Incorrect order from bored shitless to arrogant fuck Misanthropic Sociopaths: Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, Chevron CEO John Watson, Shell President Marvin Odum, Conoco-Phillips CEO Jim Mulva, BP America Chairman Lamar McKay.
Category: propaganda
SPECIAL STUPID
THERE’S A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID out there in “Merca,” and over the last four decades or so, it’s been allowed to proliferate quite unimpeded by other aspects of cultural society, especially by things like intelligence, wisdom, facts, and truth.
The current poster weenie for this affliction is National Rifle Association executive tool, Wayne LaPierre.
LaPi— Mmm. Wait.
Actually, the poster weenie for this affliction is NRA tool, Ted Nugent. But LaPierre is the suit that spouts the crazy at official NRA propaganda sessions. Recently he pointed out to a few Senators that tighter gun control laws aren’t needed— because criminals ignore laws.
“They’re criminals, they’re homicidal maniacs… we all know that homicidal maniacs, criminals, and the insane don’t abide by the law.”
Ah. So, since criminals don’t always follow laws, no new laws (regulation) would work— because criminals break laws— so laws won’t work— because criminals, by definition, break laws— so we shouldn’t resort to laws as a way of trying to regulate or restrain criminals, homicidal maniacs, or the insane, because, you know, laws break.
See?
Ironically, it’s a perfect example of what Right Wing Nut Jobs call “Special Stupid” — a peculiar and tortured logic maze created and justified by fear— and its shadow— hate. It’s simplistic and selfish, and a hypocritical way of negating everything Jesus ever said about loving your neighbor, one another, or, because, foreigners.
But like nearly everything in the lizard brain, the blazing irony of Special Stupid defies not just logic, love, fact, truth, and common sense, but even the most basic level of moral humanity— while assuming the very mantel of superior morality at the point of a gun and wrapped in an American Flag.
And it is this ongoing cultural conundrum of the cold dead values of the past, being inexorably and evermore forcefully supplanted by the progressive values of true brotherhood, which will occupy center stage of American politics until the battle is won. And it will not be won with bullets.
Insane Repugs We Have Known, UPDATE: The more things change, the more they are exactly the f*cking same
Here in no particular order, are some of our all-time favorite Insane Repugs, depicted in our favorite way:
Ricks v. Fux News (Update)
While I’ve never been a fan of Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Ricks, whom I’ve always considered a deferential Pentagon Village groupie, he deserves mega props for sticking it to Fux News today.
Fux tries to sell itself as a serious news program during the midday hours when it isn’t featuring Rethug propagandists like O’Reilly, Hannity, Van Sustern, and the Fux Force Five. One of its supposed objective news anchors, Jon Scott, was gobsmacked today when Ricks spoke truth to power and called out Fux for being the propaganda arm of the GOP. (Actually, I think it’s the other way around, but we’ll let that go for now.)
HuffPo quotes Ricks:
“I think Benghazi was generally hyped by this network especially,” Ricks said. He added that he thought McCain seemed to be “backing off” from criticizing Rice since “the campaign [was] over.”
“When you have four people dead for the first time in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?” Scott said, pushing back against Rice’s [sic] characterization of the network’s coverage.
Ricks compared the situation to security contractors who were killed in Iraq. He described the attack in Benghazi as a “small fire-fight” and added, “I think the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox is operating as the wing of the Republican Party.“
Obviously, Scott’s talking points didn’t anticipate Ricks’ bald faced truth, and he terminated the interview after only 90 seconds.
Heh.
UPDATE: 11/28/12 Ricks denies Fux News’ claim that he later apologized for his remarks. Huffpo reports:
On Tuesday, Ricks and Fox News were still feuding. Fox News’ executive VP of news editorial Michael Clemente told the Hollywood Reporter that Ricks “apologized in our offices afterward but doesn’t have the strength of character to do that publicly.”
Ricks denied an apology ever took place. In an email to the Hollywood Reporter, Ricks wrote, “Please ask Mr. Clemente what the words of my supposed apology were. I’d be interested to know. Frankly, I don’t remember any such apology.”
UPDATE: 11:30 a.m. — TVNewser spoke with Clemente, who told the site that he would “refresh [Ricks’] memory” on the apology. After the segment, Clemente said that Ricks told Fox News staffers, “Sorry … I’m tired from a non-stop book tour.” Clemente added, “Perhaps now he can finally get some rest.”
UPDATE: 6:20 p.m. — Ricks emailed Clemente on Tuesday afternoon to clarify that he did not apologize after his interview with Fox News. See a copy of his email below:
Mr. Clemente,
To clarify my comments for you: I did not apologize.
As it happened, I ran into Bret Baier as I emerged from the interview. We know each other from working at the Pentagon. He asked if I was serious in saying that Fox had hyped Bengahzi, and I said I was. We discussed that. It was cordial exchange. (I wouldn’t mention this private conversation except that you apparently are quoting my hallway conversations as part of your attack.)
Later, as I was leaving, the booker or producer (I am not sure what her title was) said she thought I had been rude. I said I might have been a bit snappish because I am tired of book tour. This was in no way an apology but rather an explanation of why I jumped a bit when the anchor began the segment with the assertion that pressure on the White House was building—which it most clearly was not.
Note to Fux News: By all means, keep ignoring the First Rule of Holes.
McCain and Fux News Implode Over Benghazi
ThinkProgress reports:
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today issued a statement essentially conceding that he was wrong in accusing the White House of changing U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s talking points on Benghazi for political purposes.
Former CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers last week that the CIA’s assessment that al Qaeda was responsible for the Sept. 11 attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi was taken out of Rice’s talking points after an interagency review. McCain and his allies then claimed the White House took out the talking points because it supposedly undercut the Obama administration’s narrative that it had severely weakened al Qaeda.
But Intelligence officials told CNN yesterday that the intelligence community was responsible for the changes made to Rice’s talking points. The Director of National Intelligence spokesperson said that the White House did not make any “substantive changes.”[…]
But McCain, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Republicans, has lead a proverbial witch hunt against the Obama administration and Rice, claiming that the administration deliberately misled the public about the nature of the attacks. Today’s news comes just a week after McCain went on national television and claimed that Rice’s “talking points came from the White House, not from the DNI.” He added on Fox that “I think it’s patently obvious that the talking points that Ambassador Rice had didn’t come from the CIA. It came from the White House.” For weeks, McCain has lambasted the administration for engaging in “either a cover-up or the worst kind of incompetence” on the Benghazi attack. McCain also said last week that “[e]verybody knew that it was an al Qaeda attack and she continued to tell the world through all of the talk shows [on Sept. 16] that it was a ‘spontaneous demonstration’ sparked by a video.”
McCain has also said he would block the nomination of Rice for Secretary of State, should the President choose her, saying he would “do everything in my power to block her,” that Rice is “not qualified” for the position and that “she should have known better.” He subsequently said he would bock any nominee Obama put forward.
But now that every angle of McCain’s attacks have been completely debunked, all he has left is to complain about not being told that intelligence officials didn’t give him this information sooner.
That and the fact that his diaper needs changing.
Romney’s Parallel Universe Machine (Update)
For the man who has everything (except the presidency) , this handy device takes less energy than an Etch-a-Sketch to alter reality
The fallout from Mitt Romney‘s lies about President Obama shipping U.S. jobs to China continued yesterday as General Motors spokesman Greg Martin told The Detroit Free Press:
“We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.”
Huffpo describes it thus:
Mitt Romney’s round of highly dubious television and radio ads suggesting that Chrysler and GM are shipping American jobs to China has managed to offend both car companies….
The day before, meanwhile, Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne penned a letter to the Detroit News insisting that there was no validity to the idea that the company was shipping Jeep production overseas. Instead, he noted, the company was looking to open new factories in China to meet increasing demand there.
Used to be that when a political campaign got caught with its pants down, it would mumble an apology or at least have the good sense to STFU. Not this generation of Rethugs. Instead, they double down, drop their undies and moon the world.:
The Romney campaign has showed no willingness to back off the suggestion that American Jeep workers may end up losing their jobs. In fact, the campaign has released a radio ad in Ohio to complement the one it has on television there that repeats the insinuation.
Which of course is entirely consistent with their adoption of the Big Lie strategy that Goebbels found so effective. What really makes it work though is constant repetition, made possible by Citizens United and the unlimited amounts money provided by plutocrat billionaires like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson who think so much of themselves that they’re intent in re-making the US in their own distorted image.
At the close of Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked:
“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
What we are witnessing this election is no less than a battle for the very soul of the country. We are right at that tipping point Franklin referred to. Will we continue to be an admittedly flawed representative government, where the democratic principle of one person, one vote prevails, and the belief that free speech is not measured in personal and corporate wealth? Or will be become just another oligarchy run by greedy and power-hungry billionaires who have more in common with Ayn Rand than the Founders, who promised “to promote the general welfare” at home and maintain “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” abroad.
The prospect of four more years of The Black Man in The White House is enough to send the Rethugs over the edge, despite record corporate profits and huge increases in the personal wealth of the top 1%.
The Koch Brothers spent $25 million between 2005-2008 alone, fighting every attempt to regulate climate-changing green house gases, the byproduct of their energy extraction companies. The results are super-storms like Sandy that just killed some 74 people (and counting), traumatized millions more, and wreaked $50 billion (and counting) in property damage.
And now they’re on the cusp of getting one of their own into, arguably, the most powerful office in the world. A say-anything politician and his Darwinian running mate that want to privatize FEMA disaster relief by further cutting the social safety net to pay for it. How’s that for Bizarro World logic?
Somehow I think that when these traitors to the planet are called to account for their crimes they will have so deluded themselves about their assumed natural superiority and moral rightness that they will find no contrition in their hearts, and thus no need for mercy from the real Powers That Be.
But when mercy is exhausted, when the “memory” thereof testifies to its depletion, then does justice prevail and righteousness decree. For mercy is not to be thrust upon those who despise it; mercy is not a gift to be trampled under foot by the persistent rebels of time.
—The Urantia Book
I want to be around for that. Meanwhile, a little justice and righteousness would be a good thing right now.
[Image found here.]
UPDATE: (11/1 @ 1:25 pm) Exxon and Shell just announced they made $16 billion in profits during the last quarter alone.
And here’s a reminder of what a dick Romney is on the issue of climate change.
Mitt Channels Yogi
Jon Stewart asks Willard about his doublethink proposals: Are you a wizard…or a liar?
“I really didn’t say everything I said. […] Then again, I might have said ’em, but you never know.” – Yogi Berra
“I’m not familiar precisely with what I said, but I’ll stand by what I said, whatever it was.” –Mitt Romney, to Shawn of the Dead Hannity
It became obvious long ago that a fundamental component of the Romney campaign strategy is to spend a billion dollars fusing three of the most effective propaganda techniques ever devised by man: repetition, the Big Lie, and doublethink.
George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four provides some background:
“The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts.”
[…]
Definition of doublethink: “To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed….”
Not only has Merry-Go-Round-Now-Moderate-Mitt flip flopped on a plethora of issues, the latest being his position on abortion as he explained it to the Des Moines Register yesterday, but he lies unreMITTingly, not only about the Obama Administration’s record, but his own as well.
As has been said here and elsewhere many times, Willard will say anything to anyone at any time if he thinks it will move him one step closer to the White House. Last week’s debate is a prime example, with Romney telling a series of lies and propagating over two dozen “myths” some of which we documented here.
While the establishment media hasn’t been completely absent in noting some of his more egregious lies and flip flops, their record so far has been anemic, reflected in those polls that ask the public about their knowledge of, or more accurately, their level of confusion about specific issues. (The more common “horse race” polls also reflects this ignorance but to a lesser extant, given that they include subjective issues like a candidate’s “likability.”)
The big post-election question for the media is whether the Fourth Estate will live up to its structural responsibility for separating truth from fiction from downright lies. If it doesn’t, we will have completed the transition from the Walter Cronkite era, characterized by a non-profit, non-partisan approach to news and information; to the Rupert Murdoch era, where “news”– more accurately, “infotainment”– is merely the vehicle for propagating a larger corporatist agenda.
We begun and now end with a Yogi-ism that Willard has internalized to perfection, becoming its very embodiment:
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
