I don’t understand why I am supposed to care about this whole #OccupyWallStreet protest. There is no platform, no legislative vehicle, no coherent call to action, no overriding message, and very little in the way of any point.

…and then read that the pilots union joined the occupation, followed by the transit union just voted to join them as well, as have Verizon’s unionized workers, with the IWW expressing their support,

all i hear is this song:

Those who don’t understand why they should care about Occupy Wall Street are the same people who year after year tell me why I must support the Democrats, while at the same time openly admitting that the Democrats will never pass the legislation I want to see passed, because it is the best i can hope for. While these kids, who see no future for themselves, and their supporters know the truth:

“There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop, And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all.” –Mario Savio

And so they don’t see what’s happening.

This is the first “Piggie of the Week” I did all myself, from the writing to the one-the-street interviews, to the capturing and rough cuts, to the final edits. Big props and tons of gratitude to Brodzilla and Sean for the editorial guidance and advice, teaching me how to edit video and audio, including chromakeying, into the final package you see here.

I think it’s pretty ok for a first-timer, and regardless of any skips and jumps, I learned a LOT over the course of the project. I sure hope I get to do more of these.

I don’t care what kind of bullshit semantic games they play: if the Democrats vote to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid not only will I not vote for them, I will actively support their opponents. I would rather deal with a hater who tells me to my face that he’s going to fuck with me for the next 4 years than a sweet-talker who stabs me in the back.

I suspect many Americans feel the same way. Don’t be fooled by phrases like “chained CPI” and “COLA adjustments”: it’s all about cutting your benefits and picking your pockets to avoid raising taxes on the rich:

As explained at length here, the idea is to peg federal Cost of Living Adjustments to a new, stingier measure of inflation.

Experts say the new index (the so-called Chained Consumer Price Index) is a more realistic metric for measuring inflation’s impact on peoples’ behavior. But the fact remains that if the change goes through as part of a grand bargain to lower deficits and raise the debt limit, retirees will receive less money each month than they’re currently promised.

And if you think Democrats are playing dumb because they want a deal, think again. They’re some of the biggest supporters of this plan.

“We make the determinations right now for benefits based upon CPIU,” Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), one of the Dems’ principal debt limit negotiators. He’s referring to the current index the government uses to calculate Social Security’s Cost of Living Adjustment. And that’s what they’re talking about changing. “Now the question is will some other look at CPI make sense? And I think that it makes sense to look at it all to see what is an accurate account, a better way to determine benefits. I certainly wouldn’t walk away from that kind of discussion.”

Just over a year ago, I objected to the way the tea baggers were threatening and disrespecting their reps: today, if I had the chance, I’d spit on James Clyburn myself, and so would very other senior citizen in this country regardless of race. You can call him and tell him that you’re not down with eating cat food in your old age: 202-225-3315. In fact, you can find YOUR rep here and your Senator here. Tell ‘em all if they make you eat catfood, you’re gonna make sure they don’t have a job anymore.

Better the enemy you KNOW than the fake friend.

Mr. Obama, who is to meet at the White House with the bipartisan leadership of Congress in an effort to work out an agreement to raise the federal debt limit, wants to move well beyond the $2 trillion in savings sought in earlier negotiations and seek perhaps twice as much over the next decade, Democratic officials briefed on the negotiations said Wednesday.

The president’s renewed efforts follow what knowledgeable officials said was an overture from Mr. Boehner, who met secretly with Mr. Obama last weekend, to consider as much as $1 trillion in unspecified new revenues as part of an overhaul of tax laws in exchange for an agreement that made substantial spending cuts, including in such social programs as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security — programs that had been off the table.
[...]
The intensifying negotiations between the president and the speaker have Congressional Democrats growing anxious, worried they will be asked to accept a deal that is too heavily tilted toward Republican efforts and produces too little new revenue relative to the magnitude of the cuts.

Congressional Democrats said they were caught off guard by the weekend White House visit of Mr. Boehner — a meeting the administration still refused to acknowledge on Wednesday — and Senate Democrats raised concerns at a private party luncheon on Wednesday.

I’ll bet they’re growing nervous: Wall Street’s president, who has done everything in his power to protect banks and has not prosecuted one single CEO responsible for the crash is now cutting secret deals (most transparent adminsitration EVAH!) with the Republicans to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicaid. This puts pretty much every Democratic seat at risk, because not only do old people vote, but the Republicans will campaign hypocritically but accurately that the Democrats cut their benefits. This kind of appeasement NEVER works, and the fact that the president is proposing to bend you over so the Republicans will release the hostages tells you all you have to know.

This president is not on our side, in my opinion. This president is, in fact, a Republican. If these are his proposals, if he is THAT out of touch with the real world, then I’m not voting for him again, and don’t think you should either.

From “Hope and Change” to “George Bush in blackface” in less than 4 years. The mask is off. We gotta fight back.

Call your congressman, call your senator, tell them no cuts to Social Security, medicare, and medicaid.

White House…202-456-1111

House Minority Leader: Nancy Pelosi …..202-224-4965

Senate majority Leader: Harry Reid…202-224-3542

DCCC: Van Hollen…202-225-5341

UPDATE: You just lost Oliver Willis, President Bush, I mean Obama. Keep pushing it, watch what happens.

Just so we’re clear, Tom Corbett and the rest of the newly-elected right wing governors care about re-election about as much as Mohammed Atta cared about landing planes. They are rooks and knights in a game of eleven dimensional chest.

Cutting welfare to work programs and homelessness prevention programs while refusing to close corporate tax loopholes that would generate enough revenue to keep these programs open, as Tom Corbett and the Republicans’ budget does, makes no sense at all, unless you are deliberately trying to sabotage your state’s economy. Same with Christie’s cuts to AIDS, seniors, and education, or Walker’s devastating attacks on unions. Why would you do this? For greater political gain that goes beyond your own immediate career.

The goal of each of these governors, many in swing states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin is twofold: to return to power by generating as much economic misery as possible in the hope that people will turn on the Democrats (useless and flabby as they may be); and barring that, to punish the people that didn’t reward them with a vote.

It is deeply cynical, totally evil, politics. But it is what it is: the sooner activists and reformers understand and act on the fact that these people do not give a shit, the better. We gotta not only fight back, but do so in every way possible, pulling no punches. They have to be tea partied, but from the left. Bring the press and a hungry child whose mom lost her food stamps to meet Tom Corbett… but spring it on him in a “gotcha”moment. Set up a tent city filled with homeless seniors outside of every Dominic Pileggi event, and when the cops move in to throw ‘em out, resist and get arrested (and hopefully beaten: no one likes seeing an elderly woman with a black eye). Make Chris Christie yell at a child with AIDS. Surprise Tom Corbett with a crying child. Ratfuck ‘em in every way until these conservative Republican assholes, and their Democratic allies if necessary, are as popular as gonorrhea, and then ratfuck ‘em again til even their own spouses won’t sleep in the same room as them. I’ll even go so far as to recommend Breitbart tactics if necessary. Corbett doesn’t care if he’s re-elected, but you can bet Dominic Pileggi does. You can bet Mike Stack does. Start hitting the churches in the burbs, bringing old ladies to testify about the pain, split ‘em from the churches. We gotta make people like Corbett so toxic, his own party won’t stand with him. And it’s gotta be explicit: you stop fucking with our people, we’ll stop fucking with you.

We gotta start playing our own 11-dimensional chess, and playing to win: otherwise, we and the people we try to help are nothing but pawns in someone else’s game.

On my drive into work this morning, the riots in Greece were the lead story, with the reporter stating that the protests had grown immeasurably from the small group of anarchists the day before. The cops were firing tear gas into the crowd. i don’t know how that’s going to work out, when you hear ordinary Greeks like Anastasia Arvanitiki say things like “They’ll be the worst criminals in history… we want to see them hanged.” And it’s worth noting that the protestors are already breaking into government office buildings.

My prediction is that the riots are going to spread. And sometime by next week, my bet is that Athens will be in flames. I wouldn’t rule our car bombs either.

You push people too far, they turn on you. A friend of mine put it really well, so I am essentially plagiarizing him here:

What the banksters, and the politicians that fellate them, don’t seem to get is that their wealth is a social construct. They have gotten title to assets typically land, but also trademarks, patents, monopolies, oligopolies that would not exist without the social compact/construct of our civilization. Without that social construct, any crowd with pitchforks and torches could break down the gates of their gated suburban communities and just take it from them, as I predict is going to happen in Greece.

You think that they would realize, if not from a sense of humanity and goodness (which they seem to lack) but from a sense of self-preservation and self-interest that making sure that the majority of society functions with a reasonable standard of living makes a lot of sense. Clearly they don’t get it.

I think Athens will be on fire soon. Literally, in flames. And I think a couple of ministers had better watch out, because I wouldn’t be surprised if the youth are out for blood.

In a pre-School Reform Commission budget briefing, Philadelphia School District Chief Financial Officer Michael Masch said that to close a $629 million budget gap, the district must lose about 16 percent of its workforce – 3,820 jobs. That includes a reduction of 1,260 teaching jobs, or about 12 percent of the teaching force. The district says there will be a loss of 650 noontime aides, nearly 400 custodians, more than 180 counselors and 51 nurses would also face job loss. Still, it’s not yet clear how many layoffs that will mean, because an early retirement offer has been made to employees, and we don’t know how many folks will take advantage of that.

The district will also lose full-day kindergarten. It’s going to a half-day program, as was in place years ago. Kindergarten is actually not mandated by the state – though everyone offers it, Pennsylvania doesn’t require children to attend school until age 7 in Philadelphia, and even older in the rest of the state.

I’ll reserve comment for now on the importance of mandatory early childhood education (now you know why so many Pennsylvanians are so stupid), but the my concern is the impact on working parents.

Because when you do away with full-day kindergarten that necessarily means that parents will have to pay for day care ($350/week in Philly) or take time off from work. Around 400,000 households in this city are on food stamps already, and the unemployment rate is through the fuckin’ roof. Working parents have enough problems as it is: why is Tom Com Corbett, who refuses to fund education, making their lives worse? Why do Republicans hate families and children?

Frankly, I think it is well past time for torches and pitchforks. Parents should start going the Tea Party route: start attacking the politicians who pull this shit, either by acting out at town hall meetings, stalking them, showing up at their personal residences, and breaking windows.

Or as the Tea Party has said to so much approval, maybe it’s time for some of those second amendment solutions I’ve been hearing so much about. The right wing wants a class war: maybe it is time they get what they want.

Research shows that employers who offer paid sick days have higher productivity and employee loyalty. These employers also avoid costly searches and training to replace workers who leave or are fired for using sick time. According to Vicky Lovell (in Everyone Gets Sick, Not Everyone Has Time to Get Better, published by the National Partnership for Women and Families), by implementing a paid sick-days policy, employers save $3.50 more per employee-hour than what they spend. There is also a decrease in health-care costs as workers receive preventive care instead of relying on the emergency room.

Access to earned sick days is also critical to public health. When an ill employee is forced to choose between staying home and paying the bills, we are all at risk. Public-health expert Dr. James Plumb told Council that 40 percent of workers contract the flu from a co-worker and that of the 18 million stomach-flu infections nationally, half come from ill food-service workers.

I mean, is this the biggest “DUUUUHHH” of all time or what? You would think that even the greediest employer would be willing to provide some measure of paid sick days to prevent the spread of disease in the workplace: no one likes to work next to someone who’s sneezing and coughing, spraying snot and sputum teeming with bacteria everywhere. It’s a public health hazard, prima facie, to deny people sick time.

But it’s also morally wrong. Someone like me, who works in an office as a professional, or someone who’s a union member and has a contract with benefits, doesn’t have to worry about putting food on the table if we have to stay home sick because we don’t lose wages and hours thanks to our paid sick time. That’s not true for a lot of people, especially those working minimum wage, low-skill, non-professional, non-union jobs. Minimum wage in PA brings you about $290.00 per week, before taxes: take out 3% in state taxes, another 10%-15% in federal taxes, and another 3.9% in non-refundable wage taxes and you’re not looking at a whole hell of a lot of money. Missing a day of work when you’re poor and have no sick time means you don’t have as much to spend on groceries, or for that matter medicine to make you or your kids get better.

I spent nearly 15 years in the restaurant business, and I remember the impact when I had to stay home sick from work. It showed up as a big ol’ hole in my paycheck, which is why I’d try my best to get to work regardless of health: if that meant I was sneezing and hacking while prepping or plating food, so be it. Sure sometimes I had to wipe my nose with my hand and didn’t have a chance to go wash (if you’ve ever worked as a line cook, you know what the pressure can be like: I would often go 5 hours putting off taking a piss during the evening rush), and so did everyone else because we couldn’t afford to stay home.

Passing legislation that will guarantee a minimum number of sick days to Philadelphia workers is a no-brainer. Sign the petition here.

Idiotic mistake or brilliant publicity move? GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons recently posted a video of himself killing an elephant in a sorghum field in Zimbabwe. Many were appalled. Others called it a P.R. disaster. Boycotts are underway.

But PR Daily called it a successful stunt: “This story will be dead by Sunday, and GoDaddy will have won tons of coverage.” And Parsons derided critics as uncomprehending or hypocritical. He refused to take down the video, and promised to post one next year, when he plans to shoot another elephant.

What a fucking dick. I’ll be contacting my admin later this week, but I’m not going to be giving my business to Parsons the douche. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.