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Two Ways to Destroy “Occupy” Movement

Two Ways to Destroy “Occupy Wall Street”

As somebody’s momma once said, “the best thing you can do is show up.”  This has been happening all over the country since a group of folks decided to head down to that bull on Wall Street and call out to stop the bullshit.  This is not a report on “OWS,” it is an insight on the historical demolition of popular movements.

Divide and Conquer

The classic method of the powerful to distract the masses is to get them to fight amongst themselves.  The easiest one is via racism, and the other is class warfare pitting the Middle Class vs. Lower Class.  America’s long struggle with racism needs no extra lesson here, but one can see the tensions within OWS, and it is guaranteed that the Koch Brothers of the world, the Rupert Murdochs, with all their corporate and media power, will find every crack to expand.

The powerful have often inserted rabble rousers in the midst of the protest class, to pose as one, and to stir up internal strife.  This was done in the early Labor movement and overwhelmingly in the Civil Rights era.  Many a Native American activist has remarked about how there were times that the undercover agents outnumbered the activists.  They have been known to be the one who turned a peaceful protest violent, or manipulated factions against each other.  Will the current Occupiers be on guard for this?

Before continuing, let me add a disclaimer: I don’t speak on behalf of any ethnic or political group, nor organization, nor ideology.  I’m just one independent thinker.

I’ve seen various reports of racial tensions on the front lines of these actions and in the planning committees.  I read and hear about them with the expectations that the opposition will exploit them, and may have had a hand in manufacturing them.  It is worth noting that a true Popular Movement, one widespread enough to change a culture, thereby enacting political and economic change, will not have a corporate vertical structure.  Those who see the Occupy actions as opportunities to craft a single agreed upon message will doom the actions.  Those who are coming from Top-Down organizational structures, and wish to implement them more broadly, will suffocate the movement.

The 1% knows how to fight an army with a vanguard of leadership, it does not know how to deal with a hydra, or a million hydras.  It is not unexpected that many activists in a Movement are not directly affected, and it is typical that solidarity members can gravitate towards leadership roles if they have good communication skills.  These people are often referred to as “White Liberals,” but defining the affected class in an economic movement is not so simple as to break it into racial demographics.  If the result of such a “Black and White” view were to exclude poor and working class White people, a popular Movement is dead in its tracks.  Ultimately, the majority of America is poor and working class White people.  If a bulk of that group is convinced to wave the American flag and believe protesting political policies is being “un-American”, then it is over.

The 1% stands on the backs of poor and working class Whites.  They also stand on the backs of middle class Whites and People of Color, who believe assimilation and accommodation are the path to prosperity for their families.  The 1% has convinced a bulk of those groups that their stability is connected to standing on the necks of others.  And this connects with the second method of destroying OWS:

Pay the Protesters

Professional advocates can become beholden to their funders- be they government, corporate, or foundations.  Often, that funding is for the affects of an economic and political system that created this all-too-predictable financial crisis.  The funding typically is explicit in barring advocacy for structural change.  The pay-off will go to anyone who will take it, but generally the first offers go to those who appear to have credibility; sometimes that will be People of Color, and other times it will be White Liberals.  Someone to carry the water and be highlighted as a “responsible” leader of these people, and a commission is formed, and the new activists are told to go home so the chosen leaders can advocate on their behalf.  This is not so difficult to do when a movement looks more like an organization, and structured with a top-down approach (even if the top looks like the consensus of a small group).

What to Do?

People need to keep showing up.  Show up with a cacophony of voices, with ALL their issues.  Whether the issue is foreclosure, unemployment, civil rights, or something else, it is all tied into the structure of consolidated wealth that uses the government to protect this wealth.  In an uncertain feudal society, the King needs his lords and barons to protect him.  The nobility, in turn, needs their sheriffs, soldiers, and tax collectors to keep the serfs in line.  It is cheaper for them to hire more sheriffs and build more prisons than for their economic system to be modified.

Why is there never any discussion of automated technology leading to unemployment?  Because it is more Divisive to have working class Whites railing against Latino landscapers and in the streets about Voter ID, Secure Communities, and funding immigrant detention prisons.  In truth, there are so few skilled blue collar jobs in America for two primary reasons: (1) machines replaced humans (more profit for shareholders), and (2) companies moved businesses overseas after bipartisan pushes to change international laws (such as NAFTA).

The most un-American people in America are those who do not care about employing Americans, and would rather make another million via machine or cheap Chinese labor.  Even more un-American would be to take these profits and invest them outside of America, and then call on the American taxpayers to bail them out, or protect their economic interests in other countries.  Will mayors reign in police, or will riot gear be the new standard gear for every patrolman?  How many will be arrested?  Will the police themselves question their orders?  Few scenes so far have encapsulated OWS than a NY  Marine yelling at the NYPD, asking why they are in full riot gear and attacking unarmed civilians engaging in their 1st Amendment rights.

Why should multi-national corporations that do nothing for the common good in America receive favored status?  Why should a nation that proclaims an adherence to “market forces” bail out those who played and lost?

The bipartisan bailout followed the bipartisan deregulation that caused it.  For every action, there is a reaction.  Bush and Obama, Dems and Republicans, were all in position to respond to the economic debacles of the past few years.  Rather than launch full scale investigations (Governors and Attorneys General included), they re-filled the empty pockets.  This was the reaction in Washington, D.C., where millions upon millions of corporate money flows- both in campaign donations and public contracts.  This was the greatest theft in modern history.  And now people are legitimately rallying around this, as clearly it went too far: many Middle Class people are slowly acknowledging they are no longer in the club.  For every action there is a reaction.

Is there an end game?  Is it possible that the current economic system can employ another ten million people- or employ five million to incarcerate the other five million?  Neither scenario looks likely.  The latter is a bit more possible, but only if the 1% pay vastly more taxes, as the incarceration tab has come home to roost.  Unless automation and foreign labor are drastically altered, there are simply not enough jobs in the current structure… and that is just presuming that shifting millions of jobs back home would not result in a catastrophe elsewhere.

Every day I walk down the street past bank-owned homes that are boarded up; past homeless people, and folks hanging out because they can’t find work.  It makes me feel that the mayor of my city should be forced to sit on that curb until an idea pops in his head, one which involves blighted property and eminent domain.  One which involves community development bloc grants.  One which recognizes that the homeless lady and the unemployed guy are more important than any entity who would balloon a mortgage payment, evict an owner, and sit on a boarded up home collecting rats, overgrown with weeds… until someone buys the house for the land it is worth and demolishes the home.  (after they collected the insurance money on the defaulted mortgage, so there is no loss).

It doesn’t matter what one looks like to see that things need to be stopped and shouted about.  It just matters that one stops to look.

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Hegemony of Narrative: “The Help” as Freedom Myth

“Naiveté is often an excuse for those who exercise power. For those upon whom that power is exercised, naiveté is always a mistake.”

~Michel-Rolph Trouillot
“Ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.”

~ Althusser

What is required for an empire to maintain the subjugation, if not the compliance, of its darker subjects? The Imperials must manage their subject’s collective memories about, not only who they were, but who and where they politically are. Hegemony of narrative of both the subject and subjugator is an indispensable tool in the hands of the colonizer.

With the release of the film “The Help” came the usual adoration associated with cinemagraphic attempts at complicated feel-good stories about race relations. All the usual suspects were presented: the white liberal heroine-protagonist (Skeeter), the Black role players (Aibileen and Minny) and depictions of personal prejudice rather than institutional white supremacy as merely a social inconvenience. Like “Precious” and “Crash”, “The Help” has become a race film of sorts in the modern era; not an all Black cast, but, indeed myths which shape popular perceptions about Black life.

The cultural danger in this film (and others like it) is that, via cinemagraphic nostalgia, they so often succeed at (re)inscribing ahistorical notions about racial inequality that, at best appear to be matters of mere social misfortune often at the hands single individuals, or “persons unknown”, and at worst completely obscure the visceral thrust of triune forces which bell hooks calls “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”. The result of this? We enjoy a film’s romanticized representations of bad days gone by while being anesthetized into indifference toward the economic and social plight of our modern day “Help”.

Lest my disapproving criticism of the film stand alone, I join it with the chorus of other thinkers on these matters. Nelson George, filmmaker and author, wrote in the New York Times:

A larger problem for anyone interested in the true social drama of the era is that the film’s candy-coated cinematography and anachronistic super-skinny Southern belles are part of a strategy that buffers viewers from the era’s violence. The maids who tell Skeeter their stories speak of the risks they are taking, but the sense of physical danger that hovered over the civil rights movement is mostly absent. Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson during the course of the story, but it is more a TV event, very much like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, than a felt tragedy.

Or professor Rebecca Wanzo:

One of the three narrators, Aib[i]leen, says that she realizes she is more free than the racist character that destroys her livelihood, a claim that encourages readers to feel better about segregation because, in this logic, nobody can take real, psychological freedom from anyone. Freedom is really about how you feel, not about, you know, the law.

Yet, a more thorough critique is rendered in an open statement from the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH). They speak to a problematic socio-aesthetic binary which emerges in the feature adaptation, and is patriarchal both in its asexual Mammy-gendering of Black women and its stereotypical portrayals of Black men and community.

“The Help’s representation of these women is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy—a mythical stereotype of black women who were compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.”

And,

“We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.”

The film’s distortion of narrative, on its own, could stand as an eruption on the terrain of sound historiography on the period. But this tragedy, as suggested by the ABWH, is deepened by class cues which sketch “the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.”

In 1935 a crucial piece of worker legislation, the National Labor Relations Act, was passed. Known as the “Wagner Act” after New York Sen. Robert Wagner, who in sponsoring the bill, reasoned that “Men versed in the tenets of freedom become restive when not allowed to be free.” The National Labor Relations Act constituted a seminal democratic moment in American labor and union organizing. Wagner’s bill, among other things, guaranteed protections for union organizing independent of company domination, the right to strike, boycott, and demonstrate against recalcitrant employers, and banned firing as a coercive tool to control union ranks.

The constellation of its lofty achievements notwithstanding, where the Wagner Act failed in its attempts to enhance the democratization of American labor was in its shameful exclusion of Domestic Workers. Southern senators, in an effort to safeguard their own economic greed, saw to it that no domestic worker could ever unionize under the legal indemnity of the Act. Political cooperation was contingent upon the prohibition of the domestic labor force, of which 90 percent were Black women in the South. Hegemony of dominant narratives create sinister silences around this issue via its omission. That domestic workers were left outside of the protective legal umbrella of the Wagner Act often goes under/unmentioned even in college lectures and text.

Possibilities of protecting the collective interest of our modern day “help” must be central in the overall struggle for workers rights, understanding that domestic labor, unlike other labor, is isolated work. At this writing only one state, New York, has passed a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. California’s state government is under increasing pressure from organized domestic laborers and their allies to follow suit. In the context of the film’s ahistorical misrepresentation of the politics of Black women’s domestic labor there are existing ways to support private home worker’s economic rights. By organizing you can press your state legislature to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights law.

Links to organizing:

domesticworkers.org/ny-bill-of-rightsdomesticworkers.org/members#rifuerza-laboral.org/caringacrossgenerations.org/

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Let Me Help You: Pull Down Your Pants and Pee

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed TANF Drug-Screening into Law – May 31, 2011

Welfare. While a beneficent word, one found in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, many Americans shutter at its mention. Why? It is most closely associated with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. In other words, it has to do with that unpopular issue of poor people and helping them.

There’s a new law on the books in Florida and two other states that mandate mostly single mothers be tested for drug use in order to receive support through the TANF program.

I can hear the Florida legislature cheer, “Finally! We’re not going to have to help so many poor families! They’ll be dropping from the TANF rolls like flies!”

But wait. Hold your applause. Only about 4% of TANF recipients actually have a drug problem that would negatively affect successful employment (National Poverty Center, 2004; Pollack, Danziger, Jayakody, & Seefeldt, 2001).

“Eh, well this program is going to SAVE taxpayer money!” Not exactly. Under the law, recipients of cash assistance pay upfront for their drug test and when it comes back negative, the state issues a refund. The state ends up spending MORE than it saves (ACLU Utah, 2011; Greenblatt, 2010). For example, TCPalm (2011) reported that piloting this program cost Florida taxpayers $2.7 million back in 1998 because just 4% of people popped positive and actually paid for the test. As the authors ask, if the average assistance per month is $240.00, how many folks would have to be kicked off the program in order to recoup the $2.7 million in losses?

It doesn’t add up. So if drug testing doesn’t actually save money, then it helps the poor stay off drugs, right? Wait, I just implied that most of the poor in our country are drug abusers. Stereotypes are persistent little buggers. I meant to say drug-testing helps those with substance abuse problems get the treatment they need. Because of course, the goal of temporary assistance is to eventually support TANF recipients returning to full-time, competitive employment healthy.

Nah. The community mental health clinics that folks might go to are swamped and lack adequate funding. And the legislators who want to reduce drug use aren’t championing more mental health resources in our communities anytime soon.

In fact, Pollack et al. (2001) confirmed that mental health disorders are far more prevalent than drug dependence among TANF recipients. Yet, a drug test isn’t going to screen for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or the host of other mental health challenges impacting folks’ ability to find and keep a job. We might be looking at the wrong thing here.

If taxpayer money isn’t being saved, if the prospect of helping families find and excel in competitive employment isn’t being enhanced, and if other factors like poor education, lack of transportation, and physical/mental health problems aren’t being addressed, then what is?

Greg Matos is a Clinical Psychology doctoral student in Boston and author of “Shattered Glass: The Story of a Marine Embassy Guard.” You can visit his web site: www.GregMatos.com or Twitter: @GregMatos.

Resources

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What, Exactly, is the Secular Case Against Abortion?

The ProJo today reported that Barth E. Bracy, executive director of the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee has retained Joseph S. Larisa Jr. to represent the group in “anticipation of challenging the creation of the so-called ‘health-benefits exchange.'” Since the recent session of the Rhode Island General assembly failed to pass any legislation that would have enabled individuals and small businesses to shop for health insurance (a key part of Obama’s health care reform package) many hope that Gov. Lincoln Chafee will Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel’s lead and sign a health care exchange into existance via executive order.

Bracy’s statement is revealing:

It is tragic that a small group of determined pro-abortion officials is attempting an end-run around the General Assembly and around the Rhode Island Constitution in order to force Rhode Islanders to subsidize other people’s abortions under the guise of health-care reform.

This is a health care issue, but Bracy sees the issue as some sort of conspiracy. Bracy’s inane characterization of the process as a “small group of determined pro-abortion officials” operating “under the guise of health care reform” smacks of paranoia and delusion. The National Right to Life Committe promotes this paranoia on a national level, preventing any sort of rational debate on abortion. The movie they produced in 1984, The Silent Scream, has been criticized as being “riddled with scientific, medical, and legal inaccuracies as well as misleading statements and exaggerations,” which are really just nice words for “lies.”

The truth is that there is no compelling, secular reason to oppose a woman’s right to abortion. Groups such as RI Right to Life are rightwing religious fronts trying to force their views on the general public through misinformation and legal maneuvering. For instance, the entire thrust of their legal challenge revolves around “whether the governor has the authority to create the exchange… without the legislature’s approval” not around the fundamental question of a woman’s right to choose. They are willing to hold hostage any attempt to rework our healthcare system over the issue of abortion.

There is something out there known as the Establishment Clause, sometimes refered to as “separation of church and state.” This was put into the Constitution because religious beliefs and secualr government do not wok well together. The only case that can be made against safe, legal abortion is religious. Religion does not belong in government.

Abortion is a fundamental human right, and it needs to be protected.

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Because donating to the Bruins and the Celtics matters to the pension issue….how?

I know the right wing loves to miss the little things…and the big things…and the inbetween things….that get reported in the media, but this one is perplexing.  The lede in Projo reporter Mark Reynold’s story about Johnston’s potential decision to turn over management of local pension funds to TD Bank contains an interesting resume builder:

— TD Bank, one of the nation’s largest banks and a sponsor of both the Boston Bruins and Celtics, is interested in helping Johnston keep track of an estimated $42 million that’s been set aside to help pay the pensions of firefighters and police officers, officials say.

Now, there is nothing wrong with that lede I guess – supporting local teams is nice- but I suppose there would have been nothing wrong with also having a lede that said that TD Bank isn’t one of THIS nation’s largest banks but actually a Canadian Bank.  And since when do private banks, American or Canadian, care so much about a munipalities future, never mind the well being of its workers?  Now, the lede could have explained that TD Bank’s CEO pay was $11.4 million last year, an increase of 8%, which I am sure he earned, and which I am sure the tax payers of Johnston are very willing to subsidize with their hard earned tax dollars.

Like I said…it’s just about choices in focus, right?

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Stand Strong for Rhode Islanders in the Debt Ceiling Fight!


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The debt ceiling negotiations have heated up to match the mercury outside and Republicans and Democrats are proposing dranconian cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare while preserving tax breaks for the super wealthy and corporate tax subsidies.

Join us to ask the RI delegation to stand their ground for Rhode Islanders by defending these principles:

  • Defending the Well Being of Our Communities – Program cuts that eliminate benefits, reduce eligibility, demand participants pay more or force state governments to make cuts are not acceptable.
  • Responsible Reductions in Defense Spending – National security is essential, but our defense spending wastes billions. We can responsibly reduce outlays for defense while maintaining a strong, secure nation.
  • Fixing the Corporate Tax System is Imperative – We cannot afford a tax code that rewards corporations for hiding money offshore and permits them to benefit from accounting gimmicks and loopholes. As good paying jobs become harder to find and corporate profits continue to skyrocket, we need to strike the right balance of corporate citizenship and economic growth.
  • Restoring Fairness to the Income Tax – While the income tax structure is progressive, it does not make up for the regressive nature of the many other forms of taxation in our nation – property taxes, the sales tax and so on. We allow far too many people to hide wealth, or claim income as something else that is taxed differently – or not at all. We must ask the wealthiest – from hedge fund managers to the inheritors of fortunes – to be good patriots and contribute more to the commonweal.
  • Responsible Social Spending Reform – The only acceptable changes to programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid are those that make the programs more efficient and successful. Any changes that result in the loss of income security or access to health care are unacceptable.

Add your name to the petition today and ask our Congressional delegation to HOLD THEIR GROUND!

It is with the utmost concern that we are following the negotiations between Congress and the President over the national debt ceiling. Many of the proposals, including those from Democrats as well as from Republicans, offer devastating reductions to programs including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that are necessary to keep scores of millions of Americans healthy, educated, financially secure and free from desperate need.

During this difficult time, many of your constituents in Rhode Island have watched, with great pride, as you have been a voice of reason, calling on Congress to approach the issue of our nation’s long-term debt with compassion, fairness and moral principle.

We write to say thank you. On behalf of the people of Rhode Island, our working families and struggling unemployed, our cities and small towns, our schools, our health centers and our senior centers, we say “Thank you.” Thank you for understanding that harming the well-being of children, seniors, the poor and the disabled is not a solution of any kind. Thank you for taking action – through letters to the President, votes on the floor, interviews in the media, and messages to your constituents – on behalf of those for whom government programs provide support and hope during these hard times. Thank you for being the truly progressive leader that Rhode Island and America need today.

Thank you for recognizing that fundamental economic principles demonstrate that cuts during periods of high unemployment are counter-productive. Thank you for demanding that the long-term deficit be addressed not only by cuts, but also through fair, common sense revenue measures. You have articulated, cogently and forcefully, for the inclusion of these measures – including ideas like closing corporate tax loopholes, eliminating tax breaks for the wealthy, repealing the Bush-era tax cuts and asking the top brackets to chip-in as good patriots should. Thank you for being a voice that demands we ask as much of the fortunate few as we do of everyone else.

We also write to ask you to stay strong. As the negotiations continue, there will be pressure from within your party, from the press, and from powerful interests in our society to do the wrong thing. Those privileged few will call on Congress to cut programs instead of cutting corporate welfare. They will ask that you vote to devastate working families instead of asking the wealthiest to contribute a little more to the common good in return for the opportunities our nation has given them. They will ask that we base decisions on a faulty concept – that government is not an answer to our society’s ills, but rather the cause.

As representatives of communities and organizations that see, every day, how programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid change people’s lives for the better, we know this view is wrong. We believe you share our belief that as a society, we have a moral duty to ensure that everyone has a chance to live a full, productive and economically secure life. That is the American Dream.

We ask that you support a resolution to this crisis based on the following principles:

  • Defending the Well Being of Our Communities. Program cuts that eliminate benefits, reduce eligibility, demand participants pay more or force state governments to make cuts are not acceptable.
  • Responsible Reductions in Defense Spending. National security is essential, but our defense spending wastes billions. We can responsibly reduce outlays for defense while maintaining a strong, secure nation.
  • Fixing the Corporate Tax System is Imperative. We cannot afford a tax code that rewards corporations for hiding money offshore and permits them to benefit from accounting gimmicks and loopholes. As good paying jobs become harder to find and corporate profits continue to skyrocket, we need to strike the right balance of corporate citizenship and economic growth.
  • Restoring Fairness to the Income Tax. While the income tax structure is progressive, it does not make up for the regressive nature of the many other forms of taxation in our nation – property taxes, the sales tax and so on. We allow far too many people to hide wealth, or claim income as something else that is taxed differently – or not at all. We must ask the wealthiest – from hedge fund managers to the inheritors of fortunes – to be good patriots and contribute more to the commonweal.
  • Responsible Social Spending Reform. The only acceptable changes to programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid are those that make the programs more efficient and successful. Any changes that result in the loss of income security or access to health care are unacceptable.

These are principles reflected in the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Peoples Budget (introduced as an amendment to Rep. Ryan’s budget proposal and voted on in the House on April 14). That document can and should serve as a guide towards a responsible resolution of our national budget challenges.We respectfully request that you join the other members of the Rhode Island Congressional Delegation in transmitting to the President the sense of the people of Rhode Island as embodied in the principles above. As August 2nd approaches and America faces the real possibility of not being able to meet its debt and other payments, the people of Rhode Island need to know that any resolution will not occur at the expense of the common good.

Thank you for being the champion we need in these trying times. We support your good work and stand ready to help in any way we can.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE!

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Of Course The World Didn’t End Saturday, Jesus Would Definitely Return On A Monday

According to the wacky guy that started this rather entertaining rumor, all of the Christians were supposed to be whisked away to paradise by the second coming of Christ on Saturday.  Do you really think Jesus, “Mr. Common Man”, would return on a Saturday?  How insensitive would that be?  You slave all week at work; sit down to enjoy a beer on a spring day, and you’re interrupted by the rapture.

In good humor, this is how it would have gone down had all the Christians disappeared into the sky on Saturday:

Obama would have been super pumped by the news.  Being a secret Muslim he wouldn’t have gotten taken up, however two thirds of his Republican opponents’ voting base would have.  Jesus’ return would have made Obama’s re-election a sure thing.

The non-Christian Republicans would have lost a major issue to complain about.  Considering most of the illegal Hispanics are catholic, they would have been taken and this would leave the Republicans lacking their favorite scapegoat.

Wall Street would have survived because the Hebrews would have been stuck here with the rest of us.  However, the stock prices of companies like Wal-Mart, Nascar, the WWF, and any firearms manufacturer would have taken a huge hit.

Unfortunately, the middle east peace process would still be mess because neither the Muslims or Jews would have disappeared so that fight would still be on.  China, lacking any religion, would have still been a pain in our ass.

What would have been positive is the legalization of marijuana would pass quickly with the conservative Christians gone.  Who needs to go to heaven when we can all have it here right?


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