Piñera talks out of both sides of his mouth on nuclear power

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Oh Chile…what have you elected? Surely this is not what you had in mind?

While the debate on the use of nuclear energy grows around the world, Chilean president Sebastián Piñera confirmed that he will be signing an accord on Friday with the United States, which is looking to explore the possibility of using this type of energy in Chile.

“This convention, which aims precisely at the investigation, the training of human resources, also aims at achieving greater standards of security, when it comes to disposing of the radioactive wastes of the two experimental reactors which we have in Chile,” said the president, who also announced that it was an agreement which is “pro-security, in favor of life, and the protection of the health of Chileans.”

[…]

Piñera’s declarations come on the heels of a visit to Wataru Hayashi, the Japanese ambassador in Santiago, along with the Minister of Exterior relations, Alfredo Moreno, in solidarity with the earthquake victims of Japan.

Translation mine.

Unbelievable. Like Japan (and New Zealand), Chile has been shaken recently and hard by catastrophic earthquakes. And like both of those countries, it is at best an extremely dicey place to put any kind of nuclear reactor. If you doubt me, just look at any topographical map of Chile. It’s a long, narrow string of a country, literally caught between a rock (the Andes) and a hard place (the Pacific Ring of Fire). The earthquakes in Japan, Chile and New Zealand share a common denominator: The entire Pacific rim is one large subduction zone, and the mountain ranges surrounding it–particularly the active volcanoes of Japan and Chile–testify to its high degree of seismic activity.

And as we have seen from Fukushima, it’s not a very good place to put a nuclear reactor of any kind. Especially not the US-made reactors that are located in the disaster zone.

One doesn’t have to be a scientist to understand any of this. One has only to be sane, sensible and humanistic. And the only sane, sensible and humanistic conclusion one can draw it that Chile should not tread in Japan’s footsteps on this matter, unless it wants to risk a similar disaster. The odds are very high that they’d get one.

And yet Sebastián Piñera still thinks it’s worth signing an agreement with the United States of Amnesia to develop nuclear energy in Chile.

Obviously, the man is no scientist, no geologist and certainly no nuclear engineer. He’s a businessman, and he wants to squeeze profit out of the proposition at all costs. But he has to sell the proposition–which is highly undesirable–to his fellow Chileans. Hence the doubletalk.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, which is far less geologically active than Chile, the government has suspended its nuclear energy project following the tragedy of Japan, pending further investigation of seismic safety concerns. And this is the same Venezuelan government that Piñera was already criticizing and carping about before he was even inaugurated!

I don’t know about you, but I’d want to live in a place where the leader is smart enough to act appropriately given the possibility of a national disaster. And also one where said leader is smart enough to learn from others, and not forge full-radioactive-steam-ahead into a catastrophe of his own.

Chile isn’t it. Sorry, Chile.

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Posted in Chile Sin Queso, Environmentally Ill, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, Oceania, She Blinded Me With Science, The "Well, DUH!" Files, The United States of Amnesia, The WTF? Files, Turning Japanese | Comments Off on Piñera talks out of both sides of his mouth on nuclear power

Quotable: Noam Chomsky on the struggle(s) for democracy

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Sabina Becker

I especially like what he says on Libya: It’s a civil war, and western intervention is not called for. It’s not up to “us”. Well said, and sure to be ignored by the powers that be. Remember, Libya has OIL.

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Posted in Angry Pacifist Speaks Her Mind, Barreling Right Along, Economics for Dummies, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, If You REALLY Care, Obamarama!, Quotable Notables, Rivers in Egypt, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on Quotable: Noam Chomsky on the struggle(s) for democracy

For those with vaginas

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Lysistrata has made a comeback in the USA. The cause? The defunding of Planned Parenthood and the latest salvo in the war against women. Wives and girlfriends of lawmakers, are you listening? (Lobbyists in “eye-patch underwear”, since you are part of the problem and not the solution, you can go fuck yourselves…alone…TOO.)

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Posted in Fascism Without Swastikas, Fetus Fetishists, Filthy Stinking Rich, Greek Salad, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land, Men Who Just Don't Get It, Not So Compassionate Conservatism, Pissing Jesus Off, The United States of Amnesia, Uppity Wimmin | 3 Comments

Happy Pi Day!

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Today is the day to gather a circle of friends (haha, get it?) and geek out. Who has memorized the world’s most famous fudge factor to the greatest number of decimal places? Winner gets the biggest piece of the, er, PIE.

All kidding aside, there IS a (somewhat) official designation for today. Read all about it.

PS: What? Whaddya mean Pi is wrong?

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Music for a Sunday: Picket lines and picket signs

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Sabina Becker

What with all the fighting and disaster lately, this is the only song that I could think of that was quite appropriate for today:

Don’t punish me with brutality–talk to me, so you can see what’s going on…

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Wankers of the Week: Spring forward into stoopid

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Crappy Daylight Saving Time, everyone! Don’t forget to spring forward! Except for you lucky sucks in Saskatchewan, who won’t be touching your clocks tonight. Guess you gotta do something to compensate for those interminable prairie winters, eh? Here’s this week’s list of people for whom changing the clock won’t do anything to compensate for their extreme stupidity:

1. Hans-Peter Fucking Friedrich. “Islam does not belong in Germany”, says Ferkel Merkel’s new interior minister. So what does? Christian theocracy, what else? He’s a member of the CSU–the Christian Social Union. What–you thought Germany was a modern liberal democracy? Ha-ha-ha, sorry, but NO. Its body politic is still dominated by the same old-order conservatives who would have happily embraced Hitler all those years ago, and whose political discourse is all about how Those People (who used to be the Jews, and now are the Turks and Arabs) are taking over and oppressing the poor helpless white Christians! This is their response to the recent incident in which a Kosovar (who happens to be a Muslim) fatally shot two US servicemen at an airport in Germany. What would Jesus say? Something along the lines of “Get these fucking wankers out of my fan club”, I suspect.

2. Peter Fucking King. And over on this side of the pond, islamophobia is now the latest enabler of homegrown fascist terror. Its infallible formula? A noun, a verb, and a screeched “9-11!” Meanwhile, don’t look for a peep out of him about things like this or this.

3. Sebastián Fucking Piñera. Even before he was inaugurated as president of Chile, this notorious Pinochetist was missing no opportunities to slam Chavecito for whatever he could slam him for. This time, it’s his offer to mediate for peace in the Libyan civil conflict, and to get Jimmy Carter involved in brokering peace there as well. Did I mention that Piñera is a Pinochetist, and a very craven one at that? No? Consider it done, then.

4. Juan Fucking Forero. Could you possibly be more biased? Could you possibly be more slimy? Could you possibly get the story more hilariously wrong? If you can, the Washington Post will gladly take your résumé, and put you in its Latin America bureau. They need all the anti-Chávez crapagandists they can get these days. Must distract the sheeple from what’s going on in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, lest they start getting some un-Amurrican ideas.

5.  Glenn Fucking Beck. A wanker every week, he’s now bleeding advertisers…AND losing viewers. Rumor has it that the guillotine awaits him. Keep masturbating, Biff!

6. Brigitte Fucking Gabriel. Or whatever her real name is (she writes pseudonymously, always a dead giveaway of bullshit.) Whoopee, it’s Pamela Fucking Geller’s Maronite cousin. Only problem is, even other Maronites find her embarrassing and lacking in credibility. I’m sure there are plenty of diaspora Lebanese around the world to whom it is news that their homeland was “lost to radical Islam”–but I’ll bet they’re not so surprised to hear that she’s actually on the payroll of Pat Fucking Robertson!

7. Richard Fucking Land, again. So, Wanker #2’s witch-hunts are “a great opportunity for the Muslim community to come forward and denounce terrorism”? Oh, and get this: If Muslims “attack the questioning”, they are “exacerbating the problem”! Why not hold similar hearings, then, for right-wing Christians to come forward and do the same with their own? God knows they’ve got no shortage of terrorists among their own, but I don’t hear any calls going up there to denounce abortion-clinic bombers and gay-bar terrorists…do you?

8. Lynn Fucking Wachtmann. Speaking of anti-choice terrorists of the right, now would be a terrific time to stand up and denounce this co-sponsor of the infamous Ohio “heartbeat bill”, who put up farcical “testimony” from an unsworn fetus, but rejected the same from a grown woman who aborted a late-term pregnancy gone terribly awry. Guess this one thinks grown women don’t have heartbeats worth hearing, eh?

9. Scott Fucking Walker, again. How fucking phony can one teabag (soon to be ex-) governor get? Well, in a word: PLENTY. Oh, and get this: He’s religiously insane, too. When he gets recalled, look for a “Why Me, Jesus?” moment. But don’t expect him to hear Jesus when the latter says “Dude, I’m a socialist, and this happened because YOU FUCKING PISSED ME OFF!”

10. Dan Fucking McTeague. So, Canada’s self-styled anti-piracy crusader is… a pirate himself? Yarrrrrr, matey, shiver me timbers! Someone deserves to be keelhauled! Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

11. The Fucking Saudi Royals. Given the laws they set forth for the rest of the kingdom, shouldn’t all of their heads be rolling for the gross violations they’ve committed–with the collusion of foreign contractors currying their favor, no less?

12. Newt Fucking Gingrich. He howled for Bill Clinton’s blood, over adultery, while committing his own–with the woman who would become his third wife. Now he claims that schtupping the shit out of her was a sign of his moral fitness to become president? The jokes really do write themselves here.

13. The Fucking Harper Government. They really fucked it up big time this week. They are not our government. They will never be it. And they know it, which is why they hold us all, and our parliamentary democratic process, in such deep contempt.

14. Whoever the fuck wrote that “cocksman” e-mail to his frat brothers in the USC chapter of Kappa Fucking Sigma. And people wonder why I look down my nose at fratboys? Yeah, I wonder too. Believe me, I’ve never stopped questioning my decision to attend only frat-free universities because of things like this!

15. Joe Fucking Barton. Shouldn’t ExxtortionMobil be subsidizing government, not the other way around? It’s not as if those fuckers don’t turn a profit in their fucking sleep, dammit. (And by “subsidizing government”, I don’t mean huge cash infusions to the likes of Joe Fucking Barton, either. I mean PAYING TAXES LIKE REAL CITIZENS, you corporate poonheads.)

16. Jesse Fucking Watters. No, there is not a “Muslim problem in the world”. There is a bigot problem. And also a fucking idiot problem. And Jesse Fucking Watters is emblematic of both.

17. John Fucking Galliano, again. This time, he’s hired a Jewish lawyer, no doubt to burnish his so-totally-NOT-an-antisemite cred. Before that, it was a model with a Star of David on her scary-bony arm. Tattoo, or Sharpie? Inquiring minds would love to know.

18. Jam Fucking Tamachi Fucking Unar. Yeah, dude, that “joke” about women “mentally torturing” men is so fucking funny, I totally fucking forgot to laugh! I’m sure Pakistani women didn’t, though…they wouldn’t want to mentally torture you, would they now?

19. Bristol Fucking Palin. Her new boyfriend is a cutesy-wootsy racist who laughs at people with developmental disabilities (like, oh, say, Trig)? She sure can fucking pick ’em. And by them, I mean wankers.

20. Robert Fucking Dewar, again. No jail time and a “fulsome” letter of apology from the rapist to the victim? Talk about justice NOT being served! How is this supposed to help that woman feel safe again? How is it going to give her confidence in the justice system? How is it supposed to make any Canadian woman feel that she can denounce an assailant and be heard? And since when is a miasma of fear and rejection a whiff of “sex in the air”? This has got to be the dirtiest joke I’ve heard in a long time.

21. The Fucking US Congressional Repugs. Yeah, defunding tsunami warning systems would be a GREAT way to give your rich pals their ever-larger cut of the pie. What could possibly go wrong?

22. Juan Fucking Terranova. Even in machista Argentina, this qualifies as a wank. Qué weón, pues.

23. Randy Fucking Hopper. Because hey, why should Scott Fucking Walker enjoy all the wank action in Madison, Wisconsin? Let’s hope his wife signs not only the divorce papers, but the recall petition, too.

24. Stockwell Fucking Day. Aw, Doris is quitting. Now who will we have to kick off his jet-ski? Who will tell us which way the Niagara River doesn’t flow? And who…aw, who’m I kidding? ALL the SupposiTories are stupid, and they don’t need wetsuits and cheesy photo-ops to make them look that way. This one won’t be missed, even if he does provide more comic relief than most. So long, LaughingStock, and don’t let the door hit you where your mama done split you!

If he only had a brain…but then, he wouldn’t be a Conservative!

25. Bill Fucking Maher. Freedom from religion is not bad in and of itself, but the concept doesn’t need any more evangelists like him. It should be possible to be an atheist without being an ignorant, intolerant asshole.

26. Larry Fucking Kudlow. Markets, markets über alles? Yeah, that’s right: when discussing Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and double nuclear disaster, minimize the human toll and just focus on the bottom line, dickweed.

27. Sarah Fucking Palin. I was really hoping to go without mentioning the world’s dumbest brunette this week, but the company she keeps just drove me to it. All we need now is to hear that these separatist “militia” shithead friends of hers were in on Troopergate and it will go from a mere corruption scandal to attempted murder.

28. Bob Fucking McCown. “A face for radio” used to be just a funny stereotype, but this sports-talk shock jock, well…he has it. His opinions on the looks of female athletes are about as welcome and relevant, therefore, as Rush Fucking Limbaugh’s pontifications about Michelle Obama’s figure.

29. Jeff Fucking Kauffman. Considering that Repugs are all FOR putting guns in the hands of crazy people (hey, who did YOU think their voting base was?)–shouldn’t they at least have the decency not to joke about it?

30. Bill O’Fucking Reilly. Yet another right-wing nutjob picking at the motes of dust in the Muslims’ eyes while ignoring the vast fucking plank in his own. Billo, srsly, talk about something you actually understand. (There. That oughta shut him up…at least for a little while.)

And finally, to all the “patriotic” asshats out there in Internetlandia (see here and here for some representative examples) who think the earthquake in Japan was God’s (or karma’s, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s) payback for Pearl Harbor, or freemasonry, or any other stupid shit like that. Do you really think God (or karma, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster) operates that way? If so, you’re too fucking idiotic to live. And you really have it coming for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Egypt’s revolution keeps on truckin’

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Especially heartening: How Egyptian women are getting out, pitching in, and NOT shutting up. After Wednesday’s nasty setbacks, that’s good to hear. So’s the labor struggle, which as only just begun, but is promising to be fierce.

Yalla Egypt!

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Politically motivated? You don’t say…

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Awhile back, I remarked on how interesting and odd the timing of those sexual assault charges against Julian Assange was. Today, once more, I am reminded of just how very interesting and odd that timing was, indeed:

Julian Assange’s Swedish lawyer says a newspaper report casts doubt on whether the sex abuse investigation against the WikiLeaks founder was carried out in an impartial manner.

Swedish tabloid Expressen reported Thursday that a police officer involved in the initial phase of the probe had personal and political links to one of the two women accusing Assange of sexual misconduct.

Expressen also said the officer, Irmeli Krans, described Assange as a “bubble ready to burst” on her personal Facebook page.

“If this information is correct, then one should carefully consider whether the nature of the investigation is such that he can be assured a fair trial,” Assange’s lawyer Bjoern Hurtig told The Associated Press.

…”whether the nature of the investigation is such that he can be assured a fair trial”.

That’s just it, isn’t it? The nature of the investigation is such that he can’t be assured anything of the sort. The timing of the charges tells me that already.

Meanwhile, there is also a conflict-of-interest issue tucked in here:

Expressen said Krans knew one of Assange’s accusers from their involvement in Sweden’s left-wing Social Democratic Party. Krans didn’t answer calls and an e-mail seeking comment Thursday.

Stockholm police spokesman Ulf Goranzon rejected any conflict of interest in the investigation. He said Krans didn’t interview her supposed friend, but the other woman, and wasn’t involved in the investigation after that.

As for the Facebook comments, Goranzon said “it is important for police officers to contemplate what they say and how they say it on social media.”

Nice dodge there, Mr. Goranzon.

The very fact that the investigator was friends with one of the accusers should have meant that she was not impartial enough to pursue this case, even if she only interviewed the other one (the one she presumably didn’t know).

And if the conflict-of-interest that comes of being too friendly with one of the accusers wasn’t enough to disqualify her, surely the vindictive, triumphalistic comment she wrote on Facebook would have to be. At least, in anything purporting to resemble a fair trial, it would…

But that’s just it. I do not believe for one instant that the trial of Julian Assange will be a fair one. I believe this entire proceeding to be politically motivated, and that securing justice for rape victims everywhere is the furthest thing from the actual political motive behind it. This has all the markings of a show trial, and behind all the sudden, touching and uncharacteristic concern for sexually assaulted women, there lies something much squirmier, something much more averse to the light of day.

Rape is a serious matter, and a traumatizing one, but you’d never know it to look at the way it’s being used here. Throughout history, rape has never been about the rights of women, only about the whims of men. The very origin of the word is in reference to property theft, not assault on a person. Women have always been regarded as property, and nothing has changed, even in this case, which is being seized upon by right-wing asshats as evidence that Sweden is “run by feminists”–a preposterous contention if ever there was one. Rape is not only a weapon of war; it’s also a casus belli. In the case of Julian Assange, it is a casus belli in the undeclared war against freedom of information.

And rape is clearly nothing more to these people than a pretext to get Julian Assange into custody, by whatever means possible. When they can legally extradite him (not to Sweden, but to the United States), just watch: They will drop the rape charges for the real ones, the ones the US is dying to press. Namely, those of espionage.

But even espionage, like rape, is nothing but a flimsy pretext in this case. Julian Assange did not spy for anyone, nor did he spy on anyone, nor was anyone’s life demonstrably endangered by the Cablegate documents he published. All he did was take some documents that were voluntarily given to him, and make these available to the general public via Wikileaks.

And the contents of these documents, classified or not, don’t even come as a surprise to those who have seen them–they only serve to confirm what we have all long suspected. And sometimes, to embarrass those who don’t deserve to enjoy a good reputation anyway. So what is the earthly point of keeping them a secret? Only to enable warmongers and imperialists, who have scant respect for human life in general, and female human life in particular.

The lives of Afghans and Iraqis, as well as secret agents and CIA assets, are not the real issue here, any more than is the question of whether two Swedish women were sexually assaulted by Julian Assange. They are all being used as pawns in a cynical ploy to stop the free flow of information, and nothing more.

And it will do them no justice if he is found guilty.

PS: You really must read the Expressen story. It’s all in English, and while the translation is imperfect, it’s explosive to say the least. Here’s a sampling:

When the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet recently let it’s [sic] readers chat with Assange the interrogator commented:

“What the heck is this??? Judgement zero!!!”

The day before she wrote in a status update on her Facebook-page:

“Way to go, Claes Borgström!!!”

In another status update from late February the police interrogator wrote about “The overrated Assange bubble ready to burst”.

In their blogs, the police interrogator and the woman who reported Julian Assange have been open about their friendship. As recently as February 10 this year the woman commented a status update that the interrogator had on her facebook page. The woman still links from her homepage to the private blog of the police interrogator. The interrogator in turn links to her party friend and lawyer Thomas Bodström, who has a vested interest in the Assange case through his law firm.

Conflict of interest. Quod erat demonstrandum, baby. Go read it all!

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Posted in Angry Pacifist Speaks Her Mind, Fascism Without Swastikas, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land, Spooks, The 'Stans, The "Well, DUH!" Files, The United States of Amnesia, The War on Terra, Uppity Wimmin | 4 Comments

Q. How jaw-droppingly wrong can one person be?

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Sabina Becker

A. A LOT.

With “friends” like this, the young woman in question doesn’t need any enemies.

Anyway, at the rate she’s going, she will change the world, and this “friend”, one hopes, will be the first domino to fall.

I only wish I’d been more like her when I was 15. And I wish there’d been more people like her in my class at school, too.

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Posted in Confessions of a Bad German, Uppity Wimmin | 3 Comments

“We have HAD it!”

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Michael Moore’s incredible speech from Madison, Wisconsin. As he says, the media haven’t got a clue what’s really going on, so it’s up to us bloggers to get the message out. Here’s an excerpt from his latest letter:

So in the wee hours of yesterday morning I sat down to write an answer to them. By 3:00 AM, it had turned into more of a manifesto of class war — or, I should say, a manifesto against the class war the rich have been conducting on the American people for the past 30 years. I read it aloud to myself to see how it sounded (trying not to wake anyone else in the apartment) and then — and this is why no one should be up at 3:00 AM — the crazy kicked in: I needed to get in the car and drive to Madison and give this speech.

I went online to get directions and saw that there was no official big rally planned like the one they had last Saturday and will have again next Saturday. Just the normal ongoing demonstration and occupation of the State Capitol that’s been in process since February 12th (the day after Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt) to protest the Republican governor’s move to kill the state’s public unions.

So, it’s three in the morning and I’m a thousand miles from Madison and I see that the open microphone for speakers starts at noon. Hmm. No time to drive from New York. I was off to the airport. I left a note on the kitchen table saying I’d be back at 9:00 PM. Called a friend and asked him if he wanted to meet me at the Delta counter. Called the guy who manages my website, woke him up, and asked him to track down the coordinators in Madison and tell them I’m on my way and would like to say a few words if possible — “but tell them if they’ve got other plans or no room for me, I’ll be happy just to stand there holding a sign and singing Solidarity Forever.”

So I just showed up. The firefighters, hearing I’m there, ask me to lead their protest parade through downtown Madison. I march with them, along with John Nichols (who lives in Madison and writes for the Nation). Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and the great singer Michelle Shocked have also decided to show up.

The scene in Madison is nothing like what they are showing you on TV or in the newspaper. First, you notice that the whole town is behind this. Yard signs and signs in store windows are everywhere supporting public workers. There are thousands of people out just randomly lining the streets for the six blocks leading to the Capitol building carrying signs, shouting and cheering and cajoling. Then there are stages and friendly competing demos on all sides of the building (yesterday’s total estimate of people was 50,000-70,000, the smallest one yet)! A big semi truck has been sent by James Hoffa of the Teamsters and is parked like a don’t-even-think-of-effing-with-us Sherman tank on the street in front of the Capitol. There is a long line — separate from these other demonstrations — of 4,000 people, waiting their turn to get through the only open door to the Capitol so they can join the occupation inside.

And inside the Rotunda is … well, it will bring tears to your eyes if you go there. It’s like a shrine to working people — to what America is and should be about — packed with families and kids and so many senior citizens that it made me happy for science and its impact on life expectancy over the past century. There were grandmas and great-grandpas who remember FDR and Wisconsin’s La Follette and the long view of this struggle. Standing in that Rotunda was like a religious experience. There had been nothing like it, for me, in decades.

And so it was in this setting, out of doors now on the steps of the Capitol, with so many people in front of me that I couldn’t see where they ended, that I just “showed up” and gave a speech that felt unlike any other I had ever given. As I had just written it and had no time to memorize it, I read from the pages I brought with me. I wanted to make sure that the words I had chosen were clear and exact. I knew they had the potential to drive the haters into a rabid state (not a pretty sight) but I also feared that the Right’s wealthy patrons would see a need to retaliate should these words be met with citizen action across the land. I was, after all, putting them on notice: We are coming after you, we are stopping you and we are going to return the money/jobs/homes you stole from the people. You have gone too far. It’s too bad you couldn’t have been satisfied with making millions, you had to have billions — and now you want to strip us of our ability to talk and bargain and provide. This is your tipping point, Wall Street; your come-to-Jesus moment, Corporate America. And I’m glad I’m going to be able to be a witness to it.

Here are some other, related dispatches from the frontlines of the class war that are flying under the radar, courtesy of FAIR:

Surprisingly, the NYT managed to report some real news for a change: That the public SUPPORTS public sector workers’ unions, and feels that undermining collective bargaining rights is bad for everyone. Even more significant, the public favors tax hikes for the wealthy over service cuts! And oh yeah, not surprisingly: Those most likely to be in favor of tax and service cuts? Those making more than $100,000 a year in the private sector. What was surprising, though, is that those in this income group who were against tax and service cuts outnumbered those in favor, 49 percent to 45. So even the rich seem to think paying more taxes and getting more services is a good idea! Who knew?

Well, I don’t know if Billo knew, but I know that he’s not happy about this report. Bill O’Reilly being the crapaganda whore that he is, of course he’d pitch a shit-fit. His “solution” to the “problem” of public opinion polls that don’t favor the poor, oppressed rich? Don’t poll union members. That’s one person in five. How a poll of that nature would be indicative of real public opinion, I don’t know. Perhaps we should ask Billo?

Charlie Rose of the Chicken Noodle Network also scores an epic fail by having zero labor input on what’s only the biggest labor story of the year. His guests? Joe Klein, who thinks public-sector unions are “a pretty questionable proposition”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and oh yeah: Mike Huckabee, who undoubtedly thinks a bundle of money could be saved by home-skoolin’ yer kids (also because it keeps the Little Woman at home where she belongs, I bet.) As it stands, yesterday’s chat shows had just one unionist on: Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO. FAIL!!! At this rate, it’s little wonder that the general public thinks more highly of teachers than it does of reporters. When reporters are busy flogging the corporatist line instead of respecting and reporting where the public really stands on the issues, can we honestly say we’re surprised?

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Economics for Dummies, Filthy Stinking Rich, Rivers in Egypt, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!, The "Well, DUH!" Files, The United States of Amnesia | 1 Comment