For many long decades, corrupt politicians have been baiting voters with measly little tax breaks while giving huge tax breaks to the rich and simultaneously cutting government services that help the citizenry, thereby actually costing us tax payers more money, rather than less, since we have to make up for the reduced government servicesand tax breaks for the rich out of our own pockets. These dishonest politicians have consistently shifted the savings from government service cuts to their billionaire cronies in the form of huge tax breaks, and this year they are at it again (Trumpcare and the proposed budget). The super-rich parasites, who receive these giant tax breaks and live a life-long vacation watching their dividends roll in, all pay only half the tax rate (typically 15% not counting loopholes and foreign tax havens) of what the rest of us, who actually work for our living, have to pay on our hard-earned income. Economist Robert Wolff explains some of this in this interview you might want to watch:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The GOP’s Latest Plan to Rob the Poor & Reward the Rich…”)
So, please tell me, when your life becomes unaffordable because the rich don’t pay their share and more and more wealth is transferred to them, how does that make your life better? These tax cut promises are just a sales pitch to sell us a reverse-Robin-Hood system. Continue reading →
Even as record-size hurricanes keep tearing into the nation, the political mud slinging continues. Good grief! Well, be prepared, fine people who want to clean up the mess of our country: you are going to get more smears and gaslighting. Mrs. Clinton just came out with a book preaching alternative facts (in other words: lies and creative interpretations to warp reality). So, anyone who accuses any of us of not letting go of the 2016 debacle and Hillary’s second historic failure to realize her dynastic claim on the American throne, let’s be clear: it’s her not going away. It’s her continuing the smears side by side with all those other neoliberal handmaidens of the robber billionaires and their destructive corporations. And, of course, they do this in order to continue their devastating politics which has been flushing our country and its people down the drain. You smearers and gaslighters seriously expect us not to fight back when you act to harm our country? Naturally, we shouldn’t spend much time on these silly excuses and justifications for 2016, because we mustn’t let ourselves be distracted from the real issues. Let’s just place a response for the sake of defending against fake facts and then return to fighting on the issues. Continue reading →
… and the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafist extremist terrorists all.
So much for the myth propagated by our corporate media that the so-called rebels are democracy loving good guys and Assad the awful dictatorial bad guy. As usual, our government fights to destroy all chance of democracy and justice in foreign lands (for corporate profits on cheap oil imports and lucrative arms sales) and pretends to do the opposite.Read what Syrians have to say about it.
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Welcome to yet another video weekend courtesy of this blog. No need to go bankrupt in your nearest cinema or lose much time searching for videos which grow you as a person rather than dumbing you down like so much of the corporate entertainment does. Have some laughs, shed some tears, and learn how to fight our rigged system while you relax, maybe with friends and family, watching these videos. Be sure to share them.
The first video (from the The Jimmy Dore Show) covers a variety of topics: Brexit, solidarity, presidential power and failure to use it — doom of journalism and the hubris and lack of concern and sympathy among the privileged and sheltered lucky ones in a profession that is falling apart — the awful mentality of the establishment’s henchmen and handmaidens such as those self-satified shills in the corporate media — how Obama became a sell-out instead of a hero — and Kamala Harris’ corruption:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “Obama’s Three Biggest Failures – Not What You Think”)
Death to master-thieves in other countries. Elevation to pharaoh status in ours. Wait… didn’t we make war on this very same overseas government once?
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “3 Criminal Bankers Sentenced To DEATH!”)
No kidding, but even the spare time activity of golf is part of the establishment’s schemes against us now! — Private elite universities also leech off us even as we ourselves can no longer afford basic college. — Our national price-gouging and political bribing by Big Pharma is a big problem and we are forbidden to buy medication from cheaper places, even as our blood-sucking drug companies themselves are permitted to do what we are not: to buy cheaper Canadian drugs. And after they buy them cheap, as we are not allowed to, they get to sell them to us at a steep markup to pad their wallets, all watched over by our FDA for drug safety, of course. The latter means that all this quacking and clucking about safety risks when buying medicine from Canada is nothing but a baldfaced lie. — Our low taxes on corporations are only high in theory but quite low in practice (and, yet, our biggest corporations evade them anyway). — Researchers are being bought by corporations just like politicians are (global warming denial anyone?). — Scapegoating of immigrants is an old game of pulling the wool over our eyes. — Last but not least, taxing should happen where the money is, not where it’s lacking:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “Economic Update: Faith & Labor Fight Inequality”)
Hmm… the rich person I once intimately knew sure enough spent much of her time in this iconic rich people’s pastime.
Richard Wolff quote: “… profit grabbing… using the power of your business to control the politics to give you yet another benefit on top of all of those you’ve purchased before.”
Have you wondered how our oligarchs report low unemployment to celebrate our nation and its “recovery” from the last stock market crash when our economy declines and sucks in reality? You simply don’t count unemployed people who have given up looking for jobs they know are not there; and you count people pushed into poverty as employment success when the growing number of working poor in an economy which increasingly squeezes us to our limits reflects the disappearing middle class. You can now find the conditions of poor, low-wage China right here in the U.S.:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “Unemployment – Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics – Richard Wolff”)
Conclusion: We have a working class out of work (with some of us not completely out of work but underemployed and underpaid, so maybe not out of work, but out of life). Any wonder that our economy sucks?
Somehow I felt like sharing this one (with no further comment)… It kind of fits in with all that I-don’t-care-about-others-thinking which has poisoned our society, killing the solidarity we need to stand up for our rights, and which defines our establishment:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for “Moyers & Company” and the title: “Don’t judge people you don’t know ( you will cry after watching )”)
I have mingled with people from all classes of society, and directly observed the limits of their perception bubbles. With this as my background, I find the instances of blind-spot-hypocrisy in this political ad absolutely spot-on:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Pro Jeremy Corbyn Commercial Makes Right Wingers Cry”)
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This weekend, enjoy politically relevant videos across a wide spectrum of issues: media mendacity, Syria, U.S. poverty, automation and lay-offs , the next economic crash, repression of dissent, government spending for a new New Deal, and Universal Basic Income.
1. Media Lies and Syria
Beware the corporate media! Beware, beware, beware! If you use outfits like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News as your only source of information, you will be mislead again and again. Sometimes they will let a bit of real news slip through; but you can only tell real news from fake news if you do some vetting of sources. One way is to check out multiple information sources from different places on the political spectrum – alternative media especially (to get away from vested corporate interests) – and then compare the disagreeing reports to find commonalities. Another way is to use your brain to take into account how these sources make their money, then put two and two together, and you will know what’s really going on. You know that you can’t trust a used cars salesman when he praises a car standing on his lot; but he may be quite honest talking about the weather or the problems his child has in school. Makes sense, right? — I work hard to bring you the real news, as well as original thoughts and ideas; so you would do well to follow my posts and help me reach more people (or even help me become financed, for example by a small donation from you, or you buying an online course from me).
One topic the corporate media are compulsive liars about is our eternal warfare around the globe. So, here is some rarely heard news about Syria:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Max Blumenthal on How the Media Covers Syria”)
Quote: “The progressive media’s job is to challenge [the establishment media] narrative, but in the Trump era this is not really happening.” The great risk, at this time, is that alternative media join the corporate media in their distractive anti-Trump mania, a convenient trick for our corporate media and politicians not to report on corporate crimes or truly transformative political opportunities. Merely resisting won’t move us forward. We must do more to fight the establishment and take our country back from the robber billionaires.
2. American Poverty
Meet the Poor Country USA (over half the U.S. lives in or near poverty (such as working for less than a living wage)). See and hear from their reality, if you don’t experience it yourself every day, or know you are not alone if you do:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “America Is The Poorest First World Country Linh Dinh”)
If you want to know how we got to this place, I write about this regularly. In fact, if you haven’t read it already, I wrote a succinct summary yesterday:How the Bandits Took Over
3. Automation and Lay-offs
McDonald’s just used its record stock prices to fire 2,500 of its workers. Conclusion: Technology either improves the profits of plutocrats or the lives of workers. Plutocrats fire workers replaced by machines to improve their profits. In contrast, workers owning their companies and making the decisions would improve their lives and their communities:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “McDonald’s, Capitalism, and Unemployment”)
4. The Next Economic Crash
The next economic crash is about to hit:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Economist Dr. Richard Wolff – The Lottery Economy”)
5. Repression Of Dissent
Brutal repression of dissent is quickly growing in our country. It will soon be the dark future for all of us if we don’t fight back now when it is still only hitting some of us:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “[#68] A U.S. Political Prisoner Is Finally Released & CNN Cover Up”)
6. Government Spending for a New New Deal
The below is probably the best video by Steve Grumbine that I have seen so far. This one is really good — full of vital truth. Gist: Watch your language! Most Americans need and want the same things, but the way we talk, pushing the party-line-division buttons, we tune each other out. Talk real issues, not slogans, party lines, or candidates:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Crossing political boundaries”)
Gist continued: Federal spending is an investment which can have taxes collected afterwards to balance out the economy. You don’t need to fight drawn-out political trench wars to free up tax dollars first, and you don’t need to burden most working people with higher taxes, to give us things like Medicare for All. All we really need, is a broad coalition of voters (across party lines) to get us a new New Deal. Taxes don’t exactly pay for any of these, the government does. The federal government can print all the money it needs (or create it with a click on a computer, actually). Taxation is only the re-taking of money from the economy lest we get inflation if the growth in money supply exceeds the growth of the economy. This re-taking is best done in places where the money uselessly accumulates (the billionaires).
Now, Steve Grumbine promotes a federal job guarantee but seems to oppose a universal basic income. Personally, I think that combining the two of them would give people a greater amount of flexibility. The thing not to overlook, after all, is that government – even one that is accountable to the voters (as our American government definitely is NOT and has not been for decades!) – is never perfect. One-size-fits-all measures always do wrong by some people. Hence, in my opinion, having an unconditional universal basic income as a financial safety buffer for all those for whom a federal job guarantee might not work, is highly recommendable. For example, if a federal job guarantee, for whatever reason, would exclude taking care of one’s children or one’s elderly (say, because their might be a worry about nepotism or unqualified care), then people able to rely on an unconditional basic income could still make the choice to care for their relatives, making for more individual liberty and a better, more caring society. Liberty and choice is what government should guarantee us, just like our founders demanded.
7. Universal Basic Income: A Comedian Talking Sense that Escapes Most Serious People
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Breaking The Stigma Towards Universal Basic Income Can Better Society!”)
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AsC.A. Matthewsof the great weekly blogThe Revolution Continueshas been saying for quite some time, “We are a society of bullies and scared people kissing up to the bullies (in order to stay alive). How long can we survive under this sociopathic regime before we’ve all gone certifiably insane from its cruelty?”
I hope this view can pull some weight with traditional “conservatives.” After all, kissing up is a lousy version of “personal responsibility,” the odd counter-argument we hear so much from the Republican-owned side of voters and their nose-leading demagogues in the GOP and corporate media (even some neoliberals) whenever they block our efforts to form a posse with which to topple the ruling bullies. Continue reading →
A wide range of topics awaits you this video weekend:
Hundreds of billions of tax gifts to the super-rich (who can’t even feel them), paid for by cuts to Medicaid among other things and another devious calculation (4 billion dollars saved by letting 200,000 older people die early in the next ten years):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Who Will Win the Coming Democratic Civil War? “)
By the way, I contacted the Patriotic Millionaires, proposing they help finance my work. I wanted to see how serious they are, and give my financial betters the chance to put their money where their mouths are. I never heard back. One of many indications that people at or near the top who talk a good game don’t necessarily walk much of the walk, and that those who benefit from our society’s rigging may be willing to place a band-aid here or there, or perform a little tweak, but don’t really want to fix the system.
The “Democratic” Party Digging its Own Grave:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Julian Assange Explains Why The Democrats Are Doomed”)
Quote: “The Democrat establishment needs the support of the security sector and media barons to push this diversionary conspiracy agenda…” (He is referring to the – so far still baseless – Russiagate hysteria.)
Richard D. Wolff on gentrification, legalization of gambling and marijuana as a way of not taxing the rich, betrayal of the American voter, free trade, deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and gutting of welfare to allegedly make the poor work harder, anti-governmental revenge politics… BITTER politics… This video is about an hour long and starts out a bit slow, but towards the middle and the end there come really valuable news and sharp insights:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Economic Update: Capitalism’s Self-Destruction”)
And now to a much overlooked and ignored, but very important, topic:
It is high time we take a look at how our oligarchs not only rig the system in our country but the rest of their global empire, as well. I have occasionally exposed our oligarchs’ dark deeds in the Middle East before and once also shown a light on Venezuela. Venezuela is actually far more important than most U.S. Americans currently realize. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves on the planet! Let that sink in! It also replaced classical dictatorship back in 1958 with a political system mirroring ours: three branches, two corrupt parties passing power between them and enriching their own (and their plutocrat cronies’) pockets while the majority of the nation became ever more impoverished. Then, Hugo Chavez sparked off a political revolution. That’s correct! A political, not an armed revolution. He was their Bernie Sanders, not the awful “dictator” as which our corporate media kept defaming him! Venezuela apparently has clean elections (unlike us!!!), confirmed by hundreds of international observers! Venezuela (constantly decried in our corporate media as a despotic commie country) actually has it written in its constitution that the people (yes, the people, not unreliable, bribable representatives in Congress) can impeach the president and trigger an automatic election. All they need is enough signatures. Imagine that!
Now, when you put all these things together, you get a mix of circumstances which practically SCREAMS for intervention by our oligarchs, to secure the oil and stamp out the kind of political revolution that might topple them from their own thrones right here at home in the States if it were to leak over our border and catch on here.
Let that sink in! And so, unsurprisingly, our oligarchs have been putting pressure on Venezuela ever since they realized that Hugo Chavez wasn’t just talk but the real deal.
This is what that looks like when they don’t stage an outright military invasion (like they so often do in the Middle East) but prefer to try regime change closer to home in the Americas through infiltration and financing rebel-rousing insurrection by local plutocrats:
An introductory summary:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Abby Martin: World Ignores Opposition Violence at Venezuela Protests”)
If you want more detail on our oligarch’s hand in all this, their usurping and misusing millions of our tax dollars through institutions like the USAID and the “National Endowment for Democracy” to kill democracy elsewhere under the false banner of fighting FOR democracy (that’s how we have been hoodwinked for ages), you can learn more here:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Why the CIA Won’t Give Up on Venezuela | Interview with Eva Golinger”)
And here is an interview with one of those alleged despots (Venezuela’s Economy Minister):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Empire Files: Venezuela Economy Minister—Sabotage, Not Socialism, is the Problem”)
In conclusion, you might want to watch (perhaps for the second time?) this summary, previously served up on this site — Tariq Ali’s very insightful, comprehensive summary on what has been happening in Venezuela:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Global Empire – Crisis in Venezuela”)
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For one brief moment in this 21st century, a man actually spoke truth to power on our corporate mass media (never to be seen in his job again, of course). It’s amazing to watch. The gist: the officially long obfuscated truth that it is American power mongers who (through the Saudis) radicalize the world’s worst terrorists and supply them with money and weapons. It really was amazing to watch:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “MSNBC Host SHOCKS Panel: “Saudi Arabia Is Funding Terrorists!’”)
The man is Dylan Ratigan, by the way. He now hashis own website.
Officially, we have no true healthcare debate, just two plans which keep millions of Americans from Healthcare access (27 vs 51 million, especially the very sick, old, or poor whom the robber billionaires will miss the least since they can cash in on their Social Security and Medicare funds via billionaire tax breaks once these unwanted-by-them peons are dead). Rich Americans live on average 15 years longer than the struggling rest of us. Government secrecy is on the rise despite the Freedom of Information Act. Trump’s press secretary disallows cameras (government secrecy gone wild?). Net Neutrality is under attack again. The 1st Amendment keeps being demolished. The criminalization of dissent advances. Felony charges angling for 75-year prison sentences have been levied against Trump-inauguration protesters. Reporters have been charged, too. At least 20 states have put forward or already passed dissent-silencing laws (in clear violation of our constitution — but, then, what else is new in this century of America’s hurtling decline?):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “[154] Healthcare Debate Fraud, White House Secrecy Beyond Belief & More”)
Republicans are deconstructing the Great Society (oh, and so are the “Democrats,” even if this show won’t go as far as to admit this), and they have a stealthy way of doing it over time. A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that about 28,600 more people could die every year in the U.S. if the Senate’s “health” care bill becomes law:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “America’s Economy of Death Exposed…”)
And, to finish, a satirical quicky:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “You Are Free! (To Do As We Tell You)”)
In our warped society where human values and virtues have to take second or last place below such artificial and callous creations like money – and where the narratives we keep getting fed by the mass media turn everything upside down – we keep hearing a never-ending drum beat about entitlements. Human beings who dare to ask that they be treated as human beings keep being accused of “entitlement thinking.” People who ask that human society do what it has always done throughout almost all of humanity’s existence (at least within tribes), namely for its members to take care of one another, thereby allowing humanity to survive, are told that “personal responsibility” trumps empathy, mutual help, and even kindness. Those who need help the most are accused of being parasites living on wrongful “entitlements.” They are being told to “get a job.”
