Why NOT Drug Tests For Welfare?

I think it’s a great idea.  Hey – if your primary purpose every day is to get stoned instead of getting a job…. and you get assistance….YEAH!

Welfare was never intended to be a way of life.  It was supposed to get people up and going then out to get a job.  It was a HAND UP….. not….. a HAND OUT.

Generations of people have been on welfare…… G E N E R A T I O N S…. folks!  They know exactly how to work the system. Some have never known life OFF welfare!  Their parents, grandparents and great grandparents have lived on the dole…. and why shouldn’t they?

There are far too many employable people:  physically able TO work who collect welfare.

Stop having babies to stay on welfare!!!!!  Does New Jersey still have the ’2 child’ limit?  I think the whole country should ave a ‘child limit.’  That would keep some of these women from having baby after baby just to get benefits. GET OFF YOUR BACKS, women!  You are BETTER than just being a baby machine!

There IS such thing as BIRTH CONTROL;  many different ways.  USE IT.

Yes…. we are in an economic crisis and jobs for everyone are hard to come by.  Surely somebody in government could figure out how to revamp it.

No…. better yet – make that…. someone in the private sector, because the government would just screw it up!

Workplace Terms: The Gag Reflex

Certain terms have become commonplace in the workplace & they make me want to throw up! Why do we have to be a TEAM MEMBER? Why do we have to like to WORK UNDER PRESSURE?  How come it is mandatory that we are ENERGETIC, or that we can HANDLE STRESS?

I guess ‘team member’ is supposed to connect us.  What it really means is that, like a dog, you’re expected to be totally enthusiastic, slobbering all over to BE the BEST – suck up, that is. RAH, RAH, SISS BOOM BAH !  Where are the cheerleaders?  Team members are to be blindly devoted completely to the company.  Ask no questions and we’ll tell you no truths.

Yeah, I’m a ‘team member’ – to a point.  I’ll do what my job requires me to do:  show up every day, try to do my best, do it on time and to the specifications to the job.  I draw the line, however, when it becomes obvious that I am being used or lied to or mistreated -OR- if I am expected TO lie and mislead.

WORK UNDER PRESSURE means, “How much can you take before you crack?” How much can we get OUT of you? How far will you go for this company?  How much of yourself, your needs and life outside the company will you give up? How far can we push you?

ENERGETIC means: work like the Energizer Bunny.  That’s GREAT if you’re 25 and just out of college wanting to prove yourself.  When you get to your mid-50′s, forget it.  The bunny needs a recharge!  I’m past killing myself for a job.  Been there, done that when I was in my early 20′s.  Worked 50-70 hour weeks.

WHY ARE WE EXPECTED TO WORK THIS WAY?  Aaaahhhh….. the old GREED factor.  Workers are disposable (see previous post on this) and this has become the new American corporate way.  Like paper towels, we are meant to be thrown away when we’ve been used up.  There are a thousand others waiting in line if we aren’t a team member.

This is YOUR FOOD We’re Talking About

Corporate America is trying to take one more step to control food.  Small farmers are being threatened yet again by the federal government.  NAIS (National Animal Identification System)  is supposed to provide protection against these food recalls by tracking ‘food’ (in this case, animals) for their life.  Every time an animal is moved, mounds of paperwork have to be completed – for EACH animal. Moreoever – once again – this hurts the people who can least afford it – the SMALL FARMER.

Think it WON’T AFFECT YOU?

Think again.

If your kids have pet rabbits,  if you have a few chickens you keep for eggs or maybe you have a cow or two.  Goats for milking?  Those, too, will be required to be tagged and tracked.

No – what we do NOT need is NAIS.  We need BETTER conditions for these animals to begin with.  Not crowded, disease promoting facilities which harbor dangerous bacteria with lax monitoring systems!  The FDA and USDA cannot do it’s job, so they want to punish the small farmers and impose MORE TAXES on the American people.

Go to Organic Consumers to read more and tell your friends and contact your representatives!  Don’t let AGRIBUSINESS buy the saftey of the American people again!

Take Action: Stop NAIS

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been working for over five years to force a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) onto American animal owners. NAIS is designed to identify and track each and every individual livestock and poultry animal owned by family farmers, hobby farmers, homesteaders, and pet owners across the country.

USDA claims that NAIS is a disease tracking program, but has refused to provide any support for its claims. In reality, NAIS will:

Create expensive and time-consuming tagging and reporting requirements for small farms. The requirements are particularly burdensome for those farmers raising sustainable livestock on pasture. Ultimately, this will reduce the availability of grass-fed meats, eggs, and milk.

Give factory confinement farms a loophole through the use of group identification, providing yet another unfair advantage for factory farms. Not provide any information to the consumer, and does not improve food safety, because the tracking ends with the animal’s death.

Replace states’ existing, well-functioning disease response and brand inspection programs with an unproven, expensive, and unreliable system;

Impose high costs and government surveillance on every farmer and animal owner for no significant benefits, and will likely force many small producers out of business.

NAIS does nothing to improve food safety for consumers or prevent animal diseases. This program is a one-size-fits-all program developed by and for big Agribusiness. NAIS will increase consolidation of our food supply in the hands of a few large companies and put the brakes on the growing movement toward local food systems.

The grassroots movement has already successfully stalled USDA’s plans for NAIS, which originally called for the entire program – premises registration, animal identification, and tracking – to be mandatory by January 2009. The proposed rule is an opportunity to get thousands of objections in the formal record, and have an even greater impact.

It is imperative that people speak up to protect our right to farm and our food supply!

Take action today! Go to: ORGANIC CONSUMERS to see the video and learn more.

The deadline to submit comments to the USDA is March 16th.

Remember:  This is YOUR FOOD and America’s SMALL FARMERS we’re trying to save.

(Source:  OCA Feb Newsletter)

Go GETTUM Sen. McCaskill!

This is for my friend at Bank of America!

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2009/01/30/sot.mccaskill.on.wall.st.cnn

Want A Job? Move To India

A friend who has worked for Bank of America just learned her job will end on July 31st.  She has worked there 15 years through various name changes and takeovers/buyouts.

Her boss announced the jobs would be outsourced to India.  Isn’t that NICE!

I just found out (un-officially) that I will be out of a job on July 31st .. wow. My dept is the best in the country – we have come under goal for 18 months! Not one other dept can say that. The big honcho came in person to tell us. One of my co-workers called me and told me .. management has yet to call me. Our jobs are going to India.  India!?! Freakin’ India?? Bank of America just got more bailout money .. for what?! I want to know what the hell they are using that money for! To decorate another office?! I am writing every person I can find – this is so not right! I am literally shaking from anger ….

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?  Those of us who are out of work and those who have recently lost their jobs and those who will be losing their jobs…., where are the jobs for us?

I guess we have to move to India.

There aren’t enough burger joints for all of us to work in!  Time was, a game of kiss-ass would keep you a job.  That doesn’t work, not when daily announcements of losses and layoffs blankets the news.

In the movie, “SICKO”, there is an interesting note.  A person interviewed in France said, “Here in France the government is afraid of the people.  In the U.S. the people are afraid of the government.”

Maybe it’s TIME for another REVOLUTION!  Time to let government know that we WILL NOT TOLERATE OUR JOBS BEING SENT OVER SEAS.  Companies who do intend to send jobs to places like India should be fined heavily.  Not being in law or government, I’m not sure how this would work – but IT HAS TO STOP NOW.  If companies are losing money – it is because people are not buying because they have no jobs or are afraid that they are next!

The new administration  has a terribly difficult task ahead of it cleaning up the Bush era mess. I don’t envy President Obama because I truly believe he is on our side.  It’s the other clowns in government I worry about!

No Universal Health Care in the US

I am one step away from financial ruin.

I have no health insurance.  If I am involved in an automobile accident or am diagnosed with a terminal illness, I will lose my house and everything I own.  Since the value of my home has been reduced in this awful economy, and I  have no job and have been forced to start living off my investments which were to be my retirement, I stand on the precipice of disaster.

There won’t be any universal health care in the US because it’s not profitable.

Health care interests on Capitol Hill buy our legislators because universal health care would threaten their profits. They don’t make money  if they have to pay a claim, and they are very adept at denials.

I just finished watching Michael Moore’s “SICKO”.  No wonder why people don’t like him.  He tells the truth!  If you haven’t seen it, get on Netflix and order it.  It will make you mad!

The detainees at Guantanamo Bay – the terrorists at ‘Gitmo’ receive better care than the average American. In the video there was testimonial on the care these prisoners receive.  It was astonishing to see that they were looked after in a manner in which we Americans don’t ever know.  Preventative care, which is not the way of Western medicine, was routine here.

Moore also visited with many families who were denied care despite orders from their doctors.  Interviews with health care providers:  policy underwriters, actuaries and others who determine who gets care or coverage, if any.  The list of exclusions for one company probably was in the hundreds.  It was the job of another professional to find one crack; anything in past history in which to use against an insured to deny coverage. One woman with ovarian cancer was denied treatment because she’d had a yeast infection in the past!

There was a scene in which 4 women, all with health insurance, had been diagnosed with various forms of cancer. Ovarian and brain cancers had befallen two of them.  Two others had rare forms of the illness.  Their treatments were all denied because insurance companies listed chemo as either ‘not medically necessary’ or ‘experimental.’ WHAT???

Moore next visited England where he spoke with a former member of the government.  This man provided an interesting thought:

“If a country can find money to kill people in war, whey can’t they find money to heal?”

Interesting point.

Our medical system here focuses on treating people after they become ill, not in preventing the illness in the first place.  Eastern medicine, in China, for instance, does the opposite.  With natural remedies, some going back thousands of years, supplemented by modern medicine, preventative medicine is the key.

Moore took four 9/11 rescuers, all suffering from respiratory illnesses and PTSD to the waters outside Guantanamo Bay.  Over a bullhorn, he demanded the same care for these people that the prisoners at Gitmo got.  No response.

Next he took them to Cuba to be evaluated – for free – even though they were not Cuban citizens.  It didn’t matter, they were told.  With a reassuring tone, all 9/11 survivors were checked out in the hospital.  Diagnoses confirmed, they received instructions and medication.  One woman’s medication in the U.S. for one medicine, was $120.  The same medicine from a Cuban doctor was FIVE CENTS.

He visited England and France where nationalized health care is the norm.  People are not denied care.  In most cases it was either free or participants paid according to what they could afford but always received the care that they needed.  They were never told their care was unnecessary;  coverage was never denied.  True, taxes there are much higher than here.

It is a ‘we’ system instead of a ‘me’ system.  The United States has a ‘me’ system.  The ‘ME’ is the insurance companies who are ‘for profit’, looking out for ‘me’ (them) first.

This is a sad state we’re in.  I don’t know how to fix it but just hope that I don’t end up like the woman discharged from a California hospital.  She was put in a cab, still in her hospital gown and dumped at a shelter.  Another woman, suffering from broken ribs, broken collarbone and injuries to her face and head was dumped at the same facility.

They could not pay their hospital bills.

Disposable Workers

Have you heard this fairy tale?

A long, long time ago, in a far off land called the United States of America, people had jobs with companies who treated them like humans.  They could get a job and work there for the rest of their lives.  Unless they did something really bad, like steal or go to bed with the boss’ wife and get caught -  they could be assured this job for as long as they wanted it. All they had to do was show up every day and work as hard as they could.

Then one day, an ogre appeared.  It decided it was best for the company if it acted in its best interests.  Too bad about the employees, they’re just numbers on a time card, aren’t they?  They can’t have any feelings!

If the company could hire  new workers and pay them less, that would make it better for the business.  They found a lot of ways to get rid of the good, but over- paid workers and keep those out who wanted more than they were willing to pay.

It didn’t matter if the bosses made their jobs miserable.  If the workers quit, they could get NEW ones!  It didn’t matter if the good ones left.  They could get NEW ones and pay them less.

These big companies didn’t care if workers tried to have a life outside of the workplace.  It was too bad if the scheduling wasn’t feasible for the employee.  It doesn’t matter if there is nobody to take care of the kids because both parents have to work the same hours.  Surely you can pay for day care, can’t you?

We have a New idea:  let’s have the COMPUTER make up the schedules!  That way we won’t have to pay anyone to do it.  The computer can do it a lot faster.  It doesn’t matter if the computer has no knowledge of the employee’s situation.  Oh – an employee lives too far to work till after 11 and be back on the job at 6 in the morning?  Oh that’s silly – people can function of 2 hours of sleep and still be a courteous customer service associate, can’t they?  You love your job, don’t you?  You need your job, don’t you?

You have a medical condition,  &  yes, we see that you’ve brought a doctor’s letter with his recommendations.  Well, we’ll take care of that.  We’ll just interpret it to our benefit.  We’ll take every line, word for word and tell you what it really means.  If you don’t like it – there’s the door!

We’re going to save money on medical insurance.  We’ve decided that you have to work 40 hours to qualify – but – sssshhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone – we won’t hire anyone to work more than 35!  Now we can get out of paying 95% of our workers medical insurance!  After all, don’t we want to give our customers “low prices, always’ and continue ‘improving home improvement?’  After all, ‘you can do it, we can help,’  isn’t that right? We know our employees will say ‘I’m lovin’ it’ because we let them work here. We can’t let them ‘have it your way’, can we?

NOT Made In America

Corporate America has made our bed and now we have to sleep in it.

Our economy is bottoming out.  Our job base has eroded over the past 40 years.  What DO we make in America? If luck holds, we still might be able to get an American-made car and a few other things.

Go to any store.  Pick up an item from the shelves.  You probably won’t see “MADE IN USA” on the bottom of it. Why?

GREED

Corporate America decided long ago that it was in ITS best interests to sell things made overseas.  Instead of paying workers a decent wage and be restricted by labor laws, environmental restrictions, the IRS and consumer watchdog groups – CHINA became the new America.

Why NOT go overseas?  Why NOT outsource?  Where was the incentive to save U.S. jobs, and with it, the ecomony?

Companies can do what they please outside America.  The wage scale is so much lower.  They can pay people a fraction of what the pay is here, offer no costly items like insurance, not have to bother with labor laws.  Since there are little, if any, environmental regulations, they can run amok and pollute all they want.

Those who buy from overseas, like Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and others, get away cheap.  It’s better for their bottom line to buy stuff made in sweatshops by people being paid a pittance.  No attention is paid to the health or well being of these workers in countries like China, which as you know, has a  ‘fantastic’ (HA!) human rights record!

Outsourcing has become rampant.  Have to call for service on your Dell computer?  You’ll get somebody who barely speaks English with such an accent that you can hardly understand them.  Companies like IBM can pay an engineer in India $10,000 a year instead of a six figure salary, PLUS benefits, here in the U.S.

We may have done this to ourselves.  Unions, which were a fantastic idea at the turn of the last century, probably were part of the reason why companies left enmasse. Not having to pay high union wages and benefits, when given the chance, companies made a run for the door.

This government did NOTHING to stop these industries from leaving.  I’m not up on all this, but WHY was this allowed to happen?  We probably wouldn’t be in half the mess we are today if manufacturers hasn’t been allowed to abandon the American workers.

GREED, that’s what it is!

What to do?  I don’t know.  I’m no economist or banker, but I have a few ideas:

BUY LOCAL: from the Little Guy

EAT LOCAL and SEASONAL: Support your local small farmers instead of the agribusinesses. Do NOT buy food from foreign countries.  (see forthcoming FOOD BLOG)

SUPPORT EACH OTHER:  Get a community garden going.  Get to know and help your neighbors.  Barter!

We’re all in this economy mess together and we have to work together.  Now is NOT the time to be apart.  We can help each other.  You may be able to offer something to someone and they in turn, may be able to offer something of value to you.

It is tough right now but WE are AMERICANS and WE CAN MAKE IT THROUGH THIS – TOGETHER!

Rock ON!