Friday, September 02, 2016

My Experience of Counterfeit Capitalism

For most of my life, I've felt dog-eat-dog capitalism was unreasonable. Many people are born to difficulty, or temporarily weak. Others have huge advantages.

I've felt our communities should assist neighbors in need.

America's system of so-called free enterprise & market capitalism nonetheless provided some foundations for my life. Agree or disagree, it was a mechanism allowing calculated prediction and an underpinning for action. Somewhat understanding risks, everyday I made speculative choices based on a somewhat stable world view.

The bailout of 2008 changed my view of the world. Simply, the leadership elite bailed-out their friends, giving huge public funds to glaring, unmistakable losers (who were personally already wealthy), and absolutely undermined our system.

Bad managers should have lost their jobs: they were retained -- and rewarded.

Failed firms should have fertilized those enterprises more cautious & agile. Instead, the defeated status-quo were pushed forward, assisted by public money. It was a major & fundamental breach of global trade rules: American politicos gave state subsidies to prop-up chosen private enterprises. The dimension of accountability was shredded, torn-down, and subsequently ignored.
We had been forced to buy into the game of the Capitalist Pigs (where most of us are born disadvantaged); then, they suspended rules for their players, and assisted the recovery of our masters and overseers.

The toxic 1% helps itself.




Thursday, September 01, 2016

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Corporate Stooge

Needing to resign in disgrace just before the 2016 Democratic Party Convention could not further dull Debbie Wasserman Schultz. An establishment insider from south Florida, the former DemParty Chair was immediately named (an) Honorary Chairperson of the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign.

Is this person a public servant?   ... a corporatist hack for our 1%?
Is the U.S. Congresswoman innocent & pure? Just slightly nasty?
Or a parasitic octopus sucking life & wealth to benefit her masters?

Was Mrs. Clinton forced to sacrifice her loyal lackey as coverup? ... Was Dirty Debbie ousted as Party Chair simply for doing as ordered -- to bring Clinton to the White House? Do I sniff a SCAPEGOAT?

Debbie's sure to return (link)... like Clinton, she's a zombie rogue



Note: Just after this posting, mindwatch.com suddenly received many thousands of new hits from Israel -- Debbie fans or extended family? ...her south Florida constituency took no notice of this blog.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

My Vietnam War Lesson

US war in Vietnam and surrounding nations ended over 40 years ago. It was a hugely costly struggle: terrible injuries, tragic loss of life, cruel social upheaval, threat of death for people throughout Indochina (and young male Americans via forced conscription), excessive 'defense' spending, destruction of environment, betrayal of trust.

It's the last which continues to haunt many people. We are told the war is over, with no reckoning. The many errors and crimes were poorly counted, unanswered and seemingly forgotten. The U.S. leadership & ruling class dodged any Truth & Reconciliation Commission... Should wholesale destruction on such scale be tolerated with no analysis? Should trans-global butchery be excused without judging responsibility? America has ignored all consequences.

Architects of the war have escaped justice. Military planners moved to different projects. It's insufficient to simply mutter "Ooops!" Corporate profiteers & warmongers in the military along with Democrat & Republican war criminals evaded responsibility. America's genocidal leadership putrefied later decades.

We survivors of all types continue suffering post-traumatic stress:
that Vietnam War was too fucked-up to forget...





Saturday, August 27, 2016

Land Thief Claims to be "Partner"

The USA intruded on Hawaiian sovereignty. The US military supported the overthrow of the Hawaiian government. The USA has taken huge areas of Hawaiian lands without compensation. Much land is occupied by the US military. Some of the seized land is highly sacred, including the historic burial site at Mokapu (Heleloa funeral grounds) which the Yankee Marine Corps bulldozed to create Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course -- one of many unnecessary military golf courses on Oahu.

The USA has repeatedly apologized to the Hawaiian people, but:

We want our land back from the intruder.



"Citizens' Guards" after US-backed overthrow of Hawai'i's government
Commandeering Hawaiʻi's ʻIolani Palace behind military cannons



Thursday, August 25, 2016

Obama's Biggest Mistake?

US President Barack Obama has about 150 days remaining as president. He's pledged an all-out effort to pass TPP, Trans Pacific Partnership -- the highly pro-corporate trade deal.

It is indicative that his final legacy is selling-out the citizenry in favor of rich & powerful corporations. His likely successor, Hillary Clinton, may be supportive of Obama taking the heat; she's even more beholden to big business, but needs to answer to the people over coming years, while Obama can just fade from sight as baby Bush has done.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize laureate, agrees the TPP push is Obama's great mistake (link). But it's only a mistake when seen from the perspective of the people represented... not a mistake from the narrow self-interest of money-grubbing politicos.


Sunday, August 21, 2016

Olympic Scoundrels

Media coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics turned most gleeful not from human endeavor & sportsmanship, but from tragedy and hurtfulness.

Rupert Murdoch & the other media barons, Matt Lauer & "human interest" reporters, created Olympic Gold from dredging dirt.

Top stories producing GOLD for media corporations:

Olympic Media $coundrel Gold Medalist: Ryan Lochte, USA
Pissy prima donna Lochte heroically dodges bullets in Rio, returns to the USA with a relay gold after abandoning his teammates. Sorta sorry now...

Media $coundrel Silver Medalist: Renaud Lavillenie, France
Hometown favorite Thiago da Silva clears a new Olympic pole vault record. Defending Olympic Champion Lavillenie fails to match the height, and bitterly compares his experience of crowd animosity with Nazi racism at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. 

Media $coundrel Bronze Medalist: Hope Solo, USA
The heavily-favored US women's football (soccer) team is defeated by underdog Sweden. Just after the match, disappointed US goalkeeper Hope Solo calls the joyous Swedish team "Cowards." Sweden goes on to win Olympic Silver; US women go home empty-handed. Solo's subsequent six-month suspension by US Soccer for her "cowards" comment may be linked (reasonably?) to the US women's wage discrimination lawsuit against US soccer bureaucrats -- Solo is a major litigant -- [media & assorted lawyers are sure to profit from the controversy].

We media consumers must be aware that our emotions are exposed, and we each are played by media professionals like fish on the hook, with sport reporting as with political reporting. Next event: Clinton vs. Trump
Who's the CHUMP?