Trump, Zuckerberg & Pals Are Breaking America

[jackofnightmares]

Just once I’d like to see Zuckerberg look into a camera and say: “I will take Facebook stock down to $1 if that is what it takes to ensure that we’re never again an engine for the perversion of democracy in any country, starting with my own. Facebook is not going to accept any more political ads until we have the resources to fact-check them all.”

If America’s worst enemies had spent years designing a plan to erode our greatest strengths, they could not have done better than what some of our fellow citizens are doing to the country every day for short-term financial or political gain.

Prominent figures in government, politics and commerce are behaving in ways that are so destructive of the core institutions and norms that underpin our democracy, one can only assume that they take the country’s stability as a given — that they can abuse and stress it all they want and it won’t break.

They are wrong. We can break America, and right now we’re on our way there. Not in the Cold War, not during Vietnam, not during Watergate did I ever fear more for my country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/opin ... rberg.html

[sasha]

"We have met the enemy - and he is us." - Pogo

[jackofnightmares]

I love that strip.

"Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent."

-Wikipedia

Do you remember the bear who could read but not write?

... the usefulness of language as a means of reliable communication is continually under direct attack in Pogo: Kelly recalls his father, a great believer in the efficacy of pictures, proclaiming that "Language is the worst means of communication known to man."

The Eye of the Whole Man

[saw]

trump and his spineless shills
are the toughest test our democracy has faced
defying federal subpoenas is like thumbing your nose at the Constitution
how many Republicans have ties to Russia....do we know ?
how many corporations have sweetheart deals with Russia ?
There has been an obvious shift toward tyranny,
democracy is only an ideal we read about in fourth grade
religion in most case is just a fairy tale to quiet the minds of otherwise revolutionaries
socialism is the boogieman made in the laboratory
where the right makes scary monsters to get you to vote against your best interest
Hollywood has come to Washington
the Mafioso plays on Capital Hill....with visions of winner takes all
Markie Z has no Face
Jeffie B is the modern day slave-master with bullwhips of golden thread
Donnie T is bad rapper with with a lot of bullshit bling and a harem of cowardly lions

[sasha]

Remember that Twilight Zone?
about the 8-year old kid with unlimited psychokinetic powers?
all the adults in his life lived in a thrall of terror
of him and his rages
so they placated him with happy talk
only told him what he wanted to hear
assured him they were in total agreement with him
lest they be sent
(forever)
to "the corn field".....
and thus do the republicans today
- the so-called heirs of Lincoln, Roosevelt (Ted), & Eisenhower -
lick Donnie's hand
assure him it's a Real Good thing he said & did
that it's a Real Good Day
a Real Good Life
lest they be sent to the corn field
of voter disapproval

[jackofnightmares]

The Dictators Playbook

What might strike the strongest chord -- at least, for that part of the audience that has been expressing alarm about the Trump administration -- are point-by-point references to common strategies that appear to echo Trump's actions, particularly toward media and journalists.

From a documentary about dictatorships on PBS
at the end of the show, they say check us out on Facebook.
Is the media complicit in the attack on democracy?

[stilltrucking]

Republicans Won Blue-Collar Votes. They’re Not Offering Much in Return.
Party leaders want to capitalize on Donald Trump’s appeal to the white working class. But in recent weeks, they’ve offered very little to advance working people’s economic interests.


It’s possible that Republicans who are not prioritizing economic issues are accurately reading their base. A survey last month by the G.O.P. pollster Echelon Insights found that the top concerns of Republican voters were mainly cultural ones: illegal immigration, lack of support for the police, high taxes and “liberal bias in mainstream media.”

NYT

[mnaz]

Limbaugh's Frankenstein's Monster, run amok (and multiplying). Decades in the making.

Never thought it would actually get this bad.

[stilltrucking]

zuckerberg's monster running amuck
god save us from the improvers of humanity

Speak up, friend, and tell us who their improver is.

Sockertees qoute in The Twilight of The Idols

[stilltrucking]

say good bye to henry miller's radio show sons of bitches always bored me
first i heard of him was in the early eighties when he was local on radio station in sacramento
a body needs something to listen to on a three a.m. interstate in the middle of a desert
never have i been a ditto head
but a student of his massage of fact
for me i will remember him as a defender of Enron™ when California was being pillaged.