22 Replies to “Diary of a man who is only trying to make a difference in Obama’s fundamentally transformed America, cont.”

1. Slartibartfast says:

   October 6, 2011 at 12:09 pm

   FREE MARKIE POST!

2. dicentra says:

   October 6, 2011 at 12:27 pm

   Two Demand 6s, Gracie?

   Now that IS beyond the pale.

3. Pablo says:

   October 6, 2011 at 12:29 pm

   Perhaps you should lend your contribution to We Are The 99 Percent. People are hurting out there. For instance:

   I am 30 years old. I have a BFA and an MA. I taught Art History for 2+ years and made regular payments on my loans. As a newer, less established member of the faculty I was out of work when my college cut classes. Over a year later and I still can’t find work. I pick up dog poop for $6 a walk. Because of deferments my $41,000 loan has become $62,000. I am the 99%.

   and

   I made this sign for us at Occupy Wall Street. I’m a Hell’s Kitchen, NYC born girl who lives in industrial Brooklyn with my husband. We are both artists who largely survive on SSD/pending SSI. These allotments get us by, as we live frugally, but put us in the poverty level. He was born with a physical disability due to a birth trauma, & I’ve been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder. We live in an abandoned coffin factory that has been converted to a livable and affordable housing space for artists, but still fight against the city in housing battles, as they’d love to gentrify the area and price residents out. We are the 99%, and this is what life is like for us.

   and

   I have done awful things to make my mortgage payments…including selling my body.

   But I am no longer willing to sacrifice my remaining shreds of dignity on the altar of a faceless institution that gave me an ill-advised loan to begin with.

   Are you guys really THAT greedy?

   Go ahead. Top that.

4. mojo says:

   October 6, 2011 at 12:30 pm

   Where’s Bull?

   (Whadda ya mean, I can’t take a dump in the MacDonald’s Corporate Greed Station?)

5. dicentra says:

   October 6, 2011 at 12:43 pm

   Harsanyi lists the OWS demands:

   We demand the end to a corrupt Wall Street (“Apple” “your 401(k)”) because banks hold too much power. We demand that government consolidate authority so that elected officials can make prudent choices for us. All that cash in banks was printed by the war god Mars and has nothing to do with the voluntary deposits by ordinary Americans, so we do not consider this theft.

6. leigh says:

   October 6, 2011 at 12:43 pm

   We’re already getting scattered reports of the brownshirt tactics of the NYPD busting the heads of these tender, yet messy and mouthy souls. I say turn the dogs and fire hoses on them and watch them scatter.

   “It’s Selma all over again!” /JJackson

7. Slartibartfast says:

   October 6, 2011 at 12:50 pm

   I’m 22 years old and graduated with a double major from an esteem[sic] school.

   Highly esteem.

   My roommates and I work tirelessly to pursue degrees that will not employ us unless we get further schooling.

   Sounds like an error in judgement, on a large scale.

   Oh holy crap how’d this get here, and how long will it stay up?

8. Lost My Cookies says:

   October 6, 2011 at 1:03 pm

   That coffee shop better not charge for Wifi or I swear I’ll TAKE IT DOWN!

9. Lost My Cookies says:

   October 6, 2011 at 1:05 pm

   I’ve been in Wal-Marts on check Wednesday that have a better looking 99% than that damn website.

10. Slartibartfast says:

    October 6, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    I worked as a stripper in NYC. Over 95% of the customers worked on Wall Street. They would spend ridiculous amounts of $$$. I made more doing that than I do now, after receiving a graduate degree.

    Someone sounds nostalgic.

11. LBascom says:

    October 6, 2011 at 1:39 pm

    VDH has an interesting piece out I’m sure few of the owies would appreciate.

    The UC and CSU systems in outward appearance haven’t changed that much in half a century, but no college president in either current system would bet his life that today’s random graduates of his campus could match exit test scores in math or English of their 1960s random counterparts (so much for all those cutting-edge new classes and brilliantly conceived “centers”). The effort to open the new problematic UC campus in Merced did not quite follow the long ago exemplar of Irvine or Santa Cruz: our forefathers simply built massive new campuses next to resort cities; we in contrast sue and file impact statements over starting on empty isolated ground. Half of incoming freshmen at CSU today require remediation; about half graduate in six years. Pick up an old catalog from the library and compare the course listings — and the reason why jumps off the pages. […]

    What scares me about contemporary America is the relative competitiveness of our workforce, especially many of the young. When our politicians sermonize about putting Americans back to work and keeping jobs at home, I wonder whether they appreciate that far too many millions of our young people simply cannot read well, and do not have the habits or industry comparable to their competitors abroad, or at least not at the commensurate pay necessary for them to live decently in America. Our emphasis is on either the government hiring people or jawboning reluctant employers to do so; but not whether society is turning out a literate, creative, and disciplined worker

12. Slartibartfast says:

    October 6, 2011 at 1:53 pm

    I mean, I feel for some of these people. It’s hard, being the provider for yourself, and (where it applies) your dependents. I know. I have been there. I’ve had to sleep all bundled up because my heat got turned off for nonpayment, and then had to take a cold shower the next morning so I could be reasonably presentable for work. I’ve been foreclosed on. I’ve been really, really close to filing for bankruptcy.

    What’s cop-outish, though, is blaming Wall Street because you racked up more than $50k in college debt getting a degree in art history, and now can’t figure out a way to pay it back.

13. happyfeet says:

    October 6, 2011 at 2:02 pm

    Obama and his politics of hate cheapen America I think

14. newrouter says:

    October 6, 2011 at 2:49 pm

    Secret panel can put Americans on ‘kill list’

    Mark Hosenball, REUTERS

    WASHINGTON – American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

    There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

    The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

    The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

    Current and former officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.

    The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama’s toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki’s killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.

    In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush’s expansive use of executive power in his “war on terrorism,” is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments.

    Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder.

    Conservatives criticized Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki. They accuse Obama of hypocrisy, noting his administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of interrogation techniques many equate with torture, but refused to make public its rationale for killing a citizen without due process.

    Link

15. JHoward says:

    October 6, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    I’m surprised the right hasn’t parodied this a half million ways.

    “I’m a fifty-something small business owner who’s worked since the age of 14 to pay for your goddamned narcissistic thievery and all I know is neither of us deserve anything, punk. I’m 1% and how about you go f-”

    You get the idea.

16. mojo says:

    October 6, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    “We are the 99%!!”
    “Fifty bucks to the first one to cold-cock Mr. 99% here! Takers?”
    (quick, nasty brawl)
    “Here ya go, kid. Well done with the forearm smash, BTW…”

    WE ARE THE 1%

17. Pellegri says:

    October 6, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    The amount of venom people have for this woman who refuses to give LOVE AND CUDDLES to the 99% is amazing.

    She’s not being any more smug than the other people who’ve posted saying “and I’m not struggling!”, she’s just not:

    1. crediting all her success to luck.
    2. claiming she’s part of the 99%.
    3. wishing the movement well.

18. Pellegri says:

    October 6, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    @7, Slartibartfast:

    That’s still up because it feeds into MASSIVE (WHITE) GUILT ABOUT OUR COUNTRY.

    Also people get to say things like this:

    The first two panels are a bit skewed, but I like the ending one. I am of the opinion that in order to effectively help other countries, we have to at the very least get ours in working order. When our wealth is healthily appropriated, I would hope that we’d have more of a proverbial “leg to stand on” when it comes to international matters of starvation and famine.

    Emphasis mine.

19. ccs says:

    October 6, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    Two Demand 6s, Gracie?

    Now that IS beyond the pale.

    Go easy on him Darleen, remember, he was an English major.

20. John Bradley says:

    October 6, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    Well, when our wealth is “healthily” appropriated, I’m sure we’ll all be a lot more familar with starvation and famine.

    So I guess he’s got a point.

21. Slartibartfast says:

    October 7, 2011 at 6:50 am

    I saw that one, too, Pelligri.

    What we’re seeing, there, is mostly failure stories. It’s like having a real-life version of despair.com camp out in your cubicle. I already know how to fail; the key is to learn from your mistakes, and to not have the expectation that learning from your mistakes, in and of itself, is going to effect a sudden & drastic change in your circumstances.

    Oh, and there’s this underlying hope that if they win, if they get what they’re asking for, their debts will be forgiven. Not all of them are doing that, but there’s a strong undercurrent of that.

    Superman is not coming to save you, folks.

22. Mueller says:

    October 7, 2011 at 7:07 am

    Buncha spoiled little shits what ain’t got no idea where their stuff comes from.

    Biscotti is very easy to make.

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