He's only a paper moon...

In my idle moments I protect my insanity by imagining our fearless
leaders in comic relief.
Of course I can't say that I know any of them up close and personal,
but they do present themselves as plastic figures.
Barak Obama appears to me to be a paper doll, two dimensional, hanging
from a cardboard sky, flapping about in whichever way the breezes are
blowing, surrounded by acres of long stemmed microphones that look
like tootsie pops, making highly intelligent sounds formed from
meaningless words.
Bush the Lesser, pops up in my minds eye like Alfred E. Newman,
sitting on a folding chair and holding Dick Cheney on his lap. Only
it turns out that Bush is the dummy and Cheney is moving his lips.
Bill Clinton leers out from sharp intelligent eyes, but looking like
the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Of course I saw Ronald Reagan, Dick Nixon, LBJ, JFK, Ike, Truman and
Roosevelt. But Gerald Ford was not a face in the news when I had
sight. He appears in my head like a frumpy banker, a bit flabby and
thin on top, blank featured waving a golf club instead of a mike.
Jimmy Carter comes bounding out of my imaginary TV with an open
boyish, toothy grin. While he is busy telling me about his dreams for
a better America, hooded, masked shadows creep back and forth behind
him, raping and plundering in the four corners of the world.
When I ask myself what causes me to see these men in comic relief, I
can only conclude that it is because they all have one thing in
common. All of them believe that they are leaders, directing the
world's most powerful nation. And all of them are deceiving
themselves. All of them are followers, doing the bidding of their
Masters, the real, honest to goodness, first class corporate Citizens.
All of them turn their backs on the Working Class and the real heroes
of our nation. Only when they are told that it is okay to celebrate
certain individuals as heroes, will they mouth the proper platitudes.
When I find myself becoming impatient with folks who listen to the
likes of Rush Limbaugh, I remind myself that I have sat and listened
to all of these presidents over the years, trying to make sense out of
their blathering. Like Limbaugh, they are paid well to sell us fluff.
But soon it will be time to do the Presidential Trot again. We will
ponder over, and dissect their pious mouthing, trying to find some ray
of hope, fooling ourselves that this time we might get it right. But
that right has been taken from us. The right to select leaders has
been removed. We will go on, voting for the lesser of two evils,
while real leaders are tossed to the curb.
God Bless America!

Carl Jarvis




On 11/12/14, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> My suspiscion is that he is taking this stand because it is one that
> Progressives will cheer. However, Tom Wheeler, whom he appointed, doesn't
> agree with him. Besides, I think he is just trying to look good to his
> supporters and potential supporters because he is about to stab working and
> poor people in the back by cutting social security and doing God knows what
> to medicare. He is supporting all those pro corporate free trade treaties
> which are also a slap in the face to consumers and environmentalists.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blind-Democracy [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On
> Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 12:44 PM
> To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
> Subject: obama on net neutrality: Chalk one up for the President
>
> Good to see that President Obama notices the little people once in a while.
> Trouble is, the system is still driven by Greed(Capitalism), and as long as
> profit is placed ahead of people, the First Class Corporate Citizens will
> work overtime to figure out a way to own the internet.
> 4,000,000 protests to the contrary.
> Carl Jarvis
>
> On 11/11/14, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Obama adamant on net neutrality . Brian Fung. President Obama on
>> Monday called for the government to aggressively regulate Internet
>> service providers such
>>
>> as Verizon and Comcast, treating broadband like a public utility as
>> essential as water, phone service and electricity. Such a move would
>> have a dramatic
>>
>> effect on cable and telecom firms that have fought vigorously to keep
>> their highly profitable Internet businesses free of regulation. It is
>> Obama's most
>>
>> forceful statement yet in favor of a free and open Internet and
>> against allowing Internet service providers to charge content
>> companies such as Netflix
>>
>> for faster access to their customers. The president called on the
>> Federal Communications Commission, which is an independent agency and
>> doesn't have to
>>
>> follow his directions, to adopt the strictest rules possible for
>> ensuring net neutrality, or the principle that all Internet traffic
>> should be treated
>>
>> equally. "I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules
>> protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company
>> nor the phone company
>>
>> will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or
>> see online," Obama said in a statement released online while he
>> traveled to Asia. Obama
>>
>> took the most hardline view of how heavily cable companies and
>> Internet service providers should be regulated - going further than
>> his supporters had expected
>>
>> - fulfilling a key promise of his 2008 campaign that helped him win
>> support among Silicon Valley heavyweights. It could also help the
>> Obama administration's
>>
>> relationship with the tech community, which was splintered in the wake
>> of National Security Agency spying revelations. The industry has blamed
> U.S.
>> intelligence
>>
>> surveillance programs for damaging its relationships with overseas
>> customers. "We applaud both the White House and the FCC's efforts to
>> keep the Internet
>>
>> open and free," video service Netflix - which at times accounts for a
>> third of U.S. Web traffic - said in a statement. Chad Dickerson, chief
>> executive
>>
>> of Etsy, an online marketplace, said: "The president has proved that
>> he truly is a champion of the Internet. The debate comes as government
>> regulators
>>
>> grapple with how to best protect consumers as the Internet becomes
>> more essential to their lives. The FCC received 3.9 million comments
>> this year in response
>>
>> to a proposal that would allow an Internet service provider such as
>> Verizon to charge a Web site such as Netflix for faster video
>> streaming - most from
>>
>> consumers asking for protection from "Internet fast lanes. Hundreds of
>> protesters descended on the White House last week, and several blocked
>> FCC Chairman
>>
>> Tom Wheeler's driveway as he tried to leave for the office. "I am
>> asking the Federal Communications Commission to answer the call of
>> almost 4 million public
>>
>> comments and implement the strongest possible rules to protect net
>> neutrality," Obama said. The FCC had aimed to issue new net neutrality
>> rules by the
>>
>> end of the year. But agency officials recently acknowledged that that
>> is unlikely and that ensuring any new regulations would withstand a
>> court challenge
>>
>> will take much longer. Obama's statement is likely to put more
>> pressure on Wheeler to push strong net neutrality regulations. In a
>> statement Monday, Wheeler
>>
>> said he was "grateful for the input of the president. "Like the
>> president, I believe that the Internet must remain an open platform
>> for free expression,
>>
>> innovation and economic growth," he said. "We both oppose Internet
>> fast lanes. Silicon Valley has objected to the prospect of having to
>> pay broadband companies
>>
>> such as Comcast and Verizon for higher-quality delivery of their
>> content to consumers. They say smaller companies can't afford to pay
>> for faster delivery,
>>
>> leaving them at a disadvantage, and that consumers could see a
>> trickle-down effect of higher prices as Web sites pass along those
>> costs. Telecom companies,
>>
>> meanwhile, argue that without being able to charge tech firms for
>> higher-speed connections, they will be unable to invest in improving
>> their service. Among
>>
>> Obama's proposals is that Internet service providers be prohibited
>> from blocking Web content, slowing access to sites or striking deals
>> with content providers
>>
>> to guarantee better service. Obama also called for the industry to be
>> regulated under Title II of the Communications Act, giving the agency
>> more power
>>
>> over how the companies operate. The statute is used to regulate
>> utilities like telephone companies and is considered among the
>> strongest weapons in the
>>
>> FCC's arsenal. The idea is popular among net neutrality advocates who
>> want to ensure that broadband companies cannot block or slow Internet
>> traffic to
>>
>> consumers. But telecom providers such as Verizon strongly oppose the
>> idea and indicated that the issue would likely end up in court.
>> "Reclassification
>>
>> under Title II, which for the first time would apply 1930s-era utility
>> regulation to the Internet, would be a radical reversal of course that
>> would in
>>
>> and of itself threaten great harm to an open Internet, competition and
>> innovation," Verizon said in a statement. The stock price of several
>> major broadband
>>
>> providers took a dive after Obama's statement was released. Shares of
>> Comcast and Time Warner Cable fell 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
>> Net neutrality
>>
>> proponents welcomed Obama's plan. "Obama's statement really gave us
>> everything we wanted," said Kevin Zeese, an advocate for the public
>> interest group
>>
>> Fight for the Future. "I don't think Obama would make this statement
>> thinking that Wheeler isn't going to follow his advice.
>> brian.fung@washpost.com Philip
>>
>> Bump contributed to this report.
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>