Things to consider—

Since early 2011, Obama's been waging proxy war on Syria. Imported death squads masquerade as freedom fighters. The scheme's familiar. It repeats. It reflects US imperialism's dark side. In the 1980s, CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." He characterized Contra killers the same way. —Stephen LendmanFor over a century now US ambassadors have acted as fifth columns in the nations they are embedded in, their role chiefly to foster corporate and plutocratic power and coordinate machinations against any truly pro-democratic government.•••••"The dead end identity politics of SF Pride, which sells out a peace hero like Bradley Manning to curry favor with the American ruling class, is what I had in mind. The empire loves your tameness, irrelevance and cowardice, SF Pride. You don’t bother the American ruling class — a five foot two, 105 pound soldier does because he has a conscience and because he didn’t make comfort the guiding principle of his life...." —Randy Shields

Designer Protests and Vanity Arrests in DC

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ANIMAL MARTYRDOM, ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM, BOURGEOIS VALUES, CELEBRITIES, CLIMATE CHANGE, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, CULTURE & CRITICISM, ENVIRONMENTAL STRUGGLES, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, SAVING THE PLANET  Comments Off
Apr 172013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF
The Mirage of an Opposition
Protest and resistance are two very different things

Daryl Hanna, arrested in DC. Well intentioned, but does "soft-gloves" activism really accomplish timely social change?

Daryl Hanna, arrested in DC. Well intentioned, but can “soft-gloves” activism really accomplish timely social change, or merely the illusion of protest?

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR, CounterPunch.org

The scene was striking for its dissonance. Fifty activists massed in front of the White House, some of them sitting, others tied to the iron fence, most of them smiling, all decorous looking, not a Black Blocker or Earth First!er in the viewshed. The leaders of this micro-occupation of the sidewalk held a black banner featuring Obama’s campaign logo, the one with the blue “O” and the curving red stripes that looks like a pipeline snaking across Kansas. The message read, prosaically: “Lead on Climate: Reject the KXL Pipeline.” Cameras whirred franticly, most aimed at the radiant face of Daryl Hannah, as DC police moved in to politely ask the crowd to disperse. The crowd politely declined. The Rubicon had been crossed. For the first time in 120 years, a Sierra Club official, executive director Mike Brune, was going to get arrested for an act of civil (and the emphasis here is decisively on civil) disobedience. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

Greanville Tweetios: Pop stars’ cretinous messages

 ABOMINATIONS, AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-CORPORATISM, BOURGEOIS VALUES, CELEBRITIES, CULTURE & CRITICISM, IDIOTIZED PUBLICS, SICK SOCIETY  Comments Off
Apr 072013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

We consider the following opinion worth quoting:

Michael-Jackson-in-milita-001I have issues with the WHOLE load of manure this spectacle society has become. On one side the “celebrities”—politicians,  rock stars, movies, whatever, and on the other the drooling masses. Last nite’s Grammy show takes the cake for strained “creativity”…Given the monstrous reach of globalized media, American-style fame has become an obscene apotheosis distracting the public from a hundred more important and urgent subjects. The “spectacle society” with its untold millions of voyeurs getting their kicks by proxy is a disgrace…And by the way, if these constantly self-congratulating people had any honesty, they’d recognize the whole entertainment industry has become, for the most part, a titillating pornographic obscenity with them as the main cogs.
[VIDEO WITH BEYONCE FOLLOWS] Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

The Joke’s on You

 AMERICAN STUDIES, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CELEBRITIES, CLASS COLLABORATION, COMMENTARIAT, CORPORATE TELEVISION, HUMBUG CENTRAL, LEFT-LIBERALS, MEDIA CRITICISM  Comments Off
Mar 082013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

Steve Almond, The Baffler [from The Baffler No. 20]
jon-stewart

Among the hacks who staff our factories of conventional wisdom, evidence abounds that we are living in a golden age of political comedy. The New York Times nominates Jon Stewart, beloved host of Comedy Central’s Daily Show, as the “most trusted man in America.” His protégé, Stephen Colbert, enjoys the sort of slavish media coverage reserved for philanthropic rock stars. Bill Maher does double duty as HBO’s resident provocateur and a regular on the cable news circuit. The Onion, once a satirical broadsheet published by starving college students, is now a mini-empire with its own news channel. Stewart and Colbert, in particular, have assumed the role of secular saints whose nightly shtick restores sanity to a world gone mad. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

Another film with Iran in the crosshairs: An effing bad idea.

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTIWAR, ARTS & FILM, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, CELEBRITIES, CLASS COLLABORATION, CORPORATE MENTALITY, CORPORATE TELEVISION, CULTURE & CRITICISM, LIBERAL BETRAYALS, PROPAGANDA  3 Responses »
Mar 062013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

What the world surely doesn’t need. 
jon-stewartNYT

Patrice Greanville

The New York Times headline made me wince:

Jon Stewart to Direct Serious Film, Will Take Hiatus From ‘Daily Show’ 

The news—when read in more detail— was not reassuring. It would seem like one of the most colossal egos in the entertainment world is about to pull an ARGO on us.  No I’m not referring to Affleck, whose Oscar for that perniciously-timed film is the official certification for Hollywood’s willing concubinage with imperial America. I’m talking about Jon Stewart, by far one of the most insufferable and self-impressed personalities in the modern pantheon of cheap idolatry for which American culture will surely be remembered—should the world survive its runaway ignorance and misdirected violence.

Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

Freedom Rider: Hollywood’s Propaganda

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTIWAR, ARTS & FILM, CELEBRITIES, CLASS COLLABORATION, CORPORATE CRIMINALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, CULTURE & CRITICISM  Comments Off
Feb 282013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

BAR-ZDTCruelDegradingphoto

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Hollywood helps Americans feel good about being part of an empire that kills other peoples at will. “Movies have become a happy arm of the United States government as they advocate for violence and war crimes.” Tales of torture and wanton killing are blockbusters in the USA.

“Two recently commercially successful and award winning movies were all about the empire.” Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

And The Oscar Goes To…The CIA

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ARTS & FILM, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CELEBRITIES, CLASS COLLABORATION, CORPORATE MENTALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, CORPORATE TELEVISION, CULTURE & CRITICISM, ROTTEN CULTURE, THE PENTAGON-MEDIA COMPLEX  Comments Off
Feb 272013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

By Pepe Escobar |  Cross-posted from Asia Times

Academy voters simply could not resist a plot loosely based in facts in which a patriotic and resourceful Hollywood saves the CIA. And with a certified Hollywood ending as a bonus. Thus, predictably, this was Hollywood awarding an Oscar to itself, to hyper-nationalism, to American heroes and of course to good (Americans) over evil (Iranians).


Trust the liberals to act… like liberals. 

Even in his wild, stoned-to-death, easy rider cuckoo times, Jack Nicholson would never have imagined he would one day tag team with the First Lady of the United States to present an Oscar for Best Picture.   Continue reading »
Did you like this? Share it:
 Older Entries