"WE ARE A FASCIST NATION NOW."

This is a quote from Jesse Ventura, former professional wrestler and governor of Minnesota, when talking about the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) xray and pat down procedures at airports.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/23/former-governor-jesse-ventura-were-a-fascist-nation-now/

I don't know about Fascist, but intrusion on privacy and our person, here is an example, like the many TSA examples, related to fear and security, plus the large, mysterious corporate take over from small business.  My air emission tests used to be at my local garage where I knew the mechanic and he knew me.  Now air emissions are checked in a large corporate facility. They, whoever They are, probably made generous campaign contributions and lobbied to get laws passed in their favor to get the contract.

Have you had a chance to go thru the car emissions center? Interesting experience!!  A Gestapo like process, same conclusion as one of my neighbors.  Make sure you follow their strict rules for leaving and returning to your car, or their rath will fall upon you.  Stay in the long hallway and don't cross the yellow line until you are called.  Make sure you remember what car you came in, because it is their personal call to you--not your name.  They are careful to have you return to your car, sit inside with your door closed and your window open, before they tell you whether you pass or fail. They approach as a police officer would, I guess, in case you turn violent. But, be careful. You are on camera.

The center is loaded with security cameras, probably to watch employees as well as "threatening customers." Not that we want to be customers. If you want to comment on their "service" you have to include your Vehicle ID number. Why?  Are we marked then as trouble makers and someone hunts us down?

I gave the cameras the one finger salute when I left-- four times for 2 cars.  The cars both failed.  Gas caps didn't pass the pressure test.  Were there gas caps nearby?  No.  I had to burn more gas driving to buy a new one than I would have leak fumes for years.  Then you go back thru the same procedure as if you had not been there before.  I am lucky. They didn't fail again.  Funny thing, the new gas caps, probably made in China, look like they could only last a few days before they crack and fall apart. Quality?  Not anymore.

The company, AIRCARECOLORADO, (Isn't that a wonderfully environmentally sensitive name?) connected with Envirotest System Corp., is a subsidiary of Environmental Systems Products, Inc. They are under contract to the State of Colorado, and, of course, they are an out of state company.  One of their low paid employees (who couldn't find a better job after being laid off in his 50"s) told me that the company is from Connecticut.  Good for the Colorado economy!!!  Low paid jobs and the profits go elseware.

I just called ESP's customer service line to hear a recording that said I should go to their website ESP-global.com.  Maybe they are located in another country.  All the better for the US economy.

Fascist example?  If not, it's a step closer.

WAR AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS

Check out the attached speech by Senator Al Franken, given at the Netroots Nation Conference in June this year.  This video is the first part of 3 parts on the subject.

http://www.netrootsnation.org/node/1972

What do you think?  Wisconsin is the state to watch

Great Interview for Inside View of Government

  

I found a great series of interviews done by reporter Paul Jay of TheRealNews.com with Lawrence Wilkerson, former military colonel and Former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State, Colon Powell.


I suggest you watch all of the segments in order from bottom to top on the following web page:


http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=736


The interviews help to put a human element into the workings of the Federal Government including the White House and the military during Larry Wilkerson's  years as Colin Powell's primary speech writer. Leading up to his White House experience, Larry discuses his career  in the military from 1966, when he enlisted, wanting to go to Vietnam.


In another topic, he tells about his shift away from the Republican Party.


Mr. Wilkerson provides great descriptions of Colin Powell, a man he still has great respect for.


The thing that turned Mr. Wilkerson off during the Bush 2 administration, for enthusiasm for "truth, justice, and the American way,' was torture." It was called enhanced interrogations, but it was torture.  Torture is "a perversion of American values and a perversion of American beliefs." 


It came to him when he realized the torture issue was "not just an aberration, it was a manifestation of where we had come as a country...we had built ourselves into a national security state." 


He was troubled by "we were turning into a country that knew only one way of achieving its purpose, and that was to kill people." He started to speak out in October, 2005.


Hope you can take the time to watch some of these. I found myself always looking forward to the next segment.

THE MEAN WORLD SYNDROM

I watched a documentary movie the other day titled "The Mean World Syndrome."  This term was used and developed by a man named George Gerbner, a professor of communications, for the condition where violence shown in the mass media causes viewers to think that we live in a more dangerous world than it really is. We have become more fearful for ourselves.


We all see violence on TV news, shows, commercials, sports, reality shows, etc. and movies.  Even shows like America's Funniest Home Videos has violence. It turns out that people who watch the most TV are most fearful.


A few points from the movie:
1. A child sees 8,000 murders by the time they finish elementary school.  


2. By the time they turn 18 they have seen 200,000 acts of violence.  


3. Over time the violence in the media has increased significantly.  In general we as the public in the USA believe we live in a less safe world.  However, violent crime is at a 30 year low. 


4. Local news is the greatest culprit for portraying meanness with 61% of the leadoff stories reporting crime, fires, disasters and accidents.


Does this surprise you?  Number 3 surprised me!  The movie is worth watching. By becoming more aware of reality, it may improve your outlook on life with your neighbors and your town.


A trailer for the movie that was released last year is on the right side of the link below.  However, just below the trailer, you can watch the whole 51 minute movie as a Preview.


http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=143


Watch it if you get a chance.

How Do You Recognize a Psychopath?

Found an interesting piece on NPR, "A Psychopath Walks Into a Room. Can You Tell?"  The following is a  segments that starts us thinking:
"Robert Hare, the eminent Canadian psychologist who invented the psychopath checklist, ... recently announced that you're four times more likely to find a psychopath at the top of the corporate ladder than you are walking around in the janitor's office,"


Very interesting. That makes me think back to the crazy bosses I have had in my career.  


Many characteristics of "successful" CEO's match up with characteristic of a psychopath, such as, "manipulative" and "self aggrandizement."
 Here is a link.   http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/06/maher-on-palin-anybody-could-be-president-in-this-dumb-fcking-country/

"THE WAR TO END ALL WARS"

The other day I heard the phrase, "the war to end all wars" referring to World War 2.  Reality is WW2 was "the beginning to perpetual war."


Why?  Profits.  Many corporations made great profits during WW2.  However, at that time it was illegal to profit from the war.  It doesn't seem that it matters today.


"War to end all wars" may be just another term that means the opposite from what it really means.  Examples:  
1.  "Help America Vote Act" was really an act to make it harder for poor and minority people to vote, and it established the requirement to use voting machines that can be "fixed" to steal elections by those who own the proprietary software that run the machines.


2.  "Patriot Act" really is anti-patriotic in that playing upon our fears of terrorism, we give up the basic freedoms that this country stands for.


Do you have any more?

PR Fills Void Left by Disappearing News

My post of April 26th sited a Mother Jones Magazine article "Fact-Free Nation." The article discussed the transition of news of the past where journalists called out people when they lied to news today that is "balanced" where no one verifies the difference between truth and untruth. Also, shrinking journalism departments at universities are merging with public relations (PR) departments.

Propublica posted a news article May 2nd titled "PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms."  It documents the growth of PR and the shrinking of journalism.  PR is a growing and booming business. What if all "news" became PR? What could we count on? Would our lives be better, calm, happy, or fearful in a truly a fact-free nation?  I don't know, we could find out.  


In the former Soviet Union the people knew they were hearing propaganda from their government. In the U.S. people less aware of propaganda.  We are busy trying to make a living and raising our kids. Many people I know don't pay attention beyond the network news programs they watch and hear.to know what is news or propaganda. 

My direct experience comes from a Kiwanis Convention training I attended on how to get news on our club activities into the newspaper.  The best way was to write the article and send it to the paper. The articles are printed with almost no editing.  The explanation was the newspapers with fewer and fewer reporters still want items to report for local news.  But, do you think we are going to tell the community that we sell beer to raise money for kids? No. We tell them what we want them to hear about all of the good projects we do for kids.

Back to the article. The following portions of the article stood out for me. However, please realize these are my preferences that verify my beliefs, my spin or propaganda to convince others of my truth. If you read the whole article, you can tell me how I did.

"The dangers are clear. As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the public debate, and to do so without the public knowing it. "What we are seeing now is the demise of journalism at the same time we have an increasing level of public relations and propaganda," McChesney said. "We are entering a zone that has never been seen before in this country.""


What's wrong with PR?  Here is a pro statement.

"Gary McCormick, former chairman of the Public Relations Society of America, said that was unfair. McCormick acknowledged that there have been PR abuses, but he said most public relations people try to steer clear of falsehood. And he makes a pretty logical argument: lying does not work, because you are almost always going to get caught. And when you do, it makes it worse for your client.

"If I burn you, I am out of business," said McCormick, whose organization has a membership of 21,000. He concedes that can be a tough message to relay to a client facing bad press. "The problem is when you get caught up with a client, and the business drives you to tell a message differently than you would advise," McCormick said.

McCormick is right: lies are not ubiquitous, and they are not the heart of the matter. The problem is that there is a large gray zone between the truth and a lie."


This sounds fine for PR firms competing in an honest, competitive business world. However, we don't have that.  The major voices are from a corporate world dominated by monopolies.  PR people work within those monopolies and voice the words that they are paid to say.  In politics the PR firms specialize for an ideology viewpoint and clients choose them to spread their biased messages.  They don't worry about those with different beliefs. 


Another quote from the article carries their study to this caution.


"In a vacuum, none of this is bad. Schools need to publicize their research, corporations defend their products, and political groups stake their positions. But without the filter provided by journalists, it is hard to divide facts from slant."


And more.


"It's also getting tougher to know when a storyline originates with a self-interested party producing its own story  ...  evidence that it has not stopped. James Rainey, the Los Angeles Times media columnist, recently won Penn State's Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism for columns last year that showed how local television stations were running paid content in their news programs."


"New York Times...series of stories ... showed how the Pentagon was using retired military officers to deliver the military's message on the war in Iraq and its counterterrorism efforts...the officers' appearances on television were not happenstance, but a carefully coordinated effort of what the Pentagon called "message force multipliers." ...struck by the sophistication of the operation. "In a world saturated with spin, viewers tend to tune out official spokespeople and journalists," he said. "Where they are influenced is when they see people who are perceived to be experts in the subject matter but independent of the government and the media."


Watch and listen to your news to see what you think. Here is the link for the whole article.

http://www.propublica.org/article/pr-industry-fills-vacuum-left-by-shrinking-newsrooms