Tresa's Blog

I used to be a Republican. I have a stepson who served @ the first of the Iraq war in the gulf and luckily was stateside till he got out last year. I have several cousins who are or have been over there. I support them fully. Having said that I don’t think this article is too far off of it’s mark.
Why America Feels Like it’s Been Ruled by a Foreign Occupier.
This excerpt is a bit extreme in it’s outlook but it’s not too far off the mark.
QUOTE:
Propaganda Tuned Up

Bush took the stance of a foreign occupier in his governance- rational argument would never win the minds and hearts of the masses so crude propaganda such as Fox News was trotted out to scare and paralyze America into obedience. The same quest for obedience through misinformation and crude scare tactics are the same you see in the totalitarian governments from South America to Asia that have brought nothing but misery to their own people and the world at large.
UNQUOTE:

I hope everyone with an IQ over 100 knows to question ALL the newscasts and gather facts. I have become a news junkie along with millions of other Americans, I have CNN, Drudge Report (Republican), Huffingtonpost (leaning Democrat), and democraticunderground (obvious) on my browser tabs most of the time, and then I DO go to Fox News to see what their take on it all is. Others I’m sure just go to one source if they pay any attention @ all

I was looking at the news the other day and thinking how it would have upset my father if he had been alive now. USA in recession possibly depression, Iceland? in Revolt, not to mention how he would have felt about 911. If you had forecast these headlines 10 years ago no one would have believed them, much less perhaps trillions in bailout monies and stimulus packages. At that time we were more worried about the definition of what Clinton did with Monica?

I admit I’ve been reading President Elect Obama’s book the Audacity of Hope. In it he says in 1980 CEO’s on the average made 42 times what their average employee made, in 2004 it was 262 TIMES what their average employee made. I think I’ve got the quote right. That and unbridled speculation and unregulated banking and the trickle down effect (yeah right, it trickled down but it wasn’t money), have done serious damage to our economy. You say what do I care what a CEO makes? They should be rewarded for doing a good job not a mediocre job or a so so job, if it’s a publicly traded company it affects the stock market etc. which in turn affects pension plans and investments which affect how much money people have to spend on the things we make or sell to earn our food.

Where am I going with all this? Don’t listen to one news source only. Don’t just go to your preferred parties website. Don’t listen to just a select group of people. Diversify your knowledge, it’s our mess and it’s up to everyone of us to become well informed thinking individuals. Yes we elected them all but the platform MOST of them put out was that they would LISTEN to the people. Have something worth saying to them.

I never thought I’d be quoting an article with Al Gore in it, there is no love lost between us, I won’t go into global warming, I do believe it’s an imperative that we cut back on emissions and oil use.
Mr. Gore quotes Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse which I’ve read and found VERY interesting.
Article is HERE.

Should we bail out GM and the other two of the so called big 3? I feel for all of the employees and retirees, I feel for myself because I have a feeling a wheel mfg. plant here in town will go down thus affecting the local economy (plus flooding the job seekers whom would like MY “other” job such as it is). It would create a huge economic downturn to add to the already poor economy see above, dow keeps going down, down, down. My husband who has his own truck and delivers food all over the US might even be affected because people just won’t be able to afford as much fresh produce and meat which is what he hauls. I also have a distant cousin that works for Chrysler as an engineer and is still keeping his job although there have been cuts.

On the other hand I don’t make much more than minimum wage, partly because I was VERY sick a couple years ago and didn’t know how well I could work and the job market was already going bad in June, two years ago I could charge double what I’m making now and that was just for freelancing!! I hear about these union workers who glue carpet on the floor of a car and get $78 an hour and I want to save them? Then I hear about the ceo’s of the automakers flying in 3 separate private jets to BEG for money from Washington? That shows me and the rest of the country that they will just use the money to continue in the same manner. When my husband got back into trucking and diesel went up up up the government didn’t step in and save all the small trucking companies or any of them if I recall. It was called capitalism and free market, even though the big trucking companies had bought diesel reserves @ much lower prices when they saw what was happening and kept the rates low to cut the competition out. Plus with the reports on how other car makers such as Nissan have lost between 25% and 33% of their sales when they have the fuel efficient models it makes me wonder HOW the Cadillac Escalade (as much as I love em) and other big 3 products are going to sell enough to pull the big 3 out WITH bailout money?

So what’s my opinion, not that it matters? It may be painful, VERY painful but let them fail. After the AIG (bail out insurance??, the people who’s business is to make sure your life is miserable? I don’t think SO) fiasco and no to little accountability for the banks that have received the bailout money it’s time to stop the drain. This means I have a caddy and a ford that I may not be able to get parts for and I’m not sure what happens to my extended warranty but it also means maybe the big 3 automakers can come up with another option that may involve bankruptcy or just going under.

On a side note some are saying shut down Wall Street till January 2, 2009, might not be a bad idea? Shut it down! Now!.

Other news sources:
CNN
Drudge Report
Democratic Underground

Found this later: No need for bailout, say diners near thriving car plant, so I’m not all wet?
Ok, I’ll quit editing this but here’s a link to the CEO’s and their jets: Big 3 and their jets, slideshow!

Hello, I’ve blogged before but am now REALLY going to do it. Check back for my favorite links and thoughts. Right now I have to get ready for Thanksgiving on my days off from work which I’m sure most of you can relate to. Presently I know 2 kids are coming and my nephew, don’t think husband will be home because our little economic downturn hit a year before the main recession did and he has to work maybe. I know one of my step-kids aren’t coming even if he is here due to the “other” relatives, but don’t know about the rest. We have the model step family, I have no idea how it happened, we still have our spats and bad days but we have great large family gatherings and with 7 kids and various spouses and 11 grandkids it is a LARGE family gathering.
Since I don’t have time to do much else I’ll just stick a link in here to our new advertising website (our as in my cousin/best friend and I) moads4u. It has links to the website service in case anyone needs a GOOD decently priced website. I do part of the research and writing for the sites, just work otherwise part time, and………….well everyone knows how it is in these economic times.
It’s cold here, must cover the air conditioners plus just generally clean house, I work @ Wal Mart and my housekeeping is basically what I HAVE to do, my daughter did offer to take a day off from her job of school nurse to help which I thought was really nice. She sent me an email this morning with several interesting thoughts in it, the first three are:

1. There are at least two people in this world
that you would die for.

2. At least 15 people in this world
love you in some way.

3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you
is because they want to be just like you.

Something to think about?

AND since the title of this is Missouri Books, I’m reading “No Country For Old Men” currently. It’s different than the movie everyone says, I haven’t seen the movie but the book is more of a mans book I think (which means I haven’t stayed up way too late reading it when I should be sleeping)? The other one by Cormac Mc Carthey I read is “The Road” I guess it could be considered a mans book too but I REALLY liked it, reminded me of a short version of “The Stand” by Stephen King. I tend to get obsessed with Stephen Kings books though. “Duma Key” was my downfall last week. We’ll talk about it more, I could really relate to it after living in Florida and on the coast for awhile and I’m an artist or used to be, like the main character turns out to be, I don’t think that’s giving too much away. “No Country For Old Men” jumps around with no preamble or history, I guess “The Road” does the same thing but you only have a few characters in it, in No Country it seems like there are more characters but as often happens I’m about half way through it and I’m really getting into the book. He’s an excellent author though, book is worth the money and it’s on the buy one get one 1/2 off @ Borders or @ least the one @ Independence Center Mall. A thought for the guy on your Chrismas list? And no they didn’t pay me to say that.
Well my kittens are calling, I have to move the cat box, somehow we had no cats for years because the dogs wouldn’t allow it, this summer and fall somehow I’ve raised 3 sets of orphan or semi orphan kittens? The one from the first set that is still alive is almost a cat now. Don’t worry the dogs didn’t get the other kittens, they SLEEP on the outside dog. The newest ones are @ the top. Devil, Paris and Crusoe. Devil is the black one obviously, Paris is the fluffy red one, and Crusoe is a survivor, he/she/it was almost dead when I found them one cold Sunday afternoon, had to force it’s mouth open to put the kitten bottle in and wrapped it up in a towel in front of the heater and it survived!! Don’t know what happened to mama, I’d saved them all once and brought them to our log cabin and then mama disappears!!! Could have been coyotes etc. Mama was officially a feral cat, these kittens have decided they like the tame warm life and canned cat food JUST fine after hissing @ me for the first 4 days in the house. Came home from work and found husband asleep with kittens sleeping ON him one night and 2 days before that we could barely touch them!! LOL