Thrall to a system

This is a terrible joke, and I apologize.

Have you heard about this? Read about this? Wolf Blitzer (what a name!) played Celebrity Jeopardy a few years back and was terrible. He doesn't know anything, apparently. But then, you don't need to know anything to host a long running news program on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

Imagine a world where the most avowed Christians are also the most hateful people possible. What if - just asking questions here - what if Satan had actually taken over Christianity, and all Christians are really working on behalf of The Dark Lord?

Ironic!

Prosperity Gospel!

Never give up!

It's not that the Republican "brain trust" hasn't been trying to create the next Reagan. W. was a real serious attempt - witness the phony ranch in Crawford - but alas!

The incompetence was too great for even the Media to spin as a success, and apart from the 27%, Bush is widely seen as a tremendous failure. But you don't quit the game! You keep playing!

Palin is a more organic (that is, from the Teabag bottom up rather than from the elites on high) version of the same phenomena, but even somehow more incompetent, and thankfully we still reside in a reality where competence counts for something.

A pic from the governor's meeting with then President elect Obama. Oh, how she must have burned!

Again, the horizon seems free of anything approaching charismatic base competence in the Republican future, in terms of both leadership and ideas. This is all they have left:

Mockery and bad memes. And this is their version of a LOL meme now - posing with an empty wine glass. Ha!

Gay Republicans - is there anything funnier?

This Machine

With the Industrial Revolution came an entirely new level to the crushing burden workers would bear for the sake of the Owners. Early factories were death pits of torture and suffering, far worse than toiling in the fields previous generations of serfs and slaves endured. And yet, people organized, and with numbers came strength:

Indeed, strength enough to make even Republicans sane. But those days are gone, replaced with greedy morans hell bent on destroying this country and most of its people for a few quick bucks - for them. A lot and lot of bucks for a very small percentage. Let's call them the 1%

You can accept this or deny it, but that matters little. What does matter is whether you are aiding the effort to crush human rights, decent pay, health care, etc, or are fighting it. If fighting, then you must do two things ASAP. Let's cover the first here:

Speak up!

Make your voice heard!

Do whatever it takes to communicate what you think is right and wrong, using whatever medium you can. It matters, in large numbers and by one single person. For example, there are many Americans still vaguely convinced the Republican Party is similar to the party that put out that ad above in 1956. The entire MSM lives this general delusion. We must correct this dangerous misunderstanding.

Impeach Beelzebub

It's all right there in writing, hard to deny, right? Fox News = Truth

And this is the America we live in, fight in, fight over. We must defeat people like this wherever they arise, and make no mistake, this is the Republican Party today. Filled with twisted men with too much time on their hands and fear in their heads and they come up with charts like this:

Or even more scary with bars on the shoulders and stars on their chests they come up with Powerpoint slides like this:

We're all connected, Brahrades.

Lords of Lies

Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter living the high life in very liberal NYC. O'Reilly remains about as popular as he ever has, whereas Coulter's career has dipped over the past 4 years. Though she's still out there, spewing poison. As all Right Wingers must - they deal in lies. It's the entirety of Right Wing existence at this point - lies for us, lies for themselves.

What a pic! Not sure the context, but these folks all represent various forms of the Right Wing Id. From left to right: Andrew Brietbart, foaming mad propagandist. Also dead. Jonathan Krohn, Wingnut boy wonder who in 2009 was lauded as the second coming of Reagan. Now an Obama supporter. Oh hi, James O'Keefe. Almost didn't recognize you behind that awesome disguise. Slayer of Acorn, O'Keefe's "brand" of journalism led him to plead guilty to trespassing in a Democratic Senator's office and is currently on probation. How he avoided jail is beyond me. And last and least, "Bush's Brain", "Turdblossom", "Maker of Realities" Karl Rove. Once feared and feted, it should be clear after his election night performance, he's now an utter joke. Won't stop him from continuing to lie and grift billionaires out of their money.

Oh Tucker. You still haven't recovered from the lashing given to you by John Stewart so many years ago. Tossed from your lofty perch at the "balanced" CNN, you ditched the bow tie and sank lower and lower, looking for anyone to pay attention to you. Sad. Now a recurring guest of the odious Sean Hannity, and still laughed at.

I could throw in a pic of the Big Daddy of this sleazy tribe, Rush, but I'll spare you, my dear readers, the suffering. Suffice it to say even Rush is not doing so well these days. Take all these trends together, and grow heartened. These liars, these radicals, these hatemongers and con artists and demagogues are losing power, losing influence, losing appeal. America appears to be waking up from the 30 years long Republican nightmare, and we can thank Barack Obama for this great blessing. Thanks Bo!

On Civil Society

Liberals and their secular, decadent, abortion loving ways are ruining America and her God fearing traditions. When you take Religion out of society and throw babies out in the trash you leave us with little option to fight back. Liberals started this battle, and Christian Conservatives will finish it.

Well now, that might be a bit overstated. As enumerated in the Constitution, separation of Church and State-

The Constitution said no such thing! The Founders were God fearing Christians who were guided by Jesus to write the hallowed Constitution of these here states, and I'll be damned if I hear another LIBERAL LIE about such a sacred document!

And we'll have to leave it there, as we're out of time. I'd like to thank both my guests, Professor Dog and Doug Dog. Tune in next week to "Both Sides Do It" when we'll have as our main guest retired General Dog.

There is no Truth but what you make

Are you sure it's not? Do you yourself have a single iota of proof otherwise? No! You don't, and so who's to say it's not true? Oh sure, some "scientists" from LIBERAL UNIVERSITIES who hate FREEDOM and THE BIBLE. But they have a LIBERAL AGENDA and who can trust them? Not me, not the folks I know. So turtles it is, all the way down.

And this is true about most things - all things? You, a sentient human being, must agree to accept something as true. How you go about doing that is up to you, up to your close contacts, your culture, your age, your era, etc. Everything's a factor. For example, you personally have no experience of the Earth rotating. For everything you can tell with your senses, the sun and moon and stars above rotate around us. How could this not be? And thus to believe this is not so, that we do in fact rotate around the sun, you must ignore your own common sense and believe someone else. Belief.

We hear what we want to hear and see things through a prism named us. But this is all sophistry, is it not? Solipsism, the natural state of man. For perhaps that's true - nothing exists without us and our opinions.

We're left grasping in the dark, always. Perhaps we come closer to something like a real Truth, but who could ever be sure - this reality is vast beyond our comprehension. We stumble on, trying this and that, coming up with better tools for survival - and survival is the name of the game. Science is one of the greatest tools for our survival (and destruction), for ultimately it is an entire way of thinking - hypothesis, testing and experiment, re-hypothesize, test again, and keep on refining, asking why. Through this process, we evolve. But there's no end, and we must always be aware of the forces of ignorance.

Next time you hear the phrase "The God Particle", think of this. For there is no such particle.

The Age of Propaganda

We've entered an ironic age - we have all these forms of media, for information, and yet a sizable percentage of the population believes in lies as facts instead of empirical truths. As long as the Other Tribe is for it, their against it, whatever it is.

Tribe over truth. It's very strange, and yet probably pervasive throughout history.

The difference today is the media, now used as sophisticated propaganda and marketing tools, worldwide. Their 24/7 influence can shape the opinions of many to such an extant that they will un/knowingly accept propaganda as fact, and any word otherwise, treason.

Crazy times.
Objectively a very interesting time to be alive - we're all very lucky.
Maybe.

Ministry of Fox

Believe it, for it is true: News Corp and all its dealings is a propaganda network without equal in American history. Profits come first, of course, but the best way to maximize profits is to maximize the audience. Brainwash your die hard followers and use various media outlets to shape the very conversation in the public sphere. For 30 years now there has been a systematic campaign to take over as many spheres of power as possible - business, government, media. And it's working smashingly well - there has never been more stratification between the wealthy and the rest in American history than right now. No hyperbole, we've surpassed the crazy extremes of the robber baron days of the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Fox News is the masterpiece of News Corp's strategy. It has totally changed the media landscape in America, and thus the world. Lies are routinely repeated as truths, and the agenda is crystal clear, yet denied. They are without doubt pro-Republican, yet loudly proclaim they are "Fair and Balanced". Doublespeak, in other words. I mean, forget all the specifics - Fox was unabashedly pro Bush during his administrations, and there was never a critical word to be said. The moment Obama became President, it was TEA PARTY TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY and it hasn't stopped. Pretty one sided, yeah? But go ahead and try to make that claim to a Republican - you'll never get them to agree. They're brainwashed, steeped in propaganda from the Party, and the facts no longer matter. History no longer matters. The very values they espouse to believe in yet directly contradict no longer matters. All that matters is the Party, and the destruction of the Other, whomever that might be today.

This isn't fun and games, though I always laugh. But mine is a crazy laugh. No, this is serious business, because with the now successful Foxification of America, the crazy people are taken seriously. And can you imagine Rick Perry with his execution happy finger on the button? Nuclear War might be the least worst of the outcomes.

Remember the world was supposed to end in May? Don't worry, even the True Believers don't remember anymore either. There's a new End Day coming up!

Maquis Special Forces

An actual image shown on a major tv news network - N24, from Germany. In their zeal to post something on the OBL killing (remember that? If a republican had been involved, you sure would), they got an image from the great GIS that was actually fan art from a Star Trek online game. Here's a closeup:

Note the phaser, the Bat'leths, and the Klingon skull with eye patch. And oh yeah - the Maquis were either French resistance fighters in WW2, or resistance fighters in the 24th century fighting both Cardassian and Federation oppression.

Nice work, N24!

For reference, here's the actual Seals Team VI patch (every unit gets a patch - it's like Cub Scouts):

Doublethink: We (USA!) must have the biggest military by far, and often use it, for peace. War for peace. Go figure!

You're Not Supposed to Kill Your Goldstein

Here's Osama on his 3rd date with Zawahiri - he let him hold his gun. But seriously, do you think these men think they're monsters, or do you think they feel justified in their actions? Remember, even young Osama had dreams of flower power and groovy rock n' roll:

The internet tells me that smiling lad in the circle is a young Osama Bin Laden. Austin Powers style. Like all supposed monsters, he was a young man once, no doubt concerned about getting laid. But something happened, something learned, some spirit took hold and he went off to fight instead, and once you get used to violence, more violence is always easier, and mayhaps predictable. So, James Bond Villain style, Osama and his gang took on the World, and well, they're still holding their own. And, more crucially, our world has changed because of Osama's war:

Our society, Western society in general, has lost much in this war. We've become desensitized, beaten down, made to cower and worry in fear. Our media feeds us daily hates and THINGS THAT WILL KILL YOU and everything seems so much more extreme, in every way.

Except, thank FSM, we have this guy, this Obama guy. He's like magic, I tell you, and I feel we rolled triple 6's in this wacky game of Risk we call "Our Lives" and got the perfect leader. I knew Obama was the real deal way back, and so am almost never surprised by anything he does anymore. He's incredible  - consider, he was roasting Trump and being roasted himself all the while this Operation Kill Goldstein was getting prepped and ready. He was calling the shots every step of the way. He was laughing at an Osama joke - ha. He's so cool, our Prez, Barack Hussein Obama. Damn!

The Force is strong in this one. If you'd like to know more about President Obama's policies, or history, or anything, feel free to ask. I love talking Obama!

This is one of the first pics of Obama I ever did download. 12/07/07, in a store in Iowa. Keepin' it real.

Think any of this will change any wingnut's minds?

I doubt it. I doubt many things these days - like war can ever end, or even slow down anymore. Small wars, mind you. Nothing that would truly disrupt global business. The Military Industrial Complex is deeply entrenched in every major country, and there's no putting that genie back in the bottle. So Obama can try and wind down all these wars - and hey, maybe not get involved in any more? And did I mention I am a SUPER HIPPY? I amaze myself with this, but it's true. If I had my wish, there'd be no more war, and we'd all live in peace and fellowship with the other, working for the common good, all of our needs met and our lives filled with pleasure and satisfaction...

But yes, I also realize we live in a hard world, with hard men, in hard times. The kind of men who put a bullet into the eye socket of OBL last night.

Sadly, we've created legions of these guys. Goons, willing and able to do almost anything, violent. And they probably think like mercenaries  too - and Lord Knows there's lots of new mercenary outfits out there. Why not? The USA is more than willing to outsource the killing and torture. Money talks.

Think of what the last decade has done - all the war, the random bombings, the torture, the real and manufactured fear, it's all added up to a fundamentally changed world. We're a more extreme place these days, with tactics improved, ways of killing improved, ways of seeing and hiding and plotting improved... it's not good stuff, but some of it may turn out to be good in the end. We'll see, won't we? At least there will be lots of explosions - always fun!

Also, too: When Bush just simply stopped caring about OBL, circa 2003, I figured it was per the orders from the secret powers: Having OBL alive and out there was far more valuable to the Cause than killing/capturing him. The "Cause" was ruining this country and making themselves incredibly rich. This of course was the role Emmanual Goldstein played in the book 1984, which, again, if you've not read since High School, you should give it a go again. It's fantastic, and terrifying. Because the Right is using it like a playbook, and it's working.

So, this morning, I woke up wondering how the Right would mock or otherwise dismiss this moment for Obama. And there you have it: You're not supposed to kill your Goldstein, you fool!

(Also, also: Your connection to this post is "Bearded Crazy Religious Men".)

Miss me yet?

Hells to the no. But it's funny some in the media are trying to push this theme. Good luck! In honor of their diligent propaganda efforts, let's take a stroll through a series of posts I like to call "That's Our Bush!":

Here's our Bush pretending to read a top secret security document entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike US". Pshaw! It came from a Clinton appointee, so it has to be rubbish. Anyways, on vacation.

 His finest hour - and perhaps America's darkest. When the morans got everything they ever dreamed of. "My Pet Goat". Bin Laden struck the US - who could have known?! At least Our Bush kept us safe, right? For real - recent spin from the Rethugs is to pretend 9/11 happened sometime other than during Bush's presidency. No doubt there's a Demoncrat to blame.

War's over! Whoo-hoo! Let me take a tangent at this moment, and reveal another Repuglican technique: They make their own reality. The banner says "Mission Accomplished", doesn't it? War's over. This is a powerful tool the Rethugs have used to shape all aspects of American society since St. Ronnie showed them the way - just make up whatever it is you want to be the truth, repeat it incessantly, and viscously attack anyone who would disagree. It will often work, and if it doesn't, try again with something else - not like anyone in the media will call you on it (IOKIYAAR). For example, the crack McCain team released this photo before the first Obama-McCain debate was over:

You see, it didn't matter what he actually did in the debate - they were going to push the "We won" theme regardless. And they certainly tried - the 27%er's will believe it, and accompanied by a pliant media, perhaps they could get another 23% to as well. And that's all it takes. You will see this technique used ALL THE TIME. Watch for it. Moving on...

Yeah. But even:

Pop psychologist diagnosis, 25cents worth: These27%ers want a strong Daddy, they want to be told what to think, what to feel (as long as it gibes with their foundational understanding of Jesus and the American Myth). These types of people - and every country in history has had them - form the foundation of any fascist state, because they like it.

But of course, they like it only when it's "their" guy, i.e. a Repuglican. Wanna bet the same Tea Party types that paid for this billboard also paid for this billboard?

Keep in mind this billboard went up a few weeks after Obama took office. I wonder what impeachable offense he'd committed by then, oh wait! It doesn't matter. He's a DEMONCRAT, who's also - GASP! - black. But let's end with some laughter, cuz Bush was good for that:

"Grownups back in the White House"

With such grace and class. And we end with this sweet, sweet moment I still savor:

Bye Bye Bush!