Thursday, July 29, 2010

I've Upchucked Into My Lap


I've just finished skimming ABC's daring expose on Obama's View appearance. It was truly enlightening. PA Governor, Ed Rendell, said that the President should only appear on "serious" shows. Much to my disappointment, he didn't expand on his criticism by directing interested viewers to these ever elusive & mythical "serious" news shows.

Maybe he meant shit like this:



Or maybe this one.

Honestly, is there really any serious journalism anywhere on TV?

And if there were, would your average American yahoo tune in for more than a nanosecond?

It's time to face facts, serious died an ugly death long ago. Serious is an obsolete concept. Serious is for adults, not a nation of stunted adolescents obsessed with appearing "cool" or "hip" or "hot."

Anyway, if "serious" was on your average TV journalist's agenda, the discussion wouldn't revolve around the appropriateness of the president's venue choice. Instead, they would take what he says & apply that to reality.

Like this bit:

The Sherrod incident added another wrinkle to an administration already burdened by the slow pace of the economic recovery, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Gulf oil spill. While acknowledging that the country has gone through a tough stretch since he took office, Obama said he remains optimistic about the direction the U.S. is headed.

"What has been satisfying is just seeing how resilient the American people are," he said.


We're resilient, eh? Is that a euphemism for the passive acceptance of a good fucking?
If so, then I agree with Herr Obama.

Otherwise, I think the President is completely full of shit.

1 ) 83% of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1% of the people.

02 ) 61% of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49% in 2008 and 43% in 2007.

03 ) 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.


04 ) 36% of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.

05 ) A staggering 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

06 ) 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.


07 ) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32% increase over 2008.

08 ) Only the top 5% of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

09 ) For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

10 ) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to 1.

11 ) As of 2007, the bottom 80% of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

12 ) The bottom 50% of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.

13 ) Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17% when compared with 2008.

14 ) In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.

15 ) The top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.

16 ) In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

17 ) More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.

18 ) For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

19 ) This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

20 ) Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16% to 7.8 million in 2009.

21 ) Approximately 21% of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.

22 ) The top 10% of Americans now earn around 50% of our national income.


Now, be honest, don't you think that The View is the perfect venue for a presidential tube of toothpaste whose election campaign was able to do this:

The campaign that drove Barack Obama to victory in the US presidential election has claimed two top awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards.

The campaign, submitted by Obama for America, has been hailed as a masterful combination of new media, door-to-door and community grass roots campaigning with a clever tactical use of traditional TV advertising.

The campaign won two grands prix in the Titanium and Integrated Lions categories.

To win the Titanium grand prix, a campaign must involve a breakthrough idea that is "provocative, challenges assumptions and points to a new direction".

"Titanium celebrates work that causes the industry to stop in its tracks and reconsider the way forward," according to the rules set out by the Cannes organisers.

The integrated prize is awarded to a campaign using three or more media – such as TV, press and the internet - that is "high standard and state-of-the-art".


Coincidentally, this video



is making the rounds on the Intermesh & TV. I see it as the perfect metaphor for life in America. It encompasses all aspects of American life. You have the "elite" 1%, featured prominently in the video, as they are in most aspects of American life.
Cameras always seem to zero in on "the elite," don't they?

Of course, the rest of us are there too. Floating just below the waterline.
& while we may all be anonymous, just look at how "the elite" are driven to a frenzy by our very presence. And talk about "resilient." Nothing is quite as resilient as a food supply, is it?
It has to be, for no other reason, then to come back, again & again, to be eaten.

OK, now it's time to throw my boxers in the laundry.

Cheers.

5 comments:

ericswan said...

I'm listening to Jay and Jeff as we speak. They stated that it will take at least 1 per cent to WAKE UP and that is taking a bit of time at the moment. Uri Besmenov is instructing the public in the who what where and why of the American destruction by a thousand cuts. Part 2...crisis...

just_another_dick said...

If they're waiting for American's, even 1%, to wake up, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were them Eric.

Anyway, the whole "wake up the sheeple" plan always seemed a bit overrated, overused & overdone for my tastes.

Cheers.

Anonymous said...

Since we are communicating about the media of television, Damon Knight's science fiction comes to mind.

You're traveling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into the wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop The Twilight Zone.

For your perusal, a Kanamit, height a little over 9 feet. Weight in the neighborhood of over 350 pounds. Origin unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale. For in just a moment, we're going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus, from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone.

What are your motives for coming here quite uninvited? Are we to assume that there is no ulterior motive beyond this vast humanity that you speak of?
There is nothing ulterior in our motives you speak of. Nothing at all. You will discover this for yourselves before too long. Simply by testing the various devices which we will make available to you... We ask only that you trust us. Only that you simply trust us.

The Kanamit places a book on the table for humans to further understand the altruistic reasons for their arrival. The Kanamits promised a New Era. They offered peace and prosperity. But nobody was counting or worrying.

Mr. Chambers, I suggest for the time being, you continue your process of deciphering until you can tell us precisely, and I mean precisely, what that book says. We've licked the title anyway.
What does it say? How much does it tell us? Here it is. Well, that makes the cheese a little more binding wouldn't you say Colonel? I'd consider that a reasonably altruistic phrase. You agree Patty?
Well I, uh I want to believe it. I don't know what to think?

TO SERVE MAN

I hope so. I fervently hope so.

This is flight #914 from Earth to our planet. We will be taking off in three minutes.

Mr. Chambers! Mr. Chambers! Don't get on that ship! The rest of the book! To Serve Man, it's, it's a cookbook!
No! No! No!

How bout you? You still on Earth or on the ship with me? It really doesn't make much difference because sooner or later we all of us will be on the menu. All of us.

The recollections of one Michael Chambers with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or more simply stated, the evolution of man. The cycle of going from dust to dessert. The metamorphoses from being the ruler of a planet to the ingredient of someone's soup. It's tonights bill of fare from The Twilight Zone.

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