hokay.... Fascism 1: Democracy O SCOTUS

Or: Orwell's 1984 arrived a bit late...

To understand, read Keith Olberman's special comment here.

The decision sounds so innocent on the surface, ostensibly about first amendment rights, and freedom of speech, but the latest decision is horrendous in what it has enabled corporations to do.

Ok, am algerisch when it comes to that word, and THAT is a play on words. Algerisch means Algerian. (When Peter's mother was in the hospital dying, her bed-neighbor asked him to close the window because she was 'algerisch' when it came to drafts. It should have been 'allergisch' which means allergic. Somehow it became a joke over three decades, go figure. We both loved us some malapropisms.)

But seriously... the decision was horrible. For me, 'The corporations' meant something far more than the average American would think. I grew up in a city that was the largest conglomerate of factories in the entire world. Run by... 'the corporations'. Uh-huh... They were sort of this nebulous entity that had all power. Grew up in 'corporation housing' fucking everything was run by them.

And they always had people by the short hairs till it hurt, believe me.

'Sixteen Tons' by Tennessee Ernie Ford in the Fifties had more relevance to us than you could ever imagine....

This colossus of manufacturing never recovered after the Depression in 1929. And when I was growing up, the enterprise was dying... or just dropping everything, and moving their business to Taiwan, because labour was so much cheaper there. And the city never recovered, not really, to this day...

And I have a personal story to relate about this, about how corportations can break you. It involves The Venrable.... When I was about fourteen or so, there was a union organiser who was at the factory he was working in, who spoke, seemingly... don't know exactly.

But after this 'event', or whatever it was, The Venerable was 'seen' talking to the organiser in the millyard... (Everyone was paranoid back then, and rats and whores were all over the place....) He just had some questions he wanted answered, and seemingly wasn't planning to join that union.....

He was immediately fired. Rights to free speech? IN YOUR DREAMS, hey...

'The corporation' put him on a black list. And he couldn't find work anywhere for weeks.

It was only the second time I saw my father cry out of sheer despair.

Whatever... now this SCOTUS decision gives corportations everything they ever wanted and dreamed.... Olberman painted the picture of what can happen, hopefully not, but can... They can basically fuck America over, thanks to it.

It is far more eloquent, and check it out on Countdown if you have a fast connection.

I don't just get the shudders about this... I am disgusted. Olberman didn't go far enough. Congresspeople and Senators are already prostitutes. But now they have a pimp, who will beat them up if they don't do the pole dance....

How wunnerful, as what's his name polka boy used to say on tee-vee...

Have been busy .... with the Telly-com

Well hallelujah!

From the fucking Saturday before Christmas till NOW... I have been fucking Don Quixote on a donkey with a lance fighting damned windmills....

I got so desperate, I wrote to an Ombudsman in a local paper, per Internet... An Ombudsman is a lawyer, and they supposedly help people with problems like I was having.

I have never written to a newspaper before. Where I grew up, you fight and help yourselves. I got an immediate answer per mail, like ten minutes later. (Isn't the internets wonderful???) And she said, 'Fax us the receipt that the bill is paid, and we will go AFTER them.'

Well that was the day I was at the end of my art, as we say, and so I called the telly-com again (Just one last time... uh-huh), and heard, they had reactivated his connection. ON JAN 14th! A month later from the initial intervention..... Way to go, Tellys...

And it was cold, and snowing, if I recall correctly, so I didn't go out because I don't see so well in the twilight any more, and thought, ok, tomorrow....

Called and did not get a message, 'This number is unknown to us' message. And it rang and it rang....

Got to Peter's, sleeping like the dead. Phone? No tone... tee-vee? Forget it. Internet... ditto.

If you want to see cold fury... well, let's leave that, ok?

So I called, and I called and I called, and got insulting people, nice people, it's like playing russian roulette.... Except the nice ones couldn't DO anything.

This afternoon, the Ombudsfrau from the paper mailed me about faxing the paid bill.

So I was explaining what had happened meanwhile, thanking her.... and EXPLAINING, Peter has fallen out of bed so often meanwhile, knocking things over, he got the thing you plug in all the components into probably destroyed.

NORMALLY, they are supposed to be affixed to the wall, you plug them in and forget about it, your telly-phone, fax, modem, whatever.

Well this thing was on the floor near his bed, and half buried under a very heavy brass stand lamp after a fall, so I was 'hopeful' and thought, 'Ok, let's just plug them out, plug them back in, and maybe it will work.' Nada. And that is when I knew.... 'Oh, we got troubles....'

And I am a technical idjit.

Certified.

(Peter is worse... His toaster kept blowing fuses he can't reach on his own, so he unplugged the stove and the refrigerator two days ago. And wondered why the fuses were still blowin. Trying to use the defective toaster... That was FUN...)

Whatever, I was too busy to write the Ombudsfrau... because nothing was all right any more.

Today I get a mail from her... I should fax the receipt so she can go AFTER them....

I thought that was more than cool....

So I explained what was going on, and in the middle of writing.... the )))Telly-com((( called, and said they would send a technician down and fix it tomorrow morning.

But in all this hecticness... I DID have a pertinent question.

HOW... and with WHAT RIGHT, can you send out a bill demanding €40.00 for your television service, which you cut off and they never provided? I think it is illegal. I was so enraged, and the person I was talking to was so inept, I ended up yelling at him.

So snotty... 'If you keep talking to me like that, I will have to end this conversation.' I hope he has fucking nightmares for weeks. Incompetent git....

So I asked her....

I wonder what she will say.....

With luck he will have his connections back tomorrow again.

And I am STILL waiting to hear from social services again tomorrow, because the person I talked to is only in office Tuesdays and Thursdays, and otherwise 'on the road'. I got up this morning feeling so optimistic....

Ya' think...

You know, two birds with one stone, and all that junk...

And I 'think'.... I'm getting just too old for all this stuff. I could just pass it off like water off a duck... Now? There are days I feel like 'Grumpy Old Men'. Eeewwwww...

But still do what I can.

When you fully see

red... it's time to just stop, because you are just going to make it worse....

I am very near a fucking stroke. Corporations, and the incompetence I have expeerienced, is extraordinary.... just extraordinary.

Yeah, I just got off the fucking phone from the fucking telly-com, and I am so enraged, I could just explode....

You wouldn't know it from the blog, but I am REALLY a very patient person. I am...

And I just got a very incompetent person on the line who obviously can't use his computer correctly, and just set me off for angry. I got confrontational, true. And I yelled at him, because he was an idiot who couldn't manage his data.

Whereupon he threatened to stop the conversation, if I would TALK to him like that.

(But they can talk to YOU like that... uh-huh.)

And this 'person' Martin somethin or other... said he couldn't find that I had paid in his telephone outstanding bill weeks ago... And I should fax it in again. HUH? WHAA? And said he has 40 Euros outstanding, whereupon I said, 'I know, and he will pay it, but for you to ask for money without delivering a service seems to be illegal as far as I am concerned, and is despicable.'

It seemingly got his feathers up.

I have only one recourse right now. Am ombudsman. Of our local newspapers.

And believe me, I am going to DO it.

I am sick of fucking around with a corportation without a soul.