(no subject)

I love these things so much, and they're only available a few times a year. But thanks to post-Haloween sales, I'm set for another few months!





I stopped in at Walgreens on my way home to buy a few of these at 50% off. I asked the cashier when the Halloween candy was going to be clearanced down to 75% off. She said she didn't think they were going to do that this year, and a nearby manager agreed that corporate didn't want to do that this time. Oh well.

I put my eggs on the counter and she asked whether they were Halloween candy. I said that they were the Haloween eggs with the green insides and she asked the manager whether they were marked down to 75% off. "50 percent?" I asked.

"You can take 75% off," he said "I don't care."

"Hold on," I said, grabbing my bag, "then I'm going to go back and get some more."

(no subject)

I did not do so well on that practice test. Better than when I started, but not nearly as well as on the online practice test I took last weekend.

*stresses*

Another Election Done....

I'm feeling down about the results of the election in Wisconsin here today, so maybe that's part of what's coming through here.

Another part is having just watched "Roger and Me" in an urban geography class. For those who don't know it, it's a documentary about the city of Flint, Michigan in the wake of factory closings that devastated the town's economy. The first time I watched it, I was living in Michigan with my ex, who hails from the northern Detroit suburbs. Yet this time, it affected me more deeply, more viscerally, with so much more experience and context to place it in.

I was thinking about that movie as I read that a referendum to have Wisconsin accept federal funds for the expansion of Medicaid passed overwhelmingly, yet we seem to have reelected the Republican governor who rejected them in the first place. How does that happen? That gives rise to some serious cognitive dissonance; repudiate the policy, reelect the politician.

That rejection of funds fits my understanding of the motives of the Republican party. They are in favor of free market economics, the fact that the increasingly globalized national economy has never been a free market notwithstanding. Why should we spend money on people who are a drain on society? These undeserving poor must be encouraged to improve their lot. To pull themselves up by their boot straps. Those who don't succeed just aren't working hard enough. Certainly, anyone who wants a job can just go out and get one, right?

Some people on the religious right are scared of atheism. They feel like atheists have no moral compass. That they live in a world of moral relativism, where anything can be justified. Without God, how do we know right from wrong?

This is ironic because it is not only baseless, but it describes the economic system promoted by fiscal conservatives. The capitalist system is morally bankrupt. And not just tangentially; it's a feature of the system. That's why shareholders can sue corporate executives for being concerned for people over profits. It's a betrayal of the true interest of the corporation; a sociopathic desire to expand and profit.

Government should exist to balance out the rapacious instinct of the free market. Government should exist to provide opportunity to those who are being fucked by a system that depends on fucking people to function. In so many cases, those people do not deserve the treatment they receive at the hands of the economy. Rather, unemployment, poverty, low wages, and homelessness are structural elements of the post-Fordist economy. They keep labor flexible and wages low. Socialist programs like unemployment, Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, and others are part of a moral obligation to provide for people who have been put out of work by companies that automate factories or move jobs overseas to secure profits that will never trickle down to the masses.

Do you want to see people without a moral compass? People who have no guideposts to tell them what is good and what is evil? Look at the people who are in positions of structural power; who have the capacity not even to increase taxes on the wealthy (though that would not be unwelcome), but simply to take funds in the budget away from unwelcome occupations in foreign countries or militarization of the police and put them toward providing healthcare and education for their fellow citizens. Those who could act as real servants of their fellow citizens and fellow human beings, but do nothing. Those are the politicians, lobbyists, executives, and power-brokers who have no moral compass. They are the morally bankrupt of this country.

Scott Walker has a well-deserved place at that table, where he can sup at the expense of all those undeserving poor with the audacity to expect that a supposedly first-world nation like the United States might give a damn about their lives or give them the opportunity to make those lives better.

Good night, everyone. Get up tomorrow, and keep trying, in your small way, to make the world a better place. As Mahatma Gandhi said, whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.