7/19/08 - Finally..."Dems would hike taxes on rich, corporations"(SF Chronicle 7/10/08) ...but wait...they've included the obligatory poison pill clause, so the Reps have the perfect target to shoot it down.

As reported in this Chronicle article the Democrats have finally proposed tax increases, the only non-destructive budget saving option available, of $10 billion to apply to the $17.2 billion state deficit. Aside from being $7.2 billion short of solvency, they placed a neat little Rebublican flavored blasting cap (this portion of the plan taxes all California taxpayers across the board) right in the middle of it, apparently, I can't figure another reason for it, so the other side of the Red&Blue Corporate Party can blow it away. You can see it written in the sky... "so the Democrats want to tax everyone across the board? ..no way...we will fight this to the death!". This poison pill portion only composes 8% of the Dem's taxation plan, but effectively nixes it.

This action is another proof positive that the Dems and Reps are actually nothing more than a corporate monoparty, driving the People's Government into the hands of the Rich Boy & Girls Club of America.

For added proof, compare their plan to the Camejo Budget Plan of 2006 which would have given us a budget surplus, while providing a tax cut for the bottom 60%, and you will see what is actually possible, but they refuse to propose.

Wherever there is not rationality, there is hanky panky.

Confusionism and post-modern thinking are the tools of the authoritarian to keep us thinking there are no solutions, and to maintain control. And we will not be free of this conceptual prison until we rise up and create direct democracy.

-Sandy

7/18/08 - Another Field "Poll" Limits Proposed Energy Solutions to Oil, Gas and Nukes. What else is new?

Another biased poll by Field hits the newsstands with headlines that read "Nuclear plants, offshore drilling gain support" !!! Wow what a load of valuable information! Given no options to choose solar, wind, wave or micro, etc. , people choose more gas rather than less. Wow. Profound! And given the choice of nukes or nothing they choose?.... Wow. Profound. What about Solar? If 15% of the southern facing roofs in the US were solar, it would supply 50% of our energy needs, but why pay attention to silly information like that? What about Wind.?.. T. Boone Pickens likes Wind. Nukes and Oil Drilling offshore and in Alaska costs way too much. But what the heck! Let's get people all excited about toxically killing themselves and the planet while giving the rich another Rolls in their vacation home garage,.. (just as backup). The media is really incapable of true journalism and we are all paying a huge price in their product - a duped and ignorant populace driven to support reactive self-destructive policies that exclude sustainable, non-toxic, peaceful solutions.

-Sandy

7/4/08 - More Media Confusionism - Pew Research Poll of July 1 "Finds" "Gas Prices Pump Up Support for Drilling".

Lie. The poll excludes any choices for alternative energy sources. The questionaire gives only the following two options drilling/mining/exploration/build power plants or conservation/regulation. Would you like more or less? Duh! What happened to the third option of alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, co-generation, etc.? The only conclusion to come to is the people with the levers want to feed you information that excludes options that don't feed them mountains of your money, without having to break a sweat to retool to sustainable practices. They would rather you see the resulting headlines in the newspapers like the Chronicle saying "Gas prices shift energy opinions: Poll says drilling, new power plants growing in favor". Lie, plain and simple. Compared to what, not having energy? It's really unbelievable how they do this right in our faces every day and then they wonder why no one is buying their papers?

For god's sake start telling us the truth and providing us with useful information so we can make purposeful decisions, or ...good, go out of business, so we can build our own media that performs the above mentioned functions without your corporate brainwashing.

Goodnight!!!

-Sandy

6/20/08 - Corporate Media Confusionism Attempts to Keep Citizens Duped (on the Media page re: Current California State Budget Crisis)

6/15/08 - Corporate Media Confusionism Attempts to Keep Citizens Duped

The article below is a perfect example of the way in which "our" media tailor the news to obscure the important, magnify the ambiguous and emphasize a misplaced theater of conflict and confusion. The product produced here is a combination of a Field Poll (paid for by media subscription payments) and a "report" on the poll by the SF Chronicle. The Poll and the article almost entirely skirts valid discussion of tax increases as a potential solution to the budget crisis. The Field Poll becomes an author, along with the news media that "interprets" the poll results.Just like a Bush Administration PR wordsmithing of scientific data and analysis, the media and their cohorts whiplash reporting into propaganda to promote elite serving agendas.. like less taxes for them?.

The following article titled, "State Budget: Voters back cuts but don't know what they'd slice" by John Wildermuth (Chronicle Staff Writer). implies that voters do not see raising taxes as an acceptable solution to the budget deficit crisis. It cites a Field Poll slanted towards addressing budget cuts as the only possible solution by including a dicy tax increase survey biased by the prefacing requirement limiting a polling of tax increases to the consequence of cuts to Health Services. The language of the article differs from the language of the poll questions and further slants the "results" in the direction of budget cuts. An unbiased article on public opinions would include both cuts and taxes as equally valid solutions to poll. But not here.

The article is cited word for word below with my commentary in black type...

"While a solid majority of California voters wants [Field Poll says "prefers". Prefer is a passive word where want is an active desire. Of course, everyone "prefers" tax cuts. But what is really interesting is 26% actually "prefer" to pay more taxes. Doesn't this imply that 26% of registered voters globally believe that we are undertaxed?] to see the state's $17 billion budget gap closed with spending cuts rather than tax increases, those same voters are unwilling to say [Field Poll says "more voters oppose than support cutbacks"] what state programs they want to trim, a new Field Poll reports.

That's bad news for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic and Republican legislators struggling to craft a balanced budget that at least two-thirds of the Legislature can support.

"The public isn't pointing the way" for the Legislature, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "People want it both ways and ... it's a problem." [This is false statement and is not included in the Poll and is not reflected by the polling results because it omits a polling of potential areas for tax increase. In fact at the end of the Poll the public does indeed point the way. The Field Poll says in the third paragraph "eight in ten voters (81%) expect that in the end the state will have to increase taxes to resolve it's current deficit"]

Overall, 63 percent of the state's registered voters want [Field Poll says "prefer that the state’s current budget deficit be dealt with mostly through spending cuts (63%) than through tax increases (26%)"] to see the budget deficit closed mostly by spending cuts, with only 26 percent willing [Field Poll says "prefers"] to have tax increases do the heavy lifting. While 80 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of nonpartisan and other voters preferred program cuts, even Democrats favored [Field Poll says "prefers" ...the use of the word "favored" here implies Democrats actively wanting, while the Reps and nonpartisan more passively "preferred"] spending reductions 49 percent to 37 percent.

But when voters were asked if they supported reductions in 13 separate budget areas, they couldn't list one they wanted to see cut. Public schools, health care for the poor and disabled, mental health programs, law enforcement, higher education and child care all had the backing of at least 70 percent of those surveyed. Even the prison budget, a favorite public target for trims, had 50 percent of the state's voters saying it shouldn't be cut. [Field Poll stats show Energy Contract cuts were least opposed]

The numbers show why the Legislature is struggling to put together a budget in time for Sunday's deadline.While Republican legislators insist tax increases aren't needed, Democrats are having a hard time persuading their supporters to back program cuts [Why are tax increases missing here while clearly but prefacedly included in the poll?].

"There are no easy choices," [Oh really..."eight in ten voters (81%) expect that in the end the state will have to increase taxes to resolve it's current deficit"] said Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County). "A number of risk-adverse [?] legislators are going to find themselves forced to explain themselves to the voters."

There were no surprises when voters were pressed to say which taxes should be raised if the state needed more money. Three-quarters of those surveyed said taxes should be raised on tobacco and alcohol, while better than two-thirds wanted higher taxes on individuals earning more than $150,000. [This is a sleeper paragraph that exists all by itself and who's content makes no appearance in the headline or an other paragrah or summary of content.]

Voters were strongly opposed to boosting any of the taxes that affect most Californians and would bring the most new revenue to the state [There is nothing in the Poll that substantiates this sentence.]. Only 40 percent were willing to raise the state sales tax or the income tax for people making more than $45,000 a year. Even fewer, 22 percent, wanted to see higher residential property taxes. [This paragraph omits that voters did "favor" taxes on business property 56% to 41% and business income tax 54% to 41%. Interesting how the "favoring" of business taxes is omitted.]

But just two years ago, voters turned down the chance to tax the rich (Proposition 82), tobacco users (Prop. 86) and oil companies (Prop. 87). [Where does this observation come from? Setup for the next paragraph for GOP propaganda rather than any data reference.]

"If you can't tax any of those people, who can you tax?" asked Tony Quinn, a former GOP legislative aide and co-editor of the California Target Book, which follows state political campaigns. "The public doesn't have faith that the politicians are going to spend their money in a wise manner." [This is less than anecdotal evidence.]

Despite their concerns, voters of all political stripes are resigned to the fact that they will be paying more taxes when a new state budget is passed. Statewide, 81 percent of voters, including 80 percent of Republicans, believe the current budget problems won't be resolved without a tax hike. [This another sleeper paragraph that is actually free of wordsmithing tweeks. How refreshing! The content is not included as influential except as an supposiition that taxes will go up.]

"Voters are bracing themselves for what comes down the pike," DiCamillo said. [No, they are saying that we should raise taxes on tobacco, alcohol, personal income above 150,000 after deductions and couples above 300,000 after deductions and on business property and on business income to fund Health Services. Why didn't the survey purely poll for tax increases with no specific criteria?]

The poll was based on a telephone survey of 1,052 registered voters, taken from May 17-26. The margin of error for the entire sample is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points."

E-mail John Wildermuth at jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com.

I don't know about you but this is proof positive to me. I don't care what chummy-slap-you-on-the-back response the Chronicle would give such as "oh you're just making a mountain out of a mole hill"... these elite organizations work in concert to keep the common citizen duped and complicit by creating false realities and surrounding society with them.

If our leader elites really wanted to know what we want, poll us, publish the results, and have an open discussion with us, why wouldn't they do the following?

Our reps should send out surveys 3 months before State Budget Hearings, along with a good overview by the State Treasurer of the issues and pertinent data. The questionnaire could go like so...

"Considering the nature of the 14 to 20 billion dollar deficit and concerns over the funding of government services, what do you think is the most reasonable and effective method of resolving the deficit, through tax cuts or by raising taxes?

Which of the following budget items would you be willing to cut in order to resolve the budget deficit?

Which of the following tax revenue sources would you be willing to increase to reslove the budget deficit?

If you believe that the budget deficit should be resolved by a combination of tax cuts and revenue increases please fill out the hypothetical chart below by allocating 100 points to the following cuts or revenue increases. Any combination of points resulting in a total of 100 points would resolve the deficit. Note: do not exceed the maximum limits for expenditure type in parenthesis. For instance 10 for energy contracts, 10 for prisons, 10 for environmental fees, 5 for park fees, 5 for auto fees, 5 for tobacco taxes, 20 for corporate taxes, and 35 for personal income taxes above 200k/year, would total 100 points and fully fund the budget."

Sounds like direct democracy to me. What a plan!

-Sandy

9/22/07 - Spectacle of the Absurd

Bob Woodward's article in the the front page section of the Chronicle on Monday confirms that Greenspan and the White House discussed the "politically inconvenient" fact that taking out Hussein would stabilize oil prices in favor of the US, thus the Iraq war is largely about oil". Meanwhile Woodward goes on to say that "Publicly, little evidence has emerged to support that view..." Huh? Greg Palast dug up a map divying up the Iraq oil fields prior to invasion, there have been numerous secret meetings with oil executives, and the US is attempting to force the new Iraq government into giving oil ownership to multinational oil companies, but there's little evidence? How can representatives of the ruling order like Bob Woodward has turned out to be, not have found "evidence" for something everyone knows to be obviously true on the face of it? And he states this while presenting evidence proving his own statements, that there has been insufficient evidence, false. Granfalloonism.

How does this absurdity exist? Only through the "magic" of language. Language allows one to say virtually anything. Like blue is red. Well blue of course is not red. And the above mentioned evidence is not "little evidence". So Woodward brought us the Watergate story and now publishes articles with self negating statements that on the face of it are lies?

The truth is, lying is a mandatory prerequisite for acceptance into the commodity culture. Can't lie artfully enough to benefit your masters? You're outta here!!! And thus those who assiduosly work within the boundaries of truth, are marginalized. The truth is the end to their control because they know the entire commodity culture exists only because they pathologically lie about everything. It's also become the social modality called "politeness to avoid marginalization". Since little lies oil the system of social relations, politeness replaces trust. Trust is an automatic component of truth based relationships. How can you trust journalism that politely tells you lies?

Isn't this what Jennifer Stone calls "fact-free fascism" with a corporate suit 'n tie smiley face? What has happened to the American critical mind that should be able to carefully read what's presented to them, and respond appropriately? Or maybe part of being American is to have your head in the sand, shrug your shouilders, and just say it's the "swing of the pendulum and it (rationality) will come back". Problem is that when this one swings back like the guillotine, it will be our heads that will pay the price.

4/14/07 - Movin'On Feedback Still on their mailing list for some reason I saw their "endorsement" of Obama for president. No known platform, no principles or stated goals to clearly understand what laws he would implement to get us out of this black hole we are in, just good looks and a focus group nod for the image of a "hero". Sorry that's not good enough. Here's a copy of my letter of unsubscription.

MoveOn has demonstrated itself as nothing more than a front group for the Blue half of the Red&Blue Corporate Party.

You support no platform. The Green Platform with it's complete coverage and solution for 80% of the problems the world faces, is a viable vehicle for positive change. You have ignored this option just as the Red&Blue Corporate Party has ignored it; blocking Greens from debates, public funding and every other avenue elites feel their tyranny threatened by.

MoveOn is a fraud. You know this is a fraudulent attempt to eviscerate meaningful change to a bankrupt political duopoly.

I dare you to respond to this email.

I dare you to offer either the Green Platform or the Earth Charter or it's equivalent, as a viable choice your membership should deliberate.

I do not represent the Green Party. My guess is that they would see direct confrontation, like this email to you, as socially too risky. They have been forced to work within the existing "playbook", controlled by folks like yourselves, which dictates: continual compromise with unnecessary toxicity, profit-above-life motivations, excuses for a never-to-be-achieved egalitarian based democratic republic, and inequalities in almost every sector of earthian civilization. I am a registered Green, that along with millions of other awakened citizens, is attempting to confront the existing power structure of our democratic republic in a way that speaks directly and without the equivocation that has led us to the eternal above mentioned dysfunctional compromises.

The Bush "administration" of NeoCorpoFascism Lite has exposed the citizenry of this country to the fraud that is the Red&Blue Corporate Party Worldwide. The people who compose this reign of tyranny based on illusion and social programming, implemented by "their" (your)institutions, are less than 5% of the world's population. Apparently this has been the case for thousands of years, from empire to empire, century to century.

Well, the jigs up! Your "system" has overpopulated, over mined, overeaten and over-toxified our earthian spaceship that universe spent the last 10 million years rebuilding after the previous 5 die-offs. So you have placed us at the edge of the cliff of oblivion and you want us to follow the same old Red&Blue Pied Piper?

Where are you? What in the name of Existence motivates you to engineer, for all intents and purposes, complete and total destruction of this iteration of Earthian life?

The typical response is "oh you're just exaggerating, and what's more, what you are asking for just will never happen!" The only reason it will "never" happen is because duped fools like yourselves, and there's no other adequate description for your complicit behavior, don't' realize that yes, YOU, me, anyone, individually can...

defund the empire!

stop listening to corporate "programming" that lies about possible options...

seek out the truth of the day...

(like listening to DemocracyNow!)

stop driving...

(ride a bike, walk, public trans, share oil free vehicles)

stop buying anything corporate or toxic...

buy, live local, non-toxic...

vote Green or any brand left of the Red&Blue Tyranny Club...

run for office using a Green equivalent platform as your objective...

... these things are doable, but you 'aint doin' it!

The question is why not? Answer that and you will of consequence have started doin' it.

-Sandy

7/2/06 - MoveOn Feedback    MoveOn, via automated email, asked for my feedback on how they have been doing and here it is...

You [MoveOn] are way too conservative. Compromise for the purpose of political solidarity, as seen by the "products" of the Red&Blue Party, is a failed mechanism. It is now clear, for the first time in the history of our civilization, that avoiding species self-annihilation can only be done by following the principles of egaliterianism and citizen self rule that was described in the Constitution. The Green Party Platform and the Earth Charter embody these principles, and the individuals like myself who are trying to get these principles to be our ruling paradigms realize that the Red&Blue Party DO NOT represent these principles. They continually compromise over "principles" that represent policies which facilitate profit making.

It is clear that profit making, greed, is a paradigm of self destruction. When YOU compromise principles with the Red&Blue Party the result is NEVER any one of the above desireable principles. Instead they are the principles of greed. This greed is implemented by the failed policies of the Red&Blue Party who represent wealthy profit makers. When you compromise with them you facilitate self destruction. This fact is TOTALLY CLEAR!

If this is unclear to anyone in your office I am willing to make a presentation that will TOTALLY clarify the existence of this reality. Just email me for more info.

I therefore urge you to REPRESENT the principles of the Green Platform and the Earth Charter and urge "Party" Members who you feel can do so as well, to do so. We can only bring the world to sanity by abandoning the principlelessness of the Red&Blue Party.

Immediate Practical Actions:

1) End Corporate Personhood.

2) Implement Vote, Election and Campaign Finance Reform.

3) Educate, Support and Implement the Earth Charter World-wide.

I write to you frequently and never get a reply unless it is to show up to one of your "manicured" events meant to keep yor image Red&Blue squeeky clean. Believe me, you really should rethink your adherence to "appealing" to the "Party" members. They WILL NOT RESPOND without watering down whatever you think you're going to achieve. They represent the rich and powerful ONLY. The proof is that the above three practical actions are not even spoken of, much less being existing political options.

Of the people, by the people and for the people. I dare you to prove to me that you are truly committed to this. Respond to me. I dare you to prove that you do not represent the same old Red&Blue abomination.

6/19/06 - Media   Did you hear Bush's "press conference" Monday morning (6/12)? More like the Bush Compliance Lounge. What ever happened to the swarming and challenging press conferences of decades past? Presidents used to have to sweat and face the bullets of inquiry. I'd like to see side-by-side video of this one with any press conference from the Nixon/Johnson/Carter or even Reagan era. Bush even openly showed his paranoia of a reporter wearing sun glasses! This guy (Bush) is a nut-case ripe for evisceration if the press would ask any meaningful questions. The Press is not Pressing. Their job seems now to be.. "yes sir, Mr. President, sir, it's a pleasure to be here...sir,...". This is pathetic. The administration is our worst in history and is allowed to proceed without comment or question in the mainstream media because all the working press is afraid of being fired by their Rich Boy's Club bosses.

(ongoing)

An excellent evaluation of our our contemporary corporate media complex is made in the Robert Kane Pappas video "Orwell Rolls in his Grave". It describes in detail how corporate media controls the contemporary field of available information so that "public dialog" of the issues of the day is restricted to the limited problems and solutions presented by the corporate commodity culture. Issues, problems or solutions that exist outside of this paradigm are censored, marginalized or obfuscated purposely to keep citizens focused on "the prize"...keeping their profit mechanisms afloat.

The major local and national media, including the Chronicle and even KQED programming feed us just enough truth peppered with outright falsehoods like ..."the student protests [regarding recent workplace and hiring policies] in France were brought on by the political corruption cases of French politicians"....false!!!), to keep us saturated in the postmodern fog myth that all is confusion, unsolveable and hopeless. Except the solutions that their corporate benefactors want presented. False!!!

As long as KQED pumps out advertising for such corporate monsters as WalMart, there can be no way to trust their "products". The move of a once truly Public Broadcasting System from a totally taxpayer funded system to a total commercial controlled system has taken a couple of decades to engineer, but is now near complete. I defy anyone at KQED to tell me that they report the news with complete accuracy. This is not to say that they are not better than the rest of the local major media, they are. But they restrict the information presented, present false news information and do not pursue the truth with any sort of veracity. (More on this later.)

[The media as a whole present the issues of the day as descibed by spokespersons for "Side A" and "Side B", and never look in to the "facts" these speakers are presenting for their truthfulness. For instance, I once heard on KQED radio an article on a Red&Blue Party move to have education standards like the No Child Left Behind standards for grade school be implemented for colleges. And the speaker interviewed made the comment to the effect that "50% of college sophmores [or juniors, I can't remember which] are unable to read an article from a newspaper or magazine and understand what they had just read." There was no pause, nor further question by the interviewer and this fact went right by as if nothing had happened. I was stunned. I could not believe this "factoid" was allowed to pass scrutiny. There is no way, anyone, in college, in the states, can be in college and not be able to read and understand an article. This is a falsehood! Now KQED, if you spoke to management, would probably say.... "oh we just edited that for time...it "probably" got cut.. " ...don't worry your little head about that! The only explanation is these things are purposeful inclusions to foist off confusion in the audience and manifest false fields for future discussion. The commodity paradigm flourishes when it's "servants" are directed to observe rote facts from the company dictionary or encyclopedia, rather than be able to think and problem solve based upon accurate information.]

No doubt management is the bad guy in this situation brought on by the pathetic and incompetant legislation of the Red&Blue Party. But the staff that works there should be more demonstrably proactive and make visable public protest within the organization. Likewise actions like these should be the rule of the day for all citizens and workers where ever they are. The slow funneling of every process in our society to benefit the profit mechanisms of the consumer culture need to be de-funneled to the open systems inherent in a true democracy.

-Sandy