The votes are in, and The Konformist readers have spoken. Jerry Sandusky is your choice for the 2013 Beast of the Year - a choice that is well deserved.
If there is any lesson to be learned in this year's BOTY victory, it's this: people don't like child molestors. That succinctly explains how Sandusky won an award normally garnered by someone or something heavily inovled in control of the political or economic system. Not that political control is completely missing from the Sandusky sex abuse scandal: left uninvestigated are allegations that wealthy individuals were involved in sex abuse as well, which would explain the unusually speedy trial Sandusky faced.
Runner-Up: Justin Bieber
In the unlikely event that Sandusky can no longer fill his duties as Beast of the Year, Justin Bieber is ready to take over the crown. Rest assured the BOTY trophy is in good hands either way.
In any case, we salute you, Jerry and Justin. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, dudes!!!
Showing posts with label Beast of the Month. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beast of the Month. Show all posts
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Monday, December 23, 2013
Who is The Konformist Beast of the Year?
Please note: if you have already voted via the website, please vote again, as the Yahoo vote count was reset.
Who is The Konformist Beast of the Year?
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2012 to April 2013. Here are the choices:
May 2012: Rupert Murdoch
Let's forget for a minute that Murdoch runs the most ruthlessly dishonest right-wing media empire in the world. Let's forget also that while it's been uncovered that his outlets have been engaging in widespread computer hacking while he has hypocritically pushed for tougher laws against cyber criminals. Just ask this: if the names "Murdoch" and "News Corp" were taken out of the story, and the evidence of the widespread hacking were reported in the news, would this guy be in jail?
June 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy
While losing his re-election campaign for France's President, Sarkozy became the face for the failed austerity movement in Europe and the voter backlash against it. That may be a tad unfair (the real culprit isn't Sarkozy, it's the IMF) but he's been such a toad to both Bush and Obama, he deserves little sympathy.
July 2012: Jerry Sandusky
There really is a slam dunk choice in BOTM with a guy who engaged in serial pedophilia for well over a decade, aided with a coverup by institutional leaders of one of the most powerful colleges in the US. That is scandalous enough, but left uncovered is allegations that Sandusky was providing kids to others richer and more powerful, allegations that indicate Sandusky is a scapegoat in his own right.
August 2012: Justin Beiber
Perhaps this pick doesn't need to be elaborated on. The question is simply this: "Why is this guy still around?"
September 2012: Dan Cathy
It seems strange that the question of eating a chicken sandwich would hold so much political importance. But as Cathy has pushed an anti-gay agenda through his Chick-fil-A profits and even used the company itself to promote his views, it has become a ground zero in the battle of gay rights and gay marriage.
October 2012: Innocence of Muslims
Rarely has a movie made such an impact on politics as this one, although here the term "movie" is used loosely since there's no evidence this film actually exists. Nevertheless, the excerpts of this "film" on YouTube make this an attempted October Surprise apparently organized by far-right CIA operatives, anti-Islam Fundamentalist Christians, and Israel through it's Mossad espionage outfit.
November 2012: Todd Akin
Why did the Republicans get their asses kicked in the 2012 election? Sorry, Mitt Romney wasn't the real problem, the real problem was the GOP candidates just plain scared most Americans. And nobody perfectly represented this scariness like Akins, who led off a "Rape Brigade" of rogues who just couldn't stop talking about rape in a stunningly offensive way.
December 2012: SuperPACs
For all the Democratic victories, the real winner of the 2012 election was still money and the corruptive influence of SuperPAcs on democracy. And it seems that the negative influence of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling will only continue in the coming years.
January 2013: Benjamin Netanyahu
Okay, The Konformist concedes the complexitites of Middle East politics can't be fairly reduced to a snarky paragraph placing all the blame on one bad "Beast" character. Still, Bibi, the current Israeli Prime Minister and head of the Likud Party, is the ideological equivalent of the Neocons that drove the US to Iraq War disaster. Meanwhile, it's time to acknowledge that when comparing the treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid-era abuses, Israel could be fairly described as little more than South Africa with bagels.
February 2013: Piers Morgan
Let's pretend for a second that the establishment media caricature of Infowars.com star Alex Jones as a paranoid nutjob is essentially correct. (And as entertaining as his surreal performance on Piers Morgan's show may have been, we concede he made the case very easy.) Even if that was true, he still came off better than Morgan in the gun control debate. Meanwhile, Morgan is as heavily involved in the British tabloid hacking scandal as Rupert Murdoch, a fact that has been unreported.
March 2013: Zero Dark Thirty
Sometimes Beastly art is just poorly made. (If you need examples, watch a few Pauly Shore films.) And sometimes Beastly art is well made but offensive. Case in point: Zero Dark Thirty, the cinematic glorification of the alleged Osama bin Laden assassination, which dabbled in apologism for torture and traded artistic integrity by becoming a mouthpiece for the CIA and Pentagon.
April 2013: Cardinal Keith O’Brien
Less than eight years after assuming the papacy, Benedict XVI called it quits, amid widespread evidence that his rise in the church hieracrchy was linked to his coverup of pedophilia among priests. The corrupt nature of selecting his replacement is highlighted by O'Brien, who only was excluded from the conclave by his own choice after revelations of abusing his position for demands of homosexual sex. This despite Cardinal O'Brien pushing the Catholic Church's anti-gay agenda publicly.
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
Who is The Konformist Beast of the Year?
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2012 to April 2013. Here are the choices:
May 2012: Rupert Murdoch
Let's forget for a minute that Murdoch runs the most ruthlessly dishonest right-wing media empire in the world. Let's forget also that while it's been uncovered that his outlets have been engaging in widespread computer hacking while he has hypocritically pushed for tougher laws against cyber criminals. Just ask this: if the names "Murdoch" and "News Corp" were taken out of the story, and the evidence of the widespread hacking were reported in the news, would this guy be in jail?
June 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy
While losing his re-election campaign for France's President, Sarkozy became the face for the failed austerity movement in Europe and the voter backlash against it. That may be a tad unfair (the real culprit isn't Sarkozy, it's the IMF) but he's been such a toad to both Bush and Obama, he deserves little sympathy.
July 2012: Jerry Sandusky
There really is a slam dunk choice in BOTM with a guy who engaged in serial pedophilia for well over a decade, aided with a coverup by institutional leaders of one of the most powerful colleges in the US. That is scandalous enough, but left uncovered is allegations that Sandusky was providing kids to others richer and more powerful, allegations that indicate Sandusky is a scapegoat in his own right.
August 2012: Justin Beiber
Perhaps this pick doesn't need to be elaborated on. The question is simply this: "Why is this guy still around?"
September 2012: Dan Cathy
It seems strange that the question of eating a chicken sandwich would hold so much political importance. But as Cathy has pushed an anti-gay agenda through his Chick-fil-A profits and even used the company itself to promote his views, it has become a ground zero in the battle of gay rights and gay marriage.
October 2012: Innocence of Muslims
Rarely has a movie made such an impact on politics as this one, although here the term "movie" is used loosely since there's no evidence this film actually exists. Nevertheless, the excerpts of this "film" on YouTube make this an attempted October Surprise apparently organized by far-right CIA operatives, anti-Islam Fundamentalist Christians, and Israel through it's Mossad espionage outfit.
November 2012: Todd Akin
Why did the Republicans get their asses kicked in the 2012 election? Sorry, Mitt Romney wasn't the real problem, the real problem was the GOP candidates just plain scared most Americans. And nobody perfectly represented this scariness like Akins, who led off a "Rape Brigade" of rogues who just couldn't stop talking about rape in a stunningly offensive way.
December 2012: SuperPACs
For all the Democratic victories, the real winner of the 2012 election was still money and the corruptive influence of SuperPAcs on democracy. And it seems that the negative influence of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling will only continue in the coming years.
January 2013: Benjamin Netanyahu
Okay, The Konformist concedes the complexitites of Middle East politics can't be fairly reduced to a snarky paragraph placing all the blame on one bad "Beast" character. Still, Bibi, the current Israeli Prime Minister and head of the Likud Party, is the ideological equivalent of the Neocons that drove the US to Iraq War disaster. Meanwhile, it's time to acknowledge that when comparing the treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid-era abuses, Israel could be fairly described as little more than South Africa with bagels.
February 2013: Piers Morgan
Let's pretend for a second that the establishment media caricature of Infowars.com star Alex Jones as a paranoid nutjob is essentially correct. (And as entertaining as his surreal performance on Piers Morgan's show may have been, we concede he made the case very easy.) Even if that was true, he still came off better than Morgan in the gun control debate. Meanwhile, Morgan is as heavily involved in the British tabloid hacking scandal as Rupert Murdoch, a fact that has been unreported.
March 2013: Zero Dark Thirty
Sometimes Beastly art is just poorly made. (If you need examples, watch a few Pauly Shore films.) And sometimes Beastly art is well made but offensive. Case in point: Zero Dark Thirty, the cinematic glorification of the alleged Osama bin Laden assassination, which dabbled in apologism for torture and traded artistic integrity by becoming a mouthpiece for the CIA and Pentagon.
April 2013: Cardinal Keith O’Brien
Less than eight years after assuming the papacy, Benedict XVI called it quits, amid widespread evidence that his rise in the church hieracrchy was linked to his coverup of pedophilia among priests. The corrupt nature of selecting his replacement is highlighted by O'Brien, who only was excluded from the conclave by his own choice after revelations of abusing his position for demands of homosexual sex. This despite Cardinal O'Brien pushing the Catholic Church's anti-gay agenda publicly.
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Who is The Konformist Beast of the Year?
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2012 to April 2013. Here are the choices:
May 2012: Rupert Murdoch
Let's forget for a minute that Murdoch runs the most ruthlessly dishonest right-wing media empire in the world. Let's forget also that while it's been uncovered that his outlets have been engaging in widespread computer hacking while he has hypocritically pushed for tougher laws against cyber criminals. Just ask this: if the names "Murdoch" and "News Corp" were taken out of the story, and the evidence of the widespread hacking were reported in the news, would this guy be in jail?
June 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy
While losing his re-election campaign for France's President, Sarkozy became the face for the failed austerity movement in Europe and the voter backlash against it. That may be a tad unfair (the real culprit isn't Sarkozy, it's the IMF) but he's been such a toad to both Bush and Obama, he deserves little sympathy.
July 2012: Jerry Sandusky
There really is a slam dunk choice in BOTM with a guy who engaged in serial pedophilia for well over a decade, aided with a coverup by institutional leaders of one of the most powerful colleges in the US. That is scandalous enough, but left uncovered is allegations that Sandusky was providing kids to others richer and more powerful, allegations that indicate Sandusky is a scapegoat in his own right.
August 2012: Justin Beiber
Perhaps this pick doesn't need to be elaborated on. The question is simply this: "Why is this guy still around?"
September 2012: Dan Cathy
It seems strange that the question of eating a chicken sandwich would hold so much political importance. But as Cathy has pushed an anti-gay agenda through his Chick-fil-A profits and even used the company itself to promote his views, it has become a ground zero in the battle of gay rights and gay marriage.
October 2012: Innocence of Muslims
Rarely has a movie made such an impact on politics as this one, although here the term "movie" is used loosely since there's no evidence this film actually exists. Nevertheless, the excerpts of this "film" on YouTube make this an attempted October Surprise apparently organized by far-right CIA operatives, anti-Islam Fundamentalist Christians, and Israel through it's Mossad espionage outfit.
November 2012: Todd Akin
Why did the Republicans get their asses kicked in the 2012 election? Sorry, Mitt Romney wasn't the real problem, the real problem was the GOP candidates just plain scared most Americans. And nobody perfectly represented this scariness like Akins, who led off a "Rape Brigade" of rogues who just couldn't stop talking about rape in a stunningly offensive way.
December 2012: SuperPACs
For all the Democratic victories, the real winner of the 2012 election was still money and the corruptive influence of SuperPAcs on democracy. And it seems that the negative influence of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling will only continue in the coming years.
January 2013: Benjamin Netanyahu
Okay, The Konformist concedes the complexitites of Middle East politics can't be fairly reduced to a snarky paragraph placing all the blame on one bad "Beast" character. Still, Bibi, the current Israeli Prime Minister and head of the Likud Party, is the ideological equivalent of the Neocons that drove the US to Iraq War disaster. Meanwhile, it's time to acknowledge that when comparing the treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid-era abuses, Israel could be fairly described as little more than South Africa with bagels.
February 2013: Piers Morgan
Let's pretend for a second that the establishment media caricature of Infowars.com star Alex Jones as a paranoid nutjob is essentially correct. (And as entertaining as his surreal performance on Piers Morgan's show may have been, we concede he made the case very easy.) Even if that was true, he still came off better than Morgan in the gun control debate. Meanwhile, Morgan is as heavily involved in the British tabloid hacking scandal as Rupert Murdoch, a fact that has been unreported.
March 2013: Zero Dark Thirty
Sometimes Beastly art is just poorly made. (If you need examples, watch a few Pauly Shore films.) And sometimes Beastly art is well made but offensive. Case in point: Zero Dark Thirty, the cinematic glorification of the alleged Osama bin Laden assassination, which dabbled in apologism for torture and traded artistic integrity by becoming a mouthpiece for the CIA and Pentagon.
April 2013: Cardinal Keith O’Brien
Less than eight years after assuming the papacy, Benedict XVI called it quits, amid widespread evidence that his rise in the church hieracrchy was linked to his coverup of pedophilia among priests. The corrupt nature of selecting his replacement is highlighted by O'Brien, who only was excluded from the conclave by his own choice after revelations of abusing his position for demands of homosexual sex. This despite Cardinal O'Brien pushing the Catholic Church's anti-gay agenda publicly.
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2012 to April 2013. Here are the choices:
May 2012: Rupert Murdoch
Let's forget for a minute that Murdoch runs the most ruthlessly dishonest right-wing media empire in the world. Let's forget also that while it's been uncovered that his outlets have been engaging in widespread computer hacking while he has hypocritically pushed for tougher laws against cyber criminals. Just ask this: if the names "Murdoch" and "News Corp" were taken out of the story, and the evidence of the widespread hacking were reported in the news, would this guy be in jail?
June 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy
While losing his re-election campaign for France's President, Sarkozy became the face for the failed austerity movement in Europe and the voter backlash against it. That may be a tad unfair (the real culprit isn't Sarkozy, it's the IMF) but he's been such a toad to both Bush and Obama, he deserves little sympathy.
July 2012: Jerry Sandusky
There really is a slam dunk choice in BOTM with a guy who engaged in serial pedophilia for well over a decade, aided with a coverup by institutional leaders of one of the most powerful colleges in the US. That is scandalous enough, but left uncovered is allegations that Sandusky was providing kids to others richer and more powerful, allegations that indicate Sandusky is a scapegoat in his own right.
August 2012: Justin Beiber
Perhaps this pick doesn't need to be elaborated on. The question is simply this: "Why is this guy still around?"
September 2012: Dan Cathy
It seems strange that the question of eating a chicken sandwich would hold so much political importance. But as Cathy has pushed an anti-gay agenda through his Chick-fil-A profits and even used the company itself to promote his views, it has become a ground zero in the battle of gay rights and gay marriage.
October 2012: Innocence of Muslims
Rarely has a movie made such an impact on politics as this one, although here the term "movie" is used loosely since there's no evidence this film actually exists. Nevertheless, the excerpts of this "film" on YouTube make this an attempted October Surprise apparently organized by far-right CIA operatives, anti-Islam Fundamentalist Christians, and Israel through it's Mossad espionage outfit.
November 2012: Todd Akin
Why did the Republicans get their asses kicked in the 2012 election? Sorry, Mitt Romney wasn't the real problem, the real problem was the GOP candidates just plain scared most Americans. And nobody perfectly represented this scariness like Akins, who led off a "Rape Brigade" of rogues who just couldn't stop talking about rape in a stunningly offensive way.
December 2012: SuperPACs
For all the Democratic victories, the real winner of the 2012 election was still money and the corruptive influence of SuperPAcs on democracy. And it seems that the negative influence of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling will only continue in the coming years.
January 2013: Benjamin Netanyahu
Okay, The Konformist concedes the complexitites of Middle East politics can't be fairly reduced to a snarky paragraph placing all the blame on one bad "Beast" character. Still, Bibi, the current Israeli Prime Minister and head of the Likud Party, is the ideological equivalent of the Neocons that drove the US to Iraq War disaster. Meanwhile, it's time to acknowledge that when comparing the treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid-era abuses, Israel could be fairly described as little more than South Africa with bagels.
February 2013: Piers Morgan
Let's pretend for a second that the establishment media caricature of Infowars.com star Alex Jones as a paranoid nutjob is essentially correct. (And as entertaining as his surreal performance on Piers Morgan's show may have been, we concede he made the case very easy.) Even if that was true, he still came off better than Morgan in the gun control debate. Meanwhile, Morgan is as heavily involved in the British tabloid hacking scandal as Rupert Murdoch, a fact that has been unreported.
March 2013: Zero Dark Thirty
Sometimes Beastly art is just poorly made. (If you need examples, watch a few Pauly Shore films.) And sometimes Beastly art is well made but offensive. Case in point: Zero Dark Thirty, the cinematic glorification of the alleged Osama bin Laden assassination, which dabbled in apologism for torture and traded artistic integrity by becoming a mouthpiece for the CIA and Pentagon.
April 2013: Cardinal Keith O’Brien
Less than eight years after assuming the papacy, Benedict XVI called it quits, amid widespread evidence that his rise in the church hieracrchy was linked to his coverup of pedophilia among priests. The corrupt nature of selecting his replacement is highlighted by O'Brien, who only was excluded from the conclave by his own choice after revelations of abusing his position for demands of homosexual sex. This despite Cardinal O'Brien pushing the Catholic Church's anti-gay agenda publicly.
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Beast of the Month: January 2013
Benjamin Netanyahu
Okay, The Konformist concedes the complexitites of Middle East politics can't be fairly reduced to a snarky paragraph placing all the blame on one bad "Beast" character. Still, Bibi, the current Israeli Prime Minister and head of the Likud Party, is the ideological equivalent of the Neocons that drove the US to Iraq War disaster. All his recent movements - the bombings of the Gaza Strip, the failed attempt to block Palestine observer state status in the UN, and the spiteful response with plans to build 3,000 new settlements in the occupied West Bank territories, betray a bellicosity that took us dangerously close to World War III. Meanwhile, it's time to acknowledge that when comparing the treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid-era abuses, Israel could be fairly described as little more than South Africa with bagels.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Beast of the Month: November & December 2012
Here are the latest winners for Beast of the Month. Monthly columns should return in 2013.
November 2012: Todd Akin
Why did the Republicans get their asses kicked in the 2012 election? Sorry, Mitt Romney wasn't the real problem, the real problem was the GOP candidates just plain scared most Americans. And nobody perfectly represented this scariness like Akins, who led off a "Rape Brigade" of rogues who just couldn't stop talking about rape in a stunningly offensive way.
December 2012: SuperPACs
For all the Democratic victories, the real winner of the 2012 election was still money and the corruptive influence of SuperPAcs on democracy. And it seems that the negative influence of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling will only continue in the coming years.
Monday, November 12, 2012
BOTM May-October 2012
Here are the recent winners for Beast of the Month...
May 2012: Rupert Murdoch
Let's forget for a minute that Murdoch runs the most ruthlessly dishonest right-wing media empire in the world. Let's forget also that while it's been uncovered that his outlets have been engaging in widespread computer hacking while he has hypocritically pushed for tougher laws against cyber criminals. Just ask this: if the names "Murdoch" and "News Corp" were taken out of the story, and the evidence of the widespread hacking were reported in the news, would this guy be in jail?
June 2012: Nicolas Sarkozy
While losing his re-election campaign for France's President, Sarkozy became the face for the failed austerity movement in Europe and the voter backlash against it. That may be a tad unfair (the real culprit isn't Sarkozy, it's the IMF) but he's been such a toad to both Bush and Obama, he deserves little sympathy.
July 2012: Jerry Sandusky
There really is a slam dunk choice in BOTM with a guy who engaged in serial pedophilia for well over a decade, aided with a coverup by institutional leaders of one of the most powerful colleges in the US. That is scandalous enough, but left uncovered is allegations that Sandusky was providing kids to others richer and more powerful, allegations that indicate Sandusky is a scapegoat in his own right.
August 2012: Justin Beiber
Perhaps this pick doesn't need to be elaborated on. The question is simply this: "Why is this guy still around?"
September 2012: Dan Cathy
It seems strange that the question of eating a chicken sandwich would hold so much political importance. But as Cathy has pushed an anti-gay agenda through his Chick-fil-A profits and even used the company itself to promote his views, it has become a ground zero in the battle of gay rights and gay marriage.
October 2012: Innocence of Muslims
Rarely has a movie made such an impact on politics as this one, although here the term "movie" is used loosely since there's no evidence this film actually exists. Nevertheless, the excerpts of this "film" on YouTube make this an attempted October Surprise apparently organized by far-right CIA operatives, anti-Islam Fundamentalist Christians, and Israel through it's Mossad espionage outfit.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Beast of the Year 2012: Paul Ryan
The votes are in, and The Konformist readers have spoken. Paul Ryan is your choice for the 2012 Beast of the Year - a choice that is well deserved.
Perhaps the biggest news story of the last year - if not of the last four years - is just how scary crazy the entire GOP has gone in the age of Obama. And no figure has been more important in the Republican Party to the right-wing movement than Paul Ryan, currently their VP nominee in this year's election. His 2012 federal budget plan would abolish korporate income taxes, estate taxes, taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest, and heavily reduce tax rates on the wealthy while ruthlessly cutting social programs, partially privatizing part of Social Security to Wall Street and fully privatizing Medicare. Some would call this "Ayn Rand on Crack" (which may be an unfair smear of Ms. Rand, who was at least a gifted writer) yet all but four Republicans in the the HOR and five in the Senate voting for it.
Runner-Up: Brian Moynihan
In the unlikely event that Ryan can no longer fill his duties as Beast of the Year, Brian Moynihan is ready to take over the crown. Rest assured the BOTY trophy is in good hands either way, as Mr. Moynihan has had great Beastly practice as CEO of Bank of America.
In any case, we salute you, Paul Ryan and Brian Moynihan. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, dudes!!!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Who is The Konformist Beast of the Year?
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2011 to April 2012. Here are the choices:
May 2011: Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
Despite an attempt to suppress the horrifying effects via a collaboration of political leaders and korporate media, strong evidence is quietly accumulating that Fukushima is even worse than Chernobyl. The coverup by the establishment is not only in Japan and the US, but in the entire industrialized world, where military industrial complexes profit off the false notion that nuclear power is both safe and cheap.
June 2011: Paul Ryan
As reactionary and feckless as the Democratic Party has been in the age of Obama, the GOP has become scary crazy. Exhibit A: Paul Ryan's 2012 federal budget plan, which would abolish korporate income taxes, estate taxes, taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest, and heavily reduce tax rates on the wealthy while ruthlessly cutting social programs, partially privatizing part of Social Security to Wall Street and fully privatizing Medicare. Some would call this "Ayn Rand on Crack" (which may be an unfair smear of Ms. Rand, who was at least a gifted writer) yet all but four Republicans in the the HOR and five in the Senate voting for it.
July 2011: Ken Feinberg
Though not particularly well known, Ken Feinberg is a stunningly loathsome individual: as the government-appointed pay czar for the BP Gulf oil disaster, he has squeezed victims to sign off on lowball compensation claims or face long painful legal battles while dealing with personal economic crisis caused by BP's gross negligence. This is not new: previously Feinberg had done the same screwing victims of Agent Orange, Dalkon Shield and even the 9/11 disaster, bullying them all in lawyer hardball for korporate and insurance giants. Unsurprisingly, the one time Feinberg hasn't ripped off those he administered as a pay czar is in approving obscene salaries to beneficiaries of the Wall Street Bailout via TARP.
August 2011: John Lipsky
If there's one news story over the last year that just stinks of a frame-up, it's the supposed rape charge and continued harrassment of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former IMF Managing Director and (until the dubious arrest) leading contender for the French presidency. DSK was becoming an increasingly strong critic of the neoliberal economic agenda and even suggested the taboo (as far as the US banking system is concerned) of replacing the dollar as the solitary international currency. He was arrested in New York in potential violation of both international law and diplomacy protocol before any evidence had been properly analyzed, then dumped onto Rikers Island until he resigned, conveniently timed to allow Lipsky to push the Greek austerity plan through.
September 2011: Jersey Shore
The idea that "Reality" TV is manufacturing a more depraved society in America is a conspiracy theory The Konformist has supported for over a decade. Jersey Shore, the new low in culture trash, is pretty ironclad proof in our book.
October 2011: Peter King
Ten years after 9/11, Congressman King is perhaps the most notorious elected official to engage in anti-Muslim rhetorics that is barely concealed race-baiting against Middle Easterners. His "Muslim radicalization hearings" give him the stench of a modern-day Joseph McCarthy.
November 2011: Brian Moynihan
That none of the leaders of the big banks have been jailed for their crimes is an outrage: that instead they were given billion in bailouts while homebuyers were given the shaft is a complete offense. That Bank of America under their CEO Moynihan then tried to gouge customers with a monthly $5 debit card fee was a complete insult to account holders who bailed out the company's ass in the first place. Fortunately, in the backlash that followed, account cancellations increased by 20% and B of A backed down.
December 2011: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney & Rick Santorum
The six best arguments for Barack Obama in 2012 are these six jokers, who represented the GOP in the campaign against him. Whether it be they are true believers or cynical opportunists, the policies and positions of these politicians perfectly exemplify the toxic combination of cluelessness and frightening demagoguery that dominates the Republican Party. (Ron Paul, despite his many flaws, was once again exempted from Beasthood due to his surprising level of honesty, integrity and principled stands for a politician.)
January 2012: Eric Holder
While most analysis of Obama as a leader focus on the economy, his failures on justice and civil liberties may be his more notorious legacy, a legacy sanctioned by Holder as Attorney General. The legacy includes sanctioning unauthorized wiretapping, torture techniques and punishing whistleblowers. Meanwhile, the ruthlessness Team Obama has hunted whistleblowers, along with the push for indefinite detention of supposed War on Terror suspects and the legalization of assassination of Americans, has made a shockingly strong case that Obama is even worse than George W. Bush was on defendingthe Constitution, the supposed primary purpose of a prez.
February 2012: Chris Dodd
Based on their history of attacking freedom of speech, it would be reasonable to assume the GOP would be behind the greatest threat in years to the Internet. Sadly, that would be false: SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) may have had some backings by Republicans and right wing business leaders (most notably the repulsive Rupert Murdoch) but in the end it's fair to say it was a Democratic Party bill funded by big Democrat money. The biggest player was the Motion Picture Association of America, the lobbying arm of the supposed "liberal" Hollywood film industry in Hollywood, whose Chairman is the former Democratic Senator Dodd.
March 2012: Terry Gou
If one is to make a case for the dark side of Apple, item one would be its Faustian collaboration with Foxconn in making its products, all the more offensive due to lack of necessity. (Unlike most companies, Apple competes in value rather than price, making the extreme exploitation of workers not part of their business model.) Still, the crude exploitation by Gou's Taiwanese goes far beyond their partnership with Apple and indicts the entire electronics industry.
April 2012: Joseph Kony & Kony 2012
What could be worse than an African war criminal whose deranged pseudo-religious cult of mysticism pushes children into sex slavery and cannon fodder for his theocratic Lord's Resistance Army? (As Marlon Brando would put it Apocalypse Now: "The horror.") How about a movement pushed forward by a film that, no matter how well meaning, seems to only the public on a Western invasion of Africa, the real purpose of which seems to be to steal even more natural resources from the continent?
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
Friday, July 8, 2011
Beast of the Year 2011: Obamacare
The votes are in, and The Konformist readers have spoken. Obamacare is your choice for the 2011 Beast of the Year - a choice that is well deserved.
What started as a movement to finally give universal healthcare coverage in the USA (sparked by Michael Moore's 2007 documentary Sicko) morphed into Obama's more vague "health care reform" and finally into the bloated law known as Obamacare. Rather than showing interest in providing health care to Americans, the main focus of the law is in providing more profits to private insurance companies, the parasitic oligopoly at the heart of the healthcare crisis. Whatever the new requirements are on the insurance corps is minor compared to the mandate that all Americans purchase health insurance, a mandate that has no legal precedent. The most indicting thing about Obamacare is it was a healthcare strategy designed by right-wing think tanks in the nineties as a response to the Clinton plan for real universal coverage. That is what makes the whole debate over the law so perverse: it is establishment "liberals" who are defending this extremely right-wing proposal rather than attacking it. Thus, Obamacare shows how much the frame of debate has been distorted in the age of Obama not only in healthcare, but in politics in general.
Runner-Up: Teabaggers
In the unlikely event that Obamacare can no longer fill its duties as Beast of the Year, the Teabaggers are ready to take over the crown. Rest assured the BOTY trophy is in good hands either way. The winners of the 2010 election, the Teabaggers a group of fake "populist" politicians who have exploited legitimate economic frustrations in the most repellant of ways.
In any case, we salute you, Obamacare and Teabaggers. Congratulations, and keep up the great work!!!
What started as a movement to finally give universal healthcare coverage in the USA (sparked by Michael Moore's 2007 documentary Sicko) morphed into Obama's more vague "health care reform" and finally into the bloated law known as Obamacare. Rather than showing interest in providing health care to Americans, the main focus of the law is in providing more profits to private insurance companies, the parasitic oligopoly at the heart of the healthcare crisis. Whatever the new requirements are on the insurance corps is minor compared to the mandate that all Americans purchase health insurance, a mandate that has no legal precedent. The most indicting thing about Obamacare is it was a healthcare strategy designed by right-wing think tanks in the nineties as a response to the Clinton plan for real universal coverage. That is what makes the whole debate over the law so perverse: it is establishment "liberals" who are defending this extremely right-wing proposal rather than attacking it. Thus, Obamacare shows how much the frame of debate has been distorted in the age of Obama not only in healthcare, but in politics in general.
Runner-Up: Teabaggers
In the unlikely event that Obamacare can no longer fill its duties as Beast of the Year, the Teabaggers are ready to take over the crown. Rest assured the BOTY trophy is in good hands either way. The winners of the 2010 election, the Teabaggers a group of fake "populist" politicians who have exploited legitimate economic frustrations in the most repellant of ways.
In any case, we salute you, Obamacare and Teabaggers. Congratulations, and keep up the great work!!!
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Vote 4 Beast of the Year 2011!
Who is The Konformist Beast of the Year?
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2010 to April 2011. Here are the choices:
May 2010: Obamacare
The "health care reform" plan passed by Congressional Democrats and Barack Obama which is a betrayal of the real health reform movement, leading to a plan created by right wing think tanks in the 90s presented falsely as a progressive legislative victory that is deservedly unpopular with the public
June 2010: Russell Pearce
Racist Arizona state senator who wrote AB1070, the law that scapegoats Hispanics in an offensive and unconstitutional manner
July 2010: Tony Hayward
Clueless CEO of British Petroleum, the oil giant whose massive failures have caused an ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
August 2010: Geert Wilders
Muslim-bashing Dutch politician who represents the latest far-right politician to gain political power in Europe thanks to crude race-baiting
September 2010: Ben Roethlisberger
Two-time Super Bowl champion and two-time alleged rapist, the latest example of really bad behavior in professional sports
October 2010: Pamela Geller
Proving Europe isn't alone in scapegoating Muslims, hysterical leader of opposition to the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"
November 2010: Teabaggers
Huge winners of the 2010 election, a group of fake "populist" politicians who have exploited legitimate economic frustrations in the most repellant of ways
December 2010: Janet Napolitano
For heading the Department of Homeland Security, the department whose "enhanced patdown" policy at airports via the Transportation Security Agency has led to gross violations of basic civil liberties
January 2011: Alan Simpson
As co-chair of Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, leader of the unsuccessful movement to cut Social Security under the bogus sales job of cutting the deficit
February 2011: The Bowl Championship Series
The NCAA's system of deciding a college football champion manages to be both widely unpopular with the public and a blatant violation of anti-trust law
March 2011: Hosni Mubarak
Deposed dictator is the face of authoritarianism in the Middle East that has finally faced a deserved revolt of the masses
April 2011: Scott Walker
Wisconsin Republican governor who is now leading the battle against the rights of public workers to collective bargaining
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2010 to April 2011. Here are the choices:
May 2010: Obamacare
The "health care reform" plan passed by Congressional Democrats and Barack Obama which is a betrayal of the real health reform movement, leading to a plan created by right wing think tanks in the 90s presented falsely as a progressive legislative victory that is deservedly unpopular with the public
June 2010: Russell Pearce
Racist Arizona state senator who wrote AB1070, the law that scapegoats Hispanics in an offensive and unconstitutional manner
July 2010: Tony Hayward
Clueless CEO of British Petroleum, the oil giant whose massive failures have caused an ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
August 2010: Geert Wilders
Muslim-bashing Dutch politician who represents the latest far-right politician to gain political power in Europe thanks to crude race-baiting
September 2010: Ben Roethlisberger
Two-time Super Bowl champion and two-time alleged rapist, the latest example of really bad behavior in professional sports
October 2010: Pamela Geller
Proving Europe isn't alone in scapegoating Muslims, hysterical leader of opposition to the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"
November 2010: Teabaggers
Huge winners of the 2010 election, a group of fake "populist" politicians who have exploited legitimate economic frustrations in the most repellant of ways
December 2010: Janet Napolitano
For heading the Department of Homeland Security, the department whose "enhanced patdown" policy at airports via the Transportation Security Agency has led to gross violations of basic civil liberties
January 2011: Alan Simpson
As co-chair of Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, leader of the unsuccessful movement to cut Social Security under the bogus sales job of cutting the deficit
February 2011: The Bowl Championship Series
The NCAA's system of deciding a college football champion manages to be both widely unpopular with the public and a blatant violation of anti-trust law
March 2011: Hosni Mubarak
Deposed dictator is the face of authoritarianism in the Middle East that has finally faced a deserved revolt of the masses
April 2011: Scott Walker
Wisconsin Republican governor who is now leading the battle against the rights of public workers to collective bargaining
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
Monday, February 14, 2011
Beast of the Month Update
Though it's been awhile since a Beast of the Month citation has been written, we have continued to award them. We will eventually catch up in writing these citations. In the meantime, here's a list of the 2010 winners:
January 2010: Ben Bernanke
For heading the Federal Reserve, the powerful and notorious quasi-government/private banking institution
February 2010: 2012
For being the most popular (and admittedly, the coolest) doomsday conspiracy theory since Y2K
March 2010: Jay Leno
For hosting The Jay Leno Show, one of the greatest flops in primetime television history, for screwing over Conan O'Brien in his weasley plot to return to The Tonight Show, and, most egregious of all, for not being funny for the last sixteen years
April 2010: Akio Toyoda
As President and CEO of Toyota, leader of the cover-up in the safety dangers of their cars, a coverup that has included smearing their own customers they nearly killed
May 2010: Obamacare
The "health care reform" plan passed by Congressional Democrats and Barack Obama which is a betrayal of the real health reform movement, leading to a plan created by right wing think tanks in the 90s presented falsely as a progressive legislative victory that is deservedly unpopular with the public
June 2010: Russell Pearce
Racist Arizona state senator who wrote AB1070, the law that scapegoats Hispanics in an offensive and unconstitutional manner
July 2010: Tony Hayward
Clueless CEO of British Petroleum, the oil giant whose massive failures have caused an ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
August 2010: Geert Wilders
Muslim-bashing Dutch politician who represents the latest far-right politician to gain political power in Europe thanks to crude race-baiting
September 2010: Ben Roethlisberger
Two-time Super Bowl champion and two-time alleged rapist, the latest example of really bad behavior in professional sports
October 2010: Pamela Geller
Proving Europe isn't alone in scapegoating Muslims, hysterical leader of opposition to the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"
November 2010: Teabaggers
Huge winners of the 2010 election, a group of fake "populist" politicians who have exploited legitimate economic frustrations in the most repellant of ways
The awards cites 20 people of special note in the Teabagger movement:
Teabagger paymasters:
Charles and David Koch
Teabagger political leaders
Dick Armey
Newt Gingrich
Sarah Palin
Teabagger political hacks
Sharron Angle
Michele Bachmann
Ken Buck
Jim DeMint
Joe Miller
Christine O'Donnell
Carl Paladino
Rand Paul
Marco Rubio
Pat Toomey
Rich Iott (AKA "The Dude Who Dresses Up Like a Nazi")
Teabagger media whores
Andrew Breitbart
Glenn Bec
Rick Santelli
Mark Williams
December 2010: Janet Napolitano
For heading the Department of Homeland Security, the department whose "enhanced patdown" policy at airports via the Transportation Security Agency has led to gross violations of basic civil liberties
And finally, here's the winner for January 2011:
Alan Simpson, who as co-chair of Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, leader of the unsuccessful movement to cut Social Security under the bogus sales job of cutting the deficit
January 2010: Ben Bernanke
For heading the Federal Reserve, the powerful and notorious quasi-government/private banking institution
February 2010: 2012
For being the most popular (and admittedly, the coolest) doomsday conspiracy theory since Y2K
March 2010: Jay Leno
For hosting The Jay Leno Show, one of the greatest flops in primetime television history, for screwing over Conan O'Brien in his weasley plot to return to The Tonight Show, and, most egregious of all, for not being funny for the last sixteen years
April 2010: Akio Toyoda
As President and CEO of Toyota, leader of the cover-up in the safety dangers of their cars, a coverup that has included smearing their own customers they nearly killed
May 2010: Obamacare
The "health care reform" plan passed by Congressional Democrats and Barack Obama which is a betrayal of the real health reform movement, leading to a plan created by right wing think tanks in the 90s presented falsely as a progressive legislative victory that is deservedly unpopular with the public
June 2010: Russell Pearce
Racist Arizona state senator who wrote AB1070, the law that scapegoats Hispanics in an offensive and unconstitutional manner
July 2010: Tony Hayward
Clueless CEO of British Petroleum, the oil giant whose massive failures have caused an ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
August 2010: Geert Wilders
Muslim-bashing Dutch politician who represents the latest far-right politician to gain political power in Europe thanks to crude race-baiting
September 2010: Ben Roethlisberger
Two-time Super Bowl champion and two-time alleged rapist, the latest example of really bad behavior in professional sports
October 2010: Pamela Geller
Proving Europe isn't alone in scapegoating Muslims, hysterical leader of opposition to the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"
November 2010: Teabaggers
Huge winners of the 2010 election, a group of fake "populist" politicians who have exploited legitimate economic frustrations in the most repellant of ways
The awards cites 20 people of special note in the Teabagger movement:
Teabagger paymasters:
Charles and David Koch
Teabagger political leaders
Dick Armey
Newt Gingrich
Sarah Palin
Teabagger political hacks
Sharron Angle
Michele Bachmann
Ken Buck
Jim DeMint
Joe Miller
Christine O'Donnell
Carl Paladino
Rand Paul
Marco Rubio
Pat Toomey
Rich Iott (AKA "The Dude Who Dresses Up Like a Nazi")
Teabagger media whores
Andrew Breitbart
Glenn Bec
Rick Santelli
Mark Williams
December 2010: Janet Napolitano
For heading the Department of Homeland Security, the department whose "enhanced patdown" policy at airports via the Transportation Security Agency has led to gross violations of basic civil liberties
And finally, here's the winner for January 2011:
Alan Simpson, who as co-chair of Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, leader of the unsuccessful movement to cut Social Security under the bogus sales job of cutting the deficit
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Beast of the Year 2010: Glenn Beck
The votes are in, and The Konformist readers have spoken. Glenn Beck is your choice for the 2009 Beast of the Year - a choice that is well deserved.
One of the two big stories in the year following Obama's first 100 days was the rise of an extremely far right - and an often extremely crazy - movement given the label of "Tea Party" by some, or (more appropriately) "Teabaggers" by others. Point Zero of the Teabagger movement was Glenn Beck and his multimedia empire. Of course, there is nothing new here: during the Clinton years, Rush Limbaugh became a powerful media voice in his own right, and during the era of George W. Bush, Beck's current employer Fox News fueled the rise of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, while Ann Coulter became a shrill media commentator in her own right (among others.) So mark Beck down as the latest example of the right wing media darling, the only question being if this self-described rodeo clown will become a harmless buffoon who becomes a self-parody, or if he becomes a figurehead for a frightening reactionary movement. Stay tuned...
Runner-Up: Ben Bernanke
In the unlikely event that Beck can no longer fill its duties as Beast of the Year, Ben Bernanke is ready to take over the crown. Rest assured the BOTY trophy is in good hands either way. As the other big story of the past year has been the continued enrichment of the giant banking monoliths by the US government after the election of Obama, Bernanke, as head of the Federal Reserve, is ground zero of this vast larceny.
In any case, we salute you, Glenn and Ben. Congratulations, and keep up the great work!!!
One of the two big stories in the year following Obama's first 100 days was the rise of an extremely far right - and an often extremely crazy - movement given the label of "Tea Party" by some, or (more appropriately) "Teabaggers" by others. Point Zero of the Teabagger movement was Glenn Beck and his multimedia empire. Of course, there is nothing new here: during the Clinton years, Rush Limbaugh became a powerful media voice in his own right, and during the era of George W. Bush, Beck's current employer Fox News fueled the rise of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, while Ann Coulter became a shrill media commentator in her own right (among others.) So mark Beck down as the latest example of the right wing media darling, the only question being if this self-described rodeo clown will become a harmless buffoon who becomes a self-parody, or if he becomes a figurehead for a frightening reactionary movement. Stay tuned...
Runner-Up: Ben Bernanke
In the unlikely event that Beck can no longer fill its duties as Beast of the Year, Ben Bernanke is ready to take over the crown. Rest assured the BOTY trophy is in good hands either way. As the other big story of the past year has been the continued enrichment of the giant banking monoliths by the US government after the election of Obama, Bernanke, as head of the Federal Reserve, is ground zero of this vast larceny.
In any case, we salute you, Glenn and Ben. Congratulations, and keep up the great work!!!
Friday, January 21, 2011
Vote 4 Beast of the Year 2010!
Who is The Konformist Beast of the Year?
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2009 to April 2010. Here are the choices:
May 2009: Timothy Geithner
June 2009: Alex Rodriguez
July 2009: Glenn Beck
August 2009: Roberto Micheletti
September 2009: The Hills, The Jonas Brothers & Twilight
October 2009: Billy Tauzin
November 2009: Thorborn Jagland
December 2009: Lloyd Blankfein
January 2010: Ben Bernanke
February 2010: 2012
March 2010: Jay Leno
April 2010: Akio Toyoda
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
It's time for the annual pick of The Konformist Beast of the Year.
One nominee was chosen each month from May 2009 to April 2010. Here are the choices:
May 2009: Timothy Geithner
June 2009: Alex Rodriguez
July 2009: Glenn Beck
August 2009: Roberto Micheletti
September 2009: The Hills, The Jonas Brothers & Twilight
October 2009: Billy Tauzin
November 2009: Thorborn Jagland
December 2009: Lloyd Blankfein
January 2010: Ben Bernanke
February 2010: 2012
March 2010: Jay Leno
April 2010: Akio Toyoda
To vote for your pick go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist/polls
Or send email to: robalini@aol.com
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Beast of the Month - September 2009
The Hills, The Jonas Brothers and Twilight, Beastly End-of-the-Decade Cultural Works
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
OK, we get it, America. You really don't want to hear any more about the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression, costly pointless wars in the Middle East that have already lasted way too long, or how the USA appears to be heading swiftly into bankruptcy. No, what you do want is even more coverage of Michael Jackson's death.
And frankly, The Konformist doesn't blame you. And we're not just saying it's okay because, boy lover or not, Jacko was the greatest musical performer since Elvis. No America, you have no need to justify your love of the frivolous, because frankly, all this depressing talk really harshes our mellow.
And so, with the Zeroes nearly over, it may be a good time to mimic other news sources and do a best-of-the-decade cultural report. Only this being The Konformist, it should naturally be worst-of-the-decade, or at least the worst things out there as 2009 comes to a close. And that would have to be The Hills, The Jonas Brothers and Twilight, The Konformist Beast of the Month co-winners.
Enough said, let's get to the handing out the prizes...
WORST FILM FRANCHISE: TWILIGHT
We admit it, we've become converts to the misunderstood genius that is Michael Bay. Even at his worst, he's an American original who focuses his art on important issues, like car chases, explosions and Megan Fox's breasts. That's why, no matter how bad uptight critics insist the latest Transformers flick is, this isn't the worst franchise out there.
It's hard to believe that vampires were once linked to bad-ass actors like Max Schreck, Boris Karloff, Jack Palance, Christopher Lee, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman and George Hamilton. Hell, in the last decade, Wesley Snipes has contributed to awesome vampire performances in the Blade movie series. But it says something that as the decade closes, Snipes faces serious jail time over petty tax issues in a battle with the IRS, while one of the biggest movie franchise on the planet is Twilight.
(Of course, we could also award Twilight worst book series, but since it's the only fiction people still read that doesn't have "Harry Potter" or "Dan Brown" on it's cover, we'll give it a pass for at least helping to encourage literacy.)
It's been 33 years since Anne Rice revolutionized the bloodsucker tale with Interview with the Vampire. True, Rice has her share of critics. Still, even the worst hater of Anne Rice would admit the mopey performances by Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Tom "I'm Definitely Not Gay!!!" Cruise in the 1994 adaptation of her book aren't even half as wimpy as that dude in Twilight. Indeed, Robert Pattinson is such a whiny little goth boy in the 2008 film, he could easily get his ass kicked by Morrissey or Robert Smith of The Cure. Frankly, Adam Lambert from American Idol is more threatening than this guy.
All of which makes The Konformist a little confused. We thought the purpose of vampire stories was to scare people. But in Twilight, Dracula mythos are transformed into a modern gothic love story, and not even a good one. Granted, Stephenie Meyer is no Stephen King, Clive Barker or Edgar Allen Poe, but certainly she should be expected to reach the level of a Harlequin novel in her prose. Instead, her scribblings (and the film they have inspired) are at best at the Tiger Beat level. "He's so mysterious! And he's sensitive! But he has a dark side!" This is the depth we are dealing with here.
Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Twilight has been a huge box office success, having earned over $380 million worldwide. It also won five trophies from the prestigious MTV film awards, including Best Movie. (Okay, it's not the Cannes Film Festival, but the MTV prizes are a good measure of where our culture is headed.) It also won 10 trophies at Teen Choice Awards, including Best Drama and Best Romance. What's wrong with kids these days?
Thanks to the success of Twilight, sequels are set to roll out the next two years, no doubt each with increasing levels of hype. And the worst thing about it is each time, millions of guys will be forced to endure the torture of watching it with their girlfriends or wives. (On the plus side, it will at least get women to stop yapping about Grey's Anatomy temporarily.) Be prepared for a simulation of getting waterboarded at Guantanamo, boys.
WORST MUSIC: THE JONAS BROTHERS
When The Konformist gave Lou Pearlman, the mastermind behind both the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, a BOTM prize back in 1999, we were worried that the boy band fad that was blossoming ten years ago would morph into a long term trend of bad music. Unfortunately, we were, as usual, right, as the Zeroes have been easily the worst decade of music in the rock era. One telling fact: what was the most popular musical artist on the planet as 2009 started? That would be The Jonas Brothers, who are, of course, yet another boy band.
Actually, perhaps the term "boy band" would be giving them too much credit: the bros could best be described as a disposable product of the Disney corporation. Their albums over the last three years (The Jonas Brothers, A Little Bit Longer and Lines, Vines & Trying Times) all were released on Disney's Hollywood Records. They have also appeared in the Disney Channel film Camp Rock and have a series on the network titled JONAS. They also were in the Disney theatrical release movie Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, which may be the worst use of 3D technology in the history of cinema.
To be fair, The Jonas Brothers aren't the only brain rot marketing tool being sold right now: Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato and, most famously, Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana are all consumer goods delivered by Disney through music, movies and television. There is also, of course, the whole High School Musical fad, another multimedia brand delivered by Mickey Mouse to the masses. All told, the aging little rodent is to blame for most of what is wrong with music right now.
Almost as bad as their music (which is saying quite a bit) is the boys' decision to wear "purity rings" to proclaim publicly their desire to remain virgins until marriage. Pretending for a second that they may be telling the truth (remember when Britney feigned a desire for virginity?) that would make them the only guys ever to get involved in music without the intention to get laid. Which is why they are probably lying, as even with a boy band as lame as 'N Sync, the only guy who wasn't sleeping with girls was Lance Bass, and that's because he was gay.
Indeed, the whole "purity ring" thing seems so mock worthy even an alleged comedian like Russell Brand could get some laughs out of it at last year's MTV Music Awards. So could the boys at South Park, who deservedly mocked it this year as part of a Disney plot to exploit teenage sexual desires while feigning a devotion to conservative values.
The good news here is that a change in pop music tastes is on the horizon, and in the rearrangement of the chairs, bugglegum crap like the Jonas seems to be on the way out. It's likely that after the eyes and ears of the masses have been so defiled by the latest offering by Lady Gaga, there is no way for the public to turn back. (Gaga, it should be noted, has offered to take the Jonas in a four-way, purity rings or not.) If the boy band fad is finally killed, good riddance.
WORST TELEVISION SHOW: THE HILLS
Unsurprisingly, this was the most difficult award to decide, simply because there is just so much Beastly TV out there, thanks to the crappy-as-ever "Reality Television" fad that has dominated the decade's boob tube landscape for the worse.
In the end, though it was a close call, the decision was pretty obvious. Keeping Up with the Kardashians may be utterly inane (has there ever been three girls so devoid of talent as Kim, Khloe & Kourtney?) and Jon & Kate Plus 8 may seem absolutely random (seriously, does pumping out eight babies from a uterus really qualify as a reason for celebrityhood?) but The Hills sets the standard for Beastly TV by virtue of the overtly repellant behavior of its cast.
After all, whatever is wrong with the Kardashian girls, they all actually seem like likable women, and in this day and age, being decent people (especially remarkable considering the spoiled Beverly Hills upbringing they had) should count for something. Meanwhile, the Gosselins may seem pathetically desperate for attention and fame, but considering they are like lottery winners put in a fishbowl (albeit by their own choice) their aberrant behavior seems somewhat logical and understandable. But there is absolutely no excuse for the combination of shallowness, smug entitlement, and pathological nastiness that is at the heart of The Hills.
In fact, The Konformist is loathe to even mention the names of Spencer Pratt & Heidi Montag, Lauren Conrad, Audrina Partridge, Kristin Cavallari and Brody Jenner, simply because doing so gives them the undeserved fame they crave. (And please, you fans of the show out there, don't send any emails saying "Lauren and Audrina are nice, it's Heidi who's the BITCH!!!" They're all fame whores.) If the Gosselins are lotto champs, The Hills seems to be the end result of a reality competition to turn the most dubious contestants into "celebrity" stars.
Of course, Spencer & Heidi are the most notorious for their obnoxious behavior, which is why they have naturally become the most prominently featured cast members in the celebrity rags. In a surprising twist, the couple appeared on the Alex Jones radio show in June to proclaim their support for conspiracy theory. This is not really to their credit, but rather to conspiracy theory shame. (At The Konformist, we'll take celebrities whose character we really respect as fans, such as Charlie Sheen, thank you very much!)
Sadly, The Hills, as noted before, isn't alone in reality hell entertainment. MTV (which airs the show) and VH1, once the home to Beavis & Butt-Head and Behind the Music documentaries (not to mention actual music videos) have become the channels dedicated to the most desperate of fame whores. This was even mocked in a June Onion article, "New VH1 Show Canceled For Not Being Pathetic Enough." The Hills, in fact, is merely a spin-off of the former (and equally annoying to watch) Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, which proved real OC teenagers are even less sympathetic than their fake Hollywood counterparts. The Hills has also spawned two spin-offs, The City and Bromance, with another one in the works. Which means that the Beastly television has only begun.
In any case, we salute The Hills, The Jonas Brothers and Twilight as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Dudes!!!
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
OK, we get it, America. You really don't want to hear any more about the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression, costly pointless wars in the Middle East that have already lasted way too long, or how the USA appears to be heading swiftly into bankruptcy. No, what you do want is even more coverage of Michael Jackson's death.
And frankly, The Konformist doesn't blame you. And we're not just saying it's okay because, boy lover or not, Jacko was the greatest musical performer since Elvis. No America, you have no need to justify your love of the frivolous, because frankly, all this depressing talk really harshes our mellow.
And so, with the Zeroes nearly over, it may be a good time to mimic other news sources and do a best-of-the-decade cultural report. Only this being The Konformist, it should naturally be worst-of-the-decade, or at least the worst things out there as 2009 comes to a close. And that would have to be The Hills, The Jonas Brothers and Twilight, The Konformist Beast of the Month co-winners.
Enough said, let's get to the handing out the prizes...
WORST FILM FRANCHISE: TWILIGHT
We admit it, we've become converts to the misunderstood genius that is Michael Bay. Even at his worst, he's an American original who focuses his art on important issues, like car chases, explosions and Megan Fox's breasts. That's why, no matter how bad uptight critics insist the latest Transformers flick is, this isn't the worst franchise out there.
It's hard to believe that vampires were once linked to bad-ass actors like Max Schreck, Boris Karloff, Jack Palance, Christopher Lee, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman and George Hamilton. Hell, in the last decade, Wesley Snipes has contributed to awesome vampire performances in the Blade movie series. But it says something that as the decade closes, Snipes faces serious jail time over petty tax issues in a battle with the IRS, while one of the biggest movie franchise on the planet is Twilight.
(Of course, we could also award Twilight worst book series, but since it's the only fiction people still read that doesn't have "Harry Potter" or "Dan Brown" on it's cover, we'll give it a pass for at least helping to encourage literacy.)
It's been 33 years since Anne Rice revolutionized the bloodsucker tale with Interview with the Vampire. True, Rice has her share of critics. Still, even the worst hater of Anne Rice would admit the mopey performances by Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Tom "I'm Definitely Not Gay!!!" Cruise in the 1994 adaptation of her book aren't even half as wimpy as that dude in Twilight. Indeed, Robert Pattinson is such a whiny little goth boy in the 2008 film, he could easily get his ass kicked by Morrissey or Robert Smith of The Cure. Frankly, Adam Lambert from American Idol is more threatening than this guy.
All of which makes The Konformist a little confused. We thought the purpose of vampire stories was to scare people. But in Twilight, Dracula mythos are transformed into a modern gothic love story, and not even a good one. Granted, Stephenie Meyer is no Stephen King, Clive Barker or Edgar Allen Poe, but certainly she should be expected to reach the level of a Harlequin novel in her prose. Instead, her scribblings (and the film they have inspired) are at best at the Tiger Beat level. "He's so mysterious! And he's sensitive! But he has a dark side!" This is the depth we are dealing with here.
Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Twilight has been a huge box office success, having earned over $380 million worldwide. It also won five trophies from the prestigious MTV film awards, including Best Movie. (Okay, it's not the Cannes Film Festival, but the MTV prizes are a good measure of where our culture is headed.) It also won 10 trophies at Teen Choice Awards, including Best Drama and Best Romance. What's wrong with kids these days?
Thanks to the success of Twilight, sequels are set to roll out the next two years, no doubt each with increasing levels of hype. And the worst thing about it is each time, millions of guys will be forced to endure the torture of watching it with their girlfriends or wives. (On the plus side, it will at least get women to stop yapping about Grey's Anatomy temporarily.) Be prepared for a simulation of getting waterboarded at Guantanamo, boys.
WORST MUSIC: THE JONAS BROTHERS
When The Konformist gave Lou Pearlman, the mastermind behind both the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, a BOTM prize back in 1999, we were worried that the boy band fad that was blossoming ten years ago would morph into a long term trend of bad music. Unfortunately, we were, as usual, right, as the Zeroes have been easily the worst decade of music in the rock era. One telling fact: what was the most popular musical artist on the planet as 2009 started? That would be The Jonas Brothers, who are, of course, yet another boy band.
Actually, perhaps the term "boy band" would be giving them too much credit: the bros could best be described as a disposable product of the Disney corporation. Their albums over the last three years (The Jonas Brothers, A Little Bit Longer and Lines, Vines & Trying Times) all were released on Disney's Hollywood Records. They have also appeared in the Disney Channel film Camp Rock and have a series on the network titled JONAS. They also were in the Disney theatrical release movie Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, which may be the worst use of 3D technology in the history of cinema.
To be fair, The Jonas Brothers aren't the only brain rot marketing tool being sold right now: Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato and, most famously, Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana are all consumer goods delivered by Disney through music, movies and television. There is also, of course, the whole High School Musical fad, another multimedia brand delivered by Mickey Mouse to the masses. All told, the aging little rodent is to blame for most of what is wrong with music right now.
Almost as bad as their music (which is saying quite a bit) is the boys' decision to wear "purity rings" to proclaim publicly their desire to remain virgins until marriage. Pretending for a second that they may be telling the truth (remember when Britney feigned a desire for virginity?) that would make them the only guys ever to get involved in music without the intention to get laid. Which is why they are probably lying, as even with a boy band as lame as 'N Sync, the only guy who wasn't sleeping with girls was Lance Bass, and that's because he was gay.
Indeed, the whole "purity ring" thing seems so mock worthy even an alleged comedian like Russell Brand could get some laughs out of it at last year's MTV Music Awards. So could the boys at South Park, who deservedly mocked it this year as part of a Disney plot to exploit teenage sexual desires while feigning a devotion to conservative values.
The good news here is that a change in pop music tastes is on the horizon, and in the rearrangement of the chairs, bugglegum crap like the Jonas seems to be on the way out. It's likely that after the eyes and ears of the masses have been so defiled by the latest offering by Lady Gaga, there is no way for the public to turn back. (Gaga, it should be noted, has offered to take the Jonas in a four-way, purity rings or not.) If the boy band fad is finally killed, good riddance.
WORST TELEVISION SHOW: THE HILLS
Unsurprisingly, this was the most difficult award to decide, simply because there is just so much Beastly TV out there, thanks to the crappy-as-ever "Reality Television" fad that has dominated the decade's boob tube landscape for the worse.
In the end, though it was a close call, the decision was pretty obvious. Keeping Up with the Kardashians may be utterly inane (has there ever been three girls so devoid of talent as Kim, Khloe & Kourtney?) and Jon & Kate Plus 8 may seem absolutely random (seriously, does pumping out eight babies from a uterus really qualify as a reason for celebrityhood?) but The Hills sets the standard for Beastly TV by virtue of the overtly repellant behavior of its cast.
After all, whatever is wrong with the Kardashian girls, they all actually seem like likable women, and in this day and age, being decent people (especially remarkable considering the spoiled Beverly Hills upbringing they had) should count for something. Meanwhile, the Gosselins may seem pathetically desperate for attention and fame, but considering they are like lottery winners put in a fishbowl (albeit by their own choice) their aberrant behavior seems somewhat logical and understandable. But there is absolutely no excuse for the combination of shallowness, smug entitlement, and pathological nastiness that is at the heart of The Hills.
In fact, The Konformist is loathe to even mention the names of Spencer Pratt & Heidi Montag, Lauren Conrad, Audrina Partridge, Kristin Cavallari and Brody Jenner, simply because doing so gives them the undeserved fame they crave. (And please, you fans of the show out there, don't send any emails saying "Lauren and Audrina are nice, it's Heidi who's the BITCH!!!" They're all fame whores.) If the Gosselins are lotto champs, The Hills seems to be the end result of a reality competition to turn the most dubious contestants into "celebrity" stars.
Of course, Spencer & Heidi are the most notorious for their obnoxious behavior, which is why they have naturally become the most prominently featured cast members in the celebrity rags. In a surprising twist, the couple appeared on the Alex Jones radio show in June to proclaim their support for conspiracy theory. This is not really to their credit, but rather to conspiracy theory shame. (At The Konformist, we'll take celebrities whose character we really respect as fans, such as Charlie Sheen, thank you very much!)
Sadly, The Hills, as noted before, isn't alone in reality hell entertainment. MTV (which airs the show) and VH1, once the home to Beavis & Butt-Head and Behind the Music documentaries (not to mention actual music videos) have become the channels dedicated to the most desperate of fame whores. This was even mocked in a June Onion article, "New VH1 Show Canceled For Not Being Pathetic Enough." The Hills, in fact, is merely a spin-off of the former (and equally annoying to watch) Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, which proved real OC teenagers are even less sympathetic than their fake Hollywood counterparts. The Hills has also spawned two spin-offs, The City and Bromance, with another one in the works. Which means that the Beastly television has only begun.
In any case, we salute The Hills, The Jonas Brothers and Twilight as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Dudes!!!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Beast of the Month - August 2009
Roberto Micheletti
Honduras Coup Leader
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
As it's been mentioned on Konformist.com before, it's interesting how democracy really matters to the USA in foreign policy, except of course when it doesn't.
Take Iran, for example. Ever since the elections in June, the mainstream media has repeatedly denounced the official victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the blatant results of fraud. It was done with such passionate insistence, you'd think the story wasn't about democracy in Iran but rather a plot to steal the White House through suppressing minority voters and the usage of electronic voting.
But how does the sales job of the story match up to the reality? On Politico.com, Flynt & Hillary Leverett, both former analyst for the National Security Council, concluded after looking at the dubious evidence that "these irregularities do not, in themselves, amount to electoral fraud even by American legal standards. And, compared with the U.S. presidential election in Florida in 2000, the flaws in Iran’s electoral process seem less significant." This was in an article titled "Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It." Ms. Mann was chief Iran analyst for George W. Bush in the NSC, for those who may suspect this is some liberal screed defending a member of the axis of evil. Anthony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and George Friedman of the Stratfor intelligence service both also concurred with this opinion, neither of which represent repositories for left-wing diatribes.
Of course, it wasn't merely the right that was cheering against Ahmadinejad. Noted establishment left media outlet The Nation was as relentless as Fox News in denouncing the election. Perhaps that's because Mahmoud's opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, was backed by billionaire and "liberal" financier George Soros. In any case, the bipartisan support for Mousavi was in spite of the fact that, contrary to the portrait painted of him as an "outsider" to the Iranian establishment, he was in fact prime minister of the country from 1981-89. While in that position, he personally picked Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur as his point man for the Beirut terror campaign against Team USA during the Reagan era. Bob Baer, the CIA agent who inspired George Clooney's Oscar-winning role in Syriana, claims that Mousavi "dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah," the man held directly responsible for terrorist attacks in Lebanon. These include the bloody attacks on the US embassy and Marine Corps barracks that killed 241 US military men. For this, Mousavi has earned "Butcher of Beirut" as his nickname.
Then again, just because Mousavi was Mr. Big twenty years ago in a terrorist war against Great Satan doesn't prove he didn't win the presidential campaign. It does show, however, that while Ahmadinejad may be a creepy dude, this is not the case of "good guy, bad guy" the establishment media pretends it to be.
Meanwhile, if someone was indeed looking for a current case of "good guy, bad guy" in international politics, all you'd need to do is visit the South American country of Honduras. And by "good guy, bad guy" we mean if you think a military coup ousting a democratically elected leader qualifies. In this case, the decided bad guy is Roberto Micheletti, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
On June 28th, the Honduras military forced President Manuel Zelaya from office, who fled to Costa Rica. The official explanation for his removal: to preempt a non-binding referendum on whether or not to have a constitutional convention. The Honduras political establishment feared Zelaya would use the assembly to allow him to run for president another term. Perhaps he was seeking another term, although it doesn't seem the case in the short run: the actual binding referendum would take place in November, the same day as the prez elections, which would therefore not include him. In any case, his critics in Honduras insisted he was planning to return to office at some point, and it would be illegal for him to change the constitution to allow that, hence his removal from power.
While the official explanation of the coup is factually correct, it makes little sense. Chillax, Honduras establishment dudes, why the boner over dumping Zelaya? Certainly if what he was doing was unconstitutional, the military had no need to oust him, as the Parliament (led by Micheletti, who became the de facto president after Zelaya's removal) had already voted that day to dump his ass from power. Clearly, had the Honduras army just let things run their course, he would have been gone soon enough. But apparently, "soon enough" was still too long.
This leads to the real reason for his removal. Honduras, the second poorest country in Central America that has 70% of its population living in poverty, was doing things under Zelaya that are frowned upon by the US State Department. You know, little things like raising the minimum wage 60%, battling the virtual slave labor in sweatshops, regulating the corporate controlled media and calling out the War on Drugs as the fraudulent scam it is. Perhaps worst of all, he had become an ally of Venezuela and Cuba, a foreign policy move that Hugo Chavez rewarded with sorely needed oil subsidies. He had even agreed to have Honduras join the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Chavez alternative to the proposed NAFTA-expanding FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas.) Clearly, these actions were too much.
About right now it'd be good to ask how such a dangerous wannabe Salvador Allende managed to become president of Honduras. Just how did a member of some socialist or communist party become the most powerful man in the country? As it turns out, Zelaya was a member of the Liberal Party, the same party that controlled Congress and that Micheletti is a member of. (The Liberal Party, while claiming to represent the "left" side of the spectrum in Honduras, is actually a corporate centrist party, which means it's the functional equivalent of the Democratic Party.) So was Zelaya just hiding his Che Guevara t-shirt under his businessman's suit when he ran in 2005 on a tough-on-crime, budget-cutting platform? More likely, when given the immense powers of his office, he was personally transformed, especially when seeing the gross injustice that faces the impoverished. Or perhaps more cynically, he just did the math and realized the neoliberal agenda was doomed for failure to quell mass discontent. Either way, he soon began embracing the Chavez model of leadership, which led to his downfall in the Honduras establishment.
In defense of the dubious coup, the acting government insists the removal of Zelaya by the military was entirely legal. They argue it was done after the Attorney General issued a petition to detain and depose Zelaya, which was then approved by a secret order to the armed forces from the Supreme Court. After Zelaya's removal, Micheletti took over in the proper order of succession. That said, Zelaya had this response: "“If I do something illegal, take me to court and give me the right to a defense. But do not use the army to kidnap the president and carry him violently out of the country.” Meanwhile, if the coup excuse was to defend the Honduras Constitution, beyond the lack of due process in his removal, there was immediately a curfew put in place by the Micheletti regime that suspended basic constitutional civil liberties, the illegal detainment of Zelaya supporters by the military, and a shutdown of numerous television and radio stations along with newspapers and websites that didn't toe the anti-Zelaya line. Then there is the more disturbing evidence that the coup leaders have revived the notorious death squads of Honduras. Billy Joya, a leader of the death squads, has become a "security advisor" to Micheletti. This has led to a situation where there are political assassinations, murders of journalists and the torture of citizens. For the most part, these crimes have been censored in the American korporate press.
Despite the distorted news coverage, the "no coup" lie is not being swallowed. The Organization of American States (OAS) has condemned the coup and suspended Honduras as a member. Also condemning the coup were the European Union and the UN. Even the top lawyer for the Honduras military concedes the removal of Zelaya was a criminal act, though argues it was necessary to stop the nation descending into mob rule. Most tellingly, the United States opposed it as well. To his credit, Barack Obama had this to say: "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras." Of course, like most of Obama's smooth-talking speeches, his words should be met with skepticism: as noted by Latin American history professor Greg Grandin on Democracy Now: "The Honduran military is effectively a subsidiary of the United States government. Honduras, as a whole, if any Latin American country is fully owned by the United States, it’s Honduras. Its economy is wholly based on trade, foreign aid and remittances." That being the case, it's hard to believe the coup happened without a green light from Team USA.
Then again, for once, maybe Obama was telling the truth. After all, a military coup is a nasty PR move, especially when a constitutional removal of a leader will do. Perhaps when meeting with the political leadership of Honduras, the White House okayed a removal of Zelaya in a legalistic manner, but this was interpreted as an okay of the military option. Or perhaps the green light was given by those within the CIA who are loyal to the Bushistas, believing Obama won't have the balls to stand up for democracy against their plot.
Of course, looking at the Honduras coup as an isolated incident misses the big picture. Over the past decade, all the political and military revolts around the world (among the more noted: the removal of Joseph Estrada in the Philippines, the failed coup of Chavez in Venezuela, the overthrow of Aristide in Haiti, the Color Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, and the election fraud coup in Mexico) have centered around two competing groups, one backed by the International Monetary Fund and one opposed to the IMF prescription. Naturally, the side that backs the neoliberal economics of the IMF coincidentally receives funding from foundations backed by George Soros. Tellingly, how the story is reported in the US and Europe had almost nothing to do with quaint issues like democracy or economic justice and everything to do with supporting whatever side the IMF backed. In this context, both Honduras and Iran look just like two more attempted IMF coups, where the side viewed as a threat to democracy (Zelaya and Ahmadinejad) is coincidentally the side opposed to the IMF agenda.
Which is why things don't look good for Zelaya. Ironically, the one thing that may give him a chance to return is the coup itself, which sabotaged the legalistic coup that was set to go. But even if he does return to power, it will likely be under conditions made by the US that he be an impotent lame duck, more ceremonial than actual leader. As Greg Grandin concluded on Democracy Now: "If the U.S. is opposed to this coup going forward, it won’t go forward." That doesn't seem too reassuring.
In any case, we salute Roberto Micheletti as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Bobby!!!
Beastly Update, 2010: Apparently the Obama Administration wasn't opposed to the coup going forward. Despite all the feigned outrage, Zelaya never returned to office.
Sources
Credit must be due to Democracy Now! ( http://www.democracynow.org/ ), FAIR ( http://www.fair.org/ ), Information Clearing House ( http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ ), PrisonPlanet.com ( http://www.prisonplanet.com/ ), Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org/ ) and the World Socialist Web Site ( http://www.wsws.org/ ) for research help on this article.
Cooper, Helene. "In a Coup in Honduras, Ghosts of Past U.S. Policies." New York Times 30 June 2009.
Corbett, James. "Destabilization 2.0." The Corbett Report 23 June 2009 <http://www.corbettreport.com/articles/20090623_destabilization.htm>.
Dangl, Benjamin. "Honduran Leader's Populism Is What Provoked Military Violence." AlterNet 1 July 2009 <http://www.alternet.org/story/141026>.
"Honduran Leader Forced Into Exile." BBC News 28 June 2009 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8123126.stm>.
"Honduras: Zelaya's Jet Denied Entry; Military Admits Coup Was 'Criminal'." World War 4 Report 5 July 2009 <http://ww4report.com/node/7539>.
Lacey, Marc. "Leader’s Ouster Not a Coup, Says the Honduran Military." New York Times 2 July 2009.
Leverett, Flynt and Mann Leverett, Hillary. "Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It." Politico.com 15 June 2009 <http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=E47D1CF2-18FE-70B2-A8A86265132AF194>.
Nichols, John. "The Nation: In Honduras The Heat Is On." NPR 30 June 2009 <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106084998>.
Nichols, John. "Totalitarian Rightists Put Orwellian Spin on Honduras Coup." The Nation 2 July 2009 <http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/448140/totalitarian_rightists_put_orwellian_spin_on_honduras_coup>.
Ogg, Chuck. "Resolution Condemning Honduras Coup Ignored by New York Times." TheOggblog 17 July 2009 <http://theoggblog.com/?p=111>.
Parenti, Michael. "The Honduras Coup: Is Obama Innocent?" Michael Parenti Political Archive July 2009 <http://michaelparenti.org/Honduras.html>.
"Police Clash with Demonstrators in Honduran Capital." CNN 29 June 2009 <http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/29/honduras.president.arrested/index.html>.
Roberts, Paul Craig. "Ignorance Is Strength." Online Journal 25 June 2009 <http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4842.shtml>.
Robles, Frances. "Honduras New Government Is Censoring Journalists." Miami Herald 1 July 2009 <http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1122536.html>.
Robles, Frances. "Top Honduran military lawyer: We broke the law." Miami Herald 3 July 2009 <http://www.miamiherald.com/1506/story/1125872.html>.
Rogers, Tim. "Leftist Leaders Hold Emergency Meeting Over Honduras Coup." The Christian Science Monitor 29 June 2009 <http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2009/0629/p06s01-woam.html>.
Sherwell, Philip. "In Honduras Coup, the Truth Is As Strange As Any 'Banana Republic' Fiction." London Telegraph July 5 2009 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/honduras/5743512/In-Honduras-coup-the-truth-is-as-strange-as-any-banana-republic-fiction.html>.
Stein, Jeff. "Mousavi, Celebrated in Iranian Protests, Was the Butcher of Beirut." CQ Politics 22 June 2009 <http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/06/mousavi-celebrated-in-iranian.html>.
Honduras Coup Leader
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
As it's been mentioned on Konformist.com before, it's interesting how democracy really matters to the USA in foreign policy, except of course when it doesn't.
Take Iran, for example. Ever since the elections in June, the mainstream media has repeatedly denounced the official victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the blatant results of fraud. It was done with such passionate insistence, you'd think the story wasn't about democracy in Iran but rather a plot to steal the White House through suppressing minority voters and the usage of electronic voting.
But how does the sales job of the story match up to the reality? On Politico.com, Flynt & Hillary Leverett, both former analyst for the National Security Council, concluded after looking at the dubious evidence that "these irregularities do not, in themselves, amount to electoral fraud even by American legal standards. And, compared with the U.S. presidential election in Florida in 2000, the flaws in Iran’s electoral process seem less significant." This was in an article titled "Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It." Ms. Mann was chief Iran analyst for George W. Bush in the NSC, for those who may suspect this is some liberal screed defending a member of the axis of evil. Anthony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and George Friedman of the Stratfor intelligence service both also concurred with this opinion, neither of which represent repositories for left-wing diatribes.
Of course, it wasn't merely the right that was cheering against Ahmadinejad. Noted establishment left media outlet The Nation was as relentless as Fox News in denouncing the election. Perhaps that's because Mahmoud's opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, was backed by billionaire and "liberal" financier George Soros. In any case, the bipartisan support for Mousavi was in spite of the fact that, contrary to the portrait painted of him as an "outsider" to the Iranian establishment, he was in fact prime minister of the country from 1981-89. While in that position, he personally picked Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur as his point man for the Beirut terror campaign against Team USA during the Reagan era. Bob Baer, the CIA agent who inspired George Clooney's Oscar-winning role in Syriana, claims that Mousavi "dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah," the man held directly responsible for terrorist attacks in Lebanon. These include the bloody attacks on the US embassy and Marine Corps barracks that killed 241 US military men. For this, Mousavi has earned "Butcher of Beirut" as his nickname.
Then again, just because Mousavi was Mr. Big twenty years ago in a terrorist war against Great Satan doesn't prove he didn't win the presidential campaign. It does show, however, that while Ahmadinejad may be a creepy dude, this is not the case of "good guy, bad guy" the establishment media pretends it to be.
Meanwhile, if someone was indeed looking for a current case of "good guy, bad guy" in international politics, all you'd need to do is visit the South American country of Honduras. And by "good guy, bad guy" we mean if you think a military coup ousting a democratically elected leader qualifies. In this case, the decided bad guy is Roberto Micheletti, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
On June 28th, the Honduras military forced President Manuel Zelaya from office, who fled to Costa Rica. The official explanation for his removal: to preempt a non-binding referendum on whether or not to have a constitutional convention. The Honduras political establishment feared Zelaya would use the assembly to allow him to run for president another term. Perhaps he was seeking another term, although it doesn't seem the case in the short run: the actual binding referendum would take place in November, the same day as the prez elections, which would therefore not include him. In any case, his critics in Honduras insisted he was planning to return to office at some point, and it would be illegal for him to change the constitution to allow that, hence his removal from power.
While the official explanation of the coup is factually correct, it makes little sense. Chillax, Honduras establishment dudes, why the boner over dumping Zelaya? Certainly if what he was doing was unconstitutional, the military had no need to oust him, as the Parliament (led by Micheletti, who became the de facto president after Zelaya's removal) had already voted that day to dump his ass from power. Clearly, had the Honduras army just let things run their course, he would have been gone soon enough. But apparently, "soon enough" was still too long.
This leads to the real reason for his removal. Honduras, the second poorest country in Central America that has 70% of its population living in poverty, was doing things under Zelaya that are frowned upon by the US State Department. You know, little things like raising the minimum wage 60%, battling the virtual slave labor in sweatshops, regulating the corporate controlled media and calling out the War on Drugs as the fraudulent scam it is. Perhaps worst of all, he had become an ally of Venezuela and Cuba, a foreign policy move that Hugo Chavez rewarded with sorely needed oil subsidies. He had even agreed to have Honduras join the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Chavez alternative to the proposed NAFTA-expanding FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas.) Clearly, these actions were too much.
About right now it'd be good to ask how such a dangerous wannabe Salvador Allende managed to become president of Honduras. Just how did a member of some socialist or communist party become the most powerful man in the country? As it turns out, Zelaya was a member of the Liberal Party, the same party that controlled Congress and that Micheletti is a member of. (The Liberal Party, while claiming to represent the "left" side of the spectrum in Honduras, is actually a corporate centrist party, which means it's the functional equivalent of the Democratic Party.) So was Zelaya just hiding his Che Guevara t-shirt under his businessman's suit when he ran in 2005 on a tough-on-crime, budget-cutting platform? More likely, when given the immense powers of his office, he was personally transformed, especially when seeing the gross injustice that faces the impoverished. Or perhaps more cynically, he just did the math and realized the neoliberal agenda was doomed for failure to quell mass discontent. Either way, he soon began embracing the Chavez model of leadership, which led to his downfall in the Honduras establishment.
In defense of the dubious coup, the acting government insists the removal of Zelaya by the military was entirely legal. They argue it was done after the Attorney General issued a petition to detain and depose Zelaya, which was then approved by a secret order to the armed forces from the Supreme Court. After Zelaya's removal, Micheletti took over in the proper order of succession. That said, Zelaya had this response: "“If I do something illegal, take me to court and give me the right to a defense. But do not use the army to kidnap the president and carry him violently out of the country.” Meanwhile, if the coup excuse was to defend the Honduras Constitution, beyond the lack of due process in his removal, there was immediately a curfew put in place by the Micheletti regime that suspended basic constitutional civil liberties, the illegal detainment of Zelaya supporters by the military, and a shutdown of numerous television and radio stations along with newspapers and websites that didn't toe the anti-Zelaya line. Then there is the more disturbing evidence that the coup leaders have revived the notorious death squads of Honduras. Billy Joya, a leader of the death squads, has become a "security advisor" to Micheletti. This has led to a situation where there are political assassinations, murders of journalists and the torture of citizens. For the most part, these crimes have been censored in the American korporate press.
Despite the distorted news coverage, the "no coup" lie is not being swallowed. The Organization of American States (OAS) has condemned the coup and suspended Honduras as a member. Also condemning the coup were the European Union and the UN. Even the top lawyer for the Honduras military concedes the removal of Zelaya was a criminal act, though argues it was necessary to stop the nation descending into mob rule. Most tellingly, the United States opposed it as well. To his credit, Barack Obama had this to say: "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras." Of course, like most of Obama's smooth-talking speeches, his words should be met with skepticism: as noted by Latin American history professor Greg Grandin on Democracy Now: "The Honduran military is effectively a subsidiary of the United States government. Honduras, as a whole, if any Latin American country is fully owned by the United States, it’s Honduras. Its economy is wholly based on trade, foreign aid and remittances." That being the case, it's hard to believe the coup happened without a green light from Team USA.
Then again, for once, maybe Obama was telling the truth. After all, a military coup is a nasty PR move, especially when a constitutional removal of a leader will do. Perhaps when meeting with the political leadership of Honduras, the White House okayed a removal of Zelaya in a legalistic manner, but this was interpreted as an okay of the military option. Or perhaps the green light was given by those within the CIA who are loyal to the Bushistas, believing Obama won't have the balls to stand up for democracy against their plot.
Of course, looking at the Honduras coup as an isolated incident misses the big picture. Over the past decade, all the political and military revolts around the world (among the more noted: the removal of Joseph Estrada in the Philippines, the failed coup of Chavez in Venezuela, the overthrow of Aristide in Haiti, the Color Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, and the election fraud coup in Mexico) have centered around two competing groups, one backed by the International Monetary Fund and one opposed to the IMF prescription. Naturally, the side that backs the neoliberal economics of the IMF coincidentally receives funding from foundations backed by George Soros. Tellingly, how the story is reported in the US and Europe had almost nothing to do with quaint issues like democracy or economic justice and everything to do with supporting whatever side the IMF backed. In this context, both Honduras and Iran look just like two more attempted IMF coups, where the side viewed as a threat to democracy (Zelaya and Ahmadinejad) is coincidentally the side opposed to the IMF agenda.
Which is why things don't look good for Zelaya. Ironically, the one thing that may give him a chance to return is the coup itself, which sabotaged the legalistic coup that was set to go. But even if he does return to power, it will likely be under conditions made by the US that he be an impotent lame duck, more ceremonial than actual leader. As Greg Grandin concluded on Democracy Now: "If the U.S. is opposed to this coup going forward, it won’t go forward." That doesn't seem too reassuring.
In any case, we salute Roberto Micheletti as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Bobby!!!
Beastly Update, 2010: Apparently the Obama Administration wasn't opposed to the coup going forward. Despite all the feigned outrage, Zelaya never returned to office.
Sources
Credit must be due to Democracy Now! ( http://www.democracynow.org/ ), FAIR ( http://www.fair.org/ ), Information Clearing House ( http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ ), PrisonPlanet.com ( http://www.prisonplanet.com/ ), Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org/ ) and the World Socialist Web Site ( http://www.wsws.org/ ) for research help on this article.
Cooper, Helene. "In a Coup in Honduras, Ghosts of Past U.S. Policies." New York Times 30 June 2009.
Corbett, James. "Destabilization 2.0." The Corbett Report 23 June 2009 <http://www.corbettreport.com/articles/20090623_destabilization.htm>.
Dangl, Benjamin. "Honduran Leader's Populism Is What Provoked Military Violence." AlterNet 1 July 2009 <http://www.alternet.org/story/141026>.
"Honduran Leader Forced Into Exile." BBC News 28 June 2009 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8123126.stm>.
"Honduras: Zelaya's Jet Denied Entry; Military Admits Coup Was 'Criminal'." World War 4 Report 5 July 2009 <http://ww4report.com/node/7539>.
Lacey, Marc. "Leader’s Ouster Not a Coup, Says the Honduran Military." New York Times 2 July 2009.
Leverett, Flynt and Mann Leverett, Hillary. "Ahmadinejad Won. Get Over It." Politico.com 15 June 2009 <http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=E47D1CF2-18FE-70B2-A8A86265132AF194>.
Nichols, John. "The Nation: In Honduras The Heat Is On." NPR 30 June 2009 <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106084998>.
Nichols, John. "Totalitarian Rightists Put Orwellian Spin on Honduras Coup." The Nation 2 July 2009 <http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/448140/totalitarian_rightists_put_orwellian_spin_on_honduras_coup>.
Ogg, Chuck. "Resolution Condemning Honduras Coup Ignored by New York Times." TheOggblog 17 July 2009 <http://theoggblog.com/?p=111>.
Parenti, Michael. "The Honduras Coup: Is Obama Innocent?" Michael Parenti Political Archive July 2009 <http://michaelparenti.org/Honduras.html>.
"Police Clash with Demonstrators in Honduran Capital." CNN 29 June 2009 <http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/29/honduras.president.arrested/index.html>.
Roberts, Paul Craig. "Ignorance Is Strength." Online Journal 25 June 2009 <http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4842.shtml>.
Robles, Frances. "Honduras New Government Is Censoring Journalists." Miami Herald 1 July 2009 <http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1122536.html>.
Robles, Frances. "Top Honduran military lawyer: We broke the law." Miami Herald 3 July 2009 <http://www.miamiherald.com/1506/story/1125872.html>.
Rogers, Tim. "Leftist Leaders Hold Emergency Meeting Over Honduras Coup." The Christian Science Monitor 29 June 2009 <http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2009/0629/p06s01-woam.html>.
Sherwell, Philip. "In Honduras Coup, the Truth Is As Strange As Any 'Banana Republic' Fiction." London Telegraph July 5 2009 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/honduras/5743512/In-Honduras-coup-the-truth-is-as-strange-as-any-banana-republic-fiction.html>.
Stein, Jeff. "Mousavi, Celebrated in Iranian Protests, Was the Butcher of Beirut." CQ Politics 22 June 2009 <http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/06/mousavi-celebrated-in-iranian.html>.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Beast of the Month - July 2009
Glenn Beck
Right-Wing Propagandist
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"And if I may speak to Glenn directly for a moment, dude, you are rocking it. I know some people say you're an unstable individual and to give you a public forum is grossly irresponsible, but remember: they crucified Jesus. Crank up the crazy and rip off the knob."
Stephen Colbert on Mr. Beck
Okay, we admit it, The Konformist isn't the biggest fan of Barack Obama. Still, even if you hate a guy, it should be on what he actually is and not on what he isn't.
Over the last few months, criticism of Obama in the mainstream press has been dominated by two groups of people: the "teabaggers" (seriously, stop snickering!) led by noted "men of the people" such as multi-millionaires Rick Santelli of CNBC and Sean Hannity of Fox News, who protest O's supposed far left economic policies; and the "birthers" led by the entertaining Orly Taitz, who insist that Obama can't even be president due to his alleged secret birth in Kenya (or perhaps some even more exotic and sinister locale, such as Russia or - God forbid - France.) The end result of these two movements is the image of Barack Hussein Obama as an evil socialist totalitarian who is secretly plotting to destroy America for his foreign masters. (Never mind that Obama actually occupies the far right of the Democratic Party economically, and that if he's destroying America for any foreign master, it's the banking system.) Suddenly, the charges of Larry Sinclair seem tame that Obama is merely a closeted crack-smoking homosexual.
True, maybe The Konformist has little leg to stand on in mocking others for engaging in elaborate paranoid conspiracy theories. Still, one recent news hysteria perfectly exemplifies how most of the right-wing paranoia surrounding BHO is not only silly, but seems to be a designed misdirection of a mass movement. Consider what happened in April after the Department of Homeland Security’s report, titled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, was leaked onto the Internet, detailing the DHS contention that right-wing politics was a breeding ground for not-so-future terrorism. Immediately, a frenzy of reactionary frothings exploded over the web and right-wing radio about the report. Leading the charge was host Michael "Weiner" Savage, yet another right-wing establishment media blowhard who is a millionaire faux populist. The report, Savage and others insisted, was proof that the Obama administration was a crypto-Marxist cabal plotting to destroy America. So The Konformist must give credit to Kurt Nimmo of Alex Jones' excellent PrisonPlanet.com website, which has been a leading source for top notch political analysis in the age of Obama. Because of the supposed conservative leanings of Mr. Jones (though a review of his site would show his opinions are far more nuanced and certainly more honest than the mainstream media's right wing shills) Prison Planet became one of the sites the DHS report was leaked to. Unlike most other sites that followed with delusional rants, Nimmo noted something about the report that should have been immediately obvious: it was written in January 2007, when the Bush Administration was in charge. Likewise, another DHS report released earlier this year was titled Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade. This pretty much proves that the Rightwing Extremism report wasn't an Obama Kult assault on the right but rather part of an attack embraced by both George and Barack on anyone deemed a political misfit of any stripe.
Of course, perhaps it says something about the current political climate that Alex Jones and The Konformist can now be described as moderate voices of reason. (We don't mean this as a knock on Jones, but even his biggest fans would concede central to his appeal is a sensational style that resembles a carnival barker.) Chalk it up to a political dialogue dominated by the likes of Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Savage. Still, in recent months even these mouthpieces have been overtaken by radio and TV host Glenn Beck, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
Mr. Beck has been host of his own nationally syndicated radio show since 2000. His astounding success over the radio has led to a TV career as a host, first on CNN Headline News since 2006 and then moving to Fox News in January. (His success on TV is all the more remarkable considering he is a decidedly physically repulsive specimen.) He has also written two New York Times bestsellers, making him a multi-media sensation who rivals Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern.
How has Mr. Beck become so popular? Simple: by behaving in a decidedly unhinged manner over the airwaves, all while espousing a reactionary political philosophy.
This was highlighted in March, when he choked up on air, wiping tears from his eyes and declaring, "I'm sorry. I just love my country, and I fear for it." For this one, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert (who has had a field day over the entire Glenn Beck trend) spoofed him by choking up on his own show and saying, "I'm sorry. I just love Glenn Beck's sanity. And I fear for it." Colbert also earned some chuckles after Beck had a close-up of his "crazy eyes" so viewers could see just how serious he was. Colbert one-upped this by having an anal exam with a camera so viewers could literally see just how full of crap he was.
On a more serious note, FAIR columnist Norman Solomon had this to say about Glenn: "Beck has become a national phenom with his nightly hour of polemics... urging war on Iran, denouncing 'political correctness' at home, trashing immigrants who don’t speak English, mocking environmentalists as repressive zealots, and generally trying to denigrate progressive outlooks." Eric Boehlert of MediaMatters.org notes that on his show, Beck "disparages liberals, gays, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and Muslims at will."
That's not all he's tried to disparage. In 2005, he called the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans "scumbags." He then added: "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims." He said both after admitting that nobody "in their right mind is going to say this out loud," proving that Beck himself knows he's insane. Not to leave bad enough alone, in 2007, he mocked victims of the Southern California forest fires as "a handful of people who hate America... a lot of them are losing their homes." It got even funnier the end of June, when Beck had on his show "former" CIA agent Michael Scheuer. Scheuer declared, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States... Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary.” To this adovocacy of mass terrorism, Beck nodded in approval.
Pretty hilarious stuff.
Hilarious, at least, until someone dies. That's what happened in April, when 22-year-old Richard Poplawski killed three Pittsburgh policemen and wounded two others in a bloody shootout. It soon was uncovered that Poplawski, a neo-Nazi, was a huge fan of Beck and his right-wing rantings on Fox News. He was also a fan of the white supremacist Website Stormfront, posting videos of Beck's show on the site. Poplawski was obsessed with right-wing conspiracies, believing that Obama was going to start confiscating guns and rounding up right-wingers in FEMA concentration camps, all part of a New World Order plot to turn Team USA into a Maoist dictatorship.
To be fair, much of this thinking is central to the appeal of Alex Jones, who Poplawski also was a fan of. What Jones did not share, however, was his racist world view, including a belief that America was secretly controlled by a gang of evil Jews. While Beck also eschews the anti-Semitic plots (perhaps because Jews are fortunately not a socially sanctioned scapegoat group anymore) he does, as noted before, engage in trashing of minorities in the same vein as Limbaugh does. Perhaps it isn't overt, in-your-face racism, but it is there.
Certainly it is too much to blame the Pittsburgh murders on Glenn Beck. After all, many "liberal" sites tried to smear Alex Jones with the same brush after it was discovered Poplawski was a fan. But it is hard not to listen to the venomous rage spewed out by Beck (as well as Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Savage) and imagine what it could do to borderline personalities. Somehow The Konformist suspects the Poplawski murders are the first shot of what may turn into a very disturbing fad.
Which, of course, is only part of what is dangerous about Beck. The bigger issue is that he, along with his fellow right-wing blowhards, are channeling the legitimate anger and frustration of the masses into options controlled by the GOP. Thus, the protests of Ron Paul that once frightened the Republican establishment (tellingly, Paul was even more marginalized on Fox News than CNN in 2008) has morphed into the teabagger movement, which is backed by mainstream GOP politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey. The controlled teabagger movement focuses all its rage on the Obama stimulus plan that marginally aided the poor and middle class, while remaining silent about the obscene bailout of Wall Street (which Ron Paul vociferously opposed.) Likewise, Beck will embrace the conspiracy theories of Alex Jones, provided they can be packaged in a way where viewers can use them to support the Republicans. And perhaps even more important, Beck and his cohorts will ignore any criticism of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the Pentagon decides to attack in the future, even though an anti-war message is central to both Jones and Paul.
Of course, whenever Beck gets cornered by his own reactionary beliefs, he tries to dismiss himself as a rodeo clown, a harmless buffoon who is more of an entertainer than a political ideologue. On this issue, The Konformist must concede that as pure theater, Beck is indeed very entertaining. But looking at what the Poplawski murders might lead to, and looking how Beck is manipulating the anger of the masses into faux-populist movements, we have to wonder who will get the last laugh.
In any case, we salute Glenn Beck as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Glenn!!!
Thanks to ColbertNation.com, Fair.org, MediaMatters.org, PrisonPlanet.com & RawStory.com for help on this article.
Right-Wing Propagandist
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"And if I may speak to Glenn directly for a moment, dude, you are rocking it. I know some people say you're an unstable individual and to give you a public forum is grossly irresponsible, but remember: they crucified Jesus. Crank up the crazy and rip off the knob."
Stephen Colbert on Mr. Beck
Okay, we admit it, The Konformist isn't the biggest fan of Barack Obama. Still, even if you hate a guy, it should be on what he actually is and not on what he isn't.
Over the last few months, criticism of Obama in the mainstream press has been dominated by two groups of people: the "teabaggers" (seriously, stop snickering!) led by noted "men of the people" such as multi-millionaires Rick Santelli of CNBC and Sean Hannity of Fox News, who protest O's supposed far left economic policies; and the "birthers" led by the entertaining Orly Taitz, who insist that Obama can't even be president due to his alleged secret birth in Kenya (or perhaps some even more exotic and sinister locale, such as Russia or - God forbid - France.) The end result of these two movements is the image of Barack Hussein Obama as an evil socialist totalitarian who is secretly plotting to destroy America for his foreign masters. (Never mind that Obama actually occupies the far right of the Democratic Party economically, and that if he's destroying America for any foreign master, it's the banking system.) Suddenly, the charges of Larry Sinclair seem tame that Obama is merely a closeted crack-smoking homosexual.
True, maybe The Konformist has little leg to stand on in mocking others for engaging in elaborate paranoid conspiracy theories. Still, one recent news hysteria perfectly exemplifies how most of the right-wing paranoia surrounding BHO is not only silly, but seems to be a designed misdirection of a mass movement. Consider what happened in April after the Department of Homeland Security’s report, titled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, was leaked onto the Internet, detailing the DHS contention that right-wing politics was a breeding ground for not-so-future terrorism. Immediately, a frenzy of reactionary frothings exploded over the web and right-wing radio about the report. Leading the charge was host Michael "Weiner" Savage, yet another right-wing establishment media blowhard who is a millionaire faux populist. The report, Savage and others insisted, was proof that the Obama administration was a crypto-Marxist cabal plotting to destroy America. So The Konformist must give credit to Kurt Nimmo of Alex Jones' excellent PrisonPlanet.com website, which has been a leading source for top notch political analysis in the age of Obama. Because of the supposed conservative leanings of Mr. Jones (though a review of his site would show his opinions are far more nuanced and certainly more honest than the mainstream media's right wing shills) Prison Planet became one of the sites the DHS report was leaked to. Unlike most other sites that followed with delusional rants, Nimmo noted something about the report that should have been immediately obvious: it was written in January 2007, when the Bush Administration was in charge. Likewise, another DHS report released earlier this year was titled Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade. This pretty much proves that the Rightwing Extremism report wasn't an Obama Kult assault on the right but rather part of an attack embraced by both George and Barack on anyone deemed a political misfit of any stripe.
Of course, perhaps it says something about the current political climate that Alex Jones and The Konformist can now be described as moderate voices of reason. (We don't mean this as a knock on Jones, but even his biggest fans would concede central to his appeal is a sensational style that resembles a carnival barker.) Chalk it up to a political dialogue dominated by the likes of Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Savage. Still, in recent months even these mouthpieces have been overtaken by radio and TV host Glenn Beck, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
Mr. Beck has been host of his own nationally syndicated radio show since 2000. His astounding success over the radio has led to a TV career as a host, first on CNN Headline News since 2006 and then moving to Fox News in January. (His success on TV is all the more remarkable considering he is a decidedly physically repulsive specimen.) He has also written two New York Times bestsellers, making him a multi-media sensation who rivals Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern.
How has Mr. Beck become so popular? Simple: by behaving in a decidedly unhinged manner over the airwaves, all while espousing a reactionary political philosophy.
This was highlighted in March, when he choked up on air, wiping tears from his eyes and declaring, "I'm sorry. I just love my country, and I fear for it." For this one, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert (who has had a field day over the entire Glenn Beck trend) spoofed him by choking up on his own show and saying, "I'm sorry. I just love Glenn Beck's sanity. And I fear for it." Colbert also earned some chuckles after Beck had a close-up of his "crazy eyes" so viewers could see just how serious he was. Colbert one-upped this by having an anal exam with a camera so viewers could literally see just how full of crap he was.
On a more serious note, FAIR columnist Norman Solomon had this to say about Glenn: "Beck has become a national phenom with his nightly hour of polemics... urging war on Iran, denouncing 'political correctness' at home, trashing immigrants who don’t speak English, mocking environmentalists as repressive zealots, and generally trying to denigrate progressive outlooks." Eric Boehlert of MediaMatters.org notes that on his show, Beck "disparages liberals, gays, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and Muslims at will."
That's not all he's tried to disparage. In 2005, he called the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans "scumbags." He then added: "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims." He said both after admitting that nobody "in their right mind is going to say this out loud," proving that Beck himself knows he's insane. Not to leave bad enough alone, in 2007, he mocked victims of the Southern California forest fires as "a handful of people who hate America... a lot of them are losing their homes." It got even funnier the end of June, when Beck had on his show "former" CIA agent Michael Scheuer. Scheuer declared, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States... Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary.” To this adovocacy of mass terrorism, Beck nodded in approval.
Pretty hilarious stuff.
Hilarious, at least, until someone dies. That's what happened in April, when 22-year-old Richard Poplawski killed three Pittsburgh policemen and wounded two others in a bloody shootout. It soon was uncovered that Poplawski, a neo-Nazi, was a huge fan of Beck and his right-wing rantings on Fox News. He was also a fan of the white supremacist Website Stormfront, posting videos of Beck's show on the site. Poplawski was obsessed with right-wing conspiracies, believing that Obama was going to start confiscating guns and rounding up right-wingers in FEMA concentration camps, all part of a New World Order plot to turn Team USA into a Maoist dictatorship.
To be fair, much of this thinking is central to the appeal of Alex Jones, who Poplawski also was a fan of. What Jones did not share, however, was his racist world view, including a belief that America was secretly controlled by a gang of evil Jews. While Beck also eschews the anti-Semitic plots (perhaps because Jews are fortunately not a socially sanctioned scapegoat group anymore) he does, as noted before, engage in trashing of minorities in the same vein as Limbaugh does. Perhaps it isn't overt, in-your-face racism, but it is there.
Certainly it is too much to blame the Pittsburgh murders on Glenn Beck. After all, many "liberal" sites tried to smear Alex Jones with the same brush after it was discovered Poplawski was a fan. But it is hard not to listen to the venomous rage spewed out by Beck (as well as Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and Savage) and imagine what it could do to borderline personalities. Somehow The Konformist suspects the Poplawski murders are the first shot of what may turn into a very disturbing fad.
Which, of course, is only part of what is dangerous about Beck. The bigger issue is that he, along with his fellow right-wing blowhards, are channeling the legitimate anger and frustration of the masses into options controlled by the GOP. Thus, the protests of Ron Paul that once frightened the Republican establishment (tellingly, Paul was even more marginalized on Fox News than CNN in 2008) has morphed into the teabagger movement, which is backed by mainstream GOP politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey. The controlled teabagger movement focuses all its rage on the Obama stimulus plan that marginally aided the poor and middle class, while remaining silent about the obscene bailout of Wall Street (which Ron Paul vociferously opposed.) Likewise, Beck will embrace the conspiracy theories of Alex Jones, provided they can be packaged in a way where viewers can use them to support the Republicans. And perhaps even more important, Beck and his cohorts will ignore any criticism of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the Pentagon decides to attack in the future, even though an anti-war message is central to both Jones and Paul.
Of course, whenever Beck gets cornered by his own reactionary beliefs, he tries to dismiss himself as a rodeo clown, a harmless buffoon who is more of an entertainer than a political ideologue. On this issue, The Konformist must concede that as pure theater, Beck is indeed very entertaining. But looking at what the Poplawski murders might lead to, and looking how Beck is manipulating the anger of the masses into faux-populist movements, we have to wonder who will get the last laugh.
In any case, we salute Glenn Beck as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Glenn!!!
Thanks to ColbertNation.com, Fair.org, MediaMatters.org, PrisonPlanet.com & RawStory.com for help on this article.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Beast of the Month - June 2009
Beast of the Month - June 2009Alex Rodriguez
Steroid-Fueled Baseball Star
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"Jose Canseco Smirking Smugly At Nation"
Recent article title found at Onion.com
Is Jose Canseco ever wrong? Seriously, give this man a Pulitzer. In April, he speculated the reason Manny Ramirez (a two-time World Series champion for the Boston Red Sox and current Los Angeles Dodger superstar) didn't receive a monster contract offer during the off-season was because the owner's knew he was a steroid juicer. More than likely, Canseco guessed, Manny was on the 2003 list of players who tested positive for doping, a list of names likely already leaked to MLB owners. On this score, Canseco said he was 90 percent sure.
For his wacky conspiracy theorizing, Canseco was once again lambasted in the media, the same way he has been repeatedly treated over the last four years since his book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big, was released. Since then, not one claim by him has been proven false, and many of his claims, even those sounding most luridly outlandish at first, have been proven true. Despite his track record, one sportswriter dismissed Jose C as "ridiculous and irresponsible" for engaging in "pseudo-slanderous steroid chatter" over Ramirez.
But what do you know? Barely a month after Canseco made his reckless hunch, Manny was suspended for 50 games after testing positive for a banned substance. While he wasn't actually caught taking steroids, the drug he did test positive for, human chorionic gonadotropin, is popular among roiders for stopping the side effects of ending a cycle. (You know, little things like lower sperm count and shrunken testicles.) Maybe there's another explanation for why Ramirez was taking a female fertility drug, but that he is indeed a drug doper as Canseco had suspected seems to fit Occam's Razor the best.
Of course, the whole steroid scandal may have jumped the shark with the Ramirez revelation. At this point, is anybody shocked when a ballplayer is revealed as a drug cheater? This is, after all, the third time since 2005 The Konformist has focused Beast of the Month on the subject, which means we've covered this more in our 13-year history than we have Israel's brutal treatment of Palestinians and Lebanon. Yes, baseball is America's game (well, really it's football, and anyone who claims otherwise is kidding themselves) and yes, the steroid scandal has tarnished the game's legacy, but at this point, we've got more important things to do, like investigate Wall Street mass thievery, remind people there are still bloody pointless wars being fought in the Middle East and search YouTube for videos of Lady Gaga. So consider this BOTM a kiss-off to the whole "professional baseball players cheat" moral outrage as we get onto better things.
But before we jump off the whole steroid scandal bandwagon, The Konformist needs to get one last jab in, to a guy really deserving it. After all, part of the reason the steroid outing of the best player on baseball's second most famous franchise received such a ho-hum response is because the best player on baseball's most famous franchise (Alex Rodriguez, The Konformist Beast of the Month) had been outed as a fraud only months before.
For those who don't follow baseball, Rodriguez, better known as A-Rod, is not only the best player on the New York Yankees, he is arguably the best player in baseball, period. (Only Manny and Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals come close.) He has already won 3 MVP titles, this despite not winning in 2001 and 2002, when he hit 52 and 57 home runs. In 2006, he was the only non-pitcher still active to make Sports Illustrated's Alltime All-Star Team. (Fellow Yankees Roger Clemens and reliever Mariano Rivera also made the team.) It is suspected by many that Barry Bonds, the man formerly viewed as the best player in baseball, was snubbed from the team thanks to the evidence against him as a steroid cheat.
Indeed, the conventional wisdom until last year was that A-Rod was going to be the hero who saved the game by restoring the integrity of the numbers. He ended last season with 553 career home runs, 13th all time. He is second to only Ken Griffey Jr. among current players, and Griffey (perhaps the only modern slugger without any steroid suspicion due to his non-muscled physique) appears soon to be headed to retirement. That left A-Rod with the best chance of surpassing Bonds' career total of 762* round-trippers, something he could conceivably do in four great seasons. After that, balance would be returned to the universe, as the most sacred record in American sports would not be held by a doping phony.
Even without the recent revelations, the "A-Rod as Christ savior" storyline had its problems. For all his talent, he's never been particularly loved by the public or, perhaps more importantly, his fellow teammates. He isn't a surly SOB like Bonds, but his well-noted narcissistic self-absorption (on full display on the April 2009 cover of Details where he was seen kissing his own image in a mirror) has made him a magnet for haters. As for his contributions to teams, here are some curious facts: in 2001, after he left the Seattle Mariners for a ten-year, $252 million payout with the Texas Rangers, the Mariners won an astounding 116 games. His Rangers, meanwhile, finished in last place the three seasons he was there. Since he has moved to the Yankees in 2004, meanwhile, they have yet to even appear in a World Series despite all their well-paid talent, while their nemesis in Boston broke the Bambino curse with two titles, starting coincidentally the year he started playing in the Big Apple.
Okay, maybe the bad luck of the Rangers and Yankees isn't his entire fault. (Although his notorious showing in post-season play, which has earned him like Bonds before the insulting nickname of "Mr. April-September" from some, certainly hasn't helped.) Still, entering his sixth year in NY pinstripes, he wasn't even half as loved by fans or fellow Yankees as fellow teammate Derek Jeter. This was underscored in manager Joe Torre's recently published book The Yankee Years, where he reveals A-Rod was derisively termed as "A-Fraud" by teammates annoyed by his shallow insincerity. His 2007 demand to renegotiate his record contract to an even larger ten-year, $275 million didn't help.
Torre's tell-all bio was only the second recent book to dish dirt on A-Rod. The first came out last year, when Canseco released his sequel to Juiced, titled Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball. The big bombshell in the tome: Canseco claims in the latter half of the 1990s, A-Rod asked for help in finding a trainer that would supply steroids. He refused to name the trainer (referring to him only as "Max") and when pressed on Nightline over his refusal to provide corroborating evidence, Canseco replied: "Let's see how Alex reacts. Let's see if they call me a liar again. How's that for ya? Let's see if all of a sudden they're gonna call me a liar again."
Surprise, surprise. As he was lambasted earlier this year over his Manny hypothesis, Canseco, despite his history of truth-telling, was indeed shredded in the press as a liar again in 2008 over the claim. In this case, it didn't help Jose that he has an admitted beef with A-Rod, claiming Rodriguez had an affair with Canseco's then wife. (Apparently A-Rod's affairs don't merely include cheating with wives of teammates: late last year, his wife Cynthia filed for divorce after a rumored adulterous affair between A-Rod and Madonna became top tabloid news.) His allegations did get some backing last year when former reliever John Rocker claimed MLB commissioner Bud Selig knew he failed a drug test for steroids in 2000, and doctors for both management and the players' association advised him and three other Texas Rangers - among them Alex Rodriguez - on how to use steroids. Of course, when the one person who helps confirm your story is a notorious pariah like the racist Rocker, it tends to undercut, rather than enhance, credibility.
Despite this, it appears Canseco is once again vindicated. In February, Sports Illustrated reported that A-Rod was one of the 104 players who tested positive for steroids. As the controversy became the talk of the news cycle, A-Rod finally fessed up and admitted, yes, he was a steroid cheat. The mea culpa came with a convenient asterisk, as A-Rod insisted he only did it from 2001-3 while with the Rangers, meaning he denied any usage after steroid use had penalties attached. In any case, his apology, especially the one he sent publicly to his teammates, was widely deemed as insincere.
Even with this limited hangout by A-Rod, outrage became the order of the day. No longer was "A-Fraud" enough of a put-down of the dude by his critics: "A-Roid" or (with even greater ingenuity, courtesy of a NY Post cover) "A-Hole" became the new insults. On David Letterman, a top ten joke list featuring messages left on A-Rod's answering machine included this knee-slapper: "Could you find a steroid that keeps you from choking in the playoffs?"
The SI report become the first shot of reporter Selena Roberts' A-Rod bio, the third book to talk smack about Rodriguez. Roberts claims A-Rod started his steroid regimen in high school, and that he has continued it during the Yankee years. She also made claims of another A-Rod cheating scandal: that A-Rod would tip buddies on other teams the pitch they were facing late in blowout games. According to Roberts, the quid quo pro deal allowed players in the pitch-tipping scandal to pad their stats in at-bats for games already decided, at the expense of late-inning pitchers. While the scheme wouldn't change the winner of the game, it certainly qualifies as an attack on the integrity of the game, perhaps even more so than steroids, and a betrayal of pitching teammates almost on par with sleeping with their wives.
(Adding insult to his injured reputation, a Yahoo! Sports article from August 2008 reported the next generation of Bill James wannabees had statistically uncovered a sabermetrics to measure clutch hitting, and A-Rod, as critics had long insisted, was indeed a pressure-situation choker.)
Fortunately for A-Rod, a cyst on his hip forced him to miss the first full month of the season. (Cynics note that a common side-effect of steroid usage is cysts developing at injection point.) By the time of his May 8th return, A-Rod outrage had dipped and been superseded by the Manny dope scandal, and hitting a home run on the first pitch certainly aided him in forgiveness. Come October, maybe A-Rod can finally earn the love (and the $275 million) he has long craved from fans by finally delivering in the playoffs, and the forgiveness that comes with it. Based on his track record, however, The Konformist is betting against him once again.
In the end, A-Rod is merely just another scapegoat in sports, a face for the public to focus wrath. And that's why we expect this to be the last steroid-related athlete BOTM we do, even if another great baseball superstar is eventually shockingly uncovered as a secret doper. But that doesn't mean we'll stop covering this issue: as The Konformist and Jose Canseco long have pointed out, the owners and the league itself have long sanctioned the steroid era with their covert consent. The tale of John Rocker, that the commissioner himself knew he failed a 2000 test and that management advised him on how to properly juice, provides ample evidence of just how complicit they are. Indeed, the evidence suggests that even as Bud Selig was personally promoting the "A-Rod as baseball savior" myth, he already knew via the 2003 tests that Rodriguez was a cheater. Meanwhile, as Nation magazine writer Dave Zirin has noted, owners "have yet to have to face any kind of Congressional subcommittee, grand jury or operatic media melodrama for their role in cheapening the sport." If they ever are, no doubt The Konformist will be there ready to point fingers again where they deserve.
In any case, we salute Alex Rodriguez as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Al!!!
Sources:
Blum, Ronald. "A-Rod Says He Expects Questions on Drugs." Associated Press 20 February 2008 <http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iCj65bmE8AEQ7MvFQrBVYXwwJp9QD8UUAVI80>.
Brinson, Will. "Jose Canseco Says '90 Percent Chance' Manny Ramirez Is on 'The List'." MLB FanHouse 6 April 2009 <http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2009/04/06/jose-canseco-says-90-chance-manny-ramirez-is-on-steroids-list>.
Canseco, Jose. Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.
Canseco, Jose. Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.
"Details on A-Rod's Alleged Pitch-Tipping Scheme in Texas." Sports Illustrated 30 April 2009 <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/04/30/roberts.qa>.
Escherich, Katie. "Exclusive: Jose Canseco Says 'The Truth Hurts'." ABC News 26 March 2008 <http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=4528387>.
Harris, Beth and Blum, Rondald. "Ramirez Suspended 50 Games for Drug Violation." Yahoo! Sports 7 May 2009 <http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AozPbdpnRxDcG.ttoQ3gr6URvLYF?slug=ap-dodgers-ramirez-drugs>.
"Jose Canseco Smirking Smugly At Nation." The Onion 12 February 2009 <http://www.theonion.com/content/from_print/jose_canseco_smirking_smugly>.
Passan, Jeff. A-Rod Is a $300 Million Migraine." Yahoo! Sports 31 August 2008 <http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AqYZcgXmuHwg3tDIHBh5_VYRvLYF?slug=jp-arod083108>.
Roberts, Selena. A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.
Roberts, Selena and Epstein, David. "Sources Tell SI Alex Rodriguez Tested Positive for Steroids in 2003." Sports Illustrated 7 February 2009 <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/02/07/alex-rodriguez-steroids/index.html>.
Streeter, Kurt. "Manny Ramirez Blindsided Everyone but Jose Canseco." Los Angeles Times 7 May 2009 <http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-streeter-manny8-2009may08,0,5943246.story>.
Torre, Joe and Verducci, Tom. The Yankee Years. New York: Doubleday, 2009.
Verducci, Tom. "Alltime All-Star Team." Sports Illustrated 3 October 2006 <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/magazine/10/03/bb.allstar1009/index.html>.
Zirin, Dave. "A-Rod, Anabolic Agonist Sports." The Nation 9 February 2009 <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090223/zirin>.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Beast of the Month - May 2009
Beast of the Month - May 2009
Timothy Geithner
Obamanomics Mastermind
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"While the boss man takes his bonus pay and jets on out of town
And DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground
Yeah while they're living it up on Wall Street in that New York City town
Here in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down"
John Rich, "Shuttin' Detroit Down"
Well, it's been 100 days into the Obama Administration, and already a picture of the next four years is becoming pretty evident. True, he isn't the combo of Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao that the "teabaggers" (quit snickering!) of the Beck-Hannity-Limbaugh crowd try to make him out as. On the other hand, he clearly isn't the perfect mixture of JFK, MLK & Jesus Christ that the so-called "progressive" cultists fantasize he is either.
Say what you will about the teabaggers, but their anger at Barack Hussein Obama, however misdirected, at least seems like the logical response to the looting of America that has continued under his reign. Indeed, it seems that the left is far more delusional about what Barack Obama is than the Fox News watchers could ever be as they continue to wave pom-poms for the dude. For the general direction of the Obama Administration is exactly what The Konformist warned it would be: a sniveling betrayal of the duped progressives who supported his election victory as he bootlicks Wall Street and the Pentagon.
To be fair, Prez Obama hasn't been as terrible as some predicted he'd be. (And he certainly isn't as bad as George W. Bush, though that's hardly an amazing feat.) The good news: he has yet to launch World War III against Russia and/or China. Of course, the main reason is because there's no money left to finance WWIII after the massive swindling by the banksters and Wall Street under his reign, and that of his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
Under Geithner and Team Obama, the siphoning of bucks to prop up the Wall Street monoliths has continued unabated. And though the Obama Administration pushed through a $787 billion "stimulus" program as well as a $75 billion plan to help homeowners facing foreclosure, the general direction of the Obama years is definitely still slanted towards funneling money to the powerful few. Indeed, though the $787 billion was more than the Wall Street Bailout - no doubt done to convince the public they've received more help than the bankers have - the vast majority of these dollars will only come to the poor, working class and middle class indirectly, if at all. Likewise, the foreclosure plan appears to be just enough to help only the subprime debtors who the financial system can profit off via the aid. Tellingly, it is the stimulus program and the homeowner plan that became the focus of the rage ranted over the airwaves by reactionary blowhards like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rick Santelli rather than the Wall Street Bailout. This appears to be a calculated obfuscation by these loathsome pundits. The end result is threefold: one, to channel the legitimate anger of the masses at the economic crisis towards those who are the victims rather than the perpetrators; two, to make it seem that it is only right-wing nut jobs and racists who oppose Obamanomics; and three, to frame the Obama economic policies as far left via distortion and shift the entire debate even farther to the right than before.
After the stimulus plan was pushed through, the Obama Administration offered up a trillion dollar "toxic assets" bailout for Wall Street. (In fact, it appears the push to get the stimulus program passed so quickly was because another round of obscene Wall Street handouts without a penny to the public would've been too in-your-face class warfare.) The plan puts federal funds to back 97 percent of the money used to buy away these bad assets, with the loans and three quarters of all losses backed by Uncle Sam. The investors in this scam will thus have their losses pretty much covered with a big upside for any financial rewards. All in all, the plan seems to be born from the big business philosophy of "socialize the costs, privatize the profits."
While the Obama team has been warm and snuggly to Wall Street, they have been equally ruthless to anyone with a United Auto Workers union card. While they coddle the bankers with trillions in bailouts, the pocket change handed to the Detroit Big Three was conditional on UAW workers accepting massive layoffs, pay cuts and reductions in retiree benefits. This shouldn't be too surprising, as the head of Obama's Auto Task Force is a real life Gordon Gekko in Steve Rattner, a corporate raider who has made a living crushing worker benefits for personal profits.
All this seems to follow the reactionary pattern that's been in place since the Wall Street Bailout of last October. Which leads to a logical question: just who was behind the bailout in the first place? As it turns out, a key player in creating the TARP program was the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank at the time. This was none other than (drum roll please) Timothy Geithner himself.
The appointments of guys like Rattner and Geithner shouldn't be too surprising either: as has been noted on The Konformist, Obama has long surrounded himself with the most right-wing elements economically tied to the Democratic Party. This includes Austan Goolsbee, the University of Chicago professor who is on the "left" side of the far-right economic program made famous thanks to Milton Friedman. Goolsbee was named staff director and chief economist for the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, whose chairman, also appointed by Obama, is former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, the man whose ruthless monetary policies (also inspired by Milton Friedman) led to a nasty recession that nearly destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency in its first term.
Beyond just surrounding himself with right-wingers, Obama's positions, even before his election, were decidedly to the right of Edwards and Clinton. Indeed, though it is almost never acknowledged, by the end of the 2008 campaign, John McCain had offered a far more generous solution to foreclosure victims than any Obama proposal. Of course, Obama may have been too busy raising a record $650 million dollars to show any concern for these bitter financial victims. And though the sales job of Obama feigns his campaign was fueled by small donors, the Campaign Finance Institute concluded Obama "raised significantly more large-donor money in absolute terms than any of his rivals or predecessors." (It should be mentioned as almost an afterthought that Obama's VP pick, Joe Biden of Delaware, is so tied to the banking industry he has earned the nickname of "Credit Card Joe" for his efforts.)
The punch line in this rightward tilt in Obamanomics: after repeatedly being accused of being a far-left socialist by the Beck-Hannity-Limbaugh crowd, the left will be blamed for any failures in his economic programs. The general suspicion of The Konformist staff is the stimulus program will be enough to stop a major depression, but not enough to stop a lingering recession. Meanwhile, in January, economist Paul Craig Roberts warned the deficit would be $3 trillion in 2009, and his projection looks more accurate by the day than the predictions of others. With the unemployment rate looking to hit double digits soon, it appears there's a lot of failure ready to be pinned on the left in the coming years.
In any case, we salute Timothy Geithner as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Timmy!!!
Sources:
Allen, Mike. "Volcker Will Head New Obama Board." Yahoo News 26 November 2008 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081126/pl_politico/15997>.
"Credit Card Joe." The Real Joe Biden. 24 August 2008 <http://therealjoebiden.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/credit-card-joe>.
Eley, Tom. "Buyer Beware! Obama Named 'Marketer of the Year'." World Socialist Web Site 6 December 2008 <http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/obad-d06.shtml>.
Grey, Barry. "Wall Street Celebrates Government Windfall for Banks and Big Investors." World Socialist Web Site 24 March 2009 <http://wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/toxi-m24.shtml>.
Marshall, Bruce. "Barack 'Hoover' Obama." Rense.com 11 March 2009 <http://rense.com/general85/hoov.htm>.
"Obama: 'Everybody Thinks They’re Economists'." Infowars 6 February 2009 <http://www.infowars.com/obama-everybody-thinks-theyre-economists>.
"Reality Check: Obama Received About the Same Percentage from Small Donors in 2008 as Bush in 2004." The Campaign Finance Institute 24 November 2008 <http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=216>.
Roberts, Paul Craig. "Another Real Estate Crisis Is About to Hit." Online Journal 23 January 2009 <http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4274.shtml>.
Sirota, David. "Obama's Gordon Gekko Targets Union Workers." OurFuture.org 31 March 2009 <http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009031431/obamas-gordon-gekko-targets-union-workers-0>.
Tarpley, Webster G. "Defeat Obama - Advice For Voters." Rense.com 3 November 2008 <http://www.rense.com/general83/advi.htm>.
Tarpley, Webster G. "Motormouth Joe Biden - Warmonger, Wordmonger And Political Hit Man." Rense.com 25 August 2008 <http://rense.com/general83/biden.htm>.
Timothy Geithner
Obamanomics Mastermind
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"While the boss man takes his bonus pay and jets on out of town
And DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground
Yeah while they're living it up on Wall Street in that New York City town
Here in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down"
John Rich, "Shuttin' Detroit Down"
Well, it's been 100 days into the Obama Administration, and already a picture of the next four years is becoming pretty evident. True, he isn't the combo of Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao that the "teabaggers" (quit snickering!) of the Beck-Hannity-Limbaugh crowd try to make him out as. On the other hand, he clearly isn't the perfect mixture of JFK, MLK & Jesus Christ that the so-called "progressive" cultists fantasize he is either.
Say what you will about the teabaggers, but their anger at Barack Hussein Obama, however misdirected, at least seems like the logical response to the looting of America that has continued under his reign. Indeed, it seems that the left is far more delusional about what Barack Obama is than the Fox News watchers could ever be as they continue to wave pom-poms for the dude. For the general direction of the Obama Administration is exactly what The Konformist warned it would be: a sniveling betrayal of the duped progressives who supported his election victory as he bootlicks Wall Street and the Pentagon.
To be fair, Prez Obama hasn't been as terrible as some predicted he'd be. (And he certainly isn't as bad as George W. Bush, though that's hardly an amazing feat.) The good news: he has yet to launch World War III against Russia and/or China. Of course, the main reason is because there's no money left to finance WWIII after the massive swindling by the banksters and Wall Street under his reign, and that of his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, The Konformist Beast of the Month.
Under Geithner and Team Obama, the siphoning of bucks to prop up the Wall Street monoliths has continued unabated. And though the Obama Administration pushed through a $787 billion "stimulus" program as well as a $75 billion plan to help homeowners facing foreclosure, the general direction of the Obama years is definitely still slanted towards funneling money to the powerful few. Indeed, though the $787 billion was more than the Wall Street Bailout - no doubt done to convince the public they've received more help than the bankers have - the vast majority of these dollars will only come to the poor, working class and middle class indirectly, if at all. Likewise, the foreclosure plan appears to be just enough to help only the subprime debtors who the financial system can profit off via the aid. Tellingly, it is the stimulus program and the homeowner plan that became the focus of the rage ranted over the airwaves by reactionary blowhards like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rick Santelli rather than the Wall Street Bailout. This appears to be a calculated obfuscation by these loathsome pundits. The end result is threefold: one, to channel the legitimate anger of the masses at the economic crisis towards those who are the victims rather than the perpetrators; two, to make it seem that it is only right-wing nut jobs and racists who oppose Obamanomics; and three, to frame the Obama economic policies as far left via distortion and shift the entire debate even farther to the right than before.
After the stimulus plan was pushed through, the Obama Administration offered up a trillion dollar "toxic assets" bailout for Wall Street. (In fact, it appears the push to get the stimulus program passed so quickly was because another round of obscene Wall Street handouts without a penny to the public would've been too in-your-face class warfare.) The plan puts federal funds to back 97 percent of the money used to buy away these bad assets, with the loans and three quarters of all losses backed by Uncle Sam. The investors in this scam will thus have their losses pretty much covered with a big upside for any financial rewards. All in all, the plan seems to be born from the big business philosophy of "socialize the costs, privatize the profits."
While the Obama team has been warm and snuggly to Wall Street, they have been equally ruthless to anyone with a United Auto Workers union card. While they coddle the bankers with trillions in bailouts, the pocket change handed to the Detroit Big Three was conditional on UAW workers accepting massive layoffs, pay cuts and reductions in retiree benefits. This shouldn't be too surprising, as the head of Obama's Auto Task Force is a real life Gordon Gekko in Steve Rattner, a corporate raider who has made a living crushing worker benefits for personal profits.
All this seems to follow the reactionary pattern that's been in place since the Wall Street Bailout of last October. Which leads to a logical question: just who was behind the bailout in the first place? As it turns out, a key player in creating the TARP program was the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank at the time. This was none other than (drum roll please) Timothy Geithner himself.
The appointments of guys like Rattner and Geithner shouldn't be too surprising either: as has been noted on The Konformist, Obama has long surrounded himself with the most right-wing elements economically tied to the Democratic Party. This includes Austan Goolsbee, the University of Chicago professor who is on the "left" side of the far-right economic program made famous thanks to Milton Friedman. Goolsbee was named staff director and chief economist for the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, whose chairman, also appointed by Obama, is former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, the man whose ruthless monetary policies (also inspired by Milton Friedman) led to a nasty recession that nearly destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency in its first term.
Beyond just surrounding himself with right-wingers, Obama's positions, even before his election, were decidedly to the right of Edwards and Clinton. Indeed, though it is almost never acknowledged, by the end of the 2008 campaign, John McCain had offered a far more generous solution to foreclosure victims than any Obama proposal. Of course, Obama may have been too busy raising a record $650 million dollars to show any concern for these bitter financial victims. And though the sales job of Obama feigns his campaign was fueled by small donors, the Campaign Finance Institute concluded Obama "raised significantly more large-donor money in absolute terms than any of his rivals or predecessors." (It should be mentioned as almost an afterthought that Obama's VP pick, Joe Biden of Delaware, is so tied to the banking industry he has earned the nickname of "Credit Card Joe" for his efforts.)
The punch line in this rightward tilt in Obamanomics: after repeatedly being accused of being a far-left socialist by the Beck-Hannity-Limbaugh crowd, the left will be blamed for any failures in his economic programs. The general suspicion of The Konformist staff is the stimulus program will be enough to stop a major depression, but not enough to stop a lingering recession. Meanwhile, in January, economist Paul Craig Roberts warned the deficit would be $3 trillion in 2009, and his projection looks more accurate by the day than the predictions of others. With the unemployment rate looking to hit double digits soon, it appears there's a lot of failure ready to be pinned on the left in the coming years.
In any case, we salute Timothy Geithner as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Timmy!!!
Sources:
Allen, Mike. "Volcker Will Head New Obama Board." Yahoo News 26 November 2008 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081126/pl_politico/15997>.
"Credit Card Joe." The Real Joe Biden. 24 August 2008 <http://therealjoebiden.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/credit-card-joe>.
Eley, Tom. "Buyer Beware! Obama Named 'Marketer of the Year'." World Socialist Web Site 6 December 2008 <http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/obad-d06.shtml>.
Grey, Barry. "Wall Street Celebrates Government Windfall for Banks and Big Investors." World Socialist Web Site 24 March 2009 <http://wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/toxi-m24.shtml>.
Marshall, Bruce. "Barack 'Hoover' Obama." Rense.com 11 March 2009 <http://rense.com/general85/hoov.htm>.
"Obama: 'Everybody Thinks They’re Economists'." Infowars 6 February 2009 <http://www.infowars.com/obama-everybody-thinks-theyre-economists>.
"Reality Check: Obama Received About the Same Percentage from Small Donors in 2008 as Bush in 2004." The Campaign Finance Institute 24 November 2008 <http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=216>.
Roberts, Paul Craig. "Another Real Estate Crisis Is About to Hit." Online Journal 23 January 2009 <http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4274.shtml>.
Sirota, David. "Obama's Gordon Gekko Targets Union Workers." OurFuture.org 31 March 2009 <http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009031431/obamas-gordon-gekko-targets-union-workers-0>.
Tarpley, Webster G. "Defeat Obama - Advice For Voters." Rense.com 3 November 2008 <http://www.rense.com/general83/advi.htm>.
Tarpley, Webster G. "Motormouth Joe Biden - Warmonger, Wordmonger And Political Hit Man." Rense.com 25 August 2008 <http://rense.com/general83/biden.htm>.
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