Archive for » January, 2011 «

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Corporatism vs. Democracy…
31
January

It’s understandable that people who have largely been divested of their freedom and political rights—as prisoners have been, along with a significant mass of the American population—don’t have much of a participatory history in who or how their lives are governed.  I submit that this state of affairs is by conscious design.

I think they’re falling into a well-set trap along the trail being blazed by the ruling class.

So far—at least for the past 8,000 yrs-or-so—it’s been .03% ruling elite vs. the rest of us.

For the masses, democracy (rule by the majority) and constitutionalism (individual and minority rights) remain ideal visions largely unfulfilled.  (Spare me “the greatest nation on earth” bullshit.) more…

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Category: Corporatism  Leave a Comment
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News Bits & Propaganda…
28
January

My subscribers may wonder at this site’s recent failure to post timely notices, along with a slow-down of articles.  For some reason—gremlins in the machine?—the notification plug-in stopped working about January 20th.

Pathetic Propaganda...

 

That has now been corrected, I hope…  Perhaps the gov’t mistook my site for WikiLeaks…whatever.  In any event, I’ve taken this opportunity to do some work on two book projects, and have found myself quite absorbed in that.

Meantime, allow me to comment on a few news items that have crossed my desk… more…

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Category: Corporatism, MediaProp, ObamaBarack  Leave a Comment
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Immigration Nation vs. Nativist Hate…
25
January

Back in the late 1940s (Yeah, I‘m that old…), I lived on Bathgate Avenue in the South Bronx, NYC, with my father’s Slovakian immigrant family.  (A ne, jsem byl příliš mladý zapamatovat mnohem Slovaki…)

The area was still a teeming ghetto, a lingual polyglot of ethnic groups and cultures.  From the rooftop of our tenement, I could look across a vast cityscape of pigeon coops and relatively safe play for kids.

As one descended the stairs or fire escape (or even on occasion the dumbwaiter), it was easy to figure out the ethnicity of any particular family from their foreign language screams or the smells of their cooking. more…

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Category: History, Immigration  Leave a Comment
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Obama’s Bubbafication (1994 Revisited)…
24
January

Back in ’92, it took The Man from Hope precisely two yrs to sell out the mass popular base that put him into political power.  Obama’s right on schedule.

How's that hopey-changey thing going?

Last week, we were treated to the First Lady in her corporate media appearance at Walmart(“Eat more healthy foods”?).  Walmart?  One of the largest exporters of jobs to neo-slavery labor markets to make cheap consumables for the US?  An anti-union corporation?

A few days later, the president himself bent over for a three-card-monte of find-the-joker.  Obama shuffled out the original Wall Street gang and brought in a fresh crew of master con-artists. more…

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Category: ClintonBill, GEcorp, ObamaBarack, ReaganRonald  Leave a Comment
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Dementia, Power & the Presidency…
20
January

I see that Ron Reagan Jr., has a new book out on his father, the former president, Ronald Reagan.  I also see that he’s getting a lot of flak concerning some of his comments from the corporate media.  Attack even their servile gods at your peril…

Ronny's Promised Land...

 

He spilled the beans on the fact that President Reagan was exhibiting Alzheimer’s symptoms as early as his first term in the White House.

I’m shocked.  Is there anyone out there who was not brain dead at the time unaware of that fact?

On his good days they could trot the president out for a photo-op and to parrot a few lines (although Nancy stayed close to prompt him). more…

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Category: Corporatism, ReaganRonald, Snitching  One Comment
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Prison Prospects in the New Year…
19
January

Most of us don’t have to do much to get into prison.  (A newby once told me, “Yeah, but I really didn’t do anything!”  I could only laugh.  That’s the point, son.  You don’t have to do anything!  You really don’t.  The wrong place, the wrong time, the only plea bargain…)

It won't wait forever...

Prison has become the default warehouse by the ruling class and their conservative and neo-liberal wannabees.

Homeless?  In need of mental health care?  Unemployed?  Living below the poverty line?  Black or Hispanic or poor male, say, 14-and-up?  Protesting something?  You have an excellent chance of running afoul of the American criminal justice system in 2011.

Of course, if you’re a part of the inchoate Brown Shirt army, serving as a state-actor in the corporatist agenda crowd opposed to liberal gov’t (representation by and for the people), taxes (especially for the rich), unions, Social Security, public healthcare, etc., then you’ll probably have a good chance at a job guarding the rest of us. more…

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Category: Corporatism, CuomoAndrew, VoteCensus  Leave a Comment
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Hawaiian History vs. Pineapple Plutocracy…
18
January

After serving three yrs as a federal prisoner back in 1898 for bank embezzlement, William Sidney Porter became one of America’s foremost authors.  He wrote under the pen name of O. Henry.

During the time he was a fugitive (1896-97) in Honduras, he wrote a story entitled Cabbages and Kings (published in 1904) in which he coined the term “banana republic.”  It was a direct reference to a “servile dictatorship” ruled by a small, self-selected, wealthy clique.

Hawaii was a Polynesian kingdom that generally welcomed visiting sailors from the 16th century on, mainly from Spain, England, Russia, and the United States.  more…

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Category: DoleSamuelB, Hawaii, History  Leave a Comment
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LUIS POSADA: America’s Osama bin Laden…
17
January

Another trial in Texas is about to commence—no doubt with the same laughable result.  Last week  Tom DeLay was sentenced to three yrs for public corruption.  I doubt he’ll ever serve a day.  The CIA’s arch-terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, is scheduled for trial today (Jan. 17th) in a Houston federal court for perjury to an immigration judge.

The face of terror...

Posada has a vast history of terrorist bombings, and even the destruction of a civilian airliner.  But the US doesn’t consider them to be crimes given that Luis was acting under CIA orders and/or in conjunction with their anti-Cuba pathology.

Posada was tailor-made for the CIA.  Not having their own hit teams (they borrow them from the Special Forces, the Mafia, or other nations), they recruit others to do their dirty work.

Posada is one of those psychopathic killers (DSM-IV) that conservative and neo-liberal corporatists in gov’t love, or at least tolerate as necessary in their pursuit of power and wealth.  more…

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Category: CIA/chaos, PosadaLuis, State Crime  Leave a Comment
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Prison Psych 101…
14
January

I’ve found in my lifetime (68) that there are two basic kinds of religion.  There are those who come together—whatever the denomination or spiritual belief—and create a social betterment.  And those who remain self-serving individuals and use their religion for that purpose.

Arizona genesis...

In its extreme, the latter is a social pathology…a moral and mental disorder.  In the prison life, we easily see these persons for what they are.  We live side-by-side and quite literally on top of each other.  Hard to avoid one’s misbehavior.

On the other side of the razor-wire however, the so-called free world, or what is today more and more simply minimum security, their self-loathing behaviors, prejudices, hatred, and all-around sociopathy is more hidden, or at least, ignored (until it becomes a behavior sanctioned under criminal statutes, which is increasingly how America, Inc., deals with mental health and social welfare). more…

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Category: Psychology, Religion  Leave a Comment
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Arizona: The New/Old Mississippi…
12
January

Back in ’72, after a trip to Big Sur, California, I stopped off in Yuma, Arizona, on the way back to Detroit with an Israeli officer IDF friend.  She commented that it reminded her of some of the Territories.

Better times...'72

When I asked what she meant, she replied, “These Indians and Mexicans are like the Palestinians, pretty poor and beat-down, with the Western Israelis as lords of the land, which they never let them forget.”  An interesting and prescient observation.

   In the post-civil war yrs of the 1860s and ‘70s, the Army of the Union soon abandoned the South, which enacted criminalizing Black Codes against the newly freed slaves, disenfranchising them from the political process, and created  Jim Crow segregation and dehumanization laws that lasted for another 100 yrs. more…

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Category: GiffordsGabrielle, Immigration, Palestine, RollJdgJohnM  Leave a Comment
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