Monday, March 12, 2012

Dr. Woody's Fascinating Factoid #2: The US Chamber Of Commerce Isn't


Hola, hippies. Guess what!@ It's TIME for Dr. Woody's Fabulous Factoid, Number TWO: The US Chamber of Commerce Really ISN'T!

It's worth remembering:

The US Chamber of Commerce is a privately owned, international business lobbying corporation. Nothing "more." It has no State patent. It possesses no MORE authority to speak for, to, or about the USofA, nor to represent it's people, than would a sing-bird vendor in Kowloon!

Yes it is hugely powerful. So powerful, in fact, that it probably changed the course of USer history. With the adoption and application of the advice proffered to it by THEN shrewd tobacco lawyer, and soon-to-be-Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, the Chamber became the most powerful "institution" in the COUNTRY that was NOT officially or constitutionally PART of the actual government.

Look up The Powell Memorandum. It changed EVERYTHING! In 1972...THAT's how long this "business coup" has been has been running.

The USCoC should be forced to register as an agent of foreign governments, except that it is an agent for what are essentially non-government, global, financial interests, which it does whilst maintaining the subterfuge, facade and pretense, with its moniker, that it's just like home-town America.

It AIN'T, Hippies. No way. Any questions, tell me when I see you at the beazch...

Hippy News: Tweet Dreams

If you want to completely and viscerally comprehend the cell-phone phenomenon, next time you go to any zoo, be sure to visit the monkey house.

The first thing will note in the Monkey House (apologies, acknowledgment to the late Mr. Vonnegut, as for so much)--In the Monkey House...the noise is fuukin DEAFENING.

Every monkey in the place is shouting, and stomping, and flying around, striving with all its might and main to be heard and or noticed by others of their kind. Desperately. Insistently. Unendingly. The cries echo: "WhataboutMe-ME-ME-ME-Me-memememe-ME?"

For humans, but for pretty much ALL the primates, the essential, life-preserving task is to assure yourself of both your membership in and proximity to, but also your STATUS within, the troop/tribe or group. It's primal.

And that is where the tweet/twitter/talk/text capacity of these latest hand-held communications devices attaches to humans' most tender, sensitive, and least articulated emotions: down, deep, at the spinal chord level, the old lizard brain. That unspoken terror: "Don't Leave ME! I'm WITH you guys....Please!" Cuz as individuals, we're pretty puny beasts, and we know it...or we'd better. Alone we stand NO chance.

The stories of all our intense human relations, it seems to me, bear the hallmarks of the centrality of those two determinative principles: membership and status. The very survival of the individual depends on their success in ensuring their association with the group. It's Manichean it the very basest level: in or out? Living or dead; Diner or dinner...

Then, the next--but no less consequential--thing is status. Where do you STAND in the social order--because social order is pretty much sine qua non for collective living. If confirming your membership is a "first nature" task and accomplishment, then accurately assessing your status in the group is the "second nature" equivalent.

Status, of course is not an absolute, like being or not. It's always subject to change, and such changes are significant in your life in the troop/tribe/group. So it behooves us to reassure ourselves.

And that's what our "communicators" do for us.

Once, when we got out of view and or ear-shot, were were lost and alone. But no longer. So we keep talking, very loudly, all the time, with people we know, like big bees, doing an audible, pheromonal buck-and-wing on the doorstep of the hive.

Where a false step can be fatal. I'll do MY dance fer ya when I see you at the beach, hippies...Bzzzzzak to you in Hibbbzzzzzzz Central, Winstone...bzzzzzzzzzz

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

As the Cookie Crumbles (3/8/12): Bums' Rush..

Ol' Dr. Woody's been aware of, dismayed by, and wary of the "attractions" of Rush Limbaugh since about 1986, when I first heard him in syndication on a talk radio station in Baton Rouge. Reagan changed the Fairness Doctrine to allow Rush and his ilk to propogate and (as you'd expect, if you understood "public relations" the way Bernays, Lippmann, Hitler, and Goebbels did) with predictable consequences.

Rush has been rebuked before, and survived quite nicely, thanks. But lotsa folks are apparently now expecting the furor over Rush Limbaugh's "intemporate"--that is, calculatedly offensive, deeply stupid, and criminally uninformed--comments about women's reproductive rights, contraception and birth control pills to have some restraining and/or "negative" effect on him and/or his broadcasts.

NAGAHAPUN, folks. Rush-bo's place on the dial is secure. A few--hell, even a few divisions of--righteously infuriated women aren't gonna matter.

No, really.

The whole, entire, female population of the USofA could be incensed, infuriated, disgusted, and revulsed by the odious pig-man, and it wouldn't make SHIT for difference...

Just as millions of women are (rightfully and righteously) pissed at Rush, and it won't matter...Why not, you demand!

Well, sadly, because his audience is NOT among "women." his audience is that vast, malignant, sweating, stinking, farting company of very angry, frustrated, often misogynist, WHITE males, 18-75.

We could call them, for want of a better term, the Ditto-DICKHEADS!:

It's a HUGE demographic--the largest, wealthiest, most influential in the land, and it won't be affected by his "sexism." Unless to laugh heartily, and to enjoy the spectacle of the women fuming.

Indeed, The Ditto-Dickheads celebrate it. They relish it. They revel in it.

Why?

He says--out loud, on the radio, in public--what they CAN'T say anywhere anymore without opprobrium falling on 'em.

But, you say, what about Glenn Beck? "We" got rid of him, dinwe?

Beck was a whole 'nother issue: A wackloon crank. His was the "TEA-BAGGER" demographic which, though substantial, is only one WING of the larger Ditto-DICKHEAD contingent.

Rush, on the other hand, is "mainstream."

I know you don't wanna hear it, but they're not at ALL comparable.

Rush is the essential, distilled spirit of whit males angry cuz they can't say the N-word or the SP-word, or the CH-word and the C-word for women, anymore, and they RESENT it, goddam it!

Beck's maybe the voice of the tea-party loon-o-sphere...

But Rushbo's the SOUL of White/Murkin resentment.

He is very, very, very, very, very popular among the patriotic proles who compose the "other" ranks of our military. They believe he is "one of them," pylonidal cysts, Section 8, and everything. and

And, with his attitudes about women and rape and brutality, he probably IS closer to the ingrained, ineradicable military attitudes about women than to civilian ones...

Semper FI, Rush, baby!

The MOST objectionable thing about Rush's invulnerability is that he is on AFRTS, and is therefore supported by USer tax dollars to spew his bile and vitriol TO USer troops (as well as, embarrassingly, anyone else with a radio in the vicinity of an AFRTS broadcast facility.

Did I mention that Rush is VERY-VERY-VERY-VERY-VERY popular among the "troops." Ever since being installed on Armed Forces radio, by the Chimperor, early in his regime, his audience among military listeners is just as avid as his civilian admirers, if not even more so, given Rush's bathetic, exceptionalistic "patriotism," and the general level of ILL-education among the troops...

But Rush won't depart AFRTS anytime soon, either. For the same reasons he'll persist on Clear Channel: A significant number of drooling drones, troglodytes and knuckle-draggers want to hear what he says, and feel that he speaks for them. If that don't make you quake a little, I dunno what will.

Demographics will eventually prevail. Rush will die (the sudden, welcome, but unexpected decease of Andrew Breitbart last week gives me hope), and the rest of the Angry White Males will slowly pass from the scene (unless there is a physical catastrophe of unimagineable scope which acts more suddenly).

A NEW--female, non-white, i.e.--demographic will eventually emerge. That demo MAY even prevail, in 50 or so years, when--absent that aforementioned catastrophe--the actual NUMBERS flip a bit.

But not until then, I'm pretty sure...

The AWM demographic (which includes a LOT of their wives and children) will provide the direction of the USer culture for another generation or two...and will only GRADUALLY fade...

Like they usta say in the war: "Sorry 'bou' dat..."

We can commiserate--and await the inevitable tsunami--at the beach, hippies...

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Hippie News & Stuff: Puzzle Merchants/Factoid #1

As it stands, now, a large amount of the "tarsands" oil the Keystone XL pipeline is supposed to carry goes to Texas, where the oil is to be fefined, and then loaded on tankers and sent around the world - for bigger oil company profits-- and more greenhouse gas...

Still, notwithstanding these additions to the supply, oil prices are more likely to go up than down, in BOTH the long AND short run, according to the Bloomberg folks.

NONE of the Keystone oil is earmarked for either Canada or the USA use. It will all be sold, on contract, to buyers around the world, India,and China, especially.

Drill, baby, drill is good for the "binness" of oil companies and their investors and speculators; for the actual inhabitants of the U.S. or on the rest of the planet, mmmmmm....not so much.

Still, under presidential prodding and promises, the U.S. is drilling more and more, and deeper and deeper for 'energy security, even though we are using less gas than in past years.

Here's the dirty secret: If "energy self-sufficiency" were TRULY vital to "national security," the whole energy industry--from exploration to retail, gas, coal, and nuke, everything--would be nationalized!

Seriously! I mean, the global CorpoRats no longer profess even pro forma national loyalty. They are truly global; and because they have bought out governments, they can be powers unto themselves. Or they hire private armies of their own. They don't NEED you, anymore, Joe & Mary Cheesecake America! Their loyalty is NOT to the USA. Don't delude yourselves.

So, if our national security depends on our energy "security," WHICH implies that we SHOULD command, within our own borders, sufficient energy resources to secure our national interests against competitors and or enemies, why do WE entrust OUR national security to the tender mercies of corrupt, conniving, fuel merchants?

If the issue really IS "security," how can WE be "SECURE" if WE have to BEG and BARGAIN with international conglomerates for oil to run our ships, planes, and tanks, and the vehicles of out domestic economy? How is that "SECURE?"

Well, you know the answer, hippies. We can chat it up down at the beach...


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Dr. Woody's Factoids:

On an historical note: Tomorrow--Mar. 6--marks the anniversary of the "fall of the Alamo," a day on which Texans and others celebrate the 'heroism' of the 'sturdy frontiersmen and patriots' in holding off the Mexican Santa Ana's army outside San Antonio. Texicans and other "hyper-patriots"--John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, etc--get all misty-eyed about it.

It's a myth, though, that the Alamo was fought for "Freedom?" You know that, right.

It wasn't.

It was fought to defend slavery.

Travis' men died to prevent Mexico--the first official action of which as a sovereign nation was to sign the international treaty prohibiting slavery, in 1820--from outlawing slavery there, to keep slaves in Texas, that is, from STOPPING slavery in Texas.

The only man left alive inside the Alamo on March 7, 1836, who'd been inside on the morning of Mar. 6, 1836, was Travis' slave. He was freed.

So you COULD say (though the Tejanos HATE it) the battle was fought to free one unjustly enslaved individual, and that the REAL humaintarian heroesa of the day were Santa Ana's army...

History's just fascinating, ain't it hippies? Back to Winstone in Hippie Central...

Monday, March 5, 2012

As The Cookie Crumbles: Sir Barry, Item-ized

This graphic just pisses me the fuck off. It's the SMUGNESS of the unctuous flunkies that just get RIGHT UP my backside.

It's another of theose over-heated, over-wrought, overstated paeans promulgated by those O'bots who think St. Barry, the Timid, America's First Black president, doesn't get the credit he deserves for his accomplishments.

But this list is, at BEST, composed of half- and third- and even quarter-truths?
Item: Both the claimed health care and financial regulation "reforms" are basically bandages on sucking chest wounds.
Item: Why is turning the world against Iran a good thing? For whom?
Item: Same with "three new trade agreements? That's GOOD? For whom? Usually it just means more USer jobs and industries going overseas.
Item: I'm not sure that I'd BRAG about firing thousands of federal workers ('reducing govt') in the teeth of the worst economic times in modern memory.
Item: Why is he PROUD of deporting more immigrants?
Item: Why are FEWER federal regulations on binness and industry a GOOD thing? Again I ask, for whom?
Item: With Europe and the Euro teetering on the very brink of catastrophe, isn't it a bit of a stretch toi claim he "saved" the world economy?
Item: I don't think I'd brag about killing off foreign leaders and destabilizing their countries, either.
Now, in fairness, I'll grant that he has accomplished a few things for us. But what the fuck: We PAY him more than half a million dollars a fucking year to do things for us. But now here's a few things Woody DIDN'T do the first three years at my last job:
Item: I didn't send drone bombers into Central Asia to indiscriminately kill brown people who were not and could not possibly pose any threat to the country.
Item: In the wake of the worst oil-spill disaster in history in US waters, I doidn't okay MORE drilling in coastal waters.
Item: Judging the catastrophe of the destroyed Nukes in Japan, I did NOT authorize MORE nuclear plants be started.
Item: I didn't foment bloody revolution in a stable, settled country and overthrow their elected leader.
Item: I did NOT propose the nation increase reliance on "clean coal."
Item:I didn't buckle to a large campaign contributor and let British Petroleum scam the people of the Gulf into thinking the spill was 'repaired," when all it was was disguised. Yeah, no tax-payers money was exended. But the Clean-up wasn't worth a shit, either; ask ANYBODY on the water down there.
Item: I did NOT appoint virtually the WHOLE (largely failed) economic team of my predecessor--which was mainly responsible for the largest criminal clusterfuck in HISTORY to the same positions in my administration.
Item: I didn't broker the reduction of vital revenues necessary to preserve and maintain Social Security.
Item: I didn't put MONSANTO executives in charge of the Agriculture Dept.
Item: I didn't put charter-school privatizers in charge of the Education Department.
Item: I didn't put a cattle-rancher with mining claims in charge of the Interior Dept.
Item: I didn't give the larcenous, mortgage bankers a mil-on-the-dollar wrist slap for ass-fucking MILLIONS of consumers for their mortgages.
Oh, and he quit smoking? Big Whoop! Do that on your own time, cully!~

I'm sure you can add more, hippies... Feel free to contribute your own when I see you at the beach, hippies....

Friday, March 2, 2012

Hippie News & Stuff: Puzzle Merchants/Factoids

As it stands, now, a large amount of the "tarsands" oil the Keystone XL pipeline is supposed to carry goes to Texas, where the oil is to be fefined, and then loaded on tankers and sent around the world - for bigger oil company profits-- and more greenhouse gas...

Still, notwithstanding these additions to the supply, oil prices are more likely to go up than down, in BOTH the long AND short run, according to the Bloomberg folks.

NONE of the Keystone oil is earmarked for either Canada or the USA use. It will all be sold, on contract, to buyers around the world, India,and China, especially.

Drill, baby, drill is good for the "binness" of oil companies and their investors and speculators; for the actual inhabitants of the U.S. or on the rest of the planet, mmmmmm....not so much.

Still, under presidential prodding and promises, the U.S. is drilling more and more, and deeper and deeper for 'energy security, even though we are using less gas than in past years.

Here's the dirty secret: If "energy self-sufficiency" were TRULY vital to "national security," the whole energy industry--from exploration to retail, gas, coal, and nuke, everything--would be nationalized!

Seriously! I mean, the global CorpoRats no longer profess even pro forma national loyalty. They are truly global; and because they have bought out governments, they can be powers unto themselves. Or they hire private armies of their own. They don't NEED you, anymore, Joe & Mary Cheesecake America! Their loyalty is NOT to the USA. Don't delude yourselves.

So, if our national security depends on our energy "security," WHICH implies that we SHOULD command, within our own borders, sufficient energy resources to secure our national interests against competitors and or enemies, why do WE entrust OUR national security to the tender mercies of corrupt, conniving, fuel merchants?

If the issue really IS "security," how can WE be "SECURE" if WE have to BEG and BARGAIN with international conglomerates for oil to run our ships, planes, and tanks, and the vehicles of out domestic economy? How is that "SECURE?"

Well, you know the answer, hippies. We can chat it up down at the beach...


######################################################################
Dr. Woody's Factoids:

On an historical note: Tomorrow--Mar. 6--marks the anniversary of the "fall of the Alamo," a day on which Texans and others celebrate the 'heroism' of the 'sturdy frontiersmen and patriots' in holding off the Mexican Santa Ana's army outside San Antonio. Texicans and other "hyper-patriots"--John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, etc--get all misty-eyed about it.

It's a myth, though, that the Alamo was fought for "Freedom?" You know that, right.

It wasn't.

It was fought to defend slavery.

Travis' men died to prevent Mexico--the first official action of which as a sovereign nation was to sign the international treaty prohibiting slavery, in 1820--from outlawing slavery there, to keep slaves in Texas, that is, from STOPPING slavery in Texas.

The only man left alive inside the Alamo on March 7, 1836, who'd been inside on the morning of Mar. 6, 1836, was Travis' slave. He was freed.

So you COULD say (though the Tejanos HATE it) the battle was fought to free one unjustly enslaved individual, and that the REAL humaintarian heroesa of the day were Santa Ana's army...

History's just fascinating, ain't it hippies? Back to Winstone in Hippie Central...

As The Cookie Crumbles: Before Your Very Eyes



Dr. Woody was shocked...SHOCKED, I tell you...to discover, here in the all-new, hopefully changed, post-racial AMERICA, home of Americas First Black President ("AFBP," hereafter), such an egregious example of blatant judicial bias and disproportionate sentencing discrimination as this one appears to be.

Mebbe you heard about it. Tanya McDowell, (pictured here) a homeless, poor, broke, single mom in Bridgeport (Connecticut), accused of fraudulently enrolling her kindergarten-age son in a Norwalk (Conn) school and "stealing" thereby more than $15,000 in educational services from the district has pleaded (sic: "pled") guilty, and was sentenced to TWELVE years in prison.

McDowell (pictured here) attracted national attention last year when the desperate, homeless single mother tried to get the best deal she could for her child ("just like a white person," some would say), registering for school in a false address. She later was arrested and charged with larceny for placing her child in an upper-middle class school system in the tourist mecca of Norwalk, instead of the system designed for the likes of her poor, black ass in back in Bridgeport, where she belonged! (The sentence included time for admitted for possession and sale of cannabis.) Her son, now in first grade and who lives with his grandmother, thinks his mother actually stole the money. Six-year-olds lack something in the way of subtlety.

Well, McDowell (pictured here) broke the law, you'll say. She's got to pay.

Okay.

But now, here's an surprisingly similar, parallel case for your consideration:

Between 2001 and 2004, then-Sen "Shitnjizm" Santorum (pictured here) enrolled FIVE of his children in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. Since Pennsylvania law requires school districts to pay for students who live in their district but enroll in cyber schools – and since Santorum claimed his residence was a house in Penn Hills, Allegheny County – the Penn Hills School District paid $100,000 for the Santorum children’s tuition.

Now here's the funny thing: It turns out Rick Santorum (pictured here), his wife, and their children don’t and didn't, actually live in Penn Hills...in Allegheny County...or even in Pennsylvania. They actually live in a big house he owns in Leesburg, Virginia, outside DC, throughout the whole period.

So, here's the big question:

What is the difference between Tanya McDowell (pictured here) and Rick (Sen. Shitnjizm) Santorum? (pictured here)

It's right in front of your eyes...

There's links to all the pertinent stories on the blog/site.

We can talk about while we're working on our tans at the beach, hippies...PAZ!