Monday, December 31, 2018

My New Year's Revolution


Changes need to be made, and I have come to the conclusion I can no longer wait for others to make those changes happen. While I have long held to the idea that the changes required were too big to be handled by individuals acting on their own, I now realize they are too urgent to not be confronted in every way possible. And thus I, one has always avoiding being a role model or placing attention upon myself, seek through my actions to be an example of how we must live in the next year. Please don’t think it is because I consider myself special that I do so. It is only because I am no different than anyone else that I think my actions can inspire others. If this porkchop-eating, shopping-as-entertainment human being can commit to building a better world, then heck, anyone can. 

Once I believed our government should lead us in change, but now I see it is hopelessly corrupted and will never change until confronted with an undeniable commitment by the populace. Once I was lulled into silence by those who spoke so certainly that the free market would make all good things come to pass, now I realize it is only an engine driven by our collective greed, fear, and insecurities. No, our institutions will not save us, they will eventually lead us to our deaths. Only us, acting out our humanity, can make the world what it needs to be. If we allow our institutions to stamp out the best and most human in us, there is no hope for our species, at least none that I care to speculate.

Here then are my resolutions in support of revolution:

-I resolve to abstain from animal products to the best of my ability. I am not saying I will be perfect but year by year I have gotten less dependent on them and this year I will push myself away from the unnecessary inclusion of meat, dairy, and eggs in my diet. This is important to me both from an environmental aspect and because it expresses my commitment to non-violence. I don’t have to kill animals to sustain myself, and I sure don’t want them living their entire lives in the most deplorable of circumstances. My abstaining from animal products will reduce the amount of land required for agriculture, which can then be given back to nature to do with as she pleases.

-I resolve to eliminate plastic from my life as much as possible. There is no need for me to ever use a disposable plastic bag. None. Furthermore, there is no need for me to drink water from a disposable plastic bottle. If I am too lazy or forgetful to bring my own cup or bottle to work, I can drink from the water fountain or cup my hands beneath the faucet. When I go to the grocery store, I will not put my fresh vegetables and fruit in the plastic bags provided if I can help it. Why waste a bag for one pepper or onion? I will not use straws. I will in every instance, think long and hard about how I can avoid plastic when making a purchase. If I am at an ice cream shop, I will choose to eat it out of a cone if the alternative is to use a plastic spoon. Simple choices that at the worst will do little for the planet, but will cost me nothing.

-As much as possible, I will try to eliminate doing business with corporations. I have had my prescriptions changed from Walmart to a locally-owned pharmacy. I will buy what I can from local shops and restaurants, will buy my food from local farmers. And if I feel the urge to buy something and it is only available through Amazon or some other huge corporation, I will ask myself if I really need it that much. I have found that most of the time the answer is no.

-I will, as much as possible without making an annoyance of myself, alert people to the reasons I am making these decisions. Not in a judgmental but in an inspirational way. Everybody loves nature, everybody love turtles and clean water and bumble bees. I want to remind people that they have the power to protect nature and make the world a better place.

So how about you, what are your New Year’s Revolutions? I know it’s kind of late to bring it up but if you have any, please share. Otherwise, let the idea sit in you mind for a while and see what you start practicing in the lead up to 2020. They need not be the same as I have shared, in fact I am confident many of them will be more creative and ambitious than my own. I just felt the need to get the ball started, or at least add my name and commitment to a movement that will never start with our institutions and must begin with us average human beings. Here’s to a Happy New Year!


Sunday, December 16, 2018

Laughter Is A Revolutionary Act

 "Nothing can my peace destroy as long as none smile"
More opened ears and opened eyes
And soon they dared to laugh

The lyrics above are from a song by Genesis, a retelling of the story of King Canute. In this variation, the king is vain enough to believe that by the strength of his decree he can stop the tide itself. His vanity is finally exposed to his people, who are at length willing to show their disdain for their leader through laughter. This version of the story has more in common with the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, since it is the telling of a leader deluded by power into a sort of madness that is eventually exposed, even though it is the tendency of those who are led to accept the story told by those in power.

Power has a certain ability to shape reality around itself. It is an illusory power, a temporary power, but its ability to shape the narrative for a time is undeniable. Thus, a story about an emperor without clothes, and the need for a child to point that fact out, stays relevant to us for nearly two centuries. And the more power that is concentrated in fewer hands, the stronger that narrative will be, the more absurd it will become, and the harder it will be on those who wish to point out the falseness of it.

First to fall to the narrative of the powerful are the powerless, whose cries of injustice will be drowned out by the sycophants that gather round the mighty, telling them how great they are and how noble their reign. Second to fall are the intellectuals, whose rigorous application of logic and grasp of facts are at odds with the magical thinking and simplistic narrative weaved by the king and those who grow rich by heaping praise upon him. Then will fall the average citizens, who are humble and believe that such nobility as portrayed by the king’s sycophants must be respected.

The last to have a voice against the narrative of the powerful as they silence all dissent are those who couch their truth-telling in humor. The court jester can often get away with saying those truths others cannot, both because humor dulls the sharpness of truth and because the jester does not pose any real threat to the king’s power. It is a sign that power has reached the end of its limits of tolerance for truth when it feels it necessary to silence those who wish to make us laugh by pointing out the obvious delusions embraced by society at large and the powerful in particular. 

We are at that point now where the final barrier is under assault. The moat of the media has been forded, and is now a conduit for lies rather than a protector of truths. The walls of legitimate political debate have been razed. The king (which, if you haven’t realized yet, is the power elite in this metaphor) is assaulting the keep, where those who still have the ability to laugh and the daring to mock the ridiculous now gather. They are armed with nothing but sharpened wit and pea shooters, but such weapons can be effective against overly extended narratives.

It is sad to see a ruling class so intolerant of the truth that they can no longer laugh at themselves. Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner burned their delicate sensibilities like acid, so much so that they will not even have a comedian at their next meeting. Comedian Randy Credico was roughly thrown out of the gathering.

It is tempting to say there is no one comparable to George Carlin anymore, but that is only because those doing the brave work of speaking truth to power are not covered by the mainstream media any longer. Despite the explosion of available television channels, media has been constricted by the ownership of it being in the hands of fewer—and much larger—moneyed interests. More than ever before, the powerful few dictate the narrative. Thus, those who are given a stage and rewarded for their work are not really very funny. Think about it, what’s the last really funny movie you’ve seen? Who are the most notable stand-up comedians of our era? Since John Stewart retired from The Daily Show, there has been no one willing to confront the true power structure. In the place of truth-tellers are partisan hacks, those willing to attack one aspect of the society while viewing others as sacrosanct.

But there exists yet venues for using comedy to point out the truths that no one else dare touch. Humor, enlightening and brave, still thrives. Jimmy Dore, doing a show out of his garage, is able not only to attract a sizable following but incredible guests like Chris Hedges, Tulsi Gabbard, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, among others. And from such a humble studio, he makes short shrift of those from corporate media willing to describe in detail the finery worn by their emperor.

Lee Camp and Russell Brand are two others willing to speak profoundly and with humor on the issues the sycophants will not touch and their leaders will not allow. The story, the unquestionable and sacred story that is spread by the mighty machinery of the powerful, is given the death-by-a-thousand-cuts treatment it deserves. You will never be able to un-see the emperor’s nakedness.

Lastly, Caitlin Johnstone is doing especially great work. As one who grew to adulthood on the works of Mike Royko, I can honestly say she is comparable to Mark Twain as a humorist, though her articles often go deeper than anything even Royko or Twain wrote.

Laughter is not only important now, it is absolutely vital. Laughter is not merely our last line of defense against a narrative that grows more absurd as it grows more powerful. It is perhaps the only weapon capable of slicing through a narrative that perpetuates fear and helplessness, which tells us that every other country is an enemy and every one of our fellow humans is a competitor that we must either defeat or be defeated by. It is a joyless, loveless narrative reinforcing the joyless loveless elite who have convinced us that their story is the only one.

The more official story of King Canute (still just a story, not history) is that he stood in front of the tide in order to teach his sycophantic followers that he was merely a man, helpless against the greater powers that operate the universe. This is a lesson that needs to be taught to our modern-day rulers, that they are not truly in control of events. The tide has been out so that for a time their commands seem to be obeyed. But the tide is turning and we must all appreciate the force that pulls us forward, though the decrees of the naked emperor would speak otherwise.

We must laugh at the nonsense that is being told us through every artery of an immense propaganda machine. We must shower them with the kind of laughter that brings down the curtains on a really bad play. We must laugh, and once enough of us laugh together, we will see that we are the tide, and they are a deluded king who seeks to rule what is beyond him. Each peal of laughter is a wave that works towards wiping away the delusional ambitions of kings.


Monday, December 10, 2018

Some Questions For Russiagate Conspiracy Theorists


I understand the appeal of the Russiagate conspiracy to those who were crushed by Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016. What I do not understand is the complete grasp it has had on their minds, so that they are no longer able or willing to question any of the ludicrous notions being fed to them by a complicit and compromised press. Oh, I know our intelligence agencies and think tanks are practiced in the art of propaganda, they’ve been doing it long enough. They were good enough to be able to get a skeptic like me to believe that Saddam Hussein had mobile chemical weapons labs that were moving about on trains. Seems so silly now, doesn’t it? But they were so certain! They told us there was no room to doubt. They were the authorities and we were just idiots. And we were idiots. For believing them. But I swore I’d never do it again.

Apparently you didn’t make the same oath I did. Or if you did, your desire to believe got the better of you. And they seem so damn certain! They know things and we don’t. We’re just idiots who are fortunate to have such selfless people looking out for our best interests. Why, you’d have to be a Putin puppet to doubt the official narrative.

But any healthy relationship requires a certain amount of open-mindedness. Anyone who insists you believe them and don’t ask questions is throwing up all kinds of warning signs. You would not want your daughter in that kind of relationship and I don’t want to see you in one either. So let me ask you a few questions. Remember, questions aren’t bad in an open, honest relationship. And if you are able to give answers beyond parroting what your abuser told you, I will be convinced he’s not such a bad guy after all.



1. What voice of authority would you respect more than Robert Mueller? Would you trust Ralph Nader more? Or perhaps Chris Hedges? Or Phil Donahue? Or Ron Paul? Would you be more inclined to trust someone who got the Iraq War narrative right rather than Mueller, who lied about the reasons for the Iraq War in front of congress (a crime he is currently prosecuting others for now)? Surely there must be someone you trust more than a man who lied us into a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. If there is no one in the public eye you trust more than that, this must surely make you question the worth of our media and our political leaders, because that is a pretty low standard to meet.

2. How long are you willing to wait patiently and allow Mueller and others fight your fight while President Trump is left free to destroy everything you love about your country? Pretty long, apparently. Two years, apparently, and more yet to come. Is this the best means of opposing an alleged tyrant and traitor, a supposed fascist? I’m just going to throw out the suggestion that Adolph Hitler was never going to be deposed by the Gestapo. Intelligence agencies are not interested in saving democracy, they are interested in suppressing it.

3. How much more aggressive does the U.S. have to get towards Russia before you realize Trump is not doing Putin’s bidding? He’s thrown sanction after sanction at him, increased military spending, bombed Russia’s allies and killed Russians, armed fascists in Ukraine, withdrawn from missile treaties, and has assembled the creepiest group of war hawks ever assembled outside of a Stanley Kubrick film. What actual evidence supports the theory that Trump is working in Russia’s interests?

4. Will you ever stop putting your complete faith in the hands of anonymous sources from unaccountable intelligence agencies? Is this really all you require from a newspaper article, the words of unknown people with unknown agendas all the proof you need? Again, getting back to the healthy relationship comparison, you really should ask for a certain degree of respect in every relationship you are in and learn to spot the warning signs of an abuser.

5. Is there any evidence that will convince you that Russiagate is little more than a propaganda campaign meant to shift blame and force President Trump to conform to the pre-established agenda? What kind of proof would you need to be convinced? Thousands of poorly written articles whose mistakes slant a particular direction 100% of the time? Hundreds of stories that have had to been dialed back or else retracted altogether? Because mountains of clear evidence await your perusal. Perhaps you might believe me if I told you I have it on good authority from anonymous sources within intelligence agencies.

6. How much are you willing to risk on this narrative? You’ve already allowed horrible think tanks to decide who can and cannot have access to social media. You have allowed Google to manipulate algorithms in order to skew search results in order to favor establishment (read corporate) media. You have allowed the military industrial complex to run wild and call the shots, you have breathed new life into the spokespersons of the Iraq War. You have allowed the established practices of journalism to be trashed. You have sat on the sidelines for the last two years, putting all your faith in an untrustworthy individual with a track record of lying unforgivably on the matter of war. You have allowed Trump to have his way with your country and the world’s environment, and the most you could do was don a pink hat in protest. You are giving a green light to the most dangerous of sociopaths, people like John Bolton and Adam Schiff, people unafraid of driving our nation to the brink of nuclear war. Is your faith in Robert Mueller really so complete? Where does this faith come from?

7. Do you ever stop to think that blaming Russia is a convenient way of ignoring our own problems? It seems that every problem we face as a nation anymore is redirected at Russia. Trump had nothing to do with us and everything to do with them. Very useful. Very delusional.

8. Lastly, is there anything Russia gets blamed for that is so ridiculous you will achieve a moment of clarity? Perhaps the Pokemon Go story did not do the trick, but do you really think Russia is to blame for African-Americans protesting against police brutality? Do you really believe the British people were manipulated into Brexit by Vladimir Putin? Do you really believe the French would not protest their government unless instructed to by Russian oligarchs (why is the word oligarch only ever used to describe Russians, anyway)? In short, is there no point where you stop and realize that there is drool on your lips and madness in your eyes? Will you at any point realize you’re wearing a pink pussy hat and carrying a picture of Putin and Trump kissing and think, “My God, I must look really silly.”

I’m not joking, these questions are asked in all earnestness. There needs to be a limit you can point to for all the questions I have asked, some point where you say “too far”. If you cannot answer them in a way that comes close to satisfying both of us, that appears sane, I fear for our planet.

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Thoughts On The Death Of George Bush

A member of the royal family has died, one who for a time sat upon the thrown as ruler of this nation. There is a case to be made that not only did he sit upon the throne for his allotted term but that he was for much of his life the power behind it. And like any good monarch, he bequeathed the throne to his eldest son when he had come to manhood. It was due to go to another of his heirs as well, but not everything goes to script. Fear not, for there are many left of his bloodline, many who feel entitled to rule by birth.
A king has died, and we are now expected to pay proper respect to one who has ruled over us. It matters not that we were mere pawns in the game, to be sacrificed when necessary in war, to always be the ones who trudge forward—only forward—at the bidding of those who thrust us into battles we have no interest in, shall never profit from. The king must be protected at all costs, hidden away in a castle while pawns perish for lack of health care. Kings are eulogized while the deaths of pawns go unheralded.
To you who find yourselves in the position of pawns, I say this: do not mourn the loss of your king, for there will always be another to replace him. Kings seem to be as replaceable as pawns. Let your attention be focused, rather, on your fellow pawns who suffer in the games kings play. Among your fellow pawns you will find true bravery. Among your fellow pawns you will find plenty to weep for: those who go hungry that the kings might feast, those who spend their youth in labor so that the princes might be groomed to power, those who go without so that those of royal blood might be dwell in luxury, those who toil in anonymity so that the anointed may reap the glory. The difference between pawns and kings is that pawns are willing to serve while kings demand service, and there is more nobility in serving others than there will ever be in those who are served.

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Why I'm Still Talking About Russiagate


You may be wondering why in Heaven’s name I am dredging up Russiagate at this moment when it is not in the news cycle and it hardly seems relevant. To which I would reply that it never was relevant. But to be less smug about it, I am mentioning Russiagate now because to follow the news cycle is to always be one step behind the corporate-owned and intelligence-influenced media. I wish to remind people of a few things in a moment when their ability to reason is not hampered by their raw hatred of Donald Trump.

Russiagate is not in the news now because the media always buries its embarrassments. Nobody talks about the young lady who told us Iraqi soldiers were ripping babies from incubators and throwing them to the floor anymore, even though it should be brought up from time to time to remind us how easily we and our media are misled. Nobody mentions that Weapons of Mass Destruction were not found in Iraq and that the pretext for the war in Iraq was a lie. Even if they do mention it, they never mention the fact that nobody was held accountable and everyone who got it right thinks Russiagate is a joke and everybody who got it wrong still hold positions of influence.

The reason I am bringing Russiagate up at this point is because, though the media may bury their embarrassments, they resurrect them as indisputable truths whenever they feel the need. It’s astounding what a little time out of the spotlight will do to rehabilitate a lie or a liar. Just look at how liberals are now embracing George W. Bush.

I am most concerned that the whole Russian hacking, interference, meddling, mischief-making narrative is going to resurface with a vengeance, a full-throttled media push lacking both evidence and any tolerance for skepticism. When it does, it will spring from nowhere and everyone who’s bought into similar stories will gobble it up unquestioningly. And those who have seen such stories come and go a hundred—nay, a thousand—times without merit, will still have to spend days ferreting out the facts of the story in order to find the nothing-of-substance that will lie at its root. Therein lies the strength of this story; the ability of those who push it to dump a load and move on to the next pile before the facts can be sifted through.

Here, then is the most compelling reason why I call bullshit on the entire Russiagate narrative, as immense and seemingly beyond questioning as it is to those invested in it: the mountain of evidence of a massive propaganda campaign. I have never seen the likes of it in my entire life and I lived through a few. My eyes unblinded by an irrational hatred of Donald Trump, I was able to go to bed on the night of the election without worrying which of the two candidates would be president. When Trump won, I had no more of a feeling that my world had been torn apart than I did when I realized it was down to Trump/Clinton. Therefore, I had no vested interest in finding an explanation to the inexplicable. I did not need Russiagate.

So when the Russian interference narrative burst upon the scene without tangible evidence but with absolute certainty, I found it a little more than odd. And when I and others expressed our doubts about the story, those doubts were not responded to with evidence but with the kind of bullying tactics one would associate with Joe McCarthy. Story after story hit the airwaves and the internet, each of them exhibiting a nearly-identical pattern: screaming headlines, authoritative opening sentence, gradually falling into distraction, and at some point—a point beyond which 99% people read, apparently—an admission that there was no actual proof to the assertion.

The articles—too many to count—had the required links that are the hallmarks of serious online journalism, but almost without fail they could be traced back to the Washington Post citing anonymous individuals within intelligence agencies. I cannot tell you how often people I know and respect sent me such empty exercises in journalism as definitive proof of Russian interference. Their very consistency in structure led me to the inescapable conclusion that Russiagate was a massive propaganda campaign that was feeding on the zeitgeist of the moment. Anyone with any knowledge of U.S./Russia relations and pro-imperialist players could tell you who was behind it, but that goes beyond the scope of this article.

Russiagate, the absolute obsession of the liberal media for nearly two years, was nowhere to be found in the lead up to the 2018 elections. Perhaps it was because it had already served its purpose and pushed Trump into the arms of the military-industrial complex. Perhaps it was because the Democrats realized that nobody cared enough about it to make a decision on it come election day. Because, as demonstrated by a Gallop poll, less than 1% of Americans believe Russia is a problem.

Think about that: two years of the greatest propaganda blitz seen in our time, perhaps of all time, and less than 1% think it’s the biggest problem. It has been compared to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, and yet it could not muster the number one spot. Rachel Maddow has spoken about it nearly exclusively for two years, and the only people she’s reaching are already in the choir. Maddow has been paid $7 million a year, backed by the media machine that is an army in lock-step with those who have been pushing this story, and they could not sell it. Worst return on investment ever!

Take a look at the Russians, on the other hand. They flipped an election with $100,000 worth of Facebook ads, over half of which ran AFTER the election. Now I’m not saying the ads run after the election did not influence the election, but let’s for the moment concentrate on those that ran before. The sum total amount of money spent on these ads is roughly the equivalent earned by Rachel Maddow for a day and a half of work. Best return on investment ever!

Keep in mind, now, that when Congress asked Mark Zuckerberg to report on any evidence of Russian interference in the U.S. elections, he initially came back and told them he found nothing. It was only when they insisted he try harder that he came back with the absurd bundle of spamming which the media seized upon like ravenous wolves.

So how is it possible that $45,000 of Facebook ads were capable of flipping an election when billions in propaganda could not flip the American public? Could it be that the Russians are so adroit at the art of propaganda that they can sell refrigerators to Eskimos? If that were the case, wouldn’t we all be drinking Russian vodka and swapping borscht recipes on Pinterest? Let me offer you an alternative viewpoint.

Perhaps you can only stray so far from the truth before the narrative stops working. If that is true—and I dearly hope it is—I believe we are about at that point now. Whatever else the media is telling us to believe, the principle story they want us to accept is that the corporate media is trustworthy, and that story has consistently been proven false. The story they push is that their primary concern is to give you the information you need to make informed decisions. This is demonstrably false, and sooner or later trust must evaporate. The Russiagate narrative may well be the deciding moment. To swallow it you must once again swallow the “trust us” story.

The truth is, and provide me a counter-argument if you can, corporate media exists in order to attract the attention of viewers. Your attention they then sell to advertisers who will try to part you from your money. In this regard, they are no different than those Russian spammers who play upon Facebook users’ emotions by showing them pictures of puppies or Satan. The difference between the spammers and the media is that the media is beholden to their advertisers to spread their view of the world. Thus big pharma, the oil industry, and even weapons manufacturers advertise on corporate media, and corporate media would never bite the hand that feeds them because their only real motivator is profit.

I ask only that you look at the Russiagate narrative for what it is, that you rid yourself for the moment of the need of it as a substitute for a meaningful way of resisting all that Donald Trump stands for. If you are able to do that, you will see that Russiagate is a narrative that has required bullying and fanaticism rather than frank discussion. It has required secrecy, deception and censorship rather than openness. It cannot exist otherwise, and anything that requires such bad company deserves to be laid to rest.

The Greater Battle Behind The Persecution Of Julian Assange


Can someone remind me of the reason we are supposed to be against Julian Assange? I’ve not been following the matter too closely so I wouldn’t know. Not being an expert on the subject I would not bother to write about it were it not for the fact that the hatred expressed towards Assange, and the trouble he is in, seem at odds with everything I was taught about who we are as a society. I believe it had something to do with him reporting unpleasant facts about Hillary Clinton. Are facts bad because they are unpleasant?

Have we really gotten to the point where we feel we can punish people for reporting truths we don’t like? Oh, I’ve heard it said the real problem is that he doesn’t give a fair and balanced picture of what’s going on. If that were a real journalistic concern, Woodward and Bernstein should have said “Yeah, Richard Nixon was involved in a cover-up of the Watergate break-in, but let us also tell you about some bad things Democrats do.” Journalism doesn’t work that way. You dig into a story and you follow it to the end. It is your job to report news/truth as best you can and tell the story as you come across it. A clue brings you to more information, which starts to reveal a narrative which you then report. In the case of Julian Assange, I believe he released information that was given to him.

When a journalist or editor is given timely information, he does not sit on it until an equal amount of information is found that gives counter-balance to it. But the fact that Assange is tied to inconvenient truths about Hillary Clinton and the DNC is enough to cause liberals looking for anybody to blame for their candidate’s loss other than their candidate to irrationally hate and blame him. It is enough for liberals to betray their basic notions of freedom of the press and demand imprisonment for someone who did nothing more than release truthful information about a candidate running for the highest office in the United States. I cannot escape the feeling that it is at its core an assault on our appreciation for truth.

Of course, the fact that said information (allegedly) influenced the outcome of the election, giving us Donald Trump, leads many to believe Assange had some ulterior motive in releasing the information he did. Many believe he was working with the Russians, although no evidence is provided for this belief. This theory (accepted as gospel fact by many) has some very important questions to be answered, which our own media might be interested in working on were they not so busy condemning an honest journalist for showing them how to do their job. The first and foremost question to ask is, did the Wikileaks information actually even have any impact on the election?

But let us assume for a moment the unproven, that Russia was really the source for Assange’s information: so what? Yes, so what? If we had this sort of information on Vladimir Putin, would we not be just in sharing it with the world? Would we be wrong to do so? Moreover, Julian Assange is not an American but an Australian. His duty lies not in loyalty to the United States and the secrets of its political parties but to truth. There is no reason other than the wrath of an imperial nation that he should not release it. A very powerful reason, no doubt, one which silences the overwhelming majority of newspersons all over the world. It is to Assange’s greater credit that he did not let this very real threat dissuade him.

Is it wrong of Julian Assange to report information even if he did so with a personal agenda? Would he be the first to do so? I think we can state with confidence that American journalists do so all the time. Do you honestly believe that Assange’s truth swayed the voting public more than Rush Limbaugh’s lies and half-truths? Should Assange, in reporting truth, be punished rather than merely de-platformed, as was the punishment received by hate-monger Alex Jones?

We speak of election interference as the ultimate crime, and it is indeed something that should not be done. But when it comes to sharing truths, embarrassing as they may be, I believe it is better to know than not know. And election interference needs to be proven before we can mete out punishments for it. In the case of Russia in the 90’s it was not merely undeniable but openly discussed. It was not merely the U.S. telling some unpleasant truth about Russian officials but blatant manipulation of the political process. Similarly, nothing Assange could ever do could come close to what the CIA did to his own government. If our interest was one of law and fairness, should we not first jail those responsible for the ouster of prime minister Gough Whitlam before going after Julian Assange?

As I have said, the case of Julian Assange is one I have not been following closely. But the precedence that would be set—has been set—by punishing a journalist for releasing embarrassing but true information is a very dangerous one. It changes who we are as a nation, or at least changes who we have pretended to be. It changes each and every one of us in that it places our personal narratives above the search for truth. It weakens our arguments when we talk about censorship, renders laughable the call to defend Jim Acosta. Indeed, it is a very potent weapon in the war between truth and political expediency. Such a war has been waged for quite a while now, with the truth in constant retreat. But there are moments in retreat when one has to rally the army to defend certain key positions in order to prevent the retreat from becoming a rout. I believe the case of Julian Assange to be one of those vital points around which we must rally.

We are at a crucial juncture at this time in this nation, even globally. There is an undeniable resurgence of fascistic practices and ideology. Fascism as an ideology which promotes narrative over truth. Those on the (alleged) left are trying to combat a rise in fascistic ideologies with a counter-narrative, but it too is at war with the truth. Abandoning the search for truths, pleasant or otherwise, is not an effective means of combatting fascism. It in fact gives power to the notion that narrative supersedes truth. Democrats are at a point where they are willing to compromise principles in order to win the larger battle, but it is the very abandoning of principles that has gotten us to the point we are now. Abandoning truth for narrative is a cowardly action. There is no action the fascist would rather see us take, no response he would more greatly relish. Narrative is the battlefield of his choosing. Truth should be ours.

Friday, November 16, 2018

News Items From Time Magazine In 1923

A collection of items from Time Magazine from 1923. These are real.

March 3:
Kansas: A bill is before the Legislature to make the possession of cigarettes an offence punishable by imprisonment. Kansas already has a law against selling or giving away cigarettes, but none against smoking them.

March 24:
Connecticut: The lower house of the Legislature defeated a bill to legalize Sunday football and baseball by 139 to 86.

Florida: The system whereby convicts are delivered under contract to turpentine camps at $20 a head profit to the sheriff sending them there has been abolished by the Florida legislature 31-1. State Senator Wicker, who voted against the measure, said: "There are two things I know about--mules and Niggers. Corporal punishment is the only way a convict Nigger can be controlled.


May 28
Washington: By decision of the Attorney General it is legal for women to wear trousers where and when they please.

April 14
Director Lord of the Budget Bureau announced three weeks ago an expected deficit for the Treasury of $180,000,000 ($180 million). With income taxes yielding an unexpected $63,000,000 and the tariff another $100,000,000 over expectations, the deficit is in a fair way of being wiped out.

Nov. 3
One day of the Texas State Fair at Dallas was devoted to the Ku Klux Klan. From 75,000 to 200,000 (according to the persuasion of the estimator) assembled wearing "100% American" buttons, Dragons, Klabees, and Cyplopses were present in robes of gold, purple, scarlet.

Dec. 24
The Supreme Court has declared the Minimum Wage Law in the District of Columbia unconstitutional by a vote of 5 to 3. This sweeping decision threatens the minimum wage laws already established or about to be enacted in several states, including New York, California, Kansas, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington. The decision of the court held that the District's law was a price fixing act and as such an abridgment of the right of contract...Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, has already issued a vigorous statement in which he asserted taht a tendency of the court was "to decide against humanity in favor of property".

Oct. 15
Some of the more important resolutions proposed by the American Federation of Labor.
--For a Constitutional Amendment prohibitng child labor.
--For investigation of the American Bell Telephone Co. as a monopoly, taking monopoly profits.
--For giving Porto Rico (sic) the status of a state.
--For the abolition of motion picture censorship as a danger to free speech.
--For condemnation of Fascisti organizations.
--For a separate political party for labor.

March 3
The military expenditures of the United States, England, France, Italy will be well over a billion dollars this year (the U.S. military spending was $251,250,231).

April 7
Germany: Ten thousand undaunted warriors followed their beloved leader, Adolph Hitler, into battle. The occasion was the first military maneuvers held by the Bavarian Fascista Army, wholehearted supporters of the monarchy.

Oct. 22
The animals in the Berlin Zoo were stated to be so hungry that they keep Berlin awake at night.

Nov. 12 Senator La Follette of Wisconsin arrived in the U.S. fresh from a European tour. He was principally impressed by what he had seen in Germany: "The Germans are suffering for want of food, fuel, and clothing. Young children and old people are dying daily from hunger and disease. Emaciated, despairing, they are waiting the end. Food riots are common. The crisis which is at hand involves possibilities too awful to contemplate. It menaces more than Germany. There is no time for debate."

Aug. 3
William Randolph Hearst, largest individual landowner in Mexico, has filed a formal protest against the threatened seizure of his Barbicora ranch of  acres by the state of Chihuahua.

Oct. 27
Challenged by charges of cowardice and indifference, the Church issued a manifesto on the subject of "Industrial Relations and the Churches." All American churches of any considerable membership took part and the manifesto...was edited by a Catholic and a Protestant to explain Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant teachings on the subject.
   The Catholics emphasize: "Industrial relations are human relations, and therefore subject to the moral law." Wages must be sufficient to suppor the wage earners in reasonable and frugal comfort. Labor organizations are permitted.
    Judaism points out that the primary purpose of industry is to free men and equip them for the "larger life."
    The Protestant position: the intrinsic worth of personality makes "even the least" to be of greatest importance to God and society; the motive of service makes property subordinate to spiritual needs.

Dec. 17
The U.S. is now the only civilized country, with the possible exception of Japan, which places absolute legal restrictions on the dissemination of information on methods of preventing conception.



Tuesday, November 13, 2018

The Option Of Two Disturbed Children: A Political Parable

I’m worried about my kids Donny and Rachel. They’re not right in the head, they argue all the time. Oh, I know siblings argue when they’re young, but the kind of behavior they’re exhibiting may require serious medication. Possibly, if it's still an option, lobotomies.


Rachel is the older one. She’s supposed to be the more mature of the two, and she can at least act it when she’s not around her brother. Don’t get me wrong, she’s got other issues, but at least she knows how to behave in public. But get her around Donny and she loses her shit. Completely. She’s the one that gets good grades in school, and all the teachers tell me what a joy she is to have in class, but get her around her brother and she behaves in ways that makes me wonder if she’s got any brains at all.

Little Donny, on the other hand, well… when God was handing out brains, Donny thought He said blame, and Donny said he would never take any of that. Nevertheless, despite his modest IQ and limited self-awareness, he knows how to play his little sister like a violin. A very highly-strung violin. How shall I put this? Let’s just say she’s brittle. You have to mind your words around her and if things aren’t done the way she expects them to go, well, imagine the sound of a violin being played by a badger. God, the shrieking can be unbearable. But that shrill sound is music to Donny’s ears. He lives to get a rise out of her, and she never fails to take the bait. It seems there’s nothing Donny would rather do than make his sister cry. The kid has empathy issues.

Of course, Rachel’s not innocent either. As much as she says she hates Donny, she always seems to be needling him as well. And as much as she says she’s polite and sensitive to the feelings of others, she’s always making fun of his hair and his hands and his weight. And she’s always saying he likes to kiss other boys. I tried to teach her better, I don’t know where she got that from.

And there’s nothing she likes better than to be able to snitch on Donny. Rachel has a thing for authority figures and is always trying to get either my wife or me, or a teacher, to punish Donny. Because even though Rachel is older and smarter and stronger, she’ll never stand up to Donny. Whenever push comes to shove, she caves to him.

But as much as she loves to rat out her little brother, as much as she wants to see him get in trouble, she only seems to care when it’s about her. Here’s a little story that I’m reluctant to share, but it gets the point across.

The other day I had to take the cat to the vet, and the kids came along for the ride. On the way home, the two of them were unusually quiet, which worried me. Then I get a whiff of something and after a moment I realize it’s the smell of burning hair. I turn around and there’s little Donny with a lighter, holding it to the cat kennel. I yell “What the hell are you doing?” And then I realize Rachel’s in the back seat and hasn’t said a thing. She must have seen what he was doing, must have smelled the burning hair smell, but she didn’t make a peep. She lives to draw attention to Donny’s misdeeds, and yet whenever he does something really horrible, she’s more worried about him being on her side of the seat or something. It seems she'd rather point out his use of bad Grammar than the fact that he's trying to torch a cat.

So I ask her why she didn’t say anything about her brother holding a lighter to the fucking cat and she just curls up into a fetal position and starts muttering “Russ, Russ, Russ,” over and over again. This is something she does every time she thinks she’s about to be blamed for something. (Russ is a kid at her school she blames for her not getting the role of the faerie princess in the school play. Why she blames him, she has never made clear, but she’s been freaking out about it for like two years now. When I talked to her teacher on parent/teacher night, she said Russ is one of the few kids who doesn’t do whatever Rachel asks of him on the playground. Now Rachel has it in her head that Russ is helping Donny steal her stuff around the house. She’s really obsessing about it, it scares me almost as much as the cat-burning incident. Hell, they’re both so creepy.)

I know they’re the only two kids I have and I should try to think more kindly of them. But here’s the thing: my wife and I aren’t getting any younger and we’re starting to think about getting our affairs in order both for when we won’t be able to take care of ourselves and for after we’re gone. We had a will made up and my wife said we would need an executor to take care of our business and assets once we couldn’t. She asked me which kid we should put in charge and I couldn’t even consider such an idea. “Come on,” she said, “which child do you trust to take care of us?”

“Neither,” I said. “All politeness aside, one’s a moron who likes to torch felines, and the other has a paranoid obsession about a boy at her school. Neither one is qualified for such an important task.”

“You have to decide,” she said. “You only have two choices, so just choose one.”

As succinctly as I could, I said, “No. Fucking. Way.”


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Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Voting Is A Cheap, Tawdry Affair


A great blue wave crashed upon the shores of America last night, leaving in its wake nothing but the tired and lusterless pearl that is Nancy Pelosi. Like a bad penny, you just can’t seem to get away from it.

So this is what it has come to, this is the sum total of all the last two years’ violent passion. All the Sturm Und Drang, the loud wailing and pussy hat wearing has resulted in this. Pay Go and a promise to investigate Donald Trump’s taxes. A bit of an anti-climax.

Was it good for you, too? Have we saved the environment yet? What is our next step in preventing climate catastrophe, nuclear war, and authoritarian government? Like you, I’m too spent from the moment to contemplate right now. How about a cigarette and a long sleep. When we’ve awoken in the morning, we can start contemplating choosing electable candidates for the 2020 election.

The problem with the kind of lifestyle we’ve chosen is we wake up to find Dianne Feinstein in bed next to us. My God, what were we thinking? How lonely and insecure must we have been, how intoxicated with rage at the other party to engage in such sleezy behavior? But as they say, politics makes for strange (and regrettable) bedfellows.

Let me ask you a question, and be honest with me. Does it leave you feeling cheap and empty inside? Was the whole elaborate dance with the strumpet we call the Democratic Party worth this? Do you really feel loved? Was there any genuine connection between the two of you or was it all about the voting? Because you know deep in your heart that that was all that mattered to her. Last night she was willing to say anything to get you to vote, but when you wake up in the morning, she’ll be gone, without so much as a note on the pillow.

And you know where she’s gone, don’t you? She’s already whoring around with her oily sugar daddies, taking money for tricks. Engaging in the most debased of behavior, all for the money they toss her way. Oh sure, she always acts like they are worst of enemies, but they play footsies under the table as they make faces at each other above it. Most likely, they’re laughing at what a sucker you are at this moment. And you won’t see her again until the next time she needs you. 
But you’ll take her back again, won’t you? You’ve really got to work on your self-esteem issues.

But at some point, don’t you want someone who really cares for you? Don’t you want someone who will tell you the truth even when seductive lies are a lot sexier? Wouldn’t it feel good to have someone who has proven themselves true to you time and again? Someone who doesn’t try to manipulate you? Don’t say you’re not good enough, don’t ever say that about yourself. That’s her speaking, she’s taken all the fight out of you, reduced your ego to a shriveled pea. That’s what a bad woman will do to you.

It’s time you settled down and left your indiscreet and immature ways behind you, you’re too old for that sort of nonsense. As one who’s never walked very far down the road of meaningless hookups, let me tell you how good it feels to have self-respect. Even being alone is better than meaningless voting with a lying harlot. You're going to get some incurable disease if you keep that up, and you will have to explain it to your children. And there is someone better for you out there, you have to believe it. You just have to start working on building healthy relationships if you're ever going to get what you deserve.

You don’t love her, you can’t love her. And if you don’t love her, it’s time to walk away. Admit it, when you were doing the nasty, marking your ballot, you had your eyes closed and were thinking of Bernie, weren’t you?


Monday, November 5, 2018

Tomorrow's Election Winners: Corporations


There’s money to be made for those who can predict the future. If you can pick the right stocks they call you a market guru. Pick the right teams to win and you are an oddsmaker. If you’re sharp enough to see where a society without morals is going to fail, they’ll call you a prophet. But point out the painfully obvious results of elections and they call you a useful idiot and a Kremlin puppet.

Nevertheless, I am willing to prognosticate on your behalf. Allow me to save you the bother of staying up late tomorrow in order to hear the results. The business you work for will appreciate having you well-rested and able to turn a profit for them.

The winners of tomorrow night’s elections will be corporations. I can’t tell you if it is the Republicans or the Democrats who will have a greater opportunity to serve them, but they shall be served regardless. That’s because, blue wave or crimson tide, nobody is going to come gunning for those corporate conglomerates that run every aspect of our lives.

Once upon a time, Social Security was the third-rail of politics, meaning that nobody dared even think about attacking or even questioning that beloved social contract. But today the corporate entity, the corporate way of structuring our society, the necessity for pooled money to make profit über alles, is a principle so ingrained in our thinking that to merely utter objections out loud would be blasphemy. This goes far beyond politics into the realm of religion. Commandment number one being: God has given corporations unto you as the source of all life. Though shalt not question their need for profit nor put any stumbling block before them.

When was the last time you heard either a Republican or Democrat say anything disparaging about the sacred institution that is the corporation? When the economy was falling apart because of the actions of the corporate banks, not a word was whispered about how someone within said banks should be held responsible. Instead, there was a great reaching across aisles in order to come together to save those banks that were too big to fail. Individuals were left to fend for themselves. Victims of unwise/greedy corporate policies found themselves crushed in the gears of the economy by the millions, but not a thought was given to them. Instead, Democrats and Republicans showered failed banks with money the way a horny sheik would an attractive belly dancer.

Likewise, the automotive industry was bailed out by the government, which used the taxpayers’ own money as incentive for them to buy new cars they didn’t need and throw away cars that were still serviceable. Democrats had no problem with it, and the same Republicans who make sure poor people aren’t spending their food stamps on potato chips were okie dokie with it too. Why? Because it benefited corporations.

Corporate media isn’t going to tell you the real winners are corporations. Corporations are going to have half the country hating the other half. They’ll break all of society down into different interest groups but they won’t even mention, in regards to the election corporations, the biggest and boldest special interest group of all.

The corporations are now completely in charge of our foreign policy. This used to be a bit of a secret, but it has become such a fait accompli that nobody bothers to hide it anymore. Given the fact that our country’s number one export is weaponry, this is a truly scary thought. Our President has pointed out that it would be inconvenient to hold our allies responsible for their actions when they are buying so many of our arms. Even our religious leaders are now worshiping at the altar of corporate profit.

So when you go to vote tomorrow, keep in mind that whatever you are voting for, it is not going to matter to the true power structures in this country, and indeed, around the world. The people of New Zealand did not want the TPP. 94% of New Zealanders did not want it. And so they voted out their conservative government that was pushing it and elected a more liberal government. The result was a new trade deal, basically the TPP with a couple added letters to it (the CPTPP). It passed 110-8, with only members of the Green Party voting against it.

I do not tell you not to vote tomorrow, nor do I tell you who not to vote for. I only suggest that you do not invest yourself too fully in the results. Do not stay up too late wondering who will win the Senate or the House, because that has already been determined. Instead, calm your emotions, and try to get a good night’s sleep. Because real change will not occur in the sand box the corporate system has relegated for you to play in. Real change will occur when we realize we have to fight the system outside of the parameters they have set for us, outside the game that they have rigged.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Erich Fromm And The Rise Of Fascism (Part 1)


There are a lot of people warning about Donald Trump’s presidency as mirroring Hitler’s rise to power. They point to the next elections as do or die for defeating this new Nazi scourge: if we don’t roll with the blue wave, all hope is lost.
 

Accompanying such talk are loose references to the Weimar Republic and hyper-inflation, but I haven’t heard anything that sounded like it came from an in-depth understanding of why the fascists came to power when and where they did. In the interest of better understanding what actually brought the Nazis to power and how to avoid such a thing in the present, I thought it a good idea to re-read Escape From Freedom by Erich Fromm.

I do believe Erich Fromm had a unique position from which to comment on the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Born in Frankfurt Germany in 1900, he was young enough to witness the effects of the First World War to his country, although too young to serve. He was there to experience post-war Germany and the slow rise of the Nazi party until, as a Jew, he found it prudent to take a position in the United States in 1933. As someone who earned his doctorate in sociology and later became a practicing psychologist, I can think of nobody more qualified to diagnose the disease that is fascism and warn us of how we might prevent its occurrence elsewhere and in the future.

This is precisely what he did in 1941, when he wrote Escape From Freedom. He writes from the position of not only a sociologist, but as a psychologist, a German, and a member of the group most hated by the Nazis. This is why I strongly recommend reading this book if you are truly concerned about fascism rising here and now in our country. The most important thing you can do is educate yourself on the past if you do not wish to see its atrocities duplicated in the past.

But hey, I know a lot of you are really that interested in stopping a fascist takeover our country. I mean, you’ll get off your couch and go to vote. Which is better than what half of us will do. You’ll get on social media and express your opinions, of which you are quite certain. More importantly, you’ll call out anyone who disagrees with you as either active participants in or useful idiots for fascism. But when it comes to reading an old book that’s over 300 pages long of in-depth analysis of socio-economic trends and the psychological underpinnings of the appeal of authoritarian governments, well…you’ll let the people you vote for take care of that sort of thing. That’s what they’re paid for, right? You have a daytime job, and yoga classes, and luncheon appointments…

No worries, I’ve got you covered. I’ve read the whole book and highlighted the parts that appear to be relevant to the present time. While cliff notes are not the same as reading the actual text of Hamlet, there is yet something to be gained by them. Similarly, reading segments from Erich Fromm's book isn't going to be as good as immersing yourself in it, nonetheless, I feel it has value. Below I present you with excerpts from Escape From Freedom.

--At this crucial moment, however, a modicum of increased insight—objectivity—can make the difference between life and death for the human race. For this reason the development of a scientific and dynamic social psychology is of vital importance. Progress in social psychology is necessary to counteract the dangers which arise from the progress in physics and medicine.

--If we want to fight Fascism we must understand it. Wishful thinking will not help us. And reciting optimistic formulae will prove to be as inadequate and useless as the ritual of an Indian rain dance.”

--(Quote from John Dewey) “The serious threat to our democracy is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions which have given a victory to external authority. Discipline, uniformity, and dependence upon The Leader in foreign countries. The battlefield is also accordingly here—within ourselves and our institutions.”

--’Freedom from’ is not identical with positive freedom, with ‘freedom to’. The emergence of man from nature is a long-drawn-out process: to a large extent he remains tied to the world from which he emerged; he remains part of nature—the soil he lives on, the sun and moon and stars, the trees and flowers, the animals, and the group of people with whom he is connected by the ties of blood.

--…if the economic, social and political conditions on which the whole process of human individuation depends, do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality …while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. It then becomes identical with doubt, with a kind of life which lacks meaning and direction. Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and the world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom.”

--…the negative side of freedom, the burden which it puts upon man, is difficult to realize, especially for those whose heart is with the cause of freedom. Because in the fight for freedom in modern history the attention was focused upon combating old forms of authority and restraint, it was natural that one should feel that the more these traditional restraints were eliminated, the more freedom one had gained. We fail sufficiently to recognize, however, that although man has rid himself from old enemies of freedom, new enemies of a different nature have arisen: enemies which are not essentially external. We believe…that freedom of speech is the last step in the march of victory of freedom. We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes and important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what ‘he’ thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally—that is, for himself—which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts. Again, we are proud that in his conduct of life man has become free from external authorities, which tell him what to do and what not to do. We neglect the role of the anonymous authorities like public opinion and ‘common sense’, which are so powerful because of our profound readiness to conform to the expectations everybody has about ourselves and our equally profound fear of being different.

--We therefore are prone to think that the problem of freedom is exclusively that of gaining still more freedom of the kind we have gained in the course of modern history, and to believe that the defense of freedom against such powers that deny such freedom is all that is necessary. We forget that, although each of the liberties which have been won must be defended with utmost vigor, the problem of freedom is not only a quantitative one, but a qualitative one; that we do not only have to preserve and increase the traditional freedoms, but that we have to gain a new kind of freedom, one which enables us to realize our own individual self, to have faith in this self and in life.

--Once man was ready to become nothing but the means for the glory of a God who represented neither justice nor love, he was sufficiently prepared to accept the role of a servant to the economic machine—and eventually a “Fuhrer”.

--In any society the spirit of the whole culture is determined by the spirit of those groups that are most powerful in that society. This is so partly because these groups have the power to control the educational system, schools, church, press, theater, and thereby to imbue the whole population with their own ideas; furthermore, these powerful groups carry so much prestige that the lower classes are more than ready to accept and imitate their values and to identify themselves psychologically.

--While modern man seems to be characterized by utmost assertion of the self, actually his self has been weakened and reduced to a segment of the total self—intellect and will—to the exclusion of all other parts of the total personality.

--But although man has reached a remarkable degree of mastery of nature, society is not in control of the very forces it has created. The rationality of the system of production, in its technical aspects, is accompanied by the irrationality of our system of production in its social aspects. Economic crises, unemployment war, govern man’s fate. Man has built his world; he has built factories and houses, he produces cars and clothes, he grows grain and fruit. But he has become estranged from the product of his own hands, he is not really the master any more of the world he has built; on the contrary, this man-made world has become his master, before whom he bows down whom he tries to placate or to manipulate as best he can. The work of his own hands has become his God. He seems to be driven by self-interest, but in reality his total self with all its concrete potentialities has become an instrument for the purposes of the very machine his hands have built. He keeps up the illusion of being the center of the world, and yet he is pervaded by an intense sense of insignificance and powerlessness which his ancestors once consciously felt toward God.

--The concrete relationship of one individual to another has lost its direct and human character and has assumed a spirit of manipulation and instrumentality. In all social and personal relations the laws of the market are the rule.

--The word “employer” contains the whole story: the owner of capital employs another human being as he “employs” a machine. They both use each other for the pursuit of their economic interests. It is not a relationship of two human beings who have any interest in the other outside of this mutual usefulness.

--For those who struggle on, especially for a large part of the middle class, the fight assumes the character of a battle against such odds that the feeling of confidence in personal initiative and courage is replaced by a feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness. An enormous though secret power over the whole of society is exercise by a small group, on the decisions of which depends the fate of a large part of society. The inflation in Germany in 1923, or the American crash, increased the feeling of insecurity and shattered for many the hope of getting ahead by one’s own efforts and the traditional belief in the unlimited possibilities of success.

--The insignificance of the individual in our era concerns not only his role as a businessman, employee, or manual laborer, but also his role as a customer…As an abstract customer he is important, as a concrete customer he is utterly unimportant. There is nobody who is glad about his coming, nobody who is particularly concerned about his wishes. The act of buying has become similar to going to the post office and buying stamps.

--(regarding advertising) it does not appeal to reason but to emotion; like any other kind of hypnoid suggestion, it tries to impress its objects emotionally and then make them submit intellectually. This type of advertising impresses the customer by all sorts of means: by repetition of the same formula again and again; by the influence of an authoritative image, like that of a society lady or a famous boxer, who smokes a certain brand of cigarette; by attracting the customer and at the same time weakening his critical abilities by the sex appeal of a pretty girl; by terrorizing him with the threat of “b.o.” or “halitosis; or yet again by stimulating daydreams about a sudden change in one’s whole course of life brought about by buying a certain shirt or soap. All these methods are essentially irrational; they have nothing to do with the qualities of the merchandise, and they smother and kill the critical capacities of the customer like an opiate or outright hypnosis. They give him a certain satisfaction by their daydreaming qualities just as the movies do, but at the same time they increase his feeling of smallness and powerlessness.
--As a matter of fact, these methods of dulling the capacity for critical thinking are more dangerous to our democracy than many of the open attacks against it, and more immoral—in terms of human integrity—than the indecent literature, publication of which we punish.

Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter. Repetition of slogans and emphasis on factors which have nothing to do with the issue at stake numb his critical capacities. The clear and rational appeal to his thinking are rather the exception than the rule in political propaganda—even in democratic countries. Confronted with the power and size of the parties as demonstrated in their propaganda, the individual voter cannot help feeling small and of little significance.
All this does not mean that advertising and political propaganda overtly stress the individual’s insignificance. Quite the contrary; they flatter the individual by making him appear important, and by pretending that they appeal to his critical judgment, to his sense of discrimination, But these pretenses are essentially a method to dull the individual’s suspicions and to help him fool himself as to the individual character of his decision. I need scarcely point out that the propaganda of which I have been speaking is not wholly irrational, and that there are differences in the weight of rational factors in the propaganda of different parties and candidates respectively.

--…in our effort to escape from aloneness and powerlessness, we are ready to get rid of our individual self either by submission to new forms of authority or by a compulsive conforming to accepted patterns.

--Once the primary bonds which gave security to the individual are severed, once the individual faces the world outside of himself as a completely separate entity, two courses are open to him since he has to overcome the unbearable state of powerlessness and aloneness. By one course he can progress to “positive freedom”; he can relate himself spontaneously to the world in love and work, in the genuine expression of his emotional, sensuous, and intellectual capacities; he can thus become one again with man, nature, and himself, without give up the independence and integrity of his individual self. The other course open to him is to fall back to give up his freedom and to try to overcome his aloneness by eliminating the gap that has arisen between his individual self and the world. The second course never reunites him with the world in the way he was related to it before he emerged as an “individual”, for the fact of his separateness cannot be reversed; it is an escape from an unbearable situation which would make life impossible if it were prolonged. This course of escape, therefore, is characterized by its compulsive character, like every escape from threatening panic; it is also characterized by the more or less complete surrender of individuality and the integrity of the self. Thus it is not a solution which leads to happiness and positive freedom; it is, in principle, a solution which is to be found in all neurotic phenomena. It assuages an unbearable anxiety and makes life possible by avoiding panic; yet it does not solve the underlying problem and is paid for by a kind of life that often consists only of automatic or compulsive activities.

Part 2 to follow soon…



Sunday, October 21, 2018

Mitch Mcconnell? Seriously, Kentucky, WTF?


Is Kentucky a breeding den of mutant man-goats? I don’t want to pick on a state full of people I hardly know, but it has some explaining to do. Seriously, there must be something fucking wrong with a state that elects Mitch McConnell to the United States Senate. If you could not find a better candidate, then why was The Hills Have Eyes not filmed in your state? Or was it?

I really want to know from someone who lives in the state of Kentucky: does anybody really like this guy? Why? What positive qualities does the man possess? If you’re going to vote in an evil politician—and here I have to admit that every state is guilty of this—couldn’t you at least elect one that doesn’t look like a boiling frog? Couldn’t you choose someone like Nikki Haley, an evil person, sure, but relatively normal to look at, at least?

What’s the matter with you? Do you think the rest of the country likes to see his face pop up on their news feed or TV every fucking day when we wake up? Gollum has a much better profile than Mitch McConnell. Don’t you know that every person who does not live in Kentucky hates you and judges you for this boiling pot of pea soup you call a congressman? We’re talking about kicking you out of the union, maybe selling you off to Mexico or Saudi Arabia.

Please, for fuck’s sake, just get rid of him. It’s common courtesy. It’s like flushing after you take a big dump. Nobody wants to deal with it.


Fuck. It’s like having an asshole roommate. Everyday we wake up and just want to go about our business. We want to take a shower to start the day, but you’ve already been there and clogged the toilet with your stinky McConnell. It’s not a good way for America to begin its workday.

And so far I’ve only pointed out the physical repulsiveness of Mitch McConnell. Because for God’s sake, that should be enough for you Kentuckians to get him out of the public eye. That alone should make you want to not be judged by the man. But as vomit-inducing as MM is in appearance, his inner self is even more vile. He’s like Dorian Grey, you don’t see all the truly nasty parts of him. The man has nothing to offer to anyone except those who are wealthy. He has done nothing but dismantle the social safety net. He is ruining our country. Morally he is toxic. Intellectually he is toxic. Please, in the name of all that is holy, please tell me why you keep sending him back to congress. Please tell me why you are willing to give this guy a paycheck when all he’s doing is enriching himself at your expense.

As much as I have opposed the idea of collective guilt in the past, you leave me no option but to hold every man woman and child of Kentucky responsible until you have removed that toilet-clogger from our sight. Go ahead, elect him to a state position, I don’t give a fuck, just keep him out of the federal government. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t do that to my worst enemy.
I mean, seriously, look at him. I’m not one to pick on a person’s personal appearance, but LOOK AT HIM!!! Is that a face you want framed and hanging on you living room wall? You want a statue with that face standing in your downtown? You want his face on your currency someday? No? Then why do you subject us to that?

Let’s work something out, Kentucky. We’ll talk to Europe and have them end the tariffs on Kentucky bourbon if you ditch Mr. Turkeyneck. They sure the hell would take that trade in a heartbeat. France might be able to stomach Jerry Lewis but even they have their limits. We’ll even talk to California and get them to do an even up ejection of Nancy Pelosi. Who says we can’t find a win-win solution on this? Just no more unholy goat/man nominations, okay? Because if the Saudis buy you up, they're not going to be as subtle in their reactions as I've been.