For those old enough to remember a different time, the changes in technology, shopping habits and its effect on the economy have been both fascinating and disconcerting. DVD was a nifty invention, but it would have been even niftier if was around thirty years ago, back when contemporary films that I now regard as indispensible were released on those bulky Laser Discs (and the studio, not mercurial filmmakers like George Lucas, had control of release decisions). However, I was still young when CDs appeared, so what would become the digital age of entertainment media wasn’t a complete surprise. Back in the day, if you wanted home entertainment beyond offerings on television, you went to the record or video rental store, and they were everywhere; not that television back then didn’t produce quality programming—talented writers and producers were in abundance, and some even had a sharp sense of the political and social times. Today, even with a hundred channels, I have a hard time finding anything to keep me from being bored, except on Sunday during the NFL season or when the History Channel has another five-hour block devoted to the Nazis. Too much television today is like Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”—strip away all the techno wizardry, it’s mostly just bullshit; worse for an information-challenged populace, even with three cable news channels the only place where you can find in-depth news-gathering is on an occasional PBS’ “Frontline” special.
Anyways, the CD format was a sales-driver, because it didn’t merely replace vinyl, but drove people to replace their existing collection with what was regarded as a superior and more durable format (I have CDs 25 years old that still play like new; given my sloppy habits, vinyl would have no chance. There could be a half dozen different retailers specializing in records with several outlets in town; you could always count on Tower Records having virtually anything you were looking for, and some things you were not looking for staring you in the face. Music—and then video—sales were big business, and these stores kept a great many people employed.
It isn’t like that today. The digital era has gone electronic. All you have to do is go on a computer and there are hundreds or even thousands of online sellers (some more reputable than others), and if its ever been released, it is out there somewhere. You don’t have to drive or walk to a store anymore. Just type in the credit card number and your on easy street. You don’t have to actually have something in your hands that you have time to mull over whether or not you actually want to waste money on it; Amazon knows that, because it doesn’t allow people to cancel an order five minutes after you hit the “confirm” button. You don’t even have to purchase whole records anymore; just listen to a brief snippet of a list of songs and download the ones you think you like. But it’s actually even worse than that for product producers and sellers: you can download virtually anything you want for free, if you look hard enough.
According to a recent report by the RIAA, in 1991 there were 9,500 retail outlets dedicated to pre-recorded entertainment media; in 2006, the number had been reduced to 2,000—most of which were small specialty shops. Virtually all the major record chains, like Tower, Wherehouse, Sam Goody and others have gone bankrupt, are on-line only, or simply disappeared. In 2000, 785 million CD albums were still being sold, and the DVD format was in its third year, and videophiles like myself were eager to stock-up on favorite films; for a few years, every Tuesday I would head to Tower Records and find as many as ten new catalogue titles on sale that I “needed” to have. But purchasing dynamics would change dramatically within just a few years. Recordable CDs , mp3s, the internet and DVRs was one factor; by 2009, CD sales had fallen by nearly 50 percent, and most of those sales were made in Wal-Mart or Best Buy which had only a limited selection. Record store chains have also went south because of high CD prices; record companies justified the continuing high prices of CDs—almost alone among electronic media that has actually risen in price as it matured instead of declining—on making-up the difference in lost sales from piracy and illegal downloading. Yet it has given sweet deals to big-box retail outlets like Wal-Mart, which sells CDs at a discount because CDs (and DVDs) are not seen as a money-makers themselves, but because they generate foot traffic in areas where profit is made.
Another factor in the decline of both stores and sales was that the fact of mostly poor and uninspiring product being put out—and less of it, as if that is supposed to help sales. According to a Business Week story, Nathan Brackett of Rolling Stone magazine stated that “The music industry's [modus operandi] is to throw things against the wall and see what sticks. If they're throwing 20 percent less stuff out there, there's less chance something will stick.” So much of music these days is mindlessly repetitive (rap, hip-hop), ragingly derivative (country) or just plain dull (rock, pop), that whether something sticks or not is almost a matter of indifference, meaningless beyond simply being background noise. The same with DVDs; once movie studios started to curtail issuing back catalogue titles, true vidoephiles who were the mostly reliable customers simply curtailed their purchases because of the quizzical quality of current films (see above Pink Floyd reference).
In other words, record and movie producers don’t really care about finding out what the public really wants, outside the teen demographic. It is true that younger audiences with different “tastes” are almost completely immune to the effects of musical creativity, adult story-telling and quality writing; we can see this on MTV and VH1, where it is virtually impossible to find music anymore, and even on the so-called American Movie Classics channel, where it is almost impossible for a younger demographic to be exposed to actual classic vintage films. Almost all contemporary “entertainment” these days is mostly self-indulgent with little lasting emotional impact. So there is simply little worthy of expending limited funds on. In an article in the New York Times last year on the closing of the Virgin Megastore, one of the last large record stores in the city, one former customer admitted that though he liked to go to the record store, “I don’t really buy stuff from it, but it’s a really cool place.”
The record store is just one example of how what appears to be technological advancement also may have a net negative effect on employment and the economy. The newspaper business has been an obvious victim, as well as bookstores; there is a Border’s Books and a Barns and Nobles in downtown Seattle, but on most days they seem virtually empty. I don’t visit them much anymore, not because some of the employees are conceited and rude, but because more likely than not they don’t have what I’m looking for anyways. I can order books or DVDs in the store, but why do I need to waste time walking to a store if I can simply go online on my own computer?
Closing these stores, naturally, means job losses. The question then is if on-line retailing is replacing those lost jobs. It is hard to pin down statistics on that subject; retail sales make-up a little over $4 trillion of the GDP, of which between 3 and 4 percent is labeled “e-commerce.” Music and films would naturally be more susceptible than big-ticket items, since people would prefer to “inspect” such items before they purchase them. But having once worked in an apparel warehouse, it is my impression that even doubling of sales only requires modest modifications in employee hiring numbers, if any at all. This is just one reason why the economy must adapt by diversifying into uncharted waters--like green energy--in order to create new employment opportunities.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Boehner has a "plan"--he just won't tell you what it is until after the election
On the “Meet The Press” on Sunday, House minority leader John Boehner twisted himself in knots while talking himself in circles trying to avoid giving moderator David Gregory a straight answer to relatively simple questions. Boehner offered the usual over-broad talking points without the slightest hint of detail. When he talked tax cuts, the crocodile tears he shed over working people was fairly maddening, because we know that he is really talking about continuing the Bush tax cuts for wealthy individuals and giant corporations. Perhaps Boehner was suffering from a brain cramp when he failed to acknowledge that Obama had already cut taxes last year for people and businesses making under $250,000—which the Republicans opposed—while the Senate Republicans just blocked tax breaks for small businesses. Gregory repeatedly pressed Boehner on how he was going to pay for the kind of tax cuts he (really) had in mind if, in fact, he wasn’t just being a gasbag about bringing down the federal deficit; Boehner just as repeatedly refused to answer the question, claiming that Gregory was just playing the Washington, D.C. “game.”
Boehner was then asked for details on what exactly was the Republican’s “plan” to strengthen the economy and bring down the deficit; Boehner again refused to offer specifics. Boehner, in fact, inadvertently implied that the Republican “plan”—if in fact they had a plan at all—was something that working people might not take kindly too, like even more massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and repealing the financial reform package that most Americans support (Sen. Patty Murray’s Republican opponent in Washington state, Dino Rossi, promises to help do just that if elected). Why else would Boehner say that the Republicans had no intention of offering a “plan” outside their standard talking points until after the mid-term elections? What are they afraid of? What is it that they don’t want the electorate to know? Haven’t the Republicans repeatedly told us that Democrats are not “listening” to the American people, and they are? Or have they only been “listening” to the half-wits in the Tea Party movement, who only repeat what Sean Hannity tells them to think and say?
To his credit, Gregory continued to press Boehner on the apparently non-existent Republican plan outside the increasingly irritating tax-cut mantra. Finally, Boehner mumbled something about using TARP money to bring down the deficit, which is not exactly feasible since it is merely phony money created by the FED, and freezing discretionary spending, which Obama supports but Boehner suddenly decided should be at 2008 instead of 2010 levels. Interestingly, the Republicans oppose a “debt commission” to find ways of bringing down the deficit, because they are afraid the commission might recommend tax increases on their upper-crust supporters.
But wait: the Republicans do have one “solid” idea up their fundaments—raising the retirement age to 70. Most of the Republicans' wealthy friends (and all former Senators and Congresspersons with their automatic government pensions) can retire comfortably any time they please, so ramifications on the average working stiff is of little concern. It is also true that the average life-expectancy of African-American males is under 70; in their smoke-filled rooms, the party of white is no doubt congratulating themselves on this sly money-saving scheme.
When it was noted that Boehner also supports examining the native-born citizen clause in the 14th Amendment, he couldn’t be pinned-down if he supports a Constitutional amendment repealing the clause; the fact is that opening this can-of-worms would create far more headaches than it solves, particularly when some of those children are born of undocumented Europeans and Asians—and we don’t want to be hypocrites about this, do we? Boehner did, however, repeat the insipid racist line that “Mexicans” were coming to the country for the purpose of having babies born here, and U.S. hospitals and public facilities were being “overwhelmed” by illegals—when in fact the opposite is true; undocumented workers tend to avoid using public supports to avoid notice, and as I’ve indicated in a previous post, credible studies (rather than bigots' “beliefs”) show that the taxes that undocumented workers pay account for a net surplus on public coffers.
But let’s get down to cold, hard reality. Republicans don’t “get it.” They didn’t “get it” on tax cuts and the deficit during the Reagan administration. They didn’t “get it” during the Bush administration. When Boehner tells us that they can’t tell us what their “plan” is until after the election, that means that they really don’t have any new ideas at all. They know that the people they claim that they are “listening” to (outside the tea-baggers) don’t want more tax cuts for the fattest cats, or more deregulation, or more “marketplace” solutions to environmental and energy issues. We’ve seen all that before, and it has been a disaster now and will be even worse in the future. Thinking voters must wrap their minds around the reality that Republicans simply cannot be trusted.
Boehner was then asked for details on what exactly was the Republican’s “plan” to strengthen the economy and bring down the deficit; Boehner again refused to offer specifics. Boehner, in fact, inadvertently implied that the Republican “plan”—if in fact they had a plan at all—was something that working people might not take kindly too, like even more massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and repealing the financial reform package that most Americans support (Sen. Patty Murray’s Republican opponent in Washington state, Dino Rossi, promises to help do just that if elected). Why else would Boehner say that the Republicans had no intention of offering a “plan” outside their standard talking points until after the mid-term elections? What are they afraid of? What is it that they don’t want the electorate to know? Haven’t the Republicans repeatedly told us that Democrats are not “listening” to the American people, and they are? Or have they only been “listening” to the half-wits in the Tea Party movement, who only repeat what Sean Hannity tells them to think and say?
To his credit, Gregory continued to press Boehner on the apparently non-existent Republican plan outside the increasingly irritating tax-cut mantra. Finally, Boehner mumbled something about using TARP money to bring down the deficit, which is not exactly feasible since it is merely phony money created by the FED, and freezing discretionary spending, which Obama supports but Boehner suddenly decided should be at 2008 instead of 2010 levels. Interestingly, the Republicans oppose a “debt commission” to find ways of bringing down the deficit, because they are afraid the commission might recommend tax increases on their upper-crust supporters.
But wait: the Republicans do have one “solid” idea up their fundaments—raising the retirement age to 70. Most of the Republicans' wealthy friends (and all former Senators and Congresspersons with their automatic government pensions) can retire comfortably any time they please, so ramifications on the average working stiff is of little concern. It is also true that the average life-expectancy of African-American males is under 70; in their smoke-filled rooms, the party of white is no doubt congratulating themselves on this sly money-saving scheme.
When it was noted that Boehner also supports examining the native-born citizen clause in the 14th Amendment, he couldn’t be pinned-down if he supports a Constitutional amendment repealing the clause; the fact is that opening this can-of-worms would create far more headaches than it solves, particularly when some of those children are born of undocumented Europeans and Asians—and we don’t want to be hypocrites about this, do we? Boehner did, however, repeat the insipid racist line that “Mexicans” were coming to the country for the purpose of having babies born here, and U.S. hospitals and public facilities were being “overwhelmed” by illegals—when in fact the opposite is true; undocumented workers tend to avoid using public supports to avoid notice, and as I’ve indicated in a previous post, credible studies (rather than bigots' “beliefs”) show that the taxes that undocumented workers pay account for a net surplus on public coffers.
But let’s get down to cold, hard reality. Republicans don’t “get it.” They didn’t “get it” on tax cuts and the deficit during the Reagan administration. They didn’t “get it” during the Bush administration. When Boehner tells us that they can’t tell us what their “plan” is until after the election, that means that they really don’t have any new ideas at all. They know that the people they claim that they are “listening” to (outside the tea-baggers) don’t want more tax cuts for the fattest cats, or more deregulation, or more “marketplace” solutions to environmental and energy issues. We’ve seen all that before, and it has been a disaster now and will be even worse in the future. Thinking voters must wrap their minds around the reality that Republicans simply cannot be trusted.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Hurricane Katrina aftermath's real "dark side"
After the failure of local authorities to deal with the case, six New Orleans police officers have been charged in federal court with either murder or conspiring to cover-up the murder of two unarmed black men (one mentally-disabled) on the Danziger Bridge, and wounding four others in an incident a few days after Hurricane Katrina hit. Five other officers plead guilty to being involved in what they admit were unjustified shootings. In another incident, hate crime charges have been leveled against a white man who one witness described as devolving into a rabid animal as he sought black “looters” to shoot and kill; he shot and severely wounded at least one man, and may have been responsible for other black men found shot dead in the vicinity. According to the witness, “It was like he got the taste of blood, and he was out for more.” Again, local officials had done nothing to prosecute the man. In another incident, caught on tape, a 66-year-old black man, merely seeking information, was beaten bloody by two police officers; once more, these officers were not held to account.
These were not the only incidents of where humanity took a backseat. The right-wing media liked to portray the stranded black population in the city in barbaric terms, but it was the so-called “civilized” people who turned-out to be less human. Take the case of Dr. Anna Pou, who a New Orleans grand jury, not unexpectedly it seems, refused to indict on murder charges. Pou had been accused of euthanizing patients in her care so that she could make her escape in the days after Katrina; two nurses testified that she administered or directed them to administer lethal doses of morphine or the sedative midazolam.
Pou claimed that the patients were not likely to live out the aftermath of the storm once the power went out, and were suffering unendurable pain. But in a New York Times story last year on the case, new information reveals a much more sickening spectacle that greeted relief workers: 45 decomposing bodies were found, many of them left in a makeshift morgue in the Memorial Medical Center’s chapel—suggesting that many more people may have been euthanized against their will. Pou would claim that “informed consent” was impossible in the conditions, and justified her own actions under the premise that the sickest or more severely injured people were to be evacuated last—if at all. That is to say, save yourself, and let the rest die—with the proviso of making their deaths as “painless” as possible, if you can get away with it.
Although it is possible that Pou was not the only doctor at the hospital involved in the euthanasia, she seemed to be the most “enthusiastic.” Pou appeared to be “energetic and jumped into the center of the action” while patients were being “categorized” for fitness for immediate evacuation, with 3 being the “least” fit. Pou took personal charge of category 3 patients that were still left on the seventh floor of the hospital. After most of the hospital had been evacuated, Pou was left to her own devises on what to do with these remaining patients. The Orleans Parish coroner, Dr. Frank Minyard, would later testify that he was surprised about how many of Pou’s “patients” were not suffering from pain issues, yet they were given lethal doses of pain medication.
After the grand jury verdict, Pou took to touring the country to try to justify her actions, with some success, it seems. She was even able to help craft laws that makes it difficult to charge doctors with crimes or sue them for involvement in involuntary euthanasia during natural disasters. Most doctors everywhere declare her a “hero,” or at least don’t pass judgment. But for those who take simple human decency into account, the smell of inhumanity is as powerful as the one that greeted those workers who first discovered the grisly spectacle.
These were not the only incidents of where humanity took a backseat. The right-wing media liked to portray the stranded black population in the city in barbaric terms, but it was the so-called “civilized” people who turned-out to be less human. Take the case of Dr. Anna Pou, who a New Orleans grand jury, not unexpectedly it seems, refused to indict on murder charges. Pou had been accused of euthanizing patients in her care so that she could make her escape in the days after Katrina; two nurses testified that she administered or directed them to administer lethal doses of morphine or the sedative midazolam.
Pou claimed that the patients were not likely to live out the aftermath of the storm once the power went out, and were suffering unendurable pain. But in a New York Times story last year on the case, new information reveals a much more sickening spectacle that greeted relief workers: 45 decomposing bodies were found, many of them left in a makeshift morgue in the Memorial Medical Center’s chapel—suggesting that many more people may have been euthanized against their will. Pou would claim that “informed consent” was impossible in the conditions, and justified her own actions under the premise that the sickest or more severely injured people were to be evacuated last—if at all. That is to say, save yourself, and let the rest die—with the proviso of making their deaths as “painless” as possible, if you can get away with it.
Although it is possible that Pou was not the only doctor at the hospital involved in the euthanasia, she seemed to be the most “enthusiastic.” Pou appeared to be “energetic and jumped into the center of the action” while patients were being “categorized” for fitness for immediate evacuation, with 3 being the “least” fit. Pou took personal charge of category 3 patients that were still left on the seventh floor of the hospital. After most of the hospital had been evacuated, Pou was left to her own devises on what to do with these remaining patients. The Orleans Parish coroner, Dr. Frank Minyard, would later testify that he was surprised about how many of Pou’s “patients” were not suffering from pain issues, yet they were given lethal doses of pain medication.
After the grand jury verdict, Pou took to touring the country to try to justify her actions, with some success, it seems. She was even able to help craft laws that makes it difficult to charge doctors with crimes or sue them for involvement in involuntary euthanasia during natural disasters. Most doctors everywhere declare her a “hero,” or at least don’t pass judgment. But for those who take simple human decency into account, the smell of inhumanity is as powerful as the one that greeted those workers who first discovered the grisly spectacle.
Land of the incarcerated
In a recent cover story in The Economist, the author observes that for a country that styles itself as the “Land of the Free,” the U.S. incarcerates more people than any other Western country—at a rate of one in every 100 people at any given time, and a rather shocking one in nine young African-Americans males. Although not noted in the article, the “tough on crime” trend that began around 1970 can be attributed to the first Nixon administration, when the right played to public alarm over anti-war youths rampaging in the streets, increased drug use, riots in urban ghettos and confrontations with police. Since then, crime and punishment has been politicized to the point where it is observed that:
“… crime became an emotive political issue and voters took to backing politicians who promised to stamp on it. This created a ratchet effect: lawmakers who wish to sound tough must propose laws tougher than the ones that the last chap who wanted to sound tough proposed. When the crime rate falls, tough sentences are hailed as the cause, even when demography or other factors may matter more; when the rate rises tough sentences are demanded to solve the problem. As a result, America’s incarceration rate has quadrupled since 1970.”
I disagree with the articles’ premise that white collar crime is not really all that serious and should not end in prison sentences, but there is considerable merit in the criticism of locking-up people who did not know they even committed a crime, based on arcane laws that nobody realizes are still on the books. There is also merit in the criticism of filling prisons with and incarcerating for long periods non-violent drug offenders, including small-time dealers; when are we going to admit that the cost-to-benefit ratio for the “war on drugs” is vastly skewed to cost? And how many young people have smoked pot or did some minor “accidental” property damage that are “crimes” only because they were caught doing it, not because there was a “victim” involved?
Improving economic and educational opportunities for the most vulnerable demographics, shortening the sentences and “humanizing” the prison experience for non-violent offenders seems to be something a majority of the public is aghast at. Either you’re brain is wired this way or that way. It would rather see someone like Joe Arpaio humiliate prisoners (many of them merely victims of another one of his traffic violation “sweeps”) for his own perverted pleasure, and harden them even more against his version of a “law and order” society.
I have this other idea, and it goes something like this: People in this country, mainly white, view incarceration as a convenient means to reduce the number of the people (mainly minority) who have to be reckoned with when passing out the nation’s spoils. Crazy, I know; but that is the net effect of it.
“… crime became an emotive political issue and voters took to backing politicians who promised to stamp on it. This created a ratchet effect: lawmakers who wish to sound tough must propose laws tougher than the ones that the last chap who wanted to sound tough proposed. When the crime rate falls, tough sentences are hailed as the cause, even when demography or other factors may matter more; when the rate rises tough sentences are demanded to solve the problem. As a result, America’s incarceration rate has quadrupled since 1970.”
I disagree with the articles’ premise that white collar crime is not really all that serious and should not end in prison sentences, but there is considerable merit in the criticism of locking-up people who did not know they even committed a crime, based on arcane laws that nobody realizes are still on the books. There is also merit in the criticism of filling prisons with and incarcerating for long periods non-violent drug offenders, including small-time dealers; when are we going to admit that the cost-to-benefit ratio for the “war on drugs” is vastly skewed to cost? And how many young people have smoked pot or did some minor “accidental” property damage that are “crimes” only because they were caught doing it, not because there was a “victim” involved?
Improving economic and educational opportunities for the most vulnerable demographics, shortening the sentences and “humanizing” the prison experience for non-violent offenders seems to be something a majority of the public is aghast at. Either you’re brain is wired this way or that way. It would rather see someone like Joe Arpaio humiliate prisoners (many of them merely victims of another one of his traffic violation “sweeps”) for his own perverted pleasure, and harden them even more against his version of a “law and order” society.
I have this other idea, and it goes something like this: People in this country, mainly white, view incarceration as a convenient means to reduce the number of the people (mainly minority) who have to be reckoned with when passing out the nation’s spoils. Crazy, I know; but that is the net effect of it.
The never-ending fight
I was checking out the latest on the hate front on the Southern Poverty Law Center website when I learned about a “novel” published in 1973 entitled “The Camp of the Saints,” by a Frenchmen named Jean Raspail. It is essentially the French version of the racist xenophobe’s nightmarish vision “The Turner Diaries”—except that it is even more vile. It portrays France being “invaded” by vast armada of mostly East Indians (yeah, it’s insane), and how all the whites are wiped-out because a few still cling to such evil things as Christian charity and human rights. Raspail was moved to write this book because, he says in the book’s introduction, that he feared for the survival of the white race when it was so vastly out-numbered in the world by the blacks, browns and yellows. This novel was a “parable” about what might happen if western nations allowed the presence of dark-skinned, sexually voracious subhumanoids in any quantity. Raspail was quoted in 1982 as claiming that "the proliferation of other races dooms our race, my race, to extinction in the century to come, if we hold fast to our present moral principles." The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that while the book “was widely reviled in Europe, its translation in English was greeted with excited reviews like the one in The Wall Street Journal that said the book had moments ‘of appalling power and occasionally a terrible beauty.’”
Here are some examples of the “terrible beauty” of the book, courtesy of an SPLCenter reseacher who had to foul his or her hands with it:
“[As the refugee fleet arrives on French shores, a noble old professor kills a fellow white who is depicted as having sold out his race and civilization. Afterwards, as he celebrates the killing, the professor reflects on the loss of white pride.] The old professor understood. That scorn of a people for other races, the knowledge that one's own is best, the triumphant joy at feeling oneself to be part of humanity's finest — none of that had ever filled these [white] youngsters' brains, or at least so little that the monstrous cancer [of compassion for other races] implanted in the Western conscience had quashed it in no time at all.”
“[At one point, a French town, faced with the threat of diseased foreigners, issues an edict requiring Arabs to get a certificate of health before using its public swimming pools.] Retaliation took many forms. ... A hundred nice French girls, teaching school in Algeria, were suddenly hauled into the hospital and spread on the stirrups to be plumbed and explored by a squad of medical student commandos, whipped up to a frenzy. Two of them died as a result... .”
“[The book repeatedly characterizes non-whites as sexual carnivores, as in this scene aboard the refugee fleet that is heading for Europe.] But in time, very slowly, the flesh [aboard the ships] began to seethe. ... Perhaps it was the heat... Most of all, the natural drive of a people who never found sex to be sin. ... [E]verywhere, a mass of hands and mouths, of phalluses and rumps. ... Young boys, passed from hand to hand. Young girls, barely ripe ... waking to the silent play of eager lips. ... Men with women, men with men, women with women, men with children... . And so, in a welter of dung and debauch — and hope as well — the Last Chance Armada pushed on toward the West.”
“[As the Third World slaughter of whites picks up speed, the book describes a scene in a pig-processing plant in which a black man slaughters his white boss after being asked to kill pigs more quickly.] "Sure 'nough boss," one red-spattered black said, "we can sure 'nough do one more at least..." The white man felt no more pain than any of the other pigs on the line. Stunned, hoisted, slaughtered. ... [Hung from a hook, the murdered boss' body] caused ... no special disgust [among the black workers]. They had seen such things before, after all. At market, in the Congo.”
“[As the novel nears its end, Lydie, depicted as a traitor to her white race, becomes a sexual plaything for the dark-skinned refugees who have now seized power.] Lydie ... died in Nice, in a whorehouse for Hindus... . At the time, each refugee quarter had its stock of white women, all free for the taking. (One of the new regime's laws, in fact. In order to "demythify" white women, as they put it.) ... [In the end, Lydie, along with other white female sex slaves, is confined by the "Hindus" to their] ‘White Female Practice and Experimentation Center.’”
“[The novel ends where it began, with the arrival of the refugee fleet in France.] [F]irst to land were the monsters, the grotesque little beggars from the streets of Calcutta. As they groveled through the wet sand like a pack of basset hounds, or a herd of clumsy seals exploring an unfamiliar shore, with their snorts and grunts of joy, they looked like an army of little green men from some remote planet. ... Yes, the country [France] would suit them fine. No question.”
I was curious about something, and sure enough, Amazon sells this book too. It received mostly “positive” reviews, although judging from the fact that it is only the 23,000th most popular book in sales, the 83 people who reviewed the book are probably the only ones who bought it. What I find fascinating about the reviews of these hate screeds is that people who are uncritical of their premise tend to be viewed as more “helpful” than those with a more critical and reasoned approach—in fact, the latter is apparently viewed as “unhelpful” simply because they refuse to take paranoid racialist fantasies at face value. Non-whites have no “secret plan” to take over the Western World just so they can rape all the white women (now you know why I am no feminist sympathizer), they just want to fit-in and live—that is, if whites not inclined to do so will accept the fact that they are actually human beings just like they are, and treat them that way. Non-whites don’t have an problem with assimilating and advancing—whites of the "rational discrimination" variety do, because of their sense of racial “privilege.”
The “popularity” of books of this nature in this country are easily translated into the racist fantasies the “natives” have in regard to “Mexicans.” I occasionally listen to the radio program “Coast-to-Coast,” not because I want to be “informed,” but because I want to be entertained. The show specializes in conspiracy theories and the paranormal, and Art Bell once admitted that 50 percent of it was “bullshit.” With George Noory at the helm, 90 percent of it is bullshit, but at least most of it is entertaining bullshit; on rare occasions, such as on environmental issues, intelligent conversation might actually take place. But once Noory detours into the political and social realms, in combination with the fantasies and conspiracy theories his guests offer as fact, right-wing extremism is very much in evidence.
Last night, Noory had on couple of guests exposing the horrible “truth” about Mexican immigrants, gangs, drugs, violence etc. etc. etc. Only when called-out by a few callers on their racism did they backtrack and say they were not suggesting that ALL Mexican immigrants were violent criminals. One thing that was clear was that the illegal immigration was only a “Mexican” problem for these paranoids. One caller noted that he lived in the North East, and all he saw were these Russian illegal immigrants who were engaged in drugs, money-laundering, car theft and prostitutions (sort of like the Italian mafia); he also noted that Russian mob influence in the country was very strong; frankly, I personally have wondered why the media or law enforcement never investigated the possible Russian mob connections of the murderer of Bill Cosby’s son. The caller also noted that he lived in neighborhood peppered with street signs in Russian, and sometimes he had a hard time figuring out where he was, One of Noory’s guests admitted that the Russian mob did have a presence in the U.S., but was a story for another time.
Perhaps that time was never on his mind to begin with, because the next caller wondered why he was only talking about Mexicans, and the guest became angry and proceeded to erupt with a string of what he termed “facts”: 85 percent of all illegal immigrants were Mexican, and there were 12 to 14 million of them. It’s almost all a Mexican problem, that’s why he doesn’t talk about other illegals. He went on to further inflate that number to 20 million, allegedly costing the country $346 billion every year. Before long, after Noory suggested (to his credit, perhaps concerned about being labeled a racist himself) that we ought to throw out all the criminals and grant the people who are here working hard a path to citizenship, the guest revealed his true motive by declaring the fear that “Mexicans” might form the greater part of a non-white majority by 2050. We needed to secure the boarder before we even think about immigration reform, he continued. But as Janet Napolitano has noted, the anti-immigration forces’ definition of what “secure borders” means is a moving target.
A friendlier caller suggested that people who opposed the Arizona law were “heartless” because they didn’t “understand” the “suffering” that (white) Arizonans were feeling. Naturally, there was no mention of the fact that the “suffering” that Arizonans were feeling is largely to due to the heartless and incompetent Republican ruling party in the state with their foolish yearly tax cutting policies, and the failure to diversify the economy, which had largely “grown” from the influx of retirees looking for fine weather, and who otherwise contributed little to the economy. Illegal immigrants in fact filled a labor void in the country until the real estate collapse hurt construction.
As far as the rest of those “facts” are concerned, at least we know from where that xenophobe Lou Dobbs got his. The latest credible studies estimate that there are 10.8 millions illegals in the country, maybe less since the economic downturn. According to a Pew Foundation study, 75 percent are from Latin America. Half of those are from Mexico (about 4.5 million) and most of the rest are from Central America, the scene of brutal right-wing murder regimes supported by the U.S. over the decades.
The only intelligent point made was that the “war on drugs” was an abject failure, and the need to begin depoliticizing the issue. Decriminalization would stop much if not all of the violence associated with the drug trade, but it was suggested—perhaps rightly—that governments and banks do not wish to end the lucrative off-the-books money-laundering trade. And while I agree that we have to stop illegal immigration, that cannot be done without a comprehensive strategy that includes stabilizing and backing policies that end economic inequities in Latin America (rather than backing right-wing regimes that hoard all a nation’s wealth), and instituting an intelligent and less onerous work visa program that makes it less likely for migrant workers to overstay in the country. The fact that the U.S. prefers to fly in thousands of immigrant workers from Asia and Africa instead of granting work visas to long-time laborers forced off the job on farms shows that it really is about being anti-Latino.
Returning to Noory’s guests and their unsubstantiated assertions, the numerous myths passed on as “facts” by even the mainstream media in regard to illegal immigration merely poisons in the public mind concerning any thought to addressing the issues that have led to the “problem.” The infamous claim by Dobbs concerning the “deadly import” of 7,000 cases of leprosy first originated with a nativist named Madeleine Cosman, who also claimed that “most” Latino men molest white girls under 12 years of age (that must be why every time I walk past a white parent with a 4-year-old daughter, they wake-up as if out of trance and speedily race away to insure that the kid is safely out of “harm’s way”). There are also studies by credible sources (like university researchers, not people enlarging their “beliefs”) who dispute the various commonly-held theories such as undocumented workers “steal” jobs that would otherwise have gone to natives, depress wages, and cost a “fortune” in social programs without contributing a dime. A University of Texas study, for example, showed that there is a net profit made in state coffers made from illegal immigrants in the state. A recent article in Newsweek also disputed the commonly-held notion that illegal immigrants are a drain on the economy and public services, and a researcher named Francine Lipman at the Chapman University law school in California (hardly a name brand but ranked as having the 17th best tax law program in the country by U.S. News and World Report) found that
“Undocumented immigrants living in the United States are subject to the same income tax laws as documented immigrants and U.S. citizens. However, because of their status most unauthorized workers pay a higher effective tax rate than similarly situated documented or U.S. citizens. Yet, these workers and their families use fewer government services than similarly situated documented immigrants or U.S. citizens. Moreover, unauthorized workers have been denied remedies by the U.S. Supreme Court under the National Labor Relations Act and may be challenged to receive protection under wage and hour, anti-discrimination and workers' compensation laws. As a result, undocumented immigrants provide a fiscal windfall and may be the most fiscally beneficial of all immigrants.”
Disputing the theory that all “Mexican” immigrants are violent criminals, The SPLCenter quoted Robert J. Sampson, chairman of Harvard's sociology department. In a 2005 article in The American Journal of Health, Sampson found that “the rate of violence among Mexican Americans was significantly lower than among non-Latino white and black Americans.” Other studies appear to demonstrate that “second- and third-generation immigrants are significantly more criminal than their parents, suggesting that U.S. culture somehow eventually produces more, not less, criminality among its citizens.” Given the fact that 50 percent of all illegal immigrants who are incarcerated are imprisoned strictly on immigration charges, this suggests that criminality and violence among first-generation Latino immigrants (legal or not) is far lower than is commonly held, yet is an image perpetuated by the media—blatantly and without any hint of context.
And yet the racist misinformation continues, and people choose to believe it, because all they have is their “belief” based solely on prejudice and stereotypes. The fight goes on, and on, and on, endlessly it would seem.
Here are some examples of the “terrible beauty” of the book, courtesy of an SPLCenter reseacher who had to foul his or her hands with it:
“[As the refugee fleet arrives on French shores, a noble old professor kills a fellow white who is depicted as having sold out his race and civilization. Afterwards, as he celebrates the killing, the professor reflects on the loss of white pride.] The old professor understood. That scorn of a people for other races, the knowledge that one's own is best, the triumphant joy at feeling oneself to be part of humanity's finest — none of that had ever filled these [white] youngsters' brains, or at least so little that the monstrous cancer [of compassion for other races] implanted in the Western conscience had quashed it in no time at all.”
“[At one point, a French town, faced with the threat of diseased foreigners, issues an edict requiring Arabs to get a certificate of health before using its public swimming pools.] Retaliation took many forms. ... A hundred nice French girls, teaching school in Algeria, were suddenly hauled into the hospital and spread on the stirrups to be plumbed and explored by a squad of medical student commandos, whipped up to a frenzy. Two of them died as a result... .”
“[The book repeatedly characterizes non-whites as sexual carnivores, as in this scene aboard the refugee fleet that is heading for Europe.] But in time, very slowly, the flesh [aboard the ships] began to seethe. ... Perhaps it was the heat... Most of all, the natural drive of a people who never found sex to be sin. ... [E]verywhere, a mass of hands and mouths, of phalluses and rumps. ... Young boys, passed from hand to hand. Young girls, barely ripe ... waking to the silent play of eager lips. ... Men with women, men with men, women with women, men with children... . And so, in a welter of dung and debauch — and hope as well — the Last Chance Armada pushed on toward the West.”
“[As the Third World slaughter of whites picks up speed, the book describes a scene in a pig-processing plant in which a black man slaughters his white boss after being asked to kill pigs more quickly.] "Sure 'nough boss," one red-spattered black said, "we can sure 'nough do one more at least..." The white man felt no more pain than any of the other pigs on the line. Stunned, hoisted, slaughtered. ... [Hung from a hook, the murdered boss' body] caused ... no special disgust [among the black workers]. They had seen such things before, after all. At market, in the Congo.”
“[As the novel nears its end, Lydie, depicted as a traitor to her white race, becomes a sexual plaything for the dark-skinned refugees who have now seized power.] Lydie ... died in Nice, in a whorehouse for Hindus... . At the time, each refugee quarter had its stock of white women, all free for the taking. (One of the new regime's laws, in fact. In order to "demythify" white women, as they put it.) ... [In the end, Lydie, along with other white female sex slaves, is confined by the "Hindus" to their] ‘White Female Practice and Experimentation Center.’”
“[The novel ends where it began, with the arrival of the refugee fleet in France.] [F]irst to land were the monsters, the grotesque little beggars from the streets of Calcutta. As they groveled through the wet sand like a pack of basset hounds, or a herd of clumsy seals exploring an unfamiliar shore, with their snorts and grunts of joy, they looked like an army of little green men from some remote planet. ... Yes, the country [France] would suit them fine. No question.”
I was curious about something, and sure enough, Amazon sells this book too. It received mostly “positive” reviews, although judging from the fact that it is only the 23,000th most popular book in sales, the 83 people who reviewed the book are probably the only ones who bought it. What I find fascinating about the reviews of these hate screeds is that people who are uncritical of their premise tend to be viewed as more “helpful” than those with a more critical and reasoned approach—in fact, the latter is apparently viewed as “unhelpful” simply because they refuse to take paranoid racialist fantasies at face value. Non-whites have no “secret plan” to take over the Western World just so they can rape all the white women (now you know why I am no feminist sympathizer), they just want to fit-in and live—that is, if whites not inclined to do so will accept the fact that they are actually human beings just like they are, and treat them that way. Non-whites don’t have an problem with assimilating and advancing—whites of the "rational discrimination" variety do, because of their sense of racial “privilege.”
The “popularity” of books of this nature in this country are easily translated into the racist fantasies the “natives” have in regard to “Mexicans.” I occasionally listen to the radio program “Coast-to-Coast,” not because I want to be “informed,” but because I want to be entertained. The show specializes in conspiracy theories and the paranormal, and Art Bell once admitted that 50 percent of it was “bullshit.” With George Noory at the helm, 90 percent of it is bullshit, but at least most of it is entertaining bullshit; on rare occasions, such as on environmental issues, intelligent conversation might actually take place. But once Noory detours into the political and social realms, in combination with the fantasies and conspiracy theories his guests offer as fact, right-wing extremism is very much in evidence.
Last night, Noory had on couple of guests exposing the horrible “truth” about Mexican immigrants, gangs, drugs, violence etc. etc. etc. Only when called-out by a few callers on their racism did they backtrack and say they were not suggesting that ALL Mexican immigrants were violent criminals. One thing that was clear was that the illegal immigration was only a “Mexican” problem for these paranoids. One caller noted that he lived in the North East, and all he saw were these Russian illegal immigrants who were engaged in drugs, money-laundering, car theft and prostitutions (sort of like the Italian mafia); he also noted that Russian mob influence in the country was very strong; frankly, I personally have wondered why the media or law enforcement never investigated the possible Russian mob connections of the murderer of Bill Cosby’s son. The caller also noted that he lived in neighborhood peppered with street signs in Russian, and sometimes he had a hard time figuring out where he was, One of Noory’s guests admitted that the Russian mob did have a presence in the U.S., but was a story for another time.
Perhaps that time was never on his mind to begin with, because the next caller wondered why he was only talking about Mexicans, and the guest became angry and proceeded to erupt with a string of what he termed “facts”: 85 percent of all illegal immigrants were Mexican, and there were 12 to 14 million of them. It’s almost all a Mexican problem, that’s why he doesn’t talk about other illegals. He went on to further inflate that number to 20 million, allegedly costing the country $346 billion every year. Before long, after Noory suggested (to his credit, perhaps concerned about being labeled a racist himself) that we ought to throw out all the criminals and grant the people who are here working hard a path to citizenship, the guest revealed his true motive by declaring the fear that “Mexicans” might form the greater part of a non-white majority by 2050. We needed to secure the boarder before we even think about immigration reform, he continued. But as Janet Napolitano has noted, the anti-immigration forces’ definition of what “secure borders” means is a moving target.
A friendlier caller suggested that people who opposed the Arizona law were “heartless” because they didn’t “understand” the “suffering” that (white) Arizonans were feeling. Naturally, there was no mention of the fact that the “suffering” that Arizonans were feeling is largely to due to the heartless and incompetent Republican ruling party in the state with their foolish yearly tax cutting policies, and the failure to diversify the economy, which had largely “grown” from the influx of retirees looking for fine weather, and who otherwise contributed little to the economy. Illegal immigrants in fact filled a labor void in the country until the real estate collapse hurt construction.
As far as the rest of those “facts” are concerned, at least we know from where that xenophobe Lou Dobbs got his. The latest credible studies estimate that there are 10.8 millions illegals in the country, maybe less since the economic downturn. According to a Pew Foundation study, 75 percent are from Latin America. Half of those are from Mexico (about 4.5 million) and most of the rest are from Central America, the scene of brutal right-wing murder regimes supported by the U.S. over the decades.
The only intelligent point made was that the “war on drugs” was an abject failure, and the need to begin depoliticizing the issue. Decriminalization would stop much if not all of the violence associated with the drug trade, but it was suggested—perhaps rightly—that governments and banks do not wish to end the lucrative off-the-books money-laundering trade. And while I agree that we have to stop illegal immigration, that cannot be done without a comprehensive strategy that includes stabilizing and backing policies that end economic inequities in Latin America (rather than backing right-wing regimes that hoard all a nation’s wealth), and instituting an intelligent and less onerous work visa program that makes it less likely for migrant workers to overstay in the country. The fact that the U.S. prefers to fly in thousands of immigrant workers from Asia and Africa instead of granting work visas to long-time laborers forced off the job on farms shows that it really is about being anti-Latino.
Returning to Noory’s guests and their unsubstantiated assertions, the numerous myths passed on as “facts” by even the mainstream media in regard to illegal immigration merely poisons in the public mind concerning any thought to addressing the issues that have led to the “problem.” The infamous claim by Dobbs concerning the “deadly import” of 7,000 cases of leprosy first originated with a nativist named Madeleine Cosman, who also claimed that “most” Latino men molest white girls under 12 years of age (that must be why every time I walk past a white parent with a 4-year-old daughter, they wake-up as if out of trance and speedily race away to insure that the kid is safely out of “harm’s way”). There are also studies by credible sources (like university researchers, not people enlarging their “beliefs”) who dispute the various commonly-held theories such as undocumented workers “steal” jobs that would otherwise have gone to natives, depress wages, and cost a “fortune” in social programs without contributing a dime. A University of Texas study, for example, showed that there is a net profit made in state coffers made from illegal immigrants in the state. A recent article in Newsweek also disputed the commonly-held notion that illegal immigrants are a drain on the economy and public services, and a researcher named Francine Lipman at the Chapman University law school in California (hardly a name brand but ranked as having the 17th best tax law program in the country by U.S. News and World Report) found that
“Undocumented immigrants living in the United States are subject to the same income tax laws as documented immigrants and U.S. citizens. However, because of their status most unauthorized workers pay a higher effective tax rate than similarly situated documented or U.S. citizens. Yet, these workers and their families use fewer government services than similarly situated documented immigrants or U.S. citizens. Moreover, unauthorized workers have been denied remedies by the U.S. Supreme Court under the National Labor Relations Act and may be challenged to receive protection under wage and hour, anti-discrimination and workers' compensation laws. As a result, undocumented immigrants provide a fiscal windfall and may be the most fiscally beneficial of all immigrants.”
Disputing the theory that all “Mexican” immigrants are violent criminals, The SPLCenter quoted Robert J. Sampson, chairman of Harvard's sociology department. In a 2005 article in The American Journal of Health, Sampson found that “the rate of violence among Mexican Americans was significantly lower than among non-Latino white and black Americans.” Other studies appear to demonstrate that “second- and third-generation immigrants are significantly more criminal than their parents, suggesting that U.S. culture somehow eventually produces more, not less, criminality among its citizens.” Given the fact that 50 percent of all illegal immigrants who are incarcerated are imprisoned strictly on immigration charges, this suggests that criminality and violence among first-generation Latino immigrants (legal or not) is far lower than is commonly held, yet is an image perpetuated by the media—blatantly and without any hint of context.
And yet the racist misinformation continues, and people choose to believe it, because all they have is their “belief” based solely on prejudice and stereotypes. The fight goes on, and on, and on, endlessly it would seem.
Lunacy for sale
The online retailer Amazon is a place where people can find almost anything of a mainstream variety. But it is also a retailer that will do anything for a buck, even allowing itself to be used as a purveyor of the most atrocious, slanderous screeds. Most people wouldn’t know this, because they are just looking for the latest hit movie or bestselling book by a familiar author; generally they are looking for something that they believe is a worthwhile waster of time. They are not looking for the babbling, hate-filled droolings of the lunatic right fringe. But it’s there alright, hundreds of them (maybe thousands). I assume, for some reason, that Amazon doesn’t allow just anything into its warehouse, that it actually scrutinizes this material for fitness for average or below minds. But apparently not. If they think it will sell to some dismal demographic, they will allow it to foul its shelves. Amazon, in fact, doesn’t even bother to edit book descriptions of these tomes, where people named “Ingrid” from Denmark are quoted as if they have the status of literary scholars. Reviewers of these right-wing screeds appear regularly; and they say things like “I dare you to read this and discover the truth.” A rare “negative” review merely states that this was old news to the reviewer, and although she agreed with everything the author said, she was expecting new (i.e. more outrageous) “revelations.”
And so it happened that completely by accident I came upon a book entitled “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America” by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who are apparently a couple of fringe-right bloggers. It is a waste of time describing the book’s contents; if you’ve heard Mark Williams’ racist hysterics on CNN or Fox News, you get the general idea. There are tabs for people who wish to read like-minded tomes, and there are, as I stated before, literally hundreds or more of these pathetic mulings. Many of them are merely pamphlets, and the ones that are more “substantial” merely repeat the same right-wing conspiracy theories we have been hearing since at least the FDR administration. Obama has successfully managed a few less than radical initiatives like health care and finance reform, but otherwise has done little that can accused of being outside the status quo. Yet less than two years into Obama’s presidency, books containing nothing more than sheer racist fantasy—ideas that were already in the minds of hate fanatics (who have the absolute audacity to accuse Obama of being a racist) before Obama was even born, but this time only expanded into Twilight Zone territory.
I won’t waste time doing point-by-point analysis and counter-analysis with funny farm escapees, but I do think that the accusation that Obama is a Islamic Jihadist and anti-Semite—curious seeing that most hate-mongerers are anti-Semitic—deserves some rebuttal, since this seems to have gained some traction in “mainstream” circles, particularly since polls show that a quarter of the population thinks that Obama may be the anti-Christ. Outside his speech in Cairo, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton haven’t gone out of their way to make a noticeable dent in the status quo in Middle East. I am as strong a supporter of Israel as anyone, and I have not detected these so-called anti-Israel policies. And I’m not blind; Israel has embarrassed the U.S. more than a few times in the past year, particularly with the recent ship hijacking, and one may fairly ask what exactly is Israel’s long-term strategy as it continues to build settlements on the West Bank. Does it want peace, or does it intend to swallow-up the whole of the West Bank? I for one would like some clarity on the issue.
In any case, “people who bought this book also bought” the following, according to Amazon:
“The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran”
“Obama’s Betrayal of Israel”
“Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is subverting America without guns or bombs”
“The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists”
“Obama’s Radical Transformation of America (Year One)”
“How the Obama’s Administration Has Politicized Justice”
“How the Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security”
“How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections”
“How Barack Obama is Endangering Our National Sovereignty"
“How Obama is Transforming America Through Immigration”
“How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy” (There are about a dozen or so more of these “How—fill-in the blank—Obama Threatens” pamphlets; I’m wondering when the “How Obama will drain the Oceans” and “How Obama’s Space Alien Friends will Destroy the World” will appear.)
“The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency”
“Architects of Ruin: How big government liberals wrecked the global economy---and how they will do it again if no one stops them”
“The Obama Timeline: From his Birth in 1961 Through his First 100 Days in Office” (the book has a red cover with a sickle and hammer emblem)
And the list goes on and on and on. Obama has been president for less than two years, and he has done all of this? Sure has been a busy man, behind the scenes anyways. I am quite certain that no president in this country’s history has received such minute scrutiny in so short a time. And it’s all perfect nonsense. It is also fairly certain that this stuff is mother’s milk to the Tea Party movement.
And so it happened that completely by accident I came upon a book entitled “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America” by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, who are apparently a couple of fringe-right bloggers. It is a waste of time describing the book’s contents; if you’ve heard Mark Williams’ racist hysterics on CNN or Fox News, you get the general idea. There are tabs for people who wish to read like-minded tomes, and there are, as I stated before, literally hundreds or more of these pathetic mulings. Many of them are merely pamphlets, and the ones that are more “substantial” merely repeat the same right-wing conspiracy theories we have been hearing since at least the FDR administration. Obama has successfully managed a few less than radical initiatives like health care and finance reform, but otherwise has done little that can accused of being outside the status quo. Yet less than two years into Obama’s presidency, books containing nothing more than sheer racist fantasy—ideas that were already in the minds of hate fanatics (who have the absolute audacity to accuse Obama of being a racist) before Obama was even born, but this time only expanded into Twilight Zone territory.
I won’t waste time doing point-by-point analysis and counter-analysis with funny farm escapees, but I do think that the accusation that Obama is a Islamic Jihadist and anti-Semite—curious seeing that most hate-mongerers are anti-Semitic—deserves some rebuttal, since this seems to have gained some traction in “mainstream” circles, particularly since polls show that a quarter of the population thinks that Obama may be the anti-Christ. Outside his speech in Cairo, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton haven’t gone out of their way to make a noticeable dent in the status quo in Middle East. I am as strong a supporter of Israel as anyone, and I have not detected these so-called anti-Israel policies. And I’m not blind; Israel has embarrassed the U.S. more than a few times in the past year, particularly with the recent ship hijacking, and one may fairly ask what exactly is Israel’s long-term strategy as it continues to build settlements on the West Bank. Does it want peace, or does it intend to swallow-up the whole of the West Bank? I for one would like some clarity on the issue.
In any case, “people who bought this book also bought” the following, according to Amazon:
“The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran”
“Obama’s Betrayal of Israel”
“Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is subverting America without guns or bombs”
“The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists”
“Obama’s Radical Transformation of America (Year One)”
“How the Obama’s Administration Has Politicized Justice”
“How the Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security”
“How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections”
“How Barack Obama is Endangering Our National Sovereignty"
“How Obama is Transforming America Through Immigration”
“How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy” (There are about a dozen or so more of these “How—fill-in the blank—Obama Threatens” pamphlets; I’m wondering when the “How Obama will drain the Oceans” and “How Obama’s Space Alien Friends will Destroy the World” will appear.)
“The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency”
“Architects of Ruin: How big government liberals wrecked the global economy---and how they will do it again if no one stops them”
“The Obama Timeline: From his Birth in 1961 Through his First 100 Days in Office” (the book has a red cover with a sickle and hammer emblem)
And the list goes on and on and on. Obama has been president for less than two years, and he has done all of this? Sure has been a busy man, behind the scenes anyways. I am quite certain that no president in this country’s history has received such minute scrutiny in so short a time. And it’s all perfect nonsense. It is also fairly certain that this stuff is mother’s milk to the Tea Party movement.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Costumed clowns running the media
The Seattle Times ran yet another unenlightening story, this time borrowed from the Washington Post, on the latest shenanigans of the Tea Party movement. This time it is was about another bunch of pallid-faced “patriots” dressed-up in 1770’s garb and railing about the “dangerous times” we live in. Yawn. No one in the media ever bothers to tell these buffoons that if the times are “dangerous,” it is because of bigoted ignoramuses like themselves. Why doesn’t the media ask them why these times are any more dangerous than, say, the Bush years, when we had warrantless wiretapping and U.S. citizens were being tortured in Navy brigs? Why were those years any less dangerous, when “smart guys” were given full reign to gamble with the country’s financial institutions and the real-estate market, lining their bank accounts in the full knowledge that their greed was sending the country closer to the edge of economic ruin?
If these times are more “dangerous,” it is not because we have a “socialist” black president, it’s because we have extremists on the right who are not “patriots”—because they have no conception of nationhood and oppose the precepts of equality and justice this country was founded on. The line “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” should come with an asterisk: Only members of the founding father’s race apply. They exist in a xenophobic bubble. All they think about is guns, taxes and race. Period. They may talk about bailouts and deficits, but these are words that have no meaning unless they are used in conjunction with Democrats and “socialists,” especially a Democratic president who happens to be one of those racial interlopers.
The “mainstream” media is so craven these days. It never looks to see the rotted guts below the surface sheen. They find a bunch of costumed clowns with their simple-minded slogans and think there is a “story.” There is a “story,” except it isn’t the one that is being told. That story would include the fact that the Tea Party movement is nothing more than the same bunch of paranoid bigots who fear the loss of the “privilege” of doing whatever they damn well like, which includes, of course, expressing and acting on their prejudices; these people have come out of woodwork throughout the course of U.S. history, and usually in defense of the concept that not everyone has rights a “native” is bound to respect. They think that respecting other people’s rights and aspirations mean they have to give something up. Deep down in that dark place it really is only about themselves, not the country.
Since the media gives tea partiers as much airtime as they want, it doesn’t perceive the “silent majority” that simply wants the government to do what is necessary to put the country back on its feet, because they can’t do it themselves. It’s too “big” for them. What they don’t like is the fact that is all the name-calling and stonewalling and filibustering in Congress. They can’t understand why Obama wasted a whole year looking indecisive while trying to coddle Republicans whose only “idea” was obstruction. Name one piece of major legislation passed in Congress over the past two years with the country in economic turmoil that had more than three Republican votes. It isn’t because they didn’t have “input.” Their “input” helped craft a half-arsed health care bill, then refused to take ownership of their dirty little mitts’ handiwork. You had a Republican senator who helped craft the bill offering tax breaks for small businesses, and then backed-off from voting for it, for the unspoken reason that Republicans just don’t want to give Democrats a legislative “victory” before the mid-term elections. In other words, screw the country; Republicans are the only party in history that thinks that deliberately sabotaging the country will win them votes. And you know what? It does. Take, for example, an ad by Dino Rossi, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Washington. He claims, in a mild-mannered voice, that he is going to stop tax increases for working people and small businesses. This, of course, is yet another bit of bald-faced deception that has no basis in fact; the reality is that the tax break for small businesses that the Obama administration was pushing failed to get a single Republican vote. Nothing new here, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that tea partiers would be the first people we can expect to gobble-up this rotten meat whole. Say the word “taxes” regardless of the context, they attack like sharks whose minds are wired to do nothing but attack and feed.
Republicans claim that Obama wants to turn the country into a “socialist state. The Republicans, apparently, want the country to turn into a Third World backwater, with all the power and wealth in the hands of a few “elites.” And tea partiers are right there to help them do it, because they can’t see beyond two feet in front of their faces. We are not there yet, but if you want to know what the first phase would be like with tea partiers in control of the country, you don’t have to look any further than Arizona and Nevada. I’ve already talked about Arizona, where the Jurassic Park Republicans recently “addressed” their state budget issue by raising the sales tax—and then turning around and cutting income taxes, in effect sticking it to the poor while giving the well-off yet another “gift.” Nevada, meanwhile, leads the nation in just about every negative economic indicator, such as bankruptcies, foreclosures and now unemployment. It doesn’t help that the state is dependent on sales and “entertainment” taxes to fund the public sector, and that the state’s “big shots” have opposed any taxes on their income or regulations slowing the amount of money earned in the state from leaving the state. It was even reported recently that Pennsylvania collects more in casino taxes than Nevada. But that’s the tea partier way; let’s just gamble the country away.
If these times are more “dangerous,” it is not because we have a “socialist” black president, it’s because we have extremists on the right who are not “patriots”—because they have no conception of nationhood and oppose the precepts of equality and justice this country was founded on. The line “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” should come with an asterisk: Only members of the founding father’s race apply. They exist in a xenophobic bubble. All they think about is guns, taxes and race. Period. They may talk about bailouts and deficits, but these are words that have no meaning unless they are used in conjunction with Democrats and “socialists,” especially a Democratic president who happens to be one of those racial interlopers.
The “mainstream” media is so craven these days. It never looks to see the rotted guts below the surface sheen. They find a bunch of costumed clowns with their simple-minded slogans and think there is a “story.” There is a “story,” except it isn’t the one that is being told. That story would include the fact that the Tea Party movement is nothing more than the same bunch of paranoid bigots who fear the loss of the “privilege” of doing whatever they damn well like, which includes, of course, expressing and acting on their prejudices; these people have come out of woodwork throughout the course of U.S. history, and usually in defense of the concept that not everyone has rights a “native” is bound to respect. They think that respecting other people’s rights and aspirations mean they have to give something up. Deep down in that dark place it really is only about themselves, not the country.
Since the media gives tea partiers as much airtime as they want, it doesn’t perceive the “silent majority” that simply wants the government to do what is necessary to put the country back on its feet, because they can’t do it themselves. It’s too “big” for them. What they don’t like is the fact that is all the name-calling and stonewalling and filibustering in Congress. They can’t understand why Obama wasted a whole year looking indecisive while trying to coddle Republicans whose only “idea” was obstruction. Name one piece of major legislation passed in Congress over the past two years with the country in economic turmoil that had more than three Republican votes. It isn’t because they didn’t have “input.” Their “input” helped craft a half-arsed health care bill, then refused to take ownership of their dirty little mitts’ handiwork. You had a Republican senator who helped craft the bill offering tax breaks for small businesses, and then backed-off from voting for it, for the unspoken reason that Republicans just don’t want to give Democrats a legislative “victory” before the mid-term elections. In other words, screw the country; Republicans are the only party in history that thinks that deliberately sabotaging the country will win them votes. And you know what? It does. Take, for example, an ad by Dino Rossi, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Washington. He claims, in a mild-mannered voice, that he is going to stop tax increases for working people and small businesses. This, of course, is yet another bit of bald-faced deception that has no basis in fact; the reality is that the tax break for small businesses that the Obama administration was pushing failed to get a single Republican vote. Nothing new here, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that tea partiers would be the first people we can expect to gobble-up this rotten meat whole. Say the word “taxes” regardless of the context, they attack like sharks whose minds are wired to do nothing but attack and feed.
Republicans claim that Obama wants to turn the country into a “socialist state. The Republicans, apparently, want the country to turn into a Third World backwater, with all the power and wealth in the hands of a few “elites.” And tea partiers are right there to help them do it, because they can’t see beyond two feet in front of their faces. We are not there yet, but if you want to know what the first phase would be like with tea partiers in control of the country, you don’t have to look any further than Arizona and Nevada. I’ve already talked about Arizona, where the Jurassic Park Republicans recently “addressed” their state budget issue by raising the sales tax—and then turning around and cutting income taxes, in effect sticking it to the poor while giving the well-off yet another “gift.” Nevada, meanwhile, leads the nation in just about every negative economic indicator, such as bankruptcies, foreclosures and now unemployment. It doesn’t help that the state is dependent on sales and “entertainment” taxes to fund the public sector, and that the state’s “big shots” have opposed any taxes on their income or regulations slowing the amount of money earned in the state from leaving the state. It was even reported recently that Pennsylvania collects more in casino taxes than Nevada. But that’s the tea partier way; let’s just gamble the country away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)