Let's Re-Think Family Planning.

It's weird.

I know a lot of women (my wife included) who have remained childless by choice and I'm a little sad to announce that these lovely and educated ladies are sometimes the object of ridicule by the strange “traditional” family-values cadre. Considering the rather dire straits that we find ourselves in, due to over-population and willful and negligent environmental devastation, I feel that this is not only ignorant and cruel, but just plain backward thinking.

I understand that, as mammals, there is a certain, small instinctual drive to procreate. I get that. But it's no greater than the drive to kill and eat other animals, and we've done a pretty good job curtailing that activity over the course of history. There was a time when a male individual would just mount the first female individual he saw whenever he got “the urge.” Thank goodness we've evolved beyond that.

The major reason that the vast majority of woman feel they need to continue to crank out children, is because of religious conditioning and programming. There may have been a time when it was logical to have children (mainly boys) so that you'd have some help in your chosen field of work. Farms needed lots of hands. So did blacksmithing. Same goes for ranching and sheepherding. These people had children for “practical” reasons. In many, if not most, cases this is no longer the case. But whatever religious tradition you adhere to, you are encouraged to breed indiscriminately. The more the better! The training starts at a very young age and is never questioned by anyone. Little girls play with dollies, but rarely do they play NFL owner or CEO. The subject of happily choosing not have children is never even suggested. As a woman, if you don't dream of having children, you're considered some kind of freak.

Smart, intelligent, educated women have myriad reasons for not getting involved in that lifelong commitment of child bearing and raising. Some have aspirations of travel, which is rendered difficult with small children. Some want to make a difference in the world other than populating it. Whatever their reasons, they don't deserve derision for making that choice. Hell, I commend them for even knowing that the choice exists. Your religion won't tell that to you. Or your school. Forget about hearing it from your government. Did you know, these institutions have a vested interested in making sure you have children? Preferably lots of them? People with families are much easier to control. And by control, I mean coerce. Your economic resources are spread thin, so that you have very few options.You will do whatever you are told, because you can't risk the health and safety of your family.

We don't really need any more people. When was the last time you were driving in rush-hour traffic, or walking through a mall and said to yourself, “You know, there just aren't enough people.” I'm not trying to vilify the people who have kids and families, but the #1 worst thing you can do environmentally is have a child. The source of most of our modern ills, is overpopulation and its cousin, thoughtless overconsumption. Restaurants throw away approximately 30% of all of their food. The figure is a little lower for personal households, but not much. In the name of convenience we make cleaning products out of chemicals and instead of cloth, we have to use paper products that can be thrown away. But there is no away. I bring this up because the biggest offender is disposable diapers.

I'm not saying don't have families. I'm not saying people who have families are bad. All I'm saying is let's start letting little girls know that it's okay to dream about things other than becoming a baby factory. And let's start showing them that it's alright to make other choices and maybe even wait. They have to be educated in proper family planning (birth control), and encouraged in pursuits other than gestating. Stop the tyranny of religion. It's not necessary to have a baby to take some

Baby Steps...

The American Dream was just a Dream.

Remember when hard work and perseverance were all you needed to "make it" in America?
That was before the Ultra Monster Pirana of Uncontrolled, Unregulated, Unfettered, Un F-ing Believable, Un-American Pseudo (Vampire) Capitalism took over.

Now it doesn't matter what you do to try to get ahead. The dice are loaded. The table is rigged. And you're the rube. Smile.
It used to be easy to understand, only the poor and desperate stole from others. Now it's the Corporate business plan. And it works! For them. For us, not so much.

Good for you. You get up early in the morning so you can take your time and get on the road to beat the ridiculous traffic. Guess what? Now the rich guy can pay to get in a lane that he can go fast in and make it where he's going in time. He just negated all of your planning and hard work. It's okay. He's rich. You're screwed. Welcome to the new economy!

The airport is where this is most apparent. Stand in line to go through TSA security check? Check!
It's the American way to do stupid stuff (that's stuff with an sh...) when they've told you to be paranoid. Billions of dollars go to the companies that make the scanning and screening machines that are used to humiliate us and make us feel like we're less-than-human. These machines are the modern day equivalent of a scarecrow. Or one of those owl sculpture that are supposed to scare away birds and other pests. Basically, just to make the general public feel good. They do nothing to protect us, and I can prove it.

They have a new system that can be used by the rich to circumvent these long lines and delays. Just pay the toll, and breeze right through and past the line. The good news is, terrorists would never pay to get through in this manner, so, no problem here. Just shut up and wait in line, loser!

The airport is where you can find another little piece of inequity. In the parking garage, If you call (write, e-mail, whatever. I suppose if I were rich I'd know how) ahead and pay the price you can get preferred parking in the deck where you used to have to drive up and down and down and up and hither and yon. No more. If you want to avoid that work that is part and parcel of a normal existence, you can pay to NOT be treated equally. Hooray!!

I'll bet you can think of lots of examples where the normal everyday, play by the rules consumer gets outbid by the upper echelons, and made to feel less-than.

We've got to stand-up. Let's face it, we've got more practice than they do, because we have to actually wait in those lines. Stand up for your rights! Stand up for the merit that should be afforded by the hard-work that used to be the backbone of the American Way. Stop all this pay to win. Make your voice heard! Join a union. Join a party. Join a club. Join, join, join. We are stronger TOGETHER.

We just gotta change things or we will be ground under by the 1%.
Baby Steps...

Old King Coal. Not so merry.

Coal miners have been around for a awhile. 

Mining is dirty, dangerous work, that doesn't take a lot of education, just mostly muscle and courage. And a desire to take care of your family.
Especially in rural areas where the coal is found, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, to name just a few. Miners generally have a pretty tough life, filthy, back-breaking work, for long hours. As long as the employer can legally require, that's how many hours a coal miner will work.

I just drove through Ludlow, Colorado where an abomination against humanity took place a while back. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre)

Fortunately, thanks to the unions and the incredible war-like struggles that they went through to get the miners a living-wage and some protections, the miners can enjoy a somewhat normal standard of living. A liveable standard, even though these mines tend to be in horrible, back-woods locations where the boom-town economies inflate all the costs that the miners incur. Many of these miners have worked the mines for generations, so much so that it's the only existence that they've ever known, or that they can even contemplate. The job is so ingrained with the life and the culture, that the miners, not only put up with the horrible conditions that the employers thrust upon them, they defend it against all logic and against their own well-being.
The nation should be getting off coal. And petroleum. And Natural gas.

It's obvious. Coal is a dirty source of fuel and mining kills miners through bad and unsafe practices and disease. There are natural, renewable sources of power generation that we can transition into, and these miners can, with very little adaptation, be transitioned into without the loss of any income. These types of energy can, and will, be in the same rural locations where these workers now live. But there's a catch. Isn't there always? The fossil fuel energy companies have powerful and deep-pocketed lobbies that won't allow that to happen.

Workers need to be educated in these things. (another reason that the rich and the corporations are dead-set against any public education) The Politicians and the corporations aren't your friends. They fought against your rights every step of the way and killed countless miners who only wanted to make life better for their families.

Let's get out there and help these people, because by helping them, we help ourselves.
The best way to get even with the Robber Borons, is to make what they stole from us, and our planet, worthless.
Let's do it.
Baby steps...