Week of 09/26/2011

Time to End Tunnel Vision Politics
– by David Matthews 2

My father has a problem sometimes when he’s driving. It’s not just that he’s getting old. It’s that sometimes he gets fixated on an idea when he’s driving and he shuts himself out of everything else.

For instance, he could be on the highway and he finds himself behind a car that isn’t moving as fast as he would like it to. If he’s doing seventy on the highway (and, yes, there are places in Georgia where that is the speed limit) and the car ahead of him is doing sixty-five, then that is unacceptable to him and he needs to get around that car. If he can pass that car, fine. But then the car ahead of him starts doing seventy-five, so he needs to do eighty. He will pursue that car, doing everything in his power to try to get around that car, until he either achieves that goal, or either the other car turns off the highway, or if he reaches his exit and he has to turn off the highway. And nothing in the world will disturb him from his one-track mind. And sometimes he’ll even end up skipping the exit because he’s so fixated on just getting around that car.

It’s called “tunnel vision”. You don’t have to be driving to experience this. You could be playing a video game where you’re stuck on one level or one challenge that you really want to get beyond, and you become fixated, even obsessed, with getting it done and getting it out of the way. It’s no longer about a mental diversion. It’s no longer about “taking a break” or “finding a stopping point”. Your ego, your very being, is seemingly at stake here; and you become fixated on the idea that you’re going to get through this if it becomes the very last thing that you ever do!

I’m sure many of us have gone through those moments at least once or twice. And sometimes it’s for reasons that, looking back later on, you’d have to admit were pretty stupid.

I bring this up because it seems to be the only plausible explanation behind the insanity going on in politics, especially when it comes to the perpetual failure machines that are the Democrats and President Barack Obama. It is the only rational answer behind the insane question of how a person, a group of people, or even a whole political party can get behind something that is diametrically the polar opposite of everything that they claim to be or support.

If I were to tell you that the solution to a problem is “A”, and you agree with me that the solution to that problem is “A”, how is it that you could then champion “Z”, the complete opposite of what “A” is, and then proclaim that you’ve “solved” the problem? Either you’re an evil, manipulative, maliciously fraudulent liar, or you’re a mindless Doofus from Texas, or you got caught up in tunnel vision somewhere between supporting “A” and enacting “Z”.

It is the only way to explain how the Democrats could knowingly pass what they called “healthcare reform” and then pretend that it was what they’ve always been pushing for. When the problem is the tyranny of the big insurance and medical companies, how is giving them everything that they could ever dream about be considered “reform”? And how in the world could Democrats take a look at that idea and both soberly and honestly say “yes, this is what we’ve always been for in the first place”? Then, on top of that, how could they defend it with a straight face and think that it should be considered a “win” for Team Obama? You really want to find these people and smack some sense into them. Repeatedly.

Yes, it’s an uphill fight to fix the problems with healthcare. You have big money coming in from Big Pharma and Big Insurance and Big Hospitals and they have already proven that they will spend any kind of money needed to prevent anything from affecting their gold mine. That is pretty much a given.

So, knowing that proven fact from the onset, why did the Dems and Obama take their eyes off the prize? Why did they sacrifice key reform ideas like single-payer in return for a few bureaucratic prohibitions and forcing Americans to pay for insurance even if they cannot afford to? The only rational explanation, outside of being either woefully inept or sadistically evil, has to be tunnel vision. They became so fixated on just passing that legislation that they could no longer care what was really in it.

And this is what makes them the miserable failures that they have become. They are so fixated on winning that they don’t realize what it is they’re really supporting, and then their own egos will not allow them to admit that they made a mistake. A win is a win is a win as far as they are concerned. They could end up passing a law that sends their own grandmothers into slavery tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter, because to them it is considered a political victory to gloat about.

Unfortunately that has become the norm in politics. Everything has become a venom-tipped battle full of bluster and rhetoric. How many times have we been forced to go through yet another political stalemate for what should be a non-issue? Every budget becomes a verbal war on taxes and spending, continual political brinksmanship, dares and double-dares, and then finally some sort of compromise that nobody likes but everyone says “needs to be made”; and then everyone goes back into their corners to vent and fume until the next pre-arranged loggerhead. How many times do we have to endure this act of psychological torture before the Geneva Convention gets brought into this?

And here’s the thing: both the Dems and the GOP are playing this game! They’re both guilty of maliciously engaging in and encouraging their people to have tunnel vision.

“Hold the line!” shout the so-called “Tea Party” people. “Don’t let them raise your taxes! Don’t let them spend your money! Shut the government down!”

But if you ask about subsidies and tax breaks for Big Oil, they’d tell you those are “bad”. “Shouldn’t be given,” they’d say. Corporate bailouts? “Bad.” But the minute you talk about ending them, those things become “tax increases” and then we’re right back to “Hold the line!”

No brains. No thought put into any of these things. Pure political reaction. Tunnel vision. They are nothing more than idiotic tools at this point; mindlessly responding to the talking point memos given to them by the Ministry of Truth (aka: conservative and neo-conservative talk radio and FoxNews).

And the punchline is… they’re being played. Yes, for every pre-fabricated loggerhead they are goaded into, there is a compromise made that they will scream and shout about. They vow “retribution” at the ballot box for that compromise. But come election time, those same people will then cower and cave. They will end up voting for the GOP candidate that they don’t like, because they are told that “the alternative would be worse”.

And how do I know this? Because I’ve seen it before, time and time again. Despite the promises of change, despite the threats of voting “third party”, despite the talk about needing a clean slate, the bulk of the voters that bother to show up at the ballot box come Election Day will succumb to tunnel vision and support their party pick. It’s how people like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi manage to stay in office despite her gross ineptitude as Speaker of the House. It’s how Harry Reid manages to stay in power in the Senate.

Yes, election time is usually when the political tunnel vision is at its worst. No matter the candidate, no matter what they have done in the past, no matter how they personally stand on certain issues, if they get past the primary, then the party voters will be compelled to vote for that candidate. “Swallow your pride,” the party faithful are told. “You have to vote for our guy because the alternative will be worse!” “The choices are bad,” they are told, “but that’s still our candidate, and it’s more important for our party to stay in office instead of the alternative.”

This is the real reason why the Democrats and the GOP have been able to amass so much power for almost one hundred years. They managed to talk the masses into tunnel vision time and time again. With us or against us. Us or them. Zero-sum. Black or white. The “lesser of two evils”, even though you are still voting for evil! “The devil we know”? No, it’s merely “the party’s devil”.

Let’s get brutally honest here… it is high time that we end the tunnel vision thinking.

If you don’t like the status quo, then it is your responsibility to not support it. Don’t threaten to vote “third party” if you aren’t ready to actually do it. There are numerous “third party” groups out there already. There is no excuse to not support any of them if they come closer to what you believe in that the two dominant parties. And if you say they automatically “can’t win”, then you are catering to the tunnel vision mindset. It is cowardice on behalf of the electorate, plain and simple. Lilly-livered, yellow-bellied, with the matching lemon yellow streak down their backs, spineless, gutless, impotent cowardice.

And the party bosses actually rely on you to be political cowards. They expect you to follow their leads, even if you hate it, even if you are doing it kicking and screaming all the way. But they would rather goad you into following their lead. They would rather convince you that this is what you really wanted. It makes their job easier if you’re being brainwashed into going along with the status quo. As long as you are continually reacting, then you don’t time to think about your actions, because you can’t act anymore. You can only react. That is what tunnel vision does. It narrows your mind, limits your choices, and makes it hard for you to back down and think about what you’re doing.

My father would get bothered when someone interrupts him from his tunnel vision. He would hate it, but he would later realize that what he was doing wasn’t good. It is long since time that we tap the electorate on the shoulder and break them from their brain-lock.

Week of 09/19/2011

“Will Lie About Jobs”
– by David Matthews 2

You’ve probably seen them along the road… people who carry signs that say “Will Work For Food”.

These are people that are supposedly so desperate that they’ll beg motorists along the side of the road for work, and not in exchange for money, but rather in exchange for food. After all, who can’t afford to give up an extra can of beans or a loaf of bread?

The problem, though, is that we’re told to ignore these people.

“Ignore them! You don’t know who they are! They could be con-people! They could be thieves, ready and willing to take full advantage of your generosity. There are services for these people to turn to! They don’t need to be out there on the streets if they really need help!”

That’s the “official statement” that we’re told about them. Even when they’re dressed like they’re ready to go to a job interview, we’re supposed to assume that they are loafers, deadbeats, and hucksters. Yes, there are supposedly “services” for them to turn to… in theory… if that help wasn’t already exhausted or else slashed into oblivion by political budget cuts.

The problem, though, is that the real hucksters aren’t the ones on the side of the road carrying signs. The real hucksters are in Washington, and if they had to carry around a sign, theirs would say “Will Lie About Jobs”.

The name of the game now is “Jobs”. Everyone wants to talk about “Jobs”. Everyone has a “plan” about creating “Jobs”. “Jobs” is the new magic word for politicians. It used to be “Stimulus”; now it’s “Jobs”, “Jobs”, and “Jobs”.

President Barack “Fail” Obama has a plan to create “Jobs”. House Speaker John “Oompa-Loompa” Boehner has a plan to create “Jobs”. Every one of the presidential wannabes in the GOP are either touting their own plans to create “Jobs” or are squabbling over who created more “Jobs”.

If wishes were horses, then we’d all have stables of Triple Crown winners, and if all of these ideas for “Jobs” translated into real jobs, then we’d have negative unemployment numbers. But we don’t have the horses, only the horses’ dung; and we don’t have jobs, only lies and schemes to make certain people rich and keep everyone else in misery and destitution.

Obama’s much-touted “jobs plan” is nothing more than a rehash of the same programs that have failed before, only now with a few more caveats. States can’t take the money and “repurpose” it like they did in 2009. They can’t use the money to pay off other budget shortfalls or fund old programs put on hold. But it’s still money for teachers, money for “infrastructure”, money for those still able to get unemployment assistance, and more empty talk about still more education for people who already have college degrees and doctorates and enough certificates to wallpaper a house.

And all of it does absolutely nothing to create jobs. All it does is tread economic water, which did not work in 2009, it did not work in 2010, and we are seeing that it does not work today.

Unfortunately the “alternative” is nothing of the sort. The GOP’s collective plans all seem to follow the same message: give Big Corporate huge stinking tax breaks, let them run roughshod without any kind of regulatory oversight, let them scavenge America like they’ve been doing, and maybe – just maybe – if we ask them enough times with the words “pretty, pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top”, they may throw a hiring bone in there somewhere when they’re not busy giving themselves huge stinking bonuses.

In fact Bank of America is getting rid of some 30,000 jobs, and most of them are executives that would otherwise get a smaller bonus check. 30,000 more people added to the unemployment roles so BoA executives can reap more bonus money. If there was ever a need to “Ma Bell” these kinds of institutions, now is just a good of a time as any… and it would actually create jobs in the process.

The problem is that this is the same “genius idea” from the 2000’s that the previous President touted while driving us into two wars that were kept off the budget books. While Big Corporate celebrated huge stinking record profits, the rest of the Americans were getting meager raises that failed to keep up with the cost of living increases. What made up the difference was convincing families into taking part in the biggest land swindle in human history, which is still going on this very day, and one where the criminals are not only getting away with it, but they’re doing so with big stinking bailouts and big stinking profits.

And the GOP expects this to somehow be the same “solution” that would create “jobs”! Well, it certainly creates jobs for themselves and their staff members. After all, business is always booming for K-Street lobbyists and think tanks.

Let’s get brutally honest here… all of this talk about “Jobs” and having a “Jobs program” is nothing more than just talk. It’s just lies, lies, still more lies, and still more lies on top of those lies.

The McClatchy News Service recently did a report about the lack of jobs, and they discovered that the biggest hindrance to real small businesses hiring people is not from taxes or regulations, but rather from the banks. The same banks that got billions in taxpayer bailout money and then posted record profits. As long as the bank officials are allowed to get away with their criminal activities, as long as the banks continue to get preferential treatment from both the Democrats and the GOP, and as long as they continue to get away with hiding behind the fraudulent banner of “Too Big To Fail”, then this recession will continue. The same economic death spiral from the early 1930’s will continue here, only this time without an FDR-style figure to step up and put on the brakes.

We need real solutions, not talk, and certainly not lies about rehashed programs that either failed or were responsible for putting us into this situation in the first place. And we need real and tangible solutions today, because tomorrow there will be more of us out on the roadsides holding up signs that say “Will Work For Food”, only by then the only people on those roads will be the ones who have never given a care about the American people in the first place.

Week of 09/12/2011

“Busy Ness” and Her Games
– by David Matthews 2

Once upon a time there was an “exotic” dancer named Ness who danced her nights away at the Free Market Gentlemen’s Club. Folks called her “Busy Ness” because that was what she claimed she always was, busy, busy, busy.

Ness was the most popular of the dancers in the club, and for good reason. It’s not because of her figure, which wasn’t as “small” and petit as she continually said it was; rather it was because she knew how to work a room to get every customer there to give her money. It didn’t matter if they were there alone or in a group, if they were celebrating or trying to forget the day’s troubles, “Busy Ness” made sure that they each gave her some attention by the end of the night… and some money, of course. It was always about the money.

Of course the men in the club would say that the attention she gave them was worth it. She made them feel special. She made them feel important. No matter how they felt when they came in, Ness would make them feel great by the time they left for the night. And of course they tipped her well for it, and the more attention she gave them, the more money they gave her. It was, after all, always about the money.

As with all other dancers in the club, Ness had her collection of favorites. These would be regulars that she could rely on to be there every week, or even every night, to spend money on her, and often on nobody but her. She knew them only by her personal nicknames, like “Brit” or “Frenchy” or “Little Italy”.

But there was one regular that she didn’t need to invent a nickname for… and that was Sam.

The other dancers referred to Sam as Ness’s “Sugar Uncle”. He appeared to be older than Ness, although Ness would say that appearances were deceiving. He was there almost since the first day the club was opened, and everyone in the club knew who he was.

Sam was a simple customer. He had simple tastes in drinks, and the bartender would have his beer ready for him by the time he walked in and he took his usual seat at the end of the bar. The bouncers knew that Sam was a pretty calm customer. Sometimes he’d get a little rowdy, but never to the point where he’d cause trouble. When Ness was busy with other customers, Sam would play pool, or he’d watch the movies on the little TV on the other side of the bar. He was always patient, knowing that Ness would always be back to see him before closing.

But there was something else about Ness that stood out above all the other dancers in the club… unlike all the other dancers, Ness would never “reveal” everything. She would always show “just enough”, and she would talk about showing even more, but no matter how much money she got, even in the private VIP room, she would always show “just enough” and nothing more.

Everyone thought that if Ness would show “everything” to anyone in the club, it would be to Sam. After all, he had been there the longest and he stayed with her almost since day one. He was always there when she needed him, supporting her through thick and thin. She had his cellphone number on speed-dial, and he always answered when she called. When she would get in trouble with the bills, he’d bail her out without any kind of conditions. He’d shower her with gifts on her birthday or on special occasions. He’d get her lunch and dinner when she was tired of the club’s food. They’d talk about going out on dates and even on vacation together. Sadly, though, it was just talk. But the rumor persisted that if there was anyone that would see “everything” of Ness in the VIP rooms, it would be for Sam before it would be for anyone else.

Ness would tell Sam everything about her problems. There was always a new bill coming up, some new expense that needed to be covered. And Sam would be generous with his monetary gifts to her, no matter how much it would hurt him personally. No matter if he was late on a few of his own bills or if he had to cut back on things like food, he would always made sure there was money for Ness.

Like the other dancers, Busy Ness would say that she was in a relationship once upon a time, but that she didn’t have the time to be seeing anyone outside of the club anymore. That was why she said she could only see Sam in the club. But every so often she’d call him at home to make sure he would be going to the club to see her. Sometimes she’d call him up in the middle of the day to ask him to change his normal days that he’d visit, which he would do eagerly because he believed that it would mean more time with her, but no matter how close she supposedly was to his home, she’d never pay him a visit. It was always in the club, and no-place else.

Dancers came and went in Free Market, as was the nature of the gentleman’s club. The only constants seemed to be Busy Ness and her “Sugar Uncle” Sam, but even their interactions had their ups and downs. Every so often their relationship entered what Sam best called a “dry spell”, which would be when Ness would say that she needed to work even harder with some of the other customers instead of spending all of her time with him. That often meant that Sam would be spending most of his time in the club by himself. Even though Ness would offer to have other dancers spend time with him, Sam always said he would wait patiently for her.

It was during one of these long dry spells that the club hired a new dancer named Penny Foyer. Penny was a fresh face and eager to build a following in the club. She was given a rundown of the rules, including the unofficial ones from the other dancers. The really big one was to stay away from “Busy Ness’s boys”, especially Sam. Be polite, she was told, even be friendly, but never try to take regulars away from “Busy Ness”.

But as Penny watched Sam spend long hours by himself at the bar or at the pool tables, she wondered what kind of hold Busy Ness had over Sam to allow him to be neglected like that. She checked with the other dancers and found out that Sam would always be there with at least three hundred dollars on him, which he would spend mostly on Ness. Even if they never went to the VIP room, he’d still give Ness the money, sometimes for no reason other than because he intended to spend it on her anyway.

Penny Foyer thought someone should speak to Sam about that, because it just seemed wrong. She waited until Sam went to the pool tables to approach him. She offered to play a friendly game with him while he waited for Busy Ness. He was a fair player; not really skilled, but certainly not a novice. She let him win a game and then talked him into a second one. While he racked up the balls, she let him in on “the secret”.

“Did you know Ness is living with Cash?” she asked him.

Cash Profit was the club’s dee-jay. He played the songs that the dancers moved to, and of all of the club’s employees, he was the one person that Sam could never interact with.

“She’s been living with him for years,” Penny told Sam. “Seriously, the only reason why she’s giving you the cold shoulder now is because they had an argument the other week about still stringing you along.”

Sam really didn’t respond to the news. They finished the game, which he lost, and he thanked Penny for her honesty before returning to his favorite stool at the bar.

Later that night, as the club was closing, Penny returned to the dressing room to find Ness waiting.

“You told him, didn’t you?” Ness asked Penny. “You told Sam about me and Cash.”

“He deserved to know he was wasting his time,” Penny said.

Ness had to restrain herself from doing something violent, especially in front of others.

“You know he’s in love with you,” Penny continued.

“Why do you think he keeps coming back year after year?” Busy Ness blurted out. “Of course Sam loves me! My little ‘Sugar Uncle’ has been in love with me ever since he first came here. They all fall in love with me at some point. Britt, Frenchy, Little Italy, Chin A, Indy, Russkie, they all fall in love with me. They all do what they do to woo me and get me to give them attention. That’s the name of the game in this club! It’s about teasing them to get what we want! But let’s get brutally honest here… I’m in love with Cash Profit. I’ve always been in love with Cash Profit, and at the end of the day, the only person that I will go home to and the only person who will see everything about me is Cash Profit.”

“Then why not tell them the truth?” Penny asked. “Why don’t you at least tell Sam the truth about you and Cash?”

Busy Ness was taken back by the bluntness of the question. “Why don’t I...? Because Sam gives me money! Every week he shows up with money just for me. Money that I use to pay the bills and buy new clothes. Money that we put away for the day when I won’t be able to tease the others. And as long as Sam thinks there’s a chance that I’ll share with him something I won’t give anyone else, he’ll come back here every week with that money. And now… thanks to you… I’ll have to sweet-talk him even more just so he’ll come back.”

The bluntness of Busy Ness’s answer shocked Penny Foyer. She never realized just how cruel and calculated Ness really was until then.

But what shocked Penny even more was the following week, Sam was right back at the club, sitting at his favorite stool, talking with Busy Ness like the previous week never happened.

Penny tried to make sense of it all as she watched Ness take Sam by the hand towards the VIP room. Even if Sam never knew that Busy Ness and Cash Profit were married, even if he only knew that Ness and Cash were just living together, Penny couldn’t figure out why Sam would be willing to keep coming back week after week, throwing his hard-earned money into a dream that really was nothing more than that.

It was business as usual for the Free Market Gentlemen’s Club as the night moved by one song at a time, one unfulfilled fantasy at a time.

Week of 09/05/2011

Honor Workers With A Real Jobs Program
– by David Matthews 2

Have you ever looked up the origins of the American holiday known as Labor Day?

It’s not a happy story. There’s actually a lot of guilt involved.

Labor Day was created as a federal holiday in 1894 following a bloody massacre committed by US Marshalls and members of the US Army under orders from President Grover Cleveland. The victims were all members of the American Railway Union, which back in 1893 was engaged in a very caustic workers strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago. 13 strikers were murdered, 34 wounded, and damages were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. (In today’s dollars that a few million.) To compensate for his role in the carnage that took place, Cleveland and the Congress made the first Monday in September into a federal holiday to honor the trade and labor organizations.

How insulting, then, to find out that on the same week that we honor workers, the President of the United States had to haggle over when he could address the nation and Congress over his latest plan to “deal with” the millions of workers that have been maliciously and callously forsaken by this nation.

It has become painfully clear – at least to those not in Washington – that the key to our economic recovery rests with putting the millions of Americans that have lost their jobs back to work. The GOP, the willing whores of Big Corporate, intentionally wrote off those millions of Americans so their friends in Wall Street could reap record profits. Meanwhile, the Democrats, being the perpetual fail machines that they are, have so far skated around the issue of putting those millions of Forsaken Americans back to work. They coddled and catered to the “Too Big To Fail” banks and the insurance companies and the same Wall Street Masters of the Universe that have been pillaging America like barbarian hoards for their own profit margins, hoping against hope that the pillagers would somehow do what’s right on their own accord sooner rather than later.

While Corporate America has been busy shaking down this nation for every penny it can steal, millions of Americans have been intentionally abandoned. Millions that are eager and willing to work, eager and willing to get the economy started again, eager and willing to get their lives back. Millions that have been far more deserving of their attention and government assistance than any member of Wall Street could ever be, and yet they’ve been ignored at best and maliciously slandered at worst. Millions that have become the Forsaken Americans.

These Forsaken Americans are the very people that the economy needs to be working again. It is their productivity that would provide the payroll taxes needed to offset the budget deficit. It is their incomes that would buy the houses that have been stolen by the banks and left to rot. It is their incomes that would purchase the furniture that would fill those homes, and buy and maintain those cars that would be parked in the driveways. Their money would pay for the clothes purchased at the stores and pay for the food consumed at the restaurants. Their money that would keep the local banks solvent so they wouldn’t have to rely on criminal tricks. Their money that would pay for local taxes so cities and towns could pay for the police and pay for the firefighters and keep the roads paved.

And all it would take is for the business world to hire those millions of Forsaken Americans.

There is no legitimate excuse for Big Corporate to not do that. After all, they were the ones that promised they’d do that if Congress and the White House sustained the Bush Tax Cuts. They were the ones that sent out the GOP talking point memos that said that sustaining those cuts would result in job creation. Instead of making good on their promise, they took the money and kept posting profits and then complained like their own spoiled children that it “wasn’t enough”.

So now President Obama has finally decided to supposedly “do something” to deal with the “problem” of the Forsaken Americans. It is a “problem” that he has been talking about and talking about and talking about ever since he took office but he hasn’t really tried to resolve. While he’s been talking, more and more Americans have joined the ranks of the Forsaken Americans, and the economy has slowly been sliding from abysmal to even bleaker still, and all of the political spinning can neither change nor dilute that assessment anymore.

And yet, if history combined with rumors of what this “new program” will contain are true, then the millions upon millions of Forsaken Americans will be forsaken by Obama yet again.

Let’s break it down…

Infrastructure funding: Roads and bridges… the eternal sacred cow for the Obama Fail. Yes, they are all coming apart, but that’s because there aren’t enough taxpaying Americans to fund those programs. Throwing tax money at infrastructure programs is nothing more than the economic equivalent of treading water. It solves absolutely nothing in the long-term, and it fuels the neo-con talking point about “rewarding unions”, which means the GOP would love to do nothing more than to slash this idea into little pieces. If Obama put more emphasis into bitch-slapping Corporate America into hiring those millions of Forsaken Americans, then eventually you’d see the tax money needed to fix the roads and bridges.

Greater emphasis on education: An eternal sacred cow of the White House, regardless of who is in there. Everyone wants to be the “education president” and every single one of them has championed programs that have ultimately failed the American people. We’ve gone from “Johnny can’t read” to “Waiting for Superman” to the Atlanta School System’s rampant cheating scandal. When you realize that the bulk of the Forsaken Americans are college-educated, including people with Masters and doctorates, then you realize that this is yet another treading water program, not to mention another one that feeds the neo-con talking point about “rewarding unions”.

Extending unemployment benefits: If Obama brings this idea to Congress then it will be Dead-On-Arrival. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It is dead, and the GOP has no qualms whatsoever telling the Forsaken Americans to “drop dead” alongside it. Half the Congress has been spending the past two years maliciously slandering the Forsaken Americans for having the “audacity” of losing their jobs and not finding new ones immediately, and they have repeatedly allowed those benefits to expire with absolutely no care whatsoever about those millions of Americans. Plus the recent budget and debt ceiling “compromises” have already gutted those benefits to the new members of the Forsaken Americans. Do you really think that the malicious narcissists in control of the Congress are willing to see those political victories overturned just because Obama makes a speech? Even if they were willing to “extend” already-existing benefits, they sure as hell will not sign on to any program that gives a further extension to those that have already exhausted their benefits. In other words, it’s still “Drop Dead” for the 99-ers.

Job assistance to veterans: This actually could stand a chance at passing given how conservatives and neo-conservatives have a raging war fetish. Helping out the veterans newly-returned from Iraq and Afghanistan get new jobs? Oh they’d jump at the chance! Unfortunately this does very little to help the rest of the Forsaken Americans out there. You know, the ones that were working and “supporting the troops”. It’s a good idea, but it’s still a drop in the overall bucket that is our problem.

Payroll tax holiday for hiring the long-term jobless: Remember when the GOP promised that they would never support a tax hike for anyone? Well apparently there is an exception to that promise. There is already a payroll tax holiday that was set up from the Bush years that is set to expire on January 1^st. Obama wants this extended, but apparently some in the GOP, for some strange reason, think that it should expire. Maybe it’s because it’s one of those tax breaks that doesn’t benefit the wealthy. The problem with this program is that the tax holiday in and of itself is apparently too small for businesses to want to take advantage of it.

So what do we have so far? We have programs that fail to gain traction against the rampant problem of unemployment, programs that do absolutely nothing to help those Forsaken Americans that truly need help, and programs that probably will never see the light of day because of the rampant narcissism of the GOP.

Let’s get brutally honest here… the American people need a jobs program that actually works! Our whole economic recovery rests with getting those millions of Forsaken Americans back to work. And they need to get back to work today, not six or seven months later after spending money they don’t have on education programs that don’t guarantee employment. The Forsaken Americans have no more time or money to waste waiting around, and every day that they are doing just that spirals the rest of the nation further and further down the economic drain.

If President Obama wants to go through all of that political wrangling to get a public address to Congress, then his proposed “jobs program” better do far more than offer up the wasted ideas already proposed and done with minimal effect. He needs to deliver nothing short of a Roosevelt-style jobs program from the 1930’s, not to mention a verbal castigation on the mindsets of those that have maliciously slandered those millions of Forsaken Americans that are desperately needed for our recovery to actually begin. He needs to abandon the Orwellian redefining of “job creation” as being a job “created or saved”, since it has done nothing but waste our time and erode what little confidence the American people have left in him to actually do his own job. He also needs to get rid of his so-called “advisors” that have so far done nothing but convince him to let this nation continue to rot.

Labor Day became a national holiday because of a needless massacre waged by the federal government. Today a much different massacre is being committed on millions of American people and their families. It is a massacre of spirit and a slow and painful death of our economy. And if the President fails to address that with a Roosevelt-style response, then he will be treated less like FDR and more like Herbert Hoover, and the next layoff will be his own.