Blog Action Day 2008: Focus on Poverty

Well things are winding down and headed to the wire for the Presidential election in the US. I wrote a post a few days ago where I mentioned the lack of discussion about poor people by the major party candidates lately. Of course the corporate media in conjunction with the Republican party are trying to shift responsibility for the economic free-fall by blaming people of color and the poor when it is as always greed and no accountability that results in great profit and equally greater catastrophe. 

There has always been a group who've fallen through the cracks in this society but never have their numbers been as high as they are now. In fact there has been a record number of applicants requesting immediate assistance from their states. When I think of large corporations receiving billions of dollars and their executives multi-million dollar pay-outs but the family down the street gets nothing I know that we are living in a form of hell on earth. 

There have been key circumstances that strip people of their earning power and accumulation of assets in this country:

1.  The cost of health coverage - and by extension the lack of health. Having high-fructose corn syrup added to everything does not help! It's banned in Europe for a reason. 

2.  The over-valuation of property. If you managed to hang on to your house is it worth the same today as it was when you purchased it?

3.  The cost of good and services - up by x amount year and year. 

4.  Inflation versus salary. The cost of living goes up but the salaries do not meet the minimums.  

5.  Living beyond their means. Greed is not good. Having a plasma tv is not a necessity.

Now let's be clear that those of us that live in Western countries have a lot more than those who live in developing nations. By 'developing' it should correctly be identified as recovering from having its resources stolen or destroyed by their former colonizers.  

Now let's look at some solutions for emerging nations:

1.  Making sure there is a steady supply of clean water.

2.  Micro-loans being provided to women - who are then able to provide for their families. 

3.  Get rid of the debts owed to the World Bank and IMF. 

4.  Providing medicine and other medical services. 

These nations have to rebuild and shore up their infrastructure. In some countries where socialism is employed to even the playing field the citizens have a much higher quality of life. Sure the wealthiest of its citizens pay as much as 40% of their taxes, but they all have free health care, free schools including university, paid time off for primary care givers of children or the elderly, less crime and homelessness is practically non-existent. 

Capitalism may rule in this country but it only benefits a very limited few. Having that carrot dangled in your face about what you might possibly get does nothing to improve the quality of one's life. Being on the lower economic scale is not fun but having to go without food in this country is inexcusable. Let's acknowledge things are not working to our benefit and move on. 

Where's a good place to start?:

1.  Donate your time...and money. As bad as things may be they could be worse. We will find strength and purpose in helping other people. We will also regain some perspective. There was a time when we knew our neighbors. I think it would be a good idea to start caring about other people again just to remember that we're not so different after all. 

2.  Check out Volunteer Match and Charity Navigator. 

3.  Vote. Take responsibility for your gov't. 

4.  Develop a spiritual base, positive thinking, whatever you want to call it. 

5.  Decide that we have important core issues to resolve in this country that have nothing to do with race, religion or whether you want to have a beer with someone. 

As always the choice lies with us. We will sink or swim together. 

People Get Ready

Beware the Ides of March and Republican voter theft. Don't wait until November 4th to vote people. Let's look back at 2000 and 2004 shall we. 

1.  The lines may be long and you might be cut off. 

2.  Some voting places may suddenly not be available. 

3.  The police may block the roads leading to your specific one. 

4.  Your name may be removed from the voter roll. 

5.  Someone might challenge you for wearing an Obama pin. 

6.  You might be refused because of an error in how your name was listed.

These are just some of the ways an election can be stolen. Don't be lulled into complacency either. The corporate media reporting of poll numbers that favor Obama is not an accident. Don't start celebrating a 'win' just yet. He still has to cross that finish line. Our votes will put him there (if you are so inclined to do so). 

All I have to say is this: if the opposition candidates would rely on their message and had a strong platform then tampering with votes should not be necessary. On the other hand some people are only interested in maintaining a status quo and making their friends rich at the expense of everybody else and will do whatever they think will tilt the results their way. 

The Brennan Center for Justice is an excellent resource. Also Vote for Change. Make sure you are registered and able to vote. The earlier the better!! Like healthcare, it is a right not a privilege. We must be diligent and actively engaged.

Our battle has only just begun. This country is broke. According to the former Comptroller General (did you know we even had one?) the real national debt is close to $50 TRILLION. I just did a quick search and found a wiki entry that has it listed at $59.1 TRILLION. That breaks down to more than $516K per person.  Our greed is going to keep us in beggar status unless we change our spending ways. We will not really be free until we end our dependence on oil and driving big cars. We need to cut back on our use of electricity and maybe lay off the bottled water while we're at it. Are there really that many fresh springs in the world to support our designer water habit? 

Think about this for a moment: we buy water. There are people who are suffering the effects of drought and have to walk 20 miles for water or drink contaminated water. This is in addition to the water we use and pay for that's provided by our local municipality. So we pay twice. Then let's take into account other wasteful spending by the gov't and fraud. How can we wonder why we are in so much debt? 

So we need to examine our motivations and actions as well as monitoring those that don't have the country's best interests at heart. Get out and vote and take it from there.

Why Trying To Find Your Lost Post Feels Like The Economic War Greedy Peeps Have Declared On All of Us

I had a nicely edited piece linking how we handle our finances and active participation in voting is not only a good thing to do, it's for our survival. I did save it and scheduled it to post then psst my internet went screwy and I could not get into my Blogger account or any Blogspot site from 5pm -10pm PST. Yet I was able to view them from my cell phone browser.

Now that I can load my blog again I found the original draft but not the finished piece I was set to publish. I am pissed! I usually write my posts in a Word doc or Notepad and copy into Blogger under Edit Html feature but I was writing directly onto the post tab this time.

I don't remember what I wrote  - sigh.

I'm gonna do stream of consciousness right now.

Ok....I wrote about the scene from The Matrix where Morpheus gives his call to arms and how their actions represented the "very meaning of their lives". I talked about this in an earlier post last month and included the clip. This was in relation to voting and being active participants in what goes on in this country. Well....as active as we can be. Knowledge is power!

I was watching Oprah as well and she had on Suze Orman and Ali Velshi to discuss how we got into this financial mess. Ali was being very coy about how 'Annie the Homeowner' was offered a higher loan amount than requested and how the rate went up and the banks and the supermarket and the supplier all fell down. Suze broke it down and called out the banks for being greedy and offering those adjustable rate loans for higher amounts than necessary for property that had an inflated value to begin with. FINALLY! 

Yes, Joe Six Pack has to take responsibility for making poor choices BUT predatory lenders and private companies supplied a lot of that funding and mortgage brokers were making 1000 times their usual fees AND they were bundling them and selling them to banks who sold them to Wall Street as hedge funds. They were also trying to trick elderly people into refinancing schemes for property that had been paid for. A 30-year fixed 6-8% loan won't make nearly the same amount of money as a no-money-down-shoot-up-to-20% or skip-a-payment loan did. 

Let's just also discuss how that debt has been tacked onto a lot of other things besides bad mortgages. What are they? We don't know because it's been buried in hundreds of pages of paperwork!! Then the gov't 'came to the rescue' (to further steal from us) and added a bunch of hand-outs and tax breaks to the very same crooks that are literally raping us right now. I'm not one to make light of such a violation but that is exactly what it is.

We have been a spend, spend, spend society for far too long. The difference between say 30 years ago and now is:

1.  Things cost less.

2.  Jobs paid more.

3.  Income vs. Standard of Living was more equitable.

4.  Companies were in the US and used US workers.

5.  The gov't helped (some) people more i.e. with the GI Bill.

6.  People did not use credit cards like water - did anyone even have one back then?

Women used to not be able to even get credit unless it was through their father or husband. Now an underaged child can qualify for a credit card. In the US you can go into a store and charge whatever you want often with no minimum. I can buy a candy bar at Walgreens and get cash back using my debit card. I could not use a credit card at the Tourism Office in Amsterdam in any amount when I visited in 2003. I was also actively discouraged from using anything other than cash at most establishments - even to buy postcards at one of the top hotels there.

Now California's got its hand out to the tune of $7B. So we're even luckier here! That plan to strip the salaries of certain union employees earning around $50K to work for minimum wage ($6.75/hr) to trim the budget didn't quite pan out. Praise Jesus!!! The fact that this current Governor would try to pull that shows how unfit he is for his post and how callous the Republican party is. 

Ok, I can modify that. It shows how much contempt these multi-millionaires (billionaires?) have for the poor and how removed they are from the daily struggles of the majority in this country. Because if you're making $50K in this state you're 'poor' when housing is 10 times the amount by comparison to the cost of living in other parts of the country. 

What was my other point? Oh...how hard it is to have an economic reality check and not overspend. The perceived minimum standard of living is continually being elevated. Nobody wants to be left behind. For example can you remember a time before Starbucks? Now there's one on every freakin' corner! And I LOVE COFEE but even I get it!!! 

It's in the best interest for a corporation's business model to get people to buy things they don't necessarily need or provide a convenience for a markup. You know we can make coffee at home or buy pastries from the supermarket. It seems normal to eat take-out, buy gourmet or designer strappy shoes and go broke for Christmas, but it is not. 

This is reinforced by society:  tv shows on the lavish lifestyles of the rich, magazines, heck looking at your neighbor who's likely to be in hock up their eyeballs but we want 22" rims!! We don't feel adequate and are judged by frankly a lot of people for not having the right bag or dress or degree or address or body type. It is the antithesis of living a spiritual life but the God of the US is Money. It's killing us. 

So of course some degreed white-collar executive is going to exploit that. That was indoctrinated by their name school as part of the plan for world domination. It's about starting wars to take all the natural resources from other countries, pocketing that money, running these industries into the ground, paying off politicians for favorable legislation and coming back to the poor of this country to foot the bill. That's why we don't have jobs. 

And they're going to keep doing it all over again 3, 5 and 10 years later. If they can keep us on a treadmill with a carrot and fighting each other for a few crumbs then all the better. Some of us can get over on the system but most of us have yet to figure out how. We must very decisively learn to disengage. 

Ok I think I'm done for today. Now it's on to the voting.

Early voting has started in many states or absentee voting as a convenience to citizens. I say do it asap and get it out of the way.  California starts today! This is where the trickle down theory should be in play. Start with the President and work your way down - get rid of all the enabling politicians or put the fear of the wrath of a vengeful God in enough of them so they straighten up and fly right. 

We got the Civil Rights Act passed and you know how much a fight that was! We can do better for ourselves if we are willing to do the work and let go of unnecessary things. 

Now I read Kit's latest post and have my concerns but since I don't believe in the wrath of a vengeful God I think we have the potential to avert something like this. At least I hope so! And yes, I am aware of the rumor that the CIA 'owns' Google in the same way they are involved with AIG, but you can dismiss this as crackpot thinking if it makes you feel better. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing!

Why Everyone Should Be Visiting Their Public Libraries

Growing up I spent a lot of my free time in my neighborhood library even though it was a 15-block walk from our house. I'd come home with a knapsack full of books. It was one of the few places I knew my mom would automatically approve without question. Back then my reading lists included anything by Judy Blume, Sweet Valley High and Nikki Giovanni. Sometimes I'd have outrageous fines to pay because I'd forgotten a book was under my bed for several weeks! I recall my local branch was a haven of sorts and all the Librarians knew me by name. 

As I got older my time was spent researching papers, looking for scholarship and college information and listening to Original Cast Recordings for Broadway shows. I always had an affinity for travel books, art books and newspapers across the country. This was all pre-Internet and of course I grew up with a rotary telephone!! Kids have it so easy today, technologically speaking. 

When I moved to New York City I immediately scoped out my favorite branches in Manhattan or the City as those in the know call it. Of course as a budding actor the Library for the Performing Arts was a second home to me and why not? Lincoln Center, the Met and Julliard were a stone's throw away. Also I carried such fond memories of the scene in The Wiz where the lions came to life. 

After moving to California I found a plethora of libraries to choose from. Each city had their own library system, so I could get memberships for Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica! Woo Hoo! By this time computers and CDs were of course all the rage and I enjoyed the variety and sheer volume of materials available. I was in full consumerism mode though and usually bought everything I'd wanted so my library use tapered off considerably. Then a savvy and no-nonsense financial planner came out with the book, "Nine Steps to Financial Freedom". Suze Orman is a very wise woman! She suggested that we cut out buying so many new books and utilize the library more often! Say it ain't so Suze! I had stacks of books that I'd read once and wanted to toss and I realized I could save money. Now some books I did have to purchase [i.e. acting manuals, certain classics] but a lot of things I could definitely hold off on. 

Now libraries provide vital services to those with limited resources and the frugal. They provide computers and printers, a safe haven during the day and a host of other services. Hey, I found an interesting cover on the shelf at the Hollywood branch one Saturday and got lost in and forever moved by Isabel Allende's "House of the Spirits" to which I will always be grateful. Funding is always an issue so if your city isn't making it a priority it's time to rattle some cages. 

Today I checked out 7 CDs and 2 books. I did a special request for these items. If you're willing to wait a few weeks you could save a pretty penny. Now I have one caveat: I must buy magazines, but thank goodness for the sellers on Ebay. Where else could I get a 5 year subscription to Harper's Bazaar for $8? What did I get - an inquiring mind might want to know? 

CDs: 

Annie Lennox - Weapons of Mass Destruction

Gotan Project - Lunatico

Cat Power - Jukebox

Janet Jackson - Discipline

Lenny Kravitz - It Is Time For A Love Revolution

Sia - Some People Have Real Problems

Hotel Costes - Vol. 10

Sheryl Crow - Detours 

Books:

Get Yours!  - Amy DuBois Barnett

Dirty Girls On Top -  Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez 

So don't just take my word for it - go find out for yourself. Enjoy one of the great things about this country [all spying and viewing lists aside]. 

P.S. I am eagerly awaiting Twilight! 

P.S.S. Please do NOT say Li-Berry. Major Pet Peeve!!!!!