It makes me titter like a drunken Camp-Fire girl watching a Justin Bieber video when I see pundits and journalists, heavily credentialed and grave, speaking on the issues of the day as if in possession of universal truths universally shared and universally respected.
For, as intractable and divisive as the rightwing is in their sociopolitical agenda which, if anything, resembles a 19th century Thomas Nast cartoon, the prevailing punditry (comprised of nincompoops from both Right and Left ideological persuasions) are as hopelessly circuitous when it comes to addressing the actual thing that ails.
And the thing that ails most, is most apparent and distressing to anyone with a pair of evolved eyeballs, is The War At Home. And anything else that is being discussed, whether it is the debt ceiling, health care, the economy, or any "hot button" items on the check-list of social behaviors are all raging and topical and seemingly unsolvable only because The War At Home is utterly ignored.
Watching the elephant in the room (and we all know what elephant that is) wage its war on America in a way that renders the war itself virtually invisible to the victims being ravaged is a study in psychological manipulation which would have made history's most devious propagandists' jaws go slack with admiration. The sheer genius of wresting reality from the nation's senses is, if nothing else, an indication that the once boasted-about American spirit of innovation and enterprise is at least alive, if not the slightest bit well. Imagine how fast our crumbling infrastructure could be repaired if that same dedication were applied to that apparently insignificant area!
The News Corp scandal will be interesting to watch as it unfolds, to see if the machine which epitomized the very crime for which it is being (so far) held accountable will fall to the roused temper and awakened senses of an outraged British public. Perhaps then, the same outrage will awaken the American public to the hijacking of its own awareness by the swaggering über-weasels who have turned our media into a similarly garish side-show; the big-pharma, big-military shills who masquerade as public servants and steer our policies back into the dark places from whence they were bred into being; the win-at-any-and-at -all-costers who have turned governance into a dispensary for unregulated corporate profiteering. But will there be anyone to report it?
The scandal and its developing repercussions presuppose that Britain still has an innate sense of right and wrong somewhere within its own corporate-saturated justice system; that the hacking of one innocent dead teen's phone was simply too much for the public to bear. Could, one wonders, the same be said for this country and its confounding submission to the forces who would daily deny people their right to affordable health care, their right to a good public education, their right to choose, their right to fair and factual news and information, and all the while opining about Islamo-Facism, birth certificates and the war on Christmas?
Or, as it appears, are the bought-and-sold experts just talking crap, either purposely or obliviously distracting from the coup d'état that gains ground with every belching bromide and sneering dis? Because until people's outrage is expressed (and not the contrived "outrage" of an astro-turf political populist puppet party) then the nonsensical discussions and endlessly inane arguments played out in what passes for news will continue to hold the audience's attention and enable the invisible prosecution of The War At Home.
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Paul Rieckhoff: VOW to Hire Our Heroes
Obama to offer update as 5th day of debt talks end with no deal ...
President Obama abruptly walks out of debt ceiling talks ...
I am surrounded by old school Republicans, Goldwater types, Perotista malcontents -- and they may hate Mexicans and socialists.... but they hate Wall St MORE.
They want illegals rounded up... and homosexuals locked away in the basement - but multi national corporations and BANKERS should be dragged from burning mcmansions, and hung in a public square.
How many times have we heard references to Bastille Day, Jacobins, and Robespierre in recent weeks???
I'm ready to burn any mandarin..... because behind great fortunes, there are great crimes.
Capitalism is just socialism for the powerful.
Hey, and I'm a Main St merchant..... still in business after 42 years... imagine the fantasies of a school teacher!!
As red, white and blue Americans we should ALL abhor any idea of willingly crashing the economy just to have it 'our way or no way'. Yet there are surprising numbers just that childish, selfish and mean. We must realize a large group of people (though by no means a majority) that so hates the idea they can't force others to their religion or tealibangelical ideology, and because they must lawfully grant equal Civil Rights to everyone even if gay or Muslim, they would actually prefer to see OUR country ruined for everyone (as it must seem ruined for them).
The means to perpetually distract the shallow with bright shiny objects of fear and small minded bigotry is endless. That machine's become practiced at crushing any means The People have of finding a greater focus. Any honest movement or desire for change gets the 3-card Monte treatment and even the compassionate causes are abused. We must worry every object of national focus is being manufactured just to intentionally distract.
Cheers!
too self aware... and overpowering .... like the dining room wall paper of a Dallas Realtor
Britain's response (based on a generally better educated public and a tradition of skepticism) is less likely here. We're much better at creating smoke and mirrors. We're too good at mushing up reality. Finally, the naked forces of repression are unbelievably intimidating here (paper tigers though they be). The war at home is a war against thinking.
You would think that the terrible economic consequences of that illegal invasion here at home, the many thousands of dead and wounded US soldiers, the countless civilian casualties along with our diminished image abroad, would have been worthy of an investigation here in the US as well.
But no. All of our participants went back to their lives and careers, as if nothing ever happened. Free to tell their own views uncontested, in profit-making books and on the right-wing media circuit.
And we're now engaged in a debate in DC, as to whether SS and Medicare are the reason our economy is in shatters. As if, somehow, our grandparents are the real "terrorists" destroying our economy in this war at home.
Your comment, "The war at home is a war against thinking." is exactly right.
When war profiteers, gluttonous corporations along with a Vegas-style gambling financial system all rolling in obscene profits, can convince a large segement of our nation that the elderly and the working class is what's wrong with this nation, something has gone terribly wrong on the education front.
"its confounding submission to the forces who would daily deny people their right to affordable health care, their right to a good public education, their right to choose, their right to fair and factual news and information, and all the while opining about Islamo-Facism, birth certificates and the war on Christmas?"
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59% believe the prophecies in the Book of Revelation will come true
— TIME/CNN Poll
Over 40% of the Country doesn't believe in Science.
Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin are considered PresidentiÂÂal material.
There are WMD in Iraq.
SS is broke and unsustainaÂÂble.
Fox news ....
I could go on and on .... but why even bother.
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The American Public is no match for the Ruling class.
Like shooting fish in a barrel.
If I buy aspirin at the drug store, I am certain there is aspirin in the bottle. If I buy a product that says it can do X, I can be certain that somebody has actually TESTED that the product can do X.
How about imposing some of those types of laws on news?
If you want to call what you're saying is NEWS, you have to show that you followed certain accepted journalistic practices (like, independant confirmation of sources, fact-checking, obvious, public retractions if an error is found, and challenging the statements of anybody for their facts).
If you want to speak your mind WITHOUT following common, journalistic practices, then you still can. Call it "opinion," "rumor," "a breaking story," or even "stuff we made up."
You just can't call it "news."
We can & will loose our democracy, a good future, a decent environment if there are not enough of us to understand this & know enough not to be misled as the tea partiers are. They are angry, but they are being misled; the thrust of their movement, is against their own interests; obviously not what they think they are fighting for.