When I See The Day*

Why Put Up With It?:

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107637/is-your-boss-an-office-tyrant?.html

Everyone can play a role in humanizing the workplace with greater sensitivity to what's really behind that facade

***********************************

Union Workers:

1) Care for their fellow workers more than management's' opinion.

2) Never consider the profitability of the company before a fellow workers' personal problem.

3) Know the names of all their fellow workers' children and family members.

4) Honor the contract as written and negotiate at the proper time.

5) Do not embarrass one another for cheap laughs.

6) Respect the Steward position and the person doing the job.

7) Criticize constructively to ensure improving relationships

8) Use the solidarity power of the group to help disadvantaged people.

9) Do the job assigned with joy and graciousness.

10) Protect and improve job site conditions.

No Happy News Here

Terrible Conditions Now Getting Worse:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/26/water-shortage-threat-iraq

Electricity supply to Nasiriyah has dropped by 50% because of falling levels of Euphrates river

The World Has Not Learned Nor Improved It's Thinking:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-chosen-ones-the-war-children-born-to-nazi-fathers-in-a-sinister-eugenics-scheme-speak-out-771017.html

They were the blue-eyed blonds born into a sinister SS scheme to further the Aryan race. But the defeat of the Nazis left Norway's 'Lebensborn' facing the vengeance of an entire nation.

Sign Of The Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6810634.ece

Deaths caused by drug overdoses — from legal and illegal substances — have risen to their highest level since 2001, new figures show.

Planet Earth - FUBAR

Dedicated To My Friend, Salih al-Iraqi of SANA TV/Baghdad:

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed.

Cindy, You Have Earned My Respect:

http://counterpunch.org/walsh08262009.html

A funny thing has happened on Cindy Sheehan’s long road from Crawford, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard. Many of those who claim to lead the peace movement and who so volubly praised her actions in Crawford, TX, are not to be seen. Nor heard. The silence in fact is deafening, or as Cindy put it in an email to this writer, “crashingly deafening.”

HEY, WORKPIGS! It's Time To Share:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-rising-tide-of-unemployment-in-america-how-bad-will-it-get-and-what-can-we-do.html

On the one end of the spectrum, Article 23 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares:

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

In other words, the U.N. says that there should be essentially no unemployment for those who wish to work.

Hope No Shit

Here's One For Detroit Friends of Labor:

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/87415/index.php TRT 18.45

National People's Summit and Tent City June 14, 2009

I Love This Country:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/6086843/Japans-opposition-pledges-to-ban-US-weapons.html

The man tipped to become the next prime minister of Japan has vowed to keep American nuclear weapons out of the country if he comes to power.

Political Discourse In America Today:

http://watchingthewatchers.org/article/37863/govt-funded-reporter-urged-lynching-black

Govt-Funded Reporter Urged Lynching of Black Congresswoman

Up/Down Same Thing*

Even More Enlightened Thinking From Government:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_re_as/as_malaysia_caning_for_beer

The first woman in Muslim-majority Malaysia to face caning for drinking beer was reprieved Monday because of the holy month of Ramadan. Her family said she would rather get the thrashing with a rattan cane now and put the ordeal behind her.

************************

Up/Down Same Thing

One can be a horizontal person or a vertical person.

Vertical people follow a standard of beliefs of hierarchy, authoritarianism, and proudly submit to any man or woman from a higher economic status, corporate or military ranking and feel most comfortable thinking "some day I'll get mine", while having footprints on their backs of those climbing the ladder of success.

Horizontal people tend to look at the person next to them in the workplace, or on the bus for that matter, as equals or someone to struggle together with through life. There is no reason to have thoughts of discrimination, bias or negative energy because that person is not a threat. In the horizontal mind competition is not an esteemed value.

Being a horizontal person in a corporatist/militarized society leads to great alienation of the soul. People have been mind controlled through media and education to believe it is perfectly normal and expected to screw your neighbor for personal advancement, i.e., Top Chef, Survivor (which starts out horizontal but quickly turns vertical) and any number of Trump type shows saying "You're Fired!" In order for a horizontal person to survive and not slip into deep depression it is absolutely essential to find a group of like minded, sensitive and deprogrammed people and talk, feel comfortable with them. One has to know he or she is not alone and their anxieties are real and not imagined as BigPharma and your Boss wants you to believe. Working on a project together, leaderless, will restore humanity within.

Maintaining a life of vertical nature will lead to stress and internal void. Let's look at the Veterans issue in this country or recidivism of prisoners or the people unemployed begging for a job. All of these people need an overseer telling them what to do every minute of the day. There is no creative brain power being used and, actually, they might like it that way as long as they are in the system. When the system throws them out every one else is enemy, a mark, or a scab. Ironically, these very people defend their worldview as completely correct - the slaves Harriet Tubman could not free.

There is a cataclysm of events coming like a freight train around the bend. Everyone seems to sense it - financial sector is collapsing, government is treasonous, people are emotionally broken up. What is the structure of this society to be after the pain and bloodletting stops? What is your personal view, assuming of course, you survive? What kind of world do you want to see?

Civilization As It Stands

USMC - Unkind Sodomizers of Men and Children:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009716522_militaryrape23m.html

The seven Marine Corps soldiers who gang-raped Javier threatened to kill him if he told anyone, so he never reported his rape, he said.

Another Western Country Going Backwards In Time:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1922201

The legislation, aimed at providing judges with clear direction on the 1937 Constitution's blasphemy prohibition, imposes a fine of up to 25,000 euros -- about $39,000 -- for anyone who "publishes or utters matter that is [intentionally meant to be] grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion."

Science:

http://www.newscientist.com/articlevideo/dn17662/34860226001-human-sex-from-the-inside-out.html

Sex as you've never seen it before: the first video of a couple getting it together in an MRI scanner trt2.09

Any Safe Place?

A Country Of Reprobates:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,541346,00.html?test=latestnews

New Zealanders voted overwhelmingly to overturn a law that prohibits parents from hitting children, according to the results of a nationwide referendum released Friday, but the government says the law is working and won't be changed.

More Bogus Intelligence, Mr Powell?:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/74138.html

He did not deny what had happened that day, but did repeatedly make the point — which he has made before — that he was following orders.

Kill Your Television

Awake From Your Trance:

http://unplugthesignal.com/2009/08/18/reality-of-tv.aspx

In this modern world most people have totally ignored the necessity of having the time to quietly sit and think. More than this, the very idea of simply having some quiet hours to think would sound like absolute torture to many people. Where is the entertainment in that? There is now engrained in us the need for constant stimulation. Could this be due in part to the addictive quality of television? Have we become entertainment junkies? I would say, absolutely, yes. Constant entertainment has usurped our very consciousness. We willingly participate in giving our minds away because we are frightened of what we might find if we chose to actually use them.

It's Not Your Fault

EWS Says "A Must Read":

http://counterpunch.org/ 08/20/09

With the innovation of increasingly marketable psychotropic drugs over the past four decades, public health officials have been free to legitimize healthcare budget cuts, hospital closures, and the widespread dismantlement of social services, by devolving responsibility for mental health to the individual and by transforming happiness into a problem of consumer choice. Miserable people – the exhausted assembly-line worker, the desperate college student, the alcoholic veteran – no longer pose a threat to the status quo so long as they agree to self-medicate and to keep themselves, thereby, in a state of artificial equanimity... Let’s be candid. The drug barons’ ongoing campaign to pathologize entirely natural emotional responses to hunger, humiliation, financial insecurity, racism, sexism, overwork and isolation is a mercenary tactic, designed to create markets, maximize profits and minimize dissidence.

Jose, Can You See?

Nothing Wrong With This Country:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/17/scalia-actual-innocence/

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent.

To Make More Efficient Killers? How About Their Victims' First?:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/mental-stress-training-is-planned-for-u-s-soldiers.html

The Army plans to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in emotional resiliency, military officials say.

The Elite's Boy Does What The Elite Want:

http://counterpunch.org/ 08/14/09

Obama is turning out to be a disastrous president, wholly unsuited for the times and our national and global challenges, and his job approval ratings reflect this.

Right Between The Eyes*

Applied Philosophy:

http://lifestyle.sg.msn.com/afp/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3526748

"There's something about a Buddhist monastery that also treats you spiritually," said Nicky Anderson, who came to the temple from County Tipperary in Ireland to tackle her addiction to prescription medicines.

Donkey Brains. See Rant Below:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/16/entertainment/e151300D73.DTL#ixzz0OQwKitJS

Fox's viewership is up 11 percent over last year, according to Nielsen Media Research

What's The Point?

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/23337#comment-168601

'and the rockets red glare...

...gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.'

I absolutely hate that song now...

I wish Amerika would just dry up and go away. Bad dream.

Bad awful dream.

Great article.

******************

Right Between the Eyes

What we love to do in this American society is shoot the messenger. No deep thought allowed here. Simply go along with the program or be accused a fool.

There are 20,000 people walking around with alien abduction stories. Living, breathing witnesses to a phenomenon in their lives. There are a hundred million people holding on to a second hand story written 100 years after his presumed death that a man rose from the dead. Who has credence? Who is to be believed and who is to be ridiculed?

Their duly elected President gets his head blown apart in front of hundred of witnesses that under oath state the car stopped and several shooters took pot shots. Media and government state it was a lone nut doing the physically impossible. Conspiracy theorists make up 80% of the country and their mental health is questioned.

Hundred story buildings turn to dust when airline planes hit them. How do we know that? Because we saw it on TV. Thousands on tons of steel girders and columns don't stand a chance against jet fuel. Makes you wonder why I look out the terminal window and see the refueling tanker filling my flight. Seems to me a dangerous situation for the public. No, I'm just a worry wart.

Health care for all is a no-brainer. Who wouldn't want to quit their miserable job and do what they want to except for the lousy health plan they are paying through the nose for? We can't have public health care because it will unfairly compete with the private pay-or-die companies by giving more service less expensively? This passes for debate?

No one stands up to the bully. The donkey brain masses feel secure and comfortable with the outlandish stories provided them. "It's not for us to ask why, it only for us to do and die" they bray. The leaders are not to be questioned as they lead us to the slaughter house. Religion tells us to obey. Accept the crumbs as payment with graciousness and aplomb. Thank them profusely for the opportunity to serve. And especially keep an eye on that person that might have a different idea of how the world works and expresses it. He's going to upset the cozy relationship.

Facing Your Problem

Parry Nails It, Again:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/23300

The overriding question has become whether the United States – as a representative democracy – is on the verge of losing its sanity.

More, please, More:

http://www.truthout.org/081609Z?n

"If every soldier in the Army who disobeyed an order could claim it was because they weren't notified of conscientious objector status, we probably wouldn't have a military any more," he added.

Why Work?

"Health Plans and Death Plans"

Alexander Cockburn August 14, 2009 http://counterpunch.org/

... JoAnn Wypijewski wrote in this site earlier this year, “Because of under-reporting, the number of injured workers every year is likely closer to 12 million than the official 4 million. The 50,000 to 60,000 who die from occupational diseases each year cannot be a hard estimate; cancer, for instance, doesn’t usually come with a pedigree. Even the precision of deaths on the job (40,019 workers between 2001 and 2007, the latest year for which there are figures and not counting the 9/11 dead) has to be qualified; the number does not account for the fates of 8.8 million public sector workers not covered by OSHA. It does not include deaths in the underground economy. Not the street dealers killed by rivals or police, and not the hookers and massage artists murdered in the line of duty by the likes of the Craigslist killer.”

Ellsburg on Hiroshima:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090805hiroshima_day_america_has_been_asleep_at_the_wheel_for_64_years/

I thought: “We got it first. And we used it. On a city.”

Work Drunk, We Are

From Crooks and Liars August 12, 2009.

It's Not Your Imagination, You Really Are Working Harder for Less Money.By Susie Madrak Wednesday Aug 12, 2009 6:00pm

See, Republicans and corporatists will love this - they'll say, "See how much they're producing with fewer people? Obviously, they were slacking off before." Remember, Republicans believe they're entitled to cheap, disposable labor without any pesky legal rights or protections that may get in the way of their profits.

Kind of reminds me of that scene in "Schindler's List," where Ralph Fiennes as the camp commander shoots a very sick man who somehow did the impossible task he was ordered to perform.

"Why did you shoot him? He did what you asked," another guard says.

Fiennes replies, "Why didn't he work that hard for me all the time?"

Yes, welcome to America, where "Work Will Make You Free". (Or is it "You'll Work Almost for Free"?) Hey, at least they don't shoot us - those of us who still have jobs, I mean:

Feel like you’re working a lot harder these days, putting in longer hours for the same pay — or even less? The latest round of government data on worker productivity indicates that you probably are.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labor costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.

That is, despite the deep job cuts of the past year, workers who remain on the payroll are filling in and making up the work that had been done by their departed colleagues. In some cases, that extra work came with a smaller paycheck.

The higher worker output and lower labor costs have been good news for companies struggling through the worst recession since World War II. So far, some 70 percent of companies in the S&P 500 have turned in better-than-expected profits for the latest quarter. 

Stress Origination

America Is Committing Slow Suicide:

http://www.truthout.org/081109A?n

In April 2008, the RAND Corporation released a stunning report revealing, "Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan - 300,000 in all - report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment

War Is Everywhere:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/11/chicago-children-murders

Over the last year, 42 young people have been killed in Chicago, all within a short drive of Barack Obama's home

Oppurtunities Abound:

http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.aspx?JobID=82289270&brd=1&re=515,14&q=CORRECTIONS&cy=us&lid=316&AVSDM=2009-07-16+09:18:00&pg=1&seq=10&fseo=1&isjs=1&re=1000

How Sad

What's New?:

Workplace Stress Claims Another:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090809/us_time/08599191496100

Audon Felix Garcia, 41, became sick July 2008 after loading grape boxes into a truck in 112 degree heat from morning to early afternoon in Kern County. He had 15 years of experience in the fields and, according to the complaint, his "core body temperature was 108 degrees Fahrenheit at the time of his death."

They Are Trying To Kill Us All:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/07/women-antidepressant-birth-defects

Thousands of women in the UK may be taking antidepressants prescribed by their GPs without knowing that the pills, which are hard to stop taking, could cause birth defects in unborn children.

The Song Remains The Same:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHI20090801&articleId=14604

Six months since taking the reins, the Barack Obama administration has met its primary objective. It has swiftly ramped up the murderous imperial agenda inherited from Bush-Cheney while the masses, pacified and deceived by the appeal of the Obama image, pay no attention to realities

Remember Brian Willson*

Japanese Internment Camp, Tule Lake, CA 1945

At 8:15 this morning, did you feel just a little remorse? guilt? shame?

Does August 6th have any historical meaning in your life? Or is it just another day of wage slavery drudgery? Nose to the grindstone and all that crap.

Thirty or forty thousand human beings were instantly vaporized and more than a hundred thousand more died in the next few days - hideously and painfully - on this morning in 1945.

A very small atomic bomb, by today's standards, did them in. Dropped from a plane with Grand Old Flag on its fuselage manned by soulless crew of true blue American military servicemen.

Are American civilians responsible for such actions? Darn tootin' we are. Just like all the atrocities committed in our name to this day all over the world.

What are you doing about it? Laughing at my post and how incredibly naive and over sentimental it is? I would suspect the mean spirited American spirit would show through at this moment. Serious subjects are to be ridiculed in this country. People with a conscious are to be considered weirdos. Lining up behind the bully is what we do.

Maybe you might bring it up in conversation today and test those around you on their perspective. Who knows, you may prove me wrong and get a response of compassion and empathy. Or an expression of fear that "they" are lurking to bomb this country. "They" will, you know, because "they" can. We were "they" to them.

We could work to abolish this type of weaponry and that would be the moral thing to do. Now I'm a Pollyanna, not conversant in worldly affairs. Not able to discuss the nuances of political science or nuclear fission. Tilting at windmills, the genie is out of the bottle, the destroyer of worlds is unleashed and unstoppable. We, the future incinerated, don't have a voice. Is that the tone prevalent in this country today? We agree with the decision in 1945 and shouldn't be surprised when it happens here.

Your friend, coworkers and family will tell you when you bring the subject up today.

Wigging Out All Over

It Ain't Me, Babe:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090805/ap_on_re_us/us_health_club_shooting

A man who sprayed bullets into a fitness class filled with women, killing three and then himself, apparently kept a Web page in which he wrote about years of rejection by women and an earlier plan for violence at the gym in which he said he "chickened out."

Don't Tell Me This Society Isn't Mentally Ill:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1732297/american_doubled_their_use_of_antidepressants/index.html?source=r_health

According to IMS Health, over 164 million antidepressant prescriptions were given in 2008, totaling over $9.6 billion in U.S. sales.

Urban Renewal:

http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2009/07/feral-houses.html

I've seen "feral" used to describe dogs, cats, even goats. But I have wondered if it couldn't also be used to describe certain houses in Detroit.

Stay In Your Own Head*

Reality is what you can get away with - Robert Anton Wilson

Outta My Head

Truth isn't too important to most people. It seems they would rather have a nice illusion instead. It's obvious the first story received is the one believed. Easier that way, I guess.

Actually holding leaders accountable isn't worth the time. Chasing happiness, personal and consuming, is why we live. What happens to the other suckers can't slow it down.

"Beware of maya" George Harrison sings. Maya is the Hindu term for illusion, yet it seems this culture embraces fantasy, surrounds itself with lies and defends it to the death. I'll vote again when they hold someone accountable for the murder of JFK. Excuse me, it wasn't Lee. Hundred story building don't turn to dust and free fall when hit by airplanes. The citizens of NYC should sue the Building Commission for allowing faulty permits on the public. What building is going to fall next? Wars are not about freedom and democracy. How do they continue to pull it off? People don't care about anything but money, another illusion. We all love the Big Lie, it makes our puny ones so acceptable.

"You can't handle the Truth" is a line delivered by Jack Nicholson so well. It could have been said to the entire population, except it is taken as a joke as all things serious in this country are. Bouncing from diversion to immediate satisfaction to bloated self-importance fills our days. Gimme mine, I deserve it and get the hell outta my way, I have an important date to kiss someone's ass, don't slow me down. My all time favorite line from people is "I love my job" usually said for someone else's benefit within earshot. We repeat this bullshit until we drive it deep into our consciousness, sitting there rotting and infecting other more noble thoughts or desires for change. No doubt there are people that can say that truthfully but I haven't met them. It only takes a small challenge to rip the cover off that bullshit.

What do people love? It seems to go hand in hand with truth. How we fight the truth, do we fight the concept of love just as hard or do we love the illusion of love as we replace truth with lies and defend them so. Truth, love, morals, ethics are all relative to the moment and the chaotic situation only leads to pain. Suffering is process leading to a firm conclusion, an internal stand not applicable to the world around you. Keep the flame burning inside and be careful who you share it with. They may have other ideas, more popular and safe.