Verizon backtracks, in a good way

I wasn’t in on this since I don’t pay my phone bill.

Slacker, you say?  You’re right.  Long story short, my mother pays my Verizon cell phone bill.

Had I read the Yahoo story in the beginning I’d have been outraged.  When I was paying my bill I did it online with my credit card.  My dear, sweet, 77-year-old mother has problems navigating the internet and prefers payments the old fashioned way: with a check.  A paper check.  In the mail.  With a stamp and everything.  She’s so backward.

I’m pleased nonetheless, however, to read that they have succumbed, and so quickly, to customer outrage.  Good for them.  They responded far more quickly than did Bank of America to their $5 per ATM transaction proposal.

Look, I’m in retail.  Sort of.  I get that companies want to make money.  If the “company” I work for doesn’t make money then I don’t have a job and thus don’t make money.  I can see the rationale behind the whole “used car salesman” mentality my bosses have.  “Sell, sell, sell!”  I hear it everyday.  No income for the company means no income for the employees.  It’s a trickle down effect for which there is no argument.

However… to charge people for the “privilege” of paying their bills???  That’s going too far.

Go to another company, right?  I don’t have to have Verizon as my cell phone company, right?   Except I have a contract with them.  I break that contract I owe them money.  So either way they get their money.  I am in a lose-lose proposition here.

Which is why I’m appreciative that Verizon succumbed to customer pressure and rescinded the fee for paying the bill.  They have their customers by the balls in the first place.  A fee to pay the bill is an extra squeeze on those gonads.  Who wants that unless you’re in a Japanese Bath House?

In short?  This is another example of big business having to give into the demands of the customer.  You’re right, we’re under contract.  But just as soon as we’re out from under that contract we’re free to go elsewhere.  Verizon may not have lost a lot of customers right off the bat, but eventually, over the next two years, they had the potential to lose them all.  Someone at Verizon was eventually wise enough to see that reality

All I’m saying here is that on at least two occasions here the people have spoken and the big corporations have responded.  Not that that hasn’t happened before 2011, but in these times in which it seems the little guy is the bad guy, it’s nice to see that sometimes the “good” guy makes mistakes and acknowledges that.

Mic Check!

Have you heard of this?  It’s new to me.  Someone stands up, yells Mic Check!, and then launches into a peaceful, but loud, protest.

Fascinating.

Here are a couple of examples:

A few random thoughts…

I don’t know why this tickles me so much.  I giggle like a child sitting on Santa’s lap when I watch these videos.

It’s very rude behavior.  Someone has been invited to speak to a group of people, to present on a topic at which they are considered knowledgeable and an expert, and someone in that audience stands up and interrupts them.  Rude!

And yet, I find it hilarious.  I guess that’s mean of me.

I love that it’s peaceful.  Violence solves nothing, except to give the conqueror a false sense of power.  How long is that going to last when he or she has conquered everyone and is sitting alone on a decomposing planet?

I love that people are making themselves heard, whether anyone wants to hear them or not.  Know what I’d like to see?  I’d like to see one of the 1% walk into a homeless shelter and peacefully protest that… well, what would a 1%er protest?  That the people are homeless?  That they don’t have regular access to showers and food?  Maybe the 1%ers would protest that their tax dollars go to supporting the shelter, which in turn supports the homeless.  Okay, so they can protest that.  Why don’t the 1%ers do that?

Yes, I’d like to see the wealthy get out of their towers of gold and go down to the streets and peacefully protest against poverty.  And the 99%ers can continue doing what they’re doing.  Let’s make it an all out war.  But a non-violent war.  A Cold War of sorts.  Wasn’t the Cold War great?

I grew up under the heavy weight of the Cold War, something I didn’t understand AT ALL at the time, and, truthfully, was terrified of.  But I heard an NPR story recently that mentioned the Cold War and I had this sudden weird thought that the Cold War was awesome compared to the literal warfare going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention a bunch other places in the world.  A Cold War involves no blood shed, no guns, no bombs, no displacement, with a healthy dose of competition (a la the space race, at the time of the U.S. – U.S.S.R. Cold War).  Oh sure the threat of nuclear war is there, but as long as it stays a Cold War, there isn’t any actual killing and maiming going on (if you don’t count the activities of the secret police and the government agencies that is).

So let’s do that.  Big business, politicians, and even the 99% have divided the country into two camps: those that have and those that have not or don’t have anymore.  Occupy (insert city name here) is increasing that gap through a thought change.  The division is getting wider and people are taking sides. I don’t see the Occupy movement dissolving anytime soon.  And the 1%ers are going to get fed up eventually and start striking back.  Haven’t they been patient with us surfs for long enough?

And then here’s an even weirder thought…

Remember the Mayan Calendar prediction of massive change come December 21, 2012?  Do you think we’re right on schedule?  Think about it.  In just over 13 months from now the world is supposedly going to come to an end.  Or, as some have interpreted it, there will be a change of great magnitude.  Do you think maybe we’re sowing those seeds now?  Not that the U.S. is the center of the world, but take into consideration Syria, Libya, and Egypt, not to mention the demise of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and a lot has gone on in the last year or so.

Which reminds me of an article I read in the paper January 1, 2011.  It was a recap of the past decade’s events.  Terrorism, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, rising crime rates, economic collapse, rising poverty rates, and I can’t remember what all.  I got down to the second to last paragraph of the article and thought, oh those poor people, how did they ever survive it?  And know what the last paragraph said?  It said this was a recap of just what went on in the U.S. the past decade.

I burst out laughing.  Maybe that’s what I do instead of break down and sob?  It was a horrific rundown of just how much our country changed, just how much drama and trauma we endured, during the first decade of the 21st century.  How did we ever survive it?

And so maybe we are on a movement toward dramatic, life altering change come December 2012.  Frankly, I’m all for it.  But it’s up to us to decide how things will change.  It’s up to us to make the change positive or negative for all people.

Yes, let’s have a Cold War of sorts.  Let’s settle this thing.  Who’s with me?  Mic Check!

Hurrah! People – 1; Bank of America – 0

Power to the people!

A big BRAVO to Bank of America for reversing their decision to initiate a $5 monthly fee for debit card purchases.  A bigger BRAVO x 1,000 to the people who objected to the proposed fee—and told them so.  For once, the people spoke and big business listened.  Hurrah!

I can’t say as this or any banking fee affects me.  I’ve belonged to Credit Unions most of my life.  My very first savings account ever, some 38 years ago, was at a Credit Union.  Once I became an adult and could make my own banking decisions I always went to Credit Unions when I could.

I don’t remember the last time I had an account with a for profit bank, it was that long ago.  There has been at least one city, maybe two, maybe three, when a Credit Union was not available.  I didn’t meet their membership requirements.  When I moved back to this area eleven years ago I once again joined the Credit Union.  Luckily I live where the only membership requirement for the only Credit Union is county residency.

Several people have asked me over the years why I bank at a Credit Union instead of a traditional bank.  I’ve always replied, “Lower fees.”  They look at me dumbfounded.  I’m not sure if they were thinking, why didn’t I think of that, or, geez, that kind of makes sense, or, this girl is an idiot.  But never once has anyone argued back that a traditional bank is better than a Credit Union, particularly not because of the associated fees.

So when I heard about the proposed “Bank Transfer Day” I didn’t quite know if I should be sad I couldn’t participate or proud of my commitment to Credit Unions.  Seems, strangely, that I actually got something right for a change—and well ahead of the times.  Weird.

Regardless, a reversal in banking fees is not really what we should be celebrating here, although it’s a huge victory.  The important thing is that people spoke up.  They took action, or they threatened to take action, by taking their business elsewhere.  The people did something, and the Powers That Be did something as a result.  This was an entirely peaceful protest.  No bank employees were harmed in the making of this protest.  This is proof that if we stand together against that which is mightier than us we can win.  But didn’t the Revolutionary War already prove that?

What Needs to be Said

I love the movie The American President (Universal Pictures, Castle Rock Entertainment, Wildwood Enterprises, Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1995).  I have it on VHS and still watch it on occasion– yes, I still even have a VCR.

The movie is full of pomp and circumstance, and it evokes a time for me when I still felt pride in being an American, when I thought that being President of the United States (no matter who it was) was an honorable position, and that our leaders were wise and had our best interests at heart.  I miss those days of naivete.

President Andrew Sheppard is a good old fashioned liberal left-wing president so he is, to me, a hero right from the start.  I am an unashamed and unapologetic liberal, but with occasional conservative leanings (I will admit).  The movie is a romantic comedy set in a political background, but it is not without its political commentary.  It is a commentary that I believe is more apropos today than in 1995.

What follows are some of my favorite lines from the movie.  These are writer Aaron Sorkin’s words, not mine, and I think they are brilliant.  These words are, I believe, appropriate for our times, so I have left out the parts that are character/movie specific in an effort to generalize them to speak to the masses.  These are things that need to be said.

264 million people don’t give a damn about your life, they give a damn about their own.

The president doesn’t answer to you…

Oh yes he does.  I’m a citizen, this is my president, and in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders, it’s our responsibility.

If people want to listen to…

They don’t have a choice.  (Insert name here) is the only one doing the talking.  People want leadership Mr. President and in the absence of genuine leadership they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone.  They want leadership.  They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage and when they discover there’s no water they’ll drink the sand.

We have had presidents who were beloved who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight.  People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty, they drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.

America isn’t easy, America is advanced citizenship.  You’ve got to want it bad ‘cause it’s gonna put up a fight.  It’s gonna say, you want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.  You want to claim this land is the land of the free then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag.  The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest.  Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms, then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

We have serious problems to solve and we need serious people to solve them.  And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you (insert name here) isn’t interested in solving it.  He’s interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you to who’s to blame for it.  That ladies and gentlemen is how you win elections.  You gather a group of middle-aged, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time and you talk to them about family and American values and character…  and you scream about patriotism and you tell them she’s to blame for your lot in life…

I asked my 76 year old mother a few months back what she thought of the state of our country today and if she thought there were other periods in her life that were worse.  For example, the 1970s during the recession and oil crisis, not to mention the Great Depression, during which she was born.  Granted she doesn’t remember much of the depression, but she was a single mother with no child support living on a nurse’s salary (keep in mind this is when nurses were paid very low wages compared to current salaries) during the 1970s and she remembers quite well what that was like.  (Oh, and she’s a conservative Republican.)  She replied that without a doubt that the current economic and political climate is far worse now than at anytime during her life.  I mentioned this to a high school friend and she told me that her 82 year old father feels the same way.

These are the wise of our community.  The seniors in our world have many decades upon which to reflect.  They have seen more than we can at this stage in our lives.  They know.  And they have spoken (two of them have anyway).  Our country is in bad, bad shape.  Be it economic, cultural, or political, it’s all bad.  And our parents know this better than we do.

We have serious problems and we need serious people to solve them.  I don’t have any solutions, but I’ll be damned if I will sit back and watch our country, this great experiment, the first country in the world to test the limits of democracy, disintegrate.

I Am One of the 99%

CeliaSue Hecht has a great post about the protesting 99% over on her blog today.

If you are one of the 99% check it out.  If you are one of the 1% then put down your $6 latte, stuff your money clip back in your pocket, and get to reading that post.  Don’t wait.  Don’t hesitate.  Don’t think this isn’t about you.  Yes you.

My aunt sent around this email.  I’ll copy and paste it here because there is no actual copyright info on the email, no date stamp, nothing to attribute it back to its source, unless you consider the words, “Ben Stein is a writer, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu . (sic) He writes ‘Ben Stein’s Diary’ for every issue of The American Spectator.” an attribution.  I will try to track down its original source, but even so, it’s going around email so it’s not exactly secret.  If whoever originally posted it (was it The American Spectator?) they weren’t exactly diligent about claiming the copyright.  And if they had intended to, I certainly wasn’t the first to violate the copyright (so go after that guy you treacherous lawyers).

Ben Steins New Article

In case you missed this:

WE’VE FIGURED HIM OUT!
By Ben Stein

Why was President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed? Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008.
(Pig in a poke means: an offering or deal that is foolishly accepted without being examined first. A poke means sack.)

They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. 

They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student.

They ignored his ultra-left record as a “community organizer,” Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, and not a fan of this country.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill — a great idea in theory — was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way helped all Americans.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama’s plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never can be –
“a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society.” Either the costs go up or the free society goes away… an historical truth.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to “protect us” from global warming, itself largely a fraud, if believed to be caused by man. She has also signed on to a Small Firearms Treaty at the U.N. This is a back door gun control move. This is approved by the Senate and a 2nd Amendment majority doesn’t exist in the Senate now. It will supersede all U.S. Law and the 2nd Amendment. All citizen possession will be eliminated through confiscation. Just Like Great Britain and Australia .

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms. There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America ..

Ben Stein is a writer, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu . He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.

You must, as an American, FORWARD this, or you will wake up one morning and your freedoms will be GONE…No longer there!

First, let’s forgive the typos, shall we?  Everyone makes mistakes.  Perhaps they (he?) didn’t mean to neglect the apostrophe, make the comma errors, and include the extra periods and spaces.  Perhaps they were so motivated by anger and ire that they typed in haste.  Hey, I’ve been known to make mistakes too.  Let us not cast the first stone for none of us is without grammar and punctuation sins.

Second, there is the ubiquitous threat at the end.  We can’t have an email or an advertisement without that threat.  Act now before it’s too late!  We are a fear driven society.  We respond to fear.  We don’t act without fear.  Everything is scary and if it’s not we’ll make it scary.  Must we really (really, must we?) be so inundated by fear messages all the time?  Do we not trust our fellow man to think for themselves?  Do we not want our fellow man to think for themselves?  No, or else they won’t buy the product, won’t buy into the propaganda, won’t buy into the party line.

That said, let’s get to the heart of the message.

I was tempted at first to defend our president unilaterally and without thought.  I’ll admit it, I like our president.  I didn’t vote for him, but that’s beside the point (and a topic for a whole other blog post).  I like the First Family.  I think they’re beautiful, stylish, poised, and appear to be happy and well adjusted.  Slap the name Kennedy on them and they’d blend right in with the so called American Royal Family (minus the alcoholism and fraternization).  (Don’t go there with the skin color because if you think skin color makes a person different than any other human on the planet then you need to do some serious education of yourself.)  Looks, poise, and stylishness aside, I think our president is doing the best he can.

Whoa there buddy.  Don’t get all up in my face just yet.  Hear me out.

There is a lot of bullshit politicking going on behind closed doors that we will never find out about.  If our grandchildren are lucky they’ll eventually find out about it through the Freedom of Information Act and personal memoirs—about 50 years from now.  Those in the high and mighty seats right now aren’t about to go spilling their secrets just yet.  President Obama had a good idea with the transparency of his administration stance, but I think he found out real quick that transparency isn’t all that good an idea.  There are too many backroom/behind closed doors dealings going on to be able to hold anyone accountable for their actions.  Why?  Because (I’m willing to bet), that’s the way it’s always been done.  I think Obama wanted transparency but figured out real quick he had to play the game; and he just isn’t willing to take on the mutiny that Congress (et cetera) would bring down on him if he let the American people see how the government really operates.  And you know what?  I don’t think anyone really wants to know.

The fact is, the average American citizen wants to work a job they can (at least) tolerate, go home to their families, pay the bills, play during their leisure time, and be able to trust their elected representatives to do the job they were hired to do.  Very few, if any, want to spend their “free time” investigating their elected officials, playing watch dog, and picking up the pieces of corruption gone wild.  (Isn’t that what we have journalists for?)  I don’t.  But I feel compelled to write about this because I get so angry when I get emails like I got from my aunt.

Now, I can’t speak knowledgeably to some of the points Mr. Stein made in his essay.  For example, I’ve never read any of President Obama’s books.  Do they really contain anti-white sentiment?  I don’t know, but this email sure makes me want to find out.

Which is a good thing, right?  I mean, wasn’t that what it was intended to do?  I sure hope so, because the points made were completely unsupported by references.  It reads as inflammatory and prejudicial.  Which books, what pages, did President Obama make anti-white statements?  Does he really have no academic record despite having a degree from Harvard University?  How does Mr. Stein know this?  What records does he have as proof?  Can he not cite the dates of the Small Arms Treaty signed by Secretary of State Clinton?  Does she really have the power to give Iran permission to have nuclear weapons?  Wow.  I guess we have more world power than I thought, being that we can now control the actions, thoughts, and decisions of sovereign nations.  And if that’s the case, what the hell are we doing at war with anybody?  Or are we at war with those nations that wouldn’t fall in line with our directives?  Is war our way of punishing the bad children of the world; instead of spanking them and sending them to bed without supper we go in and kill everyone we can get away with?

But then… but then… I thought better of my initial reaction.  See, I don’t think slamming one individual (especially without citing references) is the way to fix our country.  Yes, corruption needs to be exposed and people need to be held accountable for their actions, but is that really going to fix anything?  Educating the American people about facts is essential to growing a better understanding of the state of our nation, but education alone isn’t going to solve anything; particularly when it’s of an inflammatory and prejudicial nature.  I also don’t think blaming one or two people is fair.  There are 435 other people (at the very least) who are equally responsible for what goes on in our government.

Let’s go back to civics class for a moment and remember that this is a three pronged government designed in such a way as so that no one person or entity would hold all the power.  (Anyone remember checks and balances?)  Have we strayed from that ideal?  Is President Obama (or Secretary of State Clinton) solely responsible for the fate of our nation?  Is there one congress person, one Supreme Court Justice, or one lobbyist or PAC leader that pulls all the strings of a puppet government here?  Please tell me there’s not.  Please tell me we have not ripped to shreds our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights in only 235 years.  If that is the case then a revolt is in order.  It’s time to call the experiment a failure and try again.

I guess what I’m saying here is that it’s time we the people start to take responsibility for the running of our country.  We need to stop being apathetic and complacent.  We had some good years.  We had some good times.  (Wasn’t life in the ‘80s great?)  Somewhere along the way we let things get way out of control.  We gave those in power too much power.  And now what we have to go on is uninformed, inflammatory, prejudicial, one-man’s-opinion propaganda and we’re spreading it like wildfire just because it stirs something in us.

This is an enormous undertaking, this fixing our country.  I can’t get my head around it.  Like so many things, the more I know the more I know I don’t know.  It’s going to take more than me and my one-sided opinions to change things.  If I had a dream (I say with much respect to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) it would be that every man, woman, and child educated themselves as much as possible about the state of our country’s affairs, then set about on a peaceful plan to correct our mistakes.  It would be that we re-involved ourselves in the creation of this nation.  It would be that we wouldn’t pander to the money men.  It would be that we would regain our power.  It would be that we started taking responsibility for the state of this nation’s affairs.

I don’t have the answers (except my very glib—everyone in Washington DC get out and stay out and let some average people take control), except to say that if we’re going to have a revolution, let it be peaceful.  Let us all work together.  Let us be on the side of our nation as a whole in the abstract sense so that the concrete realities of our lives really do reflect Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Got Sompthin Up My Sleeve

I post these lyrics with the up most respect and admiration for The Beatles…

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re doing what we can
But if you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right
Ah

ah, ah, ah, ah, ah…

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right
all right, all right, all right
all right, all right, all right, all right, all right