Is this the first negative TV ad in U.S political history? Some argue that it is. In it, Adlai Stevenson, who ran for President in 1952, and 1956 (losing to Ike twice) and his running mate, the chain smoking Tennessee native Estes Kefauver (who was a House and Senate member AND ran in ’52 and 56, losing the nomination to Stevenson both times) question whether Ike the incumbent has upheld his words of bringing back “integrity and thrift” to the White House.
Dec 8, 1980 was the music world’s version of Dec 7, 1941. The day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. John Lennon’s senseless death on this day 31 years ago has many celebrating his music and life this week. Shock and Awesome will do so, by looking back on the lyrics of “Imagine” through the lense of world events happening today.
IMAGINE by John Lennon
Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try(For politicians trying to win the religious right vote. Be yourselves. Stop sucking up to ‘em.) No hell below us Above us only sky(Government has no right telling us what is morally right and wrong. Freedom means choice. Stay out of our personal lives and bedrooms Big Brother.) Imagine all the people Living for today…(Arab Spring, Occupy Wall st and Russia protests..Everyone living today is worried about tomorrow.)
Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do(The U.S couldn’t..In fact, it still moronically invaded countries (Iraq) even though it was attacked in ’01 by a borderless terror network.) Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too(No killing? Impossible. The world still loves war. Religion still rules our “land of the free” America. Free if you live by the “good book” that is.) Imagine all the people Living life in peace… (It’s actually easier these days to imagine all the people living life in anger and hate than in love and peace..)
You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one(You’re not the only dreamer John, but less Americans today really see the American Dream becoming a reality.)
Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can(We can, and we do. We own nothing now. Our homes got foreclosed and our savings are gone. Thanks Bernie Madoff.) No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man(CEO bonuses still as popular as Sinatra songs are around Christmas time. The poor are getting poorer and many lack employment too.) Imagine all the people Sharing all the world…(We are sharing the world right now. On the streets and pissed off, but not unified globally..Yet.)
You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will live as one(We DO live as one world. In our collective desire to own Apple products.)
Dec 7, 1941. A day that will live in infamy forever. The “Japs” attacked Pearl Harbor. Even worse, President Roosevelt knew it would happen. At least that’s what conspiracy theorists will say to this day, on the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The website “What Really Happened” offers these facts to support this notion.
“President Roosevelt (FDR) provoked the attack, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn the Hawaiian commanders. FDR needed the attack to sucker Hitler to declare war, since the public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe. It was his backdoor to war…
FDR blinded the commanders at Pearl Harbor and set them up by denying intelligence to Hawaii (HI), on Nov 27, misleading the commanders into thinking negotiations with Japan were continuing to prevent them from realizing the war was on, and by having false information sent to HI about the location of the Japanese carrier fleet.”
There are those who are still convinced that George W. Bush knew about the attack that was to take place on 9-11 too. Prior to it happening, in order to justify an all out war against Islamo Facism. Are our leaders that evil? Are they also THAT informed, or omniscient?
Both tragedies will forever be linked by their magnitude, and the measures that were taken afterwards. Both will carry with them angles that could lead one to believe that they simply didn’t just happen either.
It’s hard for us to be sure that two sitting Presidents were happy to usher in their new world order desires by allowing so much collateral damage to happen on their watch, but we’ll let you decide. Share your thoughts with us today.
You didn’t think that the rest of the GOP field was simply gonna let Newt Gingrich run the ball untouched all the way to the Iowa goal line, did you? In this ad Ron Paul hits not only where it hurts, but where Newt can be hurt. The notion of hypocrisy over substantive issues is a much more direct play by Paul on Gingrich, than bringing up a personal life that included three marriages would be.
Paul, who was at 9 percent BEFORE Herman Cain dropped out, could afford less traffic above him. Where both Gingrich and Mitt “Why Don’t They Like Me” Romney’s poll numbers currently reside. A Newt slide could in turn help shine a light on Paul, and perhaps others further below him on the GOP totem pole right now.
Gingrich must be smart enough to have spent time getting prepared for the attacks, as his popularity grew in November. Right?
“You do it to yourself you do, and that’s what really hurts.” So goes the line from the old Radiohead song “Just (You Do It To Yourself)”It’s a fitting line for Herman Cain, the self made man who now wants us to think that it wasnt HIM, but the PRESS and other OPERATIVES from opposing candidates who hastened to his downfall.
Cain energized the GOP field by being the feel good hit of the Summer. He rose from out of nowhere. The CEO of Godfathers pizza, whose personal skills and down to earth conversational style began to excite a voter base in search of an alternative to UOWG (Usual Old White Guy) Mitt Romney.
Cain became THAT guy, after Michelle Bachmans’ brief cameo role as THAT girl ended. Yet the press that helped a nation see Cain as viable, then latched onto the story about Herman and the women. There were more than a few. Cain will tell you that there was no dirty stuff going on. We are not so sure, but it doesn’t matter to us either way.
We’re not fans of the way the personal lives of our candidates become integrated with their positions on issues, but many others DO care, and see the linkage. Cain should’ve known that on this stage, and in this game, there was the potential that his past would become part of the equation. At the worst possible time.
Cain is not the first one this has happened to. He didn’t take a lesson from the history of American campaigns though. Wasn’t ready for the firestorm when it arrived. Wasn’t ready for the CNN foreign policy debate either. In sum, Cain’s people skills could no longer mask the reality of his past relationships and questionable understanding of the world. Both of which came to light simultaneously.
Cain’s run wasn’t all for naught. His 9-9-9 plan, whether or not it is a functional plan in practice, spotlighted America’s need to focus on it’s tax issues. In the end however, the past actions that allegedly took place from outside of the political sphere by this”outsider,” have sent him home. Bags packed.
This wasn’t the media’s fault Herman. This was yours. You knew the rules. Or should have. You did it to yourself. You and noone else.
Former Syracuse basketball assistant coach Bernie Fine, who was fired recently for molestation accusations, is in hotter water than Barney Frank is these days. The Massachusetts Rep who announced days ago that he won’t be running for re-election to the House in 2012, is viewed by some as one of the people most responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. That’s no way to exit the Washington stage after a long career.
Regardless of whether one believes that BOTH are exiting in disgrace, it’s hard to deny their resemblance, isn’t it?
Occupy Wall street protesters make their way from Union square to Foley Square on "The Day of Action"
Josh Swiller, the author of NY Times bestseller The Unheard” , and frequent contributor to many National publications, shared his thoughts recently, on the current mindset behind the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
An Open Letter to Wall Street on Thanksgiving:
by Josh Swiller
Looking at the Occupy Wall Street protests that started outside your windows and have spread across the country you might understandably be confused. Across the country, people are confused — inspired or enraged but mostly confused. What are they doing, the protestors? What do they want? If only they could clarify their goals then we could determine whether we’re for them or against them; then we could proudly slap their stickers on our bumpers or denounce them if need be. If only they were more clear.
But the thing is, they’ve already made it crystal clear what they’re protesting for. It’s not for socialism or communism or wealth repatriation or whatever the popular term is now; it’s not for health care, or even for taxes on the rich or for jobs. Many want these things, certainly, but those are just manifestations of something deeper. And that deeper thing is not, as many have concluded, fear. Fear of the economy, fear of their fates — fear invokes intense, immediate and unmistakable responses and those are not what OWS is about. Fear also comes from feeling separate from something – when something is a part of us, how can we fear it?
So what is that thing? What is this whole protest about?
In a word: decency.
Decency is the very thing that holds society together – the unspoken agreement to be fair and kind and just to our fellows. And decency has begun to fray and disappear in our society. Forget the esoteric idea of a common good – how does one go around measuring common good? – but with our families, our friends and the other people we meet in the day-to-day, and in our relationships to the world itself, decency is being lost.
This is what brings protestors out to the streets in snow and wind and rain.
Not fear. Not policy. Not politicians.
Turn on Fox News and what is transfixing about it (or to others, horrifying) is not the illuminating and inspiring discussions of tax codes and job creation and constitutional law but the utter lack of decency. Hosts yell at guests, guests yell at hosts – and these are people who agree! With unblinking gusto, reporters say things they know to be untrue and are never called to account. It heralds a world utterly without decency. A world of rage.
What stays with the viewers of their programs is, again, not the logic of their arguments but their sheer, palpable ferocity.
Rage is cleansing. Rage supersedes doubt and fear. Rage posits there is a right way and a wrong way, black and a white, my way and yours, two and only two choices. And the world is so complicated — how wonderful to be in a world with only two things! So immigrants all have to leave or you’re an amnesty magnet. All taxes must be cut or you’re a socialist. You agree with everything I say or you hate America.
So cleansing in its simplicity, rage is, but it lacks all decency.
This form of discourse has found a dance partner on the far left. People and pundits there now argue that any kind of compromise is a corrupt. There must be single-payer, universal health care, and Bill O’Reilly is a lying liar telling lies. And here, look, we caught another politician on the take. Let’s put together a humorous video about it! But this reaction is the same game, same emotion, just at a different tenor.
And what’s lost by all is decency.
Which brings us back to the protests. Now pundits are saying if the protestors are not clearer in what they want they will lose their moment – we actually, we will lose the moment. It will get cold and they’ll go home and the bankers will still be banking, the system gamers will still be system gaming, the handsomely paid tv ragers will still be raging. The protestors will have lost.
This misses the crucial point: decency always loses. Always. Decency, in fact, only wins by losing. When decency meets rage in an alley, rage will beat it black and blue or blind it with pepper spray, and will then, if necessary, arrest it and explain why it had no choice in the matter. Decency against rage – it’s a no contest.
So decency loses. It gets up. It loses again. It gets up. It loses again. And again. You get the picture. But at some point, something changes. Because decency doesn’t disappear. Decency is innate in our being – rage is actually made of much flimsier stuff. It burns hot, it burns out. Decency remains. Having been a hospice worker, I can tell you that at the very end, decency is what remains.
So the protestors will get beat up. The beat-uppers will explain why. They will quote laws and contracts. They will beat them up again. The protestors will react with patience and decency. And then one day, you go to church and you hear a sermon on turning the other cheek. On how we should not attach to material things. Or you are alone with someone you love who is dying and the last words are not “Fuck those people” but “The only thing that matters in life is love.” Or you study your fists after you’ve just broken a cheekbone and there’s a cut on your knuckle and the guy you hit says, let me help you with that. Or you just stare out of a window during a break at work and see a sunset embued with more colors than you thought one sunset could hold and you think: oh my, oh my, wait, really now did I think the sum total of my life was what I accomplished? What I owned? You do not know it, but exactly one month and four days from now you will slip on ice and a stranger will rush forward and save you from cracking your skull. You will have been saved then by decency, that one time. And that’s all it takes for the walls of the fortress of selfishness to begin to corrode. One moment, one act of decency, wherever it may spring from.
NYPD outside of Zuccotti Park, Tuesday night, one day after the “Monday Night Surprise”
Protesters begin to line up in Union Square, moments before clashes with NYPD ensued
At Foley Square, one protester shared his “Police State” sign, just feet away from members of the NYPD
The numbers have grown. During the Occupation’s initial days, calling the movement’s initial folks “neo-hippies” was not completely off base. Now? Different story. Last Thursday night, in Foley Square we simply witnessed firsthand, a gathering of the people. Ones of all shapes and sizes. Young, old, black, white, male, female.
All with an array of particular grievances. Including a few self proclaimed capitalists, who came due to Mayor Bloomberg’s hard line surprise for sleeping protesters last Monday in Zuccotti park. People unified under the notion that things are drastically wrong in this country, and need to change. Can this message become loud enough that things DO change? That’s the big question.
On Sunday night the story continued as Bloomberg rolled out a good old “Terrorist Press Conference,” to the networks. One that explained how an Al Qaeda supporter in the state of New York who was plotting to hurt returning soldiers and members of the NYPD, was thwarted by Ray Kelly and Co.
Was this special event staged in order to deflect attention away from the Sunday afternoon protest that had been taking place outside of the Mayor’s mansion? Perhaps. The move may have also been the only way that Bloomy, owner of the best “Span-Jewish” accent in the city, could help move the headlines from the Occupy Wall Street movement and his own Zuccotti sneak attack, towards something else. Fear.
If you can’t change the world, scare the people, right?
Comedian and Shock and Awesome guest host Lee Camp debated Tee Party rep Sharon Angle on the BBC, regarding the GOP Presidential field, and the recent string of gaffes that have come from the candidates.
