On my way home through downtown Kansas City streets I often encounter homeless people whom I like to call “hobos”…
And they always have a good story and constant requests for a few dollars. Depending on my mood and my financial fortunes that particular week I might give them some spare change despite the fact that I know just about everything coming out of their mouth is a lie.
In the era of the lingering Great Recession, people should think about political donations in much the same way.
jojo
tony…with the citizens united supreme court
ruling small donations under $250 don’t mean
shit anymore to politicians. The drug/insurance/
banking lobbies are throwing millions (500
million this cycle) into the game to take
over the country.
so what is going to happen? When the people who
want to end social security/unemployment
benefits/minimum wage/regulations on the oil,
banking and finaancial services industry/
get in power the 98% of us who have no power
will all be on the street like the “hobos”.
We are fucked…the nation is headed down a
very fast slope where the politicians on both
side could care less about the 98%ers and we
all swim around waiting to get the few crumbs
the 2%ers want us to have.
sad but true…..we’re all headed toward “hobo”
status.
smartman
This is one of the few democratic countries in the world where you can still buy outcome by donating money to the in power party or candidate of your choice. To think otherwise is foolish. Follow the money and count the votes.
kitty krash
I think the average donation is under $50. Perhaps someone out there has a hard statistic. Money is always power, but that’s the way it was even in Jefferson’s time, but democracy is still a great equalizer.
I don’t agree that one vote doesn’t count. Many elections, recent even, and locally included, have been decided by very few votes.
I’m not sure if Tony is satire or serious. I hope it’s satire otherwise the information is mostly stupid.
Uncle Mike
Hobo: Someone who will travel to work.
Tramp: Someone who travels and won’t work.
Bum: Someone who doesn’t travel and doesn’t work.
The Independent Rage
I also prefer to use the term “hobo.” Some say it’s not exactly politically correct, but the way I look at it, it’s a whole hell of a lot nicer than “bum” or “tramp” — two of the common terms of the past (I realize there’s a distinction between the three terms, but they’re all hobos to me).
And I think that if one actually has extra money these days (who are all these people, BTW?), then spending it on the hobos is a far better use of the dough than on just about any politician regardless of persuasion. I’d rather Go Hobo, jump a train, and throw my money off the Hannibal Bridge than donate it to any political campaign.
chuck
JoJo is dead on the money.
The US is becoming a 3rd world country. Jobs shipped out, and, the weatlh of this nation, resides in very few hands.
As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers).
From Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010).
You can google this stuff, it is endless.
The American oligarchy now in place, is inimitable in the scope of world history, re: amount of wealth, power.
The recent crash, brought on by rapacious, plundering predatory scum, like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, and a litany of other wall street thieves (I’ll be glad to name the greedy fuckin pukes.) , has left our nation reeling from debt, while those patricians who benefited, stand in profit’s door, blocking our way.
The crass, gross unethical dark of night run for rest of America’s Blue Collar money, the equity in your house, your 401k, your savings, your children’s future and any and all hope, by oily, repugnant, already rich gonif fucks, is unprecedented by even gilded age standards.
A government run by kleptocrats, a private sector inhabited by plutocrats, overseen by oligarchs.
Fuck the ongoing farce of Republicans and Democrats.
The inveterate, implacable greed of the folks in the Bastille, must be stopped dead.
No more convdersations on the tennis court, it way, way past time, for propaganda of the deed.
Off with the fuckin king’s head.
bschloz
Scary day…dollar getting clown punched. Gold and Silver going Batshit….melt up in stocks..Mom and Pop getting flushed out of Money Market and into the casino. FRANNIE and Banks worked a number on us…no way in hell they’re gonna let housing find its level. This is gonna take a long time.
Gotta get the Home Depot going in Asia now!
Great Doc. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1540814/
I think you can stream it via netflix
jojo
the wall street crooks are setting us up for
one big fuckup. They’ll speculate the price of
gold up to god knows where…then they pull the
plug and short it and main street gets fucked
again.
They’ll run up stocks after the election
and get ma and pa kettle thinking its time to
get back in…they’ll short that and ma and pa
kettle throughout america goes busted.
Its a planned attack on every last dollar america
has to offer….
prediction…..short harrahs….
chuck
Short America.
chuck
bschloz
I saw the Movie you are referring to, ‘Casino Jack’.
It was metaphysically horrifying. I couldn’t watch the whole thing at once. It took me three shots to get through it.
The unconscionable rip off of American citizens throughout the fruited plain (Fuck Rush Limbaugh too.), by politicians hiding behind evangelical movement, should, and I think would, disgust Jesus Christ on or off a crutch.
Ya can’t look too deep, or see too well. Its a nightmare of malfeasance, self aggrandizement, power grabs, greed and narcissism.
JoJo is right, we poor slugs in the trenches have been disenfranchised for decades, and are just now coming out of a deep sleep, way too late.
Pounding stakes into the rotten, scheming hearts of those plutarchs who raped our future for gas in their yachts would be too good.
smartman
OK so the USandA ain’t perfect. At least most of us know we are getting fucked. If you play smart you can keep your head above water.
C’mon what are we gonna do? Move to Europe, Africa, China. Get involved at the grass roots levels, schools, churches, or Popeye’s, neighborhood and homeowners associations. Send emails to The Funk and the other wankers on the City Council. Break some balls. Let ’em know you’re watching. You can still make a difference if you wanna put in the time and energy.
Hell, with all the letters and emails I send to the White House, my Senators and Representatives I’m sure I’m on some watch list. Bring it on bitches NO FEAR HERE.
Like Woody Guthrie said “This land is your land, this land is my land”. Let’s start acting like owners instead of tenants.
chuck
Smartman- I hope you are right and I am wrong. Really.
The devil must be warming his hands agianst a blazin fire, I agree with Tony.
The American 2 party paradigm is an obscene Orwellian Oceania that deludes we lemmings into thinking we have real power.
If there is a Mr. Chips to send to Washington, he will be corrupted, pigeonholed, or have a wife like Gloria Squitero.
The system of aquiring power in government, through the vote of the people, and then, enforcing the will of your constituency, in this day and age, would send Henry Clay to career in plumbing.
And thats just it. Plumbers, hard hat blue collar guys, Americans that actually made stuff, they are disenfranchised and powerless. The lights have gone out all over America.
Something will change it, bit it won’t be Democrats, or Republicans.
Something, I don’t know what, it would probably look like a Macguffin at this point if you could touch it and see it.
But, it won’t be the system in place.
JMO
Steve
And don’t forget. If you want to be sure to get the attention of your representative, whenever sending any kind of correspondence send it snail mail and be sure to stamp or write “Campaign Contribution” in bold letters on the front.
Harold Smith
Foreign entities are contributing to funding political ads in the US. Of course, this is illegal, but it you can’t prove it, you can’t stop it. Thanks to the Supremes and Congress, this will continue.
The Chinese have millennia of political machinations to draw on; most Americans only worry about the next election cycle or the next fiscal quarter. How long will it take China to return some of our imbalance of trade funds to the US in the form of illegal political donations?
Now we have to worry about their plutocrats as well as ours; I suppose with the global economy, they’re really all the same.
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