RELIGION and MEDIA - they're both just distractions

the funniest thing to so many kids growing up in america is this picture of jesus that inhabits so many
desolately lonely
church basements across the nation.
if jesus came from the middle east, where most everyone has dark curly hair, olive
skin, and generally rounded features, why does he here look like a suburban blond?
pretty righteous racism, hu?
heaven help us!! no more spagetti diners!!
any italian would blanch at what's served up.

watch out ! !
there's another meteorite just below.

DON'T ASK "HIM"
let's clear something up here. in all the history of religion, society has remained a "dog eat dog" squabble, with everyone fending for themselves. if you lose your job, get a disease, the bread winner gets gets murdered, the crops fail, your stock plummets, you get hit by a meteorite, or some other tragedy breaks your spirit or that of you family, then

GOD HELP YOU,
because no one else will.

in point of fact, most people, even the supposedly old fashioned small town types, never even speak with their neighbors, and keep their window shades continually down - because you never know about people. even kids wont walk around much. this goes on for ages.

THE RIGHT GOD
likewise throughout history, and quite laughably, someone will point out injustice, or even atrocity, perpetrated by people with strongly held religious beliefs. invariably the answer is "oh, those are the bad christians/jews/moslems/whatever.

we're the good ones.

is it really religion, if they have to use comic books to snare you? these people are really dumb.

  
on the left, a group that doesn’t believe                                         jerry falwell, a self appointed preacher who thought he detected
in fundamentalists.                                                                              signs of homosexuality in a british children’s show.

while at bill jones university, a bastion of illiteracy favored by visits from the current president , the counselors will tell you, "we don't want to be accredited", and there's no holding hands. "alternative lifestyles", i.e., artists, unwed mothers, any religion besides christianity, nomads, gays, you name it, is a positive buzz word that has been turned back on itself to  mean perversion and social decay. of course nothing is discussed around the old adage "boys will be boys" even though it usually means violence.  former First Lady hillary clinton's "it takes a village to raise a child" has likewise been ridiculed as anathema to the nuclear family, though americans won't admit this has been the
                                                               practice throughout history.

                                           g
                                                                     "dutch family" by dieter du hooch, ca. 1662

in fact, in northern europe where the idea of capitalism first superseded barter the extended family was praised and depicted in high art. this is the origin of the expression "dutch uncle", meaning someone who, if sometimes overbearingly, has the welfare of the whole family as their first concern.

billy graham

   
"aggressive foreign policies," indeed. how about, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands?

no ego problems here. he was one more commie chasing publicity hound, and a supporter of mccarthy’s irrational life destroying witch hunts. until he started hanging around with presidents, he was just one more obscure backwoods preacher. behind his seeming honest popularity was his promotion by time magazine and the all powerful hearst publications. in his early days, he claimed there was a jewish domination of the media, and pointed out that the bible says that some jews are satanic. the funniest thing about such a righteous christian was that he was

tele-evangelists

“…and possibly a meteor.”
LET’S MAKE THIS ABSOLUTELY CLEAR FROM THE START:
the drivel these people push is
NOTHING MORE THAN THE TELEVISED DECENDENT OF
OLD TIME RURAL TENT REVIVALS.


raise your hands folks - and the licka is sold out back.

their components were equal parts
IGNORANCE
AVARICE
and
MOB PSYCHOLOGY.
for those ignorant of history, tent revivals, in some places the
ONLY FORM OF SOCIAL GATHERING
for those
TOTALLY WITHOUT EDUCATION,
were often the origin of
BRUTAL BRAWLS,
RAMPANT ALCOHOLISM,
ORGANIZED THIEVERY
and were jumping off points for

LYNCH MOBS.

NOTICE BELOW HOW THESE PEOPLE’S PUBLIC STATEMENTS AND ACTIONS REVEAL GREED, HYPOCRACY AND BRUTAL HATRED, all the while practicing the MOST SACARINE and SIMPLISTIC form of religion.
much in the following paragraphs is taken from wikipedia, noted for its insistence on references, plus a few other books on various subjects.

oral roberts
had what he called a ‘god vision’, wherein the lord told him to “ build me a university”, then in 1977 a nine hundred foot tall jesus instructed him to “build me a hospital”. he later announced that his doctors were on the verge of curing cancer – this was one of his most absurd and cruel hoaxes. his empire began to crumble in 1984, so in 1987 he announced to his television audience that if he did not raise eight million dollars that god would “call me home”. he reported that just before the dead line, in the dead of night satan attempted to strangle him, but his wife awoke in time and banished the devil. after this he claimed to be able to raise the dead, while his son supported him, saying faith healers had done this “dozens and dozens and dozens” of times. he also made the modest claim that in the event of his death he would return during the rapture and help rule the world with jesus. his son richard has a closet that measures a humble god fearing 432 square feet. in september 1989 that he was closing his “city of faith” because he was twenty five million dollars in debt. he was forced to sell his two palatial homes and two homes in california that sold for one million dollars. the odd thing is that he probably believes all of his own nonsense.

jim bakker
on the other hand, creator of “the 700 club”, one of the most successful religious programs until that time, and another which included its own satellite network that reached twelve million viewers, was convicted of fraud, which included “double booking” his accounts, and was sentenced to 45 years in prison, which was later reduced to 18 years, but he served less than five years. he and his wife, tammy fay, constantly cried crocodile tears, had vivid dreams of jesus,  and spoke in tongues, though this last they kept in the privacy of their home. tammy became very over weight and responded to this by caking on hideous make up that would put a hooker to shame, in contradiction to the biblical injunction to dress simply. she has a singing voice that would cause cows to stop giving milk and did nothing to develop it in her years of preaching, though that’s o.k. if its in the service of god. he stepped down from leadership after a sex scandal. according to wikipedia: “jessica hahn alleged that, on the afternoon of december 6, 1980, when she was a 21 year-old church secretary, was drugged and raped by bakker and another preacher, john wesley fletcher, for ‘about 15 minutes.’ later, she overheard bakker comment to another PTL staffer ‘did you get her too?’” she left her husband while he was in jail, saying publicly that she was now “less dependant”, then almost immediately married the church’s former chief fund raiser, roe messner, who had been the source of the $265,000 paid to hahn as hush money.  she lost weight, got rid of the make up, and made one horrible record, but now, poor baby, is dying of cancer. on release from prison he addressed a christian leadership conference where

jimmy swaggart
a pentecostal preacher and pioneer of televangelism. considered opinion is that, more than oral roberts, he was just in it for the money. in 1988 swaggart resigned from his ministry after pictures were taken of him with a prostitute. following september 11, 2001, swaggart issued numerous statements condemning islam calling mohamed a "sex deviant" and a pedophile, and that "we ought to tell every other moslem living in this nation that if you say one word, you’re gone." he also criticized the federal government for not instituting policies of racial profiling against arabs, saying we should watch for everyone  

"with a diaper on their head and a fan-belt around their waist." 

in september of 2004 during a sermon, swaggart threatened to kill homosexuals... "i'm trying to find the correct name for it ... this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. ... i've never seen a man in my life i wanted to marry. And i'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, i'm gonna kill him and tell god he died."

pat robertson
used his presidential campaign organization to start the “christian coalition”, a 1.7 million member organization that campaigned mostly for conservative candidates. it became, some say, one of the most influential organizations in american politics, being one of the largest and most powerful lobbying groups in the united states. he has been accused of espousing anti-semitic beliefs in his book “the new world order”, propagating theories about a worldwide jewish conspiracy, borrowing chapter and verse from well-known anti-semitic works. he has said that people who have too much plastic surgery "got the eyes like they're oriental",  stretching his eyelids in a manner stereotypical of asians, and that hindus should be barred from entering the united states, and during his election campaign that he would bring only christians and jews into the government. he claims "thirty to forty thousand" left-wing professors are in the united states, all of whom he accused of being "racists, murderers, sexual deviants and supporters of Al-Qaeda", and made suggestions that the

would be good for the country, and repeated those comments on the air, and best of all, he has stated that the acceptance of homosexuality could result in hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombings and "possibly a meteor." JEEZ, THIS GUYS INSIDE LINE TO THE ALMOGHTY IS SO SPECIFIC.

more good stuff
here's a little known fact about "civilized" england. the Church of England is essentially a state church, and because of this you may own only the approved version of the bible. any including "the apocrypha", widely available throughout the world, can be confiscated, as when a jamaican, a member of the commonwealth, had his confiscated at the airport on returning home.

in the middle ages and beyond the pontiff and the church grew wealthy from money from whore houses in rome. one archaeologist innocently digging at a medieval nunnery found hidden graves of tiny bodies. he looked at old records to find they corresponded to a nine month hiatus after church arranged visits by monks.

so many 
have described the horrors of a religious education:  

                                   physical brutality to small children and emotional repression have warped lives.

praise the lord 
the catholic church is finally collapsing under the weight of thousands upon thousands of priest pedophilia cases. 

                     “we had an attitude of forgiveness” 

hushing up families and transferring priests to one more innocent parish.           

         THIS MAN IS EVIL

                                                                        g

                    CARDINAL LAW, AFTER REPEATED DENIALS SPANNING DECADES
                      
                          ONLY AFTER THREAT OF SUBPOENA OF CHURCH DOCUMENTS   
                       HE ADMITTED KNOWING ALL DETAILS OF PRIEST PEDOPHILIA CASES.

WHILE INDIVIDUAL PRIESTS FACE PROSECUTION AND LONG PRISON TERMS, THE “PRESTIGE” OF THE CHURCH STILL PROTECTS THE HIGHER UPS THAT WERE COMPLICIT.

                                -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
everyone has forgotten that the Boy Scouts of America, while successfully fighting the inclusion of gay members on the grounds of being a private organization, DID EXACTLY THE SAME THING AS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, hiding and moving pedophiles to new

GROUPS OF VICTIMS. 

                ---------------------------------------------------------

everyone knows the justifications for the catholic church and the pope is one line in the bible where christ tells peter, "it’s your show after they string me up." (we’re not sure, but we think the passage is: matthew 16:18)

mystical habiliments
why should the clothes a “religious person” wears make any difference? the styles are merely what everyone wore in medieval days. so what? funny hats are very important to these people, but they are not any more cheerful. 

fear of deceit, war, disease, calamity, sustenance (survival)
are a pathetic basis for religion. fulfillment is defined totally in terms of blind obedience to doctrine, backed by the threat of divine judgment or institutional retribution. there are proscriptions on clothes, manner of speech, separation of the sexes, the virtual deification of priests and that great bogey of history, sex, always assuming that without guidance the worst in people will immediately become ascendant.  there are thousands of rules but no system, leading to a despotism of the soul. to the pure religionist doctrine is the only logic, totally lacking in emotional or sociological subtlty.

point

there isn’t one chuckle in the bible, koran or sutras. 

this is not a trivial point.

rules for airheads
oh, those subtle "commandments." "respect your mother and father"??? even if they beat and rape you? if they are rapists or murderers?  "give us this day our daily bread"??? only if you want your teeth to fall out and spend your short life in lethargy. "thou shalt not kill." - except in wars. "do not covet your neighbors...slaves." hey, really cool!! we get to have slaves. "you shall not take the name of the lord in vain." - but you can interpret the word of god any way that suits you.

here's the best one: "you shall not bow down to [graven images] or worship them, for i am a jealous god, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me." now there is one compassionate god. not just their children, but their children's children's children. that seems a little rough.

                                                                   g

those goofy catholics!!!    hey wait a minute!!!

                                                     DRINKING BLOOD?            
                                                     EATING FLESH?
                                                     are these people VAMPIRE CANNIBALS?
                                                                  and they don't like pagans?

                                     SIN?
                                            who invents this stuff?

                                      and those saints.
                                                 if you go into any catholic home you'll see at least one shrine to a SAINT
                                                            isn't there something in the bible about
                                 graven images?

not only can these people, without god's help, wave their majic scepter and make a mere mortal a "special person," a saint, they can also remove this special celestial privelege. it's not like they recognized a gift from god, it's their action. poor saint christopher, the patron saint of travelers. just imagine, he's up there in his special saint part of heaven, hopping around on the clouds, and all of a sudden he's just another bag of bones.

why does divinity devolve upon the merely mortal? in the original christianity and buddhism,

 there were no priests.    

more rules than you can shake a schtick at
why not make an absolute evil of commerce? half of judaism is about how to make a profit - before you get your dander up, have you read the commentaries? christianity and islam both emphasize charity to the poor, yet is poverty ever not the result of indifference and hate? hinduism institutionalized the obscene concept of “the untouchable” class, while giving brahmins the power to degrade everyone and abandon their family responsibilities at will. to the moslem even more than the christian the human body is evil and to be always covered, restricting free movement, which is not very healthy, never feeling wind or sun, which is not very good for your vitamin A production or even sane. most religions in one fell swoop condemn half the human race to perdition – Eve caused the fall from grace so all women are evil.

a little slow on these divine revelations
the great, great majority of christians do not even know that their religion only began to take its present form    

which is an extremely non-trivial point for a so called “revealed” religion - one recieved directly from the divine. this is when both the doctrines of “original sin” and “the christ killing jew” originated. IT IS STILL VERY MUCH TRUE that a majority of catholics have an     automatic aversion bordering on loathing to curly hair and olive skin. or that during this period there were literally hundreds of sects, many sharing essential points of doctrine. the dead sea scrolls reveal christanity and judaim to be almost indistinguishable, which fact was suppressed for almost fifty years. the truth came to light in the computer age when frustrated scholars pieced together fragments from various journals.

slavery is so religious g pooper nick V dum diversas was a papal bull issued on june 18, 1452 by pope nocholas v, authorising afonso v of portugal to enslave saracens and pagans to indefinite slavery, credited with "ushering in the west african slave trade." pope calixtus III reiterated the bull in 1456 with etsi cuncti. it was renewed by pope sixtus IV in 1481 and pope leo X in 1514 with precelse denotionis, and extended to the americas in 1493 by pope alexander VI with inter cetera. that's a lotta fancy latin for fifty years of tradition backed by the highest religious authority.                  the page on the right is from the "book of lists - 2."

"you have got the devil in you and we will whip him out of you."

                                                      g

no different from secular authorities
when not in direct power itself, religion has always backed tyrants and committed atrocities. the jews have been persecuted for thousands of years. documents revealed more than thirty years ago show the catholic church knew full well what was happening in germany during world war two and did nothing, and inside germany stood shoulder to shoulder with the nazis. the “eastern orthodox” church of the slavs was and is part of this – the words “pogrom” and “ghetto” come from this part of the world. and lets not forget the Spanish Inquisition, where torture was the most common method of extracting “confessions.” in china, whose incredible history of overpopulation is only rivaled by india, the endless paean of confucianism is “authority, authority, authority, keep your place and all will be well.”

another good question or two
why does no religion value, and in detail: 

• the wonder and care of small children 
• the value of common sense 
• the uplifting effect of culture 
• the liberating effect of humor 
• the effect of health on the spirit 
• respect of diverse cultures 
• the absolute value of consistency. read: against hypocrisy. 

yea, god is really SUPER DOOPER.
there is no bias in this modern example,
because
this is really what ALL religion is like.


IT'S ALWAYS THE SAME.
they talk about god, but they mean rape.

 
left. the caption reads, "yaseem was sold into prostitution when she was twelve. she is now about 25."
below. quotes from the article.

“constantly clacking prayer beads”,
“arbab happens to sell people.”

 after the 14 year old girl is led in, “some
of the men can be seen rubbing themselves.”

 she is not only a virgin, but “untouched”
- she has not even had anal sex with
her previous master, a common practice.

 women are considered “disposable.”
most “don’t live to the age of 30.”

 some compounds have their own artillery.

 “they are poor. we are helping them.”
for the whole article, 
click:

religious slavery - sexual slavery

the understory is cruel
while in peaceful times abandoning most people to crushing loneliness, and are rife with the ignorant and socially and mentally ill. all religions seem composed of three groups: a small fanatic privileged class, a larger group for whom it provides some comfort and an excuse for bigotry, and the vast numbers of fellahin, those whose lives consists of work and ignorance. is judaism, the religion of “god’s chosen”, peaceful? far from it, when because of the rape of one of their own they slaughter an entire nation, and among themselves, the old testament regulates the term of a “bond servant” as seven years, and is renewable! islam even has a special word for war, as long is it is righteous! in hinduism the goddess lakshmi presides over good fortune and money. why are religion and money always combined? the lands of islam are still wracked by a medieval poverty, where an aged widow has only two chickens for her survival, yet in the marketplace automatic rifles and grenade launchers are abundant.


then there is, don't look, it's too horrible

SEX!!!
       r. crumb
...as the religionist see it.

the prohibitions against the body and sex, far from being the restricted to christians and moslems, is the crudest form of social control the world over. the proscriptions are not about coming closer to god but

it is this fear of the body, and the socialized acceptance of embarrasment, that causes MOST of peoples' emotional, and even psychological, problems.

         is all this religion?  phooey!!!

here are a few suggested additional “commandments”:

worse not better
organized religions have separated the divine from nature and humanity, regularizing a progressive atrophy of the spirit while giving power to an elite, always the male half of the species.

“churchianity” 
this is a better label for what most people do. if you go this this special building on a specific day, then you are a good person. the average “churchianity” believer is poorly educated, poorly dressed, listens to bad music and might have really bad manners, though they might be very clean, friendly, obedient and 

progressive russia
under the new perestroika russia has again banned almost all religion except the reinstated orthodox church.

BURN ! BURN! BURN!

   gg
it's all just like a family picnic.

again, compressed from wikipedia, with plentiful references removed.

the malleus maleficarum, latin for "the hammer of witches", or "hexenhammer" in german, is one of the most famous medieval treatises on witches. it was written in 1486 by heinrich kramer and jacob sprenger, and was first published in germany in 1487. it was the culmination of a long medieval tradition of treatises on witchcraft, the most famous being the formicarius by johannes nider in 1435-1437. the main purpose of the malleus was to systematically refute all arguments against the reality of witchcraft, refute those who expressed even the slightest skepticism about its reality, to prove that witches were more often women than men, and to educate magistrates on the procedures that could find them out and convict them. misogyny runs rampant in the malleus maleficarum. the treatise singled out women as specifically inclined for witchcraft, because they were susceptible to demonic temptations through their manifold weaknesses. it was believed that they were weaker in faith and were more carnal than men. most of the women accused as witches had strong personalities and were known to defy convention by overstepping the lines of proper female decorum. after the publication of the malleus, most of those who were prosecuted as witches were women. indeed, the very title of the malleus maleficarum is feminine, alluding to the idea that it was women who were the evil-doers. otherwise, it would be the the masculine form of the latin noun maleficus or malefica, 'witch'. it should be noted that in Latin the feminine "maleficarum" would only be used for women while the masculine "maleficorum" could be used for either gender.

little things

LET'S NOT FORGET THAT LITTLE THING CALLED

THE INQUISITION.

   g

us-centrism left. a geocentric solar system map. right. "var!"- notation in upper right of photo. cepheids are a type of variable star where there is a strict correllation between period and intensity, allowing it to be used as a "standard candle" to measure distance. this was discovered by henrietta swan leavitt in 1908. in 1923 edwin hubble identified a cepheid in the andromeda nebula, proving for the first time that there was a galaxy outside our own. WE ARE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. WE ARE GOD’S SPECIAL CREATION. WE ARE FREEKIN HILARIOUS LITTLE BUGS. a time line of our increasing lack of importance – at least from the traditional viewpoint 1.       the earth is flat and we live in the middle. oh heck, go up on a mountain with surveying equipment, or just watch the ships slowly sink toward the horizon. 2.       the sun and the solar system revolve around the earth. a small problem here is that it can’t be made to work, while the alternative fits like a glove. this is variable, depending on enforced doctrine. 3.       the earth is only 3 thousand years old. radioactivity shoves that back a few billion years. radio carbon dating gives a good approximation for more recent dates, that are still much older than the traditional value. why would god contradict herself? is it because she “works in mysterious ways.”? 4.       it is theorized that we share a common origin through physical processes with all other life. massive evidence to support this idea slowly accumulates. the world is torn between gasps and giggles as americans, more illiterate than many people in the “third world”, declare the idea a product of “gullible” minds. anthropologist jane goodal documents what many feel intuitively, that animals, especially higher primates, have emotional lives and complex societies. 5.       the galaxy is bigger than we thought. star and cloud surveys and the doppler effect, or “red shift”, provides major clues. 6.       some of those tiny lights are other galaxies – the universe expands enormously – 14.3 billion light years to be exact. blame it on cepeid variables. 7.       quantum mechanics and relativity say the world just aint the way we thought. the basis of “common sense”, definiteness and measurement, take a really hard blow. but the theories work really, really well, so we’re stuck with ‘em. 8.       archeo/extreme bacteria were probably the original form of life – making us an offshoot. 9.       we are not evolved from monkeys – but we share more than 99 percent of our genes with them. shucks, it’s that darn genome project that’s providing so many medical hopes. 10.   our solar system is unique, and hence also any life. except that we’ve found a few hundred and counting just in the “local” neighborhood. 11.   dark matter may or may not exist – if it does then we are composed of a type of matter that is less than ten percent of the whole. 12.   the latest cosmological theories – very uncertain but compelling – indicate a bubbly froth-like meta-universe – with our entire universe just one in an infinity of same. WHAT’S A POOR HOMO SAP TO DO? HOWZABOUT JUST LIVE IN PEACE AND GET ON WITH IT? LIFE, SHORN OF PRIMITIVE NOTIONS, CAN BE SCARY BUT IS NOT ONE WIT LESS TOTALLY AMAZING, NOT TO MENTION CUDDLY.

god said you should be like us

in a recent legal case that reached the federal supreme court, the issue at hand was portrayed as freedom of expression versus separation of church and state. a high school was first banned from singing hymns at school athletic events. then a student club was formed to perform at school functions, essentially doing as they had before. the court accumulated 

of a long history of harassment of non-christians in the town and its papers and civic organizations and in the school a lack of response to complaints, exclusivity in clubs and the common practice of jewish children being given the nazi salute. how can these people claim to be religious? why not just shout, "we're bigots and we're proud!" this is unfortunately the baseline for most religion, NOT JUST HATEFULL, but

CONSCIOUSLY DEVIOUS

here's a LINK to the relevant 
ARTICLE,

"How They Prayed In Texas",
and then some.

GOOD WORKS?

g

a rusty old saw
the traditional religionists say, 

yeh, right!! its pretty clear that

like something crawling out from under a rock, and when pressed we're told it's what god wanted anyway - "its all your fault for not believing strongly enough!!" this is a pretty rusty old saw.

a god of sloth and cruelty
if western culture is based on greek culture, as endorsed by the church, then what ever happened to

"mens sana in corpore sano"?

ok, this is usually translated as, "a healthy mind in a healthy body," but we are aware of the difficulties of translation, and "sano" translates better as "clean," in the sense of pure and well rounded. but you get the idea.

both above are from the june, 06 national geographic article, “solace at surprise creek,” on a hutterite community. the writer was on assignment when he learned that his son had died, and said that he received solace from the community.

oh yea?

pictured is the leader of the community, who was having trouble staying on his “doctor assigned” diet, taking his daily lethargy siesta.

do we really need this?
a leather strap in the twenty first century?
“grow up to be obese and lethargic or we will beat you.”

                  g  

cults
there is no shortage of fools who seem to need to be told how to live, and whose pennies make possible dangerous nonsense. the supposedly hideous "heretics" that have sprouted throughout the history of mainstream religions have nothing on these oddballs.

moonie wedding

the “moonies”, 
followers of sun yung moon, profess  a religion which is a moronic mish mash of christianity, buddhism, astrology, camp sing-a-longs and herd behavior, being married hundreds at a time in identical clothes, often with couples who have never before met. while the leader’s shattered family wallows in unrestrained luxury, sex, drugs and power, wielding an empire of newspapers and radio stations.

the nam-ho-renge-kyo
sect of buddhism almost wholly consists of chanting in order to gain worldly possessions. the poor buddha must be spinning in his grave.

buddhism in america  
unlike in the countries of it's origin, buddhism in america has no cultural background. one of the few  sincere imports at a time of social exploration, it is now just another way for the self styled rebelious of all ages to say, "i'm not like my parents" while maintaining all the comfort and luxery that they have become accustomed to. few are willing to practice the universal compassion or very real dicipline of the original.

scientology
was started as a million dollar bet on a yacht - this is a historical fact, there where witnesses, and has an almost total lack of doctrine outside of a vague “progression through stages” coupled to a crude science of measuring attainment through skin conductivity!! it has evolved into a vast business empire given to dirty tricks that put governments to shame, putting the force of all its money into lawsuits, and perfecting the arts of crushing all criticism through brainwashing, ruining lives and infinite evasion. they have lately successfully promoted their own style of reading education in public schools. editors’ note: as political as this website is, just for mentioning them, we’re personally more afraid of these people than of the government.

the aum shinriko (supreme truth) cult, 
responsible for the japanese subway nerve gas attacks, sought, like charles manson, to ratify its vision of apocalypse by encouraging it. this gas is actual high technology and took a lot of money to produce. but equally terrifying were the propaganda films of its leader, shoko asahara, whose charisma consisted of obesity and blindness, in which he was backed by giant fuzzy “hello kitty” style puppets swaying to insipid pop music. the subway attacks, with only five devices, killed ten and injured 5,000, many requiring hospitalization, all almost certainly with

                     
                                                tokyo subway

mormons
have one of the largest churches in d.c., visible from the highway, yet were once harrassed across the country to settle in desert utah and form their own little empire, which they enforced with the gun, going so far as to band with indians to ambush westward wagon trains (see the reading list: The Long Death.) the religion starts in the u.s.a. west where the founder finds more Commandments engraved in metal, but they're lost - not a good start. these people proceletize so hard they seem to be without the idea of a private god, they are everywhere. its less well known that it is part of the practice, once you join, for "elders" to come sit in your living room for hours several times a week to make sure you're not straying from the true path. also there is a history of murder in the higher ranks over jealousy and, you guessed it, succession of the true way. they are not big on women outside the kitchen. and there's the peopled by a fantastic number of bizarre super secret astrology/cosmoscreatures  not seen elsewhere, based on nothing, which they don't tell the new people about. since these people sorta OWN UTAH, economic control means construction and mining and they are famous for walking over present day indians. if you are related to the bride or groom, YOU WON'T BE INVITED TO THEIR WEDDING, because of course, you are not REALLY one of gopd's children. now they just content themselves with

• controlling the economy of the southwest u.s.a. 
• and putting facsist christian politicians in the national arena.

 
as many people are fascinated with "stars," whatever that means, as with god. here's the little psycho herself,
with shaved pate, taking an umbrella to her ex-hubby's vehicle.
the perfect run-in to media.

MEDIA

                                                                 propaganda remix project

"the white man's stories are like wind
  that does not touch the face."
                   - native american folklore

"may you be born in interesting times."
             - a chinese curse

this last requires a little explication. the adage embeds the cultural awareness that what most people consider "interesting" is sensation, strife and misfortune, right up to catastrophe and war.

or, in the occidental verson:

"no news is good news"
you don't need news if you've got a real life.


cfree

"the newspaper is the roar of the machine."

- w .b. yeats   - poet, mystic, irish nationalist

during the vietnam war pro and con articles appeared in newspapers across the nation. with the two iraq wars nothing was covered and not the slightest criticism was made. instead a veritable jingoistic circus of "shock and awe" washed over  media of all types like a tidal wave.

is this reporting or considered opinion?

then and now
newspapers, in the very old days the bulwark of the informed citizen, are now the prime oppressor. you'll never hear about the shady deals of politicians that are taken as common practice, just the occasional "investigative report" on someone too foolish to cover their tracks. nor about the tens of thousands hurt or killed by industry neglect or municipal indifference, much less a real social analysis of why you're breaking your back for some mega-company. what does make it to the collective awareness is so trivial its effect is literally

while all the "issues" themselves that are "contested" are defined by powerful interests. now all of the electronic media have amplified these errors, with the partial exception of the world wide web, itself being massively swamped with trivia and sex.

at the expense of any traditional culture, VIOLENCE IN MODERN MEDIA HAS BECOME PERVASIVE and there is always more, in video games, movies and cartoons. people are portrayed as bitter, supercilious and petty, with no character development or plot anywhere. pokemon and jackie chan are archetypes of the new pervasive bloodless violence, though violence it is, and influences people into acceptance, which has

more in poorer male oriented cultures.

陳港生

是沒有榮譽

personal problems and suffering, even in hospitals, are aired for entertainment, people compete in bizarre situations, and the police are ever idolized as people voyeuristically participate in the chase of the criminal. in hosted personal drama shows the only criterion of success is audience reaction, the more blatant and crude the better. and let’s not forget SEX, the bogyman of the religious and fascination of the illiterate. its as PERVASIVE as violence. need we look any further, than to ask would it be so common in media if people were having healthy relationships?  its not possible that those who watch these things are in ANY sense literate, yet they are BECOMING THE NORM.  the romans invented “BREAD AND CIRCUSES” in a blatant tactic to divert their ever poorer citizenry and it was

america has perfected this form of propaganda in the FAR REACHING electronic medias. ten thousand images moving and in print are everywhere telling you how to look and live, all smiling families or cold chic, always average but perfectly formed and ultimately dull. the corporations sell by saying, 
  

are these real people?
are the words sane?
who pays for their dental work?
don't they make you want to retch?
they all look the same.

glossy magazines
are the prime drug of the illiterate voter. another hour wasted. the last bit of creativity subsumed in mega-mass culture. college was a waste anyway, and the depression was just something our folks used to talk about.

these are the prime offenders. 
everything important covered in a few pages. 
listen to the "experts."
they've been around for forever and all say “trust your leaders and consume.” 
we’ll even tell you what products you simply MUST have. their greatest sin is 
pushing the thought that every idea can be covered in a few glossy pages – if that. 
the "letters" sections cannot but give a minute portion of moronic opinion.

"time" just put on it’s 100 year gala celebration, but you won’t find the average person invited. all that money is spent for luxurious accommodations just to pat themselves on the back. the guest star is h, kissenger, the “butcher of cambodia,” who orchestrated an illegal war and caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

if you look at even one of these,
remove your brain
IMMEDIATELY
and take it to the local toxic waste facility
and have the CARAMEL FLAVORING removed.
god, don't people ever get sick of looking at
themselves?

no news
there is literally NO NEWS  in the u.s.a. stereotypes are generalized into meaninglessness. you will be regaled with nothing but PAT PHRASES: 

is safe from this trivialization. this is news? even the russians make fun of the lack of content or professionalism. 

nothing new

“if it bleeds, it leads”

 
is a modern expression for what throughout the ages has been the entertainment of the uneducated. during the french revolution old women would bring their knitting to watch the guillotine and hangings have always been popular. public executions are now banned in most places but sick impulses are still pandered to, right next to meaningless politics, the comics and the weather.

when asked what he thought of popular media, spike lee, the now famous black film maker, said:

• pounding bass, 
• overwhelming layered strings, 
• backgrounds of emotionally tense “suspense” 
• and a small range of idioms cueing cheap emotionalism.

disney

a synopsis of “the lion king”:
your father is killed by his brother,
adventure is having nowhere to stay and noone to trust.
a fantasy set in a world were, in reality, everything is dying and people are at war.
but it’s animated and cute and
there’s no blood or screaming.

• an acceptance of aggressive attitudes and behavior 
• and  learn the fear of becoming a victim, 
• showing increased self protective behavior 
• and general mistrust 
• and they become emotionally desensitized, decreasing the likelihood that they would aid someone in trouble.

the real purpose of large media is to

TRIVIALIZE

the senseless brutality in the world

why do you think they call it "programing"?

ADVERTISEMENTS OR “MESSAGES,”
ALMOST UNKNOWN IN STATE SPONSRERED EUROPEAN TELEVISION, PROMOTE THE LOWEST FORM OF INTELLECT AND DEPENDANCE. 

it would be a mistake to denigrate the whole idea of popular culture. after all, it has its own value and is the origin of many motifs in higher art and generates new genres. skateboarding evolved into snowboarding and became an olympic sport. yet the effects of mass media have produced a “culture” where the saccharin and trite are idolized, uniformity is the rule, and the bottom line is always the dollar even if it promotes violence. 

how much of popular culture of the present takes notice of the wonderful things of the past or even a major style such as jazz? how many blacks can name one brilliant miles davis song? how many whites know the sweet simple words to “glow worm”? what spanish person recognizes the name of primier drummer tito puente? what person reared on modern ac/dc-imitation country music can recognize the soulful backwoods carter family? the last remnants of indigenous culture the world over are dying out, to be replaced with this?

   
left. the mills brothers, from one of the most popular songs of the day. the post-depression era produced some wonderfully light hearted music. middle. the carter family brought backwoods honesty to the nation. country's roots go straight back to england and scottland. june married "the man in black," johny cash. right. tito puente set audience aflame right up to his last days. though american, he preserved what now only survives in south america.

why do people who enjoy death so 
much end up all puffy and blotchy?
but his publicity releases always 
show him ten years younger with
perfectly styled fluffy hair.

lest we forget: GEORGE LUCAS IS INSANE. thanks george, for giving us the term "star wars", making common the idea that

filling the entire galaxy, destroyng whole planets for entertainment. and the bad guys always wear black hats.  he makes money every time his theme music plays in every grocery store in the country, as dull brained shoppers wander through isles of bland food,  from every "spin off" toy that every child just has to have.

speaking of insane, JOHN WALSH lost a young child to a criminal predator then started a t.v. show, "america's most wanted", which single handedly gave rise to the despicable genres of "reality" and "cop" shows. he literally modernized a  slickly professional form of the roman

using human suffering as entertainment and a distraction from larger social issues, idolizing law enforcement and condemning all criminal's rights to a circus side show, while himself becoming "hollywoodized", a carefully manicured and staged parody of himself.  now it is totally common to see, carefully "alleged", criminals -  human beings 

AMERICA'S   BIMBO
katie couric. we have endeavored to stay away from the most current issues in order to avoid even the hint of involvement or lack of generality, BUT THIS WOMAN IS WAY OVER THE LINE.  after years of being a corporate mouthpeace on national network news, she is now slated to be a "lead newscaster". one nationally famous political cartoonist and two nationally syndicated comic strip authors all ran strips comparing her to famous personalities of the past, portraying her as someone whose intellectual output consists of the words, "GOOD MORNING, EVERYBODY!!! HI!! IT'S ME!!".
(1)  completely towing the party line, at the start of the second iraq war her only comment was, 
                                                                         "NAVY SEALS ROCK ! !", 
AS IF GOING TO WAR WAS A PARTY, WHILE EVENTUALLY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS WOULD DIE AND A COUNTRY IS REDUCED TO RUBBLE.

(2)  during the recent winter olympics a person, just happening to have black skin, burst on the scene to win an unprecedented medal in skating. he had grown up in a poor neighborhood and his mother had worked two jobs just so that he could practice in the way that was necessary to become a world class athlete. he recieved no help from anyone and told of unending arrogance of his lighter skinned team mates. after his victory catie approached him and said,
                                                       "are you angry? you look angry."
and when, with a stone cold face he replied, "no", she was at a total loss for words, YET HAD PRE-PREPARED a video of him giving a victory cheer to japanese reporters ! !
all the time her new proposed salary was

                             fifteen million dollars ! !
no one, absolutely no one, is that naive any more. its as if we were watching "gone with the wind" again, with scarlett oharra's father, sitting in the burnt shell of his home after the civil war, saying, 

now to flay some sacred cows:
n.p.r.
n.p.r., the non-profit national public radio station, might as well be fascist lackeys. in an effort to maintain an image of professionalism, n.p.r.

widely acknowledged to have reduced america’s attention span to ten seconds, if that.

in a professional sing-song so affectless that all that remains is a white simper, you are daily given endless bits of exactly the same news, that might as well come directly from the government, its so unquestioned. there are endless repetitions of insidiously soothing advertisements from your new giant corporate masters, with humanitarian names but whose affiliations are never made clear.

an example: two carefully coached youths, sounding as innocent as little children, say, 

“we didn’t know we’d be doing important research on genetically modified crops to end world hunger.” 

but who exactly they work for is never revealed. besides, their research will make little difference

 as long as food is for profit.

another example: the Pew charitable trust has great academic associations, doing large surveys. founded by an oil baron, it is supposed to represent a huge influx of money into the environmental/social justice field. with huge amounts of money, it rents plush offices in washington, d.c., hires high priced executives and is extremely top heavy and runs adds in major newspapers. they also disdain all grass roots organizations that have spent years sacrificing to frame and research issues, refusing cooperation and setting up its own groups that take center stage within months of being formed. the Sierra Club, about as american as apple pie and seriously concerned with issues, has never received a penny from the Pew. 

• its director, carl pope said, “I don’t think you make social change happen on the basis of paid staff in washington and paid ads in papers.” 

• twenty eight of the world’s worst polluters.

between the sound bites, personality bites, sponsor bites and music bites there is an amazing lack of information. insidiously, every-day topics are interspersed with upsetting news, destroying the emotional impact of the later. there is an amazing incidence of topics like “regional cuisine” or “our american pets.”            snappy music introduces a story on horrific war conditions in africa, a live feed from the b.b.c. on the effects of an assassination on the stock market, while blue grass music backs a segment on suspicious prison deaths. the overall effect is to convince comfortable americans that if they just go about their business and tune in everything will be taken care of. its more like background music for decorating your condo.

here’s a clincher
the federal communications commission  had already passed regulations freeing some frequencies for low power community radio stations. n.p.r. teamed with the national association of broadcasters to successfully lobby the house of representatives to kill the regulations because “ more stations would cause radio interference and would hurt communications by infringing on commercial radio’s ability to serve their communities.”

“public” radio, indeed.

and lets not forget National Geographic magazine
which endlessly reports the vanishing of cultures and ecologies in glossy full page photos. the kiddies can get books made just for them about vanishing species. none of this destruction ever has a direct cause, and you’re sure to eventually run into a candid photo of the intrepid female author/photographer giggling over the half naked “native.” documentaries on the lifestyle of drivers of the huge machines used in strip mining are next to one on poverty on indian reservations, one on the wonders of evolution next to one on a country of poor dominated by religion. it just never stops, and it's all "americana."

"judging a book by its cover  sales"
who the heck are these people, who make claims to be so brilliant, but judge a book by its sales? you have to fill up that book review section with something every week, and peoples reputations are in the balance, but why not just go out and read the book? if you're interested in a subject, you'll either be familiar with the feild or hear about from friends.

to heck with the

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLERS LIST.

as to the New Yorker, 
it is full of cast off art, ironic bitterness (or is it bitter irony?) and endless wordy comments on fragments of culture, as if to say, "with this on your coffee table you can be upper class and enjoy culture without all the sweat and emotional work of creativity." it is not the place to look for incisive criticism on anything, aesthetic or social, but simply the epitome of throw away art specifically designed for consumption. it's sad that this bible of the disaffected is so easily pigeon holed.

radio - fools for sale
almost since the inception of radio the  style of all voicing is 

its always in the background somewhere and the constant effect is to numb the mind. all to sell, sell, sell. can you imagine actually talking to someone in these tones?

FM radio has become what AM used to be, only much slicker. todays DJs, unlike television personalities, who can at least pretend they have a career, are corporate whores, paid to be fast talking idiots - with nothing to say they're still always funny and cool, plastic in a way that used only to be applied to hollywood. 

when there is a WHOLE WORLD of fantastic music they play the WORST OF THE WORST 

some people are so foolish as to think that their every word and breath is not scripted.

as for "classical" stations, itself a chauvanist term, they continue a long tradition of smug complacency that obviates the possibility that there might be BAD classical music, while fake highbrow accents don't mask the fact that announcers often cannot pronounce the names on the play list properly. almost the only thing left is college radio, and then mostly after midnight. lord knows we don't need one more cheery undergrad oblivious to the poverty that gave rise to reggae. ethnic, retro and specialty programs and even stations are dying like flies. this condition is so uniform and pervasive that on this subject, sad to say,

let's end on a personal note, 
to reflect attitude over institution. the singer frank sinatra was once the golden voiced darling of the world, yet ended up typifying the cheezy cheapness of mafia las vegas. everyone wrapped up in idolizing him refused to believe stories of his underworld connections until president kennedy himself was forced to abandon him after revealing court testimony. as recounted in the comic strip "doonesbury", he once told an annoying photographer in public:

"i can have you killed for three hundred dollars."

g
this photo was inserted in the last panel of the cartoon strip.
don't they look like just a bunch of good friends?

"a thousand and one nights" or a thousand pieces of gibberish
"read instructions before use", "great savings if you buy now", "no parking in front of hydrant", "road work next five miles", "keep feet and parcels off seat", "f.b.i. copyright notice", "exit ahead", "do not open washer until cycle stops", and always a good excuse for an exclamation point: "while supplies last!!!"
and our personal favorite: "let the people off the subway".

we can't resist 
the funniest joke kids tell about pornography is:

and as to the COMIX in the daily papers,
who reads this stuff? is it a better measure of intelligence than the poor writing in the paper itself? very rarely is there anything funny at all, at most a guffaw or "knee slapper". most of it continues old patterns of stereotypes and pain and misfortune. your dog can write funnier stuff.

                     
           thanks to jerry manders, who once was a yucky crook. read his books.

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