Just cruised by a TV. Tonight the diet-and-exercise show Biggest Loser... which has promotional sponsors who for one show hawk their wares, apiece, usually a food related sponsor, or Pilates, or something like that. Campbell's Soup, SubWay, Wendy's. Tonight... the United States Army. OOOPS. So the Army, which is trying desperately to claim the victory, the Win, the everything-but-utter-defeat... is sponsoring "The Biggest Loser". For those who aren't in the know, the Army really doesn't promote itself as a place to straighten out your life or get physically fit or emotionally together. They figure if you're not a grown up too bad, if you're out of shape they'd rather you didn't apply, unless they're digging for numbers and cannon fodder. Contrary to their advertising of course. Also they don't consider themselves to be a College Prep school nor an employment agency, even though they vaguely hint at it in their ads. They don't want to advertise the shocking numbers of Combat Vets who are unemployed and or homeless. Speaking of, it's almost time for the annual Stand Down, which, this year, takes place against a backdrop of Criminalized Homelessness. What a lovely and patriotic gesture the CSPD and Sheriff Maketa's Gestapo are going to present! Oh Well. Oh Hell.
Tag: unemployment
Army Career “opportunities”
We've seen the ads, "Join the Military and get job training that employers want".. yeah right. One of my friends in El Paso was at the time a Scout for the Third Herd, 3rd Armored Cavalry. Stationed at Ft Bliss but spent most of his time (between the constant wars in which America has been engaged, unofficially) in this patch of Hell called MacGregor Range sandwiched between the limits of Ft Bliss, Biggs Army Air Field, White Sands Missile Range and Holloman AFB. His take on it was the job opportunities using his training would be either working as a cop or a hitman. (Personal aside, I don't make any distinction at all between the two jobs.) A double-digit percentage of the unemployed in Colorado are veterans. That's about twice the percentage of the population who are veterans. The TeeVee college ads, trade schools actually, because the Wealthiest don't want to spring for a real academic education, they want to keep us firmly planted in the Servant Class, make promises to recently discharged Veterans that strongly echo the lies of the Military Recruiters. "get training the employers are looking for". You know, it would be a Hell of a lot easier for you to Skip The Army Bullshit and just go to college or trade school without their help. That way you don't have to Kill and possibly Die for the benefit of the very richest. Let them send their own sons and daughters into the fight. Like Bush, Cheney, Romney, the entire Limbaugh Family, all of them DIDN'T serve "our country" and they don't send THEIR nasty little piglets into the fray either. The Bush Twins actually went on a speaking tour Campaigning for their Coward Little Daddy but disguised as Promoting the Military Service as a "career opportunity". Essentially told high school kids to drop out from education and join the Killing Machine. Advice neither they nor the scions of their Fathers Accomplices took. Nor did their father or any of his accomplices. (Pretending to be a Fighter Pilot doesn't count, everybody ELSE who had the word "combat" in his MOS at the time got sent to VietNam, save for a very few, very privileged scions of the very rich... like GW) Face it, kids, you really DON'T owe it to America to join the Army. The United States has been in constant wars since the end of World War 2 and has not actually had a congressional declaration of war since December 8, 1941. Nor have ANY of those wars actually been about American or anybody else's "freedom". To the veterans of those wars, there's two different sides to that. The one told to you by the Government, saying how much they love and respect you. And those of us who actually respect you, America and ourselves enough to Not Tell You Those Lies. It's a hideous thought that your time and the killing in which you participated, and the lives of your comrades, was exactly that meaningless... that the blood shed and destruction wrought
How safe is your job?
Skip the advertisements and check out Slate's interactive map of growing unemployment ...For a quick view, just punch the first and last month listed. So how safe is your job?
Obama in Denver vs reality in Colorado Springs
Barack Obama signed his give out package to the economic elites today with these syrupy words... 'Today does not mark the end of our economic troubles. Nor does it constitute all of what we must do to turn our economy around. But it does mark the beginning of the end -- the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the wake of layoffs, to provide relief for families worried they won't be able to pay next month's bills and to set our economy on a firmer foundation, paving the way to long-term growth and prosperity.' taken from Obama's remarks on signing the stimulus plan But just try dialing the number to try to get a unemployment claim going to obtain State Unemployment relief? Go ahead, dial it... 1-800-388-5515 ....What did you get? Was it busy? Of course it was, and they hide the actual physical address from people trying to open claims! That's right! They hide their offices away! And that number will stay busy, stay busy, and will always be busy for you if you need assistance. See Busy signals plague Coloradans filing for unemployment See how much they care? See what a rush they are in, our Democratic Party governor and DP Prez to assist you to 'set our economy on a firmer foundation'? Want to try it over 1,000 calls like Eric miller did in that article still not to ever get through? And the article is wrong, too. You cannot initiate most claims by the internet, but must get through by phone! Now that's service, ain't it? The Unemployment Office says that they can handle only less than half the calls they receive per day, and that's bs, too. They are just not even answering the phone. Helps the stats out it does! And all that sweet bull shit from Barack Obama in Denver today and yet the reality? They don't give a damn. Trillions for the big guys, and a busy signal on the phone for the common folk! Go ahead... keep calling 1-800-388-5515. Keep dialing... 1-800-BaO-bama He's busy!
US government slide rule of accounting
The US government and its talking head corporate media clowns are real good at not ever admitting anything about anything. Smile, Smile, Smile! However, this is what the French press group Reuters has to say about the American economy and they do not use or put much faith in the standard US government slide rule to measure unemployment. Great Depression jobs parallel may not be far flung Notice how the statistics and data are now altered by the government. The US government has slid the data right on down from what its previous more honest accounting measured, to give all of us a falser sense of security. How much unemployment will be seen in the next years ahead? The government and both capitalist parties want everybody to believe that throwing money at the rich who own the big enterprises will 'stimulate' the economy. Things don't work that way though, since to revive the economy the ordinary people themselves are needed and not just the top governing and owning hacks of our society. It is not about 'investment' but work and the workers who do it. Work is what makes society move, not investment. Capitalist society does not value work or workers though, and the elites consider those who work morons. Unfortunately many workers imitate the elites and consider themselves and those around them to be morons, too, for not being part of the owning class elite. Many workers actually begin to believe that they are worthless elements of society, and not the backbone of it! There is certainly all kinds of work that needs to be done, but capitalist society does not pay for most necessary work but instead keeps it from happening. The only work that gets done mainly is work that can make profit for the owning elite, and not the work that should be done. Workers simply get turned away when they want to work, need to work, and could work if allowed to do so. Owners usually do not allow that unless forced to do so by the workers themselves to allow it to happen. That is always a nasty battle since this is a society run by capitalist owners, and not one that counters them. Sadly most workers today do not think they have any power or could ever have such power, and their first reaction to increased unemployment is most likely be despair, depression, and increased self disrespect. Many families will begin to disintegrate and abuse will arise all around. Add to that the lies of the elites about what is really happening, and many will turn to violence and against all the wrong targets. The Left has a tough road ahead to try to counter the trend to come. The US Union
Time to use the word DEPRESSION again
One of the most ridiculous of the utterly false and phony positive thinking talking points used by the US's Right Wing corporate daily press and the talking heads of their TV stations is their constant babble about whether we have entered into a 'recession' or not? The correct word to be used is depression, it 's an ECONOMIC DEPRESSION we have been entered into worldwide, and there is nothing left to debate about it either. It's here. End of discussion. Go take a hike, Clowns@! Today, stocks fell almost 7% and that now is a drop of about 25% from the DOW all time high just 2 years ago. That is a depression. Further, this Friday morning Japanese stocks have already fallen 11% of their value in just a few minutes of trading. That is an economic depression. Let's cut to the quick on this. Bush and his clown clones are through. They are out of here. This presidential election will turn out to be a rout of McCain/ Palin, because they are more of the same, and The Same just flushed itself down the toilet via a whole shitload of corruption finally coming home to roost. But there is yet more here than the rout of the neocon corruptionists that will occur. If we in America are fed up with this crew, the rest of the world is even more so. Yes, the rest of the world is going down the drain with us and our stupid economy where thieves rule the rest of us. They are going to hate the US for the misery we have delivered them into. In fact, they already do. Afghanistan to Iraq to Somalia to Pakistan and flush, flush, flush. They can put it together, even if your dumb Republican neighbors can't. It's time to use the word depression once again, because we alhough we all thought the thought that 'communism' self destructs, we had all but forgotten that capitalism does just that in an even much worse way. We have been entered into a worldwide economic depression by all those that fed us the total line of crap that it was all running so very smoothly. Pompous stupid, arrogant twits they were, and now the world has once again had its eyes opened to the dangers that capitalism constantly puts the human race into. The unemployment to come will soon see to that. The rich everywhere will say that The Treasury has no money to stop it. You can bet your 401K retirement funds on it! And the whole world will correctly blame the US government, AND the stupid American people themselves, for what is being done to them. Get used to really being
Are they leaping from buildings yet? It’s time to pay the piper…
Here in Colorado, watching the world economic meltdown is a little like watching a horrible storm coming our way. We see the terrible whether predictions on TV and in the paper, but it has yet to truly hit us and our neighbors still... Wall St. braces for thousands of pink slips But down on Wall Street, many fine paying jobs are going down as the billionaires jockey for position to profit off the misery and the inevitable fallout coming from the eating of little fish by the bigger. Are they leaping from the top stories of the Manhattan sky scrapers yet? The world hunger riots have already begun, as have the resource wars. This time is different though. There is less and less of nature to loot, so this is not just a downturn of the normal capitalist business cycle. Planet Earth is in a big mess. We sat around twiddling our thumbs too long while the big boys ran all over the world. There is a big price to pay for having played stupid so long. It's coming time to pay the piper. Good bye '50s forever.