ABSURD LIES BY THE U.S. POWER ELITE

Actually there are lots of them. Big ones, small ones, in-between ones.

Remember “Yellow Rain”? How about the “Pope Plot,” wherein we were told that a Turkish fascist was an agent of the Bulgarian KGB?

Those lies served their purposes and are now forgotten.

Other lies are “forever.”

Like, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

They’ll never come clean on that one. They’d have to admit too much. Admit to a coup. Admit this is no democracy. Admit the treasonous behavior of the entire “national security” establishment and corporate media. Admit they’re like a banana republic.

There are lies that are politically and ideologically fundamental, mythological lies that are part of the bedrock of this socio-economic-political system.

Like, the U.S. is founded on freedom and democracy.

Huh? Actually it’s founded on slavery and genocide. And women couldn’t even vote until 1920. And most blacks basically couldn’t vote until the 1960s- and paid a price in blood even then.  And everyone is forced to choose between two parties that both represent corporate oligarchy. And unlike in Europe, where there’s proportional representation, for all the rest of us there is ZERO REPRESENTATION in government AT ALL LEVELS.

But this essay is to focus on one casual lie in particular, the kind of commonplace mendacity that we are fed daily by the power structure’s media.

This lie was uttered by War Secretary Leon Panetta, commenting after the most recent assassinations of Iranian nuclear physicists in the spring of 2012. He said this:

     "I can tell you one thing: the [United States] was not involved in that kind of effort. That’s not what the                           United States does." (Emphasis added.)              

What, the U.S. doesn’t assassinate people? Sure you do. And you BRAG about it! Every time you use a drone to assassinate people, a boast is issued to the media.

And your “Special Ops” soldiers routinely assassinate people. Osama bin Laden is only the most prominent example.

What an absurd lie.

Of course Panetta, in both his former job as head of the CIA and now as War Minister, has overseen and oversees organized assassination programs. These have been going on for years, and are continually expanding under the reign of Obama.

In fact, Panetta and the Obama regime is happy to boast of assassinations. More and more frequently they are planting stories in the media hailing their latest “success” in bumping of some alleged jihadist. So there is no “controversy” here, no phony denials, no coy evasions. They openly brag about their drone hit jobs. And of course about the SEAL execution of bin Laden, which is part of Obama’s re-election platform, openly commented upon by the media.

And whether one supports or opposes these assassinations is not relevant. It doesn’t matter whether one believes that U.S. assassinations are right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral, legal or illegal, justified or unjustified, pragmatic or counterproductive. The issue here a blatant, Orwellian level of mendacity, a bald-face lie right in our faces that nobody notices is a lie or mentions. The public is expected to engage in what Orwell called Doublethink, believing two mutually exclusive things at the same time.

The corporate media scribes dutifully transcribe and transmit the “message,” the preposterous, whopping, obvious lie.

And no one is supposed to notice the contradiction.

Such amazing Doublethink requires an Olympics-level of mental gymnastics. Apparently the political rulers and their corporate propaganda system enablers are confident that Americans possess that ability.

It would seem them are mostly right.

I suppose this comes down to the innate conformity of most people. They seem unwilling to think an independent thought.

Not that seeing this obvious, absurd lie requires a whole lot of thought.

Most people are passive sheep who allow their minds to be fucked daily. Their brains float in a sea of media-created lies and distortions.

taboo-truths.blogspot.com

Avoiding The “D” Word: Depression

Spain currently has an unemployment rate of about 25%- the same figure cited for U.S. unemployment during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Greece's is 21%. In both nations, unemployment among young adults is over 50%. (In fact, Greece has been in “recession” for 3 years now. And here's a euphemism you'll like, from the business pages and mouths of “economists,” those combination soothsayers-cheerleaders: “negative growth.” That means a shrinking economy. They won't even say the word “shrink”!) To add injury to injury, Spain now has a whopping sales tax of 18%, with more increases in the works.

Portugal has 15% unemployment in the second year of economic shrinkage there. They've gutted labor laws to allow employers to fire freely- so there goes that excuse for “structural unemployment,” the old “rigid labor markets” dodge. And for good measure, rent control was abolished, thus striking a blow for what capitalist ideology calls “Freedom,” in this case the Freedom to Gouge for landlords. Ah, Freedom! Breathe in its sweet air!

Ireland also has 15% unemployment, nicely book-ended numerically by a 15% cut in middle class wages. And of course social safety net programs have been savagely slashed, as in all these cases. To top it off, Ireland now has an exorbitant 23% sales tax, on top of numerous onerous taxes on everything else. Why? Because a traitorous regime took on the private debt of some stupid bankers and made it a public obligation. That is, they yoked the Irish people like some dumb oxen to pay off the burden. This nightmare has been going on since 2008 and no end is in sight (although specious promises of an end are periodically made by the rulers, but like a rainbow it always stays ahead off in the distance).

Given the very high unemployment rates in these countries, why aren't we reading and hearing about depressions in these countries in the capitalist media?

Well, that's easy. Obviously because they want to put the best face on things. In other words, we're in the realm of propaganda, not journalism. It's not “objective” to hide reality.

Burmese Military Junta Gaining Upper Hand

You gotta hand it to those sinister beasts whose fangs are sunk deep into Burma, the SLORC, that horrible military junta ruling Burma. (Or “Myanmar,” as these tyrants would have it, in a faux-“anti-Imperialist” gesture.) The UN’s envoy is already calling for the lifting of sanctions. Why? Because they FINALLY let the long-suffering Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the Burmese democracy 

movement and a beacon of hope for the Burmese people, out of house arrest and allowed her party to run for a tiny fraction of the seats in “parliament.” Thus she is virtually totally powerless.  They still won’t let her assume the presidency, which she won fair and square in elections over 20 years ago.

Aung San Suu Kyi is being used as a stooge and a beard for the junta. In desperate economic straits, the junta needed to con the international community, and found in Aung San Suu Kyi the perfect foil. With her face fronting for Burma, the junta can still rule the country, pretend to have instituted democracy, and break the sanctions regime.

Now the regime is setting up the Burmese people for disillusionment with Aung San Suu Kyi when she can’t magically deliver reforms she has no power to institute.

Furthermore, she just caved in to the junta’s demand that to assume the meaningless parliamentary seats her party won, they have to take an oath swearing to “defend the Constitution,” the document written by the military that “legalizes” their continuing unchallengeable rule and that Aung San Suu Kyi is committed to rewriting. So as soon as they tries to tamper with it, they’ll said she “violated her oath of office” and can remove her or, better still, leave her in place but remove her party members from parliament. 

4/30/12 noon NPR reporter Anthony Kuhn on the  dispute  over the oath of office required by  the Burmese military junta of Aung San Suu Kyi’s parliamentarians, to “defend the Constitution.” The Constitution needs to be amended, and she intended to do so. So she caved on the oath, and Kuhn sniffs that it is petty “bickering over the wording of the oath.”

No, she’s being set up. As soon as she tries to reform the Constitution, she’ll be guilty of “violating her oath of office,” Kuhn.

Professional Panglossians Confounded Again

A headline at the top of the Business Day section of the New York Times (Saturday, April 28, 2012, p. B1), “Economic Growth Slows Unexpectedly to 2.2%,” reminded me of a thought I have had often over the years. Namely, the role, attitude, and ideological perspective of “economists” in capitalist societies. 

As usual, the professional panglossians, aka “economists,” looked at the U.S. economy through rose-colored glasses and put an optimistic spin on things. As usual, they overestimated how well the “recovery” is going. (To be fair, since the close brush with economic death of the housing market crash and near-collapse of the finance-capital sector house of cards, a few voices of realism or pessimism are now allowed to be heard from, as splashes of cold water to keep overexuberance in check.)

“Economists” are no mere technicians. They are also ideologues. In addition to their function as numbers-crunchers (a sort of glorified clerk job) their role is to act as  boosters of the capitalist economic system. Capitalist economics is called simply “economics.” (Similar to how the corporate oligarchy’s  media is referred to as “the media.”) This of course has the effect making what it actually is invisible, and presenting it as some kind of value-free, neutral, objective “science,” which it most certainly is not. 

Most of the people called “economists” are ideological cheerleaders, professional shills for capitalism. 

On the other side are Marxists who see every recession as the Final Crisis of Capitalism. But the public never hears from them, because they’re barred from the media. (So what is this “free speech” we hear so much about?) Of course, such views have to be excluded, to maintain the illusion that capitalist economics is simply “economics,” and that the current economic setup is merely natural reality, not a man-made construct. 

Lest someone draw an incorrect inference about my own views, I do not see socialism per se as the answer. For one thing, “Lord” Acton was on to an important truth when he said that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Having government own all economic enterprises fails on that ground alone. Also it is grossly inefficient. And markets do provide necessary signals about demand and prices. Just look at the Soviet Union, which manufactured shoddy goods no one wanted based on quotas issued by bureaucrats in Moscow. Or Cuba, where shops run by unmotivated government employees have no interest in customer service. At least under capitalism, while there is indeed rotten customer service, and shoddy and dangerous products, there’s a possibility because of market pressures for satisfying consumer demands. Of course, the scandal of untested medical devices maiming people [see Consumer Reports  May 2012, e.g.] and dangerous drugs allowed on the market shows that U.S. capitalism at least is UNDERREGULATED. (Try telling that to the Republican OR Democratic Parties.) More example sof underregulation: repeated BP oil installation “accidents” (in Alaska, Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caucasus) and Massey coal’s chronic criminal conduct over years, virtually unchecked by sham government “oversight.” Corporations like BP and Massey should be designated as RICO entities and disbanded. (Massey was bought out at a premium price by another coal company AFTER its last lethal mine disaster. Guess they figured that they wouldn’t have to bear much of a burden, like Dow Chemical figured when it bought the murderous Union Carbide corporation of Bhopal infamy. But then “Dioxin Dow” is no more scrupulous than UC, so what the hell, they must have figured.)

What is really needed is serious regulation, not sham regulation as mostly exists in the U.S. This in turn somehow requires that the power of capital to control government be greatly limited. There is no prospect of this happening under the current U.S. political system.

Taboo-truths.blogspot.com

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com

U.$. Media Lies, Big and Small

NPR 4/23/12 6:38 am: Quill Lawrence, NPR’s man in Kabul, Afghanistan, being incestuously interviewed by the NPR morning anchor, repeats for the umpteenth time the lie that “Korans that were accidentally burned” in the big U.S. prison in Kabul. The lie that the burnings were “accidental” or “inadvertent” (the other adjective NPR hacks routinely parrot every single time the incident is mentioned) is now thoroughly embedded in the pseudo-reality and pseudo-history created by the U.S. propaganda system.

The Korans weren’t accidentally mixed in with other garbage. They were taken off the shelves, searched, and a decision was made to burn them. Stealth was employed to hide the burning from the Afghans. (You have to go to Aljazeera to find this out. The Iman at the prison told Aljazeera- on camera- that the day before the burnings, the U.S. military told him to take the next day off. Afghan workers asked the U.S. personnel where the truck was going, and were told the books were being taken to “storage.” Of course the truck was then driven to the burn pit. Afghan workers in the vicinity saw the activity and came over to help, upon which they saw the Korans burning and grabbed them from the flames.*

Stupid, bone-headed, callous, insensitive, counterproductive, whatever you want to call it, the burnings weren’t “inadvertent” or “accidental.” They were deliberate and intentional. The people burning them knew what they were burning. They didn't think they were empty egg cartons or something.

What NPR and the rest of the U.S. propaganda system has never answered is who gave the order. Funny how the details are all swept under the rug. What is so much worse that they’re hiding?

I would be surprised if the order came from general rank level, but it’s possible. It seems that the camp commander probably had foreknowledge at least.

What the incident shows to me is how disconnected the top U.S. military and political bosses are from their subordinates. The rhetoric  that constantly flows from the mouths of the top generals and bureaucrats, the tired old “winning hearts and minds” shtick we were fed during the criminal Vietnam war, during which the worst atrocities were routinely committed by the U.S. military, the country was devastated with poisons, 6 million tons of bombs were dropped-  three times the tonnage dropped in World War II in a far larger geographical area, according to official U.S. Air Force figures-  and millions of Vietnamese were killed, including huge numbers of defenseless noncombatants. The bosses spewing this gush, like the disgusting Leon Panetta, lifelong political apparatchik, a made member of the nomenklatura, who started out as a hack Democratic party pol, then went on to power appointments, like CIA director and now Secretary of “Defense” (he loves assassinating people, by the way), either are too obtuse to notice or feign not to notice the glaring contradiction between their avowed strategy and tactics and the reality of the mindset, attitudes, and behavior of their troops.  Apparently the message about the need for “cultural sensitivity” and understanding the Afghans and winning their hearts and minds somehow never filtered down to the ground.

I don’t think the Koran burners were clueless. They knew enough to try and deceive the Afghans and hide what they were going to do from them. (In order to claim it was “accidental” and “inadvertent,” the U.S. media needs to black out the facts that Aljazeera reported. Damn that Aljazeera!) But unless you pretend that the U.S. soldiers didn’t know they were burning Korans, it’s still nonsensical to use those lying adjectives, even based on what the U.S. media is willing to let us know. (Thank God their monopoly on information is breaking down!)

Every time another “incident” comes to light- pissing on corpses, posing with body parts, whatever- Panetta and the chorus of top officials and generals gasp that they’re “shocked, shocked” at such behavior, which “don’t reflect our values” “don’t reflect American values” as Panetta avers after every single “incident.” (And obviously the incidents that become public knowledge are just the tip of the iceberg. Soldiers don’t take photos of every single questionable thing they do, don’t post the photos they do take online every single time they take photos, the posted photos are not publicized every single time they’re posted, for example. Far, far from it.)

In sum, calling the Koran attempted incinerations “accidental” is an example of a small lie with a definite political and ideological purpose. The purpose seems to be to say “We meant no harm.” Which is besides the point, really. It caused great offense, and could reasonably have been predicted to cause great offense, and it occurred in the context of a foreign troop presence unappreciated (at the least!) by most Afghans that is over a decade old, and that follows many, many other “incidents,” like bombing wedding parties, killing innocent civilians, raiding people’s homes, etc.

Other official/media lies are larger. Sometimes there are entire campaigns of lies, a propaganda fabrication, an ideological confection, sinisterly designed with political-ideological goals in mind.

Some lies vanish without a trace after they’ve served their purpose- the bogus propaganda campaigns “Yellow Rain” and “Pope Plot” (both political theater produced by the CIA). “Yellow Rain” portrayed bee excrement as Commie biological warfare. “Pope Plot” pretended that a Turkish fascist terrorist from the notorious Grey Wolves was a KGB-Bulgarian assassin. You never hear a mention of either media show these days. But there were no retractions of the “Pope Plot,” and only some media “corrected” the “error” of “Yellow Rain.” (Not the fascistic Wall Street Journal, which in its self-appointed role as Ideological Commissar viciously attacked scientists like Matthew Meselson for not toeing the CIA’s line and blowing the fabrication up with honest science. This same rag of course likes to condemn enforced ideological conformity in socialist regimes past and present. Hypocritical or cynical? You make the call.)

By the way, the media propagandists aren’t naïve or dupes. They aren’t such naïfs as to be fooled by the secret police. They are willing, conscious stooges. Just like in any country where the secret police use the media for propaganda operations. The naïve ones are the media “critics” who portray the media accomplices as dupes- or pretend to think they are.

Then there are lies about specific events that must be desperately reinforced over and over. The pesky truths about the CIA assassinations of the Kennedys and King just won’t stay buried, so for example the Warren Commission fraud must be reasserted over and over, while anyone refusing to genuflect before that hoary pack of absurd lies is ridiculed, ridicule being the only recourse when the facts are against the propagandists. Honest discussing, debate, search for truth- fuggettaboutit! The propagandists evidently know they’d lose.

Ridiculing one’s opponent is  an example of an ad hominen argument, that being Latin for “to the man.” Instead of arguing one’s case on the merits, one attacks one’s opponents personally to discredit the opponents, instead of refuting their arguments with facts and logic. It’s a technique often resorted to by people who don’t have a good case to make. The crudest form of an ad hominen attack is ridicule, which is what the corporate propaganda system has been reduced to when it comes to protecting the CIA in the JFK assassination. (Shamefully, The Nation magazine is one of the worst offenders in this regard, as they recently demonstrated just a couple of months ago. Such behavior as accomplices in a never-ending cover-up of state murder raises the gravest questions about the bona fides of The Nation.)

Other, bigger, permanent lies are cornerstones of the propaganda and official mythology edifice, key to the ideological indoctrination of the populace- such as portraying the U.S. as World’s Freest Country, U.S. as Spreader of Democracy Around The World, like some Johnny Appleseed of Liberty. Which ignores actual fact and history- the history of U.S.-instigated coups, numerous military dictatorships backed up and kept in power by the U.S., U.S. providing lists of victims for the death squads of those countries to torture and “eliminate,” and on and on. The U.S. has destroyed democracy in many more countries than it could plausibly claim credit for reinstalling (not creating) it in- if by “democracy” we mean bourgeois class dictatorships that stage elections. Let’s see, after World War Two, there was Germany, Italy, and Japan. Any others? Hmm… (Japan was effectively a one-party dictatorship from after the major war until recent years.  In Italy the CIA secretly funded the “Christian Democrats” to keep them dominant. It also manipulated German politics and funded right-wing media there. In France the CIA was very active to make sure the politics came out the “right” way. In Spain and Portugal fascist dictatorships were left in place for decades until their own people finally managed to free themselves, no thanks to the U.S., the Big Defender of Freedom And Democracy.)

*We can see once again why the U.S. elites hate Aljazeera so much. Aljazeera complicates their efforts to deceive people and manipulate events. Aljazeera is committing the worst crime in the eyes of the U.S. power-elite- it is interfering with U.S. POWER.

No wonder the U.S. military kept bombing Aljazeera, murdering their journalists. No wonder they kidnapped an Aljazeera employee and kept him in Guantanamo Bay for years, where they pumped him for information about Aljazeera they could use for malign effect and tried to force him to be their mole inside Aljazeera or else rot for life in their military dungeon.

Oh yeah, the U.S. really stands for human rights.

You’all who believe that, have I got a fabulous deal for you! I own a bridge in Brooklyn I need to sell quick!

Latest Obama Appeasement of Reactionaries Flops (Gee, Who Could Have Foreseen That?)

The venal Catholic Church, an organized crime racket (harboring and protection of pedophiles, support of fascism) has been systematically taking over hospitals in the U.S., like a blob from outer space absorbing medical institutions.

The Obama regime reasonably required that health care providers cover contraception in their insurance plans.

The Catholic Church and their reactionary allies (the giant rightwing media noise machine consisting of Murdoch’s minions, “talk” (stormtrooper soapbox) radio, and the usual fellow- travelling raglets and blogs, raised a holy stink, EVEN THOUGH THE CHURCH GOT AN EXEMPTION FOR RELIGIOUS EMPLOYEES.

These organized reactionaries all immediately raised a hue and cry using the slogan “an attack on religious freedom.” Interestingly, all these mouthpieces plus GOP presidential contenders all came out with this identical line at the same time. (Don’t dare call it a conspiracy!)

So as is typical of him, he made MORE concessions. The filthy rich, tax free, criminal organization Catholic Church won’t have to “violate their consciences” and “religious beliefs” (in their and their reactionary allies’ self-righteously pseudo-moralistic terminology) by paying a cent for contraception for their employees. (However, I have to keep paying for a massive U.S. military machine, U.S. aggression, U.S. crimes, and support for murderous dictatorships, however, my “conscience” be damned, apparently*). Instead, the insurance companies will have to provide it for free, on request of the individual employees. This surrender was roundly rejected by the Catholic Church and their allies, like the fascist (now Murdoch-owned, which didn’t make a bit of difference in its demented, vicious editorial and op-ed pages) Wall Street Journal, which kept up the drumbeat about Obama’s “assault on religious freedom” and “conscience” and on “the Constitution,” blah blah blah. (Hey, when you have a demagogic election issue to use, why give it up just because your opponent surrenders?) Churches are supposed to stay out of politics. They don’t, though.

This proves it’s NOT about “religious freedom,” but about denying women birth control, i.e. imposing Catholic Church diktat on women whether they’re even Catholic or not.

*NO Federal money AT ALL goes to pay for abortion. Because that would be forcing sex hating misogynists and their stupid female fellow travelers to pay for something that “violates their conscience.” This has been true since Clinton signed the Hyde Amendment, named after Central American terrorist loving reactionary Representative Henry Hyde, an adulterer who destroyed someone else’s marriage. Moral values, baby! They’re sooo important!!

Nevetheless, reactionaries are currently on a jihad to destroy Planned Parenthood, which spends 3% of its funds on providing abortions for the poor women the Federal government refuses to fund. Because life is precious to the U.S.- the same U.S. that invaded Iraq, killing 120,000 or so Iraqis.

taboo-truths.blogspot.com

jasonzenith.blogspot.com

Greek Economy Being Systematically Strangled To Death: U.$. Media Mostly Blacks It Out

The Greek people are being savagely assaulted. The foreign financiers and their political stooges who now rule Greece are demanding the Greek political hacks rubberstamp the latest “austerity” plan- the fifth round of vicious economic warfare attacks on the Greek people in just two years (a rarely mentioned fact in U.$. media “coverage” of Greece, whose main obsession is to make the Greeks pay off bondholders and stay trapped in the euro).

Hundreds of millions of euros MORE are to be cut from pensions. ANOTHER 150,000 public sector jobs will be eliminated in the next four years. No explanation how these workers will support themselves. Private sector workers are getting another 20% pay cut. Private business has collapsed. With no money to spend, people do not produce enough demand to keep businesses afloat, much less allow those businesses to hire the unemployed. The public health care system no longer can care for many of the sick.

In other words, the economy has been forced into a death spiral. More layoffs, more cuts in people's income, means less demand, less economic activity, leading to business failures and more unemployment. And international finance capital has imposed all this without even needing a military coup!

Here’s a telling incident that provides a revealing glimpse into the stone-hearted ruthlessness of the political enforcers of the finance capitalist social order that imposes misery on millions:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared at a student forum in Berlin February 7^th. A young Greek woman studying at University there addressed Her Eminence in a voice quavering with emotion:

“I am here as a representative of a generation, my generation in Greece, which at the moment is really in despair.”

Merkel’s response to this plaintive cry?  That she is aware that Greece is “in a very complicated situation at the moment.” (A nice and vague dodge hinting of “technocratic” complexities beyond the ken of mere peons whose rations are being cut to the bone, for the best of reasons, of couse!) However, what is most important, Merkel instructed, is that what is euphemized as “the difficult choices” (code for savage attacks on the standard of living of the masses, the same code used in the U.S. by those propagandists and ideologues of plutocracy who urge the politicians to slash Social Security, Medicare, and all other social spending in the name of avoiding alleged fiscal Armageddon) “would not be perceived as something imposed from the outside.” I.e. the main thing is to obfuscate what’s being done to Greece from the Greek people, so they’ll blame themselves, and/or their own politicians, or even adopt the illusion that they themselves are voluntarily choosing to “sacrifice” to pay off the foreign bondholders. Merkel went on to rue the fact that this level of mystification had not yet been achieved: “I do not believe that has been a success yet.” Notice the yet. Apparently they aren’t through trying to brainwash the Greeks yet.

But give Merkel credit for not feigning sympathy or, even worse, compassion, like arch con man Bill Clinton might have done. No one in Europe has any excuse for not understanding what’s going on.

The U.$. media of course agrees with Merkel about what’s most important. The New York Times, for example, headlines its front page story February 10^th as “GRECE SIGNS OFF ON SWEEPING CUTS TO CALM LENDERS.” Calming “lenders” is Job One. Subhead: “A BID TO AVOID DEFAULT.”

But, according to the second subhead: “European Officials Want More, but Deal Is Expected to Pass.”

Maybe they won’t relent until Greeks are literally starving to death from lack of food? Because right now a huge number of Greeks can no longer make their shelter payments. Unemployment is at 21%, at least.

The article begins: “Global financial markets received a reprieve on Thursday after Greek political leaders agreed to sweeping new austerity measures that should unlock the financing Greece needs to avert a potentially damaging default in March.” That’s the first paragraph in its entirety.

So “financial markets”- i.e. financiers and speculators- are the ones in peril who need a reprieve, not the Greek people, who are being brutally punished, with no options except to die, it would seem. And just what or who would be “damaged” by default? “Financial markets,” apparently.

Oh, and the latest assault on the Greek people includes a huge gouge in the minimum wage, to make sure multimillionaire financiers get their dough.

If you’re a businessman, you’ll be treated to a blunter headline on the first page of the NY Times Business Day section: “Banks Come First in a Greek Rescue Plan.” (By the way the Times frequently hides stuff they don’t want their general readership to see in the Business Section. Corporate crime news, dangerous pharmaceutical news, environmemtal pollution news, the banks’ criminality in filing bogus legal papers in thousands of foreclosure cases, these are some examples of news they’ve hidden there.)

Aljazeera's latest report on the reality in Greece, the reality the U.$. media mostly hides, gives examples like that of a military pensioner having his pension cut in half, while at the same time being forced to support his adult sons and daughter in law, two of whom have lost their jobs and have no other source of income, one of whom had his pay cut in half, to $1,000 a month.

Of course, virtually the entire American public is cut off from Aljazeera on TV, since the media masters have decided it is inappropriate fare. Cable companies provide hundreds of channels per customer, many of them empty, the vast majority filled with crap and incredible trivia, but “no room” for Aljazeera, they claim. This is what they cynically call, in best Orwellian fashion, “the free press.”

Yes, you can seek Aljazeera out yourself on the internet, and get some of its content there. But only a minority of people use the internet for news, and especially older people use it very little or not at all.

The U.S. hasn't yet gone the China route and blocked internet access to Aljazeera. But just wait, the U.S. has been getting more and more repressive ever since the ferment of the 1960s and early 1970s.

They just officially passed a law giving them the “right” to imprison dissidents in their military gulag indefinitely, without charges, trial, lawyers, or legal recourse, simply by slapping the label “terrorist” on them, a label routinely applied to progressive protesters, environmental activists, and peace activists, by the FBI and state and local police. And the government already can, and has, seized websites it deems to infringe some big corporation's copyrights. Would blocking Aljazeera be such a big deal for them? Some civil libertarians and media critics will carp, and get very little coverage for doing so, but other than that, and maybe a lawsuit dragged interminably through the bourgeois courts, nothing will happen. So why not? Don’t be surprised if it happens.

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com

Taboo-truths.blogspot.com

A Few Dozen Rich Reactionaries Calling The Shots In GOP Presidential Race

The corporate oligarchy and its media, along with other dominant institutions, creates the reactionary political framework in which U.S. electoral politics operates. The millions of (overwhelming white) reactionaries provide the shock troops and voters, plus millions of easily-manipulated stooges.

When it gets down to the specifics of which arch-reactionary GOP politician will get the nod to run for President, that is determined to a great degree by a handful of filthy rich, neofascists who are funding SuperPacs that back or attack the contenders.

For example, Sheldon Adelson, the Arab-loathing Zionist casino billionaire who helps fund Israeli colonization of the West Bank, has (with his wife) poured $10 million into Newt Gingrich’s SuperPac in just the last month. But to make sure he can be a kingmaker, he’s ready to switch to backing Mitt Romney if his bet on Gingrich comes a cropper.  (This according to media reports.)

Another obscenely wealthy, viciously reactionary plutocrat, one Foster Friess, is funding the anti-sexual freedom candidate Rick Santorum.

According to the New York Times, there is a “battle among a few dozen wealthy Republicans to influence their party’s choice of a presidential nominee.” [“A Wealthy BackerLikes the Odds on Santorum,” NY Times, 2/9/12 p. A1.]

We hear much moaning and handwringing from “liberals” and “progressives” about the deleterious effects of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case, that “opened the floodgates” for such money to flow into SuperPacs. And to be sure, the rightwing Justices who reached out and grabbed that case to take a whack at campaign finance law (the actual issue in the case was much narrow than the decision handed down, a case used opportunistically as a vehicle for the court majority’s assault on a law they didn’t like) certainly threw even more political power to capital to control elections. But it didn’t fundamentally change anything; rather, it exacerbated what is already wrong. Namely the power of money, the class dictatorship of the haute bourgeoisie, the oligarchy of capital. (“Money is Power,” goes the old saying.)

Contrary to mythology, the U.S. is not now and has never been a democracy. It’s a country that began with voting restricted to white male property owners! On its face it wasn’t a democracy. Then there’s the fact that women have been allowed to vote for less than half the lifespan of the U.S., that blacks haven’t been able to vote for almost all of that time, and millions of them are prevented from voting today. And the U.S. is functionally a two-party dictatorship, with both parties dedicated to maintaining the status  quo.  Election laws make it extremely difficult for new parties to even get on the ballot. Corporate media domination keeps people mystified and confused about reality, so for them it is unthinkable to vote for something other than one of the two corporate capitalist parties, much less think of creating an actual opposition party.

Finally, the real measure of a democracy is where power resides. The root of the word democracy is the Greek  word demos, the people. Power does not rest in the hands of the people in America, and never has.

Taboo-truths.blogspot.com

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com

What Happens If Rick Santorum Becomes President

One country headed by a religious fundamentalist starts a war with another country headed by a religious fundamentalist.

That is, the U.S. attacks Iran, as Santorum has promised.

Taboo-truths.blogspot.com

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com

Israel Tries To Lie U.S. Into Bombing Iran

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s vice prime minister and minister of strategic affairs, said in a speech in Israel that Iran is developing a missile with a range of 6,000 miles to attack the U.S. with.

American officials think that’s bunk.

The obvious motive is to con the U.S. into bombing Iran. (Like Senator John McCain literally sang about doing when he was running for President in 2008.)

With “allies” like these…

But actually Israel has often made itself useful to the U.S., by bolstering the worst regimes in the world, regimes with such a putrid political odor that the U.S. has at times handed off the chore of supplying them with arms and training for their state terrorists to Israel. Somoza, Guatemala, the apartheid regime, Argentina, are all examples of this.

This is truly an alliance made in hell, an alliance between two devils.

Of course, the Iranian regime is pretty loathsome too.

I guess the best thing that could happen might be a war in which they mess each other up.

Unfortunately the big losers in that will be the people who will bear the brunt of the suffering, the Iranian people. (Especially the way the U.S. fights wars- it is willing to maximize “enemy” civilian casualties to minimize its own military ones- which is criminal under the laws of war. So go try and arrest them!

Taboo-truths.blogspot.com

Jasonzenith.blogspot.com