I love Maine and hate elitist dinks from away who run crap magazines

Open letter in response to this, from my friend Rob Korobkin:

Dear Person Flipping Through Vex Magazine,

The conflict over the future of Congress Square is NOT - as the noxious know-it-all New York elitist fuck-head Mort Todd would have you believe - a battle between people living on the street and the "good" citizens of Portland. It's a battle between greedy investment bankers from Ohio who want to buy up the big open public space at the center of our fair city and sell it off to a multinational hotel conglomerate who would kick us ALL off of it and throw up an ass-ugly building so rich yuppies from away can drink $15 martinis, eat Sysco pigs-in-blankets and listen to shitty commercial pop music - and those of us who actually live here and would prefer not to lose our park.

Yeah, we know Congress Square is a concrete hole in the ground with few benches and even fewer trees - but, god damn it, it's OUR concrete hole in the ground! We're not saying we think it's perfect as it is - we're saying we'd rather keep it this way, for now, than lose it altogether. Even in its current form, it's still a wonderful place for outdoor punk shows, juggling, steel drummers, art sales and taking little kids to ride tricycles. We want to see it improve and become a fun place where everybody in Portland and beyond is welcome to hang out and enjoy being downtown. And, yeah, by everybody, we mean kids on skateboards, immigrants, families, travelers, seniors, people who don't always have a roof over their heads, you know, everybody! That's what it means to have a community.

This is Maine - we aren't pretentious twerps - our state was built by loggers and mill workers who didn't need sensitivity trainings in political correctness to know that communities like ours only get a say in the decisions that affect us when we stick together. As long as we're squabbling with our neighbors, saying nasty things about people down on their luck and staying buried in our own little rabbit holes - nobody in Power will give a shit about us.

If, on the other hand, we want to live in the kind of world that we can feel good about bringing children into, we need to start coming together and saying things like, hey, there's a fairly large, centrally located piece of land at the center of our city that has the potential to be a really nice public space. If we worked together and used some of those municipal dollars coming out of our rent checks, parking tickets and property tax payments, we could do something awesome! The city budget is about 160 MILLION dollars a year - that's our money, and we have every right to spend at least a little bit of it on making our city as pleasant as possible for us to live in. Whatever happens to the square, it should be a decision that we make together as Portlanders - not one that gets made for us by fat cat business interests looking to make money off the hospitality industrial complex. We have zero obligation to be "hospitable" to anybody who doesn't respect us and our city.

Or we could just be assholes. We could print condescending comics that depict how funny it would be if we all ganged up on Portland's street population - many of whom are veterans suffering with trauma and mental illness the likes of which most of us can't even imagine. We could turn our neighborhoods against each other, devolving our entire public discourse into a pathetic mishmash of chest-thumping and bleating, completely ignoring the very real threat that global institutions of private capital pose to our independence and basic liberties as a free city of hard-working, open-minded Mainers. The choice is yours.

Save Congress Square!

Bill Whittle is a douchebag.*

Ignore that this douchebag* spouting ad hominem attack after ad hominem attack; against the British, Michael Moore, liberals, et al.

Ignore the fact that he calls Michael Moore a hypocrite for being a millionaire who says that millionaires should pay more in taxes. (And why is that hypocritical, exactly? Shouldn't he have MORE right to talk about how much millionaires should pay, being one himself? Seriously, wtf? Is Bill Whittles idea of an un-hypocritical person a poor person defending the rights of the rich to pay nothing in taxes by sheltering their income in offshore tax havens? Clearly logic is not a big part of this guys day-to-day life.)

IGNORE ALL THAT:
The meat of the video is this: In trying to "blow a hole" in Michael Moore's "money hoarder" argument, Bill Whittle proves Moore's point for him. This video illustrates quite well, even with the narrow scope that it presents it's evidence with, that most of the money is in the hands of the super-wealthy. That we're able to make it through 2/3rds of the year on the salaries of a few thousand people alone is striking.

What he leaves out is that right now they aren't paying their fair share. And at the end of his argument, we're still one day short, so the rest of us get stuck with a whopping $40 in annual federal taxes!

Dear me! I've already had $2,000 withheld from my paycheck, and I'll be lucky to make $16,000 this year. I'd gladly pay $40 in federal taxes as opposed to what I pay now. The elephant in the room here, is that since the ultra-rich aren't paying in, the burden of taxation is falling on working people.

And he doesn't even touch the "dark market" shit on wall street- naked shortselling, derivatives trading, etc.

A Tobin tax of 1% applied to these "dark market" trades would raise 1.7 trillion annually.

I'm skeptical of the numbers he has on ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eliminating these wars would reduce our spending every year after we end them from here to infinity, but they are portrayed in this video as being a one-time cost reduction-- which is a misleading error at best, and a deliberative deception at worst. No matter though, because either way, it's bullshit.

If we're spending $170 billion every year on killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our budgeted discretionary pentagon spending is $815 billion, then that leaves an additional $645 billion (that's more than half a trillion) in discretionary pentagon spending we could free up. Keep in mind, this is discretionary spending, not mandated spending for soldier's wages, VA benefits, etc.

What would his little fiscal calendar look like if we shut down all those 737 military bases we have all over the Goddamn planet?

What would it look like if we reduced our nuclear weapon stores by 50%? Between 1940 and 1996, we spent more than 5 trillion on maintaining our nuclear weapons. Just by letting them sit around and making sure that they don't explode on us. And keep in mind, we currently have enough nuclear weapons to replicate Hiroshima 150,000 times over.

The issue here isn't that we want to take everything from the rich. The issue here is that they don't pay taxes, and working people do. If you're rich enough, you can hide your money in tax shelters in the maldives and not pay a goddamn cent.

The issue here is that the richest among us got that way because our society provided them with the means to do so. If they manufactured products, everybody who paid taxes provided them with the means to do so-- electricity, water, sewage, waste disposal, etc-- and if they sold those products, everybody who paid taxes provided them with the means to do so-- we paid for the roads, bridges, and rail-beds that they shipped their products on.

It isn't uncouth to expect that since the wealthiest amongst us became wealthy because of social spending, that they should give back accordingly-- the more wealthy they become, the more they should give back to the society that allowed them to become wealthy. Also, I think we can conclude soundly and firmly, that Bill Whittle is a contemptible douchebag.*

* Not an ad hominem attack-- I've presented solid evidence that this is the case

Rand Paul volunteer tries to give protester a curb-job

From TalkingPointsMemo:

So first, I want to say, contrary to the nature of the upcoming "Rally to Restore Sanity" that Conservativism should be viewed as a mental illness: Sociopathy.

Why? Because they stand for everything we were taught was bad behaviour in kindergarten, when we were taught constructive social skills.

We were taught that sharing was good, and hogging things was bad.
We were taught that you shouldn't be mean to somebody just because they're different from you.
We were taught that you DON'T HIT PEOPLE.

Let alone stomp their heads in.

Conservatives stand for hoarding things to yourself. The rich deserve to hoard everything, and use their wealth to buy even more wealth, which they should also be allowed hoard.
Conservatives stand for being bigoted towards gays, mexicans, the french, and anybody who isn't white (whatever "white" means. According to some conservatives, Arabs are "sand niggers.")
Conservatives also apparently believe that it's okay to give a curb job to somebody, if they're a female or a liberal.

Or both in the instance of Lauren Valle. From TalkingPointsMemo:

As the candidates arrived, a group of Paul supporters pulled a female MoveOn member to the ground and held her there as another Paul supporter stomped on the back of her head and neck.
[snip]
The victim suffered a concussion and multiple sprains in the assault, according to MoveOn's political director Ilyse Hogue.
[snip]
MoveOn has called on Rand Paul to explicitly condemn the attack, but so far he hasn't.
The man seen stomping the victim in the head has been identified as now-former Paul volunteer Tim Profitt.

This bearer of a very Capitalist sounding name, Tim Profitt, said to reporters that the camera angle makes the incident appear far worse than it really was."

Yeah... um, also the fact that Lauren Valle suffered several sprains to her neck and a fucking concussion also make it look worse than it really was too, huh?

Here's the video:

Heritage Foundation- insufferable douchebags who are wrong about trade policy

The Heritage Foundation put out a press release today saying that Media Distortions are trying to convince Americans that we don't need free trade any longer.

From their press release titled "Is the Media Reporting or Distorting?":

The media seem intent on convincing Americans that they no longer support free trade. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal, for example, begins “The American public, already skeptical of free trade, is becoming increasingly hostile to it.” The article goes on to report that the results of a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey show that as much as 90 percent of the U.S. public is concerned about outsourcing.

Really? I would think that it's not the MEDIA convincing us of anything. Keep in mind that the Media is owned huge conglomerates that have benefited from outsourcing our jobs to third world countries.

I think the massive unemployment, and the fact that all our manufacturing jobs are being shipped overseas is the MAIN factor that's convincing people. Maybe you assholes down in the Heritage Foundation's DC offices should take some time off from pontificating in the abstract, and take a visit to Detroit, or Cleveland, and listen to the folks on the ground that have been most hurt by your ignorant, faith-based, unscientific, bullshit trade policies. Douchebags.

If you care about Mountains...

Okay, so this race in WV is crazy.

The Governor of WV, Joe Manchin, is this huge pro-MTR jerkwad, totally in bed with the industry, and he’s just got this megalomaniacal drive to seek even more power. Now, when Robert Byrd died, Manchin had the power to appoint whomever he wanted. He really wanted to appoint himself, but his PR sense wouldn’t let him do that. It would be too obvious of a power grab, plus he’d only serve a partial term, and then likely get voted out for being a power-hungry monster.

So what he did instead was this: he appointed somebody else to fill Byrds spot, but then after appointing them, he wanted to hold a special election so that he could “legitimately” run for office. Now, this is costing WV a lot of money. Elections cost money for governments to hold in terms of manpower, printing ballots, running voting machines, etc, especially when they are held on the whim of the Governor. But there was a catch, he had to change the law in order to hold this special election. So he mucked around in the state congress until he had enough votes to change the law to create a special election so he could run for office. Oh yeah, and he’s a Democrat.

A Democratic Party elder in WV politics, Ken Hechler came forward to run in the primary to challenge Manchin. Ken Hechler is on hell of a dude. He served in WWII, he advised Harry Truman, marched with MLK jr, and served 9 terms as WV Sec of State.
But, Since he didn’t have the coal industry backing him (because he wasn’t a pro-MTR candidate) and Manchin DOES have the coal industry backing him, Manchin flooded the media market with adverts and won handily.

So now, there’s a Republican who is in the back pocket of the Coal Industry, there is a Democrat who is in the other backpocket of the coal industry, but there is only ONE candidate running who is against MTR coal mining-- Jesse Johnson of the Green affiliated party, the Mtn Party. Jesse Johnson makes a cameo appearance in the film “Coal Country” has run for Governor of WV, and is a tireless activist. He has been working on this issue for years.
Ken Hechler ENDORSED Jesse Johnson over Joe Manchin. It’s kind of a huge fucking deal for an institution of the DNC to throw aside party alleigance for an issue like this. It would be like Dennis Kucinich endorsing Ralph Nader after losing the DNC primary for president. (Come to think about it, why didn’t that happen?)

But that’s not enough to win. This race is still David vs Coaliath (get it? Coal-liath? Nailed it! I am hilarious!)
Now, what can you do to help out?

Well, Jesse doesn’t have a fancy website. The campaign he is running is mostly on the ground, talking to people face to face, traveling long distances through largely rural areas. If you go to the following link http://www.jesse4ussenate.org/ (link also in the vid description) you can donate to his campaign and help cover his campaign costs. You can also write a check payable to Jesse Johnson for US Senate and send it to:
Jesse 4 US Senate
PO Box 446
Pinch, WV 25156-0446

What else can you do? If you’ve got free time, head to West Virginia, and volunteer on his campaign! Send an email to info@jessejohnson.org or try calling 304-581-3005

This message was not endorsed or paid for by Jesse Johnson or Jesse Johnson for US Senate.
I am the Punk Patriot and I am on YouTube. And blip.tv. And facebook. And I have a blog. And I sell t-shirts on etsy.com But nothing to do with Jesse Johnson.

What if capitalism wasn't evil? --The Entrepreneur Challenge!

What if Capitalism wasn't so evil? Let's play a little game and find out.

Today I'm launching my Entrepreneur Challange. I'm going to be attempting to prove that capitalism can be good for all parties involved. And dare I say it-- even fun?

Sounds crazy right? Well maybe it is.

What sparked all this? Well a long while ago, a certain progressive radio show asked its audience (half jokingly) to create a certain tshirt design, which they described rather abstractly. I said to myself, "self- you make t-shirts! You should be all over this!"

And I took that abstract jibber-jabber and turned it into reality. And because in my mind, I was thinking that I would help promote their radio show, I included a link to the web address for the show. Through certain means, I was able to make sure that the hosts of the show saw a photo of this shirt that I had created. --Which was displayed publicly, online. The hosts lauded my work. Soon, other fans of the show started commenting that they wanted to purchase a copy of this shirt. So I created a listing on Etsy.com to make that shirt available to sell.

Shortly after I'd created that listing, these supposedly progressive, supposedly anti-capitalist, supposedly DIY-punk, supposed activists, came down on me with fury; accusing me in a series of emails of violating their intellectual property rights. And they asked me to immediately take down my listing. At the time, I was still a huge fan, and I tried to salvage the situation, and so I complied.

Later, they communicated to me that they would be interested in splitting any profits that I made, selling a shirt that I designed, that I meticulously hand-cut stencils for [I didn't have silkscreening equipment yet], that I hand printed, that I purchased the materials for, and that I would end up paying the shipping for.

They wanted a cut of the money that I would earn from MY labor-- labor I spent trying to help THEIR fans to promote THEIR show to their friends-- in true DIY style.

I thought that their proposal was complete and utter bulls***, and I told them as much. Ironically, these supposedly progressive, DIY, pro-union folks now run their merchandise through zazzle or cafe press or something.

Ever since that event, I've been inspired to create an entrepreneur challenge, to you, my viewers.
But it's sat on the back burner until recently, when out of the blue, some jerk threatened me with a lawsuit for "ripping off" some drawing that I'd never seen before in my life.

What these two incidents have in common is people acting like a**holes over intellectual property rights.

Back in early 2003, I went to an anti-war protest in Washington DC. I took with me a banner that read, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"



It was a turn of phrase that I myself had coined, having recently moved from Texas [where WWJD bracelets and t-shirts were all the rage]. Me and my friends marched around the mall with this banner, and people loved it. A few months later, I saw WWJB bumper stickers and t-shirts for sale through various progressive outlets on the internet.

Now, I could have been a dick about it, complaining that they were making money with something that I came up with. I, however, see it as a victory. I was able to create something that affected the nations consciousness. And isn't that the point? Shouldn't that ultimately be our goal?

I don't do this show, [or this blog] to make money. I do this to make just enough money that I can afford to keep on doing this. By the way, the donations are extremely appreciated. Thank you. And a preemptive thank you to those who will be donating today. (hint hint)

Well, I'm going to start this challege off by making the Punk Patriot an open source brand. There are a few rules however:

Rule #1: It's got to promote the show. So link back somehow.
Rule #2: You are allowed to keep whatever money to make selling this item.
Rule #3: Don't rip people off. That's lame.
Rule #4: It's gotta be designed by you. I have a strong preference that it also be hand crafted by you.
Rule #5: No zazzle, and no cafe press.

I've already had people approach me about making punk patriot merchandise, about reprinting the scripts to my videos in self-published zines (I post the scripts to my videos over at my blog [punkpatriot.blogspot.com]), and reselling my shirts in store-fronts by people who order in bulk.

Well now you have my permission. Nay! Encouragement!

To life, liberty, and pursuit of a less f***ed up government.