May 28, 2017

Right-wing provocateurs say they are being silenced. Cry me a river

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/28/right-wing-provocateurs-silenced-cry-me-a-river

From the article:

So when senior people at Breitbart and on-air talent at Fox News start saying they are only now realizing the extent of corporate and advertiser power? Cry me a river. They are liars, naïve or have been in a coma for the last 50 years.

Ask the other end of the political spectrum about the impact of corporate control. Truly leftist, progressive voices have been essentially frozen out of the US and UK commercial public spheres. And by “leftist” I don’t mean the Wall Street friendly, Coke-sponsored, pseudosocial democracy of Hillary Clinton.

Critiques of consumption are rarities. When wars rage, most media will cheerlead the battles and interview former generals while anti-war protests, sometimes enormous in size, are either ignored or sidelined as nothing more than PC slacker culture. When truly progressive candidates emerge, they are belittled as at best anomalies and at worst pie-in-the-sky dreamers who will destroy the economy.

Unfettered corporate and advertiser control of the media are real and are bad for democracy. But when people like Bill O’Reilly, Katie Hopkins and Sean Hannity claim victim status after advertiser pressure, let’s remember that they are suffering the consequences of a system they so gleefully championed.

May 28, 2017

Trump's rock-solid support shows in Pennsylvania: 'Why can't we be friends with Russia'

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/trumps-rock-solid-support-shows-in-pennsylvania-why-cant-we-be-friends/2325204

I remember living in this area when our Irish priest went and did a sermon about how we had to tolerate "those people", those people meant us Hispanics. Of course, we fattened Church coffers. I can tell you that this area of the state is made up of the sort of shameful, yes deplorable people that were as bigoted as Kluxers and crude to boot. These were the [people who hated Obama, yet, lo and behold, the head of commerce is the same bastard that killed Bethlehem Steel.

May 28, 2017

THis is for Russia

Which, unlike even China, is actively banking on Climate change because they would see large areas of Siberia become warmer, and a lot more exploitable.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/04/global-warming-who-loses-and-who-wins/305698/'
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-15/russia-wins-in-a-retreat-on-climate-change

So, the question is, can Trump fight off Europe, sadly, if the ties from Russia are smoothed over, and he becomes the Russian ally that Putin wanted (and probably paid for) then yes. Part of the reason he is trying to get rid of Nato is that, after he has sucked in m,oney, he still intends to let Putin run right over Europe, and find a way to make money.

I know many people defend Russia, and point out rightfully that Bill Clinton blew a major chance to help stabilize Russia by NOT calling off the privatization dogs that, if they had their way, would have turned Russia into another puppet republic. However, the RT crowd does not realize that Russia has outright rejected the ideals of the old USSR. It is willing to hop into bed with the sorts of clerics, skinheads and oligarchs that the old Communists were proud to send off to the Gulag Granted, you could say exactly that about the United States and China, though China still dresses herself in Communist costume, albeit she keeps Armani business suits and Versace dresses in her closet.

May 27, 2017

when they say Enes kanter is a terroist

please check out this interview:

May 19, 2017

On Chris Cornell killing himself, and generation X

OK, if you are not a Gen Xer, please hear this out, because even though CC might not have been your generations hero, his death says a lot about our era.
Cornell led Soundgarden, a band that was part of the whole "Seattle Grunge" thing, even though he was always more of a traditonal singer than a punk screamer. He had chops, as is shown in this clip:

Soundgarden was always considered more metal, whereas most of the grunge movements kept on saying "we aint metal, we're punk!" To some extent, that was noble, as they did not want to cash in on another era, but to some extent it showed that people wanted to follow easy labels and simply want to tell their boomer parents to fuck off. Cornell had fans, although they were never like the media anointed darlings/spokesmen of their generation, Nirvana, or their good friends Pearl Jam. You see, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vetter, they knew how to sell the idea of being some tortured soul, so that they could cry all the way to the bank. The Generation X crowd , my group, was so eager to find some way of dealing with real angst, the idea that the last generation really did screw up the world, and left a life where the best chances had faded. Not like they were against all Boomers, indeed, Neil Young joined right in, but that came from the fact that Neil Young really did not care of people loved or hated him, and that is why his career has not died, despite changes in time.

But what happened is that generation X did not know, and indeed, DOES not know, how to deal with it's anger, however justified, in a productive way. That is why so many of the Generation X voices, from Cobain to Layne Stanley to Tupac to now Cornell lived short lives full of "what might have been." Worse, many of them turned conservative, part of that old punk rock "we wanna piss you off" attitude, an attitude that did rear it's ugly head last November when Trump actually used young people and Gen Xers to play Hillary off as the clueless greedy old Baby Boomer.

Now, I offer this to the Millenials and Gen Z. Millennials, you guys are getting a lot of crap, especially from the Boomers and Gen X; ignore it. You beat the Generation Xers are seeing that, unlike them, it is not enough to feel pain and rage, you have to DO something with it, and you are. The Boomers could have been leaders, but too many of them (and yeah Gloria Steinem and Erica Jong, I do include you) choose to demonize you because you would not step in lock, they refused to see that they had to talk TO you, not shout AT you. As far Gen Z, the you tube are already talking about you kids will supposedly be the most conservative geenration ever. All I say is, prove them wrong, because when soem gen Xers bought that from the GOP Boomers, they got screewed, royally, and you do not want to become like the generaion that X'd itself out.

RIP Chris..RIP way too many Gen Xers

May 7, 2017

hey Ireland

you have a choice, get with the 21st century,, or frankly, the rest of the world will look at you as just one more damn backwater. You have many great intellectuals, but you also have many of the same sort of people that immigrated to America and make sure that a bunch of fat old priest could get away with murder,, molestation, and a series of other crimes that your average mafiosi would not dare to touch. You can either prove that you are beyond all that, as you leave England to its own do the upper exit and join the new EU, and option frankly I wish that my nation had.. Or you can be just not a religious backwater that will be drowned in the flood as humanity frankly gets tired of propping up the religious in the world.