Madmen

(I see this mentioned here and there, but wonder if it has gained any currency in mainstream US media. Cuba and Russia have agreed to reopen a sensitive electronic eavesdropping base on the island, a response to the US poking its nose into every telephone conversation on earth. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.)
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The TV series Mad Men is such a beautiful metaphor for American life. On the surface it is about advertising, the seediest of professions, the one where people try to mislead us with emotional symbols into making poor decisions. Second, it is about Don Draper, and I cannot imagine this is not intentional: He is running from himself. He grew up in a whore house.

There comes a time in our growing up process where we confront reality, if we grow up at all. I think Don Draper is going to do that in the final half-season, and hope that he becomes a complete human, full of faults and favors, but more aware of himself and his surroundings.
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Adventures with National Pentagon Radio

See Footnotes
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To: NPR Ombudsman
From: Mark Tokarski
Regarding: Weekend Edition, Sunday, July 20, 2014

On your Weekend Edition this morning … the host was interviewing someone at the crash site of the airliner in Eastern Ukraine, and made two inferences: 1) Rebels are stealing bodies, and 2) (and this was so clever), he repeated an accusation by Kiev that rebels were altering the crash site. The on-site person said yes, indeed, people had said that wreckage seen the day before was not present the following day.

Got that? Here’s what we know: A reporter gave second-hand knowledge of missing debris. The host allowed the Kiev accusation through without a rebel response to the accusation. The inference of the news report: Rebels have altered the crash site.

What do we know for certain? Nothing. Agents of CIA, MI6, or Kiev could have as easily removed debris, stolen bodies, altered the crash sites. But NPR only infers rebel activity in the matter.

NPR is subtly inferring the the rebels shot down the airliner.
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(This is not part of the message to the ombudsman): It was apparent, reading between the lines, that the crash site is not secure, so that the investigation is already compromised. Further, NPR reported that official investigative work has not yet started, that the investigators are in Kiev. I think it safe to say that the anti-Kiev rebels are going to get the Lockerbie treatment.
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Score one for the rebels: They have control of the black boxes.

“Aircraft parts looking like black boxes were found at the site of the plane crash. They are currently in Donetsk, in the People’s Republic’s (DPR) government headquarters, under my personal control,” Aleksandr Boroday, the republic’s prime minister, told reporters.

The self-defense forces are ready to hand the data recorders over to international monitors “in case they arrive,” he said.

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JC has some links in the comments below that are quite informative, one of a video put out by the Ukrainian government that asserts evidence that the rebel forces shot down the airliner. The problem with it is that it was, ahem, made before the plane crashed – it is time-stamped, and has been pulled down, but just like Dr. Laura’s nude pictures, gentlemen, once they go out, you cannot get them back.

The other is some mathematical/calculus analysis of the crash, which is above my pay grade.

Putin is evil

(Note to subscribers: This post in its early stages accidentally went out under the title “K.” My finger hit the wrong button.)

imageAs a long-time student of the lies and the lying liars who tell them, I find the the most interesting aspect of our propaganda system to be the seed bed in which lies are planted, grow and thrive.

JC started a post yesterday with a quote from Obama about how we don’t have time for propaganda, and that there would likely be misinformation. The translation from the lying liar Obama to English is, of course, that “we are going to start hitting you with lies, and will continue to do so until we are satisfied that the lies have worked.”

But for the lies to work, ground must be prepared. Seeds that fall on untended ground do not grow. The tending has been going on for decades, but in recent months a subtle seeding has been going on, setting the stage for a play. There is no longer a “Russia” or a Russian Federation. There is only a “Putin.”
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Hillary’s got a war boner

Replace this ...
Replace this …
I write here quite a bit about false-flag attacks. The gas attack in Syria was one. 9/11 was one, Tonkin, Maine, Reichstag, most likely Israel is hammering itself with harmless rockets right now. Poking sticks at unchained monsters is stupid, which is why the people who want the wars have to make the events to start the wars. Read history for, like, all of recorded time if you’ve a chance.

...with this
…with this
MH17 is looking like a false flag event, and guess who is reading from the script? It is difficult to understand, and I am aghast that the US wants an open confrontation with Russia, but in Ukraine they have been begging for it. In case you don’t follow non-American news, Kiev has been beating the crap out of its own citizens, 400,000 13,500* have fled to Russia. A bomb was launched on a Russian city. The US is begging for war, it appears.

Generally, throughout my life anyway, American wars have been against harmless victims, countries that cannot fight back. This is something new.

Here’s some outside input. And here. And here. Get away from American news if you want a balanced view.
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PS: I just ran across a term that describes the two psychopaths pictured above. If only there were just these two. These are public faces, but the whole of our empire from top to bottom, our political, corporate and military leaders, are of this type. They are “deranged predators.”
*My mistake, as 400,000 is the number of refugees out of Syria fleeing the western back terrorists attacking that country. I do not know the current number of Ukrainian refugees, as 13,500 was a month ago and the Kiev attack as intensified since then.

The sigh of the oppressed creature

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. (JFK, Yale graduation, 1962)

If newscaster ‘facts’ land in your lap and you uncritically accept them as true; if you find yourself siding with one or another pundit in a televised debate; if you repeat talking points; if you’ve never looked at the hard evidence of the major events of our times, accepting official explanations as true; if you have ever ridiculed someone who does not accept official truth….

You’re an American. A thought-controlled, behavior controlled, no-threat-to-anyone-in-power American.

American public opinion is under complete control of the state. You, as a Democrat, might vociferously disagree with Republicans. That’s allowed, even encouraged, and the state will even furnish the issues you are allowed to vociferously disagree about. (Abortion, gun control, etc.) Once elected, they are the same people. But if you stray beyond the bounds of party politics, you’ll be ostracized, marginalized.

Think of what they do now at political conventions: They erect fenced areas, force demonstrators inside them, and then ignore them. They are called “free speech zones.” I am not kidding about that. This is what they are called.

That’s a nice metaphor for party politics. But there are real jails too. Eugene Debs campaigned from a prison cell in 1920, and Ralph Nader was arrested when he appeared at the two-party “debate” in 2000. We are only allowed freedom within the fences. Stray outside, the gloves come off.

Once every two or four years you get to throw the bums out. It does not change anything, but validates you. That is why we have elections. Otherwise, we might have real change, real progress, which is not allowed.

If the man or woman you support enjoys wide media coverage and is welcomed at newspapers editorial board meetings for serious scrutiny by serious journalists, and gets to ride on floats and is touted as a “front-runner” … move on. You’re supporting an apparatchik. Your candidate has already been vetted and found acceptable to insiders.

American party politics is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Maroon Bells

imageWe are in Aspen, Colorado today. Our trip here started two days ago when we drove, late in the day, to Crested Butte, a gateway to the Maroon Bell Snowmass Wilderness. Its claim to fame is flowers. On the Crested Butte side, the glacial till provides high moisture retention and flowers grow in amazing abundance. There is an eleven-mile trail through there, over a mountain pass, to where we are now. We decided last year to book a room here and make that hike, and spend a couple of days here during their music festival.

Since we are here without a vehicle, we had to pack our street clothing and stuff in, meaning I loaded a regular backpack instead of a day pack. I haven’t done that since 2011, carried such a heavy load. The hike was long, and included a 2000 foot ascent over a pass and then a 3000 food drop into Aspen. There were a couple of stream crossings, but all told, it was not a difficult affair. Yet we were very tired. Must be that aging thing I keep hearing about.

Maroon Bells
Maroon Bells
The focal point of the area on this side are the Maroon Bells, two fourteeners that sit at the head of the valley we came down. One young man we talked to while waiting for the bus yesterday is going to climb them, both of them, later this week. It looks like a technical affair to me, as these are not walk-ups. It makes me feel old and silly for being so tired after having merely walked through the area.

Other folks we met on the trail were doing the “four pass” trek, a 20+ mile trip that, as the name says, takes them up and over four high mountain passes on a circular route starting and ending in Aspen. (I say “in Aspen,” but it is a shuttle bus trip of about ten miles to the trail heads.) That’s an overnight affair, at least a two-day trip.

As we got closer to the trail head, where the bulk of the hikers are found, we found a cacophony of languages, much like hiking in the Alps. This is always a delight.

The photos shown here are pulled off the Internet, explaining their high quality.

And then … we were so tired we just turned on the tube and vegetated last night, and were reminded once again what is being done to the American people. The programming is stupid, and the ads incessant. I don’t, can’t make myself watch “news,” as that is the source of my countrymen’s colossal ignorance. It has two effects, one to dumb them down, and two to insulate them so that they do not know its true impact. They do not know what they do not know. It’s diabolical. Merely having that thing on has got to be harmful to people, and god almighty … what about the children?

Israel attacks Gaza again: “Look here, not there”

This cartoon below appeared at Moon of Alabama:

image

Even BBC’s coverage, however, would be better than we get in the US, where the bloody part on the right would be said to be Israeli victims of Palestinian bombs. That was disgraceful, and good grief, not an accident. Not an accident, OK? If these gaffes were accidental, every now and then one might go the other way.

I know the mind of my readers, most of them anyway … I am just a tad presumptuous, I know. There was a discussion of the USS Liberty incident in 1967 over at 4&20 recently. People struggle to get their arms around that one. After scouting the ship, and knowing it was American, unmarked Israeli aircraft attacked it with intent to sink it and kill all aboard. Radio communications were shut down, but before the job could be completed, sailors managed to get a radio message out. The gig was up. The cover-up began.
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Obama appointees attack free and open Internet

Savetheinternet.com, a lobby group which exists to defend net neutrality and is strongly opposing the FCC’s moves, claims that American web users are in serious danger of having their freedoms swept away: “expect internet blackouts that extend far beyond the popular content vendors as smaller websites are caught in the crossfire. Tweets, emails and texts will be mysteriously delayed or dropped.”

“Videos will load slowly, if at all. Websites will work fine one minute, and time out another. Your ISP will claim it’s not their fault, and you’ll have no idea who is to blame. You also won’t be able to vote with your feet and wallet, as there’s no competition in broadband, and all ISPs will be playing this game,” the group states on its website.

As a CPA I’ve had constant exposure to wealthy people over the years – they cannot be grouped anymore than Hispanics or teenagers. But I have noticed a tendency that puts them under the heading “humans.” Unless they inherit their wealth, more common than not, they are bright and ambitious risk takers during the initial phases of wealth acquisition. This is because there is far more to gain than lose in their risk-taking behaviors. It’s perfectly natural.

With success the objective shifts from acquisition to preservation of wealth. Risky behavior goes out the window. Now the objective is security, and that requires a different strategy. This naturally leads them into politics, where their wealth is most at risk. The anti-tax attitude dominates, in fact becomes an obsession.

It’s perfectly natural. In their shoes, I would probably behave in the same manner. But the greater good requires minimizing pools of private wealth, as in the end these great private fortunes take over the political system, and we lose our democracy and personal freedoms.

Oh wait. Too late about that. Done deal.
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There’s something similar going on now with the Internet, the fight for “net neutrality.” The same principle is at work – those companies that have had success on the Internet do not want any upstarts bumping them off. MySpace was taken down by Facebook, and does anyone remember Netscape? It will happen again and again unless someone puts a stop to innovation and competition.

That someone is Obama. His strategy was simple: He lied his ass off. While claiming to be a champion of a free and open Internet, he quietly put people on the FCC determined to take it down. Now he’s silent on the matter.

Here’s a great op-ed piece on Internet history and net neutrality, predictably from a non-American source.

Police Academy 8?*

Do you ever wonder why, after the success do the movie Rocky, that there was Rocky II, III, IV, V, VI …. people eat it up, that’s why. A successful movie formula is gold, money in the bank.

Even so, I do wish that the American public were a tad less gullible. Just once. Just a tad.

Read this. And this. And get your beer. We will cry together.
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*I was looking for a dead, moribund movie franchise to name this post, and remember the Police Academy movies, and then discovered that Police Academy 8 is scheduled for release in 2014! This post just writes itself! The American public will eat it up!

Movies and TV present fantasy images of journalists

imageOne of my favorite movies of recent times is The Bourne Legacy. People had low expectations for it, as Matt Damon was not aboard to reprise his title role in this fourth Bourne movie. They brought Jeremy Renner aboard as Aaron Small and with Rachel Weisz, the results were stunning. The last half hour was one of the best chase sequences I have ever seen.

Robert Ludlum invented Jason Bourne – I was a big Ludlum fan too. His books were formulaic, of course, even predictable. What I liked, however, was that every good guy was a potential bad guy, and there were no saints. Americans were not exceptions. In the world of spycraft, they were all shits.
Continue reading “Movies and TV present fantasy images of journalists” →