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Edited on Wed Dec-30-09 12:28 AM by cliffordu
People have been doing a lot of shouting:
"The President is owned by the corporations. He is a tool of business and has sold out Democrats, the Progressives, Liberals, People of Color...."
They do so using a nationally advertised computer, while watching a heavily advertised Cable "news" show where 'issues' are discussed by heavily paid operatives who are interested in the churn more than substance, in the filth more than facts. They are not paid to inform, they are paid to capture attention between car commercials.
The screamers drive these advertised cars- cars designed, marketed, financed and insured by those very corporations and their subsidiaries that advertise and control the very media that was meant to inform.
The same corporations that supply home loans, credit cards, stocks, happily 'administer' their 401K's and their (corporate) stock folios.
Those corporations don't just sell goods and the credit to obtain them, do they??
They sell the Pursuit of Happiness - our heavily advertised status and sense of place in the world....what Tyler Durden called 'versatile solutions for modern living..'
The feed our lifestyle obsession, as well as our children.
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Let's get something straight:
YOU are not a voter to them. You are a consumer. A line on a quarterly report someplace near the bottom, after the profit and loss ratio of the "financial Instruments" like the credit default swaps that tanked last year.
Unlike voters, consumers have little recourse if they are displeased with their place in the food chain.....
Don't make waves. Lose your job and your shit benefits will leave along with your pristine indentured servitude rating to the Corporations: Your Credit Score.
Owned, PWNED, Debtor's prison. Same same.
If they own US, why not the gub'ment??
Politicians have their own lifestyle obsessions: Power and prestige and the kind of national influence only the corporations can provide...
The only thing sweeter than getting your face on television and in the Congress is getting the backing of the corporations you can 'help' with Great Ideas in Legislation (tm). Airtime on MSNBC and being a celebrity and a fucking US Senator in the Fucking CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is a powerful motivator....
An aphrodisiac so powerful there is no position so absurd as not to be trumpeted as the 'way forward' No oath so sacred that cannot be abandoned at the first sign of discomfort with their 'constituents'...their corporate backers.....hhe lobbyists working through the ranks, whispering the promise of better fundraisers......
What to do...what to do.....
We cannot have it both ways. We cannot support the corporations with our work, our leisure, our lifestyle choices, livelihoods, insurance needs, recreational purchases and logo wear and expect our politicians to NOT have logo wear of their own.
Short of literally pulling a 'Fight Club' and bringing the whole thing down...which although a fulsome juvenile fantasy and fun to imagine - would never be attempted here as long as a new Ipod comes out next fall and that new car smell can keep us on the phone selling our wares or at the metal press making lapel pins or managing websites......
Because we are consumers, after all. It's what we do. It's why we work so hard and long.
We are more terrified of being broke than being bought and sold like another commodity. Plain and simple.
Because along with being Consumers, we are also Consumables -
Not human Beings....Human Resources, to be used and discarded, hired to serve without question the very corporations that supply our lifestyle enhancement products, and our food and our funerals.
It's why we are at war - 9/11 being a reaction to our taking a huge dump all over the middle east for oil....And natural resources for new consumer items are getting more expensive all the time.....
In all fairness, we DO export something - We export the consumer culture, not democracy. We cannot survive without raw materials and new markets.....
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It's why you'll never see a truly progressive President. The corporations won't allow it. They wont allow a truly progressive conversation any air time on CNN, won't allow the Usual Suspects to be exposed for the callow manipulators and craven whores to the corporations they really are.
Which is why they spend so much time ignoring who's behind the scenes forming tea parties and sliding fake poll results into the 'discourse' and why the talking heads let the 'conservatives' slime and slander the President with everything from death panels to Nazi-ism to communist conspiracy....
The churn sells. Progressive "do unto others' not so much.
Notice how much time the news organizations gave to the teabaggers?? Two things:
The Churn.....Big ratings at the rage...And
Because they're no threat to the Advertisers. Blame the politicians for the problems in our consumer lifestyles and the real doers and movers can keep on keepin' on...Bid'ness as usual...
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Like most right wing 'Patriots', the Teabaggers all seem to possess the astonishing trait of being content to consume everything in life the Media wants to shove down their gullet: "have it your way" Jingoism dressed as patriotism.....Ram tough, brighter and cleaner Jesus..."hero" as a word to describe any and every small act, no matter how minuscule. That shit creates emotion, and emotion sells soap. The Media loves them for this.
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So we can all get together and get our furious on that the President had the Insurance companies in the room when creating the insurance act - and that he bailed out the very people who exploited the lax rules in the credit markets and drove the world financial (spelled corporate money) into the ground......And that he seems to be 'More of the Same'....But he really ain't.
With the not so simple act of STARTING to hold the insurance corporations accountable for their actions, he has begun the 10 or 15 or 20 year process of boiling very large frogs:
To create an atmosphere where Corporations can be edged out of health care, and maybe Energy......
But this ain't easy and it might not be that Obama can get much done that will please me, or you or anyone in 4 or 8 short years.....
Because they are in charge. They control the money and the Media. And not even the President can fight that by himself. Consider the fucking blue dogs for a minute.
Until that changes, Until we stop supporting through our consumption the corporate control over the media and the message, neither you or I have ANY real business complaining....Until we STOP being happy participants in our own subjugation, out own oppression, our own exploitation.
I'm afraid that it will continue until the oil wells and the Ipod stocks go dry.
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