The Growing Anger In the Heartland

[Joanne98]

A few months ago <1>, I appeared on Fox News and was told by "anchor" (hereby "cartoon character") Greg Jarrett that "historians agree" that the New Deal exacerbated the Great Depression. It was a statement so factually inaccurate <2> that it approached insanity.

Now, the cartoon character makes an even bigger ass out of himself in a debate with Virg Bernero, the mayor of Lansing, Michigan. I encourage you to watch it:

Bernero, representing the boiling anger that's roiling the country, makes a point that needs to be hammered over and over and over again--like he does--over the din of Fox News cartoon characters. How can anyone with a straight face demand blue-collar workers take huge pay and benefit cuts at a time those workers' tax dollars are subsidizing bonuses on Wall Street?

Part of the answer is that we live in a country whose ruling class is deeply insane. Hardly a day goes by when you don't see sociopathy packaged as Serious Opinion <3>. Today's installment, in fact, makes my point about Wall Street. Check out the statement <4> of bailed-out Chase CEO John Dimon. Deriding homeowners who are getting foreclosed on, he said:

"We should teach the American people, you're supposed to meet your obligations, not run from them."

Right, so we should blame problems on autoworkers for negotiating decent benefits and homeowners getting foreclosed on, while bailed-out CEOs who didn't meet their own expectations lecture us that "we should teach the American people you're supposed to meet your obligations." And you can bet media cartoon characters will be right there to promote this kind of paradigm as Serious Opinion.

continued>>.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Growing-Anger-In-the-H-by-David-Sirota-090220-279.html

His name is Jamie Demon!

[Double T]

1. Jamie Dimon aka A-hole.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Well said...

K&R

[Earth Bound Misfit]

3. Virg Bernero ROCKS!!!!!

Video was posted by DUer DS1 here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x273161

I also posted a thread in Labor forum here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=367x17526

Kick & Highly Recommend!

ETA: The OP Got 183 replies & 123 recs. The same banner was used in the thread I posted in Labor, 0 replies, 0 recs 139 views.

Just sayin' is all. :hide:

[DemReadingDU]

24. Great video, thanks for posting. n/t

[Fire1]

4. Dimon and Lewis ( BOA), both assholes.

[madrchsod]

5. i wonder if jamie has stopped crying ....

it was a great thing to listen to....

[Peregrine Took]

6. I saw the interview and love "Virg." "Demon" Dimon is a 100% creep. n/t

[certainot]

7. thank your local right wing radio station for enabling this

massive hypocrisy.

when will unions and progressive groups figure out their local talk radio stations are the power centers for enabling all the regressive bullshit they organize against?

call, complain, boycott, and picket the local limbaugh stations and their sponsors and really get obama's back. as long as they have their radio monopoly democracy and progress are impossible, or at least very much harder.

[antimatter98]

26. So true, and I wish more would 'get this' point.

Limbaugh is on just about every 50,000 watt AM station in the country. I don't know about the other right wing talkers like Savage, Ingram, etc., but where I live all these folks have good solid AM signal coverage 5 days a week, with repeats and other conservative hosts on weekends. On cable of course, we have Fox, we have CBN, we have most of MSNBC except for evenings for two hours when Keith and Rachel are on. Then there's Wolf at CNN, and others at that military industrial network. And the cross-over network NPR, that provides hosts to Fox News such as Mara Liason.

To take over a country, you take over its media, OR provide a very strong signal that is easily heard, and which is available 24/7 with the same message supporting your point of view. This is what is going on in America. Propaganda oriented media, but its one sided and its being run on our citizen-dime--we own these channels, at least over the air we do.

Looked at from a media perspective, we are a population that is being manipulated by our media.

If you travel around the country, pick any direction, you will ALWAYS hear Rush and his cronies, and you will also hear plenty of religious programming that is clearly oriented toward 'the end of days' crowd. You and I may not listen to all this, but tens of millions per week DO listen to it, such as a receptionist at the university department I used to work with---every afternoon the sound of Rush Limbaugh would be in her office, which lead to the department chair's office.

We have to push back, but we need media to do it with, not just blogs. Blogs are a great meeting place, but out media has been taken over, just as the hope is, we too will be taken over, by right wing zealots and neocons and corporate power---its working well for them still.

[unblock]

8. the ruling class is not actually insane, they just know enough to peddle insanity

when facts and logic are against them.

most of them fully appreciate that the crap that spews forth from the media that serves their interests is, indeed, crap.
but how else to keep a screwn populus cowed?

just as goebbels proved, if you keep the masses thinking that the system is far too messed up for anyone to do anything about it, no one will bother trying.

[Demeter]

13. Make No Mistake, The Ruling Class IS Insane

Only a bunch of crazies would put Bush and Cheney and Reagan in power.

[unblock]

15. the reagan thing worked out pretty well for them.

but they definitely screwed up with shrub. i think they misunderestimated how much damage the white house can actually do to an economy out of pure incompetence. they thought that having a president in their pocket would be good enough. turns out competence matters, too.

[Demeter]

17. And they Are Losing All As a Consequence of Over-reaching

their paper losses are estimated at 40% so far. Their power is vanishing faster than their wealth.

They have the power to destroy, oh, yes, but not the power to create anything lasting, or worthy of note.

And they have thrown away their privacy and the element of surprise. They have betrayed their slaves and can expect no more loyalty or protection.

It sucks to be a greedy bastard. And that is what today's lesson will be for many years to come.

I have to laugh at Stanford, in the throes of divorce form his gold-digger wife as his empire dissolves into sand. He knew she was a gold-digger when he married her, I expect, so it should be no surprise to him. She however has had a rude awakening!

[acmavm]

21. No, they knew what they'd get with bush**. Someone who would aid and

abet the looting of our nation.

[Two Americas]

18. they were very successful

I don't understand two things implicit in your response:

1. Seeing the Republicans and Bush as failures.

They set out to dismantle the public infrastructure and enrich their wealthy clients, and succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations. I don't understand how so many Democrats can swallow their propaganda and believe that they intended to do anything else.

2. The blurring of the line between the Republican politicians and the people duped into voting for them. We can hardly criticize them as "low information voters" when we have fallen for the main themes of the right wing propaganda ourselves.

The cable news outlets love this whole nonsense of "a divided country" and the partisan horse race idiocy. Almost all Democrats have bought into that - people here get extremely angry if you contradict the MSM themes - and think that so long as they take the imagined "other side" - the "liberal" side as defined by right wing propagandists - that they are immune to the propaganda and are somehow superior to their Republican-voting neighbors.

[The_Commonist]

23. You are exactly right.

The mission was, indeed, accomplished.

[Two Americas]

32. the only thing they lost

The only thing the Republicans lost was a little credibility with the public, but they are hard at work restoring that, and we have a small army of people here helping them out by reviving all of the "free market" and authoritarian premises and assumptions that the right wing propaganda is based on, and defending the system and the interests of upper class.

[DCKit]

9. A fast internet connection, a dollop of intellect and edumacation...

and we're saddled with the likes of Joanne and Babs. Teh Empire is crumpling.

Error: you have already recommended that thread....

[barbtries]

10. this alone is worth the read:

"we live in a country whose ruling class is deeply insane."

Oh yeah. :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[Seldona]

11. K&R

nt

[tbyg52]

12. Well, that activated my @#$% you finger reflex....

I thought the sight of W or Darth was all that would do it, but I was wrong....

[Caretha]

14. I just finished reading

a historical novel today about the lead up to the French Revolution. It was written in the 1990's. I tell ya, it was like reading today's news. Bunch of bumbling ass politician's and leaders who were so enamored of themselves, and so incompetent, so out of touch, so corrupt. The laws of the land did not apply to them at all. In the end that was the tipping point that lead to the revolution.

[L0oniX]

27. I firmly believe that only a full scale revolution will stop these sociopaths ...

the sociopaths in our government and the corporations.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. 15 years ago, when I worked for Smith Barney Jamie Dimon was a protege of

Sandy Weill. They were both disgusting, self-centered assholes back then. Nothing has changed.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

29. Hi, "Bklyn"!

I, too, worked for Smith Barney (77-81) and I agree with your description of Sandy Weill as a "disgusting, self-centered asshole".


EBM, ex-"Bklyn Lib" (live in TR, NJ now)

[BrklynLiberal]

31. You preceded me. I was there from 90-98.

Guess Weill never changed from what he was....
That is the same man who is trying to throw the artists/musicians out of the apartments above Carnegie Hall.
Those apartments were originally designated to be affordable apts for people in the arts.
Weill wants to evict the tenants and use the space for classes, and other money-making purposes.

Once a disgusting, self-centered asshole, always a disgusting, self-centered asshole.

[GreenTea]

19. However, in the past they turn....

on a dime, and vote republican, (against their own best interest) with all the republican right-wing propaganda & hate media pounding it in to them each & every day, which, they are purposely exposed to 24/7. (With none, or very little democratic opposition voices available to them).

[Grinchie]

20. I have chosen to take on no obligations

It works for me, and it pisses the establishment off to no end.

I'm hoping to lead a horde of people toward the joys of not being in debt to anyone, as well as being able to determine what they truly need to be happy in life.

Believe me, it's not lots of money, and fancy car or a huge house.

It's a full belly, the ability to think and catch the charlatans trying to screw you in the act. A nice comfy pace to sleep is cool too.

If you can manage that, then I recommend the Internet to keep abreast of the insurmountable numbers of idiots that take up space on this earth, and learn how to make their lives miserable.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

28. :)

"...the ability to think and catch the charlatans trying to screw you in the act. A nice comfy pace to sleep is cool too.

If you can manage that, then I recommend the Internet to keep abreast of the insurmountable numbers of idiots that take up space on this earth, and learn how to make their lives miserable"

:toast: Copied and saved in my personal "memorable quotes & observations from DU" file.

:fistbump:

[Doctor_J]

22. I love this comment

Like Orwell said in 1984--All we'd have to do is rise up at once and shake like a dog and it would be over for them.

Yup. But can we get out from under the spell of our state-run media long enough to "shake like a dog"?

[shellgame26]

25. I really don't believe

that people are buying the RW's attempt to re-write history about the New Deal and the Great Depression. But they are trying reeeally hard to regroup and since they control the media their message will seep through to some.

[Joe Chi Minh]

30. Agreed. That's the weird thing about them. Never EVER say die. In a word: "zombies."