Archive for November, 2009
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Ghostwritten Politics
Supposedly, it’s just way too crude to say that the state is the executive committee of the ruling class, that politics is the shadow business casts on society.
Meanwhile:
WASHINGTON — In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.
The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.
Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats.
Source: The New York Times, November 14, 2009
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Annals of Commodification: Lotion for Men
As the world careens toward ecocide and social collapse, the corporate capitalists are hard at work thinking of (wait for it…) ways to sell lotion to men:
http://www.strongerskin.com/strongerskin/
It’s all there — all the standard marketing tactics — in this one. Lies, flattery, “aspirational” promises, and, of course, a bedrock of carefully-researched intentional fraud.
“Weak skin” is not a real medical problem. To the extent skin health is a real issue, it is 99 percent determined by diet, water-intake, and lifestyle habits. Rubbing on lotion does little or nothing to make human skin “strong.” At most, it makes skin temporarily smooth and greasy feeling.
Of course, you can’t sell lotion to men based on a desire to have soft-feeling skin for a few hours. Hence, this stunning piece of tendentious diarrhea.
Brought to you by Unilever, the same assholes who also peddle perfume (Axe Body Spray) to teenage boys…
Friday, November 13th, 2009
Executive Pay: Not so Limited
In a follow-up to our last post, here’s today’s news:
Pay czar open to raising salary limits for new hires
November 13, 2009 – 12:01 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Two days after GM Chairman Ed Whitacre said the government should loosen its restrictions on executive pay for bailed-out companies, the White House pay czar signaled his willingness to raise salary caps for new hires.
“Caps,” sure.
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
GM’s New Geniuses Can’t Live on Half a Million
SEGUIN, Texas (Reuters) — General Motors Co. Chairman Ed Whitacre on Tuesday urged the Obama administration to give the automaker less restrictive pay caps and said it was too early to discuss the timing for the automaker to become a public company again.
Cash salaries for the top executives were cut by 31 percent, and only one unnamed executive besides Henderson will be paid more than $500,000 for 2009.
Whitacre said that $500,000 limit made hiring from outside difficult, and he urged a reconsideration of the limits set by the Treasury Department’s special master Kenneth Feinberg. (Source: Automotive News, November 11, 2009)
Whitacre, the fresh-faced rebel shown at left, was, after all paid $61 million in 2006, for his excruciating labors overseeing the AT&T-Bell South merger while also passing along illegally-gathered wiretap information to the NSA.
And what would we all do without glorious breakthroughs like the AT&T-Bell South merger? Sure, 10,000 people lost their jobs in that process, and it also further entrenched the institutional basis for the world’s highest telecommunications bills.
But, look, those things are good for investors, aren’ t they? And, just as anybody can sleep under a bridge, soare we all perfectly free to become major investors. All you have to do is get yourself $10 or 20 million to get yourself started.
And Ed and his pals probably lost a lot of their $61 million pay packets last year, too, right? Just like the rest of us, right? Aren’t you down to your last few dozen millions yourself? I know I am.
Besides, it’s got to be a rather thankless task, this acting as the funeral director who keeps insisting the guy in the box is still alive…
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
History’s Most Dangerous Machine Marches On
Michael Moore is getting tired of waiting for people to do something. And it is objectively amazing what Obama has been able to get away with in terms of lying to and betraying his own supporters.
The main reason why? Not very complicated:
This continues the general trend.
It is a profound triumph for market totalitarianism. As our decrepit, wildly out-of-control overclass wrecks the world, suppresses the most basic information, and grants itself gargantuan bailouts, we “targets” continue to pursue our addiction to their main ideological and behavioral control device. “Survivor” continues to trump human survival, no contest.
And this is all required by corporate capitalism’s normal existence, which presses its players to devote huge and increasing efforts to the big business marketing process, no matter the costs and dangers.
If we don’t soon recognize the pattern and start to withdraw from it, this will absolutely not end well, for anybody. Endlessly expanded money-making is simply not a viable basis for continuing human civilization.
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Suppression of Peak Oil Facts: Guess Who
Here’s a link to the least surprising news of the day (among always stiff competition):
Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower
Is that a cliff up ahead? A capitalist cliff? Gun it, Louise!
