As Seen Through a Fun-House Mirror: Corporate Media Review

Congratulations to a British prostitute for setting a standard for moral clarity well beyond the norm for news stories. Becky Adams, a retired hooker and madam, recently said that she would not object if her 16-year-old daughter followed in her professional footsteps. "At least prostitution is an honest profession," she said. "I'd much rather she work as an escort than a banker."

Many Penn State critics feared that the university would be given the "death penalty" for collaborating in Jerry Sandusky's sexual predations (it wasn't). What constitutes the "death penalty?" Giving Penn State a year off from participation in football in order to reassess the proper role of football in its educational mission. Wow. That certainly sounds like a death penalty. The equivalent in a murder case would be to give the killer a one year jail sentence - to think things over - and then allow him to return to his personal life. Anyone think that that definition of "death penalty" would win broad acceptance?

Meanwhile, Monsignor William J. Lynn, found guilty of concealing child sexual abuse by sending former priest Edward V. Avery to serve in a parish without warning of his history of such abuse, said he was sorry for allowing, in judge M. Teresa Sarmina's words, "monsters in clerical garb" to "destroy the souls of children." Lynn claimed he did his best to prevent abuse, but lacked the authority to do more. The lack of authority stems directly from Rome's belief that sexual predation is a private matter best dealt with by healing and prayer. According to the Catholic Church, Jerry Sandusky's only crime was choosing the wrong profession.

After Iraq suffered 40 coordinated attacks in 15 cities, leaving more than 100 people dead, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that "the U.S. abdication in Iraq" had left Washington with "little leverage" while an "arc of instability" threatened to form through Syria and Iraq into the Persian Gulf. Instability is a code-word meaning insubordination. When Washington foments violence in pursuit of regime change its media lapdogs never describe it as instability. Quite the contrary. But when violence is used against U.S. foreign policy, or against those who have collaborated with its bloody interventions, the corporate media choruses that "instability" needs to be brought under control, thus laying the ideological groundwork for further U.S. meddling.

The upshot is that the Wall Street Journal and all right-thinking policy wonks in the major media believe the world belongs to Washington and its corporate backers by natural right. That this conviction is manifestly contradictory to anything deserving the name democracy simply can't be perceived by the media czars.

President Obama recently remarked that, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Predictably, this sparked an uproar. Clarice Feldman in AmericanThinker.com accused the president of being "utterly divorced from the majority of Americans," who, he insisted, believe in "hard work, self-reliance, and individual achievement."

Much ado about nothing, as usual. Individual achievement, no matter how great, absolutely depends on cultural inheritance, which includes the contributions of government. On the other hand, culture cannot evolve without the genius of personality, which centralized government tends to stifle. This rather obvious insight carries no implications about voting for either Romney or Obama, two outstanding mediocrities whose only genius lies in manipulating the electorate into endorsing suicidal policies.

Veteran Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, on trial for alleged racial profiling by his department, was confronted with his past statement that being compared to the Ku Klux Klan was "an honor." Liberals seem not to realize that the rhetorical excess lies more with them than it does with the embattled sheriff. That Arpaio is guilty of abusing people is not in doubt. But to compare rounding up illegal immigrants by law enforcement agents with terrorism by lynching is grotesque.

Toni Morrison despairs over the infantile state of corporate entertainment (misnamed popular culture), complaining "I really want some meaning. You have to navigate just to find something that has nourishment. What do you [get] in place of nourishment? It's usually junk. Junk food or junk clothes or junk ideas." Or junk politics. Morrison herself is on record for stating that Bill Clinton was our "first black president."

Crippling U.S. sanctions on Iran have sent the price of chicken and other commodities through the roof. Chicken has tripled in price over the past year. So the chief of Iran's police forces recently announced that images of people eating chicken can no longer be shown on T.V., because such a "class gap" might touch off a popular revolt. Iranian police also shut down 87 coffee shops in Tehran "for not following Islamic values." Max Fisher in the Atlantic commented that this is what happens when a government tries "to maintain a stable society without giving up its nuclear program."

Incredible. Iran is allowed to have a nuclear energy program, so what needs to be criticized first and foremost are the sanctions. Secondly, in a situation where only rich people can afford chicken, ANY country might be on the verge of revolt, with or without a nuclear energy program. Fisher is simply making himself an instrument of the Israel fanatics, who want to extend Jewish hegemony in the Middle East via regime change in Iran. Don't let them.

Taking Mitt Romney to task for not mounting an effective defense of outsourcing, David Brooks praised the practice as a good method of keeping a company "efficient and dynamic" in a global economy. Michael Tanner in NationalReview.com had a similar take, saying that Romney should publicly embrace outsourcing while offering "a full-throated defense of capitalism." Because of outsourcing U.S. businesses make more money and U.S. consumers buy cheaper goods, and "it's time for Mitt Romney to stand up and say so."

Yes, companies can achieve remarkable profit efficiency by throwing Americans out of work and inducing them to shop for cheap foreign goods with their unemployment benefits. So what? Making this the proud centerpiece of U.S. economic policy is simply national suicide, not that big business has any reason to care about such trivialities. But the rest of us ought to bear in mind that BOTH Democrats and Republicans favor exporting the U.S. productive base in order to save on labor costs, American workers be damned. And throwing a strip of paper in a ballot box from time to time will do nothing to stop this.

A slightly more novel approach on outsourcing was taken by Clive Crook in The Atlantic, who says outsourcing is "good for workers in developing countries." Right. The maquiladora industry south of the border is the envy of workers everywhere.

Enough already with the "polio is better than cancer" truisms of crackpot realists. What we need is not more free market mythology, but a full throated attack on capitalism, not later, but now.

Source:

"The Week - All You Need to Know About Everything That Matters," August 3, 2012

------Michael K. Smith is the author of "Portraits of Empire" and "The Madness of King George," both from Common Courage Press.

Our Money in Their Banks: Why?

As Republicans stride in the direction of hard-core fascism and Democrats mince toward a soft-core police state, America endures a campaign with no substance allowed to interfere with corporate capital’s electoral show. Unless the Green Party attracts citizen attention by adhering to the substance of democratic ideals that contrast with the political pimping of the major parties , the people will face endless television mudslinging battles between political pornographers trying to entice them to vote for a lesser evil. As usual.

Unmentioned by the mainstream candidates and their media paparazzi are the crises that are regular parts of capital’s economic anarchy but are occurring with a regularity that not only frightens the majority enduring the losses but even some of the minority collecting the profits.

Present systemic chaos is due in part to the deregulation craze which has brought us closer to a pre-depression state of totally uncontrolled markets. A return to past New Deal/Keynesian control - which was never more than a way to forestall total collapse by making taxpayers the investors of last resort – is the argument entertained by supporters of the system who haven’t yet seen the handwriting on the wall. But even if that return to the past achieves lesser evil victory in November, it will be short lived.

Capitalism has radically changed, not in essence but in the way it presently extracts profits at society’s loss.

The financial sectors which replaced manufacturing as primary players in the vast casino we are taught to think of as democracy and free markets are operating at a speed that cannot be turned back to the industrial era. Behind the wealth walls of this gated community , privateers circulate currencies which do not represent physical product or tangible goods but exist only as speculative electronic blips. These impulses of immaterialism are borrowed, loaned, rented and sold by the trillions, and then re-rented, re-borrowed, re-loaned and re-sold in an endless daisy chain ponzi scheme of superstition based gambling practiced in an electronic church that makes the supernatural seem embedded in solid rock by comparison.

This massive scam, rooted in past industry but only now nearing a collapse with the blinding speed of its transactions in the ether, has taken us from millions lost in the 1930s market crash, to billions lost in the 1990s market bust, to trillions lost in the 21st century market  breakdown. So far.

And  even more critical than these fanatic monetary matters are the environmental threats that forecast a deadly future for humanity if we do not transform our method, means and purpose of survival.

How long can this go on without a collapse that doesn’t only curse tens of millions with hardship and suffering in capital’s usual fashion, but plunges billions into simultaneously experienced horror?

Part of the salvation of profit and loss economics has been capital’s ability to keep majority suffering on the fringes of society while trickling down enough wealth so that many workers could achieve a middle class life style, mostly dependent on debt but enabling the purchase of enough creature comforts to make it all seem worthwhile. But as growing numbers sink below that standard and even descend into poverty, how can mind managers continue urging consumption of physical and mental commodities if people don’t have the money to buy all the material waste and are running out of patience with all the immaterial torture?

When so many are going broke, becoming mad , or openly rebelling, what’s a minority to do to maintain its power?

The increasing number of crises are being dealt with by more obscene financing for war while cutting public budgets in order to further protect private profits. We are expected to accept less and less as a society and get less and less as individuals, while we pay more and more to endanger ourselves, our future and the life of the  planet itself. All too slowly, we seem to have begun seriously questioning this madness.

Uncritical faith is necessary to perpetuate any myth or legend, but when it fails, so does the legend or myth. Recurring breakdowns and legions of  new sufferers are causing many more to question what was previously perceived as acceptable or inevitable reality. Once that reality is understood to mean that we have no future if we go on this way and in some cases are running out of a present, all bets are off.

Belief in a deity can vanish when it doesn't answer prayers, but faith in banks, always tenuously based on the authority of military power protecting the vault , is beginning to disappear for material and not metaphysical reasons. Scandals among the grossly rich minority rulers are getting worse and encouraging more people to demand political but also economic change in the way societies produce and distribute their wealth and where they stash their cash. The idea of  an unelected private minority controlling majority public wealth, always a dim witted notion in an alleged democratic system, is beginning to be seen as stupid as it always was.

When no one believes in or accepts the private bank as deity and public ruler, its power isn’t there anymore. We haven’t reached that collective consciousness yet , but we need to, and soon, before a future financial tsunami makes all the present financial flooding seem trivial by comparison.

Democratic control of the economy can begin with public banks investing in what majority society needs and not what minority billionaires and their professional class servants want. If that seems too difficult to achieve, then democracy is no longer a goal and we should just prepare for the worst. Only our rulers and their most pessimistic, defeatist servants can possibly want such a thing. People before profits; an idea whose time has come. Which side are you on?

False Savior: Barack Obama (Part 1)

"I'm a pro-growth, free market guy. I love the market."

-----Barack Obama

"My heart is filled with love for this country."

-----Barack Obama

The first African-American president in U.S. history, he displayed his attitude towards his African heritage by destroying Libya, the most modern and democratic country on the African continent, which boasted an average life span of 77 years and a literacy rate of 90%.

This policy was carried out using air and naval bombardments, Special Forces advisers, a mercenary army and client ex-patriots (slated to be the "new leaders"), and a multi-lateral coalition of European empire builders and Gulf state petrol-oligarchs. With sustained and massive air attacks (14,000 bombing raids) taking the place of an occupying army, Obama absurdly claimed that the horrendous massacre wasn't even a war, as though that could somehow make the bloodletting more tolerable.

Despite a huge propaganda offensive designed to convince the unwary that mercenary "rebels" toppled Qaddafi, the fact is that Qaddafi loyalists were only defeated by the combined air power of NATO, with the usual dubious legal justification, in yet another instance of imperial conquest of Africa. Meanwhile, the Libyan economy, from ports to irrigation systems to roads and hospitals, was utterly destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan African workers and North African professionals were forced to flee as Washington's mercenary crew of fundamentalist, tribal, gangster, and opportunistic clan and neo-liberal forces set about carving up rival fiefdoms.

Obama's gender sensitivity was revealed to be a fraud. Women had more freedom under Qaddafi rule in Libya than in other Arab countries, and thanks to equal education, they held high office as a matter of course. Nevertheless, Obama's Secretary of State and champion of Western feminism Hillary Clinton giggled as she celebrated the torture and murder of the man who helped bring such policies about: "We came. We saw. He (Qaddafi) died." The best rejoinder was delivered by capitalist critic James Petras, who wrote that, "Only a brainless and morally depraved Hillary Clinton could sing the praises and dance a jig celebrating the victory of a knife-wielding sodomist torturing a captured president as 'a victory for democracy.'" Indeed. And Obama happily stands behind her.

Elsewhere on the foreign policy front the pattern was much the same. In Pakistan, Obama's drone warfare alienated virtually the entire population, killing a few "insurgent" commanders while engendering widespread hatred with his mass killing of civilians. In Iraq, he continued the completely unjustified U.S. occupation, adding to an already appalling death toll and withdrawing only when Iraqi resistance forced his hand. U.S. foreign policy critic William Blum aptly summed up the results of the Bush-Obama policy for the only people who count: Iraqis.

"The people of that unhappy land have lost everything - their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives. More than half the population [is] either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile. The air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium [are bringing] the most awful of birth defects . . .. A river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris, through a country that may never be put back together again."

The "sectarian violence" we hear of in Iraq is actually disguised imperial violence, even in the wake of the U.S. troop withdrawal. Extrajudicial executions and other crimes are being committed by Iraqi paramilitary forces recruited, trained, and armed by the United States. And should they fail to maintain Iraq in a mode of control Washington finds agreeable, Washington reserves the right to re-invade.

The Bush-Obama occupation represented a frontal assault on Iraqi civil society that ultimately killed at least 10% of the Sunni Arab population, driving about half of that population into exile or internal displacement. While Washington consistently tried to portray the violence as driven by religious extremism, it was in fact a conflict primarily between secular nationalist forces and Washington's imperial forces, with the former striving to expel all U.S. influence. Foreign occupation of the country was the real problem, not religious extremism.

And it's still not over. Tens of thousands of CIA operatives remain in Iraq, special forces units, hunter-killer squads, and ruthless private security details. This is what passes for peace in the era of the "homeland," a term Obama uses as freely as Bush did.

Turning to Afghanistan, those dangerous radicals at the Wall Street Journal editorialized on June 5, 2009 that "one benefit of the Obama Presidency is that it is validating much of George W. Bush's security agenda and foreign policy . . . [with] artfully repackaged versions of themes President Bush sounded with his freedom agenda." No surprise, then, that Obama won the support of John McCain and Karl Rove, as well as many other Republicans with his Afghan policy, which quickly threw 30,000 more troops into the sausage-grinder.

When a suicide bombing killed seven CIA agents working in Afghanistan some months later (December 30, 2009), President Obama glorified the fallen, calling them "part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life." As though the U.S. killing hundreds of thousands of Afghans going back to the Carter years were on such a basis justifiable. Madness.

In his Nobel Peace prize speech Obama unconvincingly laid out his differences with Dr. King and Gandhi vis-a-vis war policy: "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes." There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified." He said he was "mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago: 'Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem, it merely creates new and more complicated ones.'" Obama said he would not be able to use Dr. King or Gandhi as his sole guides to being a good Commander in Chief, however. Afghanistan, he insisted, was a truly just war . . . "I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people . . . Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

But threats to the American people are greatly exaggerated, and the few that refer to anything real are a direct result of relentlessly abusive U.S. foreign and trade policies. And the plain fact is that Washington, not Al Qaeda, is the greatest threat to world peace, and by a wide margin. Nevertheless, Obama increased U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan to 100,000 (not counting mercenaries), where U.S. death squads are running rampant, having killed tens of thousands of civilians in the past decade.

According to the C.I.A., the U.S. government spends $10 billion a month to fight an estimated "50-75 Al Qaeda types in Afghanistan." According to Obama, this is a "smart war."

As for civil liberties, Obama signed an extension of the Patriot Act without a single reform. The provisions let the government, with approval from a special secret court, seize records without the owner's knowledge, conduct secret surveillance of "suspicious" people, and obtain secret roving wiretaps on people. Not surprisingly, therefore, wiretaps for oral, electronic or wire communications are at an all-time high under Obama.

Under Obama administration efforts to criminalize dissent and militarize the police, local police have been turned into SWAT teams accompanied by sound-blasting vehicles, helicopters, and special tanks. Protesters routinely suffer broken bones and numerous other injuries as they are smashed with truncheons, sprayed with chemical agents, hit with tear gas canisters, and blasted with ear-splitting sound machines. Meanwhile, Muslims don't even need to protest in order to get abused. The Obama administration has criminalized their very speech, indicting them for "supporting terrorists" in online comments, even in cases where there is no advocacy of violence.

The Obama administration condemned Wikileaks - the publication of accurate government documents detailing the lies told by U.S. government officials, the killing of civilians, the policy of torture in Iraq, information about who is held at Guantanamo (Cuban territory), cover ups of drone strikes, abuse of children, and even more damaging revelations. These were deliberately and absurdly misconstrued as constituting an attack on the United States. Washington continues to try to find ways to prosecute the publishers of Wikileaks. Obama personally defended the conditions of Bradley Manning's (solitary) confinement, who leaked thousands of government documents to Wikileaks. The government is charging Manning with espionage, which can bring the death penalty.

Among other civil liberties outrages are the following:

(1) The Obama administration has taken no steps to cut back on the cruel and unusual practice of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, to which tens of thousands of U.S. prisoners are subject, nor the practice of confining supermax prisoners to their cells 23 out of every 24 hours.

(2) The CIA under Obama continues a longstanding policy of censorship of books published by former intelligence agents, the (partial) grounds being in one case (a memoir by former FBI agent Ali H. Soufan) that the book made the agency look bad.

(3) Obama has refused to release photos of U.S. soldiers cruelly abusing prisoners. There are hundreds of criminal investigations into such abuses by U.S. soldiers.

(4) Obama continues the Bush policy of calling for dismissal of cases brought against Washington on the part of tortured "detainees" on the grounds that a trial would disclose "state secrets."

(5) The Obama administration successfully requested that the Supreme Court allow the government to criminalize humanitarian aid and legal activities on the part of people giving advice or support to foreign organizations that are on the government list of terrorist organizations. The Obama administration's Solicitor General argued that, "When you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs." The court agreed that state security trumps the First Amendment. Of course, when U.S. taxpayers pay their taxes to help build roads, they are also helping the government build a vast array of weapons with which Washington commits acts of terrorism far greater in scale than anything attributable to Hizbollah, but that's not considered a crime.

(6) The Obama administration has targeted peace and justice activists and labor union organizers for FBI raids and judicial harassment, including Grand Jury subpoenas, this for exercising their constitutional right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

(7) After promising to protect whistleblowers, Obama has prosecuted five whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, more than any other administration. He charged a National Security Agency advisor with 10 felonies under the Espionage Act for telling the press that the government was wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on ill-advised and failed projects. He also prosecuted former members of the CIA, the State Department, and the FBI.

(8) Obama continued Washington's longstanding support for torture. His much ballyhooed torture ban constitutes, at most, the elimination of a small minority of torture episodes carried out by Americans, while retaining the far more extensive torture operations carried out by foreigners under U.S. patronage. And by focusing only on torture in wartime (the dubious "war on terror") he diverts attention from the much vaster torture operations carried out by U.S. client states that are not at war, except with their own populations at the behest of Washington.

(9)Obama has endorsed and continued the most extremist Bush measures, including the "right" to torture anywhere except Guantanamo. Prisoners flown to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan can be imprisoned indefinitely without rights, argues Obama. When a Bush-appointed federal judge handed down a decision rejecting this stance, the Obama administration announced that it would appeal the ruling.

(10) Obama claimed a unique right to jail people for life and execute U.S. citizens without formal charges or due process of law, and adopted Bush's secret military tribunals with minor modifications. And he invented new ways of denying habeas corpus.

(11) Secretary of State Clinton has determined that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and FARC (Colombia) "threaten U.S. national security, foreign policy, or economic interests," a finding not reviewable by the courts. And according to the Supreme Court, non-violent First Amendment advocacy "coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as "terrorist" is a crime. A thought crime, to be exact. This goes on while Obama speaks with great reverence for Nelson Mandela, who was officially defined as a terrorist by the U.S. government for many years.

12. As of 2011, Obama was seeking Congressional authority to compel internet service providers to make our internet records available to government investigators, so dissidents and protesters would be trackable at will, violating the 4th Amendment.

Even Jonathan Swift would be left speechless at all of this.

We're Not That Stupid After All

The Hill Poll: Majority of voters believe Obama has changed country for worse

By Sheldon Alberts - 07/09/12 05:00 AM ET

Two-thirds of likely voters say President Obama has kept his 2008 campaign promise to change America — but it’s changed for the worse, according to a sizable majority.
A new poll for The Hill found 56 percent of likely voters believe Obama’s first term has transformed the nation in a negative way, compared to 35 percent who believe the country has changed for the better under his leadership.

The results signal broad voter unease with the direction the nation has taken under Obama’s leadership and present a

Fiscal Crisis in States Will Last Beyond Slump, Report Warns

from the nytimes:

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH and MICHAEL COOPER

Published: July 17, 2012

WASHINGTON — The fiscal crisis for states will persist long after the economy rebounds as states confront financial problems that include rising health care costs, underfunded pensions, ignored infrastructure needs, eroding revenues and expected federal budget cuts, according to a report issued here Tuesday by a task force of respected budget experts.

from legalienate:

so who will be enjoying this proposed economic rebound ?

duh?

Variation on a 2008 theme

(submitted by an anonymous legalienate correspondent)

 

 

Helga is the proprietor of a bar.  She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.  To solve this problem she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

 

Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger, thereby granting the customers' loans.

 

Word gets around about Helga's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.

 

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer - the most consumed beverages.

 

Consequently, Helga's gross sales volumes and paper profits increase massively.  A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga's borrowing limit.  He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

 

He is rewarded with a six figure bonus.

 

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These "securities"  are then bundled and traded on international securities markets.

 

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AA Secured Bonds" are really debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

 

The traders all receive a six figure bonus.

 

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager

at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga's bar. He so informs Helga. Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons but, being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Helga cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helga's 11 employees lose their jobs.

 

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

 

The suppliers of Helga's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations; her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

 

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

 

They all receive six a figure bonus.

 

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who've never been in Helga's bar.

 

Now do you understand?

Man Claims “Stand Your Ground” Defense in Murder of Boss

An employee who had worked at Amalgamated Security Systems for twenty five years and was slated to receive his pension in two weeks was accused of murdering his boss when he was threatened with being fired.

“ He endangered my life and that of my family by denying me any means of support after years of faithful service. All I could do to defend myself, my wife and my children was to stand my ground when my life was threatened. I shot him in self defense. And I used an American made weapon to do so.”

When asked if his boss was a dangerous black teenager wearing a hoody, the man replied “ no, he was a scumbag middle aged white bastard wearing a suit and tie” and then broke down in tears as he explained that the “scumbag” had laughed at him, called his wife and children “dumb working class pieces of shit”, and had advanced on him while holding a martini glass in menacing fashion. “ I thought he was going to throw it in my face. I had to defend myself, my honor and my integrity as a member of the company staff serving faithfully for twenty five years. What else could I do? What would you do?”

The NRA, the ACLU, the AFL , the Tea Party and the Green, Democratic, Republican and Communist parties have all offered to pay his legal expenses. All agreed that the man was not only exercising his right to keep and bear arms, as enshrined in the most holy second amendment to the constitution, but the right to stand his ground when his life was threatened, according  to the most holy “stand your ground when your life is threatened”  laws in many holy states.

The president, the secretary of state and the attorney general released a joint statement that said:

 “ uh, this is, um, an unprecedented test for, uh, a law that while not officially an , um, federal law, is, uh, most likely a right that most, um, Americans feel very strongly about, and , um…” At this point the stenographer fell asleep, but it is clear that this case will, um, set a precedent for, uh, this inability to clearly articulate disease which has, um, gripped many who are part of or, um, reporting on this, uh, government.

Legalienate urges its thousands of fans to gather the family around and read that last paragraph out loud…it will make you all feel presidential.

Ancient Scriptures

even making the wild assumption that any biblical or torah or other tales told to people who told tales to other people who continued telling tales until years later someone wrote an alleged account of these tales were remotely based on actual material events ...so? this would account for the treacherous, murderous garbage infesting our minds and bodies now, centuries after these alleged tales of terror, deities, good people and demons?

when we cannot believe what we see on a TV or computer screen this minute, we are supposed to attach great meaning to what was allegedly said and is still allegedly believed by people who may be certifiable lunatics, as may be those who believe that they believe what they believe and that is why people are being murdered all over the world, children starve, the earth is being ravaged...because some  dickhead believes in cutting off foreskin, or the resurrection of Christ, or the parting of the red sea?

can we get real, for just a moment, and take off the biblical and torah garments, put on pants and dresses or slacks, and take a look at what is going on around us this minute and realize that interpretations and explanations of events range across the spectrum from fascists to communists to democrats to islamist to jews to globalists to nationalists to  literate people and to stark raving lunatics - mostly in major media - and stop seeking answers by examining what are called scriptures?

just find any such text and seek what you want on any given page...it's likely to be there, subject to your interpretation...much more important, and equally open to such analysis, is the much more believable and understandable document we call a constitution, infinitely more important than this biblical/torah-nical nonsense, and a far more important pile of political bullshit which can be interpreted and analyzed by any and every form of philosophy to indicate the master remains master and the slaves, peasants, citizens, consumers remain without power...that's important, the rest is unadulterated horseshit, except for defending freedom of speech, which is right on...

The Libyan Aftermath

the power of the west to destroy militarily and do mental destruction though information  control and disinformation  must be understood ,acknowledged and opposed, but we cannot do this by indulging in what we might consider a more benign form of distortion or over-simplification...

for all the positive things accomplished by libya during the period of ghaddafi's revolution, something cannot have been so perfect, ideal, democratic and humanitarian as expressed by so many well meaning supporters, or the country could not possibly have been a place where so many libyans were screaming about lack of democracy, lack of equality, lack of freedom, etc...many of them may have been propagandists, but a nation cannot fall, even with outside intervention , if it has or had so much wonderfulness, democracy,prosperity and equality...why was anybody in libya complaining about anything at all if all this greatness existed, let alone be willing  to join with outside forces to destroy the government?

of course there are always elements who want more than others, but they have to be numerous , or the supporters of a government have to be relatively helpless in order to lose that governmental force, no matter how much outside wealth or military power is employed...

the west taking over a country where there is no central rule, no well fed, well educated population, no sense of democratic rights, is one thing...but if libya had all these attributes, as so many go to great lengths to praise, why did it all come apart without an invading army coming in but instead with a native population doing so, however aided with outside help? we must be far more critical of ourselves in our desire to create a new world and not simply blame the old world for all that is wrong...we need to face reality and correct our mistakes - and there must have been many made in libya - not simply praise what we believe or have as almost religious faith that disregards the material reality...

russia had a revolution that lasted seventy years in which a power - not simply a royal figurehead of a tsar - was stripped and a totally different society was built, one that transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of people in a nation larger than any on earth, and that revolution collapsed in a relatively bloodless operation, partly because of a generation of western assaults both physical and mental, but also because of its shortcomings in establishing real democratic power among the people, all the while it extolled itself as a truly democratic nation because - and here what is said about libya can be repeated endlessly - all were employed, all were educated, none were homeless, all were fed, and so on...yet, they failed, and they were a world power, not just militarily but economically  and even imperially, having many nations subject to their leadership and rule...how can anyone truly believe that libya was a flawless place in which all were equal and democratic when so many libyans were not only of a different mind, but actually hated the same leader beloved as almost a god by others?

these are serious problems to deal with and cannot be put aside simply because the west and some libyans may be corrupt, greedy or egotistical...if there is to be a new world, not just in libya, old ways of deifying and/or demonizing leaders must be dumped, and definitions of things like democracy - which never existed in ancient greece where it was supposed to have originated nor does it exist in the usa and certainly did not exist in libya - must change and become definable in material reality and not just in the minds of those who think it means "my side rules and not yours and since we are better than you, that is democracy" or some similar gross over simplification...

i look forward to soon hearing and reading  some serious discussion of the imperfections, the mistakes, the negative things about libya that played a role in the fall of a forty year experiment to create a better reality in a relatively tiny nation...we cannot change the world by having a nice little commune somewhere and we certainly cannot change the world if we can't even create a tiny commune of equality and democracy...we have much to learn about the world we actually live in, in order to change it...

Minority Profits = Majority Loss

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.

 Jay Gould

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
A working class hero is something to be…

John Lennon

The robber baron and the rock and roll poet expressed sentiments about the same social reality from radically different perspectives. Profit and Loss capitalism has enabled many recipients of crumbs from the banquet tables of the rich to enjoy the applied label of middle class given them by consciousness controllers in politics and media. But present realities find the religion, sex, tv and other consumer products less available to cloud minds and fill bodies under the delusion of equality and the cruel reality spoken of by the robber baron. That reality needs to be confronted by a united class and no longer tolerated by a divided humanity, now more so than ever.

As the global crisis causes national book juggling on a daily basis to maintain order, and that of international banking on a near hourly schedule,  it becomes more apparent that the algorithmic accountants for the rich are operating to the detriment of most members of the race. Problems supposedly at the root of a crumbling financial structure are seen by minority profiteers as government’s profligate spending on people ,  terrifying foreign threats that call for expanded wars , and other lies perpetuated by mind managers to cover the gross injustice that is reducing more of humanity to debt servitude and abject poverty while the planet itself is threatened in all its life support systems . This happens as shrinking segments of the population increase their enormous wealth at phenomenal speed, destroying more of the social and natural environment as they do so and patting themselves on the back for being such masterful and benign dominators of life.

Creatures of no observable skills or special talents amass billions of dollars and perform no useful work at all but actually bring about cultural and ecological devastation for which they are rewarded with more tax payer dollars. Economists too dumb to see the crisis predicted by many critics still wisely advise with ancient notions of a free market religion, supply and demand curves, and the “creative destruction” which  does away with what they find useless - jobs for working people – and produces more profits for what they find divine – capitalists. These servants of a religious philosophy masked as secular finance call for total assault on the public sector  in a form of national masturbation; by focused obsession on the economy’s private parts. The loss of jobs bring lower employment costs for the ruling minority and higher social costs to the working majority who still have some form of incomes and pay taxes to keep rulers rich and not allow poor people to drop dead in the streets. As they expend more for weapons, consumer goods and security products to protect themselves from the alienated who are alleged to threaten them from below , they are distracted from noticing the tiny group laughing at them from above while it dumps garbage on their heads.

This does not describe 19^th century reality but the present condition of a 21^st century rushing backward for most while the minority at the top lavishes wealth on itself by robbing humanity’s future. A  fast growing universal demand for democracy is slowly changing things despite interference and misguidance from rulers and their hired help, though it must speed up if we are  to have a long range future. Some among the many reasons why:

The incredible arrogance of western powers, especially the U.S. and Israel, insisting that Iran suspend activities – none of which exist - to create nuclear weapons – none of which it has – while the USA, the only nation to slaughter thousands with nuclear weapons, and Israel , armed with hundreds of nukes which they demand remain unmentioned in a global holocaust of silence, and Iran, not Israel, calls for a nuclear free middle east. Whether dubbed  colossal chutzpah, testiculo grandioso or massive balls, this combination of breathtaking gall with microscopic brains endangers most of the world, beginning with Iran and the middle east.

The same imperial master race/chosen people syndicate calls a conference on the future of Syria, but neither Syria nor neighbor Iran are allowed to participate in the discussion. Does that imply elephant testicles? Dinosaur balls? Gigantic gonads? Is there any fitting trash talk to cover this kind of pinhead, pea brained dementia?

Possibly so, but what can we call the urge for what is named austerity, meaning cuts in programs for the most helpless in society so that the most wealthy can make more money and possibly, hopefully, prayerfully , or when the drugs kick in, then invest in creating jobs for them? That’s if the economic witch doctors, mullahs, priests and rabbis don’t decide that creative destruction would be better, thank you. How do you make fun of this in a way that can drown out the cries of those who suffer while this madness continues? Whether they are in pain from hunger, loneliness, despair at the bombs falling on their heads, or the countless other  horrors that billions suffer while millions are confused into incurring more debt and paying for war while thousands smile as their servants deposit more millions in the bank for them. And that’s not all, for the moment.

Weather irregularities ranging from heat waves to cold snaps to drenching rains and foul air are written off as typical acts of nature having nothing to do with what most of science has called climate change. While this pop title may be a trivialization of the issue, most responsible investigators from what is called the scientific community – a branch of material religious faith generally more reliable than snake dancing and prayer - are treating this as a serious threat to the future of the human race, while profiteers seek ways to make money by transforming old garbage into new sewage and calling it a green revolution. Not to worry folks, private profits will take care of everything. They will entail, of course and as always , much greater losses in order to create those profits, but as long as our rulers can languish in luxury they may leisurely invest in something that will eventually bring us jobs. Like maybe another war.

Prevailing wisdom seems an oxymoron as it applies to ruling power, its politicians and its media. But expanding electronic methods of selling more consumer waste have also created a contradictory method of communication that the imperial regime is trying desperately to control, but at only limited success. Past populations could be kept murdering one another and drugged by religion, sex and tv when they weren’t directly doing so, but present distractions are too numerous and fast to be totally controlled by any authority. It is trying, desperately and with bloody efficiency, as it murders with robots , entraps with technology and relies on its smaller but more faithful captive class of professional indentured servants. But the tendency of more humans to say “enough” seems apparent.

The  escapist ploys still available by which to keep workers killing themselves when not being captivated by media or entrapped by newer versions of religion, sex and tv are more prevalent than ever. They can go anywhere and dull minds 24 hours a day, but they are not only suitable to listen to or watch; they can also enable people to broadcast their own messages, and while most of those can seem all too personal, the tribe of humanity is using them socially and coming closer together as the problems get worse. That growing togetherness offers hope for ultimate democratic action to take control of a social environment that demands real transformation of the race and its possibilities. Working class members of the human majority don’t all need to be individual heroes but they could take social inspiration from these closing quotes. Stay  tuned.

 “The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another.”
-Thomas Merton

An individual has not started living until he or she can rise above the narrow confines of his or her individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Romney Plans Trip to Israel

The candidate will also be visiting nations of ancestral origin of the other 98% of Americans, with a special emphasis on Mexico, Kenya, Puerto Rico,Italy, Russia, Germany, the British Isles, the Scandinavian Peninsula, Brazil, Argentina, El Salvador and others soon to be announced.