Celebriphilia epidemic sweeps US: Forget knowledge and wisdom, get guidance from the stars

Source

http://www.rt.com/op-ed

Michael McCaffrey

mpmacting.com.

19 Aug, 2019

© Getty Images / Jesse Grant

Americans are blessed to have a plethora of benevolent celebrities who are willing to share their infinite knowledge and wisdom with them.

After a thorough examination by a team of top-notch doctors, I was recently given some very disturbing news… I was diagnosed with an acute case of stage 4 platonic celebriphilia. In case you don’t know, celebriphilia is a disease where the afflicted have an abnormal and overwhelming adoration of celebrity.

My medical team, which includes Dr Phil, Dr Drew and Dr Oz, tells me that the symptoms of celebriphilia include feeling a false sense of familiarity and intimacy with celebrities which leads to the afflicted projecting an inordinate amount of inappropriate intelligence, wisdom and expertise upon celebrities.

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My celebriphilia first manifested itself a few years ago when Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow created her “lifestyle brand” Goop. Through Goop, Gwyneth sold new-age, alternative therapies and devices at exorbitant prices, including “vaginal eggs” that were meant to be inserted into the vagina in order to aid “hormonal balance, and feminine energy.”

After re-mortgaging my home in order to finance the purchase, I bought a dozen vaginal eggs from Gwyneth. Now if you are wondering why I would buy vaginal eggs whose miracle powers were debunked in a lawsuit, especially since I don’t have a vagina, then you obviously do not have celebriphilia.

The way I see it is this: if I had a vagina, I would trust my friend Gwyneth to tell me (and sell me) the right wonder egg to stick into it in order to cure whatever ails me. If I’m going to trust anyone regarding my non-existent vagina, you can bet your bottom dollar it would be the woman who played Pepper Potts in the ‘Iron Man’ movies… that alone makes her an authority in vaginacology.

The same is true of anti-vaccination proponent Jenny McCarthy. Jenny is a TV host and former Playboy model, which is the celebrity equivalent of being a PhD in immunology, which is why I faithfully obey her when she orders me not to vaccinate my kids because they could get autism.

Suzanne Somers starred on ‘Three’s Company’ 40 years ago, which is equal to getting a master’s degree in bio-genetic engineering, and so when, contrary to mainstream medical opinion, she claims that “bio-identical hormone therapy” is the fountain of youth… I trust in Suzanne’s knowledge and wisdom.

You may think my celebriphilia is so severe I need to take some medication to temper it… well… you’d be wrong. Kirstie Alley and her Scientology lord and savior, Tom Cruise, have informed me that psychiatry is a “quack” science and psychiatric drugs are dangerous. Kirstie was on ‘Cheers,’ where everybody knows your name… and Tom Cruise is… well… TOM CRUISE! So they definitely know what they’re talking about and I trust their expertise implicitly and will remain untreated, thank you very much.

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My celebriphilia isn’t limited to just medical questions. The infection has spread to my thoughts on foreign policy and politics too. Thanks to celebriphilia, I now blindly trust in Hollywood to tell me what to think. When Hollywood churns out star-studded, pro-war, pro-empire propaganda films and TV shows that have their scripts controlled by the Pentagon in exchange for military equipment, personnel, access and budgetary relief, I absorb the indoctrination unquestioningly.

We celebriphiliacs only get our news from rebellious comedians like John Oliver, Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert, and believe in every establishment talking point they sell us. I wholeheartedly put my faith in these second-rate hack comedians desperate to stay in the good graces of their corporate overlords to tell me the unvarnished truth.

As a celebriphiliac, I get all my insights regarding Russia from Rob Reiner, who is an expert because he played Meathead on the 1970’s sitcom ‘All in the Family.’ When Meathead tells me that we are at war with Russia because they stole our election in 2016, I treat his anti-Russian proclamations with all the respect it deserves.

To get my political opinions, I go to all the top experts… Robert DeNiro, Matt Damon, Bruce Willis, Brie Larson, Alec Baldwin, Tim Allen, Angelina Jolie, James Woods, Chris Evans and George Clooney. Sometimes these experts have conflicting opinions on political matters, like maybe Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin disagree on tax policy, or Tim Allen and Chris Evans have opposing thoughts on immigration. In order to resolve these deeply troubling quagmires, I do the logical thing and choose what I believe by siding with the celebrity who has the most Twitter followers.

Luckily for me, I am not alone in being afflicted with celebriphilia, as it is a raging epidemic in America. Here in the US we adore our celebrities so much we actually vote them into high office. In the last 40 years alone, we have elected a senile, bad B-movie actor, Ronald Reagan, and a silver-spooned, D-list reality TV con-man, Donald Trump, to the presidency.

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In my state of California, the epicenter of the celebriphilia epidemic, we have elected a sex-abusing, steroid-injecting, movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to two terms in the governor’s mansion; and the city of Carmel-by-the-Sea elected Dirty Harry himself, Clint Eastwood, to be mayor 25 years before he berated an empty chair at the RNC convention in 2012.

We American celebriphiliacs not only forgave these men for their shortcomings, we also imbued them with a wisdom, competency and expertise they did not possess, all because of their status as celebrities.

You may think that because I suffer from celebriphilia and treat celebrities like experts on things well outside their skillset, that I am insane. If the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results,” then considering the level of corruption, incompetence and malevolence on display by “real” establishment experts in government, Wall Street, Big Pharma and the media over the years, be it in regards to 9-11, WMDs and the Iraq war, the housing bubble and ensuing 2008 economic collapse, the 2016 election, Russiagate and the opioid epidemic, then listening to, believing in, or trusting in these “official” experts is equally as insane as buying vaginal wonder eggs from Iron Man’s wife, Pepper Potts.

The bottom line is this: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I have seen other people play them on TV, and I am a certified celebriphiliac, which I think qualifies me to make a formal diagnosis of what ails celebrity-obsessed, and expert-addled America. After careful study and deep thought, I have come to this conclusion: contrary to popular opinion, America is not losing its mind… just like me, it has already lost it.

Michael McCaffrey

lives in Los Angeles where he works as an acting coach, screenwriter and consultant. He is also a freelance film and cultural critic whose work can be read at RT, Counterpunch and at his website mpmacting.com.

The ‘Idiot Box’ – Now More than Ever!

“When you tune into that idiot box just remember that you are viewing a club of super rich people. It does not matter if it is news, politics, sports or any type of entertainment… these folks do NOT have a clue as to what you and your family and friends are up against each and every day. They all are NOT representative of anything worth appreciating.”

Source

For decades many critics of broadcast television labeled it ‘The idiot box’. As Ed Norton said in a Honeymooners episode “Maybe the phrase fits.’” Well, today, perhaps more than ever before, we all must be idiots to continue viewing it.

Let’s first examine the news and news talk shows that seem to almost go 24/7 along with their cousin, the sports and sports talk shows. You stroll down the dial and you get mostly millionaire and wannabe millionaire pundits labeled as journalists, political analysts, Democratic or Republican strategists (how I just love that term), or contributors to their channel of servitude – usually CNN, Fox or MSNBC.

Amazing how every single one of these people gladly and regularly serve the Military Industrial Empire! The only delineating factor is if they are with the Republicans or Democrats… period! What in God’s name could any of these wealthy people understand how we working stiffs, or worse than that, unemployed or homeless Amerikans are going through? Really! They sit there and pontificate on the subject of a Medicare for All ideal, always finding some fault in it, whether they be from either of the two corrupt and hypocritical parties. If anyone reading this is a millionaire, or goodness, a mega millionaire, paying out $ 15- $ 20k a year for what they call a Cadillac Health Plan would be a drop in the bucket (of course we taxpayers subsidize the plan our elected officials get gratis). So, how can they ever comprehend the stress that NOT having such a plan means? Ditto for paying rent to an Absentee Landlord when that figure eats up too large a portion of one’s wages. Need I go down the list of the costs of raising a child or children on the wages most of us have to survive on? The faces we see on that idiot box do not, in most cases, have even a clue!

You turn on the sports talk shows, as I used to do too much of the time, and the dribble that comes out of the mouths of those sports journalistsis overwhelming! This economic system is so skewed that any working stiff should now realize the futility of it all. All of these sports talk shows readily accept the fact that the pro sports like football, basketball and baseball pay these players mega millions of dollars. Imagine the debates that these sports talk shills have on about some  above average player demanding a salary of $ 300 million dollars over 10 years. They don’t argue that the whole enchilada is ridiculous, when guys are earning that much to throw or catch a ball or make a basket while we suckers pay through the nose to watch.

Boob Tube: The Outer Limits of Empire. Scandal is in, Strategy is out!

No, to these whores of the sports media the more these guys get paid, the more they can get paid as water carriers. Of course, to them and to the players this all is fine and dandy, because the owners  of both the teams and the media channels are raking in billions! Going to a game in person, with a couple of kids, will cost, just for middle of the road seats, at least hundreds of dollars! For one game! As a baby boomer, I can recall taking my two sons to a Met game in the 1970s and paying out maybe $ 75 for everything: parking , tickets, food and drinks and programs.

How about the people you vote to represent we working stiffs? This is from the 2018 Roll Call listing: 

In 2018, to rank among the top 50 wealthiest members of Congress required a net worth of at least $7.5 million.

Source: Roll Call (2018)^[1]

When you tune into that idiot box just remember that you are viewing a club of super rich people. It does not matter if it is news, politics, sports or any type of entertainment… these folks do NOT have a clue as to what you and your family and friends are up against each and every day. They all are NOT representative of anything worth appreciating. So, who are the real idiots here?

*

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.

Featured image is from Newsbud

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Philip A Farruggio, Global Research, 2019

5 facts confirming just HOW incredibly wealthy the world’s richest families are

Source

RT.com

12 Aug, 2019

The Walton family pictured at a Walmart shareholders meeting in 2014. © Reuters / Rick Wilking

Ever wondered how rich the richest families are? Like how many planes they could purchase every hour? Then look no further because the latest report listing the world’s wealthiest dynasties is enough to turn you capitalist.

Bloomberg has released its annual tally of the 25 wealthiest dynasties on the planet. While not exactly shocking, the reminder that an incomprehensible amount of money is controlled by such a small minority of people remains … unsettling.

Nobody particularly wants to feel completely at the mercy of the world’s ‘elite’, so we’ll just leave these facts here:

1. The 25 wealthiest dynasties on the planet control about USD$1.4 trillion. Up 24 ($250 billion) percent from last year, that figure is, quite literally, growing every second but for now it’s just under the nominal GDP of Australia. The 13th richest country in the world with about 25 million inhabitants. Yeah, that one.

Protester calls for higher wages for Walmart employees in Washington, 2014. © Reuters / Kevin Lamarque

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2. The richest so-called ‘dynasty’ on the coveted Bloomberg list is the family behind the quintessential American experience, Walmart. Yes, the Walton family gained the top spot by reportedly earning a “mind-boggling $70,000 per minute, $4 million per hour, $100 million per day.”

3. Mind-boggling indeed. For scale, the hourly rate for a new Walmart employee is $11. To be fair to the Walton’s, that figure does jump exponentially when you consider the average salary of all full-time Walmart employees. At an hourly rate of $14.26, it translates to less than $30,000 per year – or the equivalent of about 25 seconds of Walton ‘work’.

ALSO ON RT.COMSoros & US billionaires call for new wealth tax; public reacts with instinctive skepticism

4. America’s richest 0.1 percent now control more wealth than any other time since 1929. To boot, the top 0.1 percent is comprised of fewer than 200,000 families, but own as much as the bottom 90 percent including 110 million households.

5. The Mars family, the ones responsible for establishing snacks like Snickers, M&Ms and Milky Way, came in at a lackluster number 2 on the list for their mere net worth of $126 billion. That is, however, enough to buy a couple hundred billion chocolate bars, or feed 17 million Americans three meals a day for a year.

The United States is a banana republic

And former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s hearing in Congress made that crystal clear.

Source

http://www.aljazeera.com

by Andrew Mitrovica

July 29, 2019

US President Donald Trump takes questions from the media in the Oval Office on July 26 [Reuters/Leah Millis]

Before the predictable howling begins, let me assure you that is not a cheap, rhetorical shot. Despite America’s military prowess, used to impose its catastrophic imperial designs, and potent economic clout built on a Ponzi-scheme-like $21.5 trillion debt, a sizeable share owned by China and Japan – my unflattering appellation is demonstrably true.

Slowly, inexorably, this essential truth has revealed itself, particularly since Donald Trump and Melania boarded the down escalator – figuratively and literally – to announce his candidacy for president on June 16, 2015.

From that portentous moment, the US has descended into an imperious state – where the rule of law has become a quaint, disposable anachronism – led by a benighted henchman, who, like all benighted henchmen, considers the rule of law a quaint, disposable anachronism.

Enabled by a stacked, ideologically amicable Supreme Court and surrounded by obsequious family and sycophants – all familiar staples of a banana republic – Trump sits on his leather throne in the Oval Office, content as a purring cat, sure of his impunity.

He knows that, in spite of having committed a ceaseless carousel of outrages, Trump hovers above the law like an angry puppeteer who pulls all the strings when his mercurial mood or whims demand – untouchable, unaccountable and, of course, unindictable.

Confident that he is immune from impeachment, let alone perjury or a solitary count of obstruction of justice, Trump keeps prodding, mocking and defaming Democrats at will using the 21st century equivalent of the presidential bully pulpit – Twitter.  

Trump was busy feeding his 280-character addiction again while special prosecutor Robert Mueller reluctantly testified on Capitol Hill last week, claiming, once more, political and personal vindication over his apoplectic “enemies” inside and outside Congress.

To add lunacy to fantasy, Trump later declared that Article 2 of the constitution affords him carte blanche to “do whatever” he wants as president, without any legal repercussions at any time, from any quarter. This is also, undeniably, the modus vivendi of the omnipotent leader of a banana republic.

Meanwhile, the Democrats’ faltering white knight missed seizing his last, likely final, opportunity to rebut in plain, firm language Trump’s assertion that he is more strongman than president, who, with his administration, treats the constitution, the “equal” branches of government and his report’s damning findings with gleeful contempt.

Instead, Mueller, looking spent and sounding disinterested, was cryptic and kept referring congressmen and congresswomen to his report like a bureaucrat’s answering machine.

If there was one exchange that typified America’s devolution into banana republic domain it was Mueller’s pitiful response to Democratic Representative Sean Patrick Maloney’s simple, but urgent question about the man at the nexus of his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election: Why didn’t you subpoena Trump?  

Mueller’s rambling reply amounted to this: He wanted to interview Trump, but the president refused; then, in effect, ran out the clock and submitted sworn, written replies to a list of questions limited to the Russia probe the special prosecutor ultimately (and unsurprisingly) considered “incomplete”, “imprecise”, and “inadequate”.

Mueller insisted he hadn’t “flinched”. But he had – in not only failing to get Trump to testify under oath, but also in delivering the convoluted conclusion that while he had not exonerated Teflon Don, he was prevented by legal precedent from charging a sitting president with obstruction of justice.

Ah, there is always the prospect, Mueller agreed, that Trump might belatedly be charged when President Trump becomes citizen Trump.

That would happen in a real republic, not a banana republic, Mr Mueller.      

Still, Mueller provided ample evidence of an executive branch compromised to the core. Trump’s campaign welcomed Russia’s help to leverage the outcome of the 2016 election in its favour. To achieve that goal, Russia, Mueller said, committed crimes and engineered an elaborate cyber-infrastructure to sway the vote Trump’s way.

The possible dividends of this non-collusion collusion not only included the presidency, but the starry allure of money.

While candidate Trump was pursuing a potentially lucrative Trump Tower deal in Moscow, his former campaign manager turned convicted felon, Paul Manafort, was sharing campaign information and internal polling data with alleged Russian “intelligence operative”, Konstantin Kilimnik, hoping to cash in – courtesy of Russian or Ukrainian oligarchs.

Not done, Mueller warned that Russia was engaged in a “sweeping” and “systematic” effort to impact the 2020 election. “They’re doing it as we sit here,”Mueller said.

Now, a mature, responsible “republic” that deems the integrity of presidential elections to be sacrosanct would try to stop that from happening again. Right?

Wrong.

Trump’s confederate, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell – dubbed “Moscow Mitch” by US television personality and former Republican congressman, Joe Scarborough – blocked election security legislation only hours after Mueller’s marathon testimony.

“He (McConnell) is aiding and abetting Vladimir Putin’s ongoing attempts to subvert American democracy…and Moscow Mitch won’t even let the Senate take a vote on it. That is un-American,” Scarborough shouted, as American TV pundits are apt to do.

Well, Mr. Scarborough, it is reflective of a banana republic, too. Agreed?

So, when millions of Americans turned to La Resistance among the Democratic leadership to save the “republic” from a racist, rule-of-law-allergic authoritarian who will not protect the constitution he swore to uphold, Nancy Pelosi, like Mueller, flinched.  

The Democratic House Leader’s stubborn political calculus is that Trump’s impeachment would be a fruitless, imprudent exercise since it lacks bipartisan support and would be defeated in the Republican-controlled Senate, anyway.

Without even a credible threat of impeachment, Trump understands that Pelosi’s huffing and puffing about the “rule of law” and “sanctity” of national elections is limp, hollow posturing.

When the appalling times and circumstances required it, rather than confronting Trump with the full, punitive measure of constitutional powers she and her caucus enjoy, Pelosi chose political expediency over principle.

With Mueller gone and Pelosi equivocating, a vengeful and vindictive Trump will become more emboldened to complete the transformation of America into his autocratic image during this or, odds are, a second, disfiguring term.   

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Mitrovica

Andrew Mitrovica is an award-winning investigative reporter and journalism instructor.

The Precipitous Barbarisation of Our Times

Source

consortiumnews.com

By Roberto Savio
in Rome
Inter Press Service

July 25, 2019 

Roberto Savio confronts an era of greed, fear and “populocracy.”

 

When all is said and done, it appears that Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher who had a dire vision of man, was not totally wrong.

From the frivolous to the serious, in just a week we have had four items of news which would not happen in a normal world. An English porn beauty with 86,000 followers on social media has put bottles of the water she bathes in on sale at 30 pounds a bottle and has sold several thousand bottles.

A survey in Brazil found out that 7 percent of citizens believe that the Earth is flat (40 percent of American schools teach that the world was created in a week, according to the Bible, so there cannot be ancient civilizations). Another survey, this time of members of the British Tory party, who just elected Boris Johnson as prime minister (not exactly a triumph of reason) are so in favor of a “hard” Brexit that they do not care if this means the exit of Scotland and the end of the United Kingdom. Finally, in order to win the election, U.S. President Donald Trump has made racism one of his banner issues and, in a country of immigrants, this has given him an increase of 5 points in opinion polls.

There are so many signs of barbarisation that they would fill a book… and, as Euripides famously wrote: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

White supremacists clash with police in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 12, 2017. (Evan Nesterak, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

It is not a popular task, but we have to look at the reality and observe that, in the most scientifically and technologically developed period of history, we are living in times of precipitous barbarisation.

Social inequality has become the basis for the new economy. People have now lowered their expectations and are prepared to work part-time in a precarious job, where young people (according to the International Labour Organisation) can hope for a retirement pension of 600 euros a month. This has been accepted by the political system. We even have a study from Spain according to which, in the present housing market, nearly 87 percent of people need 90 percent of their salary just to rent a house.

A Salary Means Survival

Today, for many, a salary means survival, not a dignified life. The new economy has developed the so-called gig economy: you work to distribute food, but you are a co-entrepreneur without any of the rights of an employee, for an amount that will never allow you to marry. Children have grown accustomed to look at phenomena such as poverty or war as natural. And now politics are not based on ideas but on how you can successfully exploit the guts of the people, waving banners against immigrants (when we are witnessing a rapid fall in the birth rate) and splintering countries between ”We” who represent the people and “You” enemy of the country. The United States is the best example, where Republicans consider Democrats enemies of the United States. And this brings us to a central question: have Trump, Italy’s Matteo Salvini, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and company not been elected democratically? And they are the symptom or the cause of the “populocracy” which is replacing democracy?

It is not possible to offer a sociological or historical study here. Let us just use a bite: we have gone from the Gutenberg era into a new era – the Zuckerberg era.

Those who greeted the arrival of the Internet with enthusiasm also did so because it would democratize communication and therefore bring about greater participation. The hope was to see a world where horizontal communication would replace the vertical system of information which Gutenberg made possible. Information was, in fact, a support for states and business that used it to reach citizens, who had no recourse to feedback. With the Internet, people could now speak directly throughout the world and the propaganda that accompanied its arrival was not considered relevant: it is not important to know, it is important to know where to find It. Well, we have all the statistics on how the Internet has affected the general level of culture and dialogue.

Ad for a company offering “freelance services on demand.” (Billie Grace Ward/Flickr)

Smaller Attention Span

The attention span of people has declined dramatically. The majority of Internet users do not stay on an item more than 15 seconds. In the last five years, book volumes have been shortened by 29 pages. Today, articles longer than 650 words are not accepted by columnists’ services. The last meeting of editors of international news agencies decided to aim lower, at a 17-year-old instead of a 22-year-old. In Europe, the percentage of people who buy at least one book a year now stands at 22 percent (in the United States it is now 10.5 percent). According to a recent study in Italy, only 40 percent of the population is able to read and understand a book. In the same country, 13 percent of libraries have closed in the last 10 years. A popular TV news program in Spain several years ago, “59 seconds” brought a number of people to debate around a table; at the 59th seconds their microphones would disappear. Today, the dream of a TV interviewer is that the person interviewed will give a shorter answer than the question. Newspapers are for people over 40. And there is a unanimous complaint about the level of students entering the university: not all are free from mistakes of orthography and syntax. And the list could continue practically ad infinitum.

The problem of barbarisation has major relevance for political participation. The Gutenberg generations were accustomed to dialogue and discussion. Today, 83 percent of Internet users (80 percent under the age of 21), do so only in the virtual world they carved out for themselves. People of Group A gather only with people of Group A. If they come across somebody from Group B, they insult each other. Politicians have been able to adjust rapidly to the system. The best example is Trump. All U.S. newspapers together have a circulation of 60 million copies (10 million those of quality, both conservative and progressive). Trump has 60 million followers who take his tweets as information. The do not buy newspapers, and if they watch TV it is Fox, which is Trump’s amplifier. No wonder that over 80 percent of Trump’s voters would vote for him again. And the media, which have lost the ability to offer analysis and cover processes, not just events, take the easy path. Let us follow famous people and make the famous more famous. Analytical journalism is disappearing. In the United States it exists thanks to grants … in every European country, there are few quality papers left, but the largest circulation goes to tabloids which spare their readers the effort of thinking. The Daily Mirror in Britain and Bild in Germany are the best examples.

Symbolic representation of Internet addiction. (Sam Wolff, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

The Internet has made everybody a communicator. This is a fantastic achievement. But in this increasing barbarisation, people also use the Internet for transmitting false information, stories based on fantasy, without any of the quality controls that the media world used to have. And artificial intelligence has been taking over, creating many false accounts, which now interfere in the electoral process, as was proven in the last U.S. elections. We have to add to this that the algorithms used by the owners of the Internet aim to trap the attention of users in order to keep them as much as possible. This month, El Pais published a long study entitled “The toxic effects of YouTube,” where it shows how its algorithms push the viewer to items that are of fantasy, pseudoscientific and of great attraction.

Citizens into Consumers

This is due to the fact that the owners have become fabulously rich by transforming citizens into consumers. They find out our identity, and they sell it to companies for their marketing, and also for elections. Those owners have unprecedented wealth, never achieved in the real world: not only in that of production but even in the world of finance, which has become a casino with no control. The entire world of production of services and goods, man-made, is now close to a trillion dollars a day; that same day, financial flows reach $40 trillion. Jeff Bezos gave his ex-wife $38 billion in the divorce. That is equal to the annual average income of $20,000 of 19 million people. No wonder that 80 individuals now possess the same wealth as 2.3 billion people (in 2008, they were 1,200 individuals).

Protesting the Wall Street bailouts at Chicago Federal Reserve / Board of trade, Sept. 21, 2008.
(freemarketsmyass/Flickr)

According to historians, greed and fear are great engines of change in history. That was also true in the Gutenberg era. But now, they have triggered a combination of both in a short period of time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the doctrine of liberal globalisation arrived with such strength that Margaret Thatcher (who with Ronald Reagan ushered in the new vision of individual profits and elimination of social goods) famously talked of TINA: There Is No Alternative.

The entire political system, including Social Democrats, went along with a system of values based on greed and unfettered competition at the individual, state and international level. It took 20 years to understand that the poor have become poorer, and the rich richer, and that states have lost much of their sovereignty to multinational corporations and the world of finance. It is worth noting that, in 2009, in order to save a corrupt and inefficient financial system, the world spent $12 trillion (the United States alone spent $4 trillion). Since that rescue, banks have paid the impressive amount of $800 billion in penalties for illicit activities.

The financial crisis of 2009 has triggered a wave of fear. Let us not forget that until 2009, there were no sovereignist, populist, xenophobic parties anywhere, except for Jean-Marie Le Pen in France. Soon old traps such as “in name of the nation” and “the defense of religion” were resurrected by politicians able to ride fear. A new scapegoat – immigrants – was found and populocrats are now undermining democracy everywhere.

The Populocracy 

Populocracy is the new wave. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ushered in a new language, and that language has now been updated by Salvini, Trump and so on. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are the new medium and now the medium is the message. The old elite had not found a new language.

The Zuckerberg era is an era of greed and fear. Zuckerberg is now attempting to create a global currency, the Libra, to be used by his 2.3 billion users. Until now, states were the only entities able to emit money, a symbol of the nation. Zuckerberg’s currency is based entirely on the Internet and will have no control or regulations. In case of a default, we will have a world crisis without precedent. In the Gutenberg era, this was not possible.

But who enabled Jeff Bezos to give $38 billion to a former wife? Who elected Trump and Salvini and company, who speak on behalf of the nation and the people, and turn those who do not agree into enemies of the nation and the people, creating an unprecedented polarization, accompanied by an orgy of revolt against science and knowledge, which have supported the elite, and must now be put aside for the good of people.

This process of barbarisation should not obscure an old proverb: every country has the government it deserves. It is called democracy. However, the traditional elite has no code of communication with the new era. The answer will come from citizen mobilization.

A young Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, has done more with her stubbornness to raise awareness about impending climate change than the entire political system. Even Trump (albeit for electoral reasons) has now declared that climate change is important.

Greta Thunberg

✔@GretaThunberg

“It’s almost like you don’t even know these numbers exist. As if you haven’t even read the latest IPCC report, on which much of the future of our civilisation is depending.”

A part from my speech yesterday at the French Parliament.

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Today, there many “rays of light” appearing in the world. The elections in Istanbul are a good example, as are the mobilization in Hong Kong, Sudan and Nicaragua, among many others. Let us hope we will reach a point where people will take the reins of the process and awake the world from the precipitous course of barbarisation. Even Thomas Hobbes concluded that humankind will always, soon or later, find the right path, and give itself good governance. He thought that an elite would always be able to lead the masses.

Well, elites are now the Greta Thunbergs of the world.

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of global governance. Adviser to INPS-IDN and to the Global Cooperation Council. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service news agency and its president emeritus.

“Brand Boris”: Britain’s Clown Prince New Prime Minister

“Johnson is a caricature of what a political leader is supposed to be, a self-promoting serial liar, an embarrassment to previous offices held.”

“He’s the perfect encapsulation of all of the vices…of the upper-class English elite” — indifferent to the rights and welfare of ordinary Brits.”

“Besides favoring tax cuts for the rich and business, he wants Brits paying more for healthcare, along with calling for putting 20,000 more cops on the beat to fight “crime” and being tough on aliens from the wrong countries.”

“In declaring his candidacy earlier, he vowed to cut taxes for wealthy Brits and corporations — at a time surveys show most Brits oppose years of force-fed austerity, wanting higher taxes, extra revenue used for improved social services.”

Source

Boris Johnson succeeded Theresa May as new Tory prime minister – chosen by Britain’s power elite, ordinary Brits having no say over their new leader.

UK democracy in action resembles America’s — pure fantasy, not the real thing.

Johnson is a caricature of what a political leader is supposed to be, a self-promoting serial liar, an embarrassment to previous offices held.

In public statements, he bashed Russia like his predecessors, abandoning reason, logic, facts, and common sense.

Johnson and Theresa May, along with other UK and US Russophobes, concocted the Skripal poisoning incident the Kremlin had nothing to do with.

Instead of responsibly seeking improved relations with Moscow, they used the incident to heighten tensions more than already.

Johnson is Britain’s Nikki Haley with gender difference. He earlier compared Putin to Hitler.

Haley has US 2024 presidential ambitions. The possibility should terrify everyone — a neocon extremist, geopolitical know-nothing Hillary clone without her years of political experience on the world stage.

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone earlier called Johnson “the most hardline right-wing ideologue since Thatcher…a fairly lazy tosser who just wants to be there.”

He’s supremely unqualified for the post he now holds. It’s his to compound the mess he inherited.

Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Konstantin Kosachev slammed him, saying:

“British politics is in for gales and earthquakes, I dare suggest. And the British-Russian relations are in for the same old cemetery despair they have been plunged into by Johnson and the like. It’s going to be no fun.”

His hardline extremism and eccentricities “manifested itself in full when he was foreign secretary and is unlikely to fade away now.”

Kosachev’s State Duma counterpart Leonid Slutsky was just as disappointed about Johnson’s ascension to power, saying:

“As for relations with Russia, one can hardly expect drastic changes for the better.”

He was foreign secretary “during the unprecedented anti-Russian campaign over the so-called poisoning” of Sergey and Yulia Skripal, falsely blamed on Moscow.

“(H)e did his utmost to promote that political theater and reduce Russian-British relations to zero.”

According to journalist Dave Hill, he’s “a unique figure in British politics, an unprecedented blend of comedian, conman, faux subversive showman, and populist media confection.”

Biographer Sonia Purnell described his public persona as “brand Boris,” adding he’s “a manic self-promoter (with) a good deal of bravado…the most unconventional…politician of the post-Blair era.”

Former UK deputy PM Nick Clegg once said he’s “like Donald Trump with a thesaurus.” Their demagogic self-promotion, bombast, bravado and arrogance are similar.

Johnson is like DJT with a British accent and smoother presentation. Former MP/imperial critic George Galloway said “(y)ou’d have to…be British and…mad (to believe he’s) the answer to Britain’s now rather critical problems,” adding:

Making Heavy Weather: Boris Johnson the Despoiler

“He’s the perfect encapsulation of all of the vices…of the upper-class English elite” — indifferent to the rights and welfare of ordinary Brits

“Like his hero Winston Churchill, he believes history will treat him kindly because HE intends to write it.”

He and Trump are warlords, hostile to peace, equity and justice — essential qualities for public office in the West, social democrats shunned.

He drips racism and misogyny, calling Blacks “piccaninnies (with) watermelon smiles” and Muslim women “letter boxes.”

According to a non-random sample of 70,000 London Guardian readers, “(w)omen are more likely than men to view Boris Johnson as dishonest, xenophobic and politically calculating…97% of women and 96% of men (consider him) “repellently dishonest.”

At an early July Tory leadership gathering, he was questioned about his “arguably racist” remarks in newspaper columns he wrote.

Columnist Patrick Cockburn suggested his ascension to prime minister amounted to “a soft coup.”

He was chosen by 160,000 Tory members, a minute fraction of the UK electorate. Following his selection, the London Guardian said “the clown is crowned as the country burns in hell.”

“Elected by a staggering 0.2% of the nation, (it’s far from) the will of the people.” And by the way, the acronym for his “Deliver, Unite, Defeat” campaign slogan is DUD.

In a pitch to become prime minister, he made a “do of die” pledge to leave the EU by October 31.

Preferring to avoid a no-deal Brexit, he said “(i)t would be absolutely bizarre to signal at this stage that the UK government was willing once again to run-up the white flag and delay yet again.”

Much can happen between now and then. Like Trump and other Western politicians, Johnson time and again says one thing and goes another way.

He slammed Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, calling him and likeminded followers part of a “Marxist cabal…a real threat to our fundamental values and our way of life,” adding:

As prime minister, he’ll “protect this country from the red-toothed, red-clawed socialism.” Like most Western politicians, he supports privilege over beneficial social change.

In declaring his candidacy earlier, he vowed to cut taxes for wealthy Brits and corporations — at a time surveys show most Brits oppose years of force-fed austerity, wanting higher taxes, extra revenue used for improved social services.

On Wednesday, Johnson begins his tenure as prime minister. The good news is Theresa May is gone. The bad news is he’ll likely continue the worst of her policies and add his own.

Besides favoring tax cuts for the rich and business, he wants Brits paying more for healthcare, along with calling for putting 20,000 more cops on the beat to fight “crime” and being tough on aliens from the wrong countries.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif tweeted the following after Johnson’s selection as prime minister, saying:

“The May govt’s seizure of Iranian oil at behest of US is piracy, pure & simple.

I congratulate my former counterpart, @BorisJohnson on becoming UK PM.

Iran does not seek confrontation. But we have 1500 miles of Persian Gulf coastline. These are our waters & we will protect them.”

Johnson is no friend of Iran, earlier urging ways to restrain what he called its “disruptive behavior (sic).”

In a leadership debate earlier this month, he said “I am not going to pretend that the mullahs of Tehran are easy people to deal with (sic) or that they are anything other than a disruptive, dangerous, difficult regime (sic). They certainly are (sic),” adding:

“But…if you asked me whether I think we should now, were I to be prime minister now, would I be supporting military action against Iran? Then the answer is no.”

No can become yes on numerous issues when US hardliners come calling.

Johnson no doubt will keep the US/UK special relationship intact, especially on geopolitical issues.

Judge them by their actions. Both countries are hostile toward Iran. That’s not likely to change with him at No. 10.

How will he get along with Trump personally? He’s on the record as London mayor, saying the following in response to private citizen Trump’s remark in 2015 about “no-go” zones in the city where police won’t go because of Muslim extremists, saying:

Trump demonstrated “a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him, frankly, unfit to hold the office of president of the United States.”

He was the first senior UK politician to state this view. Trump is easily irritated when criticized.

If he’s made aware of Johnson’s remark or remembers it when made, it may not make for an easy relationship.

*

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Stephen Lendman, Global Research, 2019

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

Pepe Escobar

July 21, 2019

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

From an internal newsletter circulated among key banking/finance/business Masters of the Universe – relayed to me by two of my sources/very well informed readers:

“The United States has been industrially destroyed. You cannot have a great military if you have no industry. Half of internal industries lie as a rust belt of ruin and the other half is on its way out. You cannot be a world power if all you have left is a lot of intrinsically worthless dollars lying as book entries at the Federal Reserve and commercial banks. Nothing has been done to stop this madness hemorrhage despite Donald Trump’s massive efforts as the intelligence agencies have stymied him at every turn.

There has been no improvement in the balance of payments deficit; there has been no improvement in the budget deficit; the immigration flood continues; and Clapper and Brennan and the intelligence agencies and the military not only did all this but blocked detente as it would reduce the military budget and moved to impeach Trump as his punishment for trying to reverse this madness. And the infrastructure is sinking to third world status. These were the main planks of the Trump campaign which lie in ruin to the delight of Clapper, Brennan, etc.. (…) Rome’s military lasted a longer than the collapse of its domestic economy but in the end, it also collapsed as the British (…) Wall Street fiddles as America burns.”