News Quiz

The U. S. now has the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth because: A ) The top 1 percent of income earners make more than the bottom 50 percent. B ) 80 percent of all new income earned from 1980 to 2005 has gone to the top 1 percent. C ) The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. D ) The top 1 percent now owns more members of congress, supreme court justices, judges, governors, state legislators, tv networks and newspapers than the bottom 99 percent. Hint: everyone passes this quiz.

The rent is still too damn high

This in from Ireland:

Realism v. Idealism

There is truth in the one-liner that Democrats bandy: Anyone from the working or middle class who votes Republican is suffering from Battered Wife Syndrome. Although, one is tempted to retort, anyone who votes for either one of the corporate/National Security State parties is closer to a half-senile spinster who still believes her prince will come.

—Phil Rockstroh, "Public Like a Frog", Counterpunch, Nov. 12, 2010

Antisemitism

“Formerly an anti-Semite was somebody who hated Jews because they were Jews and had a Jewish soul. But nowadays an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.”

—Hajo Meyer

Correction

Last week we reported that in a speech in Lebanon, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, "Jews were born only to serve us — without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the people of Islam".

In fact, it was Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and the founder and spiritual leader of the Shas Party, who said in a sermon on October 16, "Goyim were born only to serve us — without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the people of Israel,"

Opium Wars

Chris Hedges writes at Truthdig:

The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for "moderation." And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power--masked, ruthless and unexamined--happily devour the state. ...

Politics in America has become spectacle. It is another form of show business. ... The modern spectacle, as the theorist Guy Debord pointed out, is a potent tool for pacification and depoliticization. It is a “permanent opium war” which stupefies its viewers and disconnects them from the forces that control their lives. The spectacle diverts anger toward phantoms and away from the perpetrators of exploitation and injustice. It manufactures feelings of euphoria. It allows participants to confuse the spectacle itself with political action. ...

The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are in the same business. They are entertainers. They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs. It is a national Punch and Judy show. But don’t be fooled. It is not politics. It is entertainment. It is spectacle. All national debate on the airwaves is driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd trivia, the same celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous posturing. It is presented with a different spin. But none of it is about ideas or truth. None of it is about being informed. It caters to emotions. It makes us confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge. And in the end, for those who serve up this drivel, the game is about money in the form of ratings and advertising. Beck, Colbert and Stewart all serve the same masters. And it is not us.

World Vegan Day