Archive for December, 2008
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
Speaking of Brazen…
The Ford Motor Company, fresh off its CEO’s private-jet trip to the pig-trough, today announced the latest grand break-through in capitalist technology — cars that (allegedly) parallel park themselves!
In today’s world, where would you rank the need for this multi-million-dollar invention?
Meanwhile, if you were making a list of reasons for NOT giving even more public money to the foxes who’ve eaten up their henhouses, how high would this news item rank?
Notwithstanding the wastefulness of this unneeded add-on to history’s worst product, what does Ford’s failure to cancel its implementation say about the sanity of its planners, even in narrow capitalist terms?
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
“The reality is, what options do we have?”
Poor, pitiful, helpless United States of America. It really has no options in this latest terrible Israeli war crime, you see. So says the sponsored alibi manufacturer, Aaron David Miller, in a New York Times article explaining the roots of Barack Obama’s endorsement of the ongoing Israeli re-enactment of the Nazi bombing of Guernica. “The reality is, what options do we have?,” asks the “scholar” Miller.
Even in this market-totalitarian empire of untruths, you don’t often find more brazen deceptions than this.
See these tanks here?:
I’m no expert, but I’d wager very heavily they’re US-made M60s, given that the USA has gifted 700 of them to Israel. The above photo is from today’s New York Times. These M60s are lining up for an impending Israeli land invasion of Gaza.
And the warplanes dropping all those bombs and missiles, blowing up markets and schools? F-16s, of which Israel has received 226, gratis.
The United States provides Israel with not just free military hardware, but also $3 billion a year in military aid money. (Israel’s per capita GDP, by the way, is $23,578.)
“The reality is, what options do we have?”
With leadership like this, I’d say the answer is getting rather clearer every day…
Monday, December 22nd, 2008
The Wheels of “Change”
Friday, December 19th, 2008
Transparency, My Butt
“It’s our intention to be transparent as we execute our plan and we will provide you regular updates on our progress.” So lied the General Motors corporation’s Dissembler-in-Chief, Rick Wagoner, as he accepted a direct public handout in this, the land where the idea of public health insurance remains out-of-bounds.
Of course, the place where the real record of actual corporate intentions, methods, and plans resides is in the marketing papers. Those, of course, are never going to be sought or revealed in this latest farcical capitalist boondoggle. That would be real transparency (think back to the importance of the tobacco marketing papers). It would also be the end of the line for the overclass, so it’s not happening.
If the underlying marketing documents were ever released, the public would learn some pretty fascinating things about the real strategy behind the current “better cars” charade. Consider, for instance, the way The Wall Street Journal describes that phenomenon:
If GM isn’t able to build the Flint factory in time for the 2010 launch, the 1.4-liter [gasoline] engine to be used in the Volt could be sourced from overseas factories that are already building the engine.
Much is riding on GM’s ability to fulfill its promise to deliver the Volt, a plug-in electric car with a small [gasoline] engine onboard that would kick in when the battery runs down.
GM is looking to the much-hyped Chevy to do what the Prius hybrid did for Toyota — give the auto maker a must-have technology while cultivating a green image.
See? That “alternative” power source is what they call a “marketing stimulus,” a product attribute whose main function is to boost sales. That’s corporate marketing 101, folks. And it’s there, even if it’s not encompassed in the “transparency” show.
If we had serious transparency in this market-totalitarian society, we’d be getting our hands on those marketing records and admitting the truth, which is that the automobile is a blatantly unsustainable, outdated technology, and is known as such to its pushers, who are simply trying to milk their investments dry before parking their capital in the Caymans. The Earth simply does not have the energy to permit us to roll around in 2,000-pound boxes for our every trip about town.
We should be nationalizing the auto industry, and turning its assets to production of rail, bicycle, and pedestrian equipment and infrastructure.
Thursday, December 18th, 2008
Eskimos: Our Ice Shipment is Here!
In the first week or two after November 4, there was perhaps still a bit of wiggle-room for considering Advertising Age magazine’s announcement of its “Marketer of the Year” to be somewhat jestful. Now, it’s clear how deadly serious and accurate that naming was, as it’s abundantly clear that the winner did indeed pull off something like the ultimate ice-sale-to-the-Eskimos.
Who was the Ad Age MOTY for 2008? This operator:
The cabal of war criminals and clapped-out retread money-whores he’s surrounded himself with not only disprove all the major themes of his political marketing operation, but also suggest that, despite his verbal talents, he’s not a whole lot more print-literate than Bush the Younger. Anybody who claims, as Obama does, to have been studying FDR’s accession to an early-stage Depression Presidency, yet who nevertheless avails himself of such a pack of hidebound creeps and shills is clearly unable to learn relevant facts and/or uninterested in doing so.
Some of the more deluded still harbor hope that all this is just a way to deflect reactionary thunderstrikes from a forthcoming season of reform. No way. This kind of unerring necrophilia can signify nothing but more of the same. Hell, even Killiam Klinton, he of the Saudi/corporate capitalist slush fund, had his Robert Reich. FDR had Henry Wallace, Frances Perkins, and, of course, Eleanor — and he listened to them. Those figures make Reich look like an Eisenhower man, and Obama has zero, zero, zero people aboard who even approach Reich in thoughtfulness and unconventionality.
Makes this cartoon seem a tad optimistic…
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
A Worthy Micro-Action: National Do-Not-Mail Registry
Petitioning is often a mere gesture, but not always. And, sometimes, making a gesture is fine.
Here’s one to make: a petition for a national do-not-mail registry.
It’s weak sauce, but the idea is still solid and meaningful. Take a minute, if only because the entirely despicable Direct Marketing Association desperately hopes you won’t…
Here’s a telling item from this week’s edition of Advertising Age:
As for the Direct Marketing Association, Ms. Cassady [of ForestEthics] said [the DMA] is using a band-aid approach to address the overall problem of inundation of junk mail and is in opposition to “giving consumers a choice on what they want to receive in the mail” referring to ForestEthics attempts to establish a national do-not-mail registry. “I think we’ll continue to discuss these things with the DMA, but right now we are definitely seeing a lot of opposition to things like do not mail,” Ms. Cassady said.
In a statement, DMA Senior Vice President of Corporate and Social Responsibility Senny Boone said: “For the last several years, the DMA has been a leader in terms of establishing meaningful environmental standards for the direct marketing discipline and target goals and timetables for measuring success. These efforts include the ‘Green 15,” a set of sustainable environmental marketing standards; a nationwide Recycle Please campaign; and the July, 2008 announcement by the DMA’s board of directors of its first green goal, in the area of list hygiene, for continuous environmental improvement.”
Ah, yes! The old “We’re working on a timetable for measuring the extent of the possibly imminent emergence of a potential issue” schtick. And you can always recycle the garbage we cram in your mailbox!
And, while you’re clicking on the petition, take a moment to ponder this capitalist trade association’s real attitude toward ordinary people’s freedom of choice…
