The Old Hippie's Groovy Blog
Thoughts & Observations, on Sociological, Environmental, And Political Happenings (Best View = 1024x786)
posted by The Old Hippie @ 4:07 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 5:19 AM
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 {-The Way Many Picture Me-} |
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The following is reprised, because not much has really changed as far as the ongoing denial of the insane “allowing” of the theft by the-very-few is concerned... I will continue to reprise this... as long as the 'citizens' of my nation continue to “allow the allowing.”
It, the insanity, of the “allowing,” is getting worse, in fact it is much worse already.
Go look at all of the MSM’s headlines, at their websites, then compare what you see there with the reality as rationally reported by reality based independent news sites.
If that simple comparison doesn’t open ones closed eyes of denial, nothing will.
To help you remain sane, and not too deeply depressed, you should end your “session of reality” by stopping in at some of the better editorial humorists’ websites - It couldn’t hurt.
That is my main personal method of doing research for this blog - Check in with the right and the right’s insane, then study as much of the reality-based news sites as possible, then check in with the humorists. I then sleep on it, do it again, and then post what I have learned, observed, or was stunned by, to first, share it, and second, to get it off my chest so that I can remain sane myself. All the while, trying my best to keep a reality-based perspective in these historically insane times.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 9:21 PM
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| - A.I.G. Bonuses They took the bailout money (your taxes/money) and proceeded to pay themselves insane bonuses, for screwing you... and then they went out and partied on your money, and you’re giving them more. - Goldman Sachs Execs Dumped Stock Like Crazy Goldman Sachs is expected to announce a windfall quarter, thanks no doubt to billions in bailout money... (your taxes/money.) - U.S. Budget Deficit Climbs to Over $1 Trillion And even this record amount is expect to double... by October. |  |
posted by The Old Hippie @ 4:24 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 3:14 PM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 11:47 PM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 12:57 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 8:06 PM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 3:52 AM
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{-The Way Many Picture Me-} |
|
[Proof of the Truth #3] The Banks Own The US Government, “banks” in this case being used as euphemism for the-very-few, the corporatists, the profiteers-over-even-life ilk, etc...
And of course there is the Obama Administration, begun with such hope... now frustratingly and subtly, (sometimes not so subtly,) squashing that national majority hope... to ‘almost’ the breaking point. When it does finally break, it is going to be very ugly, very dangerous, and even then it may turn out to be too-little-too-late, (like the just passed climate bill.)
Redundant, I know... But reality is reality, even if it sucks.
The following is reprised, because not much has really changed as far as the ongoing denial of the insane “allowing” of the theft by the-very-few is concerned... I will continue to reprise this... as long as the 'citizens' of my nation continue to “allow the allowing.”
It, the insanity, of the “allowing,” is getting worse, in fact it is much worse already.
Go look at all of the MSM’s headlines, at their websites, then compare what you see there with the reality as rationally reported by reality based independent news sites.
If that simple comparison doesn’t open ones closed eyes of denial, nothing will.
To help you remain sane, and not too deeply depressed, you should end your “session of reality” by stopping in at some of the better editorial humorists’ websites - It couldn’t hurt.
That is my main personal method of doing research for this blog - Check in with the right and the right’s insane, then study as much of the reality-based news sites as possible, then check in with the humorists. I then sleep on it, do it again, and then post what I have learned, observed, or was stunned by, to first, share it, and second, to get it off my chest so that I can remain sane myself. All the while, trying my best to keep a reality-based perspective in these historically insane times.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 6:10 PM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 7:49 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 10:49 PM
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| - “Suck on Our Yachts” Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein says he’s sorry, then proceeds to brag about screwing us all. Has an act of contrition ever in history been more worthless and insincere? - “Where Are They Now?” Ex-Bush Loyalists Cash In. As more Americans lose their jobs, homes, healthcare, and their “way of life,” and finally, to lose, (the most crushing of all,) hope. - “The Policy That Dare Not Speak Its Name” Medicare-for-All is something regular people, [2/3s,] understand. | |
The Employee Free Choice Act is key to rebuilding the American middle class – news of Senators wavering in their support for the bill revalidates a key truth about Congress: the main stumbling block to strengthening and expanding the middle class is corporate power.
The same pattern emerges every year on TheMiddleClass.org. Throughout the year, DMI uses the site to share analysis about the impact of Congressional legislation on Americans’ ability to gain – and hold onto – a middle-class standard of living. Once a year, we take a step back and look at the big picture. It often looks depressingly familiar: fiscal conservatives notwithstanding, Congress does fairly well when it comes to measures that simply involve spending more, but falls short – often far short – when powerful corporate interests clash with the wellbeing of the nation’s current and aspiring middle class.
In 2008, for example, Congress stood up for the middle-class on issues like providing more funds to higher education and passing a consumer safety bill that’s even been endorsed by the industry its regulating. Virtually all Democrats voted for these bills, and most Republicans as well. Similarly in 2007, college aid did well and majorities from both parties in the House voted for common sense contracting reforms.
But Congressional support for middle-class Americans falls off precipitously as soon as major corporate interests are at stake.
In 2007, the Peru trade bill was the skunk at the garden party, provoking 64 percent of Senate Democrats and 48 percent of House Democrats (along with nearly every Republican) to vote for multinational corporations and large investors at the expense of their middle-class constituents. Last year, it was a willingness to put banks before struggling homeowners, telecommunications companies before consumers, and those @%$& banks again before taxpayers. These weren’t the only policy disappointments of the year for middle-class Americans, but they were the main cases where significant numbers of Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in selling out the middle class.
This year, I fear Thomas Frank is right when he predicts the same fate for EFCA. Sure, Congress will approve health coverage for low-income kids (an important boost for aspiring middle-class families in its own right) but when it comes to standing up for middle-class Americans against a full-scale corporate lobbying campaign, Congress may not have the guts. That's terrible news for the middle class.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 4:02 AM
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 | The American Empire Is Bankrupt ...what will come will be very... painful. |
“Now they tell us.
On Monday, two men with considerable responsibility for enabling the banking meltdown confronted the error of their ways. Not directly, of course, for accountability is hardly the mark of either Lawrence Summers, the top White House economic adviser, or Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Their careers have long been fueled by error. Summers was one of the leading prophets of radical financial deregulation in the Clinton administration. And Geithner, as head of the New York Fed, looked the other way during Wall Street’s collapse and then responded by opening wide the spigot of taxpayer dollars to resuscitate Citigroup and AIG.
What they wrote this week in a joint op-ed article in the Washington Post is a condemnation of the Wall Street shenanigans they once abetted and celebrated. ... ”
posted by The Old Hippie @ 4:31 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 7:37 AM
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{-The Way Many Picture Me-} |
|
As I have observed before... The planet is more crowded than ever, the global corporations have more power than ever, and “the-very-few” have more money than ever, with its inherent manipulable power that this stolen wealth possesses. There is much less fresh water available to fewer people worldwide, and the supplies of it are diminishing with the melting of the glaciers planetwide. Food supplies are short in many areas, more so than ever, and global ag-chem corporations are making the situation far worse, just for the short-term profits to themselves.
We are in a bad situation on this planet right now, a very bad situation indeed, and it is getting worse each day from many complex, and mind-numbing, and varied directions... Fundamentalism, ideology, corporatism, “opportunistic profiteering” of every conceivable kind, not to mention commodification of supplies of food, and water, and healthcare... are destroying much more than “just peoples lives” on this planet, which has been accurately described as... “Spaceship Earth.”
When the revolt comes, whether from the left’s reality-based reaction to the insanity, and/or from the right’s manipulated paranoia, and/or from people simply “refusing” to starve and thirst for someone else’s profits - It will be ugly. Possibly more than just ugly. I seriously hope I am long gone from this mortal coil when it finally happens.
Redundant, I know... But reality is reality, even if it sucks.
The following is reprised, because not much has really changed as far as the ongoing denial of the insane “allowing” of the theft by the-very-few is concerned... I will continue to reprise this... as long as the 'citizens' of my nation continue to “allow the allowing.”
It, the insanity, of the “allowing,” is getting worse, in fact it is much worse already.
Go look at all of the MSM’s headlines, at their websites, then compare what you see there with the reality as rationally reported by reality based independent news sites.
If that simple comparison doesn’t open ones closed eyes of denial, nothing will.
To help you remain sane, and not too deeply depressed, you should end your “session of reality” by stopping in at some of the better editorial humorists’ websites - It couldn’t hurt.
That is my main personal method of doing research for this blog - Check in with the right and the right’s insane, then study as much of the reality-based news sites as possible, then check in with the humorists. I then sleep on it, do it again, and then post what I have learned, observed, or was stunned by, to first, share it, and second, to get it off my chest so that I can remain sane myself. All the while, trying my best to keep a reality-based perspective in these historically insane times.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 10:55 PM
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| Waging a War on Empathy -- We Can't Let Them Win |
posted by The Old Hippie @ 10:59 PM
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| - Frozen Food’s Newest Ingredient Contamination has become so widespread that major frozen food corporations admit they can no longer ensure the safety of their products. - “They Are In Total Terror It’s Going To Come Out.” “Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay?” - “Getting Through The Coming Depression” Millions of jobs lost in just a few months -- and a coming Depression... |  |
[ Above title is the direct link to the full video documentary. ]The documentary TORTURING DEMOCRACY tells the story of how the United States government circumvented tradition and law to adopt torture as official policy. The film, produced by award-winning filmmaker Sherry Jones, draws on interviews, archival footage, and recently declassified documents to piece together the development and dissemination of torture tactics from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib -- and the document trail leads right to the top of the chain of command.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 2:46 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 9:30 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 5:02 PM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 7:31 AM
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| - “Let's Get It Back” Corporatist tax dogers use the Cayman Islands, they are parasites that weaken the United States and other developed nations - They must be brought to justice, our government must be forced to do it. - They Oughtta To Be Ashamed, But They Aren’t. Lobbyists for large companies – and polluters – like Shell, Boeing, 3M and Chevron are signing up at a rate of one per day. - Again - Can't Say We Weren’t Warned... The “Allowing” May Possibly Not Be “Allowed” To Stop. | |
The Employee Free Choice Act is key to rebuilding the American middle class – news of Senators wavering in their support for the bill revalidates a key truth about Congress: the main stumbling block to strengthening and expanding the middle class is corporate power.
The same pattern emerges every year on TheMiddleClass.org. Throughout the year, DMI uses the site to share analysis about the impact of Congressional legislation on Americans’ ability to gain – and hold onto – a middle-class standard of living. Once a year, we take a step back and look at the big picture. It often looks depressingly familiar: fiscal conservatives notwithstanding, Congress does fairly well when it comes to measures that simply involve spending more, but falls short – often far short – when powerful corporate interests clash with the wellbeing of the nation’s current and aspiring middle class.
In 2008, for example, Congress stood up for the middle-class on issues like providing more funds to higher education and passing a consumer safety bill that’s even been endorsed by the industry its regulating. Virtually all Democrats voted for these bills, and most Republicans as well. Similarly in 2007, college aid did well and majorities from both parties in the House voted for common sense contracting reforms.
But Congressional support for middle-class Americans falls off precipitously as soon as major corporate interests are at stake.
In 2007, the Peru trade bill was the skunk at the garden party, provoking 64 percent of Senate Democrats and 48 percent of House Democrats (along with nearly every Republican) to vote for multinational corporations and large investors at the expense of their middle-class constituents. Last year, it was a willingness to put banks before struggling homeowners, telecommunications companies before consumers, and those @%$& banks again before taxpayers. These weren’t the only policy disappointments of the year for middle-class Americans, but they were the main cases where significant numbers of Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in selling out the middle class.
This year, I fear Thomas Frank is right when he predicts the same fate for EFCA. Sure, Congress will approve health coverage for low-income kids (an important boost for aspiring middle-class families in its own right) but when it comes to standing up for middle-class Americans against a full-scale corporate lobbying campaign, Congress may not have the guts. That's terrible news for the middle class.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 12:15 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 9:45 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 9:33 PM
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{-The Way Many Picture Me-} |
|
This situation of the observed growth of dangerous manipulations of far-right extremists' paranoia, by FOX, and other financial, and ideological, profiteers is not just going to go away. It is with us now. It is much more dangerous to our “way of life” within this nation than even the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are, and I am not diminishing the danger they pose either.
The planet is more crowded than ever, the global corporations have more power than ever, and “the-very-few” have more money than ever, and its inherent manipulable power that this stolen wealth possesses. There is much less fresh water available to fewer people worldwide, and the supplies of it are diminishing with the melting of the glaciers planetwide. Food supplies are short in many areas, more so than ever, and global ag-chem corporations are making the situation far worse, just for the short-term profits to themselves.
We are in a bad situation on this planet right now, a very bad situation indeed, and it is getting worse each day from many complex, and mind-numbing, and varied directions... Fundamentalism, ideology, corporatism, “opportunistic profiteering” of every conceivable kind, not to mention commodification of supplies of food, and water, and healthcare... are destroying much more than “just peoples lives” on this planet, which has been accurately described as... “Spaceship Earth.”
When the revolt comes, whether from the left’s reality-based reaction to the insanity, and/or from the right’s manipulated paranoia, and/or from simply people “refusing” to starve and thirst for someone else’s profits - It will be ugly. Possibly more than just ugly. I seriously hope I am long gone from this mortal coil when it finally happens.
The following is reprised, because not much has really changed as far as the ongoing denial of the insane “allowing” of the theft by the-very-few is concerned... I will continue to reprise this... as long as the 'citizens' of my nation continue to “allow the allowing.”
It, the insanity, of the “allowing,” is getting worse, in fact it is much worse already.
Go look at all of the MSM’s headlines, at their websites, then compare what you see there with the reality as rationally reported by reality based independent news sites.
If that simple comparison doesn’t open ones closed eyes of denial, nothing will.
To help you remain sane, and not too deeply depressed, you should end your “session of reality” by stopping in at some of the better editorial humorists’ websites - It couldn’t hurt.
That is my main personal method of doing research for this blog - Check in with the right and the right’s insane, then study as much of the reality-based news sites as possible, then check in with the humorists. I then sleep on it, do it again, and then post what I have learned, observed, or was stunned by, to first, share it, and second, to get it off my chest so that I can remain sane myself. All the while, trying my best to keep a reality-based perspective in these historically insane times.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 5:00 AM
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| - Enraged About Corporate Greed? In answer to their own economic crisis, the French have taken up “bossnapping.” ...to protest economic unfairness. - “Bernie Madoff, Scapegoat” by Michael Moore, via Time magazine. Elie Wiesel called him a “God.” His investors called him a “genius.” - Chrysler has Filed for Federal Bankruptcy Protection. Democracy Now! with Ralph Nader, concerning this. (Worthy P.O.V.) | |
[ Above title is the direct link to the full article. ]...now that we’ve got the son of a Kansan mother and a Kenyan father presiding in Washington, the right-wing guttersnipes have gone back to an old game. They have set up Barack Obama for target practice as a socialist.
May Day, 2009 is therefore a good day to remember Obama’s repeatedly stated faith in a capitalist economy. For the true believers on the right, that is not good enough. Obama sometimes suggests that freedom should not be reduced to the free market. Likewise, he has suggested that big banks and big business require public oversight and regulation. These deviations from four-square gospel capitalism are sufficient for the heresy hunters on the right to find reds in the White House beds.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 10:54 PM
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Three cheers for Dick Cheney. The former vice president has urged, however rhetorically, that the Obama administration release more of the torture memos. "One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort," the former vice president told FoxNews.
"I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was."
News reports differ as to whether Mr. Cheney has formally made the request, but he is absolutely right that the American people need to see the complete record. He is wrong about what the record will show. From the material already released or ferreted out by journalists, it is clear that he and Mr. Bush succeeded in using torture, not primarily to secure needed intelligence, but to create the propaganda they used to sell their invasion of Iraq.
The evidence comes from a variety of sources, including the report on the military's treatment of detainees, which Sen. Carl Levin's Armed Services Committee has just released. The report revealed that Pentagon officials began preparing to use torture - or "abusive interrogation techniques" - as early as December 2001. This was less than two months after the start of the war in Afghanistan and eight months before the Department of Justice gave legal authorization in two memos dated August 1, 2002, and signed by Jay Bybee, then-assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. The first memo redefined physical and mental torture and suggested that the president, acting pursuant to his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief, could override the federal anti-torture statute. The second analyzed and approved specific interrogation tactics, including isolation, prolonged sleep deprivation, stress positions and waterboarding, which makes the victim feel that he is drowning.
If not the Justice Department lawyers, who gave the earlier go-ahead? The Senate report puts the onus directly on the decider-in-chief, President George W. Bush. He issued a written determination on February 7, 2002, "that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees."
Former White House terrorist adviser Richard Clarke has confirmed that Mr. Bush gave an informal go-ahead even earlier. According to Clarke's account in his book, "Against All Enemies," Bush addressed his national security advisers late on September 11, 2001. "We are at war and we will stay at war until this is done," Bush told them. "Any barriers in your way, they're gone." Later he added in a heated exchange with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass."
The Senate report also pointed the finger at Mr. Cheney and other top officials of the Bush administration. "Members of the President's Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed," the committee concluded. "National Security Council principals reviewed the CIA's interrogation program during that period."
Why so much attention from the top? McClatchy news has provided the obvious answer. According to a former senior US intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist, the Bush administration wanted "to find evidence of cooperation between al-Qaeda and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime."
"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," said the former official. "The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."
In part to get that smoking gun, the CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times and Abu Zubaydah 83 times. But neither man told the interrogators what Bush and Cheney wanted to hear about Iraq and al-Qaeda. That came from Ibn al Sheikh al Libi, whom the Bush administration sent to Egypt for what CIA Director George Tenet called "further debriefing." As PBS Frontline reported back in November 2007, al Libi "confessed" - after being beaten repeatedly and locked in a small box for some 17 hours - that Saddam Hussein had trained al-Qaeda in chemical weapons. Al Libi later retracted his statement and the CIA later rejected it as reliable intelligence. But the torture of al Libi worked to sell the war in Iraq, providing the "evidence" that Secretary of State Colin Powell used when he spoke before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003.
"I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these [chemical and biological] weapons to al-Qaeda," Powell asserted. "Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story."
Torture might not work as well as conventional interrogation to provide sound intelligence, but it certainly worked for Bush and Cheney in exactly the way they most wanted.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 8:27 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 9:16 AM
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| - “Thievery Under the TARP” The looting has been done, the only thing you can stop is the contin- ued allowing of the continuing theft transfer, and you can’t possibly pretend to say we weren’t warned. - BoA was Pressured to Complete Merger With Merrill Lynch The Federal Reserve is a private corporation, not a part of the U.S. government. And Merrill Lynch? You do remember this - right? - Obama And The Big Dogs... The big dogs of banking and finance are playing a rough game... | |
The Employee Free Choice Act is key to rebuilding the American middle class – news of Senators wavering in their support for the bill revalidates a key truth about Congress: the main stumbling block to strengthening and expanding the middle class is corporate power.
The same pattern emerges every year on TheMiddleClass.org. Throughout the year, DMI uses the site to share analysis about the impact of Congressional legislation on Americans’ ability to gain – and hold onto – a middle-class standard of living. Once a year, we take a step back and look at the big picture. It often looks depressingly familiar: fiscal conservatives notwithstanding, Congress does fairly well when it comes to measures that simply involve spending more, but falls short – often far short – when powerful corporate interests clash with the wellbeing of the nation’s current and aspiring middle class.
In 2008, for example, Congress stood up for the middle-class on issues like providing more funds to higher education and passing a consumer safety bill that’s even been endorsed by the industry its regulating. Virtually all Democrats voted for these bills, and most Republicans as well. Similarly in 2007, college aid did well and majorities from both parties in the House voted for common sense contracting reforms.
But Congressional support for middle-class Americans falls off precipitously as soon as major corporate interests are at stake.
In 2007, the Peru trade bill was the skunk at the garden party, provoking 64 percent of Senate Democrats and 48 percent of House Democrats (along with nearly every Republican) to vote for multinational corporations and large investors at the expense of their middle-class constituents. Last year, it was a willingness to put banks before struggling homeowners, telecommunications companies before consumers, and those @%$& banks again before taxpayers. These weren’t the only policy disappointments of the year for middle-class Americans, but they were the main cases where significant numbers of Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in selling out the middle class.
This year, I fear Thomas Frank is right when he predicts the same fate for EFCA. Sure, Congress will approve health coverage for low-income kids (an important boost for aspiring middle-class families in its own right) but when it comes to standing up for middle-class Americans against a full-scale corporate lobbying campaign, Congress may not have the guts. That's terrible news for the middle class.
posted by The Old Hippie @ 6:46 PM
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It’s mysterious how swiftly a society can collectively change its mind. As rapidly as the financial markets crashed, so has Fox News's credibility. What was gospel to an entire segment of voters and viewers just a few months ago has become a desperate flapping in the wind. Some may view this as part of the swing cycle that politics is heir to. But from the Reagan era forward, certain truths were held to be self-evident, and far from inventing anything, Fox News simply put the high gloss of mass media on them.
If you tune in to Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, or the network’s humbler toilers in the vineyard, their tactics haven’t changed. They must be shocked to find themselves stranded, all the more because it seemed to happen overnight.
In the spirit of Emerson’s dictum that evil is the absence of good, it’s worth recalling where good was absent just a year ago. Here are the working beliefs of the Fox News credo.
Article 1: The worst aspects of human nature are actually cherished freedoms.
This is Fox News’s main rallying cry. Hating minorities, despising gays, ridiculing women’s rights, and slandering the ACLU all fall under the rubric of precious liberties.
Article 2: God loves gun owners.
Fox News rabidly seizes the high ground when it comes to law and order, an issue that is seen primarily as a loaded gun under every pillow and a triple-bolted front door.
Article 3: Patriotism is the last refuge of ratings wars.
Here the old axiom that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels has been updated (but by no means abandoned). Every Fox News commentator earns his battle scars by wrapping himself in the bloody flag, without ever personally endangering his own skin, of course.
Article 4: Ideology is way better than thinking.
Pre-chewed ideas are more easily digested than actual thinking. But ideology goes one better by answering every doubt in advance. Thus Fox News is never in doubt. Truth is as automatic as a gum ball machine.
Article 5: The mind’s primary use is for bellowing.
I advise any prospective guest on Fox News to demand that there be no shouting. This immediately decouples the mind of O’Reilly and Hannity. Their most basic assumption is that any guest, once shouted down, has lost the debate. (I tested this gambit out personally and can vouch for its effectiveness.)
Article 6: Shamelessness is next to godliness.
In other words, you can sin at leisure as long as you keep pointing out other people’s sins. Long a tactic enshrined in the Book of Hypocrisy, Fox News has turned holier-than-thou into a moneymaker.
Article 7: Don’t bother me with the facts. My mind is already closed.
This is really just a corollary to the belief in ideology, but it deserves its own chapter and verse because of the ironical light it casts on the Fox News logo, “Fair and balanced.”
Article 8: The little guy is always mad.
On the whole, Fox News tries to make the little guy feel that he is always right and those pointy-headed educated elitists always wrong. But sometimes the little guy proves tricky, as when he doesn’t like Republican deficits and foreign wars. Luckily, Fox News always has a fallback -- the little guy is always blistered about something, and a little kerosene is a marvelous accelerant, as they say in arson investigations.
Article 9: “They” are about to get you -- watch out!
The bulk of Fox News’s sanctimony rests on its pledge to look out for everyday working Joes. Since there is no record of the network actually protecting something realistic like clean air, freedom from assault weapons, and safety in the workplace, what is really being safeguarded is the right to be freaking paranoid every minute of the day.
Article 10: If I just said it, it must be right.
Here, as in several other places, Fox News is indistinguishable from a drunken frat party where not only is bellowing a sign of intelligence, but never backing down, however cockeyed your last statement may be, shows that you are a man.
I am not a communicant in this particular creed, so I’m sure I’ve left out some key passages in the gospel. For full knowledge one would have to delve deep into the Old Testament of Fox News (i.e., the minutes of the John Birch Society 1958-date). Daily viewing will keep one abreast of new anathemas (i.e., socialism) and potential saviors (Sarah Palin). Or you could take the easy way out and celebrate the waning of Fox News’s belief system and the cleaner air left behind.
[ Above title is a direct link to the Article. ]
posted by The Old Hippie @ 1:49 AM
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{-The Way Many Picture Me-} | You knew they lied our nation into war, and you allowed it. You knew they tortured human beings, some just children, and some even died under the torture, openly admitted to by the Pentagon, and you allowed it. You knew the wealth transfer was going on, you knew it was nothing more than theft, and you allowed it. You knew they spied illegally on Americans, and you allowed it. You knew they purposefully heavily damaged the Constitution, because it was in the way of their profiteering, and you allowed it. You knew they created "free-speech" zones for single purpose of diminishing free-speech, and you allowed it. You knew they openly consolidated the media down to just five corporations to control free flow of knowledge to the people, to diminish the peoples acceptance of their right to know, and you allowed it. |
But the worst part of all? You know you are still allowing them to do it all, and you know you are going to allow them to go unpunished for their crimes. How do I know this? Simple, you know you have allowed the worst case scenario of our nation being destroyed from within, without a whimper - Without real protests - Without revolt. The proof of this is the fact that President Obama made it clear when he said there would be no investigations, no punishment - And you did not hit the streets in even the weakest of protests, or revolt.
So, to summarize... You know you knew. You know you allowed it all. You know it is still going on. And you know you still haven't done a single thing 'real' about it.
Okay, I think that about covers it - Right?
posted by The Old Hippie @ 12:21 AM
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posted by The Old Hippie @ 12:05 AM
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61, over-educated tree-hugging music-loving deadhead retired old-happy-hippie
My blog is worth $10,161.72.
How much is your blog worth?
For anyone that cares...
My Google Page Ranking
Also note that between 8/1/08 and
8/9/08 this meter was completely
non-functional to the point of
blocking the page from surfers.
