Mainstream Press Journalism of Appeasement, Corruption, Smoke and Mirrors

The economy is propped up by smoke and mirrors and will inevitably collapse. Without immediately breaking up the banks and holding the thieves accountable, we will continue on our downward spiral with increasingly severe and devastating consequences.

If you are not calling for revolution or organizing, you are either unaware of what’s happening around you, horribly naïve or a fascist sympathizer.

In extreme times, telling the truth will make you sound extreme. The nightly electronic hallucination needs to be turned off, it is a journalism of appeasement

3 million families foreclosed upon;
30 million people in need of employment;
43 million people on food stamps
52 million people in poverty;
59 million people without healthcare;
239 million living paycheck to paycheck;
$144 billion in Wall Street bonuses;
$13 Trillion in investible wealth within 1% of US population.

We have the highest and most severe inequality of wealth in the history of the United States. It is an economic shock and awe campaign. It is acts of financial terrorism

We know who is responsible, yet nothing is done to hold them accountable. the people responsible are still in power. This is the largest criminal racket in world history. We need prosecutions under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, right now!

Obama is a puppet. What kind of president allows this to happen, allows our tax dollars to be taken and handed out as all-time record-breaking bonuses while we have an all-time record-breaking number of people living in poverty?. Puts career-long preeminent economic imperialists Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in charge of our economy, and supports Ben Bernanke’s reconfirmation as Fed Chairman? This is all absurd and inexcusable! These three people would be in prison if we lived in a nation ruled by law. Obama is a bullshit artist - Period, Full Stop

This is a quintessential banana republic ruled by a puppet president.

We can defer to Senator Bernie Sanders recent eight hour filibuster

“There is a war going on in this county. War being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country against the working families, against the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country. The nation’s billionaires are on the war path. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end

They have little concern for our country or for the people of this country. After we bailed them out, the CEOs today are now earning more money than they did before the bailout
The United States now has, by far, the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth. This is a war! This is a mass slaughter carried out by economic policy. This is the elimination of the existence of a middle class. These are financial terrorists committing crimes against humanity. Our country is being attacked! My family is under attack! My child is under attack! I am under attack

We are under attack! our nation has been taken over by a global banking cartel. Our future has gone up in flames. Both political parties have been paid off and don’t represent us. We have a duty, a Constitutional commitment and obligation to launch a revolution.

If you are not calling for revolution or organizing, you are either unaware of what’s happening around you, horribly naïve or a fascist sympathizer.

We are so overrun with corruption, we cannot remain passive, things are not going to get any better. Without immediately breaking up the banks and holding the thieves accountable, we will continue on our downward spiral with increasingly severe and devastating consequences.

The belief that giving trillions of dollars to the banks had to be done, is buying into a baseless propaganda line. What kind of fool would think that the best way to solve the economic crisis would be to give trillions of dollars to the people who are most responsible for causing it. Instead of holding them accountable for the crimes they committed, they were given trillions in taxpayer funds which they used to further consolidate power and give themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses - and they deliberately impoverished tens of millions of people in the process. People are either confused, in denial or afraid to confront the colossal crime committed. If you think it’s been bad over the past two years, get ready, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Many who understand our economic and political situation are now and contemplating moving outside the country

North Texas BDS Protest AHAVA at Arlington Highlands Ulta 11/6/10

George Galloway vs. U.S Senate (5/17/05)

Noam Chomsky on the WikiLeaks and Coverage

Support Daniel Ellsberg and Veterans For Peace

US military's wild spending continues

Chomsky interviewed on Channel 2 News in Israel, 5/23/2010 (1/2)

A rapidly accelerating meltdown:

First this from Thomas Friedman

Then this from Jeffrey Goldberg

Then this from David Remnick

Jeffrey Goldberg is not finished yet

and finally this, from the funny papers

GLENN GREENWALD vs FRAN TOWNSEND WIKILEAKS DEBATE

Here is a rare lesson on how thoroughly "crapped out" the US media is.

I would say this is the beginning round of Gleann Greenwald being flushed out of the media and joining the ranks of people like Ralph Nader, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Robert Sheer and a host of others. I should start keeping a list.

Members of the US propaganda system frequestly defend themselves by declaring that they can say anything they want.

There is a long list of people who cant get on the the US media at all. Glenn is in the process of joining that group.
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Sorry. I cant let this Greenwald video go (see below). It is one of the best in years and it is really making the rounds on the internet. This Greenwald/CNN video is almost a pure Chomsky demonstration.

Noam Chomsky wrote the manual on the US Corporate Media propaganda model/system. As Chomsky points out, the principle technique used by the corporate electronic hallucination is "hidden" or "assumed" or "subsumed" premises.

In the Greenwald/CNN video, at the 1:29 mark, Greenwald says “Well, I would contest the premise of your question”. Here, Greenwald makes a perfect Chomskyesque reaction. Greenwald spends almost the rest of the interview questioning the "hidden" premises made by the CNN newscaster, Fran Townsend.

Here is a recent video of Chomsky, himself, making this same type of demonstration in a well known interview with a newscaster from Israel Channel 2 News after the State of Israel refused to allow Chomsky to enter Palestine to speak at Bir Zeit University this past May. This interview is in two parts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb1Abfx2MPg

It is for this reason that Chomsky is no longer on the media - any media, and it is for this reason that Greenwald will soon join him on that very long list of people who are banned from the corporate media.

Since I am at it, there are a couple of other things.

There are a couple of other tricks used by the corporate media hologram. One is "no-context". For the media, history started this morning. At the fall of the Berlin Wall Francis Fukuyama declared it to be the "end of history", and that the neoliberal economic model was the sole victor. Maggie Thatcher declared that now there "is no alternative" to this rapacious, laissez faire, supply side, trickle down, Reaganism.

But now, thirty years later laissez faire lies shattered, in a world-wide trillion dollar bankruptcy and shakedown, with the trillions provided by Keynesian public money and the only result for that public bailout is inescapable debt peonage. The only countries moving successfully forward are the countries that have rejected this economic model. Too bad Chou En-lai wasn’t around to comment on Fukuyama’s and Thatcher’s inanities. Toward the end of Chou En-lai’s life a reporter ask him what he thought about the French Revolution, to which he replied, “Too soon to tell”

Another media propaganda principle is it's use of the passive voice. For the media, “things just magically happen”. There is no personal agency. Well, s@#t doesn’t just happen, somebody did it. When someone makes this point, the media starts ridiculing and proclaims that person to be a crazed conspiracy theorist. Well, allow me, you’re god-damn right it’s a conspiracy, it's a criminal conspiracy. And we’re going to get out the RICO Act, hire a New York DA like Eliot Spitzer, start naming names and start frog marching these political and corporate mafiosos off to prison. One of the great things about Wiki-leaks is that there is no passive voice.

The Wiki-leaks dump is at a very low level of intelligence classification. Can you imagine what a top secret and above top secret dump would look like. Well, I can.

ROK President Lee heats up cold war on Korean peninsula

The ROK has 40 times the military weaponry

President Lee Myung-bak


There are three key facts that place the brinkmanship being played out on the Korean peninsula into perspective.

south Korea is revealed to be that of a local bully acting on behalf of a much larger global one.

first key fact: north Korea is a military pipsqueak. South Korea’s military budget is many times larger than north Korea’. south Korean military is integrated into the US 30,000 US troops on Korean, 40,000 in nearby Japan. US submarines lurk. US spy planes fly high. US strategic nuclear missiles are targeted. To think that north Korea poses a danger to south Korea is to think idiotically.

The north recognize the gross imbalance. They try to develop the most formidable deterrents it can while seeking peace. north Korean transformed by echo chamber from a non-threat into one where the leadership is mad and unpredictable. Only in this way can a weak country be turned into a danger

second key fact: United States has sought destruction of the north for 60 years
- Isolate diplomatically
- Subject to the longest campaign of economic warfare in modern history
- Continually threaten to place it on a constant war footing that depletes its resources and cripples its economy.

third key fact: right-wing Lee Myung-bak is more closely aligned with US policy on north Korea than two previous govt. Lee wants to see north Korea’s collapse and its absorption by the south, while two other favored detente. Lee was chairman and CEO of Hyundai. Goad is to save from “leftist, anti-U.S. and pro-north Korean elements included former presidents who pursued policies of coexistence and worked toward an eventual confederation. Lee is committed to a policy of confrontation, heightened tensions and subordination of the north to the south. Lee restored designation of north Korea as the ROK’s archenemy. Says expert Selig Harrison “south Korea is once again seeking the collapse of the North and its absorption by the South.


Lee’s local reputation is one of a US puppet betraying Korean interests. tens of thousands in central Seoul, 2008 largest antigovernment protest in 20 years, barricade with shipping containers. coated with oil, filled with sandbags, could not march on President Lee Myung-bak’s office. people placed this message on the shipping containers, ‘This is a new border for our country. From here starts the U.S. state of South Korea.’ Korea’s No. 1 national traitor. Lee has become ‘a Korean leader kowtowing to the Americans.’

the rising tensions re the outcome of the Lee government’s policy of seeking the collapse of north Korea in order to absorb it. Seoul has turned reality on its head and presented all its provocations as self-defense against north Korean aggression. the Cheonan was sunk in shallow waters. Lee quickly manoeuvred to blame. his own military initially denied a torpedo was involved. Lee said his intuition told him a north Korean torpedo was behind the sinking. Washington too exploited the tragedy.

In November north Korea shelled. Washington portrayed the shelling as an unprovoked act. south had fired live artillery into waters belong to north Korea. north Korean retaliation South Korean violation of north Korean territorial waters. Coincided with south Korean manoeuvres involving 70,000 ROK, backed by US Marines. For Pyongyang is could have been a rehearsal for an invasion. how could the DPRK generals distinguish a rehearsal for an invasion from preparation for a real one? south Korea’s live artillery fire was highly aggressive act. On top of that North Korea had to enforce its claim to sovereignty.

Just days ago, 24 December 2010, ROK repeated firing live, same island. US Marines to be present. Seoul warned that a north Korean response, US and south Korean air strikes on north Korean. Pyongyang wisely refrained.

Seoul’s alignment with Washington’s strategy of maintaining unceasing pressure on Pyongyang has been evident in other ways. Lee government has appointed a minister of unification, “south Korea to carve out...and market economy as values.” Imagine if Pyongyang said it was going to carve out. the word “tongil” was emblazoned on the headbands
south Korean marines. atest barrage. Tongil is the Korean word for reunification. reunification by force.

further, another live fire drill to the dozens it has already conducted this year. threateningly close near the land border. The biggest wintertime joint firing exercise the army and air force had staged, 800 troops, F-15K and KF-16 jet fighters, K-1 tanks, AH-1S attack helicopters and K-9. self-propelled guns. South Korea had planned 47 drills but one more owing to “tension with the North.”

Seoul’s goal is to heighten tension. “For the first time in seven years, South Korea has illuminated a 30m steel Christmas tree near the demilitarized zone.

old war against the north will continue, no matter what concessions Pyongyang makes. north Korea can hope for is a relaxation of pressure under another ROK president. Washington settle for is a peace on its own terms – one in which north Korea turns away from socialism and uncompromising commitment to anti-imperialism. north Korea carries on despite enormous imperialist pressure

Israel: The Alternative by Tony Judt

"...in 2003 he famously called Israel an anachronism and outlined the argument for a one state solution with Palestinians and Israelis living in a secular bi-national state..."

Happy Saturnalia To All!

Saturnalia - watch more funny videos

The Saturnalia officially was celebrated on December 17 and, in Cicero's time, lasted seven days, from December 17-23. Augustus limited the holiday to three days, so the civil courts would not have to be closed any longer than necessary, and Caligula extended it to five which Claudius restored after it had been abolished. Still, everyone seems to have continued to celebrate for a full week, extended, by celebration of the Sigillaria, so named for the small earthenware figurines that were sold then.

19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing.

The following are 19 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind....

#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001.

#2 Dell Inc., one of America’s largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States? Zero.

Chris Hedges Q&A "The Death of the Liberal Class"

Chris Hedges "Death of the Liberal Class" at The Sanctuary for Independe...

The Festivus

The Festivus

Communities in Resistance

The story of Kosovo and the 1999 war

THEY FIX THE PREMISES

The Propaganda Model (PM) was developed by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in their classic book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Parthenon, 1988). They note that:

"The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news "filters," fall under the following headings: (1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism. These elements interact with and reinforce one another. The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns." [1]