Will they put a meter on my peter?

 

Pepsico, Nestlé, Coca Cola, and several other major suppliers have frequently
been caught bottling tap water and selling it back to the public under
exotic and appealing monikers such as Ice Mountain Water, Aquafina, 
and Dasani.

Then there's the former Nestlé CEO, Peter Brabeck making the surreal claim
that water isn't a human right but a foodstuff, claiming it's just another
item we must purchase from corporate profiteers, like padded bras
and tennis rackets.

Why did this selfish, narrow-minded corporate manikin even get air time to spout
this sort of self-serving nonsense? Why wasn't he viciously mocked? Why
wasn't he discredited and shamed into hiding so we never have to look
at his tanned, country club face as he explains how every aspect of
human life must serve rampaging corporate greed?

The drive by corporations to own and monopolize everything is a classic case of . . .

To a hammer everything looks like a nail.

To a corporate CEO, everything is a commodity and an opportunity to make money.

So several giant multinational corporations have
unilaterally decided that H2O, which happens to cover 75% of the
Earth's surface and comprises about 67% of the human body, is just
another item in their catalog of products.

The heads of these monolithic corporate monsters, who are willing to cannibalize
their own species just to make a buck, seem to have forgotten __ or
probably never learned __ that in a self-determining system of
government, if we decide that everyone has a right to water, then it's everyone's right!

Thus, many groups are actively fighting back.

The corporations, naturally, are putting a friendly face on their attempt at absolute 
control over the Earth's most abundant single resource. They talk about spearheading 
and funding conservation efforts, trying to achieve minimum quality standards worldwide, 
and so on.

They promise profound improvements in the standard of living and the quality of life.

They always do, don't they?

Corporations can spin it however they want, but having a corporation's first
priority __ the bottom line __ trump every facet, even the most fundamental aspects, 
of human habitation of the planet is an indisputable recipe for species extinction __ ours.

What can we expect if the corporate coup is tolerated __ even lionized as it is in today's 
business press __ and we accept their dysmorphic portrayal of progress?

Will Monsanto file a patent claim on breast milk and every time a new mother wants 
to nurse her baby, she has to ante up?

Will Pantene trademark hair? So unless you are 100% bald every place on your body, 
you have to pay a licensing fee for your body hair?

Will GlaxoSmithKline convince the FDA that air should be a prescription item, so that 
if we don't wish to suffocate, we'll have to buy breathing tanks from our local pharmacy?

Will they put a meter on my peter, so that every time I take a wiz or make love to my wife, 
I have to pay a users fee?



[ This originated at the author's personal page . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Rod Serling Is Alive!

"Hi, kids! I'm your new English teacher. Let's talk about poetry."

Rod Serling is alive and well!

What's my proof?

That's easy!

It's this article in Great Britain's The Guardian reporting that:

"School police departments across the U.S. have taken advantage of free
military surplus gear, stocking up on mine-resistant armoured vehicles,
grenade launchers and scores of M16 rifles.  At least 26 school
districts have participated in the Pentagon’s surplus program . . ."

If this isn't the stuff of the Twilight Zone, I don't know what is.

Maybe I missed something. But has common sense and asking obvious, 
quite reasonable questions been outlawed in America?

Take the grenade launchers. Do the geniuses who are arming our schools
with weapons of war think that if some psycho is holed up in a classroom
holding hostage a bunch of school kids, they'll just lob some hand
grenades in there to flush him out?


 

And how many kids fit in a MRAP? I know children are small but is it
realistic to think you can put 250 elementary students in one of these?

Moreover, as everyone knows from way too many examples,
usually the whole thing of killing a bunch of kids goes down in just a
few minutes. How long will it take to get this monster truck fired up
and out of the garage? Unless this thing is parked in the hall next to
the school cafeteria, it's not going to do the job these school
administrators have in mind __ whatever that is.

Parallel to the point I made previously
about militarizing our communities, if I were a psycho killer __ and
really, I'm not, the many rude comments left on my Facebook page
notwithstanding __ and I saw one of these vehicles coming at the school,
my attitude would be: "Well, now I'm screwed. Guess I'll have some fun
while I can."

Then I'd blow away every living thing in sight.

Of course, I don't personally know Adam Lanza.
Maybe if he had spotted a MRAP outside Sandy Hook Elementary School,
he would have immediately hugged the kids he hadn't killed yet, fallen to
his knees and repented.

But I really doubt it.

And taking the long view, I just can't believe that having kids go to schools
filled with machine guns, grenade launchers, tasers, MRAPS, heavy
artillery and the like, will give them a healthy, wholesome perspective
on life. Their world will be so violent, so filled with relentless
anxiety and apocalyptic paranoia, with every aspect of human interaction
viewed through the lens of killing machines and conflict, their
expectations so fatalistic and full of potential horror, their elders __
that's you and I living in the regime of GWOT and SWAT and MAD and
 ISIS __ will by contrast look like carefree, frolicsome oompa loompas.

So, welcome to contemporary America, land of the free, the greatest, truly exceptional nation in history, where being totally insane can land you a high paying job running a public school.


 Alright . . . I got a little off topic.

Seriously, I merely wanted to wish the best of luck to Mr. Serling on his new high concept reality TV show: "Please Don't Shoot Me, I Only Work Here".

Keep up the great work, Rod!

Love ya, babe.



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Conscious . . . Conscience

 
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, being 'conscious' means being "awake
and able to understand what is happening around you."

And 'conscience' is defined as "the part of the mind that makes you aware of
your actions as being either morally right or wrong."

People who have no conscience because they are unconscious due to no fault of
their own can hardly be criticized for their lack of morality __ e.g. the brain dead, 
coma victims.

People who are fully conscious but have no conscience are often referred to as sociopaths.

People who are fully conscious but choose to have no conscience might be categorized 
as full-blown psychopaths.

My quandary is how do we deal with people who are fully conscious,
basically stable and mentally sound, have a conscience, but who ignore
what that conscience is saying to them.

# Native Americans slaughtered and dispossessed of their land:  Tens of thousands.

# Vietnamese killed in unnecessary and unsuccessful Vietnam War:  882,000

# America soldiers killed in unnecessary and unsuccessful Vietnam War:  58,220

# innocent citizens killed by death squads of U.S. backed El Salvador government: 35,000.

# innocent citizens killed by death squads of U.S. backed Guatemala government: 60,000.

# Iraqi children starved to death by U.S. sanctions 1993-2000:  500,000.

# Iraqi citizens killed in illegal and unjustified Iraq War:  Over 460,000.

# innocent citizens killed in illegal drone warfare (Pakistan, Yemen):  400-600

# innocent people killed (so far) in Eastern Ukraine by U.S. installed coup government, one which includes neo-Nazis:  Almost 2600.

# innocent people about to be killed in Iraq War 3:  To be announced.
 
"No man is an island . . . ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." 

Riiiiight! No man is an island.  Great stuff.  Ha ha.  Totally!  I hear ya, babe!
Boo hoo hoo. Anyone with a violin up for playing "Hearts and Flowers"?

"Exactly what's your point, John Rachel? . . .

. . . are you in the running for this year's Bleeding Heart Liberal Award?
Mother Theresa and all that cow poop. Maybe you and Bono can do tequila
shots in the back of his limo."

Hmm. What's this about?

Oh, now I remember!

I'm not in a coma.



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

The Bully Pulpit vs. American Idol

I have long criticized Obama for not using the bully pulpit. When he had the vast majority of the country at his feet after his election in 2008, instead of laying out a positive vision for the country and leading the charge for rebuilding the nation, he embarked on a charm offensive directed at Wall Street, big banks, neoconservative empire builders, and became the Appeaser-In-Chief towards those responsible for the Afghanistan and Iraq disasters, a wink-and-nod apologist for the criminal bankers who crashed the economy in 2008, and a card-carrying member of the inside circle who continue to inflict our country with the fraudulent War on Terror.

It was all in the name of love __ the cuddly love Obama craved from the oligarchs, whose approval was more important to him than the enormous groundswell of support he had from the people. Remember them? The ones who have to work to make ends meet, the ones who see their kids off to school in the morning __ the same ones who flocked to the polls and elected our first black president, duped into thinking he was one of them, a man of the people with their best interests at heart.

In a fascinating analysis of Obama's presidency that appeared in Truthdig, author David Bromwich
discusses what a shallow and self-serving enterprise it has proved to be.

What an understatement.

There is no coherency to this president's policies. In a clear attempt to promote image as a substitute for substance and apparently with an insatiable desire to be loved by everyone, President Obama often fashions positions totally at odds with one another.

Protect the environment vs. drill baby drill.

World peace vs. bomb bomb bomb.

Individual freedom vs. the NDAA.

Jobs for Americans vs. TPP and TTIP.

To add insult to confusion, in critical areas of leadership, we see policies diametrically opposite to the high sounding and noble words of Obama's breathtaking rhetoric and crafted public image, offering inconsistencies, even outright hypocrisy and treachery.

You've got a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has become a drone assassin.

You've got an putative constitutional scholar who using his phenomenal intellectual gifts to trample on the Constitution, squashing dissent, and openly harassing journalists and undermining freedom of the press.

You've got a president who spoke eloquently during his first campaign about inclusive democracy and transparency in government __ promising to change the way Washington DC does business __ who has built upon the worst aspects of Bush's nascent police state and now oversees a vast growing domestic surveillance complex spying on its own citizens, who is classifying record volumes of government documents, restricting citizen access to the inner workings of our government, conducting questionable military adventures often in secret, fostering aggression against the express will of the American citizenry who are sick of war and the self-defeating politics of confrontation, and prosecuting well-meaning whistleblowers at an unprecedented rate.

You got the self-declared "environmental president" who refuses to even attend the Kyoto summits, who is promoting risky East Coast and Arctic drilling, nuclear power, fracking for natural gas, so called “clean coal”, and now boasts about America being the number one oil and gas producer in the world __ so much for concern about climate change.

You've got a man who offered the world the outstretched hand of peace in the first months of his presidency, who has since bombed his way into creating more enemies and hatred for America than ever before in our history.

But we get what we pay for. Obama is just another brand, like Cheerios and StarKist Tuna.

We wanted a great president. We got a rock star.

We desperately needed leadership. We got self-aggrandizement.

I will say this. Obama talks a good game. He is incredibly articulate. Charming. Funny. Always gives an Oscar level performance at all of his public outings.

And he is beautiful . . . his wife is beautiful . . . his family is beautiful!

But when presidential elections are run as beauty pageants, talent contest spectacles, when making history is just more reality TV, we can't expect real leadership. We can only expect a president who struts and works the audience, plays the judges, postures and poses for his fan base, puts on dazzling, crowd-pleasing shows, and soaks up the all the love he can get. We certainly can't expect thoughtful, principled stands on the vital issues, responding to the greater needs of the country and serving the general welfare of the public.

There's no business like show business.

And politics has become American Idol.

We no longer look for results. We look for good ratings.

What an epic disappointment. We certainly had high hopes, didn't we?

There is one thing I will concede. Who can deny it? . . .

He sure looks great in a suit and tie!


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]