jt,
Being one of many unemployed Americans, I am not overly concerned for what happens abroad. Yes, it's very nice that Mr. Obama. was given a prize. But considering the state of our nation I would much prefer, as an American Citizen, to have Mr. Obama concentrate his efforts through his charisma and charm, and influence as President of the United States on domestic issues. I am all warm and fuzzy knowing that he is trying to get the Palestinians a chunk of land they can call home but my home is in jeopardy of being lost due to the financial crisis this country currently faces. I have no faith in his staff to resolve any of this country's ills but possibly with Mr. Obama at their side, full time, maybe we can improve our situation. Until then, maybe he should seek employment at the UN and leave the duties of President to someone that really wants the job as opposed to running around the world playing referee. I admit Bill Cosby isn't the man for the job but I'd much prefer a platform that he suggests, considering it deals with internal issues, as a replacement of what is helping to waste this country away. Am I shallow minded? You bet...Rent is due in less than two weeks. I am concerned about the world but it starts in my home first.
- hoop
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Bill Cosby's Political Platform:
I HAVE DECIDED TO BECOME A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT IN THE YEAR 2012.. HERE IS MY PLATFORM:
(1). Any use of the phrase: 'Press 1 for English' is immediately banned. English is the official language; speak it or wait outside of our borders until you can.
(2). We will immediately go into a two year isolationist attitude in order to straighten out the greedy big business posture in this country. America will allow NO imports, and we'll do no exports. We will use the 'Wal-Mart 's policy, 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.' We'll make it here and sell it here!
(3).. When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it coming in here.
(4). All retired military personnel will be required to man one of the many observation towers located on the southern border of the United States (six month tour). They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens.
(5). Social Security will immediately return to its original state. If you didn't put nuttin in, you ain't gettin nuttin out. Neither the President nor any other politician will be able to touch it.
(6). Welfare. -- Checks will be handed out on Fridays, at the end of the 40 hour school week, the successful completion of a urinalysis test for drugs, and passing grades.
(7). Professional Athletes -- Steroids? The FIRST time you check positive you're banned from sports ... for life.
(8). Crime - We will adopt the Turkish method, i.e., the first time you steal, you lose your right hand. There is no more 'life sentences'. If convicted of murder, you will be put to death by the same method you chose for the victim you killed: gun, knife, strangulation, etc.
(9).. One export of ours will be allowed: wheat; because the world needs to eat. However, a bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil.
(10). All foreign aid, using American taxpayer money, will immediately cease and the saved money will help to pay off the national debt and, ultimately, lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask The American People if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision as to whether, or not, it's a worthy cause.
(11). The Pledge of Allegiance will be said every day at school and every day in Congress.
(12). The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies, sporting events, outings, etc. My apology is offered if I've stepped on anyone's toes ..... nevertheless...... GOD BLESS AMERICA.
Sincerely, Bill Cosby
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hoop,
Your letter bothers me intensely because your situation is becoming less and less unique. I can tell most times when you're joking and when you're not. I don't believe you are in a kidding mood right now.
I want to comment on your letter and the bare-bones politics of Dr. Cosby. He raises twelve issues in a manifesto that could serve as the playbook for a winning Nationalist party takeover of America's current, inept domestic failures. Every item on his list was aimed at the same part of my mind that I employed to run my ten year old life, a time before the discovery and adoption of an increasingly complex set of ethics which enhanced the following decades. I know very well what it means to be out of work. I have never watched a business, built with my own hands, die, like you had to. I did however spend the better part of two years illustrating pubs and restaurants, losing larger sums of money as my experience "grew". I have no greater knowledge of life's cheap shots than you. I simply write about these logistics to help keep my mind from being swallowed by the helplessness each one of us feels in the face of so many troubles, so many interrelated problems and so far outside our ability to affect any meaningful change. Without some way to file it all I would be crushed.
We have two choices you and I, tame it or ignore it. Ignore it and every piece of shit consequence from bank failures to foreclosures to healthcare to credit-gouging to "peace-keeping" missions overseas to illegal lobbyists working to pollute your drinking water for some corporate executive's Cayman Island bank account to charges of indecent exposure for walking through your kitchen in the nude . . . . .
. .ignore the news and your problems don't disappear. You simply exchange them for a set of different problems. Take the fly in your kitchen. His presence is the product of one set of conditions and the catalyst for another set of conditions. Ignoring the fly allows the breeding ground to remain undisturbed and productive. Merely brushing him out of your face allows him to spread disease. Bill Cosby seems to offer a solution that was tried in a depressed German nation back in the late twenties and thirties. Unless we keep our heads focused on the mechanics of those conditions which foster the breeding of flies, stirring speeches will simply rally the nation to act without concern for the profile or motives of the author. History has exposed many of these windbags to be sculpted from the same pile of shit the flies called home.
The absurd distraction of International involvement (item [2] from Dr. Cosby's memo) would appear on the surface to be an unbearable stress on our government's slush fund. However the idea of closing our eyes and borders to the world will only replace the flies with other pests and diseases born from the same overlooked contributing habits we fail to modify. It is the responsibility of intelligent men and women to stare trouble in the eye, even when it becomes painful and speak to the mesmerized population from whatever soapbox we can find, to offer the neighborhood at least one decent option.
It is ironic to me, for example, how the crushing strain of illegal immigrants, particularly from our southern border, became a popular point of interest about the same time domestic attention to the rapidly growing gap between the rich and the poor began to appear in its contemporary, demonic proportions, sometime around the mid to late eighties, and to many a tycoon's unease, in the news.
The "mexicans", (note the lower case "m") who sought entry into the United States were met by Visa's and waiting lists. Legal entry took an average of five years. A bloke from England, France or our "good neighbor" to the north, Canada is welcomed without a Visa and is invited to stay here until the green card is issued. (Unless of course you were John Lennon and driven crazy by a very disturbed President.) With the insubstantial economic gains produced by NAFTA's trickle down promise, what desperate human being, even from Mexico, would sit on his hands and waste five or more years in the prime of his life? So now these brown skinned illegal's have become the donkeys on whose back we pile concocted charges. Their "strain" on healthcare deserves a second look. Their strain on jobs deserves a second look. Their illegal presence deserves action. But the tension, hatred and violence I witness in my own community here on Long Island is the result of some message, some "score", written and published by that same piece of shit which brought us the flies. Order? absolutely. We are a nation of laws. Illegal guests should be offered manageble guidelines to citizenship on a par with our pink skinned guests from the north. Failure to conform to the conditions of citizenship will be an irrefutable cause for deportation. Beatings, intimidations, unfairly difficult citizenship requirements and family separations? No longer tolerable, regardless of the regained sense of control it peppers back onto "We the (little) people". It all fits the pattern of good herding and stinks like shit. Meantime, unwatched, our Securities and Exchange Commission allowed those corporations deemed "too big to fail" to drag the Nation's economy into the toilet. Let's go teach those Mexican's a lesson.
The majority of illegal immigrants in this country are from the same demographic as their young legal counterparts, thirty years old and younger, healthy and uninsured. The difference lies in a "mexican's" fear to go to the hospital unless he is severely injured. A legal, uninsured American is four times likely to go to an emergency room than an illegal. It takes a broken bone, a gunshot or a pregnancy to get up the nerve for a mexican to go. There he or she will be greeted by a Visa-wielding Indian Intern, bandaged and given a cot in Immigration. Don't worry, no miserly Private Insurance company will have been harmed in the process. No small businessman will suffer the impact of a Workmans Comp claim because the worker ain't on the books anyway. And no out of work American will anxiously forego an Unemployment check to take his place doing "the job American's won't do".
But in these times where the little guy, (you and I and 90% of the legal population of the country)is being stretched, crushed and increasingly desperate, how wonderful that we have found a point of focus for our despair. If I were powerful enough, like say one of these very important Corporate Executives, and I socialized in powerful circles with members of equally powerful influence like, for arguments sake, a Media giant, a Senator or two, any one of a thousand Lobbying firms and so on . . . wouldn't it be convenient to just direct these faceless middle class and poor, who pay no mind to the details of these affairs anyway, and redirect their attention from an abusive, privileged class of tax evading corporations onto these despicable, evil and defenseless Jews! . . . i mean "mexicans"? How amusing it is to let them fight it out amongst themselves. And we thought Michael Vick was a scumbag.
Ignore the news and you have two probable choices: live with the flies or destroy your entire kitchen so they have nowhere to live. Our fingerprints are on too many broken dishes around the globe. We broke them building factories and cars so one economy could rise to lord them all. Many cultures have suffered from the global homogenization this corporate diplomacy has prevailed onto the world. "Empire Building" sounds so deliciously quaint by today's standards, smacking of British discipline and principle. I fail to see the opening of a McDonald's at the Louvre' in a similar romantic light. Closing our borders and cleaning house is less than I should expect from a man of Dr. Cosby's stature and influence. Perhaps he needs to get down from his perch and hang around a few of us "little people" for a while. The flies don't seem to fear heights anyway.
- giov
Being one of many unemployed Americans, I am not overly concerned for what happens abroad. Yes, it's very nice that Mr. Obama. was given a prize. But considering the state of our nation I would much prefer, as an American Citizen, to have Mr. Obama concentrate his efforts through his charisma and charm, and influence as President of the United States on domestic issues. I am all warm and fuzzy knowing that he is trying to get the Palestinians a chunk of land they can call home but my home is in jeopardy of being lost due to the financial crisis this country currently faces. I have no faith in his staff to resolve any of this country's ills but possibly with Mr. Obama at their side, full time, maybe we can improve our situation. Until then, maybe he should seek employment at the UN and leave the duties of President to someone that really wants the job as opposed to running around the world playing referee. I admit Bill Cosby isn't the man for the job but I'd much prefer a platform that he suggests, considering it deals with internal issues, as a replacement of what is helping to waste this country away. Am I shallow minded? You bet...Rent is due in less than two weeks. I am concerned about the world but it starts in my home first.
- hoop
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Bill Cosby's Political Platform:
I HAVE DECIDED TO BECOME A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT IN THE YEAR 2012.. HERE IS MY PLATFORM:
(1). Any use of the phrase: 'Press 1 for English' is immediately banned. English is the official language; speak it or wait outside of our borders until you can.
(2). We will immediately go into a two year isolationist attitude in order to straighten out the greedy big business posture in this country. America will allow NO imports, and we'll do no exports. We will use the 'Wal-Mart 's policy, 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.' We'll make it here and sell it here!
(3).. When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it coming in here.
(4). All retired military personnel will be required to man one of the many observation towers located on the southern border of the United States (six month tour). They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens.
(5). Social Security will immediately return to its original state. If you didn't put nuttin in, you ain't gettin nuttin out. Neither the President nor any other politician will be able to touch it.
(6). Welfare. -- Checks will be handed out on Fridays, at the end of the 40 hour school week, the successful completion of a urinalysis test for drugs, and passing grades.
(7). Professional Athletes -- Steroids? The FIRST time you check positive you're banned from sports ... for life.
(8). Crime - We will adopt the Turkish method, i.e., the first time you steal, you lose your right hand. There is no more 'life sentences'. If convicted of murder, you will be put to death by the same method you chose for the victim you killed: gun, knife, strangulation, etc.
(9).. One export of ours will be allowed: wheat; because the world needs to eat. However, a bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil.
(10). All foreign aid, using American taxpayer money, will immediately cease and the saved money will help to pay off the national debt and, ultimately, lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask The American People if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision as to whether, or not, it's a worthy cause.
(11). The Pledge of Allegiance will be said every day at school and every day in Congress.
(12). The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies, sporting events, outings, etc. My apology is offered if I've stepped on anyone's toes ..... nevertheless...... GOD BLESS AMERICA.
Sincerely, Bill Cosby
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hoop,
Your letter bothers me intensely because your situation is becoming less and less unique. I can tell most times when you're joking and when you're not. I don't believe you are in a kidding mood right now.
I want to comment on your letter and the bare-bones politics of Dr. Cosby. He raises twelve issues in a manifesto that could serve as the playbook for a winning Nationalist party takeover of America's current, inept domestic failures. Every item on his list was aimed at the same part of my mind that I employed to run my ten year old life, a time before the discovery and adoption of an increasingly complex set of ethics which enhanced the following decades. I know very well what it means to be out of work. I have never watched a business, built with my own hands, die, like you had to. I did however spend the better part of two years illustrating pubs and restaurants, losing larger sums of money as my experience "grew". I have no greater knowledge of life's cheap shots than you. I simply write about these logistics to help keep my mind from being swallowed by the helplessness each one of us feels in the face of so many troubles, so many interrelated problems and so far outside our ability to affect any meaningful change. Without some way to file it all I would be crushed.
We have two choices you and I, tame it or ignore it. Ignore it and every piece of shit consequence from bank failures to foreclosures to healthcare to credit-gouging to "peace-keeping" missions overseas to illegal lobbyists working to pollute your drinking water for some corporate executive's Cayman Island bank account to charges of indecent exposure for walking through your kitchen in the nude . . . . .
. .ignore the news and your problems don't disappear. You simply exchange them for a set of different problems. Take the fly in your kitchen. His presence is the product of one set of conditions and the catalyst for another set of conditions. Ignoring the fly allows the breeding ground to remain undisturbed and productive. Merely brushing him out of your face allows him to spread disease. Bill Cosby seems to offer a solution that was tried in a depressed German nation back in the late twenties and thirties. Unless we keep our heads focused on the mechanics of those conditions which foster the breeding of flies, stirring speeches will simply rally the nation to act without concern for the profile or motives of the author. History has exposed many of these windbags to be sculpted from the same pile of shit the flies called home.
The absurd distraction of International involvement (item [2] from Dr. Cosby's memo) would appear on the surface to be an unbearable stress on our government's slush fund. However the idea of closing our eyes and borders to the world will only replace the flies with other pests and diseases born from the same overlooked contributing habits we fail to modify. It is the responsibility of intelligent men and women to stare trouble in the eye, even when it becomes painful and speak to the mesmerized population from whatever soapbox we can find, to offer the neighborhood at least one decent option.
It is ironic to me, for example, how the crushing strain of illegal immigrants, particularly from our southern border, became a popular point of interest about the same time domestic attention to the rapidly growing gap between the rich and the poor began to appear in its contemporary, demonic proportions, sometime around the mid to late eighties, and to many a tycoon's unease, in the news.
The "mexicans", (note the lower case "m") who sought entry into the United States were met by Visa's and waiting lists. Legal entry took an average of five years. A bloke from England, France or our "good neighbor" to the north, Canada is welcomed without a Visa and is invited to stay here until the green card is issued. (Unless of course you were John Lennon and driven crazy by a very disturbed President.) With the insubstantial economic gains produced by NAFTA's trickle down promise, what desperate human being, even from Mexico, would sit on his hands and waste five or more years in the prime of his life? So now these brown skinned illegal's have become the donkeys on whose back we pile concocted charges. Their "strain" on healthcare deserves a second look. Their strain on jobs deserves a second look. Their illegal presence deserves action. But the tension, hatred and violence I witness in my own community here on Long Island is the result of some message, some "score", written and published by that same piece of shit which brought us the flies. Order? absolutely. We are a nation of laws. Illegal guests should be offered manageble guidelines to citizenship on a par with our pink skinned guests from the north. Failure to conform to the conditions of citizenship will be an irrefutable cause for deportation. Beatings, intimidations, unfairly difficult citizenship requirements and family separations? No longer tolerable, regardless of the regained sense of control it peppers back onto "We the (little) people". It all fits the pattern of good herding and stinks like shit. Meantime, unwatched, our Securities and Exchange Commission allowed those corporations deemed "too big to fail" to drag the Nation's economy into the toilet. Let's go teach those Mexican's a lesson.
The majority of illegal immigrants in this country are from the same demographic as their young legal counterparts, thirty years old and younger, healthy and uninsured. The difference lies in a "mexican's" fear to go to the hospital unless he is severely injured. A legal, uninsured American is four times likely to go to an emergency room than an illegal. It takes a broken bone, a gunshot or a pregnancy to get up the nerve for a mexican to go. There he or she will be greeted by a Visa-wielding Indian Intern, bandaged and given a cot in Immigration. Don't worry, no miserly Private Insurance company will have been harmed in the process. No small businessman will suffer the impact of a Workmans Comp claim because the worker ain't on the books anyway. And no out of work American will anxiously forego an Unemployment check to take his place doing "the job American's won't do".
But in these times where the little guy, (you and I and 90% of the legal population of the country)is being stretched, crushed and increasingly desperate, how wonderful that we have found a point of focus for our despair. If I were powerful enough, like say one of these very important Corporate Executives, and I socialized in powerful circles with members of equally powerful influence like, for arguments sake, a Media giant, a Senator or two, any one of a thousand Lobbying firms and so on . . . wouldn't it be convenient to just direct these faceless middle class and poor, who pay no mind to the details of these affairs anyway, and redirect their attention from an abusive, privileged class of tax evading corporations onto these despicable, evil and defenseless Jews! . . . i mean "mexicans"? How amusing it is to let them fight it out amongst themselves. And we thought Michael Vick was a scumbag.
Ignore the news and you have two probable choices: live with the flies or destroy your entire kitchen so they have nowhere to live. Our fingerprints are on too many broken dishes around the globe. We broke them building factories and cars so one economy could rise to lord them all. Many cultures have suffered from the global homogenization this corporate diplomacy has prevailed onto the world. "Empire Building" sounds so deliciously quaint by today's standards, smacking of British discipline and principle. I fail to see the opening of a McDonald's at the Louvre' in a similar romantic light. Closing our borders and cleaning house is less than I should expect from a man of Dr. Cosby's stature and influence. Perhaps he needs to get down from his perch and hang around a few of us "little people" for a while. The flies don't seem to fear heights anyway.
- giov
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