Politics

American Politics is Getting All Koch'ed Up

Charles (left) and David KochThe grassroots pressure group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), that actively fought health care reform, boasts "our citizen activists" are "the heart and soul" of the organization. So AFP wants the public and the media to believe. But an exhaustive report in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine, shows that the heart and soul behind AFP are really the oil billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, whose privately-owned oil enterprise has made them among the richest men in America. In addition to petroleum interests, the Kochs also own a host of familiar products like Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet and Lycra. Their massive combined wealth makes them the third richest people in the country, behind only Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who are better known to the public. The Kochs have intentionally obscured their involvement on the American political scene through the creation of an elaborate network of front groups, think tanks, foundations and astroturf organizations, but the public is quickly getting to know the Koch brothers better. Given their extreme wealth and pervasive efforts to manipulate the American public, it is a name everyone should get to know very, very well.

Welcome to the Infotainment Freak Show

Submitted by Steve Horn on

In his essay titled, "Welcome to the Infotainment Freak Show," Marty Kaplan, Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the founding director of the Norman Lear Center for the study of the impact of entertainment on society, writes,

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Main Source: 
The Huffington Post, August 9, 2010
Topics: 
Pundits
Media
Politics

"Digg Patriots" Shut Out Liberal Content

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Digg logoAn undercover investigation of the popular Web site Digg.com shows a group of conservative users secretly banded together to censor liberal Web content on the site. One of the most popular sites on the Internet, Digg.com works on a simple premise: people submit Web content -- like news stories, videos or images -- for consideration, and Digg subscribers vote them up or down.

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Main Source: 
Alter Net, August 5, 2010
Topics: 
Right Wing
Internet
Politics

Beware This "Constitutional Convention"

Caution:Tinfoil hat areaAn organization called the "Save America Foundation" is putting on conferences around the country that it promotes to host communities as "Constitutional Conventions." John Michael Chambers, the Save America Foundation's founder and spokesman, is telling local press that these events are intended to "stress the Constitution, not current politics," but Chambers is stingy on the details. He doesn't say exactly how these gatherings will "stress the Constitution," or describe specific goals the gatherings hope to achieve.

Investigation reveals that these so-called "Constitutional Conventions" are part of a wave of hysterical fear and scapegoating currently sweeping the country, and that the "Save America Foundation" has overtones of an apocalyptic cult that relies on fear to motivate susceptible audiences. John Michael Chambers, the Clearwater, Florida radio talk show host and financial planner who founded the group, believes the United States is being overtaken by a "New World Order" perpetrated by "elitists." He writes on the organization's Web site that:

Progressives Up In Arms Over Brand Obama's Insult

Barack Obama buttonsA year and a half after his November 4, 2008 election, the progressive left is, rightfully, up in arms over the lack of integrity President Barack Obama has shown across the gamut of burning contemporary political issues. These include, but are not limited to issues such as war, health care, secrecy, warrantless wiretapping, and environmental issues, among many others.

A healthy and flourishing representative democracy depends on an engaged citizenry standing up and demanding that their representatives represent them. President Obama said so himself at this year's Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas in his desperate plea to show progressive activists that he is, indeed "one of them." It does not take a political guru to understand that this was a desperate attempt to garner support from progressive Democrats for the 2010 elections, who, according to soundbites his Administration pulled together from The Rachel Maddow Show and included in the video address to the attendees at Netroots Nation, have fought so hard for that magical buzzword he used so loosely in 2008: change!

Reading Between the Lies

Iraq's Ministry of Interior recently released a civilian casualty count for the month of July. Their report accounted for the lost lives of 535 Iraqis, making this past month the most violent since June 2008. This escalation in violence can be attributed in part to a situation which Jeremy Scahill, writer of the ground breaking novel, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and correspondent for Democracy Now! explains as an unstable country. Iraq is as "unstable as it has ever been," Scahill says. "They [Iraqis] can't form a government. The vast majority of people don't have consistent access to potable water, to electricity, to gasoline... Iraq is a disaster right now."

Tom Ridge Joins the Marcellus Shale Coalition's Natural Gas Gold Rush

Tom Ridge's bookFormer Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has, for the most part, been out of the spotlight for the past year since he wrote his book titled The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...And How We Can Be Safe Again, which came out in September of 2009. In that book, Ridge confessed that, although unsurprising to anyone who understood the rampant fear-mongering and propaganda that took place in the post-9/11 Bush era, he was pressured by others in the Bush Administration to purposely manipulate the infamous color-coded National Security Alerts for political reasons, and in particular, during the run-up to former President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004.

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