The Media Muddles it All

All day long I have been watching the news. Its been Trump, Trump, Trump like a drum beat from hell. This is how he won the nomination; hour upon hour of free media while other candidates on both sides of the contest were ignored. If it hadn't been from this media orgy over a reality T.V. conman and his idiot fans - not supporters, fans - Trump wouldn't have made it past the first debate.

Currently, he has honed his attention getting skills to one tactic. Every few days he says something outrageous, more outrageous then what he said a few days before, and the media is off and running. They chase his comments and his comments about his comments ad nauseam. Thus, he never has to talk about anything that could remotely be construed as policy or vision. If Clinton or Kaine are talking policy out on the trail, you won't know it. If Sanders or Warren are talking about the candidate's policies out on the trail, you won't know it. Nothing can be heard above the roar and din of the Trump machine - its cruelty, crudity, inanity, insanity and stupidity.

It is Sweeps Week all the time as the mainstream media chases ratings. For all the pseudo intellectualism, plastic patriotism and putrid emotionalism, there is no plausible reality, genuine humanity or journalistic integrity to be had.

All the people worried about Clinton losing because of Bernie or Bust, disaffected Progressives, or deluded Moderate Republicans fed bullshit and kept in the dark by the Rightwing echo chamber, you best worry about the media. They stirred up a frenzy around a two-for-a-nickel-half-baked celebrity that propelled him into a major party nomination. If we aren't careful that same self-serving bunch of corporate media shills will propel him into the White House without the slightest concern about what they are doing to this country.

It has never been more important for people capable of critical thinking to demand more of the corporate entities that now control OUR airways. It is easy enough to contact the major media outlets and their assorted hucksters, talking heads and empty wagons rattling loudly. Twitter is an excellent way to do this, but email and the old phone call work just as well.

Hell of a Week

I dislike the phrase team player.  I am not a team player; indeed, I am not a player of any kind.  Don’t know how to play.  I don’t need a team and haven’t a problem being alone.  Owing to my lifelong Paganism and my adult lifelong Socialism, I am often alone. I am not a leader or a follower and will not be conscripted into either.  Any attempt to do so will only piss me off.  I am not a nice person when I am pissed off.

Having said all of this, I have spent the last four days watching the Republican Convention – watching people systematically, angrily and even aggressively brow beating one another into supporting a narcissistic sociopath, pathological liar and dangerously reckless man for the Presidency of the United States of America. It is patently insane. I keep looking down the block for Rod Serling, cigarette in hand, sardonically greeting me in the Twilight Zone.

Underlying all of this forced conformity in the home of the free and the land of the brave is the misguided idea that bloated, self satisfied, condescending, money grubbing political parties can and must control the conscience of a people.  This concept is working in tandem with the idiotic notion that thoughtful adults, bright children, even loving pets should look to double dealing, treacherous politicians for moral authority.  It is the worst kind of group think, of mob mentality driven by the greatest of lies and delusions – that somehow men and women who spend their lives peddling influence and promoting their own self interest have reached a moral high ground unseen by ordinary mortals. 

Their rallying cry is Clinton is corrupt.  The whole goddamned system is corrupt as the advocates of corporate subsidies and Citizens United like McConnell, Ryan, Christie and Giulliani well know.  Hell, corruption is our avatar; greed our greatest cardinal virtue; power for power’s sake the prayer of the mighty and the scourge of the down trodden.  In this soulless wasteland of our own making the Right insists in the name of God, county, guns, home schooling, the Rapture, football and mom’s apple pie that Donald J. Trump, conman-carnival barker-misogynist-racist-xenophobe-often failed businessman, is our new found savior. 

I can’t tell anyone how to vote.  I can only say without hesitation, qualification or reservation that from what I have seen this week there is a malignant movement afoot in this country.  There is a thread of Fascism and authoritarianism running through the fabric of our Republic.  Both have been on full display this week in Cleveland and must be stopped.  It can only be done at the polls.  So, in the vernacular of sports – second only to Christ in our reverence and respect – chose your team and place your bets, but be prepared to take responsibility for the game you instigate.

Feel the Bern

Sanders has endorsed Clinton. Frankly I have said before and will say again, Bernie Sanders is a great Senator, a great man and too goddamned good for that toilet in the Oval Office. Let the dog fight begin between Clinton and Trump, and a dog fight it will be.

Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ran to the Left and governed to the Center Right. This must not be tolerated again. The Left energized by Senator Sander and the movement he has started must not allow our voices, our will and our votes to be taken for granted. The Democratic Platform is nonbinding; our demands are not.

I am not concerned with Party unity. I am not concerned with the survival of the establishment in politics, media or finance. I have been an anti-establishment radical all of my life. No apology is forthcoming. I have been a Democratic Socialist all of my voting life, and am committed to the principles of that ideology and to Bernie's movement. I am not happy with how this nomination process has ended. However, ended it has because Bernie has called it - not the miserable media, not the bloody Party, not Clinton or her followers, but Bernie.

Whomever you choose to vote for in November at the top of the ticket is between you, the Goddess/God of your conscience and/or your personal convictions. Nonetheless, it can't be denied that the down ballot races are critical. Critical I say, because we cannot leave the House, the Senate and state governments in the hands of people who through greed, avarice, fanaticism and assorted personality disorders have turned government into a whorehouse/traveling medicine show/inquisition/untreated psychotic's playground. So prepare to VOTE!

I have followed the career of my fellow socialist, Bernie Sanders, longer then many of his current followers have been alive. I know that he did what he thought was best today. I have never known him to do anything else. He is one person in our government whose integrity and honor have never been for sale or compromised.

I am not convinced that the Democratic Party serves the common good, but I know Bernie does. For now let us Feel the Bern and kick Trump's ass.

Praying, Indeed

Our politicians pray to God to cover their tracks. They pray to the NRA for bigger shoes. We must put an end to the whoring of America. The down ballot races are critical. Citizens United must be over turned for the soul of this nation, for our future.

Dog Days

If I were Clinton I would put Bill, the Big Dog as Chris Matthews calls him, in a kennel. He just can't resist doing the stupid thing; to wit, arguing with Millennial voters; showing up at polling places while votes are being cast; strolling onto the Attorney General's plane with the easy freedom of a man whose wife is NOT being investigated by factions of the Justice Department.

Let me say that I consider much of what the Right has propagated about HRC over the years to be claptrap. I certainly don't think that she has killed anyone. As I said to dear friend recently, I don't believe for one minute that she has the brains or the nerve to orchestrate a murderous criminal concern al a Capone or Luciano. As an Italian American I really must insist that these men be given the respect they are due within their chosen field. They were career criminals, and they were good at it; they were professional killers, not sloppy opportunists. They were not cheap politicians, they owned politicians. As a further disclaimer, let me also say that I have no use for Bill Clinton. I haven't since he turned the party of FDR into the party of Go-Along-To-Get-Along, wondering penis and magic zipper aside. But, let all this go.

The material point here is that if you want to elect this woman in November, put Fido on a chain out back. Bring him in for speeches. Watch him close. His antics are not amusing to a great many of us who are reminded of the arrogance and tone-deaf elitism that turned us off establishment politicians and their politics years ago.