They Own You

liberatingreality:

“Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want; more for themselves and less for everybody else.They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
They want obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
It’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe, with their media, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. These are people of modest means, continuing to elect these rich people who don’t care about you.
Nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.
It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
- George Carlin

Narrowleaf Blue-eyed Grass - Sisyrinchium angustifolium

Invitation Homes

(via Hedge funds buy swathes of foreclosed subprimes, force up rents, float rent-bonds - Boing Boing)
When a giant hedge fund is bidding on all the foreclosed houses in a poor neighborhood, living humans don’t stand a chance – but that’s OK, because rapacious investors make great landlords. Wall Street investors have bought more than 200,000 foreclosed houses in the past two years, bundling together the rents they generate into bonds that are just like subprime mortgage bonds, only without the pretense that the poor people who generate their payments have a hope of ever getting out from under their obligation to enrich the richest people in the world. Blackstone – owner of Seaworld, Hilton Hotels, and the Weather Channel – is the biggest player here, and when they come into town to buy up all the single-family properties, they price actual families out of the market. Their securitized rent payment bonds are backed by some of the biggest subprime criminals, including Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan. Hedge funds really epitomize compassionate landlording, too. When Blackstone buys in, it jacks up tenants’ rents by as much as a third and immediately begins eviction proceedings against renters who can’t pay. If there are any troubles with your payments, they assess fines against you and make you miss work to pay the rent and penalties in person. CaDonna Porter moved into an Invitation Homes property outside Atlanta with her children in September. When part of her monthly payment was rejected because she tried to use a debit card, the company demanded that she deliver the remaining amount in person, via certified funds, by 5 p.m. the following day or incur a $200 fee and face eviction. Porter took time off from work to deliver a money order in person, only to be informed that the payment had been rejected because it didn’t include the late fee and an additional $75 insufficient funds fee. In a maddening string of emails, Invitation Homes repeatedly reminded Porter that it could file to evict her unless she paid the penalties. When she finally said that she would seek legal counsel, Invitation Homes agreed to accept her payment as “a one-time courtesy.” Andrew Gallina, Invitation Homes’ vice president for marketing, says it treats all of its renters equally: “Under the law, we’re not allowed to make changes or exceptions. That’s just basic fair housing.” Invitation Homes has described its strategy as “a bet on America.” Wall Street’s Hot New Financial Product: Your Rent Check [Laura Gottesdiener/Mother Jones] This is real evil, manifesting itself thru the psychopathy of those in power. Why are we just sitting around taking their bullshit!!

Mountain Laurel - Kalmia latrifolia

The broadleaf evergreen mountain-laurel is usually a 12-20 ft. shrub, but is occasionally taller and single-trunked, attaining small tree stature. Evergreen, many-stemmed, thicket-forming shrub or sometimes a small tree with short, crooked trunk; stout, spreading branches; a compact, rounded crown; and beautiful, large, pink flower clusters. Its flowers are very showy. They are bell-shaped, white to pink with deep rose spots inside, and occur in flat-topped clusters. The leaves are oval, leathery, and glossy, and change from light-green to dark-green to purple throughout the year.
Mountain Laurel is one of the most beautiful native flowering shrubs and is well displayed as an ornamental in many parks. The stamens of the flowers have an odd, springlike mechanism which spreads pollen when tripped by a bee. The wood has been used for tool handles and turnery, and the burls, or hard knotlike growths, for briar tobacco pipes. Linnaeus named this genus for his student Peter Kalm (1716-79), a Swedish botanist who traveled in Canada and the eastern United States.