The Hypocrisy Of Corporate Media

The latest thing from establishment talking heads like Rachel Maddow and Jake Tapper is to smear anyone affiliated with or who has even appeared on RT (Russia Today) as some sort of stooge at best or spy at worst. I confess I have watched RT. Some of their programs are excellent and some of their journalists are so much more intelligent and more objective than Rachel or Jake. I am thinking of Thom Hartman on "The Big Picture" and Chris Hedges on "On Contact." Comparing Thom and Chris to Rachel and Jake is like comparing Kurt Vonnegut to Lee Childs. One opens your eyes and makes you think and the other is a distraction.

Distraction is the job of corporate media. Rachel et al at MSNBC are there to distract you with soap opera stories about largely irrelevant stories about Michael Flynn or Ivanka Trump. Proof of CNN's and MSNBC's slavish devotion to the military industrial establishment is how their various anchors enthusiastically ejaculated in response to Trump's attacks on civilians in Yemen and an empty air base in Syria. The response from CNN and MSNBC was to fawn all over the Donald with gushing praise that he had just achieved Presidential status with these futile acts. They loved it when he dropped the MOAB on some former CIA habitat in Afghanistan too.

If you allow yourself to be bamboozled by these dissemblers, you will fall into the establishment's game. The game is the old bait and switch. It is the skill which magicians and pick-pockets employ to keep looking in all the wrong directions while a con is being played on you right in front of your face.

The Trump campaign was a con as most people, except for the truly devoted rubes, have come to realize. The Democrats did win the popular vote (by the way Thom Hartman on RT was an avid supporter of hers subsequent to the primaries ending) but still missed out because too many people saw through them.

The corporate media establishment is part of the establishment that Hillary represented and that nobody wanted. Now they are desperately trying to fool us into falling into line behind them. They want us to return to being ignorant and harmless sheep, sheep which they plan to sheer.


Russell

Our Leaders Are Fools

I have heard way more than enough about President Trump's reaction to the Syrian poison gas attack on Syrian people which included children. The overall establishment attitude towards Trump's unleashing of the Tomahawks seems to be something like, "way to go dude!" Even someone like Fareed Zakaria who is normally fairly mature responded by gushing that Trump is "now the President." Militarism and Capitalism have become this country's true religions and they are followed with the blindest of faith.

Here is a question that I have yet to hear any of the mainstream media or their expert dunsels ask; "How many cruise missiles does it take to bring a dead Syrian child back to life?" The truth of course is that launching missiles is a destructive act not a humanitarian one. Launching missiles will not convince a single member of Isis to be nicer, nor will it turn Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin into a humanitarians. The truth is our national tantrum will accomplish nothing positive. If it does anything at all it will reinforce Assad's position and play into the hands of Isis.

It seems our national tendency is to do the most stupid thing possible in response to the evil actions of others. What should we do to combat Isis and Assad? Actually the answer to that question seems rather obvious to me! I find it hard to accept that our political and media leaders are as pathetically inept, myopic and unimaginative as they appear to be. They utterly predictable. Like the one trick ponies they are they have only one answer, blow shit up!

For a fraction of the cost of our military blundering we could provide profound humanitarian aid to the Syrian people. We could do it the countries around Syria. We could likely do it in areas of Syria itself. Instead of building forts to protect ourselves from local people and prisons for local people like we have been doing, we could build defensible safe harbors for them. Humanitarian aid could defeat Isis. Drone attacks on weddings and funerals never will. Providing food, shelter and medical care to ordinary Syrians might undermine Assad but missile attacks will strengthen him.

Our military could perform a positive role in defending humanitarian outposts. Instead our unfortunate soldiers do the empire's dirty work and become the hated symbol of our national death cult, the religion of militarism.

Capitalism And Democracy

Last time I wrote about some American myths. One of those is the myth of the symbiotic relationship between capitalism and democracy. Most Americans have been fed this myth throughout their lives and most believe it. People really do (in general) believe what they are told. Critical thinking is rare and people are often ostracized for voicing unorthodox viewpoints. Yet without critical thinkers we would have no social evolution at all.

One of my favorite people is the economist Richard Wolff. Wolff is a critical thinker but, he is also completely comprehensible to the average person. Wolff is plain spoken. Perhaps this is because he is an economist and not a con man. Unlike people such as Alan Greenspan who spoke fluent gibberish, Wolff is not a flimflam man out to sell you a bogus economic system.

Richard Wolff is interested democracy. He knows that political democracy is not sustainable without economic democracy. Our ridiculously stratified economic system is clear evidence that we do not have a democracy in our economy. Our gridlocked and contemptible government is evidence that our political democracy is starting to fail. Democracy must be a part of every area of public life including our economic life.

Richard Wolff has a great solution which is practical and implementable. In fact it is being implemented already in various places around the world. Wolff calls this solution "Workers Cooperatives." The link below will open a new window where you can learn about Mondragon Corporation an extremely successful worker owned (cooperative) corporation based in Barcelona Spain. Mondragon now employs over 100,000 people in all different sorts of businesses. 

Mondragon Corporation - a worker's cooperative that is very successfu. 

Richard Wolff is great at explaining just how important it is for the work place to be democratic. I have one of his videos posted below, you will find it very enlightening and fun too. Richard Wolff is someone you should pay attention to his website democracy at work is really worth checking out.

Watch the video - next time I will write more about another American myth and the solution to that fable too.

Russell

Four American Myths

Some truths are unpleasant. Nevertheless the truth must not be denied. We may wish to believe in pleasant myths but letting go of false beliefs is actually good for us. Children grieve Santa Claus once they learn the truth, nevertheless they accept the truth because it is part of growing up. American adults need to grow up. We have allowed ourselves to believe in myths for far too long. No doubt some people will cling fiercely to the old myths but, we have far more to lose than our innocence by refusing to let go of them.

The first among these fables is the Horatio Alger myth. Horatio Alger was a popular American author in the nineteenth century. He was sort of an alternative to Charles Dickens. Dickens is famous for his novels and stories portraying the plight of the poor and downtrodden of England. Alger wrote stories for boys. These were intended inspire them to engage in hard work and demonstrate good morals. While hard work and good morals are laudable in and of themselves, Alger's stories put forth the idea that these attributes are inevitably rewarded with tangible and handsome rewards. For instance, the title character in one of Alger's books Mark The Match-Boy, winds up rich and successful and even marries his wealthy boss's daughter. This good fortune is subsequent to his heroic selflessness, good character and hard work. These attributes are noble. Another thing about them is that they are relatively commonplace. Most people do work hard, most people are honest and trustworthy and most people are altruistic. These meritorious characteristics are common among middle class, working class and poor Americans.  The only American demographic group among whom they are less than common is the rich. Despite over one hundred and fifty years of contrary evidence the Horatio Alger myth remains entrenched in the American gestalt.

The second American fable is that capitalism and democracy are synonymous that one is necessary to the other. This particular myth persists despite the indisputable evidence which directly contradicts it. Most Americans are employees. As employees the biggest portion of Americans daily lives are spent at work. Some are employees of government agencies or perhaps private non-profit corporations. The majority are probably employees of private capitalist or for profit companies and corporations. This means that most Americans spend the largest segment of their days under totally autocratic circumstances. This was not the vision of America's founders. They lived in a time of independent farmers (of course many of them were slave holders), craftsmen and merchants. Nobody is truly free if they are forced to sell themselves into bondage in order to survive. This used to be called indentured servitude. People would sell themselves into service for a specified period of time in order to gain a delayed reward which would allow them to go into business for themselves. In our capitalist system indentured servitude has been expanded into a life-time of work at the whim of others. Americans today work longer hours than citizens of any other developed country and our odds of cashing in our rewards and going into business for ourselves are lower than anywhere else. The life of most Americans is one of servitude from beginning to end.

The third American myth is that what is good for corporations is good for Americans. This myth includes the lie that rich people are "job creators." It may have been Dwight Eisenhower who originally said "What's good for General Motors is good for America." This fable persists, though it is no longer specifically tied to GM, it is generalized to capitalist entities in general. A company can create unsafe products and as long as the company is making money at it, the company is seen as benefiting America. Industries pollute the air and water, with the costs left to us, and because their balance sheets show a profit these industries are seen as good and essential. A capitalist entity does not even have to produce anything to be lionized. If the stock-market is going up the economy is said to be booming no matter how lousy the lives of most Americans are! The evidence is absolutely clear that what is good for American business is not necessarily good for Americans. Often what appears good for business is just what is good for the next quarterly report. What is good for us may not be good for business, at least not in the short run.

The final myth is a two part fable. The first part is that unregulated capitalism always yields the best most efficient results. The second part is that the so-called captains of industry are the best and brightest people in the country. Any objective view of the facts would expose the obvious fallaciousness of these myths. Consider for instance transportation in America versus transportation in other countries. Our system is dominated by market forces. Far from being the most efficient, smartest and safest system possible, American transportation is characterized by inefficiency, stupidity and danger.  Most of our bridges are ready to collapse. Our roads are clogged and going from place to place is one of the most death defying things an American can do. The whole system is ridiculous. Staying with transportation, the industry leaders have consistently made stupid short term decisions, craven decisions and decisions which have directly led to the deaths of thousands of Americans. Other industries have been no better whether we look at oil spills, bad drugs, or fraudulent financial institutions. Clearly a hands off approach to market forces is stupid. Capitalism has become a sort of secular religion. It is a false faith, and like Moses himself we should condemn the worship of the "Golden Calf" or what the faithful among capitalists call the "unseen hand of the market." These faiths no longer serve us if they ever did.

It is time to grow up! We need to take an adult approach toward running our society. We need to objectively determine the best strategies for reaching our common goals of a free just society which allows each of us an equal opportunity to pursue happiness. 

Russell

Judge Nasty McMeanstreak For The High Court?

During the campaign there was speculation that Humpty Trumpty would nominate Judge Judy for the Supreme Court. I was pulling for Judge Mathis myself. Well the Cheetoh in Chief nominated Judge Gorsuch instead. The Republicans aim to ram him through. The Democrats surprisingly have shown some backbone. Al Franken Senator from Minnesota, was especially good in interrogating this corporate lackey (running dog, capitalist pig, etc.) judge. This Judge (I won't be trumpish and call him a "So-Called-Judge") is a guy who believes that women deceive their employers into hiring them just so they can get family leave. He said that shit to his law students! When they disbelieved him he suggested they were naive. He apparently believes women graduate college, go to law school and pass the bar exam all in some diabolical scheme to get some cushy family leave so that they can get pregnant and start squirting out offspring! This is not someone who should not even be allowed to judge a cat show much less sit on the Supreme Court.

Judge Gorsuch has sided with corporations over people nine out of ten times. The only time he did not was once against an adult book store or some such. His worst decision was likely the one where every other judge hearing the case ruled the other way. This was a case where an employer basically ordered the employee to die for the company. Judge Gorsuch ruled in favor of the company. The employee was in the process of dying from exposure to extreme low temperature, he was dying of hypothermia, and the employer did not give a shit about him. Judge Gorsuch said the employer had the right to fire him for refusing to die! This man has no heart. He is a dick. He does not belong on the Supreme Court period.

President Lumpy Rutherford will not wise up he is a turd with a comb over but it does not help. Still I think the real problem is the people behind the curtain not the giant orange flaming head of the Wizard of Odd. Get ready the revolution is coming.

Russell

John Oliver excoriates "Trump's" budget proposal in his hilarious way. He lets us know that the proposal was assembled by his budget director based upon the President's various rants and ravings. Therefore it should be no surprise that the document makes absolutely no sense (it is nonsensical!) at all. Oliver is funny but even he finds no true joy in Trump's lunatic budget.

Bernie Sanders gives a great talk at Vermont Technical College

 

This talk is very informative and motivating. Bernie tackles all the important issues. He takes audience questions and answers them honestly, thoroughly and cordially. The first five and a half minutes are introductory but still worth listening to. I think you will like it. It is honest talk you will not hear on TV.