That Huffington Post headline was the lead for one of its many celebrity stories that I noticed this morning. I admit to perusing HuffPo a few times a week to give balance to my daily readings of various Internet news blogs. One savvy woman creatively used the free content from many talented writers to make herself a multi-millionaire – beyond what she had achieved through her earlier divorce proceedings. I only wish TMV’s Joe Gandelman didn’t have to do other work to pay his family’s living expenses – but then I haven’t pulled my far-less-than-Governor-Christie weight in posting over this past year either.
Living in Arizona (which is currently on Pacific Time that includes WA, OR, NV & CA La-La-Land where a total of 18% of all Americans live) everything happens well after the fact for us compared to the rest of the U.S. I’m sure that information was already published in one of the many supermarket celebrity tabloids that continue to defy the overall trajectory of self-implosion for most of American print media in favor of a digital format. How Cosmopolitan can constantly come up with several new sex moves for each edition also defies logic, gravity and human physiology.
Ms. Spears probably has more followers than Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, and most online blog sites combined. This is not exactly a sad commentary on the overall ignorance, shallowness and obtuseness of a large part of the American electorate with respect to every subject under the Sun. But this fact is revealing about our society in general. I’m sure Kim Kardashian, Snooky and Sarah Palin are seething with envy.
Amazingly enough Lady Gaga was recently spotted going out with (dating, standing next to?) a MAN which may be unconventional news for many. For this writer who is over 50, it was mildly shocking. I never realized she was humanoid and I only thought she dated an entourage of people of all sexual genders and persuasions. Soon she’ll join Beyonce and other top American celebrities by getting married and having a baby, though not necessarily in that order.
I’ve taken a rather long hiatus from posting on TMV but I really think other contributors such as Dorian DeWind, Shaun Mullen, Joe Windish, Michael Silverstein, and our fearless leader Joe Gandelmen have done a top-notch job in my absence – as if any TMV editors or readers had even noticed. Readers (including this ranter) are likely more disappointed by the inexplicable silence of the excellent writer Elijah Sweete from TMV.
I have been suffering from “writer’s block” and a preoccupation with other things that have a better chance of making some money. It’s not easy deciding what subject to cover while wading back into the blogging waters. Thus TMV readers get Britany Spears – a desperate and out-of-box choice for me. I’m sure Arianna will be calling her lawyers to see if HuffPo can sue me or TMV for using her headline – even though my blogging is a not-for-profit venture. TMV’s ever-respected and favorite Dr. E may choose to edit this post and its headline as she sees fit to save everyone from a possible legal kerfuffle.
Our overall 24/7 Major corporate info-entertainment propaganda machine continues to spew forth moronic diversions, lies, and human excrement to keep the masses placated while the real news (political, economic, social and otherwise) gets worse by the day. It is not surprising that the majority of the American people have tuned it all out and are more focused on their personal lives, distractions and interests, than on any national or collective interests.
The blogosphere, punditocracy, and faux news media are a bubble unto themselves and frequently they are disconnected from reality. Since this nation’s political process has devolved into one perpetual 24/7 campaign circus, punctuated by a few scheduled elections, and interrupted even less frequently by sporadic attempts at governing, people who wish to maintain their sanity tune most of it out. Our economic system is run by several corrupt crony corporate cartels who have effectively swallowed up our political process with endless money. It no longer functions as anything resembling a dynamic, competitive and thoughtfully regulated free enterprise system.
Political and social (and even moral, ethical and theological) systems create and modify the economic, financial and business structures of every nation. About 30 years ago and continuing to this day, our political system decided to choose various tax, financial, regulatory, and economic policies that have led us to our current situation – milieu – or mess if you prefer. And tons of money – in the form of campaign contributions via an army of DC Lobbyists – was a huge influence on that process.
In retrospect, we could have made many other better choices but we now have a situation where a small number of very wealthy individuals and global corporations control our entire national policy-making process. Our oligarchy’s short and long-term best interests principally involve maintaining the status quo. The silly charades of both political parties, the useless diversions from the right, left, independents and other particular movements and groups, coupled with complete legislative and governing gridlock in Washington DC, fit perfectly in its need to see no change whatsoever.
America’s oligarchy, plutocracy and kleptocracy have complete control over and profit handsomely from the current political and economic system so they have no interest in altering it whatsoever. The U.S. has devolved into a fraudulent, grasping, greedy, mendacious, corrupt, confused, angry and willfully ignorant and delusional Nation. Over the past 30 years, the American people – from the top to the bottom of the income and wealth groups, coupled with our corrupt, fearful and unimaginative political, business and civic leaders, are guilty of the extreme wasting of natural, financial and human resources, being highly partisan and nasty towards each other, and persuing perpetual global war-mongering and ever-paranoid unconstitutional domestic security policies.
The U.S. is a farce of a responsible nation-state, and it makes a complete mockery of the rule of law, constitutional government and the free enterprise system. These traits are the hallmarks of an empire in severe decline from within. Sadly the vast majority of other nations around the globe have pursued many similar political, economic and social policies so as to render themselves even worse off than the U.S. Alternatively, China – being a command and control mercantilist power that has a government run and owned faux capitalist system – can better cover up its massive internal mistakes and buy a short-term veneer of competency and prosperity compared to other nations.
I don’t tweet or text because I’m just a twit who has rejected many modern appurtenances for many years. My basic cell phone only makes phone calls inbound and outbound. My family and I do not possess the latest electronic devices, many material possessions, conventional careers, or any secured or unsecured debt – the latter being the driver of unsustainable and fabricated global “growth” and consumerism for the last 30 years. Our nation cannot start to address its massive national and global problems until we honestly acknowledge them, understand their inter-relatedness, and prioritize our public and private policies.
On the Jay Leno show last night, he showed a clip of a video interview with the two recent American Nobel Prize winners in economics. When they were asked about what the nation could do to solve its serious economic problems, neither one could provide any answer whatsoever besides perfectly blank stares and a mumbled response that they had no ideas. They are the poster children of the bankruptcy of all economic theories and thoughts – along with most of the rigid ideologies that we have foolishly embraced for too many decades in this nation and around the world.
Whatever has been, is currently being, and will be debated, argued and nit-picked in detail by partisans on the left and right, experts from all the propaganda think tanks, and well-known commentators, pundits, and bloggers, plus by members of the Tea Party and the Occupiers of Wall Street, it will not amount to a hill of beans in the great trajectory of history until September 2012. Only then will the majority of the American electorate wake from its perpetual stupor and it may decide to focus on something greater than its members’ small personal worlds. Except for the self-centered major media outlets and the encased bubble blogosphere, very few will remember all the inconsistent and stupid statements of the current crop of candidates and the detailed machinations that go nowhere in DC by the November 2012 elections. by then, it will only be about how the majority feels about the economy and jobs, and their future prospects.
Many in the U.S. electorate may come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter what they think or believe, or who they elect because the corrupt and broken system is completely fixed in favor of the wealthy and powerful few. Many people may not even bother going to the polls since the system will not permit any other viable alternative candidates to be offered or alternative policies to be effectuated. Our nation’s founding fathers, Karl Marx and George Carlin were correct about the self-destructive potential of all democratic and capitalistic systems. Things have to get far worse (and they will) before we will ever wake up and make the massive and needed changes to our human societies.
Submitted on 10/13/11 by Marc Pascal, happily ranting from Phoenix, Arizona. You can reach me at [email protected] but I might not always respond – unless you’re nice and have a good idea that I can steal. I send my warmest regards to both my TMV fans.