Lying Media Bastards

Shortest Barrier Between Two Points

Wow, amazing how hard it can be to answer a simple yes-or-no question.

Several weeks back, President Bush had announced that he would meet with the 9/11 investigation committee to answer their questions-- for an hour. Yes, while people like your or I might be willing to give up hours, days, or even months of our time if we thought it might somehow help prevent another catastrophic terrorist attack, the president is only willing to give up about 60 minutes.

At this morning's press briefing with White House spokesman Scott McClellan, reporters asked a simple question: has the president changed his mind about that 60 minute time limit? Apparently the president had made some ambiguous statements lately which could be interpretted to mean that he would now spend as much time with the investigators as they liked, so the press was asking McClellan if that was a correct interpretation (granted, the initial question was phrased in a much more confrontational way:

Q: Does the President want to really get to the bottom of the cause of 9/11? If he does, why would he limit his interview with the commission to one hour and for other officials, and, stonewall on documents?

McCLELLAN: I'm glad you brought this up. This administration has provided unprecedented cooperation to a legislative body in the 9/11 Commission. We have worked closely with the commission in a spirit of cooperation. And you only have to go back -- and I would appreciate it if you would report some of the facts of the type of access we have provided to the commission. We have provided the commission access to every bit of information that they have requested, including our most sensitive national security documents. And the commission chairman has stated such --

Q: Well, the commission certainly is not satisfied.

McCLELLAN: -- and as far as the President, the President looks forward to meeting with the chairman and vice chairman and answering all the questions that they want to raise.

Q: Why don't you just open the books and get to the truth? The American people deserve it.

McCLELLAN: Did you not hear what I just said, Helen? Have you not looked at the facts? I think you need to quit reading some of the coverage and look at the facts.

Q: You just said, “all the questions they want to raise.” That means he’s no longer going to limit it to an hour?

McCLELLAN: Well, that’s what it’s scheduled for now. But, look, he’s going to answer all the questions they want to raise. Keep in mind that the commission --

Q: If they’re still asking at one hour, he’ll still answer them?

McCLELLAN: Keep in mind that the commission has already had access to all the information they requested, as I just pointed out, including our most sensitive national security documents. That’s what I’m talking about when I’m talking about unprecedented cooperation. And the commission has also -- yes, let me finish --

Q: The issue is whether he’s limiting it to an hour --

McCLELLAN: Let me finish, Mark.

Q: -- and I’m asking a very simple question. If they’re still asking questions at one hour --

McCLELLAN: I think it’s important to point out the fact. Mark, let me finish. Mark, can I answer? Let me finish. It’s important that we point out these facts when we talk about this issue, because the facts have not been pointed out. The facts have not been pointed out. But the President -- I mean, the commission will be meeting with the President, after having talked for hours on hour with White House and senior administration officials. We’ve provided more than 2 million pages of documents; we’ve provided more than 60 compact disks of radar, flight and other information; more than 800 audio cassette tapes of interviews and other materials; more than 100 briefings, including at the head-of-agency level; more than 560 interviews. Dr. Rice met with the commission recently, and even though only five members of the commission showed up, she sat down and visited with them for some four hours.

Q: I appreciate that. You reported all that when you first told it to us. I’m asking --

McCLELLAN: No, I don’t think it was widely reported.

Q: Forgive me, I take responsibility for what I report, and I reported it.

McCLELLAN: I understand you -- I understand. But I take responsibility of talking to everybody here.

Q: Okay. All the questions that they have, he’s going to answer. If they’re still asking at one hour, is he still going to answer?

McCLELLAN: I just said that the President will answer all the questions that they want to raise. I think that’s important to point out. I mean, it’s important to point out the unprecedented cooperation we have provided to this legislative body. We have worked very closely with the commission.

Q: -- when?

McCLELLAN: Still working on the exact time for that, working with the commission...

And it goes on. And on. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the complete transcript for this back and forth is five times longer than the snippet I've just quoted. I would estimate that McClellan spends ten minutes not answering the question at hand.

McClellan knows his talking points, and refuses to diverge from them for even a second: the administration has provided unprecedented cooperation to the investigators; 2 million pages of documents; the president looks forward to being questioned; the president will answer all the questions the investigators want to raise. And that's about it. Any words outside of that extremely narrow scope will not leave McClellan's mouth.

Of course, he's no Ari Fleischer. Fleischer was slipperier'n a teflon snake at the WD-40 convention. He'd've found a way to either subtly change the subject to one which made the president look better, or pretend that the reporter had asked a different question, or say "I think we've already covered that" and force the press conference to switch to another topic. You remember that scene in "The Matrix" on the rooftop, where Keanu starts firing bullets at an Agent, and the Agent twists and bends in 12 directions at once and dodges every bullet? That's Ari Fleischer. You know that scene shortly after where Keanu is firing a helicopter's machine gun at a room full of Agents, and when the dead reincarnated Agents run back into the room, Keanu shoots them and makes them fall down? That's Scott McClellan. Ari evades. Scott gets hit, goes down, but can't really be defeated.

[Jake pauses, gives himself the "worst political analogy of the week" award]

Anyhow.

The Bush administration really doesn't have a leg to stand on here. There simply is no reasonable explanation for why the president wouldn't give this commission as much time as they asked for to answer their questions. There just isn't. Their only hope is to point out how "cooperative" they're being or try to confuse the issue.

And why don't they want this commission to be able to do its job? Because it's unlikely to say anything positive about the Bush administration. It's a report geared to (allegedly) find flaws and errors in US defense, security and intelligence in hopes of correcting those flaws. As a result, the report will be rife with ammunition that Bush's political rivals can use to attack his administration.

Am I suggesting that Bush is more concerned with re-election than with really dealing with protecting the country from future terrorist attacks? Yes and no. I think that Bush and his team are arrogant and crazy enough to think that only they can protect America (by invading countries that could possibly, maybe, potentially one day think about harming some aspect of the United States), and therefore stonewalling a commission in order to get re-elected and protecting the country are the same thing. Fucking loons.

Mockalicious

I spent some of my radio show yesterday playing and ridiculing George W. Bush's latest TV ads, but this clip of Howard Stern doing the same really blows me out of the water. Give it a listen, es muy chistoso.

[update]

Jeez, then Stern just goes nuts in these clips. He is sooooo pissed at Bush, primarily in these clips, about the economy and Bush's refusal to allow stem cell research. I read last week that Howard Stern has an audience of around 18 million people (well, before Clear Channel booted him off of some of their stations). It is actually possible that Stern might have an impact on this election.

[/update]

Posted by Jake at 09:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Tasty Sounds

My friend Ronny Mikkelsen, who engineers the radio show I produce (the Axis of Justice Radio Network), has dreamed up and worked to create a new weekly radio show on KPFK about the politics of food. Which when you think about it, is a rich and vital subject. Why do we eat what we eat? Who makes our food? What are the effects of our agricultural and consumption habits on society and the environment? Who makes the money? How does big business effect national health policy and how our culture relates to food? So on and so on.

The show's called The Organic Lounge, and premieres today, March 9, at 2pm on KPFK. 90.7 FM in LA/southern California, 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara, KPFK.org (click on "listen live") on the rest of planet Earth.

I'm not sure if they're going to archive shows on their website or not, but I'll be adding a link to their site (still under construction) down in the "Sonic Resistance" links section on this page when I get a chance.

Posted by Jake at 08:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sneak Attack

This really pisses me off.

The MoveOn.org Voter Fund is a "527", a new form of political organization that can collect as much money as it likes, and can use that money on political advertising, so long as it doesn't support or oppose a specific candidate. 527s seem most effective in soliciting donations from partisan voters and then running TV ads that highlight a political topic which makes their opponent look bad (e.g. the "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest winner "Child's Pay", about the effects of the federal deficit). I couldn't tell you just yet if 527s are a good thing or a bad thing, but they are a legal thing-- at least for now.

Enter the Republican party.

A lawyer for the Republican National Committee wrote a letter to 250 TV stations around the country, demanding that these stations not air the MoveOn.org Voter Fund's ads, because they are illegally financed. The letter concludes with a not so subtle warning that the station's could lose their licenses if they continue their "complicity in illegal activity."

If the ads were truly a violation of broadcast law, the stations could expect a letter of warning from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). If the ads violated electoral law, the stations could expect a letter of warning from the Federal Election Commission (FEC). But a letter from the Republican National Committee (RNC)? Last I checked, they weren't responsible for the enforcement of any kind of law.

I could continue tearing this apart, but I'll save us all the time.

This is a scare tactic. The Republicans are trying to scare TV stations into banning ads from liberal 527s by threatening to take away those stations' broadcast licenses. What a bunch of bitches.

Posted by Jake at 12:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 08, 2004

03-08-04

Propagandhi- White, Proud and Stupid
Concrete Blonde- Everybody Knows
Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf- Methods
The Magnetic Fields- Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits
The Casualties- City Life
Tom Waits- Jockey Full of Bourbon
Rolling Stones- Paint It Black
Nirvana- About a Girl (acoustic)
Anti-Flag- This Machine Kills Fascists (live)
Lexicon- Gotta Believe
Ani DiFranco- Serpentine
Sonic Youth- Titanium Expose
Richard Cheese- Hot for Teacher
MF Doom and Madlib- Deuce Goose / Jack Off
Johnny Cash- Folsm Prison Blues
Le Tigre- Bang! Bang!
The Roots- The Spark

Posted by Jake at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 05, 2004

Week In Review 03-05-04

(I had a clever title for this, but it was so obscure that even I didn't get it)

Gonna try something kinda new here. Every weekday morning, I spend an hour or two trawling the internet for news articles to post on the website for my paying job, AxisOfJustice.org. Since I do this every day, it would make sense to just transfer those article links from that site to this one, but that doesn't feel appropriate.

I can't entirely explain it, but the links I choose for the Axis site have a bit more purpose, and fit a vague yet grand design inside my head. I choose articles aimed at bright American teens who don't read much news besides the headlines. I want the articles I choose to either focus on parts of the world that don't get much coverage, or that give new background and context to familiar news topics. I want them to display the cruelty and corruption of this world, but to temper it with stories of courageous resistance, and even the occasional uplifting victory. And somehow, the three daily articles I pick either have to collectively fit this vision, or combine with older posted articles to give that overall impression.

I have no such grand design for the LMB site, so somehow just transferring the articles over seemed like a bad fit.

So, in a fit of obvious insight, I decided that every week I should look over all the Axis articles I've posted, and see which ones do fit over here, and post the links here. Genius, I tells ya. It's something I hope to do regularly.

When All is Looted & Pillaged, Your Hunger Will Remain: The Hatian Boomerang- article by a friend of mine, JG of the rap group Over the Counter Intelligence (weird how modern friendships work. Been writing him back and forth for like a year, just met him for the first time today). JG is Haitian-born and visits there often, and he is just torn up inside over the latest coup. Here is his take on the situation. In addition, he told me that he had another article posted in the same publication that attacks the American left for being so silent on the conflict. Haven't read it yet, don't know if it's any good.

The Junk Science of George W. Bush- if you haven't been paying attention, the Bush administration has been laying waste to the international scientific community, as best as it is able, because science (or some might say "reality") is at odds with the governmental policies it wants to put forth.

Hit the Road Sam- nice story about activists fighting back against US military plans to recruit youth of color in their neighborhoods.

Democrat Not Spoken Here- another article which seeks to answer the question, "why do white, working class Americans vote for politicians with anti-working class policies?", with focus on voters in the South.

If Kerry's the Answer, What's the Question?- author of the book I'm always plugging here, Killing Hope, looks at recent statements that John Kerry has made about foreign policy. Although I think his source material is a little thin, the author concludes that Kerry's foreign policy will be like Bush's with some tweaks here and there, "but nothing at all threatening, or even challenging, to business as usual for American foreign policy." I just want everyone to keep remembering that even though Kerry is probably the lesser of two evils, that he's still evil.

Liberals, bare your teeth- battle-cry from Geov Parrish:

If you were defending yourself, your spouse, your loved ones, your kids from a life-threatening menace, you wouldn't engage in polite debate with the menace. You'd do what was necessary to make sure it could do no harm. That's Election 2004. Your job prospects are on the line. Your retirement. Your future health care. Your civil liberties. Your constitutional rights. Your kids' educations. Their kids' portion of the insane debts now being paid off to the hyperwealthy, assuming there's a natural world left to be poor in by the time these parasites finish any second term. And, beyond it all, it's your city or town increasingly likely to be targeted by some fanatic from some far side of the world who hates what your government did to murder his family...

Act like you're in a war. You are. Every day you wake up, do something about it. You have until November.

Fists in the air, everybody.

Plunder and Profit- nothing really new in this article if you're familiar with the methods of the World Bank and IMF. If you're not familiar, read this damn article, and this little FAQ to get you started.

Lessons from Argentina: Your Factory, Under Worker Control- in the wake of Argentina's total economic collapse, we see the inspiring phenomenon of former workers entering their abandonded former factories, fixing them, and running them without the "help" of owners, bosses or overseers-- the holy grail of the "democratic workplace". Imagine how much less your job would suck if you had partners, not bosses, and your ideas, goals and creativity actually mattered. Something to keep in mind.

Posted by Jake at 10:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 04, 2004

Nipple Ripples

The impact of Janet Jackson's breast-baring continues to reverberate.

The popular (yet puzzling) shock and outrage has been seen by some political folk as a mandate for a crackdown on naughty media. The FCC has rolled out new rules and punishments for TV and radio stations which violate obscenity and indecency laws (but has no problem with the way that monopolistic media destroys democracy. Gotta have your priorities, I guess).

While we're at it, we may as well lay out those rules:

Obscenity: must meet three criteria- "(1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Basically, sexual material aimed at getting you horny, and only at getting you horny. Despite what most people believe about the First Amendment, obscene speech is against the law. If you want your sexy content to be legal, make sure it has some kind of "literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Say that one of the actresses in your porn film is supposed to be Charlotte Bronte and you'll be good to go.

Indecency: "Depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities." That means pee-pees, poo-poo, fannies or hoo-hoos. Indecent material is legal in print, but only permissable late at night on radio and TV (10pm-6am).

One of these days I really should write an article about all of the legal restrictions we Americans have on our rights to free speech. There are quite a lot of them, really.

Anyhow. Due to the Janet Jackson thing, our broadcast industries are freaked out that they might face government regulation. In addition to that, Clear Channel recently received some of the stiffest fines in the history of the FCC for indecent comments made by their DJ "Bubba the Love Sponge"-- $755,000. Bubba has since been fired.

Around this time, Clear Channel suddenly decided that it was a staunch supporter of American decency, and dusted off/created a list of decency codes. Popular Viacom DJ Howard Stern allegedly violated some of those codes, so Clear Channel removed Stern from 6 of its stations. That's really not that big a blow, but those stations were in some pretty major markets.

Do these crackdowns signal a hard right turn in our culture? Probably not. I think that this editorial gets it right when it points out that the predicted "permanent shift" in media tone after 9/11 lasted about six months, and naked tits don't score quite that high on the trauma scale, even if those displayed while the whole world is watching.

But as this chain of dominos keeps falling, as players react when acted upon. It is theorized that in anger over his censorship, that Howard Stern might try to get himself fired from Viacom and take up with one of the satelite radio companies, XM or Sirius, taking some fraction of his 18 million listeners with him and turning them into viable media outlets (at present the combined listenership of satelite radio in the US is around 1.5 million).

If things got worse for Stern this would seem possible, but I don't think it's real likely. Although I would love to see the headline "Jackson's Nipple Launches Satelite Radio".

[edit]

I am aware of the allegations that the reason that Bubba and Stern were cut loose was because they had been criticizing President Bush on their shows. That is certainly a possible explanation, but I try to look for the simplest, most reasonable answers. And when it comes to corporations, the simplest answer is usually "money". Frequently when a company fears that government may pass regulatory legislation on their industry, they usually try to pre-emptively self-regulate, assuming that their own half-assed and misleading attempts to solve the problems themselves will save them the money that obeying externally imposed regulation would cost. I think that reason is more plausible than some sort of secret Clear Channel political agenda.

[/edit]

Posted by Jake at 10:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Noisy Links Added

I just added a new batch of links to the right hand column, down towards the bottom, called "Sonic Resistance." It's a list of websites for politically radical radio programs, pirate radio stations, low-power radio stations, community radio stations, and other audio projects with important informational/political/cultural messages. As I am a quasi-pirate DJ, a radio show producer, and have many DJ/pirate friends, it is a somewhat incestuous list, but nonetheless, there's a lot of good programming in there.

Posted by Jake at 12:52 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 03, 2004

Brother, Can You Spare a Dietary Supplement?

Li'l help?

Like many Americans, my knowledge of health, nutrition, and the human body is near non-existent. Growing up in school, "physical education" meant "gimme ten laps", "health class" meant "how babies are made" and "biology" meant "color in this drawing of a plant cell." It's scandalous, really. The Constitution promises to "promote the general welfare", and the nation's schools works on its young citizens' health by filling their campuses with Coke and candy machines, and teaching them how to cook a perfectly balanced trigonometry function.

Trigonometry for fuck's sake! They've got time to teach you shit about sine waves but not enough to say "try the calcium." Kids, I'll tell you square: trigonometry is useless unless you plan on being a pool shark or a math teacher (and even then, you could probably fake it).

Anyhow, I've been wanting to correct this massive educational neglect by teaching myself a few things about nutrition. Seems like something a person oughta know. But walk down to your local bookstore and go to the health and nutrition section and what do you find? Books on fad diets, books on fad medical theories, and, if you're lucky, graphic books about sex nervously misplaced by curious teen boys.

The point is that I'm ignorant about nutrition, and the only books I find on the subject (when I'm consciously looking for them, anyway) tend to be shady tomes trying to sell me snake oil (or the vegan, low-carb equivalent thereof).

Y'all are some smart people. Can anyone recommend a good, basic "how food affects your health" or "what you should eat to make all your bodily systems work properly" sorta book? I'd appreciate it.

Posted by Jake at 10:52 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Door, Ass, Way Out

Haw Haw!

Michael Eiser Fired as Disney's Chairman of the Board

Posted by Jake at 10:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There's this guy on TV who's telling me that he wants to "take all the confusion out of buying a mattress." Thank god, cuz buying a mattress is like doing calculus and shit.

Posted by Jake at 04:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

What Passes for News These Days

Copied from Empire Notes, transcribed from Fox News' "The Big Story with John Gibson", March 2, 2004:

JOHN GIBSON: Folks in Haiti getting used to life without Jean-Bertrand Aristide. As for Aristide, he is in exile pushing the idea that he is the victim of a coup. Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano has more on the hazards of being a dictator. Well, one of the hazards is you get run out of the country.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST: Absolutely. And you get run to a country which may turn on you. I mean, this Central African Republic has a horrific history of housing dictators. Emperor Bokassa I, who was reputed to be a cannibal.

GIBSON: He was actually acquitted of that charge.

NAPOLITANO: Acquitted of the cannibalism but convicted of murder. When the Central Africa Republic got tired of supporting his lavish lifestyle sent him back to the country out of which he had been kicked. They tried him for murder, sentenced him to 20 years. He was let out after a couple years and eventually died. So we don't know what life will be like for Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Jeeeeee-zus is that some fast & loose playing with the facts.

First, Gibson simply asserts that the democratically-elected Aristide is a "dictator."

Then dismisses Aristide's claims of "coup" out of hand. (As I note in this entry, Aristide was obviously the victim of a coup, what with all the armed men telling him to resign or be killed.)

Then, they imply that Aristide is a dictator again, because he's in Central African Republic, which they claim "houses dictators."

Then, they assert that some guy's a cannibal, even though he apparently isn't.

Net result: "Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a dictator cannibal on the run, who will die a horrible death."

Fox News needs a new slogan. Instead of "We Report. You Decide", it should be "Look at Me!! Look at Me!!"

Posted by Jake at 11:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"The funny thing about one person making a difference, is that when you stand up, you find you're not standing alone."
-Steve Coffman

Posted by Jake at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Movie Sense Tingling

Jeez, comic books have overrun the movie industry to an amazing degree. Check out this list of scheduled comic book-based movies just by Marvel Comics:

The Punisher- April 16, 2004
Spider-Man 2- July 2, 2004
Blade 3- August 13, 2004
Man-Thing- October 2004
Fantastic Four- July 2005
Iron Man- November 2005
Ghost Rider- 2005
Luke Cage- 2005
X-Men 3- 2006
The Hulk 2- 2006
Namor- 2006
The Punisher 2- 2006
Spider-Man 3- 2007
Elektra- TBA
Iron Fist- TBA
Black Widow- TBA
Deathlok- TBA
Captain America- ?
Nick Fury- ?

That makes for at least planned 17 comic book films in the next 3 years (and surely other comic companies have movies in the mix). Now the big question is, do you think that America's love of comic book movies will last that long, or is it a fad that is soon to die? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be making plans for 3 years from now based upon what worked last year.

Posted by Jake at 09:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 02, 2004

Haiti in a Handbasket

An awful lot of bloggers have written this entry today:

I was going to write about the situation in Haiti, but...

And I'm one of em.

I had collected a whole mess of links with in-depth information that help put the pieces of this puzzle together, but The Progress Report really nailed it.

I would highly recommend reading these individual articles on the Haiti conflict:

Don't Fall for Washington's Spin on Haiti (alternate link here)

U.S. political maneuvering behind the ouster

Death squad help for Haiti rebels

That last one should leave you cold.

The way that the US has responded to this revolt is amazing and hypocritical, but the media don't seem to be noticing somehow. Therefore we must highlight this as we often do, with a visit from the Analogy Fairy (see how comfortable I am with my masculinity?)

Imagine that three weeks ago, armed British thugs began seizing power of small British villages. They claimed that they were "rebels" and wanted Tony Blair to step down from power, as he was corrupt and hurting the British people. Blair refused, and the thugs continued their efforts. At this point, the White House advised the democratically-elected Tony Blair to compromise and share power with the armed thugs. And Tony Blair, fearing for his country (or his life), agreed. And the thugs refused the offer, and marched on London. Then, under mysterious circumstances, Blair was gone, leaving behind a note of resignation. Following the law of the land, Blair's successor takes over (Don't know my British government well, but I think that would be Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott). Then, American and French troops enter Britain and start setting up a new government made up of the old government, the thugs, and the "international community."

The astounding bit in there is that the United "We [heart] Democracy" States made no effort to support the democratic regime from violent attack, suggested that the thugs be given power despite their glaring lack of an electoral mandate, and then, even though the government seemed intact, decided to put a new one in its place.

The "was it a coup?" debate is one of the silliest things I've ever seen. Of course it was a coup. My first clue was when an army of men with guns demanded that the president step down or they would kill him. Was the United States behind it? Probably to some extent. The US' general modus operandi in Latin America is to find people you support, or who at least hate the guys you disagree with, and throw money at them until they do what you want (while simultaneously keeping money out of the hands of the people you oppose). So while I have yet to see anything concrete on the issue, but I'm suspicious.

So what's going to happen in Haiti? Predictions are usually pointless, but I suspect that the non-thuggish opposition (there is one) will end up taking the reins (based upon US insistence on a legitimate-looking regime) while the thugs retake the military and end up calling most of the nation's shots.

Posted by Jake at 11:20 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Feed the Rich

Everyone on the blogosphere seems to be linking to this article today, for good reason.

Although the rest of the government is running huge deficits — and never did run much of a surplus — the Social Security system is currently taking in much more money than it spends. Thanks to those surpluses, the program is fully financed at least through 2042. The cost of securing the program's future for many decades after that would be modest — a small fraction of the revenue that will be lost if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.

And the reason Social Security is in fairly good shape is that during the 1980's the Greenspan commission persuaded Congress to increase the payroll tax, which supports the program.

The payroll tax is regressive: it falls much more heavily on middle- and lower-income families than it does on the rich. In fact, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, families near the middle of the income distribution pay almost twice as much in payroll taxes as in income taxes. Yet people were willing to accept a regressive tax increase to sustain Social Security.

Now the joke's on them. Mr. Greenspan pushed through an increase in taxes on working Americans, generating a Social Security surplus. Then he used that surplus to argue for tax cuts that deliver very little relief to most people, but are worth a lot to those making more than $300,000 a year. And now that those tax cuts have contributed to a soaring deficit, he wants to cut Social Security benefits.

The point, of course, is that if anyone had tried to sell this package honestly — "Let's raise taxes and cut benefits for working families so we can give big tax cuts to the rich!" — voters would have been outraged. So the class warriors of the right engaged in bait-and-switch.

Your payroll taxes pay for Social Security. But only the first $80,000 or so of your paycheck is taxed thus, so the rest of your income is payroll tax-free. Since most of us make far less than that, that cap is irrelevant. To people who make more than that, it's a blessing, making their payroll tax rate is much less than people who make less than $80,000 a year.

The stated reason for this is that since there is a limit on how much Social Security money you can receive, that there should be a limit on how much you have to pay in. Kinda makes sense, kinda doesn't. You can only receive so much in government services in your lifetime, does that mean there should be a limit on how much you pay in income tax? I don't know.

Now the governmental budget is in trouble, significantly due to the tax cuts for the rich Bush keeps shoving through Congress. So to make up for that cash shortfall, Alan Greenspan is arguing that Social Security benefits should be cut. The whole nation takes a cut in benefits to, in part, pay for a tax cut for the rich.

Class warfare, as American as apple pie.

Posted by Jake at 08:36 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 01, 2004

03-01-04

RJD2- The Horror
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club- Six Barrel Shotgun
Against Me!- Turn Those Clapping Hands Into Angry Balled Fists
Interpol- PDA
Propagandhi- Fuck the Border
Bill Hicks- Easter / The Pope / Dinosaurs in the Bible
INXS- Heaven Sent
Refused- Rather Be Dead
Tori Amos- Professional Widow
Styles of Beyond w/ 4-Zone- Pay Me
Born Against- The Nail That Sticks Up Gets Hammered Down / This Trash Should've Been Free / Resist Control
Rage Against the Machine- In My Eyes
Paris- Make Way for a Panther / Sleeping with the Enemy
Covenant- Feedback
The Dresden Dolls- Girl Anachronism
Mos Def and Massive Attack- I Against I
Princess Superstar- Super Fantasy
Bad Religion- Automatic Man
Johnny Cash- Hurt
Lightning Seeds- You Showed Me
Damon Albarn- 4AM at Toumanis

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"It might be good for our citizens to recall (or learn for the first time) that the United States was the creation of men who believed that each man has the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere with his neighbor's pursuit of happiness (that his neighbor's idea of happiness is persecuting others does confuse matters a bit)."
-Gore Vidal

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Lying Media Bastards is both a radio show and website. The show airs Mondays 2-4pm PST on KillRadio.org, and couples excellent music with angry news commentary. And the website, well, you're looking at it. Both projects focus on our media-marinated world, political lies, corporate tyranny, and the folks fighting the good fight against these monsters. All brought to you by Jake Sexton, The Most Beloved Man in America ฎ. contact: jake+at+lyingmediabastards.com

Media News

March 30, 2004 As Liberal as They Wanna Be You've heard about that upcoming liberal talk radio network, right? A group of three AM radio stations, with liberal/progressive hosts like Al Franken and Janeane Garafalo, that will stick it to The right-wing radio Man? Sadly, there's a seamy underbelly here: Liberal Air America will displace Black talk at WLIB One of the new network stations, WLIB, was formerly filled with programming aimed at the politics and concerns of NYC's African-American and Carribbean-American communities, very rare in today's corporate media-domnated environment. Now WLIB's gonna be mostly white folks smirking about how Bill O'Reilly says things which are inaccurate. I am unfamiliar with WLIB, so I can't speak too much on its content or importance. In fact, it may have been slipping for some time now. According to this article, WLIB seems to have been edging away from its community-oriented programming towards more profit-friendly fare for some years now. But still, it's hard to see this as anything other than "well-meaning" white people taking control of a black enterprise for the benefit of "everyone" (where "everyone" means "mostly middle class white people"). The new Air America Radio network starts broadcasting tomorrow at noon. Maybe someone should call in to figurehead Al Franken's show and ask him about the network's takeover of WLIB. Posted by Jake at 09:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) More Media News

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Quotes

"When the institutions of money rule the world, it is perhaps inevitable that the interests of money will take precedence over the interests of people. What we are experiencing might best be described as a case of money colonizing life. To accept this absurd distortion of human institutions and purpose should be considered nothing less than an act of collective, suicidal insanity." -David Korten More Quotes

Media News
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Obligatory Blog Links
Alas, A Blog Anti-War Behind the Homefront Beyond Brilliance, Beyond Stupidity Bob Harris Body and Soul Bombs and Shields Busy Busy Busy Confined Space Counterspin Central Daily Kos Dong Resin's Joint Empire Notes Eschaton Fanatical Apathy Feminist Blogs Feministing Interesting Times The Joe Hill Dispatch The Killing Train Margaret Cho		Michael Moore Mouse Words News Dissector Notes on the Atrocities Outsourced America Orcinus Pandagon Political Animal Rad Geek People's Daily The Rational Enquirer Steve Gilliard Talking Points Memo This Modern World A Tiny Revolution to the barricades Turning the Tide The War in Context Whiskey Bar Word from the Wise Xoverboard Zentronix

Snapshots

Freeway, 75MPH, I suddenly wonder if i could steer the car with my teeth. When my open mouth is about 4 inches from the steering wheel, I realize this is crazy and stop. About ten minutes later, I find myself bent forward, steering wheel in my teeth. Man, I really need to start sleeping more. More Snapshots

Columnists Of Note Georgie Anne Geyer Sean Gonsalves Naomi Klein Paul Krugman Eric Margolis George Monbiot Ted Rall American Newspeak by Wayne Grytting Media Beat by Norman Solomon Straight Shot by Geov Parrish Terrordome by Chuck D		References A Century of U.S. Military Intervention (.pdf) Today's Front Pages Evening Newscast Wrap The Media: Who Owns What U..S. Bombing Watch ACLU Student Rights Page Corporate Scandal Fact Sheet CIA World Factbook Urban Legends Reference GW Bush Scorecard of Evil Disinfopedia The Memory Hole Claims vs. Facts Database
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106.9 FM San Diego A-Infos Radio Project A-Noise Alternative Radio Atlanta IMC Radio Axis of Justice Radio Aziatik Rhythmz Background Briefing Between the Lines Blast Furnace Radio Boulder Free Radio ClandestineRadio.com Co-op Radio Vancouver Counterspin Critical Mass Radio Network Democracy Now! Divine Forces Radio Eat the Airwaves Enemy Combatant Radio Feminist Magazine Flashpoints Radio Free Radio Berkeley Free Radio Gainesville Free Radio Olympia Free Radio San Diego Free Radio Santa Cruz		Free Speech Radio News Human Rights Radio IMRU KFAR Knoxville KYRS Spokane Organic Lounge Prometheus Radio Project Radical Radio radioActive SanDiego Radio Free Asheville Radio Free Battleboro Radio Free Canton- Radio Free Nashville Radio Free Whistler Radio LabourStart Radio Volta San Francisco Liberation Radio Sound Portraits StoryCorps This Way Out Uprising War No More Radio WBAI New York Workers Independent News Service (WINS) WPFW Washington DC
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Credits Design and Layout by Mark McLaughlin and Quang Tang LMB Logo by Quang Tang Alt "One Hell of a Leader" logo largely stolen from Obey Giant. All other material by Jake Sexton (unless otherwise cited)