Corporations are not people

I used to know a guy in college who always said, you are either for me or against me. Usually he wanted help in some way and everyone had a good laugh. But there is no laughing now. Sixteen million people unemployed with a double dip recession looming, one quarter of all mortgages under water, houses worthless, and a vanguard of zealots running for President who want to destroy Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. See Paul Ryans plan if you doubt what I am saying or watch Governor Perry in the debate last night.

These are the times of you are either for the people or against the people. Ideology aside. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, green whatever, this concerns the people. Black, white, yellow, brown, it doesn't matter your color. The people are on the line right now. The American Jobs Act will be unveiled and it will help middle class people. It will help the people. Even if you are employed and doing very well, this plan will be better than doing nothing because we might have a chance to get things going.

Corporate America will bail out nobody in the United States. They are in pursuit of other markets. They are in other countries where the emerging middle class has buying power. They are after those consumers. They are sitting on trillions and are not going to employ Americans because the American consumer has been shucked and left with only the husk. There is no more money for the corporations to mine. This is a basic concept. There is no Buy America. The buyers have left the country for ports where people can buy. And corporations are not churches, they do not have our best interests at heart. They could give a damn.

Mitt Romney was wrong. Corporations are not people. They are not feeling creatures. They are entities created to make money anywhere in the world. America to them is like a service station where you can pick up some gas and a few goodies, but you are on your way somewhere else. The right will try and obstruct Obamas plan. They have already begun. But they are not obstructing the Presidents plan. They are obstructing the people.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man  One Man's Search for the new American Dream. James Frey

The Bushwhacking of NPR

You should be concerned about this one if you go to movies, plays, the ballet, poetry readings, book readings, galleries, enjoy fine wine, a good book, a symphony on the lawn, Mozart, the Beatles, just about anything to do with culture. Because let's say the bad guys have a point in busting up the unions and cutting every social program they can get their hands on. You could almost say that they are doing some of this out of true fiscal concern or at the very least ideology. But trying to destroy National Public Radio is attacking what is left of culture in this country and every single Sesame Street watching child and Ken Burns devotee should really say enough is enough.

What? We want to cement Sarah Palins bet that America is truly a stupid country? That in fact the lowest common denominator should rule the land? That some short sighted ideologue who was probably the weird guy in the class who entertained Timothy McVeigh fantasies and saw the government as evil but then veered into fame as a better way to satisfy his tortured loner geek soul could now score points by trying to take down the wine drinking cheese crowd by getting an NPR executive to spill  his guts so he could prove what a left leaning organization NPR really is, is really pathetic and a true low point in what American society is capable of producing.

Let's say we get rid of NPR. Let's say we get rid of culture. Let's say the stupid men rule the land. Now what? Without culture you do not have a country. You have no collective national consciousness to balance the insidious vapidity of crass commercialism which rolls along F. Scotts Fitzgerald's definition of cheap entertainment as simply heroin of the soul. Even rabid conservatives  want to go see a fine play or enjoy a night at the symphony after a long day of taking bottles from children and cutting out funding for the education, women, infants, and poor  people. But alas, they cut out culture too and instead of Stravinsky  they are stuck with Die Hard 6.

So this is not about scoring points. NPR is part of America. America needs something elevated to balance the natural crassness of a country founded on the almighty dollar as it's guiding light after paying lip service to liberty and freedom. We need it if only to keep the creeps in the corners and our own hope alive that one day we will get beyond the infancy of  the mega commercial state. We can only hope NPR is still around when the dust settles after the conservative slash and burn orgy of 2011.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will blast off April 26th

Watching Glen Beck with Captain Crunch

In from the bar and surfing along with Captain Crunch . Obermann, Maddow, O'Donnell, Anderson Cooper looking very Cooperish. Hit Sean Hannity throwing a football and fall back to Glen Beck. Parking brake set I refill the bowl and pour the milk. I feel like I am back in school with the classroom setting and the chalkboard and the flag and pictures of the Founding Fathers. More Captain as Glen walks out of the screen.


Fact. The President believes in giving away our money. Fact. The President believes in Liberation Theology. Fact. The President believes we are a colonial power who should give back everything we have taken. Fact. The President wants to take your money and give it to other people. Fact. The President hangs out with other people who believe America is bad and should give back what we have taken. Fact. Bill Ayers. Fact. Reverend Wright. Fact. Obama's father believes in Liberation theology. Fact. The President wrote a book about it. Fact. The President hates Winston Churchill. Fact. That's why he gave the Queens gift back.

The Facts are beside big red buttons on his chalk board. Glen believes only in facts. Opinion. I believe the President is a racist. Opinion. I believe he wants to give away your money. Fact. The President comes from a long line of colonial haters. Fact. His father was jailed for a time for his beliefs. Fact. The President wants to change America. Fact. The President is a Socialist.

Fact. I turn off the television. Fact. I ate too much Captain Crunch. Fact. I should never watch lunatics after midnight.

Wiliam Hazelgrove's latest novel is Rocket Man
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Glen Beck is Huey Long

Every man is a King. The great Kingfisher. You can hear him now up there on the steps of the Lincoln monument. Huey Long has risen from the dead from the depression and come back to us in the form of a short man with blond hair and glasses. Huey Long with his machine gun toting stooges who guarded the Louisiana Governor mansion while Huey plotted a run for the White House. The depths of the Depression with Roosevelt trying to get the country on it's feet, calling Huey Long the most dangerous man in America. People in desperate times are attracted to desperate people. Roosevelt understood this. He breathed a sigh of relief when Huey Long was gunned down.


America is going back to God the new Huey Long tells us. America is in the middle of change. Turning back to traditional values. Glen Beck tells people who lost everything that there are better times ahead if we ignore the future. It is the President and the Socialists. They will use dogs and water cannons on us. Just like the Civil Rights marchers. We are one with the Civil Rights people. We are one with Martin Luther King.

The man has no shame. We live in a shameless age. Beck is right. The country has been hijacked. It has been hijacked by people spewing hatred and wrapping it up in religion and the American flag. Don't wave your signs he tells the followers. Don't let them see how crazy you are until we are in power. Glen Beck is Huey Long. He is a Demigod who seems himself as the anointed one to bring about a one man revolution.

Huey Long has risen from the swamps of Louisiana. President Obama should take a hard look at the rally in Washington. He might just see the most dangerous man in America.


http://www.billhazelgrove.com/