Week of 04/11/2022

 

Injustice Unlimited
– by David Matthews 2

On March 27^th of this year, Will Smith physically struck a presenter at the Academy Awards in front of a live televised audience and with the whole world watching.  Over a joke made in bad taste concerning his wife.

The police were not called.  No criminal charges filed against him for the assault committed on live television.

His punishment? A “ten-year ban” from all Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences events.  A ban made meaningless by his “resignation” from said Academy.

In all honesty, he should have been charged with assault.  Not that, but he should be kicked out of the Screen Actors Guild, the union that everyone must join in order to make mainstream movies or TV shows.  Let him keep the Oscar as a reminder of what he used to have but his film career should have ended that night.

This was not some disagreement made behind-the-scenes.  This was a physical assault that took place in front of cameras during the most-watched event of the whole motion picture industry.  I don’t care how “big” you are.  If it was Marlon Brando, or Al Pacino, or Heath Ledger, or Carrot Top, I’d still be demanding that person go to jail on the spot.

But that didn’t happen to Will Smith.  Because Will Smith is a major movie and music star who, not long after his criminal act, ended up winning the Best Actor award.  Indeed, his colleagues coddled him instead of chiding him.  He would later go out to celebrate, laughing with his family over the night’s events.

Simply put, Will Smith is “too big for jail”, just like bank executives, corporate executives, certain professional athletes, and politicians.

His criminal activity took place just hours before my article about the rising belligerence would go online, putting a punctuation to what I had said two weeks ago about how we have become increasingly hostile to one another.  The fact that he is allowed to get away with what he did, while the victim of his assault is still paying the price for it, shows the rampant injustice going on in the world.

Yes, Vladimir Putin is waging war on Ukraine and his propaganda machines both in Russia and the United States are spreading this lie that he’s somehow the “victim” of the gross crimes and violent atrocities being committed there.  Yes, there are calls for him to be tried in the World Court for crimes against humanity, but unless he finds himself removed from power by his own people and magically spirited to the Hague, those calls will be meaningless. 

And, no, the United States cannot give Ukraine the help they really need, because to do so would be a provocation for global thermonuclear annihilation.  We can’t go in like we did with Iraq and Afghanistan because those countries did not have nuclear weapons that could destroy the world countless times over, and Russia still does.  And the only people who are calling for that are Putin and the evangelicals here in the United States.

Meanwhile there are three people that have been referred to the Department of Justice by the January 6^th Commission for failing to heed a congressional subpoena.  But the lily-livered yellow-bellied Attorney General refuses to act on those referrals and arrest those three people like he did with mad monk Steve Bannon.  Oh, AG Merrick Garland has no problems going after the little guys who stormed the Capitol, but he’s the Coward of the Country when it comes to the higher-ups.  Speaking of which, those little guys all seem to get off with light sentences for their acts of sedition and assault.

It is said that a certain narcissist who used to be the President of the United States has “likely” committed crimes when he tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.  This matches what certain members of the January 6^th Commission have said on the subject and that they could bring up actual criminal charges.  Then again, that would also fall on the lap of AG Garland, the Coward of the Country, to follow through with actual indictments and the arrest of said narcissist.  The same person who has failed to act on the charges outlined in the Mueller Report from 2019 that could be filed now that said narcissist is no longer in office.

Let’s get brutally honest here... there is rampant injustice going on, not just in the United States but pretty much around the world.  We claim that America is a “nation of laws, not men”, and yet we have certain people and a certain political party wrapped around a certain narcissist, that firmly believe that “only they” can run the country.  We say that “no one is above the law”, but we have demonstrated quite well that certain people and certain groups are, in fact, beyond reproach and above the law.  They are not charged with their crimes.  They are not held to account for their actions.  They do what they do repeatedly, and they get away with it repeatedly, because they are considered “too big”.  As if the whole universe will come crashing down in flames if they dare be held to account for their actions like the common riffraff.  Well, with Vlad Putin, yeah, that could actually happen.

In all honesty, there is a part of me that wouldn’t tolerate what happened to Chris Rock – the comedian and Academy presenter who was assaulted by Will Smith on live TV – if I were in his shoes.  Like him, I was a victim of bullies.  Like him, I also have a problem sometimes with social awareness.  People would like to believe that Chris was the “better man” for just taking the assault and not pressing charges.  I see it as just another bully preying on someone who was already subject to bullies.  Another injustice that will go unanswered, and another criminal who got away with his crime.

Week of 04/04/2022

 

The “Great Regret” Is A Great Crock
– by David Matthews 2

Something wonderful happened during the past year.  After coming out of the pandemic and with the world opening up again, people started leaving their jobs for better ones.

They’ve been calling it “The Great Resignation”, as huge masses of people who were working mundane jobs – often in the service sector – have said “Enough” and started work elsewhere.  So people who were flipping burgers, serving complex coffee orders, and waiting tables, who previously were called “essential workers” during the pandemic but were treated like crap by customers and management, realized they could make more working at Amazon or some other warehouse or office position.  Even people who felt were paid and/or treated lowly at their modest positions found better work and/or pay with other companies desperate to fill those vacancies.

Now, to be fair, a lot of those people quitting during “The Great Resignation” weren’t looking for better work.  They were older people who simply had enough of the crap and were able to retire.  But their departures still gave great opportunities for others to take their place with more pay than before.

But now comes the pushback from Big Corporate and Big Business in general.  Being forced to pay people more to keep their jobs or to hire new people, they’re trying to stop the trend from going on.  Or, worse yet, watch as it becomes a global phenomenon.

Thus, they came up with... “The Great Regret”.

“The Great Regret” is this idea that all those people who quit their old jobs and found new ones will now “regret” their decision, thinking the grass on the “other side” really isn’t greener, and would be begging on their hands and knees for their old jobs, weeping for their former bad employers for forgiveness and to take them back.

Essentially this is a capitalist fantasy.  The child that vows to hold their breath until they turn blue and then “you’ll be sorry!  You’ll see!”

“The Great Regret” was the brainchild of business “experts” a few months ago, but it wasn’t long before it went out to the air-fluffed ego-driven media, most of them owned by big corporations.  According to one of their many polls to reinforce this, one in five people who quit their old jobs would supposedly “regret” the decision.  “One in five!”

Yeah, “one in five” is just twenty percent.  That means that eighty percent of the people who left their old jobs for new ones have no regrets.

“One in five” is not “great”.  “One in five” is pathetic.  “Four out of five” would be “great”.

Let’s get brutally honest here... “The Great Regret” is not “great”.  It’s a great crock of crap.

What you have here are corporate-owned media and capitalist interests spreading a false narrative, using polls and surveys that they can control and easily manipulate to try to head off this trend of employees leaving the workplace for better jobs and friendlier environments.  A trend that has not stopped and has continued as long as there are jobs to be needed.

For the longest time, businesses large and small have been able to underpay their employees and treat them like crap because the marketplace allowed them to.  Since the late 1970’s, the Economic Policy Institute says that real wages for most Americans have been stagnant, not even keeping up with rising costs and inflation.  That’s because jobs were always considered scarce, especially during economic hard times.  During the Great Recession, people who were laid off took whatever jobs were available because jobs were hard to come by.  Employers have always had the power.  And during the Great Recession, “too big to fail” corporations who were getting bailouts were paying bonuses to the execs that caused the problem because they were deemed “top talent”, while millions of hard-working Americans were finding themselves out of work and on the verge of being out of their homes.

But with the global pandemic, when a greater emphasis was placed on warehouse and deliveries, suddenly the demand for different and better-paying jobs became a thing.  Now the workers have options.  They don’t have to stay with a low-paying job that treats them like crap.

In many ways, “The Great Resignation” is also a “Great Revolt”, as workers suddenly have the power to get away from their conditions if they so choose for better jobs.  That doesn’t mean that things will be better for every worker who makes that decision.  Obviously if you don’t do your due diligence and look into that potential “better” job before accepting it, you may feel some regret, but that happens with any job you apply for.  There is nothing “great” about that.

The only real “Great Regret” going on are the employers who have shortchanged their employees and took them for granted.  Now they have to address that if they want to keep their true “top talent”.

Week of 03/28/2022

 

Belligerence Abound
– by David Matthews 2

April 1^st, 2022 will mark the 26^th year that this commentator has been doing an online column.

Twenty-six years... and, in all that time, not to mention the fifty-five years of my existence, I have to say that I have never seen people more belligerent to each other than I do now.

Yes, things have been getting hostile since the early 90’s.  Aggressive attitudes, war-talk, the occasional violent outburst from the lunatic fringe.  Workplace violence and school violence and shootings in public places like malls did happen and they did cause a lot of media attention and public hand-wringing and political posturing and blaming.  But it was never to the level of violence that we see today. 

Yes, we still have school shootings and shootings in public places, but they don’t seem to have the impact on us as they did two decades ago.  They happen, the air-fluffed ego-driven media talk about it, and then it’s back to the latest dog-and-pony show followed by weather and sports.  They spend more time talking about who got traded in [INSERT LOCAL SPORTS TEAM HERE] than they do about the lives lost and what caused the killer to do what they do.

Yeah, maybe it’s because we all watched the Twin Towers get crashed by terrorists on live television back in 2001, followed by endless wars where we watched our parents and our children fight and die in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the endless threats of future terrorist attacks and being told to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape.  Maybe it’s because violence happens so frequently now that people just are desensitized to it.

I remember when just the mention of a freeway killer, someone shooting up motorists, was a big thing.  Today, there are people getting shot on Atlanta’s highways seemingly every week, and nobody is saying anything about it other than they happened.  Are these separate incidents?  Are they all from the same driver?  We don’t know.

There was a guy in Miami who was caught on his own dashcam shooting at other vehicles as part of an escalated road rage incident.  Most people didn’t even know about it until the dashcam video was released.

Even without shootings, road rage incidents are getting worse on the highways I travel every day.  Drivers are getting more and more aggressive, leading to frayed tempers and accidents.

And it’s not just the roads.  We have irate people assaulting doctors and nurses, threatening educators, and attacking airline attendants.  They are openly attacking other people, sometimes because of who they are.  They’ve called the police on other people for the simple “crime” of existing.  These people have been given a name: Karen.  And they are as much a menace to society as any other criminal.  Maybe even worse because they are our neighbors.

Then we have the politicians.  We just spent four years with a belligerent narcissist in the White House, leading a party of corrupt and violent acolytes and enablers.  An elected congressman representing Montana physically assaulted a reporter in 2017, while said narcissist was busy telling people that the media are the “enemy of the people”.  We’ve seen endless displays of police violence caught on camera, often being cheered on by this same faction of the narcissist.  We’ve seen violent rhetoric, followed by a violent act of domestic terrorism and sedition with the ultimate goal of insurrection in January of 2021.  A vile criminal act that has since been excused by the acolytes and enablers of that narcissist as being nothing more than “legitimate political discourse”.  You know, like how the terrorist attacks of 2001 were nothing more than a “spirited disagreement”.

A narcissist so horrible and corrupt that the only other alternative was to support a previously retired politician that would otherwise not even be given a second thought, and who, to this very day, refuses to acknowledge that he lost to said previously retired politician.  A narcissist that has openly bragged about being able to shoot someone in broad daylight and never go to jail for it, and who, as of this article’s posting, has yet to be held to account for the various criminals acts he is accused of committing over the years.

Let’s get brutally honest here... things have been getting worse in the past two-and-a-half decades since I started my column.  And it’s not going to get better for us as a society or as a nation if we don’t do something about this continual escalation of hostility and violence.

History has shown that this kind of belligerent attitude has led to some of the worst times in human civilization.  Civil War in America.  Two world wars.  They were each prefaced by escalating hostility and acts of violence.  Tensions building and building until war was inevitable.  If we want to prevent the next worst time, we need to stop the aggressive and belligerent natures here and hold those who commit them responsible.

Week of 03/21/2022

Ending Daylight Savings Time Is Long Overdue
– by David Matthews 2

It was proposed at a time when communities were lit by candles.

It was enacted as a way to save energy.

It was justified to help farmers and protect children.

And, quite honestly, it’s pretty much BS today and has long needed to be done with.

The week prior to this article, the United States Senate passed by unanimous agreement the “Sunshine Protection Act”, crafted by deadbeat Trump Party Senator Marco Rubio and Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.  Of course, it doesn’t “protect” the sun or sunshine.  But what it does is it ends the time change from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time, making “Daylight Savings Time” permanent in 2023.

The air-fluffed ego-driven media have been obsessed with how this unanimous agreement was passed, especially since certain Trump Party senators have been rather notorious about not letting this kind of bill get brought up, never mind get voted by unanimous agreement.  All it would take would be one of them to say “no” for the unanimous agreement to be denied and they would have to resort to the endless process of committees and subcommittees and debates and filibusters.  Others are worrying about if members of the House of Representatives would allow this to get passed and on to the president’s desk to sign.  A few more are whining about how we should use “standard” time instead of “Daylight Savings”.

Personally, I don’t care which time we stick with, “daylight” or “standard”, just as long as this semi-annual ordeal ends.  And here’s a crazy thought… maybe those senators and/or their staff decided it needed to end and allowed the bill to get passed on in the easiest way possible.

The original justification for Daylight Saving Time was brought up by Benjamin Franklin as a way to prolong the setting sun and save on candles.  But, here’s the catch: Franklin brought it up in jest, and did so anonymously through that era’s version of “The Onion”.

Think about it: would you consider anything from “Cracked” or “The Onion” seriously?

And yet, that’s what nations started to do during World War I, supposedly to “conserve fuel”.  It was repeated during World War II as year-round “War Time” and then ended.  In 1966, it became codified nationwide, pausing only briefly under some flimsy excuse of saving energy, and then resuming after the claim was made that children were getting slaughtered by drivers because they were walking to school in the dark.

Even if it was true, the purported benefits of messing with our clocks twice a year are either non-existent or simply BS.

First, the idea that kids would be walking to school in the dark doesn’t match with today’s school times.  Here in my neck of the Atlanta area, children are getting picked up at the bus stop around 6am, long before the sun shows up over the horizon.  And… walking to school?  With today’s hypersensitive and hyper-protective parents?  No, if they don’t personally ensure that their precious tax deductions board that taxpayer-funded yellow mass transit vehicle, then they are playing chauffeur and then racing like the a-holes they are to get to work.

As for “saving energy”?  Well, let’s see… first it was justified to “save fuel”, then it was paused in the 70’s to “save energy”, and then justified again when they messed with when these changes would occur to “save energy”.  Which is it?  Either you allow it to “save energy” or pause it to “save energy”, but you can’t use the same justification for both!  Regardless, the U.S. Department of Energy, along with a few other agencies, have all said that whatever “savings” exist are negligible.

Consider all the homes and businesses that have climate control running year-round.  Consider the number of homes and businesses that use computers and high-definition TVs that use electricity year-round.  These are things that weren’t around fifty years ago.  Yes, fifty years ago it would have been gauche to leave a light on in the room.  Today we leave far more powerful devices up and running without a second thought.  So, no, there is no “energy savings” by changing the clocks twice a year.

But do you know what we do get with this time change nonsense?  Interrupted sleep cycles.  Traffic accidents.  Workplace injuries.  Strokes and heart attacks.  And it doesn’t matter if the time change happens during the weekend or the middle of the week, you are disrupting the sleep cycles of people that take a while for their bodies to adjust.  This is a tool of torture being used universally twice a year under the pretense of “saving energy”.  It has been statistically proven that vehicle accidents increase every time we change the clocks.  Same with workplace injuries.  There are also an increased amount of heart attacks and strokes reported at hospitals during that time.

And all for a non-existent energy saving and for precious tax deductions that are already being chauffeured about when it’s still dark.

Let’s get brutally honest here… Daylight Savings Time or Standard Time, either way, one of them needs to end, and end sooner rather that later.  The threat to workers and commuters are proven, unlike the claims being used to justify keeping this tool of prisoners imposed on us all.  There should be no reason whatsoever to bar this bipartisan bill from being passed and signed into law.  Those in Congress who think otherwise are operating from a position of ignorance, hysteria, myth, and outright BS.

End this torture.  Period.

Week of 03/14/2022

 

The Hoax Of Parental Rights In Education
– by David Matthews 2

“Good morning students and welcome to a new school year at Everywhere High School!  I am Principal Pencilwhip and I have a few announcements to make.”

“Due to recent legislation enacted by your state and local government concerning parental rights on how we teach, we have had to make a few changes to your curriculum.”

“First, English.  This will no longer be taught, as certain parents feel that you should already know how to speak and spell at this point.  You will, instead, be spending your time writing essays about how great this country is and have them reviewed by the rest of the class.”

“Next, French and Spanish will no longer be taught as certain parents believe you should not have to know any other language except for English.  Those of you enrolled in French or Spanish lessons will be moved to the English classes where you too will be writing essays about how great this country is.”

“There will still be math courses.  However, rather than figuring out equations yourself, you will be given a calculator and shown how to use it.  Those of you in the vocational track will be given a mock-up of a fast-food register so you can prepare for your future.”

“The computer courses have been suspended as one parent has said that most of you do not use computers and should not know how to use one since you rely on your cellphones and our faculty are still learning how to use them.  On a related note, the selfie and meme student groups have been dissolved after several parents complained about them.”

“English Literature has been suspended until a group of parents and pastors can decide which literature is appropriate for you to learn.”

“History courses are still being reviewed, so, for the time being, you will be watching the following movies approved by your parents: ‘Birth of a Nation’, ‘Triumph of the Will’, ‘Patton’, and five films to be later determined that feature John Wayne.”

“There will still be gym class.  Coach Ballsak is proud to show you the joys of dodgeball.  And for those of you with approved medical conditions, Carl, the school janitor, will show you the fine art of keeping the bathrooms clean.”

“The library is closed until further notice as a committee of parents are still reviewing which books are appropriate for you to possibly read.”

“And finally, I hope all of you took part in saying the pledge of allegiance and gave your required minute of reflection about the servicemen and law enforcement lost this past year.  For those of you who didn’t, your homeroom teachers will be forwarding your names to the office so you can go through mandatory re-education.”

“Thank you, have a great year, and be sure to thank your parents for making all this happen!”

Obviously what you just read was a slight exaggeration, but this is the kind of stuff that certain political groups and certain state and local legislators are trying to get enacted.

They’re calling these “parental rights” bills.  They believe that “parents” should be given a veto power over what is taught in schools across the country, overriding educators and even school boards.  If a parent believes that something shouldn’t be taught in school for whatever reason, they get to override the will of teachers and school board members.

Right now, the focus of these “parental rights” is on any mention of LGBTQ+ issues.  They don’t want their precious tax deductions to know that someone in their class has two mommies or two daddies or a daddy that looks like a mommy.  It’s also a backdoor to go after what they call “critical race theory”, which they cannot seem to define or point to but firmly believe it is being taught nonetheless.

It should also be noted that not every parent will have that “right” to decide what gets taught.  Let’s say you want your kids to know about the civil rights struggles, but some other parent says no. Even if you have others backing you up, that one parent’s veto overrides everyone else.  How is that a “right” if only an elite minority gets to use it?

Now you may think this is somewhat tame, unless you happen to be one of those parents or students being targeted, but then you add that with some of the other laws being passed in certain places like the fascist state of Florida, where the “Don’t Say Gay” bill has been green-lit to signature and they also want to block any teachings that make a certain group – namely white people – uncomfortable.  Then you have Texas and their new effort to prosecute parents who have transgender children for child abuse and drag in educators and doctors as well.  And let’s not forget Fascist Florida’s U.S. Senator, Rick Scott, himself a former governor, and his supposed 11-point plan for the party of fascism which includes forced patriotism for students and to control what students are taught based solely on his faction’s worldview.

Put those together and – if it’s all enacted – you have that announcement from Everywhere High School in the near future.

Let’s get brutally honest here... these so-called “parental rights” bills are a hoax.  It’s not about “parents”.  It’s about one pompous self-serving self-important faction in society to have unchallengeable veto power over what is taught in our schools.

Homeschooling didn’t work for them.  The push for vouchers for charter schools didn’t work.  And their current effort to take over all the school boards is not a sure thing and takes too long for them.  Because it was never about just their own children.  It was about the rest of the young minds.  Your kids.  Your teens.  This younger generation and all the ones that follow. 

Like any other abusive entity, this is about power and control.  Power over all and control over everything, especially over what we know.  Some of us learned that from history.  That too is something that they would want others to know.  I would hope that we would not have to learn it again in the near future from current events.