They proved that this could be turned into that in the minds of millions of Americans in the blink of an eye merely to sell more of a product that kills its consumers. Doesn't matter. Content simply does not matter. Image is everything.
If they could so deftly shape masculine and feminine expression in the name of a duplicitous and deadly commerce why couldn't they also have the ability to reshape these things to suit a revolutionary aim to destroy a cohesive society?
If we could stop seeing these issues as liberal vs. conservative and red state vs. blue state and instead see the manipulation as the blatant and cheap marketing scam that it is, perhaps we can save this culture.
What makes me laugh every time one of these things comes around - every 2 to 4 years of course being THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER - is all those folks out there who mock their fellow citizens who pay too much attention to Dancing With the Stars or sports or whatever other meaningless distractions they are so wrapped up in and "don't care enough about their country to take the time to vote."
Please pay attention, because I'm only gonna say this once:
The election IS the distraction.
The political circus is the curtain cast over the economic construct that is hammering us all into indentured slavery.
95 percent of the politicians are owned outright by this economic construct. The other 5 percent are useful idiots because they make the charade all the more believable. They will never have the power to effect meaningful change inside a fixed game and so they go to Washington and learn how to "work within the system." And then they slowly become part of the other 95 percent.
If you want to effect real change in this nation, stop buying things from large multinational corporations. Get your money out of big banks. Don't go to movies or sporting events. Get rid of cable. Boycott Disney.
Stop feeding the tyranny. Stop buying into the illusion of choice.
It will be difficult and you won't always be 100 percent pure but that is the only way to really do something. To the best of your ability, remove yourself from the rotted construct.
Or you can vote. And continue to be part of the problem while getting to lecture all the rest of us about how you are part of the solution.
You get to feel good about yourself. And, hey, isn't that the most important thing in America today?
10 years ago, on July 1, 2003, I went through one of the more jarring personal experiences with our new society imaginable. Arrested at a Baltimore Orioles baseball game because of a ridiculously overzealous usher and a warped and spiteful police officer, I was escorted in handcuffs via paddy wagon to a true hellhole known as Baltimore Central Lockup, where I got to experience... well, I'll let the story speak for itself:
Eventually morning came and still nothing, no word on when I would get out or anything. And after sleeping and eating and even more waiting and waiting, the cellblock started to get more agitated and lively. And that's when the threats came. It didn't exactly come as a shock that skinny white guys like me are going to get threatened in jail, but it did shock me that as much as 20 minutes could go by without a guard so much as walking past my cell. And so what do you do when, after having overheard hours of casual conversation about stabbings and beating people over the head with baseball bats, etc., etc., you're told by a group of men, all of whom are bigger and stronger than you, that they are going to rape you in one hour? Maybe they were just trying to frighten me, who knows, but you know what, who cares? It's still gonna scare the living hell out of you and it was just such a bizarre, surreal experience to be standing there powerless, knowing that I could easily - easily - have my life literally destroyed at any time. It just didn't seem real to me, which looking back I have to say was a good thing. In between Our Fathers and Hail Marys all I could really think was "What's the score man? What's the score?" as these guys kept telling me crudely and pointedly that they were going to assault me in one hour.
Sentenced to community service, I made a promise to myself as I labored within eyesight of Camden Yards, home of the Orioles:
So on a very pleasant Tuesday in September, 2003 I reported to a community services center in the Pigtowne section of Baltimore to complete my rehabilitation. Three other community service peons joined me, and we were assigned the task of mowing, raking and cleaning up three small vacant lots near the center. It was really all too perfect. The location turned out to be just a couple of blocks from Camden Yards, and I could see the light stantions from Oriole Park as I did the work.
And so as I was bagging grass cuttings in a urine-stenched lot while staring at the twinkling spires of one of Bud Selig's golden palaces of greed, I could only think how this was such a fitting farewell to Major League Baseball and the incompetent fools who have driven yet another fan away forever. What's the score, Bud? What's the score?
And here we are 10 years later and what has changed? The foreboding direction I could clearly see stadium security hurtling towards in 2003 has gotten worse and worse over the years. Observe this example of a fan arrest at an Arizona Cardinals football game. Not much to see as to the actual arrest but note the dire warning on the scoreboard encouraging fans to report each other to authorities:
(0:08 mark)
So glad to see that the Soviet-era neighbor-watching-neighbor model is still thriving at major sporting events. I personally noticed it for the first time at that Orioles game back in '03. Up to that point, I had never seen messages like that on a scoreboard at a game.
But wait... there's more! Seattle Seahawks fans can look forward to an experience more in line with the TSA than the traditional sports usher as they enter the stadium for the NFL team's games this season. Check out this story from last month:
On Friday, CenturyLink Field emailed season-ticket holders information about the new rules, which were announced by the Seahawks and 31 other NFL teams Thursday to make security searches quicker and easier.
Fans are encouraged to leave all bags at home. If that doesn’t work for them, fans can bring one clear plastic bag (the Ziploc freezer variety, for example) or a clear tote sized 12 inches by 6 inches by 12 inches, in addition to a purse small enough to fit in your hand — a so-called clutch.
Any other kind of large bag is forbidden, including larger purses, coolers, fanny packs, cinch bags, diaper bags, laptop bags and large camera bags. Season-ticket holders will receive an appropriately sized clear vinyl bag for free.
Seat cushions are also banned because they could conceal an explosive device, the NFL said. Signs and banners must be standard letter-sized or smaller, at 8.5 by 11 inches.
And baseball hasn't changed a single bit. How about the out-of-town fan arrested in Washington, D.C. at a Nationals game for trying to get rid of tickets for face value or less for a game he would not be in town for?
The officer wanted to know what I was asking. Not wanting to be labeled a scalper, I said, “Love to get face value.” These words started a Kafka-esque journey into the D.C. criminal justice system.
Told to stand against a wall, I was informed that I was under arrest for “solicitation.” I explained that I was from out of town and that I was not trying to “scalp,” and I apologized for not knowing that what I was doing was a crime. As the officer ran a check on my Minnesota driver’s license, I wondered how bad the ticket would be.
The officer came back and told the trainee to call for transport.
“You going to do this?” the trainee asked, somewhat incredulously.
“Absolutely.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“Does it look like I’m kidding?” the officer replied. Things went downhill from there.
The original article that I wrote back in 2004 garnered a good amount of reader responses, even though there was no comments section to post on. These readers all emailed their comments. From across the country fans and citizens decried the eroding of freedoms we all used to take for granted only a few years earlier. I saved one letter from a commenter who wrote:
I do not go to "events" anymore, ever. No sports, no concerts, no picnics, no Disneyland, no nothing. It's not worth it. I'm boycotting all of society because it sucks. The scumbags have taken over, and only by completely rejecting them and their bull will decent normal people ever have a chance just to live free ever again.
I urge you boycott society, also, and tell everyone why. If you don't, then you are part of the problem, considering the Truth you discovered by direct personal experience.
Well, it's been 10 years without Major League Baseball and I can't say it's been much of a sacrifice. In fact, I've barely noticed it. I have attended a few hockey, basketball and football games that I got free tickets from somebody for and without exception the experience was awful. All this security crap combined with the bombardment of nonstop advertising and artificial bells and whistles makes for a truly terrible live experience. I have written on this elsewhere.
It saddens to me to say that I must agree with that letter writer who doesn't go to "events" anymore. It's not only a political statement on my part, though there is some of that in the decision. Mostly it's that I feel like a sap for feeding at this corrupt corporate trough. Quite simply, almost everything that passes for an "event" in our modern decaying society today is just not worth doing.
I can honestly say that I don't feel I am missing out on anything. Except the possibility of being gang raped in an inner city prison, of course.
Corporate sports are setting us up for the corporate police state. Turn away and don't look back. Believe me, sports fans, it's a lot easier than you think.
Current industrial farming practices rely heavily on grain. Under current US agriculture policy, the government provides substantial subsidies to farmers who produce grains, particularly corn and soybeans. Livestock producers often use corn and soy as a base for their animal feed because these protein-rich grains help bring animals to market weight faster, and because they are cheaper than other feed options as a result of government subsidies. It has been estimated that the operating costs of factory farms would be 7-10% higher without these subsidies. As a result, a large percentage of grains grown in the US are used in animal feed, with 47% of soy and 60% of corn produced in the US being consumed by livestock.
Government welfare? Yes. Cheaper? Yes. Better? A resounding NO:
The overreliance on grain-based animal feeds in industrial food animal production has negative consequences for animal health, the environment, and even human health. Considering the natural eating habits of livestock animals when formulating animal feeds would be beneficial to both animals and consumers, and will result in healthier herds and flocks, less reliance on antibiotics to control disease, as well as a lower chance of introducing certain pathogens into society via contaminated meat.
In short, you get what you pay for. The notion that something is cheap for the consumers' benefit is the number one thing that has to be stamped out of modern American brains. Mass-produced goods such as what passes for modern food are cheap for the benefit of massive multinational corporations. Period.
If it was more profitable for them to sell a quality product at a quality price, they would do so. It is not. In this Potemkin mirage of convenience and plenty, the money is made by selling cheap garbage at a small markup over and over and over again.
You pay $3 for a crappy gallon of filth that costs them 20 cents to produce. I pay $5 for a quality gallon of pure, nutrient-dense, real milk from healthy, pastured cows. The larger price is factored in from the cost of maintaining the land, keeping the cows healthy and happy and all the other little things that make for the superior living food product I immensely enjoy with every glorious glass of joy.
In the past I never felt the remotest need to give thanks to God for my store-bought milk. The idea seemed silly. I truly in my heart thank God for the life-giving bounty that nourishes me now.
Pay more for real food and pay less for your pointless distractions, such as the wasteland that is cable television today. You need food to live. You don't need reality television at all.
Self-described "devout Catholic" Paul Ryan now says he supports homosexuals adopting children, disavowing his previous voting record on the issue:
RYAN: Adoption, I’d vote differently these days. That was I think a vote I took in my first term, 1999 or 2000. I do believe that if there are children who are orphans who do not have a loving person or couple I think if a person wants to love and raise a child they ought to be able to do that. Period. I would vote that way.
Gotta love the "period" part. Like he's taking a strong stand on something instead of just blowing in the wind.
It's bad enough that we have the most corrupt politicians of all time. But do they have to be so awkward and flat-out bad at concealing their corruption?
This article from across the pond is frightening and revealing...
Homes in Britain are becoming the smallest in Europe with new one-bed flats now typically no bigger than a Tube carriage.
Faced with rising land costs, developers are cramming a lounge, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom into as little as 495 square feet.
The result is ‘cramped, dark and artificially lit’ environments that put health and wellbeing at risk, the Royal Institute of Architects said.
With our corrupt politicians in the pockets of large, amoral corporations AND simultaneously seeking to expand the total influence of the federal goliath over us all, this is the future we have to look forward to.
There is a concerted effort to get citizens off the land and into the ever-growing megacities currently cropping up all over the U.S. I lived in Washington, D.C. for 25 years before moving away in October and one could see quite plainly how the city stretched out ever wider by the year, like a sponge absorbing more and more around it.
Today, the city of Washington is a vast swath of strip malls, townhouses and condos extending for miles without reprieve. One could drive from Warrenton, Va. north for about 12 miles, then east to the Beltway and north toward Frederick Md., a distance of roughly 78 miles in all. You could chart the continual growth of the Communist Bulgaria-era block housing over time. There would be gaps here and there, but you could see the blight pushing in to fill any remaining space with each passing year.
It is all very soulless, overcrowded and removed from the land. An artificial glow of streetlights and business lighting constantly smothers the beauty of night and the choking oppression of traffic and cookie-cutter concrete landscapes suffocate the natural light of day.
When the government provides everything they can stuff us into cages. There we will be far easier to control than if we were scattered amongst the countryside, like... oh, what's the word?.... like.... free people.
These mind-boggling images capture the scale of soaring apartment blocks in one of the world's most densely populated areas; Hong Kong.
As home to a population of more than seven million crammed into an area measuring just 424 square miles, space in Hong Kong is at a premium.
It means that, when it comes to providing accommodation for Hong Kong's huge population, the only way to go is up.
But fret not. Everybody gets his own box to call his own:
They are barely large enough for a single person to squeeze into at all, let alone swing a cat.
But incredibly these tiny 'coffin' apartments in central Tokyo still command rents of up to £400 a month.
The Japanese capital is one of the most crowded cities in the world, and to cash in on the chronic housing problem, landlords have developed what are known as 'geki-sema' or share houses.
If you want to avoid this definition of Hell, fight against the illegal invasion of our homeland, stop supporting the corporate behemoths who dream of one universal customer base and get back in touch with the outdoors and the rhythmic heartbeat of nature.
Years ago I came across this prophetic quote and it has stuck with me ever since. This man foresaw the horror of our modern "global village", a horror that is now threatening to engulf us all:
In a 1932 essay filed from Berlin, the critic Giovanni Battista Angioletti warned Italians of the dire fate that awaited them if they succumbed to the seductions of foreign models of modernity:
[Y]ou will be an element, an atom of the crowd... surrounded by four million men similar to yourself, who have your same thoughts... You will see the green fields and open sky only on Saturdays and Sundays. You will never know your neighbors, and for your whole life you will be a complete unknown in the city where you live.
The push to give open amnesty to illegal aliens has reached a new level of absurdity with this New York Times article about the plight of one poor American farmer:
A federal audit had found that 12 of his 14 workers were immigrants who had provided [Jeff] True with false work documents, the letter said. The immigration authorities ordered him to dismiss those workers.
Mr. True, whose family has been dairy farming for two centuries, scrambled around the clock with his relatives to milk their 1,100 cows, hire and train new workers and keep the farm in business.
Most of his workers are immigrants from Latin America, and he now dreads that he could receive another letter at any moment.
“My biggest fear is my labor is not going to be here tomorrow,” he said. “Most of us live in fear of that every day.”
What a tearjerker! This American farmer is going to go under if he is not allowed to hire illegals to work his farm. Tragedy! Pathos! Whoa, wait a minute.
1,100 cows! That's not a farm, that's a factory. So we're supposed to get all swollen-eyed over a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) "farmer" who is hiring the cheapest labor he can find at depressed wages so he can cut even more corners on his operation? Imagine how he's treating the cows you all drink your milk from?
Let's take a look at how this factory man operates his "farm":
They milk in a double-10 parallel parlor and cows lie on sand-bedded free stalls with bedding added twice each week. Farm 2 has rubber belting in the entire feed alley and pushes up feed 12 times per day. Donna Walker, nominator from Dairylea Cooperative, says, "True Farms does an exceptional job balancing the production of high-quality milk. They thoughtfully create protocols and follow them for consistent results."
Rubber belting for the entire feed alley! Isn't that wonderful? Kind of demolishes the quaint notion of happy cows munching grass on a sunny day, huh? Farmers don't "create protocols," they raise animals for food and milk. If you want to read more about what people like Mr. True and the folks at the Dairylea Cooperative, Inc. are doing to the quality of life in their Upstate New York communities, check this out:
Karen Strecker is bracing. She's about to turn on the faucet, and there's a chance liquid manure is going to stream from the spout. "I've been taking a bath and actually had cow shit pour into the tub,'' Strecker says, matter-of-factly. She uses well water. "It's nasty." Yet the threat of a sewage bath pales in comparison to a more dangerous problem: Breathing poisonous fumes. After years living next to Willet Dairy, the largest industrial farm in the state, Strecker and her neighbors in Genoa are reporting the kinds of health problems eco-watchdogs lose sleep over, from blistering eyelids to brain damage. Manure is known to release gases that, in high concentrations, are linked to those scary symptoms.
But, then again, did you really expect this man to be practicing rotational grazing for his 1,100 assets, er, living animals, moving them from one parcel of pasture to another to ensure maximum nutritional health?
This is the flip side to the "jobs ordinary Americans won't do" argument: This kind of "farm labor" is demeaning and quite dangerous to the workers involved. Demeaning for obvious reasons (lagoons of manure) and dangerous because cows are meant to graze on pasture, not "feed alleys." This kind of operation guarantees sickness:
Working conditions at confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are unhealthy, dangerous and extreme. Because the animals are often housed directly above the giant pits that store their manure, harmful gases such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and methane that are produced by the decomposing manure can contaminate the air that the animals and farm laborers breathe. In addition to these gases, dust and other irritants known as endotoxins—which come from the cell walls of the bacteria in the manure—are often found in very high concentrations on CAFOs. These substances can be hazardous to farm workers either through chronic (or long-term) exposure at low levels, or acute (concentrated) exposure at higher levels.
This man is hiring desperate people who are in this country illegally to perform dangerous and dreary labor instead of running a smaller operation that would give American citizens an opportunity to perform meaningful work. He is also providing you his fellow citizen with an unhealthy product, as a sick animal is not going to provide healthy milk. And he is doing all of this for the sake of increased profit for himself.
But you have to love the insinuation in the Times' article that a rich, two-centuries-old tradition is facing cruel extinction if this SOB isn't allowed his exploitative labor.
It takes a special kind of gall to make yourself the victim in a situation like this.
No love for the superrich thieves but this is a hollow argument:
Why? It's all about giving a tyrannical federal government more money.
We don't need to tax the rich more. We don't need to tax anybody more.
We need to cut 90 percent of all taxes and 99 percent of government SPENDING.
The tax inequality squabble is intentionally inflamed to distract us from the real problem: out of control government spending that of course goes right into the pockets of the superrich thieves who own our corrupt lawmakers.
If you want to hurt the superrich, take away their Federal Daddy money, in the forms of military contracts, Big Ag subsidies and a million other examples.
Making them pay more taxes into the very same honeypot that they have their sticky fingers engorged in is not going to solve anything.
