MOURNING IN 'MURIKA

MOURNING IN 'MURIKA

or

THE STATE OF THE ONION

Onion Fact Check: Trump's State of the Union

(The Onion.com video)

I happened to catch a few minutes of NPR during a discussion of Trump's "State of the Union" speech. As usual I found NPR's political analysis appalling. That a Trump speech was being considered seriously, and not simply a spewing of rhetoric by an obnoxious figurehead reading BS prepared by his sociopathic handlers was disappointing, yet sadly not surprising.

More honest appraisals on the state of the union require a trip outside the corporately-owed propaganda machine. For example:

Trump's SOTU Calls for More Spending on Nuclear Weapons and Galvanizes Extremism

Max Blumenthal, Phyllis Bennis, and Norman Solomon discuss President Trump's State of the Union. Rather than deliver a serious address, they say Trump offered a simplistic narrative designed to galvanize extremism.

(The Real News.com)

"MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, yeah. I agree with all of the comments by Phyllis and Norman. I sort of regret agreeing to this because I had to watch that, and I now feel like I'm 20 years older. I mean, I'm very glad to be here, but that was one of the most atrocious State of the Unions I've seen. Trump's delivery was lethargic and lugubrious. It was basically a reality show with Trump narrating the heroic stories of various American archetypes held together with a Kulturkampf, with a culture-war demagoguery on nativism like we've seen from no other president, and Norman's right. It's been normalized under Trump. I've heard a lot of pundits say that Trump's speech was surprisingly normal."

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The coming unrest with David North

David North, Chairman of the World Socialist Web Site’s International Editorial Board, discusses the capitalist crisis in the United States.

(On Contact video with Chris Hedges)

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Trump’s State of Delusion
(WSWS.org)

"Amidst the nauseating spectacle of Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, perhaps the most remarkable feature was the inability of the ruling class—not only Trump, but also the Democratic opposition and the media commentary—to deal seriously with any of the myriad crises engulfing American and world capitalism.

The State of the Union address was, as originally conceived, intended as an occasion for the president to outline to Congress and the American people the overall economic, social and geo-political situation facing the country. However, over the past four decades, and particularly since the Reagan White House, the event has become an increasingly hollow charade, full of bombast and empty boasting, incapable of acknowledging the mounting crisis of American capitalism."