We’ll be covering all the news you won’t hear anywhere else and this week’s talk topic. Did the U.S. army conspire to murder Pat Tillman? New evidence relevent to the case raises some interesting and disturbing questions. We’ll discuss the Tillman case and a lot more. Join host Matthew Podoba, co-host Michael Jason and producer Curt Young this Tuesday from 12:00 to 2:00pm EST. We’ll be taking your calls at 716-886-9696.

Uncategorized | No Comments »

We are now feeling the full weight of the disasterous fiscal policies that were employed by Ronald Reagan and embraced by the Bush administration during the 1980’s and early 1990’s. The residual effects have left our economy in tatters and financial analysts are predicting that it will take decades to recover. It’s the ‘Goldilocks’ economy. You take a bankrupt country, mix in a shrinking middle class, a weak dollar, an over-extended military, outsourcing, and capital flight, and you get a mirage. That mirage is what the Republican party is selling us. The economy is growing they say. The stock market is humming along they say. Personally, I don’t buy that kettle of fish. If you want hard proof of who’s in fact destroying our economy, just check out the graph below that was reproduced from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The data is from the historical tables in the 2006 OMB Budget as download from WhiteHouse.gov, Historical Tables. It was plotted without modification. Here is the relevant two page Table 7.1 in PDF format

The sad fact is that we are living a debt driven economy and debt driven economies fail. History is chock full of examples. Reagan, despite his claims to “hate the debt”, oversaw the highest peacetime deficit spending in history…and he didn’t pay for it. Unfortunately, the current administration is blindly following the same beaten path.

If you want to reverse this shortsighted trend that could ultimately lead to cultural chaos, don’t let anymore neo-cons run the economy, because they simply don’t know how. The concept is quite elementary - you cannot spend more than you make indefinitely without consequences. The analysts are convinced we’re in trouble. Evidently the disciples of Reaganomics still haven’t learned. Maybe we need several Democratic presidents elected consecutively to teach them?    

Uncategorized | No Comments »

Here’s Larry Flynt giving it to the Republicans again. You gotta love this guy…follow this link to view the video. May he live for another 100 years.

http://www.shadowdemocracy.org/DocumentsandWritings.html

Uncategorized | No Comments »

This week on the Shadow Democracy Radio Show we’ll be talking about the hipocrasy of the christian right and how their political agenda may be the death of their entire movement in the end. We’ll also be talking about the Genarlow Wilson case in Georgia and much more including this week’s 5th story. Join host Matthew Podoba, co-host Michael Jason and producer Curtis Young on WNYMedia.net for a lighter look at the news from 12:00 to 2:00pm EST on Tuesday - and as always we’re taking calls at 716-886-9696.

Uncategorized | No Comments »

I got an e-mail a while back from some bulk mailing group that I never asked to be a part of scaring me that China was hell-bent on destroying America and that their tool for doing so was none other than WalMart. I tried to contain my fear long enough to go to their website (http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/) and make myself an informed citizen. On the website is a wealth of information and testimonials about the anti-union harsh working conditions of WalMarts across the U.S., information about WalMart’s destruction of communities, and generally about how WalMart just sucks. But none of this really feared me into action. Where was the Shock and Awe? Where were the terrorists out to get me? But upon closer inspection - there they were! The video clip that their organization has aired on T.V. and promotes on their website has two flags blowing in the background. Both have stars and lots of red, but only one of them is American! As if foreigners have not insulted us enough by having a flag other than ours they also have jobs! No, it’s true - people in China, India, and Mexico are employed - and not every American makes 20 times as much as them in an hour! Will the injustice never end?! The video implies that China is on the verge of taking over America and Walmart is the vehicle they will use to do it. “But how are they doing this and what can I do to help (stop it, that is)” you obediently ask. The answer is simple. So simple. They are stealing American jobs! Like some kind of bizarro tooth fairies they sneak into our good American houses at night, pull our employment off our mantles and from under our pillows, and run back to China and other foreign places with them. Now I was really scared. 9-11 scared.

By being employed the Chinese workers obviously force Americans to be unemployed. And by being paid far less than even American WalMart workers they were obviously getting rich enough to take over the world! Since WalMart gives their Chinese employees so much less - imagine what American WalMart employees could do with all their loot, if only they were more Chinese about it. According to the website the average worker on the floor at WalMart makes about $8.23. The website correctly explains over and over how it is nearly impossible to survive on this little pay. I think most Chinese workers employed in WalMart’s factories make less than 1/10 this much an hour. But somehow they not only survive but they have enough left over - according to the website - to buy out WalMart (anytime they choose) and next? America! Yes, I am scared - but I can’t help but wonder - how can they stretch a buck so far? And why can’t we do that? Do we need to shop at WalMart to save money the way they do? Or should we be involved in less trillion dollar wars of aggression over oil and just drive less? (I am assuming the war will have cost trillions of dollars before anyone decides to pull us out.) Or are they using some kind of magic that makes poverty turn into wealth? Like all those welfare moms that are secretly queens? Some kind of ancient Chinese magic or socialist voodoo? Or, wait, here’s another possiblity that the website forgot to mention. What if WalMart sucks worse than they imagined? What if they suck for their Chinese employees as much as for their American employees? What if China isn’t trying to take over the world and oppress us but WalMart is? Suddenly things started making a lot more sense. WalMart screws over factory workers in China, then they screw over the store employees here, then the consumer gets a really good deal on an inferior product while watching all the mom and pop stores and local businesses evaporate. Maybe WalMart is the common thread here. Maybe the sinister Chinese were not stealing American jobs - maybe WalMart was giving them away. Maybe the company with an absolute lack of ethics here also has an absolute lack of ethics across the ocean. That was so simple it was true. But then I began to wonder why someone with all the money and resources to put up this sharp and stylish website couldn’t figure out what was clear to a high school drop-out surfing the web for mac and cheese recipes. Then, again, it occurred to me, maybe they didn’t see how twisted WalMart is because they didn’t really want to. Maybe they kind of like WalMart, maybe they kind of hate the Chinese, so maybe that makes it a lot easier to blame the victim. Sort of like when we say welfare mothers live like queens while poor Kenneth Lay’s millionaire wife has to live like a pauper. Maybe it is just racism. Our country has always had a very easy time hating Asians. And maybe it also has to do with embarrassment.

After I took a second look at the website I discovered that this “grassroots” campaign was funded and run by UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers union). The “United” at the beginning of their name is somewhat ironic as, in recent years, they joined the “Change to Win” faction that split off from the AFL-CIO. There is even more irony in “Change to Win” leader’s explanations at the time of the split that Sweeney and the AFL-CIO were too political. That the focus needed to be on taking care of business here and now (I am paraphrasing but that was clearly the sentiment). It seems to me that misdirecting anger at WalMart’s barely legal abuse of workers to China is political and is not focusing on the needs of workers here and now. To be caught in such hypocrisy must me embarrassing - but not as embarrassing as the arrogant attitude of those leading the charge away from the AFL-CIO split who claimed the separations would lead to more money, more union membership, and more unions. How red their faces must be now (pardon the pun) that while they still struggle to unionize service industries in the U.S. every WalMart in China is unionized. The China hating elements in the Unions here cannot address this issue because they have always claimed that there are no unions in China. How then can they explain even WalMart being unioned there - but not here? I expect that when they claimed Chinese workers were not unionized they meant they were not members of a legitimate AFL-CIO union. But that is very hard to say now since the UFCW can no longer claim to be a legitimate AFL-CIO union.

In the midst of all this hypocrisy and embarrassment the only thing to do is preach hatred for what is different, promote xenophobia and racism, and hope that the lynch-mob frenzy will keep anyone from noticing your own short-comings and faulty logic.

(I left a message stating most of the above, without vulgarity or hate speech, on one of their open democratic forums - it was quickly deleted.)

Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Several weeks ago on Shadow Democracy Radio on WNYMedia.net, we covered a story involving teenager Genarlow Wilson. Wilson, who is now 21, was arrested, tried, and convicted for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old teenager when he was 17. Wilson has served over three years of his 10 year sentence.

A judge in Georgia has overturned the decision and ordered Wilson released - for the third time. However, Georgia state attorney general Thurbert Baker has appealed the decision and has warned that if Wilson is released, it could set as many as 1300 “child molesters” free.

Could someone who is proficient at lawyer speak please inform Mr. Baker, a conservative attorney by the way, that he has stretched the legal standard and definition of child molestation as thin as a cheap condom. This is just another case of a hard-line conservative nit-wit not having the character to admit when he made a blatant mistake. It makes one wonder, could it be that Wilson was arrested because he was black and his partner was white? We know conservatives are squemish about that particular little phenomenon. Could it be that Wilson was arrested the same day he was to sit for the SAT, bringing his 3.20 GPA to the table? Could it be that racism is still rampant in the new “Christian South” and that racism is reflected in a Georgia Court of Appeals that affirmed his conviction? (If Jesus is coming to judge, he better get here soon because neo-knucklehead Baker needs a pitch fork up the ass - oops…that would be sodomy and I’m sure that’s against the law too…never mind. ) And as a final thought - Why wasn’t the girl charged? She had consensual sex with a minor too -or are things different for white girls? If getting oral sex at age seventeen, or several other kinds of sex for that matter, was a criminal offense in 1986, I would have been executed.

Please join me in supporting Genarlow Wilson and send a message to these Draconian conservative rock heads that encompasses one simple principle - the only way you are going to stop teenagers from havin