Christian Exceptionalism

QUITTER QUEEN=DUH KULTCHA KWEEN

While Barbie-Bubblehead attempts to keep herself in the limelight, there are others who are actually worth paying attention to: This article “Class Warfare: The Final Chapter” written by Michael Pirsch and found on the TruthOut.com site is long, but nails it…

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” -Warren Buffett to The New York Times, November 26, 2006

There is overwhelming evidence that we are entering the final chapter of class warfare in the US. Today, in the “public arena,” it is forbidden to say class warfare, and many citizens do not regard themselves as working class. The assault on language comes compliments of the propaganda apparatus, which includes: public relations, marketing, corporate media and the entertainment industry, universities, think tanks and so on. Its purpose is to distract our attention from serious matters so we can focus on trivial matters – usually involving consuming. Edward Bernays, the founder of the modern propaganda industry, described the process:

Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of … in almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.[1]

In addition to inventing the propaganda model still in use today, Bernays’ model created support for World War I, first in England and then in the US, calling the war to save Morgan’s billions the war for “making the world safe for democracy.”

We have been overwhelmed by the propaganda apparatus to the point that it controls our thought processes, causing us to become relentless shoppers, even against our own interests. It controls our thinking in the public sphere so that we support the wealthy elite, even against our own interests. Far too many of us have been rendered thoughtless and clueless as to what it means to live in a democratic society. It is not democracy because the government says it is; it is democracy when the masses are informed and act through their delegates to develop policy that promotes the general welfare. Today there are two sovereign nations that exhibit more democratic tendencies than all others: Venezuela and Bolivia. Because of their efforts to build democracy, both sovereign nations have been under attack by the US. In Venezuela, the US sponsored a coup in 2002. In Bolivia, the US government has sponsored a secessionist movement made up of the wealthy elite, whose tactics includes murder of government supporters. The Bolivian government expelled the US ambassador for his role in the destabilization attempt. Both Venezuela and Bolivia have adopted new constitutions which were the result of a process that involved all citizens and especially both countries’ indigenous populations, who were previously completely excluded from any role in government. Both countries have improved access to their medical systems, increased literacy and established local spaces where democracy can be practiced. This shift causes the US empire considerable distress, because the empire fears the spread of real democracy more than anything else.

An essential element in a democracy is the development of a critical consciousness that allows us to resist succumbing to the siren call of the propaganda apparatus. Hugo Chavez, in a 2003 interview, spoke of the need to develop critical thinking:

It seems to be part of a larger social defect in the US – that’s a society that should really develop some kind of response to the intellectual battering that seems to take place daily. I sincerely hope that one day the US public will develop some kind of critical consciousness, that they will remove the veil from their eyes and see the media powers for what they are. No part of the human community can live entirely on its own planet with its own laws of motion and cut off from the rest of humanity. They must be critical, and make it their personal responsibility to humanity and morality to discover the truth.[2]

Eduardo Galeano, well-known Latin American author and critical thinker, continued in the same vein:

Never have so many been held incommunicado by so few. More and more have the right to hear and see, but fewer and fewer have the privilege of informing, giving their opinion and creating. The dictatorship of the single word and the single image, much more devastating than that of the single party, is imposing a life whose exemplary citizen is a docile consumer and passive spectator. Never before have so few fooled so many.[3]

What better time than now for the wealthy elite to crush any chance of developing any critical thought. A substantial majority in the US have been so overwhelmed by the consumer/celebrity culture that distracts from the real situation that they are now fearful of harboring a critical thought, let alone speaking critically about the surrender of democracy to the wealthy elite. No matter what outrage the wealthy elite throws at us all, every indicator suggests there would be little, if any, resistance to that outrage. In fact, now is the best time for the wealthy elite to finally win the war and put into action all the highly repressive measures passed by Congress this decade. The repression already authorized, if put into full effect, would make the US a recognizably totalitarian state.            (Please read the rest of this piece here )

the Gentry Owned Party

(The following piece was written by Stephen Pizzo for Truthout at Buzzflash)

George Orwell in 2011: Inconvenient Facts Vanish

Help me out here; does 2 + 2 still equal 4? I think so, but who knows for how much longer?

All it seems to take for truth to become an untruth these days is for the truth to get in someone’s way. Then, what had become settled fact begins a process of de-truthification.

First “interested parties” stop referring to something as fact, and instead start referring to it as merely “a theory,” or “opinion.” Then talk show hosts — in cahoots with those aforesaid “interested parties” — start referring to the offending fact as “theory,” adding that “some people believe” something completely different. Then, without identifying those “some people,” they move on to casting doubt on the validity of even the former fact’s now diminished theory-hood.

Once the former fact has been demoted the process moves on to vilifying those trying to defend the fact, accusing them of being “interested parties” with their own agenda.

Finally they roll out the replacement “fact” which then becomes the basis from any further discussions, legislation or laws. These replacement facts, of course, always bear a startling resemblance to the views of the “interested parties” that started the de-truthification process to begin with.

Both political parties are guilty of this ugly business, but hands down, Republicans are the champs of re-factification. This is itself a fact easily proven, if by no other means than the piles of dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, killed by Cheney/Bush’s de-truthification to justify those two wars.  (The rest of this article can be found here)

Little Miss Smarty Pants and The Gipper

Palin was too young to remember the Reagan years-it’s all too obvious that her information and learnn’ comes from the Faux-Not-News-or-History channel where it’s not remembered Reagan was a B movie actor turned huckster for GE, who put him in the white house. But at least he could remember a speech…even if he did nod off from time to time.

On a tangent, check out the video of a Wearable Arts fashion show entry down in Ketchikan done by a flyinureye reader…the music is Sheryl Crows’ “Say what you want”, and there are some “subtle” flyinureye posters on the dress of the Quitter.  Nice job!

Palin’s Puff Pastries