Im Not Dumb, Ive Just Been Paying Attention

 

“ It’s not that I don’t understand the critiques of Barack Obama from the enraged right and the demoralized left. It’s that I don’t even recognize their description of Obama’s first term in any way. The attacks from both the right and the left on the man and his policies aren’t out of bounds. They’re simply—empirically—wrong”

And thus Andrew Sullivan begins his opinion piece in this month’s Newsweek magazine. In the article, entitled: “How Obama’s Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics” , Sullivan goes on to claim that criticism coming from the right are so off base as to be described as “unhinged”.

Simultaneously, the criticism coming from the disenchanted left stems from a lack of understanding of just how awesome the Obama administration’s policies have been. He calls it Obama’s “long game” and thinks that if (when?) Obama is reelected and given an 8 year mandate, liberals will finally be able to recognize all of the good that this administration had accomplished.

To make his case Sullivan breaks his article down into two sections: reasons why the right is wrong to criticize Obama; and reasons why the left is wrong to do the same. Sullivan writes, “But given the enormity of what he inherited, and given what he explicitly promised, it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb.  “

Ok Mr. Sullivan, make your case.

Bank Bailouts:

“But Obama did several things at once: he continued the bank bailout begun by George W. Bush, he initiated a bailout of the auto industry, and he worked to pass a huge stimulus package of $787 billion… All these decisions deserve scrutiny. And in retrospect, they were far more successful than anyone has yet fully given Obama the credit for. The job collapse bottomed out at the beginning of 2010, as the stimulus took effect. Since then, the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs.”

While this is obviously a reductive view of the last 3 years, the numbers, on their face, offers support for the idea that the stimulus package and bank bailouts were “far more successful than anyone has yet fully given Obama the credit for” as Sullivan asserts. However, one only has to dig a bit deeper into the numbers to find out the true story about America’s job situation.

Take the employment report for the month of December released last week for example. The jobs report that the administration and news agencies cite are based on two surveys: one given to households; and one given to employers. Last month’s surveys pointed in two completely different directions.

“The employment survey, the normal focus of attention, showed overall growth in payrolls of only 103,000. That was well below expectations, especially after a disappointing November report and a remarkably high estimate from private- sector payroll processor ADP earlier this week.” (source)

Yet the household survey, from which the unemployment rate is calculated, sent a completely different message. It showed an extra 297,000 people in jobs and 260,000 fewer people in the labour force. The combination of the two was enough to cause a drop in the unemployment rate from 9.8 to 9.4 per cent…

 “At the moment [both surveys] send the same message: things are doing OK but not as well as you would have hoped or expected given the apparent strength of growth,” said Paul Dales, senior US economist at Capital Economics in Toronto.

Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman,struck a similar note in testimony to Congress prepared before the release of the payrolls data. “Although recent indicators of spending and production have generally been encouraging, conditions in the labour market have improved only modestly at best,” Mr Bernanke said.” (source)

The jobs picture is a lot murkier and much less clear cut than Andrew Sullivan would have you believe. I find it hard to give the Obama administration credit for a jobs situation that is still up in the air at best.

The Liberal’s Case Against Obama:

For the first part of the article, Sullivan attempts to defend Obama against Republcan attacks, pointing out the hypocrisy of the right for criticizing Obama’s tax policy as he has kept the Bush tax cuts for the top 1 percent (the fact that he promised to allow them to expire while he was campaigning doesn’t seem to affect Sullivan’s assessment) and implemented a series of tax cuts that affect 95% of Americans.

Taken by itself, the fact that the Bush tax cuts not only were renewed but also seemed to never be in danger of being dropped, would not be that alarming if it didnt show a steady trend of a candidate who talked big talk of standing up to the type of economic policy that adversely affected the nation (cutting taxes while increasing the deficit to its highest levels ever), but after being elected meekly acquiesced to the status quo.

He goes on to assert that “Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit, not increase it dramatically (CBO projections are notoriously unreliable, why they are continued to be cited like they are scripture is beyond me)…”It does not have a public option; it gives a huge new client base to the drug and insurance companies; its health-insurance exchanges were also pioneered by the right.”

I found it amazing that Sullivan would site these two things in an article meant to defend Obama’s record. In just a few paragraphs, Sullivan encapsulates the very reasons that the people who gave Obama an overwhelming and undisputed mandate in 2008 should be disappointed in his governance over the last three years. In defending Obama to Republicans he invariably shows just how weak of a Democratic leader he has been.

When the Public Option was taken off the table, polls showed that support for the its inclusion in the healthcare reform bill was incredibly strong, ranging from %55- %65. While citing the need for compromise when dealing with congress in defense of the removal of the public option, liberals tend to forget that the public option WAS the compromise. The single-payer option was what was promised during the campaign, a public option was the compromise. So here we are three years after his election, this is what healthcare reform in America looks like: A mandate that the 44 million people in America who are uninsured, presumably because they were too poor to, to buy health insurance or face a penalty. Whether this will work towards reducing healthcare costs, shrinking the deficit, and adequately providing insurance to those who can not afford it remains to be seen.

Sullivan’s Final Attempt at Defending the Indefensible:

 “From the start, liberals projected onto Obama absurd notions of what a president can actually do in a polarized country, where anything requires 60 Senate votes even to stand a chance of making it into law. They have described him as a hapless tool of Wall Street, a continuation of Bush in civil liberties, a cloistered elitist unable to grasp the populist moment that is his historic opportunity….”

Out of all of the defenses of what has been a giant failure of a presidency in my opinion, this is the most annoying. That somehow the public is asking too much of Obama. Do you remember the 2008 campaign? He set himself up for this dissapointment by promising to be some sort of bipartisan, like-youve-never-seen-in-Washington, super-politician.

I understand that this rhetoric was simply designed to get him elected and he was capitalizing on anti-beltway insider sentiment that the Bush administration had fomented over the previous eight years. But then dont turn around and act like you dont know where these high expectations came from. They came from your campaign!

Also no one is asking Obama to part the Red Sea. We only ask that you make a good faith effort to do the things you promised you would during your campaign. Like closing down Guantanamo Bay, instead of keeping it open and then signing legislation that makes it virtually impossible to close. Like decrying the Patriot Act, and then forwarding legislation that expands its power. Like running on true healthcare reform that included, at the very least, a public option, and then unceremoniously dumping it without negotiation. Like decrying Bush for expanding executive power and then actively trying to expand executive power once you get into office.

Sullivan unsuccessfully attempts to separate the Iraq war into an issue in and of itself and then declares an Obama victory for ending that war.

“The Iraq War—the issue that made Obama the nominee—has been ended on time and, vitally, with no troops left behind. “

This is of course revisionist history. The issue for liberals wasnt just the Iraq War, it was the fact that the executive branch acted unilaterally (no, the “coalition of the willing” does not count) to go to war with a country that was not a threat to us. The country was fed up with the idea that the president could act without the approval of Congress and take the country into a war that it neither needed nor wanted, an issue that Sullivan admits himself.

“Yes, Obama has waged a war based on a reading of executive power that many civil libertarians, including myself, oppose. And he has signed into law the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial (even as he pledged never to invoke this tyrannical power himself)….”

But to defend Obama from criticism in the next sentence he says, “ But he has done the most important thing of all: excising the cancer of torture from military detention and military justice.” Since when was that the most important thing of all! Yea torture sucks but I swear it was like eighth on my list of things that were important for the Obama administration to change. Somehow in Sullivan’s fantasy world of Obama’s presidential infallibility the “end of torture” jumps to the status of “the most important thing of all”.

My response isnt to say that the Obama administration does not deserve credit for some stuff (the Bush administration got SOME stuff right too, doesnt mean it wasnt the worst administration ever), but to argue that he doesnt deserve criticism from either the left of the right is simply ridiculous just on it’s face. If he is in fact promoting an agenda that liberals can be happy with, then it stands to reason that conservatives should be critical of him. If he is in fact promoting an agenda that is actually very conservative, then of course it stands to reason that liberals should be disappointed. It seems as though Sullivan wants to have his Obama cake and eat it too. He talks out of both sides of his mouth to once again turn Obama into Mr. everything for everybody, a persona that he successfully rode to the White House back in 2008. A role that , referencing the last three years of his governing record reveals, does not fit him in the least.

Papers Please!

When Congress actually agrees on something is when you should really start paying attention. The Senate recently passed the National Defense Amendment Act by a 93-7 margin and while the President has promised to veto the bill (more on this later), the ramifications of this bill are game-changing.

The NDAA has been passed every year for the past 48 years with no problem. Basically it is the bill that funds the United States Department of Defense. This year’s bill features a provision that has been folded into it that, among other things, allows for the indefinite detention of United States citizens.

That is indefinite detention, meaning that without a trial or even a legitimate charge, US citizens can be subjected to military tribunal and locked up indefinitely. Meaning that for the first time the US government would have the power to lock it’s own citizens, not just foreign combatants, away in Guantanamo Bay, Harold and Kumar style.

Before passing this monstrosity, our wise and just Senate allowed for just an hour of debate time to discuss the pros and cons of such a measure. An hour. They spent an hour debating whether the US government should wipe it’s behind with our 4^th and 6^th Amendment rights. Our constitution lost the debate, by a 93-7 margin.

But wait, earlier I mentioned that the White House has said that it will veto the bill. President Obama to the rescue right? Well, not quite, the White House is saying that it will veto the bill:

“This unnecessary, untested, and legally controversial restriction of the President’s authority to defend the Nation from terrorist threats would tie the hands of our intelligence and law enforcement professionals. Moreover, applying this military custody requirement to individuals inside the United States… would raise serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.”

This would be good news if it werent for the fact that the Congress has more than enough votes to overturn a Presidential veto on this bill. It cant be stressed how slippery of a slope we precariously find ourselves on right now. Unfortunately we have been moving down this path – a path that undoubtedly ends in less freedoms for the average person and more government control over our daily lives – unimpeded for some time now.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) has been called the founding document of the apparently open-ended “war or terror”. Passed one week after 9/11, it allowed for the President to search for and prosecute anyone suspected of being connected to the 9/11 attacks. This new bill expands this power to include jurisdiction over all “covered persons”.

From the bill:

“The authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons. . . pending disposition under the law of war.”

As Sen. Rand Paul states in the above video, the bill makes no distinction between those found to have been actually supporting terrorists and those simply accused of “supporting terrorism”, a phrase that is broad itself.

“I want to repeat that. We are talking about people who are merely suspected of a crime. And we are talking about American citizens,” Paul said. “If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay. It puts every American at risk. The only thing protecting innocent Americans from the heavy hand of ‘a too powerful state’ is the Constitution. Detaining citizens without a court trial is not American. In fact, this alarming arbitrary power is reminiscent of Egypt’s permanent emergency law authorizing permanent detention—a law that provoked citizens to tear their country apart last spring and risk their lives to overcome tyranny.”

“I Have Dreamed A Dream”

Leap of Faith

Most people who know me know that the Matrix is one of my favorite movies of all time. Has been that way since the first time I saw it when I was like 13. While I really didnt know exactly what it meant back then, something about it stuck with me. Today I understand the movie in a fuller sense, but every time I watch it I feel like I learn something new.

While there are lessons to learn from each of the movies in the trilogy, I want to focus on one scene from the second movie, The Matrix Reloaded. By the end of the movie we find out that the prophecy that has driven Morpheus’ entire life was a lie. It turns out that The One, Neo, was never meant to end the war. He was simply another system of control that the machines used to keep everybody in line. This is of course a crushing realization to have.

Right after finding this out, his hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar, is destroyed by a bomb. Him and his crew escape unscathed but coupled with the fact that he just found out the thing he has dedicated his entire life to is a lie, Im sure he felt like dying wouldnt have been the worst thing in the world at that moment.  While watching his ship burn he uttered the phrase that inspired this post: “I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me”.

While researching the quote I came across a blog that talked about faith. Morpheus, who had been a pillar of strength and has showed considerable faith throughout the series is faced with his darkest hour. The author compared the Matrix story to the story of Abraham in the Bible. When God called Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac on the alter.

Abraham was really old and wanted a son. He had been praying for one for a while, but his wife Sarah could not bare children. After many years God finally gave them a son, they named him Isaac. When Isaac was 12 or so, God decided to test Abraham’s faith and asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to him. Abraham eventually conceded and was about to sacrifice his son when God stopped him and told him that it was only a test.

The point the author of the blog post tried to make was that in any walk of faith you have two defining moments. The moment when your faith is tested way beyond the point that seems reasonable to any outsider and the moment when you make a leap of faith despite all signs telling you that your belief is wrong.

Morpheus had heard the impossible. Neo, the one himself, told him that the prophecy that fortetold his coming was all a lie. This flew in the face of everything that he had been led to believe up until that point. Then right after that, his ship is destroyed. At his lowest point, Morpheus had a choice to make. He could accept what all the evidence available to him was telling him, or he could make a leap of faith and continue on with what he knew to be right in his soul.  Despite all that happened at the end of the second movie, Morpheus kept his faith going into the third one and was ultimately rewarded when Neo ended the war.

I guess the point Im trying to make is that if your walking any walk of faith, one day your faith will be tested. Seemingly insurmountably. Everything will be stacked against you and what you believe. At that point you have a choice to make. You can either wilt under the pressure, or you can take a leap of faith and believe in the impossible. What is faith, after all, that is never tested. Hopefully we all can keep this in mind when the time comes for us to make the leap.

Cant Change Who I am, Just Trying to Get Better

A little background…. I went to a Christian school for 14 years during my formative years. On top of that I went to church damn near every Sunday for about19 years*. So it’s no surprise to me that even though I dont read the bible like that anymore, random bible verses pop into my head from time to time – much in the same way random lyrics do.

A week ago I was talking to a friend about the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. During this month, billions of Muslims refrain from eating, drinking and sex during the day light hours. The purpose of this abstinence is to bring the devout closer to their creator, an idea that is shared by holy people across different faiths including Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.

The Bible verse that popped into my head was 2 Chronicles 7:12-14.

“12 And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice. 13 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; 14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 15 Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place. “

Im not a religious person, but I do consider myself a spiritual person. I believe in a spiritual realm that simultaneously operates outside of and in conjunction with our physical world. And if Muslims around the world are using this month as a time to increase their spiritual acuity then I figured this would be a great time to do the same.

As I said, I am not a Christian, so when verse 14 says, “If my people” I take “my people” to mean anyone who is of like mind. No matter the religion. This verse is calling anyone who believes in this spiritual realm or even in the idea that we are all somehow connected on a non-physical level** to do something simple yet profound in times of crisis.

In our microwaveable-google searching world of instant gratification a month of self denial seems cogent. Our very way of life appears to be crumbling around us***. Wouldnt be the first time, wont be the last****, the heavens have been shut up, there is no rain and the locusts have been going ham!

Im not calling for anything big like fasting during the daylight hours *****, but something that you enjoy partaking in (think lent). I am giving up sugary drinks****** (long story) in conjunction with daily meditation and prayer. I lamented on twitter the other day that my meditation sessions have felt fruitless recently. I expect to not only be physically stronger by the end of this month but also spiritually recharged. Im actually really excited about this. This world aint gonna change itself, those who know have to start with themselves then maybe those who dont will have an example to follow. And maybe all this good will that we, the Muslims and whoever else wants to join, put out into the universe will give us the answers we seek to help us heal our land.

 

*We probably missed like 5 services in all that time

**Metaphysical maybe

***If you cant agree with anything else I said here please agree with me on that lol

**** I hope.  This could actually be the last time lol

***** Seriously is there any religion more devout than Islam

****** Already failed because Im an idiot. Drank a free smoothie yesterday, not stopping to think that there was juice in the drink. All I thought was “Oohhh free”. So my month actually starts today

This One is For All the Leaders. Lets Change the World

Believe me when I tell you I had no idea that today was the 43rd anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. I was inspired to do a post on MLK after watching the movie ‘Sucker Punch’ on Saturday. At first I wanted to do a post on the movie itself and it’s message, but that just seemed kind of lazy. I was listening to my Zune on my way home after the movie and a song by the Game featuring Nas entitled ‘Letter to the King’ came on the shuffle. Since I dont believe in coincidence, the movie plus the song inspired me to write this post. Today provides the perfect opportunity for us to reflect on one of history’s most well recognized revolutionaries and fighters, Dr. Martin Luther King.

“I ain’t even know the strength you had to have to march/ You were more than just talk/ You were the first real brave heart/ We miss you/ I feel like King be in me sometimes”

I liked the movie Sucker Punch because of the message that was behind it. The movie ends with the line “You have all the weapons you need. Now fight”. That resonated with me because I believe that this is the message that our generation needs to hear the most. We have become, by design, too complacent with the state of affairs in our society. We as a generation are asleep in a matrix of mindless entertainment, distracted by the most trivial “news” all for the purpose of keeping us docile and tractable. Who cares about a war in Libya, March Madness just started and the Situation from Jersey Shore  just gave someone VD, again.

We have allowed our generations greatest achievement and potential savior, the internet, to become another system of control that enslaves us. Television 2.0, now interactive. Have you seen those ‘Bing’ commercials? The search overload commercials where there is a person rambling on about random stuff they had been searching for on the internet, thats us! We have become beholden to our technologies (an idea that has been foretold in generations of science-fiction writing). All the information we could ever want or need at our finger tips and this is how we utilize it.

What does this have to do with ‘Sucker Punch’ or Martin Luther King, you may ask. Well, to fight or march or to do anything that takes effort or goes against the grain requires one important ingredient, a sense of uncomfortableness. As long as we are sedated and comfortable with our surroundings we don’t feel the need to cause a ruckus. Everything is cool. This is where entertainment and the media come in. It is their job to keep us sedated. I believe it is our job, those not trapped in this mental prison, to wake us all up.

Martin Luther King should be celebrated not only because of what he helped black people in this country achieve, but also because he was willing to go against the grain, and in turn inspired the masses to do the same. By no means was this easy, but the fact that he was willing to face not only hatred but almost certain death should serve as an inspiration to us all, leaders.

“But the King who came to Memphis in April of 1968 was a very different man from the one we’ve come to venerate. A fierce critic of the Vietnam War, King had begun to preach an uncomfortable gospel that involved the radical redistribution of wealth. As he became more controversial, his popularity had sagged. Key allies in Washington had abandoned him. He’d gained weight, was sleeping poorly, and was drinking and smoking more. He received frequent death threats. His marriage was strained from his travels and dalliances. One of his mistresses, in fact, was staying at the Lorraine the night before he was killed.”

Some would have you believe that there is nothing wrong with our society today. But the evidence overwhelmingly suggests otherwise. Our elections are bought and paid for, the poor get screwed out of their pensions while the rich receive bailouts that are funded by the poor’s pensions, lol (have to laugh to keep from crying), we are killing people in the middle east over oil (again), our country’s educational system is a joke, college is becoming less and less affordable at the same time the value of a college degree is falling trepiditiously. And then there is Soulja Boy and Rhianna…. It takes strength to fight against evil, a strength that King and all the revolutionaries of the ’60′s and all the revolutionaries throughout history had. A strength that lay dormant in us, until now.

People are waking up at an increasing rate as the powers that be have gotten more bold about doing what it is that they do (case in point; in ’03 George Bush lied to the nation to get us to go to war with Iraq. 8 years later in 2011, Obama simply went to war, didnt tell anybody, then explained his actions 10 days after the war started, I kinda miss Dubya…). I never get angry at Obama or Bush or any politician anymore. As the scholar and gentlemen Weezy ‘the F is for Finisher’ Baby says “I had my heart broken by this woman named Tammie/ But hoes gonna be hoes so I couldnt blame Tammie”. Our politicians are puppets who do the bidding of their puppet masters. They will do what they are supposed to do. I more so get angry at the masses indifference to their bullshit. We just bend over and take it.

I fight the best way I know how, through this blog. Through letting the dozen or so people who care what I have to say into my perspective on todays current issues. Leaders, we all have the spirit of MLK in us, it’s high time we asserted ourselves and fought against the direction that I know you see our society going. Our strength lies in our numbers. This is still a democracy and we still have the power to fight. We have to wake this country up from it’s slumber before it is too late. If this resonates at all with you then be ready to “march”. This is the day of reckoning, it’s time to either get down or lay down.  You have all the weapons you need. Now fight.

A Generation Drowning in Information, Yet Still Thirsty For Knowledge

 

This is the information age. In this day and age any piece of information on any topic you could possibly think of is literally sitting at your fingertips. So why does it seem like ignorance is at an all time high in our society. It’s almost like the more information we have access to, the less we know. A catch 22 indeed.

I bring this up because of a discussion some friends and I have been having on gmail about the war in Libya. I (being the contrarian that I am) am on the complete opposite side of my liberal mates who are in support of the war. The argument pretty much goes like this: They say ‘Gaddafi is/was targeting protesters so the US is right for intervening’. I say ‘How do you know that Gaddafi is/was targeting protesters, there is no evidence that suggests this’. I then get a link to an article such as this which then “proves” their point that Gaddafi is in fact killing civilians.

I am a skeptic by design so I am going to look at this article critically and tell you why this is hack journalism (not that hack journalism isnt prevalent in the whole of the main stream media, MSM from now on).

Relevant quote from the article:

“The situation here is very bad. Tanks started shelling the town this morning,” a resident, called Mohammed, told Reuters by telephone from outside the city’s hospital, adding:

“Snipers are taking part in the operation too. A civilian car was destroyed killing four children on board, the oldest is aged 13 years.”

For me to say that this person is not credible enough of a  source for this to be your only source in the story seems painfully obvious to me. Its some guy who called Rueters, claimed to be ouside of the hospital and apparently has inside knowledge as to who was in this alleged exploded car and the ages of said explosion victims. Theres a possibility that the entire story was made up. The hospital was not called for the story. No attempt was made to contact family members to coroberate the story, no actual journalism was done.

It’s like if I called Reuters right now and said there is a UFO landing on my house right now and Reuters ran a headline the next day that read “UFO Lands on Man’s House”. That would be insanity and you wouldnt expect that type of journalism from such a “trusted” news organization. Ive seen this story re-reported in the Post, but the death toll from the car explosion was 6 and the source was a doctor at the hospital, supposedly.

Some of the things that bother me about this story specifically:

Nevermind the fact that the idea of a car carrying 4 or six children driving in the middle of a war zone seems fishy at best to me, nevermind the person propogating this has the motive and means to lie about the situation, the fact that this story has gained so much steam without a shred of evidence is what leads me to believe that its false. It runs lock step with what the Obama administration would have you believe about what going on in Libya. Where have we seen this type of behavior before?

Oh yea, it was 2003. In the run up to the Iraq war, if you will recall, Bush’ administration came with a media blitz. Chart after chart, graph after graph, UN hearing after UN hearing, we were told that Sadam Hussein had WMD’s, yellow cake uranium, and all other types of shit that could harm US citizens. The media got this information, did no research into its validity and ran wild with it. Why? Because believe it or not, the MSM feeds off of public panic. Its the lifeblood of the industry. The more people are scared, the more they look to CNN, Wapo, NY Times, Fox News for answers. Its whats good for business.When It turned out that the information was incorrect and that the MSM hadn’t done their jobs, their reaction was simply ‘Whoops, Mulligan’.

To the public that recent history seems like a lifetime ago. But it wasn’t. In fact the coalition (coalition of the willing, right) invaded Libya almost 8 years to the day that they invaded Iraq. It wasn’t that long ago, but the lessons that we should have learned have been long forgotten. President Obama has a speech planned for Monday concerning Libya that I am sure  all of the MSM networks will be televising. After you watch the speech, I urge you to turn off your set or change the channel . Don’t listen to to the recap. Let what he said sink into your brain. Think critically on your own about what he said and how you feel about it. We are told what the news is then told how to feel about the news; just a herd moving along. But how do you feel about the situation. Even if you don’t come to the same conclusion as I did, the fact that you thought critically on your own is a step towards breaking the hold that the MSM has on our society. We dont have any excuses. All of the knowledge we need is within our reach, drink from the trough. Free your mind.

Think Twice Before Giving Aid to Japan

Its once again time to put on your tin-foil hats with your favorite contrarian. Me. The inspiration for this post came to me yesterday while I was watching 106 and Park (by watch I mean had it on while I was surfing the net and watching two other programs, its 2011, a man like myself must multitask my entertainment).

They had just finished playing the new Dr. Dre and Eminem song, when Terrence made some stupid joke about Dre being ripped in the video. The girl with no personality who co-hosts (is her name lisa?) interrupts him and lets the audience know that the fuel rods in the earthquake damaged Japanese nuclear reactor might explode. She then follows up by saying if you want to donate go to Care.org, because we know you care, or something, then go to this website. This caused me to pause because I had seen this before.

Remember during the crisis in Haiti, it seemed like every channel (something like 80% of the channels on tv are owned by like 3 companies so thats not a surprise) had a way for you to simply text a number and 5 dollars would be sent to an aid-organization that you had never heard of, Yele (?), and some you had heard of, Red Cross (the worst of the worst). Im sure it felt very American to be able to help by literally only lifting a finger to do so. Conscious cleared, back to the conflict diamonds on 106 and Park.

Then we had our own impartial media (ha!) patting us on the back for all the great charity work we were doing. Meanwhile the heads of Red Cross Organizations were being indicted on embezzlement charges in cases that spanned from Orange County to Sweeden

Then it  starts coming out in report, after report, after report, after report, that all of your funds are not going to the impovrished people of Haiti. It turns out that being in the charity relief industry is actually big business (shocking I know). Some of the members of the Red Cross board of Directors (8 of whom are appointed by the United States governemnt)

• Gail J. McGovern, the President/CEO of the American Red Cross, also holds a Top managing Position at AT&T (lucrative telecom contracts because of Hatian Americans wanting to call home)
• Paula E. Boggs, Executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of Starbucks Coffee Company, is also on the Audit and Risk Management Committee of the American Red Cross (guess what Haiti’s number one export is)
• Steve Wunning the Vice Chair of Audit and Risk Management Committee and member of the Compensation and Management Development Committee of the American Red Cross. Also Group President of Catepillar Inc. (A heavy machinery and construction equipment company that stands to profit handsomely from our donations)

• The company pharmacuetical company Merck has been handling the AIDS vaccinations and other medical needs of the people or Haiti. Allan Goldberg, The Chair for the QRC Subcommittee and member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee for the American Red Cross is the Executive Director at Merck and Co.*(source)

The list goes on and on and on. My point is this, donating to relief efforts around the world is a good thing, but just make sure you know who you are donating to. Make sure you are comfortable with where your money is going, because if its not reaching the people you intended it to, then you are really just donating to make yourself feel better and not really for the purpose of helping those that need it.

Barack Obama Going Back on Another Campaign Promise: And Why You Should Expect More Of the Same

Two sides, same coin

Readers of my blog know that I am very critical of President Barack Obama. I’ve said for months that his handling of the financial crisis (the 700 billion dollar bailout) which is still fucking us; his prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the only reason why we are escalating in Afghanistan probably has something to do with Pakistan); and his use of unmanned drone attacks abroad (this deserves an entire blog post in and of itself) all seem very Bush-like to me. My liberal friends tend to think I am overreacting when I say that George Bush and Barack Obama are playing for the same team, but I believe the proof is in the pudding and the last two years under Obama are only a foreshadowing of all the bullshit we are about to go through as a nation. The latest example of the extension of the Obama/Bush doctrine was the news today that President Obama was “creating an indefinite detention system” at the secret military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Ill goahead and repeat that for posterity’s sake. He is using his executive power to create a system of indefinite detention at our (and by our I mean the US’) very secret and very unconstitutional secret prison that is located in a “hostile” country.

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the order vindicated Obama’s predecessor. “I commend the Obama Administration for issuing this Executive Order,” he said in a statement. “The bottom line is that it affirms the Bush Administration policy that our government has the right to detain dangerous terrorists until the cessation of hostilities.”

Republicans will tell you that this is an affirmation of the Bush doctrine. Bush/Cheney/Rove continually say that history will prove them right on their foreign policy stances. Based on the comment section trolls (no Charlie Sheen) in the Washington Post article, this seems to be the interpretation of events by the political right. Obama has realized that governing a country isn’t all roses and negotiations, sometimes the executive has to move unilaterally. We are, after all living, in a post-9/11 world that blah blah blah blah blah….. This coming from the supposed small-government political side of the same coin, I mean spectrum.

Democrats will feel betrayed because this was one of the main sticking points in their hatred of Dubya. They accused Bush of rolling back our liberties with the Patriot Act and acting against the will of the people in opening and maintaining a secret prison not under the jurisdiction of United States laws. They (formally we) were right. Bush was absolutely destroying our freedoms right in front of us all the while setting us on a precarious slope in terms of domestic surveillance (Patriot Act). Since all of our information is on the web these days anyway via Facebook, Twitter, Google, our smartphones etc etc we were right to be alarmed.

But much like his predecessor the reason why Obama was picked is because he is the kool-aid (is that racist?) that allows us to swallow these bitter pills. Liberals, like the conservatives before them, will not only trust a President who they think is fighting for them, but will also make excuses for that President when it is clear he is not working in their best interests. If it were Obama that had signed the Patriot Act, something that would be typical in the view of a conservative who believes liberals are big government, there would have been riots in the streets. But since the man implementing the new laws was “on their side” then it was defended rather foolishly by the political right. Not to be outdone in terms of the herd mentality, when its liberals turn to raise hell about the government fucking the people, they are eerily silent.

It takes a strong and mature political audience to admit that it was wrong when it comes to a leader in whom they have invested so much hope. But liberals, its time to wake up and smell the roses. Obama doesn’t work for you. You knew that Bush wasn’t working for you, why is it so impossible to think that Obama is the same way? The proof is in his policies!

I will absolutely be watching the Daily Show tonight to see what John Stewart thinks of this situation. Chances are he plays a bunch of clips where Obama vows to close Gitmo, then plays a clip of today’s announcement makes a few jokes, calls it dissapointing and moves on. I personally think he should be raising a stark alarm, but hey, as I said, liberals tend to think I overreact.

“And though it seems heaven sent/ We aint ready to have a black President”

 

Astroturfing: How Drake, Wiz Khalifa and Barack Obama Are More Similar Than You Might Think

Everything aint rosy

Before you can understand how two of U.S. most popular new rappers and Barack Obama are cut from the same cloth I want you to get familiar with a certain term. That term is Astroturfing. As taken from the world’s most accurate encyclopedia:

 

Astroturfing is a form of advocacy often in support of a political or corporate agenda designed to give the appearance of a “grassroots” movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. The term is a derivation of AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to look like natural grass.

Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt (“outreach”, “awareness”, etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual promoting a personal agenda, or highly organized professional groups with money from large corporations, unions, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often, the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research. Beneficiaries are not “grass root” campaigners but distant organizations that orchestrate such campaigns.

Keep this in mind throughout this article.

Let’s start with Drake. Personal feelings about the “Degrassi” alum aside, Drake has had an unprecedented rise to the top of the rap game. Drake’s first mixtape, “Room For Improvement” (indeed) was released in ’06. It didn’t make much noise and was panned. Fast forward three years and a couple other shitty mixtapes later and you have what Billboard Magazine described at the time as “one of the biggest bidding wars ever”.

The story goes that somehow Screech from the Canadian Saved By the Bell got Trey Songz to feature on a song called Replacement Girl, which was then debuted on BET in 2007. Upon hearing said shitty mixtape, the mixtape king, Young Weezy the F stands for Phenomenal Baby (no really), was so impressed that he invited Drake out to tour with him.

This is ‘08 and at this point there is still supposedly no deal between Drake and Young Money. Fast forward to spring ’09 and Drake drops the ubiquitous Best I Ever Had single and Every Girl, which featured 4 Young Money members. Billboard would have you believe that this is what sparked the ‘World War 3 of bidding wars’ but being the contrarian that I am, lets just say that I’m a little skeptical of chronological order of that retelling of events.

Drake ends up breaking all types of records for radio spins. He re-releases his mixtape ‘So Far Gone’ as a for-retail EP, and it goes on to sell over 500,000 copies. I am going to repeat that for you. He repackaged and sold a FREE mixtape that had less songs on it than the original freeer version and went on to go Gold! In 2009! In an era where 90% of established artists don’t see Gold plaques on their full length studio albums! If you were to believe what his fans told you, he did it off the strength of hard work and keeping his name out there and releasing dope music and, then…. Pow… your performing at the Grammy’s and you don’t even have an album out yet.

Then there is Wiz Khalifa. I wont go in depth into his story for time reasons but suffice to say that while most people think that Wiz’ upcoming “Rolling Papers” album will be his debut, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Wiz has been signed since 2006. Ill go ahead and repeat that, 2006. This will in fact be his THIRD studio album, and the bama has already reinvented himself fromt this! To this:

Why do most fans think that Wiz is new to the scene? Well it might have something to do with XXL putting him on the cover of their “Freshman 10” list in 2010. Ive heard of 5^th and 6^th year seniors, but if you’re a third year freshman then school probably aint for you.

What does this have to do with Barack Obama you might ask? Well think about it in terms of astroturfing. People forget this, but one of Obama’s first introductions to the national consciousness was at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Chosen to speak supposedly because he was a great orator, Obama gave a rousing message at the DNC that year. The story goes that this catapulted him from freshman Senator to President of the United States.

Im not going to get into all the crazy things about his past that are either unanswered or just seem plain fishy, but I will say that the rabbit hole is extremely deep. We know that astroturfing works in music. We know it works in movies (see Snakes on a Plane, I mean don’t actually see that movie as it will be a waste of your time, but see as in reference). We know that the media, whether it’s Billboard Magazine, XXL, CNN, or Fox News is implicit in astroturfing. What does this tell us about our Knight in shining armor and media darling in chief?

Obama, if nothing else, was all about hype during the campaign. That’s why we were in the streets after he won (Ill be the first to admit the mufucka had me fooled). For once the hype felt real.  But with a new understanding of how our pop culture works and what astroturfing is and how it influences the masses, what can we say that we REALLY know about who he is and what his agenda may be. Free your mind.

“Believe half of what you see (Even if its spat by me)”

There is so much misinformation out there, it’s almost overwhelming at times. I was just scouring the internets for some news on the Egyptian protests in Cairo when I stumbled across this article, which is titled:

EGYPTIAN MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LEADER: “PREPARE FOR WAR WITH ISRAEL”

As Katt Williams would say, that immediately got my Spidey sense tingling. That seems like pretty big news. Why hasn’t CNN or or the WashPo or NY Times or even Fox News picked up on this story. After reading the first paragraph I understood why it had not been picked up, it’s not true.

“Mohamed Ghanem, one of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, calls Egypt to stop pumping gas to Israel and prepare the Egyptian army for a war with it’s eastern neighbor.

Speaking with Iranian television station Al-Alam, Mohamed Ghanem blamed Israel for supporting Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Ghanem also said that the Egyptian police and army won’t be able to stop the Muslim Brotherhood movement.”

First if there is such a video I would love to see it. Secondly the most inflamatory part of the article (the part in bold) lacks any quotations whatsoever. So now we lack actual video, audio or written transcript of what was said. As for the second paragraph that actually holds quotes, objective examination proves Ghanem’s assertion to be pretty benign.

The fact is that Israel, along with the United States and numerous other supposedly pro-democracy Western powers have supported the dictator Mubarak. Secondly the army and police probably can’t stop the tide that is rolling in unless the resort to the unthinkable and start firing on protesters.

I love reading comments. Thats usually the best part about any post, whether its viral video or completely made up blog posts, peoples reactions never dissapoint and this “news article” is no exception. Here are some of the jewels:

Nobarak08 said: Obama first speech in a foreign country was in Egypt. It was Obama’s sign to MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD that their time has come, for their father of all lies is about to be unleashed upon the world. The father of all lies is the devil and that is whom all Muslims pray to and for.

When*Pigs8Fly said: A couple of years ago I would have written you off as a crazy bigot, but after studying islam myself I am convinced it is evil and if there really is a devil then islam is surely his creation.

and my personal favorite

James said :This treasonous Coward some people call the President will someday go down as a traitor. The fact is, if Israel is attacked and can see no way out but it’s destruction, The Sampson Option WILL come into play. Israel will nuke the entire Middle East, From the Tigris to the Nile, Iran and Pakistan. India will then nuke Pakistan the the world grinds to a screeching halt. I can tell you how much I hate the Fraud in Chief and this administration anyway but especially for their complicity in all of this. If Socialist/Islamist riots come to the U.S. I will die a free man but a lot of these mongrel Socialists and Islamists are going down with me. A lot. I think we should go a head and just Nuke Mecca.

In his ‘Never Scared’ standup from ’04 Chris Rock dropped this jewel on the world (fast forward to minute 6′ in the video above), “Anyone who makes up their mind before they hear the issue is a fucking fool”. The way people consume information these days is incredibly scary. We have an unlimited library of information at our hands but we have been trained to consume without any analytical thought, not only are we given the news but then we are also told how to feel about the news, and thats in the best case scenarios. The worst case is trash articles like this that only serve to rile up an already paranoid and bigoted audience.