Artificial Left-Right Divide

This year GE had a profit of $14.2 billion. Of which exactly nothing is being collected for taxes (reference), even while all us honest workers fork over a significant percentage of our wages to improve the country we're all part of.

Our elected officials could have tackled the deficit by imposing a fair share of the load on these corporations. Instead they cut billions from programs that do "wasteful" things like create new jobs, drive economic growth, and help the needy and our nation's children.

Is there any clearer evidence of the artificial nature of left-right divide that has been foisted on us (or that we've allowed ourselves to fall victim to), blaring from every major news outlet? We squabble over crumbs while corporations secure their hold on power.

Snow Day

In honor of the snow day we're having in much of the Seattle area today, I found a great poem on the topic:

Snow Day by Billy Collins

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

In a while I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch,
sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed,
the All Aboard Children's School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with -- some will be delighted to hear --

the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School,
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and -- clap your hands -- the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.