Sunday Night Follies

 

   

  

Public Broadcasting Perfected The Doc-U-Shit-On-Me

 

 It's outstanding production values - coupled with blatant lies of omission - that make FRONTLINE such a terrible documentary program. If you understand A) Hillary and the Democrat's Russia Hoax, and B) they've all been triggered since Election Night 2016, then it's easy to see this particular episode is dishonest from beginning to end. There's no way our tax dollars should be funding anything like this. Not even close. 

 

How American Life Most Resembles A Country Song,...

Watch Two American Families on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

I'm laying here, it's been almost a month now, wondering what the next move is. I'm off the drugs, so I'm clear-eyed, but in pain. Can't work. Can't afford physical therapy. Haven't paid the rent. Medical bills up the ying-yang. Truck broke down. And now I'm moving into using what little credit I have. 

It all happened in a month. 

 Incredible,...

 

It's A Talent To Be This Stupid: We've Been Working At It

It is odd to watch with what feverish ardor Americans pursue prosperity. Ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they may not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach as if they expected to stop living before they had relished them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them.

--Alexis de Tocqueville 

This will be the second election in a row that I will have witnessed the peculiarly delusional manner of my own people, as an adult - and just like last time - I find it disturbing. Unlike the last time, it is fueled by the desperation of, both, the electorate and the candidate - each seeing what they want to see, each unwilling to listen. Rationalizing as fast as they can, not so much to stave off opposing opinions, but reality itself:

NARRATOR: The selling of the new, more conservative Mitt Romney began months earlier in Boston. 

MICHAEL KRANISH: Shortly after he passed the health care measure in Massachusetts in 2006, he took a walk across Boston Common, and he and his aides went to the top of the Ritz Carlton Hotel there. 

NARRATOR: Gathered at the hotel were a group of top Iowa Republicans. 

DOUGLAS GROSS: And I was impressed with him from the standpoint that I thought he understood big issues. But there were some things that still bothered me, and I wanted to talk to him about those things. 

NARRATOR: Douglas Gross is a Republican power broker in Iowa. In that key primary state, Gross can be pivotal. 

DOUGLAS GROSS: I was seated right next to him. He was at the head of the table. We had a very fine dinner. Ann was seated directly across from me. And I brought up the three M’s. 

NARRATOR: The three M’s— Mormon, Massachusetts, multimillionaire. 

DOUGLAS GROSS: I brought up the Mormonism first, and it didn’t cause a problem for me, but for a lot of evangelical Christians, particularly in Iowa, they didn’t consider Mormonism even Christianity. So they had a difficulty with it. He sort of dismissed that as an issue, really clearly didn’t want to talk about it. And so then I went to the next one, and the next one was money. 

MICHAEL KRANISH: “How are you going to connect to the average person? We’re sitting up here— you know, you’re very wealthy, your hair is perfect, your shirt is starched.” 

DOUGLAS GROSS: Mitt just simply refused to talk about it. He looked at me quizzically and dismissed it. Ann obviously felt I was insulting her husband and indicated that I was by asking that question. And the rest of the people in the room were sort of taken aback and shocked. And Ann left the room and didn’t join us for the rest of the evening meal. 

NARRATOR: It was their first exposure to Iowa straight talk. it wouldn’t be their last. 

DOUGLAS GROSS: In Iowa, they have this old phrase that when you stick a pig, it squeals. And I think I hit — I hit a sensitive spot.

This is a classic example of denial, arrived at partially because these Mormon angels from the planet Kolob - who insanely believe they'll receive their own planet upon death - see the rest of us as the pigs to be poked, and not themselves.

Mitt Romney and the people around him see campaigns as television marketing and voters as 
targets to be manipulated. Voters, they believe, make up their minds late and will be swayed
 with saturation television advertising. The campaign managers seek – daily it seems – for a 
magic bullet to force on the electorate that will move undecided and weak voters to Romney.
 Policy papers, positions are rare and short on content and meaning. 

I’ve tried to track Mitt Romney’s shifts – some 180 degrees others 360 — on key issues during
the campaign. I’ve stopped at 30: abortion, stem-cell research; climate change and global
warming; campaign finance; and equal pay for women are just a few. 

George Romney was a political risk-taker. He fought for a new Michigan constitution that was
narrowly approved, overhauled the administrative structure of the executive branch in Michigan
and battled repeatedly for an income tax. His campaigns were uphill – particularly in 1964 when
he faced the Lyndon Johnson national landslide. In that year he increased his plurality while the
rest of the GOP ticket was crushed. 

“As you campaign, so shall you govern.” That lesson from father to son, seems to be lost in the
 win-at-any-cost fog of politics in the 21st century.

I'm quite used to the cynicism of cultists, but when the general public joins them (defined in this election - just as in the last one - by the words, "I don't care") it unnerves me. I thought my fellow Americans better, smarter, more set in their ways, than to be so easily moved by the prevailing winds.

I guess I was wrong.

A Billy Graham Evangelistic Association article labeling Mormonism a cult has been removed from the group’s website following the 93-year-old evangelist’s meeting with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last week. 

Graham, during the meeting, pledged to do “all I can” to help Romney get elected. 

That website article listed as cults “Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, the Unification Church, Unitarians, Spiritists, Scientologists, and others.”

Now is the time of people saying anything, and doing anything, to align themselves not with the truth, but as our cults see the truth, ignoring even the voices of those from within.

Steven Fales effortlessly drops one-liners and other hilarious gems. He says that “Mormons are wannabe Jews” when discussing Mormons interested in theatre and involved in theatrical business. He also reminds the audience that “Mormons were here before L. Ron Hubbard. We are the original Scientology.”

I don't know what to do about self-delusion, especially on a mass scale, when so many want what the con men are selling, whether it be "Hope" or "prosperity" or whatever other ephemeral candy these new political spiritualists claim they can pull out of their hats. With so many, like children, willing to be fooled, over and over, until they finally collapse in tears, there is nothing to do but resign myself to the sidelines and await their final realization it was all a game to begin with - a game for power - and the joke has always been on those who refused to exercise it. In this case, "We The People," buoyed by the non-judgemental culture they've created in the face of continual inconsistencies.

[Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s] focus has always seemed to be in Chicago, rather than in Washington. He displayed a different persona in each place, former associates say. In Washington, “he never became a player,” a top Democratic aide said. He struck colleagues as erratic. They’d see him late in the evening, walking the hall in martial arts gear, but miss him at meetings. On karaoke night at the Democratic Club, he could wow friends with his deft dance moves, but at other times he would retreat from social contact, according to interviews with several top Democratic aides. 

“He’s not a creature of the Hill,” one top aide said. “Jesse came with a lot of fanfare because of his name. That brought a certain level of expectation. I think there’s a sentiment that he’s never lived up to it.” 

But if he was perceived as irrelevant in Washington, he had real swagger in Chicago politics. “He fights all his fights on the local level,” said Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat who served with Jackson in the House before losing a reelection bid in 2010. Halvorson was soundly defeated by Jackson in a Democratic congressional primary in March. 

“He is very talented and he was building his own machine; he was like the prince on the South Side,” Coconate, the political operative, recalled. 

Building a power base 

The prince was erecting the foundations of a power base, diving into countless local races by endorsing candidates, seeding the region with mayors and other local officials who would be loyal supporters. But he could be mercurial, former associates say. Jackson sometimes boasted that he was a reincarnated Greek chariot driver, Coconate said. “I really thought he had a problem with reality,” Coconate said.

No stranger than another flip-flopper, with name recognition, who thinks he'll eventually get his own planet - these are the politicians put in place - so it's not they who have "a problem with reality," but the gullible believers who elect and support them, ever convinced their chosen one's power-coupled-with-madness reality will never pose a problem for themselves:

Practice makes perfect, I guess,...

 

If I Can't Trust FRONTLINE Who Can I Trust?

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Right now the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is scared because, along with their divisions PBS and NPR, they know they're being shown the door. The main reason it's happening is an end to government waste, but along with that is conservative's burning hatred for the liberalism they've been expected to subsidize.

I know this hatred well. For me it's mostly directed at their Louise Hay-produced NewAge programming during pledge drives, but, for instance, also for the way Garrison Keillor, for no apparent or damned good reason, would destroy the pure Americana of A Prairie Home Companion buy interjecting ugly partisan jabs at conservatives during the broadcast.

I just stopped listening.

Various figures associated with the CPB claim they're non-partisan, but, as a longtime listener/viewer I don't buy it. They can't help themselves. For instance, I remember the episode of FRONTLINE, above, bothered me greatly. It bothered me because I thought, at the time, it was unfair. I haven't re-watched it, but here are a few thoughts I can remember flashing through my mind, and one that occurs considering more recent developments:

If Vice-President Cheney was "restoring" presidential power to the what the framers intended, why are his efforts portrayed as "enhancing" - as though President Bush was getting something more than the framers intended?

If Cheney's lawyer, David Addington, had "experience in all of the matters", as well as "very well grounded views", why are he and Cheney's efforts treated as suspect in this episode? Why the ominous music for "very well grounded views"?

Why is restoring the executive called "extraordinary"?

Now that President Obama has signed on for military tribunals and the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in hindsight, is the portrayal here fair to the Bush administration? And if not, then why not, if FRONTLINE is considered the gold standard of investigative programs in America?

Here's an episode on "alternative" medicine (unfortunately, I can't embed it in the post). Since I know there aren't two sides to this story, why - except for something like Louise Hay's money - does FRONTLINE present it as though there were?

Focus On Fraud (Or Fraud Will Focus On You)

For Now: The Venezuelan Cult Of Hugo Chávez

Welcome To Our World (AKA "The Real World')

As many of you know, TMR has lots of friends who are police officers and lawyers now, so we don't get into gratuitous bashing of those professions. On the other hand, this blog was started because of a still-unresolved case of adultery that ended with a triple murder - that no one's gone to prison for yet - so this FRONTLINE expose' of, both, investigative and judicial fuck-ups kinda rang true for us somehow. And, because our personal story of such evil is wrapped up in the world-wide fraud of NewAge, so did this:



"God wanted us to have it." Sure.

As usual, it started in the '60s and nobody was willing to ask the hard questions, but - most importantly - those living through the '60s were unwilling to ask any hard questions of themselves. Which is also how Barack Obama became president, and the Mortgage Crisis got out of hand, and,...Oh well, you get the picture:

Bernie Madoff was the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi/The Secret of Wall Street - except he got caught.

We're convinced all the fraud that's happening (and has happened) will eventually be revealed, and this illogical post-Boomer period will one day be given a historical name. But, until then, all we're left to do is endure and watch and wait - while protecting our own asses as best we can - and hoping the name we've given to our resistance will one day be found as adequate enough to the task. You know:

The Macho Response

"The Age Of The Idiot" (It's Got a Nice Ring To It)

"The remarks of Michael Bienes, one of [Bernie] Madoff's early partners who was interviewed extensively,...give us some idea of how one man could pull off such a colossal fraud.

Frontline: What made you think that he could return 20 percent?

Bienes: I don't know! How do I know? How do you split an atom? I know you can split them, I don't know how you do it. How does an airplane fly? I don't ask.

Frontline: Did you ask him?

Bienes: Never! Why would I ask him? I wouldn't understand if he explained it. Something with arbitrage between bonds and stocks and blah blah blah.

We really are living in the age of the idiot, aren't we? Most people are so comfortable with their ignorance that common wisdom is no longer wise. My new rule? Whatever course of action everyone else agrees on, do the opposite."

-- Heather Havrilesky, discovering we're in "The Age Of The Idiot" while reviewing Frontline's "The Madoff Affair" (9 p.m. Tuesday, May 12, on PBS) for Salon.

Hay, Smiley - Draw The FRONTLINE At Sesame St. Before You Get Big Bird (Or Somebody) Hurt

"Though you may not know it, you live in Louise Hay’s world. Are you a black man who thinks psychics are nonsense but reads the affirmations of Tavis Smiley? Hay House has a special imprint just for Smiley. Are you a TV-loathing snob who occasionally condescends to watch PBS? The pledge-drive specials that Hay House has produced for Wayne (“Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling”) Dyer have helped raise more than $100 million for public television — they are one of PBS’s most-successful fund-raising tools."

-- Mark Oppenheimer, writing about Louise Hay ("The Queen of the New Age") in the New York Times.

I've said it a million times: the reach of NewAge is so complete that, unless you understand the landscape, there's just no way to avoid it's influence. That's why so many write to me and say I'm kooky: they've already been sucked in.

They watch FRONTLINE and think they're watching objective journalism. They plop their kids in front of Sesame Street or whatever, without a clue who's behind it. They watch Oprah (and support Barack Obama) or, yes, read the New York Times, having no clue of the forces at work on their opinions and values. Meanwhile, they're all worried about FOX News, which (whether you agree with it or not) is about as open about it's position as possible. Suckers.

Sure, they understand Democrats and Republicans. They'll even nod at the Sunni and the Shia. Easily understandable. But the spiritual battle between NewAge and Christianity? NewAge and Science? NewAge and Medicine? NewAge and on and on and on - against everybody? No, that can't be happening, because NewAgers are so flakey, right? Who'd take them seriously as a threat to society?

Well, I do. In a very short time I've had reason to investigate the entire matrix of the NewAge and they don't fool me for a second. Look at that quote (above) again: they're even telling you they're fooling you! "Are you a black man who thinks psychics are nonsense but reads the affirmations of Tavis Smiley?" See? They're saying, even if you think you're unaffected, they're telling you - to your face - that they've got you.



Makes all those calls to de-fund PBS sound a bit more rational, doesn't it? I mean, if they've proven - and I'd say that quote above is pretty good proof - they're not actually working in the public interest (but as a mouth-piece for NewAge beliefs) then why should we be paying for it? I say, like in The Manchurian Candidate, we need to rip out all the wires, expose all the Red Queens, and start all over again with that whole little enterprise: they're playing dirty pool with the American mind.

And, after this shit, how much more open about it can they be?