Rich Media, Poor Democracy

The police aren't much help with day to day petty crimes in the neighborhoods so people take it upon themselves to police their block. ...better barrios like mine have some one's unemployed uncle ride a bike around the neighborhood all night blowing a whistle every couple minutes.

By Paul Armentano, AlterNet. Posted September 23, 2009.
Recent scientific reports suggest that pot doesn't destroy your brain, that it doesn't cause lung damage like tobacco -- but you won't hear it in the corporate media.

Writing in the journal Science nearly four decades ago, New York State University sociologist Erich Goode documented the media's complicity in maintaining cannabis prohibition.

He observed: "[T]ests and experiments purporting to demonstrate the ravages of marijuana consumption receive enormous attention from the media, and their findings become accepted as fact by the public. But when careful refutations of such research are published, or when later findings contradict the original pathological findings, they tend to be ignored or dismissed."

A glimpse of today's mainstream media landscape indicates that little has changed -- with news outlets continuing to, at best, under report the publication of scientific studies that undermine the federal government's longstanding pot propaganda and, at worst, ignore them all together.

Here are five recent stories the mainstream media doesn't want you to know about pot:

1. Marijuana Use Is Not Associated With a Rise in Incidences of Schizophrenia
2. Marijuana Smoke Doesn't Damage the Lungs Like Tobacco
3. Cannabis Use Potentially Protects, Rather Than Harms, the Brain
4. Marijuana Is a Terminus, Not a 'Gateway,' to Hard Drug Use
5. Government's Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use
Rest of the story at http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/142815/5_things_the_corporate_media_don%27t_want_you_to_know_about_cannabis/?page=1

This surreal bit of weirdness has been circulating on the right wing wacky doodle email circles. It is from the current Pravda newspaper which resembles the national Enquirer more than the once official USSR Pravda newspaper that closed in 1991..I am rarely at a loss but I don't know what to make of this?

The irony of this article appearing in the English edition of Pravda, Russian
Press, defies description.

*American capitalism gone with a whimper *

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent
into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of
a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century,
especially the past twenty years. The initial testing ground was conducted
upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not
just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much
money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace
for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites
and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard
education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans
know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly
affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a Mc Don
alds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights.
Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our
"democracy". Pride blinds the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of
thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part
little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top Protestant
mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be
on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their
flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning"
side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly
power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized
in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in
the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money
printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but
in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no
sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the  Weimar Republic
and at worst  Zimbabwe .

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the
announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by
the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses and swindles of
hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look
little more than ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans
have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees
picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now
gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after
another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the
American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more than
a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motors) president step
down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the
land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the
self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private
companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his
minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this
up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected,
chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will
even be the guarantor of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the
chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world,
too. Prime Minister Putin, less than two months ago, warned Obama and UK 's
Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster.
Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored
horror show, we know nothing as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise"
Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a
"freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democrat controlled
Congress of America is working on passing a new regulations that would give
the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries,
evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises
and bonuses? Senator Barney Frank, a social pervert basking in his
homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal
norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a
looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his
Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only
affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and
taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that
has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look
thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and
fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest
while there is still value left.  The proud American will go down into his
slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how
free he really is. The world will only snicker.

*Stanislav Mishin*© 1999-2009. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials
in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and
views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of
PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

If it weren't for unauthorized copies we would never see anything down here in the mundo tercero . Not too much market for a $22 DVD when the average worker makes less than $5 a day... Think how pissed you'd be if you had to work 4 twelve hour days just to let the kids watch BOLT....The street corners near the market are crowded with booth after booth of unuathorized movies and music discs. Newly released Hollywood fare is usually on the street within 48 hours of release, poor in theatre camera copies. But the dvd rips are as good as any commericial product and they only cost 20C ($1) Around Oscar season great screener copies make the rounds. They don't seem to get to excited down here in Nicaragua if we burn a copy for a friend but I guess it's different in the states. A got a copy of the nasty note Comcast sends people caught downloading...Does this mean they monitor you on line?

 From: "Comcast Network Abuse" <abuse-noreply@comcast.net>
To: "Comcast Internet Subscriber"
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2009 4:14:23 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Notice of Claim of Copyright Infringement.

Notice of Action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Abuse Incident Number:      NA000001182****
Report Date/Time:           Tue, 23 Aug 2009 11:15:59 -0400

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Subscriber:

Comcast has received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works made on or over Comcast's High-Speed Internet service (the 'Service').  The copyright owner has identified the Internet Protocol ('IP') address associated with your Service account at the time as the source of the infringing works.  The works identified by the copyright owner in its notification are listed below.  Comcast reminds you that use of the Service (or any part of the Service) in any manner that constitutes an infringement of any copyrighted work is a violation of Comcast's Acceptable Use Policy and may result in the suspension or termination of your Service account.

If you have any questions regarding this notice, you may direct them to Comcast in writing by sending a letter or e-mail to:
        Comcast Customer Security Assurance
        Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
        701 East Gate Drive, 3rd Floor
        Mount Laurel, NJ 08054 U.S.A.

        For more information regarding Comcast's copyright infringement policy, procedures, and contact information, please read our Acceptable Use Policy by clicking on the Terms of Service link at http://www.comcast.net.
Sincerely,
Comcast Customer Security Assurance

Copyright work(s) identified in the notification of claimed infringement:

Infringing Work: District 9

First Found: 17 Aug 2009 00:24:54 EDT (GMT -0400)
Last Found: 17 Aug 2009 00:24:54 EDT (GMT -0400)
IP Address: **.***.200
IP Port: 55***
Protocol: BitTorrent
Torrent InfoHash: A2E9508894D78BC179B8365015E3A2D64F981C2F
Containing file(s):
District 9.torrent (728,050,470 bytes)
Infringing Work: District 9

First Found: 17 Aug 2009 00:24:54 EDT (GMT -0400)
Last Found: 17 Aug 2009 00:24:54 EDT (GMT -0400)
IP Address: **.***.***.202
IP Port: 87965
Protocol: BitTorrent
Torrent InfoHash: A2E9508894D78BC179B8365015E3A2D64F981C2F
Containing file(s):
District 9.torrent (728,050,470 bytes)

Fear is a curious thing. It often bears no relation to the actual risk of what we fear. When swine flu first broke out in Mexico, people were understandably afraid. Travel was restricted, schools were closed, and so many people stayed home that the streets of Mexico City were empty. As the disease spread around the world, Egypt developed a paranoid fear of pigs and committed national pigicide. They ordered the slaughter of all 300,000 of their country’s innocent little porkers, ignoring the fact that the flu is spread person-to-person, not pig-to-person. Now that the disease has officially been labeled a pandemic, fears have switched from the real threat of the disease to an imagined danger from the vaccine.

Some people just plain hate the idea of vaccines — to the point that they are willing to spread old falsehoods, make up new lies, distort the results of studies, misrepresent statistics, and endanger our public health. There are websites like “Operation Fax to Stop the Vax” and even anti-swine-flu-vaccine rap videos. Press releases, e-mail campaigns, talk shows, and blogs are being used to stir up irrational fears. These people are irresponsible fearmongers. They are wrong, and they are dangerous.

The Lies and Distortions vs. the Facts

I can’t hope to address all the misinformation that is circulating, and even if I could, more new lies would come out by the time I finished writing. Here are some of the ones I have heard. A correspondent in the Netherlands forwarded me an alarmist e-mail that is circulating in Europe.

Claim: Legislation allows for you to be isolated or quarantined or “incarcerated in relocation centers” if you refuse vaccination during a declared Pandemic Emergency. This is a violation of human rights and of the Constitution.

Fact: If you have active TB, the government has not only the power but the responsibility to require treatment or quarantine so you don’t sit next to me on the bus and cough in my face. If you contract Ebola virus, I sure hope you will be quarantined to reduce the death toll. Quarantine is legal, is mandated by legislation, and is accepted by international law. Sometimes the duty to protect most of the people in a society temporarily trumps a few individual human rights. The government is not going to require quarantine unless there is a serious threat that demands action.

Finish Reading her article at eSkeptic

Dr Harriet Hall, MD is a retired family physician and Air Force Colonel living in Puyallup, Washington. She writes about alternative medicine, pseudoscience, quackery, and critical thinking. She is a contributing editor to both Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer, an advisor to the Quackwatch website, and an editor of ScienceBasedMedicine.org, where she writes an article every Tuesday. She recently published Women Aren’t Supposed to Fly: The Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon. Her website is www.skepdoc.info.

Time to Just Say No to Giant Corporate "Parasites" -- and Recognize Them for What They Are

Sounds like a movie script. Giant parasites stalk the American landscape disguised as benign upstanding participants in the "free market."

The dictionary defines parasite as:

"An organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment."

In fact, there are a number of major corporations in America who do very little productive work -- never making products or delivering services that benefit their consumers. Instead, the profits they earn and the big CEO salaries they pay are derived by sucking or skimming a portion of the dollars they have convinced the Government to send through their corporate accounts -- generally to perform a function that is or ought to be an inherently governmental function.

Ironically, many of these corporate parasites are the loudest defenders of "free markets" and the most vociferous opponents of "government takeovers," when in fact they exist by feeding off the taxpayers.

Three examples have been in the news of late:

1). Banks that provide government guaranteed student loans. The house voted yesterday to end its four-decade practice of subsidizing private lenders to make student loans. Since the 1960s, the government has subsidized banks to lend students money and guaranteed lenders against loss if students defaulted.

But since the early 1990s the government itself has done direct lending for many student loans and avoided paying the subsidy to the banks. Why, after all, should banks take a percentage of every dollar to generate loans if the taxpayers guarantee the loan in full? In fact, it turns out that the government - which, after all, has a responsibility to provide higher education to its citizenry -- can provide loans directly at a much cheaper price than it can through the banks.

In fact it's estimated that eliminating the subsidy to the banks will save $40 billion that can be transferred into the Pell Grant program that provides college grants to moderate and low income students.

2). Private military contractors that provide security services. One of the things that defines civilized society is that the government has a monopoly on the use of lethal force. Yet over the last decade private military security firms have exploded. They have been hired with increasing frequency to do essentially governmental security functions. We've seen the results in the murders of civilians by Blackwater operatives in Iraq. And the growth of free-standing, mercenary armies that are available for hire by governments around the world is a danger to international security.

But these contractors are also economic parasites, since they charge a great deal more to do functions that could otherwise be performed by the government. In fact, most of their personnel are trained by the American military. After they leave the service and go to work making much more than they would if they re-enlisted for another turn with the Army or Marines. Then, the Blackwaters of the world turn around and bill their people out at huge markups so that the taxpayers -- who paid for their training in the first place -- have to pay a corporation for the privilege of hiring them back at much higher rates.

3). Private health insurance companies. These are the granddaddy of all parasitic operations. Remember that every other industrial society has long since decided that financing the health care of its citizens is an inherently governmental function -- that it is cheaper and much more consistent with our values -- to provide health care to all as a right.

With that approach, every other industrial society pays 50% less than we do per person for health care and, according to the World Health Organization, 36 countries have better health care outcomes than we do in the U.S.

Remember that health insurance companies don't provide an iota of health care services. They do hire an army of claims agents to deny claims for coverage, and another army of salesmen and admen to sell you policies that you would automatically have in most other countries. They simply take your money, skim off profits and CEO salaries and then -- once they get their end -- pay for your health care.

We know that the one thing government does very well is managing insurance pools. Medicare and Social Security are two of the most successful programs in history. And the health care financing authorities in countries like France and Spain are pretty good at it too.

The so-called "Medicare Advantage" program is a great example of a side-by-side comparison of how the private insurance companies compare with government run insurance programs. Medicare Advantage was set up by the Bush administration and Republican Congress to allow private insurance companies to skim off a share of Federal Medicare dollars. Originally, the private insurance companies claimed they would provide these services more efficiently than the "government." But it turned out they required a 14% to 19% subsidy above the normal costs of Medicare.

As the Economic Policy Institute has pointed out, "In a nut shell, Medicare Advantage plans are private plans funded through Medicare to provide similar benefits, but at a 14% higher cost on average, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), an independent Congressional agency. Eliminating these overpayments would free up $157 billion over 10 years, a substantial down payment on health care reform."

Now the private insurance industry is battling tooth and nail to prevent a public health insurance program from competing for its non-Medicare business. They want to continue to skim their share off of every health care dollar they can.

In fact, they hope that the final insurance reform bill will require people to buy their products without any competition from a public plan or rate regulation to limit the amount they can skim into the hands of Wall Street investors and CEO's.

That's why President Obama has proposed that the final health insurance reform bill include a robust public health insurance option that doesn't leave us with a mandate to buy insurance from a monopoly of private insurers (that are, by the way, also exempt from the anti-trust laws). That would just guarantee a government-mandated stream of revenue on which the private insurance companies can feed.

Of course, corporate parasites like these have always existed. But they have burgeoned over the last several decades as some of the best and brightest graduates of our universities have been convinced that they would be "chumps" to go out and create products and services that provide value to the economy. Much better to work for a corporate parasite that can make huge sums of money simply by convincing government to keep directing huge streams of revenue through its corporate coffers and then slicing off its share as the money comes by.

It's time for the age of the corporate parasite to come to an end -- otherwise, we're the "chumps".

Robert Creamer is a longtime political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,