Surprisingly, Obama changed his mind on whether the Feds should crack down on Marijuana dispensaries in California. It was only a couple of years ago, when he openly said he wouldn’t waste the country’s resources on this specific issue. Now’s he flipped it – which is strange because the U.S. is in more debt than ever. What’s he thinking? Even political analysts are baffled as to why he changed his mind.

Today’s playlist is about Tommy Chong and the story of his arrest. – This playlist show’s how ridiculous this war on marijuana really is.

The image above was ganked from the L.A Weekly. Read the L.A. Weekly’s article: Obama’s War on Weed

*The Nope image above is from the Village Voice Media.

Let’s take a closer look at how vampires compare to the elite 1% of Americans:

Muhahaha - I vant to suck your hard work, sweat & BLOOD!!

Both vampires and the 1%:

• Dress Extravagantly
• Have an odd diet
• Live in mansions
• Like banks
• Loves counting
• Preys off the masses
• Hasn’t been this powerful since the 1920s
• Flies in style
• Can be destroyed with wooden stakes

Watch the “Why Do We Occupy Video Playlist” here.

Thanks pleated-jeans.com for the hilarious image!

About the Author: Chalk writes from the sewers. He sees everything from the ground up!

The weirdest thing about this art show was that I met Mr. Brainwash. I thought he was a fictional character. But he really exists. He even gave me “how to get up better” tips. Thanks MR.BW!

So he let people come in and put up their own artwork. Here is more info: artshow2011.com

Here is some artwork from the show:

That Famous Tomato Spray Can from Exit Through The Gift Shop

Notorious Big with a Fedora

Green Monster

Bleeding Eyes Rain Cloud

Hello Kitty wearing a respirator

Skull made out of marlboro ads

Power to the peaceful

This was just a cool corner

Graffiti Devil

I always like pharaoh artwork

And of course we had to put Uncle Scam up

What I don’t get is that the only two presidential candidates anyone seems to be hyped on for the 2012 election is Obama and Ron Paul. I understand why Obama is supported by the Democrats. But I just don’t get the Republican side of this story.

In the polls Ron Paul is not the favorite. He’s rarely included in media poll coverage. But since he is seriously the only Republican candidate I see bumper stickers for, talked about on the internet, gets Youtube support – how did these other Republican candidates get farther than him in the polls? I don’t hear anyone talking about or visibily supporting the other candidates. It’s like their support base doesn’t really even exist. How is this happening?

I realized we made a mistake. We just started posting all this stuff about Occupy LA without really explain what is, where it is, and what’s going on. Let’s break it down..

What is OccupyLA about?

OccupyLA is a group of protesters that are currently located at the Los Angeles City Hall. The main theme that they are protesting is the United States government continual nurturing of “corporate welfare” and the consolidation of wealth in the USA.

We are the 99%

If you go down to the protest, you will see a lot of signs and shirts saying “We are the 99%”. What this means is that the general population (most likely me and you) are the 99% of Americans, who don’t control most of the wealth in this country. Since 1% of the population now controls a large chunk of wealth in America, it put the 99% (the rest of us) at a huge disadvantage.

Where did the Occupy Movement start?

Now, the “Occupy” movement is going on all over America right now. I believe it started in New York. NYC has a much bigger protest going – and rightfully so because Wall Street is located in downtown Manhattan.

Here is the link to the Occupy Wall Street website: http://occupywallst.org

Where is OccupyLA?

200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012-3224

OccupyLA is located at city hall in Downtown L.A. Here is a Google Map of where city hall is.

Be sure to go around the block once, because on one side of City Hall it looks like nothing is going on.

When is OccupyLA?

It’s running right now and it’s a 24-hour-a-day occupation at the City Hall in Downtown Los Angeles. You can go before work, during work or WAY after work and people will be there. You can even spend the night, just bring a tent!

Who’s Organizing It?

The people are! However, there is a website, Twitter and Facebook account dedicated to this event.

OccupyLA Twitter Page – This is a great place to start. You can see photos and get real time news about the occupation.

OccupyLA Facebook Page – Give it a like!

OccupyLA – The Website

Ideological Differences

Last night I witness some beef go down between a couple of the protesters. I’m not quite sure what it was about. I did hear someone scream “I’m a communist!” and someone else complaining about doing another protest in Beverly Hills.

When I think about it I can see why people with political affinities on both extremes would be interested in OccupyLA.

The Communist

Communists are usually all about workers’ rights, free education and health care for every citizen. Of course this is 100% at the expense of the government. A communist would be interested in OccupyLA because, it’s a fight against corporate America hording most of the nation’s wealth, hurting job growth, and effectively keeping United States citizens poor, under-educated and without guaranteed health care.

The Anarchist

Anarchists are the complete opposite of communists. They believe there should be zero government. To an anarchist, all forms of government are corrupt, authoritarian and always seem to mess things up. An anarchist would be interested in OccupyLA because the U.S. government has allowed Wall Street and Mega-Corporations to corrupt government for their benefit only. This is basically making our economy not fair for small business and people who play by the rules.

The Socialist

Socialists are somewhere in between communists and anarchists. They believe in free market trade to an extent, and that some social services should be provided to the people of the country. Which is basically, what we have experienced in the USA for the past 100 years. Socialists tend to have the same beliefs as both communists and anarchists depending on the issue.

Mixed Messages

Now, other people have using OccupyLA as a platform to announce other issues they feel strongly about. I personally think it’s better to stick with one theme. I like focus. I think it generally gets things done faster and has a higher chance of execution. But that’s just me. I guess people can protest about anything they want, whenever they want

Show Up!

This is history! Shoot down to Downtown and talk to some people and see what it’s all about. It will be good for you

Finally! The protest we have been waiting for. I don’t know what took us so long to get to this. In my mind, democracy hasn’t really worked for the past 150 years because corporate and powerful interests have dictated the direction of this country. Finally, the country is starting to realize one of America’s most fundamental problem: Corporate welfare and the consolidation of wealth.

Thousands have “occupied” major cities across the country to protest this problem. Each major city now has an “occupy” protest going on right now. And since we’re out of East L.A., naturally we support OccupyLA!

To show our support we have been visiting the protest nearly every day, taking photos and delivering pizza, water and Gatorade to overnight protestors.

Here are some photos from Saturday night:

I’m here so I don’t have to live in this box

I like this photo. Because this is what might happen if we let corporate interests continue to run this country.

I’ve had enough trickle down economics

Trickle down economics is alive and well and is being outsourced to other countries. In one ironic twist, wealth is being distributed around the world finally in some industries (namely programmers, graphic designers, web developers, virtual assistants etc). But job creation in the USA is starting to stagnate.

I for one believe it’s up to us to create our own industries and economy and not rely on mega-corps to provide jobs for us. Let them make mistakes and fall apart. But at the same time we should sever their abilities to influence government. Campaign contributions, oligopolies and lobbying are simply the opposite of free market economics.

I will believe corporations are people when Texas executes one!

This photo is just plain funny.

Power to the peaceful

Good shot A.R.!

We are the 99%

In case you’re wondering what that means: “The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent.” – Vanity Fair, May 2011

Si el presente es ole lucha el futuro es nuestro

What would a protest be without a Che quote?

Big thanks to A.R. for the photos!

We got some sticker photos in today from one of our fans – which is awesome!

Click on the pictures below to see a larger image:

Here’s A Close Up Of The Sticker

And Here’s A Snapshot of U.S. Government Spending in 2009…

Notice where the top dollars are allocated. Wow! Those lucky defense contractors! How did they get the most money out of any industry? Gee, perhaps because they like to instigate wars to give the government a reason to buy their weapons systems.

In Fiscal Year 2010, the top five departments by dollars obligated were the Department of Defense ($365.9 billion), Department of Energy ($25.7 billion), Health and Human Services ($19.0 billion), General Services Administration ($17.6 billion), and NASA ($16.0 billion).[7]

How Can We Be So Sure This Is The Case?

I always go back to good old Ike. He was a general back in WWII and became the 34th president of the United States. The last thing he told the American public before he left office, was to watch out for the defense industries. Watch his farewell speech here (skip to 7:00 to get to the meat of it):

Here is the 34th President of the United States, a man that one of the main generals in WWII, telling us 60 years ago to watch out for the Military Industrial Complex. He is saying “don’t let these fuckers spend all your tax money on defense! Because they will find a way to do it if you don’t stop them!”. But instead we went into the 1960s eating frozen dinners in front of the t.v. set. Which we still do to this day…seems like nothing has changed

Let’s Look At Some Blood Money

Below I have presented 3 graphs of various defense contractors. Each graph shows stock price vs. time. Look at the period between 2001 and 2008. Those were the main “war years” until the financial fiasco of 2008 (when most companies around the world got the wind knocked out of them).

Lockheed Martin

Northrop Grumman

Boeing

The point of these stickers is to illustrate the flow of income from the U.S. Government to each of these industries. Income is called “earnings”, but these companies didn’t really earn shit when it was taken out of your bank account at tax time and given straight to these corporations. Simply so the U.S. military can keep blowing up people around the world in the name of unjustified wars.

What’s even more crazy, is this isn’t even capitalism at work. These companies are so large, they don’t even really compete with each other. They get government contracts handed to them – which you pay for! And most of the time they work on the same projects so every company wins!

How Does It Work?

For the defense industry it’s an interesting strategy they use to get money from the U.S. Government. What they do is set up plants in almost every state in the Union. The idea is, that by employing a certain amount of people in each state, the representatives of that state have an interest in keeping those people employed. So as long as they approve defense spending, they’ll most likely get the votes from those who work at the defense companies. And the cycle continues….as it has for over 60 years.

This is a deeply rooted problem in our society, that really never gets attention. What’s interesting is no one really touched on this during Vietnam. The only person I can think of who may have raised awareness of this was Angela Davis.

Some Final Words

America is a beautiful country with lots of really awesome people. And looking at our government from a purely structural standpoint – it ain’t bad. I don’t blame the American people OR the government for this terrible reality. I blame corporations that take advantage of the situation. After years of making moves, they have figured out how to hack the government. This is really what this is about. Large corporations are government hackers. They figure out how to own congress and they learn how to get money from tax payers that they really don’t deserve. They also learn how to avoid paying taxes – but yet get treated with the same rights as “individuals”. This goes for many industries whether it’s agriculture, pharmaceuticals, oil, defense, auto, you name it – it’s the nature of the beast!

About The Author:

Chalk writes from the sewers. He sees everything from the ground up! Chalk is not a “liberal’ or a “conservative” and eats meat on a regular basis.

We’ve been working on this one for a while. But damn do we love this poster. Next week we’ll be getting this ready for print. We would like to thank Anthony G. Hernandez for all the hard work that went into this design.

Explanation: So wars are designed by the military industrial complex to give government contract ($) to select corporations. There is an entire industry that profits off war. There is an entire industry devoted to rebuilding countries we blow up. Dollar-Dollar-Bill-Ya’ll.

There is also a HUGE financial industry that TAKES taxpayer dollars when they make huge mistakes. Playlist coming soon.