Shock & Awe

I remember when, back in the day when I was alive and studying Modern Languages, one of my projects was a closer look at the use of the  English language in the press.   

Not only did I find extremely biased language (not surprising) but also language designed to confuse.  

That's not so bad in a headline, ambiguity or a 'catchy' phrase, whose purpose is to draw in the reader, to incite curiosity for a story.   

There has been a deterioration in that respect, because there was a time, not v long ago, when headlines were more interesting and smarter.  

What usually tended to happen would be that the better the headline:

1. The more humor there was in it;

2. The less important the story was, and;

3. The more it tended to have a wordplay in it.

Now there's a hook, it seems, but it's all pure baiting now, and usually leads to nothing because there is usually no story to begin with.  Especially when it comes to internet headlines.

I wonder about 'the press' as opposed to 'the media'.    Newspapers.  They hardly sell anymore. Owning a newspaper isn't economically profitable.  One wonders, then, why magnates own papers.  Average ppl stopped buying them long ago.  More and more I  tend to think they now exist as a way for sold out politicians and gov'ts to justify some action or other.  I think papers have turned into an indirect tool of power as opposed to a check on power.  

I think the mechanism now is for a gov't or a department / agency of the state to 'leak' a story or piece of news, real or fake,  that they for some reason need ppl to get behind. 

The journalist then writes it, hiding the source (protected), and the same gov't source then uses the story s/he leaked as a reason to act. 

"We must do X because ______ paper broke the story that ________ has been involved in _______ against our interests." 

It's clear that there's no public trust in the media anymore, written  or watched.  The less trust or respect there is for the 4th estate, the more desperate it becomes, the more the 'stories' become non-stories, because it's obvious that the real stories, the actual news, aren't being delivered anymore. 

It was always a little like this but now it's huge.

Every now and then there's your lone journalist still doing his work.

I believe there are some activities which are linked to a vocation. 

1. The clergy

2. Medicine

3. Teaching

4. Politics

5. Journalism

"Un journaliste aujourd'hui c'est soit un chômeur soit une pute."  (A journalist today is either unemployed or a whore .)  Alain Soral

There are v few v good any of the above, anyway.   Excellence is rare by definition.

Donald Trump doesn't end up being the GOP candidate for POTUS for no reason.   

And even if Bernie Sanders ends up having to swallow Hillary Clinton's nomination (typo domination) filled with irregularities, he probably never dreamed he'd be this popular among US citizens.  

Both of them have been surprised by Events.  

I think they decided to run only to stir things up a little, and didn't imagine that in so doing, they would open up the space for real discussion about the topics which actually matter to ppl, right or wrong, in the country and in the world, and even more so, they didn't think that they'd open up the space that shows to everyone who bothers to look that there is lip service payed to democracy, especially in Democratic Party primaries.  It simply doesn't exist.   The Emperor is naked.   There are many reports of fraud in the Democratic Party's primaries.  

It's almost like when, in Sci-Fi films, as Zizek says, a character pushes a button he thinks anodyne, harmless, and suddenly the entire room s/he's in starts to collapse.  

 

Bernie Sanders is the natural candidate to oppose Trump.  In my mind, only Bernie Sanders has a chance to win against Trump-- that is, without cheating.

Hillary Clinton is under federal criminal investigation.   How can the Democratic Party -- and President BarrackObama!--- support her?!?!?   

Can we imagine what would be said if Bernie Sanders or and especially if Donald Trump were under federal criminal investigation, and became the nominee?  I don't think any TV channel or newspaper would be as cool about that as they are now with  Hillary Clinton!

I've got to take my hat off to the US electorate for its capacity to surprise the world.

 

Such are the incoherences, inconsistencies, and contradictions in this late, high stage of capitalism in the USA, that voters made this election one of the most interesting things in politics in recent history.    Thanks, USA!  Without irony, this is very exciting.

(And it makes Lenin ever more relevant, incidentally, especially his 1917 essay Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.  This book makes him seem like a time traveller. Like Dr Who. Some ppl believe in palm reading, in clairvoyants, etc, and reading this book one either draws the conclusion Lenin was a prophet / psychic, or one decides, instead, that there is method in this capitalistic madness; it's not random, 'crazy', or unpredictable.)

If I were Bernie Sanders, now would be the time I'd say 'Fuck off' to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party and the Establishment, and I'd go over to Trump and say "Do you really want to do something exceptional? Do you want to Make Politics Matter Again? Let's work together now."  

Political Shock & Awe.  

Show everyone what Hillary Clinton represents, and since Barrack Obama has backed her, shame on him, he represents the sHame thing she does now.

The stranglehold internationalized finance has on the economy, on countries, on sovereignty, on peoples' aspirations.

At the very least, if  I were Sanders, I'd remind ppl, over and over again, of Hillary Clinton's personal involvement in the overthrow of at least one democratically and legitimately elected gov't in the Americas, in 2010--- Honduras.