FREE POLITICAL POSTER: Sen. Rob Portman cannot tell a lie, so he will not be talking about unfunded tax cuts for the rich

December 8th, 2017 Filed under: Free Stuff, News, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is well practiced at not speaking in truly public forums about his public policies and rationale. This lack of public accountability as an elected public official is a symptom of an ailing and dysfunctional democracy. This free poster, another addition to my “Parity or Parody” series of posters, speaks to the pathetically low bar of not speaking at all in order to avoid the web of lies that entangles one’s so-called public policy. Sen Rob Portman likes to portray himself as independent and he has tried to put political space between him and President Donald Trump; nevertheless, when it come to enacting legislation, he shows up as a highly reliable Trump Republican, a committed partisan. The current Republican tax bills seem to be no exception for Sen. Portman.

Sen. Portman seems to be relishing rather than merely stomaching the regressive taxation scheme, borrowing money from future generations to enrich the already rich, and standing predictably silent on the inevitable growing pressure to cut government programs, even major and popular entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, that benefit a broad swathe of Americans often referred to as the middle class and on much rarer occasion the poor. In public discourse, the poor are largely unmentioned, leaving us with the middle class and the rich, or as I might say, “the meddle class.”

Please enjoy and share freely this free political poster: Sen. Rob Portman cannot tell a lie, so he will not be talking about unfunded tax cuts for the rich.

If you are more of a policy wonk and want a concise yet detailed analysis of why ignoring deficit-financed tax cuts and ignoring future potential spending cuts, then take a look at The real cost of the Republican tax cuts, with excerpts here:

The primary stated goals of the tax plan are to raise economic growth and increase the after-tax incomes of middle-class households. But taking financing into account appropriately would show how unlikely it is that the plan will achieve those goals…

…But even if one believes the plan will increase the overall size of the economy, spending cuts or tax increases will almost certainly still be required to pay for it. Analyses that do not account for those spending cuts or tax increases, whether they occur in the near term or in the longer term, obscure who will ultimately be hurt by them. Indeed, the very opportunity to obscure who will ultimately pay for the tax cuts likely explains why Congress pursues deficit-financed tax cuts more often than revenue-neutral tax reform or tax cuts accompanied by spending cuts.

A complete analysis of the tax plan including financing would most likely show that it would have a negative impact on many, and perhaps most, Americans…

…The primary purpose of the tax system is to raise revenues. Therefore, evaluating changes in tax policy while ignoring the impact of the policy’s reduction in revenues makes no sense. It ignores the very reason taxes exist. Indeed, absent consideration of financing, simplistic arguments that a 20 percent corporate rate is better than a 35 percent rate — the Republicans’ current proposal — would also imply that a zero percent rate is better than a 20 percent rate.

And a negative 20 percent rate would be still better! Once you consider the need for financing, such simplistic arguments fall apart.

Whether and how tax cuts are financed makes all the difference in the world. Consider two alternatives. One kind of well-designed tax reform can maintain the same level of revenues and boost living standards. Such a reform would inevitably increase taxes on certain activities and decrease them on others.

This type of reform could generate a modest boost in the level of economic output in the long run and, if so, would temporarily increase the growth rate. It could also increase living standards (even with no change in output) by eliminating wasteful tax incentives that encourage people to overconsume certain goods or services to maximize their tax benefits. Revenue-neutral reforms along these lines would almost certainly make some families better off and other families worse off. Who was hurt or helped would depend on the taxes that are changed.

Policymakers could also enact a tax cut financed by a reduction in spending. Just as a well-designed tax reform proposal could improve living standards by changing either consumption patterns or the growth rate, a tax cut financed by a reduction in spending could do the same — if the spending cuts are chosen wisely. As with revenue-neutral reform, some families would be made better off and others worse off after counting both the tax changes and the impact of the spending changes. (Former beneficiaries of the spending that is reduced would obviously pay a price.)

But the situation now is that House Republicans appear likely to release a bill that will cut taxes on net with no indication of how the resulting deficits will be paid for. As a result, we’re left in the dark about the legislation’s ultimate impact.

Conventional distribution tables for tax cuts show most of the gross benefits of tax cuts but not the impact of paying for them. When the proposal increases deficits and does not specify how those deficits will be addressed, the possibilities range from cuts to programs to low-income households to increases in taxes for high-income households.

We give a rough estimate, here, of the impact that three different approaches to financing a large tax cut would have on families across the income distribution. This example is not intended to show the actual distribution of the forthcoming House bill, but is broadly illustrative of the trade-offs involved in financing a tax cut that offers larger benefits for higher-income families than for lower-income families, as it seems likely the bill from House Republicans will do.

Specifically, we use the Tax Policy Center’s analysis of the principles for tax reform released by the Trump administration in April. This analysis found that families in every income group would see lower taxes on average from the plan as proposed, albeit with much larger increases in after-tax incomes for higher-income households.

But if the plan were financed by spending cuts or tax increases enacted at the same time, the distributional effects of the plan would change significantly.

The analysis considers three scenarios for financing. In each scenario, families pay more in tax or receive less in benefits to offset the cost of the tax costs…

…Families in the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution would be worse off on average under each of the three scenarios.

If anything, this…understates just how regressive the total ultimate impact of the Republican plan could be. While an equal payment per family would be regressive, the reductions in Medicaid spending that House Republicans passed earlier this year — which would have a significant impact on lower-income households and very little on the highest-income households — would be even more so.

The analysis…assumes that financing is enacted at the same time as the tax cut. In practice, policymakers can delay the enactment of financing for either a short or extended period. In such a scenario, even larger spending cuts or tax increases in the future would replace the required cuts today. Such an approach would introduce disparities across time as well as income.

Assuming Congress does not reverse course and enact progressive tax increases to offset the cost of the current tax cuts, older, higher-income Americans would likely see the largest increase in incomes, and younger, lower-income Americans would likely lose the most.

Enacting deficit-financed tax cuts allows policymakers to avoid the need to specify spending cuts or tax increases to pay for them and thus obscures the costs of the proposal. In addition, deferring the financing can itself reduce growth and reduce incomes even before the required financing policies are enacted. Those costs magnify the direct costs of any tax cuts.

Preliminary analyses by the Tax Policy Center of the Republicans framework (plus additional assumptions about unspecified elements of the plan from TPC) show the potential long-term consequences of deferring financing. In the short run, the TPC finds that the proposals would boost output. But over the longer run, the effects of mounting deficits and debt would turn the growth impact negative.

At the end of the first decade, the Tax Policy Center estimates that GDP will be 0.1 percent lower than it otherwise would have been, and at the end of two decades, it would be 0.4 percent lower. As a result, wages would likely fall over time, not rise (as recently claimed by the White House).

These results do not show the complete picture, however. The extent to which increased debt and deficits reduce GDP is moderated by an increase in domestic investment financed by foreigners. But this increase in foreign investment in the United States means an increased fraction of future GDP will need to be devoted to paying the return on that investment to those foreign investors. In other words, the gap between incomes generated by economic activity in the United States and incomes accruing to US nationals will grow.

Thus, gross national product (GNP), a concept that subtracts payments we make to foreigners on their US assets and adds payments we receive from foreigners — will decrease by more than GDP, falling by 0.2 percent after 10 years and 0.6 percent after two decades:

In circumstances like these, economists broadly agree that GNP is a better indicator of living standards for American households.

While the above analysis considers only the effects of additional debt, the spending cuts and tax increases ultimately enacted can themselves have negative effects on the economy. Indeed, classic economic arguments suggest that even when government spending is uncertain and varies over time, the most efficient tax system is one that attempts to maintain relatively constant tax rates.

Ignoring tax-cut financing is like doing only one side of cost-benefit analysis

Simplistic arguments in favor of a $1.5 trillion tax cut suggest that a $5 trillion tax cut would necessarily be even better. Clearly such arguments are missing something critical: balancing the costs against the benefits.

The prevalence of such arguments is part of a larger issue with the way tax debates are often conducted, focusing on GDP and downplaying or ignoring the impact of financing.

In recent years, analysts have increasingly assumed, in their models, that deficits resulting from tax cuts are ultimately paid for by tax increases or spending cuts several decades in the future. Thus, they recognize that deficits will be produced (by, say, large tax cuts) but basically assume the deficits will be remedied somehow, without showing the direct effect of those remedies on American households either now or in the future.

This approach can be useful in the context of official analysis of proposed policies, but it obscures the true economic tradeoffs. The promised gains from tax cuts in such cases — even when not eliminated as a result of years of increased borrowing — can amount to little more than borrowing heavily from future generations.

If we recognize the need for financing, a deficit-financed tax cut along the lines of the one House Republicans appear to be prepared to unveil is likely to be bad for the economy in the long run. It is likely to be particularly bad for working- and middle-class families.

POEM: Wrenching Machine

June 19th, 2017 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

He threw himself into his work
Like a wrench
More than just
A gag
In a wrenching machine

Here is a Monday poem dedicated to all anti-work workers, those less-than-willing cogs in dehumanizing machines. I am so grateful for being my own boss and running my own business, where I can escape many of the heart-wrenching accommodations faced by wage slaves. I heartily recommend simplifying your material needs to help minimize any need of selling yourself to dubious employers. This also doubles as an anti-consumer, low-resource consumption lifestyle. May we all find meaningful vocations untethered to capitalist exploitation.

Tags: Business, Consumption, Dehumanizing, Heart, Lifestyle, Poems, Poetry, Short Poems, Work

POLITICAL POEM: Elections Bought and Souled

July 22nd, 2016 Filed under: News, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

What due
You
Know choice candidates
Fenced by kleptocrats
And undebatable Republicrats
Their exclusive promise
A system fixed
Throwing political parties
Incorporations wee trust
In-firm ideologies
The body politic
Under the whether
Or worse yet
Riddled with ballots
Everlustingly powered by fossil fools
In a match we cannot win
Insurmountably ante
In that roil flush
Heil to the chief
A fight un-till the deaf
Trumped and trumpeted
Victor and Victoria
Dubiously herald and maudlin
Never to be
Over looking
Assuaged by aristocrat videos
On line with your own
Thinking
In auditorium pact
And in undrivable streets
Razing hell
Is the key too city hall
Lo expectations
Unmanageable hopes
And unbridled promise
Be dammed!
Wholly our own
What will we elect
Too due
Bought and souled
Buy the damned and the elect
Won and the same
Decidedly over turn
Your choice

The end is coming…to the Republican national convention. The Democratic national convention is coming next week. Well, I guess we are more like in the middle of the end. The careening authoritarianism of Donald Trump will be supervened by the triangulating trajectory of Hillary Clinton. These daze long political ads prestidigitate the non-binding platform in the raze to see who can commandeer the Commander-in-chief helm, sans the funny looking hat of other scary clowns.

This poem exposes the juxtaposers, who adorn false choices in efface of chronically neglected issues and give rare acclaim to the canon fodder of their revered platforms. Awe that is sacred will be parsed into bite-sized pieces in keeping with easy consumption. We are the promised people, wee are tolled. Bootstraps for awe. The souls will have no wholes. Sow the aristocrat’s state, agin and agin.

The time is ripe to stop following these crumb bums. In the revolution, you will turn around and see your neighbor, not these professional posers. Humanity needs human faces, not friendish facades. If our future wrests soully with electoral politics, that literal ballot to ahead bids us quite miraculously to walk away, a cross bridges yet unbuilt, over walls however deliriously high, to a fresh future steeped in ancient wisdom and teeming with expectant vitality. The choice is ours, ever worth more than can ever be printed on paper, or boxes checked out.

Feel free to check out lots more funny election designs, cool third party designs, and hilarious anti-Republican designs:

Tags: Ancient, Awe, Ballot, Choices, Consumption, Donald Trump, Elections, Funny, Future, Hell, Hillary Clinton, Humanity, Poems, Poetry, Political, Politics, Puns, Republican, Revolution, Sacred, State, Third Party, Time, Trust, Wisdom

POEM: Ferry Tales

March 15th, 2016 Filed under: Poems, Political Action, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Buy politicians
We have been tolled
Ferry tales
From bank to bank
Holding no water
Liquidating assets
Left and right
Sow gully able
As they desperately wanton
US to believe
The chosen few, the elect
As top down
Driving in convertible submarines
Celling down the river
As whatever
Thou dust
Having already
Drunk
The KoolAid™
In effacing endless boos
As given the owed college try
And in curable desperation
Quipped to say
Bottom up
As no need to take any ship
From any won
Upright
Nor bail
For yawl

Here is an election day themed poem for Ohio’s presidential primary elections today. While it’s easy to be cynical about politics, the adage, follow the money, is a powerful tool for understanding politics and power. The political class, overpopulated by the aristocracy, has well developed strategies and tactics to appeal to the notion that they are on your side. Inevitably, moneyed folks have a way of perpetuating their economic interests over less economically endowed folks. These strategies and tactics are built into our everyday life — appealing to crass celebrity as distraction and chasing money (and its attendant addictive cycles of debt and over-consumption) as the unquestioned path to the good life — but during campaign season the high rhetoric typically pushes the limits of hypocrisy. Unfortunately, the United States electorate is the most uniformed electorate among so-called advanced industrial democracies. Plus, with brazen gerrymandering, corrupt party politics, lack of universal voter registration, and a whole host of practices degrading voter participation rather than enhancing it, our democracy has been bought and sold. Our so-called democracy would be more aptly described as an oligarchy, plutocracy, or even kleptocracy. Voter turnout in the U.S. is the lowest among so-called developed countries. While increased voter turnout could offer modestly better results, a poorly informed electorate does not have the essential immunization against propaganda and manipulation that would make for a functioning democracy. I strongly suspect the the bulk of effort needed to revitalize our democracy must occur outside of electoral politics, with social movements that force changes in our political system alongside cultivating positive changes toward a more just culture that respects human rights and dignity for all. Voting matters, but if we rely primarily on voting, whatever is left of our democracy will matter little. Vote with your feet and hit the streets; organize; and be the change you want to see in the world.

Tags: Celebrity, Change, Consumption, Culture, Cynical, Debt, Democracy, Economic, Elections, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Life, Money, Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Political, Politics, Power, Propaganda, Respect, Rhetoric, Social Movements, State, Voting

POEM: Unfare

September 10th, 2015 Filed under: About Top Pun, Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Weighter
Truth be tolled
Whoever’s pain the bill
I’d like a reseat
At the table

This poem addresses the truism that life is not fair. I have spent most of my life and part of most days working to address social injustices. Recently, with the advent of the Black Lives Matter movement, I have redoubled my efforts to examine my own privileges and disenfranchisements. In sum, I am a very privileged individual. I am fascinated by how our own sets of privileges and disenfranchisements play out in society, particularly social justice movements. Perhaps the most prevalent divide, present even within most households, is male and female. Patriarchy is nearly omnipresent. As in any privileged group, men must exert effort to not by default weaponize privilege against those disenfranchised, in this case, about half of the world’s population! I have seen how people of color and trans folks have worked hard to claim their rightful roles and places within the LGBT equality movement. In addition, socioeconomic class issues cut across virtually all social movements. As a U.S. citizen working predominantly alongside other U.S. citizens, the privilege of First-Worldism profoundly impacts our relevance and importance as planetary citizens, where the poorest majority of humanity bears the brunt of the rest of the world’s over-consumption of resources, abuses of power, and assorted and sundry cultural dominations.

As for me, solidarity is a primary guiding principle for my social justice activism. Literally standing with people who are disenfranchised in one way or another strikes me as one of the most direct ways to step toward social justice. This is related to “putting skin in the game,” which serves as my primary measure for authentic commitment to other human beings and the creation we share. As Alice Walker so elegantly stated, “Activism is my rent for living on this planet.” This planet, so teeming with life, deserves our respect, appreciation, and honest efforts to make it the best home possible for millions of miles around. As I like to say: Life isn’t fair, it’s excellent!

Tags: Citizens, Consumption, Creation, Disenfranchised, Domination, Economic, Equality, Female, Gratitude, Humanity, Justice, LGBT, Life, Patriarchy, Play, Poems, Poetry, Political, Poor, Power, Present, Privilege, Respect, Short Poems, skin in the game, Social Justice, Social Movements, Society, Solidarity, Truth, Work

POEM: Reining In Global Warning

August 15th, 2015 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

The economy was
Humming
Having change
Their tune
Given
The overabundance
Of hot water
And cell a-steam
Showering down
Hour earthly reign
In the scheme of things
In a call amity
Of biblical portions
They had everything
Save the earth
And after
Having one
Wore on the environment
Mother earth’s
Pursed lips
At the outpouring cache
A river bed
Tried to the bone
Of no use
Pointing fingers
As more than
Putting up
With money where mouth is
Re: tardily sane
As never too be
Ever food agin
Mouthing a mint
In perpetual bad taste
Sow un-full
Filling a void
That wee only have
Won planet
Wont of reign

Yet another poem mourning the way we treat our beloved Mother Earth. As global warning wrings out more lost species, extinct forever in the wake of our mindless consumption and heartless capitalism, I am reminded wince again of the Cree Indian prophecy: “Only when the last tree has been felled, the last river poisoned and the last fish caught, man will know, that he cannot eat money.” Can you help but ask weather when we put our money where our mouth is if it will be too late. If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. If mankind can’t let go of the crappy job he’s doing, mama will get unrule he Let us not temp our mother.

Tags: Abundance, Capitalism, Change, Consumption, Economy, Environment, Extinction, Food, Job, Love, Money, Mother Earth, Mourning, Poems, Poetry

POEM: A Royal Buzzkill

October 22nd, 2014 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Bee
The change
That you wish
In the whirled
Too see
O Mother Earth
Undertaking
Men o’ pause
In-fertility rite
As nature fecund wanes
A roil buzzkill
Soon with death teeming
Wear is thy sting
Extincting that human race
Soully certifiable reproductions
Unfit as a specious
Forerunners to know end
Yet today, this solitary caged bird sings
Like a canary
In a cold mine
With its deadly presents
Colorless and odious executioner
The lynch pin of anonymous hoods
Haunting all
That which is called “natural”
Sow fumes miasma
Till hour last breath

This poem is another mournful environmental poem, with the steady decline of bees as the proverbial canary in the coal mine for the deathly threat to the ecology of the earth. Of course, the stoic denial and fatalism of human-induced climate change through fossil fuel consumption reaps a Mother Earth whose only defense may be to open a Pandora’s box capable of “naturally” selecting the human race from an internal combustion race to a mere foot race, where humans are no longer large enough scale to crash the entire planet’s ecological system. If we don’t change course and evolve into an ecologically-sustainable species, we will be devolved into a much less dominant species. Whether this would represent an evolution or devolution would have to be reflected upon by many fewer homo sapiens.

While we as a species are still living high on the fumes of burning fossil fuels, the buzzkill of bee genocide may lead the way to the end of agriculture as we know it, and the end of human culture as we know it. Our unchecked industrialism, fueled by the burning of carbon-based energy forms, may very well lead to our checking out as the predominant species on earth. Could this bee the end of the world? as so aptly asked in an article of the same title (with a now extinct link!):

Albert Einstein once said: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

Einstein wasn’t an insect expert but he had a point. The humble honeybee is an integral part of the global ecosystem. Honey is just one aspect of what this entomological wonder does. As a pollinator it ensures crops reproduce, so although a world without honey would be a poorer place, man would survive. But without plants, we’d become extinct.

…On a global scale, it is estimated a third of the food we eat is pollinated by bees…

…The introduction to the 2010 UNEP [United Nations Environment Programme] report into global bee colony disorders puts the insects’ plight in context. It states, “Current evidence demonstrates that a sixth major extinction of biological diversity event is under way. The Earth is losing between 1 and 10 per cent of biodiversity per decade, mostly due to habitat loss, pest invasion, pollution, over-harvesting and disease.” It asked, “Has a ‘pollinator crisis’ really been occurring during recent decades, or are these concerns just another sign of global biodiversity decline?”

Unchecked domination is not the nature of nature. Either homo sapiens will learn to live in harmony with nature as a whole, or our ability to dominate will be cut down to scale. As throughout countless generations, we are faced with choosing harmony or destruction. Nature has patiently endured our penchant for destruction. Nature cannot be violated forever. Nature’s feedback is gentle and generous. Only fools destroy the hand that feeds them. Will we be fools in the largesse weigh?

Tags: Change, Climate Change, Consumption, Culture, Death, Defense, Denial, Disease, Diversity, Domination, Einstein, Environment, Environmental, Evolution, Extinction, Food, Harmony, Human Race, Life, Loss, Mother Earth, Nature, Poems, Poetry, Pollution, Sustainable

POEM: A Full Life

September 4th, 2014 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Charlie’s life was full
Every available space laden to wrest
His productivity well suited
To his interests
Taxidermy and robotics

This short poem offers a challenge to what it means to have a full life in modern Western civilization, where increasing speed and productivity are worshiped as the means to a good life. I am a big fan of rest and empty spaces as an essential way to fully round out one’s life. Our culture’s addiction to productivity, fitting in (“well suited”), and a focus on narrow interests has most of us bamboozled. In this poem, the inane and the productive meet in the metaphor of taxidermy and robotics, representing the deadening and dehumanizing effects of an overfull life. This metaphor also juxtaposes vocation and avocation, where it is unclear what is a job and what is a hobby. While this may be confusing, it hints at the underlying connection that a capitalistic culture makes. Capitalism works best when we devote ourselves to both work/productivity AND inane consumerism. Capitalism wants to own both vocation and avocation. Of course, an endless array of inane avocations are offered, as long as they support the consumption of some product or service, hopefully in the service of distracting you from the emptiness of your “full” life and the avaricious nature of endless “growth.”

Emptiness can be revolutionary. This is why capitalism works best when it crams every available space with inane crap. Capitalism’s very life depends on it. Surely, capitalism must provide abundant avenues to distract us from our emptiness. However, emptiness is not empty! If we sit with our emptiness, in the sense of lack of fulfillment, this will foment unrest poorly suited for capitalism. Even further, in experiencing empty spaces and silence, we expand our perspective, the framework upon which we see things, allowing us to truly grow. Buddhists and Taoists are particularly adept at exploring such realities. Deists might frame this as silence being the language of God, that small, still voice.

After experiencing a period of relaxation, have you ever then experienced increased anxiety or dread when “going back to work” appears on the horizon? In a life abundant in balance and wisdom, while work requires effort, it does not require dread. Dread is a sign of imbalance. Chronic dread signifies a shortage of wisdom. Dread speaks to us. One of the central concepts (the first of the Four Noble Truths) of Buddhism is often stated in English as “Life is suffering.” I have heard this elaborated upon as realizing that life requires effort (work). Work is not the enemy. Work is an integral part of life — as is rest . The issue becomes how to achieve balance and minimize suffering. I like the image of breathing in and out as a metaphor for balance. Questioning whether breathing in or out is better misses the point — as is often the case in Western convergent thinking. If you do ask which is better, the only sensible response is “what did you do last?” If work causes anxiety, then rest. If rest causes anxiety, then work. If everything causes you anxiety, then look to emptiness. Of course, emptiness often looks like rest, but there is good work to be done there…

Tags: Addiction, Anxiety, Balance, Buddhism, Buddhist, Capitalism, Consumerism, Consumption, Culture, Dehumanizing, Experience, God, Hope, Image, Inane, Job, Labor, Life, Modern, Nature, Perspective, Productivity, Questioning, Revolution, Revolutionary, Silence, Suffering, Tao, Vocation, Western Civilization, Wisdom, Work

POEM: An Oasis Scarcely Better, Then a Mirage

May 19th, 2014 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

From oasis to oasis
Straw men
Hiring suckers
Living under
Dissembled bridges
Until it’s over
Troubled waters
What’s the hold-up
Living for weak ends
And long vocations
Until
Down
Under
One foot in front of the other
One foot in front of the other
One foot in front of the other
One foot in front of the other
One foot in front of the other
One foot in front of the other
A hexing feat
A plod
Bought and paid for
Buy decisions made years a go
Putting off family
For eternal wrest
Friends only gathering in your wake
A bout time
Spent
Pourly
Until
Can’t take it
With them
Passing on
An assuming manor
And a partiality
For a stylized life
And conspicuous consumption
Wear cleanliness is next to gaudiness
Awe made passable
By a peacocky overcompensation
Surpassing one’s station
In life
A haven untaxed
In death
A surety
As won might
Have guest it
A regretful time share
As when the first homme isn’t enough
Always returning
Too more earnest dwellings
Harping on
The good old daze
Not even
For a second
Helping
But for the hole shebang
In unremitting a morality
A temporary re-treat
From the fire down below
Feeling the heat
Strokes of genius
Clever ruses billed
On foundations of sand
Offering slim hope
For the porous
As liquid assets evaporating
In a desert temp
An oasis scarcely better
Then a mirage
For those sitting on the parch
A weigh station
To check their baggage
Perhaps pick up some more
Souvenirs
For the trip
Over their own feat
Plunging an unquenchable thirst
Skewering with spit
Sweating bullets
In humid climbs
Yet like fish out of water
No matter how hard
They dry
Flailing to inspire
In any such reckoning
And knot on your life
Will they settle
For sum thing less
And weather they come
Ergo
For the wrest of US
Their goes
The neighborhood

This poem is an ode to so-called living from oasis to oasis rather than living sustainably in one oasis. I find that the so-called “carrot” of getting to the next oasis is actually more of a “stick” to nature and our humanity. Americans have suffered from a frontier mentality for centuries, ratcheting up suffering in increasingly exponential ways. Instead of doing the work of learning about and living within natural limits, humans race toward extinction, with a lengthy prologue and rate of over a hundred species a day. Living in harmony, sustainably within our natural environment, may very well be the most important lesson humans need to learn within the next few generations. There is little reason why we shouldn’t be able to learn this lesson, but whether we will avail ourselves of the benefits of learning this lesson is unclear. There is a classic, somewhat cynical exposition from the character Agent Smith in the movie, The Matrix, which gives one perspective on the human race and human nature:

“I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.”

I find this description accurate. However, this history leaves unanswered how we will respond in the future. The relevant conundrum that I see in human nature is that the unprecedented capability humans have in making choices undetermined by nature is a serious double-edged sword. This very capability to stretch nature, even human nature, can lead to large, unsustainable ventures which bound over natural limits in which other living entities would be much more “naturally” restrained or contained. Perhaps paradoxically, this very same capability leaves open the potential to adapt quickly and recover a sustainable balance. I find hope in our ability to adapt. Still, humans have a long history of only doing the right thing after exhausting most every other possibility. The stakes are high, and realizing the high stakes may be the necessary impetus for humans to make necessary adjustments. Hopefully, we can restore a level of sanity and balance in time to avoid a catastrophic collapse of civilization and/or the environment. Either way, living in harmony with nature is a better choice. We can vote with our lives and lifestyles. May we embrace our evolution, even revolution, to avoid devolution or extinction.

Tags: America, Awe, Balance, Character, Choices, Consumption, Conundrum, Cynical, Death, Disease, Environment, Evolution, Extinction, Family, Future, Genius, Harmony, History, Hope, Human Nature, Human Race, Humanity, Learning, Life, Lifestyle, Moral, Morality, Nature, Ode, Perspective, Poems, Poetry, Possibility, Revolution, Suffering, Sustainable, Time, Work

POEM: A Befitting Size, That Matters

May 15th, 2014 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Starring on the big screen
Used to dominate young dreams
Super-sizing them for mass consumption
Today, celluloid immortality miniaturizes
So five minutes ago
Small screens test us
As we flail miserably
In a feudal limbo
‘Tween
Puffed up images
Flickering about
And atrophied soles
Going nowhere fast
No longer facing
A true converse
Of penetrating I’s
Present minds
And supple lips
Flush of heart
Given to a musing gesture
Deflating kings
And giving commoners rise
Surpassing hands shaking
And awe that follows
Neither settling
For collapsing our highest hopes
Nor minute fits
As souls meet the street
And welcoming nature
Banishing the might he
Of lesser woulds
And inspiring fresh heirs
To real feat
Baring our soles
Grounded in realty for all
A shared fete
A fare commune
Wear each mourning
Met lightly
With a celebration of the hearts
No longer idle worship of images
Every won an original
Not merely deference
Bland tolerance
Or thumbs down devolution
But powered by appreciation
You can bank on
A currency turning led into goaled
A redeeming alchemy
The most handsome ransom
For our ugly whirled
A watery swell so grave
Or a cowering inferno
Mything the point
With such hocus pocus
And uncounted allusions
To awe that would suitor
A befitting size
That matters
And keeping it
Reel
Never having too obsess
What’s the catch

This poem is a call to more real and human-scale relationships. Social media technology, celebrity, and widespread shallow images of ourselves projected to others is robbing us of better ways of being. We can easily be overwhelmed by images of celebrity, status, and wealth, tempting vainglorious dreams. We can easily feel inadequate and too small by a juggernaut of Photoshopped images and word processed personalities. Humans are best suited to face-to-face relationships. As such real-time, real-world relationships are edged out by other more nominal relationships our humanity and satisfaction suffers. Nobody wants to be multi-tasked, no matter the purported claims of efficiency. Long-term, face-to-face, human relationships better reflect the awesome depth, complexity, and eccentricity of humans. It is by far the best place for healthy intimate relationships to thrive. Such relationships also keep us humble, rooted in reality. I see humility as being right-sized, not too big or too small. Perhaps the greatest threat to humility is technology and institutions which depersonalize human interactions. Powering up through technology and institutions is a powerful temptation to become too big, overpowering human scales with impersonal agency and concentration of power among elites. This is dehumanizing. This creates persistent structural temptations to value things and concepts/ideologies over actual people. The seductive drive of scaling up power disconnects us from our own humanity and the humanity of others. I suspect that Western civilization is far-flung from any balance between being rooted in healthy, human-scaled relationships and powering up to “get things done.” Further, I suspect that there may be a nearly proportional relationship between getting things done and getting humans done. May we keep things real and not finish off humans. I kind of like them!

Tags: Awe, Balance, Celebrity, Consumption, Dehumanizing, Dream, Dreams, Efficiency, Elite, Heart, Hope, Humanity, Humility, Image, Impersonal, Institutions, Media, Mind, Mourning, Nature, Poems, Poetry, Power, Present, Reality, Relationships, Status, Technology, Temptation, Time, Wealth, Western Civilization, Worship

POEM: Model Citizen

April 5th, 2014 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Rowan was a model citizen
One-eighth scale
Painstakingly posed
With animating make up
Almost lifelike

This short poem, “Model Citizen,” is a reflection on the life-like which should only be mistaken for life at one’s own peril — or, in this poem’s case, at one’s community’s own peril. The status quo and the powers that be provide a straightforward framework, including incentives and disincentives, to behave in a certain way. This is a large part of what we call culture. Busy-ness and business are dominant aspects of modern Western civilization. Unfortunately, being busy, or just seeming busy, isn’t necessarily linked with human betterment or progress. Like Gandhi said, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Surely, the capitalist business and consumer culture feeds the need for speed, ever-increasing “industriousness” to grow the economy and standard of living. Perhaps the best example of why this path is perilous is the reality that a “successful” growth of worldwide standard of material living requires an increasingly unsustainable exploitation and consumption of natural resources, and concomitant waste. If such growth is not to be a fatal planetary cancer, there needs to be wholesale changes in the way we do business, and busy-ness, as relates to the urgency of the situation. We cannot settle for life-light or lifelike. Such citizen posers may be the death of us all.

This poem points to the role of good citizenship in creating, maintaining, and sustaining healthy communities and a healthy planet. In good citizenship, democracy is the process and the common good is the goal. Neither democracy nor the common good can reasonably be entrusted to elites, whether these elites are political, business, technocratic, or religious. It is precisely these elites which have an interest in selling us something other than the common good. The proprietary nature of modern existence, driven by the profit motive, has brought us to this place. The common good is anathema to profit as king. The unjust advantage held by elites is what keeps us on this perilous trajectory. Nominal democracy is a common tool used to fool average citizens into accepting something less than the common good. There is a great divide between elites, who are generally viewed as portraits of “success” — a mere fantasy for many — and the masses who would be greatly advantaged by securing the common good. Of course, in affluent societies, the “middle class” comprise most of the so-called “model citizens.” Their advantage in the larger scheme of things is sufficient to buy into the status quo, if not the powers that be. The amorphous common good of some possible life is bypassed for the reasonable access to the concrete benefits of living in a materially affluent society. Most simply put: if I’ve got mine, then risking that for something less certain seems like a bad bet. So we settle. In terms of democracy, made nominal, this appears as that oft-too-common choice of the lesser of two evils, choosing between two elites who have no real interest in the common good, other than to pacify the masses and maintain stability and predictability. Just note the language used with the utmost importance regarding financial interests and “markets” needing “certainty.” Predictability has many nice facets to it, but in this case, the greatest certainty is that the rich will grow richer and the poor will grow poorer. When this almost-cliche formula receives little complaint or resistance, it is a sure diagnostic that you are richer than poorer, or at least a committed wannabe richer. In the end, this poem is a call to the poorer masses to throw off the illusions brought by nominal democracy (in a plutocracy) and the modest temporary incentives to play it safe as a “model citizen” only one-eighth scale. Then, we can join together in a much truer democracy able to secure the common good for all — yes, even the richer.

Tags: Business, Change, Citizens, Citizenship, Cliche, Common Good, Community, Consumption, Culture, Death, Democracy, Economy, Elite, Evil, Gandhi, Illusions, Life, Market, Modern, Nature, Play, Plutocracy, Poems, Poetry, Political, Poor, Power, Powers that be, Progress, Proprietary, Reality, Religious, Resistance, Rich, Risk, Short Poems, Society, Status, Status Quo, Success, Sustainable, Western Civilization

POEM: It’s About Time

December 22nd, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

One day
I had a dream
God came to me and said
Meet me tomorrow at 4:32 pm
On the bench
In the small park
At the corner of Ashland and Collingwood
Near your home
You have something I want
My first reaction was
Doesn’t God consider all of the riches of the world
As but a penny?!
Doesn’t God consider a thousand years
As but a second?!
What could God possibly
Want from me?!
My second reaction was
Isn’t that time and place
Awefully specific?
I closed shop a little early that next day
And I sat there
In the park
Lots of traffic
But not a soul
It seemed somewhat foolish
Know one there
Accept the neighborhood homeless guy
And, of course, me
So with perpetually bad timing
The homeless man blurts out
Yes, all of the riches of the world are as but a penny!
Yes, a thousand years is as but a second!
So be aware!
Now
A well dressed passerby
Shakes his head
Without breaking his gait
I was stunned
Buy the time
I could
Muster a thought
He was walking away
So I
Blurted out
So, if all of the riches of the world are as but a penny
And a thousand years is as but a second
Can you spare a dime!?
Without turning
He lightly raised his hand
Giving a somewhat dismissive gesture
Just
Saying
Sure
In a sec

This short poem is an elaboration of a joke I once heard. I liked the juxtaposition of the sense of wealth and time from a divine and a human perspective. The “better off” human(s) in this poem find themselves ironically betwixt the divine and “worse off” humans. The joke exposes the gap between God and humans, as well as the gap between “better off” and “worse off” humans. To someone with an immediate need, like the homeless, putting them off temporarily is essentially putting their need off essentially forever. If not now, when? The sad rationale that “better off” persons use regularly is that “the poor will always be with us” (to bastardize Jesus’ words), so we can help them occasionally when it is convenient for us — thanks homeless people for presenting that ongoing opportunity! Unfortunately, this typically falls far short of meeting the need of many persons at any given time.

It is no accident that I wrote and published this poem during the Christmas season. Jesus was a homeless man without worldly riches. If we were to look to Jesus as a model manifestation of humanity and divinity, then celebrating Christmas would look little like modern Christmas, with its commercialization and focus on getting and consumption. For at least centuries, humans have had the resources to meet every basic human need. Yet, a painfully huge proportion of “present day” humans go without basic needs. This fact of abundance stands as an indictment on the scarce and barren worldview that carries the day for most of us much of the time. This is a worthy reality to reflect upon this “present day.”

Tags: Abundance, Christmas, Commercial, Consumption, Dream, Foolish, God, Humanity, Jesus, Joke, Modern, Perspective, Poems, Poetry, Poor, Present, Reality, Rich, Soul, Time, Wealth, Worldview

POEM: Ad Dulled State

September 28th, 2013 Filed under: Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings Add Comment

Ad Dulled State

Well come
To this ad dulled state
What will it take
To see the light
Tell a vision
Divining every yen
Razing the whys
Jacking up
All that meters
Taxi’ing every quarter our
Static being drug
Swallowing minute libations
To our own
Dram nation
Pros astute
Shop lifting thirsts and seconds
Feigning coy
Eat us
Interruptus
Lusting an instant
To be
A loan
Stop the word and let me get off
Yet in the end
A foreign language oui read
LITTLE PRINTS
Exposing
Astor risks
Like a John going down on the Titanic
Can that
Be conceivably kosher
Such an untold clip
That diabolic scroll
In nothing flat
Can we circumspect nothing else
So ordained
A diction
Razing
High couture
That calling
NOW
To see double
Speak easy operators
Reaching the hype
Of pop culture
Soda whatever happens
The dream of auto pilots
Every wear
Fashioning model consumers
In compassing all the rage
Insuring all lost
A luxurious cell
With the laidest technology
Everyone fast
Food again
Con fronting counter fits
With an app petite
To be ravenous nevermore
Conquering SOBs hankering
Whatever man
You fractured
To undemanding specks
Whatever you craven

The near omnipresence of advertisements in so-called advanced civilization can lead to an addled state of mind. Capitalism cannot resist, and even lifts to a virtue, monetizing everything possible. And where does this road lead? To one big commercial, occasionally interrupted by life. The need to convince people about all of the needs that they didn’t even know they had takes unrelenting programs of repetition assaulting our senses in increasingly novel and clever ways. Our brains can find little refuge from such assaults. Weather coy interruptions or sensory overload, the lowest common denominators of sensuality, status, and power tempt and train our baser instincts to buy products basking in their glow. Unfortunately, the glow of big-screen televisions, neon lights, and fancy packaging rarely deliver even a fraction of their alleged benefits. The truth evaporates like ethereal promises scrolling by as incomprehensible fine print. We are expected to rest upon verbal promises not even worth the paper they aren’t even printed on. Such means produce similar ends. The consumer is consumed. Elusive wants grow larger the closer we get. In our dreams, we Chase Freedom™ like a fairy tail. Our simplest needs are crushed under the weight of gadgets, accessories, and the inevitable infestation of bugs in Life v.16.2.01. What we need is life unplugged. A blackout might reveal what is truly electric. Even in the darkest of ages, those who are be-wild-er-ed will find a road less travelled. The best things in life cannot be manufactured. The best things in life are free — that is, if you can pay the cost…

Tags: Capitalism, Commercial, Consumerism, Consumption, Culture, Dehumanizing, Dream, Dreams, Food, Freedom, Life, Mind, Poems, Poetry, Pop Culture, Power, Rage, State, Status, Technology, Titanic, Truth, Virtue

Occupy Wall Street Buttons

May 12th, 2012 Filed under: Health, News Add Comment

I am finally uploaded a new batch of Occupy Wall Street designs. This batch of 125 political designs is mostly Occupy Wall Street designs, but there are also a large series of “stop socialism” designs, a large series of Fox news parodies, and a new line of designs: vegetarian. I still have hundreds of other designs made that I still need to upload, so stay tuned.

The designs below are linked to button products, but each of these designs is available in all of Top Pun’s products such as T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, magnets, key chains, sticker sheets, posters, and caps.

If you like what you see, you can check out all of my political designs, which also include more Occupy Wall Street related designs.

Gandhi Quote: First Ignore, Then Laugh, Fight, Win – POLITICAL BUTTON

I Can EXPLAIN It To You, But I Can’t UNDERSTAND It For You – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – Dismantle Prisons (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

99 to 1 – I Can Live With That – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

I Don’t Mind You Being Rich, I Mind You Buying My Government – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – Dismantle The CIA (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

99 to One – I Stand With The Odds – Stand Together – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

I Thought There Would Be Cake (Marie Antoinette Protester) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – Dismantle The FBI (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

A Nation of Sheep Soon Beget a Government of Wolves – Edward R. Murrow Quote – POLITICAL BUTTON

I Want A Future That Can’t Be Bought (Heart Cloud) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – Dismantle The Fire Dept (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Abolish Corporate Personhood – POLITICAL BUTTON

I WANT YOU To Support FREE SPEECH – Protect the Constitution (Uncle Sam) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – Dismantle The Police Dept. (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

America is Broke BrokeN – POLITICAL BUTTON

I WANT YOU To Support FREEDOM OF RELIGION Protect the Constitution (Uncle Sam) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Border Patrols (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

American AND Liberal (Flag) – POLITICAL BUTTON

I WANT YOU To Support FREEDOM OF THE PRESS – Protect the Constitution (Uncle Sam) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Child Protective Services (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Anarchy is Not What You See on TV – POLITICAL BUTTON

I WANT YOU To Support PEACEABLE ASSEMBLY – Protect the Constitution (Uncle Sam) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Elections (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Arrest Greed – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

I WANT YOU To Support PETITION FOR REDRESS GRIEVANCES – Protect the Constitution Uncle Sam – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism –End Environmental Protection (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

At Least We Are Winning The War on Camping (Tent) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

I WANT YOU To Support THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY – Protect the Constitution (Uncle Sam) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Food Safety Inspections (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Banks Know The Price of Everything But Value Nothing – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

If Money is Speech, Poverty is Silence – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Highways and Roads (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Bigger Cages, Longer Chains – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

If You Aren’t A Vegetarian, You Probably Don’t Know Beans – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Homeland Security (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

BLAME AMERICA? It’s Called Responsibility – POLITICAL BUTTON

If You Can’t Beat ’em, Join ’em 99% (Riot Policeman) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Medicare (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Bull Shit Meter – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

If You Can’t Join ’em, Beat ’em 99% (Riot Policeman) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Money and Coins (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Capitalism is Not in Crisis, Capitalism is the Crisis – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

If You Think The System Is Working, Ask Someone Who Isn’t – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Postal Service (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Class, I Know Nothing of Class – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

If You’re Not Part of the Solution, You Must Be a Republican – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Public Education (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Class War – I Thought We Won That When Corporations Were Declared People and That Money Is Free Speech – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

I’m Not Anti-Corporation, I’m Anti-Corruption – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Public Libraries (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

CLASS WARS (Star Wars Parody) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

IN PROTEST WE TRUST – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Public Sewer and Water Service (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Clean Water is the Solution – POLITICAL BUTTON

International NO Nuclear Power – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism End Public Utilities (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Corporate PAC Man Eating DEMOCRACY – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

It’s Called the American Dream Because You Have to be Asleep to Believe It – George Carlin Quote – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Social Security (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Corporations Aren’t People, We Are – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

It’s NOT Spelled Demo¢ra$y (Democracy) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End State Colleges and Universities (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Corporations Lie – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

It’s Not WEE The People (Monopoly Man) – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End the Court System (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Debt Slavery – No Chains Necessary (Sisyphus) – POLITICAL BUTTON

It’s WE The People, Not WEE The People Founding Fathers – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End The Federal Aviation Admin (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Democrat, Republican, AWAKE (Checkbox) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Keep Your Coins, I Want Change (Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End The Military (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Democrat, Republican, OTHER (Checkbox) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Killer Coke – Buying Coke Products May Be Dangerous to Others – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End The National Institutes of Health (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Democrat, Republican, Pissed Off (Checkbox) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Left, Right, Take Your Pick (Manacles) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End The National Park System (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Democrats Think The Glass Is Half Full, Republicans Think The Glass Is Theirs – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Let Them Eat Pasteurized Processed Imitation Cheese Food Product (Marie Antoinette) – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End The State (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Did Someone Say Class War (Monopoly Man Parody) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Listen And Obey (TV) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – End Trash Pick up (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Do You Think They Herd Us (Riot Police) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Looks Like You’ve Had A Bit Too Much To Think Today (Policeman) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – Make Crime Legal (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Dollar Statue Falling – Occupy Wall Street – POLITICAL BUTTON

Love Greater Than Money (Heart) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialized Risk Privatized Profit (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Don’t Ask Me Why I’m A Vegetarian, Ask Yourself Why You’re Not – POLITICAL BUTTON

Make Every Day Earth Day – POLITICAL BUTTON

SUPERSIZE The Minimum Wage – POLITICAL BUTTON

Earth First – We’ll Rape the Other Planets Later – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

May The Forest Be With You – POLITICAL BUTTON

Support Organized Crime – Vote Republican – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Eat Beans, Not Beings – POLITICAL BUTTON

Money is Free Speech – SHUT UP! – POLITICAL BUTTON

That Stuff Trickling Down on You is NOT Money (Wall Street Bull Shit) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Elect Satan – Why Pick The Lesser Of Two Evils – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Money is the Root of All Politics – POLITICAL BUTTON

The Audacity of Dopes – Wall Street – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

End the Casino Economy (Dice) – POLITICAL BUTTON

NO Nuclear – POLITICAL BUTTON

The Death Penalty is Dead Wrong (Skull) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Every Day Is Earth Day – POLITICAL BUTTON

Nuclear Waste – Pay as You Glow – POLITICAL BUTTON

The First Amendment IS Our Permit (US Constitution) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Evolve (LOVE) – POLITICAL BUTTON

OCCUPY EVERYTHING (Heart) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

The First Illegal Immigrants Arrived in 1492 – POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – AGREE for FOX SAKE (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Occupy Everywhere – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

The Left is Right – POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – BIG BROTHER’S Little Brother (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

OCCUPY is Cool – REALLY COOL (Hell Freezing Over Sign) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

The Meek Are Getting Ready – POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Chicken Coup Specialists (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

OCCUPY Your HEAD With Your HEART – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

The One Percent Have People And They Are Dressed For Success (Riot Police) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – FAIRLY UNBALANCED (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

One Party System – Republicrats – POLITICAL BUTTON

The System Was Never Broken It Was BUILT That Way – POLITICAL BUTTON

FAUX NEWS – Making The World Safe For Stupidity (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

One Percent FED, 99 Percent FED UP – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

There Is No Planet B – POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – NEO CON NEWS NETWORK (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

One Percent, Ninety Nine Percent, Cash Rich versus Cash Poor – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

These Are NOT The Green Jobs We Were Hoping For (CASH) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – NEWS at the Speed of Lies (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Please Pardon Our Peaceful Chaos As We Reboot Our Country’s Operating System – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

They Only Call It Class Warfare When We Fight Back – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Preferred by 5 Out of 4 Rednecks (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Political Prisoner In Training (Dove in Jail) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Think Green – POLITICAL BUTTON

FAUX NEWS – Rich People Paying Rich People To Tell Middle Class People To Blame Poor People (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Pre-OCCUPIED and STUPIFIED (TV) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Think Outside the Box (TV) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – SO RIGHT WE’RE WRONG (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Pro Life – Unborn, GOOD – Born, BAD – Born Again, GOOD – POLITICAL BUTTON

This is the Only Bill Unanimously Passed in Congress (100 Dollar Bill) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Spreading It Everywhere (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Proud Member of The Reality Based Community – POLITICAL BUTTON

This Is The Way Bankstas Roll (Pig Rolling in Cash Rolls) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Take a Peak at Doublespeak (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Proud To Be Everything The Right Wing Hates – POLITICAL BUTTON

This Is The Way Bankstas Roll (Rolling Dice) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Trust Our Klan of Reporters (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Question Consumption – POLITICAL BUTTON

This Is What Democracy Looks Like To the One Percent (Riot Police) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Unencumbered by Truth (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Real Eyes, Realize, Real Lies – POLITICAL BUTTON

Throw Out The Money Changers (Jesus) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – We Have Half a Mind to Be Right (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Reality Has A Well Known Liberal Bias – Stephen Colbert – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Titanic – Too Big To Fail – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Where News Goes to Die (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

REALITY Keep Left – REPUBLICAN PARTY Exit Right (Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

UNFUCK The World, It’s Un-Fucking Believable – POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Where The Wrong is Made Right (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

REALITY Keep Left – TEA PARTY Exit Right (Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Urban Sprawl – Cut Down All the Trees and Name the Streets After Them – POLITICAL BUTTON

Faux News – Wise Guys Selling Lies (FOX NEWS Parody) – POLITICAL BUTTON

REALITY Keep Left – WALL STREET Exit Right (Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

USS Economy (Titanic) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Flesh Colored Crayons – POLITICAL BUTTON

REPRESENT YOURSELF – POLITICAL BUTTON

Vegetable Time – POLITICAL BUTTON

Follow Your Dreams – CANCELLED – POLITICAL BUTTON

rEVOLution is the Solution (LOVE) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Vegetarian – Compassion Doesn’t Leave A Bad Taste in Your Mouth – POLITICAL BUTTON

Fossil Fuels, Fossil Fools (Pollution) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Screw Compassion, We’re Full of Xenophobia – POLITICAL BUTTON

VEGETARIAN – Join The Evolution – POLITICAL BUTTON

Free Range Human Being – POLITICAL BUTTON

Screw Us And We Multiply – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Want Freedom From Government, Go Live in Somalia – POLITICAL BUTTON

Freedom Isn’t Free – So Stop Whining and Pay Your Taxes – POLITICAL BUTTON

Slower Minds Keep Right (Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

WARNING: LACK of DEMOCRACY May Make Your Vision BLURRY – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

SOCIAL CHANGE IS NOT SOCIALISM (Anarchism Symbol) – POLITICAL BUTTON

We Are The People We Have Been Waiting For – POLITICAL BUTTON

Fukushima, Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island – NO NUCLEAR POWER – POLITICAL BUTTON

Sorry, Your OCCUPIED – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

What About A MAXIMUM Wage – POLITICAL BUTTON

Gandhi Quote: Seven Social Sins – POLITICAL BUTTON

SOS Earth – POLITICAL BUTTON

What Do You Call An Unprovoked Sexual Advance With No Intention But To Take Your Money: Advertising – POLITICAL BUTTON

Global Warming is Not Cool (Polar Bear) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Spare Some Truth 2 (Homeless Man Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

WHAT YOU DO MATTERS or Don’t Do – POLITICAL BUTTON

Good Planets Are Hard To Find (Earth) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Spare Some Truth (Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

What Your Flag Stands For Is Up To You – POLITICAL BUTTON

Good Questions Outrank Easy Answers – POLITICAL BUTTON

Spare Some Truth that leads to change (Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

When The RICH Rob The POOR It’s Called BUSINESS, When The POOR Fight Back It’s Called VIOLENCE – POLITICAL BUTTON

GOP – Greed Over People – POLITICAL BUTTON

Speak The Truth Even If Your Voice Shakes (Candle Lit) – POLITICAL BUTTON

When You’re In Riot Gear Everything Looks Like a Riot – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

GOP – Greedy Old Perverts – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Beating Protesters (STOP Sign) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Wimpy: I Will Gladly Pay You Never for a Billion Dollars Today – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Got Bankstas – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

STOP Buying Crap (Planet Earth) – POLITICAL BUTTON

With Democrats Like These, Who Needs Republicans – POLITICAL BUTTON

HEY STOP Going Banksta On Our Economy – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

STOP Buying Crap – POLITICAL BUTTON

Work Harder, Your Corporate Masters Need A Tax Break (Sisyphus) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Homeless Maybe, Streetless Never, Hit The Streets – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Corporate Greed (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Work is the New Retirement – POLITICAL BUTTON

How About Securing This Homeland (Planet Earth) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Corporate Welfare (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

YES I Can Eat Meat, I Choose Not To – POLITICAL BUTTON

Human Race, Asian, White, African American, Hispanic, Native American, HUMAN (Checklist) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Cutting Down Trees on My Property, signed God – POLITICAL BUTTON

You Are Entitled To Your Own Opinions, But Not Your Own Facts – POLITICAL BUTTON

I’m Not Weird. Everyone Else Is Just Too Normal – POLITICAL BUTTON

STOP Nuclear – POLITICAL BUTTON

You Laugh at Me Because I’m Different, I Laugh at You Because You’re All the Same – FUNNY POLITICAL BUTTON

I am the 99 percent – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

Stop Socialism – Decriminalize Drugs (STOP Sign) – POLITICAL BUTTON

Your Occupation Will Be a Success, Lucky Number 99 (Fortune Cookie) – OCCUPY WALL STREET POLITICAL BUTTON

If you like what you see, you can check out all of my political designs.

Tags: Advertising, African American, America, Anarchism, Big Brother, Business, Buttons-Pins, Capitalism, Change, Chaos, Class Warfare, Community, Compassion, Congress, Constitution, Consumption, cool design, Corporate Personhood, Corruption, Crime, Death, Death Penalty, Debt, Democracy, Democrat, Dream, Dreams, Economy, Education, Elections, Environmental, Evolution, Facts, First Amendment, Food, Fox News, Free Speech, Freedom, Freedom of the Press, Funny, Future, Gandhi, God, GOP, government, Greed, Heart, Hell, Human Race, Illegal, Jesus, Jobs, Liberal, Life, Love, Medicare, Military, Mind, Money, Normal, Nuclear Power, Occupy Wall Street, Parodies, Police, Political, Politics, Pollution, Poor, Postal Service, Poverty, Power, Protesters, Questions, Reality, Religion, Republican, Responsibility, Revolution, Rich, Risk, Security, Silence, Slavery, Social Security, Socialism, State, Success, taxes, Tea Party, Time, Titanic, Top Pun, Trust, Truth, Vegetarianism, Violence, Wall Street, Wall Street Bull, War, Welfare, Work, Xenophobia

Mock Funeral – Occupy Toledo

April 2nd, 2012 Filed under: About Top Pun, Free Stuff, News, Political Action Add Comment

Yesterday, April 1st, April Fool’s Day, was the one and only performance of Occupy Toledo‘s Mock Funeral — in life (and death) there are no rehearsals, this is it! If you missed it, I truly hope that you were doing something else as fun and inspiring! Thanks to all the players, readers, eulogizers, ushers, HOMElessLAND SECURITY, providers of food, and all who helped make Occupy Toledo’s RE-BIRTHDAY possible. We rose like a phoenix from the ashes!! Occupy Toledo will re-start the physical re-occupation of Toledo on May1, May Day, the day of a worldwide general strike! Join us May 1 in Levi’s Square, downtown Toledo, St. Clair at Madison. In the meantime you can come help plan the occupation of Toledo at our General Assembly meeting every Wednesday at 6:30 pm at Third Space.

Below is a picture of our own Rev. Ed Heilman serving as mock preacher (note the dollar sign on his bishop’s hat and the dollar sign cross on the altar)

Here is Occupy Toledo’s Obituary from the Mock Funeral:

“Occupy Toledo was born October 10, 2011, to it’s parents, the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. Born of hope, Occupy Toledo burst onto the scene in its own charmingly childish way. However, from the birth of Occupy Toledo, few people could understand what it wanted. Onlookers mumbled again and again: “What do they want?” “I don’t get it.” Occupy Toledo flailed around for about 6 months until it realized that it was too small to succeed. After scrutinizing corporate behavior, Occupy Toledo in due course discovered that the nobility of American corporations was unparalleled. The dearly departed realized that in these great United States of America, injustices are so few and far between, that it could no longer even occupy itself. Unavoidably, Occupy Toledo came to its senses, recognized its irrelevancy, and accepted that resistance to corporate rule is futile. Fortunately, in the end, Occupy Toledo had gained at least the good sense to crawl into a coroner’s office and die. Occupy Toledo died on April 1, 2012, due to apathy. Protesters were the Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2011. Gracefully, protesters like Occupy Toledo are stepping aside to make room for the inevitable Time Magazine Person of the Year for 2012: the Corporate Person, born of Citizens United, the true will of human persons across America. Occupy Toledo is survived by countless cousins around the country, many of whom have not achieved enlightenment, so they have not yet abandoned their vain struggles against corporate America, which is obviously too big too fail. The bad news is that Occupy Toledo is dead. The good news is that its condition is stable.”

Below is a picture of our own local activist doctor, Johnathon Ross, M.D., reading Occupy Toledo’s Death Certificate and pronouncing its death.

Here is Occupy Toledo’s Death Certificate from yesterday’s Mock Funeral:

“I hereby certify that Occupy Toledo, born October 10, 2011, has died on this day, April 1, 2012. The immediate cause of death was apathy. The underlying causes of death included: 1) an atrophied brain due to an overexposure to TV news and infotainment, talk radio, and so-called “reality” TV; 2) learned helplessness, due to an enlarged gullibility, making it susceptible to corporate propaganda and so-called political pundits; 3) a weakened constitution due to lack of exercising freedoms and widespread metastases of planetary consumption; and lastly, 4) pure exhaustion from running on the treadmills of trying to earn enough to maintain a decent household and fend off crushing debt.”

Of course, after the 1% overstepped their hand with their crass compulsions (by bidding on the Phoenix egg for their breakfast), the Phoenix’s prophecy was fulfilled:

“Hear this prophecy: The crass compulsion of the few to buy anything and everything is complete. The few dare to literally buy and consume the HOPE of the many. Because of this abomination of the few, the Phoenix’s prophecy is complete. The many, the 99%, Occupy Toledo, will be re-born one month from today in this same place. HAPPY RE-BIRTHDAY OCCUPY TOLEDO. Join us on May 1, May Day, a world-wide general strike, for the re-occupation of Toledo. Thus speaks the Phoenix, ‘You, the many, the 99%, shall arise again and be free. Join together with the peoples of this land and from around the world, and the few, the 1%, will be vanquished.’ “

Below pictured is yours truly, Dan Rutt, alias “Top Pun” (it’s just, my pun name), with the HAPPY RE-BIRTHDAY card placed over the tombstone announcing the re-occupation of Toledo.

Here is some Toledo Blade coverage for the Mock Funeral.

If you’d like to read the Occupy Toledo Mock Funeral script, you can re-live the event, or get a greater taste of the drama of the day. Here is a printer-friendly PDF version of the Mock Funeral of Occupy Toledo.

Tags: America, Apathy, Celebrations, Citizens, Compulsion, Constitution, Consumption, Corporate Personhood, Death, Debt, Demonstrators, Direct Democracy, Enlightenment, Events, Food, Free Speech, Funny, Helplessness, Hope, Life, May Day, Mock, Money, Occupy Toledo, Occupy Wall Street, Parodies, Political, Propaganda, Protesters, Puns, Reality, Resistance, Rich, Satire, Security, Social Movements, Time, Toledo, Top Pun, Wall Street

HAPPY DEAD PRESIDENTS DAY – Work, Buy, Consume, Die

February 19th, 2012 Filed under: Free Stuff, Gay Add Comment

HAPPY DEAD PRESIDENTS DAY – Work, Buy, Consume, Die!
Download a free 8.5″ X 11″ poster size of “HAPPY DEAD PRESIDENTS DAY – Work, Buy, Consume, Die.” Remember, the best things in life are free, and the best things in life are not things!

Dead Presidents, live Presidents — it’s all about the cash, money, moola, dinero, you know the drill. I guess that it’s part of the job description of presiding over the largest and most powerful imperial superpower in human history. Enjoy your Monday, and most importantly, don’t buy everything you see, hear, or read!

View more Free Printable Posters on cool political, peace, anti-war, gay pride themes.

Tags: Consumerism, Consumption, Free Posters, History, Job, Life, Money, Political, Pride, Wall Street, War, Work

Valentine’s Day: Show The World Your Love of Justice

February 14th, 2012 Filed under: News Add Comment

Hannah Levintova of Mother Jones magazine has a wake-up call for Valentine’s Day celebrants: Think You’re a Virtuous Valentine? Think Again. She writes:

Cut flowers: That bouquet you may be planning to gift today was most likely not grown in the United States. The floriculture industry taps out at $32.8 billion, and about $14 billion of that comes from the sale of fresh flowers. Around 63 percent of those blooms are imports from Colombia, and another 23 percent from Ecuador.

The labor rights facts of this industry are truly depressing. In 2005, the International Labor Rights Forum found that 55 percent of women working in the Ecuadorian flower production trade (they constitute half the flower workforce) had been victim to sexual harassment in the workplace. Nineteen percent were forced to have sex with a supervisor or coworker. Compulsory pregnancy testing is also a serious industry issue. In Colombia, where women make up about 65 percent of flower workers, a survey conducted by the nation’s flower industry union, Untraflores, found that about 80 percent of companies required women to take a pregnancy test as part of their job application process—presumably because they’d like to avoid providing paid maternity leave (required in Colombia). Another problem: In 2000, upwards of 48,000 children were found working in Ecuador’s flower industry. Colombia wasn’t much better. There have since been a number of hefty efforts at reform, and while Colombia’s been improving, the US Department of Labor still confirms extensive child labor use in Ecuador.

So, is the $17.6 billion that we will spend in the United States this year on Valentine’s Day a boon for love? Ms. Lentinova goes on to outline other issues related to environmental impacts and other labor issues related to flowers, chocolate, and greeting cards. I doubt that there is a conspiracy to make Valentines day an anti-love venture. Unfortunately, this is a particularly ironic example of how our economy is deeply intertwined with poor environmental stewardship and poor treatment of labor. I would suggest that the first line of defense would be to consume no more than needed, to live simply. The next line of defense, a close second, would be to educate oneself about how what we buy affects the rest of the world; then, to act responsibly based on that information.

Buy the way, happy Valentine’s Day!

Tags: Children, Colombia, Conspiracy, Consumption, Defense, Economy, Ecuador, Environmental, Facts, Gift, Ironic, Job, Justice, Labor, Living Simply, Love, Mother Jones, Poor, Sex, Sexual Harrassment, Stewardship, Valentine, Women, Workplace

POEM: Commercial Interruption

February 10th, 2012 Filed under: Poems Add Comment

We interrupt this commercial
Now that wasn’t so hard
Or was it?

How many times a day is our consciousness breached by some form of commercial interruption? Way too many times! I consider this commercial assault a major form of violence in our culture. This short poem is geared to get the reader to think about taking back these interruptions and reclaiming our consciousness. Rather than the commercial interrupting us, we interrupt this commercial. Initially, this may not be difficult. A momentary victory is not difficult to achieve. However, the assault of commercial interruptions is so pervasive and penetrating that keeping them out of our consciousness requires constant discipline. In the long run, avoiding those settings where commercial interruptions are prevalent is probably the best strategy. Like any kind of mindfulness or meditation practice, maintaining complete control over where the mind goes is probably impossible. Nevertheless, we can train our minds to let go the commercial interruptions and build associations in our mental state that eventually rate these commercial interruptions as not worth paying attention to. Another suggestion on the social front would be not to buy any of the crap that’s advertised. This is not really that difficult since most of the crap that’s advertised is crap. Questioning consumption and consumerism, as well as living a simple life, are long-term strategies to interrupt the violent assaults of commercials. Also, given the sloganeering and design work that I do, I like to parody and satirize the vanity and absurdity of many commercial endeavors. I find this method of fighting back both cathartic and joy producing. May the farce be with you as well!

Tags: Absurdity, Cathartic, Commercial, Consciousness, Consumerism, Consumption, Control, Culture, Farce, Joy, Life, Living Simply, Meditation, Mind, Mindfulness, Questioning, Short Poems, State, Vanity, Violence, Work

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