Prairie Fire Journal

This is the tale of two Joes. The first is Joe Schmoe, the working-class slob who believes he's a capitalist. Joe Schmoe is confused and frustrated because he was educated in the myth of capitalism, that hard work and perserverance alone were enough to realize the American Dream in an economic system that is always stacked in favor of the rich. He has been programmed into believing that by him helping the rich to become richer, that he will himself move closer to realizing his dream. When that doesn't happen and Joe gets angry, the rich find a scapegoat to blame for Joe's problem. That way Joe never looks at the root cause of his problem--the rich. He confuses individual liberty as giving people the right to exploit and take advantage of other people. He is a facilitator of his own exploitation.

The second is Joe the Schmuck, the sellout politician who reveals that his lust for militarism and vindication for Israel are more important than preventing the destruction of the American working class. Joe Schmuck abandoned the American people to capitalism run amuck, police-state authoritarianism, and reckless militarism. Misguided dupes? Willing facilitators? Just dumber than a box of rocks? After being pissed on for the past 8 years, do the Joes of America really want more of the same? It leaves me scratching my head in wonderment.

It's been reported that the Republican National Committee spent $150,000 on wardrobe upgrades for vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. The RNC released a statement saying that the clothes would be donated to charity after the campaign ends. One of the possible recipient charities is the Sarah Palin Perpetual Pregnancy Clinic. The clinic advocates abstinence-only sex education, but also believes that if teens fall off the abstinence wagon they should at least use sex to procreate as God intended. Palin, of course, is well-known for her work in contributing to the world's population explosion.

In response to prolific religious ads appearing on London buses, the British Humanist Society raised enough money to begin the "There's probably no God" ad campaign that was launched today. Click here to read more.

McCain/Palin are on the campaign trail railing against socialism. Even though McCain himself voted for the socialist bailout package, his bogged-down presidential campaign is trying to get traction by invoking Cold-War-era scare tactics. The socialists are coming! The socialists are coming!

Yes, the socialists are coming ... they're coming to the rescue of capitalism. The cavalry has arrived and it is flying the banner of socialism. As the greedy capitalists huddle in shock at the collapse of their house of cards, they stand in awe as the mighty hand of the collective power of the people--SOCIALISM--snatches them back from the precipice of economic doom.

It is CAPITALISM that put millions of working families in economic peril.

It is CAPITALISM that wiped out trillions of dollars in workers' retirement funds.

It is CAPITALISM that has created the consumer-driven economy that encouraged the massive debt most working-class families now struggle with.

It is CAPITALISM that is responsible for declining wages and the lack of affordable housing.

It is CAPITALISM that is responsible for skyrocketing health care costs.

It is CAPITALISM that has redistributed the wealth by taking it from workers who create it and giving it to capitalists who accumulate it.

I could go on and on. It's laughable at this point in history that anybody can stand up with a straight face and support capitalism while demonizing the socialist methods being used to save it from its own excesses and failures. Instead of slandering socialism, Americans should be thankful for it. Socialism is saving you and the capitalist world from economic disaster.

The 1947 Roswell Incident was reinacted yesterday by Republican vice-prez candidate Sarah Palin. After landing, Palin was rushed to an aircraft hanger for a rally largely attended by hybrid greys who have adapted well to their semi-arid surroundings. Palin immediately lashed out at Barack Obama's tax plan, telling the audience that Obama's plan would redistribute the Martians' wealth, which they had worked so hard to pillage from the rest of the galaxy. How dare the wage-slave earthlings demand a bigger piece of the pie. Palin went on to say that she would allow the aliens to move their wealth to off-planet tax havens and would do all that she could to ensure the wage-slaves continue bringing tribute.

Sarah Palin is pictured above pointing in the direction of her home planet
during a rally in Roswell Sunday.

The two rednecks from the Democratic and Republican Party managed to ditch Libertarian Party candidate Yvonne Schick in their final debate being televised on C-SPAN 2 at 8:00 PM CDT tonight. Without Schick you can expect MOR roadkill to be the top menu item. Noriega is a joke, as is the Texas Democratic Party in general. Cornyn is an idiot, but I expect that from him. I was hoping for someone truly progressive to step-up for the Democrats, but I guess I was being delusional in those expectations.

I was telling someone today that I don't see much difference in Texas under Republican control than it was under Democratic control. The rednecks ran things under the Demos and they run things under the Repugs. It's the same socially-backward state that it was when the Democrats were at the helm. Apparently the Texas Progressive Alliance and other alleged progressives suffer from amnesia. They conveniently forget that Texas was bottom-of-the-barrel in most everything under the Democrats. The only things the state excelled in were as world's largest jailer and having the highest levels of poverty in the U.S. I certainly haven't seen anything of late that gives me any hope that Texas Democrats have had an epiphany of sorts, especially when I see morons like state senator John Whitmire of Houston still part of the Democratic show.

Anyway, I won't be watching tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum debate tonight. You might as well just have Cornyn standing in front of a mirror debating himself.

Glenn Beck, host of the talk radio show "What would Hitler do?", is once again making the rounds spreading the gospel of fascism. One minute he's blubbering about the media mistreating his hatemongering mistress from Alaska and the next he's whaling about the Bolsheviks are coming. Are Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck siamese twins sharing a single feeble brain? Even as the discredited capitalist system collapses around him, Glenn Beck is the stalwart standard-bearer of corporate fascism. Well, Glenn buddy, it's time for you and the rest of the capitalist snake oil peddlers to start heading for the bunker.

John McCain has a plan to fix everything. Here it is:

How do we fix health care? MORE COMPETITION!

How do we fix public education? MORE COMPETITION!

How do we fix the economy? MORE COMPETITION!

Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels once said that if you repeat a lie often enough, the people will believe it. No matter what the problem, capitalists will always tell you that competition is the cure-all for whatever ails you. And what always goes hand-in-hand with their calls for more competition is always less regulation. Even as the global economy tetters on the brink of total collapse due to just these kinds of capitalist practices, the unashamed purveyors of this discredited pack of lies are still merrily hawking their snake oil. Drink it! It'll cure anything! What rubbish.

John McCain is the premiere snake oil salesman. He has spent his entire political career selling the toxic capitalist ideology that has all but brought the economy to its knees. Nero is surrounded by the flames of his own making and his response to it is more fiddling.

When they deregulated the trucking industry they told you that it would lead to more competition and cheaper transportation costs. It resulted in the opposite. The big guys gobbled up the little guys, reducing competition and actually raising costs.

When they deregulated the telecommunications and cable industries, they told you it would create more competition and result in more diverse programming and lower subcription costs. It resulted in the opposite. A handful of media conglomerates gobbled up everything they could get their hands on, monopolized the industry, raised rates, increased advertisements, and reduced the variety and quality of programming.

When they deregulated the utility companies, they promised more competition and cheaper utility rates. That, too, resulted in the opposite. Look at any major capitalist industry and you will see that it always moves from competition to monopoly. That being the case, then I would venture to say that nationalized monopoly is more preferrable and beneficial to society than privatized monopoly.

There is possibly one place where increased competition would do some good--the political system. As it now stands in the U.S., the two parties of capitalism hold a monopoly that they have intentionally created to prevent any alternative party from ever gaining a foothold. The system is rigged in their favor just as the economic system is rigged in favor of large corporations. In America we not only have capitalist economic monopoly, but we also have capitalist political monopoly.

Americans are brainwashed, beginning from the day they are born, to believe that capitalism is the magic cure for everything. It's not. It will take some really serious economic pain to begin the deprogramming process. It's on its way. As you look at your hopes, dreams, and retirement plans being stolen away by capitalist crooks, take a moment to thank John McCain for making it possible for that to happen.

It was reported yesterday on most of the Lubbock media that several Texas Tech students had posted some video on MySpace and FaceBook showing them stealing a a John McCain campaign sign that was in the shape of a cube. When discovered and confronted by local Republican officials, the students fessed up to the theft, saying that they were actually McCain supporters who just thought the cube would look cool in their dorm to counter-balance the Obama supporters.

Maybe they're attending Tech's business college and were just practicing capitalist principles? I thought it pretty much exemplifies what kind of people support the Republican Party.

Charles Barkley gets it. On Larry King Live tonight he said that the problems we face in America aren't about conservative versus liberal, or Republican versus Democrat. The problem is the rich versus the poor. Barkley also said that he was tired of just hearing about the rich and the middle class, while little or nothing is being said about the poor.

Charles Barkley is a rich man.
Charles Barkley owns at least three homes.
Charles Barkley won't benefit from Obama's tax cuts to Americans making less than $250,000 a year.

Yet Charles Barkley gets it. He understands that when it's all said and done, the struggle we face in America is a class struggle where the rich get richer on the backs of the working class. If a rich man like Charles Barkley understands this reality, why are so many American workers unable or willing to see it?