PUNK: Dead Kennedys: 'Life Sentence'?

DEAD KENNEDYS - "Life Sentence" via Seconds, Aug. 23, 2007: Live Broadway, Summer 1984

DEAD KENNEDYS: "Life Sentence" studio version from Give Me Convenience OR Give Me Death

For this ditty, singer-lyricist Jello Biafra fronts the classic San Francisco punk rock ensemble the Dead Kennedys (DKs), talking about our lives and the way we sell out to The Man (school, work, bank, not literal jails just figurative ones) without realizing it.

LYRICS: "Life Sentence"

Used to be a partner-in-crime

Now you say you ain't got the time

Gotta get serious, gotta plan

Gotta pass those entrance exams!

Oh my gosh, it's your senior year

All you care about is your career

[CHORUS]

It's your life sentence, life sentence

Life sentence, life sentence

You're squelching your emotions

All you talk about is those times

You don't do what you want to

But you do the same thing every day!

No sense of humor

But such good manners

Now you're an adult

You're boring!

[Chorus]

The walls (ah ah) are closing in

You stayed (ay ay) too long in school

I'd rather stay a child and keep my self-respect

If being an adult means being like you

Ah, ah

Are you really you, you, you?

You, you, you

You, you, you

Are you really you? No!

You're a chained-up dog fenced in a yard

Don't say much, you can't go far

Pace and forth, you're getting sick

Run too fast, it'll snap your neck!

Say you'll break out, you never do

You're just another ant in the hill

[Chorus]

• Jello Biafra (alternativetentacles.com), DeadKennedys.com; Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Listen, Liberal: The Dems screw us (comedy)

Jimmy Dore (TJDS); Family Guy; Thomas Frank; S. Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

WARNING: F-word, obscenity-laced, angry rant! Maverick comedian Jimmy Dore calls everyone out.

Listen, Liberal: What Ever Happened to...

Bestselling author Thomas Frank takes a close look at "liberals." It asks, What's the matter with Democrats?

As liberals we think, "If only Democrats dominate national elections, if only we beat those awful Republicans into submission, the country will be fine." To think so is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic party.

What's the Matter With America?

Drawing on years of research and firsthand reporting, he points out that Democratic politicians have done very little for liberal goals:

• expanding opportunity
• fighting for social justice
• ensuring workers get a fair deal.

These Democrats have barely dented the consensus that a free market is the answer to everything. It's not for lack of being in a position to: Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the past 24 years up to 2016. Meanwhile, the decline of the middle class has only accelerated.

Rich, two-face Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi calls for tax cuts for the rich.

. 

Bernie Sanders: I just want to fit in for once.

Wall Street gets bailouts, wages keep falling, and free trade deals keep coming. With sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank lays bare the essence of the Democratic party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years.

Corporate and cultural elitism has eclipsed the party's old working class commitment. For favored groups, this has meant prosperity. For the nation, it has been a one-way ticket to inequality. More

13-year-old builds home for $1,500 (video)

Luke Thill (youtube); Mike Kilen (Des Moines Register, 9/27/17); Lifebuzz.com (clickbait); peaceandfreedom.org; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Youngest Homebuilder

Hi, my name's Luke. Welcome to my home.

Owning a home is easy once your mortgage or bank loan is approved [and you're ready to sign away the next 30 years of your life to wage slavery].

But building a home [or really cool meditation hut] from scratch can be incredibly rewarding. It's why so many people love taking on those do-it-yourself projects.
 

Now some folks might choose to build a tool shed, while others will build a home from the ground up.

Fortunately, the Internet offers several how-to-videos to help figure out how to take on such a challenge. In fact, it's so easy that even a 13-year-old can do it. (Clickbait version or see story below)

How a 13-y.-o. Iowan built his own house for $1,500 (And why you might want to, too)

Mike Kilen, Des Moines Register, Sept. 22, 2017

Everything's cute, except gas and electricity bills. Sorry, no toilet (Des Moines Register).

There are other ideas for little DIY houses.

Just ask Luke Thill, a 13-year-old teen from Dubuque, Iowa. Luke's at that awkward stage where he's got plenty of energy, but not a lot of things to do.

So one summer he decided to overcome that boredom by building a house in his family's backyard. But as any builder will tell you, the end result will leave you speechless.

Building a house required lots of materials, which meant Luke needed cash. So he asked his parents, and they said yes! His [banker] dad, Greg, was excited for his son, who chose to do something other than sit on the couch and play video games all day.

But he decided to let Luke do most of the work himself to teach him a valuable life lesson. However, Luke still needed more help.

[The house, which measures 89 square feet, may soon be up for sale for $50,000.00, backyard not included, and Greg Bank might be willing to finance if you mow the lawn and rake leaves, or come cart it away for $49,000, or AirBnB it for $1,500/night, but call first because sometimes Luke likes to have his friends over to party.] More + PHOTOS

• VIDEO: Woman lives in tiny house so she can travel world
• Kristie Wolfe builds underground home in rural WA hamlet
• After jail, changed man finds freedom in tiny house

"Wage slavery"?

Peaceandfreedom.org

Wage slavery is the predominate form of oppression today. Workers are forced to sell themselves (actually, their labor power) in order to survive. Instead of being owned and provided for in some fashion, they are “free” for the remainder of the day [after the best 8 to 10 hours have been slaved away at this unfair exchange]. However, economic necessity prevents the overwhelming mass of humanity from being truly free... More

Suffering is most people's only Teacher (video)

"I don't need it anymore. Suffering is a wonderful teacher. Suffering is most people's only spiritual teacher. And suffering deepens you. It gradually erodes the mind-made sense of self, the ego. And for some people the point arrives when they realize, 'I have suffered enough.' And that, for example, is the case with almost all the people who come to a retreat." - Eckhart Tolle

Why go in search of a solution?
Wisdom Quarterly

What brings us to the Dharma? It's nice to think we pursue the Quest out of some noble motivation, some unquenchable thirst for ultimate truth, or the altruistic desire to save all living beings. But it is often suffering that spurs the search. Siddhartha would not have left his three luxurious palaces if it were not for suffering and the realization that all existence for everyone is beset by this wide ranging problem ancient India called dukkha. So one needn't let the initial motive deter one. Make as much progress as possible while the motivation is present, learning and meditating, being kind to others and spreading the message that there really exists a "complete end of suffering" (nirvana). Wisdom Quarterly could always use help. For soon someone or something (workaholism, busyness, illness) will come along and distract us all over again. Or we'll resort to drinking and drug use. (What do you think that prescription is?) Or we'll sink into a misery unutterable and make everyone around us miserable. The downward spiral is tricky. It has been this way for countless lives.

"Yes We Can" -- Bankers

• Watch Now

World markets slide as gov'ts struggle to stem panic

PHOTOS. A Chinese investor at a stock price board at a private security firm in Shanghai on October 6. World stock markets have plummeted, striking four-year lows, as panic-stricken investors doubted whether a Wall Street bailout package would stem the global financial crisis (AFP/Mark Ralston).

TOKYO (AFP) -- World stock markets plunged again Tuesday as the global financial crisis deepened, with governments taking emergency measures to shore up confidence but failing to stem the panic.

Markets in Asia opened sharply down, with shares in Tokyo falling more than five percent at one point, a day after a global rout saw New York's Dow Jones Industrial Average fall below 10,000 points for the first time since 2004.

In Washington, Treasury officials said they would act quickly to implement a massive bailout plan for the financial sector, seeking bids by Wednesday to manage the troubled mortgage-related assets at the root of the crisis.

The Federal Reserve and Treasury said they were studying the possibility of making unsecured loans in an effort to keep much-needed credit flowing.

In Europe, finance ministers were to begin preparing their first joint measure Tuesday to reassure nervous savers by ramping up minimum bank deposit guarantees.

In a joint declaration Monday they pledged to protect the stability of financial institutions by providing "liquidity support through central banks, action to deal with individual banks or enhanced depositor protection schemes."

The Luxembourg meeting could produce the first joint European response to the financial crisis in the form of a plan to lift minimum bank deposit guarantees to as much as 100,000 euros (135,000 dollars).

"We will all take the necessary measures to ensure the stability of the financial system," said Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the group of finance ministers from the 15 countries that share the euro.

Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, said the ECB would keep injecting money into the banking system "as long as necessary" to help institutions hit by the current crisis.

The Federal Reserve meanwhile said it would start to pay interest on bank deposits and expand bank loans to up to 900 billion dollars by year-end in a bid to increase liquidity.

President George W. Bush visited a group of small business owners in Texas, saying he understood the difficulties being faced by the car dealer, auto shop repair owner and restaurateurs he had met.

"It's clear they're dealing with the effects of a credit crunch," Bush said. "They're having trouble getting money to be able to continue to expand their business or money to help their consumers be able to buy their products."

The turmoil emerged after the collapse of loans to would-be US homebuyers with shaky credit histories and caused a chaotic chain reaction, revealing how cheap credit throughout the financial system had created a massive bubble.

The US government approved a law Friday to buy up 700 billion dollars of bad mortgages and other assets from banks, which would wipe the debts from their books in hopes they will be able to start lending more freely again.

But approval of the massive bailout plan has failed to calm world markets, which have continued to tumble sharply. Economist Peter Morici at the University of Maryland said the bailout had not worked.

"The bank bailout will provide banks with much-needed liquidity but it does not address the compensation and management practices on Wall Street that drove irresponsible decisions and gave rise to the crisis," he said.

Shares in Tokyo were down 3.10% at the end of the morning session Tuesday, recovering some of the Nikkei's losses earlier in the session.

On Monday, Wall Street came back from the edge, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 3.58%, off 369 points after losing as much as 800 points.

The partial comeback offered a glimmer of hope on an otherwise horrific day for global markets that saw London's FTSE 100 index fall 7.86% and Paris's CAC 40 shed 9.04%.

Shares in Moscow fell 19.10%, the market's worst-ever tumble.

"When will the slide end? It's anybody's guess," said David Kastner at Charles Schwab & Co.

"But the aggressive actions being taken by the Fed, and increasingly by the central bankers in Europe and Asia, point to an eventual stabilization in confidence -- where the real crisis lies. In the meantime, we expect sharp bouts of bargain hunting and more panic sell-offs."

In Iceland, Prime Minister Geir Haarde said the government was ready to take control of the country's banks, citing "a gargantuan crisis which is part of a broader worldwide crisis."

After a weekend summit of the European Union's big four leaders in Paris, member states' leaders issued a joint statement on Monday vowing to defend banks while remaining divided on a US-style bailout fund.

The turbulence pushed the euro down against the dollar and yen, while oil prices fell below 90 dollars a barrel on fears about slowing demand for energy.