Image via Wikipe
WHO SET UP GOVERNMENT ‘PROPAGANDA’ CONFERENCE CALL? Newly Revealed White House, NEA Audio Contradict
Another conference call has materialized, revealing a concerted effort by government to use the arts to address political issues.
Lee Rosenbaum, a blogger for Artsjournal.com, posted her experience with a meeting that occurred on August 27th and confessed that she also felt “uneasy” about the government’s arts effort. The meeting invitation (viewable here) went out to all “member local, state, and regional arts agencies, community-based arts organizations, and national partners of Americans for Arts.” Americans for Arts is a non-profit arts organization that has received substantial grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
"United We Serve": Should the Arts be Politically Exploited?
I fear that my fears about a culture czar are being realized.
Thankfully, we still don't have a cabinet-level Secretary of Culture, but we do have Kalpen Modi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, who, in a conference call last week, sought to rally the artworld troops behind President Obama's call for Americans to engage in public service.
It's a worthwhile objective, to be sure. But government exhortations for artists to join the United We Serve brigade makes me more than a little uneasy. Many, if not most, of our most important and influential artists and cultural institutions are impelled by self-driven creative imperatives, not external political ones. That's the way it SHOULD be.
As I commented when the controversy over Quincy Jones' call for a Culture Secretary briefly surfaced:
More government oversight will inevitably lead to more government interference and control.During last week's conference call (on which I was a lurker, after a waiting period rendered nearly unendurable by our being a captive audience for three clunkers from Kenny G's "Greatest [or Worst] Hits" album), there was much talk of finding ways to "get the arts community engaged in a sustainable way" and "leveraging federal dollars" to get artists and cultural organizations involved in social-service projects.
Americans for the Arts, whose president, Robert Lynch, played a leading role during the conference call, has launched a United We Serve arts website, where you can "share your story" on how "arts make change happen." Among the highlights: "The Ultimate Happy Hour at Gap, Inc." and the "United We Serve Arts Idea Kit."
This was the second such conference call: In a post on the Big Hollywood blog (excerpted yesterday by the Wall Street Journal), Patrick Courrielche, who reported that he was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to participate in the first telephone discussion on Aug. 10, came away fearing that the arts were at risk of "becoming a tool of the state."
Courrielche wrote:
It sounded, how should I phrase it...unusual that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me....At the beginning of the second conference call, last Thursday, Modi informed us that "unfortunately our colleagues from NEA and NEH [the National Endowment for the Humanites]" were tied up in meetings and couldn't participate, as had been planned.Could it be they were having second thoughts about commandeering their constituents for this political adventure? We can only hope so.
Throughout the conversation, my inner dialogue was firing away questions....Is this truly the role of the NEA? Is building a message distribution network, for matters other than increasing access to the arts and arts education, the role of the National Endowment for the Arts?
One of those who added personal comments to the webpage announcing Thursday's conference call said it best:
Am I the only one creeped out by this? The White House is asking the arts community to produce propaganda for its agenda---as if that was not already happening to an alarming level in a democracy....By saying this, am I gonna get on the "bad list" at the White House?I'm "creeped out" too...even though, like many on the call, I supported and (with reservations) still support the agenda of the new President.
September 2, 2009 2:58 PM | Permalink |
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Obama Announces Creation of Royal Arts Patronage Program
For the first time in its 40-year history, the federal National Endowment for the Arts convened a conference call to launch a government project encouraging artists to promote the Obama Administration's policies on health care and energy issues.Throughout the conversation, artists were reminded of their ability to “shape the lives” of others. They did not need to be reminded that the NEA is the country's largest annual funder of the arts.
Following the call, the White House unveiled a series of government-funded paintings designed to "show how awesome their government benefactor is."
Obama formally announced the new program at the unveiling ceremony, stating "We've drawn many of our most hallowed traditions from England, including our common law legal system and, most recently, socialized medicine. Today we institute in America the old English system of royal patronage for the arts in which creative people are funded by the government to promote the grandeur of its blessed monarchs."
Hip up-and-coming artists embraced the opportunity. "Thanks to this government program," said one, "sucking up is cool again."
Associated articles: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/08/25/the-national-endowment-for-the-art-of-persuasion-patrick-courrielche/; http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/09/08/update-the-nea-and-mainstream-media-remain-silent/
|
| |||||||
Articles Barack Ozymandias Power to the Patients, Please Obama's Dog of a Health Care Message Czar Dish Obama's Wasted Year ObamaCare: More Point and Counterpoint School Day Subjugation Rethinking the Political Spectrum
Previous Articles September 08, 2009
September 07, 2009
September 06, 2009
September 05, 2009
September 04, 2009
September 03, 2009
September 02, 2009
September 01, 2009
August 31, 2009
August 30, 2009
| American Thinker Blog Something's Rotten at the State Department I Think the Racists in the Left Wing are Upset The Camel's Nose Democrats and the one-party mentality A look at the ObamaCare future? Paglia:The Democratic Brain Has Marinated in Cliches so Long It is Pickled Conservative best sellers and the networks that ignore them Palin's WSJ Op-Ed bullseyes Obamacare Reporter freed in daring rescue Terrorist friend of Bill Ayers lands cushy taxpayer funded job Obama's school speech Did MSNBC stifle Keith Olbermann's Glenn Beck dirt search? More Blog Entries | Bass Ackwards click on image to enlarge
|
From Russia with No Love
A misguided ideology has taken root in America and has brought this nation to the brink of collapse....It can be argued that the destabilization of our culture and economy, magnified by policies of the Obama Administration, conform to KGB plans for the collapse of the United States. The only question remains: Is Obama masterminding the current events for economic collapse, or is he just the hapless puppet holding the hot potato?Yuri Bezmenov, aka Tomas Schuman, was a Soviet journalist and propaganda specialist for the KGB in 1965. A few years later, disgusted with what he was being asked to do for the KGB in India, he defected to Canada. He began to publically warn about the tactics of Soviet psychological warfare. No one knows for sure what has become of Mr. Schuman; it's rumored that he is now deceased.
Mr. Schuman explained that although Hollywood glorifies Soviet espionage and James Bond-style activity, in actuality only 10 to15% of the KGB's time was devoted to covert activity. The remaining 85 to 90% was spent on a four-step process called "Ideological Subversion."
The four steps in the process are:
1. Demoralization.2. Destabilization.3. Crisis.4. Normalization.
The point of this "Ideological Subversion" was to weaken an enemy country, strip its culture and corrupt their values to a point of complete vulnerability. Mr. Schuman describes it as:
[An] overt...slow process...[to] change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country.
The first step, Demoralization, has already been completed in America and continues to perpetuate itself. The Obama Administration policies are accelerating the second step of Destabilization and rapidly approaching the third phase of Crisis.
Mr. Schuman explains Demoralization as a 10 to 30 year process:
[To] educate a generation to expose them to the ideology of the enemy: Marxism, Leninism...without being challenged by American values.
The goal is six-fold:
1) Destroy the religion of the enemy; mock and discredit it. Promote corrupt alternatives and cults.2) Insure the disruption of education. Distract from learning constructive and pragmatic subjects and replace them with studies on frivolous topics.3) Destroy social ties and impede bargaining and conflict resolution. Bring in bureaucracy and dependence on authority.4) Institute power structuring around unelected bureaucrats and the media.5) Destroy labor relations by mediating employee /employer interaction. Create friction and oppositional relationships.6) Warp law, order and morality. Demonize the police and those upholding the law. Make the bad guy look like a victim of society; justify his actions.
The second stage, Destabilization, takes place when the lines of morality are blurred and the fundamentals of society are sufficiently demoralized and dysfunctional. The areas of concentration are the same as in Demoralization but in a more targeted, refined attack. The focus is on radicalization and the complete break down in areas of:
- Human Relations (no compromise, agitation). Human relations break down when there is an inability to resolve issues; a culture of lawsuits erupts and ideologues seek to divide rather than unite.
We live in a society where people call 911 for conflict resolution rather than emergencies, punitive damages are awarded in millions of dollars and accident lawyers dominate advertising segments. Everything is an opportunity for monetary gain or attention.
Groups are pitted against one another. Conflict is encouraged, and the illegitimate morality of social justice becomes rampant.
It's no wonder the cornerstone of the Obama Administration is social justice when you consider the controversial teachings that shaped Mr. Obama's perception of religion. For 20 years he was exposed to Reverend Jeremiah Wright's message of Anti-American Marxism under the cult of Black Liberation Theology.
- Economy/ Labor Relations (unions). Long ago, union activity was inconsequential to the larger economy; now union strikes can halt an entire industry or create chaos in supply chains of necessity goods. Union leaders actively attack capitalism and affect outcomes far beyond their defined role in arbitration and equality in bargaining.
Consider the constant back scratching of unions with the Obama Administration: The main contributors and beneficiaries of Obama's rise to power are the labor unions. UAW now owns 55% of the shares in Chrysler. ACORN appears to be eligible for billions of dollars from the Stimulus Package and SEIU members serve as ‘foot soldiers' against grassroots people at town hall meetings on health care.
- Media & "Sleeper" Activation. The traditional media is no longer in line with society. They've separated themselves and often lower their role of journalism to propaganda mills. This is being done because of the illusion that some in the media will enter the power circle during the final stage of normalization.
"Sleepers" can be actual people, but are mostly are radical groups of the 60's scrubbed clean and resurfacing to take a leadership role in unelected bureaucracies.
There are currently over 30 Czars (and counting) who are advising Mr. Obama; several of whom are avowed Marxists and anti-capitalists.
Jeff Jones, a member of the domestic terrorist group, Weather Underground, had a hand in writing the Stimulus bill. Another hand in the bill was from the new Green Jobs advisor, Van Jones - a self proclaimed Marxist revolutionary.
Newly appointed FCC Diversity Director, Mark Lloyd in a recent video, appears to support the efforts of Hugo Chavez and holds the American media in contempt for their role in supporting free speech for opposition to Chavez on free market airwaves.
The third stage of subversion is Crisis. We're on the cusp of crisis right now with an impending economic melt down from the monetization of our debt, out of control deficit spending, the possibility of socialized health care and Cap & Trade.
According to Mr. Schuman, the two possible end routes of crisis are: civil war and invasion. With Congress and leftist organizations demanding to run their own agenda against the will of the people, eventual civil war is possible.
On the other hand, sharks seem to be circling. Do they smell blood in the water with America's over-extended commitments to war and domestic destabilization?
- elements of the KGB are once again surfacing in Russia under the leadership of Putin/Medvedev.
- Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is bent on bringing Islamic Armageddon and the destruction of Israel.
- Kim Jong Il is making threats against America almost daily.
- Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose.
- A nuclear Pakistan is destabilizing and Taliban forces are strengthening.
- Hugo Chavez is traveling the world for photo ops to shake hands with almost every enemy of the United States...
The possibilities for collaboration to exploit American vulnerability are staggering. Consider that any number of these countries could hasten our collapse via an EMP attack. Rather than nuclear war, EMP detonation in America is the most logical, feasible and devastating form of attack available to all of our enemies.
Any way you look at it, a crisis doesn't appear to end well if it's not near an election cycle in which serious leadership change can take place and stabilization can occur.
Normalization is the final phase of "Ideological Subversion". It is the forced stabilization of the nation by communist forces in control. ‘Useful idiots' the true believers of Marxism, according the KGB, would be executed to end the undermining of government. This means all activists, propagandists, Marxist revolutionaries, progressives / liberals...everyone on the "left" whose political ideology hangs on the tenets of socialism (communism) would be removed from influence.
Why would "Marxists" get rid of their own? Because ‘true believers' in the ideology would become bitter enemies of the state upon finding out they were deceived in their utopian ideals. According to Mr. Schuman, they would soon find there is no equality in communism but the:
Equality of living in dirt.
on "From Russia with No Love"
Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press 1/9
Related Videos
6,729 views
hermitcleric
As we have seen by the lackluster efforts of the Democrats in Congress and even the President, this is not only a Republican issue (except for the fact that those corporations favor Republicans, which is traditionally and proudly the party of Big Business) - everyone in Congress has been paid scads and scads to grant these corporations a favorable ear. And until we find a way to get that kind of money out of Congress - the kind of money that is being called "First Amendment Free Speech Rights" by the insurance corporations, drug corporations, and health-management-for profit organizations, and "bribery" by anyone else with a brain cell rolling around in their head - we will not be able to allow the peoples' voice to be heard - and the American people want health care!
Health care that will not send you to the poorhouse after a single catastrophic illness.
Health care that will not be doled out to you by people who stand to lose money by giving it to you, and stand to make money by denying it to you.
Health care that will lower overall costs by allowing everyone preventive care and practical treatment that keeps them from getting so sick before they get care that they end up in the emergency room, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars for something that could have been taken care of earlier for 50-100 dollars.
Health care that will that will help us all stay healthier and therefore more productive, taking less sick days.
Health care that will save us all money by keeping families out of bankruptcy and destitution beause of an illness.
Lisa over at That's Why has a great post on health care and why there's no real debate - check it out!
Insurance has its place - for cosmetic or elective surgery, perhaps; for boutique care. If some rich yahoo wants a fancy hospital suite to get their facelifts and boob jobs in, by all means - get insurance for that! Pet insurance - sure! Pet medical care is expensive, and if we have pets, we want them to have good care and can pool our risk for that. I am consdering that myself, if I can get to where I can afford it. Insure your house, your car, your valuables. That's free-market.
But not profit-making off of life and death.
Every other civilized nation in the world makes it illegal to sell for-profit insurance for primary, necessary care. There are places (Switzerland, I think) that allow private insurance but it must be not-for-profit.
We cannot allow the necessities of life to become hostage to a private, for-profit model that is accountable not to the people, but to its shareholders only. Water, electricity, clean and breathable air, infrastructure (including basic communication) - these are things that fall under the category of 'life' in the phrase 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. Freedom does not mean freedom to monopolize and steal. That original phrase was going to be 'life, liberty and property', and it was rightly changed.
'Government' is not a dirty word - unless you make it one!
So, to really be able to attack this problem in a way that we can win, there are two thing that we must look at - corporate personhood and campaign finance.
'Corporate personhood' was bought and paid for in the 1880s. Before then, there were restrictions by the states on how corporations could operate, and they could be dissolved by their state if they broke those laws. Of course, that was incredibly grating to the corporations, and they began lawyering up and devising legal strategies for many years before, waiting for just the right case and right justices to make a case for corporate personhood, which arrived in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886.
Once that was established (using the Fourteenth Amendment - same amendment that installed George Bush in the White House without being elected), corporations were not 'artificial legal constructs', like churches, union, unincorporated businesses, civic clubs, and even governments. Corporations had the same rights as human beings - including freedom of speech - with none of the attendant vulnerabilities. They have an infinite 'lifespan'; no medical needs; no need for food, water or air; no families to protect and provide for. They can dissolve and re-form at any time. In a legal battle between a person and a corporation, the corporation can simply stall until that person dies. There is no way to have a fair contest between a person and a corporation - yet we are to consider them on the same legal footing as human beings?
This misguided judgment has set the tone for the declining quality of life for human beings as a whole, and a concentration of power, wealth and comfort to those few humans who reap the benefits of association with big corporations. And one of the biggest scams they have going is the 'health insurance' scam. And since a corporation's only obligation is to its bottom line - by law - the real-life-human-being effects of its money-making model do not figure into its calculations.
It can't.
We must understand that if a corporation were to put human well-being before profit, it would be breaking the law - breaking the legal conditions of its own obligations to its stockholders. It's not wrong to put profits first for a for-profit corporation.
What is wrong is placing the life and death of human beings into the hands of a for-profit corporation.
The government, on the other hand, was specifically designed to put the welfare of 'we the people' first. And the government is also accountable to us, unlik a corporation. That is why these life-and-death issues need to be in the hands of 'we the people'.
No, the government is not perfect. Yes, there are many things that could and should be changed to ensure accountability - but as citizens we do have that power. With corporations we do not. And do not give me that hoo-haw about 'competition and free market and the consumer making the choice and influencing the corporation that way'. That is malarkey and everyone knows it - even those who spout it like the Holy Gospel.
Which brings me to the next point about campaign finance.
As long as politicians are dependent upon huge sums of money to get elected and stay in office, almost half their time is involved in fundraising. And the massive amounts of money necessary to buy the television ads and other costs of campaigning are only available in three ways - one's own money - in which case you are merely purchasing an election; small donations from individuals - which is like trying to build a sand castle one grain of sand at a time; and corporate donations. Each one comes with a cost that does not belong in public elections and the running of our country to the benefit of all, not the privileged few.
And the cost of corporate donations, of course, is an obligation to give that donor your ear. The response to that is always. "I only listen; just like I'd listen to any citizen - that doesn't mean that I will legislate the way the corporations want me to."
Bull. Shit.
The pressure to deliver is tremendous. Corporate donations include both a carrot and a stick. The carrot is, of course, the big donations, which frees up the time that a congressperson has to spend fundraising, and ostensibly 'tend to the people's business'.
But there is also the stick, that rarely gets spoken about on TV and the media.
The stick involves financing a more cooperative opponent for your seat - either the seat you seek, or the seat you hold. Tom "Dancing With the Stars" DeLay (and stay tuned for some more Tommi revelry when I get half a minute to put it together) ruled the House with that weapon. And that is another excuse that even the best-intentioned politicians can use to justify toeing the corporate line - "Well, if I don't go along, then I'll lose my seat to someone who may be worse - at least I can try to mitigate it and do some damage control. The person who takes my seat might be a 100% corporate tool all the way, but (insert rationalization here)". This is what we are seeing now with the Dems and Obama.
We need to overhaul the way our campaigns are financed - it's by the public; for the public; and it has to be with public money. The same with election and voting machines - these cannot be run on private proprietary software! How the hell can we even allow that to happen? Proprietary voting machine software owned by a corporation with a political agenda? Who the fuck thought that was OK?
So, we need to understand at a basic, gut level why these two issues - corporate personhood and campaign finance - must be addressed to get any kind of change enacted. Otherwise, we're spinning our wheels in a muddy ditch - and wondering why we're not moving forward.
( Side note on that 'Proprietary Software owned by a corporation with a political agenda' quip. Gypping the public of fair electoral process is a centuries - old practice : gerrymandering being one of the more notable. Now the poor are targeted to disenfranchise them with methods as simple as requiring identification not always readily available. This also flows from hatemongering ethnic,racial,sexual,religious or cultural differences to divide people in common fixes from each others' sympathies. Time to remind you of a blogger's epic Crusade against electoral fraud. )
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=ebcbcb4a-b8d2-48fb-b68f-19ce011da53d)
Hooterville
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Health Care, Corporate Personhood, Campaign Finance - the Unholy Trinity
Yes, yes, I know that there's "no way we can get the public option in there, much less single payer." We are up against, not the ridiculous tea-baggers and right-wing fundie nutballs, but the mightiest corporations in the land - and in the world. Make no mistake - this is no 'grass-roots uprising by the little people' - this is a massively funded Astro-turf operation, financed by the limitless coffers of the corporations who have made that money off of the backs of the sick and the poor. and they are not about to watch their cash cow just wander out of the pasture.As we have seen by the lackluster efforts of the Democrats in Congress and even the President, this is not only a Republican issue (except for the fact that those corporations favor Republicans, which is traditionally and proudly the party of Big Business) - everyone in Congress has been paid scads and scads to grant these corporations a favorable ear. And until we find a way to get that kind of money out of Congress - the kind of money that is being called "First Amendment Free Speech Rights" by the insurance corporations, drug corporations, and health-management-for profit organizations, and "bribery" by anyone else with a brain cell rolling around in their head - we will not be able to allow the peoples' voice to be heard - and the American people want health care!
Health care that will not send you to the poorhouse after a single catastrophic illness.
Health care that will not be doled out to you by people who stand to lose money by giving it to you, and stand to make money by denying it to you.
Health care that will lower overall costs by allowing everyone preventive care and practical treatment that keeps them from getting so sick before they get care that they end up in the emergency room, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars for something that could have been taken care of earlier for 50-100 dollars.
Health care that will that will help us all stay healthier and therefore more productive, taking less sick days.
Health care that will save us all money by keeping families out of bankruptcy and destitution beause of an illness.
Lisa over at That's Why has a great post on health care and why there's no real debate - check it out!
Insurance has its place - for cosmetic or elective surgery, perhaps; for boutique care. If some rich yahoo wants a fancy hospital suite to get their facelifts and boob jobs in, by all means - get insurance for that! Pet insurance - sure! Pet medical care is expensive, and if we have pets, we want them to have good care and can pool our risk for that. I am consdering that myself, if I can get to where I can afford it. Insure your house, your car, your valuables. That's free-market.
But not profit-making off of life and death.
Every other civilized nation in the world makes it illegal to sell for-profit insurance for primary, necessary care. There are places (Switzerland, I think) that allow private insurance but it must be not-for-profit.
We cannot allow the necessities of life to become hostage to a private, for-profit model that is accountable not to the people, but to its shareholders only. Water, electricity, clean and breathable air, infrastructure (including basic communication) - these are things that fall under the category of 'life' in the phrase 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. Freedom does not mean freedom to monopolize and steal. That original phrase was going to be 'life, liberty and property', and it was rightly changed.
'Government' is not a dirty word - unless you make it one!
So, to really be able to attack this problem in a way that we can win, there are two thing that we must look at - corporate personhood and campaign finance.
'Corporate personhood' was bought and paid for in the 1880s. Before then, there were restrictions by the states on how corporations could operate, and they could be dissolved by their state if they broke those laws. Of course, that was incredibly grating to the corporations, and they began lawyering up and devising legal strategies for many years before, waiting for just the right case and right justices to make a case for corporate personhood, which arrived in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886.
Once that was established (using the Fourteenth Amendment - same amendment that installed George Bush in the White House without being elected), corporations were not 'artificial legal constructs', like churches, union, unincorporated businesses, civic clubs, and even governments. Corporations had the same rights as human beings - including freedom of speech - with none of the attendant vulnerabilities. They have an infinite 'lifespan'; no medical needs; no need for food, water or air; no families to protect and provide for. They can dissolve and re-form at any time. In a legal battle between a person and a corporation, the corporation can simply stall until that person dies. There is no way to have a fair contest between a person and a corporation - yet we are to consider them on the same legal footing as human beings?
This misguided judgment has set the tone for the declining quality of life for human beings as a whole, and a concentration of power, wealth and comfort to those few humans who reap the benefits of association with big corporations. And one of the biggest scams they have going is the 'health insurance' scam. And since a corporation's only obligation is to its bottom line - by law - the real-life-human-being effects of its money-making model do not figure into its calculations.
It can't.
We must understand that if a corporation were to put human well-being before profit, it would be breaking the law - breaking the legal conditions of its own obligations to its stockholders. It's not wrong to put profits first for a for-profit corporation.
What is wrong is placing the life and death of human beings into the hands of a for-profit corporation.
The government, on the other hand, was specifically designed to put the welfare of 'we the people' first. And the government is also accountable to us, unlik a corporation. That is why these life-and-death issues need to be in the hands of 'we the people'.
No, the government is not perfect. Yes, there are many things that could and should be changed to ensure accountability - but as citizens we do have that power. With corporations we do not. And do not give me that hoo-haw about 'competition and free market and the consumer making the choice and influencing the corporation that way'. That is malarkey and everyone knows it - even those who spout it like the Holy Gospel.
Which brings me to the next point about campaign finance.
As long as politicians are dependent upon huge sums of money to get elected and stay in office, almost half their time is involved in fundraising. And the massive amounts of money necessary to buy the television ads and other costs of campaigning are only available in three ways - one's own money - in which case you are merely purchasing an election; small donations from individuals - which is like trying to build a sand castle one grain of sand at a time; and corporate donations. Each one comes with a cost that does not belong in public elections and the running of our country to the benefit of all, not the privileged few.
And the cost of corporate donations, of course, is an obligation to give that donor your ear. The response to that is always. "I only listen; just like I'd listen to any citizen - that doesn't mean that I will legislate the way the corporations want me to."
Bull. Shit.
The pressure to deliver is tremendous. Corporate donations include both a carrot and a stick. The carrot is, of course, the big donations, which frees up the time that a congressperson has to spend fundraising, and ostensibly 'tend to the people's business'.
But there is also the stick, that rarely gets spoken about on TV and the media.
The stick involves financing a more cooperative opponent for your seat - either the seat you seek, or the seat you hold. Tom "Dancing With the Stars" DeLay (and stay tuned for some more Tommi revelry when I get half a minute to put it together) ruled the House with that weapon. And that is another excuse that even the best-intentioned politicians can use to justify toeing the corporate line - "Well, if I don't go along, then I'll lose my seat to someone who may be worse - at least I can try to mitigate it and do some damage control. The person who takes my seat might be a 100% corporate tool all the way, but (insert rationalization here)". This is what we are seeing now with the Dems and Obama.
We need to overhaul the way our campaigns are financed - it's by the public; for the public; and it has to be with public money. The same with election and voting machines - these cannot be run on private proprietary software! How the hell can we even allow that to happen? Proprietary voting machine software owned by a corporation with a political agenda? Who the fuck thought that was OK?
So, we need to understand at a basic, gut level why these two issues - corporate personhood and campaign finance - must be addressed to get any kind of change enacted. Otherwise, we're spinning our wheels in a muddy ditch - and wondering why we're not moving forward.
( Side note on that 'Proprietary Software owned by a corporation with a political agenda' quip. Gypping the public of fair electoral process is a centuries - old practice : gerrymandering being one of the more notable. Now the poor are targeted to disenfranchise them with methods as simple as requiring identification not always readily available. This also flows from hatemongering ethnic,racial,sexual,religious or cultural differences to divide people in common fixes from each others' sympathies. Time to remind you of a blogger's epic Crusade against electoral fraud. )
"The state's most persistent blogger-watchdog on the dangers of voting technology."
- The Los Angeles Times
- The Los Angeles Times
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment