According to FoxNews, to Vote in the Coming Elections is Treasonous.

The wound inflicted on October 6, 1986 by the United States of America - completely illegally and shooting from ambush. Like Iraq, nevertheless, the media and the courts in the nation of laws found a way to do "damage control," and the criminal conspirator perpetrators not only escaped, but shared the spoils. Nothing ever changes, huh?









Propaganda, the blizzard of bloviating bullshit to which the U.S. public is being subjected of late on account of the approaching elections, has reached a level unequalled in my lifetime. In fact, never in my worst Orwellian nightmare did I ever dream of anything remotely as voluminous or dishonest. I can find nothing in any similar time period during Nazism in Germany or totalitarian socialism in the erstwhile Soviet Union that compares for shear volume and intensity.

Of course, anyone who inflicts himself with television viewing these days ought not be surprised. Relentless and endless commercial messages – behaviorist-designed propaganda designed to alter the viewer’s state of mind and opinion – pummel the psyche.

But one need not, in fact, fear that. With small pressure from a finger on the remote – in Haus Luebbert known as the commercial control - I simply “surf” away from all the commercials, to a degree that I haven’t seen one in literally years. Then, too, I only watch the news each morning. That’s not to learn the news, of course. Commercial interruptions and tabloid nonsense concerning cockamamie celebrity behavior, the latest rape or disappearance of some totally obscure female so dismember news channel programming that little concerning national affairs can be had. What can be learned in two hours from the flow strip at the bottom of the television screen can be learned in fifteen minutes on National Public Radio.

Parenthetically, I note that television parallels the rest of the nation in that respect, where literally everything has become subordinated to commercialism and the lust for money. There is nothing, it seems, that “America” will not interrupt, degrade, or forego for money. That includes personal, family, and societal honor. The U.S. not only broadcasts to the world its prostituted and debased character, it endeavors to expiate, even exalt it.

Having as a society and nation been rendered psychotic by the behaviorist-contrived propaganda and mind-control technique and technology I refer to here, the Jethroe Clampett, Man With a Hoe stupid public wonders huffily why the United States is not only no longer admired around the world, but, in fact, hated.

No, I watch the “news” programs in the morning in order to study them, to stay abreast of the latest newspeak, propaganda rhetoric and methods. In the evening, in the same interest, I watch FoxNews, CNN, CBS, and the others.

So it is that I come to aver as I just have. I also take every opportunity to measure the effect of the propaganda. At a restaurant with friends last night, I found the opportunity to ask our waitress a number of probing questions. About to graduate from Texas A&M University with a degree in television journalism, I learned that the twenty-two year old woman did not know who General Douglas MacArthur was. Neither had she every heard of the Battle of Yorktown. About to be given a degree by one of our largest universities, she was unable to complete even the simplest of logical problems.

I chose MacArthur and the Battle of Yorktown because an NPR report the other day reprised others of the sort. A large percentage of college students surveyed across the country, it revealed, identified General MacArthur as the victor at Yorktown. It went on from there, even worse and even more depressing.

In my own surveys, also nationwide and undoubtedly far more exhaustive than those I refer to here, I learned that “Americans” identify Pearl Harbor as a shampoo, know the capitol of their state rarely, and even more infrequently know the name of a single one of there elected representatives.

But you’ve heard all this before. The citizenry of the United States has never been, not even remotely, as stupid and incompetent mentally as it is today.

And, of course, it is to this level of mentality that people like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and FoxNews purvey their “balanced and fair” newspeak. The same is true of the far left (I always have to admit to never listening to anything there – it simply isn’t worth the effort). It is to the unschooled, functionally illiterate and innumerate, non compos mentis, and religiously mindless that this kind of television is directed.

How else would you explain recent and relentlessly repeated FoxNews asseverations holding – implying and occasionally actually stating specifically and plainly – that to vote for Democratic Party candidates is to give aid and comfort to terrorism. The opposition in Iraq, too. According to Fox, to hold an election at this time is treasonous. Think about that (watch and listen, too – I’m not making this up). To practice republican democracy is treason.

That kind of shooting oneself in the foot is common nowadays. Almost totally ignorant of classical logic, public figures today reel off nitwit nostrums one after the other. Oblivious as the result of their stopped mental machinery, media pundits perform public pratfalls like Sean Hannity’s Charlie Chaplin routine of a couple nights’ ago. First having done a segment not unlike Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” to demonstrate the kind of Baby Huey stupidity of the “American” public, he then proceeded to demonstrate that he is a very popular and highly respected media pundit – “a great American.” On same evening and as they invariably do every evening, both Hannity and Fox announced that they are the “most watched and respected” purveyor of “news” on the air.

Ah, guys – are you listening to yourselves?

Or is your respect for your audience what it seems to me to be? Just about the same as that held for the public by your hero, George the Seventh?

In the last two weeks, obviously desirous of bewildering the rabble even more before elections, the viewing and listening public has been offered these gems of non sequitur, circular argument, fallacy of composition, and dozens more logic. I have space here for only a few:

The month of October saw large percentage improvements in just about everything in Iraq. That’s according to Fox. For instance, things could have been worse there where the death toll is concerned – it was, after all, only the fourth worst month in that regard. Iraq still has little infrastructure – little electricity, scarce water, scarce fuel of all kinds – that’s one of the world’s oil-richest nations (oops – places) – and it gets worse from there.

But things are looking up because we intend even better things than we did at first.

Iraqi defense forces are in great shape, and will soon be able to take care of themselves. Not their country, mind you - themselves. As soon as they can be persuaded to refrain from murderous rampages against civilians each time one of their friends is killed or wounded, and as soon as they can be persuaded to stand and fight once in a while, and as soon as twenty-five to thirty percent of them do not go AWOL whenever it suits them, and as soon as . . . oh, never mind. Everything is going according to plan. Just ask Mr. Bush.

Oops! Actually, that isn’t exactly fair. In the last week or so, our fuehrer has conceded that things haven’t gone entirely according to plan. He and the Bush League haven’t made any mistakes, mind you – it just hasn’t gone according to plan. And nobody could have foreseen the several things that have been the reason things haven’t gone entirely according to plan.

For instance, nobody could have expected that Arabic translators – there’s an argument at the Pentagon right now about whether that should be “translators” or interpreters. Terminology is important, you know: first, people in this government make big, big bucks for inventing new jargon, new esoteria, and new weasel-words. Then, too, the difference between “insurgency,” “insurrection,” “rebellion,” and “civil war” are important – to a propagandist, anyway. Why, torture the language – “waterboard” it – enough, you can make “blind moron who can’t find his way home from across the street” turn into “leader.”

Anyway, who would have thought you’d need somebody who spoke the language when you invaded and occupied a place? You don’t plan for that sort of thing, do you?

“Guy who didn’t serve and has never done anything for the United States but bloviate balderdash” can be morphed into “great American” as slick as a whistle. That’s a lot of “morphing,” because “great American” Hannity is far, far from alone where leading the charge from the far rear – or right – is concerned. Put “never served the country he is now so desirous of having somebody else protect” behind each name here:

George Will
Chris Matthews
Bill O'Reilly (hid in England, from what I gather)
Rush Limbaugh (how about that - 4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst' on his chicken ass!)
Michael Savage (aka Michael Alan Weiner)
Sean ("The Great American") Hannity

Ah, yes – great Americans all (do you smell something?”). Add their fearless leader, the rich kid from Yale who had fun learning to fly while the “less fortunate” – don’t you just love this rhetoric, word game stuff – were humping through the everything-lethal-you-can-think-of-including-enemy-soldiers jungle in Southeast Asia. NOW he is concerned about his country’s security (unless he has to close the gates against the invaders, thus weakening his political base – that’s different)!

In the FoxNews wing of the White House, democracy in a nation where we have to ask a guy called the Ayatollah Sistani for an okay before we hold elections, and the Ayatollah picks candidates is eminently consistent. No problem. And once you’ve done that, and the Ayatollah has given his blessing, you choose democratically. Sure. No problem.

On Fox, after all, weeks of urging the viewers to boycott France, Canada, the Dixie Chicks, and more – fire Professor Ward Churchill without argument or hearing – is “fair and balanced.” Sean Hannity, for his part where the Dixie Chicks are concerned, “didn’t set out to injure.” That’s what he said the other night. Of course, all those genius people who have made Fox the “number one news channel” heard something else, just like I did, but whatever Sean says is right.

He’s a great American, remember?.

On “fair and balanced,” you’ll repeatedly hear questions like, “Is it possible that John Kerry and the Democrats want the U.S. to lose the war? “Why don’t the Democrats have a plan for victory?” “When did you stop beating your wife,” has morphed, you see. Have you noticed that changing your mind when you’ve made a mistake – of course, George the Seventh never makes mistakes, so we can’t include him in this one – is “flip-flopping?’’

Or aren’t you old enough to remember when to admit you didn’t know or had made error was to show strength and character. Times change, too, it would seem.

No, things are wonderful in Iraq. It’s hell – outside the Fuehrerbunker (oops – the Green Zone), there is no security at all. People live in mortal terror of roving and ubiquitous death squads who kill an average of a hundred people a day – it’s more, but that’s what “fair and balanced” is willing to “report” – and the few people who have a job or business must travel with all the assurance of a blind man walking through a mine field.

Contrast that with the rigorous upbringing of our Mr. Bush. You just have to know he understands what everyone is going through. As Tony Snow said the other day, Mr. Bush understands that twenty nine hundred and eighty-five is “just a number.” That was probably a Freudian slip, the way the Commander in Chief of all those dead – funny the way the media seldom mention the twenty thousand wounded, isn’t it? - “understands.” And the six hundred fifty thousand Iraqis John Hopkins’ estimates? George not only understands, he knows better. Obviously, FoxNews, Ann Coulter, and the Bush League are far more qualified – and certainly, less biased - to make that kind of estimate than Johns Hopkins University.

Johns Hopkins, after all, is merely a recognized world leader in research and education in medicine, public health, the arts, sciences, and engineering. What would they know?

The latest propaganda ploy (well, it’s only five, and I haven’t heard the news yet) has to do with John Kerry’s “outrageous” remark concerning what might happen to young “Americans” who don’t make it into or fail to finish college.
Now, folks, who gets the most attention from “recruiters” (you call what’s going on recruiting)? Wasn’t it just the other day that the Army lowered its standards for enlistment again? How many people really think that an individual with an IQ of one hundred and fifty, perfect grades in high school, and is the son or daughter of millionaire parents chooses the Army for a career?”

Sure they do – just like Dick Cheney did. Just like Sean Hannity did. Just like Bill O’Reilly did. And go back and check the list here. Just like all the patriots who so love and admire our troops (not enough to join them, of course).

Ex – fucking – scuse me, but where was all the outrage when our Patrician President was clowning about not having found all those “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Can anybody smell something?

Yeah, I know: if I don’t like the blizzard of bullshit being spewed by the media, I can follow General (Brigadier, actually) Mark Kimmit’s advice to Iraqis who see TV reports of innocent civilians being killed by our occupying troops, I can, "Change the channel."

“Fair and balanced.” I had thought to post here a comparison of the “fair and balanced” data and statistics as reported and interpreted by FoxNews with the truth as seen by media in places like Germany, England, France, Mexico, and others. Unfortunately, I have thirty-four single-spaced pages, every one evidence – proof of lying on somebody’s part. I wonder who that could be, and when I so wonder, I usually consider who has the motive.

In the United States, of course, the truth has also become treasonous.


Postscript, November 3:



This morning, as if to vindicate what I said here in this essay, CNN (as I recall) published for the first time the results of a study of U.S. Army recruiting. Several months - if not a year or more - ago, I used the word "Shanghai," and drew howls of fury from Bush Leaguers. You'll have seen, or will see today, the study results. You'll hear the general in command of the recruiters in question mealy-mouth and "damage control" for everything the science is worth. FoxNews will bring to bear every deceptive, confusing, and mendacious weapon in its arsenal of propaganda.

It will work, too. Consider how we came to be in this sorry state in the first place. Look back at the history of military service. See if you can find statistics concerning how many kids whose parents are rich, or kids who already have a well-paying job, are trying to get into the Army. How many young people whose college education is assured by any device other than military service choose to enlist in the Army? But how many people do you think will check what FoxNews says in the days to come about the "Shanghai" recruiting going on all over the nation? Remember what I said about thought, and thinking, the other day? When your mind's been made up - or altered by behaviorist propagandists - you don't think. You don't bother to check "fair and balanced" facts.

Buy a copy of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, and watch the recruiters depicted there (see how often you hear Fox and the like mention Moore and the movie during their "damage control" of the recruiting story). See if you can imagine the sons and daughters of the U.S. Congressmen and Senators Moore interviewed in the movie being "recruited" in the same manner.

I don't know what John Kerry said - I don't listen to much he has to say - and it's damned unlikely any of the media will publish it all. So, I don't know what he meant to say. But "get stuck in Iraq" is evidently - emphasis on the root of the word, which is "evidence" - exactly what the U.S. Army and G.W. Bush have in mind for kids who can't afford or succeed in college. People who can find any other way to pay for the college education that provides fifty million people living on the edge of the chasm of poverty without taking a chance with I.E.D.s, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, and snipers DO that.

You had better wise up, "America." Read some of that history you obviously flee from like the plague. ANYBODY who has done that knows what segment of society fights "America's" political - staggering profits for the military industrial complex, and no other reason in sight for fighting them - wars. If you think the only capitalist who makes himself rich as Croesus by exploiting the poor with minimum wages and illegal immigration is the nation's business community, you're either not paying attention, or you've put a bag over your head. The U.S. Army is just another "equal opportunity employer" who hires the poor to fight and die, while making billions and billions in profit.

I ask my question again: WHY IS IT THAT WITH OUR YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE POOR OTHERWISE ARE ASKED BY THE NATION TO RISK AND SACRIFICE THEIR LIFE AND LIMB FOR PEANUTS, WHILE CORPORATE "AMERICA" LIKE HALLIBURTON IS PERMITTED TO PROFIT IN THE SCORES OF BILLIONS?

Ask yourself - reference my "how did we get in this pickle" question - how it is that FoxNews and their "did not serve" ilk can turn the John Kerry, "stuck in Iraq" matter into a national brouhaha? Why is it that SOME truth is "politically incorrect?"

You'd better start thinking about things like this. The Cindy Sheehans of the world find - every once in a very rare while - men. Real ones. Any day now, mothers whose son or daughter has been used like Charmin will find men willing to do what needs to be done. "Better to die on your feet," Emiliano Zapata said, "than live on your knees." And their vengeance will be terrible. Read the story of the French Revolution, for instance. Or Cuba.

There's a poem, by a man named Edwin Markham. In it, there are words you need to consider. "This man" is the poor, people who have to risk their lives in order to have even a little of what a rich boy like our miscreant President was handed on a silver platter.


O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--
With those who shaped him to the thing he is--
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?


Do you really think the people of this nation are stupid - "stunned and stolid, a brother to the ox" is also a line from the poem here, you know - by accident? When have the rich - "masters, lords and rulers in all lands" - ever done it any differently?
THINK, god damn it, THINK!