Welcome to Caracas

https://thesaker.is/reporters-diary-from-venezuela/

This morning I read an awesome article, translated by Scott over at Saker’s blog, from an independent reporter named Georgy Zotov.  Georgy Zotov (author of AIF weekly)
I found his personal experiences in Caracas most interesting.  I hope POM readers are able to gain a broader view of Venezuela, the country, it’s people, it’s leader(s) and it’s predicament.  Peace, brothers and sisters.  

One thought I had while reading Georgy’s entry was the different social/cultural instincts between “northerners” and our neighbors living closer to the (tropics) Equator.  We (northerners) seem to have extreme difficulty understanding the “laid-back” culture of these parts. 

Surely, they  need to change, or we will need to do it for them, right?  I am joking.  

Can Uber-Marketing False “Green Awareness” Save Capitalism?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey’s Green New Deal is being unveiled today. https://www.vox.com/2019/2/7/18215290/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-ed-markey-green-new-deal

Democrats appear poised to take a page out of FDR’s New Deal promotional tactics with a media blitz of their own, pushing a “Green New Deal.”  Sorry, no fireside chats.  There will be an impressive electronic/digital media blitz.  Soon we will all hear the story.  It has been playing nonstop for a while now.  The trick is to gain consent.  By hook or by crook commoners will be taught to sing a single chorus line in harmony – all from the same green-energy/climate-change hymnal.

Is it time for a real shift toward conservation and protection of nature? Or are we – most of us passively – sitting on the sidelines, witnessing yet another clever ploy to coopt “the left” and once again, save capitalism and the two-party system (how many times is this now?) from recurring fatal flaws:  Greed, wage and wealth inequality (slavery) and ecological destruction.  In order to fully understand the implications of the Green New Deal, one must be familiar with the New Deal.  We only think we know what happened in the 1930s.

Continue reading “Can Uber-Marketing False “Green Awareness” Save Capitalism?” →

iSpy?

This is neither theory nor opinion. I am merely recounting an experience for you to ponder.

I had a brief meeting the other day with an acquaintance who holds a fairly high position in local government. Our chat was mostly pleasantries, and so I did not broach the topic that was at the forefront of my mind from the moment I walked into his office: namely, the piece of electrical tape over his monitor’s camera lens.

I don’t know how I noticed it—it Continue reading “iSpy?” →

The Great Tylenol Scare and Coverup (1955- 2019)

Liver and Onions

By annspinwall and Steve Kelly

The (Extra Strength) Tylenol murders of September,1982 remains one of the great unsolved crimes in U.S. history.  The story we are supposed to believe is that 7 random individuals died after purchasing and consuming Tylenol deliberately dosed with cyanide.  Store shelves were not safe.  Panic in the marketplace led to a massive, nationwide (31 million bottles of capsules) recall by Tylenol manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson.  New, federal legislation initiated mandatory “anti-tampering” packaging, which magically gained J&J even greater market share in a few short weeks after the incident.  Excellent crisis management, or premeditated PR stunt? Was J&J in on it? We’ll never know for sure.

Here’s what we do know.  Tylenol has long been promoted as a “safe” alternative to aspirin and/or ibuprofen and other NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs).  Johnson & Johnson says so on the tv, and in magazines piled high at MDs’ offices throughout the world, so it must be true. 

Propaganda!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iksji1yZjoA   It works. 

Continue reading “The Great Tylenol Scare and Coverup (1955- 2019)” →

Fake elections, fake deaths

I am currently working on an AIDS piece, and it is proving extremely difficult for me. It will be done in a few days I think, but in the meantime I am violating one of the core concepts of blogging, not putting up enough fresh material.

This piece is the result of a discussion I had a while back stemming from Facebook and politics. It goes off in an unplanned direction.

What I see going on, with Facebook as the prime mover, is an ongoing and fake investigation into Donald Trump and Russian influence in our elections in 2016. It portends to be another Watergate, that is, the landscape is seeded with new clues on a regular basis. This is done to keep the issue alive and front and center. The purpose is to keep people who do pay attention to politics fixated on the wrong subject and asking the wrong questions. That keeps them out of the hair of real power, which operates behind a veil of media indifference and silence.

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My Southwest Airlines experience … the joke is on us!

It is helpful in marketing, or in being victimized by marketing, to understand that anything that is “free” is essentially worthless. The word has no intrinsic meaning. We just concluded a trip to Belize and used Southwest Airlines for the journey. More about that later.

Two years ago we went to Long Island for a family get-together, and we had accumulated over the years a pile of airline miles, something given us for “free” for using certain credit cards and flying on certain airlines. By use of a Capital One credit card, we had over (a long period of) time accumulated over 100,000 miles, so I thought it a good time to cash them in and save a few bucks.

Continue reading “My Southwest Airlines experience … the joke is on us!” →

Deadly cures

“…I think the Catholic Church was too much blamed in the case of Galileo – he was just a victim of peer review.” (Eric J. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, 1991)

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair)

tgphI stumbled on the Lerner quote this morning, and thought it would be a nice way to introduce a subject in need of examination, PSA, or the prostate specific antigen, discovered by Richard Ablin in 1970. It has been his life’s work to inform the public on the true nature of the PSA test. Peer review, or enforced mediocrity, plays a large part in preventing the truth about various forms of quackery from seeing light of day. Ablin’s work against PSA does not stand the withering criticism of his peers, who are in it for the money.  PSA testing, followed by unnecessary biopsies and prostatectomies, is big business. Ablin doesn’t get it.

Albin co-wrote the book, The Great Prostate Hoax: How Big Medicine Hijacked the PSA Test and Caused a Public Health Disaster. Since it was he who discovered PSA, he has a right to speak up. (I fear, however, that in the U.S. the best place to hide something is in a book. )

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Just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

From The Big Lebowski:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dooSFIvLn-Y 

Quite early this morning I was reading an essay over at The Saker’s blog entitled “Placing the USA on a collapse continuum with Dmitry Orlov.”

https://thesaker.is/placing-the-usa-on-a-collapse-continuum-with-dmitry-orlov/

This dynamic duo does “big-picture” stuff very well. This time they bite deeply into the progression we’re all living– the collapse of (the latest version) Empire. It was, of course, like all others before it, built to be looted and destroyed by the same mobsters that have been at this for 6,000 years, give or take.

They have a pretty sizable head-start, but every now and then I get the feeling they can hear the footsteps getting closer and closer, closing the gap.

I hope some of you will take a moment to read what they have written. Cheers.

 

Montana Green Party Clears Another Ballot-Access Barrier

Say what you will about politics in general, or Montana politics in particular, but don’t put your popcorn away just yet.

Yesterday in Great Falls a federal district magistrate breathed new life into Montana Green Party’s chances of rising from the ashes of defeat by the Montana Supreme Court. The Supremes upheld the District Court’s Opinion, which removed Greens from the 2018 ballot over a small number of “irregular” signatures in several voting districts.

If Greens win in federal court, look for them to return stronger and a little wiser, appearing on the 2020 general election ballot with a fresh slate of candidates, including the Governor’s race.

Continue reading “Montana Green Party Clears Another Ballot-Access Barrier” →