Tag: Bernie Sanders

The Trump/Bernie charade

Time and again now, in personal dealings, on Facebook, on radio and TV, I am seeing self-imagined intelligent people saying derogatory things about Donald Trump.

On the other side of that coin are the same type people saying kind things about Bernie Sanders.

It is media manipulation, writ large. You’re being diddled, folks. Statements by Trump and Sanders are being magnified by news media and entertainers and aimed at target audiences.

Trump’s (scripted) comments are for reactionary right wingers, a significant portion of the population. His intemperate remarks on immigrants, foreigners in general, building walls and anti-trade agreements are calculated to get a rise out of that crowd. He’s fake.

Sanders’ (scripted) remarks are for deluded liberals and progressives. His incantations are for policies that he surely knows will never see light of day in our business-run country: public-sponsored health care and higher education, anti-trade agreements and taxation of oligarchs. This is all calculated to get a rise out of the NPR/PBS set. He’s fake.

Reactionaries and liberals and progressives are being herded in opposing camps for one purpose: the selection and then election of Hillary as the next president. It is classic divide and conquer. Yes, the office of president has no power, but public opinion can create problems for the rulers, and so has to be maneuvered into submission.

The Trump/Sanders gambit is immensely clever. It was masked in a hoard of candidates, all of whom dutifully stepped aside when ordered to do so, leaving us with what we see now: Two shills and Hillary. (I doubt very much that reported vote counts in primaries are even close to accurate.)

The American public is polled incessantly, our attitudes and ideas constantly held under the microscope. If you want to see some of this polling, which is not published, consult the Council on Foreign Relations.

The purpose of the polling is only for management purposes. The oligarchs and their puppet politicians exist in a sphere far to the right of public opinion, but they do need to know and understand their enemy, the American public. So the job of media is to be sure Americans feel an effective blowing off of steam through elections, but realize no change in public policies.

It is herd management, nothing more. Public policy, after all, is none of our damned business.

Oi veh

I was reading a nice little piece on our health care system, what a joke it is, siphoning cash out of us even as half of us cannot come up with $400 on a bet.  The system has already worked its magic, purged us of our wealth, so that health care is just another cruel joke. It doesn’t work anyway and is unaffordable anyway and ACA did not fix it anyway. ACA was just a scam to prevent reform, to further enslave us.

And then I got to the end of the piece and read the following:

“But convince Bernie to run as a Green Party candidate, and maybe there’s a chance to send a message to the rentier parasites that they won’t achieve total control of our lives without a fight.”

Oi veh. Those messages we send really pack a wallop. 

Even assuming that Bernie Sanders is even for real and that our votes are even counted and that people are politically savvy enough to think beyond controlled media and that the office of president has real power … yeah, that will work.

The house is sinking in mud, foundations are cracked, beams are rotted, cold wind blows through broken windows, there are holes in the walls, electricity and water have been shut off …

Time for new shingles.

Fake Rodeos

Ah, so discouraging to watch as we endure yet another election contest, as if … after November, nothing will change. Nothing. Party politics has no effect on public policy, foreign or domestic. Those policies set to be implemented in the coming months will happen as if no election happened at all. There will be faux legislative battles, random court decisions, more manipulation of behaviors via fake terrorism, but mostly our governance is by edict and without reference to public opinion in any form.

What effect activists might have, those who take public officials and corporations to court, is minor, and about all we have left. But what else is there to do but act locally? If they could, our leaders would dispense with elections entirely, but they are apparently seen as necessary to foster the illusion of self-governance.  Continue reading “Fake Rodeos” →

How do I know Bernie is fake?

imagePlease take note of the Mark Twain quote in the upper right corner of this blog. In days gone by I would rotate quotations as my mood dictated, but that one has stayed out now for months.

Indeed, it is incredibly easy to fool people. I have been fooled time and again throughout my life by advertising, politicians, public hoaxes and various women. I settled with my wife, as I would venture most people do with their mates, having found someone in whom I could place unconditional trust. Marriage is a refuge in a deceitful world.

Continue reading “How do I know Bernie is fake?” →

America: Exceptional all the way down

It is months to go until the Democratic Party covention in Philadelphia in late July. It is very easy to see that Michigan was flipped to Bernie Sanders to keep the drama alive, keep progressives interested. Polling errors like that do not happen, but electronic voting machines, which can be controlled by either party, can dramatically alter election outcomes. If it can happen (nothing prevents it), it will happen. It did.

Here’s a long list of reasons why the polls went wrong.  They are all wrong.

It is embarrassing to watch pollsters flog themselves in public about how they screwed up when they didn’t, and for supposedly smart analysts to trip over the elephant in the room without acknowledging it. One smartass commenter I stumbled on said “Hey, I voted in Michigan and filled out a long paper ballot. End of story, OK?”

Well, no. Not end of story. You’re not thinking it through, commenter! The ballots are counted by electronic machines that can be hacked, and there are no audit procedures in place to make sure that the tally is accurate. It is called a “black box” for a reason – no matter what goes in, only what comes out matters.

The silence on the matter is fear. I encounter it often. Americans, those few left with functioning brains, know more than they say, and are afraid to face the demons. We’re not a free society, we don’t have a free press, honest elections, and are corrupt through and through in every way imaginable. It is only left now to collapse under the weight of our own hubris. We’ll imagine ourselves exceptional all the way down.

  • We’ll think we are an example to the world, which laughs at us.
  • We’ll think our institutions squeaky clean, even as students in other countries study American brainwashing techniques.
  • We’ll continue to attack other countries to subjugate them and steal their resources, imagining we are defending ourselves.
  • Our spooks will continue to run false-flag operations that a child can see through, and most Americans will eat it up.*
  • We’ll imagine our education system makes us smart when it makes us stupid.
  • Just as our nutritionists know nothing about nutrition, our political scientists do not understand politics …
  • Our educators will still not know how to think properly, and our voting machines will not know how to count votes.

Our press, far from keeping an eye on crooks, is owned by the crooks. Down in the trenches, among rank and file reporters, they don’t even know to ask the question … How did that happen in Michigan? They honestly do not have that thought. It never occurs to them. They are that far gone.

So are you, dear reader, if you cannot look at an obvious fraud and say the words “It looks rigged,” and the investigate how that might happen. There is nothing to say. You cannot be reached. I can only hope future generations recover the lost art of critical thinking.
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*On the bright side, the Tate/LaBianca affair went unchallenged for over forty years before being revealed to be, along with the Manson trial, a hoax. Sandy Hook was exposed within weeks. The only resort for the spooks against such prying eyes is to stigmatize those who easily see through the hoaxes, and that, sadly, is effective enough to keep most people in mental chains.

Our fake republic

imageIt occurred to me last night as we discussed American politics … once in office whoever wins has no real power. The parade is already in motion, its destination determined by other, more powerful forces. Politicians are nothing but baton twirlers. (Think of the scene in the movie Animal House where the lead baton twirler in the parade is bumped aside and replaced. That is a nice metaphor for our presidential elections.)

If the Democrats need a sheepdog to keep them in the game, this year Bernie Sanders, then why not the Republicans too? The slate of candidates is comprised of dull, witless automatons, one of whom will take on the role of leader. None inspire enthusiasm or confidence, but they are all we get.

Sanders and Trump inspire crowds, keep people in the game. They are both sheepdogs.

Why could I not see this before? I think I suffered from the illusion that the Republican base, even though like Democrats dumb as a kettle of fish, did not need revving up to stay in the game. But of course they do!

Election outcomes do not matter, but the fact that we have elections does. That is the key – so long as we believe we have democratic rule the state of the union is solid. Our fake republic stands.

Why Hillary will win the nomination

I listen to Rush Limbaugh when out and about these days. I find him less abrasive than in years past, even a little more open and honest.

It appears his primary function is to keep the eyes of his right-wing audience on the ball, focusing on Obama and the Democrats as evil lefties. This reinforces the illusion of two parties. Whether he knowingly does that it is just a useful idiot – who knows?

But he said one thing of interest, if just in passing. He noted that Hillary’s campaign appears to be collapsing, and of course finds Bernie repugnant, as do I. But then he said “Hillary will get the nomination, of course, as she owns the superdelegates.”

I had forgotten about that facet of the nominating process, the backstop in place to prevent real delegates from choosing someone upapproved by real power. I’ve been away from fake politics for too long!

Inconvenient documents

The post below dealt with the matter of fake death, and a commenter noted that fake deaths are not uncommon:

“We are now able to disappear thousands of bodies, whole passenger planes and the most notorious “terrorist” in history. Practice makes perfect. One need only think of the “witness protection” program to see how easy it is to relocate thousands of people in new lives and new places, in plain sight — like Montana. The truth is out there.”

Here’s another example: while no “plane” hit the Pentagon on 9/11, there apparently was a flyover, though witnesses place the track of that airliner off line with whatever hit the building. The pilot of that airliner, Chick Burlingame, is supposedly one of the thousands of victims of the sleek and shiny reptiles who pulled of that stunt that day. If he did not really die, he would have to take on a new identity and begin a new life. He would have to be careful not to blow the gig.  But what would happen if others knew about his fake death and began talking?

This might interest you. 

Continue reading “Inconvenient documents” →

Bring on the Jewish house Radical!

I get a little squeamish when I see a “whistleblower” who not only survives, but maintains a high profile. Consequently, I pay very little attention to Sibel Edmunds and her Boiling Frogs Post. In a full spectrum dominance environment, all alternatives are false leads. There are whistleblowers out there. Like true public citizens throughout history, they rot in prison. Obama has made sure of that.

Nonetheless, even disinformation agents have to tell the truth now and then, if for no other reason than to maintain street creds. So it does not hurt to read what goes on BFP – currently, Dr. James Petras has a very nice piece up, Democratic Party “Progressives” as Political Contraceptives. He takes the sheepdog tradition currently filled by Bernie Sanders back only as far as Jesse Jackson – there have been countless others (Gary Hart, Eugene McCarthy), but it is worth reading.

Continue reading “Bring on the Jewish house Radical!” →

A word about Bernie

Just to set the record straight, a word or two about Bernie Sanders:

He was a weekly guest on the Thom Hartmann show on radio for years, and I listened to him every time I got a chance. I believed then that he was the real deal, a genuine progressive. I ascribed his ascent to Senate as a peculiarity of his home state, Vermont, thinking it could only happen there.

Later I learned he was Jewish and never criticized Israel. But then, no one elected to high office in our country ever voices criticism of Israel, as the punishment is immediate and severe. So that is forgivable.

Later I would learn that Jews tend to be Democrats, and for good reason – during the early postwar period, they were not allowed in the country clubs and skyscraper dining rooms of the Northeast, nor the Republican Party. They were not welcomed as screen writers, authors or any other position of prominence either, and only slowly gained a foothold. (William Gaines and Harvey Kurtzman, who founded Mad Magazine, were Jews who could not make their way into the ad agencies, magazines or TV networks. So they made their own magazine, one that I loved as a kid.)

So don’t ever say that I have any disrespect for Sanders as a Jew. His cultural tradition is rich and glorious, full of humor and suffering. The Jewish culture is a great addition to the American scene. I will never forget that it was young Jews from the Northeast who headed south in the fifties and sixties to help out the fledgling civil rights movement. They were the first whites to take a stand. Silly me – plenty of whites have been involved in civil rights – it was fundamentalist Christians who spurred on abolition in the last century.

When Bernie set out to run for president, I scoffed. When he began to gain traction, I looked for a reason, as the establishment, while having no problem with Jews, hates progressives.

He might knowingly be diddling progressives as a stalking horse. But I find it so difficult to believe that the man who mouthed all those platitudes and was so well versed on the Hartmann show all those years is a phony.

He could be, however. Leadership of the opposition is critical in American politics, with some of our most prominent liberals and progressives actually masked Republicans. Think … Jerry Brown, Jon Tester, John Hickenlooper, Steve Bullock, John Kerry, Barack Obama…

Bernie Sanders? I do not know. I don’t know the man’s heart. I refuse, however, to go all in.