Showing posts with label powersthatbe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label powersthatbe. Show all posts

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Jesus! He is Risen! But where is He? Playing QB on the Denver Broncos or a Hedge Fund Manager on Wall Street?

"I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. I think the media has been very desirous that a *christian* quarterback do well. They're interested in *christian* coaches and *christian* quarterbacks doing well. I think there's a little hope invested in *Tebow*, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he really didn't deserve. The defense carried this team." - Racist Limbaugh.
Here's how you know conservatives are willingly blind to racism and bigotry. I altered Racist Limbaugh's derogatory reference from skin color to christian and changed the QB's name from McNabb to Tebow. As is easily observed, any comment about Tim Tebow which is not positive is attacked as anti-christian, yet when Limbaugh made this heinous bigoted statement about Donovan McNabb in 2003 right-wingers rallied to his defense.

The Chicago Bears just lost to Tim Tebow. Dan Bernstein of 670 the Score is quite upset over the tactics He used to defeat the Bears.

For 3 quarters the Bears defense had Tebow flustered. Tebow had completed just 3 of 16 passes had thrown an interception and fumbled. Tebow's passes were off (although 4 drops by his wide receivers wasn't helping) and his normal running style was replaced by a skittish one as Tebow discovered, unlike in college, he couldn't outrun or bowl over the likes of Julius Peppers. Lovie Smith then decided to employ the "Prevent Defense". As Mike Ditka once said, all the Prevent does is prevent you from winning...

But, Tim Tebow is not the first NFL player to make his faith central to his life off or on the field. Reggie White was a preacher. Deion Sanders is a minister and led prayer circles on the football field after games. Troy Vincent was once asked what book everyone should read and he replied, "The King James Bible because it is life."

Even in the Bears-Broncos game Tebow wasn't the only player who makes a big show of his faith. Devin Hester touches his feet, legs, shoulders and points skyward in order to get god's protection, "I just tell god to watch over me from the toes on my feet to the head of my crown."

And Reggie White, Deion Sanders, Troy Vincent and Devin Hester are all African-Americans, Kurt Warner dedicated his Super Bowl victory (but not his two Super Bowl defeats) to Jesus.

So, what is it about Tebow? Do people really believe that Tim Tebow is winning because of Jesus is watching out for him or aiding the flight of the football? I think the Tebow Mania and the way everyone wants this to be an issue is because some christians want to feel they are persecuted. These christians are making Tim Tebow a litmus test for the persecution complex they crave and the war on their religion they are engaged in.

However, lost amongst all this Tebowing, was the is a more egregious religious affront. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who recently conferred upon deadbeat Republican dad Joe Walsh, the title of #1 True Blue Pro-Family status wrote an article declaring Jesus was a Free Marketer not an Occupier.

Of course, the problem that Jesus lived 2000 years before the concept isn't really the issue. Because what Tony Perkins was actually writing about was a justification for the rampant theft and corruption by the 1%. Perkins, overplayed his hand, because the need to mention OWS and the term "occupier" in the title shows how frightened he is christians in this country will begin to side with the poor and correctly view #Occupy as a struggle against Oppressive Power and the corrupt system set up by those who wield that Power.

It's actually an old idea in christianity. The Poor Men of Lyons (Waldenses) were condemned as heretics by the Catholic Church and were eventually anathemamitised because they dared to question the Order of Society. The Waldenses meet the same fate as the Cathars in the early 1200's being chased down and brutally slaughtered by the Guardians of the Powers That Be.

Perkins ends his Jesus wants you to invest in sheep futures with the following:
Yes, we are to "occupy," not by railing against a free market system that rewards diligence, even though it is occasionally abused. Rather we are to occupy by using that system ethically as a means to advance the interests of the one we serve.
Got it? Jesus wants you to accept the Income Inequality, abuse of power and transfer of wealth. Focus instead on ethics, i.e. things which don't challenge the Economic Inequality.

Of course, what Tony Perkins is actually defending is Feudalism. Christianity grew along with Feudalist ideas. It's been a 1000 year struggle by powerful and wealthy christians to massage the meaning of christ into favoring the Rich and Elite. To turn Jesus from a rabble-rousing champion of the poor and oppressed into a scion of the Plutocracy and keeper of the status quo (Behold! The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus).

And today what the religious right have allowed themselves to become the marching foot-soldiers waiting for the opportunity to enforce the will of the 1% and oppress the Occupiers.

Monday, November 28, 2011

#Occupy Protest in a Box

I'm the Dog who gets beat Man in the Box, Alice in Chains
As OWS and the #Occupy Movement continues and struggles to make it through the winter, several factors are going to determine if the energy of the Movement is blunted, re-directed or dissipated.

Currently, the reaction to the Police Brutality is at the forefront of many commentators. The influential feminist Naomi Wolf caused quite a stir with her article on the #Occupy crackdowns over at the Guardian. The article caused big traffic, but while to many it smelled false and smacked of hyperbole it's in line with much of Wolf's thought and dovetails succinctly with her 2004 book, The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot. (As an update, it seems the reporter, Rick Ellis, who first mentioned the DHS Conspiracy is full of bullshit.)

Right-wingers continue their mission to destroy the #Occupy Movement. One of their major complaints is OWS and the #Occupy Movement should be working within the confines of the law. Now, of course, this is a disingenuous argument on multiple levels.

First, it's a logical fallacy which the Tea Party should specifically disagree with, since the genesis of their name comes from one of the most celebrated "illegal acts" in US History.

However, it also underscores the pure hypocritical phoniness of the ideological underpinnings of Modern Conservative Thought. Since, the election of Barack Obama a large strain of rightwing commentary has focused on "Natural Law" and the moral rightness of disobeying unjust or immoral laws. But, the Right is two-faced when it comes to such arguments for they apply them only when it suits their purposes, which usually is to undercut and delegitimize the elections of Democrats. But, also in service to the Plutocracy's goals of deregulation and privatization. Therefore, when a protest or movement is outside their keen or control the Right always reverts to calls for Authoritarian Tyranny and the destruction of those movements.

This is why the Tea Party faced no concentrated Police and Govenmental Oppression, the Tea Party always was a Top-Down false-front organization quickly subsumed by the 1% to advance the causes of the Rich. Any energy the movement had outside Plutocratic interests was redirected by Rightwing propaganda and limited to arguing over non-issues which would have no impact on the Establishment.

But, the Tea Party has already gone the way of their ideological forefathers, the Know-Nothings. OWS and the #Occupy Movement do not suffer from the TP defects because OWS is grassroots and made up of working and middle class people who are pointing out the underlying problems caused by the control the Richest 1% have on the Government and Society.

And by going outside the guidelines the Establishment has erected regarding political debate (i.e. issues which won't change the fundamentally unfair and corrupted system) they are facing a concerted rightwing media, lobbyist and law enforcement effort to shut them down.

So, making positive connections with the 99% is going to be paramount to keeping OWS vital and vibrant. Unfortunately, regular bloggers are being irked by some of the #OccupyMovements actions.

In a post from Feminisnt, she vents anger at an #OccupySeattle march which hampered her movements in town. Feminisnt points out the March hampered not only her movements but average everyday poor and working class people whom the 99% Movement is supposed to comprise. She also doubts any of the 1% were affected by the Seattle protest march.

I'm not posting this to pick on her, or issue the divisive You are with Us or Against Us, but merely to highlight the disconnect which the 1% have sewn amongst us to keep the 99% divided.

Libertas and Lattes has a bit more vitriol in his post about #Occupy telling the blog-o-sphere if,
"Any of these pale, rat bearded hygiene-free, Che shirt wearing knuckleheads keep me from getting to my place of employment, of home from said place....my fist might accidentally occupy the same space as their face."
I don't highlight these two bloggers, who I've read before to throw rhetorical jabs at them. But, merely to point out a few problems.

The #OccupyMovement is facing the problems all Movements do, after the initial glow has worn off how do you connect with people and weld them to your side? Protest Marches are good for reminding people your Movement is still around but as we all saw during the run-up to the Iraq War, they don't mean anything once the Powers That Be (PTB) have decided on a course of action.

#Occupy needs to bring more people over, and it's not going to be through media coverage but from positive interactions with everyday people as they make them aware of what the true causes for the Republican Recession, Rightwing generated Income Inequality and the stagnation and dissolution of the Middle Class.

Thus while the Controllers of the Tea Party played pin the blame on the Black Guy it didn't succeed in convincing any Americans, other than those who were already convinced that President Obama is a secret love child of Malcolm X and Karl Marx born in Kenya. While the 2010 elections went the way of the Republicans, Americans quickly learned zero help was forth coming to them.
"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks," declared Herman Cain. "If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!"
But the decades long propaganda effort by FreedomWorks, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Fund, the Carlyle Group, Faux News has succeeded in creating a sizeable amount of useful idiots who blame Teachers, Unions, the "Welfare Queens" and the unemployed and ignore incidents such as when Former AIG CEO Maurice Greenberg sued the Federal Government for $25 Billion USC. Or that 0.1% - the richest one-thousandth - of American population reap over 50% of the income made on Capital Gains and the executive pay for CEOs has risen to more than 343 times that of the average worker at the company.

Because despite the scoffing at the 99% slogan from rightwingers, who were pre-programed to hate OWS, what they and the 99% need to know is:
1) There is a Club and 2) You are not in it.
Because the average amount the Richest 1% will save from the Bush/Obama Tax cuts ($66,384 USC) is greater than the average salary of the 99% ($58,506 USC).