the We Are the 99 Percent tumblr. It’s making me cry. It is breaking my heart.

And while my eyes are all misty, I also notice how often people with miserable circumstances declare how lucky they are that it’s not worse. I know I’ve done that. And I do feel lucky. I have a job, with benefits. Sure, it’s going to cost almost half my income to use those benefits, but I have them. I have a home. I haven’t had a home for a long time, so this feels pretty damn lucky to me.

But I’ve noticed that you never ever hear the 1% talk about luck, though lucky they most certainly are. Lucky they got pushed out of the right woman, married to the right man, who was pushed out of the right woman, ad nauseum. Lucky they had family money or family connections. Lucky lucky lucky. But that word will never cross their lips. Their tongues are incapable of acknowledging what is so blatant to the rest of us. The didn’t get where they are alone, they got their luck from our backs, from our labor, from our pockets. Lucky lucky lucky.

I should end this before I go off on a violent tear about eating the rich. But they should be devoured by the ravenous masses. We are the ravenous masses. Get a fork.

(Note to self- pick one image per post and roll with it. But since I missed out on that this time, Get a Lucky Fork. )

Black kids more likely to be suspended than white kids. And black kids with disabilities more likely to be suspended than white kids with disabilities.

When the Kid was still in public middle school, the administration was falling over themselves apologizing because they didn’t have a special study skills class for the AP (advanced placement) kids and Kid had to be put in a study kills (i/e special ed) class with the other kids. The black and brown neighborhood kids. I didn’t give a flying fuck what color the kids in his class were. I cared that none of them, Kid included, were actually getting help with study skills. They were warehoused and ignored. Kid, at the tender age of 12, could see the shittiness of the whole setup. He got that when he went to math or science or English (his AP classes) all the kids were white or Asian. But when he went to study skills, he was the only white kid in the bunch.

I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, that when you have an educational system that sets black and brown kids up to fail, that punishes them more harshly for the same infractions committed by white kids, and that gives them less of an education, then of course education is going to be seen as less valuable to those communities. Why would you torture a kid by pushing for success in a system that is programed to fail them, to harm them? No responsible parent would do that.

They call the high school that Kid was supposed to attend “The Slave Ship”, white kids in AP classes on top, brown kids in regular classes on bottom. I couldn’t subject the kid to that shit. And Kid is white but poor. How much worse would it be for him if he was black and poor?

At least today I am, after looking at these lovely protest pics from around the country.

And way to go all the little cities. Fuck Yeah Boise! I thought the only thing people in Idaho got together for was white supremacist meetings.

And way to go Witchita. The only thing I know about you is that the forced pregnancy shitheads are the worst there, but you got yourself together a twee little protest.That ain’t mockery. I’m pleased as punch.

And to Mayor McGinn- fucking issue permits so people can pitch tents at Westlake. Seattle is the old pro at modern protest (cough*WTO*cough) and if people can’t pitch a tent, then they will pitch a fit. Mr. I’m-Progressive-Bicycle-Mayor-Dude, you do not want to be compared to assy Bloomberg. But you will be. Give up. Let the protestors have their way. They’re gonna have it anyways and the pictures of SPD cops hauling off passively resiting middle-aged black men are not doing you any favors.

The weather in Seattle is beautiful, btw, and I plan on being down at the protest with the Kid tomorrow. If you’re local and want to meet up, drop me an email.

Prolly overused, but fuckit.

Lyrics:
This is a public service announcement
With guitar
Know your rights all three of them

Number 1
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a CRIME!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat
Know your rights

And Number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don’t mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Know your rights
These are your rights
Wang

Know these rights

Number 3
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you’re not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

Know your rights
These are your rights
All three of ’em
It has been suggested
In some quarters that this is not enough!
Well…………………………

Get off the streets
Get off the streets
Run
You don’t have a home to go to
Smush

Finally then I will read you your rights

You have the right to remain silent
You are warned that anything you say
Can and will be taken down
And used as evidence against you

Listen to this
Run

This seems appropriate today. Go Occupy Somewhere.

Since I’ve been awake for 2 hours and don’t need to be up for another hour.

Yesterday a coworker and I walked down to the little corner shop. I wanted to by the office manager a bag o candy, since it was her birthday and no one had gotten her a cake. She decorates everyone’s desk and gets cake for their birthdays. She is also in charge of the office candy bowl and sneaks handfuls onto to desk when I’m not looking. So bag o candy was a nice way to return the favor.

Outside the store was creepy tarot card reader dude. Not content with just taking our “no thanks”

This is an awesome article about Implicit Bias and the Harvard Implicit Bias Test FTR, I took the Race IAT a few years ago and scored with a slight bias towards black faces. So there’s that. Also, there’s is a throw away line at the end that made me chuckle. You’ll find it.

Hey, you know if the Fed has to choose between having an actual conflict of interest and just looking like it does, I’d prefer it to have the appearance and not the substance of conflict. But what do I know, I am probably a low info racist.

Unions finally, after 3 fucking weeks, have decided to join Occupy Wall Street. Better late than never. Yet still ahead of the whinging Obots and their “But what do you waaaaaaaaaaaaaaant. You have to have a plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan” Fuckers.

I was gonna find a funny to put here, but I have hit the exhaustion wall with my face and must now go make myself one with my pillow. It’s a high level of zen required to truly make yourself one with the pillow. You must give up all notion of self (if by self I mean person who like to eat real food and have clean laundry that actually makes it into the closet and not the floordrobe, and maybe spends some portion of the evenings with loved ones) for the greater good (of gainful employment plus Thank-a-union-overtime.) Now you know.

Occupy Wall Street News: Over 100 cops refuse to work in NYC

Well I’ll be (sceptically) damned. I have heard that the shitheads doing the most abusive stuff were the white shirted police, and that the blue shirts (everyday patrol officers) were not part of the pepper spraying and beatdowns. But this is all rumor and I am in Seattle, not on the ground in New York.

I keep reading all these objections to the Occupy Wall Street people that center on “what’s their message? Why can’t these bored kids pick something and focus on it? You’re never gonna accomplish anything if you don’t have a message”.

What, exactly should they pick? I mean, it’s kinda an old tool of the kyriarchy to narrow the focus of complaints down to the tiniest of things so that real change never really happens. “Don’t focus on gay marriage when people are dying in Iraq”, “We have to ignore women’s equality so we can elect Democrats and then we’ll all be safe in happy abortion land” blah blah blah blah.

But really change don’t work that fucking way. It ain’t piecemeal, decided by the polite folks over afternoon tea. It happens when the system is dragged, kicking and screaming (or more likely billy-clubbing and pepper-spraying) into something better(ish).

What we know is this: the system is fucked for all but a handful of old white men. It’s fucked for non-men, non-whites, non-rich, non-straight, non-able bodied. It’s fucked for Americans and Greeks and Spaniards and Moroccans and Egyptians and and and and and. It’s fucked economically, environmentally, judiciously, politically.

To narrow down the message to a single, or even a dozen demands would water down any change to nothing.

You don’t tear down the master’s house with the master’s tools. Concise lists of demands are a kyriarchial tool. Besides, we all know what the current President thinks about bargaining. He starts from the center right. Progressive requests will be ignored, unless you chain yourself to the White House fence or the Wall Street pig.

So of course going to the grocery store and dropping off the boyfriend’s car in a free parking place is going to be about as much fun as dealing the Obot Fanboyz. Well, maybe not that bad. I generally don’t get rape threats in traffic jams.

(Also please note the the President’s first stop was in Medina, to pick up the not-taxed money from the wealthy douchnoodles who are bringing us into Great Depression 2.0. FUCKERS)

(And as another aside, TOE and I had a little convo the other day about how you can tell a pol by who his/her most ardent supporters are – and also of course by what they actually say. But isn’t it funny how some of Obama’s most horrid fan boyz voted for Bush Jr. the first time around cause Al Gore was too socialist or something. Shit, Kos was a republican, Andrew Sullivan was a republican, Ariana Huffington was a republican, etc. etc. etc. The didn’t change their beliefs, they just changed their party).