Tag Archives: Browne Molyneux

Regulate the Rich. Make them play nice.

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  • Exxon Mobil makes $76,000 per minute.
  • Exxon Mobil paid on $5 bililion dollars in income taxes last year to the US government.
  • Exxon Mobil paid $25 billion dollars to foreign governments.
  • Exxon Mobil made $400 billion dollars last year.

Also take a look at this yesterdays FT(7/29) article pg 18 “Shells sets pace as big oil lifts R&D spend” in the Financial Times by Ed Crooks to see how they are apparently price fixing, which I deduced sense the oil companies are spending far less than they should on R&D. And the article pg 2 “US Treasury blames supply and demand for oil prices” by James Politi that shows how they even have the US Treasury Department in on this deadly game.

Facts from Conde Nast Portfolio, Crude Reporting by Howell Raines 08/08

Hey they pay less of a percentage of their income on taxes than I do? I’m a human being that works.

Exxon Mobile Oil formerly Standard Oil was started by the John Rockefeller and his descendants still sit on the board (puts it all in an interesting historical perspective).

Now Rockefellers is synonymous with arts and NY and some odd looking guy running for various offices and another one who was VP, but that was just a great PR campaign. Pretty easy for them, since they own pretty much own either indirectly or directly everything we read.

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Far East LA and other sh*t I don’t like.

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I found a new phrase.

Hipster Racism, I found it at Racialicious, the ladies over there are so smart.

“I define hipster racism (I’m borrowing the phrase from Carmen Van Kerckhove) as ideas, speech, and action meant to denigrate another’s person race or ethnicity under the guise of being urbane, witty (meaning “ironic” nowadays), educated, liberal, and/or trendy.”
AJ Plaid, Racialicious

I used to just call it the “tattooed, pseudo progressive, over-educated, asshole” problem, but this is much better.

Back in the day (the 90s) an ethnic minority in Los Angeles only had to stay away from Republican areas and never visit the Southern part of the United States (or the South Bay, oh let’s throw in Covina and Tujunga too) and they would be shielded from being openly mocked owing to what they were ethnically (not from being harassed by the cops, they will always be a problem), but those days are over.

We can now enjoy being mocked by Obama supporting, vegetarian diet, Ivy League graduate liberals, with “multi-colored” sex partners. Well thank god. We’ve come so far.
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Your Stuff to Do!! 7/14-7/20

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Did you wake up one day and realized that you weren’t the most valuable living being on the planet? No, neither have I, but I am making a real effort at getting there.

Maybe you can’t change the world, but you can change a piece of it for at least twenty minutes and if you changed twenty minutes and another person changed twenty minutes, possibly all of you together could have an impact on someone’s day.

If you believe in that kind of concept and you think patchouli smells good here’s a list of your things to do.

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Penny and nicked in LA. A car wash story.

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Barbara Ehrenreich speaking at Mama\'s Hot Tamales

“Tesco is to stop importing about £1m ($2m) of fresh vegetables from Zimbabwe, reversing its previous stance that the trade was essential to support the families of the farm workers who grow crops such as mange tout and baby corn.” By John Willman in London and Tony Hawkins in Harare at the Financial Times.

Tesco owns the recent upstart in the organic food game, Fresh & Easy (which for some odd reason the blogosphere is obsessed with.)

Not that I believe that Tesco was only trying to help, but how far is too far in regards to “helping” and what’s not far enough?

On Friday I went to a get together at MacArthur Park’s Mama’s Hot Tamales in support of the ongoing carwash boycott that first came to the attention of the media with the boycotting of the Pirian-owned Vermont Hand Wash in Los Feliz.

At the event Barbara Ehrenreicht (author of Nickle and Dimed and the new book This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation) gave the boycott organizers and their supporters her encouragement.

“America has forgotten it’s own history of organized collective action and outright rebellion…” Barbara Ehrenreicht.

That to me is the key. You can’t go too far, but you can screw yourself if you don’t go far enough.

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The dangers of having brass ovaries…

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I was riding the Blueline train the other day and this young black man was trying to get my attention. He wasn’t that cute, he was too young, and I have a boyfriend.

I mean I have a boyfriend; even if he were the right age and was cute I definitely would not have talked to him. I don’t think.

Anyways me ignoring him pissed him off, so he proceeded to call me a “f*cking b*tch.”

It was weird, because I haven’t been called a bitch by a black guy (that wasn’t homeless) in years. The last time a black man called me a bitch was when I brought a white guy friend on accident (sort of) to a coffee shop that was very heavy on Nation of Islam types. Well this guy didn’t so much call me a bitch, but pulled out a gun and threatened to kill the guy I was with (he said he didn’t believe in hurting black women,) that actually happened. Awesome story, but that’s another post.
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Your Stuff to DO!!!

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Of course you could go to yet another happy hour (hell it’s going to be vegetarian, vegetarian are good people), another one of “my friend’s” band or even a circle jerk art event. Remember when the art editor of that major paper had a solo show in Chinatown and his paper picked that very horrible show as a pick? Fabulous times. Yeah those are all fabulous times.

But say you went to Catholic school you managed to make it through with no one touching you in a special place. Sister Theresa told you that your life should be one of service, you should be nice to people and the IRA is truly getting a bad rap.

Maybe you’re not Catholic anymore (except during emergencies, you got your Rosary blessed by the pope, I mean they can’t just be beads, it was the pope), maybe you’re not so nice, but that service part was ok and you know, Northern Ireland does belong to Ireland.

Here’s a list of your things to do.

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PC Slavery. One of the many reasons I celebrate my independence on Juneteenth.

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I can see how slavery lasted so long in the United States. Most people in the US didn’t own slaves, though most everyone benefited indirectly, so is the case of the migrant worker.

I like to call migrant workers PC slaves, since people can pretend as if they aren’t doing anything wrong by casually buying clothes, food and other products that people produce who are paid virtually nothing.

I know many people will whine and bitch about how it’s migrant workers choice, but I don’t think you have a choice if you’re a human being in regards to whether you live or die.

And in order to buy food and shelter you need money and that’s not a fact that is up for debate, correct?

So why would anyone say you have a choice in regards to working? Do migrant workers have trust funds? Are they slumming? They have to work to live.

I was reading one of my most favorite rags, the Economist. That’s pretty much the only way I can find out what kind of nastiness the US economy is actually in, since over here in the states people are insistent that there are signs of a recession, but refuse to say the “R” word. It is as if they think it’s a racial slur or something.

“A CAMPAIGN to improve the low wages and awful labour conditions of tomato pickers in Florida has notched up a substantial victory over farm owners and their biggest clients, the fast-food chains. After one embarrassment on top of another, Burger King backed down last month and reached a ground-breaking agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, representing mostly seasonal farmworkers from Mexico, Central America and Haiti. The Miami-based company agreed to pay them one cent more for every pound (450g) of tomatoes they pick, and to improve their working conditions.” From the Economist, The Price of a tomato. June 26, 2008.

This is the kind of country that we live in, where assholes will fight so that they won’t have to pay a person one penny extra, not a dollar, not a quarter, but one bloody penny. But it’s not just that the guy will fight to not pay that one penny, but the fact that in America that’s all we will fight for. That’s all we’ll help someone fight for.

We will fight for one penny (or half of one percent )  and get slapped down and keep working, because we don’t want to seem unreasonable.

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Symbolic Gestures of Nothingness. Save the turtles. Save your career.

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I’m a vegetarian. In fact I’m vegan when it comes to me purchasing my own food, I don’t wear leather or fur, but I’ve got a human bone to pick with PETA.

Their latest stunt of vapidity (or an out of work actress who claims to be part of PETA and feels this is probably a good way to get publicity and be part of the new movement of caring and eco-greeniness) was to go into downtown LA’s fashion district to stop illegal animal sales.

What was the point of that?

1. To me there are no legal animal sales, even the donation pay for shots variety of rescues is morally “illegal”.
2. But in regards to community building and educating a more broad reaching community of people does PETA think going in and fighting with an underground business by working class people of color is going to get more people on the side of animal rights? Or even save that many animals.

I’m going to guess no on point two. I’m going to guess PETA comes off like the assholes that harass people for not having “proper” citizenship papers or just not looking like you belong.

Why not antagonize the people who get people’s hands chopped off in the beef industry? There’s a packing plant in Chino (Westland/Hallmark), I’m going to bet lots of animals get hurt in there and probably quite a few people.

I guess that would be a little too scary for an actress type who just wants to jump start a career. That would be hardcore. That would be doing something, but of course messing up a rich white guy’s (who doesn’t has too many vowels in his name) business will get you thrown in jail. Jail time for anything more than a DUI isn’t very fashionable.

Trying to be a person who believes in social justice and at the same time supporting the causes of PETA is very, very difficult.
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The Codeword is Half Full.

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I thought that I was going crazy a couple of weeks or so ago, I was reading the Economist and the Financial Times and according to them this country is in a recession. And I thought that was crazy, because you would think that the press in this country would be talking about that before the people in other countries, but then I realized that the codewords have changed.

While the papers all of the world have stated that the United States is in a recession and the facts state that housing prices have dropped 15% and gas prices are like million dollars a gallon. In the US this isn’t a recession. This is simply a reevaluation of opportunities. I know that sounds like a slowdown, but it’s not exactly, because it’s better. It’s more like a “look around” for the best deal possible.

And that seven percent unemployment that everyone has plastered across their papers, those people aren’t jobless they are on “staycations”. Isn’t that fabulous? Staying home and enjoying the company of your family pets, your micro dog, which some negative people would call a roach is not only relaxing it’s eco.
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Dad I’m living in a SRO, but it’s really cool. Don’t be mad ok?

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But actually calling it a SRO is a bit negative. It’s a very small studio or maybe if you were really optimistic a very small loft (since loft seems to mean now apartment with no walls.)

I sublet a portion of my studio in Boyle Heights that I was illegally living in and I’m now using that income to pay for me to live at the Rosslyn.

Is that welfare? Is that capitalism? I don’t know it’s maybe a mixture of both.

I missed that Sex in the City gene of loving to shop and waste money (hey I thought that show was supposed to be satire…) To me paying rent is a waste of money, which means you should pay the least amount of rent that you can get away with.

In college when I moved out of the dorms I lived on Sunset and Fairfax directly across the street from the Virgin Megastore for four hundred dollars a month. Yes four hundred dollars!!!

That was one of my most proud achievements as a college student. I would invite people over and go, “Guess how much I pay?”

My old friends have grown tired of this game and always say thing like “Two dollars.”

Such jerks. That destroys the whole beauty of the game.

I’m currently wearing a coat that costs me five dollars. There is this great store by the Hammer, everything is five dollars.

In LA no one admires thrifty people.

I’m the cheapest most glamorous woman in the world.

I had a friend who used to brag about how she paid one million dollars to live in Mar Vista. I always thought that was a horrible story.

My parents are working class stock. I remember when applying to college my dad was actually very proud of the fact that he had worked so much over-time that I no longer qualified for need based financial aid.
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The film Bang. LA beyond black and white and boy.

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There’s lots of talk of Crash being the ultimate race relations movie in LA.

I disagree.

There was another movie that actually intersected race with class and sexism. It even included a portrayal of the homeless population (which I’m not sure how you could have a movie in LA with no homeless people.)

It had a limited release in 1997. The protagonist wasn’t a white guy or a black guy or even a guy, but an Asian-American woman.

The name of the film is The Bang Theory. It was written and directed by Ash.

In the film an unsuccessful actress (is there any other kind) a character called “girl”, played by Darling Narita shows the audience Los Angeles.

In the film opening unnamed girl has just gotten thrown out of her apartment for not paying rent and her landlord couldn’t even just throw her out. He has to throw her out and call her racial slurs as he does it, because for some reason even now in LA you can be real open about racial slurs against Asian people.

She has one last chance an audition and in LA fashion it goes horribly (this is real LA, no one ever makes it real LA, unless their parents are someone.)

Anyway she “somehow” gets a hold of a cop’s motorcycle, uniform, and gun and takes a journey across LA from East LA, South Central, and West LA.

The best movie ever on race relations, class, and gender in LA.

A refreshingly strong Asian-American woman lead whose character has nothing to do with martial arts.

A Los Angeles treasure.

Rent it. Love it. Have a discourse party. I used to do that in college, but I was weird.

Browne Molyneux

Token Rights. Breaking Special Order 40

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The talk about amending Special Order 40 pisses me off.

This has nothing to do with gangs. This has to do with one thing, race and class, well that’s two, but you know what I’m saying.

LA has always had a major gang problem. It just sickens me the right wing has gotten their teeth into the grief of this family and are using them as tools to pass some stupid racist bs agenda.

I’m not exactly sure how people actually continually fall for the gang rape trick.

What is the gang rape trick? After America got embarrassed about killing Native Americans, lynching black people, excluding Asians, and subjugating women for just being who they are biologically, they needed another way to justify crappy unjust treatment, because why be fair when being an asshole is so entertaining.

So what they decided was to get laws passed that are under the guise of anti-gang, but in actuality they are laws that rape the civil rights of people of color, who the cops can just lie and say are gang members.

If you’re a young person of color how do you convince someone you’re not a gang member?

You can’t.

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