Category Archives: Politics

Propaganda Mussolini: A Film by Massimo Balloi

by Cimaxion

Italian filmmaker Massimo Balloi has made an abstract film that attempts to explain the descent of Italy into modern fascism. The rapid turn of Western democracies toward a virulent corporate fascism does in fact resemble the ideas put forth by Mussolini in the 1930s and 40s. But his effort was to mimic the efficiencies of the corporation in government. The new effort currently underway is to replace government control with corporate control. The danger is real and it is extreme. Even in the United States we see a Supreme Court allying itself with corporations. In Italy, you have a very basic corporate buffoon running the country as if it were a criminal enterprise. In the U.S. you have completely false liberals maneuvering a corporate front man into the Presidency so that every decision is made with a seemingly logical inclination toward the interests of the large corporations. We are now fighting entire wars based solely on decisions by corporations.

The twenty first century will not be the century of war against terrorists. It will be a century of war against corporations. They will gain an upper hand initially, but this will be short-lived. I say this because once you get inside these corporate structures you can observe how shockingly weak they are. BP is your perfect example. A single broken valve can weaken the entire stack of cards. These corporate entities can only flourish while people are asleep.

TED Film From Arrested Chinese Artist

by Cimaxion

This is a film presented at the TED conference from the famous Chinese artist who was recently kidnapped by Chinese authorities. He has completely vanished along with thousands of other artists, journalists, writers, intellectuals and human rights workers who have been taken in the past several months. This artist speaks very simply and clearly about the situation in his country where his government watches him all day long and sees nothing wrong with bulldozing his studio to the ground because he expresses some criticism of what he sees around him.

What I do not respect about this video is the simpering nitwit from TED who introduces the film by stating that the TED conference takes no position on China. He then goes on to bend over for China and mentions how many people have been lifted from poverty in China. How far up China’s ass can this guy fit his head, I wonder? How can any organization not take a position on China? I’m sure if Hitler were around today and rambling across the land on an extermination campaign, this bunch from TED would take no position on that.

Look at this little notice on TED’s YouTube page where the film is hosted:

TED is a non-partisan, nonpolitical organization and we understand the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest. But for anyone who believes in the power of ideas, of human imagination, it is heartbreaking to see one of the world’s great artists shackled in this way. We will be tracking developments carefully. Here is the film.

TED ‘understands the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest!’

Oh my god!  Yes indeed.  They understand this concern of a totalitarian murdering government that is more than happy to make people vanish into prison because they want to complain about being beaten by a policeman.

Hey TED, here I come with my ticket!  Gosh, I wouldn’t want you to be concerned that I might boo one of your presentations.  Wouldn’t want that, would we?

Lifting people out of poverty in China is not what we need to be doing. We need to be shutting these people out entirely. We need companies that do not fill their computers with Chinese parts. We need toys that do not come painted with Chinese lead poison. We need to treat this totalitarian country the way it deserves to be treated. A rich China doing business with every company on the planet is not going to advance freedom for anyone. China needs to be pushed into abject and brutal poverty. Only then will the conditions exist for a revolution.

I opened up my Dell computer the other day to blow some dust out. The first things I saw were multiple ‘Made in China’ stickers on various components. Screw Dell. Screw every Western company that buys a single circuit board from China. Screw China.

Michael Moore Labor Union Speech in Madison, Wisconsin

by Cimaxion

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

Those are the words of Michael Moore and they are very true. If you want to become a bad national joke, you do what Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has done and push through a bill that destroys the right of working Americans to organize and form labor unions.

The revolt against this criminal stupidity in Wisconsin is incredible to watch. It has national importance for the future of labor and the rights of working people everywhere.

They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day — this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart — because you — yes, you, too! — might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.

Egyptians Continue Arab World Revolt Against Despotic Rulers

by Cimaxion | 2 Comments

In a stunning rebuke to the ongoing U.S. policy of ‘useful dialog’ with the Arab world’s collection of brutal, murdering dictators, the people of Egypt are staging one of the great revolutions in history by occupying the streets of Egypt’s major cities and burning the headquarters of the brutal and thuggish regime that has held power there for over 30 years.  It is very likely that this ongoing revolution is as significant an event as the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. All dictators and the people attached to them, whether they be Arab or otherwise, sign their own death warrants as soon as they take power, giving the people an undeniable right to eliminate them by any means necessary. The current U.S. administration shows itself to be woefully out of step with events as it insists that protesters chart a course for the future through dialog with Mubarak!  Mubarak is as dead as King Tut’s mummy.  I suspect that most of the people in Egypt recognize that President Obama has been secretly complicit in the activities of dictator Mubarak and his torture facilities.  As buildings burn in Cairo, so does U.S. policy toward the brutal, barbaric, and inhuman torturers who lead most of the Arab world.  The sad truth of the matter is that in the U.S. we have a president who completely and unreservedly supports a criminal dictator.  Shame on the U.S.  Go Egypt!

Wednesday Is The Day To Make Hell For The TSA At U.S. Airports

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

I can’t believe that I’m posting a video interview with Ron Paul about the ongoing horror show coming out of the TSA and the Obama administration. But the simple fact of the matter is that it really doesn’t matter who is attacking the President and the TSA for blatantly unconstitutional molestation and physical abuse of air passengers across the United States. It doesn’t matter if it’s Republicans or Tea Party dopes. The only thing that matters is that a free people with some hope of maintaining a democracy MUST stop a government that thinks it can go inside peoples’ clothes and touch their bodies in the name of very questionable security.

The Obama administration’s TSA must be stopped no matter what. It is an absolute imperative that they not be allowed to molest men, women or children who are simply exercising their right to travel freely. So I find myself fully in the camp of a political party that I normally want nothing to do with. When it comes to stopping the TSA and protecting the civil rights of people in this country it makes no difference who is leading the fight. It think this cause does in fact join Republicans with liberals. It’s one of the few things we can agree on.

The TSA has expressed concern about verbal and physical abuse being directed at its employees. They hope that passengers can understand the difference between the TSA employees and the officials making the policies. Except that the person you have to defend yourself from is the one standing in front of you trying to put his or her hand into your pants. You must defend yourself against that person. The policymakers will get the message and act eventually. But in the airport you must defend yourself against the person actually committing the assault.

Continue reading …

R. Crumb and the Corporate Mono-Culture

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Cartoonist Robert Crumb gets interviewed by a Los Angeles Times writer and talks about his living in France and his hatred for the pervasive corporate mono-culture that Americans seem unaware of.  He can’t stand it and chooses to live outside of it.

Really good perspective.

In a culture where you’ve got a Supreme Court actually giving corporate entities the rights of individual human beings, you’ve got total corporate control of every single living man, woman and child.  You can see this complete robotic control on very prominent and horrific display in the current president of the United States.  He a corporate hologram who moves only when commanded to by his boardroom overseers.  The entire country is oriented around cop/lawyer shows on television which are specifically designed to make you feel close and personal with the state/corporate stooges who work for police departments and gleefully lay disadvantaged people out on their faces on subway platforms and slaughter them with bullets fired straight into their backs from six inches away.  ‘The Mentalist’ is probably the supreme example of this attempt to make the corporate/police control mechanism seem odd and quirky and just a little cutely but intelligently eccentric.  ‘Medium’ is another.  The individual with oddball abilities or perceptions is entirely consumed and controlled by the state apparatus.  All cop shows are meant to make as many viewers as possible feel completely comfortable being visited by and talking to the police.  That is the entire truth of American television.  It’s message is simply this: when we come knocking, open the door.

That is the true subtext of every single show ever produced by American broadcasting companies.

R. Crumb is totally right.

Obama Has Ignored His Basic Responsibility to Protect the United States

by Editor

President Barack Obama has failed to uphold the primary duty of the President of the United States, which is to protect it from physical harm. This president has inexplicably ignored his responsibilities and has turned over a planetary mega-disaster to the foreign oil company that caused the disaster. The total reliance upon a company that has proven itself incapable of planning for problems with underwater oil wells is an abdication of responsibility, a total loss of control and a political nightmare that will effectively end the Obama presidency. If you are a Democrat, as I am, you had better watch the video below. When James Carville, one of the great Democrats and political strategists of the 20th century screams at you this way, with this much anger and this much disbelief, you are a lame-duck president. Doesn’t matter how well you smile. Watch:

Carville is on the money.  Obama should have immediately recognized that this hole in the Gulf is a very bad Chernobyl-level disaster that is going to wipe out the southern coast of the United States and possibly kill most life in the Gulf of Mexico.  He should have set up an emergency command center in Louisiana at which he was present and he should have put the military at the site of the disaster so that they could use cameras and submarines to keep an eye on what British Petroleum was doing at the well head.  There is no reason to believe what BP is telling the U.S. government.  There is no reason to believe that they are actually trying a ‘top-kill’ procedure.  There is no visual evidence of this and the U.S. military would be able to verify or refute the company’s claims.

The BP oil spill is a Chernobyl-level disaster.  It is ongoing and will kill enormous stretches of coastline and turn large portions of the Gulf into dead zones.  It will also kill human beings.  BP is putting people out into poisonous waters without any Hazmat breathing gear.  Those people are starting to get sick already.  The poisons can destroy brain tissue and apparently damage lungs.

Fisherman hired to help clean up are getting sick from chemicals at oil spill:

President Obama has failed to put sufficient resources along the coasts to help with cleanup. Instead, he maneuvers politically by sending 1,200 National Guard troops to help ‘protect’ the border in Arizona when everyone knows that those troops cannot do anything at all but stand around and drink coffee. It is not legal for them to arrest anyone crossing the border and they are not authorized to do so. But they could certainly help down in Louisiana with oil.

Obama has decided to visit the area on Friday. So he can have a look. Why doesn’t he put his head into the thick sloppy goop that will be surrounding his boat. When he comes up he’ll be a well-oiled president machine.

This is a very weak president.  He does not have the ability to move quickly – in real time – during an extended crisis.  It is appalling that he has not been able to overcome his inertia over the course of an entire month of unfolding disaster.  If I were an enemy of the United States, I would be paying very close attention to what is going on here and make my move right about now.  Like North Korea.

What we find out later about this oil spill will make today’s anger seem mild.  Never again will I be misled by a politician who paints himself as a hero to the people.  Never.  We were all so excited about having a woman candidate in the primaries and a black candidate in the presidential election.  But those things really aren’t important enough.  We feel proud for electing the nation’s first black president but look what it got us.  It got us a corporate middle manager who gives billions to Wall Street friends, turns healthcare reform into a windfall for the insurance companies, continues two useless and expensive wars, continues to hold people in prisons without charges, and cannot figure out how to take control during a horrendous man-made disaster.

Obama and FCC Give Full Remote Control of Your TV Hardware to Corporations

by Editor

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Federal Communications Commission have given media corporations the legal power to remotely disable functions and outputs in your television, DVD players, and content receivers. This decision means that when you buy equipment it will have a shut-off and control mechanism built into it allowing Warner Brothers or Disney to flip a switch that will turn off various parts of your equipment so that you cannot do certain things with what you are watching. A lot of equipment currently sitting in American households already has this circuitry built in and now it can be activated by the entertainment companies.  The Obama administration is going after more than television equipment though.  It’s putting this control stuff into computers and operating systems.

This is a new form of fascism.  Corporate fascism.  When the government allows total control of what the population is allowed to do with its own media equipment and content you have in place all the machinery of totalitarian control of expression, both artistic and journalistic.

Smash your TV and throw it over the fence onto the White House lawn.  Better yet, open Obama’s mouth up wide and shove your TV down his throat.  I’ve had just about enough of this corporate-owned jerk in the White House who is more concerned about finding his cigarettes than saving the Gulf of Mexico from an outrageous act of ‘accidental’ terrorism by British Petroleum.  Obama should have a swim in the new Gulf.  The man who vowed to stop all the secret torture and military clown tribunals and needless wars has inflicted more grotesque harm in these areas than his monkey-brained predecessor.  Obama’s teeth drip baby blood.  He’s a human predator drone.  And now he’s disabling our televisions sets.

No media company is going to shut off part of my television, I can tell you that now.  I don’t give a damn what President O says.  He’s done in 2012.  It doesn’t matter who runs against this nitwit in 2012.  I’m voting for them.  I’m too angry to give a crap anymore.  Let’s give Hillary a shot.

See, you don’t need a tea party to be angry about a guy who steals for Wall Street.  You can do it all by yourself.

Obama Signs Healthcare Bill – Big Fu*king Deal

by Editor

I’m for health care reform because I’m about as liberal as one can get. I would never in a million elections consider voting for a Republican candidate for any office whatsoever.  But I also have a nasty habit of biting off the political hand that feeds me and then spitting it back.  I’ve seen the rock-bottom brutal racism and stupidity of the healthcare reform opponents and the Tea Party protesters who look to me exactly like Ku Klux Klan members.  I think they need white hoods to go along with all their racial epithets and homophobic remarks.  The fact is that the United States desperately needs some kind of health reform to reign in the murderous insurance companies and protect all people, not just those who make lots of money and can afford absurdly priced, flimsy medical coverage.  Now that I’ve said that, I will also say that this country also needs a vice president who does not say ‘it’s a big fu*king deal’ on television in front of the world with his arms around the President.  His remark is shameful and not in slightest bit funny.  It put his president in an uncomfortable position during an important and historical moment.  Obama should have asked him to kindly leave the room.  Biden is a liability and needs to be dropped from the ticket in 2012.  He will be.  Watch.  All Republican campaign commercials will now feature Joe Biden saying ‘Big Fu*king Deal.’

As for the health reform law, I think it is obviously unconstitutional.  There.  I’ve said it.  I will be rejected by most of my friends now, but it’s the simple unavoidable truth.  The law’s central requirement that all Americans buy health insurance from private companies is ludicrous and will be quickly rejected by the United States Supreme Court.  Already, fourteen states have filed a lawsuit declaring the law an infringement of states’ rights.  They are correct.  Taxing Americans in order to cover them through a public policy is one thing.  But forcing them to give money to insurance companies that routinely murder people by withdrawing medicine from them is an entirely different matter.  I think Democrats are in a frenzy of forced celebration over a victory they know is somewhat temporary.  A conservative Supreme Court is going to dismantle this thing in a hurry.  The federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce does not give it the power to force people to engage in that commerce in the first place.  If I don’t want to buy something, I don’t have to buy it.  Certainly, we are all obligated to buy car insurance if we drive.  But we choose to drive.  We are free to not drive and not buy car insurance.  But the health reform law forces Americans to pay corporations… for being alive at all.

Obama did not have the courage to push a public insurance option through.  He made a deal with Murder Incorporated and he is going to pay a very steep price for this mistake.  A reform bill without public insurance coverage should have simply forced the insurance companies into strict codes of behavior.  It should not have forced every single U.S. citizen to hand cash over to these horrendous people.  No way.  It’s actually pretty shocking to see this happening during a Democratic administration.  The plan is actually this: to have Internal Revenue Service agents investigate people who don’t buy insurance and to levy penalties upon them.  That’s like a government penalty for not buying your tires at Sears.

It is not necessary to argue about the reform bill anymore.  It is law now.  But I can predict that no law requiring private medical insurance coverage is going to be on the books in two years’ time.

California Cuts $17 Billion From Public Education

by Editor

California is hurting financially and so its muscular governor and legislature have cut $17 billion over the past two years. College students are outraged and are demonstrating and taking over school buildings. Classes are overcrowded. Libraries are disappearing. People are angry and wonder why corporations are getting tax breaks while public education suffers.  I would point out that I watched one of our state’s public universities stage several large football games in a colossal stadium this winter.  That does seem odd if they are in financial straights. But in general such massive cuts in public education are a very bad thing for a state like California that depends heavily on knowledge for the health of its economy and for its future.

Stand Up For Schools

Haiti May Be Providing Slave Labor to U.S. Corporations

by Editor | 2 Comments

Haitians Hang French Troops For Their Acts of Cruelty

During the earthquake crisis in Haiti I have continued to ask the same question of my friends: How, in the 21st Century, can a country so close to the richest nation on earth be so poor?  No one seems to have an answer except for Pat Robertson (who is not a friend, by the way) who suggests that the Haitians made a pact with the devil when they made the French leave.  Seems an odd way to refer to a successful uprising against slavery, doesn’t it?

Since the earthquake, I have learned that Haiti was apparently the location of the world’s first successful uprising against slavery.  They fought the French and won.  It is also the world’s oldest black republic.  It is this achievement that a person like televangelist Pat Robertson suggests is a pact with the devil.

But now it seems that U.S. corporations are using Haitian workers in sweatshop factories to manufacture goods at wages of approximately 30 cents per hour.  That must be why the tiny nation is too poor to build things that can withstand earthquakes.  It will be useful to learn how many of these factories or sweatshops/slave camps have collapsed in the earthquake.  I would imagine that there will be some investigation of such places in the near future.  Perhaps the slave trade never really ended at all, but simply changed its name to ‘cheap labor’ or ‘sweatshop’ or ‘globalism.’

Here’s a history of Haiti from Wikipedia.

Here’s an article about the U.S. role in keeping Haiti poor.

Disney has used cheap labor in Haiti.  They say so themselves right here.

I particularly like their response to a question about child labor:

Q. What is your policy on child labor?
A. Our Code of Conduct for Manufacturers prohibits child labor. Companies that make Disney-branded products must sign a contract stating that they do not and will not use child labor. Child is defined as “a person younger than 15 (or 14 where local law allows) or, if higher, the local legal minimum age for employment or the age for completing compulsory education.” If child labor is discovered in a factory, we generally seek to work with the factory, as well as the licensee that uses the factory, to identify the most feasible solution to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. This may include collaboration with government, multilateral institutions, NGOs or other companies that use the factory.

So Disney will ‘seek to work with the factory’ if it finds child labor going on. Am I the only one who’s shocked that a U.S. corporation would print such a statement of its own accord?  Because if it were me finding out about child labor, I would ‘seek to work’ a hammer into someone’s head.  For my part, I can only define very cheap labor in a very poor country where workers are threatened with reprisals if they try to improve their lot as slavery.  In fact, the more I learn about Haiti the less it looks like a country and more like a camp.

Freedom of Expression? Really? When Was the Last Time You Heard a Slave Speak Freely?

by Editor

I found this Amnesty International video over at Silliman’s Blog today. It’s about the power of words to help defend freedom of expression around the world.  I’m all for that.  But can you take me seriously as a wealthy member of the Western world’s corporate structure?  The Amnesty video mentions a journalist jailed for ten years in China simply for sending an email.  So let’s stop and think for a bit about this ‘freedom of expression.’ Take China as an example.  The Chinese are essentially slave labor for the entire Western world.  They make our shirts, pants, toys, radios, shoes, dinnerware, jackets, telephones, etc.  They produce almost every single solid object you will touch during your day.  Everything.  They take their instructions from our corporations and they build these things for pennies a day.  They are slaves.  No doubt about it.  Their government is simply middle-management working for us.  So, while we may pretend to be interested in freedom of expression, we most certainly do not want our slaves talking freely.  Slaves who can speak their minds will gain their freedom and their hourly wages will increase.  They will no longer be our cheap labor – our slaves.  They will become expensive free thinkers just like us.  Our corporations and our politicians do not want freedom of expression for China under any circumstances whatsoever.  Morgan Freeman’s blazer was quite possibly made by a Chinese slave making 30 cents an hour.  When the Chinese decide that they want to fight for their freedom, they will be fighting us.  The world will change when the Chinese people shoot their leaders and lift their wages.  You think you’ve seen a global economic crash?  Just wait until our corporations can’t pay for their slaves in China anymore.  The bottom line has not changed for at least three hundred years: the world economy cannot function without slavery.

So the Amnesty video asks us for our words to help in the cause of freedom.  I’ve just written some.

Obama Wants Our Money for Insurance Companies Just in Time for Christmas

by Editor

Hey man, I’m a lifelong Democrat and I have always voted for liberal causes and I truly believe that we suffered under 8 years of despotic rule by an unintelligent baboon of a criminal in George Bush.  But I think we got taken and voted for an insurance salesman in 2008.  President Obama has done exactly four major things since taking office: He’s given billions of dollars to his friends on Wall Street.  He’s bought a crappy car manufacturer.  He’s protected torturers in the U.S. military and Bush administration from prosecution.  He’s steadfastly refused to lead the world in emissions controls.

And now he is trying to take our money and give it to his friends in the health insurance industry.

When this man ran for office he sounded like a voice of the people – of the less advantaged.  Apparently, that is easy to fake.  He now wants a health reform bill in which every American citizen is required by law to purchase health insurance from… get this… a private insurance company!  The very companies that kill babies by refusing to cover them!  The very companies that charge huge amounts of money for coverage and then yank it out from under you as soon as you get sick.  Those companies!  This a-hole of a president wants to make us criminals if we don’t give these people our money to purchase their scam health insurance policies.  You’ve got to be joking me!  Right?  He’s serious!  He’s limp-wristedly telling all of us that this health care reform bill is better than no bill at all.  Rubbish.  He’s a jerk and he will not be reelected under any circumstances.  When a Democratic president loses people like me, man I gotta be honest with you, he’s in deep doodoo.  There’s no coming back from that.  I’m offended, disappointed, disgusted, angry… and I’m looking for a new candidate.  Possibly a new political party.  The Democrats equal Joe Lieberman – shifty, fraudulent, elitist, and wholly owned by corporate business interests.

Here’s our jerk in chief talking about how there must be a public option for health insurance just several months ago!

Message to President Obama: Pack your things.