Trump & Media

The Fake News President

~ cockroachconspiracy

 

 

The ultimate irony is that this phony braggart who keeps accusing the press of being fake, wouldn’t have become president were it not for the tsunami of fake news posts on Facebook. And depressingly, almost half of all Americans get their news from Facebook. This conspiratorial assault on the hearts & minds of the American electorate was designed & implemented by Cambridge Analytica’s then vice-president, Steve Bannon.

And the great Fear & Hate Monger spreading it throughout Europe now

 

Bannon just happened to be the CEO of Trump’s presidential campaign & once Trump became the occupant of the oval office, he was the White House’s chief strategist for seven months until he criticized the boy-king in a book he’d written.

funny how he doesn’t tell it like it is when he loses?

 

Moreover, another key factor in how Trump stole the presidency was the fact that the “public enemy” i.e. the mainstream media, gave Donny over 23 times the media attention that Sanders got. Why? Because Trump would say things so outrageous that it made for better television ratings. And obviously the better the ratings, the more money the networks bring in. Obviously, the fake news circus maximus waged by team Trump has been & continues to be the key to his success.

“Freedom of the Press,
if it means anything at all,
means the freedom
to criticize and oppose”
― George Orwell

 

Of course, the most egregious example of fake news is FOX “news.” I have been putting the news in that reference in parenthesis for well over the past decade because I refuse to refer to them as a legitimate news organization. And the fact that the rest of the mainstream media in this country have gone along with this farce for the 20 years that FOX has been in business, reveals how little integrity they have as well.

You can be sure of one thing i.e. this isn’t the first time he’s been charged with fraud

 

Most notably during the George W. Bush reign of error & terror, the White House issued its daily talking points & FOX “news,” dutifully echoed it. Whenever I get into a brief, political discussion with someone, I can tell within a couple of minutes if they’re a FOX “news” devotee because they simply spew out the same tired propaganda they just watched on FOX.

Yeah I bet all the families of our soldiers who died in Iraq thought this was real funny

 

However, in the spirit of full disclosure, let’s review briefly that minor incident we call the Iraq War. Of course, FOX “news” beat the drums for invasion louder than any “news” network but The New York Times, supposedly the “paper of record” i.e. the paper that sets the standard for all the rest of the major newspapers in America, also beat the war-drums. Judith Miller was their star reporter covering the lead-up to the war & she basically just served as a stenographer to Ahmad Chalabi. A few weeks after Miller’s complete lack of journalistic ethics, she was forced to leave the New York Times staff.

the kind of reporter that Trump loves

This was a guy that would’ve been a perfect business partner for Trump. He’d amassed a fortune of over $100,000,000 through bank fraud in Jordan, being an Iraqi businessman in the oil industry, etc. But his primary value was as a source for the Bush administration’s claim of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So much for the Times’ reputation of research & fact-checking. Oh yeah, Chalabi hoped that his dishonesty & dirty deals with the Bush administration would be rewarded by his being made president of Iraq after the U.S. leveled the country.

he won’t release his taxes because they’ll prove he’s a tax cheat & not a billionaire!

 

What the above example reveals is that yes, to some extent, all media is fake but to conclude that Trump is therefore justified in his ad nauseam attacks on the media as the public enemy is reducto ad absurdum (argument to absurdity). And I often hear people claim that MSNBC is equal to FOX “news” in terms of their biases which is ridiculous as well.

If you give a shit about how the media really works, this man is the greatest intellectual alive!

 

Time to return to the Master of Fraud, Trump. Everything about this blowhard (an arrogantly & pompously boastful or opinionated person; braggart, windbag) is fake from his glued-down toupee to his “bone-spurs.” We witness daily how mind-bogglingly stupid & incompetent he is yet nearly half of America love his chest-beating & his racist hatred of all who aren’t from “his base.”

not that I have any love for Romney but here he’s speaking the truth

 

This “teller like it is,” is so insecure that he employs a platoon of lawyers 24/7, 365 days a year who protect him from lawsuits filed against him & who threaten lawsuits against anyone who dares to besmirch his “good name” and his entire business career has been one continuous stream of lawsuits as either defendant or plaintiff.

Trump’s mentor & mafia lawyer on the right, Joseph McCarthy’s hatchet-man, Roy Cohn

What his Jonestown cult members refuse to acknowledge is Trump’s paranoid fear of being exposed for the epitome (a perfect example of a class or type) of a fraud. There’s a good reason why lawyers, politicians, & used-car salesmen are on the lowest rung of America’s social ladder & Trump is the lowest of the low when you take the time to check out his past. Yet his Walking Dead cheerleaders will never betray him because he gives them their daily fix of dopamine every time he lashes out at immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, Democrats, liberals, etc. etc. etc.

Is this what it’s going to take before Trump fans wake-up? Another Jonestown?

 

Furthermore, what’s truly amazing is that those who support this charlatan are those whose mantra is “All you need is common sense.” I know these kinds of people. I used to argue with them all the time in my mom’s house in my 20s when we’d be partying & they’d blindly defend Ronald Reagan. So, where is the “common sense” of the typical Trump fan?

Is America really so dumb as to fall for this fake???

 

How can a person who owns a casino, go bankrupt & not just once but four times even when given special zoning permission that other casino owners in Atlantic City weren’t given? Seems rather obvious to me that he’s a colossal failure as a businessman. And if he’s such a genius as he loves to boast ad nauseam, why has he threatened lawsuits against any of the schools he’s attended from elementary school to college if they dare to reveal his grades? Duh! He’s always been the fuckin’ moron we see before our eyes & only the willfully blind fail to see it.

The state of higher education in America; hundreds of fraudulent, on-line “universities” & massive student debt

 

And speaking of blind, America as evidenced by the millions who believe in Trump are clearly also members of the deaf, dumb, & blind and clearly represent a threat to not only our fragile democracy but often a physical threat to those who dare to speak out.

 

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane for those of you who may not remember the beginning of the “reality T.V. phenomenon.” The first & the only “Reality T.V. show” I ever watched as far as I can remember, was “Survivor.” I watched perhaps two or three episodes of it with my dear, departed wife and I commented to her, think about it, what is this series telling us? It’s telling us to win at any cost i.e. lie, cheat, steal, backstab, etc., you know, the seven cardinal virtues that all Christians aspire to. (No, I’m being facetious here but I did point out the negative lessons the show was promoting)

This is the kind of leader Trump admires i.e. cruel & fascist

 

Don’t get me wrong, but what I’m about to say isn’t because I consider myself holier than thou but rather due to the fact that I’ve been an outsider or a loner all my life. My “friends” in L.A. as I was progressing through my 20s, often mocked or ridiculed me because they weren’t readers like I am and therefore a lot of what I tried to tell them sounded preposterous.

the IRS goes after far more ordinary Americans than the 1% tax cheaters who make billions

 

Well I believe it’s been close to 20 years now & we now have clear evidence of the harm that our infatuation with “reality t.v.” has wrought on our society & culture. I have tried for years to point out to people the Alice in Wonderland absurdity of watching a fake “medium” (technology used to communicate) to supposedly get a view of our reality. I’d say things like, Hey, I have an idea, how about instead of watching T.V. to get a view of “reality,” you go out and live real life, you know, what’s happening right outside your door?

Authoritarians appeal to people when they are desperate & worried about their economic future

 

Of course, my concerns were dismissed and mocked as usual but it gives me no pleasure to point that out now, my worries have clearly been proven correct. Donald J. Trump, the phony star of a phony t.v. series built on a formula perfect for such a vile & corrupt person as Donny, with the critical help of this series, The Apprentice, has become the president of the most powerful nation on earth & is clearly a serious threat to our national security & our economic well-being.

like some of the Roman Emperors, Trump is a megalomaniac & poses a threat to the planet!

 

I also heartily recommend that you check out the documentary series on Netflix called “Dirty Money,” and the episode titled; “Confidence Man,” which of course is about Trump. Again, those of you who believe you have “common sense,” might ponder why it is that Donnie demanded that every time that his name was mentioned on The Apprentice, they had to add; “the billionaire?” If he’s so confident of his wealth, why does he need to keep on saying he’s very, very rich or fantastically rich, etc. etc. etc. so often that it makes me feel like puking? Or reflect on this; We had something like 585 billionaires in America as of 2018 but we don’t hear them bragging to the world daily of their wealth, why do you think that is?

I don’t know about you but I have always detested braggarts and when I’m around one, I usually make a quick escape. I prefer to be around people who are humble and if they are talented in some areas, I usually discover their talents on my own. I feel that this is a good point at which to lay-out just how significant Steve Bannon & Cambridge Analytica’s role was in dumping this human trash-can, Trump on us. I am going to give you a thumbnail overview of the subject & if you’d care to look a bit deeper, I suggest you check out the fantastic documentary also available on Netflix called “The Great Hack.”

In a nutshell, Cambridge Analytica was a branch of a larger corporation that had been doing psychological operations work or contracts with governments, corporations, intelligence agencies, etc. for decades i.e. disrupting, manipulating, etc. elections with fake news stories or propaganda. And when Zuckerberg sold them the data of over 90 million of American Facebook users, supposedly unaware of the harm it could cause, Cambridge Analytica went to work.

the facts behind the fraud & no, not “alternative facts”

 

Bannon is like an evil wizard who immediately realized just what a powerful weapon this data could be & probably started salivating from the beginning. And one of their primary tools for gaining insights into American voters’ personalities, character, etc. was the use of the seemingly simple personality tests they posted on Facebook. And I too fell for these tests several times. Cambridge boasted in their sales campaigns that they had over 5,000 data points on every American user of Facebook.

 

And all this data they had collected illegally & immorally on us, made it easy for them to target those whom they called “persuadable.” These were the Facebook users that they targeted with their fake news stories i.e. propaganda portraying Hillary Clinton as the head of a child sex ring that drank children’s blood & assorted other National Enquirer type “news stories.” Remember the fact that nearly half of America’s citizens who are on Facebook, get their news from this so-called, “social media platform.”

Get the picture? Facebook, the most powerful social media platform in the world with over two billion users, along with FOX “news,” Alex Jones’ “Info Wars” website, the Conspiracy Channel in other words i.e. the Sandy Hook massacre of 20 children from six to seven years old along with six adult staff at this elementary school was called a hoax by Alex Jones.

 

“…. claims that the massacre was “a giant hoax” and “that the whole thing was fake” — staged by the federal government, which hired professional actors for the purposes of undermining Second Amendment rights.”  https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/17/603223968/sandy-hook-parents-sue-conspiracy-theorist-al

 

And America’s infamous “Anti-intellectualism” (see the classic by Richard Hofstadter) have combined in a perverse sort of perfect storm to bring us one of the most despicable creatures to ever walk upright, Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan.

“Trump has repeatedly cited or pushed claims that were traced back to infowars.com” Moreover, Jones two areas of “expertise” are conspiracy theories and fake news. What an amazing coincidence? If, unlike Trump, you are capable of compassion or empathy, try to imagine what the parents of those children who were murdered must’ve felt like with this evil propagandist, Alex Jones, calling this horrific nightmare a grand conspiracy.

 

A few of the parents of the murdered children filed a law suit against Jones for his horrible behavior in pushing this conspiracy theory for I’m not sure how long but I do know that Jones finally lost in court. And now he claims that “a form of psychosis caused him to believe that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged.” Yeah, right! And this is the kind of guy that our fake news president cites & promotes conspiracy theories from? This shows just how gullible millions of Americans are & how quick they are to believe the most absurd claims of nut-jobs.

 

In conclusion, I am going to pull back the curtain on Trump’s greatest fraud which is his claim to fame i.e. that he’s a self-made billionaire. But before I do so, it’s appropriate to remind you, my imaginary reader, of a fantastic statement by the liar-in-chief;

 

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

This is almost a little too on-the-nose Orwellian. In 1984, George Orwell described the totalitarian government’s ultimate demand of its subjects:

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.  https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a22547037/donald-trump-orwellian-truth-reality-eyes-ears/

This admonition is clearly from the mind of a megalomaniac and any rational person capable of even a semblance of critical & analytical thinking would be frightened but not Trump’s Walking Dead army. In other words, Trump is telling his pro-Nazi & neo-fascist fan club to only believe whatever he says. Trump is clearly a textbook example of a demagogue & let me save you the effort to go to your dictionary, if you were so inclined?

 

A demagogue /ˈdɛməɡɒɡ/ (from Greek δημαγωγός, a popular leader, a leader of a mob, from δῆμος, people, populace, the commons + ἀγωγός leading, leader)[1] or rabble-rouser[2][3] is a leader who gains popularity in a democracy by exploiting prejudice and ignorance to arouse the common people against elites, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation.[1][4] Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so.[5]

 

Of course, Trump’s Conspiracy of Ignorance campaign is two-pronged i.e. pretending to be going after the elites of which he is a member at least financially-speaking. By-the-way, Trump tried his best to gain acceptance into New York’s intellectual & cultural elite for many years in his 20s but they laughed at him & rejected him time & time again. So, I believe a lot of his animus towards this pseudo elite, accounts for a lot of his bitterness nowadays? And the second prong of Trump’s war against America is his base which adore him & feed his super-ego.

 

Okay, now for the piece de resistance (French for; an outstanding item or event: showpiece), upon which Trump has built the edifice of his empire, his wealth. By-the-way, my guess is that this expose (to make known: bring to light) done by a team of investigative reporters from The New York Times is probably the main reason he detests this newspaper above all the rest?

 

Back in 2005, David Cay Johnston, revealed three pages of one of Trump’s tax returns that he had gotten his hands on. He has closely observed Trump’s career for over 28 years & has challenged Trump on many occasions to sue him but Trump has never taken him up on his invitation. The three pages caught the attention of this small team of journalists at the Times & they began a 14-month investigation of Donnie Darko.

And here is what they discovered thanks in large part to getting their hands-on Donnie’s daddy’s Will. Moreover, because Donnie’s sister, who was a federal judge, had to file a full financial disclosure each year that she was a judge & dutifully listed the details of every trust, business organization, etc. from which she received money, they were able to zero in on Donnie’s true sources of his wealth. Each of Donnie’s siblings received the same amount in Fred Trump’s Will but from the age of three when Donald Duck was receiving $250,000 a year & throughout his life, Daddy Warbucks never stopped funneling millions of dollars every year to the spoiled & intellectually-challenged Donald Duck.

 

In brief, Donnie the Despicable has never been a true entrepreneur because Daddy had to co-sign for every loan he used to get in his early years until the banks had their fill of his defaults on his loans. In 2005, his tax return showed that he had earned $150,000,000 but the investigative team discovered that this was a one-shot thing & it was because he had inherited it from daddy. Again, you can do a brief check to see just how many times his “brilliant” business mind has failed. And in the early 1990s, he was over $3 billion in debt with three of his Atlantic City casinos bankrupt. But then came his saving grace i.e. The Apprentice.  https://people.com/politics/apprentice-creators-donald-trump-scam/

 

Obviously, Trump’s entire life has been a gargantuan fraud and he has focused on expanding the Trump name & its façade of his being a self-made billionaire for decades. This is why he is so quick to sue anyone who dares to defame his “good name” i.e. his name plastered on buildings around the world make the unthinking believe he actually owns all those buildings when in fact, he’s simply the front-man, like the doorman standing outside a fancy hotel proclaiming; “Come on in to the greatest hotel in the world!”

 

It’s the sheer audacity of his hypocrisy (phrase used by Scott Horton) that has enabled him to survive along with his inheritance that has kept his head above water financially, not to mention his countless criminal acts.

 

And if you watch the video about how he got his fortune from daddy whom he has always claimed only gave him a “small loan of one million & which he had to pay interest on,” they also reveal how Donald & his siblings ripped daddy off for hundreds of millions so they wouldn’t have to pay 55% in taxes on their inheritance. Yep! Like I’ve showed in several instances, this racist, hate-monger, & national embarrassment has been nothing but a fake & a fraud all his life and yet he struts the world stage as if he were a present-day Mussolini and expects us to all grovel at his feet in awe of his magnificence. Well, here are my parting words for all of you who will persist in this grand delusion, but first I thought I might lighten things up briefly because I forewarn you, my last thoughts on this subject are very dark.

 

 

The Emperor Wears No Clothes
P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” and boy was he right

 

And here is Steve Bannon, the conspiracy theorist who is very sly and intelligent & this makes him a very dangerous person indeed because he is out to destroy every government that is pro-democracy and he wants to create a New World Order of Fascism!

And now back to the real “reality” of our lives in this dark time, this era of Trump and the darkness that has spread over the land.

 

You grin and cheer for this fake because like a lynch-mob, he can whip you up into a frenzy so easily. He helps you vent your anger that comes from your fears about how you’re going to pay your bills & your family’s future but this is the demagogue’s oldest trick in the book i.e. blame others, immigrants, Muslims, democrats, liberals, etc. etc. etc. when you should be ashamed of yourselves for not seeing that Trump isn’t your champion, he’s the enemy.

 

He represents the bankers who illegally foreclosed on your home and evicted you. He’s the hedge fund manager who wiped-out your pension fund. He’s one of the corporate crooks who pay lawyers & politicians to write laws that allow all the fraud & theft.

 

The government by and large works for the corporate cockroaches just like every one of us who works for thieves like Walmart, Amazon, etc. Trump, like his other swamp creature friends like Jeffrey Epstein for example, have gotten rich by fucking us all & using the government and the “law” to do so legally. But this doesn’t mean that we should therefore tear down the government completely because our government provides hundreds of positive functions & services as well.

 

You see, ever since FDR passed the New Deal, the Republicans have vowed & waged a non-stop propaganda campaign and war on every aspect of our government that does some good for we, the people. The G.O.P. has only one agenda and that is the unfettered pursuit of profit & power over the rest of us. So, take all their assaults on the government for what they truly represent i.e. an assault on us which is crystal clear as evidenced by the ever-expanding inequality financially speaking.

 

What Trump excels at is distracting us from what the 1% are doing behind the scenes i.e. Paul Ryan & Mitch McConnel being the key architects of the grand theft of our federal treasury as well as enablers of it. Trump’s actions & rhetoric has delivered a perhaps fatal blow to what we used to believe America stood for. And as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, the rest of the world now fears America more than any other nation or supposed terrorist threat.

 

Trump’s reign of ignorance & terror is shameless & unbridled and dishonors all those who have died in defense of America. I am truly saddened that so many of you just disregard his behavior & dismiss it as Donnie just being “real.”

Is Trump’s vision for America what she lost her love for?

 

Trump is causing physical, mental, & emotional harm to millions of Americans and you cheer him on? Well when the flaps of the giant circus tent that Trump is the ringmaster of go down, you won’t be grinning because you’ll be the present-day Tom Joad family (John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”).

 

I’m not a religious person but if there is a God and a heaven, when you stand before St. Peter & those pearly gates, he’s going to tell you to Go to Hell for your cruel indifference & inhumanity towards your fellow human beings. You show a total lack of compassion or empathy for all the poor souls, men, women, & children locked up in cages like animals at our border. And you have clearly forgotten entirely what your savior, Jesus, boiled it down to in his Sermon on the Mount.

 

These dehumanized and discarded people bleed red just like you & I when cut. And they put their pants on one leg at a time like your or me. They simply want to live and to enable their children to grow up healthy and not live in a constant state of fear. The drug cartels prey on them like vultures and if their teenage children refuse to join the drug gangs, they are threatened with the death of their entire family. They are fleeing the droughts caused mainly by the pollution of their Northern neighbor and other so-called “technologically-advanced nations.” And they are fleeing the absolute corruption of their government & their corporate sector.

 

America is a leader in corporate corruption but we’re more discrete about our abuses & we have a very effective propaganda system in place to disguise the ugly history of our corporate cockroaches:

 

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier 

These drug cartels have become obscenely wealthy because of our absolutely asinine & insane War on Drugs and like Trump, they have become so rich because their drugs help people to escape at least temporarily from the nightmares of their daily lives. And the U.S. is the world’s largest market for their drugs because so many Americans hate their lives & your idol is the biggest drug dealer of them all because he pushes the most seductive drug of all i.e. fear & hate!

Oops?

 

 

—Rob DeLoss, Gold Beach, Oregon October 12, 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump, the Malignant, Mendacious, Moronic, Malicious, Malevolent, Miscreant, Misanthrope, & Megalomaniac!

~ cockroachconspiracy ~ 2 Comments

 

 

 

I used to get tired of hearing people say, “They all lie and they’re all crooks,” and felt it was a cop-out for people who couldn’t be bothered to get involved. But as I get older & have been paying close attention to politics for well over 30 years now, I have to admit that I see their point. Yet Donald Trump is a world apart from your ordinary lying president.

the inner Trump in physical form

Depending on how you choose to look at it, he is either an Olympian liar or he’s from the lowest or worst circle of Dante’s “Inferno,” i.e. Treachery. And he definitely personifies the other eight circles of Hell (lust, gluttony, greed, anger, violence, fraud) & many more of humanity’s worst attributes.

You don’t need to be religious to see this vile creature as evil personified

 

It’s almost too fantastic to believe that in a single human being, all that is vile & despicable could exist? Yet we witness his loathsome, sickening, & despicable words and actions daily. If he were just a private citizen, we wouldn’t need to be concerned but this babbling baboon could totally wreck our economy & start a nuclear exchange due to his mind-boggling ignorance & incompetence and his schoolyard temper tantrums.

he told us he was the greatest but not that he was the greatest threat to humanity

 

Let’s start with his malignancy. The word “malignant” is most often used in relation to cancer & signifies a tendency for the tumor or the cancer to progressively get worse & lead to death. Clearly Trump is a cancer on America & by extension, the World. His rhetoric of fear & hate is spreading around the globe & emboldening dictators to follow suit.

as one of Trump’s role models, Mussolini said; “Fascism should more rightly be called “Corporatism” because it’s a marriage of the state & corporate power

 

To get a deeper understanding of Trump’s malignant nature, one only has to briefly survey the signs of a malignant narcissist which Trump displays for all the world to see.

 

  1. A sense of entitlement: the way he struts around the world stage with his head held high & that Mussolini smug mug like he’s king of the world. Daddy Fred Trump obviously instilled in him a sense of superiority to black people, poor people, etc. And Trump’s lies regarding his being a “self-made man,” are being revealed more & more i.e. he claimed that his papa only loaned him a million dollars when in fact, daddy gave him over $420 million. But Donny helped daddy too, he set up phony corporations so daddy & mommy could hide the bulk of their fortune & not pay taxes on it.

    twin sons of different mothers
  2. A lack of conscience & empathy: the first example that comes to mind is his mocking of a physically-challenged person in one of his rallies as a presidential candidate, his disrespect of the Gold-Star family who lost their son in Iraq—while Donny’s daddy paid a doctor to say that Donny had bone-spurs so he couldn’t go in the military & possibly be sent to Vietnam, & his disrespect towards John McCain who was a prisoner of war for over five years.

    Yep! Another example of that “compassionate conservatism”
  3. A sadistic streak: there are many reports of Donny being a schoolyard bully & his personal and vicious attacks against anyone who dares to criticize or disagree with him is evident in his daily barrage of rants on Twitter. Moreover, consider his repeated calls to his Duck Dynasty Klan followers at his rallies to rough up the journalists or anyone who dares to raise their voice in protest.
  4. Egocentrism: Do I really need to provide examples here? Well, just in case any of you, my imaginary readers, have been on the Moon or some other planet for the past couple of years; Donald Duck never tires of singing his own praises i.e. he’s the best, the smartest, knows more than anyone else about any subject you bring up when he’s within earshot. Here’s an amusing video clip to corroborate just in case you still have doubts?
  5. Grandiosity: well again you would’ve had to be living under a rock for the past 40 years or better to not know that Donny truly believes he’s some sort of modern embodiment of King Louis the XIV of France & every one of the buildings with his name on them (though that’s all) must be Palaces of Versailles.
    Clearly just another Joe that his Duck Dynasty Klan members can relate to in his gold-plated bubble

    Personally, I feel that his taste in decorating is more in line with the Hispanic low-riders in L.A. who are fond of velvet paintings of Jesus, cheap, plush red velour, & dingle-balls hanging from the interior roofs of their cars. But like good old king Louie, Trump believes in the Divine Rights of Kings & since he inherited his divinity from Daddy Trump, he deserves respect & absolute loyalty. And here’s another tidbit for you, his daughter, Ivanka, who he seems to have an abnormal affection for, has the middle name of Marie & she and Marie Antoinette have a remarkably similar character i.e. “Let them eat cake.” Well take heart my friends because Marie & her hubby, Louis the XVI, lost their heads in the French Revolution (pun intended).

  6. Paranoia: Have you noticed how frequently Donny whines to his Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid drinking fans that he’s the victim of a witch-hunt, a democratic conspiracy, the deep-state, etc. etc. etc.? Could it be that he has a guilty conscience? No, silly me, he clearly doesn’t have a conscience any more than Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. It’s probably just the realization that he’s committed so many crimes over the decades that he knows the law or public opinion is eventually going to find him out & he’s going to pay big-time.
  7. A Manipulative Nature: Duh! Donny’s very essence just screams Used Car Salesman, Snake-oil salesman, con man, hustler, grifter, etc. etc. etc. He successfully manipulates people with his 24/7 bragging about his phony accomplishments, his threats, his lies, his fear & hate mongering, etc.

    and oh so many willing suckers, what does that tell you about the intelligence of a third of our nation’s citizens?
  8. Projection (they project their bad behaviors onto others) I call this trying to turn the tables on their critics & an intellectual cop-out because they don’t have to bother to logically refute their critic, they simply accuse them of doing what they themselves are doing.

    Clear example of “projection” i.e. Trump calls the media “fake news” when in fact, he speaks nothing but lies–5,000 to date

 

In conclusion, I could go on ad nauseam & ad infinitum about this most despicable of persons let alone our president but I realize that you most likely already agree with me or if you don’t, you’ve probably stopped reading once you read the title of this essay.

for those with a “short” attention span

I’m an old fart, technologically-challenged, & definitely not a participant in the “social media” scene. Therefore, I doubt if many people will come across this essay. I have been writing like this for over three decades & have received a handful of positive feedback from a handful of readers but one of my readers of a recent essay that I wrote was Noam Chomsky. And that simple fact & his brief response has made it all worthwhile. I will leave you with one last morsel to chew on;

The Art of Manipulation

~ cockroachconspiracy

 

 

 

We are gradually morphing into a fascist society, yep, right here in the land of freedom & democracy. Fear mongering, exaggeration, being an alarmist, you say? A third of the American public believe that Trump is the populist champion of their dreams & he uses these tactics and many more and they believe him yet the majority of them most likely would dismiss my argument here? Okay, for those of you who are still able & willing to read an essay that’ll require 15 minutes of your time, here’s an overview of the subject for you.

It Can’t Happen Here, Right???

 

Most people are aware of the fact that Freud was the father of modern psychology but did you know that his nephew, Edward Bernays, was the father of the public relations industry or as we usually refer to it, the PR industry? There’s an old saying, “Advertising is what you pay for & Publicity is what you pray for.” Well Bernays soon became the darling of New York’s elite circle of businessmen because of his skillful use of his uncle’s insights into human behavior in his P.R. campaigns for many, if not most of the major corporations of his time. (by-the-way, Bernays published a book in 1928, its title was “Propaganda.”) 

 

And to give you an example of just how pernicious & powerful the P.R. industry became, let’s take a look at how he helped to make it acceptable for women to smoke cigarettes. Before this PR assault on America, it was considered a social taboo for women to smoke;

 

After WWI, Bernays was hired by the American Tobacco Company to encourage women to start smoking. While men smoked cigarettes, it was not publicly acceptable for women to smoke. Bernays staged a dramatic public display of women smoking during the Easter Day Parade in New York City. He then told the press to expect that women suffragists would light up “torches of freedom” during the parade to show they were equal to men. Like the “You’ve come a long way, baby” ads, this campaign commodified women’s progress and desire to be considered equal to men

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/02/27/torches-of-freedom-women-and-smokin  (by-the-way, Bernays hired dozens of young, beautiful women fashion models to play the part of female rebels defying social conventions).

 

Evidently, Bernays had stumbled upon the golden formula that generated millions in profits for the corporate cockroach class i.e. employing psychological appeals in their advertising & P.R. campaigns. By manipulating peoples’ fears & desires, corporations could sell their products that people didn’t need & condition them to want or desire the products which would serve as symbols of their elevated class status & thereby enhance their self-image. Need I illustrate? Look at all the car ads that show beautiful women flocking around a guy in a fancy sports car for example.

tell me again how different we are from Russia?

 

Well, as the 20th century rolled on, so did the power of corporations until the point we’re at today where these corporations are more powerful (in terms of wealth & influence) than many nations;

Walmart

Exxon Mobil

Royal Dutch Shell

Apple

Samsung

Amazon

Microsoft

Nestle

Google

 

And this is just a partial list. Let this sink in for a minute if you will? Private corporations so rich & powerful that they hire armies of lobbyists to seduce politicians into writing legislation that further increases their profits, protects them from lawsuits, provides them with millions & billions in tax subsidies for research & development, allows them to use the public infrastructure (highways, bridges, ports, airports, etc.) to conduct their business and most of these behemoth corporations pay little to no taxes—some even get back millions & billions in their tax returns.

What did our soldiers die for???

 

If this doesn’t morally outrage you, you are either a member of the corporate cockroach class or are a sociopathic narcissist like Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan. By-the-way, Donny is a great admirer of authoritarians & dictators in case you haven’t noticed; (Saddam Hussein, Putin, Kim Jong Un of N. Korea, Mussolini, Gadhafi, 1980s Chinese Communist Party, President Xi Jinping of China, Duterte of the Philippines, President Erdogan of Turkey, Egyptian President el-Sisi, the Saudis, & Brazil’s new president, Boisonaro. And Trump not only admires these murderous authoritarians & dictators, he envies them & wishes he could be America’s authoritarian like the role he played on The Apprentice “reality” T.V. program. Note; Trump insisted that as part of his contract with the producers of that absurd show that every time his name was mentioned on the show, they had to also say that he was a billionaire. Talk about manipulating his public image, are you beginning to take my point?

So this is defending freedom & democracy?

 

Moreover, speaking of Trump’s admiration of Mussolini, some have credited Mussolini with saying;

 

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”

 

I know how die-hard most of Trump’s “base” is but I am a proudly stubborn (determination undisciplined) Irishman & I don’t give up easily either so here’s a sampling of the mountain of evidence proving Trump a malignant, greedy, megalomaniac:

 

*Trump consistently attacks peoples’ characters when he can’t refute their argument

*he’s a non-stop braggart i.e. I’m the smartest, I’m the best, I’m the greatest negotiator, etc. etc. etc.

*his biggest lie is his wealth & that’s why he will never reveal his tax returns

*he’s intentionally vague so he can deny having said what he’s said because his words are often open to a variety of interpretations

*he’s been exaggerating his wealth, his popularity, his skills, etc. his entire life

*he minimizes others so he can exaggerate his own significance

*he is fond of making false equivalences

*he likes to use the lesser of two evils argument (which is bogus)

*repetition ad nauseam is one of his favorite deceptive tactics i.e. I am the most famous president ever, the most successful real estate developer in New York City, etc. etc. etc.

*Scapegoating was his lead-off in his presidential campaign i.e. Mexicans are rapists, murderers, etc. & he blames everyone except himself for everything that doesn’t go his way

*Emotional Appeals—a favorite tactic used by dictators throughout history i.e. Hitler’s constant claim that the Jews were behind all of Germany’s problems (using fear, guilt, & calls for loyalty to him)

*Bandwagon—everyone else is doing it, so why not me or we

*Black & White/Either-Or; it’s us against the democrats

Burden of Proof—trying to turn the tables & demand his accusers prove their credibility rather than answer a question

*false flattery—try to flatter your opponent to keep them from attacking you

*Incredulity—I am offended that you would even ask me such a question

*labeling—any journalist who criticizes him or disagrees with him is with the “fake press”

*Ridicule/Mocking—his shameful mocking of handicapped guy during one of his rallies

*slippery slope—if we don’t stop the illegal immigrants, we’ll soon be overrun by terrorists, etc.

*Dehumanizing—something Trump has a particular talent for especially when it comes to anyone who dares to say a bad word about him

*Slogans—replacement for serious thought i.e. America, love it or leave it

 

I could easily provide you with hundreds if not thousands of examples of Trump’s manipulative techniques/tactics but I realize that no matter how much proof I provide, Trump supporters aren’t open to logic or rational thought but are ruled by their passions & Trump is a master at pushing peoples’ emotional buttons in order to win them over. So, why should I waste my time talking to the willfully ignorant or rather trying to persuade them to reflect & trust their own judgment rather than the circus master Trump the Vile?

Trump as Jim Jones & the kind of loyalty Trump expects

 

I am providing a public service that some may seriously consider or may pass it on to some of those who haven’t drunk the Jim Jones Kool Aid yet, and that is my only solace. And in that spirit, here are the eight signs of malignant narcissism, and if you dare, see if any of them are accurate reflections of Donald the psychopathic narcissist:

 

  1. Sense of entitlement
  2. Lack of conscience and empathy
  3. Sadistic streak
  4. Egocentrism
  5. Grandiosity (I am the greatest, smartest, richest, etc.)
  6. Paranoia (it’s a witch hunt by the democrats)
  7. Manipulative nature
  8. They project their bad behavior onto others

 

In conclusion and to prove that this isn’t merely a one-sided attack on “republicans,” Obama bears a large part of the responsibility for Trump becoming president. In fact, Obama was so good at his “bait & switch” tactic that he used on us to persuade us that he was going to be the champion of “Hope & Change,” that his campaign for his first term as president won two awards at the Cannes Festival for Advertising:

 

“The campaign that drove Barack Obama to victory in the US presidential election has claimed two top awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards.

The campaign, submitted by Obama for America, has been hailed as a masterful combination of new media, door-to-door and community grass roots campaigning with a clever tactical use of traditional TV advertising.

The campaign won two grands prix in the Titanium and Integrated Lions categories.”

 

Yep! Obama swore up & down and everywhere he went that he was going to enact real changes, be the transparent president, etc. and what did he do within the first few weeks of his presidency? He appointed several of the top Wall St. wolves to the most powerful positions regarding our national economy i.e. Summers, Geitner, Bernanke, etc. And right then & there I knew I had been suckered just like the millions of other Americans. I detested all the racial attacks on him & Trump barely concealed his own racist campaign against Obama with his “birther” issue which he beat the drums for ad nauseam. But Obama’s refusal to prosecute the Wall St. culprits, the “Super Bankers” who were “Too Big to Fail & Too Big to Jail,” his war on Whistleblowers, etc. etc. etc. only fanned the flames of anger in America which should rightfully be directed at the corporate cockroach class because the politicians are merely the willing tools of these creatures who have no loyalty to America whatsoever. Look into how Obama sold out the residents of Flint with stunt pretending the water was safe to drink. Obama the Oreo President!

 

And Trump with his appeal to peoples’ fears and hate using his racism, bigotry, & the other techniques I listed above, managed to slink into the oval office. I recently permanently deleted my Facebook account for several reasons but a significant factor was that every time I criticized Obama, many so-called Progressives came unglued and practically accused me of being a. troll for Trump. Yep! A sad reflection of the myopia on the Left that just like the so-called conservatives who are blind to the crimes of their party, are willfully blind to the crimes & betrayals of the democratic party.

Lastly, what should really worry us all is what my intellectual hero, Noam Chomsky has been warning us about for quite some time now i.e. the catastrophic, perhaps already irreversible destruction of our climate or environment. Exxon Mobil & several of the other oil & natural gas conglomerates have spent millions, perhaps billions pushing their fake news sowing the seeds of doubt about climate change. Of course, Donald Duck is doing his part by claiming it’s all an elaborate Chinese hoax. In this Alice in Wonderland World where Trump is the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth, and can start a nuclear war in a childish fit which he is notorious for, we should all be quaking in our boots!

May we persevere!

Rob DeLoss, Trinidad, CA 1/28/19

 

P.S.  It must be a sign of old age but I forgot some juicy tidbits regarding Trump that I want to include. Trump’s supposed War against the “Fake News Media” would be laughable if it weren’t so destructive of a vital institution in any democracy. Moreover, where would Trump be if it weren’t for all the free media coverage he received in his campaign for the presidency—some estimate over $5 billion while Bernie got a tiny fraction of coverage. Trump learned from his slimy mentor, Roy Cohn, that any media attention i.e. publicity is good whether it’s scandalous or not because it keeps you in the public eye. Cohn’s “wisdom” which Trump assimilated into his very DNA was “to always hit back & never apologize.” You see, Trump’s “brand” is his most prized possession because he sells his brand i.e. logo, all around the world & people pay him millions to use his logo. Sadly, far too many Trump supporters believe that everything that has Trump’s name on it, is owned by him. And once again we witness just how destructive advertising & public relations can be.

Addendum

 

Oh yeah, another minor little detail i.e. our government launches P.R. campaigns to “motivate” us to go into wars. The Iraq War is one of the most blatant campaigns of lies to date. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al spent weeks & months going on the Sunday morning talk shows warning us what a threat to our freedom & democracy the Iraqis were, how they had weapons of mass destruction, etc. and it was all proven to be a grand conspiracy of lies afterwards but not a single one of these war criminals was held accountable. In fact, Cheney got rich off the war because his stock in Halliburton went through the roof because they just “coincidentally” were awarded the lion’s shares of the contracts for supplying our troops & rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure but neglected to do most of what they got paid for. And oh yeah, billions of dollars went missing, but what the hell? Moreover, the New York Times, the supposed bastion of liberal thought in America, beat the war drums every bit as loudly as FOX “News.” So, to some extent, Trump is right about the fake news of several of our “news outlets” but he clearly uses this label in his pathetic attempts to silence all his critics. Let’s see, officially we lost 4,486 military personnel & 32,226 casualties but if you dig deeper you’ll discover that our casualties are much closer to half a million if you count PTSD, depression, heart & breathing problems, etc. etc. etc.

 

And can you tell me again why we’ve been in Afghanistan now longer than any other war in U.S. history? Well, as Calvin Coolidge said, “the business of America is business.” Or to put it more bluntly, Welcome to Amerika, where the Corporate Cockroaches Rule!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living in the Land of Trump-speak

~ cockroachconspiracy

 

 

 

Talk about surreal, we have clearly stepped through the Looking Glass & are living in a waking nightmare world. Every Trump supporter I have met proclaims from practically the first sentence out of their mouths that they like Trump because he “tells it like it is.” I have to try hard to hide my incredulity each time I hear this mantra because it truly blows my mind that so many Americans actually believe he’s a truth-teller.

Pushing people’s emotional buttons is easiest way to manipulate them

 

And the second I try to point out the latest lies by Trump, they go into automatic shut-down & dismiss whatever I say as part of the grand conspiracy against their hero. The supposed billionaire who cares about the working class who have been screwed by the elites in Washington D.C. I say “supposed billionaire” because there’s no proof that he is actually a billionaire & he refuses to release his tax records. Moreover, I learned recently that Donny insisted that as part of his contract with the producers of “The Apprentice” was that every time they mentioned his name on the program, they had to refer to him as “the billionaire.”

Lies repeated often enough from a bully pulpit become Truths

 

I would think that people who pride themselves on their “common sense,” could see that something is mighty fishy here when Donny insisted on this? And if he’s so secure & successful, why does he feel the compulsion to brag about himself every time he opens his mouth? I have been a lover of learning my whole life but even a kid in elementary school knows that another kid who constantly brags about himself or herself is a phony.

Common sense tells us that a braggart is full of shit!

 

Moving on, I am reminded of when Ross Perot ran for the presidency & told us that he was tired of making money & didn’t want to become president for the opportunities it would give him to make more money. Arnold Swarzenegger also tried this ploy when he ran for governor of California. You can be sure that anytime somebody makes such a claim, they’re full of shit! No matter how obscenely wealthy someone becomes, it’s never enough & they always want more.

 

I am also reminded of all the uproar of Kerry’s “flip-flopping” on a few issues when he was running for president yet Trump flip-flops often within the same sentence but his cult members either don’t notice or don’t give a damn because this is just part of his good old country boy charm & “telling it like it is.” Jesus, talk about willful ignorance! And it also doesn’t register with his groupies that how can a billionaire be a true representative or champion of the poor, the working class or the working class. How in the hell do you think he gained all that wealth? He got it like the overwhelming majority of the rich have i.e. by screwing everyone he could.

 

Trump has been the subject of law suits his entire business career & he’s screwed thousands of people who have worked for him. He’s declared bankruptcy several times & when the banks would no longer loan him money because he screwed them, he took out loans with the Italian American mobsters who were his buddies & helped him with his casinos & he in turn helped them with City Hall & his political connections (from his dad) and then he started taking money from Russian mafia figures—do you begin to see why he loves Putin and will never say a bad word against the Russians?

 

Again, it’s just all so patently absurd & so depressing that so many Americans have fallen for this Creature from the Black Lagoon’s B.S. He truly believes he’s above the law & his brazen profiting from his stint in the White House in many of his business ventures is a blatant middle finger to all Americans & any semblance of respect for the office he holds. Even Tony Soprano wouldn’t dare to be so disrespectful to custom & tradition.

 

Every time Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan opens his mouth, it’s painfully clear that he’s a moron. The average elementary school graduate knows more about American history & politics than this baboon in the oval office & the civilized world reels almost daily from Trump’s ignorant remarks.

we could really use a Mark Twain today to slap Trump down!

 

I try to refrain from being “too personal” in my criticism usually but the damage already done by this racist, greedy idiot demands that I take the gloves off. So, if you can’t see or refuse to acknowledge the mountain of evidence corroborating what a colossal criminal & cretin this piece of shit is, you share in the responsibility for tearing America down & spitting on the graves of all those who died in service to this country!

 

—Rob DeLoss, Trinidad, CA  Dec. 26, 2018

 

P.S.  Trump reminds me of something I learned back in my 20s when I lived in L.A. i.e. you meet a lot of phonies in L.A. who seemed to think that they could get away with lying & manipulating all the time because once they got found out in one circle of friends, they could just move on because there are so many people in L.A., they always had more suckers they could screw over.

Addendum

When I was a substitute teacher in the mid-eighties, the average high school graduate read at an 8th grade level. This report shows that nine years ago, it has dropped to just above the 5th grade level. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/22/top-reading_n_1373680.html I wonder if the fact that we have a president who reads at a third to fourth grade level could reflect some shortcoming on our part? And with a faux “Christian” in charge of the Dept. of Education, what do you think our chances are of surviving our ignorance?

I bet the overwhelming majority of Trump’s “base,” or fan club don’t know a minor detail about him i.e. he doesn’t own all the properties that bear his name, in fact, he owns a very small number of them. He charges the owners to use his name on them & his whole life has been about promoting himself. Note that every time he speaks, he’s lying, exaggerating, & proclaiming he is at this & that & that ad nauseam. And this is why he becomes so upset if anyone criticizes him i.e. it poses a threat to his brand. Think about it!

Why We’re Losing

~ cockroachconspiracy

 

 

Because technology has enslaved us! Yep! Everything from our “smart phones” to our “social media” platforms like Facebook to our entertainment world of television, movies, & the Internet. I’m going to limit the scope of this essay to just these forms of technology for the sake of brevity, especially in this day & age when the average attention span is eight seconds, a second less than a goldfish’s attention span. How’s that for a depressing statistic?

A “friend’s” betrayal

 

Some of you may wonder how we got to this sad state of affairs & probably even fewer of you may actually even care. Of course we didn’t become enslaved by these forms of technology overnight, no, it was a gradual decaying of our intellectual abilities and a good part of the blame rests with our public education system & the forces behind it i.e. politicians & their puppet masters, the corporate cockroaches.

A poignant & insightful critique

 

Moreover, the corporate media which is now in control of something like 90% of the media in America, bears a large part of the responsibility for the dumbing down of the U.S. public. Naturally, they don’t want a well-educated citizenry because they’d lose a lot of the profits they derive from a mind-numb population of consumers.

“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”
― George Orwell, 1984

 

Public relations & advertising are two huge industries and corporations don’t spend tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising & public relations campaigns because they have nothing better to do with their money. Well, this opens a whole other can of worms so let me get back to the specifics of this essay.

 

Facebook is clearly the largest “social media” platform in America and around the globe & if you think I’m exaggerating any of what I’m about to tell you, check out the PBS “Frontline” special that was aired last week, October 29 & 30 of 2018 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/facebook-dilemma/  I have been a critic of Facebook for quite some time and yeah, I too was suckered into its shallow world for several years & was blind to its pernicious aspects for most of that time. In fact, I was celebrating my birthday last week at a local pub & tried to tell this guy about Facebook’s business model & he clung to the “fact” that it wasn’t costing him anything. I felt like I was arguing with a tree stump or something & the last thing I asked him was; If it’s free, why is Zuckerberg worth anywhere from $60 billion to $84 billion dollars? My “friend” couldn’t answer & changed the subject. But poor Zuckerberg’s wealth dropped by $18.8 billion recently because fortunately, not all Facebook users are part of the Walking Dead.

The “free market” & “free elections”

 

Why the drop in its stock value? In brief because of their allowing the company, Cambridge Analytica to basically steal the election for Trump with its army of trolls planting fake news posts on Facebook. Of course Zuckerberg has plead ignorance & innocence because to do otherwise would be the end of his empire. But I call Bull-shit! He became so obscenely wealthy precisely because of his total lack of concern about ethical business practices.

 

And this brings us right back to Facebook’s “business model” which simply means, the more time they can get people to spend on Facebook, the greater the ad revenues they collect. Remember advertising is what keeps the whole charade of business in America going i.e. the business of America & the world is FRAUD! Yes fraud, deliberate, outright lying, deception, you name it. Anything to enrich themselves and fuck the consumers, fuck the environment, fuck everything but protect the holy profits which allows them to live the Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous.

The Cult of Personality that gave us Trump via Mark’s technology & greed

 

Lest you think I’ve completely forgotten my original & key point i.e. our enslavement, Edward Snowden is a fugitive for life because he cares deeply about our freedom whether we do or not. He warned us that these “social platforms” are selling & giving every bit of our personal data which we so gullibly posted on Facebook & the rest of them, with the government. In a nutshell, by collecting & storing all our personal data, the government & the private tyrannies we call corporations, can manipulate us both as consumers & as citizens to vote the way they want us to, and if we become a nuisance, they can assemble the evidence from our personal files to frame us as a terrorist or whatever they want. https://theconversation.com/your-life-is-facebooks-business-model-like-it-or-not-35841 

 

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. (Benjamin Franklin)

Snowden warned us to be aware of Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, Google, You Tube, etc. by telling us that they were all voluntarily giving our information to the government and if this doesn’t make it clear that these high tech companies are aiding in our enslavement, you may as well go back to your bowl of Fruit Loops & FOX “News.” You have been warned!

 

Okay, onward & upward or perhaps I should say, downward? As for the ubiquitous “smart phones,” they are actually making people dumber, not smarter. Yeah I know, at this point you’re probably tempted to dismiss me as just another old Luddite & yes I’m old i.e. I just turned 66 last week but I’ve been severely critical of these phones since they came out. Why? Because any technology that has so completely taken over people’s lives that they walk down the street eyes glued to their phones & some people have actually walked into traffic because of them, is far too dangerous.

Furthermore, it’d be funny if it weren’t so sad that these phones which the advertising proclaims will bring us closer to our friends & help us make new friends with the apps they offer, etc. are more accurately anti-social. I’ve seen it time & time again, a group of young people walk into a bar or café or wherever together but they hardly speak to one another because they’re all on their “smart phones,” sharing pictures of their food, discussing the latest soap opera, checking how many likes they’ve gotten on Facebook and the assortment of other shallow, time-wasting platforms, apps., etc.

Who’s in control, the technology or humans?

 

I used to write paragraphs on the serious posts that came across on my feed on Facebook and only very rarely did someone write a sentence or even a phrase in reply. And now it’s emoticons which have supplanted even a phrase let alone a sentence.  This clearly is enhancing the dumbing-down of people already short-changed by a public education system that is about controlling us, not freeing us.  To expect someone to take five minutes to read something you’ve poured serious intellectual energy into, let alone write a sentence or two in response, is a joke in these peoples’ worlds.

The key to empowerment, justice, & freedom!

 

You tell me how in the hell we’re going to save our planet or ourselves when people can’t find the time to relate to one another as human beings except via these artificial electronic devices designed to keep us distracted & spending ever greater parts of our days on them? I forget the exact statistics but it’s truly depressing how many Americans haven’t read a single book in the past year.

 

Again, lest you think me a nut-case, there’s a young man name of Tristan Harris who worked for Google & was high up on the food chain in the corporation so-to-speak. And in a nutshell, he shows that these smart phones are like slot machines in casinos purposely designed to give people a quick fix and keep on playing. Moreover, it’s a lot more serious than that but again, I don’t want to bore you or take up too much of your attention span so here’s a good link if you give a damn?

https://youtu.be/C74amJRp730

 

I’m going to just touch briefly on television & movies because I’m sure that I have already gone on for far too long. Television has been perhaps one of the most pernicious technological tools over the course of my life but with the advent of the Internet, television has now taken a back seat to the “Net.” This is perhaps just a refresher course or remedial learning if you get my drift? But T.V., as Noam Chomsky has reminded us is just “filler” i.e. the stuff we tune it to watch and the truly important stuff is the advertising because obviously that’s where they get their money. And again I assert that the “filler” is almost entirely drivel & enfeebling rather than enlightening.

 

When the phenomenon dubbed “Reality T.V.” was born, I was dumbfounded. This was over 20 years ago roughly & the first one of these farces I watched was called “Survivor” I believe? It was a group of people supposedly stranded on a desert island & their goal was to form alliances & basically do whatever it took to win. I watched maybe two or three episodes & said to my dear, departed wife, Jeri, this is crap! Think about it, what are they telling us & what are they teaching young, impressionable minds? I’ll tell you what, they’re glorifying lying, cheating, stealing, back-stabbing, etc. in other words, doing whatever it takes to win and the hell with fair play, ethics, etc.

Treasonous
Russian
Un-American
Moronic
Pussy Grabber (What does that spell? Yep! TRUMP)

 

You might care to note that the “reality” t.v. show, “The Apprentice” is our current dunce in residence in the oval office’s claim to fame. And when I hear that shows like “The Walking Dead” are hugely popular, my heart sinks for America again. I could only handle maybe 15 minutes of one episode and had to change the channel. It’s like a regular t.v. series of a slasher movie. I could go on and on but I won’t.

 

Please don’t think I’m one of those phony “Christian” fundamentalists, far from it. They are equally responsible for the installation of Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan as “our” president. But I do share in their revulsion when it comes to a lot of what passes for entertainment in America. But where I definitely disagree with them, is on the subject of “pornography.” You see, in their feeble, twisted minds & spirits, nudity and sex are Satan’s temptations & are far more harmful than all the blood & violence in the movies. Could it be that because there is so much violence in the Old Testament in particular, that they’re comfortable with it in t.v. & movies or at least they’re not nearly so outraged about it as they are about sex & nudity?

Trump’s Christian base turn a blind-eye to his “shortcomings”

 

You see, I’m proud to consider myself an old hippie and I remember fondly the idealism of the tumultuous 60s and free love, equality, truth, no war, etc. In short, I believe the true pornography is violence, not love, nudity, & sex! And don’t misinterpret this as a blanket acceptance of the rampant, gross bondage & other sick shit in the world gone amok porno world. No, anything that degrades & demeans others in that industry sickens me but to label all nudity & free love between mutually consenting adults as Satanic or evil,  is just another version of McCarthyism or the Salem witch trials.

The consumption of pork in any form is forbidden by several Orthodox religions, including Judaism, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Islam and the Ethiopian Orthodox church. For followers, the pig is considered to be an “unclean” animal. This classification for “uncleanliness” is based on the pig’s outward appearance and behaviors.

 

In conclusion, the steady assault on our freedoms whether by the “Christian” fundamentalists, the corporate cockroaches, or whoever, is an attempt to dominate & control us & implicitly says that the “authorities” doing so, are superior to us & know what’s best for us i.e. we shouldn’t trust our own judgment but should remain children looking to their loving guidance as if we are all ignorant children dependent on their benevolent guidance.  Need I remind you of how many televangelists were eventually revealed for their “immoral” acts with prostitutes, etc.?

 

Last, but certainly not least, Hollywood movies. Again, I won’t bore you with a thorough review of this sad aspect of our social conditioning but will simply point out the first example that comes to mind i.e. “Blackhawk Down.” (and no, I don’t apologize for my condescending tone in this essay because there is more than ample evidence to support such a tone) This movie which, by-the-way, I enjoyed, like the thousands of others that came before it, always seem to glorify America’s position in each & every conflict around the world & paint the “other” as evil incarnate. Well even if you do a brief, cursory review of our illustrious history, you will often find that our behavior was shall I say? Less than honorable?

 

In summary, these factors and so many others, have all contributed to our enslavement whether we have the courage & honesty to acknowledge it or not. And as they say in so many self-help groups, recognition of a problem is the first & the most important step in solving that problem!

Ironically, these corporate cockroaches, the “Super-bankers” too big to jail, are at the top of the food chain

 

Namaste!

—Rob DeLoss, Nov. 5, 2018

Our future after Trump???

 

 

Addendum

Perhaps it’s more of a male problem due to our overly competitive natures or conditioning but movies, video games, etc. must be non-stop action in order to keep our attention & this parasitic state of being is a sort of closed, doom-loop system. In other words, the more we participate in this constant flux of meaningless & violent action, the less we are able to disengage from it & contemplate the much bigger reality, the much more serious issues that are a threat to all of humanity i.e. the possibilities for nuclear war & the destruction of the world through climate change & the continuing death of our precious ecosystems.

my book available on Amazon

Trump Telling it Like it Isn’t!

~ cockroachconspiracy

 

 

 

I was watching a video clip recently of Michael Moore being interviewed about his new film, “Fahrenheit 11/9” and a couple of things he said, really hit home with me. He said that he had interviewed the notorious S.O.B. (my description) Steve Bannon, the hatchet guy who was probably the key factor in saving Trump’s failing presidential campaign near the end?

 

And when Moore asked Bannon why the republicans just keep kicking the democrats asses (my paraphrasing), Bannon replied; “We go for the head-shot & the democrats are having pillow fights.” And it struck me like it did Michael Moore that here it is in a nutshell, the raw, ugly, painful truth. 

 

So, that being said, I’m notifying you here & now, this essay is going to hit hard, maybe even below the belt so-to-speak at times. I’m sick to death of being advised to play nice, be civil, etc. and especially now that we have such a vile, crude, corrupt, greedy, habitual liar & braggart in the White House.

 

Just how fuckin’ stupid are all of you who believe in this con-man who has lied & bullied his way to the top of a house of cards? In the last few days, it’s been “revealed” that Trump isn’t the great success he keeps telling the world that he is & this cracks me up because it’s long been known by those who have been paying attention that this is perhaps his most outrageous claim & boldest lie!

and this is only a fraction of his failures!

 

If your pussy-grabbing low-life is so successful, why has he always refused to reveal his tax returns? Is this your idea of “telling it like it is?” If he is such an honest, “tell it like it is” guy, why did he have the White House refuse to release something like 90,000 pages of Kavanaugh’s record when he was working for George W. Bush? If he’s such a successful businessman, why did he file for bankruptcy four times because he failed at the casino business which is an amazing feat in itself? Why have so many of his business ventures failed? 

 

You know, it just dawned on me, he should market Trump Kool Aid because his base has definitely drunk long & deep from this well of swamp juice. Here’s just a few of his failures which he just glosses over when they fail, like the lawsuits he loses but still claims victory in. Trump airlines, Trump beverages, Trump: the Game, Trump Casinos (even when daddy bailed him out), Trump magazine, Trump Mortgage, Trump steaks, Trump’s travel site, Trump’s comms company, Trump Tower Tampa, Trump University, & Trump vodka to name just a few of his many failures.

 

Sadly, what so many of you Trump-aholics haven’t caught on to is the fact that the vast majority of what appear to be his real estate properties aren’t in fact owned by him, no, those who own them pay him for the use of his name. And his name is everything to him & is why he gets so defensive & aggressive to all who cast aspersions on his “good name,” i.e. his brand. This is why he can’t ever stop singing his own praises, even as president of the U.S., he’s a constant pitch-man, con-man, hustler trying to convince the public that he’s a success when he’s an utter failure on every level. 

 

For those of you who pride yourself on having “common sense,” doesn’t it occur to you that the age-old wisdom/maxim that those who are truly talented at something, don’t go around bragging about it because they know that people who know them & their work, already know it. The braggarts are always those who are the most insecure & almost always full of shit! 

 

Tragically for America & the rest of the world because of the damage Trump has already done & God knows how much more, Trump’s true success is his ability to lie, exaggerate, deny, confuse, & never apologize. He learned this from his mentor, Roy Cohn, one of the slimiest creatures to ever crawl out of that swamp that Trump swore to drain but has actually restocked. And another mentor of Trump’s is the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who followed a simple formula i.e. lie & never stop lying, repeat the lie ad nauseam and gradually, the public will accept it as truth or fact. And the bigger the lie, the easier it is to get away with it.

Roy Cohn, taught Donald deny, lie, attack ad infinitum!

 

And this is why the recent revelations that one of Trump’s most treasured lies i.e. that daddy only loaned him a mere million dollars and that he paid him back with interest won’t matter either because the Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan fan club won’t believe that daddy actually gave him over $400,000,000 and that they both defrauded the government of hundreds of millions of dollars in a wide variety of tax scams. Of course, this is all part of the plan and why Donny Duck continuously attempts to discredit the media, especially the New York Times newspaper, because they print the ugly facts that could wake people up but which don’t matter if you’re from zombie-land.

Steve Benson / Creators Syndicate

 

And again for you simpletons who probably didn’t even graduate from high school, because your Fuhrer tells you to ignore everything you read, see, & hear except what he says, is an age-old technique of authoritarians, fascists, & tyrants. And you claim that you’re proud Americans? What do you think your fathers & grandfathers fought WWII for?

 

It’s truly frightening and depressing that a blatant fraud such as the girly-man Donny has duped so many of you into believing his bullshit! The Duck’s “success” such as it is, has been almost entirely dependent on Daddy War-bucks & the assistance of the Italian American mafia in New York & New Jersey whom his mentor, Roy Cohn, introduced him to and his new benefactors, the Russian mafia & their boss, Putin, who have bought/invested hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of Donny’s “real estate holdings.”

 

This duplicitous would be tin-can dictator has retained a small army of lawyers throughout the course of his “business career,” because he is constantly being sued for fraud, failure to pay workers, sub-contractors, etc. etc. etc. and you actually believe this guy is your champion? Jesus fuckin’ Christ! I believe he has had something like 4,000 law suits filed against him. Yep, clearly a guy who “tells it like it is.”

 

Here’s a specific example of your leader’s business integrity, he hired several hundred “illegal” (though I hate the term) Polish construction workers to do the demolition of a building he was going to turn into one of his casinos. The workers were so poor that they lived on the construction (deconstruction site) and they were promised a whopping $4 an hour for their work but the Donald cheated them out of even that paltry wage. How would you like to be fucked like that? Would you still sing the Dick-head’s praises?

 

And speaking of “deconstruction,” how appropriate because that is precisely what this Creature from the Black Lagoon is doing to America i.e. he’s deconstructing our entire government, all the checks & balances, every program that was established to help those of us not born with a silver spoon in our mouths, and he’s eliminating even more of the regulations on the financial services companies that brought us to the brink of total economic collapse & which I contend we are still suffering from, and the complete elimination of all environmental regulations so the oil spill that did so much for the south part of the U.S. with the billions, if not trillions of gallons of oil that contaminated the Caribbean for decades if not centuries to come, etc. etc. etc. So, if you think the crash of 2008 wasn’t so bad, just wait until the next one. Yeah, it’s going to be great fun & you’d better get your sleeping bags ready because you’ll soon be joining those poor souls living on the margins of this so-called society & civilization. The super banks, “too big to fail,” have gotten even bigger & continue to give themselves obscene levels of bonuses as they suck the blood out of our economy.

 

Yeah, just keep burying your head in the FOX “News” bubble and when your children, your wives, your husbands, all your loved ones die slow, excruciating deaths & have no health insurance thanks to the Duck Dynasty, you can sleep comfortably knowing that you supported the dictator who made it possible. When he takes away your food stamps, your social security, your Medicare, Don’t worry, be happy, Donny made America great again, but the great is for the 1% who pay no taxes, ship the decent paying jobs overseas where they can pay workers $2.00 per day and don’t have to worry about health, environmental, pollution, etc. regulations, not you or I you simpletons! Yeah, this is your American Idol, the moron who flip-flops constantly even within the same sentence he turns around and denies having said what he just said, even though it’s on tape. Yes,  it’s all an elaborate Democratic conspiracy against him. And when you wear your “maga” hat in public, you’re in fact wearing a dunce cap for all the world to see.

 

Well, sorry to disturb your “common sense” again but, if the democrats were capable of such complex conspiracies, why aren’t they the ones in power? I hate to break it to you—No, not really!—but probably the overwhelming majority of you Trump Walking Dead are FOX “News” watchers. And the fact that they have been allowed to get away with this charade or façade of being a “news” organization for over 20 years proves how truly stupid we are as a nation. Moreover, FOX isn’t even the worst of it, Donny Darko is a fan of Alex Jones, you know, the guy who claims that the horrific murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School was all a hoax. And Donald Duck also believes in The National Enquirer, that rag that anyone with more than a third grade education has always known is only good for one thing i.e. to line the bottom of your bird’s cage.

For those of you who haven’t completely abandoned concern for the truth or facts, and no, not Kellyanne Conway’s “alternate facts,” and if you can spare the time away from your Kardashians soap operas, etc., you might look up what used to be called Russia’s main newspaper, Pravda. It literally means “truth” in Russian. You see, FOX “News” is America’s Pravda i.e. state propaganda voice. It was crystal clear during the George W. Bush administration & FOX leader, Roger Ailes, you know, your friendly sexual predator just like Donny Duck, Kavanaugh, etc. etc. etc. sent the White House their daily talking points i.e. the propaganda outline for the day to just repeat ad nauseam to the mindless viewers who took it as gospel truth.

And sadly, I have to admit here that The New York Times, you know, the bastion of “liberal thought & opinion” in America was equally guilty of beating the war drums for the invasion of Iraq and we, even you, should all be well aware by now of how great that turned out i.e. the creation of Isis & just one bloody mess after another guaranteeing that we’ll never run out of terrorists to go after.

 

Yeah, I know, terrible me, I’ve been so nasty, mean, etc. well, tough fuckin’ shit! We’re circling the drain and I’m sick & tired of playing nice-nice with all these corporate cockroaches and all the morons who kiss their asses even as they’re being kicked to the curb by the same cockroaches.

 

Take an honest look at the vast wasteland that stretches across America in between the East coast & the West coast, the towns that are now ghost towns. The rust belt as they call it. Yep! The wonders of the “free market” where the rich are free to fuck us all, commit fraud via their corporations as standard business practice but if you or I write a bad check, we go to jail. And they, every great once in awhile when busted, don’t even have to admit guilt and it isn’t even on their record, they pay a relatively small fine when compared to the profits they made committing their crimes and they return to doing the same shit.

 

We’re fast becoming one of those “third world” nations we’re so fond of looking down on & we blame the immigrants because the Duckmeister tells you it’s their fault. No, you morons, the fault is the corporate cockroaches at the highest levels of true power who don’t give a fuck about America or its citizens but pretend to so you’ll go or you’ll allow your children to go fight & die in their constant wars to make themselves ever richer. What a bunch of suckers!

 

So for every one of you ignorant fuckin’ assholes who proudly defend Trump, don’t come crying to me when you join the ranks of America’s ever expanding homeless who are treated like ghosts & garbage in this shallow, hollow land we proclaim as the land of freedom & democracy, because I won’t and don’t have one ounce of sympathy & it was your willful ignorance that allowed this to come about!

The girly-man has duped his base into believing he’s fighting for them i.e. the giant tax break that goes to the uber rich & has inflated the national deficit which they will use to defend their need to cut food stamps, health care, Social Security, etc. for us, the 99%. Mark my words, you’ve been suckered by a snake-oil, con-man. The corporate cockroaches love Donny boy!

–Rob DeLoss, October 6, 2018   (Trinidad, CA)

 

P.S.  And for those of you who still claim that Trump is telling it like it is, you are clearly brain-dead & belong in an Alzheimer’s unit because you might wander into traffic & dent somebody’s car with your blockhead. Jim Jones would’ve loved having you as a member of Jonestown.

 

 

“Reality T.V.” and Trump-world

~ cockroachconspiracy

 

 

 

I believe the disturbing phenomenon of “reality t.v.,” coincided roughly with the equally disturbing introduction of what’s called “FOX News?” I’d like to begin by stating up front that I may be guilty from time to time of “lecturing” but sadly, I’ve learned that I can’t take for granted what so often seems like common wisdom. In fact, the older I get, the more I feel like a living anachronism.

 

These sinister forces began to creep into our culture roughly 20 years ago & I believe that the T.V. series “Survivor” was among the first, if not, the first of these “reality t.v. shows?” I watched perhaps two or three of this series with my wife & was immediately struck by its crassness or celebration of the worst in people I.e. backstabbing, lying, cheating, etc. In-other-words, win by any means necessary. I remember saying to my wife, what is this teaching our children, this is unhealthy, etc. I never watched it again nor any of the plethora of other “reality t.v.” programs that followed. Yeah, I know, many will probably dismiss me as an elitist snob, etc. Well, I wear that label as a badge of honor especially in this time & day where we have a reality t.v. show host as our president who is a national disgrace & embarrassment.

 

Before I proceed, here’s something to mull over; Trump’s supporters represent roughly a third of the American public, and coincidentally, approximately a third of our citizens also deny the Holocaust ever happened, & as of three years ago, roughly 32 million Americans are “functionally illiterate.” If you’re not one of Trump’s fans who has completely shut-off the rational side of your mind, reflect on the hundreds of times you’ve seen Trump address the public & his bumbling efforts to put together a single, coherent sentence. Moreover, he’s stated publicly many times his aversion to reading & that he doesn’t care to read the daily presidential briefings that all our other presidents read & knew was of critical importance. If this doesn’t worry you, congratulations, you are definitely one who has drunk the Kool Aid of our Jim Jones in the oval office.

 

Yes, this is very snide or sarcastic of me but I’m not really that far off the mark I.e. like Jim Jones, Trump has repeatedly advised his “base,” to ignore everything written about him or said about him if it doesn’t come from him. Yet, that isn’t even possible because we have tons of videotape of his public comments & he’ll deny having said what he said the very next day. It’s all a vast, left-wing conspiracy designed to make him look bad. If it weren’t all so serious & dangerous, it’d be laughable but it’s not! I remember how they labeled John Kerry a “flip-flopper” when he was running for the office of the presidency, Donny flip-flops often within the same sentence that just came out of his mouth, or at most, two or three “sentences” after whatever garbled string of words he let flow.

 

Trump has been seeking the approval & acceptance of what’s sometimes referred to as “the New York City Cultural or Intellectual Elite,” for decades, don’t forget that New York City is his hometown i.e. where he grew up & where his dad & he built their crooked, real estate empire. Naturally, they—the New York “elite” have shunned him because of his obvious ignorance & disdain for culture & intelligence as well as his crude, crass, & contemptible opinions & behavior over the decades. He now seeks to destroy their credibility like a boy seeking revenge for being bullied or socially ostracized. By-the-way, New York City is considered the intellectual capital of America & has been for quite some time because it is where the overwhelming majority of American publishing corporations are located. And, the New York Times has long been dubbed, “The Paper of Record” because they were the paper that represented the highest standard of American journalism. In brief, almost all the other major newspapers in America take their lead from the New York Times i.e. their lead stories are basically reprinted in the other major papers across the country.

 

Notwithstanding, there is a sliver of truth to Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan’s label of “fake news.” But “fake” isn’t the correct adjective to use, no, cowardly or sell-out would be more appropriate adjectives to describe the mainstream media. It’s really quite obvious, we are down to five or six megalithic corporations that own perhaps 95% or even more of our media (television, radio, magazines, books, newspapers, etc.) and they are certainly not going to allow serious critics of “our” media to be heard because it would undermine their business i.e. hurt them financially by causing them to lose advertisers which are their bread & butter.

 

As far as “journalistic integrity” is concerned, the American media have clearly betrayed the U.S. public because they have largely ceased to act as a watchdog on the government & the corporate interests. They more accurately should be referred to as “lapdogs.” And this again is why it’d be laughable if it weren’t so deadly serious that we have a “president” who is clearly proud of being an anti-intellectual. Trump is, if we are to believe that he’s actually a billionaire—who knows, he refuses to show us his tax returns—is part of that 1% who keep on reaping the lion’s share of the tax breaks & most notably the trillion & a half dollar one that he gave himself & his cronies just recently. My intellectual hero, Noam Chomsky, & his co-author, Edward Hermann, wrote the modern classic on how “our” media system really operates, it’s called “The Manufacture of Consent.”

“The” classic if you’re interested?

 

Here it is in a nutshell;

 

“ The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news “filters,” fall under the following headings: (I) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (~) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and “experts” funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) “flak” as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) “anticommunism” as a national religion and control mechanism. These elements interact with and reinforce one another. The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns.”  https://chomsky.info/consent01/ 

 

You see, my imaginary reader, the conservatives started a myth decades ago there’s a “liberal media bias” & poor conservatives have been unfairly attacked & criticized roughly ever since the New Deal was established. And the New York Times is the bastion of liberalism in America. Yeah, right! That’s why the New York Times beat the war drums for our invasion of Iraq every bit as strongly as FOX “News.” Every time I hear FOX referred to as news, it almost makes me nauseous. For all you Trumpsters, if you weren’t so blinded by Trump’s dog whistle politics of hate, fear, & racism, you might begin to realize that FOX is truly the epitome of “fake news.” And FOX “News” is where Donny, the girly-man with small hands, gets his “facts” daily along with Alex Jones who claims the massacre of those schoolchildren at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax to name only one of his most egregious & shameful ‘news stories.” And don’t forget that Donald Duck also relies on The National Enquirer to keep him up to date on the latest happenings. 

 

Let me share with you another actual fact, not an alternate reality “fact” from Kellyanne Conway’s warped mind i.e. Russia’s national newspaper “Pravda” (Russian for “truth”) was Russia’s official newspaper from 1912 to 1992 when it was sold to a private company but still retains the name. The Russian people were well aware though that it was the government’s propaganda tool & was used in an attempt to manipulate their minds/opinions. Well, FOX “News,” is America’s version of Pravda but sadly, far too many Americans aren’t aware of this. And it’s so depressing that they aren’t aware. How FOX has been allowed to get away with this sham for 20 years again reflects the cowardice of “our” media’s owners & reveals that the almighty dollar is the only thing they are loyal to. And for-the-record, I hold the left-wing media in America partly to blame as well because every time they refer to FOX as “news,” they’re only helping to legitimize this dangerous farce.

“Alternative facts”

 

Here’s the brick & mortar of what real journalism is supposed to be, you determine for yourself whether FOX “News” gets anywhere close to this;

 

“…. the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability, as these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent dissemination to the public.[1][2][3][4]”

 

To return to the connections between “reality t.v.” and its contribution to the rise of the Duckmeister, a “clear and present danger” to not only America, but the world as well, here are some more thoughts for your consideration. I read & dissected a classic titled; “Anti-intellectualism in American Life,” by Richard Hofstadter, years ago & it was mind-boggling to say the least. Seems we’ve had a long & ignoble history of anti-intellectualism almost from the very beginning of our nation. They used to be called “nativists” & today, they’re Trump’s “base” with their mantra of “America First,” etc. And there have been movements such as the “Know-Nothings” that were proud of their ignorance as well.

 

One only has to consider the climate deniers to realize the real danger these people represent. Of course, they prefer to not look into the corporations & individuals who are funding all the propaganda behind the denial. And like Donny, science is only theory & is akin to opinion and since everybody has an opinion, and all opinions are equally valid, the 99% of the world’s scientists’ “opinions” aren’t any more valid than the Duck Dynasty Klan’s opinions. Makes perfect sense, right? Yeah, if you inhabit the alternate universe of Trump, Kellyanne, Sarah Huckabee, et al. where facts aren’t facts but only suggestions or theories. Let’s ponder this a bit? The laws of gravity aren’t scientific facts so, just because you jump out of a tree, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you will always fall.

 

Moreover, electricians, engineers, nuclear scientists, medical doctors, mechanics, etc. etc. etc., don’t need to follow “scientific facts” because they’re just theories & we don’t need to follow those speed sign warnings when we’re driving on dangerous, winding mountain roads because they’re not facts, they’re only suggestions. How open-minded, democratic, & liberating of the Trumpsters. Thanks guys!

 

Admittedly, I am not of Trump’s world of delusions of grandeur & self-righteousness and call me a stubborn Irish mule but I will continue to believe in the world of science, not superstition & Alex Jones’ absurd “reality.” Here is a snippet regarding “reality t.v.” that I feel is pertinent:

The Ugly Reality

 

 

“…. are intended to humiliate and/or exploit participants. They make stars out of infamous (well known for some bad quality or deed; wicked; abominable) personalities. The actors are untalented or unworthy of fame. They glamorize vulgarity & materialism. “Sound like anyone you know? In other words, with the advent of “reality t.v.,” the powers that be in Hollywood have lowered the bar of basic decency to the lowest common denominator. And for-the-record, I said from the beginning of this sick phenomenon, something seems mighty strange here i.e. people watching an artificial medium (t.v.) to see “reality?” Seemed to me to be a collective stepping through the Looking Glass into Alice in Wonderland.

 

Continuing on this merry-go-round of American progress, almost every time I get in a conversation with a Trump supporter, it doesn’t take long at all for them to repeat the mantra; “I like Trump because he tells it like it is.” I never ceased to be amazed at how consistent this remark is from Trump loyalists. Is it something they put in their Kool Aid? Let’s reflect on this, So, if Trump asserts that Big Foot is real, that we have the bodies of aliens in Area 51, the landing on the Moon was fake, etc. etc. etc. he’s telling it like it is? Remember, he’s a staunch supporter of Alex Jones, FOX “News,” the National Enquirer, etc. Tell me again who’s in touch with “reality,” and who’s not?

 

Believe it or not, I will concede that I do understand to some extent why so many have fallen prey to Trump’s fear & hatred tactics to manipulate them and I even have a bit of sympathy, well at least for those who aren’t physically or verbally assaulting the rest of us. You see, the powers that be, the status quo, the power elite, or however you prefer to label them, have indeed been very clever in an extremely critical respect i.e. they have succeeded brilliantly in keeping us focused on the government’s failings & betrayals of us. But, the ignorant (remember, ignorant simply means “uninformed”) public fails to realize that the corporate cockroaches—the behemoth corporations—actually pull the strings of the politicians all the way up to the presidents. And most importantly, if it weren’t for “our” government subsidies, tax breaks, etc. of these corporate cockroaches, they’d go out of business. So, keep the rabble distracted & divided and scapegoating the victims of the crony capitalists, and the song remains the same. What saddens me to the marrow of my bones is that so many of us don’t remember the simple fact that we all bleed red when we’re cut, we all put our pants on one leg at a time, & we all want our kids to grow up in a better world, a world of equal opportunity, true justice, freedom, & a clean environment.

Only thing we have to fear is fear itself!

 

Let me review & perhaps add a bit here; If you recall in the blurb about “reality t.v.,” materialism is one of the hallmarks or “values” of a good “reality” t.v. star. Obviously, this is Trump in spades —pun intended—this moron who was an instant millionaire not because of any intelligence or talent on his part but because daddy gave it to him, struts the world stage like a self-made man. Yet, he managed to go bankrupt four times, lose his glorious gambling “empire,” be cut-off from any more loans from America’s “super banks,” and be saved by Russian gangsters who bought large chunks of his apartments & condos to launder their dirty money.

 

Donald, the Dick, has failed in every way that is humanly possible i.e. financially, socially, intellectually, & morally yet a third of the American public, including millions of self-proclaimed “Christians” think he’s the greatest thing since sliced-bread? Maybe it’s true, maybe I’m the one living in an alternate world? Oh yeah, for you “Christians” who love your furher, while I definitely don’t call myself a “Christian,” I do seem to recall something called “Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount & the simple guidelines he laid out for being a true Christian. Guess that just escaped your mind & your spirit?

 

Of course, those who don’t remember the lessons of history or more likely, never enjoyed history in high school, the frightening parallels between Trump & the most heinous dictators from the past as well as the present, can’t disturb your glorious dream of Donald, perhaps America’s first Fascist president, saving us from “fake news” and the liberals? But for those of us without the political as well as the moral blinders on, it’s damn hard not to notice the frightening delusions of grandeur that Trump entertains. [some deny this quote was from Mussolini but I feel it’s appropriate; “Fascism should more rightly be called Corporatism because it’s a marriage between government & corporations.” 

 

I’ll start with the superficial, out of respect for Emperor Trump. Simply do a Google image search of your idol & note his striking poses not unlike those of Mussolini, another popular fascist leader during WWII, you know, that trivial episode in our history where we fought against the Nazis & the fascists who Trump thinks contain many “good people.” And our fearless leader (who sadly couldn’t participate in the Vietnam war because of bone spurs) seems to have a real affinity for dictators & despots while insulting & alienating our “allies.” But don’t forget, these aren’t facts, because the Duck denies them. No worries, Donald will save the day, or will he? Could his colossal ego & ignorance be the wet-dream of Mike Pence and the “Christian right’s” desire for Armageddon & the Apocalypse to come about?

 

I have been concerned about the “Christian” fundamentalists for over 30 years & the fact that we now have one as our vice-president, is very spooky. My first book is about this scary phenomenon & as many have observed, the thought of Pence taking over in the not unlikely scenario of Trump being led out of the White House in chains, would be a nightmare surpassing any of the Freddy Kruger movies. Why? Because quite simply, Pence would surely set about in quick order of turning America into a “Christian” Taliban nation but with our nuclear arsenal, it wouldn’t take but a tiny spark to make their dream a reality.

good little lemmings

 

You might doubt my assessment of Trump’s ego? Okay, fair enough, but have you heard of his overwhelming obsession of having a military parade in Washington D.C.? The news headline the other day said that the original cost estimate of $12 million has now been updated to over $92 million dollars. And maybe, just maybe, you might wonder why we need or rather, our fearless leader wants this parade? Well, when he was in France recently, they had one and if you research it, he’s actually wanted one from the day he took office. Again, let me remind you of Donny’s admiration of dictators & his boundless ego. Yep! I can just picture him now, standing on some elevated platform with that Mussolini smugness as the troops file by & salute El Duce!

 

We can’t afford to fix our infrastructure, pay our teachers a decent salary, offer health care to our citizens, etc. but there’s always money available to stroke Donald the Dick’s ego & keep on feeding the military/industrial complex.

 

Continuing on, this “intellectual snob or elitist” whichever term of derision you care to choose, came from a single parent, my mom, who worked two or three jobs as my brother & two sisters grew. I got 40 cents a day for lunch when I was in high school & basically raised my brother & sisters i.e. made them do their chores, their homework, get to bed on time, fought their battles against bullies, etc. Yeah, I really had it easy compared to poor Donny. Oh yeah, you may choose to dismiss my criticisms as mere jealousy of Donald, the billionaire populist who speaks for all the downtrodden Americans. If you go that route, all I can say is that you are clearly a member of the Walking Dead, Donald’s constituency. Oh yeah, it took me 14 years to earn my B.A. in English literature because of not knowing what I really wanted to study, financial difficulties, and lack of discipline but I did it and I proved all my “friends” and “family” wrong. But far more than this accomplishment, I am proud of the conservative estimate of at least 49,000 hours I’ve spent over the last 30 years or better informing myself on matters of politics, history, & philosophy primarily. Yeah! I’m light years ahead of that mental midget in the White House and I challenge anyone to a mental competition! (except Noam Chomsky)

me & the Love of my Life, Jeri

 

Throughout my adult life, and especially since my confidence in my intellectual reasoning skills began to grow, I have heard the mantra of “All you need is common sense.” And it became very clear that this was a standard put-down of all us “bookworms,” etc. It was inferred that we were so book-smart that we were complete idiots and didn’t even know enough to come in out of the rain. Well, I eventually realized that this was a common defense of those who felt academically inferior because they had unfortunately been the victims of shitty teachers. I have realized slowly though, that I do in fact have an ample supply of “common sense,” and I have surprised myself as well as several of my friends who were/are carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, etc. over the years. Because I am humble & know what I don’t know in many of these trades, etc., I’m not afraid to ask what may appear to be stupid questions. And from time to time, I have surprised my skilled tradesmen friends with some of my suggestions for solving a seemingly unsolvable obstacle in a project we were working on. So, yeah, call me a braggart, but unlike your babbling buffoon of a president, I and everyone else I’ve ever met, know that those who feel the constant need to keep telling people how wonderful, how brilliant, etc. they are, are full of shit!

 

By-the-way, the next time the I.R.S. tells you that they’re going to audit you, tell them that you refuse to give them your past tax returns like your buddy Donald has done. See how long before you’re sitting in prison. Remember, he’s telling it like it is!

 

Believe it or not, I am getting close to winding this up but it’s hard to do because there’s just so much evidence & so many examples of this brain-dead & soulless miscreant’s trail of human wreckage, & although I have little to live for since the passing of my soul mate, Jeri, I do still care about & feel the pain of the billions of suffering souls around this planet due to the ugly greed of “people” like Donald Trump.

 

If I were forced to narrow down to its simplest form, the danger of Trump, I would have to say it’s the deadly combination of his ignorance & his arrogance. And because of the position of power that he holds, we should all be trembling unto our death (I believe this was Kierkegaard’s phrase?) This vile creature that walks upright like a primate but is more like a cold-blooded reptile or spineless crustacean, haunts my waking hours and if he doesn’t haunt yours, your children & your grandchildren will reap the consequences of a world which allowed such a creature from the Black Lagoon to become president of the United States which, don’t get me wrong, has a very long, and immoral history of which I’m deeply ashamed!

filling the swamp of moral decay

 

The mendacious, malicious, miscreant, megalomaniac (a person obsessed with their own power) creature known as Trump, is a reality that unfortunately, we have no choice but to deal with. And no, he’s not an aberration, he’s a symptom of a dark, underlying force not only in America, but around the world. Trump has made it okay for the worst in human nature to rear its ugly head & although I’m not a religious person, God save us from the likes of him!

so much for “Christian” Virtues!

 

Addendum

 

The American Press stands on the shoulders of the giants from our past i.e. Walter Cronkite, dubbed “the most trusted man in America,” Edward R. Murrow, who broadcast from London through the entire 56 days of what was dubbed the Blitz—the continuous bombing campaign with the aim of completely destroying London. I.F. Stone, called the “conscience of Washington” for his amazing investigative journalism in which he poured through the official documents/reports/etc. of D.C. to find the nuggets of truth often buried in thousands of pages of the Congressional Record & many other government documents. And George Seldes, perhaps the grandfather of modern free press, who lived through WWI & interviewed everyone from Lenin to Mussolini, covered the Spanish Civil War & often just barely escaped being captured by the fascists.

the grandfather of muckrakers i.e. truth tellers!

 

In fact, as I’m writing this, it’s very pertinent to the subject of Little Lord Fauntleroy i.e. Donny, born with the silver spoon in his mouth. Why? Because Trump’s number one mentor without a doubt was the infamous Roy Cohn who represented countless mobsters on the East Coast who just coincidentally became “business associates” with Trump & Cohn was Joseph McCarthy’s right-hand, hatchet man i.e. totally ruthless in destroying peoples’ lives with baseless, smear campaigns & assorted dirty tricks. And it was Edward R. Murrow who had the balls to go after McCarthy and his witch hunting tactics on his nationally broadcast CBS news program, “See It Now,” which led to McCarthy’s censure.

Roy Cohn, lawyer for the five largest mafia families in New York

 

Furthermore, it’s a sad fact that I feel I must remind far too many of my fellow Americans of what facts are. Trump walks around gloating because he has suckered so many of our citizens into believing whatever he says. Reflect on this truth if you will, “alternative facts” didn’t build the Golden Gate Bridge, put an American on the Moon, or find a cure for polio, no, these & countless other wonders were accomplished due to good old solid, scientific facts, mechanical, electrical, engineering, biological, chemical, etc. verifiable facts. And the fact that Donald, like the oil corporations have managed to confuse the general public to such an extent with the billions they’ve spent on their covert propaganda campaign to plant the seeds of doubt regarding climate change, is truly frightening. My hero, Noam Chomsky has been dubbed “Perhaps the most important intellectual alive,” by The New York Times but he often smiles & reminds his audiences that they leave out, the Times goes on to ask, “So why is he so often wrong?” Chomsky is on a list of the top ten most quoted people in Western Civilization which includes Plato, Aristotle, & the Bible and he’s the only one alive.

 

Excuse me for going on about Chomsky but I can’t honor him enough & again, it really saddens me that the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t even know who he is, including many self-proclaimed liberals. But, Chomsky says the two greatest dangers facing humanity are climate change & the threat of nuclear war. And we have this proud moron in the White House doing all he can to eliminate every regulation holding back the major polluters & he openly asks, “What good are these nukes if we can’t use them?”

 

No, my friend, what’s far scarier than this delusional dip-shit is the fact that a third of the American public are so blinded by his fear & hate rhetoric that he probably could get away with shooting someone in broad daylight on 5th Avenue in New York City? And the fact that people actually believe this delusional, would be American Caesar, shows that they are the ones who don’t have common sense.

Compassionate Conservative Christian “values”

 

—Rob DeLoss, August 31, 2018 Trinidad, CA

 

EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF FASCISM

  1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
    2. Disdain for human rights
    3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
    4. Rampant sexism
    5. Controlled mass media
    6. Obsession with national security
    7. Religion and government intertwined
    8. Corporate power protected
    9. Labor power suppressed
    10. Disdain for intellectual and the arts
    11. Obsession with crime and punishment
    12. Rampant cronyism and corruption

A true patriot will point out the relevant warning sign of approaching fascism when engaged in a conversation/debate with a Trump supporter.
 

 

 

 

 

Fake News and a Fake President

~ cockroachconspiracy

Fake News and a Fake President

         If it weren’t so deadly serious in terms of the harms already done & yet to come from this fake & shameless blowhard or as I prefer to call him, Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan, it’d be hilarious. And the fact that he has the audacity to act as if he’s some paragon of an honest & honorable person is mind-boggling to all of us who haven’t drank the FOX “News” Kool Aid regarding the dunce president.

         Admittedly, there is a kernel of truth to the girly-man’s accusations regarding the news & this is true in all forms of effective propaganda. And that’s the only fact that I’ll concede when it comes to this national embarrassment I.e. we have a world class moron as our president. So, for those of you who haven’t entirely shut down the higher functioning areas of your brains, ponder these facts if you will?

         Do you remember when John Kerry was running for president? If so, do you recall a tag he was labeled with called “flip-flopper?” Well the Trumpster has the unique ability to flip-flop sometimes within the same sentence, usually not more than two or three sentences later. In other words, Donny contradicts himself or outright lies consistently & frequently. How in the Hell can people think this is “telling it like it is?” Which of course is the mantra just about everybody who supports the Duck repeats within the first few minutes you start a conversation about him.

         Could it be that what people mean when they say they admire him for “telling it like it is,” are saying is they like his racism, fear mongering, & hate generating speech? Yeah, he is consistent in that but not in anything else. If one spends even a modicum of time researching authoritarians & dictators, it soon becomes evident that the above characteristics which the Klansman who would be king exhibits, is the common thread.

         Clearly, the Donald or his P.R. team realized that because so many millions of Americans are out of work or working two or three minimum wage jobs, have lost their homes to illegal foreclosures, had their pensions stolen, etc. they could tap into the fear & anger of all these people. And by distracting the public by scapegoating immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, homosexuals, etc., thereby giving the public a focus for their anger, he could ride that wave of rage into the White House.

         You see, my friend, the rich have long known that as long as they can divide & distract the public with various scapegoats, the public won’t wake-up to the fact that it’s the rich who should be the focus of our anger. They are the ones who write the laws that coincidentally benefit them but screw the rest of us. For example, the recent tax break for the rich, the biggest in history, is overwhelmingly going to benefit the super-rich & hurt the rest of us, the 99% who have to pay the taxes that go to the true elite, while that same class, pay a minuscule, if any taxes.

         Why do you think your buddy won’t release his tax records? Could it be that it’d show that he’s one of them, not the defender of the working class as you’ve been suckered into believing? And here’s a bit of common sense for you, you may have noticed—-if your blinders aren’t totally in place—-that Donny boy loves to brag about himself, he usually can’t go more than a few sentences without pointing out how wonderful he is. And he’s been telling us for years of how fabulously wealthy he is, right? Well, I would think that he’d jump at the chance to prove to the world how stinking rich he is by showing us his tax records. Doesn’t that make sense?

         Might it also be that by revealing his tax records, it’d be clear to all that he’s not the brilliant businessman he’s always claimed to be? He’s filed for bankruptcy four times due to his poor management of the casinos he had his name on. After his last bankruptcy, none of the major banks would loan him money so he went to foreign banks, and got a life-line in terms of financial help from his Russian mafia friends. (Doesn’t it strike you as odd that he’s so enamored of Putin?) By-the-way, I’ll share another little secret hiding in plain sight, the overwhelming majority of properties with the Trump name on them, aren’t owned by Donny, the true owners pay him for his “brand” or logo which he has been obsessively protecting as if it were his daughter’s virginity, for decades.

         The spinmeister knows only too well how important image is & he can’t stop promoting his image for more than two minutes at a time. And this connects with his pseudo war on the media. The Duck has been a media whore his entire life & his mentor in this regard was Roy Cohn, the cold-blooded lawyer for the East coast mafia & right-hand man for Joseph McCarthy in the true witch-hunt that Joe waged in the 50s that ruined so many good peoples’ lives & was thoroughly anti-democratic & anti-American.

         Roy drilled home to his young, Richie Rich protege the fact that any media attention, whether good or bad, was beneficial in terms of keeping your name in the public mind. Moreover, we can thank the so-called “fake media” for being a major factor in the girly-man’s becoming president because they gave him billions of dollars of free advertising during his campaign.

         Perhaps you prefer to cling to your conspiratorial belief that the press is the enemy of the people? By-the-way, common sense again tells us that when anybody, and especially someone as powerful as the president of the most powerful nation on earth, tells us that we shouldn’t believe anyone who criticizes us, you should be afraid, VERY AFRAID!

         So, Daddy Donald will protect us against all the evil doers in the world yet he clearly flunked junior high school history. Just about every time he opens his mouth, he reveals how mind-bogglingly ignorant he is. Don’t believe me, do a little fact checking on your own if that isn’t against your religion?

         Obviously, the Duck Dynasty Dunce isn’t living in the common reality that most of us are. I mean, when his haggard & homely witch spokeswoman, Kellyanne Conway told us straight-faced, “Well, there are alternate facts,” that should’ve been a major wake-up call to all of us. And this is a key point my friends, what Donald & his handlers are hoping is that they can convince the third of Americans who loyally support him, that facts and opinions are one & the same. Sorry to break it to you but no, they’re not. Facts are established by Science & the scientific method I.e. hypothesis, test your hypothesis repeatedly, and the more it yields the same observable results, it eventually becomes a theory, & after quite a long time of consistent findings, it eventually is referred to as a law I.e. the law of gravity, etc.

         And yes, everybody has a right to their own opinion but not to their own facts. And some opinions are far worthier than others I.e. if a guy is a great mechanic, his opinions about mechanical matters are more worthy or valuable than someone like me, whose close to being a moron regarding mechanical knowledge. The closest we can come to “truth” on any subject requires two things; 1) check out their credentials, 2) check out what other experts in the field they’re claiming expertise in, have to say about their opinion, theory, etc.

         Socrates taught us this more than 2,500 years ago in Athens, the birthplace of Western democracy. And he pissed off a lot of people because he proved that just because a guy was say, a master shipbuilder, he got a swelled head & then thought he was a master on many matters totally unrelated I.e. how to raise a child, etc. Unfortunately, in this rapid-fire world of ours with technology jumping ahead with leaps & bounds, people have become so intellectually lazy & dependent on their “smart phones,” etc. that they won’t take the time to do a little research on the serious issues facing us i.e. Donald’s dangerous ignorance & alienating of our former allies & cozying up to one dictator after another. His launching of trade wars because of his perceived insults from other nation’s leaders. And most frightening, his wholesale deregulation of every federal agency established to protect us from greedy corporate cockroaches & the protection of our environment. If this goes on unabated, who’s going to want to go on vacation anywhere? The forests will all be chopped down, the ocean will be one huge toilet bowl, & we’ll all need to wear gas masks. Note how bad the air is in a lot of China due to its reckless plundering of its natural resources with no environmental protections.

         I almost forgot another minor detail of Donald’s giving free rein to corporate America I.e. the continued & expanding deregulation of Wall St., the too big to fail handful of super banks, the hedge fund managers, etc. Did you enjoy the world-wide economic crash of 2008? Wasn’t that fun watching tens of millions of people around the globe lose their jobs, pensions, homes, health insurance, etc. Well, you’ll love the crash that’s coming because Donald Duck loves Wall St. —-he’s been kissing their asses for decades —-and he & the 1% are busy hiding their wealth in so-called safe havens where they think they’ll be safe from all the ravages that all the rest of us will experience. And for the record, I voted for Obama the first time around but within a few weeks when he appointed Summers, Geithner, Bernanke, etc. I knew he’d sold us out and it was all a lie I.e. “Change,” (his mantra as he was campaigning for the presidency.

         In conclusion, I’m again going to try to insert some “common sense” you know, that quality that us eggheads aren’t supposed to have any of. How can the free press, Donny’s “enemy of the American people,” be accurate whenever they repeat things about King Donald that stroke his ego but the second they say something “critical” I.e. negative, they’re “fake news?” Fake to me is pretty much the same as Fraud & Donald the Dick-head has been committing fraud for decades, that’s why he’s fought hundreds, if not thousands of lawsuits & continues to be in legal jeopardy. He defrauded many people who worked for him over the decades from Polish, illegal immigrants, he hired to do the demolition on a building he wanted to turn into Trump Towers, to bankers, etc. etc. etc. Don’t forget Trump University, which he quietly paid something like $25 million for in the judgment against him. Yep! He’s like a modern-day Wizard of Oz but not the kindly, old guy from the movie. And as P.T. Barnum warned us decades ago, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” If it sounds too good to be true, you can bet it is! You’ve been warned and my conscience is clear.

Addendum

         George Orwell in his prescient novel “1984,” laid out a nightmare vision of a dystopian future & the older I get, the more that fictional nightmare seems to be our present “reality.”

 “War is peace. Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength.”

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

“Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.”

“Orthodoxy means not thinking–not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power”

“In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for ‘Science’. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance—meaning, in effect, war and police espionage—the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought.”

       And for the record, your darling duck conservatively received over $2 billion in free media time. Bernie received a tiny fraction of media time. Why? Because the Klansman has been manipulating the media for decades and knows how to shock people so he’ll get attention. But don’t forget, the media is the enemy of the people!

       —-Rob DeLoss, Trinidad, CA August 19, 2018

P.S.  It just dawned on me that I’ve forgotten the most glaring piece of evidence—-probably because I’ve known it for so long—that I’ve internalized & I forget that unfortunately, far too many Americans still haven’t caught on i.e. FOX “News” is “The” most fake news corporation in America! And as Joseph Goebbels knew only too well, the longer the lie has been repeated, the more people begin to accept it as a truth. And appropriately, FOX is de facto, America’s answer (copy) to Russia’s Pravda —their main newspaper & “Pravda” means truth in Russian. It’s common knowledge that Trump watches hours of FOX “News” every day so, this is where he gets his “knowledge” of current affairs from. And while I’m not a gambling man, I bet you that Trump’s “base” is overwhelmingly made up of FOX “News” viewers. Do a little research on your own as to what journalism is & you, like me, will be amazed that FOX has gotten away with posing as a news organization for these past 20 years. And I hold our mainstream as well as our alternative news sites partially responsible because, they have been reinforcing this delusion every time they repeat the phrase “FOX News.” I’ve been putting it in quotation marks for several years.

Trump’s War Against Journalists

~ cockroachconspiracy

Trump’s War Against Journalists

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

                                                    —Thomas Jefferson free press

For those of you who may have never heard the term, the “fourth estate,” it’s a reference to the press or what we call the media in today’s world. The founding fathers of our form of government knew only too well the dangers posed by a government not kept in check by a free press. And they strove to establish as many checks & balances on possible corrupt & tyrannical government leaders by specifically including freedom of the press in the first amendment to our Constitution. It’s referred to as the fourth estate because to the framers of our government, it was every bit as important as the three major components or centers of power in the U.S. i.e. the Congress, the Legislative, & the Executive branch (the presidency).

The press’ central purpose is to serve as a sort of watchdog on the other three branches of power. Tragically, the press has almost completely abandoned their duty & nowadays basically serve as stenographers to those in power. And you might care to note that with the passage of the “Patriot Act,” right after 9/11, they effectively gutted just about the entire Bill of Rights—and hardly a single congressional member bothered to even read the Patriot Act before signing it. In my opinion, Congress is mostly an empty chamber full of cowards just seeking power, wealth, & privilege by sucking up to the corporate cockroaches. And this underscores how shallow & hollow our favorite myth of we’re fighting around the world to defend & promote freedom & democracy. Liberty and Patriot Act

I believe that Trump’s time as the boss i.e. authoritarian leader on the “reality show” The Apprentice, fed his ego to such an extent that he internalized the illusion as reality & if you dare to challenge or criticize him on any of the thousands of lies, distortions, myths, alternate facts, etc., his fragile ego can’t handle it & that’s why he launches into his childish & ignorant tirades via Twitter.

Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan is a spoiled brat who was born with the proverbial “silver spoon” in his mouth. He has deluded himself & millions of others that he’s a self-made man & a huge success. If he actually were anywhere near what he claims to be, why won’t he reveal his tax returns? Could it be that they’d show us the truth i.e. he’s a charlatan who knows that Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, was so right. In brief, the bigger the lie & the more frequently you repeat it, it eventually becomes accepted as truth. Donny boy’s tax returns would also reveal the numerous times he failed in his business ventures & was bailed-out by the mafia here in America as well as the Russian mafia. And the “Christian” right-wing fundamentalists love Donald Duck because they believe he’s going to push forward their agenda of destroying the last vestiges of the separation of church & state. So much for the “family values” they are so fond of pontificating on ad nauseam. quote-if-you-tell-a-lie-big-enough-and-keep-repeating-it-people-will-eventually-come-to-believe-it-joseph-goebbels-383851

The ties that bind these hypocritical “Christians,” and Donald, Darling of the KKK is their fervent belief in authoritarianism. These evil faux “Christians,” believe husbands rule over their wives & rule absolutely in the family. And they believe that compassionate or empathetic people are weak & need to be removed from the government and actually harm their children by “sparing the rod.” And Donald the Dumb-shit, like all petty tyrants (most husbands in the “Christian” evangelical movement), can’t handle any questioning of their authority or criticism of their actions. In case you forgot or don’t know it, the KKK has claimed that they’re good Christians throughout their horrific history of lynchings, racism, & bigotry. cjones09132014

Moreover, Hitler & the Nazis claimed to be good Christians as well & like Hitler, Trump is trying desperately to silence his critics in the media & wants his voice to be the only voice his Walking Dead base of supporters  hear. The Nazis burned all books they felt might be a threat to their power & Donny boy is attempting to silence all his critics with constant ridicule, dismissal, & outright lies. The Duck knows that he doesn’t have absolute power yet, so he has to wage a steady war ideologically against the press for his hidden agenda of undermining their authority.

Donald the Deceiver doesn’t want his celebrity cult worshippers to think for themselves. And I despair that America will ever outgrow its long history of anti-intellectualism (see Richard Hofstadter’s classic on the subject). But you’d have to be willfully ignorant to not see how we celebrate our ignorance in America & idolize violence & wealth. How so many of Trump’s supporters can believe that this supposed billionaire gives a rat’s ass about them & isn’t a part of the ruling elite who have fucked us all for so long, is beyond my comprehension. WillieFox

I’ve been pleading with others for most of my adult life to read the serious works of political science, history, philosophy, etc. so they could develop their critical/analytical thinking skills. And my words have usually fallen on deaf ears. And speaking of reading, I recently re-watched the classic movie based on Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” & a connection came to me regarding the thesis of this essay. Bradbury was basically saying that when people can no longer read books because it’s against the law, they lose their collective & individual memories and are much easier to control. maxresdefault

Well in the present dystopian society we’re living in, reading, especially the Classics is mocked, dismissed as elitism, and FOX “News” has been allowed to pose as a news channel for nearly 20 years now with barely any protest. FOX “news,” if people had any historical memory, is basically the American version of Russia’s major newspaper “Pravda,” which means Truth. It’s the fear & hate channel not unlike George Orwell’s nightmare world in “1984.” Is it any wonder that Trump gets his news from FOX “News” and watches several hours of T.V. per day? 47_190609_0

For those of you who haven’t drunk the Kool Aid & are concerned about our slide into a fascist state, I urge you to read a couple of classics on illiteracy in America; “Illiterate America” by Jonathan Kozol, & “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman. And finally, if you doubt my assertions about Trump’s authoritarianism, you might do a bit of research for yourself & check out his respect for Putin, Duterte, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, Saddam Hussein, Erdogan, Bashar al-Assad, & Gaddafi. And no, the Dunce in the White House isn’t alone in his hypocrisy & betrayal of the soldiers who have fought & died for the supposed principles & ideals we stand for, here’s a list of “Friendly Dictators” that I bet you didn’t know we have trained, financed, & often sent our military forces to protect: 


Abacha, General Sani —————————-Nigeria
Amin, Idi ——————————————Uganda
Banzer, Colonel Hugo —————————Bolivia
Batista, Fulgencio ——————————–Cuba
Bolkiah, Sir Hassanal —————————-Brunei
Botha, P.W. —————————————South Africa
Branco, General Humberto ———————Brazil
Cedras, Raoul ————————————-Haiti
Cerezo, Vinicio ———————————–Guatemala
Chiang Kai-Shek ———————————Taiwan
Cordova, Roberto Suazo ————————Honduras
Christiani, Alfredo ——————————-El Salvador
Diem, Ngo Dihn ———————————Vietnam
Doe, General Samuel —————————-Liberia
Duvalier, Francois ——————————–Haiti
Duvalier, Jean Claude—————————–Haiti
Fahd bin’Abdul-‘Aziz, King ———————Saudi Arabia
Franco, General Francisco ———————–Spain
Hitler, Adolf —————————————Germany
Hassan II——————————————-Morocco
Marcos, Ferdinand ——————————-Philippines
Martinez, General Maximiliano Hernandez —El Salvador
Mobutu Sese Seko ——————————-Zaire
Noriega, General Manuel ————————Panama
Ozal, Turgut ————————————–Turkey
Pahlevi, Shah Mohammed Reza —————Iran
Papadopoulos, George ————————–Greece
Park Chung Hee ———————————South Korea
Pinochet, General Augusto ———————Chile
Pol Pot———————————————Cambodia
Rabuka, General Sitiveni ————————Fiji
Montt, General Efrain Rios ———————Guatemala
Salassie, Halie ————————————Ethiopia
Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira ——————–Portugal
Somoza, Anastasio Jr. ————————–Nicaragua
Somoza, Anastasio, Sr. ————————-Nicaragua
Smith, Ian —————————————-Rhodesia
Stroessner, Alfredo —————————–Paraguay
Suharto, General ———————————Indonesia
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas ———————–Dominican Republic
Videla, General Jorge Rafael ——————Argentina
Zia Ul-Haq, Mohammed ———————-Pakistan

 

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier  

So yeah, be sure to hang your flags on all patriotic holidays & forget the gross hypocrisy & the millions of lives lived in desperate poverty or killed by the soldiers following orders from the corporate cockroaches. Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan is preparing the American version of the gas chambers. Onward Christian Soldiers! b1eb9a1fb3a801a093ee07e7435c8bc3

—Rob DeLoss, April 29, 2018 in Trinidad, CA