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Now I know this is a touchy subject, due to race, religion, and a whole boatload of other factors. But I want to explain it the way I see it, which I think may supersede any party affiliations.
*(All facts are culled quickly from the web, so take from it what you will - i don't believe any to be wildly inaccurate)
I'm not going to tell you you should do something, or even that you should be bothered by whats going on. But you should, if you are an american citizen, be aware of it. Even better if you want to do something.
*(All facts are culled quickly from the web, so take from it what you will - i don't believe any to be wildly inaccurate)
- First, check out some stats.
- One thing you may notice over the years is that the us has essentially stopped loaning Israel money, instead - and for the past twenty years - we've just started giving them money. These days we are straight up giving them money to the tune of 2,560 million dollars (for 2006). How much living, medical, and housing assistance could we have had in our own country for that amount of money? I'm pretty sure it could help out all of the ten houseless people I pass on my way to work, and get meds to that crazy dude who pretends to be playing a broken guitar all the time.
- You may also notice that out of that 2,560 million dollars, 240 million goes towards 'economic assistance.' Now I know that everything past one million is a little hard to comprehend (for me anyway), so lets do percentages. That's less than ten percent (9.375% to be exact). With some other very small change refugee assistance in there, the rest - and by "rest" I mean 2,280 million dollars (89.06% of the total) - goes to military spending.
- Now, I am guessing that this roughly two billion dollars comes from the military portion of the US budget. I may not be correct on this. If it is coming from any kind of war budget, it's not even being counted (over $100 billion). Dont even get me started on that one.
- According to The War Tax Resistors the military portion of the US budget is around $563 billion. According to the US government it is around $419.3 billion. Believe who you want, either way its a whole hell of a lot of money. A very round estimate would be somewhere between 30-60% of the overall US budget.
- According to the CIA World Factbook Israel's military expenditures are around (est) $9.45 billion. This means that almost a quarter (24.1%) of Israel's military budge comes directly, no-strings-attached, don't bother paying us back my brotha, from the us.
- Now for simplicities sake, lets pretend that all of the US governments money comes from our taxes. Theoretically, this is true, realistically it can probably be broken up a great deal into things like our personal taxes, our predecessors accumulated taxes, our federal business deals, whatever. How ever it breaks down, some percentage of it comes from your paycheck.
- Now, read some news.
- And look at some pictures (only if you're feeling up to it, some are graphic).
- and now go to sleep wondering what percentage of this little dead girl belongs to you.
I'm not going to tell you you should do something, or even that you should be bothered by whats going on. But you should, if you are an american citizen, be aware of it. Even better if you want to do something.
- Login to your employers hr website so you can get that discount.
- Forget your password and get locked out of the account.
- Wait a day (its past business hours on the east coast)
- Call customer service to convince them no one is hijacking your paystubs so they will "unlock" your account.
- Login again and find the discount link.
- Go to Cingular website and find a phone and plan you like, go through the order process.
- Look through the one paper bill that you ever got from sprint to find out your account number (which is not at all in any way related to your phone number) so they can tranfer your old number to the new phone.
- Get stuck at the last step because it says it doesn't understand your address.
- Figure out, after over an hour of retyping the same address in different ways including spelling out the numbers - three three seven one twenty first street - that it just can't process the "/" in c/o YourName
- Retype as "in care of YourName"
- Choose rush delivery for an extra $14 dollars because you're worried that you'll be without a phone number for the weekend
- Complete the order process
- Get an email confirming your order and informing you that when you get your phone in the mail, you just call to switch the number, thereby eliminating the need for that $14 rush delivery you just paid for.
- Wait two days.
- Get another email saying that your order was cancelled due to you credit card # not being valid.
- Go onto your credit cards website to check the credit card balance.
- See that there are 12 $1.oo charges in the same 5 minutes from cingular.com on your card, in some kind of website tourettes effort to verify your card.
- Wait a day to see if it will be corrected.
- Attempt to log onto the credit card website again and find out that you are locked out of that account. Try calling customer service and wait on hold for an hour, get fed up and write a nasty note instead.
- Try to buy cat food and notice that you cant charge anything to the card either.
- Get an apologetic email from a weary customer service person saying she's very sorry about your bad service experience, but she's going to have to ask you to call another number.
- Call the number and verify that you are indeed who you say you are and that you did try to buy a phone through the cingular website.
- Convince the nice man that no, you didnt purchase something on the website that cost exactly $1.oo twelve times in the same five minutes.
- Repeat steps 1, 5, 6, and 10.
- Read the notice that says you can't transfer your old number, because that number has already been tranferred.
- Call cingular customer service.
- Explain to them that they need to cancel the first transfer, becasue the order was cancelled and you'd like to try again, dispite their best efforts to thwart you.
- Listen to the very bored sounding man tell you that theres nothing he can do because sprint has to cancel the transfer first.
- Call sprint, and listen to the very bored sounding lady tell you that theres nothing she can do because cingular has to cancel the request first.
- Call cingular again, and speak to someone who doesnt sound quite bored, though english is clearly not her first language, and wonder where in the world cingulars call centers are these days.
- Convince her to call a sprint representative so they can all discuss, and notice that she seems to have this number on speed dial.
- Wait while she's on hold for a half hour and decide that they are probably just sitting next to eachother somewhere in a windowless basement call center in a small malaysian city.
- Talk to both of them at the same time and try to explain that you are trying to cancel one order in order to process the other. Sprint assures you they have 'released the number' and cingular assures you they have 'cancelled the request' and you can order online again.
- You make the cingular lady stay on the line while you press the checkout button again, only to be given the same message about not being able to transfer the number
- Let the sprint lady say... "um... it may take 24 hours." and then have her explain that you can actually just get a new number and transfer it once you get the phone - thereby eliminating the need for steps 25-34.
- Tell the website you want a new number and press the checkout button.
- Get the confirmation email and breathe a sigh of relief.
- Wait four hours and get emails from two friends saying that they cant call you because your phones been shut off and are you dead or in trouble?
- Call sprint again and sound completly creepy to your coworkers because you are forced to talk to the automated lady with very clear voice prompts like "I am not satisfied" and "I'd like to speak to a representative."
- Talk to a representative who asks you lots of questions about who you are and what your mothers maiden name is and then tells you she does not know how to fix your problem.
- Get transfered to another representative, who asks you all the same questions.
- Have him "try" to get you a temporary account using your old phone number.
- Follow his instructions and wait "a few hours" "to see if it worked."
- Finally get a phone call, stating that your phone has been reconnected.
- Wait two days. (I am here)
- Get new phone in mail.
- Cancel that new number and transfer the old one.
- Shoot self in foot.
I like youre online service, and use it quite a bit. As of yesterday, when I try log on to view my account, I keep getting this message:
"Unfortunately, we are having difficulties accessing your information. Please call the number on the back of your credit card for assistance.
We appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience."
When I called I was on hold for over an hour. Finally I gave up.
1. That hold time is unacceptable. This should be obvious. Take all the money I pay in fees and hire an extra person to work on the phones.
2. Get better music. Unless, of course, you are trying to get people to shoot themselves in the head before taking up the customer service persons precious time.
3. The automated message "Your call is important to us, thank you for your patience." only drives home the facts that:
a. My call is not important to you at all, or else I wouldn't be on hold.
b. My patience is needed because I have been on hold for so goddamned long. So very long.
Please resolve these matters by email. I would like to not call your customer service line ever again.
Thank you.
"Unfortunately, we are having difficulties accessing your information. Please call the number on the back of your credit card for assistance.
We appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience."
When I called I was on hold for over an hour. Finally I gave up.
1. That hold time is unacceptable. This should be obvious. Take all the money I pay in fees and hire an extra person to work on the phones.
2. Get better music. Unless, of course, you are trying to get people to shoot themselves in the head before taking up the customer service persons precious time.
3. The automated message "Your call is important to us, thank you for your patience." only drives home the facts that:
a. My call is not important to you at all, or else I wouldn't be on hold.
b. My patience is needed because I have been on hold for so goddamned long. So very long.
Please resolve these matters by email. I would like to not call your customer service line ever again.
Thank you.
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