testing 1 2 3

testing 1 2 3

just testing

I got stuck at the second paragraph where Mr Baker says: "The media completely failed in their responsibility to the public..."
It is a misperception, perhaps a delusion, to think the media has a responsibility to the public. Whether they should be or not, the media are vehicles for making money by selling advertising. For the most part, the media are money making enterprises owned by huge corporations. One could argue that NPR and PBS have failed their responsibility to the public as they were created to serve the public interest. Elected public officials at many levels, local district attorneys as well as members of congress, have failed to do their duty to the public, to make laws in the public interest and to enforce the laws that exist.

Wealthy aristocracies have always been afraid of democracy. Without near total control of the media, the corporate elite could never have gotten a duty avoiding, business failure, dry drunk to be their president and key to tax cuts and no bid contracts. Bush's real short comings are mentioned on page 6 once, and negative speculation about his opponent goes on page 1 above the fold so even those who do not buy the paper get to see the negative words.
This whole political situation reminds me of a football cheer. If our media can't beat the populist democrats, our billionaires tv ads will do it, if they can do it our political voting list managers will get rid of opposition voters, if the list managers can't do it, then unauditable electronic voting machines will make the corporate man or woman the winner, if the voting machines can't do it, then our political judges will decide, if they can't do it, a national emergency crisis will do it with martial law.. and on and on.

The books on over throwing governments, written by our leaders, always insist on first seizing control of the media, newspapers, tv and radio, then the population can be managed at least for a while.

Most right wingers are not rich aristocrats, but are also dupes of the corporate wealthy, fooled by right wing media. The people, nearly all people are victims of misinformation, and not guilty of being stupid. Blaming the general population for being cheated in politics is as wrong as blaming a woman for being raped because she was simply doing what any man is presumed to have a right to do.

jlocke123 August 19th, 2008 5:23 pm
Ruscle: "there won't be anyone to buy their products."

"Well it seems that Corporate America doesn't make "products" in the physical sense anymore. They buy and sell bundled debts, they do leveraged takeovers, they build pyramids out of financial instruments. As long as the Dems and the Repugs keep in power and are doing what the corporations pay them to do, the one percent of America that is on top of the pyramid will do just fine."

Now that sums up what is wrong with America neatly.

Swift boating, err, repeating the Big Lie ad over and over as advocated in "Mein Kampf", has a long, inglorious, and mostly effective history. Simply put, as long as it works, it will be used. The only real reflective question is who are more scary: those whom put it out, or those who believe it?

America has failed. Now McCain is ahead of Obama and will remain that way. The Wealthy Rule the World and McCain will be a perfect puppet for Corporate America. I m 53 and can kiss my employer sponsored heath care, Social Security and prescription plan good by. Why should I worry about that. The Country will be broke in a few years, and only the wealthy will be ok. Failed policy seems to be what folks want to vote for. Wait till it effects the ones that think Rupug policies will benifit them when it will fail them. I ll just say "Serves them right".

Swiftboating = telling the truth about Democrats

Most of those Guys stuff checked out...and since Kerry has never done an SF81 we'll have to assume the rest of their stuff is true until proven otherwise...of Course its seared, seared into Kerry's memory like the river trip to Cambodia that never happened

Corporate Repugs Like to put nonintellectuals in the White House as they are easier to control. They take the money without doing any serious thinking. Bush is a good example and then comes Mc Cain who graduated 894 of 899 at the Naval Academy. These types also appeal to the electorate that operates on average at about the sixth grade level. That's why the Repugs are reluctent to ever adequately fund education. Their theory is why make them smarter and harder to keep in the dark on a diet of bullshit.

I believe it was the great American philosopher Homer Simpson who said, "It takes two to lie: One telling the lie, and one listening to it." The reason lying works so well in the US is because we're so happy listening to it.

You know, I haven't even read the article, just the posts.

I'm in my early sixties, raised by that "Greatest Generation" who lived out the "American Dream" as portrayed on TV and in the movies: Started with zip and educated themselves on the GI Bill, worked their ways from renting garage apartments to owning a custom built home and a little vacation cottage upstate.

They were miserable and I noticed it.

All simply as background: We took to the streets and campuses in the sixties in huge and angry numbers and accomplished some fairly important changes. I think lots of that was fired by the draft. Our young (US at the time) were being harvested by the government and shipped halfway around the world to kill (and be killed by) people who had never done a damned thing to any of us. That eventually pissed off enough people that enough of us got fed up and started burning shit and being generally disruptive.

All THAT for background: You can take to the streets till Satan needs a parka, chant, sing, march, put on funny masks and faces, do street theater and whatever else you want and the folks who are actually at the levers and dials and wheels will simply close the windows, pull the shades and turn up the Talk Radio.

Unless you get their attention, you are just an amusing sideshow. You must interrupt the daily affairs and normal business of the people and institutions that carry out today's policies.

AND ...

It must be done NON violently. This is still the most creative and knowledgeable population in the world and, when enough people turn their rage and their intent to recapturing politics and economics, non-violent and effective means of disrupting the operations of the various structures of power will be found and implemented.

Long term, very long term, the most effective way to regain control of this country would be, on a precinct and county level, to institute election systems that absolutely guarantee the accurate counting and certification of each and every vote. It can't be done nationally because that gets the attention of the present power structure and activates mechanisms to prevent it. If they KNOW their votes will count, people will participate. It's already happening in places around the country, and it is a loooooooong process, one I don't know if we have the patience or span of attention to carry out.

Meanwhile, consider, those of you with expertise in these matters: How can the "Business as Usual" that ignores your marching and singing and chanting be disrupted in a non-violent way that makes it impossible for you to continue to be simply another amusing thing happening on the streets below?

Non-violence is essential, not because it is holier-than-thou and self-righteous or easy, but because it delineates with great clarity the power structure from a self-empowered population. When YOU are the violent ones, you are in a struggle at THEIR level. You do NOT want to go there. That ground is taken, controlled, actually dominated by the State. The State has the monopoly on the use of force. You can't win there.

Make it deal with YOUR tactics in YOUR domain.

You are working to reclaim a nation founded on the highest principles of enlightened humanity ever expressed in political documents. It has never yet been what those documents say it is. It is our job to see to it that we continue to move TOWARD that possiblity. Right now we are moving away from it.

Think long and carefully, consult and consider, keep your wits AND YOUR HUMANITY about you.

and ACT.

Face it, folks. Swiftboating works very well. Polls this morning show McCain has overtaken Obama.

Big tree
OK then what is your idea? I said hit the streets and you posted DEFEATED GUTLESS NEGATIVE postings. You have not said HOW TO CHANGE THINGS just we can't and I am afraid and don't want to FIGHT for DEMOCRACY just whimper behind a closed locked door and a keyboard. That is the trouble with Americans they are great at letting some one else do the fighting and ride the coat tails of others through out American history. That is why when they knocked over 2 office buildings in NY the whole country fell apart and blame others if America is fucked up. OK if you can't come up with how YOU that is right YOU would get off you butt and change things then stop jumping on others who have the GUTS that's right GUTS to try to make things better for you closet case Americans.

Slime and lies work well to win elections for republicans.If TV and these techniques were available in 1932, Hoover would have been a 4 term president, and Roosevelt would have wound up on the Hudson River in retirement.

Samson, yes that is spin. The price was low because Saddam was pouring oil on the market. We invaded in part because he was preparing to to tag it to the euro instead of the dollar.

And we used to enjoy a better trade in oil with Venezula, but then Chavez came to power and that failed coup attempt by bush and well you know, truthiness everywhere you listened.

Truth in advertising would go a long way to shutting down the pundits talking shit on tv and radio.

Now that I think about it that didn't happen under clinton did it? It must have happened way before, like under Reagan, because they've been lying in political ads for a very long time.

Clinton did the job growth while going from record deficits to record surpluses. GW Bush did horrible in job creation while going from record surpluses to new record deficits. The $482 BILLION deficit does not include $80 Billion in war funding as I understand it--making it -$552 Billion. It is never clearly said in the media.

Stockman said it was known that deficits would occur with loss of revenues, but that it was a way to reward Reagan's supporters.

Samson, that is SPIN---no basis in reality.

Hey I'm in IT and they are shifting the jobs in IT offshore so fast it would make anyone's head spin. We interviewed someone today for a university job, their position at Lexis has been offshored 3 times now and someone told them to look into universities where they aren't ofshoring - yet.

Universities in this country are fast becoming the refuge for those whose jobs were offshored, begun under Clinton and exploded under bush.

It is a joke they sell you that you must go to univerity to get a good job. Even that degree doesn't stopp offshoring of your job.

They are rigging it RIGHT NOW ACROSS THE COUNTRY so that only rich kids get educations worth shit. Preschools shut down in middle class and poor areas, only open in public schools in wealthy areas. This is right now. They are gearing up for a slave class and a ruling class while they sell you that shit on tv you'll soon not be able to buy anymore on slave prison camp wages, but heh, Chinese wealthy and other wealthy in countries around the world will gladly buy.

Welcome to Amerikkka.

How will going into the streets change anything on the level we need changed? I am not ready to rot in jail and that won't start the change we need - getting us all slapped in those nice new KBR prison camps that are sll around the country waiting for all that free Fortune 500 labor. The new fangled robber barons are salivating just thinking of their profits to come.

When did they start letting advertisers tell lies in advertisements? Wasn't that something that happened under repugs while Clinton was in power?

Until we get back to where advertisements have to be truthful, and the media has to air advertisements they don't agree with the message on, we are really fucked.

Until corporations are no longer granted citizenship with legal rights over regular citizens' rights, we are fucked.

This country went bad a long time ago, back whenever that court case was decided that gave corporations the rights of citizens with so-called "free speech" rights that trump regular people's rights. More nails in the coffin when Reagan lifted taxes on the rich, more theft via Savings and Loan scandal no one prosecuted and Iran Contra and pardons and oh lets just get along years of Clinton while they stabbed the middle classers with a smile and wink to their masters, with NAFTA and telecommunications act and then there was the truth in advertising they threw out the window and then more Bush tax cuts for the 1%'ers. They are rolling in the dough and laughing all the way to the bank and most of us are clinging to the few jobs they haven't shifted offshore - yet.

Yeah to the streets will change a lot. Yeah that's the ticket.

To the streets? Unorganized and alone? Yeah that'll change things.

Peaceisactive (12:48 pm) says that the media is mostly concerned with ad revenue. Not true. The main purpose of the corporate media is to deliver propaganda.

When the media in America is as corrupt and the GOV it serves you don't have democracy. You people on most part are wishing on a star for help. Wake the fuck up get off line and into the streets.

"So why would Senator McCain make an ad that is so obviously false?"

The same reason why he engaged in illegal "copyright infringement"; he thinks no one is going to call him on it!

And besides, he doesn't know squat about economics and consequently relies completely on his advisors from the Bush school of trickle-up theftconomics to coach him.

"The greatest homage one can pay to the truth is to tell it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

canuckchuck 1:54:
Reading your posts is a guilty pleasure.In general I'd prefer less vulgarity-but we're enduring such a vulgar regime-so what the hey!

To tetti_tatti,

I agree with you 100%. Both Obama and McCain are beholden to
big Money/Business and there is no real difference in their policies
and that of Bush except in minor details but with a lot of empty
rhetoric and hot air.

Why do posters bitch about politicians and not about the oligarchy that put them there?

And who put the oligarchy there but ourselves? We buy their cars, use their oil, fly their airplanes, eat their food, wear their clothes, watch their media, buy their stock, use their banks, join their armies, etc. and etc.

By becoming totally dependent on the corporate and banking oligarchy, WE THE PEOPLE PUT THE OLIGARCHY IN POWER.

Now that the oligarchy also owns the Government, the Pentagon, Private Armies, the spy establishment and every lethal weapon ever imagined, we start screaming our outrage, like helpless babies crying from diaper rash, threatening revolution (lots of luck) using peashooters, or throwing tantrums and threatening to turn blue and die for our "principles".

CD is catharsis for the desperate helpless. They cry, I'll vote for McCain so things will deteriorate faster! Obama is a "fill in the blank" and worse than McCain! Vote your conscience! The lesser evil is still evil! Vote Nader! Vote McKinney! Vote Paul! Vote third party! Vote Republican! Anybody but Democrats!

All this on the computers they bought from the oligarchy.

Do they really think they can beat the oligarchy in a bloody revolution? Progs can't together on a tax revolt, on becoming independent of the oligarchy, on not buying any of the oligarchy's stuff or using the oligarchy's services, on not working for the oligarchy. How are they going to get it together for a bloody revolution?

War is the most authoritarian of acts and conservatives are authoritarians. To fight them, liberals would become conservatives, the beast we are fighting against and end up fighting ourselves. Conservatives are nothing if not oxymoronic.

Does it matter to the oligarchy what posters say here or who they vote for or don't vote for using the oligarchy's own electoral system? Like someone here said, Rush and Rove must be laughing their big asses off watching us fight among ourselves.

Senator Gravel and others have proposed peaceful, realistic solutions like direct democracy, grassroots organizing or incorporating We the People to beat corporations at their own game without bloodshed.

The grassroots Greens and Indies had the right idea, but instead of forming coalitions with prog Dems like the fundies did with Repugs, they want to compete in the rigged winner take all electoral system and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

But reactionary CD readers either keep pining for the knight in shining armor to come save them or they will commit suicide and take the rest of us with them.

What is the difference between suicidal CD'rs and the murdering fundamentalist rapturists? Are they ready to arm their kids and send them to fight the oligarchy?

Americans are idiots! media is to blame for pushing this shit, but it's a reflection of our society. that's what people want to hear. A brief and simple economics lesson on CNN explaining realistic situations we're facing is BORING! a segment scaring the american public, and then telling them not to worry, everything will be fine if we do nothing and instead pay less taxes (which really isn't the case) makes people feel good.

Canuckchuck, you are so right on.

Taxes (fair and progressive) are the price we pay for a civil society. Full Stop. If one REALLY does not like taxes, I am sure Iraq has even lower taxes, and gosh, the "tribal areas" of Pakistan apart from excellent scenery and all the bullets you can eat...offer even LOWER taxes, if any. Wow.
Could we charter a bulk carrier, get REPUGS off their ASSETS and off to somewhere with LOW,LOW,LOW taxes!!!! IQ would rise 150%, democracy would improve 300%, and civility would rise 1,101% or more. Gotta get a big boat- they'll have no clue where they're going- just mention the "tax thing"- that they can understand.

Ruscle: "there won't be anyone to buy their products."

Well it seems that Corporate America doesn't make "products" in the physical sense anymore. They buy and sell bundled debts, they do leveraged takeovers, they build pyramids out of financial instruments. As long as the Dems and the Repugs keep in power and are doing what the corporations pay them to do, the one percent of America that is on top of the pyramid will do just fine.

Instead of "waiting", we need to think of seven ways to get what we need out of this imperfect system, regardless of which candidates gets the corporate cash.

"Senator McCain now . . . is stuck running on the record of a president who is presiding over an economy that is sinking into recession and is facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."

Americans may be concerned about that right now but on the first Tuesday in November, when they walk into the election booth, suddenly what most of them are going to see is the color of McCain's skin. They will keep hearing Pat Buchanan and Cokie Roberts calling Obama "exotic". The most widely published photo between now and election day will be Obama's two daughters with their hair done in corn rows. The levers will be pulled for McCain and America can come back down to earth. The MSM will pull long faces and lament America's ongoing inability to make a black person president. Secretly, however, they will be smiling and giving each other vigorous fist jabs and whispering that the darkie can now shuffle back to Illinois. SSDD.

"You'd think self-preservation would cause companies to move to support the sane, Democratic candidate."

Sure, but first we need a Democratic candidate who is sane.

Obama ain't it.

Stockman said after he left OMB that the Reagan tax cuts
were known at the time they were enacted to be able only to produce deficits. That is what happened. It is a lie that tax cuts alone enhance the economy, thereby increasing tax revenue. Fact is, taxes MUST go UP. Period. You can not have Shrub adding about $5 TRILLION to the national debt, and leaving a $482 BILLION annual deficit and DO NOTHING about increasing revenue in a real way.

I'm waiting for the Corporate empires that control this country to wake up and realize that if they keep destroying the middle class - as republicans have been doing this past 8 years - that there won't be anyone to buy their products.

You'd think self-preservation would cause companies to move to support the sane, Democratic candidate.

But no... instead, the companies are exploring how to leverage emerging markets in China while they destroy America.

Republicans are swift-boating Obama the same way Democrats have always swift-boated Nader, so it serves Obama right.

Plus, Democrats are too wishy-washy to respond McCain in kind. Obama's answers, like Kerry's, are weak, cowardly and ineffective. McCain, the war criminal, the senile creep, is looking good right now. He will win. Only Democrats can screw up this royally.

It doesn't make a difference anyway which one of these two corporate whores wins. For the left, a McCain victory is preferable. At least we'll clearly have an enemy in the White House, not a pretender.

The boycott is the most powerful available tool to steer the msm in the direction it should go. Boycott their advertisers.

Baker:

Good article, but I thought it was going to be about where the money is coming from to fund the latest swiftboating of a Democratic Presidential Nominee. I'd like for you guys to follow the money. I bet that some church people will be shamed that their tithes are going to purchase books and otherwise bankroll the guy who wrote Obama Nation. They should be shamed by listing their churches, because if this guy succeeds in swiftboating Obama, we will have another 4 years of Bush-like economics, foreign policy and risk losing what little freedom we have at home. Please,someone do the homework, which the rest of us cannot do. The people who are paying the money will have to bear the responsibility. How in the world can anyone want more of what is happening now?

Ever heard of George Lakoff? Learn from his notes and books and then you can defeat the swift boat motherfuckers:

www.georgelakoff.com

The media has no responsibility other than attracting an audience for advertisers. The public must learn to carry that responsibility that journalists claim to bear. The public must evaluate publicity releases from a background of deep literacy or democracy will crumble on the rocks of reality.

The only way to break this destructive swift boat bully that has taken over the deciding of the presidency from the voters, is to make sure the swift-boated candidate wins. Until that happens, the bully will continue to control the fate of the country.

Of course, this argument is very simplistic and ignores all factors besides tax policy on the economy.

For example, during the 90's, the North Sea oil fields and other non-Opec sources were keeping oil and energy prices at some of the lowest levels we'd seen since the 1973 oil embargo. Or, the economy was undergoing a one-time-only boom as both consumers and business adopted the personal computer.

If you lower the taxc rate for the rich, they will in turn create jobs....for underage prositutes in SE Asian.

You, on the other hand, while not an underage asian prostitute, will be fucked like one, lose you job, your home, your savings, your health care, and be left in the street to die.

This ad is directed at those who have benefited from the Bush economic plan and there are many, but many more have suffered and those persons are the ones who should look at this ad and wonder where their raises, health benefits and retirements went. It is old and it is trite, but the rich will get richer and the poor? well, there won't be any bed of roses for them until everyone pays their Fair Share.

The fear and greed platform that has been a successful strategy for Republicans will continue to be deployed as long as it continues to appeal to swing voters, most of whom have obviously never heard of the "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" concept. The US electorate is way past "fool me twice".

AIPAC supports mccain - AIPAC controls the media - NUF SAID

The fix for this is pointing out that the recipients of the Bush tax cuts, the payers of income tax, cap gains tax and estate tax, have "borrowed" two million million (aka "trillion") ($2,000,000,000,000.00) dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund and it will NEVER be paid back without increasing some taxes at the high end.

Make it about the THEFT from Social Security.

This is even worse when it deals with going to war. The monopoly media didn't want to risk their ratings and ad revenue by appearing unpatriotic by questioning the President in a time of war.

The main problem here is that we have monopoly media systems that rely heavily on the ad spending of the candidates. The ad revenue is their main interest. Providing accurate information on which to make cdemocratic decisions is not a top priority.

"So why would Senator McCain make an ad that is so obviously false?", the author asks.
Because politicians can get away with not telling the truth. There is no accountability in American politics today. A few corruption cases but nothing that would scare a politician into telling the truth.
Hoa binh