The state of South Carolina has turned into one, big, sick joke. You see it in the state’s politicians. You see it in The State newspapers reporting, or more importantly, lack thereof. It was bad enough that the state of South Carolina continually ranked near the bottom of every category, to include unemployment and education, the level of poverty in the state, among other issues. It was bad enough that for decades, without fail, the electorate continually allowed the Republican Party to stay in power despite its inability to deal effectively with these issues. Now, like the Republican Party itself, the state of South Carolina has simply devolved into a national joke.
Category: Media
Sep 09 2009
Midnight tonight, MoT on AirAmerica promoting Docudharma and Progressive ideas
First off, I want to thank everyone here at Docudharma for all of your love and support.
On Friday Night, at midnight for an hour, I will be interviewed by Nicole Sandler on Air America Radio regarding my diaries at DKos and other websites, but particularly regarding the diary I wrote recently which was titled Just call him a N!&&ER and get it over with, Republicans. We ALL KNOW that’s what you mean
Please, feel free to share this with others and pimp this news elsewhere, and if you can, please listen in.
I hope you will listen in and give me your support during this broadcast. You can find out which radio station in your area broadcasts AirAmerica by clicking here
Along with your support, I thought I would ask your advice, as this is my first chance to express my views in the traditional media, and I can use all the help I can get.
More below the fold, and again, thanks a ton, and wish me luck . . .
Sep 07 2009
Death as Profit (extended)
You read the title correctly; Dying is now seen as PROFIT venture!
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash – $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
The first question should be, who in their right mind would sell their life insurance policy to Wall Street? Why would people give up the very last of their children’s security upon their death? Obviously, some are willing to do just that, and, Wall Street, not having missed an opportunity to turn a profit, is ready to capitalize on it.
Sep 06 2009
Do the Public Airways Really Belong to the Public?
The Current Media System favors the Representation of Corporate Interests by our Politicians.
Since the Media Airtime costs so much, Politicians generally have little choice but to give Corporate Speech an Audience, in order to get Elected. … Helloooo Corporate Lobbyists!
Sep 04 2009
Translation of Current Traditional Media Coverage of Health Care
Volumes have been and should continue to be written about the downfall of the traditional media. Their obsession with process questions, and their “I’m bored” feelings toward discussions of substance, is painfully obvious to those paying attention. Beyond that, their reticence to point out the truth for fear of being called “liberal” is pathetic, and does a grave disservice to our democracy.
With that in mind, I offer the following translation of the spewings from the Looney Tunes characters in the traditional media as we confront one of the most important issues of our time.
“Mr. Senator, a handful of people who are out of their freakin’ minds say that the president wants to butcher the elderly. Is this true? Are these lunatics correct? Shouldn’t our public discourse be determined by people who have zero interest in solving our problems? Shouldn’t the media spend all its’ time debating the concerns of angry, armed psychopaths? Isn’t THAT the real issue here? The concerns of a fringe that is hell-bent on preventing people from doing anything remotely responsible? Shouldn’t we avoid reasonable, grown-up debates of the issues at all costs?”
“Now let me turn to you, Mrs. Cabinet Member. Who gives a flying fuck about what matters to people outside of Washington, D.C.? I certainly don’t, and neither should you. Well, unless they’re those psychos I mentioned earlier. Other than that, the great mass of this country who simply wants to know how the policies of their government are going to affect them – who gives a shit if they’re informed? Please answer only that question, and DO NOT veer off into an answer that involves a thoughtful discussion of anything of substance. I will grow tired of such shenanigans rather quickly, interrupt you before you can get very far, and move on to the next inane question.”
“Sorry Mrs. Cabinet Member! UT TUT TUT! Stop right there! I warned you, didn’t I? Didn’t I? Take that crap and tell it to somebody who cares!
Now then, Mr. Conservative Lobbyist Who Used To Be A Representative. We all know you’re being very genuine and honest when you say that Democrats want to do nothing but turn this country into a Stalinesque, murderous regime. After all, their thirty-year record of helping Republicans fellate the corporations that run this country is proof-positive of the fact that they are communists. So given that, please spend the next five minutes telling as many lies as possible, running your opponents’ names through the mud when their only crime is wanting to help out their fellow citizens, and shilling for your own corporate masters. Keep in mind that I will not call you on any of your bullshit, and will likely repeat much of it as conventional wisdom that everybody knows to be true.”
“Very good, sir! Good show! Now then, onto the token liberal we’ve brought onto the show today. For you viewers out there who aren’t used to us having anybody on the show who has a truly progressive viewpoint, remember that our policy is not to have them on because the only viewers who matter are those in the lunatic fringe of the far-right who simply aren’t interested in opposing points of view. And the only reason we have the token liberal on today is to beat up on them, and make it look like they’re the only one out there who’s crazy enough to believe that “helping people out,” “telling the truth,” “being compassionate,” “doing the right thing” junk. We specialize in liars, crooks, and hypocrits on this show, and by God we aim to keep it that way!
Now then, Token Liberal, why are you so full of shit? You say you want to help poor people, but don’t you actually want to slaughter them wholesale for kicks? Your worldview is that we should be caring, loving, honest people, but I’m going to ignore that and assume sinister intentions.
If you’re telling the truth, what you’re advocating will bankrupt our country. NEVERMIND! that Republicans are the ones who have caused most of our debt. UT TUT TUT! NO FACTS PLEASE! The Republicans and the lunatics tell me YOU’RE the one who bankrupts us, my lying eyes and the lying deficit figures be damned! So you’re obviously hell-bent on bankrupting this country!
OR, as I had previously suspected, you’re lying and you don’t give a fuck about anyone! And you want to KILL THEM ALL!!!
Please take the next fifteen seconds to respond before I allow you to be interrupted by Mr. Conservative Lobbyist Who Used To Be A Representative, who I will then allow to take up all your speaking time to spout off more lies and bullshit. You’re welcome.”
“Thanks for tuning in, everyone! I’m sure you’ll agree that my job is not to determine fact or ficiton, or to probe deeper into how your actual life will actually be affected by actual policies.
My job is to:
A) collect a six-figure salary for orally xeroxing talking points,
B) falsely make an equivalence between one side saying that 2 + 2 = 4.1 and the other side saying 2 + 2 = cheeseburgers and diarrhea and 37,000 (after all, in such a case BOTH sides are EQUALLY off-base! And if I pointed out how full of shit one side is, I’d be branded by Rush Limbaugh as liberal, and that would be so very, very bad! He’s a big, bad scary man, and his judgments and mentally unbalanced pronouncements to his zoo crew of fools are the most important thing ever!), and
C) ignoring all discussion of policy to focus 100% on lunatics, process questions, and the politics of the matter.Be sure to tune in next week to make sure you’re properly informed! And don’t forget to take our online poll! After all this great stuff we just threw at you, you’ve got plenty to go with when deciding where you stand on the issues! Bye-bye!”
Sep 02 2009
Don’t Take My Word on It (Updated)
In this madhouse called “the blogs”, it is actually the bloggers who are getting it right.
One of the most consistent voices is that of Glenn Greenwald who wrote about the very problem I cited (here in July 2008; that the Democratic Party gaining 60 seats in the Senate would change nothing. But, Greenwald goes further and totally eviscerates President Obama, the Democrats, and their apologists:
Rahm Emanuel, Tom Delay, and the Bush/Cheney White House have left no doubt that where there’s a will to influence the actions of Senators and House members in one’s own party, there’s a way. But the Obama White House has done nothing in the way of attempting to change the behavior of the supposedly obstructionist Blue Dogs and centrists whom Obama-defenders are eager to blame for the health care standstill. In fact, they’ve done the opposite: Emanuel has repeatedly leapt to their defense and attacked progressives who sought to influence or otherwise put pressure on them to change behavior. White House threats that “you’ll never hear from us again” are issued to defiant progressives only. Not only are such threats never issued to “centrists” and Blue Dogs who are supposedly impeding the President’s health care agenda, but the White House does everything it can to protect those ostensible obstructionists and further entrench them in power. Isn’t all of this fairly strong evidence that the White House knew, accepted and likely even desired from the start that — despite the President’s public assurances to progressives — the “public option,” understandably despised by the insurance industry, would be dropped from bill?
Nobody suggests that the President could easily or single-handedly change the behavior of Kent Conrad or Mike Ross. But there are certainly things — effective things — he could do to try, including making it more difficult for those politicians to stay in office, exactly as they threaten to do with defiant progressives. But they don’t do that. They do the opposite. The reason that Blue Dogs and “centrists” exert such control in the Democratic Party and are able to ensure the Party remains beholden to corporate interests is because that’s how Party leaders want it. That’s how the Democratic Party has been built and it’s how they continue to maintain their power.
Sep 02 2009
“Trying to get the President KILLED” Dan Savage NAILS it all, from “the Birchers to the Birthers”
Crossposted at Daily Kos
This might be the most thorough assesment of the Republican party, the media, The Religious Right, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, you name it, Dan Savage nails it. In an interview with Keith Olbermann, Dan Savage lays the truth down, hashes it up for all to see and then serves it with a bag of chips and a cup of STFU for the GOP.
Dan Savage: I really do think the Michelle Bachmanns of the world and the Glenn Becks of the world are actively and, consciously or subconsciously, trying to get, I’m just gonna say it, trying to get the President killed.
Full transcript and my own take on the issues below the fold.
Aug 29 2009
Exposé: The Man Behind The Defend Glenn Beck Web Site
Shortly after Glenn Beck said that President Obama is a racist who has “a deep seated hatred for white people,” the activist group Color of Change launched a campaign aimed at Beck’s advertisers. The campaign has enjoyed unparalleled success, persuading over forty companies to withhold their advertising dollars from Beck’s program.
In response to the action by Color of Change, a conservative activist created a web site to counter the growing opposition to Beck. DefendGlenn was created to instigate complaints directed at the companies who pulled their ads from Beck, and to thank his remaining advertisers. Instead, the site has become a repository of lies and disinformation, as well as a sycophantic center of blind adulation for Beck.
But who really is DefendGlenn?
Brought to you by…
News Corpse
The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.
Aug 29 2009
Exposé: The Man Behind The Defend Glenn Beck Web Site
Shortly after Glenn Beck said that President Obama is a racist who has “a deep seated hatred for white people,” the activist group Color of Change launched a campaign aimed at Beck’s advertisers. The campaign has enjoyed unparalleled success, persuading over forty companies to withhold their advertising dollars from Beck’s program.
In response to the action by Color of Change, a conservative activist created a web site to counter the growing opposition to Beck. DefendGlenn was created to instigate complaints directed at the companies who pulled their ads from Beck, and to thank his remaining advertisers. Instead, the site has become a repository of lies and disinformation, as well as a sycophantic center of blind adulation for Beck.
But who really is DefendGlenn?
Brought to you by…
News Corpse
The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.
Aug 29 2009
Welcome to the Party, Pal…
It was in May 2007 that I wrote this diary at Daily Kos about the importance of the independent vote during elections. In it, I detailed how the independent vote gave the Democratic Party the majority in Congress in the 2006 election.
In Dec 2008, I wrote this essay on how both political Parties could lose the independent vote.
After two and a half years, who is finally starting to agree with me? Daily Kos.
Aug 28 2009
Triumph Of The Willfully Ignorant
The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.
-Henry A. Wallace
Now late August in his month of blistering hatred, Ted Kennedy goes in the ground tomorrow, by Sunday the Blue Dogs will be lining up to piss on his grave. The vicious offensive by Astroturf groups that was spliced together with neo Confederates, white supremacists, domestic terrorists like Randall Terry and full blown American Nazis on health care town hall meetings has been an astounding success in driving a spike through any meaningful sort of health care reform. The deals have been cut, the propagandists have earned every penny of their millions for serving as a protection racket for the elite, the public option is dead and the entire sordid mess is soon to be administered last rites. It’s been a month of foulness that hangs heavy in the air, you can breath it in, smell the growing anger, the hate is so thick that it seeps into your pores. Soylent Green is made out of grandma, death panels, eugenics, Stalinism in stars and stripes, they are going to abort the babies and Obama will enslave the white race in labor camps where they will work to pay slave reparations. Were Herr Hitler and Herr Goebbels alive today they would marvel at how much more sophisticated and refined that their model has evolved and developed, God and Glenn Beck willing there will soon be pogroms in the streets, blood in the gutters and then librul huntin’ season will be announced from on high by that doped up and batshit crazy fat man in the EIB Network bunker who brags about having talent on loan from the almighty yet who can’t get an erection without pharmaceutical assistance.
Aug 27 2009
The pundits need to “chill out”
This turd of reasoning has been floating around awhile; if you investigate the Agency it will have a chilling effect which will hamper officers decision making and situations.
The answer, regrettably, is yes. Agents who relied on previous decisions not to prosecute are back in potential peril. And their angst and uncertainty will be shared by others in the intelligence community, particularly if the investigation is officially broadened.
The agents’ concern over their potential liability for past acts is understandable, given the relative legal uncertainty in which they operated. Most people believe that they know intuitively what torture is, but precisely what techniques meet the legal definition of torture is anything but clear.
WRONG….