This post is R-rated because it is laced with profanity. It also touches on Reality, which is still a taboo subject in America. If profanity or Reality offend you, don't read it — Dave
I turned on the TV last night. It was a mistake. I was channel surfing and finally settled on The Daily Show. The first thing I saw is in the clip below. Watch it before continuing.
What an unbelievable Mind Fuck that is! I've gone after Jon Stewart before, but I was just warming up. Did it ever occur to this dickhead that the DOW reaching 13,000 and the adjusted-all-to-hell jobless rate mean exactly nothing to the vast majority of Americans? They're up shit creek without a paddle. Why would they give a flying fuck about propaganda emanating from the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Or the stock market, playground of the rich?
As painful as it is, I feel compelled to explain what's really going on in Stewart's "comic" report.
The mind-blowing problem we have to cope with is that Official Reality is defined within our all encompassing, degenerate political system. This is often called framing, and there is no escape from this ubiquitous frame of reference. Every single thing that happens—good, bad or indifferent—can only serve the interests of Democrats or serve the interests of Republicans. That's an "exclusive or" (XOR), for nothing can serve the interests of both.
Sometimes an event does not clearly serve the interests of either party, in which case armies of Talking Heads are unleashed to explain the political ambiguities to us in ever finer detail. Who will emerge the winner? Stay tuned! Moreover, inside this Propaganda World, Democrats or Republicans (XOR) are responsible for everything that happens, good, bad or indifferent. If the economy is "improving" as we are constantly told, then surely Obama should get the credit.
Goldman Sachs may be (in Matt Taibbi's famous phrase) a "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money," but the phony political system in this country is a relentless, truth-annihilating, all-consuming, mind-fucking Death Machine which eats anyone or anything in its path. The Hindu god Shiva, destroyer of worlds, has nothing on the Machine. In this respect it is an exact replica of Crony Capitalism, which converts anything fundamentally opposed to it into a marketing/money-making opportunity.
I'm still waiting for The Gap's special line of "We Are The 99%" t-shirts, a casual look for the smartphone addicted. (Never mind that those phones are made possible by underpaid, suicidal Chinese workers.) You can wear this fashionable t-shirt at work as you do your menial, demeaning job which pays you next to nothing, or while you're house hunting beneath that special (but crumbling) bridge you'll soon be living under.
And there is Jon Stewart plying his bullshit whilst standing smack dab in the middle of this wretched Hell Hole called the American Economy. He's just making a buck, ya' know? It doesn't matter to the Death Machine he so ably represents that we've recently had a sharp deterioration in the jobs market according to Gallup, which wasn't great shakes to begin with. You might want to read my year-end post Closing Out 2011 — Six Graphs.
But of course I'm looking at this the wrong way already. The Comedy Channel has a target demographic made up of people ignorant enough to think that Stewart's schtick is funny instead of tragic. Hey, look! There's evil Karl Rove saying half the lower jobless rate is due to Americans dropping out of the labor force. Hah, hah, hah! There's evil Bill O'Reilly saying the U6 underemployment rate is over 15%. Hah, hah, hah! Who cares that both statements are true? They're both total fuckheads—this is Stewart's main message—and who could possibly believe anything they say? Our President is leading the recovery, leading the charge, isn't it obvious? Those dastardly Republicans don't want the economy to improve! Hope and Change! Here it comes, get ready people!
And there we are inside the truth-annihilating Death Machine. Rove and O'Reilly really are total dickheads who could only be right about something by accident. Obama has done next to nothing to help create good-paying jobs in this country, but he's done an outstanding job propping up the Big Banks. Hopey-Changey is a spineless, co-opted dickhead too, just another corrupt politician from Chicago, the most corrupt city in the most corrupt (and bankrupt) state in our Happy Union. But it's all Black Or White inside the Death Machine, it's all Republicans or Democrats, it's their world, and we're just walking around in it.
If some of you still think Jon Stewart is a funny guy and the world is as it should be, and you happened to run across this post, and you know how to read, and you actually read it, don't worry too much about what I've said here. You can simply change the channel and resume your regular programming.
Later.
Buck up Dave, Lehman Brothers is emerging from bankruptcy protection, another sign of recovery, right?
Posted by: Ben formerly had the pretentious cocksucker sn Honesty | 03/06/2012 at 12:03 PM