The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.

Archive for the ‘Journalism & Media’ Category

Cable TV

While living in South Florida, we had choices for cable TV and Internet services. Here in Tioga County, we often have only one choice. For many of us, that one choice is Spectrum, unless we try HughesNet, Dish, or DirectTV through the airwaves of satellite.  Satellite services are not given a good review, particularly with Internet. 

The FCC has given favor to big business and corporate welfare and has nationalized (socialism) by way of corporate welfare and favors to the wealthy who run such services. Not only have we lost local content in newspapers which were once chock full of local news, information, and culture, we have lost control of local broadcasting.  Television broadcasting, especially in rural hilly areas has been made so weak by the FCC, that we are forced to subscribe to Internet and cable TV.  It’s all a strategy to nationalize by way of corporate welfare by way of money funding the government and favors done for the wealthy.  Radio broadcasting, too, is weakened.  When in my younger years here, we did not have difficulty in driving in a car and receiving the local radio broadcasts just about anywhere, whether AM or FM.  Today, to open up bandwidth for the thumbing on mobile phones which come nowhere close to what we had in local broadcasting, we are unable to have powerful local broadcasting stations in this rural hilly area. Oh, I forget. When we go on top of the hills where the density of population is lower (smaller audience to make money), we can get clear signals.  In the valleys, the reception sucks.  It might not be a huge number of people, but sure is more densely populated with a larger number than on top of the hills.  Perhaps we should be like Chinese communists and move populations to where they wish to have them located – on top of the hills?  This is ridiculous.

In the 1960s, in the hills of upstate New York and Pennsylvania, the cable television industry was born – on the local level.  The FCC did not micro-manage these things with regulatory authority. The regulatory agency involved the local authorities.  The FCC, doing favors for corporate welfare CEOs, has wrongly regulated cable TV and other local media outlets. 

To reiterate. In South Florida, we had a choice of cable TV and Internet. The old copper telephone lines into our home were used to deliver Internet by way of AT&T fiber optic lines up to the box and connected to the copper wires.  We also had the choice of copper coax lines by way of Comcast.  The lines within the home were all the same type of lines as what we had with telephone and cable TV in the past. 

In addition to these two options, a small and local firm named Laurie’s TV offered cable television and Internet within our Homeowners’ Association development.  We could pay extra and at a lower cost for this HOA cable / Internet access, in addition to the HOA fees we paid.  The speed for the Internet was not good, so we chose AT&T, delivered by fiber optics and copper.  We chose Laurie’s TV for cable TV.  (FYI: Laurie’s TV was sold to another firm). 

Explanation about this HOA.  The HOA was like an incorporated village, but run by a private organization based 60 miles away in Miami.  Residents had problems trying to pay their bills at such a distant location, but were treated like dirt by an attitude of “I’ll break your knees if you don’t pay,” even when a check was lost in the mail.  The one-party dictatorial fascist Republican control in that state put teeth into the ability of these private organizations, called “condo commandos” to run rough-shod over the people.  Even a retired NY State Trooper was treated like crap by an organization like this. 

Within the “mini-village” environment, they provided choices for local cable TV and Internet.  But the costs for us, per year, to maintain sidewalks, streets, public lawns, and social hall were about four to six times what Newark Valley village residents pay in government taxes in order to do the same thing.  And they were like Mafia bosses in attempting to collect, protected by Republicans who controlled the state. 

I say, to people who wish to move to Florida, be careful what you wish for.  I say to people here who complain about incorporated village taxes, be careful  what you complain about because I have seen it much worse when such village services are provided by PRIVATIZED HOA services.  After all, George W. Bush and his brother, Jeb Bush of Florida always said, “what’s good for [PRIVATIZED] business is good for America.”  Not so fast in believing such stuff because it sucks, like a Nazi Hitler-type in Germany. Like a communist Chinese. Like a Putin fascist dictator.  Be careful what you believe and dig in your heals in such regard.  Being humble means learning so as to overcome ignorance. Not being humble and refusing to learn means being a stupid idiot. 

After some 40 years living in Floridan and observing what happened there, I bring a different perspective to this community. Cable TV is one issue in which I bring a different perspective.  I have a different perspective on other issues besides cable TV.  It would be nice if somebody would listen, consider, and THINK about my perspective and the information I have to offer. Stop the BS about whether this is politics and my opinion. It is my experiences with facts to share.  Stop  scoffing at me in the same manner 19th Century NY Governor George Clinton was scoffed at when he proposed what was called by the scoffers, “Clinton’s Ditch.”  Stop the taunting of me because I give my perspective.  Cable TV in rural upstate NY really sucks, but so does the nationalization of cable TV and media, for the sake of corporate welfare, while social welfare and taxes for all are issues castigated with wishes to destroy, not reform. 

Side note besides cable TV:  What the people need is to take back local control which is good for all, not just for a group of white supremacists called Nazis.  The Republican Party is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, but should be re-named the Nazi KKK Party. 

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, human-rights, If it's broke let's fix it TOGETHER, Journalism & Media

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Local Binghamton CBS affiliate, channel 12

Dear Sirs or Madams (of CBS Sixty Minutes):

We regularly watch Sixty Minutes and appreciate having this news AND information source available to us. We despise Fox News with its lies. the National Association of Broadcasters needs to put Fox out of business. 

We have a bumper sticker which reads: “We get our NEWS from Comedy Central and our entertainment from Fox News.”  That about describes what we have to the nth degree in America today, due to the Republican destruction of the Fairness Doctrine which was put in place in the 1940s to guard against Nazi propaganda which had destroyed Germany.  In the 1940s, everyone was in agreement, so this was a bipartisan decision.

For some 20 years or more, I have written to publications and the media. I have used local newspapers and local television outlets, as well as networks. I write to Sixty Minutes, especially when I hear the recently repeated story about robots (Anderson Cooper?).  I write about many other news reports. With the demise of local news, by hedgefund lovers of money (also a recent story on Sixty Minutes), I have watched as my writings have not been published.  At first, I was puzzled. As time has gone by and with the wisdom of age, I have discovered the reasons.  Both your Sixty Minutes report and an article in The Economist and other publications have unraveled the mystery and puzzle to me.  When one relies only on intuition and observation of actual events at a Florida newspaper and elsewhere, it is good to find out that what I have been writing about what I KNOW has been correct, it is sad that no one pays attention to me anymore.  At one time, before the older great journalists retired – the people of good will running local newspaper – I was accepted. Now I feel as if I am on the outside looking in when most of what I have written has been correct.

Wat I am finding is that my distribution to a local Binghamton Fox affiliate has been read by such people at Fox. What do they do? Just as Trump does. Put a spin on what I say that is in line with their lies and re-distribute.  There is no teamwork among people of good will in the media business and that is a crying shame.  So, I have removed the Fox affiliate from my distribution.  I have removed Sean Hanity from my distribution list. 

With this being said, what about the other three Binghamton television network affiliates? NBC and ABC affiliates in Binghamton are run by one owner. The local news comes from one outlet: Newschannel 34, the ABC affiliate.  The PBS affiliate has no local news, only the PBS Newshour and other PBS network news analysis. 

This situation leaves the local CBS affiliate, WBNG, channel 12.  The local news is not always “local, but taken from “wire” stories on CNN and other news places. CBS Channel 12 had the best local news source in this area, back in the years when I was growing up.  Today, I would have to say this Grey Company local affiliate is not THE BEST, but it sure is better than Fox 40. 

What bothers me about local channel 12 is the fact it no longer accepts email. This is the device I have used to distribute what I write.  Why does channel 12 do this? Why does a news AND INFORMATION channel not read what I write any more? What the hell is going on? Here we are and I can say my likes and dislikes are pretty much on the same page as channel 12. But none of my writing is accepted there.  Don’t get me wrong. There is never 100% agreement with any humans or human organizations. But my judgment is that, unlike Fox, they don’t lie. They are not liars, liars pants on fire.

Yesterday, I was in an area in which a local Solid Gold radio broadcast (Equinox) was difficult to receive as we have a country music station interfering. So, in the car, we turned to another local radio station with music more acceptable to us, though it was NOT solid gold.  In this area, there are pockets where hills block one signal and from some valley comes another. Back in the days of my youth, with mostly AM broadcasts, that never happened here. Even when FM was introduced, it never happened. We received ALL Binghamton stations plus other smaller city stations. Today, we senior citizens are being relegated to purchasing, on a lower revenue stream in our family budget, Sirius XM. At one time, it was all FREE, FREE, FREE – supported by local advertisers.  But yesterday, in the car, when listening to this other station because we were FORCED to do so by rules emanating from the FCC which is controlled by big business when it should be a third party representing the DEMAND SIDE of the market or WE THE PEOPLE.  It is represented by those on the SUPPLY SIDE of the market. Period.  Money is used to validate this. BS on that because free broadcast once DID make money and could still make money, just not feed the already filled to the brim pockets of those with hedgefund investments like the guy Sixty Minutes reported on who now owns a multitude of newspapers and can buy a mansion in Miami when most of us have had to leave Florida because we cannot afford the housing there (along with factors of heat, humidity, and hurricanes with outrageous costs to put money into an insurance hole for hurricanes and never see it again).  But on this radio station we were FORCED to turn to, as a Cuban citizen might be forced when Castro put a block on many broadcasts from Miami, we listened to the news. At the end, we discovered we were FORCED to listen to Fox News. Fox News ended the broadcast with “all America loves Fox News.” Another lie because all America DOES NOT love Fox News. They say it to inspire groupthink from peer pressure and get Republicans elected. I call the Republicans “republicunts” and “repugnicans” because, due to Fox News, the Republicans have become perverted and are NOT like the Republicans I knew one time, associated with, and was a registered Republican. BTW. How much media is covering those of us who have found that “republicunts” and “repugnicans” have forced us to leave the party? Instead I hear crap about Democrats. 

Interestingly enough, the story on Fox News which we heard and which surprised us, was a condemnation of Joe Biden. It was absurd as this news report did not just report the news, as was the function under the Fairness Doctrine, but made a comment about how bad Biden was because he stood up to Big Oil.  In other words, he stood up to the Koch brothers, Texas slick oil men, and others.  Fox News did not say that, did they? They wish to force the Keystone Oil Pipeline and only do that by drawing a false picture of alternative fuels. Had we been more in line with alternative fuels, due to Fox News, we would not be stuck today with the a dilemma which mirrors the results of the 1973 oil embargo.  It was republicunts which put the axe on alternative fuels – for the sake of BIG OIL

This harks back to a Sixty Minutes report many years ago about the development of green technology and alternative fuels with the help of government “incubator” money for business in America.  The report was a great one in which we the people learned that America, perhaps being blocked by BIG OIL back in those days(?), did not have investors to buy up those companies because it required deep pocket-ed investors for the long term development of such alternatives.  Your report told about investors from China who were purchasing these “startups.”  And to Fox News people, they blame government dollars being thrown to China, while they never report on how much Big Oil was sabotaging Americans who may have wanted to invest, so as to hold the control in thic country. It is the basis for attacks against Democrats, while, as is always the case (and with gun safety and domestic terrorism), it is the Fox followers and their sabotage which are the root cause – with their evil love of money. 

With all of this explanation, I return to the issue of local news CBS affiliate, channel 12. Back in the days when television was first begun, I recall channel 12 being both CBS and ABC. The local NBC affiliate is now Fox40 and a new NBC affiliate was formed after that change happened.  Channel 12 was the only VHF affiliate at that time. It still really is the only “digital” VHF, except perhaps the local NBC affiliate run by ABC affiliate channel 34. Thus, in those early years, few people actually invested in a UHF antenna. I know my dad did not. It was stupid of the FCC to do that, especially when we compare to the city of Scranton where ALL the local affiliates have been UHF and VHF has not existed there. If there were smart people on the FCC back then, they would have handed all the VHF to bigger cities such as Syracuse, Rochester, and so forth. With the VHF affiliate in Binghamton and no one investing in UHF antennas, but purchasing huge VHF antennas to receive channel 12 of Binghamton and the Syracuse VHF stations, that station in Binghamton left the other network broadcasts in the dark as underdogs to channel 12. The news reporting on channels 40 and 34, quite frankly my dear, SUCKED.

When channel 12 was both CBS and ABC, we got to see, in the late 1950s when I was at pre-K age, Mickey Mouse Club. It was broadcast on ABC, so channel 12 picked it up.  (Ironic that ABC is now owned by Disney and the “mouse”).  Thus, my favoritism of CBS channel 12, which went to CBS only at the time channel 34 was created (WBJA) as an ABC affiliate (see the story about the history of channel 34: https://tvstations.fandom.com/wiki/WIVT ). 

Thus, with the sabotage of my stories conducted by Fox and the fact that a better news station (CBS 12 of Binghamton) rejects email, I have to protest this situation because good people are not coming together to solve this problem in America. This is not polarization. It is the news and information being taken over by one network when we have four networks. Fox operates in the same way as the communist party or Nazi party control of broadcasting in a dictatorship. 

I repeat. That is NOT polarization so bleeding heart liberals need to stop being so damn diplomatic about it all and calling it polarization.  I despised the Capitol 4th concert this past week (on PBS) because, once again, it tries to be nice and talk about a divided America. It is NOT divided. It is a nation with the stage being set for dictatorial control just like that of Hitler and Goebbels. We need to stop pussyfooting around with all this BS for bleeding heart diplomacy – as if that is going to fix the problem.  Given the evidence in history in other nations, THIS BLEEDING HEART DIPLOMACY WILL NOT FIX THE PROBLEM OF THIS NATION HEADING TOWARDS A DICTATORSHIP. IT WILL NOT. I have been correct in EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID AND WRITTEN SINCE THE ELECTION OF RONALD REAGAN IN 1980, so TO BE IGNORED NOW IS REALLY ASININE.  To not be able to write to the local CBS affiliate is asinine, too.  You people need to collect the information, not be concerned about how nice Fox or republicunts or repugnicans are treated.  Stop the BS of bleeding hearts.  Stop scoffing at people like me and ignoring what we are saying. 

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. People of America consider what German Niemoller said: 

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.’

This quote was one of many which inspired the creation of the Fairness Doctrine in late 1940s USA.  Cowards are the ones who realize I am correct and use what I write to the detriment of people of good will among the Democrats AND true Republicans (i.e., the Lincoln Project).  It is about time journalism and media reared its head loud and strong against such actions. 

Why does local CBS affiliate channel 12 NOT accept email? What the hell is this in forcing us to do? All to go to ONE monopolized platform called Facebook? Or forcing us to go to social media only?  Forcing us to listen to the lies of Fox and other outlets of hatred?  Listen to the DEMAND SIDE of a capitalist market which SHOULD exist with balance between supply and demand. I speak about such balance and keep in mind this is just as the checks and balances are SUPPOSED to exist in our government between executive, legislative, and judicial, but has been SABOTAGED by people like Trump, Giuliani, McConnell, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Gaetz, and many other sodomites who enjoy rape of women, but not homosexuality. 

For the DEMAND SIDE, I am speaking. Now pay attention to many of us who want checks and balances in government and economics, not a dictatorship of the SUPPLY-SIDERS.

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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Education, Energy, Gun Safety, Healthcare, wellness, medicine, History & Genealogy, human-rights, If it's broke let's fix it TOGETHER, Information Industry, Journalism & Media, Mister Doug Notes, Mister Doug Report, Music, Art, Culture, Peace & Justice, Personal Finance, Political Commentary, Religion

Happy 4th of July – with NEWSPAPERS! NOT!

Dear Editors:

Shame on you for discontinuing all Saturday and holiday print publications. In fact, GODDAMN the fat pigs who have manipulated this market for more than 10 years, purposely attempting to eliminate local news coverage and local political issues, whether it be newspapers or the loss of local broadcasting.  If they only regulate themselves there could be no need for the common folks of America to demand government regulation.If they would only regulate themselves, by the examples of Binghamton-area folks from the past like George F. Johnson (be sensitive to community and employees and call this industrial democracy, based on the moral sentiments expressed by Founding Fathers contemporary, Adam Smith). We wake up this morning with our minds, “set on Jesus.” But we are no longer to wake up this morning on the 4th of July with our minds set on reading the newspaper, unless we get it FORCED and CRAMMED down our throats electronically. Piss on the fat pigs for doing this.

And there are those who scoff and laugh at me for being so adamant to stand up and turn this thing around. I do have experience in this line and a wisdom of age.

More recently, in an economics magazine, there was an article titled, “Culture vultures.” The article identified this yanking of local news with digital bullshit activities (my words, not the magazine’s words), to have reduced the ability of people to understand and to know the people running for Congress unless they listen to the bullshit ads on television with lies and tarnishing of images rather than a discussion of issues.  The lowest level of intelligence focuses on tarnishing images and the highest level of intelligence is to focus on issues. We have people seeking huge increases in their income, with bonuses, who have inundated the newspaper ownership with their lousy attitudes towards consumers and a push for digital. The discriminate against those who are unable to read on computers unless they spend tons of money to wire their home so as to sit in a recliner and read the morning newspaper. Let alone the discrimination against senior citizens and those who either don’t want computers or just plain cannot afford them. And don’t look for handouts to solve the problem by purchasing computers for such folks because it drives up the costs all around for all of society. Keep it SIMPLE STUPID. Stop the bullshit of sensationalist news on digital access.  The visually impaired are also discriminated against with this digital bullshit. We don’t want handouts when the KISS of all of this is to simply have a printed copy of a newspaper.  This 4th of July, the Gannett Pravda of Binghamton (Piss & Sun-Bullshit) tells us all to read it online.  Well. Piss on you, Fat Pigs of Gannett – the modern-day versions of ROBBER BARONS and FAT CATS. 

My experience and knowledge is like this. I observed as many of us who are trainers, educators, teachers, professors, librarians, healthcare workers, and many other LOW-PAID people who help people and society (as their goal) to be laid off and the jobs destroyed.  I was one of them, for the sake of fat pigs at the top of the corporation who kept many high-paid lawyers and accountants on while the rest of us were screwed.  Librarians, too, in newspapers. Their jobs to assist reporters (also losing their jobs) in local news. The LOCAL would not only include political news. It would also be sections in the newspapers on local food culture, arts, entertainment, restaurant reviews, health issues, business issues, personal finance issues, and don’t forget the comic strips.  The list goes on and on of what WAS once provided by LOCAL newspapers and local BROADCASTING.  All have been replaced by a communist style nationalization of newspapers done in the name of capitalist monopolization.  The company where I lost my job as a corporate librarian was one of many across the land which got rid of librarians, in the name of deregulation and monopolization (supply side Reaganomics).  In each case, whether a deregulated company or newspapers, the purpose was to eliminate the demand side of the market. The newspapers have done a swell job in accomplishing this task.

I knew someone who was laid off at a Florida newspaper in 2008, after working there for 33 years.  His local television TV grid, one of many things he did, was curtailed and quite possibly, eventually eliminated. All in the deliberate attempt to strategize to help Rupert Murdoch and others eliminate local broadcasting in favor of Fox News. I don’t dream this up about Rupert Murdoch. He is actually quoted, from which I paraphrase.  Recently, the Piss & Sun-Bullshit (Gannett’s local Pravda) eliminated local TV grids completely. I have suggested that if it’s too much to put in a grid with ALL those thousands of channels (most of which are shallow and useless, for which we pay Spectrum and others), that the Piss & Sun-Bullshit just compile the schedules of all the local broadcast channels and provide a listing of all the local radio stations (no need for schedule), identifying what music or news stations are provided by local radio. As people who moved to this area in 2019, we rely on those things. Instead, what did Gannett do? Offer us a separate “TV Weekly at cost.  Right. As Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her book, “nickeling and diming” Americans.  This nickeling and diming of Americans does one thing and that is not to increase profits, but to make HUGE profits and line the pant pockets of the fat pigs at the top.  That has been proven, too, and needs to stop.

As a customer on the demand side of this market, I have purchased newspapers for many years and have observed the deliberate condensing of newspapers for the sake of ONLY those people at the top.  At one time, I did the advertising for a group in South Florida. We put ads in the local newspaper there and were very pleased with the turnout we received. A great capitalist return on investment. FACT:  Newspapers operate by selling more advertisements and the prices are based on circulation numbers.  This newspaper raised its advertising rates AND its circulation rates.  The organization with which I worked decided they were not going to pay those high prices because the return on investment for us was reduced, as the prices of subscriptions and single copies went up.  The net result was lack of money because the circulation numbers went down.  So, what is done? Raise the advertising rates. It becomes a catch 22 for which lainbrain fat pigs running these organizations running them were blinded.  Or were they blinded? 

When attending classes at UCF in Orlando, I noticed that the newspaper there was giving newspapers to students. With the “Knight card,” we could obtain a free newspaper. One had to get there to find a newspaper or they were all snarfed up. In other words, to sell more advertisements at a decent cost and to sell more tailored to the young age market, that newspaper could watch its circulation numbers go up. 

When I returned to my home campus in South Florida, I suggested the local newspapers there do the same thing. Having been with an organization which yanked our advertising for our LOCALLY PRODUCED concerts, I thought, as a professor at a college there, the same thing could be done in South Florida. I was scoffed at the suggestion by lainbrains. 

Then I move back to New York and discover, the thickest “papers” in the area and the only one of about a half dozen subscription-based weekly newspapers which failed, was one which had ALWAYS been available free of charge, even back to the days when I was a kid here. They succeeded with the same model of a “pape” which was done at UCF Orlando.  Since my earlier days, they had added “news” items as well.  Local news.  Such things did not exist. The local supermarket keeps this newspaper, but does NOT have the Piss & Sun-Bullshit nor the Ithaca (another Gannett in a monopolized world) Journal available. One does the grocery shopping and has to walk down the street to get the others.  The local newspaper which does NOT rely on selling subscriptions, gives it away free of charge and likely has a far larger advertising revenue to pay for the printing. And as far as I know, this local newspaper is NOT digital. So Piss & Sun-Bullshit loses readers with its lainbrain fat pigs who FORCE digital down our throats. 

I have some suggestions, but if one wants to simply scoff at my suggestions, then go to hell.

1. Gannett do what was done in the Tampa Bay area where they went from two newspapers (St. Petersburg Times and Tampa Tribune) to one which incorporates the Gannett newspapers in the small cities of Binghamton, Ithaca, and Elmira. Call it the Southern Tier Press, Sun-Bulletin, Journal, Star-Gazette. Or simply shorten it to The Southern Tier Press because Binghamton is the largest of the cities.  The Sun-Bulletin consists of a name from the Endicott Bulletin, but most young people probably don’t even know such history.  Or simply create a new name completely, like The Southern Tier Newsday.  But don’t make it sensationalist like the bullshit in The Daily News or The New York Post. More like the tabloid called Newsday.

2. Make The Southern Tier Newsday a tabloid, but not sensationalist.

3. Bring back local community information besides just the news. Bring back local columnists which write non-biased observations about what is happening. Bring back a food column. With such a newspaper, the school at Cornell University which gave us upstate NY style BBQ chicken or Endicott-style spiedies, etc., etc., etc., could be part of such a food culture and recipe column. Bring back entertainment reviews, including concert reviews, theatre reviews, restaurant reviews, recreational reviews (not sports), etc. And there are many other local community events and reviews, including restaurant reviews, as well.  We don’t need Facebook to do this, but open it up for all of us to read, whether we are wealthy and can afford the best computers and over-priced Internet service, or less advantaged. 

4. Bring back local delivery of the newspapers by kids. Make certain these kids collect the money from the customers and have an advantage to expand their routes. These things have been removed by communist-style centrally located Gannett Pravda and others. What do we wish to do? Emulate freaking lousy Putin who needs to be pissed on?  He leads a nation which has ALWAYS been governed by vicious and lousy individuals who are more like Genghis Khan than like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, and others in our long line of good leaders.  Allow the carriers to pay a wholesale cost and sell at retail so as to learn what COMPETITIVE capitalism, not the fat pig version of a monopolistic centrally-controlled economics which is NOT capitalism.  And if these young people need to go door-to-door to collect for the papers, then they should be required to have two people at any time when knocking on doors.  Of course, if all newspapers were distributed at no per-copy charge, then there would be no collections at the door, but customers encouraged to leave a tip for the carriers which would be paid according to the number of newspapers delivered.  The higher the number, the more the kids would be paid. Thus, such “business” enterprise could be taught so as to teach what it means to market and distribute newspapers. 

5. Newspapers could increase the circulation numbers by selling both print AND digital copies. But those receiving print copies would get them free.  The method now is to treat customers like shit unless they USE the digital copies. That is NOT SUPPLY and DEMAND capitalism. That is fascist rule from supply side economics.  That is NOT capitalism. 

Recently, I contacted a newspaper publisher which was advertising its need to get delivery people. I am too old to do door-to-door, even by car. But I suggested, since this newspaper was from out of town and only one store was carrying it, I would be willing to diver to stores in western Broome and eastern Tioga Counties so as to deliver to those stores.  Having more newspapers in a store CAN attract customers, especially those who are being screwed by not getting home delivery, or having a really lousy home delivery.  The newspaper is at a store at a neighboring county and stores in this county have mentioned how they would love to have this newspaper available for their customers, but cannot get it.  Smart and intelligent people would say this, recognizing that, even though they don’t make a profit from the newspapers, the store has a good means for expanding their own customer base – with newspaper availability.  Smart people at the supermarket which is part of a chain which bought out another chain.  To date, I have had no “call back” from this newspaper.

Ben Franklin had a newspaper. He even promoted the building of libraries, as did Thomas Jefferson. Today, many librarians have been axed, in the name of high-paid lawyers and accountants – bean counters – who remain. Personal injury and workman’s comp lawyers are lousy and need to consider taking on an issue such as this. But no. They are too damn lazy to do this, as they milk customers and U.S. taxpayer money from the court system. Meanwhile, we have a politicized U.S. Supreme Court in this polarized society which has been decimated by nationalized newspapers which do not cover local areas properly.  Ben Franklin did.  Thomas Jefferson started the Library of Congress and sent the Marine Corps to Tripoli to counter pirates from a Muslim government which had deposed a much more humanitarian Muslim leader.  “… to the shores of Tripoli.”  Besides those soldiers who fought in Europe during World War I & II, as well as the many who fought in the Pacific, I honor them on this 4th of July. I can only hope that their sacrifices will not be town down by nationalistic fat pigs and younger common folk who don’t even acknowledge what they have today because of promotion of being individualistic fat pigs, snots, and spoiled brats. They should listen to my grandparents and parents talk about the Great Depression and those wars, and all with which our society had to suffer.  The GODDAMN Bible thumpers and their ideas that the only part of the Bible important to them is “an eye for an eye,” even after Jesus Christ taught us we should NOT follow those things. However, these GODDAMN Bible thumpers ignore the fact that parts of the Bible tell us to “honor thy father and thy mother.”  Honor those who came before us and left us with good along with the bad. Examine the good, you bastard SOBs. 

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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, History & Genealogy, human-rights, Journalism & Media

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Crying About Spilled Milk as Heard on the Street

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😁😁😁What is heard on the street these days? People from the World War II generation with whom I worked in a corporation would often sit and have coffee, discussing “what is the street talk?” Often we came to have knowledge about what is going on in the world which surrounds us. Thinking about that, as i listen to people.

What we DID NOT hear on the street in those days was talk of people with snotty snobbish spoiled-brat attitudes. I hear that on the street quite regularly today. Is this the result of the raising of my generation by those who followed Dr. Spock? Was it caused by followers on Ayn Rand who promoted “the virtue of selfishness?” Is it caused by those invigorated by libertarian/anarchists who say “anything goes?” Is it caused by a portion of the media which appeals to snotty snobbish spoiled-brat people so as to get their testosterone and adrenaline flowing strong and just want it to be said what they like to hear and such snotty folks don’t want to learn? As a result of this, is this caused by peer pressure and groupthink among cliques of people who are being led by mafia-type wealthy ones? After all, the old fraternal organizations are being destroyed.

That word, “destroyed.” How many times have I heard Republicunt Repugnican leaders use that word? Destroy, as those on the street, like lemmings, follow the call of the evil spirit, thinking they will go off to heaven when they are being led off a cliff.

Heard “on the street.” An older man, probably an older one in my own generation, is talkinga about “how bad the world is.” OK. If I could, my reply would be, “what are you doing about it? Just sitting around bloviating about how bad it is? It is like a person crying over spilled milk and letting it dribble over the side and rot, rather than to clean it up. Where is the, “I am mad as hell and ain’t going to take it anymore.” Instead, too many people moan and cry and cry and moan – and think this will accomplish something.

Then, I hear this “on the street.” “Well, the Founding Fathers caused a problem because they owned slaves.” Oh? So, rather than taking the time to explain how much we have learned, over the centuries, about this situation, and moved to change it, what the hell is this person doing but dredging up old wounds and not thinking about what we can do, after LEARNING from that situation? What are the concepts for which we can learn from this? Defend the 2nd Amendment and pick up a weapon? Be hateful as possible towards those trying to make things right? Make false claims that this is a “christian nation” and there was no intent for separation of church and state and freedom to have our own beliefs? Ignoring the fact that most of the Founding Fathers may have attended Christian churches, but were actually Deists, free to maintain what ever belief they wished to maintain. No. I heard someone dredging up old wounds, ignoring how far the African-Americans in the USA have come and how far we need to go to progress even more. Someone crying in the sour milk, rather than helping to clean up the sour milk and pour fresh milk. That is what I heard and it is abominable, to say the least. Something I never heard spoken of when conversing with those of the World War II generation at coffee, many years ago in a corporation.

What is systemic racism?

The word, “systemic” defined with anatomy of the body: “affecting the body in general.” Blood circulation or vaccination against disease in the body of a human being. As for plants, “systemic pesticide” is good for the body of a plant because it is absorbed in the root system and circulated through the plant and is toxic to insects and fungus, but not to the plant. The COVID-19 vaccine can be described as a “systemic” reaction to, perhaps, create immunity and antibodies by “flowing” flowing through the body. A shot to counter toxic snake venom in the human body is a “systemic” reaction for the sake of the human body and to counter the affect of a toxin.

So, where does that lead us with regard to “systemic racism” in society? Rev. Tiffany Thomas said, “People are tired of marching. People are tired of hashtag protests. People want some systemic change.” Very ambiguous, with the word, “change,” because “change” means many different things to different people. Individualism predominates over societal change and sometimes to the detriment of different parts of society, as systemic granules are toxic to aphids or powdery mildew.

Systemic poverty permeates a portion of society, while greedy wealth individuals like Trump and the Republicunt Repugnicans hold many people hostage to this existence and tell lies to get others to follow them.

Systemic racism? According to good.is, systemic racism is defined in this way: “Systemic racism goes beyond individual beliefs and feelings about people of other races. It means that the systems on which a society functions—the economic system, the education system, the heathcare system, the criminal justice system, etc.—are both infused with and impacted by the racism within which they were created and maintained.”

As with the systemic granules used to repel insects with a toxin, the “toxic” part of racism is hidden within white racists who believe they are NOT racist, as they smile politely and nicely about the black race. Then there comes an older man who, on the street, can only find negative things to say about the Founding Fathers because he (or she) really and truly only thinks about how bad African-Americans have caused problems for our society, by the mere existence of the race. In this way, the person ignores all the advances which have been made to overcome slavery, racism, and bigotry, also ignoring the great things our Founding Fathers did to establish this nation and establish it with many freedoms, including the freedom to maintain our own religious beliefs and have a peaceful life and liberty, with the ability to seek happiness. Liberty and justice for all means we also acknowledge how well this nation has done, in spite of the imperfections which still exist. Putting down the Founding Fathers because they had slaves accomplishes what? Nothing but negativity towards the black race and does so with the peer pressure groupthink within the white community, like creating a toxin within a plant. Systemic.

Why do I mention this? Because the person on the street also mentions how “happy people in Scandinavian nations are. No quarrel with that assessment, as we are aware of the conclusions of surveys which establish Scandinavian nations like Denmark as having the “happiest people on earth.” The conclusion of this person is that they have socialism in the Scandinavian nations. Socialist democracies, not dictatorships. True, for sure. No argument there, either.

But once again, this goes back to the systemic racism part of America. Why, you ask me? Because there never was any slavery in the Scandinavian nations and not sure there is a number of colored folks there. So, thus, the nation works well with socialism in a white-oriented society. Bad. In other words, someone described Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark as having “homogeneous populations.” Like homogenized milk, the cream and the milk are mixed together to provide a well-mixed beverage. There is nothing outside white mixed into a homogenized milk. After homogenization, we can add chocolate in the form of syrup or powder, but it never becomes homogenized in the white milk.

What the “man on the street” failed to recognize is that socialism in this nation is blocked by the white folks who don’t wish to add chocolate to the mix. He whimpered about why there are so many Americans who reject socialist democracy when there is proof it works. I just explained the reason, but no one is thinking about that.

And a black Clarence Thomas also wants to be segregated, so likely goes along with the white crowd and disdains things about socialism which tends to work with those “homogenized” together like an integrated society. Except for one difference in Scandinavia. They don’t have as many of the colored to homogenize or integrate. It can also be described by an example of a black African nation trying to “homogenize” white folks into the nation, without white folks pushing for apartheid and/or segregation.

Until the man on the street and the peer pressure / groupthink changes it’s freaking lousy attitude of hatred, individualism, and selfishness in America, we will continue to have problems. So, my question is to the “man on the street,” what are you going to do about this situation so as to SOLVE the problem by not relying on freaking lousy ideology (liberal or conservative) and freaking lousy animosities towards economic systems which actually might work.

And the person on the street fails to recognize that I can go out on a limb and say that Scandinavian nations reserve portions of society which need socialism for socialism. Other portions of society that need long-term capitalist ideas for investments and returns on investments and price structures based on supply and demand in capitalism. They are rational in their approach and do not have minimum wage laws at all because their top part of society acknowledges those who don’t have it all and need opportunities. Volvo is not a “nationalized” company owned by the government. Prices are based on capitalist competition, not destruction of competitors by fat pigs of monopoly. Whether monopolies or nationalized industries such as the ones in communist nations produce shoddy products and services at high prices. We already have such shoddy and high prices here and at the local level, with people who advertise their electrical business but don’t fulfill their promises and get the work done. Such people are just like those in a communist nation, not the type of socialist-capitalist-democracy nations in Scandinavia.

To freaking lousy Clarence Thomas and others. Go to hell. Because the Chinese communists do not have long-term capitalist investments of resources like pensions and Social Security. America does and the Republicunt Repugnicans want to destroy these parts of American society which separate us from being like communists. In the process, the Republicunt Repugnicans confuse people like the “people on the street,” make them paranoid as hell in crying over spilled milk, holds them hostage to the fantasies of Trump-Rick the Prick-McConnell-DeSatan fascist pigs. They pay members of the SCOTUS and in other areas to do their dirty work and make themselves look good.

Come on, Joe Biden, get tough with them and stop pussy-footing around, as chaos emerges by deliberate creation on the “street where I live” and we are not being led to a “cloud nine” or “several stories high,” with delight, but many people fantasize that we are or are crying about spilled milk. These are mostly stupid ones with guns or lack of intelligence or both, having no desire to learn and gain wisdom so as to accomplish something good for America’s future.

🧐🧐🧐🖖🖖🖖🙏🙏🙏
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Local Newspapers

The Sixty Minutes report tonight regarding the loss of local newspapers in order to keep America as a democracy was a story left in the wings for quite some time. Kudos for the coverage and what was brought to the attention of those who tuned in to the Sixty Minutes program. 

The report comes on the heals of several other reports about this topic.  The Economist article was titled, “The Culture Vultures.”  The hedge fund leader who has been purchasing newspapers such as The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun was aptly described, along with other such hedge fund people as “vultures.” The man purchases the newspapers and lays off most of the workforce, including a newspaper featured in the story, The Pottstown (PA) Mercury.  Being married to a person who faced a layoff, along with many wonderful reporters and columnists at a Florida newspaper, in 2008, I am somewhat aware of the loss of many of the fine local news people who were laid off in that situation.  It is rather disgusting to learn that the high and mighty one from Alden “profits” of newspapers has lined his pockets while tearing profits from some very good people of local journalism and purchased a huge mansion in Miami.  I say this not to complain, as if me and my spouse never got that possibility. No. It is to say that there are thousands of Americans besides me who have been dumped, so as to have one person line his pockets. The gap between haves and have nots is widening and it has an impact on many thousands and millions of Americans. Some suffer more than I have and that does not make me feel like I am any better.  In fact, many of us have no interest in such a mansion, as we try to make it in this world with just a regular American home, as our parents were able to have. 

While the Sixty Minutes report pointed out how America has lost its coverage of local newspapers which had reporters who had, at one time, uncovered local level corruption, with a quality journalism which has been nixed by fat pigs with a love of money. Love of money, not money or profits, is the root of evil. 

There are other examples of the “vultures” and they could be uncovered. Newspapers which have faced “mob-like” destruction of publishers who have tried to uncover corruption at the local level. Funny, but the excuse might be that a publishing person died by “falling off a bike,” while the real facts for a possible homicide are part of a coverup.  Or a the exposure of a local restaurant owner who got reviewed by a local writer in a newspaper and it was discovered that the owner was substituting one seafood with another one, due to a shortage, selling it like a snake oil salesman of the 19th Century did to fake out customers. Local newspapers can uncover such issues at the local level. Thanks for the examples provided in the Sixty Minutes report.

 Additional information could be provided and the story taken into a more in-depth review of this situation.  As always, the public is made to believe it’s the financial downfall and the fault lies in the competition from social media.   There may be some truth to this. But I also want to offer that the roots of the lower profits and “decline” of newspapers was a deliberate sabotage to do so which began with the George H.W. Bush administration ridding this nation of the FCC Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine was put in place by a BIPARTISAN effort following World War II so as to protect our democracy from the type of propaganda which had brought Hitler to power in Germany.  The end of the Fairness Doctrine saw the development of hate radio led by Rush Limbaugh and eventually led us to the crap we see going unmoderated on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms.  What was not mentioned was how newspapers were a form of moderation which does not censor, but which corrects errors in facts and stops emotional outbursts of hatred and libel which have become a much more predominant and common thing happening in America. The “vultures” are cleaning up from the dead meat road kill which has resulted from the deliberate strategies to sabotage newspapers. 

The newscaster doing the interview in this report, sad to say, demonstrated the lack of knowledge about what capitalism is truly about, as the saboteurs, like the “robber barons” (“fat cats”) of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century (Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Carnegie), amass money for the purpose of lining their own pockets. These “barons” have created an environment since the 1970s in which such people have loaded their own pocketbooks and created exponentially bloated purse for one self.  In the meantime, the rest of us have watched as our pocketbooks have not done as well.  Rather than using the words, “robber barons” or “fat cats,” as had been done by the press during the time of the robber barons,   This newscaster commented, as do so many others take as “common knowledge” regarding capitalism, by asking the interviewee describing the wrongful tasks of the Alden man who was laying off and destroying capitalist competition (as the 19th Century “robber barons” did), “is that not what capitalism is?” The response should have been, “no, that is not what capitalism is about.”

A History Channel review of the history of the “robber barons” (Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Carnegie) never addressed them as “robber barons,” but identified that era and Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Carnegie as the “golden capitalists.”  Wrong. Never did the History Channel documentary identify those men as “robber barons,” which is what they were. Even John D. Rockefeller’s parents wanted nothing to do with what their son was doing. 

Too many Americans are too wrapped up with the casting of aspersions which falsify what Adam Smith intended with the capitalism he proposed in the 18th Century to counter the “barons” of royalty of his day. People like one of our Founding Fathers, Ben Franklin, had spent time in Scotland with Adam Smith. Smith was a contemporary of those who set forth this democracy in the form of a revolution against monarchies and “barons” who proclaimed that their money gave them a divine right to rule.  Adam Smith wanted to overturn the “supply-side economics” of royalty and “barons” which existed in his day because such royalty controlled in a dictatorial way, the supply side and with no concern for the demand side. Smith, with his moral sensitivity, created an economic plan to provide capitalist competition in order to keep prices down and reaching out to consider the balance of supply AND demand.  Only capitalist competition can accomplish the goal for working with investments over the long term. 

With deregulation, supply side economics, and the gradual elimination of long-term investments (particularly in mortgages), in favor of “supply siders” like potential “slum lords” with their flipping of homes, we have moved to short-term, “Me – I want it NOW” – attitudes. This change has moved America into a dangerous position. One result has been the lack of strong local newspapers, in order to keep democracy, true capitalism, and a concern for humanity – “we the people.”

Keep in mind that this “short-term” attitude has also helped destroy the ideas of long-term investments in savings accounts, as Neil Bush helped to reduce the effectiveness of the Federal Savings & Loan system in this nation, ultimately leading to the destruction of the FS&Ls. 

We have ended up with supply-side control by big banks. Such big banks mesmerize the demand side by providing 5% discounts on gasoline if their credit card is used. Too good to be true.  Such banks then collect a huge interest charge when this discount is used.  In contrast, there was a day in this nation when there was consideration of both supply and demand. We observed this, as children of the 1960s, to put our quarters in a bank machine (before ATMs) in an elementary school classroom. Our savings book would be marked with a deposit.  Today, the demand side is being ripped off by snake-oil bankers who think they are doing a wonderful thing with a 5% discount. Sadly, we receive only “$.01 each month in a savings account.  Turns out, it would have been better to just pay the regular price of the gasoline, even as it is higher now, than to pay all that money in interest charges to snake-oil supply-side dictatorial bankers.   

Now, as presented this evening by Sixty Minutes, we have learned there is a competitor in the establishment of The Baltimore Banner, in order to compete with Alden fat pigs who own The Baltimore Sun.  However, The Baltimore Banner is a digital newspaper. This is supposed to provide competition and we should feel good about it? Yes, feel good about capitalist competition. Feelings are just about as good as the 5% discount by banks, overridden by exorbitant interest charges.   We have already seen the hidden costs of digital newspapers as we try to deal with large costs of technology, visual impairment making it difficult to read digital copy, and, unsuspected cyber attacks, and the lack of computer service people because the local ones are all aiming at commercial customers only. Residential customers pay for service work by the big boxes instead.  Only those who keep up on technology and the changes or the wealthy can afford the digital newspapers. Hidden costs which no one considers.  The Sunday New York Times, in print copy, may cost $6.00. The amount we pay for technology in America far exceeds what the print copies cost. People who are intelligent enough to mange the production of print copies of newspapers never even take into account that more advertising can be sold if circulation (number of people figures) were higher. That can be accomplished by reducing the cost of each issue. Judging by the Alden owner of The Baltimore Sun and others, he is not suffering from print copies, as he purchased a huge mansion in Miami which most of us will likely never be able to purchase.  We are overcharged by banks, streaming television (rather than ability to receive FREE LOCAL BROADCASTS) and technological big boxes. Big boxes which are more concerned about selling products than about servicing the technology and service to overturn cyber attacks.  This is not just money, but the unnecessary stress it puts on our lives, as we are attacked by those who change settings on our phones and equipment.

Let us bring back local newspapers and do so with more than just digital copies. The ones pushing for digital copies don’t work to bring us free local broadcast media and free broadband access.  Print copies of newspapers could also be free and thus advertisers could reach more people. 

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Spectrum, the lousy Internet provider

Spectrum is lousy with the Internet. Continuous buffering. Intermittent lack of synchronization of voice and video, especially on our favorite channels.  Intermittent bleeps out of audio, especially on our favorite channels but not on the shallow entertainment channels more people in America follow – containing guns and violence which inspire white racists to pick up A-15 automatic weapons and killing black folk. Now, our favorite radio station we receive on the Internet appears to be blocked as well. 

Apparently no one else finds that these happen so frequently, so don’t speak up. Too bad.

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Food Network & a Polarized Shallow Society with Predominance of Competition, Violence, Guns, Rather than Information and Knowledge

Food Network has ruined its morning schedule on Thursdays and Fridays beginning at 8 AM. It’s bad enough they have all the damn infomercials before 8 AM, unlike HGTV which sometimes begins earlier. On Thursday and Friday mornings, Food Network has pre-empted informative programs with competitive s**t of programs, such as Chopped, Worst Cooks. Let the prime time audience see those shows because there are few other choices at that time of the morning. Thanks for continuing with informative programs the early mornings of the other days of the week. How about if Food Network adds to its all-white people programs some informative cooking shows from CLEO and other non-white-people programs? I must say, though, that Molly Yeh with Jewish and Chinese features is great. Delicious Miss Brown (an African-American) on Tuesdays is great. But what about soul foods and other cooking shows? But overall, informative and not competitive “cutthroat” s**t needs to be the word of the day.

Spectrum Streaming buries Create TV deep in the schedule, rather than as part of the local television lineup and the Customer Service validates this with an emphasis on technological handle this to our advantage – a complicated process with “favorites.” This process is not easy to discover and learn. For things like this, with the regular print media and times when we had a stronger local business and news.  Gannett newspaper in this area, a monopoly in the Southern Tier, has eliminated local columnists and local news and reporting.  The newspaper has been condensed by eliminating many things. The elimination includes local arts and music critics, food critics, restaurant critics, or other types of columns.  Instead, it is limited ONLY to political analysis at the national level and little or no local political analysis. And if it is political analysis, the fat pigs purchasing the newspapers often put bias according to one side of the political spectrum or another. 

Gannett, most recently, eliminated the TV matrix which provides local television programming. This is creepy and run by fat pigs who have little or no desire to meet the OVERALL needs of WE THE PEOPLE. In other words, if my interest is part of the non-shallow crowd and more intellectual part of society, we are being told to go to hell by the fat pigs at the top of so many corporations today. Even TV Guide does not contain some of the local programming. For instance, try to find WSKG’s Create TV in the lineup.

This is all designed to favor the lowest common denominator and the nerds of technology. 

Catering to the lowest common denominator is predominant today and it is crap.

According to merriam-webster.com, lowest common denominator (or least common denominator) is defined as such:

“something of small intellectual content designed to appeal to a lowbrow audience”

Examples (from merriam-webster.com):

Cinemas are currently offering a pretty easy program tailored to the lowest common denominator that simply gets the audience only used to event films. — Alex Ritman, The Hollywood Reporter, 11 Feb. 2022.

Managing to the lowest common denominator, changing compensation, more bureaucracy, and increasing pressure to cross-sell bank products are examples of how big firms are asserting their power over advisors and their businesses. — Mindy Diamond, Forbes, 25 Jan. 2022

When will we have a “village” to change this s**t whi8ch predominates society today? It needs to end. People need to learn to take responsibility for any actions which polarize and divide our society.

Perhaps if people were to apply the intent of Roe v. Wade (making false claims that it goes against the U.S. Constitution), rather than waste our times by fighting it with corrupt practices of Trump and McConnell and others who claim to be Christians, parents and others would take advantage and teach their children to be responsible for their actions. They could explore with their children all the options with cause and effect. Instead, prohibiting something and enforcing this with children does more to NOT teach their children very well. The same thing happened with the prohibition of alcohol about 100 years ago.

Same thing with sex when the English language has only ONE word for love. With the English language, the word, “love,” is applied to romance, sex, brotherly love,  love without strings attached, and other aspects of love. From the example of Greece, the cradle of democracy, comes, numerous different words representative of different aspects of love.  Those words were used in the Gospels (written in Greek) and all translated to English with ONE WORD only: “love.”

Sorry. I cannot help explaining details and going into so much. When the world was not shallow and catering to non-intellectual values, I had more happiness and did not need to write. I don’t use guns, I use the writing of words. Part of the non-intellectual and appeal to the lowest common denominator presents the teaching of violence and guns, whether in the media or in the home. Won’t the lowest common denominator be happy when the intellectual become the lowest common denominator. When these perverted shallow people predominate, they will have their wish. They are happy if they can spend time fighting Roe v. Wade, the teaching of the truth about racist history, and destroying the teaching of sexual identity. Time ends up being spent on such contentions and polarizations than on what we can all do for the overall human race. In this case, we end up with corruption from people like Trump and McConnell and the statement about “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” also becomes firm with evil people.

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Current Topic: SCOTUS & Roe v. Wade

Dear Amanpour & Company:

In response to your broadcast last night (3 May 2022) regarding the issue now before the SCOTUS, I feel compelled to comment. 

To those who don’t like long commentaries, then close your eyes, plug your ears, and don’t bother. But this issue about abortion is a complex one.

Ms. Amanpour, in your interview of the right wing fascist woman who advocates destroying Roe v. Wade, you are like much of the media: a kind person in interviewing her. If it were me to do the interview, I would have called the woman what she is: a fascist bitch with a lainbrained mind like too many other Americans who wish to impose their religious beliefs upon all Americans, using the Supreme Court, a body supposedly for “human justice,” to do so. 

On the other hand, I got no new information from your interview of Gloria Steinem. All it contained was a person defending women’s rights and never addressing what some men think about this topic. As a gay man, I have been a part of the human equality movements which advocate for ALL human rights, including those of women.  But there are other issues here, besides just women’s rights which deal with human justice and human rights. Liberty and justice for all. 

My background is in a religious denomination which is the same one as Barack Obama: the Congregational / United Church of Christ. Our church “missionary” buildings in Mississippi have ended up being fire-bombed on numerous occasions. Who did this? Likely the same ones who promote what is being used to challenge Roe v. Wade in the SCOTUS. Likely the same ones who march with David Duke (observed being done in 2000) in Biloxi, MS. The same denomination which had people killed in Charlottesville, VA, by members of the  KKK and Trump simply praising those doing the attacks against human beings who march in peace. 

As a male, I am disgusted by SCOTUS men like Thomas and Kavanaugh who reveal the really lousy side of males. Putting sex first. Even the possibilities that Kavanaugh was involved in date rape. How many other violent acts have been advocated by such men who sit in power seats of the SCOTUS? Why is it we have lousy males serving on the SCOTUS and we expect ONLY WOMEN to address the needs of human justice and human rights? All men are not BAD, as we may be stereotyped as being bad. 

My religious background taught me about the most important idea of religious beliefs which comes from the Gospels. If a person lives by the ideas of “do unto others as you would have done unto you….” OR… “love God and love your neighbor…”  The UCC taught me this.  From the UCC and my parents, I have maintained the ideas that we respect both pro-choice and pro-life ideas. Here we go again. Lining up one against the other and having a SCOTUS to embolden these dichotomies.  It is sickening to consider.

How can I be both pro-choice and pro-life? The main reason is that, with pro-choice, I support those who DON’T  want to obtain an abortion. In fact, my CHOICE is to help educate people about the entire overall perspective on this issue. My ideas are the same when it comes to evolution v. creationism; sexual identity education as a means of helping understand nature v. nurture (and other issues which can help embolden our people to stand STRONG AGAINST VIOLENCE and RAPE done by older men and women in roles of power).  When I express these ideas, I then become personified as being weird, right? 

Personally, I experienced ordeals of dealing with spontaneous abortions.  I can say that I conceived up to about seven children. Only three are alive today, due to spontaneous abortions of about three to four fetus.

I had to put up with people who polarized our family by thinking that “Jehovah would have not allowed such spontaneous abortions, so our GOD was wrong.” Oh, yeah? And those idiot lainbrains who carry guns, in the name of some god, and murder abortion doctors are so much smarter than GOD?  Oh, no. they claim to do this lousy stuff with guns, FOR GOD.  That is not my GOD and certainly I don’t always insist on using the name of Jehovah, either. 

These people who claim to be “Christians” are lousy human beings. Why? Because they embrace what Jesus Christ advocated to be AGAINST. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Christ spoke out against this with simple words in the Gospels: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you…” and the most important short phrase which covers the way we treat all human beings (and perhaps you wish to eliminate the beginning words about GOD): “love God; love your neighbor as yourself.”  Christ’s words go against the idiocy of “eye for eye…” His words DO NOT speak against the 10 Commandments, but if people follow Christ’s words, they will not live their lives against anything written in the 10 Commandments. 

But I know. Due to the idiocy of people like the fascist bitch interviewed on Amanpour & Company last night, I am not supposed to speak in public about God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, and present a truly loving GOD for whom we can say, “trust in the LORD and do not lean upon your own understanding” because your own understanding might be wrong and goes with the evil spirit.  Sorry, but what Gloria Steinem (with all due respect to her) said, while very pertinent and certainly understandable to be important aspects, the overall question is not being covered sufficiently. So we go away with the words of a fascist right wing bitch who talked and talked and never listened to what Ms. Amanpour was saying. Never listened, considered, and tried to THINK on what had been said. That pretty much sums up the polarization in America today. 

For my own personal experience, I have more to explain. My oldest one who owes her very existence in life to what I had to sacrifice, in the name of finances. I won’t go into the explanation of it. A wife who had nothing but spontaneous abortions up to the birth of my oldest child. No one appreciates what I did, but only give allegiance and honor to a “Jehovah” only.  Meanwhile, they help create a hell on earth, as puritanicals do because they get upset if there is someone having a good time… being able to seek “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

Then there are those unable to have children. My question. Why does GOD not intervene there, but intervenes with GUNS and fascist bitches (like the one on Amanpour & Company last night)? In this case, at huge expenses (no cradle to grave health coverage while speaking out with big mouths about abortions and proclaiming a divine right to knowing the best about what is called “pro-life,” as they hire stupid lainbrained lawyers to uphold their stupidity, a lack of humility to have an open mind in order to overcome IGNORANCE and LEARN.

In other words, human beings, not any god, have developed methods of fertility to overcome the plight of those who are unable to have children. But the cost of it is prohibitive for the “little people” who pay the taxes (i.e., what Leona Helmsley and Trump cronies like to think).  Americans have to put up with the s**t of people like the fascist bitch (not Steinem, but the other woman) talk to us about HER individualist ideas regarding abortions and pro-life. However, I am bothered by the fact that Steinem ALSO concentrated on “individualism.”  Since America’s love affair with the automobile, we have become a nation of individuals with no concern for our fellow human beings. DUI rarely, if ever, existed when we had horses and public transportation. William Mattar in his idiocy, talks about DUI. In other words, he loves it because he can make money off the fact that we are a society of individuals who negate trains and other public transit ways.  Rick the Prick of Florida negated what the VOTERS DECIDED IN FLORIDA FOR CREATING A FAST-SPEED TRAIN FROM ORLANDO TO MIAMI – RUINING INVESTMENTS BY SOME OF US FOR HOMES ALONG THE ROUTE AND THEN THE BASTARD RICK THE PRICK SAW TO IT THAT MONEY WAS PUT INTO EXPANDING I-95 AND CREATING TOLL BOOTHS IN MIAMI IN ORDER TO DO IT.  Does anyone take this seriously?  Therefore, I do speak out against Steinem talking just like the fascist bitch with regard to individualism. The SCOTUS should be taking this into account, as well as the FREEDOM TO WORSHIP (religion) AS DEFINED BY THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.

The fascist bitch proclaims that SHE is not advocating politics in the SCOTUS. She needs to THINK about that, as she implies only the OTHER SIDE is advocating politics. 

This bitch wants us all to WORSHIP where she worships and to PRAISE HER GOD, which, when used by gun-toting idiots who shoot abortion doctors (terrorists at abortion clinics) and fire-bombers (in Mississippi) and people with a love of a car used to mow down people who seek PEACE AND JUSTICE in Charlottesville, get praise and honor. To which I say, such people need to be hung, just as Timothy McVeigh was executed. They don’t deserve a place to speak in the Media, such as that fascist bitch spoke last night, while many others who can express what I am expressing here, are denied access to expressing our intelligence of reasoning, consideration, and THINKING. 

God does nothing to stop spontaneous abortions, human fertility problems, sea horses in which the male carries the babies, animals which perform homosexual acts. It is stupidity, not a god; which drives people like this terrorist-endorsing anti-abortionist bitch who claims a divine right to know what should be pushed down the throats of the population regarding pro-life. 

I have examples in my life of being pro-life. My investment in pro-life meant I placed an importance on giving up a musical instrument for which I majored on in my college degree.  I also attempted to teach my own kids that abortion is not a form of contraception and only should be considered as the last resort, when it comes to consideration of rape and the life of the woman, as was the case for my great-grandmother who died in 1903 in childbirth.  Had God or humans aborted the fetus, my great-grandmother could have lived on, in order to produce siblings to my grandmother.  Does any lawyer related to such incidents ever go before SCOTUS to plead this or other aspects of this question?  Would the members of the SCOTUS who dig in their heels on this topic even care about JUSTICE? Or do they wish to do as the fascist bitch on Amanpour & Company, plus Trump, McConnell and other bastard males wish? 

Screw the ideas of individualism as the means to accomplish this goal. The common ground between Steinem and the fascist bitch is individualism.  We need to challenge individualism, not act like a bunch of “nice people” trying to tolerate the “other side” of individualism. We have ended up with a war in Ukraine, due to this individualistic autocratic plutocracy, endorsed by lousy stinking manure-laden leaders in the Russian Orthodox Church, too.  America is America, not Russia. We should be separating ourselves from any manure-laden leaders with corruption, lies, and the endorsement of individualism.

I am also speaking about Americans like Russian atheist, Ayn Rand and her love for the “virtues of selfishness.”  Sure. Ayn Rand supported abortion and Roe v. Wade, due to her embracing of individualist selfishness.  At the same time, this bitch Ayn Rand spoke out against welfare and Medicare. But when she came down with cancer, she resorted, like a good hypocrite, to government assistance.  You don’t believe me? Check out some information about her (“Ayn Rand, Welfare Queen: Living High On Government Assistance?” plus more). 

Really. America needs to take an overall look at this issue. A politicized SCOTUS will not do it. So, President Biden needs to threaten to pack the court with more people who put HUMAN JUSTICE before fascist religious theories and politics. The media needs to STOP BEING KIND TO FASCIST THEOCRATS who believe they have a divine right to impose their rules upon all of us.  McConnell needs to be pulled from the U.S. Senate. Rick the Prick needs to be pulled from the U.S. Senate. The filibuster in the U.S. Senate needs to be destroyed  What I describe ARE THE REASONS WE HAVE THE SCOTUS WE HAVE.

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It’s the 1000% Increase in CEO Salaries Since the 1970s, not Inflation, Stupid

There the media goes, once again. There it goes again. Nothing but complaints put forth about inflation, shooting holes in the progress which has been made to bring down unemployment while our younger folks are gaining some better living wages.

Fact for which the media NEVER mentions. CEO salaries have advanced a whooping exponential increase of 1000+% since the 1970s. Now it’s these CEOs complaining and trying to manipulate the media to go along. The people who do the work and purchase the products then become confused by it all and don’t know which way to turn. The big CEOs with their exponentially large increases simply work to stir up the mud between the “little people” so that those like me might be such people’s BEST ALLIES, but are being treated like MANURE instead, by the very people for whom we wish to help, in some way or another.  Lawyers and number crunchers, from personal injury lawsuits, fake workman’s comp MANURE, and the money made from regressive taxes like the income tax, are manipulated and they act like they are naive to what is happening – with their hidden agenda in support of the wealthy plutocrats who pit one American against another. 

The problems we fact today might be from inflation, but only by means of sabotage in the economy, as done by the CEOs have had exponentially large increases in salaries since the 1970s.  We need to come together like a “village” and fight all of this, tooth and nail, not working with contention against one another and the common ground of the “little people.”  We need the Fanfare for the COMMON HUMAN. 

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Commentary, human-rights, Journalism & Media

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Stop the Wealthy Ones of America Who Think only the Little People Pay Taxes – PLUS MORE ISSUES

Dear Editors:

A documentary told us how a small wealthy nation did not have a regressive income tax. Instead, they use a value-added tax (VAT) and property taxes.  I was tarnished because I identified, incorrectly, the name of the nation and where it was located.  The point about of my writing was about how this nation did not HAVE as many “little people” as the USA does, so it prefers a VAT and property taxes.  In other words, this nation is unable to play around with tax deductions and tax credits because it would do them little good. So, this nation uses a VAT instead. Notice that the wealthy in the USA who don’t wish to pay ANY taxes because they have us “little people” in which they can shove taxes down our throats, while getting away with “murder” of not paying taxes at all, as they invest their money elsewhere, probably in this little nation with the VAT.

This needs to stop and a VAT here in the USA, replacing sales taxes AND income taxes, is an answer, because the tax is on anything the producer price index (PPI) addresses, not what the CONSUMER price index (CPI) and income of CONSUMERS (the “little people”) are forced to do, after the union busting of these wealthy people have increased the income gap between wealthy and the rest of us astronomically – more than 1000% increase for those controlling the corporations since the 1970s.  (See article in 23 April 2022 Business section of The [Scranton] Times-Tribune , “A widening wealth gap,” for more information about what I am saying).

as for criticism about having the wrong nation, it loses the impact about the point I am trying to make. Perhaps some might say I deserve it because I promote accuracy, truth, and lack of hatred in what the media puts out.  On the other side, I can say this.  With the destruction of librarian jobs in the media, as I viewed happening over the past 20 years or so, then the problem is not me, the librarian, but the lack of people checking for accuracy. Thus, I view a documentary and attempt to recall the name of the nation, and get immersed in the lack of librarians to check the facts about such a documentary.

For me, too, as a librarian, I find it more difficult to use a reference to video documentaries.  With newspapers and magazines, it is in print. Therefore, had I read this information in a print copy like a newspaper or magazine, I am able to go back and confirm what was printed. With this video documentary, I am not able to do this.  With technological advances, it is more difficult to do so with digital copies of newspapers, too. Google has become a lousy search engine which goes far from what information / library scientists at Syracuse University and Cornell University developed for natural language searching in the 1970s and 1980s.  Google is lousy and most search engines are lousy. Much easier to clip or copy a print copy of a periodical article. Go ahead. Shoot holes in what I say, based on a love of ME, ME, ME – and “it works for ME, ME, ME.” I have given examples with an overview, not just ME, ME, ME.  I have experience with digital searching and how lousy I have seen it become today, so it is not about only ME, ME, ME. But about Katzer and Salton of upstate New York and the development of such systems. 

The wealthy ones of America have embraced this digital shit, destroyed local control of media, destroyed the jobs of those who research accuracy, truth and lack of hatred. We end up with such wealthy folks going against the very things which developed this nation when my maternal 5th great-grandfather (and many other wealthy folks), during the time of the American Revolution, gave money to the Federal government when it had nothing, “…in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [defense], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Meanwhile, the wealthy of America, with the goons of union-busting, the destruction of the once-sensitive leadership of corporations (i.e., George F. Johnson and Thomas J. Watson) have denied living wages to the “little people” of the USA and work to preserve this by supporting social dissonance with wedge issues and purchasing of votes when there are those who are not gay, black, Latino, Jew. Therefore these folks are ME, ME, ME oriented and don’t wish to support human equality and human justice with “liberty for all.”  In other words, these “little people” say, “I’m not gay, black, Latino, Jew, so why should I care?” Wedge issue and wealthy money behind it, in the Republican “Nationalist” group.  (Nationalist = Nazi). 

The next time you read that some part of what I say, having nothing to do with my main point, has an inaccuracy, THINK, THINK, THINK… about the overall point of what I write. Don’t shoot holes when the main point is important to consider.  THINK… about the destruction of librarian and library research jobs. You certainly would not consider removing jobs of number crunchers and lawyers, would you? The Nazis of Germany were given a slap of sarcasm by the song, “Money Makes the World Go Around” – written by a gay man.  The wealthy pigs of America take the song seriously, along with the “Nationalist” Nazis of America. 

These wealthy fat pigs won’t do the elimination of a regressive income tax in which they play games with deductions and credits, for the salvation of SOME groups of people.  They won’t eliminate such taxes, plus sales taxes on the CPI which require profit margins to be cut into by hiring number crunchers and lawyers. It’s okay to eliminate jobs of librarians and educators, but not the number crunchers and stupid law people with their personal injury lawsuits and workman’s’ comp lawsuits.  They don’t want to use a VAT because they believe in the Nazi view about “money making the world go around.”  

The Canadians do not have such abysmal things as frivolous lawsuits and workman’s comp crap with the fakes who push them. They pay one-quarter of the cost of healthcare than Americans pay in this “private” system tailored to the wealthy and the career lawyers and wealthy business people who sit in and control Congress with PACs and lobbyists, including those of the military-industrial complex which Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about this complex being bad.  Lawyers and number crunchers stand strong while the people just complain about government and we “little people” not only pay the taxes, but also pay four times as much as Canadians for healthcare, while Canadians have increased the average longevity of human beings in Canada.  Only a person in France can be the oldest person in the world, at the age of 118. But not in America.  GODDAMN the fat pigs of America who lead us into the future with “little people” and others being “dashed on the stones” and no one to do something about this situation. 

My point about this discussed nation, whether island nation or peninsula, is that when there are no “little folk” around for the wealthy fat pigs to amass huge amounts of money and then invest in offshore accounts (island nations), while doing NOTHING for the people of America.

Andrew Carnegie, a person who provided money from his wealth, for libraries and education, said that the success of a society is not due to individuals, but due to the society. Wealthy man, Bill Gates, said that people would save money by using a library to read books, not to purchase books for their own individual library.  Yet, the “Nationalist” Republicans reduce educators and librarians by way of elimination of local coverage of newspapers and then claiming “no one reads newspapers,” with a hidden agenda to increase the use of digital technology – for the sake of wealthy ME, ME, ME folks who don’t give one damn about WE THE PEOPLE.  These wealthy fat pigs dictate to those companies which support social progression by acknowledging sexual identity (i.e., sexual identity is more than just about gay folks, but teaching young kids, whether male or female, to be more confident about themselves than to submit to a lousy freaking male teacher in upstate New York who had sex with young girls). These wealthy fat pigs don’t like local media reporters who report the unethical and corrupt behavior at the local level. So, they push to eliminate this aspect of the news, claiming, “no one reads newspapers so do it by digital.”  I have numerous examples in Florida in which corrupt and unethical behaviors were once uncovered at the local level.  It took local reporters AND librarians to do it. These freaking lousy wealthy ones have destroyed us in this field, while supporting lawyers and number crunchers, as if they are deity because, as the Nazis said, “money makes the world go around.”  Not true and we have many examples in history in which money DOES NOT make the world go around, but if it did, it was done for the good of WE THE PEOPLE, not the fat goons of union busters and corrupt, immoral, unethical individuals in society.  Scot Andrew Carnegie, Scot 18th-Century theologian/economist/philosopher, Adam Smith, and many others are examples. And any inaccuracies in media could be stopped with references on PRINT copies. But if it is said in a video or on digital technology, who the hell can find such inaccuracies to consider what was said?   Simplicity comes with the PRINT copies.

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