Category: Politics

What has happened to this country…

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Jon Stewart weighs in on the Bill Maher and Ben Affleck flap

stewart-religion-300x239Humanity Will Always Live in Chaos as Long as Organized Religion Persists

He absolutely read my mind:

“Organized religion is the worst thing that’s ever happened to human kind.

All organized religion does is provide a tool for those in power to manipulate millions to act against their own self interests. Which is exactly what you see in Christianity and Islam. People in power, using religion, to get people to act like absolute fools. People living their lives under the control of religious rules that are derived by some human’s interpretation of something they read in a book.”

I do not have a problem with faith, just how it has be kidnapped by the power structure.  I perfectly okay if you want to dance naked around a 10 foot statue of G.I. Joe.  But please to not hand me a glass of your Kool-Ade or force me to dance.

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Ben Affleck, Sam Harris, Bill Maher and Islam

I really did not know a lot about Ben Affleck before this, but after watching this episode of Bill Maher I lost a lot of respect for him. He did what a lot of folks seem to do on these types of shows, rather than reason and debate, he was loud and obnoxious in an attempt to make a point.

I am secular and I have a hard time with most religions, but Islam in particular (at least as portrayed by our media). The main reason being is the few Muslims I know personally seem like good and reasonable people. They seem to love and believe their faith as much as any Baptist from Oklahoma. In an attempt to understand the religion that is so much in the news these days I have read a couple books about Islam. At the core Islam seems full of love, care and kindness for fellow humans. I know that the Islam religion as practiced early was very tolerant of other religions.   The Islam that seems to predominate today is one of the fundamentalist ilk that does not seem to very tolerant of some very basic human rights. It seems like separation of church and state is a goal to avoid. The religion I see on the news is not tolerant of different points of views. It appears to me that much of strife in the world currently comes from the Muslim arena.

The message that Christ preached was full of love, caring and kindness also. Something seems to happen when religions move pass this “Golden Rule” core. The history of all the Abrahamic religions is not pretty. It is one of strife, conquering, destruction, intolerance and murder all the way to genocide. The history of the Catholic Church is very troubling.

My basic point of view is that life is tough, so whatever gets you through the day is fine with me as long as you don’t want me to drink your Kool-Aid. I try to be tolerant of religion, but some days I just want to scream. I really do believe that the world would be a far better place if all religions would go away. I also realize that humans have a spiritual need. I just wish there was something else besides the bloody, intolerant Abrahamic religions to fill this need for the 2 or 3 billion individuals that follow these religions.

Oh well. Here is the video. It does not even include the worse of Ben Affleck’s rants.

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Lawsuit Claims Obama Discriminated Against American Workers.

The CF continues.  Apparently the Obama administration is in bed with InfoSys.  To quote from the article from Computerworld in this link Court case offers a peek at how H-1B-fueled discrimination works :37.1784

“The passage of the Affordable Care Act brought with it a burst of IT spending and hiring. The District of Columbia, for instance, hired offshore outsourcing firm Infosys for $49.5 million to build its Healthcare Exchange.

The India-based Infosys brought in H-1B visa holders to work on the government project. And of the approximately 100 Infosys employees working on the healthcare project, only three were American, according to a civil lawsuit filed in federal court.”

Just to be clear the discrimination they are referring is against citizens of the United States in the IT field.

To quote from another article Lawsuit: Tech Company Hired to Build D.C. Obamacare Website Discriminated Against Americans Continue reading “Lawsuit Claims Obama Discriminated Against American Workers.”

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A Definition of Politics

I heard a really great definition of politics this morning on NPR, “Politics is about controlling the flow of money.”

Politics is, of course, about power. Frequently the flow of money is what it comes down to.  Those in power receive more resources or are taxed less, and those who are not in power receive fewer resources or more of the burden.

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This IT worker had to train an H-1B replacement

The H1-B program is such a cluster fuck visited on the American worker that cluster fuck is not a strong enough term.  I’m in IT and I have been watching this disaster for years.

I was contracting at large financial firm.  I begin noticing a large number of young Indians coming in as contract workers.  Contracting is a very common method in IT.  Companies like because they can staff up and staff down as needed.  I used to like because the companies generally compensated well for the insecurity of a contracting positions, and I did not mind moving around to different jobs.  To get back to my position at the financial firm.  When I saw all the Indians coming in I knew my days were numbered, and they were.  They found a pretense to terminate my contract nine months early.  It was my second contract at this firm, and they had actually given me more money to come back for a second contract.  Additionally, they had given me an 18 month contract when normal they did not go over a year.  They seemed to like my work. My consulting firm later told me that they were bringing in the Indians at $25/hour  less than I was receiving.  I can promise you I was not getting rich.  This was at a time long past the glory days of contracting.

This particular consulting firm ended up going out of business as they could not compete with the cheap off-shore labor either.  And this was one of the older and bigger consulting companies.  Now days, when a consulting company calls you about a contract if you are talking to an American it is a miracle.  If the consulting company is not Indian it is even more of a miracle.  You have to give the Indians credit.  Many of the Indian companies have used the minority preferences given by our laws to gain an advantage.  Essentially this has allowed Indian firms to corner this market in preference to American firms.

Who do I blame?  I do not blame individual Indians, but I do blame Congress and our President who are in cahoots with our corporations who only care about profit and cheap, cheap labor.   It is something I have ranted about for years.  Congress briefly played lip service to all the complaints, but I do believe the problem is even worse than it was before.

To read about one of these horror stories, go to This IT worker had to train an H-1B replacement at Computerworld.com

 

Just in case you do not know what a H1-B Visa — click the link for the Wikepedia article on same.

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Theodore Roosevelt — Socialist

socialism1Theodore Roosevelt was frequently called a Socialist. The primary reason being that he had an extraordinary sense of fair play. He sided with labor when he thought that the just thing to do, and against capital when he thought they had overstepped their bounds.

I have on occasionally been called a Socialist, generally by folks totally ignorant, at least of the true meaning of socialism. But that criticism includes a vast majority of the right leaning media.

I love Teddy’s response to being called a Socialist:

“Because of things I have done on behalf of justice to the workingman, I have often been called a Socialist. Usually I have not taken the trouble even to notice the epithet. I am not afraid of names, and I am not one of those who fear to do what is right because someone else will confound me with partisans with whose principles I am not in accord. Moreover, I know that many American Socialists are high-minded and honorable citizens, who in reality are merely radical social reformers. They are oppressed by the brutalities and industrial injustices which we see everywhere about us. When I recall how often I have seen Socialists and ardent non-Socialists working side by side for some specific measure of social or industrial reform, and how I have found opposed to them on the side of privilege many shrill reactionaries who insist on calling all reformers Socialists, I refuse to be panic-stricken by having this title mistakenly applied to me.”

If socialism is really defined as not letting the privileged run over the less fortunate, then I am Continue reading “Theodore Roosevelt — Socialist”