If someone uses the word "Statist" in their dialogue a lot . . .

. . . do you usually think "Few Twinkies Short of a School Lunch" or is it just me?

Seeing it come up way too much as of late . . . like it's another coordinated slight.

Say what you want about George Zimmerman, but he really sticks to his guns.

Ready to see an image macro so stupid it makes time stop dead in it's tracks?

Found on "Capitalism"s Facebook page:



I'm . . . . I'm . . . . . stunned with two "n"s.

Is this seriously how these semi-hatched people think?

Raising the TMTR to 45% on people who make more money in a two hour meeting than 94% of workers make in a year; some of who can purchase 2 to 6 $300,000 homes a day and it wouldn't make a dent in their overall wealth, is "slavery"???

Wanting SOME modicum of economic fairness over a class of people who benefit hand over fist from corporate porkfare is "slavery"??

Regulating your financial shenanigans so you don't crash the goddamned economy with yet another stupid bubble is "slavery"??

Tell me, fiscally comfortable white male libertarians . . . what the HELL would any of YOU know about "slavery" other than your ancestors (and, let's be frank, YOU) likely benefitted from it and you wouldn't be opposed to having it returned in America (abolishing the minimum wage)?

Jesus CHRIST.

What I like to tell my RW friends regarding their "working HARDER to EARN a better wage" chestnut -

I GOT off my ass. I "WORKED harder". I ATTAINED two college degrees. Many of you have probably done the same at this point.

6 years after that happened, in 2001, want to know where I was at 32? Want to know where all that "HARD WORK and BOOTSTRAPPING" got me? Unemployed, along with millions of others who also got college degrees; some that hold greater weight than what I have.

I don't know, did we all "not make the right choices in life"? Did we all just "not work hard enough"??

Five months after I got canned from the first job, I (LUCKILY) was able to get another, better job that paid more than the old one; that's Anomaly #1 in a recession.

I've been at this job ever since 2001. Anomaly #2.

In almost 12 years of employment, I make, in inflation-adjusted dollars, approximately $2000 more a year than when I started in 2001. THAT'S economic reality. THAT'S the problem.

In America, I'm considered "One Extremely Lucky Bastard". In 2008-2009, I had to continually watch degreed professional after degreed professional get laid off all around me through no fault of their own; grown men and women crying on my shoulder, wondering what the hell's going to happen to them, all in this giant competitive quest for profit and margin preservation.

That, kids, is the tragic result of 33 years of wage suppression. That, children, is the result of the handler's "divide and conquer" play regarding the hoi polloi, hoping you didn't notice that they sponged up the productivity and wage gains.

That, in itself, is why I don't even want to hear about how this grand "Laissez-Fail" Hayek/Strauss/Friedman religious bullshit that America has been foisting on its people is going to eventually bear fruits for everyone who "WERKS HARDER". That is why "Horatio Alger" is a rotting turn of the century fossil that bears no semblance to 2013 economic reality.

I've been employed through three, count 'em, THREE recessions; each one worse than it's predecessor. Some of you have made it through four or five. It's because of seeing the results of widespread wage suppression that I become more progressive each passing year and more stringent in my belief that a widespread labor movement is more patently necessary as time goes on.

We need to look at these fast food union workers and LEARN from them, not laugh at and demean their "$15/hr fer berger flippin" message. A few years back, when the Failure Fuhrer was president, I attended a "Million Worker March" in D.C. .. . where at best, about three to four thousand showed up. Why is that? Is it that we're all scared or is it that we just don't see it as that big a deal that wages haven't risen in real value since 1979? Is it not that big a deal that our overall savings rate is non-existent thanks to the use of credit in the face of wage stagnation?

Why not JOIN the "burger flippers", as some call them? Their wages get raised, then so will yours. It's baby steps, people. This is how movements start. Don't fall for "divide and conquer" on this issue.