There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear.....

Since my last post, Occupy gatherings have garnered national and international media attention. For some silly reason, the corporate media can't seem to read the signs people are holding and can't figure out what we, the 99%, want.
Dahlia Lithwick wrote a good article on this very phenomenon. You can read it here.

Think, for just a moment, about the irony. We are the most media-saturated 24-hour-cable-soaked culture in the world, and yet around the country, on Facebook and at protests, people are holding up cardboard signs, the way protesters in ancient Sumeria might have done when demonstrating against a rise in the price of figs. And why is that? Because they very wisely don’t trust television cameras and microphones to get it right anymore. Because a media constructed around the illusion of false equivalencies, screaming pundits, and manufactured crises fails to capture who we are and what we value.

Matt Taibbi has a detailed, long but worth it article on the 'Texas Miracle' the corporate media thought (before he opened his mouth) would be the GOP 'saviour'. (And doesn't that beat everything? the baggers (fire and tea) like to think those who support our current President think of him as a 'saviour'....amazing projection skills.) Go read The Best Little Whore In Texas here.

Another bit of the glorious bagger legislating in my own little home state, there's this....the one bill where Governor Bev Purdue's veto didn't matter. The federal judiciary put a hold on the worst part of this entirely anti-woman legislation in their quest to live in my uterus. Shameful. It just amazes me that there are people out there who don't see the false claims during the health care debate about government getting in between you and your doctor, yet they want to make it legal to get between my doctor and my uterus. I swear, maybe there is something in the water, other than fluoridation. You can read about the NC legislation that gets all in my uterus without my consent here. And now that I feel oh so dirty, let's move on to more educational posts, shall we?

One of my Facebook friends writes for Mother Jones and The Washington Monthly. You can read his historical view of what the Founding Fathers would think about the Occupy movement here. And what is that you say? There is an inaccuracy? What?! Look in the comments and you will see what an actual journalist does when he realizes their is an inaccuracy. That's what you never see in corporate media.

My friend Chez had this quote from Jon Stewart about Pat Robertson calling out the field of GOP Presidential candidate. Seriously. Pat Robertson calling others too crazy....it really is a moment of surreal reality.

James Fallows thinks Herman Cain's new ad is the Best Ad Yet. Again, surreal reality.

How have we gotten to 2011? It really is amazing, scary, funny and lots of other adjectives I won't write. If you are the 1%, you aren't reading this so that makes you the 99%. Call your congresspeople, call your governors, call your friends and family....if you can, go to an Occupy event. You can find one where you are here.

So that's what I've been up to this week. The title of this post is an oldie but a goldie and seemingly more relevant than when it was released. How quaint the late 60's and early 70's seem today. So enjoy the video.....

look what the cat dragged in.....

As usual, Matt Taibbi nails it....

Given the monstrous political influence of Murdoch and his companies – this idiotic game of chicken our government is now playing with America’s credit rating is one of countless policy disasters that I believe can be traced directly or indirectly to the insane propaganda that is a consistent by-product of Murdoch's nihilistic quest for profits – that would be a world-shaking development.

So let's review. Rupert Murdoch, CEO/LORD ALMIGHTY/Whatever....has reigned supreme on 3 continents for decades. News Corp has done this by debasing our societies to the lowest base form of humanity that we as humans can be. And as poorly as our education system has performed since the Reagan years, is it any wonder that the electorate don't care about anything but simple, bumper sticker politics? And I won't even go on a tangent about the Texas School Board text book guidelines for history books for all grade levels, full of magical thinking.....you can google it...

Moving back to Taibbi, he makes a point I have been saying for years.

Once the media business made the collective decision to always put money above editorial judgment, I think scandals like the News of the World affair became inevitable. Because once media companies abandoned the notion that their business was somehow different from other money-making businesses, that there were no longer places they wouldn’t go to generate product, it became inevitable that the corporate media game would become nothing more than an all-out, relentless quest for sensational, titillating material.

When the 3 major networks decided to make their News Division's 'profit' divisions, all bets were off. It had once been for the good of the country. To investigate and keep tabs on our government and our businesses. And how did that work out? It was a smashing success. Journalists were considered well for their tenacity in keeping politicians and corporations honest.

But then they had to have more money, because by this time, corporations owned the big 3. And corporations are greedy bastards.

Go read the whole Taibbi piece here....

must read....

You absolutely have to read this....

In this article, Matt Taibbi tells the unvarnished truth about Washington. He also informs me that there is a tea party person out there who agrees that the repubs caused the mess we're now in. weird.

Littleton recounts some of the ways the party has tried. One tack was dazzling the hayseeds with splendor and bullshit. During a visit to Washington, for instance, Littleton was meeting with Republican officials to go over "nitty-gritty" stuff like monetary policy, when an aide suddenly stopped the session. He was surprised, he told Littleton, that they were bothering with all this serious stuff — he thought the Tea Partiers just wanted to meet famous politicians. The aide's attitude, Littleton recalls, was: "I thought we could just throw you a bone, and bring in my rock star, and you're just really so impressed by him that you're going to smile and hug him and go out and do whatever we need you to do." Another time, when the Tea Party was making noise about a farm subsidy, a staffer for a prominent Republican congressman simply called Littleton up and asked him to be quiet. "Hey, would you mind leaving that issue alone?" the staffer said. "The congressman would really appreciate it — we work with a lot of farmers." Littleton was amazed that Republican leaders seemed to think the Tea Party was engaged in a collaborative effort to keep Republicans in office, but this is just the way things are done inside the Beltway.

and while I don't agree with Littleton regarding the debt ceiling or shutting the government down, here is what I have never heard from a teabagger....

In this regard, the contrast between Boehner and Littleton, the Tea Party leader in Boehner's home state, is interesting. The two men live in the same place, the small township of West Chester near Cincinnati, so Littleton is very familiar with Boehner. But Littleton's opinion of the Republican establishment couldn't be lower: It was precisely programs like the Medicare drug benefit bill and No Child Left Behind, programs he considers unacceptably wasteful and intrusive, that moved him to get into politics. "These were all Republican programs," Littleton says. "If you look at Republican congressmen from Ohio, they all voted for this stuff."

go read the whole thing.