Art Of The Deal

Dad: I want you to marry a girl I've chosen for you.
Son: No way.
Dad: She's Bill Gates' daughter.
Son: Well, in that case, sure.

-- Dad goes to Bill Gates --
Dad: I want your daughter to marry my son.
Gates: Nope.
Dad: But my son is CEO of World Bank.
Gates: That's different - OK.

-- Dad goes to the Chairman of World Bank --
Dad: I want you to appoint my son CEO.
Pres: No way.
Dad: He's about to become Bill Gate's son-in-law.
Pres: By all means then.

And that's how shit gets done.

Corporate Media

Things are changing pretty fast.  We're becoming more aware that some things we've been told over and over for the last 20 years are total bullshit.  Like the notion that we have a free press.  The press is not free - it's owned and operated by big corporate interests, just like practically everything else in this country.  Another one is the lie about "the liberal press".  Take a quick look at the utter contradiction at work here.  Corporations are anything but liberal (most of them anyway), so I'll bet you dollars to dog shit that the people who run those corporations aren't voting for a lot of "Lefties"; and they're going to use the very powerful tools at their disposal to shape a narrative that makes the political climate favorable to themselves and their Corporate Clients (ie: Cronies)

From Wonkette, via Balloon Juice:

Mainstream

Has anyone ever heard either Roger Ailes or Rush Limbaugh say that their organizations present a general viewpoint that ISN'T widely-held?  Don't they at least intimate that their political bent is in agreement with a big majority of the American people?

How do these bozos get away with bitchin' about "the mainstream media" when they ARE the mainstream media?

We Are So Fucked

Campaign Finance has to change if we're ever going to get anything that remotely resembles what American Democracy is supposed to be.

From The Atlantic:

"This may be the first presidential election where we really have no idea who's funding the campaigns until it's too late," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "By January 31, the first five primaries will be done, the nomination process could be all but over, and we'll just be finding out where most of the money came from."

Payback's A Bitch

Don't Let The Bastards Get Ya Down

But Is It Real?

We hear and see what want to hear and see.

It's A Problem

Part of the bigger problem of "they're all alike" and "both sides do it" is Obama's pursuit of the terrorist bad guys, and the use of drones to kill them.  Bush put the program together and now, under Obama, the operators seem to have refined it to a very sharp point.  And that's usually at the heart of this kind of problem.  We develop these deadly capabilities without regard for the legal ramifications, and then we find it almost impossible not to use them in the face of political pressures.

I think we can see the standard political calculation going on here too.  Obama kills terrorists (and sympathizers - and some innocents as well) while ignoring the niceties of due process because he figures he gains more against his political enemies than he loses among his friends.  It's cynical, and I don't like it, and I'm sitting here every day rationalizing it away because I support Obama on most other issues; plus I can't stand the thought of putting any of the current crop of Repubs in power.

This really sucks.

Exactly

If they're not as deliberately ignorant as they seem to be, why are they constantly providing evidence that they are?

Action

Two basic choices for any politician who wants to survive beyond the next 14 months - get something done or get the fuck outa the way.

I've also wondered some about the criticism that this thing can't possibly get anywhere because it "lacks a clear message". This of course from the people who helped get us into this mess to begin with. But never mind. What Occupy Wall Street is showing us is that it doesn't really matter where you start - but ya gotta start. Act faithfully and faith will come.



From We Are The 99%: