Just Smile and Wave

Just Smile and Wave
By David Glenn Cox



A recent study done in Quebec discovered that the more television small children watch the dumber they become. Published in the "Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine," the study found that for every extra hour of TV per week two-year-olds watched, there was later a six per cent decrease in math achievement (though not in reading), a seven per cent decrease in classroom engagement, and a ten per cent increase in "victimization" by peers, such as teasing, rejection and assault.

Damn it! I hate it when I read studies like that because I think of the millions of dollars spent needlessly just to prove the sky is blue. Just look at Fox News viewers, duh! Television is this generation’s Nuremberg rallies and peer group training, corporately funded and corporately operated to frame corporate opinion. It's all over-groomed, over-dressed, Westchester Kennel Club barking poodles yapping out corporate opinions.

We have a generation of full-grown adults that behave like two-year-olds victimized by their own government and unable to discern good guys from bad guys without color-coordinated cowboy hats. They get mad and bluster when you try to explain that the government taking over GM’s pension liabilities while forgiving debts, eliminating workers and wishing the company well in their endeavors in China is not a liberal Democratic solution; it is a right wing fascist solution.

This is the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and this weekend was May Day. May Day is a holiday to remember the struggles of working peoples, not really a goal of corporate television to popularize. The Chernobyl nuclear accident was the Hindenburg disaster of our generation. No matter the quality and design of your airship, all that needs to be said is "Hindenburg" to defeat the argument. Chernobyl is more poisonous than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The area around the plant will still be too toxic to inhabit when your grandchildren are old and feeble.

Our Bhagwan wants to build nuclear power plants across America. During the presidential campaign that grouchy old man John McCain was in favor of building nuclear plants all across America. Mr. Hope and Change was against it, but that is before he became the Bhagwan. As a general rule I try to stay away from name calling as it adds little to the argument. But from that January day when I heard Barack Obama take the oath, “I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear to adopt the polices of John McCain and to continue the policies of George W. Bush to the best of my ability, so help me Goldman Sachs.” Well, if the Bhagwan fits, wave to him.

The original Bhagwan operated a commune in Oregon, and as his followers toiled under the hot sun in the farm fields the Bhagwan would ride by in the back seat of one of his air-conditioned Rolls Royce and wave to his followers. He did this so that his followers would know that the Bhagwan’s heart was full of love for his followers, and our Bhagwan loves you, too, he really does!

If you get off the corporate television merry-go-round you’ll discover that all the pretty painted horses stay in the same place. You pay for your ride but they ride for free and no matter how many times it revolves it never really goes anywhere. Senate Republicans are in favor of cutting off unemployment benefits while Senate Democrats say, “Gee, the votes aren’t there.” Two party system? One party says, “Let them eat cake!” and the other says, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Meanwhile the corporate media is going apoplectic about the Arizona immigration law that is similar to US Federal law, Canadian law and is less severe than the Mexican law that is applied to Americans illegally in that country. From a Winston Smith perspective it is a great distraction. Never mind that Greece is being pillaged by the world's banking interests. Never mind that the Greek bailout was only 45 billion euros a month ago but has suddenly grown to 110 billion euros. Want to take a guess where the extra money is going? The bailout also contains a hands-off pledge by banks to not speculate in Greek markets for three years.

While the TV-watching public is comparing Arizona to the Nazi Party they don’t understand that Mexico is a collapsing failed state. That these people for the most part aren’t immigrants but corporate free trade refugees. But they’re celebrating at the Reichstag; Greece has been conquered and not a shot was fired! Americans are ranting and raving that the horses on the merry-go-round aren’t going fast enough or jumping high enough.

The corporate media first said the BP oil rig, which exploded and killed eleven men, was leaking a thousand barrels of oil an hour. Then the media said it was five thousand barrels of oil per hour; now today they’ve said, “No one can be sure just how much oil is leaking from the wreck.” You can be sure that if it were four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine barrels they would have said so. So “No one can be sure how much oil is leaking from the wreck.” is corporate speak for, “A hell of a lot more than five thousand barrels an hour."

What does the Bhagwan do? He flies over south Louisiana and talks to five fishermen because our Bhagwan loves you, he really does! The Coast Guard has complained of BP not being forthcoming with information, leaving them in the dark while BP took a minimalist approach. The Bhagwan said, "I am not going to rest ... until the leak at the site is stopped and the oil that has spilled is cleaned up." Excuse me, I know this situation is serious but that’s just funny! If you believe that, I mean, who was that, Jack Bauer? "I am not going to rest ... until the terrorists at the site are stopped and the American way has been protected."

This accident will be worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill; the Exxon Valdez didn’t happen in the waters where twenty-five percent of America’s seafood is caught. As one Louisiana fisherman put it, “This makes Hurricane Katrina look like a birthday party.” The litigation after the Exxon Valdez incident went on for two decades and the people in Alaska, for the most part, lost. We live in a far more corporate America today so the Bhagwan’s promises are as meaningless as they are mindless. It is, after all, this President’s policy to expand coastal drilling.

Anyone even remotely educated about off shore oil drilling knew that this was a possibility just like they knew Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were possibilities. Corporate government says go for it; a government of the people would say wait a damn minute.

In Great Britain, as revenues from North Sea oil decline, the nation has undertaken a plan to install enough wind turbines to generate power for every home in the country. American companies have flocked to the UK for the contracts that don’t exist at home.

Germany, a country with no reserves of oil, has the strongest economy in Europe. They, too, were worried about their coastlines being sullied by the outlines of wind turbines, so they mandated that they be placed far out in the North Sea. These turbines are more expensive yet produce forty percent more energy. Saturday over 120,000 people demonstrated in protest of Merkel's plan to revoke a law that phases out all their nuclear power plants by 2020.

In Spain, a country that is leading the European pack in solar energy generation, bonds have suddenly come under attack from you know who, driving up their interest rates and driving away investors from the growing Spanish alternative energy market. Coincidence?

In Utah, space shuttle workers have received a grant for retraining from space vehicle technicians to “Would you like a hot apple pie with that?” America is getting out of the manned space business just as the rest of the world is getting in. We are giving away our lead just like we gave away our lead in technology and in manufacturing.

"The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them." Mark Twain

A corporate government's purpose is to defend profiteers and their profits from the people.

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
John Lennon

It was part of the walking into the fire idea to rescue people. Had a clip from the cheerleader going into the fire from Heroes TV show, to rescue a guy. Sorta fits the story I posted awhile ago also.

The file is not on my computer anymore or I would play it again. Pretty good video I thought.

I like that song.

:hi:

Even the educational stuff is spun with an agenda driven message. So often these days, I'm reminded of a little Stephen King story called 'The Jaunt'. It's set in a future where folks vacationing to Mars are sedated before passing through a transportation device because to travel wide awake left folks...altered. What I remember most is the notion by the author that all creations like this are ultimately used in contrast to their intended purpose to bring harm. I think the title of Richard Clarke's latest book 'Cyber War' illustrates that. The internet has the capacity to make all the world a library, yet how to misuse the technology becomes the trend.

Guess I'll have to go back to stalking you Sir Dave, as I have missed the window to rec this thread, which I most certainly would have.

Try not to get too down on yourself about the Bhagwan label, I call him Bam-Bam, when he arrived on the political scene, silent, serene and grinning, how he handled the jumpy grown ups in his midst, much like the blond baby from the Flintstones. Folks said he couldn't take on the Clintons? Bam. McCain? Bam and Bam. It stuck, though it is not a term I use here at DU too much, and that is out of my wussy fear of backlash from those who might interpret the term differently.

Have worried about your proximity to the nasty storms slamming the south, hope your as okay as okay gets.