Drain the Swamp?

 

 

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

—Edmund Burke, the philosophical founder of modern Conservatism

Yes, this is absurd but then again, isn’t everything about this megalomaniac absurd?

 

Trump has redefined “corruption” in our political elite much like Caligula redefined orgies in the ancient Roman Senate, and only someone who has been lost in a swamp for the past four years would fail to know that this “Drain the Swamp” mantra was one of the key promises that the Liar in Chief made on his presidential campaign. This was Trump’s vow to chase the corrupt politicians out of Washington D.C. But, had he followed through on this promise, where would he & his cabinet along with everyone he has appointed during his administration live?

 

“Base” is one of those words that political pundits love to use ad nauseam & refers to a politician’s main supporters. And in Trump’s case, “base” is the appropriate word to describe a lot of the people who love Donald no matter how base his actions or words are because they (for the most part in my opinion) are lacking in the higher qualities of mind or spirit.

 

Moreover, I bet if you were to take a poll of Trump’s cult members, the majority of them are also fans of the series; The Walking Dead. Personally speaking, I watched about 15 minutes or so of one episode in the first season, I believe? And it turned my stomach. Guess I’m just one of those elitists Trump fans love to hate?

 

In the same way, I can’t handle watching one of Trump’s never-ending fear & hate rallies for more than 15 minutes or so. Why? Because Trump revels in all things base or crude & enjoys whipping his base into a frenzy of hate & violence. You see, fear & hate are the two most powerful emotions & this is why authoritarians depend on them to “keep the rabble” in line (Chomsky) And this reveals what is truly dangerous about this demagogue in the Oval Office. By-the-way, fear & hate are the secret power behind the “social media” and why it has spread like a plague (Chomsky) over the Earth.

 

By appealing to the lowest common denominator in his cult, Trump has unleashed an ugly force not unlike that of lynch mobs like the Ku Klux Klan. More specifically, Trump’s public boasting of being free to grab women by their genitals, walk into women’s dressing rooms, or sexually assault them is laughed at by both the men & the women who make up his base. And any woman who would cheer this kind of language or behavior clearly has a very low opinion of herself or women in general.

 

Now, you may have heard the phrase; “rude, crude, & lewd,” and this is another appropriate description of Trump’s kind of “people.” And Trump can’t understand why New York City’s social elite have always laughed at him & rejected him from their social circles?

 

Let’s return to that primordial swamp that Trump & his army of zombies crawled out of & which he promised to drain. And if it weren’t so deadly serious, it’d be hilarious that he has the audacity to label others as corrupt when he’s the king of corruption & all that we hate in politicians as well as people in general.

 

Trump apologists obviously know next to nothing of their leader’s background or the world of crime & corruption that spawned Donald doesn’t trouble their “Christian,” sensibilities? Similar to that list of over 16,000 or more lies that Trump has told just in the first three years of his reign of error & terror, the girly-man probably has an equally long list of criminal activities he’s been involved in or committed?

I am going to expose a small portion of this wanna-be mafia boss’ track record in this essay starting with the fact that he has exemplified a stupefying degree of lying. Moreover, he’ll spout a lie & in the same sentence contradict himself & swear that he never said what he just uttered? And his behavior in both his personal & professional life has been one long stream of corrupt practices.

 

Donald’s father was a slumlord who discriminated against people of color & bribed city officials re: building permits, tax breaks, tax schemes, and a close relationship with New York’s mafia elite. These mob bosses were known for their union-busting. Fred Trump was awarded federal govt. contracts to provide housing for the poor which he repeatedly didn’t honor.  Fred Trump used his political connections (bribes) to “win” these sweetheart contracts available through the Federal Housing Authority established by FDR to help those suffering under the Great Depression, etc. etc. etc. and sonny boy Donald followed in daddy’s footsteps & his grandiosity (greed) knew no bounds. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fred-trump-tax-dodge-donald-inheritanc 

*Note how often Trump condemns those who feed off the government like parasites but of course this criticism to him or his daddy.

 

Trump is infamous for not paying contractors on his construction projects & God knows how many individual workers over the years? But one example stands out in the little background research I’ve done on Trump and that is the group of poor Polish construction workers who worked on Trump Tower. These poor guys were exposed to asbestos & other unsafe working conditions.

 

“As noted in an Aug. 25, 2016, story in TIME, Trump hired a group of undocumented Polish laborers who put in “12-hour shifts with inadequate safety equipment at subpar wages that their contractor paid sporadically, if at all.” https://time.com/5039109/donald-trump-undocumented-polish-trump-tower-bonwit-teller/

 

By-the-way, when Trump did pay these Polish workers, it was for a whooping $4 per hour & they were so poor that they slept at the construction site. In brief, Trump has used undocumented workers to build his real estate “empire,” but now he rails against them in his hate & fear rallies because as every tyrant knows, you gotta have a scapegoat to focus your base’s anger on. So, the undocumented continue to work for the slumlord Trump but now as scapegoats. And being the cowardly bully that he has always been, he loves picking on the weak & the vulnerable. Moreover, the poor immigrants who both Trump & Obama have persecuted & prosecuted, can’t even fight back in their own defense because they have basically no voice in the corporate media but Trump has the largest bully pulpit in America & gets to bash these poor souls every day with little  in the way of push back.

 

 

Furthermore, Trump has also hired undocumented workers at his beloved Mar-a-Lago & some of his golf resorts. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/06/president-trump-uses-undocumented-immigrant-labor

 

Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan by auto reflex dismisses every journalist & their news outlet as “fake news.” Doesn’t it ever occur to any of his willfully blind loyalists that when these same news outlets say something complementary about him he brags ad nauseam of it. He has even had the audacity to tell his brain-dead groupies, Don’t believe anything you read or see, only believe what I say.

Oh, if  only the public would read the short list of the early warning signs of fascism, they might wake-up before it’s too late? But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

  • Powerful and continuing nationalism
  • Disdain for human rights
  • Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
  • Supremacy of the military
  • Rampant sexism
  • Controlled mass media
  • Obsession with national security
  • Religion and government intertwined
  • Corporate power protected
  • Labor [sic] power suppressed
  • Disdain for intellectuals & the arts
  • Obsession with crime & punishment
  • Rampant cronyism & corruption
  • Fraudulent elections
some argue that Trump doesn’t have a fascist agenda but he’s doing a pretty good job of following fascism’s playbook

 

Continuing with the amazingly corrupt career & behavior of this cretin in the White House are Trump’s consistent threats to sue anybody who criticizes him. This has been his modus operandi his entire business career & reveals his Achilles Heel i.e. his brand which is simply his name.

You see, modus operandi or M.O. as police detectives like to say, means “mode of operating or working.” And “the Donald” is nothing without his image or brand name recognition. He has skillfully promoted his brand i.e. himself, for the last 40 years if not more? I bet the majority of his indoctrinated following actually believe that he owns everything with his name on it? They haven’t caught on yet that he leases his “name,” to many companies, individuals, etc. allowing them to use his name because it usually brings them more business.

And this is why Trump never stops promoting himself, no matter what happens in the world or what anyone says, Trump will find a way to brag about himself in his response. I bet this lunatic even brags to himself in his dreams? So, Trump attacks anyone who dares to question him let alone commit the unpardonable sin of criticizing something he said or did, like a junkyard dog. He’s so insecure that he’s in a constant state of paranoia lest any sliver of criticism goes unchallenged. Like that pervert who was the Emperor Caligula, Trump lives in perpetual fear that someone may poison him. But in Trump’s case, the poison is slanderous remarks made about him.

Another critically important aspect of Trump’s personality & behavior was what his idol & role model perhaps even more important than his father? His mentor, Roy Cohn taught him i.e. the three D’s (Deny, Divert, & Detract). Cohn was a mob lawyer & introduced Donny the man-child to several of his more prominent clients like the heads of several of New York’s top crime families who just happen to control the construction business in New York, most notably, the cement business.

 

Roy Cohn taught Donny two absolutes; 1) anytime someone attacks you no matter how slight it may be, hit back viciously, & 2) it doesn’t matter if media attention about you is negative, because media attention keeps your name in the public eye. And because journalism in America has pretty much become infotainment & ratings are everything, Trump got billions of dollars in free advertising when he was running for the office of president. Why? Because Trump knows that the more outrageous, profane, & crazy his words or actions are, the more media attention he will receive.

Additionally, perhaps the single greatest factor in his “winning” the presidency is the fact that he starred in his own “Reality show” the Apprentice for several years. And once again, I bet the majority of his acolytes were regular viewers of this absurd sit-com? If you’d care to gain some valuable insight into how this series boosted Trump’s image so profoundly, watch this short You Tube video by the creators of the show. And yep, you guessed it, this series made me nauseous also within 15 minutes of watching it.

 

Anyone who tarnishes the girly-man with the small hands image one iota is public enemy #1 and must be shredded instantly! To maintain & protect his fragile ego and precious, gold spray paint image, Donnie has probably retained a platoon of lawyers over the years though I couldn’t find an exact number of them?

 

Believe it or not, I still maintain a bit of optimism that Trump’s die-hard believers might be slowly waking to the fact that they’ve been duped? Chinks in this tin-pot dictator’s armor of arrogance are beginning to rise to the surface & I predict that as our death toll numbers continue to grow, the willfully brain-dead will be forced to remove those scales from their eyes?

 

I have been urging people to develop their critical & analytical thinking skills for decades now but I’ve been about as effective in this as a screen-door in a submarine. Sadly, I bet that the majority of Americans don’t even know what critical thinking is & probably think it means to simply criticize someone? And I contend that this is another significant factor in the public’s gullibility?

 

Furthermore, I’m confident that the majority of Trump supporters are regular viewers of FOX “News,” and/or listen to Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck and other spewers of hate ad nauseam 24/7. I must admit that I didn’t catch on to FOX “News” for probably the first year or so of its existence. Perhaps I never became a regular viewer of it? But after I realized its agenda & function in our society, I was even more disillusioned that the mainstream media & to some extent, even our alternative media failed to denounce FOX “News.”

 

Ignoring the playground bully doesn’t make him go away & ignoring FOX “News,” and not denouncing it as fake news hasn’t made it go away either. I firmly believe that every time the alternative press refers to FOX as “News,” they are adding to its credibility.

 

Moreover, I have been living in small towns along the Oregon coast for the past several years & FOX “News,” and Limbaugh are about all there is in terms of “informing the public.” And I am only too painfully aware of the fact that anyone who would take the time to read any of my essays would realize that I haven’t really taught them anything, or very little, that they already don’t know?

 

I think that at bottom, I write for those ordinary working-class people whom I’ve always lived among. I have been obsessed with informing & empowering myself for well over 40 years & even though I am mostly spitting in the wind, I am compelled to go on not unlike Don Quixote, tilting at windmills.

 

Continuing on, FOX “News” with its sham of being “fair &. Balanced,” has caused very significant brain-damage in its viewers & this has been going on for 20 years now. And we can thank Ronnie Reagan to a large extent for this tragic turn of events because of his elimination of the “Fairness Doctrine.”

 

This “doctrine” quite simply required that broadcast news present both sides (which in itself is absurd because like life, there are many sides to most of the important issues we face) which was simplified to merely the “conservative” side of an issue & the “liberal” side of the same issue. Cable “news” was exempt from the fairness doctrine & Reagan vetoed the bill from a Democratic Congress that sought to have it reintroduced. And FOX “News” was born on cable news of course.

 

My central point here is that with the advent of cable news & the elimination of the fairness doctrine requirement for broadcast news, the range of debate about the critical issues we have faced ever since then has narrowed considerably. Mind you, I am only speaking about the surface of this truly vital function of what euphemistically called the “free press.” My intellectual hero, Noam Chomsky along with a colleague of his, Edward Herman, wrote the definitive classic on the subject in Manufacturing Consent which was published in 1988. In it, they detail & elaborate on the five filters through which the “news” must pass before it is aired or published. And they explain how narrowed the range of acceptable discussion of vital issues has become over the years. So, to some extent, I probably shouldn’t judge FOX “News” viewers so harshly but I do & I’ll continue to do so!

 

Thinking about this issue reminded me of how much I used to love watching the CBS news program, 60 Minutes. I watched it religiously for about 25 years but became more & more disillusioned as I watched its standards slowly devolve which I believe had to do with its executive producer, Don Hewitt, leaving & his passing away in 2009?

 

One of my favorite segments of the 60 Minutes weekly show was Point-Counterpoint which was included through most of 1970s. It had Shana Alexander who represented the liberal side of issues & James Kilpatrick who represented the conservative side of issues. And I believe this was the beginning of my political education? 60 Minutes had the reputation of being the most watched news program for most of its existence & I owe a lot to it. And I can think of no better or starker a comparison to portray the enfeeblement of the American mind when it comes to being informed about current events than from the height of journalistic integrity that was 60 Minutes & the gradual decline which is exemplified in FOX “New.”

 

Moving along on this trail of broken hearts & spirits to our current Commander of Thieves, Trump, the hypocrisy between what we were taught in public school about America’s defense of freedom & democracy around the globe, and the de facto reality that the U.S. now has the distinct honor of being the most feared & hated nation on earth should cause all sentient beings to pause & reflect on how we got here?  Therefore, perhaps in a sort of perverse logic, it’s appropriate that we have such a venal & vile creature sitting behind the desk in the once, well at least much more respectable guys who sat there?

 

And because Trump has been sliming Mexican immigrants in particular pretty much in an unabated malevolence for three years, I want to express what I’ve felt about the subject of “illegal immigrants,” since I was in my 20s. Please don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say but for argument’s sake, say we were to agree that “illegal immigrants” shouldn’t be allowed to stay in the U.S., why is it that the corporations, the construction industry, the hospitality industry, etc. etc. etc. that hire these loving, good-natured, & extremely hard-working people & exploit them, are rarely ever locked up?

 

 

I’ll tell you why, it’s again because of the corporate greed & hypocrisy. If the politicians & the countless corporate cockroaches were hit with devastating fines & lengthy prison sentences in our toughest prisons like Pelican Bay, every time they employed these poor souls, you can bet your bottom dollar it would end illegal immigration in a heartbeat! And one last point on this subject i.e. if it weren’t for the immigrants who toil away in the hot sun in our fields in the Central Valley of California & elsewhere, food prices would skyrocket. Moreover, for all those phony liberals out there who portray Obama as such a wonderful president, he wasn’t dubbed, “The Deporter in Chief” for nothing! A guesstimate is that somewhere around three million people were deported under the wonderful & wise leadership of Obama. By-the-way, I voted for him on his first bid for the presidency but not his second one because I saw from the beginning of his first term that his appointing Summers, Geithner, & Bernanke to name just a few, meant that he was a Wall St. lackey & therefore a phony champion of the working poor & the middle-class in America.

 

On the subject of abortion which Trump has flip-flopped on through the years, several times, he clearly “took the position of being against it,” to placate the faux “Christians” who praise him & played such a significant role in his infestation of the White House. Moreover, the vast majority of the Evil Evangelicals & the Fascist “Christians” who pretend that life is so precious to them & that’s why they’re fighting to protect the unborn, are some of the most vocal critics of our welfare system.

The $100 million dollar televangelist con man & the Con Man & Chief Thief.

 

This translates into the unnecessary suffering & hardship for millions of young women who can’t provide a roof over the heads of their newborn babies or to feed them, etc. etc. etc. And this war on welfare got a major boost under that other darling of the lying liberals, Bill Clinton. Don’t get me wrong, I believe the republicans are even more vicious in their lack of empathy for all the downtrodden in our society.

 

As for the subject of “gun control,” this is just another red herring i.e. it’s an absurd argument! Allowing for the fact that perhaps it’s true that many people enjoy target practice & truly feel more secure if they own a gun, I argue that okay, allow simple handguns that can only fire six shots & hunting rifles. But to claim that the liberals want to take all your guns away is preposterous. Nobody needs an automatic rifle or handgun. These serve only one purpose & that is to kill as many people as possible in as short a period of time as is possible. I submit that those who demand that these weapons of mass destruction must remain legal, are de facto cowards & owning these kinds of weapons makes them feel strong. They are insecure little boys who like Trump, revel in bullying others & want the freedom to parade around in public with these murderous weapons to intimidate others. Moreover, I bet that most of these people are incapable of winning in debates without resorting to either physical threats or insinuated threats with their automatic weapons?

 

I believe that the majority of these anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, & pro-gun people are a large, if not the largest, segment of Trump’s “base?” And time after time we see that Trump’s hypocrisy in his speech & his behavior doesn’t trouble them one bit. Why? Because they don’t believe in their own lies & rhetoric either.

A third of the American public don’t believe the Holocaust ever happened

 

Trump has elevated willful ignorance to a level of national pride & proof of their patriotism. And this is why these simpletons actually believe there are alternative facts. Today, we are facing a nightmare pandemic that could’ve been greatly weakened in its proliferation in the United States were it not for the unfathomable ignorance & lack of empathy of Trump, Mitch McConnel, & all those craven cowards in the GOP who didn’t have the backbone to stand up to the inhumane policies & speech of Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan!

 

Some pundits point out that Donny boy masterfully exploited the very real & honest anger at the elite of D.C. and insinuate that we shouldn’t therefore judge the Trump sector of our populace, too harshly. I say fuck that! Ignorance is no excuse & certainly doesn’t justify their glee in watching Trump & Company’s destruction of our government or their acts of violence against everyone different from them.

The first graduating class of Trump University

 

How much longer will Trump’s army of the Walking Dead defend him? Will they continue to defend him when the politicians take away their Social Security checks, their unemployment, they die in the streets as many of the poor around the globe are doing & they are forced to live in those streets with corpses all around them? Perhaps not even a real-life world that grows ever closer to the horrific series they love to watch will deter them from singing Trump’s praises? Too absurd you say? Remember Einstein’s words;

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein

 

         Undeniably, we are witnessing perhaps the most egregious displays of how inhumane the 1% truly are, in our lifetimes? They proclaim every time we ask for universal healthcare, “Oh, we simply can’t afford that! Yet every time the obscenely wealthy’s unfettered greed (deregulation) causes a panic among them, we are told that it’s a national emergency & we must bail them out once again.

 

But when we have the audacity to ask for help, they condescendingly tell us: “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps;” “You weren’t fiscally responsible;” “You didn’t save or plan ahead;” “Welfare makes people weak & dependent or lazy;” “You must take responsibility for your actions;” etc. etc. etc.

 

Moreover, whenever we deign to protest, we are mocked & ridiculed for being naïve, idealistic, or childish to believe we can change this putrid political system. This is just the way it is!

 

 

And because we’ve allowed them to get away with their greed & irresponsibility for the past four decades or better, they aren’t even bothering to hide their contempt for us & our lives. Yet that smug serpent, Trump is still getting away with his charade of being the champion of his base. Those who can’t see that the only thing Trump has accomplished besides his sabotage of every single bit of legislation or program that has Obama’s name attached to it, is his massive tax giveaway to the Masters of the Universe.

 

I can’t help but wonder if those who voted for Trump because they wanted to see him cause havoc in our government, are still happy about their decisions?

 

Yet even in the overwhelmingly abundant examples of Trump’s lies, selfishness, & destructiveness, his die-hard fans are still perplexed as to why the evil Democrats, liberals, intelligence agencies, journalists, etc. continue to plot against him & want to see him fall?

Jim Jones’ believers who drank his Kool Aid of Death because of their blind faith in him. Will the die-hard Trump supporters follow suit?

 

If you remember the horror that was Jonestown that Jim Jones was responsible for, you may recall the fact that he supposedly had his followers so hypnotized that the overwhelming majority of them willingly drank that deadly Kool Aid he’d poured for them? I honestly fear that most of Trump’s staunchest defenders have drunk the poisonous Kool Aid that Trump has given them?

 

Just how much more obvious does his corruption have to be? Trump was involved in over 3,500 lawsuits before he was installed in the White House. Yep! 1,900 lawsuits in which he was the plaintiff, 1,450 in which he was the defendant, & 150 which involved bankruptcies or third parties, or other matters.

 

Yeah, poor Donald, the picked on rich boy who daddy bailed-out of his failed business ventures again & again & again, is the victim of a vast Left-wing conspiracy. The Democrats & the Liberals hate him because he’s the protector of the poor, the working class, & the middle class & he made his vast fortune through his willpower, intelligence, & skills as a businessman.

 

I’ve had brief conversations with people like Trump’s acolytes over the years & when I realize that I’m simply beating my head against a wall not unlike that Wall that the petulant man-child is so proud of and my patience has grown short over the years so I no longer will waste my precious time on such imbeciles. In other words, I now realize & accept that I don’t have to “win” every argument. No, that is for the petty minds & petty spirits like Donald Duck. We have only so much mental, physical, & emotional energy and we shouldn’t waste it on the likes of this protoplasm that oozed out of the primordial swamp before humankind took form.

 

I know that Trump would whine that I’m not nice for these terrible things I’ve said about him but guess what? I don’t give a shit! And in fact, I’d love it if he were to catch the coronavirus because maybe if his life was on the line like the hundreds of millions around the world, he might find some remote, tiny speck of empathy in his black heart? You can be damn sure that he’d get the best medical care in the world but as to whether he’d change his policies blocking progress by our medical experts is another matter altogether?

 

But I do know one thing for sure i.e. if he were to get the virus & fighting for his life, there’d be Dancing in the Streets as Martha Reeves & the Vandellas put it.

 

Trump’s Cabinet of Corruption & moral cowardice may very well cause the unnecessary deaths of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Americans? And though I have no voice outside of a half dozen friends will hear, I will not be silent in my anger & hatred of everything Trump & that includes his inhumane & non-human cult worshippers. And quite frankly it simply baffles me as to how anybody, even his most loyal can fail to see through his façade of caring about Joe six-pack or America?

 

Trump is basically little more than a glorified used car salesman or ambulance chasing lawyer & is held in about the same regard as these two fields of scamming & rip-off artists by the two-thirds or more of America that see him for what he is.

 

This liar in chief who has over 16,000 lies to his credit in just over three years, and has brought a tsunami of corruption to an already corrupt government & political process but he has raised the bar of corruption to a level never witnessed or even imagined before? In fact, the corruption is so patently obvious that we should change our national bird from the bald-eagle to the vulture or more accurately a Vulture Capitalist.

The greatest fraud perpetrated against the American people, the Vietnam war!

 

In conclusion, one of the most obvious signs of corruption in a business or corporation or an industry is the evidence of rampant fraud. And how appropriate considering Trump has been a fraud all his life. In fact, we should call him the Emperor of Fraud. After all, he does enjoy strutting around like he’s an emperor with that Mussolini smug arrogance or Cheshire Cat smile on his hideous face. And here is a window into the fraudulent practices of the financial services industry that brought the world to its knees. The price of doing business?

 

It occurred to me that in some ways, Trump is a current version of the fairy tale; The Emperor Wears No Clothes, but he’s the Emperor of Fraud & has gotten away with his life of crime & deception for the better part of his life. Oh, he gets slapped on the wrist every now & then in the form of being forced to pay a settlement in a lawsuit against him like his fraudulent; Trump University but he denies having lost any of the lawsuits in which he was convicted, changes the subject, & attacks his detractors to take the spotlight off of himself.

 

Moreover, like that emperor in the fairy tale, Trump is blank to his own nakedness i.e. his corruption. And like the corruption & moral decay of the ancient Roman senate, Trump is destroying the American Empire not that it would be such a bad thing if it were done in a more rational & piecemeal manner?

the inner Trump in physical form

 

No, this swineherd has flung open the vault of the federal treasury & encouraged all his fellow pigs to help themselves to our taxes that we, the peasants are forced to pay under threat of imprisonment, but that the 1% don’t have to pay.

 

This private gorging at the public trough reminds me of an old television series of many years ago. Contestants were given an empty shopping cart & so many minutes—perhaps 15 minutes or so? –to run through the empty grocery store & stuff their carts as full as possible from the shelves of the store & whoever had the highest total of food items typical prices was declared the winner.

 

Trump can never stop, not even for a few moments, his self-promotion which is a blizzard of lies, exaggerations, & phony hype about himself. He needs to keep not only the public fooled & distracted from his agenda of greed & destruction, his ability to maintain a semblance of being in control of himself is critically dependent on this wafer-thin illusion & delusion he lives under. He is constantly living on the edge & being at risk of going bat-shit insane!

Greta’s facial expression says it all i.e.righteous moral outrage

 

A prime example of this fragile monster’s childish temperament was when he felt the need to mock the teenage champion of the world’s environment, Greta Thunberg because, like the child in the fairy tale, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, who had the courage to declare; the emperor is naked, Greta had the temerity to call out the hypocrites who give lip-service to the necessity of slowing down the world’s climate & environmental destruction.

Greta’s facial expression as well as her short scolding of the adults posing as our leaders, was priceless, and Greta like so many young people around the world aren’t impressed or fooled by Trump’s veneer of success. No, that is for the willingly ignorant & for Donald himself.

 

He hides his moral bankruptcy & the hole in his chest where humans have a heart behind his screen of ostentatious wealth that is about as subtle as Attila the Hun’s diplomacy in war. And when I see those pictures of the would be dictator sitting in his gold, spray-painted living rooms, I have to chuckle & I am reminded of some of the low-riders where I grew up in the ghettos of L.A. & their cars that were everything to them, their status symbol that said they were special with their tuck & roll upholstery that was often installed in Tijuana, Mexico complete with the little white dingle balls (I believe they were called?) that hung from their ceilings.

Maybe Donald will invite some of his supporters from the coal mines of Virginia over for a barbecue?

 

Trump’s function as the ringmaster in this farce we call a Democracy & that is to keep the rabble in line (Chomsky) with his traveling circus & carnival of fear & hate. And his occupation of the White House represents his only value to the power elite, that of keeping us divided so we will remain conquered & subservient slaves to the status quo.

 

This Divide & Conquer strategy is as old as recorded history itself. Yet, even with the astronomical power & wealth of the “Master Class” & their arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, their ownership of the financial “services” sectors of our economies, their domination of the world’s corporate media, public education systems, etc. etc. etc., the brave & loving men & women on the front lines in the fight against this deadly virus, show us again & again that the true power of this world is the power of love, compassion, & empathy. Here is a portrait of some of those compassionate brave souls fighting for us on the front lines who keep their spirits up as well as ours during these nightmarish times;

 

And the overwhelming majority of mankind have not allowed themselves to slowly morph into creatures from the black lagoon like Trump & his zombies. No, we know to the marrow of our bones that Love Conquers Hate and it is only by our mutual love & care for one another that we will survive not only this deadly virus but also the destruction of our climate & the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation!

 

Humanity’s true heroes & greatest protectors have been the humble teachers like Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King, Noam Chomsky, & Howard Zinn to name just a few who have led by example, not the shallow rhetoric of tyrants like Trump the Terrible!

—Rob DeLoss, (alive & kicking in beautiful Gold Beach on this sunny day, April 12th 2020)

 

Namaste & Persevere my Brothers & Sisters!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let Truth & Falsehood Grapple in the Free Marketplace of Ideas

 

 

 

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? (John Milton, Areopagitica)

 

 

In a perfect world, this would be the norm but obviously we are far from such a world. And at this time of the deadly pandemic caused by the Coronavirus, the ignorance as evidenced by Trump’s behavior may well cause the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans?

 

I don’t know what could be a more obvious example of how deadly ignorance can be? Because of this megalomaniac’s narcissism & sociopathic personality, the American public, well, those who didn’t fall for Trump’s rhetoric of fear & hate, are living in a state of terror!

 

And I am very concerned that I may not have much longer to live because I’m an old fart (67 years old) & have several of the highest risk factors, so this essay is probably going to be very raw & perhaps one of my most honest essays?

 

One of the things that most surprised me when Donny boy became president was the fact that there is clearly no requirement to be able to pass a basic intelligence test for the most powerful office in the world? Moreover, what does that say about our collective intelligence?

Trump reads at level of a 4th grade student & conned people into believing in his scam university?

 

My central thesis in this essay is that I believe if we had true freedom of speech & specifically in the most common meeting places for average Americans i.e. bars, taverns, & pubs, we might have been able to persuade our neighbors to open their minds & not fall for Trump’s con job?

 

Obviously, it’s too late now but perhaps those who survive this pandemic will wake-up to the necessity of informing themselves so that it can’t happen again? I have loved learning from the time I was in first grade & I believe that it is the responsibility of those of us who are true educators, to share what we’ve learned with our fellow citizens.

 

To begin with, I stumbled across a list of 50 Characteristics of an Educated Person, which I’ll share with you at the end of this essay, & I challenge you to find a single one of these characteristics in “our” president. I, like many others, have to admit that this buffoon is very clever at manipulating the media & that’s how he managed to con his way into office. Those who believe in his honesty i.e. “he tells it like it is,” “he cares about the little guy & the working class,” “he’s draining the swamp,” etc. are beyond the pale of an ordinary or average intelligence & therefore easily manipulated by pushing their emotional hot button topics. And it doesn’t take more than two or three minutes of “conversation” with these individuals to determine if they are Trump’s cult members i.e. as soon as you make one critical remark about Trump, they shut-down & like that wall he’s building, they erect a wall in their “minds.”

 

Yeah, I know, I’m sounding like one of those elitists. You’re goddamn straight I am! You can trace my elitism back to when I was in the sixth grade & was reading at an 11th grade, sixth month level. Moreover, I was a closet elitist because I hid my elitism in my single-parent, working class background. Pretty clever huh?

 

One of the things that confuses me about Trump who keeps reassuring us that he’s a very stable genius, and uses big words, & is more knowledgeable in just about any profession you can think of i.e. scientists, doctors, generals, etc. So why has he threatened to sue any of the schools he’s ever attended if they reveal his grades? Could it be that like his tax returns, he’s afraid if his grades were revealed, the public would realize that his entire life has been one big scam?

 

Mental midgets like Trump believe that he who shouts the loudest in an argument is the winner of the argument. And he has the biggest megaphone in America i.e. the bully pulpit of the White House. As a result, the public is constantly bombarded with Trump’s lies & propaganda, and we have, as I said, very few places to refute his ignorance, racism, & fear-mongering. Moreover, Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan has FOX “News,” to spread his lies 24/7 and we all know how “fair & balanced” they are, right?

 

And one of the key aspects of Trump’s reign of error & terror is his perpetual rallies throughout his term in office. Have you ever seen another president wage a non-stop propaganda campaign like his? It’s crystal clear that although Trump struts the world stage with his chest puffed-out and his chin protruding as far as possible not because he is supremely self-confident, but rather supremely insecure & this is why he needs constant praising from his sycophants.

 

Returning to the “free marketplace of ideas” in the title of this essay, it’s obviously a reference or an analogy to the mythical “free market,” that has been proclaimed for so many decades that it is now accepted as a truism or similar to a law of nature. But this concept is one of the most pernicious ideas in the lexicon of this perverted crony or casino capitalist system that is now literally killing us. And a little research will show that this “system” is a total farce created to keep the gullible & ignorant playing in a rigged-game that they can never win. Here is the truth behind this sham from Noam Chomsky, my intellectual & moral hero;

Noam Chomsky, considered by many to be the most important intellectual alive!

 

The free market is ‘socialism’ for the rich: the public pays the costs and the rich get the benefit – markets for the poor and plenty of state protection for the rich.

Noam Chomsky

 

Because of the successful destruction of unions in America, we are no longer of much value to the powers that be i.e. we used to serve the purpose of consuming the manufactured products that were made in America but we’ve been beaten-down to such an extent that our only value now is our incarceration.

 

I am sharing this knowledge with you, my imaginary reader, not because I’m an egotist like Donald Duck but because I believe the central responsibility of educators is to share what we’ve learned & hopefully inspire students to take up their own self education. I forget if it was Plato or Aristotle that said this in a slightly different manner but it is the gospel truth!

 

Perhaps this would be a good point at which to share some of my bona fides, & unlike Trump who thinks that just by uttering whatever words he wants to, makes them a fact or the truth, I can back up my claims of intellectual abilities.

 

In brief, I attended community colleges in the L.A. & Orange County areas off & on for about a decade. I dropped-out of many courses half-way & sometimes even three-quarters of the way through a semester. Nothing really grabbed me until I stumbled upon philosophy. I told myself, now this is a subject I can really sink my teeth into.

 

And about this time, I had the great fortune of meeting my future wife who was a Special Education teacher & finishing up her Master’s degree in Special Education. Her B.A. was in Art. Her belief in me & her encouragement inspired me & I stopped dropping out of classes after that & within a couple more years, I earned my B.A. in English literature (the philosophy dept. where I was attending a four-year university, sucked & I figured, well at least I can enjoy the reading as a literature major.

 

Moreover, I have amassed a personal library of approximately 10,000 books over the course of my life. And no, I haven’t read them all but I have dissected so-to-speak, several hundred of them i.e. made copious notes in the blank pages so I can turn to the exact page if I want to show or prove to someone that I’m not making up what I’m trying to tell them about.

 

I’ve also been writing essays & working on two major writing projects for over 30 years. I would conservatively guesstimate that I have spent at least 50,000 hours over the past 40 years reading, writing, researching, watching documentaries, listening to political programs, etc. By-the-way, when some people try to dismiss that decade of switching majors several times & dropping-out time & time again, I ask them; So, you think that because I didn’t get the official credit for the course that I didn’t learn anything in all those classes?

 

And since we’re on the subject of education, here’s a quote by Aristotle who one professor told me, was one of the twin pillars of Western Civilization, Plato being the other; “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.”

 

Yep! Another one of those god-damn elitist snobs! Now, some of you who may still have some of that holy seed of curiosity left in you as Einstein put it, may be wondering how in the hell did we get to such a desperate state like the one we’re living in now? Let me break it down for you because I have also worked in the education profession for approximately 20 years.

First of all, our public education system isn’t set up for excellence but rather to crank-out cookie-cutter, conformist citizens much like that video clip of students in Pink Floyd’s song; “We Don’t Need No Education.” And if you’ll take the time to reflect on the 50 characteristics of an educated person at the end of this essay, I think you’ll see what I mean?

 

Because we have to face the ugly reality of the way our educational system is, we must rely on ourselves & that means self-education. Of course, we must first learn what is worthy of learning. And if you accept the current capitalist system that is once again fuckin’ us that I don’t see how anyone can fail to see it. But then again, I almost forgot about the Trump cult where ignorance is celebrated?

 

And this is what I’ve learned in my lifetime, the two most important skills a person can acquire that will help empower them against the constant forces that manipulate us & defraud us daily are Critical & Analytical thinking skills. The book I am about to mention was recommended to me by a Jesuit scholar. And they are some of the best educated scholars in the world!

 

Problem Solving & Comprehension by Whimbey & Lochhead. I see that the price of the book has definitely gone up over the years? I bought a paperback copy back around 1983 for maybe $9.00? Well, it saddens me to have to report that in all these years, I haven’t been able to persuade a single friend to go through the exercises/problems in this book that help to develop your critical & analytical thinking skills. Like I’ve long said, welcome to Illiterate America, another great book by one of our best educators, Jonathan Kozol.

 

Being proud of being stupid didn’t start with Trump, no, it’s long been a part of our history. And another book which I “dissected” is The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto is a guaranteed mind-blowing experience if you dare to read it? This is another one of my books that I dissected & read twice because I used it extensively in writing my magnum opus which is only three-fifths completed.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist & I pray that you don’t lump me in with the likes of Trump’s buddy, Alex Jones, quite simply, the 1% don’t want a nation of well-educated citizens because we are then more troublesome.

 

Moving right along, the next destructive force that has brought us to the brink is the media or more accurately, the corporate media aka mainstream media. And there’s no better place to jump in than the Reagan presidency from which Donald the Dipshit, stole his campaign motto; Make America Great Again.

 

You see, before Reagan, the mainstream media which was ABC, CBS, & NBC in those days, were required to give us both sides of an issue when they weren’t just reporting the straight news/facts. By-the-way, there are far more than two perspectives on the serious issues humanity faces.

 

Yep! Reagan was the father of “fake news,” is it any wonder Trump has emulated him? Ronnie’s elimination of the “Fairness Doctrine,” paved the way for FOX “News,” Trump’s daily briefing sessions. I say this because it’s pretty common knowledge just as Trump’s non-attendance at who knows how many of the daily presidential briefings. And those that he does deign to honor with his presence must boil the complex issues down to a single page with pictures.

 

This is the leader of the “free world.” Doesn’t it make you all fuzzy & warm knowing you can rest assured that the child behind the desk in the oval office wants to keep it simple? Yeah, he’s simple alright, he’s a fuckin’ simpleton but one with the capability of starting a nuclear war if somebody hurts his feelings.

 

Returning to our slide down the slope of journalistic integrity, the mainstream media was gutted by the corporate elite who saw ratings as the key to ever greater wealth. So, like a deadly virus, “infotainment” became the accepted norm & who other than Trump was a master at entertaining with his circus act of smoke & mirrors i.e. a barrage of lies & fake news i.e. before he became a “celebrity,” he’d call in to radio programs & pretend to be somebody else & sing his own praises.

 

Moving right along in our exploration of how America became so uninformed & wide-open to manipulation by the greedy & corrupt like Trump, we have the destructive rise of “reality television.”

 

I have heard very few, if any critics point out that the basic premise of “reality T.V.” is built on the premise that a fake medium i.e. television, can & does provide us with an accurate & honest view of ‘reality.’ And who else but Trump who built his celebrity on fake stories & his grandiose lies about his success, could “succeed” on such a massive scale in a fake portrait of reality?

 

Tragically, this too helps to shed light on this dangerous phenomenon of an absolute moron & moral degenerate in charge of a nation. Trump is not merely mediocre, no, he’s monumentally incompetent intellectually as well as totally morally bankrupt!

 

There’s a mountain of evidence proving he doesn’t have a single ounce of compassion or empathy for anyone but himself. And again, this is why I argue that if his Walking Dead zombies had even basic critical & analytical thinking skills, they could see through his grand sham.

In a battle of wits, Trump supporters are unarmed.

Remember my friend, television & movies succeed the more skillful they are at causing us to “willfully suspend disbelief.” Do you understand what I’m saying? Speaking of which, I believe that a major turning point in the dumbing-down of America came when FOX “News” was allowed to call itself an authentic news station.

 

And I hold “mainstream media” responsible in that they didn’t raise hell about this propaganda channel posing as “fair & balanced” reporters of the news. This clearly was an attempt to portray themselves as loyal exemplars of journalism before Reagan eliminated the “Fairness Doctrine.”

 

But speaking of “fairness,” American journalism had been failing us for decades before Reagan. And Edward R. Murrow as well as his mentors like I.F. Stone & George Seldes revealed this in their noble & brilliant careers of fantastic dedication & tireless work in uncovering the facts behind the lies of government & corporations.

 

Another nail in our collective coffin is the birth of the so-called “social media.” Moreover, it’d be rather amusing if it weren’t for the fact that it’s so dangerously serious. If you give a shit about true reality vs. the artificial world of the plastic people like Trump, you’d eventually have to acknowledge that this supposed “social media” is de facto anti-social.

 

Why you may ask? Facebook & Twitter being the two major exemplars of this fake reality, in fact encourage people to be anti-social and hurl ugly epithets back & forth. Tristan Harris, a former employee of Google;

 

“he worked as a design ethicist at Google, where he studied ethics of human persuasion.”

 

This young man’s courage & intellectual honest touched my heart. And I’m sure if you’ll take the time to read the bio about him on Wikipedia or watch any of the You Tube videos by or about him, you’ll agree.

 

In a nutshell, Mr. Harris shared with us the key to the kingdom that has become Google i.e. razzle & dazzle people with bells & whistles so like a slot machine in Vegas, they become addicted & will keep checking back for how many likes, etc. they have received in the past few minutes i.e. they become addicted to the constant feedback. Hey, does that sound like anybody you know? Hint: Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan who spends the majority of his “work day” watching FOX “News” for his agenda of what American domestic as well as foreign policy should be.

 

Yes, we have a teenage girl as president. And she can never be more than a few feet from her “smart phone,” because she must constantly monitor her “social approval ratings.”

 

Are you still confused or wondering why we’re in such a state of fear? Or why we are so woefully unprepared for this pandemic? No, it isn’t just Donald the Dumb-fuck, it’s this capitalist system that only cares about profit. We’ve been through this before but the “Masters of the Universe,” chose to ignore common sense & have a stockpile of the necessary equipment because they could make greater profits by keeping it ‘close to the vest’ i.e. only manufacturing on demand or as the need arose for products so as to not have stockpiles in their warehouses that weren’t being used or sold. They could save money by eliminating every possible unnecessary product until it was needed. And lo and behold, now that we’re in a national and world-wide crisis, they can’t manufacture what we, the peons need fast enough so many of us will die because of their greed & shortsightedness.

 

And I gotta chuckle or I will double-over in a fit of rage that these corporate cockroaches have the balls to ask for bail-outs in this time of crisis? Yep! Trump’s very own children are asking for their share of the government handouts while Jared Kushner tells renters they must pay their rent but he needs help from the banks regarding his loans.

One that really caught my attention was Goldman Sachs, dubbed “the Goldman Sachs” treasury department is also asking for help? Matt Taibbi wrote a book about Goldman Sachs called “Vampire Squid” and I don’t know where this particular quote by him came form but I feel it’s as succinct a summary of why, once again, we, the 99% are being fucked while Wall St. is once again, being bailed-out against our wills & we have to foot the bill even as we are kicked out of our homes.

 

‘Nobody goes to jail.’ This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth – and nobody went to jail.

 

This is in reference to the 2008 Crash that came seriously close to collapsing the entire world’s economic system. But hey, no big deal, right? Place your trust in a fake billionaire who is using the White House as an ad agency to promote his business interests.

 

You see, my imaginary reader, if we were truly free to speak & I mean anywhere & everywhere, most importantly in ye olde public houses i.e. bars, taverns, & pubs like our founding fathers did when they were plotting their revolution, we might just be able to stem the tide of stupidity that has engulfed us?

 

Those of us who survive this pandemic owe it to the memory of all those who didn’t survive. I just hope that the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans may at last galvanize the apathetic to rising up and slapping those greedy pigs down & imprisoning them so those who attempt to follow in their footsteps at least know that they’re not going to get a cell in any of those federal country club “prisons.”

 

We seem to be fond of declaring wars against drugs, crime, welfare cheats, etc., how about we declare a War on Stupidity? And what say you about requiring our presidents to be above a fourth-grade level intellectually?

 

It is only through exercising our minds that we self-empower ourselves & stop being victims. We must retake our places as human beings who deserve to be treated respectfully & as people worthy of all that is laid out in “The Declaration of Human Rights” or Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Second Bill of Rights.

 

I leave you with this reminder; “United We Stand, Divided We Fall,” and that has been the game plan of the powerful & wealthy throughout history i.e. to divide and conquer us. It’s only our stupidity or ignorance that is holding us back.

 

My hope is that like the peasants of France who finally had enough of watching their children die of hunger & the queen consort of Louis the 16th, Marie Antoinette’s callous remark; “Let them eat cake,” was the final straw that caused the people to rise up and take back what was rightfully theirs & their right to be treated with dignity as human beings!

 

And here’s a little reminder for all you in that special category of the “1%,” you might take a lesson from history i.e. the French peasants finally reached their breaking point & chopped the heads off of half the elite of France.

 

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein

50 Characteristics of an Educated Person

  1. An educated person has the ability to think clearly and independently.
  2. An educated person has good judgment.
  3. An educated person knows how to learn.
  4. An educated person knows how to acquire desired skills by identifying and utilizing available resources, deconstructing the process required for learning a particular skill, and experimenting with potential approaches.
  5. An educated person has the ability to take initiative and work alone.
  6. An educated person has the ability to communicate thoughts and ideas in writing, clearly and concisely.
  7. An educated person has the ability to speak clearly.
  8. An educated person has the ability to reason analytically and critically.
  9. An educated person has the ability to think inductively and deductively.
  10. An educated person questions assumptions.
  11. An educated person doesn’t blindly accept what they are told; they go see for themselves. They can discern truth from error, regardless of the source.
  12. An educated person knows how to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information (between the important and the trivial).
  13. An educated person knows how to make productive use of knowledge; they know where to get the knowledge that they need, and they have the ability to organize that knowledge into a plan of action that is directed to a definite end.
  14. An educated person understands human nature and has the ability to establish, maintain, and improve lasting relationships.
  15. An educated person knows how to establish rapport with others; they know how get others to trust and respect them.
  16. An educated person knows how to cooperate and collaborate effectively with others.
  17. An educated person knows how to resolve conflicts with others.
  18. An educated person knows how to persuade others.
  19. An educated person has the ability to conceptualize and solve problems.
  20. An educated person knows how to make decisions.
  21. An educated person has the ability to see connections among disciplines, ideas and cultures.
  22. An educated person is able to cross disciplinary boundaries and explore problems and their solutions from multiple perspectives.
  23. An educated person is someone who has been educated holistically: creatively, culturally, spiritually, morally, physically, technologically, and intellectually.
  24. An educated person has a broad liberal-arts education. They have a good overview of the following subjects: the natural sciences; the social sciences; history; geography; literature; philosophy; and theology.
  25. An educated person has depth of knowledge—that is, specialized knowledge–in a particular field.
  26. An educated person has achieved victory over themselves; they know how to withstand discomfort in the short term in order to achieve important goals in the long term.
  27. An educated person has the capacity to endure and persevere.
  28. An educated person is self-aware; they know how to perceive and manage their own internal states and emotions.
  29. An educated person knows where and how to focus their attention.
  30. An educated person has ethical values and has integrity.
  31. An educated person has the ability and the discipline to do what is right.
  32. An educated personis well-readand has cultural sophistication.
  33. An educated person has equal esteem for everyone, without regard to gender, race, religion, country of origin, and so on.

 

 

 

 

  1. An educated person understands their obligation to leave the world a little better than they found it.
  2. An educated person is capable of doing new things; they have the ability to generate ideas and turn them into reality. An educated person is innovative.
  3. An educated person is one whose natural curiosity has been awakened with the purpose of satisfying that curiosity.
  4. An educated person has the ability to identify needed behaviors and traits and turn them into habits.
  5. An educated person has the ability to identify harmful behaviors and traits—including thinking habits that are not serving them well—and the ability to modify them.
  6. An educated person has the ability to keep their life in proper balance.
  7. An educated person has the flexibility to admit when they’re wrong.
  8. An educated person has quantitative literacy; they know how to use arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and statistics to solve problems.
  9. An educated person can speak at least one language other than their own.
  10. An educated person has financial literacy; they have the knowledge necessary to make sound financial decisions.
  11. An educated person is adaptable and knows how to deal with change.
  12. An educated person knows how to handle ambiguity.
  13. An educated person has the ability to explore alternative viewpoints.
  14. An educated person has aesthetic appreciation; they can sing and dance well, play at least one musical instrument, and can appreciate architecture, great art, and other expressions of creative genius.
  15. An educated person has developed the personal philosophy that will allow them to be happy and successful.
  16. An educated person has the ability and the discipline to constantly improve.
  17. An educated person has the ability to pursue lifelong learning.

Addendum

As often happens when I think I’ve finished an essay, I remember some important points that I meant to make but got sidetracked from in the essay.

I think a lot, if not most people don’t realize that watching T.V. is a passive experience i.e. you’re just receiving the information, images, etc. & you are definitely not thinking critically or analytically when you’re watching T.V.

And the proliferation of T.V. shows (sit-coms, soap operas, sports programs, etc.) has slowly turned our minds into Swiss cheese. Moreover, with the advent of the Internet, the nefarious powers that only seek profit not enlightenment, have enhanced the deterioration of our mental capacities.

We are living in a post-literate society because reading requires mental effort & people primarily just want to be entertained. For example, I allowed myself to get sucked into the world of Facebook several years ago & I was excited and thought I’d be able to exchange important ideas with people. I used to write paragraphs, if not abbreviated essays in response to the important posts I read & once in a while someone would say; “I learned so much from your posts & comments.” And it became rarer over time to even get a single sentence in response. With the introduction of emojis, I became angrier because a sentence was now almost nonexistent. Yet people think they’re communicating?

Trying to get people to write is like pulling teeth & I finally gave up altogether & deleted my Facebook account about a year ago. And to illustrate even further America’s enfeeblement, it seems people today prefer texting over talking to someone on the phone. Yeah, pretty depressing! So, we don’t read, we don’t write, & we’re getting to the point where we won’t even talk.

I believe these factors that I have mentioned in this essay all point to how we’ve arrived at this tragic & deadly point in our history. The simple fact that a third to a half of the American public actually support Trump no matter how venal, crude, & brazenly only concerned about enriching himself he is. And that says more about us than it does about him.

Bottom-line, Trump has always followed his mentor, Roy Cohn’s simple battle plan for everything i.e. Deny, Divert, & Detract. Every time someone accuses you of something, Deny it. Divert their attention by changing the subject & not allowing them to pursue their accusation, & Detract i.e. start attacking their character, make shit up, do whatever you can to keep tearing them down.

This is abundantly clear in how he’s avoided taking any responsibility for his ineptitude, mishandling, & lying every step of the way in this dark time of the coronavirus spread which may kill a hundred thousand or more Americans & which was largely preventable if we had an intelligent person of moral character in the White House.

The Koch brothers & several of the wealthiest oil & gas corporations employed these same tactics in funding the massive propaganda campaign of Climate Change Denial. All they had to do was muddy the waters, question the credentials of the 98% or better of the world’s scientists who have warned of the impending disaster that will make the coronavirus pale in comparison!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fake News President

 

 

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?

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Politics of Resentment in Post-Literate America

 

 

 

We are living in a very dangerous time because just when we need a well-informed citizenry more desperately than perhaps any time before in our history, we have a moron in the oval office throwing gasoline on the fire.

“Christian” Supremacists new version of Morality & Ethics

 

Trump’s rallies i.e. his non-stop public spectacles staged to boost his ego on his never-ending carnival of self-aggrandizement, are resembling more & more Hitler’s speech at Nuremberg. Of course, Hitler focused primarily on the Jews who were German citizens while Trump’s venom & vitriol is more generalized i.e. Mexicans, Muslims, women, or anybody not a member of the Duck Dynasty Klan.

Fortress Amerika!

 

What really troubles my soul is that this centuries-old tactic of blaming the victims of the elite continues to be effective & obviously Trump’s “base,” has no historical memory. The automatons who worship the ground that Trump walks upon are completely oblivious to his blatant manipulation of them. How in the Hell can they find “common cause” with a supposed billionaire—who refuses to release his tax returns because they most likely reveal what a charlatan he is—who has screwed thousands of people who have worked for him?

Beware of Cults of Personality & Authoritarians!

 

I believe a key insight into this dreadful phenomenon lies in the politics of resentment. What do I mean by this term? Quite simply that what unites Trump’s fan club is a hatred & burning resentment towards all who aren’t like them i.e. poor, white, working class born in America people.

 

You see, all dictators, oligarchs, demagogues, etc. throughout history knew that the best way to distract their citizens from the ugly realities of their lives was to blame the “other.” And again, the “other” can be any group you choose i.e. Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, Blacks, gays, handicapped, etc.

The bigger the lie & the more often you repeat it, it becomes truth.

 

It seems to be almost axiomatic or reflexive for people to blame their fellow victims rather than the power elite who are actually the ones responsible for their deprivations. I have been observing & writing about this tragic state of affairs for decades now & I never will understand it. I guess it must be human nature to deny or ignore one’s own responsibility for not informing oneself & participating in the democratic process & to blame those even worse-off than yourself for your inability to feed your family, have adequate healthcare, put a roof over your family’s head, etc.?

 

I am continually baffled that my fellow citizens can’t seem to comprehend the obvious fact that it is the rich who pass things like NAFTA which rewards the corporations for closing down their plants in the U.S. & going overseas where they can pay workers far less than they have to in the U.S. i.e. minimum wage which is an employer’s way of saying that they’d pay you even less if they could but the law requires they pay at least the minimum wage (some rap artist pointed this out).

 

Naturally, but sadly, the overwhelming majority of Americans allow themselves to be buffeted back & forth like a cork floating in the high seas. The 1% own the mass media & have been manipulating public opinion for decades i.e. the liberal bias in the mass media—common sense tells us that those who own the media aren’t going to allow serious criticism of their propaganda to be heard on the very stations, magazines, radio, etc. they own. Why? Because this would threaten the very power structure that helps keep them in power.

The “Liberal Media”

 

And yet Donald, the Magnificent is a master at using the media to sell his brand i.e. himself, to the world. He got something like several billion dollars of free advertising as he campaigned to become president while Bernie Sanders received a small fraction of the media’s attention. Why? Because Trump is basically a “shock jock” and knows that the more outrageous, nasty, racist, etc. he is, the more attention he’ll get. And the kicker is, after getting so much free publicity from the national media, Trump turns on his benefactors & calls them “fake news,” etc. Where would Trump be if it weren’t for the so-called fake media?

the truth behind the Trump brand/logo  

 

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see Trump’s game plan, and his smug mug & Cheshire Cat trademark smirk says it all i.e. you really are a nation of rubes & oh so easily duped by my huckster rap. This is a good place to share a quote from the great Bertrand Russell with you;

 

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid … Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”

 

Take a few moments to really chew this thought over if you will. To my mind, this quote encapsulates the core of the problem we’re all facing whether we acknowledge it or not. As long as we remain apathetic or unwilling to expend the energy to inform ourselves, the rich & powerful will continue to have their boots on our necks.

 

If you expect to be treated fairly without being willing to do your homework i.e. inform yourself, you are asking for what never has been nor ever will be. All of human progress in terms of lifting up the lives of ordinary men & women has only come about due to serious & prolonged struggles against the wealthy. They clearly enjoy their status, privileges, & wealth and will not willingly or easily give these “perks” up.

 

And this is what I am talking about when I refer to “post-literate America.” For example, I allowed myself to get sucked into the Facebook world even though my gut told me from the beginning that Facebook was basically a forum for teenage girls. I can’t tell you how many thousands of hours I wasted on Facebook writing lengthy responses & essays on many of the critical issues facing us in today’s world only to get a rare reply of a sentence or two. And once emojis were introduced, I didn’t even get a sentence but more often than not, a happy face.

 

Do you seriously think we’re going to mount a serious revolution for our freedom with emojis? In other words, if we can’t even be bothered to take the time to write a few sentences to each other in camaraderie or support of one another, what chance do we have of making any progress?

 

A couple of years ago, it dawned on me that since we’re clearly such a materialistic society i.e. we only value those members of our society that can prove their “worth” by pointing to their wealth, material possessions, celebrity, etc., quantification seems to reign supreme. So, it occurred to me that I should perhaps attempt to quantify my knowledge? By-the-way, before I met my lovely wife, Jeri, I had several relationships with girls/women whom I loved deeply & whom I believe loved me deeply but they invariably ended because they were afraid that I wasn’t “ambitious” enough.

 

This reflects just a part of the high price I’ve paid over the years. I too used to believe that the word “ambition” solely referred to how much money a person was “worth.” Then it dawned on me, Aha! True, I’m not “ambitious” in the usual sense of wanting to become financially wealthy but I am ambitious as Hell when it comes to becoming as knowledgeable or as wise as I possibly can.

 

Conservatively, over the last 30 years, I have spent roughly 50,000 hours reading the classics & modern classics in history, politics, philosophy, literature, etc. & unlike Donny the Liar & Denier in Chief, I can back it up. I have collected approximately 10,000 books in my personal library & have made copious notes in several hundred of my books. I have listened to radio programs on politics, collected thousands of articles, written a couple hundred essays, many of which are 20 to 30 pages or more, written a couple thousand pages on two major projects so far, read magazine articles, etc.

 

In the notes I have made in the blank pages of my books, I either copy passages that I feel are important, verbatim or I paraphrase them & often write someone’s name whom I remember having an argument with about the subject or whom I would like to show the passage to. I have also developed my own, crude symbology of stars, hearts, triangles, etc. in an attempt to show the value of said passage.

 

I hope that you, my imaginary reader, believe me when I tell you that this isn’t merely me imitating the braggart in the White House but my attempt to establish my bonifides. Continuing on with the twin pillars of this essay i.e. the politics of resentment & post-literate America, there are countless studies, polls, etc. confirming how anti-intellectual America has become over the past 50 years & even further if you read the classic by Richard Hofstadter, “Anti-intellectualism in American Life.” I basically dissected this book because I went through it with a fine-tooth comb so-to-speak, twice.

 

I went through this American classic the second time because I used it as a sort of skeleton outline in my on-going magnum opus; Truth Against the World. This project has become a work of gargantuan proportions & I’ve broken it down into three separate books. I still have a lot more to add but the first book in this series is titled; “The Christian Fundamentalists War Against Secular Humanism.”

 

Speaking of which, these so-called “Christians” personify a major portion of Trump’s & America’s politics of resentment. In a nutshell, these faux “Christians” are resentful & angry that they aren’t accorded the power & prestige as a sort of American Taliban. And to prove just how hypocritical they are, how else can you explain the fact that they staunchly support & defend Trump who is the embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins? In brief, they prove how shallow their “Christianity” is & how meaningless Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” is to them.

 

We moved a lot as I was growing up but I always sought out & attended the local church wherever we went. I knew next to nothing about the differences between denominations. I simply enjoyed the experience & Sunday School. But somewhere around the age of 14 or 15, the hypocrisy just became too brazen. And at the risk of sounding grossly overly simplistic, I believe the Sermon on the Mount & the Commandment to do unto others as you’d have them do unto you, is all we need to practice.

 

Embarrassingly, we are known the world around as being one of the most illiterate nations on Earth, most notably among the so-called “advanced” nations. Many Americans openly brag about not having read a single book in the past year. Moreover, it’s become common knowledge that Trump won’t even bother to read the daily briefings that are so vital for the leader of the world’s most powerful nation.

 

Instead, Trump is noted for his watching television several hours per day & most conspicuously, “FOX News,” which any student of modern history knows should more accurately be referred to as America’s “Pravda.” (Russia’s version of the New York Times i.e. their paper of propaganda)

 

I must admit that I never cease to be amazed at the level of spectacular ignorance & utter inability to even formulate a single, coherent sentence by Trump. But somewhere deep inside I can’t help but wonder; Is this really a master act of deception on the part of Trump to distract us from his & his craven cronies consistent unraveling of our democracy?

 

In other words, is it humanly possible for someone to be so glaringly stupid in just about every sentence that comes out of his mouth?

 

In conclusion, I’d like to share with you a portion from a transcript of my favorite, alternative news station, “Democracy Now!” which I have been following for the past 20 years—nearly from its beginning. This is Wayne Barrett, who followed Trump’s infamous rise more thoroughly than any other journalist:

 

You know, he has made a career—when I say I don’t know why he’s never been prosecuted, maybe the prime time that he could have been prosecuted was at the time of his downfall in 1990 and ’91. Well, you know, the banks kept him alive, as he was too big to fail. So, they kept him alive. But I wrote in the book—he certainly didn’t sue when I said it—I didn’t say that he had made—submitted false financial statements to the bankers to get a billion dollars in personally guaranteed loans. I said he submitted fraudulent ones. Right? And I lay out a case for that in the book. He was engaged in completely defrauding the banks, and the banks knew it. OK? And they were giving him the loans anyway. So, they kept him alive. But even more so than that, the House Banking Committee wanted to do public hearings about it; the banks wouldn’t cooperate. The district attorney of Manhattan was a big friend of Donald’s. Donald was his second-biggest giver. Robert Morgenthau’s second-biggest giver was Donald Trump. Donald was the chairman of the Police Athletic League, which was Morgenthau’s biggest charity. So, he was extremely close. He hired—Andy Maloney was the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District. He hired Maloney’s brother. Right? Rudy Giuliani was the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, and we know how close they got. I wrote a whole story about how their relationship developed. I was at Rudy Giuliani’s first fundraiser when he decided to run for mayor, and there’s Donald at the main table. He’s the co-chair of the first Rudy Giuliani fundraiser for the mayorality in 1989. So, his relationships with prosecutors and the fact that the bankers—they were embarrassed by what they had done; they didn’t want any investigation of this. So, the combination of the two gave—gave them a pass—gave him a pass.

 

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/5/wayne_barrett_on_donald_trumps_broken

 

 

In brief, everything about Trump is a fraud and always has been. You could say that he is our greatest “flim-flam president.” And by “greatest,” I mean he represents the worst of the worst in terms of human qualities!

 

—Rob DeLoss, July 19, 2019 Gold Beach, Oregon

 

Addendum

 

Clearly in a “culture” as post-literate as ours & in which many Americans brag about not having read a single book in the past year, some even boast that they’ve never read a single book in their lives, it’s easy to manipulate their emotions as Trump obviously does. And willful ignorance & violence go hand in hand when people are looking to blame others for their misfortunes. Personally, I believe that Trump’s walking dead knows that it’s the rich who have fucked them but they don’t know where to focus their anger towards the rich or it just seems so impossible to take them on & that too is why they prefer to blame people of color.

 

Moreover, people seem to have a penchant for violence & chaos and Trump allows them to vent their anger on a regular basis which is satisfying for those of low I.Q. So, a rightful resentment toward the 1% is transferred on to the poorest victims of our society & they don’t have the power to fire you like your boss does.

 

Trump is the most audacious liar I’ve ever heard of & he even tells his zombie followers to not believe their own eyes or ears or any of the media but only to listen & believe his lies. And what is truly frightening is the fact that this dunce has the power to start a nuclear war & denies the reality of climate destruction. Trump hasn’t “drained the swamp,” but rather he is tearing down the structure of our government with every person he has appointed in his cabinet & etc. So, when your Social Security checks stop coming along with your pension checks, & etc., remember, you asked for it with your blind submission to that vile creature in the White House who I’m sure will be crying crocodile tears for you as you seek shelter on our mean streets!

 

Yep! The world-wide economic collapse of 2008 which crippled the world & from which we still haven’t fully recovered was largely due to deregulation of the financial markets & Trump is deregulating everything he can get his hands on so as to further enrich himself & his butt-buddies. Oh well?

What I imagine the inner “mind” of Trump to look like (Hieronymous Bosch)

The Art of Manipulation

 

 

 

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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why We’re Losing

 

 

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

“Reality T.V.” and Trump-world

 

 

 

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 truthfulnessaccuracyobjectivityimpartiality, 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.
 

 

 

 

 

The Failures of the Fourth Estate

The Failures of the Fourth Estate

“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”

                                     

                                —Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804

For those who may not be familiar with the term, “the fourth estate,” let me define it for you & believe me, it gives me no joy in feeling it most likely necessary to do so. I have worked in the education profession for over 20 years so I’ve seen first hand how woefully lacking we are when it comes to educating our citizens.

The founding fathers were students or children of the Enlightenment if you will. Therefore, they knew full well how vital it is for a citizenry to be well-informed because they knew the history of the Dark Ages in Europe where the educated were mostly either the priests or the “nobility.” This was done deliberately so as to more easily control the citizens i.e. peasants.

In contrast, several, not all, of our founding fathers believed that without an educated citizenry, we too could slip back into a Dark Ages and be taken over by a corrupt aristocracy or oligarchy. Therefore, they included the free press in the Bill of Rights because it’s vital as a force to keep the three branches of government in check. And the last sentence in the quote I started this essay with should jump out at anyone not willfully ignorant i.e. the majority of Trump supporters.

You see, Donald the Dick knows only too well what all the other authoritarians & tyrants present & past know i.e. keep the people ignorant by constantly denigrating the free press or journalists, and you can remain in power. But, let the citizenry hear the valid criticisms of journalists, professors, writers, etc., and your power is eroded.

Admittedly, the press has been a dismal failure as a general rule but this doesn’t excuse the brazen attempts on Trump’s part to totally discredit any & every reporter who says anything critical about him. For the sake of brevity—I’m often guilty of being long-winded—I will simply refer any of you who care to understand this present dilemma, to the classic by Noam Chomsky & Edward Hermann, “The Manufacture of Consent.” And in a word, our “free press” has by and large failed abysmally due to the cannibalization of its principles by Capitalism’s insatiable appetite for ever greater profits.

Moreover, another major factor in why our press has prostituted itself to such a significant degree is the fact that, we, the citizens, haven’t done our duty as citizens of a democratic republic by keeping the pressure on the owners of the media. For example, I bet the majority of Americans aren’t even aware of the fact that the airwaves i.e. means by which television, radio, etc. are broadcast to us are owned by us. No, we blithely go through life silent & happy as long as they provide our daily distractions i.e. “entertainment” in the form of sports, soap operas, “reality” T.V., sit-coms, etc. and as a result, even the news has morphed into what is now referred to as “infotainment.”

America has become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Why? Because we live in our bubble believing we are the greatest nation on earth but if you’ve done any traveling at all outside the U.S., and you meet other citizens of other nations & have a serious conversation, you’ll soon see that no, we’re not so wonderful. That’s all part of the constant propaganda we’ve been inundated with from the cradle to the grave.

Continuing on, another factor for our pitiful state of affairs is the fact that we have also allowed the corporate media to monopolize the ownership of the media & I’ve seen it go from 50 corporations in 1983 to just five corporations today. Think about it, five individuals determining what will and what won’t be published or aired on radio, television, cable news, magazines, newspapers, etc. And one of the most depressing aspects of all of this is that Rupert Murdoch’s “News Corporation” has been allowed to masquerade as “news” via “FOX News” for over 20 years. 

Here are a few, carefully chosen paragraphs from an article that breaks down just how significant it is that these five or six media conglomerates have such an influence on the American public as well as the public of most of the world’s citizens;

“These five conglomerates are Time Warner, Disney, Murdochs’ News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS). Their control spans most of the newspapers, magazines, books, radio and TV stations, movie studios, and much of the web news content of the United States. These conglomerates are in large measure responsible for inculcating the social, political, economic, and moral values of both adults and children in the United States….

….It was not always like this. Immediately after World War II three out of four US newspapers were independently owned. But the media-control numbers have been shrinking ever since then due to mergers, acquisitions, and other processes. By 1983, 50 corporations controlled 90 percent of US media. But today just five giant conglomerates control 90 percent of what most Americans read, watch, and listen to.

It is notable and should be emphasized that all the five major media conglomerates are corporate members of the Council on Foreign relations. This organization is a US think-tank whose members have been instrumental in formulating US government policies resulting in sanctions, destabilization efforts, and outright military attacks on nations which have never attacked the US.

The Council’s members’ activities helped to promote the Iraq war, the bombings of Serbia and Libya, and the recent overthrow of the elected government of the Ukraine. The promotion of these policies by the media conglomerates which belong to the Council has been key to preparing the American public to accept these policies….

….It should also be noted that the conglomerates themselves are giant corporations. They are among the largest companies in the world. They contribute to both of America’s big parties, the Republicans and Democrats, while supporting their policies. US media companies have also received from the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations progressively greater media deregulation, which permitted ever greater media ownership concentration, culminating for the first time in allowing all the media in a community or city to be owned by one company….. “https://www.rt.com/op-ed/158920-us-ukraine-media-control/

FOX is America’s version of what the Russian newspaper, “Pravda,” except the Russians knew it was propaganda i.e. bullshit. And you wonder why we have a president like Donald of the Duck Dynasty Klan, who gets his news daily from watching FOX, and who is again obliviously the most anti-intellectual president we’ve ever had? Trump isn’t an anomaly, no, he’s the symptom of an illiterate society and he’s clearly not capable mentally, emotionally, or morally of governing our nation. He could only get away with his racist remarks & scapegoating of Muslims, immigrants, gays, reporters, intellectuals, etc. etc. etc., in a country where being educated is considered being an elitist snob & anti-American.

In conclusion, my hero, Edward Snowden, the friend of the 99.9% of the world’s population summed it up nicely and humbly in the film, “Citizen Four” by Laura Poitras and also stars, Glenn Greenwald, one of the world’s greatest journalists in terms of integrity, when Snowden said something like; “It’s about Control.”

He’s referring to the mass surveillance of every human being on earth that uses a phone, computer, etc. and especially uses the “social media” platforms like Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, etc. In brief, they i.e. the governments of the world & the corporate cockroaches who are the de facto rulers of the world pulling the strings in the background, are storing our personal info so they can control us i.e. threaten us with jail, etc. if we become a threat to their power or control over us.

So, if we don’t inform ourselves & all who will listen, we are ensuring our own enslavement & possible death. This essay is dedicated to all my brothers & sisters in the Flower Power Revolution around the globe. As the famous maxim says, “The only thing we have to lose is our chains.”

Peace & Perseverance!

                                                 —Rob

P.S. A good place to start is by destroying your “Smart” phone.