Call it what you wish: propaganda, lies, spin — it is done to brainwash and frighten the public. In this case, the motive is to plant fear into the minds of Hispanic voters, suggesting they could be arrested while attempting to vote. Don’t believe it. Look at the evidence. Read the story.
Imagine how much the the photographer, actors, and agents were paid. Some people will do anything for money! (We know what to call them.)
foto: Nancy Fouts
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That great sucking sound of money being vacuumed to the top. . . it will consume your safety, your job, your roof, your grandchildren’s future. And here’s a dynamic picture of how fast it’s happening:
Back in 2010, Oxfam’s new stats show, the world’s 62 richest billionaires collectively held $1.1 trillion in wealth, far less than the $2.6 trillion that then belonged to humanity’s least affluent half. ¶ Now the numbers have reversed. The world’s top 62 billionaires last year held $1.76 trillion in wealth, the bottom half of the world only $1.75 trillion. ¶ “Far from trickling down,” Oxfam concludes, “income and wealth are instead being sucked upwards at an alarming rate.”
That’s just six years ago! Nation-states have lost their clout against family dynasties, because these power brokers own our politicians. And soon they will own you and me, too, unless we object before it’s too late. (Both major candidates are sold out to these brokers. Voting for either one is mere ventilation.) Plato knew that dictatorship arises when democracy fails. We may be about to witness history repeat itself.
What to do? (Runaway trains are notoriously dangerous and difficult to stop!) Governments are spying on citizens, supposedly to protect us, but more probably to protect Big Capital from social upheaval; and it seems they’ve inserted military agents to perpetrate false-flag actions (“anarchists”) to discredit the Constitutionally-protected activities of orderly citizens. When government no longer trusts the citizenry, the matrix has arrived, and we are fast on our way to living in a police state. During Vietnam my generation marched on Washington DC, shutting it down to protest the war. That will never happen again. So, where are the pressure points today?
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What would happen if the voting public surrounded all our polling places, unarmed, the evening before the coming election, dispersing upon the opening of the polls the next morning. (Lining up to vote early is surely no crime.) It would certainly put elected officials on notice that we won’t be trifled with any longer. They must heed the voters, rather than the power brokers. This could be an effective exercise in social practice, which could pave a way to changes such as ranked-preference voting, or no-confidence (“none of the above”) as an option in our governance. Failing to take such bold action will only kick the can down a very polarized road, where there surely is trouble ahead. All sides should reasonably be seen as peacefully honoring our civility by refusing to be distracted, even if anarchists are seeded into such a gathering.
I love editorial cartoons, which is why AAEC is a daily visit. (Of course, not all cartoons are visible here; a favorite, Tom Toles, of WaPo, can’t be seen at AAEC.) I’m sharing copyrighted images from AAEC under the Fair Use doctrine described in the About section of my blog. (NB: my blog allows no ads. This enables me to share without risk of copyright violation, on First Amendment grounds — something cartoonists, journalists, and publishers respect and protect.)
I love this cartoon, as cartoonist Joe Heller sees the future as I see it. Donald Trump is interested in just two things: fame and money. He has been making a grandstanding play for America’s eyeballs, and hopes to win that yuge prize so he can continue to sell ads to 50-million American conservative viewers. His campaign is all about salesmanship! He will win by losing — and call his loss a conspiracy, so he isn’t, then, a loser. (OK, then he’s a free-rider who passes his costs onto the rest of us!) There should be a non-deductible minimum franchise-tax on anybody making more than, say, a million bucks a year, thus eliminating free-riders.
But if Donald Hump (see below) somehow manages to win, just think for a moment about a President Pence! Hey, Humper has no governing experience. He is a dictator, and always gets whatever he wants in his own kingdom. So he will take his ball and go back to TV when congress and courts won’t go along with his tyrannical ways — sticking America with Mike Pence. Woe is us! A narrower mind has rarely governed anywhere. He truly believes he can Make America Moral Again thru Thou-shalt-not legislation. Ah, how quickly we forget Prohibition. And coat-hanger abortions. And medical bankruptcy. And all the other cruelties the religious right so wrongly would inflict.
Wake up, America! Yes, both candidates are seriously impaired. (Hillary’s impairment is Bill, who gave his buds on Wall Street the big prize of bank de-regulation so they could gamble with out deposits, thus crashing the global economy.) And she wants to appoint him as economic czar! Not with my help. (I’ve flip-flopped, and am presently planning to vote for Jill Stein, as Gary Johnson is just too wacky; if Bill Weld were heading the Libertarian ticket they would get my vote.)
Until we permanently put None-of-the-Above on the ballot, we will continue to risk electoral farce. No Confidence is a valid approach in many countries. On that note, here’s a bit of electoral soft porn from the same issue. Beware! Donald wants to hump you. Maybe even sell you an education!
