Posts Tagged ‘america’

“History is always written the winners” Dan Brown

It is in our nature to follow rather than lead. It is in our nature to believe rather than to question.

If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be so easy to propagandize.

And in the modern world, humans are constantly propagandized.

Propagandized to buy, to believe, to escape, to be lead.

It is in our nature to believe we are the good guys. Individually we constantly tell ourselves in our own head that we are a good person. That our family, our tribe, our community, our country, our gender, are the good ones.

That bias is leveraged.

Smart phones have turned peer pressure into a propaganda atom bomb that never stops detonating.

What feels better than being right? Especially when life can make us feel so wrong sometimes.

So when a war is waged, of course we’re the good guys. What did the other side do? Why? War is the only answer?

Where does the money for war come from? What else could that money be used on? Who makes money during a war?

Money can be made during a war? Is that a good thing. Of course, because we’re the good guys.

But if we’re the good guys, descendants of the winners of all the previous wars, then these questions are moot, unpatriotic, and weak. And we can’t have that, what if our enemies found out?

Luckily for us, we’re the good guys.

It’s the good guys in charge.

It’s the good guys dropping bombs.

It’s the good guys selling weapons.

It’s the good guys controlling the media.

It’s the good guys running the economy.

Because if they’re not good, what does that mean about us?

Naiveté of economic realities is something that seems unfortunately baked into human nature. In America where poor people or people who are just one step above being poor vote against their own better interests for generations.

The “Took Our Jobs” folks who are always ready, willing, and able to point their finger and raise their ire at anyone other than the billionaire capitalist class that is responsible.


“cash rules everything around me”
 is a universally agreed upon law of American life and other first world countries. So what does that mean when for the affluent when applied to income inequality, outsourcing, inflation, and tax cuts?

The people with the least, have the most influence on the lives of others?

Bernays won
in a landslide.

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By @anarchyroll

No thing quite says the Republican party of the United States of America like a tax cut.

Did you notice how quickly and easily Congress was able to push through a tax cut for the wealthy? Almost every other piece of legislation (except for military spending increases) that has been attempted to be passed over the past decade has been a textbook example of two-party democratic government not working. If 1980s Dominos Pizza was delivering this tax cut, the oligarchs would get it piping hot and received no discount..

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Every aspect of this Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is a big, bright, and bold example of how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in America. Follow the money is an age old expression. Congressional gridlock shows just how true that is. Because the only bills that have moved quickly through Congress have been military spending increases and this tax cut. The military industrial complex (who own he Democratic Party like violent pimps) and the oligarchs. King Kong ain’t got shit on them.

This bill is less about the Republican Party and more about who they represent and who they work for. Is it half of the American population? Is it a loud minority? A silent majority? Follow the money, who does this tax cut benefit?

Passing legislation has come to a halt in America since the last two years of the George W Bush administration. There was that one big exception, but almost every other bill has been stuck in legislative gridlock hell that is the United States Congress. Healthcare reform, immigration reform, financial regulation, digital privacy protection, et al have moved at painfully slow speeds if at all. Even common sense, bipartisan bills have had a hard time even seeing the light of day on the floor of either house of Congress.

But a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans? A 500 page bill involving one of the largest transfers of wealth in the history of the country? Less than a month is more than enough time. How does that happen? Why does that happen? Is that not why we fled England in the first place? I guess no taxation without representation only applies to taxes going up and not taxes going down, on less than two percent of the population.

Is this a tax cut to benefit people making less than one hundred thousand dollars per year? Less than fifty? Less than thirty?  Many might snicker and say those making so little don’t pay taxes anyway. That is the problem isn’t it? There are vastly more people in the current society who will benefit more in the day to day lives from taxes collected on the wealthy (social safety nets, community services) than by a one time, minor at best, windfall from a tax cut/credit.

The tax bill moved so fast through both houses that they have needed double, if not triple the amount of time to take the bills into conference committees to negotiate and fix the numerous, egregious math and budgeting errors. Drafting and finalizing a compromise bill behind closed doors has taken the place of proper on the floor debate as a result of this Congress moving at lightning speed to pass a bill that no one had time to read, let alone make logical decisions based upon critical thinking.

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Congress rushed through this bill like a college kid rushing to finish a final paper or cramming at the last-minute for a midterm. There are two key differences there and that is that when a college kid waits until the last-minute to do their deep work it only affects them and their roommates. The legislative branch of the United States of America however, effects just slightly more people than a dormitorium.

Greed and corruption like this used to have the cover of a lack of transparency. In the era of telephones and television and newspapers and radios and telegraphs it was much easier for politicians to say X, do Y, and say the result is Z. The age of the smartphone makes it easier to be shady, but much harder to keep it a secret. The wave of careers being ended by sexual misconduct allegations from Hollywood to Washington is evidence of this.

What is also apparent when held up to the light of day is the fact that this bill is amoral. Ethics, budgets, math do not apply to this trillion dollar wealth transfer. Negotiated in secret, passed before it could be read, full of so many errors that both the House and Senate versions needed to be negotiated so much they were both essentially rewritten. How does the urgency of this compare to the passing of hurricane relief to Puerto Rico?

The tax cut of 2017 that has been instituted by the Republican party has been called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 by some and the #TaxScamBill by others. Terms of endearment or damnation depending on which side of the political aisle and socioeconomic spectrum one falls on. What are facts and not opinions however are that this bill was so rushed it wasn’t read or proofread by the people who wrote it. That there were so many earmarks in there in such short order that many proved to be illegible when held up to the light of day or a camera

This tax cut is like putting your coat down at a bar, turning your back for a minute, then turning back to find someone going through the pockets and them playing dumb about it. They know what they’re doing, but are hoping to use ignorance as a guise for willful immorality.

 

 


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By @anarchyroll

Do social media platforms or the people running them have a responsibility to the public or to the republic? Is it in the nature of the services to spread modern-day propaganda which has been repackaged as fake news? Are these mediums a cause for negative events or are they simply mirrors and microphones? Are they bringing the worst out of people and society? Or are they just the biggest magnifying glass in the history of the species?

Are these services really that much different from the mediums that came before them? Radio and television have the exact same purpose as social media services…..to sell ads and the information about the people who consume them.

There is no moral compass at play with Facebook, with Twitter, especially with Google or Instagram or Snapchat. They are capitalist enterprises with one reason for existing, to make money. So if one or all of the companies get offered a lot of money from a foreign country to run political ads during a presidential campaign, why wouldn’t they take the money and put the content on their platform?

Oh, the information was blatantly false? It was straight up propaganda from a foreign government? Yeah okay but, they paid up front. Money talks. In America the Supreme Court has literally said money equals speech.

If anyone thinks Facebook or Google has a moral compass or conscious, try and find out exactly what they’re doing with all that personal metadata they mine from everyone who uses their services and/or apps.

It is not just a little too late to have the “ so social media companies have a responsibility” argument. That ship sailed once the collective population decided we didn’t want our phones to be phones anymore. Once the companies realized they were able to tap into our collective dopamine addictions by turning what used to be a portable audio communicator into a slot machine that can fit into a skinny jeans pocket, responsibility went right out the window.

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Do casinos have a responsibility to their guests other than making them enjoy losing their wages? Of course not, the whole business model is built around taking money out of people’s pockets and into the casino safe. Well social media is the casino and our attention and personal information is the cash.

On top of all that, Facebook (which owns Instagram), Twitter, and Snapchat are publicly traded companies. So quite literally, their only responsibility is to maximize profits for their shareholders. Their collective interest in the health of democracy only goes as far as the stock market opening and closing on time.

Americans love social media. We also love seeing powerful people get yelled at in public by elected officials. Dogs and ponies are adorable, who wouldn’t want to see a whole show of them? Well we got the best of both worlds last week when lawyers representing the big social media players went to capitol hill and got a verbal spanking from some very angry public officials.

It was modern American politics personified. Verbal spankings, non answers, legislation proposed but not supported, visual aide charts, legal jargon, and pledges to do better in the future. The vitriol directed at social media is just a reflection of our collective anger at ourselves. We’re angry for thinking social media would be a tool for good and not just a tool to make money.

We’re angry at ourselves for being so readily fooled by fake news that we’re all to easily manipulated into believing are the real thing. We’re angry at ourselves because we thought the internet, and the web 2.0 that social media represents would make us more informed and more united. Instead it’s deepened our divide and by putting our preexisting confirmation biases on technological steroids.

Our elected officials can yell at high-priced lawyers all they want. Public berating is much easier than putting regulations into place. It’s easier for Facebook and Twitter to higher more lobbyists than more moderators to discern what is being put on their platforms, by whom, and for what purpose. It’s easier to apologize later than to do the right thing in the moments of choice. We know this. That’s why we’re not angry at social media for what happened during the 2016 election season, we’re angry at ourselves.

 

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By @anarchyroll

What does it feel like to tell someone they must remain sick or die so that you can have more disposable income? In America, you indirectly tell people through backdoor lobbying of elected representatives with dark money.

What is the cost of living? Is there a societal flash point where that question is addressed out in the open collectively? In 2017, it feels like that point may be boiling closer to the surface than ever before. It was thought that the question was asked and answered in 2010 with the passing of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) into law.

What was learned was that there were a great volume of people who benefited from having access to health insurance who didn’t before and there was a large volume of money spent to resist the legislation at every possible turn. It seemed like a vocal majority of the country enjoyed what the ACA did for them. We also found out from the 2016 presidential election, that the silent majority of this country (whites) knows how and when to make a stink.

Repeal and Replace has been a battle cry for over half a decade for the Republican Party and the top one percent of economic earners whom they represent. Obamacare was nowhere near unflawed. Despite its limitations, holes, and warts it did accomplish something that those on the left have been championing for almost a century; access to free/low-cost healthcare to millions of people regardless of political affiliation or belief.

The masses have had a whiff, a taste, a sample of universal health care…there is no going back.

Republicans currently control the United States government. They have the executive and legislative branches and are gaining control of the judiciary. With such deep and vast control, they have been unable to eliminate Obamacare. How? The only thing that’s stopping them is the voting public. Who would’ve thought that an approval rating of 24% as a Congress compared to a 55% approval rating of Obamacare would create obstacles in a democracy?

There used to be this thing called give and take, compromise for short. In terms of economic policy in America for the past half century, it has become take, take, take. Income inequality is at eye-popping levels. Social media has put a magnifying glass on the haves in America. Their appetites of ego and greed has had them binge sharing their lives via smartphones for a decade. One thing all of these filtered and geo tagged pictures, videos, and stories have made clear; is that the 1% can never get enough.

I suppose it would be great to live our lives on permanent vacation. Is that not the end result of the American Dream? Going from the beach, to the boat, to the club, to the rooftop bar, to the personal jet, to the invitation only party, in the unlisted restaurant, at the private island, etc. This lifestyle requires opting out of the social contract, it is an evolution of the gated community.

To live these contribution-less lifestyles, there must be a transfer of wealth without physical labor or violence. The American Health Care Act of 2017 has been independently shown to be nothing more than a tax cut for and transfer of wealth to the top one percent of income earners in America. It is a money grab through the legislative process. It is a bank heist through legal channels.

Okay, that might be too cynical of a view. We should be glass half full kind of people. It’s better to just think of the repercussions of this bill, as a cost of living adjustment.