous paper companies throughout New England were using some of our most revered rivers: the Hudson, the Housatonic, the Androscoggin, as their own personal sewers. A cocktail of raw sewage and toxic chemicals were being dumped into these convenient liquid exhaust systems rendering them unfit for fish and aquatic life and unsuitable for human recreation. What gave these companies the right to use our rivers for the purpose of depositing their waste products in order to make money? Can you imagine if you or I did the same thing; we’d be in the slammer so fast, we wouldn’t know what hit us.

     Then there was the issue of air pollution. It had always been my understanding that human creatures needed pure clean air in order to breathe. Yet, these same companies along with countless others were using our air as just another exhaust system for their noxious and dangerous waste products, again in the pursuit of that highest of spiritual values, making money. Let the individual dishonor our atmosphere, and the prison door would clang shut and the key would be indefinitely missing.

     If polluting our water and befouling our air doesn’t upset you, then how about outright murder. Which, of course, brings me to the tobacco companies. For more than one hundred years they have been given a license to kill under our “buyer beware” system known as Capitalism. When challenged in court, they usually come out unscathed by citing that the buyer of their products that cause premature death had the right not to buy them. “It doesn’t matter if we knew that what we were selling them would kill them, it is, after all, the buyer’s responsibility.”

     Well, I have a new approach to Capitalism which I’d like to try out when I assume power. Making a profit is not guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. It is not one of the Bill of Rights. In my administration, a corporation is allowed a profit as a bonus if and only if that company produces a product that is safe and beneficial to the consumer, treats its workers with dignity and class by providing a decent wage, substantial health benefits, fully-funded pensions, matching funds for employee 401K plans and safe working conditions. If it can do all those things without harming the environment in any way, then it is eligible for becoming a profitable organization (provided it pays its full share of taxes just like individuals). Welcome to the world of SELLER BEWARE.

     So you see, we’ve got things backwards in this country. Does Big Business have to be regulated? Of course they do. Every time we deregulate an industry, all hell breaks loose. Greed runs wild, and the consumers, otherwise known as people, get screwed. Putting the fox in charge of the hen house is a ticket to wholesale fraud. We tried it their way, and it obviously hasn’t worked. Now it’s time to do a 180 and hold Corporate America’s feet to the fire on behalf of the people. It’s part of what we call taking our country back. And it may take the Second American Revolution to accomplish it. Of course, the American people will have to come out of their endless collective coma before we can begin our reclamation project.

January 28, 2010

REGRETABLY SHORT THE USA

    

     One of the things I do is trade the futures markets. Most of the money is made going short because prices seem to fall faster than they rise. Perhaps it’s a function of gravity. In any case, most people just won’t short a market. Something to do with patriotism, I think. The other excuse they claim for avoiding a short position is that a market can only fall to zero, but the upside is unlimited. So what! Anyone with a brain cell left in his or her skull would place a stop loss order whether they were long or short a market. It’s called “money management,” and it’s the only trading system that’s ever worked in the long run. There’s a guy who’s had a national radio program on investing for many years who brags about the fact that he’s never advised going short the stock market. When he gets a so called sell signal, he tells his newsletter subscribers to get out of the market and put their money into a money fund until he gets his next buy signal. Why not tell them to go short in order to capture the incredible profits that his indicators are screaming are there for the taking in the impending bear market. Beats me.

     I went short the United States of America on the Chicago Board of Trade in late November of 1963. Of course, as you might have guessed, I did so theoretically, as the actual contract was and still is not available on the CBOT or any other futures exchange for that matter. But if it were, and you subscribed to the old adage that “the trend is your friend,” then, other than some brief bear market rallies, my short position would have become more and more profitable over the ensuing 47 years. And since January, 2001 the position has been making an obscene amount of money. My futures contract has been dropping like a stone. Which is the direction you want it to go if you’re short.

     It is not easy to stay with a position for 47 years. In the past I had always gotten out too soon and thus missed out on most of the profits. After all, it is near the end of a trend that most of the money is made. Markets tend to overshoot on the upside and again on the downside. But the short USA position was a piece of cake to stay with. All you had to do was to forget anything you ever learned about technical analysis and concentrate on the fundamentals. And the fundamentals for this country have been relentlessly bleak.

     With the killing of the first Kennedy came the loss of hope. That loss was finalized with the assassinations of the second Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Hope is a vital commodity to the “have nots” in our society. Kill it off and you gain total control. It paves the way for the undoing of democracy and the takeover of mediocrity that appears in the form of such embarrassments as Nixon, Reagan and Bush. As you can imagine, I added to my short position in 1968, 1980 and 2000. In each case my order to the broker was the same: “Sell short X number of USA contracts at the market.” At this juncture, in the winter of 2009-2010, I have amassed the largest short position in my trading career. With Corporate America running the country in all matters domestic and foreign in conspiracy with the Federal Government, I am letting my profits run.

     I take no pleasure in this lucrative trade. In fact, I watch from the sidelines in shock as our jobs leave the United States of America along with our 1st Amendment Rights. I sit at my computer in awe as I observe the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of this country take place before our collective eyes. It is not the transfer from the few to the many that the Right Wing has always feared most about Communism and Socialism. This time we bear witness to the withdrawal of funds out of the bank accounts of the many and into those of the few.

     Am I getting greedy, do you ask? Shouldn’t I take some of my profits off the table? In normal times you would be right in making such a suggestion. But this time the “few” have a plan that guarantees even greater profits down the road for my short position. By combining wars for oil with tax cuts at the same time, this greatest of debtor nations will reach a point where it will be necessary for the “Authoritarians,” the “Controllers,” the “Few” to announce that we can no longer afford any entitlement programs i.e. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, whatever is left of welfare, corporate pensions and healthcare for corporate employees. That is when all bids will be withdrawn for the USA contract, and it will fall as if in a vacuum. Then I will take some, not all, of my profits and wait to see whether the “have nots” and the former Middle Class regain consciousness and start to push back.

January 28, 2010