Wednesday, August 31, 2016

PROPAGANDA BROADCASTING SERVICE

This is a very interesting example of what goes on at the Public BS News Hour. 

(Matt Orfalea - YouTube)

Another example of Jill dodging the shit storm:

(The Humanist Report)

Monday, August 29, 2016

VERY REASONABLE ARGUMENTS
VERSUS CHAOS

Endless war: on one side we have common sense and sensibility, on the other a trillion dollar cash cow with the best propaganda money can buy. In the short term money wins, in the long term everybody loses.

Natylie Baldwin's article makes a cogent argument against militarism. Unfortunately in order for a rational approach to foreign policy to take hold in the U.S., we as a nation have to take responsibility for vast and numerous acts of treason, torture, and crimes against humanity, for starters. 

Rhetoric, even impassioned rhetoric, might make eyes roll, but probably not heads, unless we're very lucky.

(Consortium News)

"In war, truth is the first casualty."
-Aeschylus

Thursday, August 25, 2016


(The Fiscal Times)

So much money flows into The Pentagon that it can lose $6.5 trillion dollars in a year and virtually no one blinks an eye.

I regularly hear the question, "how can America afford
social programs?"

A better question is, "how do we afford our Military
Industrial Complex?"

Other matters of interest:

(Consortium News)

(Alternet)

Friday, August 19, 2016


Consider how many hours of media coverage the RNC and DNC are accustomed to, then compare that to time spent on alternative voices, independent thinkers or honest journalists. Big Money has bought the media, which provides democratic theater it calls election coverage. The MSM maintains a charade that keeps corporate puppets in office, and the populace enslaved. Third parties are marginalized by design and the debates are rigged because the Duopoly would crumble if it had to survive on its merits. 

Thursday, August 18, 2016


(Consortiumnews.com)

"The U.S. foreign policy establishment and its mainstream media operate with a pervasive set of hypocritical standards that justify war crimes — or what might be called a “normalization of deviance,” writes Nicolas J S Davies."

An excellent essay to read on your way to doomsday.

Saturday, August 6, 2016



DELTA VOTE

Democrats should abandon their party if it no longer represents them. Convincing staunch supporters is a sticky wicket, so maybe an attractive graphic will help.

I awoke this morning with an idea: Delta-Vote:

CHANGE YOUR VOTE
VOTE FOR LIFE

"Voting for life" means supporting peace instead of war, advocating for environmental and health issues, and fighting for social justice. "Voting for life" also means sticking with it and not dropping out because the system is corrupt.

How corrupt could the Green Party be, it's broke?

My conservative friends lament the rise of modern youth (they dread millennials). I lament what has gone before and hope this generation sticks it to the establishment.

For their own good millennials need to clean house...
both houses :)

I'm Talking Bag and I support this message.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

DAYS OF REVOLT: THE PROBLEM

Chris Hedges and Green Party candidate Jill Stein diagnose the problems plaguing US politics, highlighting the dysfunction of a two-party system dominated by corporate interests.

(TheRealNews.com)

We need more folks in government like Arn.

Health insurance companies are literally killing us. The U.S. spends more money to get less care than wiser developed nations. Insurance tycoons get rich by denying care, and they lobby extensively against universal health care, expanded Medicare for all. As individuals and a nation we could save money and have a better health care system if we eliminate the profit motive. Insurance companies are in the business of getting rich, they do not care about your health.

Leech Therapy (PBS: Nature article)
Applying leeches can be beneficial, but allowing corporate leeches to suck off billions in health care dollars has to stop.

MICHIGAN'S WATER WARS

Nestlé Pumps Millions of Gallons for Free While Flint Pays for Poisoned Water.
BIG BROTHER
Classic Yes Minister episode from 1980

Of course Orwell hit it on the head in 1949, but he doesn't make me laugh like the superlative Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister shows. BRILLIANT!

IT’S PROPAGANDA PEOPLE

News has become paid models talking to shills pretending they aren’t spouting lies and nonsense.

Fox is obviously the most egregious source of ridiculous bullshit, but there isn’t a major network or cable news show that’s worth watching, including PBS. What passes for public broadcasting is mostly paid for by the same corporate overlords that are running the Main Stream Media. Passively letting the talking heads tell you what is news and how you should think about it, is how they maintain control and screw us over.

It’s hard to find independent media, but you should try. Check out some of my links to the left. You are better off reading, but here are just a few AV news alternatives:





Some More Random Acts of Propaganda

2014 STYLE PROPAGANDA

Pundits given airtime as non-biased experts, who were really war profiteers supporting military intervention to line their pockets. Wars are death for cash schemes.

Who's Paying the Pro-War Pundits (The Nation article)

2008 STYLE PROPAGANDA

The Defense Department orchestrated a barrage of bullshit to sell war. The Lame Stream Media just spewed establishment talking points. 

OLD SCHOOL PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT
THANKS TO RAYGUN

FEAR


PEACE IS NOT AN OPTION
BECAUSE...FEAR

BE AFRAID! People don't like us. Could it be because we slaughter them, topple their governments, exploit their resources, and literally sanction them to death? No, must be because we're just too damn good, pissing the bad guys off. They can't hate us for our freedom anymore, because we've been busy giving that away to the surveillance state. We're like a boxer throwing his glove up to protect his face, only we keep punching ourselves. All our opponents are winning because we keep knocking ourselves out. The U.S. is a bully who should start asking himself, "Why do I keep punching myself in the face?"

One solution is to donate trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars to an organization that specializes in crushing killing and destroying. Folks'll thank us for destroying their countries and killing their families, right?

Makes as much sense as this
Crush-Kill-Destroy propaganda piece.

Millions of lives are destroyed and trillions are spent without tangible benefits. What a racket! A counter-productive colossal waste that chews up tax money like a black hole, but gets glowing reviews from the Lame Stream Media. If you don't gain power or profit directly from the Military Industrial Complex, you should be asking for some accountability. What is it good for, indeed. The U.S. now wages war without discussion or analysis. We slaughter people everywhere and it's barely news worthy.

Endless global war has been sold to us as business as usual, because…wait…it's coming to me…oh yea, fear. Endless global war is actually catastrophically bizarre and a crime against humanity. Even worse it is a crime against the planet Earth. One way or another spreading conflict throughout the world will harm everyone, including us.

Consider this:
 Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine is worth reading.

THE DEBATE WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

I wish they would stop calling those ridiculous commercials Presidential Debates. The media should do more informing, less entertaining. It's not just the teevee, I switched to NPR while driving yesterday, lasted about a minute. Music still has charms to soothe a savage breast.

An interesting alternative to the usual dreck:

Some folks who know what a debate is:

A class act.


The game is basically this: rather than have tax money support and serve the people, big business and the war machine wish all of it to be given to them. That is why they support more tax burdens on the poor, tax cuts to the rich, slashing the budgets of everything except an already bloated DoD, and privatization of resources and services rather than government oversight. Generally speaking privatization means some people get very rich and all the risks are leveled at the average citizen. I prefer democratic socialism over the corporate kind. I think key services such as health, education, energy and banks should be under public control. Fuck privatization.

For decades our corporate crony politicians have been handing out your money to a few fat cats, and depriving the rest of us. The ruling class in America has pulled off the biggest heist in human history. Vote them all out. Boycott the ruling parties. Vote for anyone except a Republican or Democrat. Make the government start working for you, not against you. Any decent politician will abandon the corrupt parties and go independent or third party, once they realize most citizens will follow.
IS THE MOST POWERFUL MILITARY IN THE WORLD REALLY WHAT YOU WANT?
EVEN IF IT'S OUT OF CONTROL?




VOTE GREEN!
AN ALTERNATIVE TO A LESSER EVIL.

About half of all eligible voters don't bother to vote. If they voted Green Jill Stein would beat any Democrat on Republican on the presidential ballot. Those in power do not want you to exercise your right to fight corruption.

 Chris Hedges and Green Party candidate Jill Stein diagnose problems plaguing US politics, highlighting the dysfunction of a two-party system dominated by corporate interests.

The Problem (The Real News interview)

The Solution (The Real News interview)

BETTER THAN A REPUBLICAN?

Democrats certainly appear more reasonable than the sociopaths on the right, but they generally promote the same disastrous neocon agenda. Obama and The Clintons enable oligarchy pretending to do otherwise. Republicans are more open and shameless about who their masters are.  

SMEAR OF MARION BARRY

I fell for all that media BS.

Listen to tributes to Marry Barry on 89.3 WPFW. 

Listen to the April 1, 2016 I Mix What I Like! show for an hour of discussion about Mayor Barry's life and work. If that MP3 link fails refer to the WPFW Archive.

The show was in response to an article in the Washington Post comparing Barry to Trump.

Mainstream media tries to create the news as much as report it. By suggesting that Bernie is done they hope to make it happen. If you are a Bernie Sanders supporter and he gets spun out of the race, please vote for an independent or third party candidate. Do not enable the system they have rigged against us.
(*Education by and for big business)

 We should all fear the stealthy takeover of public education by the oligarchy.

Bought politicians eliminated laws that protected us from monopolized media, enabling the oligarchs to consolidate media to such an extent that news and entertainment (indistinguishable from each other these days) have become propaganda and market-friendly brainwashing. If big money manages to take over education it will create an even less informed electorate (which hardly seems possible), a dream for them and a nightmare for everyone else. "Ed Corp" will provide generations of ignorant yet productive automatons slaving for mammon.


RELATED NEWS & LINKS:

All the old evils still exist, many are simply hidden in plain sight. The plutocrats want a powerless populace to serve and support them. They want wages low and productivity high, creating kinda a kinder gentler slavery.

Unions are a defense against industrial slavery. They promote workers rights and fight for better working conditions. Unions are disappearing and it isn't by accident. The war against workers has been succeeding over the last several decades. 



Abortion is not a complex issue. It is a legal medical procedure that even the Supreme Court has upheld as a personal right of women requiring or desiring it.

The Right has failed to make it illegal to get an abortion. Wing Nuts over the years have advocated both the murder of doctors and the destruction of women's health facilities, but that has proved less effective than their current disgusting and devious strategy of using state legislation to make it all but impossible to obtain this legal service.

NPR chimed in with yet another reasonable-sounding hack job. By not sounding hysterical, instead advocating calm and thoughtful analysis, they were able to propagandize on this topic. Reacting to the self-aggrandizing Trump stumbling over his opinions on abortion, NPR accepted a religious zealot's analysis as the logical counter perspective. NPR served the RNC by bashing Trump and as a bonus spun the issue into a Pro-Life commercial. Morning Edition is a way to add crap to your wake up coffee cup.

Anti-Abortion Group Weighs In On Donald Trump's Comments (NPR.org transcript, audio available on the page)

A RELATED LINK:

John Oliver ( Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Abortion Laws ) provided a summary of how abortion is becoming only theoretically legal.

HOW NOT TO AUDIT THE PENTAGON
(TomDispatch article)

Blindly supporting the syphoning of trillions of dollars to the DoD is not just a crime against sanity, it is a crime against humanity.

EXCERPT:

Why has waste at the Pentagon been so hard to rein in?  The answer is, in a sense, not complicated: the military-industrial complex profits from waste.  Closer scrutiny of waste could mean not just cheaper spare parts, but serious questions about whether cash cows like the F-35 are needed at all.  An accurate head count of the hundreds of thousands of private contractors employed by the Pentagon would reveal that a large proportion of them are doing work that is either duplicative or unnecessary. In other words, an effective audit of the Pentagon or any form of serious oversight of its wasteful way of life would pose a financial threat to a sector that is doing just fine under current arrangements.
WHY THE BRUTALIZED BECOME BRUTAL
(The Real News video)

Two US veterans lament the brutality of the American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, which fuels the conditions for terrorism.
(The Intercept Article)

Report Reveals $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget
(Crooks & Liars posting and links)

Giving blank checks to the Military-Industrial Complex isn't simply a bad idea, it might just be the worst idea. 

Although sadly, once you weigh in on other horrible decisions we've made as a species, dumping plastic in the ocean for example (More plastic than fish in sea by 2050), the argument that intelligence is the all-time worst mutation to have ever occurred on Earth becomes hard to deny.

And then again, how smart is a parasite that destroys its host?

THANK CRONY CAPITALISM FOR ACTS OF UNAFFORDABLE CARE

Way back when President Obama started his first term in office health care was a major issue. A solid majority wanted drastic changes to our health care system, and many advocated for a single payer system. That was immediately dismissed by his administration, single payer was "off the table."

Beware attractive titles like Affordable Care Act, they're like neighborhoods named Whispering Pines, sign posts describing exactly what was destroyed to make the resulting mess possible. The Obama administration blew a lot of hot air at the American people, wind that kept the crooks in the insurance business in business. Propaganda ads, the talking heads of corporate media, and government shills convinced a gullible public that they didn't want universal health care. Our corrupt government tweaked a corrupt system instead of changing it to better serve all citizens. And they put on a show to obscure what was being done to us.

The insurance industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent single payer. They did not do this because they were concerned about the level and cost of care provided to us. They did it because they can afford to spend hundreds of millions in order to keep the billions rolling in. They have a license to steal. Insurance companies pose the greatest risk to the health of our nation, the cure is nationalized medicine. 

What became "Obamacare" was not socialized medicine, it was a handout to the already corrupt and dysfunctional health insurance industry. 

Let's hope the efforts in Colorado (see previous ColoradoCare post) succeed and set an example for the nation. The time to create a national health care system is now. 


Propaganda and marketing work. Manipulation has been a science for a long time. 

The U.S. used to have a little thing called the Depart of War. The kindler gentler sounding Defense Department makes it look like The Peace Corps.

Vulture Capitalists are perched and ready to feed on Puerto Rican's.

A bill is working its way through Congress that would put a Republican-controlled board of non-residents in charge of the Puerto Rican economy. To help them out of a crisis, just like those helpful emergency planners in Flint, MI. I wonder if any of this bill's supporters have ever heard of crony capitalism? My prediction: things will get worse, except for a few very rich individuals.


Some folks lament that the U.S. Government isn't run like a business. But it's a YUGE business, owned by the Banks and some of their friends. The most powerful players not only enrich themselves on tax dollars, they let tax dollars clean up their messes, like gambling debts and oil spills.

The monied class hates when democracy stands in the way of opportunity. 

Here's a quick summary of the Puerto Rican crisis from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver:


Here's some information about human vultures feeding in Argentina and Greece:



EXCERPT:
"Greece:  Goldman Sacked

Greece’s ruin began with secret, fraudulent currency swaps, designed a decade ago by Goldman Sachs, to conceal Greek deficits that exceeded the euro zone’s 3%-of-GDP limit.  In 2009, when the truth came out, Greek debt holders realized they had been cheated.  These debt buyers then demanded usurious levels of interest (or, if you prefer, a high “spread”) to insure themselves against future fraud.  The compounding of this interest premium brought the Greek nation to its knees.  In other words, the crimes committed to join and stay in the euro, not Greek profligacy, caused the crisis.

The USA, Brazil and China escaped from depression by increasing their money supply and government spending and taking control of currency exchange rates—crucial tools Greece gave up in return for the euro.

Worse, once the Trojan hearse of the euro entered Athens, tourism, Greece’s main industry, drained to Turkey where hotels and souvenirs are priced in cheap lira.  This allowed Dr. Mundell’s remorseless wage-lowering machine, the euro, to do its work, to force Greece to strip all its workers of pensions and power.

Greece fell to its knees, with no choice but to beg Germany for mercy."

And speaking of Goldman Sachs, what's up with gold woman Hillary Clinton?