How Many More Things Can I Save

I’ve started a lot of drafts about a lot of different things, but this time I hope to finish this post and publish it.

Currently the top news result for BBC is Obama’s apology for NATO forces burning the Koran. When I first read the news yesterday or the day before, I thought “Wow. That was stupid. How could they be so disrespectful?” But then I thought about all the images I’ve seen from around the world of people burning the American flag. And then I thought about how many people around the world may burn bibles and torahs. And now I think about all the other book burnings and iconic imagery that’s been destroyed around the world. So why is this such a big fucking deal? What is so much more holier and special about Islam?

It’s a question that has been widely discussed in the past decade or so. For example, in South Park’s 5th season, they illustrated Mohamed in the episode “Super Best Friends.” But then seasons later, Comedy Central refused to air another episode with Mohamed. It was in July 2001, several months before the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Obviously there’s a correlation between the two, but why? What is so fucking special about Islam?

I just needed to put it out there, like so many before me.

The Moon’s My Teacher and I’m Her Student

I know I think about it a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever posted about this before: my beef with Teach for America and Peace Corps. I have a variety of friends who’ve done them/are doing them, and I certainly considered it for a while. But eventually I realized that I would never accomplish what really needs to be accomplished by doing either of them.

Petty Thefts for Penny Crimes

FINALLY! FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY! After months of blogging, sharing, posting, and talking about the Move Your Money movement, Occupy Wall Street has FINALLY caught on! Good job guys. For a while I didn’t think you’d do it.

So I won’t go into the whole rant yet again, but I just thought I’d share:

There you have it. Occupy wall street is finally asking you to do something productive to fight the corporatocracy. Not that other folks have been saying this all along, but I guess it’s good publicity for Move Your Money. And check this out:

They ask you to do it AGAIN! Wow. Amazing. They finally care about fighting the fucking corporatocracy by using their money! I now feel this is a movement I can support.

You Don’t Have Much To Say

I just came across Al-Jazeera’s series titled Slavery: A 21st Century Evil, which I think is more than 110% appropriate for these Occupy Wall Street protests.

Let me take a tiny step back. Yesterday I was listening to Sean Hannity (my co-worker’s default radio station on the drive home). He interviewed a young lady (Zuni I believe her name was?) who made some decent arguments about the corporatocracy and what people should do. I pretty much agreed with everything she said, but then he asked her why or how the corporations should be punished. She didn’t have much of a response. It would have been the perfect moment to talk about the link between modern slavery and American corporations.

This, again, goes back to what I’ve been saying, what Kevin Bales says in Disposable People, and E. Benjamin Skinner in A Crime So Monstrous: fight with your dollar. Zuni did mention this strategy, but didn’t stress it as much as it should’ve been. The example she used was MacDonald’s. True, MacDonald’s is not good for you and it would be ideal for people to stop supporting it; however, what Hannity wanted to point out was that MacDonald’s fulfills a desire the American people want. So ultimately the solution to the MacDonald’s problem isn’t that we should tax it more. We should curb the desire to eat their products.

The same goes for the perpetuation of modern slavery. Corporations like The Gap and IKEA fill a void in our lives for affordable, decent quality clothing and furniture. You can’t simply yell at the government and corporations for paying below minimum wage overseas if you continue to support these businesses. And maybe every single person occupying Wall Street doesn’t own clothing from The Gap/Old Navy or furniture from IKEA. It’s entirely possible, but very unlikely. We’ve accepted the products of modern slavery as essential to our everyday lives. Even our food. Even some food harvested in our own country is done by modern slaves.

I’m sure the people on Wall Street and in Woodruff Park all agree with my points, but are they ready to act on them?

Update 4:51pm: just saw that the Occupiers in Atlanta have marched to Bank of America in Midtown. So…you make the effort to get to the building, just so you can yell at it? Can’t you all simply walk inside and take your money out?! Can’t you actually do something to end the “greed”?!

Everything is So Wrong

Hi. I have to talk about the Occupy Wall Street protests. I didn’t want to because I don’t want to give them any more attention, but I just have to.

First, I want to post an image of what the latest headlines are for BBC (the international news source I respect and go to):

oh look! Kim Jong-Il's grandson has a Facebook! That's big news.

I scrolled down a little just to make sure:

Do you see Wall Street protests anywhere in there? In case you can’t read the screenshot, the answer is no. They’re somewhere on the website, yes, but it’s certainly not as newsworthy as, say, the protests in Syria or apparently the announcement of the iPhone 5. (This, I’m sure, is another reason OWS is against the corporatocracy, which they all tweet on their iPhones.) Nowhere on the website says what they want to achieve, no goals listed, no demands. There are some supporters who have suggested demands, but the organization will not ask for anything. If you have no end goal, then what the fuck are you doing?

Before I really get started, I wanted to address the idea that this is has been compared to the events taking place in the Middle East, specifically Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. Sure, if you really want to make the argument, our democracy has become a bit of a corporatocracy. But do you know what was going on in Egypt? Mubarak had been in power for 30 years, assuming power after Sadat was assassinated. The disparity between the rich 1% in Egypt versus the other 99% is that the 99% in Egypt lives on less than the 99% here in the US. Up until January 25, people were afraid to say anything against Mubarak and the government. Here we constantly hear, see, and read a variety of opinions about our government on every media platform possible. And haven’t you noticed that there’s been absolutely no media allowed to cover the Syrian protests for months? Do not compare the occupation of Wall street to the revolutions in the Middle East.

My first suggestion: take all your money out of the major banks – Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo – and invest with smaller community banks and credit unions. How many people “occupying” these cities have accounts with these banks? You really want to bring down the corporatocracy? Stop feeding it money. In case you haven’t noticed, this is something I’ve been preaching for a very, very long time. I’ll address you more directly: Dear Occupy Wall Street, please march to the nearest BofA, Chase, and/or Wells Fargo, and have everyone close their accounts with these banks.

Also, why is it that they’re so willing to accept donated food? If the occupiers want to fight the system, why not buy food from smaller restaurants in the area? Even from NYC chains? Why ask people to buy you food and send it to you? Most likely people will buy you cheap food, which is processed by the big chains. And furthermore, why aren’t you personally stimulating the economy? If you want to change the system, why not do it with your dollar? Clearly you do not understand the language of corporatocracy.

I think one of the best illustrations of what I’m trying to tell you is this documentary Beer Wars. 95% of the beer industry is dominated by the 3 major corporations: Coors, Miller, and Anheuser-Busch. Even the precious “working class” Pabst Blue Ribbon is owned by Miller. The film is all about being an informed consumer. So what are you doing on Wall street? Are you telling people how to invest their money? Are you informing them of the power of their dollar? No. You’re camping out on the streets and not contributing to the economy.

Do something productive, or is that too square for you?

UPDATE 10/5/11: I’ve been proven wrong. BBC thinks that the Wall Street march is almost as important as Steve Jobs’s death.

there it is.

In the Dunes of a Cave

A problem I’ve had with many religious people is their approach to morals. You may be surprised at this, but lots of people have judged me for not having religion. Many people have asked me what my religion/faith is. I tell them that I wasn’t born with religion, and that my parents never raised me as anything. They then look at me puzzled and say “Then where do you get your morals from?” or “How do you know how to be a good person?”

Burn It To The Ground

Many of my friends have told me that, after hearing me talk about Bond Community Federal Credit Union, they want to join. I figure that maybe I should say something here, especially since I’ve been reminded I haven’t posted in a while. Thanks guys. Keep in mind though, I almost always have something to say about food, so don’t forget about my cooking blog: Cooking with Class.

Back in the day I applied for a credit card with Bond FCU. The loan officer called me a few days later to say all was good and I’d receive my card in the following days. A month or two later I saw that the interest rates for used car loans dropped. I went into the bank, and while I was making my deposit, I asked about the loans. The nice teller behind the little wooden teller window/desk said I could speak with Chris right then and there. Chris is the only one in charge of loans (so it seems). I went into his office, and he spent a good half an hour explaining auto loans to me. All the information he gave me pertained to me. He remembered who I was, what my situation is, and what my job is. And at the end of the conversation, I felt much more well-informed, but not pressured to apply for a loan immediately.

In case you’ve never heard me talk about the Move Your Money movement, here’s a short video they made a few years ago to encourage people to leave big banks:

All in all, I love walking into a bank that has rocking chairs, wooden chairs at the teller window, an annual member fiesta, and staff who remember me. If you have the opportunity to join a local bank or credit union, do it NOW. Take your money out of evil banks like Chase and Bank of America and support your community!

Someone Like You

It only seems appropriate that I start typing this blog post at the same moment that Michelle Obama appears in a commercial for Joined Forces.

This is my first experience in my boyfriend’s apartment alone. I’m waiting for him to come home from a little pow-wow dinner with his little army buddies. I will be live-blogging this experience.

20:10 I had a nice conversation with my boyfriend’s friend’s wife on my ride to the apartment. From what I can tell, she’s my age. She’s cute and friendly and pregnant. She tells me she sits at the house most days, partly because she has morning sickness and doesn’t want to do anything when she’s puking her guts out. She reminds me a bit of Laya in the sense that she sits at home all day.

20:23 Watching NCIS on tv and cooking myself some dinner. Not really exciting stuff. Frozen ravioli. If my man had actually gone grocery shopping, I’d probably be cooking something amazing and I’d feature be regularly updating my cooking blog. Also, I would completely rearrange the appliances in this kitchen.

20.40 Drinky drink drink. I wish my man were home already. I’m bored. I’d like to think that, if I lived here, I would cook and bake all day, and I’d sell what I baked and donate what I cooked. I’d donate to shelters or families or disabled people. Also, I wish my man had cookies. I want something sweet.

20:57 My friends from NYC call me to catch up while drunk. This ended up taking up a lot of time, and by the time our conversation ended, I had a few minutes before my manfriend came home. Case closed?

Maybe this wasn’t the best time to try and live blog an evening in the life of a military partner. These next 16 days, however, my manfriend will be frolicking in the woods with his tanks, so I won’t be able to talk to him or see him. Maybe I’ll have something to say about that. But in the meantime, this is all I got.

Take a Ride

A quick post that maybe I’ll get a chance to update later:

I hate working somewhere where people don’t care about what’s happening in Egypt. I mean, they may care in their own lives, but the fact that it’s not a topic of discussion at lunch or even the subject of our work makes me sad. I feel like I’m missing out on the world.

Sick Beats

I can’t help but watch this video and say “I know where that is! I’ve been there! I walked down that street! I fucking walked there!” It’s unreal to me that this is happening.

After 20 years of Mubarak’s “presidency,” I have to admit I’m happy to see this. I don’t know when or how this government will improve, but finally the Egyptian people are uniting. (At least, I hope there are Copts out there protesting as well.) After the food riots and the riots after the swine flu, this will hopefully be the beginning of the end. Solidarity, my friends.