The Sea of Propaganda We Live In Now

“Meet the Press” for that episode was about the massive disinformation campaign waged in Russia and by Putin.  Often it’s not to tell a direct contradiction to the West but merely to confuse and talk about “theories” so that the average citizen tires of it all and says the truth is unknowable.  That’s how I feel about the origins of Christianity and the Church.  I believe since everyone has a different theory of the Bible that the truth is deemed unknowable.  There is no room for empirical research or experimentation in this world of myth.   They talked about the four D’s.   The first D is to dismiss the source.  Either the guy is a nobody or else it’s “fake news” or lack of credentials.  The second D is “what about-ism”.   You come up with alternate facts or some accusations against the other fellow.  The third D is “alternative theories” such as global warming.  You present a good theory and a bad theory that has been long discredited and you treat them both as equal.  They say “to do this is to distort the news”.   This D is dismay, I guess.  The fourth D (?) is to threaten overtly.  We have been seeing more of this by President Trump.  The whole hour was chalked with gens like this.  Above all is repetition.  The human mind tires of repetition and eventually cracks and believes everything it’s told.   Of course President Trump seems to be the only one in the country who doesn’t believe that Russia meddled in our elections in 2016.   There was some research company that was hired to get to the truth of the matter and President Trump has been on a two and a half year long verbal campaign against them.  Of course there is an increasing polarity as to where the left and the right each get their news.   FOX news is obviously seen as the only reliable source of news on the right wing.  And the problem told how people love to continue to hear a lie if it brings them emotional comfort.  I guess this is why Christianity is so enduring.  But you are told you are a victim of all those foreigners and black people out to take their jobs and ruin their neighborhoods.  They said that media conflict is not only a conflict of facts but a conflict of the emotions and the heard.  This may put the objective media at a disadvantage as not prepared to fight in this arena. 

KNXT had a thing on someone waking up in Moscow after ten years and what would he have missed?  He would have missed out on a lot of heartache and suffering caused by Russia from the victims of the bombing in Syria to the victims in Ukraine and Crimea being taken over by Putin in 2014.  And of course there was an airliner shooting down over Ukrainian space.  Needless to say it was a really bad decade, politically beginning with the tea party and continuing with the Republican takeover of congress and the complete derailing of President Obama’s plans.  Of course that Moscow napper would discover that Putin had a new powerful ally in President Trump to help him in the propagation of his many lies.

 I would repeat the same thing I said before.  Waiting for 2020 to get here is taking forever. The second half of 2019  has dragged on for me in my personal affairs.  They have told us the same propaganda that yes, the democrats will suffer because of impeachment.  This occurred.  We are told that Trump doesn’t even expect to win the popular vote anymore because he’s hoping for an exact repeat of the 2016 election where those three or four key electoral states kick in, and they can put all the campaign funding there.  We are even told by “the media” that this is a good thing because why does California deserve to have people campaigning here?  But the thing is the election is a year away and they used to have a saying that “six months is an eternity in politics”.  At least it used to be.  The economy could still fall apart though this seems increasingly unlikely.  This is because Trump is in so tight with the Federal Reserve and they, unlike almost any other time, are doing the president’s bidding on this one.  And if a democrat gets elected and the first job figures aren’t rosy after January 20^th of 2021, you know that the new President will be blamed for that. 

This is Sunday December 29, 2019.  I had Bill Handel on the law on and they were saying that if a tree falls on your car and you’re in the property of a parking lot, then that parking lot is liable for the damage of the tree to your car.  That’s reassuring.  We had a beef pot pie for lunch – and it was good.  We had cookies and cream ice cream for dessert.  I had a cup of coffee from Patty.  Then it was Leo Laporte and Johnny Jett talked about the upcoming consumer electronic’s show in Las Vegas.  Leo hasn’t been there since 2012 and he says it’s because it was such a dud that year.  He has been dissing the CES ever since.  But this year he’s going and so is Scott Wilkinson.   This is an unusual weekend before Newyears because there were no football games on.  It used to be we’d be flooded with one bowl game after another.  There was college basketball on KNXT.  It was Kentucky playing Louisville.  They played to a draw at the end of regulation.  It was 61 to 61 or something- maybe a bit higher.  They went into overtime but I wasn’t following the game.  I had Rhapsody in Black on.  They featured December of 1950 followed by December of 1951 after three.  The first hour was better because they played more rocker stuff including frensiac drums and saxophone stuff.  They played “They did the slow boogie with the blue lights turned down low”, which was the number one R & B song in 1950 we are told.  1951 wasn’t as good but they did play “Flamingo”, which is a saxophone and vibraphone track with re-verb percussion.   A lot of bowl games were played including the Cotton bowl, I believe.  Cal State Fullerton beat UCLA in basketball.   LSU defeated Oklahoma badly in one football bowl.   They had soccer on KNBC and ABC had a thing on a running broad jump contest into water by dogs.   I didn’t check FOX for football.   I guess we better thank our lucky stars that they haven’t taken away Sunday NFL football yet. 

More Strange Facts about Trump

.  President Trump yesterday announced to one and all that this whole governmental shut-down thing could last months or even years and President Trump appears to welcome the chaos.  In new news we have Muller asking for the term of the grand jury to be renewed because the year and a half term is about to expire and there is still at least six month’s more work to be done. It is said that impeachment hearings might not get going for another six months and there may be a time factor there since if there is too much delay it will impact the 2020 presidential campaign.  John Kasich will be running in the Republican primary next year.  Mitt Romney apparently made some speech where he came against President Trump hard and I’d like to hear that one.   I started off on Hardball but was switched to Brian Williams on NBC news.   Putin is starting a rumor that Poland is getting ready to invade Belerus.  This is a sheer propaganda move on Putin’s part for his own reasons but Trump is buying into it.  Something else Trump is buying into is this notion that Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was not really Russia’s fault but it was for security reasons.  Trump is touting the revived Putin line that maybe the US should get out of Afghanistan anyhow.  By this time I had been switched from NBC news to Rachael Maddow.  She said that Trump didn’t know the difference between China and Tihwan or even the first names of our allies.  It’s a wonder how Trump’s presidency got this far.  After this I went out for a smoke.  There was also a plan of Russia to stop Montenegro from joining NATO.  It is the Montenegro leader that President Trump shove out of his way at a NATO meeting last summer.  While we’re on rumor, I know that Russia wants to invade Maldavia, whose peoples are said to be aggressive. 

The whole immigration border problem has been getting better for at least the past fifteen years and probably more like twenty.  Trump is just whipping up hysteria against a Latino invasion with scare stores of drug cartels and rapists.  Clearly all we need to do is to get a bill passed that will help the dreamers and at the same time abolish sanctuary cities.  I believe that our laws ought to be enforced and that local agencies have every right to report the illegal aliens to INS so they can be deported.  But we shouldn’t engage in either race baiting or make a political football out of this issue.   Most Latinos are hard working decent people.  Since Mexico’s economy has been improving there is less need for them to try to cross our border.    

.  Millie was outside with Bill and continued to talk about the fact that she’d been forced to move into Dorthey’s room yesterday. Just for background to our readers, Dorthy went to the hospital for a bad skin condition and there isn't any liklihood that she'll be returning.  But Millie was given ten minutes notice of the move, which was unnecessarily brief.  Millie had previously "declared War on the establishment" and now they are declaring war on her.  It began mid afternoon and she continued to talk about it after dinner.  All of Dorthey’s things were still in the room including all of her credit cards.  Millie’s stuff was thrown into baggies and dumped on the floor.  She lost two cartons of cigarettes plus some stuff she’d just bought at Wall Mart.  The room is in a shambles and Millie just yesterday morning had paid her rent check for her old room.  She has an excellent court case that she’s being forced to move to an unsuitable habitation room.  Even Bill Handel would have to agree.  It’s some sort of revenge for Millie calling Mary Jane a bitch all those times.  They eves drop on conversation taking place outside the building.  

People call Elizabeth Warren's candidacy "divisive" because she has an unvarnished liberal take on the political issues.  But who would be more divisive than our esteemed President?  I would encourage  a lot of democrats to run and may the better man- or woman win.  They say in this day and age that men are still inwardly afraid of a woman exercising leadership over a man.  I would hope we had gotten beyond that.  I am fairly happy with the Federal Reserve right now.  But I still think we should audit the Federal Reserve.  As a candidate I would warn my listeners that the economy always won't be this rosey. After all we have that new Trump deficet to contend with.  I don't have a problem myself with strident women.  We still live in a "male society".   There is no fears of men suddenly being emasculated.  We've had enough trial runs on TV as a woman as President.  I would just encourage men to vote for a woman even if you don't think she is that charismatic.  Hillary didn't have the appeal of her husband afterall.  But when you see the Trump writing on the wall you know you have no choice.  In terms of abortion, I personally would like to overturn Roe verses Wade. But I know that is just one issue.  I am content to "live with things the way they are" knowing that abortion rates are in fact down in America.  My goal is saving lives and not turning the issue into a political football.  For those of you who are curious.  the Orion Federation's re-release of "One Person Plus the Truth" compilation- - - sales have taken off.  For once they did their marketing and promotion of this compilation.  I would like to close with perhaps another twist on a phrase.  "One Person Plus God Equals a Majority".  It's easy to say that God is on Our Side, when America wins one war after another.  There was the Mexican War and then the Civil War and then the Spanish American War.  It's easy to talk about divine predestination when "You were born on third base and think you hit a tripple" like George Bush.  I think what we need today as far as "Faith" goes is "A faith we can actually believe in", which would be one on denonstrable Objective reality.  I think we should "Clear our plans with God"  if that's possible.  If we have a divine pass, then we don't have to worry.  Trying to go against God is a fool's mission.  The best we can hope for is like that woman in the Billy Joel song "He never gives in- - - he just changes his mind" or he's gotten sufficiently fed up and offered too many chances to the Status Quo and God himself sees that it's time for a change, and hopefully that change involves the Blue Wave.  

Let's Hope 2019 is a Better Year

I guess it's not really the new year till Stephanie Miller comes back on Monday but Frangela is live the past two days.  Let's hope 2019 is a better year.  If the LORD wills, it will be.  On Wednesday, the last day of the old congress President Trump met with leaders and lectured them on the need for border security.  President Trump says now that he never gave up on a concrete wall.  With steel slats you could easily pass through drugs and other contraband such as small weapons through the slats.  That seems self defeating.  President Trump is ready to continue to blow up the government if he doesn't get his full 5.6 Billion for the wall.  Yesterday we watched Nancy Pelosi and her grandchildren and all the other grandchildren in the chamber while she was being sworn in to "protect and defend the constitution against all enemies" and presumably that means the sitting president.  Of course this special ABC network production was preempted by one of our classic southern California car chases including for failed "pit" manuveres.   It took two and a half hours and went through three counties.  Of course the new Republican Congress features over a hundred women and 89 of these women are democrats.  Back in 1989 (thirty years ago) there were 26 women in congress and nearly half of them were Republicans.  Today there aren't any more "republican" women.  There are more minority women than ever including lezbians and Islamic women and maybe even a trans-sexual.  This congress doesn't look like any other.  Already a congressman has issued a bill of impeachment.  Nancy Pelosi doesn't want impeachment to be "political" but of course the Republicans translate that as just "a pretence of propriety" and that really she's all gung ho for impeachment.   Frangela doesn't like the term "non essential workers" because it's a way of degrading the work that they do.  Just like the term "unskilled workers".  That's demeaning because they do all those essential jobs none of us want to do.  Senator Mc Connell is a first rate asshole because he won't even allow a bill to the floor for discussion unless- - - not whether there is a majority for the bill - - but now the bar is "If the President hasn't already said he would sign it then I won't waste the Senate's time".  Of course it's the Senate's job to put forth and debate bills.  That's kind of what they do. 

The stock market went down another six hundred points yesterday because Apple had a bad financial report.  Sales of their I phones are lacking because everyone already HAS an I Phone that wants one and they aren't going to buy a new one every year.  Personally I've had the phone I'm using since October of 2013.  I think that's the month Chuck Smith died.  It's silly to junk an appliance just because there is a new model with maybe not that much difference.  The labor department issued a rosey jobs report with 312,000 new jobs were added last month.  That's about as high as we've ever seen it.  But yesterday the markets were worried about lagging sales figures. 

.  I looked up “Church attendance figures” but got almost nothing in terms of tables and figures.  I got these spectacular sites touting the decline of church attendance and overall religiosity.  Then I looked up Marcion.  I didn’t know Marcion was a guy who was that rich.  He was the son of a priest but his own father disowned him for an immoral life.  He made his money as a ship builder.  In July of 144 AD Macion tried to bribe the Bishop of Rome into accepting his religious views and they turned him down so started his own successful movement.  But he was born in 85 AD and died in 160 so he livedto be 75 apparently and as a young man didn’t have any religion at all.   St Paul quoted scripture to highlight that Jesus was the Messiah.  I had forgotten this.  This means that whoever the Apostle Paul is he bought into the whole Jewish prophecy bit about Jesus.  Therefore he didn’t believe that Jesus was the offspring of an entirely different god.

My postings on early Christianity have gotten better ratings than I've gotten in at least six months.  You people obviously like reading about that stuff.  Of course some may wonder what the so called "Jerusalem Church" believed.  If I'm right- - this church worshipped the crucification of Judas and not Jesus and they to one degree or another still believed in the priestly system of sacrifice.  The corner stone of Catholicism is the premise that some blood sacrifice on an altar will atone for sin.  This is something that Jesus didn't teach.  He taught karmic reciprocity.  If you forgive than you will be forgiven.  "Whatever you meet out to others will be dealt back to you" and this goes in all areas including stoning a woman on charges of adultry.  This raise the question of whether Jerusalem and the Jews had the power to impose the Death Penalty.  History suggests that it still had the power.  And in Genisis there is a scripture that the "Power of imposing law" or whatever, would not depart from the tribe of Judah untill the Messiah was on the throne ruling in the milenial age.  Clearly this has not come to pass so that the "secpter" is still in force.  If the Jews had the power to impose the Death Penalty this changes the whole conplexion of the crucifixion story.  There is other precident for my case.  "Yeshuah" was stoned in the recounting of a Jewish source after forty days.  The Apostle James in 62 AD and head of the "Jerusalem Church" was put to death by stoning.  St Stephan in the Bible was put to death by stoning.  And the woman taken in Adultry in the Gospels was going to be stoned and Jesus never once said "This is an illegal act under Roman law". 

Let's talk about the Apostle Paul.  I think we have caught the Book of Acts in a lie.  In one place it says that Paul was the "son of a pharicee" and yet elsewhere it says St Paul was a natural born Roman citizen, and he even bragged about it.  This would mean that Paul's father was Roman.  And it's unlikely that a Roman would be a member of any strict Jewish organization.   I believe that St Paul's ministry was "back dated".   "I look bloody young but I'm just back-dated".  Let's add about sixty years or perhaps a bit more to the years both of the start of Paul's conversion in AD 41 and the conclusion of his ministry to the churches in AD 58.   Here is a different kind of "Me, too" movement.  Apalonius of Tyannus died just after the turn of the second century and he had a whole school of worshippers in the early second century.  This "school of Tyannus " is even referred to in the book of acts.  So there was kind of a "savior fever" that took place in Asia Minor or western Turkey and the east coast of Greece in the early second century.  St Paul sought to cash in on it, in my oppinion.  Christianity as we know it today hence got its start not in 37 AD when Stephan was martyered but rather in the early second century.   But I don't want to destroy people's belief in the Catholic Church.  I don't want to be like Howard Beale in "Network" who was "Meddling with the cosmic forces".  He got himself killed for the effort.  Maybe we NEED the Church as kind of a moral guidepost and since it's already here, we should look to it rather than our President for moral guidance.  Pope Francis is a good guy and I agree with him on a majority of moral issues. 

My Back Pages

This is being posted January first 2019.  We have some bad news for you all.  Donald Trump is still in office.  Two years weren't enough to get him out.  The Federation is going to re-release "One Person Plus the Truth" compilation, which itself is a revision.  We're dropping "Misfire" because there were hopes someone would get trigger-happy out there and that didn't happen.  We are instituting a new, weather related track, which we haven't included before.   As you can see the following material is from last Thursday.  It's stuff you may find interesting but you might have to fish through it a little to find something you like. 

This is another revised and released compilation. This incarnation of the album is released February 11th 2017. The title and front cover photo is also changed. It's that photograph we have used in a blog post of Elizabeth Warren standing in the capitol. We also needed to substitute Blind Faith songs because the song we had had been previously included on "Deepest Rock" from May of 2006. Also we got rid of the old title song and replaced it with the version of "Gloria" from "Alive She Cried". That makes two overlap songs we got rid of on this album. I think probably this album will be just a tad longer in playing time now. The full expression is "One person plus the truth equals a majority". We thought the old album title was just a little too defeatist and after all, life goes on. "Gloria" by the Doors is a song that had been bumped back in December from an album. I know this is all hard to keep up with.

ONE PERSON PLUS THE TRUTH

It's A Long Way to the Top (AC DC)
Teenage Lobotomy (The Ramones)
Wang, Dang, Sweet Poontang (Ted Nugent)
Flashing Lights (Jimmy Page)
Had To Cry Today (Blind Faith)
Gloria (The Doors sound check)
Bitter Creek (Eagles)
Stormbringer (Deep Purple)
Xanado (Rush) 15 min approx
Rejoice (Jefferson Airplane) **
God Save the Queen (Sex Pistols)

This is Thursday December 27, 2018 and “The Price is Right” is on.  I left to see the eye doctor here in the back room just after “Let’s Make a Deal” started.  There was a line but the exam itself took forever and in the end he gave me drops that made all my vision fuzzy and he didn’t give me a prescription and he didn’t tell me if I had cateracts or not. 

This is after dinner and headers and footers just came on and I closed it.  We had Salisbury steak with mushrooms and gravy for lunch with wedge cut potatoes and green beans.  We had amberosia for dessert.  People lined up and got seconds on the main course.  I had the Gary and Shannon show on.  I think Nora was here in the morning because the paper plates had been moved and the toilet lid was closed and the bathroom light was on.  I had the Gary and Shannon show on.  On Days of our Lives it was “Do the right thing” day.  Gabriel confessed to Chad that she had done all of that other gaslighting and frame-up stuff besides the paternity tests.  Stephan kidnapped Gabriel but decided against revenge by slashing her face or cutting her hair or taking a blow torch to her flesh.  He let her go uninjured and she didn’t even have any mind control.  For Stephan this is quite a moral break-through.  Kate decided to come clean and tell Chad that she had been sabotaging his business for months.  And Gabriel did the right thing when she went straight to the police station for arrest after she had been freed.

I walked around back and through the courtyard and joined the resident’s council meeting with Joselyn presiding.  She let me have input even though I had arrived late.  The meeting lasted till two thirty.  I suggested that they fill the meat pies fuller and have more good desserts.  And I suggested that they toast the English muffins and not serve them to us raw.  I also complained about Nora leaving water around the toilet.  Cathy and Joselyn suggested that the toilet might actually leak.  I don’t think so but it’s worth looking into.  Joselyn said that we would be going to Pachonga for a day outing at steal prices.  Also we’re going to have an ice cream social New Year’s afternoon where they’ll serve root beer floats.  Also we may go bowling.  But later on Millie says that too many of us have back conditions that would preclude that.  I’m not having any lower back pain right now.  The eye drops finally wore off but it took long enough.  I turned on Steve Harvey and he had more game show competition.  He also had his bargain basement price slashes.  Then it was Eye Witness news and then ABC network news.  A mother and a thirteen year old son were found dead but the father still survives. 

We had chili flavored soup for dinner.  The main course was a Caesar salad with crutons, chicken pieces and Caesar dressing.  We had orange sherbet in a carton for dessert.  Patty was back and she got the eggnog.  I had a glass and a half and she had the rest.  I went out back where Millie was talking about bringing out taco flavored corn chips.  I left to get my iron pill from Jan.   The Dow Jones Industrial averages started the day down four hundred points but there was a late rally and the average actually ended the day in the plus column. 

Yesterday it was “The Price is Right” and then lunch.  We had real chow mein for lunch I mixed with the brown rice.  We had broccoli with that.  I don’t remember the dessert.  I had the Gary and Shannon show on.  Nora finally made it to our room just before eleven and she was finished by the time I was done with my post-lunch cigarette.  She hadn’t disturbed the items on the desk chair.  She changed the bed spread to another thick spread.  I had on Gary and Shannon and after this it was Days of our Lives.  This show was preempted because President Trump decided to “do the right thing” and visit our troops in a war zone for once.   The president spent just three hours in Iraq and his speech to the troops only lasted twenty minutes.  He made a point that the windows on the plane were blacked out.  After this the president made a “secret trip” to Germany to visit our troops there.  It could be that Trump didn’t want to go to Florida because he was “doing penance” or something “all alone in the White House”.  Perhaps he needed time to think and weigh his deeds and to find them wanting, and then decided to do something about it.  This is only speculation.  I watched “Days” and Stephan was vowing vengeance on somebody.