You know, having been homebound for 9 days with the flu can really drive you crazy. Especially when you pass some of the time by ‘channel surfing ‘the mainstream boob tube. You go from the far right-wing Fox channels to the Democratic Party loving MSNBC, to the ‘We love em both’ CNN. Bottom line: all the mainstream media’s outlets serve the military industrial complex that even cold warrior President Eisenhower warned us of.
Here is what really irks the **** out of me. Everyone who is either being interviewed or doing the interviewing or analysis is a lot wealthier than the 99% of us working stiffs out there. So, to better set the record straight, let us have complete and utter truth in labeling for these folks.
What I want is whenever anyone is on the boob tube, right under their face a label should appear stating how much they earned last year and under that, what is their net worth. So, whenever a politician appears on the media telling us how he or she is fighting for us, let’s see how much they earned last year and what they are worth. Ditto for these media darlings, who call themselves journalist or Republican or Democratic strategists. Let the public know just how much these clowns are earning. Same goes for those myriad of think tanks and councils and institutes and such. Let’s see how much each of those jokers earned last year, and how much wealth they have acquired.
I for one am disgusted by all of the above acting like they have the same economic worries that the majority of those viewing them have. What a farce! Do you think anyone in politics or the mainstream media has to really worry about paying for health coverage? Even those little yuppie strategists and pundits representing either of the two phony political parties, at worst they are earning over $100,000 or $200,000 a year. You think they cannot afford a Cadillac health plan costing them $10k or $12k a year? Come on! Get real!
What really gets me is how these same aforementioned phonies in politics and media look at unemployment and job growth. I would like to see any of these folks actually try to live on an $8 to $12 an hour in salary . . . even if they are single with no kids to support! In my middle of the road town of 60,000 in Port Orange, FL, a decent one bedroom apartment is going to cost $600 a month. How is someone earning even $25,000 a year going to afford that, plus a car payment ($300 a month ) and car insurance ($120 a month ), gasoline, food, health insurance, clothing costs, phone bill, cable television . . . need I go on? Yet, these morons, whom many of you voted for, and their media counterparts have the nerve to defend this corporate military empire that is pushing the rest of us back into feudalism.
So, once the labels are placed on the screen, perhaps more of you out there will see the light, and turn theirs off!
Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist (found on Intrepid Report, TheSleuthJournal.com, Information Clearing House, OpEd News, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice and many other sites worldwide). Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.
I think that would be great. List their salaries and all. Anything to wake my fellow dummyheads up. I read about Civil Asset Forefeiture (google the article by Sarah Stillman). I wondered why people don’t stand up for farmers against Monsanto (farmers feed us, not grocery stores). What really makes me sick is the idea of trying to escape this mentally ill place, but not being able to because of our affect on other countries. We hear about the threat of terrorism daily since 9/11. People want to close the borders to ‘certain’ people. But why does America NOT regulate the EXPORT of our own hate groups.
Christian extremists from the US have been going to Africa for years, slowly erasing their religions and replacing it with the most distorted form of their religion. Kinda like they’ve done since the slave trade. Uganda didn’t get crazy on human rights all by themselves. Throw in Muslim extremists and what do you get, war! The news will report on the ugly events, but won’t expose our own citizens who are responsible for grabbing up resources and rare illegal collectibles.
I’m starting to wonder if there’s any place you can go unaffected by greed, vanity, apathy, self-righteousness, etc. Where can you go that isn’t crazy. Where can you go and not find American companies dumping chemicals, people killing endangered animals for sport and profit? Where can you go where that hasn’t been affected by ages of European assimilation (which results in self-hatred or confusion… see skin lightening in India, Africa, etc or eyelid surgery in Asia)? Earth, the pothole of the Milky Way! I can’t say Canada is that much better (when checking out areas to live, I found the same racism and self-righteous attitudes. I also found they still secretly fuck with Native/First Nations…land grabs still go on.. DEA still tears their hemp down here.)
I really want to hold on to hope that people will wake up if we keep jabbing them with truth. I think the first thing we should do is mandatory drug testing for all judges, police, anyone if office. No 3 day warning, either. No one polices the authorities. They treat us like dumb children who shouldn’t know what they do. They make decisions for us. Their finances should be put under a microscope. Where do their contributions come from? I’m including the Supreme Court as well! They don’t care anymore either, selling us out to corporations, dismissing equal rights. According to Justice Scalia, the devil has tricked people like me into NOT believing in his god. I call that a sanity fail, and a violation of that wall of separation between church and state that has never truly been enforced!
They need to submit to US, the People. Submit their urine, blood, hair, and bank statements. Why? Get laid off, go to Human Services and fill out forms for help. They want your bank statements, they want proof of income, they want you to list every piece of property and every person who loaned you more than $25. They will deny you if you don’t give it up. Since they run our lives (into the ground), they should have even MORE oversight and scrutiny than US, the People!!!! ‘Certain’ politicians want to drug test the poor. This implies the poor are somehow inherently bad people, drug addicts, and it’s their own doing. Yet, Trey Radel, who voted for testing the already stressed out poor, was caught with 3grams of coke. Seize and peruse their fucking computers as well. Every single time I see a judge go lightly on a pedophile’s sentence, I think “he’s one of them”. Sounds like it’s time to start a petition. Once the upper middle class feels affected, maybe the apathetic will awaken. I won’t hold my breath though. I’ll just keep putting together my exit plan, in search of a sane, rational, secular society.
Just this morning, while I was getting breakfast, the television was on to ABC’s Good Morning America’s talking heads wondering about who would be nominated for the upcoming Oscars.
Well dressed people standing on the sidewalks with signs going all wild over GMA, their talking heads, the Oscars, you name it …
In my mind I was questioning myself, I guess: Do these people have any notion, any idea, of the homeless, the jobless, the hunger, the America that is no more?
The only answer I could give myself was–we are the Roman Circus of the 21st Century with not a care in the world of who or how many or for what reason or with what excuse people are being thrown under the bus, or out to the lion pit.
Shame America. Just. Shame!
you both are right on!!
it is time for the good folks like us to get out on the street corners and city squares of our towns and hold signs that call for an end to this military industrial empire, and to surtax the super rich. my plan, as expressed in previous columns, is for a 50% Flat Surtax on ALL income over one million per year… no exemptions or right offs!! let’s start there.. along with the other plan to cut military spending by immediate 25% and send the savings back to our cities and towns thru revenue sharing… like in the recent past… before these phony wars and occupations.