August 20, 2019

Call the next one the 'Despite' Recession

"Despite the strong economy..."

That's what we are hearing now and that's what we'll keep hearing as the recession heats up.

"Despite the strong economy, this figure is down from 84 percent at the peak of the last expansion, in 2007"

"Despite the strong economy, San Francisco finance jobs shrank from 45,716 in 2008 to 41,882 last year"

"The congressmen pointed a report from Giving USA which shows last year Americans have less to charity despite the strong economy."

"Republican officials say Trump is harnessing the anger of those who continue to feel left behind despite the strong economy,"

"Despite the strong economy, people are struggling to put food on the table, educate their children and get access to health care"

"Despite the strong economy, there are currently 7.3 million unfilled jobs in America, and a 50-year-low labor participation rate"

"Four in 10 Americans say they still struggle to pay their bills, despite the strong economy"

"Despite the strong economy, voters worry the economy and Republicans will harm their retirement security."

"despite the strong economy, St. Pierre, like many other American manufacturers, is struggling"

"small businesses are hiring less, despite the strong economy, partly because they are losing employees to bigger firms"

It's funny how our "strong economy" sure has a lot of asterisks around it.

Maybe, just maybe, it's not really all that strong?



Prepare yourselves, for "despite" what you may hear about the "strong economy", it's going to get worse.

August 6, 2019

No, the right wing doesn't really want to treat mental illness

They called it communism back then and... well, they actually still call it communism today.

They didn't change a thing, really. Still the same propaganda.

At it's heart, the right wing ideology even with it's veneer of "compassionate conservatism" and with it's mask of right wing evangelicalism, it still sees mental illness as a sign of the "other"; as a consequence of sin, as a personal failing, as a flaw, a defect.

The "cure", according to them, isn't talk therapy, isn't understanding, isn't working against binary thinking and other perceptive errors, isn't anti-psychotic medication, but you know what it is? More marginalization, more isolation, more exclusion, more stigma, more shame.

Get the right away from the table, they have no real interest in helping the mentally ill.

August 5, 2019

You know something? You *CAN'T* make a video game with today's right wing rhetoric

It's funny how the right wing wants to blame video games for mass shootings, but I have yet to play a video game where you're given a mission or quest to "stop the invasion of foreign dark skinned people"

I've recently played a special edition of Skyrim, and in it, there's a civil war going on and in the backstory, there was another war (The Great War) that did not end very well for the empire about 20 years before the game takes place. Here in the real world, the right wing and their allies in the media and government will push on us a war on terror, an "invasion" from the southern border, a clash of civilizations with the Muslim world, a culture war, a war on drugs, and... (checking notes) a war on Christmas.

That's right folks, the fantasy game with the elves and dragons in it is less exaggerated than real life when it comes to having a militarized culture.

Here's Michael Townley AKA Michael De Santa, one of the people you play in as Grand Theft Auto 5. A criminal who escaped into witness protection. And here's Michael Townley, a criminal who did odd jobs for right wing dictator Augusto Pinochet (Which included assassinating Orlando Letelier right here in Washington DC) and escaped into witness protection.

The violence preceded the video game in that case. Weird, right?

And one more thing, there's Deus Ex... where the Illuminati is an antagonist, here they are technocrats who want to control the flow and direction of technology and, which when the series happens, has branched out into human enhancement. Compare that to how... Alex Jones, QAnon, and the right wing conspiracy theories portray the Illuminati... as... uh... a cabal of Je-"Globalists" who are all satanists and pedophiles and run the world from the pizzeria basements who do things just to make Trump look bad or to sacrifice children, I don't know.

My God, the video game conspiracy theory is written better than the conspiracy theory that is out and about in the real world.

It's embarrassing now that I think about it. Wow. Just wow.

So stupid that we even have to discuss this.