RACE TO THE BOTTOM OVER! SORRY, BOTTOM REDEFINED. RACE CONTINUES. BOTTOM CARD PLAYED IN RACE TO BOTTOM.

The race to the bottom is like a dog chasing it's tail.  It is a never-ending loop.  Just when you think the bottom can go no lower, the bottom drops out, and the race is back on.
In recent years we downgraded Pluto from planet status, while at the same time, the Plutocracy continues it's ascent.  Business today has become more feudalistic than ever.  Rights?  Negotiation?  What do these terms mean anymore?
In the game of smoke and mirrors, we may be upgraded to an e-cigarette, but the vapours still remain.

"The meaning of Life is that it stops."  Kafka

Is the race to the bottom really even a race?  Or more like the law of gravity.  Given time, everything drops.

In the savage hustle and bustle of life as we now know it, the Great Depression is no longer just an economic event that happened in 1929.  The Great Depression is now personified in all of us.  Doped up, pushed onward, we stumble on.  Not forward or falling, but a progression similar to the cattle in the feedlot prodded onward to the finish.   The Final Product?
Tastes like chicken.  Smells like victory in the morning.

How the Nanny State begat the Nana State

At Freedom 85, we explore your options for retirement, since the "freedom" of retirement as a concept sold to us by investment marketing companies, is more of a Freedom 1955 concept, and as such, is no longer relevant for most working men and women.

"In 1898, Washington occupied the Philippines and in the years that followed pacified its rebellious people, in part by fashioning the world’s first full-scale “surveillance state” in a colonial land.  The illiberal lessons learned there then migrated homeward, providing the basis for constructing America’s earliest internal security and surveillance apparatus during World War I. "

 

from a recent article on Tom Dispatch / written by Alfred W. McCoyHow Obama Is Expanding the Century-Long Project to Build a Total Surveillance State

So the first 'nanny state' was in the Philippines.  Interesting because one of the chief exports of the Philippines has been nannies.  Usually brought over to North America to look after wealthy people's children, we are starting to see a demographic change, which in this case, is similar to a diaper change.  Only in this case, the diapers just get bigger.

My sister-in-law is from the Philippines.  She emigrated to Canada over 20 years ago to be a companion/housekeeper for a wealthy family.  She is  the quintessential "nanny", except her charges are not children, but a senior white lady with means.

In the time honored tradition of most Philippine domestic workers, she sends money "back home" to support her extended family still living in the Philippines. 

Will our future be full of Nanas and Nannys tucking us in and changing our diapers?  Or will we end up being exported to other countries to do the same? 


With recent revelations in regards to the Obama nanny state, watch out!

Big Momma is watching you!

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-obama-expanding-century-long-project-build-total-surveillance-state?page=0%2C0&akid=10693.235205._26CYx&rd=1&src=newsletter868788&t=5

That's the way I've always heard it should be

My wife hates the Newsroom. Signifies all that represents American Bombast and Piety. And she is right.

 

So why does it resonate for me and Bob Lefsetz?http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

 

I was born in the sleepy paranoia of the 50's, raised by television news in the 60's, sucked in by the cynicism of the 70's, played out by the 80's, swam upstream and spawned in the 90's, surfed the millenium raising the standards of children, and now in the teenage 21st century, my 60's idealism is alive and yearning for expression.  

 

You see, I want to believe the bombast. I still think a change is gonna come. I still imagine a world without war and religion and nefarious criminal politicians. 

 

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

 

We Stand With Canadian Scientists

Today while hundreds of Canadian scientists mourned 'The Death of Evidence' and marched on Parliament Hill to protest deep cuts and restrictions to their industry, Stephen Harper celebrated the day by stroking his pussy, and dreaming of a world without scientists.

JAIL YOUR POOR TIRED AND HUDDLED MASSES

"Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door...." 

And welcome to your brand new room in Canada's first class prisons!  Free clothes, room and board.  No worries! No waits!  And absolutely no rights!  

With crime rates falling, some skeptics have questioned why Canada would want to force the Provinces to invest in brand spanking new jails.  Who is it exactly that we are intending to put there?

Wonder no longer folks, as the experts at Freedom 85 give you the answer.  Two more clues were revealed this past week with the Conservative government's forward thinking new Budget.   Government announced plans to raise the year of "retirement" (aka eligibility for Old Age Pension Benefits) to 67 from the present 65. While this news does not affect the senior thinkers at Freedom 85, we see this move for what it is-  a trojan horse for a larger, more lucrative scheme.

  

The second clue came with the cuts to the CFIA, effectively removing Government from their responsibilities to ensure that food labelling is not inventive, dishonest or misleading.  The Conservatives decreed that industry is better suited to police itself.  

    

At Freedom 85, we smell the doo-doo a block away.  Moving the bar from 65 to 67 is a red herring, unless you are part of the super rich 1%, you will be working as long as your body and mind can hold out.  Simply you will not be able to afford not to work. 67 is still an unrealistic target for "retirement" for most Canadians.

But how does the second clue fit in?  With no regulations on labels, consumers will find it harder to know basic facts like Better Before dates.   They will have no clue what is in their food.  No one will even talk about GMO's, because talking about them will be outlawed.  Why is this important you may ask?  

In the next 20 years, we are facing two major challenges. How do we feed everyone?
And where do we house all the masses, (tired and otherwise) who cannot afford housing.  Freedom 85 has seen the future, and the future is now.  We see through the smoke and mirrors so you can sit back and mock albinos.  Today we can reveal just what your Government is not telling you.

First, Canada's Country Club Prisons® are needed to house our poor, tired and aging huddled masses when they can no longer find adequate housing and end up on the street.  Angry Gen X'ers will insist that governments of the future find a "Permanent Solution®" to the presence of unsightly poor and homeless seniors. 


Especially pernicious will be the many aging deaf punks with walkers, covered in tattoos and suffering from the ill effects of excessive drug usage and loss of hearing from years of sticking their heads in the bass bins at punk shows.

"Out of sight, out of mind®" will be the new rule.  Get them off the street will be the rallying cry.  We should be doing them a favor and provide them with a place to live.  And  what would be a better use for  all these prisons that are still empty from that old Harper 
Conservative government. Why not use them?  


And so Prime Minister Ben Mulroney will enact the OLD AGE PRISON BENEFITS® program.  

Seniors will be eligible for relocation to one of Canada's premiere prison destinations, which for many years have been called country clubs anyway.  They will be given four walls, 3 squares and a home for life.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Mulroney will discover that his OLD AGE PRISON BENEFITS® program will prove too successful.  Soon Canada's country club prisons will not only be overflowing with drool and Depends®, but will start looking like a retirement option for Americans.

Remember the words "Out of sight, out of mind, but still a good protein source®"?  Yes, the solution will become apparent when Prime Minster Ben Mulroney discovers the secret lost papers of Stephen Harper.  He will be shocked to find that the seer Harper foresaw all this  back in  2012.  

Mercy will prevail, and the electorate will cheer when many of these demented, demanding and brain damaged seniors will find themselves eligible for benefits of the BETTER BEFORE ACT® of 2022.   Anyone caught associating on social media speaking of how life was Better Before® will be eligible for PERMANENT PROTEIN REALLOCATION®.

Do we really need to describe this to you? The burden of proof will be in the pudding. so  to speak.  Food labels will list protein percentages, but will not be required by law to spell out exactly what the source(s) or protein are. 


Consumers will demand ORGANIC PROTEIN PARTS® (OPP®) with every meal.  SUGARED POPS®,  GRANNY'S GOODNESS®,  and CELEBRITY CHEWS®  will be the rage. And we will all praise the visionary genius Stephen Harper, who so many years ago  prepared Canada for a Brave New World. 

Sucks Getting Old is getting old

It sucks getting old.  But when all we can do is to "get old", there is not many viable alternatives.  The Swiss, god bless them, are making provisions for "end of life planning", or what clinics will call "We take walk-outs."

The Swiss have done much for mountains, banking, and the putting of holes in cheese.  I think they even gave us Yello, but I could be wrong.

Wrong is something we get alot as we get older.  And it sucks being wrong, almost as much as it sucks getting old.

In the last year, I have had the misfortune of having one of my dearest friends die from cancer.  Another acquaintance just passed on, with the euphemistic body riddled.

Life itself is a riddle.  But riddles, like the Swiss, and like cancer, and getting old suck.   There are no guarantees, no best before dates, no use before cautions.
At a certain point there is truth alone.  And death and taxes and gravity are all pretty safe bets.

Seven come eleven, boxcars or snake-eyes.  That's life.  Sometimes youse a winner, and sometimes, it's craps.   It is all how you roll it, little lady.   Little Lady Luck.

Warming your heart with your hands

It is enough to warm your heart with your hands.

Drums of fire on the corner filled with insurance papers, tax forms, yellow journalism, love letters, and family portraits.

Let us pause to consider those less fortunate.  

Forced to drink mexican beers on beaches with blondes in bikinis.

At Freedom 85, we say feh to the fortunate.  Give us a drum of fire, and a grudge to nurture, and we are filled.