On a more somber note... I HAVE been brooding...

Yes, as below, sometimes you need a few hours to blow off steam in your own way, and killing werewolves in a game is somewhat beneficial, as far as I'm concerned.

However... I read this article in a major paper, and my reaction was yada, yada, tell me something I didn't know!

August fifth marked the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the destruction of the middle class in the US when 'St. Reagan' fired the FAA traffic controllers to break their union.

I have vivid memories of that time, living in a tiny room in a 'Pension'. Which is what used to be an inn, I guess, long ago. And when Reagan came into power, it was a time I would get up mornings to take the tram into town to work, get my smokes and buy the International Herold Tribune, a co-project produced by the New York Times and the Washington Post. It averaged eight pages... four of which were stock market listings. (This was before the age of pc's and cells, and so it moved slower...)

The paper was expensive, but it was just enough info to read and scan till I got to work, and that rag really IS a 'piece of work'. One day, for instance, there was a terrible piece on my chosen city where I live. It painted the town as dark, and Nazis were hiding out in dark doorways, and every cliché you can imagine was in there to put a blot on where I live. And I was LIVID.

(I did take care of it.... I happened to know the press secretary of the workers guild, and before I went into work across the street, I slammed it down on his desk, and yelled, 'This is DISGUSTING, who thinks these things UP?' And he said, 'I'll get to the bottom of it.' And he did. Turns out it was a US opera singer who was very unhappy to be here, and a veritable harpy, I suppose. Her husband was a 'journamalist', so he wrote it because she wasn't getting the roles she wanted. See how that works? Oi! They fired her, and so in the background, it was a scandal, and I'm pretty sure it did nothing for her 'career'. Even then.... there were some evil Rethugs abroad in the land. And I'm sure that bubble-head never dreamed anyone would READ it, let alone do anything about it.)

It was the beginning of what I call the US New Roman phase, although I didn't see it that way at the time.

What REALLY worried me at the time was how fast Reagan was moving to dissolve the social net that kept the poorest above water, and within the first six months of his presidency... well, it took my breath away. Three times a week, I'd catch my breath, reading on the tram and say, 'How can they DO that?'

And the vast public just took it. And I would say to my friends back then, 'I don't know, you can't GIVE benefits to people and just take them away without them standing up and fighting against that.... What the hell is wrong with them? Have they got their heads up their asses?'

I expected demonstrations back then. People on the streets, organising. Nada. And at the time, I shook my head, and said, 'Good gawwd, it's like they'be been brainwashed.' George Bush took it to the max, screening people to listen to him, putting people in Boston behind barbed wire... now THAT was a nice image... how democratic.

Yeah, I was pretty passionate about it.

Reagan's era was a time when there could have been a push-back and things wouldn't have progressed to what we see today.

I just shrugged it off at the time. If they were gonna be so passive, I thought they might wake up when the measures taken began to hurt.

But no, it was a perfect brain-washing. And they used a creeping encroachment on rights, on social services, and NOW? They have an oligarchy, not a democracy. And people who take the D word into their mouths should be ashamed. Less than half the country doesn't vote, and they are usually the ones who complain the loudest.

How NICE to have docile little sheep who think that they can't change anything and just pay and pay, and sacrifice. How totally barf-making.

And how ironic is it that Wisconsin, which was the leader in giving the rest of the US things everyone takes for granted... like a WEEKEND, for instance.... is the first state to get stripped of everything generations before the current one fought for?

As the man wrote, there USED to be a time when the head of a middle class household had a home, and enough to put his kids through college, and take vacations... it was the American Dream. And when Reagan came in, it was the beginning of the end, but not just for the US.

Creeping encroachement, I call it. 'Murka is a role model for a certain type of employer here. When I first came here? You had more than two hours for lunch, and the town shut down. I've written about it before. Now? My last job? You were 'entitled' to a half-hour... whenever it was 'expedient' to take it, 'speak', business was slow enough for you to gulp 'something' down, and go on with work.

The union, especially in our branch was so spineless, well words fail, and we got the brunt of the bad stuff... and as over there.... it sneaked up on us in increments, very small, but in the long run.... hurt financially.

And no one is waking up here either... yet.

Those riots in England? They brought it on themselves', and it makes me LAUGH when I hear about 'oh, the MATERIAL damage', hey. Well how about THEM cutting social services to the bone till people don't know what the fuck the next move is so they can get on their feet, huh? Yeah, according to Faux News, they're just too lazy and want to loot stores and get flat-screen tee-vees. I really don't think it is about that at all... they have no prospects for a future, and the oligarchy wants it that way. And oh yeah, the US is sending over 'experts' to quell the riots, and pour oil on the water... or something like that. Uh-huh.

Which brings me to the current 'journaille'. (Journamalists+canaille)....

I do post a lot of things from MSNBC here, with thanks that I don't get slapped with some copywright charge... and watch it on the internets... but they expressly let you embed them.

Now I don't know if you've ever watched anything they produce on-line... you get a nice screen, and the player which is sort of fucked up.... in that it stalls between blocks of the shows, and you have to refresh.

And between the blocks, there is an ad. One ad. Sometimes you can choose which ad you want to see, and I choose the one that is fifteen seconds long, not a full minute. It gets to be a science, you know?

But recently, the advertisers really drive me to distraction. Yeah, I GET like that, if only inwardly.

Especially the ones from Goldman Sachs, Mobil Exxon, and Chevron. They are all geared to telling you how much 'Good' they are doing in 'Murka. And have the unmitigated GALL to tout how much they are helping New Orleans rebuild, or how they are funding AP classes to teach advanced science and math to kids... and by the way, the US ranks 25th in both in edumacation....

Goldman Sachs was responsible for the housing crisis and near failure of the US economy, and tanked Greece, which caused the crisis in the EU... probably to shore up the dollar against the Euro.

The ads drive me crazy because they are so disingenuous.

If they are pouring their advertising dollars into a so-called liberal station... what are they GETTING for it, is my question.

How much slant gets bought?

August is traditionally 'silly season' in the news, so am not willing to be judgemental at the moment. Except... I can't stand 'Morning Joe' any more, never liked it in the first place. If I have to hear Scarborough's braying jackass voice again it would be too soon. And that simpering 'entitled' 'Dem' Mika Brzinski should be ashamed of herself. And get over herself. He beats on her verbally, and she plays the coy damsel, and she's too old for it. Thinks she made a mark in the business because she demanded equal pay. And that was the bottom line. Intellectually impovershed, or she has no right to say what she REALLY thinks. While he bloviates till you could throw up.

And her... 'OH, I really LIKE governor Norquist!'

(REALLY, darlin'? Go get yourself a toy from the nearest sex shop while you still can, am sure it would be more satisfying... I hate disingenousness.. But hey, she KNOWS people who are movers and shakers. And probably sucks up to them.)

And as to subsidising, here's a kicker for you. Our opera and theater now have productions paid for by banks, energy companies, and such like. Yup, here in Austra.... They used to be kick-ass, and really innovative, but for the last ten years? Things the locals like and don't have to THINK about... Sugar coated pills. And theater can be very political, believe me.

It still isn't as bad as it is there, but how much sedation do WE need from the global companies so as not to say 'enough'?

You can TRY to run away from corporations.... and I had a good twenty five years where I thought I HAD... but in the end.... you can't run far enough, believe me.

So yeah, I've had other things on my mind for quite a while now.

So sue me.