Blogger SUCKS!!!
For more news you can use, remember to check out this short list of fine sources for news stories almost surely absent from the nation's mainstream commercial media:
http://www.democracynow.org/
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.jimhightower.com/ and the weblog http://hightower.fmp.com/weblog.php
http://www.prwatch.org/ and its archives http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/index.html
http://gregpalast.com/
http://www.thenation.com/outrage/index.mhtml?bid=6
From this week's “we hate it when satire becomes this prophetic” department ...
www.whitehouse.org recently had an article on its Landover Baptist Church sister site in which a pregnant woman who fell on her stomach during step exercises at the ladies' gym was convicted of murder and summarily condemned for failing to observe nine months of total bed rest during her pregnancy. In the great American tradition of truth stranger than fiction, a South Carolina court has convicted a woman of murder for delivering a stillborn child. See AlterNet for details on this all-too-frightening women-as-vessels precedent.
And now, for the week's top stories ...
It's Official: Americans Have Too Much Stuff
December 8, 2003. When a piece of news filters down to the reality-TV shows on the cable channels, you can bet what it shows is just the tip of the iceberg. Just as cable channels like Discovery Health have finally acknowledged America's alarming rise in obesity, others have finally acknowledged the fact that Americans just plain have too much stuff.
While the household clutter issue has been hinted at in cable home improvement shows, like “Changing Rooms,” “Trading Spaces,” and “While You Were Out,” it has finally come to a head in shows like “Clean Sweep,” a new program being shown on The Learning Channel, and “The Life Laundry,” its sister show on BBC America. In such programs, a team of decorators and professional organizers help families desperate enough to embarrass themselves on television cull piles of belongings that litter homes to the point that multiple rooms have become unusable. The belongings are sorted into “keep,” “trash,” and “sell” piles. Items to be sold are put up for sale in a televised yard sale in which family members compete for higher receipts in order to win a prize: the winner gets to keep a treasured item that other family members have put into the trash pile. Items not sold in the yard sale are donated to charity. While the homeowners are engaged in this flurry of activity outside the house, decorators are busy inside adding style, flair, storage, and organization to three of the previously unusable rooms. All in all, a positive, upbeat idea presented in a positive, upbeat program.
However, the fact that America needs programs like these is indicative of a deeper, more disturbing problem: why do Americans (and Brits) have so much stuff, anyway? Is it the culture of rabid advertising that exhorts young and old alike to buy-buy-buy without first checking that they can afford to spend the money or that they really need what the sellers are hawking? Is there an underculture of hoarding that tacitly encourages people to hold onto every item they buy because, heck, they paid good money for it? Have the societies that need these programs become so insular that the idea of sharing with the less fortunate by regularly giving unused items to charity has become anathema to them?
Despite the showboating glamor and glitz Hollywood provides in shows like “Clean Sweep,” the positive message of clearing out unused items and simplifying life is sure to get through to viewers at least on some subliminal level. Hopefully, in the process, viewers will also infer that it's better to bank their earnings and think more carefully about what they buy, perhaps adopting the rule of thumb that, for every item that comes into the home, an old one must be thrown or given away.
Perhaps, in the give-and-take between profit and propaganda, the corporate powers-that-be that own and operate America will tolerate the implied don't-buy-everything-you-see messages of these shows long enough for it to do some good ...
U.S. Studies Israeli Anti-Palestinian Tactics, Employs Against Iraqis
December 5, 2003. The Bush administration and its military minions have been studying the tactics Israel has historically used against Palestinians with the intent of applying them to the civilian Iraqi population. These strategies include liberally and indiscriminately bombing and shooting civilians and using bulldozers and other weapons to separate the target population from homes, family members, employment, farming and food gathering opportunities, and many other vestiges of human necessity and dignity. One keystone of the approach is to capture and detain family members—including small children—of individuals that the military wishes to capture in order to encourage wanted individuals to turn themselves in. In tacit praise of America's no-holds-barred strategy to piss off as many civilians in its own personal occupied territory as possible, Donald Rumsfeld quipped, “If it's good enough for our dear friend Ariel Sharon, then it's good enough for America.”
Americans Seek the Ultimate Commuting Experience
December 3, 2003. Not satisfied with mere shit ugly vans (SUVs), maxivans, and Hummers, Americans are seeking the ultimate single-passenger commuting experience.
“My Hummer gets eight miles to the gallon, and that's just plain excessive,” complained Virginia resident Chuck Pebrane. “Besides, it just doesn't have enough room inside to carry me and my 3” briefcase the twenty miles to and from work in what I'd consider to be sufficient comfort.”
He's far from alone in his complaints. The solution? A stunning new trend in single-passenger commuter vehicles that has dealers and consumers alike revving their motors: buses. The “big three” American automakers have introduced new lines of single-commuter buses that offer two to three times as much internal room as a Hummer and get a whopping three to four miles to the gallon—criteria for space and mileage much more in line with the demands of consumers like Mr. Pebrane.
An additional benefit equally touted by vendors and appreciated by consumers is the increased safety of the larger vehicles. “Damn straight,” confirmed Mr. Pebrane, “With all the other SUVs out there, I'm not the biggest thing on the road any more. I just don't feel safe because there are so many other cars out there as big as me—how can I stare down all those maxivan soccer moms if they're already sizing me up and planning to take me on for that choice spot in the exit lane?
“It's also nice to know that I'm doing my part for my beloved President's Clean Air Act and helping him and The Party reach their noble environment-o-clastic goals,” he added.
This bigger-is-better attitude begs a question that clearly hasn't yet occurred to the Pebranes of the world: what happens when the single-passenger commuter bus is no longer the biggest, baddest thing on the road? Enter the single-passenger commuter eighteen wheeler ...
Access of Evil: What Americans Probably Don't Know About Bush's Manipulation of a Willing Media
December 1, 2003. With the all-too-expected exception of Fox, America's journalists have proven themselves all too willing to ho' themselves out to the illegitimate regime that has hijacked the White House. Instead of asking the hard questions—instead of putting up a fight—America's media continually fail to put up their dukes ... or even to put up their hands. Rather, they all too gladly put up their legs and let Bush have his way with them. He winks; they roll over and give him everything he asks for and more.
Case in point: for a wild-and-crazy—not to mention foolhardily reckless—two hour Thanksgiving campaign photo op stopover in Iraq, Bush effectively kidnapped handpicked members of the media and forbade them to contact their editors until he gave the nod. This was a golden chance for those journalists to resist en masse—to say to the boy-who-would-be-king, “Go ahead. Have your little secret jaunt. Let Fox be the only outlet that covers it and see how that perks up your credibility and theirs. See if we care. We refuse to play ball with you because you are a bully: you lie and cheat, and we've had enough. We don't give a rat's ass about the American public, but, hell, WE deserve better. WE'RE professionals.” Alas, this course—a course that only barely qualifies as marginally brave—was not the course that the American public's brave and loyal watchdog took: rather, fearing they'd be denied future access, they went along for the ride and gave America's faux-president the exact heartwarming (not! -unless said heart was warmed by rising gorge) photo op that he sought.
The irony? When Bush grabbed that big fancy platter laden with delicious-looking food and pretended to serve some of the few hundred handpicked, loudly cheering troops, it was immediately apparent to those who had staged the photo shoot that the plastic turkey they'd just flown into Baghdad was pretending to serve a plastic turkey (presumably to other plastic turkeys?). And some people have the nerve to complain about being served tofu for Thanksgiving ... (See http://www.thenation.com/outrage/index.mhtml?bid=6 for details on both plastic turkeys in Baghdad.)
And Now For Something Completely Different: What Every American Should Know from Project Censored (http://www.projectcensored.org/Publications/2004/index.html):
Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003
#1: The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
#2: Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
#3: US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq U.N. Report
#4: Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
#5: The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
#6: Closing Access to Information Technology
#7: Treaty Busting by the United States
#8: US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
#9: In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights, and Civil Disruption Worse than Ever
#10: Africa Faces Threat of New Colonialism
#11: U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre
#12: Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela
#13: Corporate Personhood Challenged
#14: Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem
#15: U.S. Military's War on the Earth
#16: Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA
#17: Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism
#18: Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands
#19: U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
#20: Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts
#21: Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You
#22: Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net
#23: Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth
#24: Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
#25: Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment
Today's Highlights and Headlines from “Democracy Now!” ...
* Today's Top DN! Stories (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/02/147219):
- T.V. Networks Lobby Congress NOT to Overturn FCC Media Expansion Ruling
- EPA Okays Sale of PCB-Contaminated Sites
- Bush Lobbies Supreme Court to Overturn California's Clean Air Law
- Welcome Back, Al Jazeera's English-Language Website
- Diebold Voting Machines—a Prominent Bush Campaign Contributor—Promise to Deliver Ohio's Electoral Votes to Bush in 2004
- Schwarzenegger Promises NOT to Show Up for California's First Recall Debate
* Senator Clinton and Representative Nadler Call for Investigation of White House Directives to EPA to Lie about 9/11 Health Impact in NYC (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/28/1621200)
* Is Howard Dean Too Conservative—Too Middle of the Road—to Save America from the Neocons? (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/28/1626201)
* Ahnold the Governator-Wannabe's Track Record of Sexual Assault, Womanizing, and Treating Women Like Pieces of Meat; Maria Shriver's Shared Views (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/29/1417241) NOTE to Scallion Readers: if you have time to read nothing else this week, then PLEASE read THIS! (Someone with that much hatred and disrespect for others obviously thinks even more poorly of himself—is this the man California REALLY needs in the Governor's office?!??)
Monkey in the Middle: a Look at How Middle America is Screwed Whenever Either Extreme, Left or Right, is in Power
August 31, 2003. In America's current neoconservative political environment, it is easy to see how Middle America suffers. Lavish tax cuts for the rich don't equate to equally generous tax cuts for Middle America. The poor economy costs Middle Americans their jobs and their stock-market-driven college and retirement savings. This causes many Americans to work additional jobs—menial jobs, if they're lucky enough to find them—and/or put off a well-deserved retirement, often indefinitely. With the scarcity of jobs, a dollar just doesn't go as far, and those lucky enough to have jobs may find themselves dealing with employers who'd rather replace them or outsource than increase their salaries and/or benefits. And those Middle Americans who rely on public services, including public transportation, public schools, and others, find those institutions facing funding cuts. This equates to rate increases and service cuts-backs in public transportation. It also equates to reduced quality and neglected maintenance in public schools, which affects this and future generations. The remaining public services suffer as well.
When the extreme left is in control of American policy, the paradigm shifts. The goal most publicly criticized by Republicans is to redistribute wealth to the needy. This paradigm is liable to sap Middle America's resources as taxes are raised and—at worst—handed out to the poor without requiring recipients to work for a living. The hand-out-rather-than-hand-up approach creates a self-perpetuating vicious cycle of multiple Welfare generations that, despite the stated goals of the self-intended benefactors, serves only to keep the underclass permanently repressed. However, it is important to note that not all in the extreme left prefer hand-outs to hands-up. Many liberals would rather break the vicious cycle, despite Republican claims to the contrary.
Is one worse than the other?
The worst-case extreme left paradigm would reduce the spending power of Middle America and repress the underclass. At least, however, that underclass would have access to food, shelter, and other benevolent public institutions. Also, at least, the environment would be protected. This approach is far from ideal, but its heart is in the right place. Conversely, the worst-case extreme right paradigm is far more self-serving ... and far more dire for both Middle America and the underclass. In addition to reducing Middle America's spending power, the neoconservative wet dream du jour includes privatizing today's public institutions: everything from Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, public transportation, public education, and more. Privatization of these social safety nets would result in pricing them out of the reach of the whole underclass and many of the middle class. Imagine an America where children never learn to read or write because their families can't afford school: it could happen. Additionally, the neocons see the environment not as something to be protected, cherished, and stewarded for future generations but as something to be exploited—raped—and turned for a profit. The logical conclusion of the neocon agenda is an unabashedly fascist two-class system: the rich and those who serve them. In “Stupid White Men,” Michael Moore observed that economic meltdown serves America's super-rich by making it painfully obvious that this is THEIR pie: there isn't “enough” to go around, so Joe Average need not waste anybody's time trying to beg a slice for himself. Meanwhile, Joe Average thanks his lucky stars to have a job—any job, no matter how menial or low-paying. Aggravating this agenda is the aggressive neocon effort to suppress dissent and divest Americans of civil and human rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Not a pretty picture. But are there any inherent controls in either of these extreme systems to rein them in before they do excessive damage to the social fabric of the country? In the case of the extreme left, there are indeed some limits. Leftism would dictate limits on the extreme right and on the extremely wealthy, thus circumscribing their power. There is also a great deal of squabbling and in-fighting among members and factions of the left that prevent a lockstep movement from running roughshod over the country. There is another important limit in effect, at least for the time being: America's extreme left still respects and honors Americans' right to vote and have those votes fairly counted. Conversely, the extreme right is taking concerted steps to deprive Americans who dissent with it of their right to vote (see Greg Palast's “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” Michael Moore's “Stupid White Men,” or Jim Hightower's “Thieves in High Places”). The Republican party has achieved a carrot-or-stick lockstep that, for an ostensible democracy, would have made Hitler weep with delight. The neoconservative kleptocracy that now rules the Unites States of America is an unobservable and uncontrollable system: unobservable gratis a thoroughly pussywhipped, cowed media (complemented by the administration's steady refusals to take responsibility for its actions); uncontrollable because the system refuses to receive any inputs it doesn't like. Worse: this nasty black box exists in a state of positive feedback—the more power the extreme right has, the more money it makes; the more money the extreme right has, the more power it buys. Coupled with the I'd-rather-make-$1-now-than-worry-about-consequences-later corporate mentality, this hedonistic system stands in danger of thrashing itself—and everything and everyone around it—to bits after the orgy as it hits the wall in a frenzy of irremediable shortages. (Sadly, it is not just America that would suffer—it is also the world: especially the poor areas of Africa, India, Mexico, and others supplying the U.S. with labor and exotic plant and raw materials in exchange for jobs, aid, and medicine.)
The bottom line is that the middle is not a safe place to be in America's current political environment. The longer that sanguine Middle Americans continue mistakenly to perceive themselves as members of the ruling class, the worse the outcome will be for all sub-multi-millionaire Americans.
Why the Religious Right Hates Harry Potter
August 28, 2003. There is something so archetypal about the Harry Potter reality—that there is more to life than our non-magical compatriots admit ... and fear—that the Christian right has been up in arms since the first Harry Potter book was published. In true-to-form fundamentalist intolerance, the Christian right has declared J.K. Rowling's popular books to be “evil” and “Satanic.” Heaven only knows what they're saying about Ms. Rowling herself.
Despite the obvious, oft-quoted Judeo-Christian Biblical passages about the evils of “suffering a witch to live” (does anyone know what exactly they meant by “witch,” anyway?), what is it that strikes angry terror into the hearts and minds of these self-righteous souls? Perhaps it's the nagging notion that, at some level, the Harry Potter-verse is to some extent true. Maybe human beings can't, for example, turn each other into newts with the wave of a wand (at least, not without years of meditation and New Age training in the occult arts) ... but perhaps humans are far more powerful than formal religion admits. Perhaps, if once-unquestioning followers began to understand and exercise their natural-born powers of mind over matter, they would begin to view their churches as predators, feeding on the congregation's feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Perhaps, then, as the threat of fire and brimstone ceased to frighten followers into submission, formalized religion would lose its coveted control over its now-mindful minions. This would put a lot of proselytizers out of a job.
But perhaps these fears are merely that—fears. Perhaps those who attend church value the formalized practices of their faiths and the power that comes from participating in a like-minded group. Perhaps, then, formalized religion could evolve into something that truly serves all the members and not just the ruling hierarchies.
Perhaps that is truly what they're afraid of.
