Of Kangaroos and Corporations

Been too busy to really polish this essay; but I thought I would
post it before the topical references got too stale.

arendt

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Of Kangaroos and Corporations
(apologies to John Steinbeck)
by arendt

….Kangaroo Court: A sham legal proceeding or court. It may be a court
....that has had its integrity comromised (i.e., a partial judge who refuses to
….be recused); or it may be an elaborately scripted event intended to appear
….fair while having the outcome predetermined from the start.

……..Wikipedia

Note: The idiom seems to come from a court “jumping” to a conclusion or
“jumping around” the evidence in a random manner.

….Show Trial: A type of public trial in which the judicial authorities have
….already determined the guilt of the accused: the actual trial has as its
….only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an
….impressive example and as a warning.

….Show trials, which take place under authoritarian régimes, often have the
….purpose of eliminating or suppressing the political opponents of an
….organization, such as a current government or a church. Such trials can
….exhibit scant regard for the niceties of jurisprudence, and even for the
….letter of the law. Defendants have little real opportunity to justify
….themselves: they have often signed statements under duress and/or
….suffered torture prior to appearing in the court-room.

….The Moscow Trials of the Great Purge period in the Soviet Union are
….pre-eminent examples of the show trial. The authorities not only pre-
….determined the guilt of the defendants, but also orchestrated the whole
….trial processes. Massive campaigns in newspapers and at numerous
….meetings shaped the opinion of the public towards the cases.

……..Wikipedia


The world today is engaged in a “great leap backwards”, abandoning compassion, tolerance, and charity in favor of aggression, intolerance, and corporate/governmental extortion. The U.S. is in the midst of changing from a democratic butterfly into a theocratic caterpillar. The Catholic Church, which briefly showed some tolerance in the 1960s, has returned to un-apologetic authoritarianism by electing an even-harder-line ecclesiastical totalitarian to replace the departed misogynist autocrat, John Paul II. Ariel Sharon has turned the Occupied Territories into a country-sized concentration camp, routinely shooting children, hostile reporters, foreign demonstrators, and innocent bystanders. The Chinese and Japanese, in the midst of unprecedented Asian progress, have decided it is more important to refight World War 2 - not incidentally because of renewed US/Japanese backing for Taiwanese independence

This great leap backwards isn’t “just happening”; it isn’t a natural phenomenon. It is the result of massive infusions of reactionary money, both legal and illegal, into the political, religious, and media systems of the world. Sun Myung Moon has been buying politicians, newspapers, former US presidents, and bankrupt fundamentalist preachers for decades. The crypto-fascist Opus Dei organization has been buying influence in the Catholic Church since the time of Francisco Franco. Both John Paul and Benedict were supported by OD. Richard Mellon Scaife paid for the “hit” on Bill Clinton as part of a $100 Million campaign against liberalism. The centi-millionaire head of Domino’s Pizza has been heavily funding anti-abortion activists for decades. Rupert Murdoch has bought up media around the world and shamelessly violated the rules of “fact checking” that used to give the media credibility. Massive amounts of fundamentalist Christian money flows to support the hard-right Zionist Party in Israel.

In the 1980s, these reactionary paymasters were able to stay “below the radar”. During the Clinton era, they bought, corrupted, or intimidated independent media in America, to guarantee that the no one would connect-the-dots concerning their increasingly frequent attacks on the infra-structure of democracy. By the time of the Supreme Court coup d’etat that put Bush in power, the corporate/theocrat party was out in the open, preaching government secrecy and promoting militarism, while tearing down the wall between Church and State and eliminating taxation on the corporations and the super-rich

Every team needs a mascot

In the sports-addled, cross-promoted world of American media, you can’t be a major presence if you don’t have a readily identifiable public face, often a silly animal mascot. So, I propose that the mascot for the corporate/theocrat party should be the kangaroo - a rapidly-multiplying, blight on the rural landscape. This mascot also perfectly identifies the pundits/judges in the kangaroo court of the corporate media.

The “ruralness” of the kangaroo analogy should not be passed over lightly. Theocratic reaction is based in rural areas, which in America today are often “company towns”, full of WalMarts and other monopolistic, union-busting businesses. Furthermore, American theocrats, like Theosophists in Wilhemine Germany, identify “the city” and its modernity to be the source of all evil and corruption, even as they ally themselves with sophisticated, multi-national corporations. The kangaroo analogy should remind us of the historically rural nature of reaction. From the French Vendee to the Ku Klux Klan, it is the most backward places that have been the most fanatical opponents of any social change whatsoever in the last four hundred years.

Like all modern totalitarian movements, the corporate/theocracy party has created a propaganda universe parallel to reality, in which its followers are sheltered from inconvenient truths. In the U.S. today, the corporate media re-define reality in ways that Orwell would struggle to grasp. Big lie tactics are used daily. For example, despite the fact George Bush is a “ruthless reactionary” who starts wars based on lies, steals from the poor to give to the rich, and inserts his personal version of religion into the historically a-religious American government, the kangaroo media continue to repeat the lie that he is a “compassionate conservative”.

The reactionaries who pull Bush’s strings can get away with murder because the kangaroo media declares all viewpoints opposing the GOP to be “conspiracy theories”. It declares indisputable facts that indict the GOP for corruption, warmongering, election rigging, and instituting a police state to be nothing but hatred and bias. It ignores all the intra- and inter-party bullying, and the unethical, unconstitutional tactics that the theocrat movement inside the GOP uses in its grab for totalitarian domination, while projecting such behavior onto milquetoast, disorganized Democrats. It constantly poisons the well about all non-GOP political activity, with name calling (god-hating, communist, anti-religion, anti-family). This creates, within the media bubble, a worldview where only one party is legitimate, where a spokesman for any viewpoint other than one-party rule by the GOP starts with two strikes against him.

In America today, the assertion that “God is on my side” is the ultimate “get out of jail free” card in the game of theocrat-corporate monopoly being played out in the kangaroo media; and only the GOP get to play this card.

Who’s being pilloried tonight?

The US Judiciary is currently on Show Trial for the fabricated crime of “advancing an anti-God agenda”. This trial, conducted by the kangaroo court of the GOP Senate majority, is presided over by Majority Leader Frist. Senator Frist showed that he is working for the theocrats by personally attending their “Justice Sunday” event.

At this event, radical clerics openly espoused political tactics (defund the courts) that are an unprecedented assault on the Separation of Powers and the Separation of Church and State; and the Senate Majority leader used this extremist backdrop to make his “nuclear option” sound like a moderate and reasonable alternative. Of course, there is no chance that the “religious” organizations attending Justice Sunday would ever have their charitable deduction removed for such blatantly political activity. The kangaroo media would never make an issue of that.

In fact, there was not one word about Justice Sunday or Senator Frist in the Sunday Boston Globe on the day of the event. This seditious event is off the radar in Northern urban areas. Meanwhile, hardcore theocrat agitprop goes out to the true believers in the Bible Belt over the fundamentalist propaganda network. Big Brother would approve of such a flexible “Ministry of Truth”.

The “nuclear option” against filibustering judicial appointees, about to be fired by Senator Frist, is merely the opening salvo in the overthrow of checks and balances and the imposition of a GOP-legislative police state. GOP fanatics have introduced the illegal-on-its-face “Constitution Restoration Act” which would put religion beyond judicial review. The very name of this act is a lie, since the theocracy the act explicitly imposes is not a restoration of anything American. It is a total revisionist lie in the Orwellian tradition that “he who controls the present controls the past”. In this case, control of the present means rewriting US history so that our Deist and Freemason founders come out as fundamentalist Christians who intended America to be a theocracy.

You might wonder how anyone could swallow these self-serving lies about basic and well-known facts. Well, the GOP Senate’s lack of gag reflex is demonstrated by its rush to confirm the vicious thug, John Bolton. The GOP ignored a rich trail of Bolton’s bullying, going around the rules, fabricating evidence, and ignoring the truth.

In a rare slip-up, too much evidence of Bolton’s hit-man behavior got past the kangaroo court in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So there is a small chance that Mr. Bolton might actually have to explain his perjury to the committee; and Secretary Rice might have to explain her un-constitutional interference in a legitimate inquiry of the Senate. But don’t hold your breath, the kangaroo media is busy putting out smoke for him - “a tough guy that we need at the UN”. While the king of the phony soundbite, George Bush, asks the Democrats, whom he has politically savaged for five years, to “put politics aside and confirm Bolton”. It is scarily amazing he can say that with a straight face.

A few favorite Show Trials from the past

Just for the record, the Show Trial Era began with the five year, $70 Million hounding of Bill Clinton. It continued with the character assassination of Al Gore and the whitewash of George Bush’s checkered past of DWIs, AWOLs, and substance abuse. In 2002, triple amputee and war hero Max Cleland was assassinated by the Orwellian manipulation that he was less patriotic than the chickenhawk running against him.

A more recent Show Trial involved Howard Dean, who refused to play his designated victim role. He was summarily executed as a presidential candidate by a totally out-of-context sound-bite broadcast non-stop, without rebuttal. Because of this media character assassination, he has been permanently branded a “kook”, an “extremist”, and a “liberal” inside the corporate/theocrat media bubble. Meanwhile, back in reality, the whole event is recognized as a media “hit”; and Dean is understood to be a middle of the road Democrat, except for his courageous willingness to speak truth to media power.

Other 2004 Show Trial victims include John Kerry, who had his Viet Nam record trashed by a notorious pack of liars, and Dan Rather, who was pilloried for getting the substance of the AWOL story correct but not having every last detail triple-checked and notarized. These two victims, however, acknowledged the authority of the Kangaroo Court by playing their designated roles - helplessly floundering under vicious, untrue assaults instead of calling out the media pundit enablers of the assault. There are precedents for this kind of victimhood in the Moscow Trials, where the accused cooperated in return for more lenient sentences.

How TV shows became more real than reality

Anyone who has had the stomach to watch TV’s descent - from banal sitcoms and relentless cop shows to pathetic, voyeuristic “reality” shows that tutor gullible viewers in Social Darwinism - is aware that large segments of the American public have been totally lobotomized by watching such insidious propaganda. The Show Trial builds upon the total disconnect from reality that the media have been perfecting over the last thirty years.

The corporate media-controlled Show Trial system totally bypasses American Law. But that’s no problem because the kangaroo media have selectively taught the law in the same way that fundamentalists selectively teach the Bible. To help the media selectively edit reality, the GOP has decided that the media have absolutely no legal obligation to report all the news, or even to tell the truth about what they do choose to cover. The GOP have decided that Freedom of the Press means freedom for their media lapdogs to conduct massive propaganda campaigns in support of reactionary causes.

No matter that TV and radio stations’ licenses are subject to review for inappropriate behavior - the GOP are in charge of the review. So, the only inappropriate media behavior the GOP recognizes has to do with the gratuitous sexuality used by corporations to sell products. And, while just about every thinking American finds such in-your-face teasing transparently manipulative, predominantly misogynistic, and generally sophomoric, they also find it just another nuisance of modern life, like traffic jams, junk phone calls, and timeshare sales pitches. It is only rabid fundamentalists who find such trivial titillation worthy of a full-blown apoplexy attack.

And here, we come to the crux of the matter - the triumph of hysterical emotionalism over reason. The whole Show Trial system is driven by a “moral panic” that has been whipped up by the aforementioned theocratic moneybags.

Fundamentalism is all about male dominance, repressed sexuality, and violent control. The only “pleasure” a fundamentalist can get that doesn’t violate the rules of the mental prison in which they have incarcerated themselves is to hate someone who refuses to play by their rules. And, all their serious rules are about sex and sex roles. They have reduced the moral universe to a one-dimensional flatland. All that matters is sex; and they aren’t allowed to have much of it or to take pleasure in what little they do have - since pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, is a “snare of the devil”. What a classic double bind - screwed if you do and screwed if you don’t. Such double binds can often lead to death wishes; so, the fundamentalist movement encourages its zombie followers to obsess about Armageddon and the Rapture.

Kill your TV - right now

The kangaroo media and the fundamentalist masses are like a phaser on overload. If we don’t shut this feedback loop down soon, it is going to blow our democracy to pieces; and soon thereafter, the rest of this sorry world. But, the shutdown will have to be done by those of us outside the loop. The people in the loop are locked in their death wish, like someone who has grabbed a live wire.

We will never shut down the loop by de-programming the fundamentalists. So, all we can do is take on the corporate/theocrat media juggernaut. This article is one small skirmish in the internet-led rebellion against kangaroo media brainwashing. As the country becomes ever more comatose, writing about its demise becomes increasingly painful. But, like Harry Palmer, Michael Caine’s character in “The Ipcress File”, only the awareness of pain can cut through the sophisticated brainwashing machinery deployed against us undercover agents of reason and democracy.

I only hope that, should I accidentally be given some power with the understanding that I should use it against our democracy, that I would have the fortitude to instead use it against the corrupt sickos who have tried to brainwash us all. Barring such a theatrical situation, all I can say is:

Down with the Corporate Media. Pull the Plug on Fundamentalist Brainwashing. Kill a Kangaroo for the Constitution.

:loveya:

She used a Kangaroo as her mascot - for her Party, called the "Surpise Party."

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

But, I take your point.

Hope you are feeling better (your May 1 entry says you are "under
the weather".)

arendt

beginning of last century that contributed to the cause of the depression, most of the wealth is in the hands of very few people. The average American thinks that if corporations are successful then the country is successful while their lives are turning to sh*t. The neo-con-fascist regime has brainwashed the county to vote against their own best interests. We need to bring corporations back into being subordinate to We the People, if it's not too late already.

Abolish corporate personhood!

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/

You will find lots of fans of Thom Hartmann at this website.

Do you know about POCLAD (Project on Corporations,
Law, And Democracy). They started lawsuits to kill corporations
over ten years ago. Serious, work within the system radicals.
Terribly underfunded, and way too small a group.

arendt

from Reclaim Democracy at a conference at UCLA and some people from POCLAD were there too. I just finished Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann. If you haven't read that yet, I highly recommend it.

I bookmarked "Reclaim Democracy". Looks good. Already read
Un-Prot.

I don't suppose David Korten or Paul Hawken or Herman Daly
were at this conference. They are older folks with communications
channels still open to the few human beings at the highest level
of corporate domination.

I'm just trying to calibrate where Recl-Democ sits on the spectrum
of resistance to corporate domination.

fathers wanted the country's hierarchy to be 1. We the People, 2. Government, and 3. Corporations. Corporations were only created to be to do business that was needed by We the People. When corps out lived their usefulness, or did things that damaged the commons, their charters were revoked. They were never meant to go on in perpetuity. Reclaim Dem wants to return to the how things were for the first hundred years in this country.

I don't recall any of the persons you mentioned at the conference. The conference was put on by the Equal Justice Society. It had lawyers, law students, and activist speak. It was very informative.

Their hierarchy is a clearly stated, concise statement of what
they want. That's good.

I will check out the Equal Justice Society.

arendt

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Someone here told be that the whole concept of "corporate personhood" was based on what was actually a technical transcription error of some sort that was quickly turned into "precedent" by sharp weasels who saw how they could profit by it.

Corporations, (especially the multinationals) are inherently unAmerican.

There is no longer a separation of church and state. The state has
become an extension of the amoral activities of the corporatist
"kangaroos" and merely by having a job, we are gas chamber attendents.

The constitution is gone, something i've known for some time, as the
shreds are covered with shit in the latrine, but people keep seeing
some illusion that there is still a consensus. The sooner the wise
majority realizes that the constitution is over, the sooner the
theomongers can be leashed. They need our taxes, they need our kids
in their military, and they need our hearts, lungs and brazos fuertes
in their white racist corporate empire.

When the state is usurped by the corporate church, and the first
amendment is void in all but theory by the very fact that we are
enslaved by the corporate oligarchs to act on behalf of gas chambers,
murderers, and war enslavers, then there is no consensus... none.

Postmodernism has reached its apogee, there are 6 billion custom
designed TV channels and no common world amongst us except the largest
body of theocrats.

> Postmodernism has reached its apogee, there are 6 billion custom
> designed TV channels and no common world amongst us except the largest
> body of theocrats.

Its impossible to communicate when you don't know or care who the
manufactured celebrity-of-the-week is.

It may be true that the Constitution is over; but there are still a lot of
Americans loyal to its memory.

I am trying to write something about how liberalism's allergy to
organization has been the downfall of democracy. Watch this
space for future posts.

Regards,

arendt

:kick:

They have used PR to float lies about themselves,
their products, and their desired social goals
since the 1920s.

If you want to dig really deep, find a biography
of Edward Bernays(sp?), a cousin of Freud's who
invented deep psychological advertising.

If you just want something current, try:

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

<snip>

The Submarine
April 2005

"Suits make a corporate comeback," says the New York Times. Why does this sound familiar? Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002.

Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to. One of the most surprising things I discovered during my brief business career was the existence of the PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms.

I know because I spent years hunting such "press hits." Our startup spent its entire marketing budget on PR: at a time when we were assembling our own computers to save money, we were paying a PR firm $16,000 a month. And they were worth it. PR is the news equivalent of search engine optimization; instead of buying ads, which readers ignore, you get yourself inserted directly into the stories.

<end snip>

The corporate bullshit just keeps pouring in on us.

arendt