“There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got… because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now… the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later ‘cause they own this fuckin’ place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people: white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good, honest, hard-working people continue — these are people of modest means — continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all! At all! At all! And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream, ‘cause you have to be asleep to believe it.” - George Carlin
this would be a little more fair if Romney didn’t have a similar foreign policy plan, thus Romney is a “warmongering drone murderer” in waiting, i suppose. and considering Romney’s Conservative-based semi pro-war stance and his determination to fund the Defense Department at exorbitant levels, i’d say electing him will not only result in a loss of abortion rights for women, but will see no fewer Pakistanis, Yemenis and Afghans killed. this doesn’t even touch the Iran issue and the GOP’s “we love Israel no matter what” stance that only encourages additional violence from the Gaza Strip to Tehran.
of course, as the rest of the comic strip correctly presents, taxpayers could give a shit as long as all this benefits them with lower gas prices, a chance to strike it rich via the lottery, or the freedom to watch online porn while collecting unemployment for the next 35 years.
"1. Gun laws and gun deaths are unconnected.
2. Private enterprise is good; public enterprise is bad.
3. God created America and gave it a special purpose.
4. Our health-care system is the best there is.
5. The Founding Fathers were saintly figures who established liberty and democracy for everyone.
6. America is the greatest country in the world.
7. Tax rates are too high.
8. America is a peace-loving nation: the reason it gets involved in so many wars is that foreigners keep attacking us.
9. Cheap energy, gasoline especially, is our birthright.
10. Everybody else wishes they were American."
—
Is America Crazy? Ten Reasons it Might Be : The New Yorker
guilty as charged
(via apoplecticskeptic)
“feeling like an activist today — not an alarmist, but i think there are some good messages here about how people are living their lives around cars. happily, other than a 20-min daily (M-F) commute, i walk everywhere i want to go.”
"You need not come any longer, Freedom. We have found our joys in your absence."
—
Iranian poetess, Elham Eslami, who died in a car accident yesterday along with her poet husband, Gholamreza Boroosan (via seaofgreen)
it’s really a shame that the Senate has overwhelmingly passed a provision that allows the US military to by-pass the laws and rights guaranteed by the 4th Amendment of the Constitution and hold ANY American citizen indefinitely without trial if they are suspected of being a terrorist — AND NOBODY CARES!
(via kateoplis)
Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm appeared on ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ Thursday night, where she detailed what she thinks is wrong with health care in the nation and pushed for more partnerships between states and the federal government.
(Source: detnews.com)
America’s debt is not its biggest problem »
By Bill Gross,
For a few days there it seemed like President Obama was the master of the bond market. This is a Triple-A nation, he intoned on Monday, and always will be a Triple-A nation no matter what some rating agency says. As if in applause, Treasury bonds rallied furiously in price and yields sunk to cyclical lows. Unfortunately, what they were applauding was the slow growth and perhaps recessionary future that an AA-plus nation faces with too much debt and too little fiscal flexibility to increase demand.
(cont)
It is sadly a good feeling to have a job in America in 2011 — sad because so many people don’t and their prospects aren’t good; sad that employment is still hovering around double digits yet no one in government or industry is talking about making jobs; sad that I feel kinda bad for actually having a job. What’s worse, or actually better for me, is that I have a job in the top 10 on this list! Ok, that’s not worse, but I still feel kinda guilty that I’m making a ton of money as per my skill set while others, regardless of their skills, dedication and desire to work, found themselves literally ass out of work, many out of their homes, a ton out of thrice-or-more-extended unemployment benefits.
(cont at link)
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture. … In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.”
Tea Party Nation — no non-white folks, please?
“As we celebrate America’s Independence Day, it’s noteworthy that the percentage reduction of original American voters, might have been a defining factor in the election of someone like the current president, who among other goals, seems to be keen in opening further our borders to endlessly increasing numbers of immigrants who, regardless of their skin color, are bringing in a whole new texture of culture, 100% foreign to what America’s origins were as its wonderful adventure began back in 1776,” Benador wrote.
“Original American voters”? How old would they be? Like 300 years old? Oh, she means “white people” from Europe. Ok. Now I get it.
"We have this debate in America that is almost a theoretical debate about the role of government in the economy and whether government should be involved, and I worry that while we’re having this theoretical debate, on the other side of the world, the Chinese government is vigorously promoting industry after industry, the German government is vigorously promoting its manufacturing center, the South Korean government is vigorously promoting its manufacturing sector — and by the time we’ve resolved our debate, there won’t be any industries left to compete in. It is absolutely clear that government plays a key role, as a catalyst, in promoting long-run growth."
—
Fareed Zakaria, on the relationship between government and innovation.
Hello!!!!! And in all those countries, the government plays a key role in education. Only in America, where we push the “me at the expense of you” agenda, is this an issue. Why? A nationwide sense of entitlement, and the fact that almost no one wants to work for anything, and when we are done working, we just want to party.
(Source: NPR, via nprfreshair)
not true. i don’t see anyone pissed off. no one is paying attention. TV and home shopping and tabloids and legal stimulants keeps us fat, dumb and happy. ignorance is bliss. it’s only when a tragedy strikes that people get a fucking clue. i’m willing to bet most people have no idea what this movie is trying to say. they just know Ed Norton is cool and Brad Pitt is hot.
(via skogs-sjel)
what if we are the “bad guys”?
We might also do well to recall Jackson’s eloquent words at Nuremberg on the principle of universality: “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.” And elsewhere: “We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”