To Those 400,000 Climate Change Marchers: Here is how to Make an Even Bigger Impact. VOTE.

The march was impressive by any objective measure: people across the world held similar events, but none approached the size or intensity of the NYC protest. The media kinda-sorta reported on it in a desultory manner (if at all), as usually happens when Lefties do something significant (but let one Teabagger hold up a misspelled sign and it’s “breaking news” for days). So the questions of “what good did it do?” and “what next?” are very important today.

Sadly, because of the Infotainment industry’s biases and the general lack of mainstream political support for the climate change movement, the march itself may or may not have much of an impact at all. If it didn’t make a big impression on the nation, it won’t result in pressure on the politicos. And pressure on politicos was the point of the exercise.

This makes “what next?” an even bigger and better question. And the answer is plain and simple: VOTE. Vote at every election, on every race, every issue, every time.

Voting can make changes that the biggest marches cannot, the more so since politicians assume that you won’t do it. They ignore the electorate and focus on the big-money types who bribe our “public servants”: those bribing bastards ALWAYS participate in politics, because they know it is important.

If those 400,000 marchers would all show up at the polls, the outcome of any number of races in the 2014 election would be changed for the better. Deniers would lose and reality-based candidates would win. Legislation would be written to change the way we pollute.

Marches and civil disobedience are powerful tools to help effect change. But unless we take that same spirit and work ethic to the polls as well, nothing will change. Only when politicos are afraid of being voted out of office will they respond to the will of the people.

March. Then vote. But if you can only do one of the two, vote.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

There is no more “News” media: 100,000 people protested on Saturday, and we never heard about it.

That is a picture of around one hundred-thousand people marching through Raleigh this past Saturday, protesting a whole raft of screw-everybody-but-rich-white-male-Repub laws that are being foisted upon the populace by North Carolina’s 100% Teapublican government. And here is a link to more such pictures. Oh, and here is another link to a local report.

And did you hear about this on the national “news” programs, Gentle Reader? No, you did not. You heard about the Olympics, various celebrity peccadillos, a politician’s 1990’s sex life, and lots of finger-pointing tripe from Congress.

It is apparently too much to expect our Infotainment industry to cover a huge grass-roots march by ordinary people, asking for ordinary things, in an ordinary way. You see, the “news” media is no longer about news, and hasn’t been since the 1970’s. The Reaganistas deregulated the media , making truth play second fiddle to profits. Second fiddle, Hell, they made truth a friggin’ understudy. Ratings and ad revenue determine what gets played on TeeVee “news” programs these days.

The only way for a citizen’s protest to get shown on national media would be to add a professional celebrity: have a Kardashian get a divorce during the march, or perhaps have Miley Cyrus twerking on a wrecking ball at the head of the march. Something shallow and meaningless to attract the “journalists”, and once they have taken the bait, the marchers force them to listen to, and then report on, something substantial, something that people actually need to know.

Because as of now, the lives and concerns of ordinary Americans are guaranteed not to be broadcast on the “news”.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Ooopsie! Benghazi WASN’T an Al-Quaida attack after all. It WAS about that stinking anti-Islam video.

The much-maligned Ambassador Rice had it right the first time. While Repubs like Grand Theft Issa howled about “cover-ups” and “obvious terrorist attacks”, and bashed the testimony of real experts, they were ignoring the facts on the ground. And it is truly sick that our government never published the truth – it took a newspaper to tell us what really happened.

Almost as bad is that our “representatives” are still refusing to believe the facts, clinging instead to their partisan witch-hunts and idiotic conspiracy theories. Because it is evidently more important that they be seen as right than it is for our nation to be protected. Yes, “Republicans” still care only about their images and agendas, not about being honest with the American people.

Just like the Reagan-financed mujaheddin turned into anti-American terrorists, so too have some of the militias we armed more recently in Libya. And those Libyans, like the Afghans before them, turned against us after perceived slights against Islam. In this case, an American-made anti-Islam video that caused a riot in Egypt shortly before the Benghazi attacks was used by radical imams to whip these militiamen into a frenzy, after which they slaughtered a load of innocents in and near an American diplomatic post.

None of this absolves the Department of State for f***ing up the security arrangements at Bengahzi. Nor does it absolve the Congress for cutting funding for said Benghazi security. Indeed, the NYT report doesn’t absolve anybody, because everybody f***ed up: the Administration, the Congress, the “news” media, and the citizens of both countries.

Many of the lessons of Benghazi are still to be written. But here are a few, for starters:
Number A: Congresscritters with criminal pasts (like Darrell Issa) should NOT be considered credible sources of information;
Letter 2: Complicated situations rarely have simple, quick or easy explanations;
Thirdly: Our Infotainment media is almost useless: it took months upon months for a single source to finally publish a well-researched bit of actual journalism that gave the lie to almost all of the other “coverage” that had been crammed into our ears since the event. But then, when they all got punked by a comedian’s fake Twerking video, are we really suprised?

Here’s this writer’s main takeaway from Benghazi: don’t trust anyone with a political agenda, or any “news” source that just repeats politicians’ talking points; and don’t rush to judgment when the facts aren’t known yet. You know, things that we all used to know, and things we all used to do. Let’s remember Benghazi and honor those killed there by thinking for ourselves and demanding real facts, instead of just mindlessly believing the crap we get from glory-hound politicos and faux “news” sources.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Remember who the real enemy is”. Day One: Our lapdog media.

Another day, another lying, anti-ObamaCare hit piece. This one on NPR, “showing” how it would hurt Dems in the next election. Lots of readers would be surprised to hear that NPR is participating in the anti-ACA witch-hunts that litter the mediascape like so many bloated buzzards, because NPR is supposedly a “liberal” outlet. But that is no longer the case, and hasn’t been for quite some time.

The truth is, 95% of the American “news” media is neither liberal nor conservative: they are driven by revenue, not ideology. NBC and Fox, for example, get paid by their advertisers and owners to put out stories that make more people watch their networks, because that makes more money for them. NPR does the same thing, except they call their paymasters “underwriters”. Same thing, different labels.

Back in the day (the 60’s and the 70’s), we used to say, “remember who the real enemy is”: it wasn’t the soldiers or the National Guard, it was the politicians and Military-Industrial Complex that gave the orders. Orders meant to increase the wealth and power of a very few, at the expense of the rest of us. So it was then, so it has always been, and so it is now. The real enemy is the class of powerful, wealthy, power-hungry motherf***ers who manipulate our politicians and media outlets in order to manipulate us.

“Remember who the real enemy is”. It is a truth that bears repeating. And this writer was pleased to hear it in the Dystopian allegory du jour (“The Hunger Games”), because a helluva lot of people need reminding. Generations of humans have been herded like cattle, and used in much the same way. We are NOT cattle, however; and we needn’t and shouldn’t compliantly chew our cud, being used up and milked of all our resources while we live, and eventually getting it where the livestock gets it.

Whenever you hear the “news” media harping on a single theme in near-unison, you can bet someone is paying for that chorus to sing those notes and recite those lyrics. Maybe the lyrics are lies, maybe they are selected bits of truth, but they are all chosen to deliver the message of our enemy. And that enemy has no single skin color, political affiliation, location, sexual orientation or gender: it is defined only by its ruthless rapacity and relentless creativity in fooling the foolish, gulling the gullible, and screwing the screwable.

And the Media take their silver and play their scripted part, making them (if not the enemy themselves), at least the willing accomplices of that enemy.

Tomorrow: trickle-down economics, and how successful it has been in robbing and dividing us.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

A Week of Harsh Truths, Day Three: There is NO Liberal Media to Not Believe In

No matter how many bumper stickers you may have seen, America does not have a “liberal media”. Nor does it have a “conservative media”. What we have, gentle readers, is a commercial media. Since the Reagan era, our media has been based on profitability, not ideology.

You can argue the last point, perhaps: there is a possible chicken/egg scenario (did profitability drive the conservative domination of media, or did the conservative dominance drive profit?). But you can’t prove a liberal bias, because the facts prove otherwise.

You also cannot dismiss the influence of profit on “news” since the Reaganistas did away with the Fairness Doctrine. The “infotainment” industry demands high ratings so as to make money from advertisers. For the past few decades, putting a ” conservative” slant in things has been the most reliable way to get ratings, which is why there has been no “liberal bias”. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Mr. B & C