An auction house claims to be auctioning off a vial of Ronald Reagan’s blood.
Is it a vegetable?
I don’t understand why people are mad. Except I sure wouldn’t pay thousands of dollars for old ice.
Having a bad day? At least Reagan is still dead—so we’ve got that working for us.
Today at 10:45 am Occupy the East End illegally foreclosed on the Bank of America branch in East Hampton NY.
1%ers are already flocking to the Hamptons, so we thought they needed a political wake up call. Politics don’t end just because you’re on vacation.
Here is the text of our statement, which we mic-checked inside the branch:
FORECLOSURE NOTICE
Under and by virtue of the inherent power of the 99% of the American people, we, the members of Occupy the East End, hereby notify the Bank of America branch at 14 Newtown Lane, in the village of East Hampton, in the State of New York, that we are hereby filing this notice of foreclosure and eviction.
We, the people of the East End of Long Island, New York, claim legal title to and ownership of this facility as of 11:00 AM on Saturday, the 19th day of May, 2012. Please vacate the premises immediately. Your personal possessions will be removed and sold at auction.
In addition, we demand that Bank of America cease and desist all pending actions related to eviction or foreclosure, regardless of cause.
We demand that Bank of America immediately return all evicted persons to their homes, plus compensate them for any and all losses caused by the Bank’s actions, plus interest at the highest rate charged by any credit card issued by the Bank.
In cases where new homeowners now reside in the homes of people displaced by the Bank’s illegal actions, we demand that the Bank of America provide a replacement home at, or above, the highest pre-2008 valued assessment of homes from which victims were evicted, or a cash payment in said amount, plus interest at the highest rate charged by any credit card issued by the Bank.
In June 2011 a customer at the Capitol One branch next to the Bank of America branch in East Hampton left behind an ATM receipt showing that he had a balance of $ 99,864,731.94. This customer is one of hundreds of multimillionaire 1%ers whose predatory behavior, in conjunction with the perfidy of the banks, have reduced our community and our nation to a state of permanent austerity and suffering. Bank of America has similar customers with similar balances. We therefore demand that Bank of America establish a fund in the amount of $100 million—the balance of one checking account—in order to serve the immediate needs of the hardest-hit residents of the East End of Long Island.
This eviction is predicated upon Bank of America’s default of basic civil responsibility and honest business practices, having been evidenced by, among other actions, engaging in the foreclosure and evictions of families with the goal of earning profits in the wake of a national financial crisis which was partly caused by the reckless dealings of said Bank, the greed and avarice of the Bank’s overpaid executives, who frequently resorted to “robo-signings,” and the filing of fraudulent Deeds of Trust in executing said illegal foreclosures and evictions, plus the secret and illegal extraction of at least $45 billion in public funds from the U.S. Treasury.
The greed continues. Your leader, Brian Moynihan, was ranked America’s second-worst bank CEO of 2011 by Fortune magazine, yet he paid himself an obscene $7 million the same year that he prepared to fire 30,000 employees. Meanwhile, your Bank imposed a monthly fee for people to use debit cards—cards originally issued in order to replace human tellers, whom you fired after years of loyal service at low wages. Brian Moynihan says: “We have a right to make a profit.” No, you don’t. Not when you’re breaking the law. Not when you’re evicting people from their homes illegally.
Bank of America and the other big banks illegally evicted four million American families since 2008. Bank of America was responsible for nearly half of these. But only 750,000 will get help under the new settlement—average payouts of $2000 each. You stole houses for $2000 each.
For example, in one instance, Bank of America/Countrywide caused to be filed a Notice of Default against a consumer who did not miss any payments justifying the issuance of any default notification whatsoever.
Additionally, thousands of consumers were allegedly told by Bank of America/Countrywide employees and/or agents that they will all have to “wait” in order to be allowed to modify their loans. Bank of America/Countrywide further represented to consumers that they would not be penalized for failing to make mortgage payments or any property-related payments, and indeed, told the consumers that it is beneficial for consumers to fall further behind in their payments because that will “make it easier” to modify the unreasonable adjustable loans. Instead, the moment that consumers fell three months or more in arrears (as ordered by the bank) the bank immediately began foreclosure proceedings by filing notice of defaults and backing consumers into a corner with zero options and at the mercy of the lender. These types of foreclosure practices are illegal and unethical and we demand that they stop immediately.We are Occupy the East End.
You should have expected us.
We will not be silenced.
For delivery to:
Brian T. Moynihan
President and CEO
Bank of America
We distributed this statement to customers and tellers, and demanded that it be faxed to Moynihan.
Meanwhile, a contingent outside help up an Occupied Bank of America banner.
Hi! Unfortunately, the campaign failed to make its goal. Still, thanks to the more than 100 people who supported it with significant pledges. I am honored by your faith in me. Obviously I will not be doing ths book. (Unless someone steps forward with a big check.) What next? There are several possibilities. No major publisher would pony up enough money for travel and research, but there are alternatives to Kickstarter that I will look into. Also, I’ll be working on more commercial projects that might attract major publisher backing. We’re still feeling out the post-mainstream media collapse. If the kind of independent journalism, art and punditry I do is to survive, it will require backing, either from digital publishers, or individuals. So far there is no sign that websites, even those with deep pockets, are going to step up–but perhaps that will change. Individuals are stretched. Wealthy patrons are a possibility, but where to find one? In any event, please follow me at rall.com and thanks again.
Despite a lot of support—130 people promised $9435—my Kickstarter project is obviously going to be a bust. There are 50 hours to go, and the rate of pledges has simply seized up.
So what went wrong? It’s anybody’s guess. Among some of the conjectures I’ve heard are:
The economy is shitty. Kickstarter is oversaturated. Without being highlighted on the site’s front page, it languished. Certainly there was zero support from the blogosphere, which no doubt considered this idea too radical for them. My fans are tapped out by my auctions, computer fundraiser and previous (Afghanistan) Kickstarter.
Who knows.
This is bittersweet for me. It’s great to know that so many people are able and willing to help support what I do. My readers are the coolest, smartest, sanest people around. So generous, it’s amazing!
But I despair for the future. Political websites and leftie blogs have refused to hire cartoonists or writers, or pay outrageously low rates that are impossible to live on. Print media is firing, not hiring. The only thing left is direct support from the public—and if that doesn’t work, well…
now what?
I draw cartoons for The Los Angeles Times about issues related to California and the Southland (metro Los Angeles).
This week: Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal for closing California’s $16-billion funding gap includes 4-day state workweeks and Medi-Cal cuts. He warns that cuts will be even more severe if voters reject tax hikes on the November ballot.
My Kickstarter book project is going down in flames.
With four days left, it is less than one-quarter funded. Please help spread the word!
It probably didn’t help that Kickstarter never ran the project on its front page.
Sluts of America, Arise!
“A sitting United States president took sides in what many people consider the last civil rights movement,” Adam Nagourney of The New York Times wrote in reaction to Barack Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage.
The last civil rights movement?
No.
Sadly, even as he belatedly championed equality for some, the president’s statement expressed a pernicious, widely accepted form of prejudice.
Look for the caveat as you read: “I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together…at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
In Obama’s worldview, in other words, it’s okay to be gay. But only if you behave like straight people—straight as in hetero, and straight as in conventional.
Obama is exposed as a monogamist: one who discriminates against people who have sex with multiple partners. Monogamism is commonplace. And it is bigotry. Monogamism is no more justifiable than racism or sexism or homophobia and, one day, it will be as reviled.
Mia McKenzie of the blog Black Girl Dangerous responds to Obama: “So, basically, what the President is saying is that same-sex couples who are in relationships that look a certain way (monogamous, for example) should be able to have all the rights of straight people. Hmm. What about those of us, queer and straight, who aren’t into monogamy but are into committed relationships? (And, for the record, you can be poly and be committed to multiple people).”
To which I’ll add: What about people, straight and gay, who sleep with multiple partners? What about those who don’t want committed relationships? Shouldn’t they get tax breaks and insurance benefits too?
And what about the open, tricky, ever-so-dirty secret—that many people in “incredibly committed monogamous relationships” cheat, that they’re de facto polygamists or just garden-variety sluts? (“A full 99 percent of Americans say they expect their spouse to be faithful,” according to U.S. News & World Report in 2008 but, The New York Times reported the same year, “University of Washington researchers have found that the lifetime rate of infidelity for men over 60 increased to 28 percent in 2006.” Hmm. Not to mention, obviously, that not all cheaters confess their sluttery to pollsters.)
Like all oppressed people, sluts have their work cut out for them.
“The Ethical Slut” (1997) by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt unleashed a landmark broadside against monogamy with a simple argument: anything that two consenting adults do is okay as long as they approach one another, and their other partners, with honesty and openness. Casual hook-ups, open relationships, swinging, group sex, and other alternative forms of sexual expression, wrote Mmes. Easton and Liszt, are not immoral so don’t feel guilty about them. “We believe it’s okay to have sex with anybody you love, and we believe in loving everybody,” they wrote.
Fifteen years later, however, tens of millions of sluts live underground, compelled to sneak around. Unlike straights and Obama-approved monogamous gays, America’s secret sluts have to hide their sex lives from their friends, families and coworkers. (Ethical sluts tell their partners the truth.) “My FWB and I had an awesome foursome with this couple we met online” isn’t the smartest Monday-morning conversation starter for the wannabe upwardly mobile.
Monogamy may be a myth, to paraphrase the title of the 1989 book that found that roughly half of all married Americans cheat, but as Obama’s statement suggests, it’s harder to kill than herpes.
Now here comes “The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love and the Reality of Cheating” by Eric Anderson (Oxford University Press, 256 pages, $49.99), a devastating critique of monogamy that has been ignored by book reviewers and buried by the mainstream media.
“The Ethical Slut” says it’s OKAY to be slutty. “The Monogamy Gap” goes further. It states loudly, brashly—and mostly convincingly—that while monogamy is right for some people, it’s wrong for most. Which makes monogamism a form of bigotry not only based on a lie, but like other forms of discrimination, downright bad for society.
Not so deep down, we know he’s right. When there’s a public sex scandal—John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, etc.—you don’t hear a lot of expressions of anger or disgust, just harrumphs and how-about-thats from people, most of whom can easily imagine themselves “guilty” of the same “crime”: hard-wired horniness.
“I suggest that we need multiple forms of culturally acceptable sexual relationship types—including sexually open relationships—that exist without hierarchy or hegemony,” Anderson writes.
Men, Anderson asserts, are trapped in a state of “dyadic dissonance” in which they are painfully torn between monogamist social programming and their sexual desires to sleep with multiple partners. “If [men] entertain with their partners the possibility that sex and love are separate and that they could maintain the love with their partner while seeking thrilling sex with outsiders (an open sexual relationship), they risk losing their partners. Even mentioning this is thought to be an affront to love. Love, they falsely believe, is enhanced through sex, and sex with outsiders is falsely believed to detract from the love of a couple. We all too often believe that if our partner ceases to desire us sexually, he or she ceases to love us.”
What is a [stymied] manslut to do?
“In desiring but not wanting to cheat,” Anderson continues, “men set out to rectify their dissonance through pornography, visualizing themselves having sex with someone else while having sex with their partner, and/or flirting with others online. Eventually, however, these imagined/cyber forms of extradyadic sex are not enough. Men strongly desire to have sex with someone else, and they often begin to feel anger or aggression at their partner because (at one level) it is their partner that is preventing them from having the type of sex that every cell in their body demands.”
So they screw around.
But cheaters aren’t bad people. They’re just sluts. They’re wired that way. Many—most of us—are sluts. Don’t be shocked. After all, contemporary marriage—based on love rather than property, monogamous rather than polygamous—is still in its experimental stage, less than a century old. And the rate of divorce suggests that the experiment isn’t going well.
Anderson says monogamism forces us to choose between guilt and frustration: “Although cheating remains almost universally taboo in modern societies, my research suggests that cheating might actually save relationships [because] cheating permits men to have the sex with others they somatically desire…with cheating they do not have to deal with the threat of losing their partners by mentioning their sexual desires for others.”
I have some issues with “The Monogamy Gap.” Anderson concludes that “it is only in open relationships where long-term sexual and romantic satisfaction can be found for people who somatically desire sex with others,” yet he hardly considers the needs and desires of heterosexual women. Do they want open relationships? Maybe. Maybe not. Also, Anderson’s preferred model—one or several core committed, longer-term relationships plus à la carte “hit it and quit it” assignations—leaves out other formats, such as swinging (which is barely discussed).
Overall, however, I strongly recommend “The Monogamy Gap” for anyone who wonders why a society that elevates monogamy can’t seem to follow its rules. America needs to begin this discussion.
(Ted Rall’s next book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,” out May 29. His website is tedrall.com.)
So JPMorgan Chase has been gambling with our money. And losing.
We bailed them out. And now they’re engaged–again–of course–in the same exact practices that got them into trouble back in 2008.
I say: fuck them. JPMorgan Chase should be nationalized immediately. And turned into a non-profit. No more checking account fees. No more bounced check fees. No more interest above the Fed funds rate.
It’s a criminal enterprise. Arrest their top officers and take the whole thing.
A few random thoughts about the Romney bullying story:
First, this story probably has legs. It frames an unpleasant narrative about Mitt Romney’s personality: Not only do his politics suck, he’s an asshole. Personally. The kind of asshole who abuses his pets. Who takes over profitable companies and bleeds them dry, leaving people jobless for no good reason. Who mutilates someone because he’s different. Faggy. In the same way that the story about George H.W. Bush being surprised about a supermarket scanner made him seem out-of-touch during a recession, the Romney bullying story has the potential to make him seem unlikeable in a way that he will have a very hard counteracting.
And we’re not just talking about bullying: shoving, punching, etc. This sounds almost rape-y: a long-haired boy held down to the ground by several boys as one hacks off his hair. Primal.
It doesn’t matter whether the story is even true: the image fits. It works. That’s the problem. And Romney didn’t help with his response: calling the victim a “fellow.” Who uses the word “fellow” in 2012? A “homosexual”? Who uses that word, either? He should have either denied the story entirely, or said something like this:
I did lots of stupid shit when I was a kid. I was kind of wild. Man, I sure wish I could take most of it back. If I could go back in time, I would catch myself being an asshole and beat the shit out of myself. All I can say now is, I am a fervent defender of the oppressed, including gays, and even though I don’t think marriage is a good idea for gays and lesbians, I view them as absolute equals in all ways and will always fight for them and every other American.
Obama has got to be laughing his ass off.
On another note, it’s very cool that bullying has become so uncool. When I was a kid, often victimized by bullies, no one gave a shit. This is progress.
Obama Accepts 21st Century View of Gay Marriage
In the BDSM world the phrase “topping from the bottom” means conditional submission: when the sub questions or disobeys the instructions of his or her dom. Subverting the submissive role defeats the whole purpose of a BDSM relationship; it is thus frowned upon.
President Obama frequently engages in the political equivalent: leading from the back.
True leaders lead. They declare what society needs and tells it what it should want. Leaders anticipate what is possible. They open the space where long-held dreams intersect with current reality, allowing progress. “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail,” Emerson advised.
The role of a leader has been clearly defined since the first time a member of a clan convinced his tribe they should follow him if they wanted to find more food. So why has it been so long since we Americans had real one?
In recent decades we have had two kinds of political leaders, bullies and followers. Beginning with Nixon but more so with Reagan and George W. Bush, Republican presidents have been bullies. Unwilling or unable to achieve the consensus of the majority for their radical agendas, they got what they wanted by any means necessary—corrupting the electoral process, lying, smearing opponents, and fear-mongering.
The Democrats—Carter, Clinton, and Obama—have been followers, and thus far less effectual. Leaders from the back.
Carter was the proto-triangulator, tacking right as a hawk on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis, while ignoring his liberal supporters. Clinton famously relied on toe-sucking Machiavellian pollster Dick Morris to develop stances and market memes that synced up exactly with public opinion on micro mini wedge issues. Both men left office without any major accomplishments—unless you count their sellouts to the Right (beginning “Reagan”‘s defense build-up, NAFTA, welfare reform).
Obama’s decision to come out in favor of gay marriage is classic Morris-style “leading from the back.”
“Public support for same-sex marriage is growing at a pace that surprises even professional pollsters as older generations of voters who tend to be strongly opposed are supplanted by younger ones who are just as strongly in favor,” notes The New York Times. “Same-sex couples are featured in some of the most popular shows on television, without controversy.”
No wonder: the latest Pew Research poll shows that 47 percent of voters support gay marriage, versus 43 percent against. (Among swing voters—of more interest to the Obama campaign—support is 47-to-39 percent in favor.)
“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage,” Obama said days before the 2008 election. At that time, Americans were running 40-to-56 percent against allowing same-sex couples to wed.
I can’t read his mind, but I bet Obama was OK with gay marriage in 2008. Like most other educated people. Cynically and wrongly, he sided with anti-gay bigots because he thought it would help him win.
The president’s change of ideological heart was painfully awkward. “I have hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought that civil unions would be sufficient,” he told ABC. “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word ‘marriage’ was something that invokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth.”
But now that’s changed, he said. “It is important for me personally to go ahead and affirm that same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
If Obama was a real leader, he wouldn’t care about offending “a lot of people”—i.e., right-wing homophobes. He would have gotten out front of the issue four years ago, when it mattered. The truth is, Vice President Joe Biden’s unscripted remarks a few days ago forced the issue.
Maybe Biden has the makings of a leader.
Six states and the District of Columbia have legalized gay weddings. True, the president’s statement may hasten the demise of the vile Defense of Marriage Act, which blocks federal recognition of gay marriage (and which Obama’s Justice Department defended in June 2009). But it comes too late to be meaningful.
Gay marriage was a historical inevitability before Obama spoke.
That hasn’t changed.
“For thousands of supporters who donated, canvassed and phone-banked to help elect Barack Obama, this is a powerful reminder of why we felt so passionately about this president in the first place,” said Michael Keegan, president of People for the American Way, a pro-Democratic Party interest group.
Maybe so. I don’t see it that way. I see a nation that led itself on this issue. The public debated and thought and finally, at long last, concluded that gays and lesbians deserve equal treatment before the law.
Obama didn’t lead us. We led him.
So tell me—what good is he, exactly?
(Ted Rall’s next book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,” out May 22. His website is tedrall.com.)
