Not Discouraged, Abandoned
By David Glenn Cox


Last month the number of Americans who lost their jobs was revised down to 467,000, just under a half a million. The total number of newly unemployed now stands at 14.7 million people. That number was revised downward 358,000 by a government technique used to classify those unemployed for more than twelve months as discouraged workers.

I am one of those workers, but I do not consider myself a discouraged worker as much as an abandoned worker. I have four resumes, depending on what type of job I’m applying for. I check the want ads every day and apply for anything that I’m even remotely qualified to handle. What is discouraging is what is available out there to apply for. Do you speak Pashto? Neither do I, but there are translator jobs available.

I went on a website, which I won’t name; well, let’s call it, for instance, “Jobs Godzilla.” Most of the job listings were dated from April and in this economy if they haven’t filled those jobs in ninety days they never will. On top of that, the category where I was looking listed twenty pages of jobs but began repeating jobs after page five. The government, using huge computer banks and incredibly complicated mathematical equations, has determined that this economy will create 879,000 jobs this year, or roughly less than one job for each of the fourteen now unemployed, not including the half a million newcomers added each month.

A national website was looking for journalists to write about homelessness in America. I thought, "Hey! I’m a journalist and I’m homeless; this should be a slam-dunk." But I never heard back from them. Either I wasn’t journalist enough or I wasn’t homeless enough to qualify. It reminded me of the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films where African American actors couldn’t even get acting jobs portraying Africans.

As I check the want ads each day I’ve learned to classify them into three categories, jobs, scams and commission only jobs. You know those little machines that all the stores have where they slide your credit card through? You can sell those machines and earn a commission on each sale. First, remember that most stores have yearly contracts with their suppliers or have bought their machines outright. Then your supplier must meet or beat the credit terms the merchants are currently receiving. Now, figure in that 600,000 more retail locations are closing than opening this year, and you’re on your way to great earnings potential.

Sell insurance to the elderly: just pay a $200 license fee and take the test, and then they will supply you with leads all within seventy-five miles of your house. You use your car, your phone, your gas, and if you make the sale in the worst market in seventy-five years, you’ll earn a commission and residual income. But don’t count on too much residual because you are selling to the elderly, you understand.

Be a grant writer, earn big money writing for others requesting federal grants! Want to learn how? Send $199 dollars and we’ll teach you! How about, “Drive the long hauls and earn big bucks! Are you a trucker without a rig? Come on down, great prices and low, low financing plans available. Don’t know how to drive a big rig but always wanted to learn? Come on down. Buy a rig and we’ll send you to truck drivers school! Come on down, great prices and low, low financing plans available."

One of my favorites was a commission only job to lure suckers into buying memberships in online dating clubs. If you reeled one in, you got one hundred dollars. You place an ad like this one on Craigslist: “Lonely girl seeks adventurous older man for NSA good times!!” Then when the sap responds, you tell him your name is “mesohorny27” and you can be reached on XYZdateclub for $399.95. Have your credit card in one hand and your … well, you get the idea.

Then there are the mysterious jobs. “Earn up to $1,000 per week, send resume to...” You just have to believe; if it was a legitimate job, they would explain it or at least qualify it. Just out of curiosity I applied for one of these mysterious jobs.

“Are you looking for a part time job other than the job you are doing before? I am looking for someone who can handle my personal and business errands at his/her spare time. Someone who can offer me these services: Receive my mails and drop them off at FedEx (nothing illegal). Shop for Gifts Sit for delivery( at your home) or pick items up at nearby post office at your convenience. Let me know if you will be able to offer me any of these services."

"I would love to meet up with you to talk about this job but I am currently away on business. I am in Australia so there will be no interview. I will prepay you in advance to do my shopping. I will also have my mails and packages forwarded to your address. If you will be unable to stay at your house to get my mails, I can have it shipped to a post office near you and then you can pick it up at your convenience. When you get my mails/packages, you are required to mail them to where I want them mailed to.”

If we’ve earned nothing in the past ten years it is how to spot the Nigerian scam, “Are you looking for a part time job other than the job you are doing before?” Sadly, these jobs are not the only comic relief offered in a dismal job market. There is the Wow package: Teeth whitening on wheels! Have parties, invite your friends over for teeth whitening, over $7,500 in product yours for only $3,725, wheels not included! You’re the expert; you’re the boss! In the back of my mind I hear this high pitched voice saying, “Hey, Moe, we don’t know anything about teeth whitening.”

“Shut up and get the dynamite, you puddin head.”

"Are you tired of going to work in the business world or a retail store? Do you feel like some days you're not making a difference? Do you want to have fun as the days go by at lightning speed and everyday is something new and different? Do you absolutely love small children? (3 months to 3 years) Then, we may have the place for you. Kids your Kids East XXXXX Preschool is looking for a few special people to assist in the classroom with their lead teachers. Job entails helping take care of the children, reading, playing and taking kids on the playground as well as helping keep the kids and their rooms tidy and clean. You will aid in their mealtimes, art projects, playground time, music classes and even help them play in our waterplayground. Come have some fun with our kids and make a real difference in your community. $8.50 to $10.00 per hour."

Or, “This Independent Contractor in Atlanta needs your talents. We offer a very competitive salary within a challenging and professional work environment. You must have your own transportation, your own tools, meter(s) and a ladder (a minimum of 10ft). You must also have a high school diploma or GED equivalent to apply. If you meet these qualifications then we want to talk to you. We are an equal opportunity employer. Please contact us immediately at atlantal.com. Leave your name, phone number (day/evening), and your email address along with your level of experience and someone will be in touch with you. This is a 1099/contract position. Your future is waiting!”

“A challenging and professional work environment,” means difficult; a 1099 means all the taxes come out of your end, and contract position means that they can fire you with or without good reason. They don’t want to invest in you as an employee, just to use you until the need is gone.

I want a job but I want a real job, a real job that pays a decent wage. The Los Angeles Times reported that there is a gang robbing banks in town. Working in teams of four they rob banks in series, robbing as many as four in a day. They’ve earned the title "buckshot bandits" because they use shotguns as their primary weapons. I would never encourage crime, especially violent crime, but considering how the banks are treating the average American, and the current job market, it’s to be expected.

We are not discouraged workers, we are abandoned workers; workers hunting polar bears in Miami and flamingos in Alaska or elephants in New York City. Yet the government chooses to call us discouraged instead of accepting their own title, failure. Don’t give me any “All hail Obama” nonsense. Adding thirteen weeks to unemployment benefits isn’t a cure, it’s a band aid. The President’s own estimates expect this depression to last two more years, or ninety-one weeks after the unemployment runs out.

GM’s Free Ride
By David Glenn Cox


A free ride on your dime, that is. Let us dispense with all talk of welfare cheats and lazy, good for nothings that don’t want to work until we deal with the king of welfare cheats, the king of free rides, and the king of government handout checks.

Under the terms of the government sponsored bankruptcy deal, GM has been able to void worker contracts for wages and benefits, shed itself of the health insurance concerns, permanently eliminated 21,000 American jobs and void dealers contracts as capriciously as a jealous teenager. This gives them the power of life and death over dealerships that once held binding contracts with GM. But thanks to the bankruptcy GM now has the ultimate power over its dealers.

But it’s even better than that; every day is Christmas for GM. The bankruptcy not only allowed GM to dump its workforce, it was able to dump its toxic waste sites on you, the American taxpayer. Don’t worry about the bailout, worry about the cleanup. One site alone is estimated at $200 million and you won’t get that back, Mr. and Mrs. American taxpayer, that one's all yours; that’s that great GM feeling.

The President, while discussing the GM bailout, made it clear. “We are not going to tell GM where or when to open factories.” The where is in Mexico and in China. And the when? What the hell does is matter when, if it's going to be in Mexico and China? GM is having a great year in China, selling more cars than ever before, but it’s a one way street. No benefit is derived by American workers or American dealers, or even the long-suffering American taxpayer now left to clean up GM’s mess. The profits go to GM and the bills come to you. Isn’t that a great system?

Yet for GM it's still not enough; they need even more. In 1999 GM spun off their Delphi electronics division in a move to cut costs. It was done as a cynical ploy to destroy the union workers. Delphi’s primary customer was GM; without their support Delphi would go bankrupt and everyone on Wall Street knew it. But in the bargain GM promised to fulfill its pension responsibilities to Delphi. But do you know what a GM promise is worth? Half a Vega and two rusty Chevettes!

Under the terms of the now illustrious bankruptcy, GM will pass on to you, my dear tax payer, the invoice to maintain its former, current, and future pension benefits to Delphi employees. A whistling little tune of $6.2 Billion dollars! GM promises that they will add an additional $70 million when they find a buyer for Delphi, but I won’t hold my breath. I wouldn’t believe anything that GM said if they told me the building was on fire and already I smelled smoke.

This is corporate graft at its finest. If they built cars as good as they schmooze government the customers would be lined up around the block. It makes you wonder what Obama’s auto task force actually did because GM couldn’t have gotten a better deal if they had written it themselves. Everything good GM keeps; everything bad, old, outdated, less profitable or just a plain liability went straight to the taxpayer.

Let us not forget the 21,000 autoworkers now permanently laid off by GM and the 100,000 dealership employees permanently laid off. GM’s pension deal will turn those pension liabilities over to the government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The PBGC will play by its rules and not by the promises made to 70,000 salaried and hourly Delphi workers. The PBGC will use its formula to decide who gets what and who gets none. As it stands now, over 400 salaried workers are likely to lose 100% of their pensions.

Depending on years of service and retirement age, many workers will have their pensions reduced by 40% to 70%. Workers and salaried retirees tried picketing GM’s world headquarters, but their pleas fell of deaf ears. Management couldn’t hear them over their uncontrolled laughter at their good fortune at the hands of suckers in Washington and the misfortune of the suckers that once clocked in at GM.

It’s a free ride, Clyde, whipped cream seat and a cherry headrest on the banana split boat. A gravy train with biscuit wheels, just sign the papers and have security remove the old codgers from out in front of the building. Just another 50,000 pensioners thrown onto the scrap heap, left to fend for themselves so that corporations can breathe the free air of Mexico and China.

It's yet another clear example of our dysfunctional government. If you, as a corporation, get into financial trouble and cannot pay your debts, the government will help you. Judges will bang a gavel and renegotiate your debts with your creditors. They will lend you money and absorb your bad assets. But for you as an individual? As an unemployed worker what assistance do you get? Who will help you with your debts? Who will help you to keep your house?

But as a taxpayer and as a person in need, I feel a sense of shame and of disgust. The American people have genuinely tried to help GM and have been abused for our efforts. We went on a blind date with GM and it turned into date rape.

Coming Soon, to a Life Near You
By David Glenn Cox



The other day I went with my son to the metal salvage yard. We had been cleaning up the shop and had two or three engine blocks plus the usual amalgamation of sheet metal. We pulled into the yard to wait in line for the weigh-in scale and in front of us was a large construction truck loaded down with scaffolding. Scaffolding on its way to the crusher and then to be melted down because that construction company saw no future need in owning scaffolding as a tool of its trade. Or perhaps they needed the few dollars as scrap metal more than its potential use. Either way you look at it, it says something frightening.

We weighed in and were directed to a slot to back in and dump our load, and as we parked to unload, in front of us were piles and piles of wire shelving, wire store shelving. It looked like a Home Depot equivalent of the Elephant’s Graveyard, white bleached bones of commerce left to bake in the sun after the days of roaming the Savanna are over. We emptied the truck and collected our few dollars for scrap and left to collect another load.

This time as we pulled in we were behind a flat bed semi-truck loaded six feet high with more store shelving. These were hard shelves, gondolas, the type most people never notice in stores but I knew from my days in the auto parts business that these were expensive commodities, and this truck was loaded down with probably close to $100,000 worth about to be turned into $300 worth of scrap. These two examples are not the actions taken in a recession; these are the actions taken in a depression when business sees no future.

It is like we are living in two parallel universes, the people in one and the government in the other. Hillary Clinton goes to India and tells its leaders Americans don’t want protectionism. And then is blasted to bits by comments from the readers of Democratic Underground.

Senator Edward Kennedy recently wrote, “We mustn’t let the perfect stand in the way of the good in regards to health care reform.” I found that a bit ironic on the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, because it was Kennedy’s own brother who said why we chose to go to the moon. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

The Senator is saying to us that we must take what we can get and be grateful for it. Well, I’m not grateful, I’m angry; I’m tired of watching our jobs, our healthcare, and our standard of living going down the toilet while Senators, Congressmen, and even Presidents tell me we must take what we can get and be grateful for it. It makes me angry because only one universe is suffering; Goldman Sachs is doing quite well on the Fed’s free money policy as are the health insurance providers and the Congressmen and Senators.

Last week in the New York Times was the following headline, “Democrats Drop Key Part of Bill to Assist Unions.” They’ve dropped Card Check from the Card Check legislation! Like dropping the moon missions from the space program after President Kennedy’s speech. What friends do American workers have in Congress if this is what comes from the Democratic side of the aisle?

No pun intended but there is an elephant in the room that no one will mention. Republican Jim Demint says if Obama can’t pass healthcare legislation it will be his Waterloo. Republicans want to make the issue about people and not about ideas, because when asked what are the Republican plans for healthcare reform, they begin to stutter and stammer. Their plan is the system we’ve got now! So they say, lets talk about Obama. Why don’t the Democrats exploit this? The public favors reform by a wide margin, so why not? Why not give us the single payer reforms that we the people are crying out for?

For the same reason that Card Check was castrated; you can have reform but only business and industry-approved reform. They tinker a little in the margins, then proclaim a great reform in their universe, but one that does little to solve the problems in yours.

If left in their hands, this will be the generation of diminished expectations. In California falling home prices coupled with higher unemployment equals lower tax revenue for the state, which in turn means draconian cuts in education, social services and balancing the budget on the backs of workers, which in turn generates more lay offs and lower wages. While FDR offered massive support for the states and minimal support for the banks, Obama’s plan is quite the opposite, massive supports for the banks and minimal support for the states.

This is a shit storm and it’s rolling uphill and threatens to make a black hole out of our universe, business, industry and most of all the people. Falling wages, shorter hours, unemployment and under employment along with such euphemistic Orwellian non-speak as jobless recovery means Federal tax revenues will fall. No job? No Social Security withholding. No withholding, no money coming in which will make hamburger out of the current Social Security projections.

Three guesses as to what will come next? Republicans will coyly smile as the blue dogs snap their fingers and tell the cameras, “Damn, we wish we didn’t have to do this but you must take what you can get and be grateful for it.” As for me I’m not just losing faith in Obama or blue dog Democrats, I’m losing faith in a system that fails to deliver the goods to the people. Where you order an apple pie and get a mud pie and are told it’s almost just as good. A system where millions of people are losing their homes and struggling to make ends meet and the President says, give it two years.

Are the banks to wait two years also? It does not need to be this way; the New Deal invested in the people and built America’s modern infrastructure. Airlines were the wave of the future, so they built airports. We need green energy, our people need jobs, so why aren’t we doing this? Our trade policy is strangling our economy while our cities fall into ruins so why aren’t we changing it? Our tax policy is even more absurd than our trade policy. It's not protectionism, it’s national defense and common sense. It was FDR who said, “They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.”

Where is our vision? Has it changed to a life of half a loaf and half a fish down to a third of a loaf and a third of a fish? To work and to struggle only to become the college-educated unemployed? I see two possible visions, one where we invest in our people and our country as was done in the 1930’s, and the other is, of course, the road that we are directed to travel now. The first is uphill and challenging and the final destination is unknown; the other is downhill and the destination is certain.

“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.” John F. Kennedy

The Triumph of the Republican Will
By David Glenn Cox

First let us be clear, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” Such is the case with the Republican Party as it loses ground in the last two elections cycles. Losing the House, the Senate, and the White House, yet in all honesty what do they need with an army if the battles are already won?

Everything they’ve ever dreamed of is wrapped up in ribbons and fine papers. Wages are falling at the fastest rate in the forty years that records have been kept. Unions are hamstrung and castrated to the point of being ignored. In California 90,000 state workers have been working without a contract for over a year. They were forced to take a one-time wage concession two years in a row, but the governor can’t seem to find the time to settle on a new contract. When union members begin to grumble they are warned by both the union and the state that strikes are illegal.

Instead, the governor forces even more concessions by arbitrarily forcing unpaid furlough days on the worker and wants a 5% pay cut on top of that. If that wouldn’t give a Republican a hard on I don’t know what would. Private employment is even worse; while looking for work myself I came across an ad for a rental storage facility. The job paid $10.00 per hour and all you had to do to earn that princely sum was to be the bookkeeper, the auditor, the salesman, the maintenance man and the janitor. The job was listed as part time, 25 to 29 hours a week, but it gets even better. You were to be available for work at various times of day and at different locations around the metro Atlanta area.

No benefits, not even gas money was offered because what they want is someone to be available full time but to pay them for part time. A maximum of $290 gross in a town where the least expensive rent is $600 to $700 per month, but as they say on the infomercials: Wait, there’s still more! They require dependable transportation and a cell phone.

Just as the smiling children surrounded the Fuehrer’s staff car as it traveled the streets of Nuremberg, a new generation of Leni Riefenstahls educates the party faithful, so cowed and so indoctrinated that they don’t even know their left from their right. Most don’t know the difference between fascism and communism so they take turns comparing Obama to Hitler and then Stalin. But which is it? Because he can’t be both. Obama’s not capable of being a leftist totalitarian dictator and a right wing fascist dictator!

However, those on the left aren’t much better. They praise Sonya Sotomayor as an excellent choice for Supreme Court Justice. First appointed to the bench by George Bush the literate, she has voted with the conservative judges 97% of the time. She began her career as a corporate attorney, and the head of the US Chamber of Commerce recently praised her career in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal. Why do Republican Senators look like buffoons questioning her? Because they’re laughing themselves silly with trivial “Wise Latina” remarks when the truth is that had John McCain won the election she might have still have been nominated because most people just don’t know the difference.

When Barack Obama ran for the White House, the Republicans declared him the most liberal senator in Washington. Four years before those same Republicans declared that John Kerry was the most liberal member of the Senate. Did you hear anyone in the media ever question or investigate those claims? George Bush was called a compassionate conservative despite his record, but that was explained away as being tough on crime. Kerry’s medals for valor were discounted while investigations into Bush’s shady military record were stifled.

Obama’s record in the Senate is one of a moderate; yet he campaigned for office as a progressive. He made promises to various liberal constituencies and has reneged on them all.

Liberals are for a strong national defense and building alliances through diplomacy. Liberals gave you Social Security and Medicare and guess how this generation's so-called liberals want to pay for health care reform. By gutting Medicare and adding a surtax on the rich. I’m all for taxing the rich, but this plan is a recipe for disaster, pitting payer against payee. What is the liberal alternative? A single payer expansion of Medicare; the first and last single payer plan was introduced in Congress by Harry Truman in 1948.

The liberals in Congress today could carpool together and just for historical reference Harry Truman was considered more conservative than FDR. Eisenhower was a political moderate who was courted by both parties as a presidential candidate. Kennedy was a conservative Democrat and considered far more conservative than Truman. Johnson was a liberal on domestic issues, but on foreign policy he agreed with the Republicans for many different reasons. Nixon created the EPA, supported expanding Medicare, his task force on illegal drugs advocated for lighter sentencing and more treatment options and Nixon voiced no complaints about Roe v Wade.

Carter ran against Ford who was a moderate Republican while Carter was a conservative Democrat. We know now that Carter was by far the greater humanitarian, but we didn’t know that at the time. It was Reagan who turned the political world upside down. Reagan, who ran as a moderate but was actually a fascist, subverting the law with secret and illegal deals and wars, busting unions, cutting school lunch programs even going so far as to tell unemployed workers if there are no jobs where you live, move away! Sort of an early Katrina policy.

But Reagan was successful as the great (con man) communicator. He played the role of the tough guy defending the working man when in fact he was the one attacking the working man. He created the great political theater of big, fat, Cadillac-driving welfare queens sitting on the sofa eating bon bons while you work all day in the hot sun, and the American people fell for it. Democrats, in order to get elected, began to emulate the conservative Republicans and true liberalism all but disappeared.

Bill Clinton ran for the Presidency as a new Democrat. His plans for healthcare reform were in many cases just common sense, such as requiring insurance companies to all use the same claim forms. He and his administration were tarred and feathered as big spending liberals and almost run out of town. Clinton’s health care reforms were to the right of Richard Nixon's. Clinton’s welfare reforms were to the right of Ronald Reagan's. Clinton’s support of NAFTA and free trade marked a radical departure for the Democratic Party from liberalism.

It is all about moving the goal posts; what were once radical conservative positions are now considered mainstream. What were once considered mainstream Democratic politics are now considered liberal Democratic politics.

The goals of the Republican Project for a New American Century were as follows,

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Defense spending under Obama is up even over Bush levels; we are still challenging regimes hostile to us for no other reason than their hostility. Promoting the cause of economic freedom abroad is nonspeak for economic exploitation. The tepid condemnation of the coup in Honduras and the failure to cut off all financial aid to the coup plotters is a “Mission Accomplished” banner over the Obama White House.

The expansion of the war in Afghanistan and his new war in Pakistan are proof positive that Obama has accepted responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles. When the crisis in automobile manufacturing began, Democrats were against bankruptcy and Republicans were in favor. As the weeks went by, what solution did Obama’s car Czars hammer out? Bankruptcy!

Obama has continued the Bush policies of direct support of industry and financial interests while taking a hands-off approach to the struggling populace. It is as if he is waiting for the market place to save us when it’s his job to do so. That would be the liberal opinion of what he should do.

“It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.”

Saving Tinkerbell
By David Glenn Cox



My November dreams have become restless nightmares now, as I toss and turn unable to find rest. Night figures haunt me, walking alone and in groups alone in the shadows, yet even through the darkness I can see their faces. Pale and gaunt, tight with anxiety, thin with hunger, steel eyes looking nowhere and everywhere. Looking back over their shoulders towards the future, like looking for yesterday to find tomorrow as they walk away slowly into the distance.

Why do they seek me out? Why do they haunt me so? Is it because I am also them? I am one of them with my membership card in my hand, with my dirty shoes and ragged clothes as proof true. Are these specters me? Do I run loose in my mind or does my mind run loose in my head? Am I haunting myself? Have the sinews and synapses allowed my brain to break free like a ship's cargo in a storm?

They cohabitate with me when my eyes close to sleep. I hear their voices; I hear their labored steps. I hear their children until I wake in a sweating, frozen terror and I wish to scream for them to be gone from me! But it is no use, because I can’t. They are the strangers who know me and the ghosts who are me and I carry their chains as penance for my crimes like Marley.

I watch their numbers grow, as I watch the world spit on them and cuss them and excoriate them and fit them for their crown of thorns. The populace put forth a shallow, false bravado to hide the fear, the fear of being next, of walking alone, of being spit upon, of being hated by the world. The fear of the hundredth job application for a job you’re overqualified for but under-qualified for because you’re too old or too young or too female or too male, but most of all you’re under-qualified because you want to get paid for your work.

They hold me down in my sleep; they grab my hands and seize me as I struggle to break free, and as I do sparks fly around the room from the light sockets. I cannot sing, I can only scream, not beautiful music but the sounds that need to be heard just the same. So don’t fault me if my words hurt your ears for I am not singing to you. I'm sending you a message from the other side.

The charlatans who strut the days in matinees of palisades and serpentine splendor that remains to remind us that all the world is a stage, but the play is all of fiction. Their names may change as fast as the facts, but never forget they run in packs, and sleep better knowing that their money's safely in the banks. So don’t try to phone, don’t try to call, don’t you ring the doorbell and wait on the lawn, for they don’t know you.

They have names for you, of course, and programs for you and forms to fill out and waiting periods and calculations. Stratagems and economic theories and black-tie dinner parties over food you’ve never tasted and wine you’ve never drank, followed by dessert and champagne to celebrate their escape from the life you must daily lead. Slowly it begins to come to me why these ghosts disturb my rest; it is because I hear them and they do not. I feel them and they do not. I am one of them and they are not.

I do not rest with bloated belly filled with fine food and wine, but with hot dogs and maybe a beer and I’m glad to get it. Oh, I get it all right, like a lover spurned, I get it. We are unneeded by you now! This assembled multitude should disperse now into the night to tread the footpaths of the night people, the street people, the homeless people to be summoned up when the trumpet sounds again and the polls open.

I will call them out; I will call them out of their temples even if the star catchers and cultists object. Holy rollers steeped in party and baptized with the holy water of political furor. It’s not heads I win, tails you lose. We all lose. You play the game, but they run they game. When your man calls six they all chant, yes, six hooray! When their man calls six they cuss and yell, oh no, not six! So excuse me while I laugh because it's all the same play, for penny-stinkers and kings!

But no, they cry out from the temple pews, you’ve just got to believe! You’ve just got to! Otherwise Tinkerbell will be lost to us. Come on now, you’ve got to have hope! With hope we can do anything, so come on, join us, lets all hope real hard for Tinkerbell. You see? I think it's working. I see a light shining. Sure, that’s it; everyone hope real hard!

Yes, I see the light, too, but I see it in the dark, for in the dark there is a clarity. A clarity not given to those who live in the light. A thousand points of light are surrounded by a million points of darkness, and those of us with concrete for beds, we know this unquestioningly. Hope is a four letter word, but so is help and so is food; hope is what you hold onto when there is no help or food. Like fairy sprites, it is all a make-believe game.

But our night is as real as is their day. Hope is not a plan, hope is a way to dodge the blame and for them to say heretic! You're disloyal, go away! You don’t believe when I would upend, but 'tis for you to unrecommend. For that will change naught, and it will change nigh, because I will condemn all those who lie. For to silence me won’t silence the others, as they, too, will begin to haunt you under the covers. At night time close in safe repose, you’ll see their shadows, you’ll wear their clothes and you will know what they know.

Reality is stone and fantasy whipped cream, and no, this is real and not a dream. The night men grow and their numbers swell, and without saving us there is no saving Tinkerbell.

The Ticking Clock
By David Glenn Cox


The clock ticks just the same each second as the hands point to the different hours. Day, night, morning, evening, and still the clock just ticks away the seconds. Listening to the ticking obscures the facts that things are changing quickly and that many of us have no idea what time it is.

Right wing pundits make veiled remarks and some step out into the sunlight and call for insurrection and revolution. It should be remembered that in the cauldron of human existence the lightest elements bubble into gas the quickest. They seek attention, they seek to rile the reactionary, to try and brew tea by seeing how much heat they can generate. And yet, just as the broken clock is right twice each day, so are they. Just as with the clock, they are right for all the wrong reasons.

They rant about income taxes which for most will go down, and about Socialism when most of them don’t know Socialism from Social Circle Georgia. They are riled about the things that they’re told to be riled about. But the truth is closing in; it’s later than they think.

When my father was a small boy he was in a food riot. Men were passing out 25-pound bags of Herbert Hoover’s cracked wheat, tossing down bags from the back of a truck to the assembled hungry, and as my father remembers it some of the men resented the way it was being thrown down to them. Words were exchanged, and then the crowd suddenly exploded into a mob scene charging the truck with both anger and fear. The fear was that they would not get any wheat and their families would go hungry.

My father vividly remembered his father holding him under one arm and the bag of wheat under the other as they were trying to make their escape. These were simple people, law abiding and not prone to violence. Yet they exploded and this scene was repeated to lesser or greater degrees all across America. Hunger and desperation brought on by the perception that the government is not your friend and not on your side will sharpen the teeth to make carnivores out of herbivores.

We have seen the long, dragged out stories of the Bush administration's secret wars and programs including torture. Day by day, second by second new details are leaked of massacres and assassination squads that operated outside the bounds of even the CIA. If you, as my neighbor, killed someone or robbed a bank and I knew about it and didn’t turn you in to the police, I could be charged as an accessory after the fact which is a felony. From the current administration we get hem hawing and parsing of words, meaning that they are not going to do anything about it. It's a showcase of the two-tiered justice system of them and us, of corporations and kings and the proles and peasants.

General Motors went into bankruptcy protection on the promise of retooling to become leaner and meaner, and last week the court divided GM’s assets. The company will keep its newer factories but a dozen or so of the older, more polluted assets will become the property of US taxpayers. One location in New York is listed as one of the state's most toxic sites and the estimated cost of clean up is near $300 million. That’s for you, it’s all yours now!

GM, not content just to free itself from pensions and the wages of 21,000 workers, dumps its toxic assets onto you, the taxpayer. Chrysler eliminated 9,000 jobs; the state of New York will eliminate 7,000 jobs and raise the retirement age. The airline industry has shed 31,000 jobs. But in the state of California is a travesty the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the days of the Czars in feudal Russia. The governor is trying to balance the budget on the backs of the state's employees.

The movie actor turned feudal lord has imposed three unpaid furlough days per month and proposes a 5% wage cut on top of that amounting to a total loss of 20% of the state employees' income. A compromise proposal called for a tax on petroleum removed from the earth in California. California charges no tax on the oil companies because of its clear case of them and us. Shell recently announced a new oil find in Norwegian waters. Anyone care to guess what kind of tax Norway charges on petroleum taken from its land? Are you sitting down? 78% and the oil companies are lining up for drilling rights.

These wage cuts in Sacramento are pushing some state workers into foreclosure. Empty car lots line the main roads as businesses estimate sales are off by 50%. Hear the ticking clock? It's only a matter of time as most businesses cannot remain open on 50%. Local shelters are lobbying for one square block of downtown for the homeless to be allowed to set up a tent city. The city is leaning against it, them and us.

Can you see where the hands are pointing? The same banks which took government bailout money when they were in need now tell the state of California that they will no longer accept their IOUs. The homeowners that the banks promised to assist in keeping their homes are being told to apply for their assistance programs, then are receiving foreclosure notices in the mail.

Cities across the country are laying off police and fire department employees. In Los Angeles there are plans to close one of the city's jails, making a dangerous overcrowding situation explosive. Meanwhile, in the District of Cornucopia the members lead an idyllic life style. They work for corporations, listen to the lobbyists, then at five o’clock it’s Miller time! No crisis there, no sense of urgency, just another day at the skull ranch.

Do you see the pendulum swinging? Do you see their solution yet? It is to bank up the fires until the economic storm passes and to leave you outside in it, them and us. Our new President likes to pass legislation then bang the gavel and declare the problem solved, when the problem is not solved. Wages are falling and costs are rising and he’ll think about increasing the stimulus, maybe after unemployment reaches 10%. The time is running out as the sands grow short.

What is coming is coming; it is an historical certainty. It is a sad thing, but it is necessary because they won’t hear us otherwise. They’ve already slept through all the alarms.




A letter dated February 28th 1932 to the Dauphin County Board of Assistance:

Dear Sir,

Would you please try and get us some coal as we need it very bad. I put in an order at the Union Hope house but no one seems to come around to see about it or not. If I could get work I would never ask for any thing. But (Name Redacted) has been working at the park and only makes 72 cents and sometimes not that much a week and now he has no work at all. They won’t even give my boy (redacted) a job because his dad is working and he has seven to keep up on the little that he makes.

Anytime we ask for a relief order or anything we are turned down. But we have a party close to us that loses weeks work at a time on account of drink and he is carried on the welfare just the same and his wife gets coal and blankets relief orders and every thing they give.

Here we are honest and hard working and willing to work and when we ask for anything we get turned down. Even voted the Republican ticket, five of us and don’t get any consideration even when we ask for a little coal that we can’t possibly buy and need it for three little children also food and shoes. But we can’t get anything it seems.

Kindly look into this for me please,
(Name Redacted)
Middletown PA

As soon as possible

A New Beginning
By David Glenn Cox



Political parties, like people, have a life span, but unlike people they are driven by their relevance. Political parties which are no longer relevant cease to exist.

The Republican Party is a perfect example; its central core values of low taxes, small government and less regulation have been proven false and the Republicans have been exposed for what they are, the party of the rich, the party of less taxes for the rich, and the party of less opportunity for the poor. They are the party of less and the party of nothing.

Since Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy the Republicans have run as the de facto party of racism disguised by polite speech and conservative approaches to moral values. It was a flashy and clever strategy, but since morals issues are dealt with by individuals and not societies it is a way to appeal to the best in a society while actually bringing out the worst. It requires the politician to do little more than to talk the talk about God, or abortion, or God’s love of little children. Then the politician is free to cut education budgets, school lunch budgets and programs for the poor; not because they don’t work but because they breed immorality.

The greatest lie ever foisted on the American public is that some people don’t want to work. It is a useful lie in that it divides us into hard workers and the lazy. It resounds in Christian ethic and early American Christian lore, that those who don’t work don’t eat. A fable, a fairy tale, of those who would leave continental Europe on board cramped, squalid, dangerous little boats for a perilous voyage to the new world only to sit on their asses in a wilderness.

So then, those who don’t want to work are immoral and those who don’t want to feed them are moral. The Jamestown settlers worked hard but their crops failed; the Native Americans then gave them food to help them to survive the winter. The settlers were indeed fortunate that the Native Americans were not yet Christians.

Americans want to work but they don’t want to work for little or nothing. The twentieth century in America was one long twilight war between capital and labor. Time after time Capitalism failed and labor suffered. When Capitalism collapsed in America in the 1930's, FDR’s solution through the New Deal was to give labor skin in the game. Socialism and Fascism were on the rise so it seemed only logical that workers would not overthrow a system in which they might benefit.

But since the end of World War Two we have seen the erosion of labor rights and a decline in the standard of living. Americans lived comfortably on one paycheck in the 1960’s, two paychecks in the 1970’s, three paychecks by working two jobs in the 80’s and 90’s, then three or more paychecks plus credit cards in the first decade of this century.

Workers who demanded more pay or more benefits were labeled as greedy while Capitalists who closed a factory because it wasn’t making enough profit are called prudent. The Republicans passed the Taft Hartley Amendment in the 1950’s, effectively eviscerating organized labor. The Reagan revolution of the 1980’s changed the tax code allowing easy investment for quick profits at little cost while the manufacturing economies of Germany and Japan moved into high gear. Just when we should have been retooling our manufacturing base, we instead abandoned it.

A little noticed bill in the 1960’s that was devised by the Democrats would allow American manufacturers to set up factories just across the border in Mexico and to bring materials in and products out without the usual tax implications. The purpose was to try and stimulate job growth on the Mexican side of the border, to stop the need for illegal immigration.

The program has had the exact opposite effect of its purpose; it pits American workers against low wage workers. It draws peasant farmers and country people, lured to the border by the factory wages. Who then, once there and unable to find employment, see no other recourse but to keep moving north. These Maquiladora plants now number near a thousand. Their owners are American, European and Asian; the pollution laws are weak and unenforced until the toxic waste washes up on California beaches.

This is a clear case of American political parties working directly against the interests of American laborers. In the 1990’s Bill Clinton ran for President as a new Democrat, a new Democrat meaning a moderately conservative Republican. While American labor groups rallied against NAFTA, Clinton advocated for it. When Ross Perot warned of a giant sucking sound of jobs leaving the country, Al Gore compared him to the Smoot-Hawly tariffs of the Great Depression.

Perot was right and the Democrats were wrong; the media portrayed Perot as a paranoid nut and a xenophobic zealot. Yet Perot had made himself a billionaire when billionaires were still rare. He had warned of the climate of the manufacturing culture and the corporate culture inside American industry and all the media chose to talk about were his big ears and funny accent. The left saw him as a nut; the right saw him as a traitor to his class.

The Reagan revolution also saw the massive expansion of the military, with billion dollar plastic airplanes and dreams of a Buck Rogers missile defense systems. These systems are/were designed with no other purpose than to negate Russian missiles, giving the US a first strike nuclear capability.

Since Reagan we have seen an almost non-stop policy of military intervention: Grenada, Panama, Yugoslavia, Kuwait, Iraq, Haiti, Afghanistan, then Iraq again, and now Pakistan. These are only the visible manifestations of military interventions; like an iceberg more lies hidden below the surface. We spend more on our military than all other nations of the world combined, yet have little to show for it.

The current administration ran for office on promises to end these wars, but have done the opposite. They ran on promises for a new openness and transparency in government, but have done the opposite. Even on social issues where candidate Obama promised change, even on such stupid policies as don’t ask don’t tell where the President could change them for the cost of a ball point pen he resorts instead to presidential directives rather than executive orders.

We face an economic crisis that rivals the darkest days of the Great Depression. It is in many ways far worse because America is an urban society now when it was an agrarian society in the 1930’s. While Roosevelt took an activist approach, Obama takes a wait and see approach ignoring that the millions of unemployed and underemployed that cannot wait and have already seen quite enough. Millions made homeless and thrown into the street are treated as criminals rather than economic refugees.

This government and both of its political parties throw billions of dollars around the world to buy loyalty or land or to curry favor, in the form of foreign aid forgetting that we are no longer the rich uncle. We are a debtor nation with more going out than coming in. We are borrowing money to give away while our own people suffer in the streets. There is something fundamentally wrong with that thinking.

Political parties which are no longer relevant cease to exist. Political parties which ignore or work against their own peoples' interests are in fact corrupt. It would be far easier to start again than to untangle the maze of corruption to determine who is clean and who is dirty.

What is most needed and most feared is a third party. A party dedicated to the rights of the workers. A party with an open social contract that embraces individual freedom. A prosperous economy has little need for wiretaps or undercover policemen.

A party with a tax policy that says if you provide good paying jobs you will have an easy road, but if you import or exploit you will find the going quite tough.

A party that advocates unequivocally for a government-funded, single payer health system.

A reciprocal tariffs policy with our neighbors; if the tariff is 25% on American cars, that is the tariff on your cars.

A party that calls for national defense and not military adventurism. An end to the wars, an end to needless foreign bases. If those governments want us there let them pay the cost; few will.

A party that holds as its central plank and sacred duty that the well-being of the average American citizen is the only true purpose of a government. The well-being of the many is the best social program.

A party of what the Democrats once were and Republicans most fear. A new beginning.

Et tu, Brute?
By David Glenn Cox


It cannot help but be noticed that DU has installed a new ratings system allowing readers the option to recommend or un-recommend a given piece. Whether intentional or not this is a system of self-censorship. Since recommends convert directly into readership controversial pieces will be relegated to the cellars of readership.

Anyone who speaks ill of Obama or Clinton no matter how justified or impassioned the reasoning will be liquidated by the imperial thought police. This form of censorship is not unlike C-span, which frames its questions to presupposed points of view. Are corporations good for the economy and the over all work force or are corporation a benign force on the economy? It eliminates true dialog and constricts the level of thought to which household chemicals are most dangerous and stories of my dog Rusty.

There are posters on DU, which I do not read, one in particular because I don’t read DU for political satire. I have no qualms with his work one way or another except for his damn catchy titles that sometimes lure me in before I read who the author is and now I have a means to disqualify his work. To deny it to those of you who might enjoy political satire. Not that I would do that because if I don’t like something I move on if I do like it I will recommend it.

Censorship is an ever-tightening noose, strangling opinion until there is only one. The one that pleases most by offending the least, by dividing into good thought and bad thought. Pro-party, anti-party, pro-Limbaugh, pro-Fox news, Pro-Bush administration. The strangulation of new ideas comes from those who believe that they already have all the answers making all others unnecessary. Or the false belief that we can work our way out of crisis by circling the wagons legislating from the center. Or as Mark Twain once remarked, "Whenever I find myself in the majority I immediately reconsider my position."

Newt’s Solution to the Crisis in Iran
By David Glenn Cox


His solution is state-sponsored terrorism which he justifies as necessary. The former speaker of the house interviewed on Aljezeera “Fault Lines” program, which will air Saturday July 10 at 7:30 Am EDT, and will then be repeated through out the weekend.

Gingrich began by saying the US should "use covert operations … to create a gasoline-led crisis to try and replace the regime". That the US should use “sabotage” against Iranian oil facilities.

"I think we have a vested interest, the world has a vested interest, in a responsible Iranian government, just as we have a vested interest in a responsible North Korean government,"

It is funny peculiar and not funny ha ha that Newt should use the word responsible twice in a sentence after calling for state sponsored terrorism.The former speaker is advocating acts of war to destabilize a foreign government that though unfriendly towards us has done nothing towards us to deserve such actions.

Gingrich has made his living as a history professor so it is troubling indeed that he fails to make the historical comparisons to the success of unprovoked surprise attacks. He further explained that such attacks would be "one piece out of many".

"I think that the Reagan strategy in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s is the right strategy: we use economic, diplomatic, psychological pressures to try to change the regime."

Somebody please buy grandpa a calendar! The Gipper is dead; we are not fighting the cold war against the Soviet block anymore. We have used those Reagan inspired strategies in dealing with Iran for the past thirty years and nothing has changed for the better.

Gingrich is making it abundantly clear that he is a man with a brilliant future behind him. Perhaps he could revisit the speeches Douglas MacArthur who said, “Old soldiers never die they just fade away.” It is time for Newt to just fade away he has lost the ability to judge reason and responsibility and the ability to draw one from the other.

He is the old man on the political highway who can no longer see to drive or knows where he’s going but is just grateful that someone wants to hear his long stories about the good old days.

Yet contrast this dangerous old man to another old man who sat in his stronghold in Tora Bora and told his listeners that what were needed were surprise attacks of sabotage against the United States to destabilize its government. You then can begin to see just how dangerous people like this can become when given an audience.

Fixing the Leak
By David Glenn Cox


We are what we are; we are good and bad, strong and weak, intelligent and stupid. Yet here we are. As President Kennedy once observed, “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”

There is much common ground that unites us all. We all seek a peaceful life in comfort and dignity. We all seek the opportunity to better ourselves and opportunities for our children to better themselves. In time of crisis secondary issues lose their importance. If, for instance, the ship were sinking it would no longer matter if I brought along my brown suit.

There are no class distinctions in lifeboats. Steerage and first class sit side-by-side, and for the sake of common duty you ask few questions; you just row. Because without combined, communal action survival itself hangs in the balance. No one on board would be foolish enough to describe a leak filling the boat with water as a “New System!” Even a fancy name devised calling it “Free Water Exchange” wouldn’t be enough to convince those on board that they weren’t going to get wet.

No amount of propagandizing could convince them that the boat wasn’t sinking, although the experts in the media would claim it not so, that the water was merely rising and that it was all part of the new system of Free Water Trade! Yet all will get wet, Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians, Christians, Atheists, Muslims and Jews. This issue is bigger than issues; abortion will be made more common in a land without jobs. Taxes will be higher in a land without jobs, children will go hungry and families will disintegrate, education will suffer because this crisis is non-selective.

If you had four players playing Monopoly and every time a player passed Go and received their $200 the banker also sent $200 to another game across the room, eventually your game would end. You would suffer while those across the room benefit. The argument that the other guys brought you inexpensive chips and drinks would not compensate for losing the ability to continue playing the game. It is not trade that is damaging this country, and not even the concept of free trade that is damaging this country, but who this country is practicing free trade with.

The banker being a banker would simply follow the money to the next table. Your well being or suffering is not of consequence. The banker sees only the growth in the new game and not the demise of yours. His boat is dry; why should he concern himself with your wetness? He has new customers now.

If you look at the countries in the European Union, you see that they trade primarily with other countries of like economies. The wage scales are similar and the cost of production is compatible. On the other hand, The United States' largest trading partners, with the exception of Canada, are third world economies. Chinese industrial workers earn $5.00 per day and the Mexican minimum wage is $3.89 per day!

So, in actuality this is not about trade at all. You trade goods, but you exploit people. Mexico’s economy has been built on the backs of the people’s hard labor. Foreign-owned factories have surged from just 79 to almost a thousand. The goods are imported into Mexico under free trade agreements then assembled and shipped directly into the United States. This is only possible by keeping wages low in Mexico, otherwise production will move to China.

The city of Tijuana needs a new water treatment plant due to the influx of workers and the pollution from the new factories. However, because the wages are so low and the government dare not tax the industries, the new facility becomes an impossibility. They have effectively priced themselves out of civilization because the rich don’t live there and the poor, the bulk of the population, are too poor to afford clean water.

So how does the American worker compete with four and five dollar-per-day wage scales? You can’t, there is no level of productivity, no amount of robots or innovation that will enable you to compete. This affects us all equally, be you doctor, lawyer, butcher, baker or candlestick maker. Our tax base is constant; it costs the same amount of money to pave a mile of highway regardless of whether you work for Wal-Mart or for GM. Each wage reduction or layoff means less money in the pool to pay the bills.

Many Republican lawmakers like to make the argument that the poor don’t pay taxes. What they mean is the poor don’t pay federal income tax and in a way that is true. Yet allowing free trade agreements with third world economies without protection for American workers is nothing short of treason. They argue that it can’t be helped; it’s the global economy. Imagine a bank guard who allows a robbery to be committed unmolested and then uses the same argument. “It can’t be helped; it’s the global economy.”

In Toulouse, France, Airbus recently built one of the largest state-of-the-art aircraft factories in the world. This massive plant employs 11,500 French workers to perform final assembly of the aircraft. They are paid union scale wages; their government provides them with national healthcare and four weeks vacation per year. How do they do it? Haven’t they heard about globalization? When these Airbus workers go out to lunch at McDonalds they find workers earning the minimum wage of around $10.00 an hour, with national health care thrown in along with guaranteed vacation time, sick leave and maternity leave.

Why is it the French workers can compete in the world economy and American workers cannot? Please don’t say it is because the French government subsidizes industry. Our government subsidizes our industries as well. The French tax system for the average citizen is comparable to the US system, complete with Social Security deductions, but when it comes to, as the French call it, "Impôt de Solidarité sur la Fortune," or Wealth Tax, those with worldwide assets exceeding €732, 000 pay the Wealth Tax on a sliding scale from .55% up to 1.80%.

Now, for the wealthy here is where it gets thick. On interest income you may opt for a flat 26% payment or 16% with 10% contributions to social agencies. Capital gains are taxed at the same 16% plus 10% in social contributions. The top tax rate? 48.09%.

The taxes fund the system that provides for healthcare that allows the businesses to be competitive. Everyone pays taxes and the wealthy pay a lot more taxes. The rates are similar to those in US in the 1950’s and 60’s when prosperity abounded. While we allow our politicians to proclaim that free trade means everyone must open their doors to anyone even if it swamps the boat, the fact is that’s a damn lie and every politician that says it is more dangerous to you than Al Qaeda. Look at the countries that France exports its products to.

Germany 14.9%, Spain 9.3%, Italy 8.9%, UK 8.1%, Belgium 7.3%, US 6.1%, Netherlands 4.1% (2007)

Now look at the countries France imports products from.

Germany 18.9%, Belgium 11.4%, Italy 8.4%, Spain 7.1%, Netherlands 7%, UK 5.6%, US 4.4%, China 4% (2007)

They are trading goods, not labor; they aren’t selling their jobs and industries for cheap goods from Wal-Mart. They defend their workers by taxing the wealthy. They defend their markets by not swinging the doors wide open to goods manufactured by workers making four or five dollars a day.

This country is at a crossroads; it is time we put down our sword and shield of party and partisanship. I have not mentioned Sarah Palin or Michael Jackson because they are unworthy of mention. They are not important on a sinking ship; we must concentrate on saving the living and ignore the dead.

The political leaders of all parties must be made to understand that if you will not defend us and protect us, we will throw them overboard for someone who will. The administration of George W. Bush completely destroyed the Republican Party; now Barack Obama is pursuing the same policies. Does he think that the results will be any different for the Democratic Party?

Every day and every hour I see and read heartbreaking stories of people who, through no fault of their own, are being evicted or dispossessed. Yesterday I saw a young man in his twenties sitting on the curb of the street with his head down and holding a hand-made sign, “No Job, No Money, No food.” He wasn’t panhandling as much as he was protesting and proclaiming what is going on in this country. Our stores are full of Chinese junk and our children sit hungry on the curb and the elderly and disabled cry outside the governor's office in Sacramento because they don’t know how they will stay alive if the proposed budget cuts pass into law.

And the Bush tax cuts are still the law of the land. Still our politicians tell us it's free trade; it can’t be helped.

Me? I’m Just a Blogger
By David Glenn Cox


There are times when I struggle to write the things that I write. Not because I struggle to find stories but because of the overabundance of stories. First there's the crooked media, unworthy of the title “media” but more generally deserving of being called a propaganda organ of the state.

Then there's our federal oligarchy, now ruled by a Democratic neo-con who has begun a new war after promising to end the old wars. He has ended neither and the media, especially the media on the left, has been particularly silent while drones operated from Nevada kill civilians thousands of miles away in Pakistan.

I am overwhelmed as our economy collapses into a red dwarf while we continue to bail out those at the top while abandoning all others. We present a dog and pony show called health care reform while lobbyists spend $1.4 million a day on Capitol Hill to make sure the only thing you get is screwed.

It is hard to write about these things as just raw numbers, because I seek to put a human face on them. I seek to put a human face on them so that you will say, yes, I see that, too. The numbers themselves are staggering; they make Hurricane Katrina look like an arts festival, and yet the media, left, right and center, ignore the story as if it isn’t even there.

The unemployment numbers are now equal to the entire populations of Nevada, New Mexico and West Virginia. If you include discouraged workers, add Idaho and Maine.

Home foreclosures by the end of the year will surpass the entire population of New York City. Twice the population of the city of Chicago are being made homeless in one calendar year and the media consider it a story for the back pages. It’s news when two million Pakistanis are made homeless in the Swat Valley in our war du jour. It is even occasionally mentioned that four million Iraqis were displaced by George W. Bush’s war to show daddy his penis. But for God sakes, think about this: 1.8 million foreclosures in the first six months and an estimated 1.6 million more before Christmas. With four people to an average household, that’s 13.6 million people!

California has the largest state population in the union, and because of its size and because of its economy it is a microcosm of American society. California is on the verge of collapsing into an abyss, paying with IOU's to prevent a complete breakdown of social services. The Republican-proposed budget cuts would end public healthcare in California. Many of you are parents and know already that if you can’t provide immunizations for your children they will be turned away from the school house door. If you don’t have a permanent address, what school should your children attend?

Every day in the media I see some Howdy Doody happy-ass story about how we’ve turned a corner. A chicken in every pot and a new car in every garage. But I want you to read the next paragraph carefully, because this is how the banking industry reported it to the Federal government on June 10th.

“Manufacturing activity declined or remained at a low level across most Districts. However, several Districts also reported that the outlook by manufacturers has improved somewhat. Demand for non-financial services contracted across Districts reporting on this segment. Retail spending remained soft as consumers focused on purchasing less expensive necessities and shied away from buying luxury goods. New car purchases remained depressed, with several Districts indicating that tight credit conditions were hampering auto sales. Travel and tourism activity also declined. A number of Districts reported an uptick in home sales, and many said that new home construction appeared to have stabilized at very low levels. Vacancy rates for commercial properties were rising in many parts of the country, while developers are finding financing for new commercial projects increasingly difficult to obtain. Most Districts reported that overall lending activity was stable or weak, but with mixed results across loan categories. Credit conditions remained stringent or tightened further. Energy activity continued to weaken across most Districts, and demand for natural resources remained depressed. Planting and growing conditions varied across Districts as did agricultural input costs.”

Did you see those green shoots they keep talking about? “As consumers focused on purchasing less expensive necessities.” In plain English that’s called food.

“Labor market conditions continued to be weak across the country, with wages generally remaining flat or falling. Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco reported that businesses were cutting or freezing wages, and Boston cited wage freezes in the retail sector. The Chicago District reported that the downward pressure on wages was abating somewhat there, as firms turned instead to cutting hours or jobs outright to contain labor costs. Firms in the Atlanta and Dallas Districts also reported having to cut hours to reduce costs. In addition, the Boston and San Francisco Districts also mentioned employers' plans to scale back employee benefit programs.”

Obama’s not sure whether we really need another stimulus package. The first package promised 2.5 million jobs and the economy lost 2.5 million jobs before Congress could enact the bill. The whole fabric of American society is being torn asunder, and the media doesn’t think that it is worth a notice.

Sunday my son came by to take me out to lunch, nothing fancy just Krystal hamburgers. As we walked in, a woman in her thirties stood at the counter with two children in tow. The clerk said, “That’ll be $19.65.”

The woman, seemingly shocked, answered, “Twenty dollars! For junk food?” She then took the youngest by the hand and said, “Come on,” as they headed for the door. The kids cried, “But, mom!.” As she passed me she still had her money in her other hand, a ten, a five and three ones, and I'd wager she had no more.

The hardhearted and less understanding among us would say, "She should have gone to the grocery store with that money." It is true, provided you have a refrigerator or a stove or gas or electricity. But it was her feigned outrage that gave her away. It was a way for her to make an escape and to count pennies at the next fast food outlet.

Grocery store sales were down in May; gasoline sales were down 33% from a year ago. Diesel fuel stockpiles were the highest in sixteen years. We sat in the front of the restaurant where we could see the four-lane highway that feeds into downtown Lawrenceville. As we ate, a man with gray hair, who looked to be in his sixties, rode past on a bicycle which had a milk crate jerry-rigged on the back where he was carrying groceries, and it put those gasoline sales numbers into focus.

I was looking at want ads recently, and I saw an ad for a writer for a local circular, you know, those papers that they throw in your yard whether you want them or not. It was very clear, "Wanted Journalist (No Bloggers Please.)" I admit that at first I was offended, it was I imagined as my own mother felt when she saw the signs that said, “No dogs or Irish.” But then after I thought about it a little I felt better and chuckled to myself at their ignorance. For what journalist today doesn’t have his own blog? So I asked myself, what then is the difference between them and I?

It's simple, they write what they are told to write and I write what I damn well see and feel and think. They write for their employers, but I write for you. And I won’t do any otherwise because it is just as Woody says:

“The songs that I sing are made up, for the most part, by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more, and the ones that make you think you’ve not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I’d starve to death before I’d sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow." —Woody Guthrie

Me? I’m just a blogger and I’m one of you, not one of them. I don’t have a journalistic pedigree or a suit and a tie. I’m more like Woody; I call 'em as I see 'em. Like me or hate me, you know that whatever I write is what I believe to be the truth, not because someone told me to write it or not to write it. The late Tim Russert once said, “Credibility is for paupers,” and I answer that selling it is for whores!

Dude! Name My Company and I’ll Give You Money, I Promise
By David Glenn Cox


I was perusing the ads the other day on a web site that sounds like eggs list. Sometimes you kind of reach a point where you become immune to the advertisements, but sometimes the absurdity breaks through and you find yourself enthralled with the joke that nobody else gets but you. You roll on the floor and convulse with laughter.


“Creative minds, we need your help. Badly….

"We are setting up a product development and marketing company. Our goal is to take ordinary consumer products, think up a better approach, and bring them to market. Of course the gist of the company is to be inventive and creative but alas we are having problems coming up with the right company name/domain name combination. The issue is finding an available dotcom domain to match, or at least compliment, the company name.

"If you have a spark for a naming combo please share it with us. If we use your recommended name or domain, we will send you a check for $250 next week. We promise.

Here is my best stab at contest rules:

Submissions due by Wed July 8th. The earlier the better.
Email us your name and URL combination. Please make sure the URL is available for purchase, i.e. check on GoDaddy or the like.
Please do not register the URL first; we will pay you if we use it to name our business. We just want to avoid the hassle and expense of domain transfer.
If you submit an idea and we use it pursuant to this agreement, you relinquish any ownership claims to the name. At that point we own the idea or name.
If you come up with a name or URL that we do not use for the business name but we think it is worth registering for something else, we may suggest a lower amount than $250. But we would only register or use the name or domain if you agree to the lower amount. This is just a corner case and not some tricky legal out.

"The current name we have is Xxxxxxxxxx with the XXXXXXXXXXX. This should be easy to beat, but would welcome your feedback even if you don't submit a challenger."


So, this is a survey. They are looking for a cross-section of opinion, and on the off chance that they use your idea they will pay you $250.00; they promise. This is listed as a writing job, but it looks more like a contest that’s really a survey for a company that probably won’t pay anyone anything ever. Last time I checked I promise was not quite the same as a legally binding contract.


This next one made my mind reel at the visual. It's from San Francisco.

“Take dictation from Hitler!” Ok, that’s my title, so here it is straight.



“I am writing controversial, political, conservative book
You must be tolerable. Able to take my unfocused mind, scrambling notes, phone dictation...
Able to do research.
My priority is not to pay cash now, so you must be able to survive for six months
I am willing to pay some later, percentage, barter, trade
I have many different merchandise, health food...”


I just get this visual of a naked, ersatz Bill O’Reilly screaming a political philosophy into the telephone, based on bee pollen and the New World Order in handy twenty-hour stints. This is a job? This is what is listed as jobs!


Here’s one from Los Angeles: “Will Work for Soap” (again, my title)


“I am a local company with a new fabulous eco-friendly product and I am looking to get a few reviews in blogs, magazines, and newspapers.
Please let me know who you write for (a link to an online version of your publication would be great!) and an estimated readership if you know it and we'll go from there.”


And what do they promise in return for your hard work? Free Samples. Free samples of a new, eco-friendly product. This was listed in the writing gigs and the word gig has taken on a new meaning in today’s job market. Today in the job market gig always means no pay. Except for the famous promise and a wink, “Don’t worry, I’m gonna pay you!” And then they wink!


“Need a Script Writer for a South Asian/East Indian Food Show. Should be knowledgeable about unique South Asian/East Indian food joints/restaurants in XXX and vicinity, food ingredients and a food critique. Basically need a voice over commentary and a host commentary script.
This is a great opportunity for you to experiment your innovative and unique ideas.

Location:XXX and vicinity
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: TBD”


Need a script, well, two scripts, and it’s a great opportunity to experiment! Or maybe you’re willing to work just for the experience. Compensation: TBD, or as little as possible, maybe less.



“Chat room sales people needed”

“Dating site is looking for chat room sales people. Easily make $200 a day! We pay every week! No back pay or waiting.
No drug testing. No background checks. If you like dating or adult related content this is for you!”


On drugs? Wanted by the Cops? No Problem! This job is for you!

I like dating and I like adult-related content, but I’m not sure sharing that love in a chat room situation is to my liking. But if it is and I bump into you there, I’ll go by the name of Frieda. It’s greasy but at least they promise cash. This is a cross section of the jobs available in the new economy!

“Want to join a dating site, big boy? I’m dying to meet you.
Me? 36-24-36
You? Dumb as a bag of hammers”

The Message of Benjamin Franklin
By David Glenn Cox


I was asked: what are you proud of this Fourth? Currently? Very little, but I see the future because the past is the future. These people that we were, are unusual in their patience and uncommon in their valor.

When the rupture with the British Parliament first occurred, the Continental Congress selected Benjamin Franklin to go to London as the voice of reason. Franklin was considered the foremost American in the world. A man of science and of letters, he was respected around the world. Franklin’s mission was one of conciliation; to take the middle path and to quell the hot, angry voices on both sides of the Atlantic.

When Franklin arrived in London, he was made to wait. He carried no office, no orders of the Crown. He was instead treated as an interloper. They whispered about his clothes and made fun of his funny Colonial accent. This man of science was treated instead as a buffoon from the backwoods. Franklin then did something very un-Franklin; he became angry. He wrote to his son, "I arrived here as an Englishman but I return to you as an American." He continued that revolution was a job for young men, but that he was about to be the exception.

Franklin is a perfect example of an American; it had to proven to him in person that his government had no interest in his wishes or in his ideas. But once that had been proven to him, Franklin turned in the opposite direction. He left America as the voice of conciliation, and returned home the voice of revolution.

He was a wise and thoughtful man; he had no doubts about what revolution meant. It meant death and mayhem. It meant a long, bitter struggle where those such as Franklin would or could lose everything they had taken a lifetime to earn. If he had any doubts, his son, the Governor of New Jersey, made it clear. He would lose his job as governor if his father became a leading revolutionary. But Franklin continued and never turned back, and his son never forgave him.

Franklin understood something few others understood, that the British Parliament didn’t think of Americans as political equals. They thought of them as chattel and as children unworthy of the respect due free men and women. This is what turned Franklin; political equals can solve anything through discussion, but when they don’t respect you as equals, then that equality must be demonstrated through conflict.

It was so then as it is so now. Our history is resplendent with rebellion, The Whiskey Rebellion, the Grange, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. Between 1929 and 1932, American cities erupted in food riots and job riots. The American Communist party was the fastest growing political party in the country, and in the cities the Communists were feeding more people than the Red Cross. This should be remembered when we look at Roosevelt’s New Deal. The American power structure feared losing it all to the Communists.

The entrenched right began the Liberty League and used their media outlets to defame anyone on the left. They attempted a coup d'etat that would have forced Roosevelt to accept the cabinet members that they chose. The coup collapsed and Roosevelt’s New Deal averted a revolution that was coming as sure as the dawn. There were millions of hungry and unemployed, exploited by employers and manipulated by bankers. Millions thrown from their homes out into the road, living like pigs and treated worse than cattle. But like Franklin they had received the message. The President and Congress didn’t think of the people as political equals; they thought of them as chattel and children unworthy of the respect due free men and women.

The Bonus Army was made up of veterans demanding that a bonus due in 1945 for their service in World War One be paid instead in 1932 because they were hungry, and in some cases they were starving. They marched from all corners of America. They carried American flags by their corners and as they marched through towns during the depths of the Depression and the townspeople threw them quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. They were marching for all the people; they were marching to confront the government which was ignoring them. On the last day of the Senate calendar, the Senate voted down assisting the Bonus marchers.

In fear and panic the Hoover administration ordered US Army tanks to guard the bridges into Washington and the White House. The Bonus marchers remained orderly but the Army used Hoover’s orders to rout their camp. On election night Hoover received a telegram that said simply, “Vote Roosevelt, make it unanimous.”

Roosevelt understood the seriousness of the situation, comparing it to the seriousness of war. He condemned the bankers and captains of industry and promised assistance for the common man. Food for the hungry, jobs for the unemployed, even the term “New Deal” was designed to show a complete break from the past. The American public had received the message of unfettered capitalism and if Roosevelt had failed they were prepared to deliver their own message to Washington. The same message Benjamin Franklin delivered on his return from Britain.

Today government figures listed another 600,000 forced into the ranks of the unemployed. Americans are being thrown from their homes at the rate of 300,000 every thirty days. General Motors has now dumped toxic sites on the American public under the terms of its bankruptcy while it plans its return to the market with Chinese-built autos.

Cities across the country have cancelled fireworks displays for the Fourth of July. The mayor of Cleveland explained that he just couldn’t justify shooting $38,000 into the air when there are a thousand in line at the local food bank. He is a patriot, he understands. He gets it, but he is in the political minority. The Parliament and the King in the Capitol bow politely in their ruffled shirts and tip their three-cornered hats and dream the dreams of the disconnected aristocracy.

They treat us as chattel and as children who just don’t understand the ways of the world. But I understand this, from this July the Fourth to the next the world will turn over in ways unimagined. We will warm ourselves from the embers of burning bank buildings and feed ourselves from the shelves of looted stores. This is the message of Benjamin Franklin: if you don’t or won’t treat us with respect and as political equals, then we have nothing to talk about.

It might sound absurd but I am proud of that. We are a very docile and patient people, but pushed too far we will punch the shit out of the power elite. Or as one of the Dearborn marchers put it, “If Roosevelt hadn’t been elected there was going to be a revolution in this country, and I would have been god damned proud to have been a part of it!”

The Lies of Truth; the Truth of Lies
By David Glenn Cox

I have lost the ability to trust; I have lost the ability to have faith in the system or in its politicians. I have no faith in the right or in the left, no faith in the new right or the new left. We have on the one hand fascists and on the other hand apologists and enablers, until we find ourselves not only in an economic bankruptcy but in a political one as well.

It is not that they tell us lies, or that the truth is obscured with lies, it is that they tell us a truth that doesn’t exist. It's like a Cracker Jack box that promises a prize but doesn’t deliver one, a lie inside of a lie that is spun from prevarications and woven into a blanket of half-truths, falsehoods and fairy dust.

We the people of the United States just sent General Motors $100 billion and for all of that money we bought thousands of job cuts and unemployment, but in China GM’s auto production is up 38%. A record number of new vehicles were produced, designed in China, sourced in China and built in China. Only the profits of shareholders will ever benefit the US economy. Germany and Japan produce automobiles all over the world as well, but still source key components from the home country, but not America and not at GM.

We are so overwhelmed with lie upon lie from a complicit, stooge, corporate media that it is hard to determine the truth from domestic sources alone. It is only when they step on their own long tongues that we can see the media for what is truly is. Contrast the story from Iran, with its twenty-four hour coverage of an election stolen without proof, to the usurping of democracy in Honduras with barely a media peep other than excuses and neocon pronouncements.

Thousands march in the Honduran capital as the President speaks before the UN, and the whole world roundly condemns the coup. The US administration wrings its hands as it admits that it knew of the coup in advance but was unable to stop it. This same story was told in 2002 when the CIA tried to topple the lawful Venezuelan government. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said, "We haven't laid out any demands that we're insisting on, because we're working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives." If the ultimate goal is the rule of law then the ultimate demand becomes obvious.

But through such statements I have lost the audacity of hope and the hope of audacity and the pope of mendacity. I know that some of you out there still believe, that like Tinkerbell think it won’t get any better unless we all believe together. But I no longer believe; I no longer believe in Capitalism as a system. It is no more than a crooked card game that rewards the rich when times are good and punishes the poor when times are bad.

It is a system that lays off millions and offers nothing in return; too bad, so sad, eat dirt and die because we have banks to rescue. The media and the right decried the President's stimulus plan as too big; I said it was too small. Now the media and some on the right are starting to ask if the stimulus was too small. I sit here, living in a garage in an industrial park, and watch these businesses winking out one-by-one, like porch lights.

There is no help or hope for them; there are no programs, there is nothing. Nothing except a sense of betrayal and the anger you feel when you discover the game has been fixed all along. JP Morgan is raising its minimum payment on its credit cards from 2% to 5%, just ahead of the new law preventing them from doing so. It must be nice to have friends on the inside and to live by the motto “Never give a sucker an even break.” The $25 billion in bailout funds extended to JP Morgan is seen as even more reason to drown the taxpaying rats from their ship.

All across the nation the states are making obscene, draconian cuts in education and in social programs. Yet every day the media tells me again and again that the worst is over. I wonder how they can tell lies such as that, and from what I can gather the answer would be practice.

I was reminded that the stimulus money is paying for a mobile dental lab in Colorado for 1.3 million dollars, while at the same time it took a federal judge to order the water turned back on in one of Atlanta’s main homeless shelters. Behind $30,000 on a water bill and unable to get help from federal or state officials, the shelter juggles and prays as the warning of the judge rings in their ears, to get the bill paid down or he won’t be so forgiving next time. Oh, and there will be a next time, mark my words.

We need mobile dental labs because this country is the only industrialized nation on the planet without a national healthcare plan. Not because the people don’t want a plan but because the insurance and drug companies don’t want you to have one. They spend a million dollars a day to lobby Congress until I fear what sort of hodgepodge and gobbity goop they will pass. That’s all part of the game, to sell you something as new and improved when it's actually less and more expensive.

Just like the end of the Iraq war has become the expansion of the Afghan-Pakistan war. Just like the closing of Quantanamo prison has become the expansion of Bagram prison. Just like the end of torture and waterboarding didn’t include the hundred or so prisoners who died while in our captivity. Just like the new transparency doesn’t include the list of those visiting the White House or the pictures of the tortured.

Nor does it include an explanation for defending Bush/ Cheney policies in court. Or why the President has gone back on every campaign promise in the first hundred days.

I have lost faith in government. I no longer see them as an instrument for good, but as Bernie Madoffs with a title; out to get whatever they can at the behest of the highest bidder. A Wiemar Republic that knows but doesn’t believe that the end is near. A government that, if it does actually do any good for its people, does so quite by accident. After all, a broken clock is still right twice a day.

Thirty Days in the New America
By David Glenn Cox


I write with both anger and frustration at a people so insolated and conditioned like Pavlov’s dog that they have lost the ability to feel, to empathize with their fellow man. We had another murder-suicide here in Atlanta so I went to my browser and typed in Murder-Suicide. Out of the over seven million links, I put together a list for the past 30 days.

Jun 30, 2009 Newport News couple in murder, suicide identified

Jun 30, 2009 A murder-suicide attempt by an Upper Gwynedd, Pa. woman on Friday resulted in the death of her husband and has left her in critical condition, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said Monday.

Jun 29, 2009 Connecticut Man, Wife Found Dead in Murder-Suicide

Jun 29, 2009 Fresno, Ca. Investigators say a double shooting in Madera County Sunday afternoon is a case of murder/suicide.

Jun 29, 2009 Youngest Son Survives Virginia Murder-Suicide By Father

Jun 28, 2009 Police suspect murder-suicide in Ohio deaths

Jun 26, 2009 Possible Murder-Suicide Plot Investigated
Jun 26, 2009 Police Say 2 Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide
Jun 25, 2009 San Pablo Woman Shot In Murder-Suicide Try Dies

Jun 25, 2009 Suspected murder-suicide leaves Oklahoma mother, son dead

Jun 24, 2009 FREDERICK, Md. - The Frederick County Sheriff's office says an autopsy found a father involved in a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of his wife and their three young children had prescription drugs in his system, but not alcohol.

Jun 23,2009 Coroner: Brother Killed Sister in Apparent Murder-Suicide

Jun 22, 2009 Investigators in Hawkins County say it appears the deaths of a man and woman there over the weekend were the result of a murder - suicide.

Jun 20, 2009 Sonora, KY couple found dead; Murder -Suicide suspected

Jun 18, 2009 The coroner has said a Sherwood, AR woman killed her daughter yesterday and then shot herself. She left a note, the contents of which haven't been disclosed

Jun 17, 2009 Murder-Suicide Couple: "We Are At Peace"

Jun 17, 2009 Police investigating possible murder – suicide in Springville

Jun 15, 2009 A 76-year-old Queens barber slashed his wife's throat with a butcher knife Sunday, then turned the knife on himself as their developmentally disabled son watched in horror, cops said.

Jun 15, 2009 HEATHROW, Fla. -- Investigators and community members discussed Tuesday whether finances played a part in the apparent murder-suicide of a Heathrow family.

Jun 15, 2009 Binghamton Murder-Suicide

Jun 12, 2009 Murder-Suicide Investigation In South Augusta

Jun 9,2009 (CNN) Deaths of children, mother may be murder-suicide

Jun 4, 2009 Troubles became tragic on path to murder-suicide of West Knoxville couple

Jun1, 2009 North Slope police investigate apparent murder-suicide

It has become an everyday event, and it is happening everywhere in the United States, from run-down mobile homes to gated communities. And everywhere what is lacking is a sense of understanding. The reasons for their actions vary but finances are at the heart of most of them. Job loss, career loss, loss of self-esteem and loss of health care. This is America where mental illness is not treated the same as physical illness; only the red carpet health care plans will cover mental illness. That’s because the health care industry is afraid you’ll fake it just to get a few days off.

Reading about these cases I see there is a general misunderstanding. People who kill themselves are disturbed, and people who kill loved ones and then themselves are extremely disturbed. It’s not about ego and it's not about pride; it is all about mental illness. But from reading the comments mental illness is considered like Darwinism, a theory favored only by long-hair elitests. Following are typical responses to this tragic event.

“Suicide is a terrible act in God's sight. He is able to help anyone who turns their life over to Him. Murder is reprehensible and condemned by God.

No one truly knows all the details for this and maybe no one ever will, but this is more than tragic. Let's begin to pray now for the kid's friends, classmates and family members who must be in shock now. Those who worked with John and his wife must also be hurting thinking they could have done something to prevent it..

May God help us if more people turn to destruction than to the Lord when difficulties escalate, and the Bible tells us they will in the end times.”

“I am so tired of reading these kind of stories in the news...Every day now you hear about a dad who kills his entire family and then turns the gun on himself..What is happening to this world? There is no reason in the world to do this, especially not because of money! If his life was so horrible then he should have just killed himself..I don't understand how he could murder his own children and wife.”

“Well, lets see. You work at Lowe's (low paying hourly) then you get a job at Dick's Sporting Goods (low paying hourly). Still, despite your small wages you find someone who will finance you a McMansion in Heathrow. You even buy a boat and then immediately file bankruptcy. Sounds like the Woods ran the string out until the end. Big lifestyle, Big House, Big Boat; but small salary. The American way. Charge it, make sure your life looks glamorous to your neighbors and family. Then get stressed and pull the plug on it all. The American way!”

“very sad .. however its another case of people living beyond their means trying to impress others with homes, cars boats. i guess he didn't learn anything from ch 7 bankruptcy. prayers are with his family”

“Sometimes you might just get tired of all the calls and threats from collection agencies, Mortgage companies...but this is not the solution. I don't know their financial situation, so I can't speak for his reasoning. I hope we don't see more of this.

In my opinion the banks that received monies from the government should be helping people facing foreclosure more than they are...if any ? I've talked to alot of people facing this and none have really been helped by their mortgage companies. Maybe the government should have helped the people instead of the banks.”

“This is what happens when people live above their means...trying to keep up with the Joneses. The old adage: "money is the root of all evil" is so true. What a selfish coward to do what he did...there is no turning back.”

“There is nothing more horrible or disgusting than what this man did to his wife and children...there are no generalizations or assumptions being made...HE SLAUGHTERED HIS FAMILY. (period.)”

“In Dickens Christmas Carol, the nice Christian family that is in want gives thanks and endures hardship. That was representative of the culture of its time. We now have a different culture; the Anti Christian Liberties Culture, or ACLU culture for short. This is aculture where the ACLU has "freed" us from the bondage of Christianity ... and left us completely without hope. Now, when economic rugs are pulled out from under us, rather than give thanks and wait on God, we shoot our families and then blow our own head off. Thank you American Civil Liberties Union!”

Know-it-alls with Bibles in their pockets and a noose in their hands. It couldn’t be anyone's fault but the victims'.