Who Likes Firing People?!!

(Artwithme, 2011)

No one over here and no one we personally know has ever 'liked being able to fire people who provide services to us'. More likely, if you are your basic American citizen, wealthy enough to have people provide services for you (like everybody does) you tend to grow some sort of attachment to that person. Or you know someone's mother who makes friends with her housekeepers and gardeners and dry cleaning people. That's what we do. We say howdy, and 'how ya doin?" and in most neighborhoods we try to put one foot in front of the other every day to make rent, food, clothes for the kids, nights out have become impossible, so when we see each other along the way, we say, "whazzup?" and "howz it been?"  What we really mean is, "did you get that job?" or "do you still have a job?"  And we cringe a little bit inside knowing that chances are, either way, the answer is no.

(RoyaltyFree, James, 2012)

If you've ever been fired, it usually goes like this: surprise, anger, dread, acceptance, and then dread again. It feels so horrible and dehumanizing it can knock some people into deep depression. It's realizing all of your commitments and your bills are in danger of being late. You could lose your home, have to return things you bought lately, maybe even think about selling the car.  Those are the realities that people face when they "lose" their jobs. If you are actually the person to do the firing, well, it's horrible.You have to be a little bit of a sadist to offer to be the guy to do the firing in the first place. Even though it might be true that you like crushing people's lives and destroying their livelihood, announcing that you "like firing people who provide me services" has to be the stupidest phrase ever to be recited by a potential U.S. President, since Cain quoted Pokemon.  How could anyone like firing anyone?  Especially in this depressed job search centric environment we live in today??!  Well, in case you've been under a rock, yesterday Former Governor Willard Romney, who goes by Mitt, publicly declared, on camera  "I Like Being Able To Fire People That Provide Services To Me." Don't ya just love Election 2012?

(New York Magazine, 2011)

In response, New York Magazine asks, "Who Has Mitt Romney Fired, and How Much Did He Like Doing It?"  Admittedly, shortly after taking office as governor of Massachusetts, Romney canned 21 executive-branch press secretaries. To drive the point home, most of the other candidates in the GOP field today are feathering the Ark on which Romney will be leaving us with leaflets and media explaining the candidates image problems with Bain. He had a job, he did take over companies, he did over borrow on those companies, and he did fire most of the people at those companies, and then he did let those companies go bankrupt, after he had sold off the spare parts.  

(Time Magazine, 2011)

With Bain at his back, in the center of a perfectly scripted week where he had stuck to his amber waves of grain pun over and over and over, he goes all improv and just blows it. That's right, in the middle of what should be a JOBS ONLY conversation, Romney, the sure frontrunner who has been seen at at least one event a day giving the same speech everywhere, how he LOVES IOWA or LOVES NEW HAMPSHIRE of LOVES THE PEOPLE HE'S MEETING, he adds, "I Like Being Able To Fire People That Provide Services To Me."  That was yesterday, joy of joys, for anyone wanting to hear something new from Gov. Romney; however his choice of new material couldn't be worse as he comes out with his gem that may very well signal the time his yacht starts circling the drain. Ah...Willard...we knew him well.

That's the tenor of the people. Nationally, and internationally, the people are saying that the only conversation worth having is Job Creation. One of the major messages we've heard after slothing our way through Occupy Wall St, Occupy DC, Occupy Baltimore, Occupy LA (camping literally on the steps of City Hall) and even convening with the people from Occupy Maui at a GA, is that NO LEGISLATION SHOULD PASS THROUGH THE DOORS OF CONGRESS OR MOVE FORWARD IN ANY CHAMBER WITHOUT A SINCERE JOB CREATION COMPONENT.

 (transgriot.blogspot.com, 2012)

When JOB CREATION LEGISLATION AND PROGRAMS, with all the details, is the number one real need most Americans want to see met, where are the solutions? Where are the ones with the potential solutions?

With more jobs, there's more disposable income. People can go out again, buy flowers, and candy, go to movies (Valentine's Day is right around the corner so you see where our minds are.) People can pay for their car insurance, and they can pay tolls and buy gas, and new bras, and get that haircut or buy those new tires. With more jobs, we don't have to be so fearful to just say "hi" to the neighbors who most likely have a story to tell about their kids moving back in.

CSPAN asked 'What Would You Do To Create More Jobs In The U.S.?

Well, let's hear it. What do YOU think we should do?


The Policy Geek

Bully Pulpit on Bull Connors or The Tactics of DeHumanization

(Moore, 2011)

If the hose fits....

When does the national conversation change? What is the trim tab that adds a new word to the general lexicon, one that was only being whispered in private. Is it a photo? A video? A speech?

In 1963, images printed in Life Magazine told the story. Systemic arrests and harassments by local officials in Birmingham, Alabama were nothing new, but self awareness is a hell of a thing. And now young people were starting to march led by a young preacher named Martin Luther King. Not yet a doctor but already a Reverend, he had a vision of change and a way of getting others to believe in that change. 

Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King
on the Mall (Lindo, 2011)

So peaceful clean cut kids, with intelligent messages and a need to have their voices heard, were protesting the Jim Crow state of affairs in the area. Birmingham and its Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connors, wasn't having any of that. There were laws enforcing segregation. On a hundred degree day, the simple relief of a swimming pool in a public park could not be enjoyed by people whose skin was considered too dark to be human. You want to swim to cool off now, $1.50 will take that 103 degree day in D.C. into a manageable zone at one of many public park pools.  In that summer of 1963 in Alabama, they were experiencing 110 degrees in the shade. It's not dry heat, it's not humid heat, it's some other kind of heat that beats down on you. A person of a pale complexion would have their neck turn bright red in that heat rather quick.

Walter Gadsden being attacked by dogs.
(Hudson, 2011)

So Bull and his buddies thought some bullying was in order. And they took out the hoses. And the dogs. DOGS. On a hot 110 degree day.

In 1968, 5 years later, they came again. Bunch of really smart kids calling themselves "Yippies" took over a park, wanted to the change the world, or at the very least, that national conversation. Just like they are now down on Wall Street in the not so bargain basement district of New York. They were getting together peacefully to listen to music and have a few free drugs and some free love back then. Oh yeah, and to protest outside the Democratic National Convention about the seemingly endless Vietnam War. That war lasted 19 years in all. Truth. It officially began on November 1955 and dragged on 19 years and 180 days. The people in THAT park from THAT time who were sick of war and calling for peace got hit with much worse then just hoses and dogs. Much, much worse. Like Bunker Hill worse. (Go to your local DVD rental portal and rent Chicago 10 to have all your questions on that one answered if you want to know more.)

(Hoffman, 2011)

So we've got kids hit with hoses in 63, and kids hit with hoses and batons and dogs and tear gas in 68, and the stories of the Bonus Army who camped in front of the White House only to be burned and beaten out of their makeshift village, and now we have Occupy. Only this time, its everywhere. When they try to close one location, there are literally hundreds of other cities still answering the call. And don't think the kids are just kids. We are talking all ages, married, single, homeless, with jobs, without jobs, but mostly engaged citizens that are extremely dedicated and heard the sirens call again. No one there has a sign about guns and no one there is threatening to come back with bullets next time. There are some of the most excited yet clear individuals racially spread out across the spectrum that we've ever met being well fed by constant donations and neighborhood support. Worldwide support sent with messages attached like, "We can't be with you, but we can send you a pizza. Bon appetite!" It's a beautiful thing.

OWS in shadow of Liberty Tower
(Lindo, 2011)

Our first night at Occupy Wall Street was spent huddled in one tent after another meeting people, listening to their stories of why they were there. Yesterday, was the first great elemental test of their metal as the slightly cold temperatures dropped and turned into a record breaking Noreaster for the month of October in the history of Octobers. Yesterday 3 inches coated everyone, but it did it sideways and came with wind and mixed with painful sleet type rain which kept up for like 20 hours. Today, if you want to walk down to Broadway and Cedar you won't find a trace of any snow storm at all. Nothing. Resilient protesters all. There must have been 300 people gathered in the General Assembly, another 30 or so watching the Open Mike area, a handful watching a film being projected onto a sheet in the rather large library area, and another hundred keeping warm in their tents, waiting in line for the free grub, or deep in discussion off in one corner or another. This is an active community of people who feel it is not only their right, but their duty to protest the gross man made distortions to our economic and ecological sustainability on this planet. A real pressure cooker for the bubbling up of solutions is being built and it's being patchworked together by Solutionaries from all over the U.S. with all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of complaints and concerns. It's a revolution of thought and process. Because self awareness is a hellofa thing.

Occupy Wall Street (Lindo, 2011)

This time, the people have had some casualties already as well. The young marine, a veteran with a full time job in Oakland that had been sleeping with the protesters there at night to keep the peace, has had his skull fractured, by a canister launched from an officer while they were teargassing a milling crowd of thoughtful caring patriotic civilians. Will that be our trim tab? Will the video of his fall, or the explosion into the crowd that was trying to help him, also caught on video, make the statement that needs to be made about the right to freedom of assembly? Will the photos of those hit with rubber bullets and covered with welts open the eyes of the sleeping? There is an argument to be made the mission has already been accomplished.

This last week, Friday, Saturday there were reports on NPR and CNN et al saying that "the national debate has been fundamentally changed when talking about economic inequality." A "watershed" moment is right in front of us. That was coming from main stream news talking heads. This revolution, apparently, will be televised. Don't you just love history in the making? All power to the people and the policy they invent.


Lisa, The Policy Geek

Muddy Waters

When you listen for a living, sometimes a talking point can hurt your ears. Lately, its been a forked tongue of talking points. On the one hand, Talking Heads saying that they don't understand the message of the OWS crowd (apparently, "Occupy" is too long a word to say on National television).

Coming out of one corner of the mouth of the coined is:

• OWS has no message,
• Their message could get hijacked so watch-out!,
• We can't possibly see what they are saying,
• They are so disorganized.

The other point of the fork says:

• They are nobodies,
• These people have no education (suddenly that's important),
• They aren't people like you and me, 
• Those are a bunch of disorganized religious zealots.
•  

To that we say, "Hngh." We think the better angels of nature are speaking loudly and clearly.

 (RTNews, 2011)

More and more world citizens think OWS's purpose and reason de etra are so simple that even this 9 year old understands and can articulate the message of the protesters he is standing with.

Former Representative Alan Grayson also seems to clearly understand why people are mobilizing and speaking to each other peacefully while mediating, exchanging ideas, and working on solutions to our nation's ills. It's called democracy and it's a shame that some people don't recognize it when it's intelligently done with intent and care.

(Bill Maher Productions, 2011)

We could go on and on. And if you would like us to go on and on, shoot us an email at thepolicygeek@gmail.com or make a comment here below. 

We can tell by the views and the demographics that we have hits from all over the world. So thank you. And welcome. And feel free to share our links or check out the books. Some of the images allow you to read full chapters while checking them out, so...indulge.

Meanwhile we still think President Obama is headed for Term 2.  Remember he got Bin Laden? Please?! Besides who are we up against? Michelle Bachmann? There was the 7th or 8th or 6th Republican debate on tonight, so we do what we always do. Listen. Our favorite quote from this of what will be 20 debates total on that side??:  "He put us in Libya. He is now putting us in Africa."  made by Michelle Bachmann. This is a no brainer.

Be back soon,

Lisa, The Policy Geek
thepolicygeek@gmail.com
Twitter: @thepolicygeek