June 10, 2013

Don't entertain this garbage.

The corporate-authoritarian propaganda in the MSM and right here on DU now is inviting you to "debate" your fundamental Constitutional rights. You are being asked to have very respectful and serious discussions about the pros and cons of the government's having the right to spy on every single one of us, and amass and store our private information and communication activities in databases that can be accessed at any time in the future. The rationalizations are varied but invariably outrageous: Corporations do it, so what's the difference? Doesn't the new world of terrorism demand new methods? Don't you realize some bad, bad Republicans are against this?

How does authoritarianism happen? Bit by bit, step by step. And the outrageous propaganda we are seeing now is designed to shift our thinking.....to invite us to debate, in utter seriousness and with great respect for the opposing arguments, our Constitutional rights, as though they should be debatable at all. We do not entertain "serious" and "rational" debates about the pros and cons of killing and eating small children. We likewise should not respond to these oh-so-serious bids to debate whether we really need our fundamental Constitutional rights and protections.

I recommend that when we see utter garbage like this, we simply respond with the text of the Fourth Amendment, and probably the First, too, since that is equally under assault.

As Americans, we should be discussing how to stop this government abuse of power, not whether it might, possibly, be a good idea to stop it. We allow propagandists to frame and shift the debate, and we move steadily into an authoritarian new way of thinking in which what used to be our given, understood, fundamental Constitutional rights as American citizens become merely points of opinion, like whether the government should paint its flagpoles silver or grey.

May 16, 2013

Every poll shows that Republicans are as angry as we are.

Our government, both parties, was purchased by the one percent, and 99 percent of us have been disenfranchised. They are not running Republicans and Democrats for office anymore. All major party candidates are corporatists, or they do not have the money to compete.

We are ALL being played and exploited by the one percent. The corporate media has been systematically divided so that we have our channels and pundits, and they have their channels and pundits, and we are each fed lies and propaganda to make us hate and fight each other rather than the ones who are impoverishing ALL of us.

The big unacknowledged secret on DU is that Republicans across the country are just as angry as we are.

Just as our politicians lie to us about wanting to protect public education and the social safety nets and unions and the environment, their politicians lie to them about wanting to stand for small government, limited government interference in private lives, and the defense of civil liberties. Yet no matter which party is elected, we get the same corporate direction of larger, more oppressive and authoritarian government, assaults on and privatization of public services, and more warmongering.

If we could agree across party lines on just one thing....that our representation has been stolen from ALL of us by the corruption of money in the system....we could join together as the 99 percent to get the corporate money out and demand our representation back. When elections are for the people again, and corporations are not allowed to select our candidates, we can have a real fight in the public square about Democratic versus Republican philosophy. And real Democrats will win.

Right now, we don't get any choice at all. We get two candidates pushing essentially the same corporate agenda, by and for the one percent.

April 14, 2013

The Obama administration's legal battle against whistleblowers, federal unions.

Obama administration divides over whistleblowers
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/obama-administration-whistleblowers-transparency-90025.html


This is an assault on unions, and on the employee civil protections of hundreds of thousands of federal workers. And the implications of this particular assault are *especially* chilling, because we're talking about stripping worker protections from those who are closest to what is going on in the halls of our government.

So much for being able to speak out when malfeasance is observed.

This is likely headed to the Supreme Court.


Obama administration divides over whistleblowers
Reuters
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 4/13/13 4:34 PM EDT Updated: 4/13/13 5:19 PM EDT

It’s a battle that pits President Barack Obama against whistleblower advocates, against some of the largest federal employee unions, and against a bipartisan contingent in Congress.
....
The Justice Department and Defense Department are arguing that federal employees like commissary managers and accountants, who don’t have access to classified information, can be demoted or effectively fired without recourse to the usual avenues of appeal if their jobs are designated as “sensitive.” The ripple effect of that — critics say it would effectively strip huge numbers of federal workers of civil service protections by treating them like those who have access to the nation’s most vital secrets — could hollow out legal protections that have allowed whistleblowers to speak out with less fear of being fired.
....
Whistleblower advocates, including some in Congress, contend that allowing agencies greater latitude to reassign or even dismiss workers in “sensitive” positions will open another way for employees to retaliate against those who report fraud, waste or abuse of power.
....Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, agreed: “Providing agencies with complete discretion to strip federal workers of whistleblower and other civil service protections would undermine Congressional intent and would be patently unjust,” Cummings said.

It’s unclear how many workers are potentially affected by the dispute, but some lawyers involved believe the number is in the hundreds of thousands....Critics say that if typical accounting and stockroom jobs are deemed “sensitive” because of their potential impact on national security, almost any job at any agency could be designated as such and any supervisor or agency could elude normal civil service protections by ginning up a concern about a worker’s background.

“The Obama Administration is seeking a blank check to expand this throughout the executive branch,” Devine said. If the administration’s approach prevails, he said, “any job that matters in the civil service will be outside the rule of law.”
....

April 14, 2013

We are like mere dogs trying to understand the internet.

April 11, 2013

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Drone murders are Ethical, Legal, and Wise.
Chained CPI is Superlative
and
Assault is Protection.

Corporate Propaganda will repeat the Mantras with Great Seriousness, despite having been corrected and corrected and corrected and corrected and corrected.

Why? Because that is the nature of Propaganda.

The chocolate ration will, always and forever, only have been increased.


Myths About Chained CPI, Debunked
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173786/top-5-myths-about-chained-cpi-debunked

April 11, 2013

Fuck "PROTECTIONS" from the President's policies.

How about a Democratic President who doesn't propose legislation that people need to be "PROTECTED" from?

How about a Democratic President who refrains from assaulting us in the first place?
.
.
.
In fact, here's a thought:

Maybe we deserve a Democratic President who actually works ON BEHALF of the people who elected him.

March 31, 2013

Yes you are, and don't fall for the incessant commercials.

Their purpose is to get you to doubt that you are in the majority. Don't buy it for a moment.

Part of what the one percent have created as they have purchased into our government is a devastating propaganda machine to create exactly the type of helplessness you express here. They have purchased both parties, and they have purchased our media, and don't think for a moment that "media" is limited to the cable television channels and newspapers. Corporate-political propaganda is as ubiquitous now on the internet as surveillance is now in our daily lives, and discussion boards like this are a major focus of the corporate political elite. Money talks, and these people have very deep pockets. You will have a very difficult time these days finding any major discussion board on the internet that is not heavily patrolled and propagandized by those who have an interest in shaping public opinion and responses. DU is no exception.

If you watch the board closely over time, you will see the patterns and the tactics coming from the very same group, over and over and over again. Their goal, quite simply, is to create the illusion that their views are mainstream and to intimidate people from expressing opinions critical of the corporate status quo in our party. But watch the actual recs, and you will see that you are very much in the majority when it comes to opinions about policy. The purveyors of Third Way corporatism will use every tactic to talk about anything but the policies; they will personalize the discussion, they will try to make it all about Obama and loyalty to the party, and they will try to swarm and intimidate and mock you. Their goal is to create the impression that everyone thinks as they do, and that you are in the minority.

But you aren't. Recs here on the actual policies coming out of this administration show clearly and devastatingly that you aren't. Polls of Americans across the country show clearly and devastatingly that you aren't.

You are part of a vast majority of Americans who recognize that something is seriously, seriously wrong with our "representative" system and the institutions, like our media, that have historically played the role of watchdog for corruption. We do not have a government that is using its resources to serve the people. We have a government serving the interests of a monied elite. They have an agenda for profit, and their goal is no longer to represent us, but to use every resource they have, and can buy, to keep us as passive and submissive as possible while they implement that agenda.

The propaganda has reached the point of being blatantly Orwellian. That is why you feel crazy and out of step. We are continually told that things are getting better, while we observe every single day a new, serious betrayal by those who claim to represent us. You are not crazy. Things are not getting better. They are getting worse. The chocolate ration has not been increased.

Trust yourself. Keep speaking out. Watch the board closely and see how the game works. Don't let the propaganda win.

December 23, 2012

Look at the Offers. Look at what was never on the table. Real change cannot happen

until we are honest about what we are being fed here. Look at the Offers and how tremendously skewed toward the rich they were, even from Democrats, and even from the start of this process.

This is how thick and ludicrous the corporate propaganda has become, that any Democrat can look at these numbers and claim that we are winning or being honestly represented in any way.

Don't forget that this entire process was rigged from the outset to give us austerity.

That is how it began last spring, and that was the corporatists' goal from the outset: to ensure that austerity and budget slashing are guaranteed as an outcome of this process. That was the purpose of the faux Kabuki Theater debt ceiling Shock Doctrine "crisis" in the first place: to set up a faux crisis and closed door meetings to create a chain of events in which massive budget slashing, or a trigger with slightly less massive budget slashing, were the only possible outcomes.

The ONLY possible outcomes.

It is the stale, familiar, old "lesser of two evils" game by corporatists who own both parties now. Corporate Democrats will ostentatiously withhold a threatened assault on some portion of Social Security or Medicare so that they can point to it and claim to be working hard for us, but the goal all along was to force austerity on America, and they have already guaranteed that.

Look again at the offers from the Democratic side, even after we won this election. They are Absurd. They are so heavily tilted to the rich that this could be a Monty Python skit.

We live in a corporate illusion of representative government. Tell us that these offers make any sense at all from a party that supposedly won this election by a landslide and that pretends to be representing the people. Nothing from Democrats about cutting the MIC. Nothing about cutting corporate welfare. Nothing about cutting the police state. And in a country where Americans overwhelmingly oppose austerity and favor protecting Social Security and Medicare.

Austerity is damaging to economies and deadly to people. Democrats should not be feeding this budget-slashing narrative at all.

Is it time to demand real representation yet?

It is a travesty. Look at the Offers.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2055232

December 19, 2012

How propaganda works to change our expectations of the Democratic Party

We used to take for granted that the Democratic Party had a responsibility to put forth policies to HELP the 99 percent. To actively help all of us, stand with us against predatory corporatism, and push changes in policy to *improve* our lives.

Over time, Third Way propaganda lowered those expectations, so that now we are exhorted to be grateful if the party merely refrains from joining with corporatists to ATTACK us in some way or another. Hence the bids for joy and satisfaction when Obama merely refrains from this or that assault on Social Security or Medicare.

Now, judging from posts on this board, it seems we are moving toward a view that it's okay for Democrats to assault SOME of us, as long as it's not "the most vulnerable." Some here are busily feeding us the idea that it would be perfectly fine to implement the right-wing, tax-regressive scam of a chained CPI across this nation, as long as certain protections are provided for "the most vulnerable among us."

What utter bullshit. The Democratic Party should not be assaulting ANY of us. The Democratic Party should not be in the business of entertaining right-wing scams *at all.*

It's time to step back and remind ourselves what this party is supposed to stand for.

December 18, 2012

Amen with a caveat: This is not only about Medicare and Social Security.

Whether they cut SS and Medicare *this time* or use them again as hostages to convince lemmings that withholding a vicious, contrived blow is the same as standing *for* the people's interests, we are being betrayed and assaulted, repeatedly, by the party that pretends to represent us.

We have lost if they inflict these cuts. But we have still lost even if they do not lower this particular axe on us at this particular time.

SS and Medicare cuts, if they happen now, are happening within a SEA of predatory policies by this President and the bipartisan one percent in both parties. We get austerity and trillions slashed from the budget no matter what. Criminal bankers remain immune to prosecution, no matter what. We get more wars and bloody empire no matter what. We get deform of public education and a fetish of privatization no matter what. We get pipelines and new job-murdering free trade agreements no matter what. And we get a growing surveillance and police state that is suppressing dissent and imprisoning more and more of us every day for profit, no matter what.

There is absolutely nothing serious being offered now or on the horizon to slow the looting or reverse what has been done to us in any way. Rather, the process is being escalated.

This is not *only* about Social Security and Medicare. In fact, I would not be surprised if SS and Medicare were ostentatiously "saved" at the last minute one more time as propaganda to make the people cheer and be grateful and feel represented when the blow is withheld, rather than demanding to know why predatory policies are still being enacted in every other area of our lives, and why nobody is helping us.

Your post is desperately needed, but let's be clear. It's needed whether they inflict this particular blow this time, or not. At a certain point, we need to be honest that we really have one party now in this country, a party of Republican and Democratic corporatists, and that party is assaulting us every single day.