Yes, and what is really interesting is that John F. Kennedy was a "liberal
Democrat", in many ways, as was Bobby, eventually, and also Ted. But Joe
Kennedy was a right wing Conservative. Joe Kennedy was a skillful political
manipulator and he planned for at least one of his sons to become President,
some day. If not his eldest, than Jack. But perhaps I'll read more about
this someday.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of R. E. Driscoll Sr
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2015 10:23 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Lonely American
Miriam:
Based upon limited reading and remembered comments by my father I conjecture
that John Kennedy was a 'operating tool' for Joe Kennedy and a substitute
for his older brother. According to my dad Joe was the manipulator and Rose
was the controlled as was the rest of the family.
You certainly are correct in your evaluations.
R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
On 6/30/2015 9:13 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Charlie,
I was rather young and naive when Kennedy was elected President. I
certainly
didn't know as much about what was actually happening politically as
I
should have. I had just finished social work school, and was working
and
involved in social activities. And I wasn't able to read stuff the
way we
are now. With diminishing partial vision, I certainly didn't have
access to
all the articles, to newspapers, etc. But Kennedy was the first
youthful
President we'd had in my lifetime. He was handsome and charming, and
he
could give a rousing speech. However, as naive as I was, I knew that
he was
a warrior in the cold war, not a man of peace. While he talked about
the
Peace Corps and about the rights of agricultural workers, he was
very much a
tool of the military industrial complex. He was trying to get rid
of Castro
which was pure insanity because Castro's government was a blessing
after the
one which preceded it in Cuba. He got us involved more fully in
Vietnam. He
was following up on the policies of the previous administration, the
Eisenhower administration which was Republican. This is like Obama
who,
whatever he said in 2008, followed up on the policies of the
previous
administration, the Bush administration, which was Republican. My
rule of
thumb is that the Republican administrations make things
demonstrably worse
and then the Democratic administrations continue what the
Republicans were
doing.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles
Crawford
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 6:43 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Lonely American
Hi Miriam, Carl, and all,
This is an interesting topic. I was listening to the
inaugural
speech of President Kennedy earlier today and he spoke precisely of
the need
for us to use the technology we have for good and not for
destruction.
Maybe he was as much a servant of the Military Industrial Complex as
you are
assigning to Obama, but somehow I don't think so. The ideals he and
Obama
as well have articulated are real and meaningful, and yes, it is
heartbreaking that they somehow get lost in the mix. Why?
Charlie.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: 29 June 2015 12:51
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Lonely American
We're in a bind. We have all this technology which, theoretically is
neutral
and can be used for the good of humankind. But it seems like in a
majority
of cases, it is used with malevolent purposes in mind. Put the
technology in
the hands of people and just watch what people choose to do with it.
But
aside from corporate greed, it does seem as if there is something in
the
nature of the technology, coupled with the fact that we are living
in a
mass, bureaucratic society, that militates against direct human
contact.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 11:32 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] The Lonely American
The other day I was talking to one of my grandson's and, well, I was
talking
toward my grandson while he was facing me, texting to one friend or
another.
"Isolated?" he said, "I'm not isolated. I got Face Book and I'm
Liked by
dozens of friends."
"But don't you miss going to the game, or hitting the surf, or
joining the
boys for a hand ball game after work?"
"Well, I actually work out of my apartment these days, and my legs
don't
hold me up on the surf board anymore. Gosh Gramps, I am turning
35 this July, you know."
My grandson does not feel isolated. He has a world of close
friends.
As close as his iPad.
Now I'm not going to suggest that the development of all these
electronic
gadgets was some well planned Corporate Capitalistic plot, but if
their goal
was to isolate our youth, and then give them the sense of being
connected
electronically, and then taking control of that media and
controlling them
with Corporate Empire propaganda, they couldn't have done a better
job.
Chris Hedges hits another home run with this article. Isolate and
dominate.
But always leave them believing that they are connected.
And they are. They are connected to the big Teat of the Empire.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/29/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Lonely American
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_lonely_american_20150628/
Posted on Jun 28, 2015
By Chris Hedges
Sandy Johal uses a selfie stick to take a picture of
herself in New
Yorks Times Square in January. (Seth Wenig / AP) Michael
P. Printup,
president of Watkins Glen International, one of the
countrys largest
racetracks, stood with a group of about a dozen race fans at
8:30 a.m.
Saturday. Next to him were boxes of free doughnuts and
coffee.
A line of men with towels, who had spent the night in nearby
RV
campers, pop-up campers and tents, stood patiently outside
the door to
a shower room.
A light drizzle, one that would turn into a torrential
downpour and
lead to the races being canceled in the afternoon, coated
the group,
all middle-aged or older white men. They were discussing,
amid the
high-pitched whine of cars practicing on the 3.4-mile,
11-turn circuit
racetrack, the aging demographic of race fans and the
inability to
lure a new generation to the sport.
Maybe if you installed chargers for phones around the track
they
would come, suggested one gray-haired man.
But it is not just sporting events. Public lectures, church
services,
labor unions, Veterans of Foreign Wars halls, Masonic halls,
Rotary
clubs, the Knights of Columbus, the Lions Club, Grange Hall
meetings,
the League of Women Voters, Daughters of the American
Revolution,
local historical societies, town halls, bowling leagues,
bridge clubs,
movie theater attendance (at a 20-year low), advocacy groups
such as
the NAACP and professional and amateur theatrical and
musical
performances cater to a dwindling and graying population. No
one is
coming through the door to take the place of the old
members. A
generation has fallen down the rabbit hole of electronic
hallucinationswith images often dominated by violence and
pornography. They have become, in the words of the
philosopher Hannah
Arendt, atomized, sucked alone into systems of information
and
entertainment that cater to Americas prurient fascination
with the
tawdry, the cruel and the deadening cult of the self.
The entrapment in a world of nonstop electronic sounds and
images,
begun with the phonograph and radio, advanced by cinema and
television
and perfected by video games, the Internet and hand-held
devices, is
making it impossible to build relationships and structures
that are
vital for civic engagement and resistance to corporate
power. We have
been transformed into commodities. The steady decline of the
white
male heaven that is NASCARwhich has stopped publishing the
falling
attendance at its tracks and at some speedways has begun to
tear down
bleachersis ominous. It is the symbol of a captive society.
We dont see the youth coming in, Printup said. The
millennial, the
younger adults 18 to 35, is our target. We spend millions of
dollars a
year to target that group. But its hard. Look around. Whos
the
youngest person here? Thats our problem. Every sport from
the NFL to
NHL is struggling with the 18 to 35 demographic. They call
them weird.
They call them difficult.
They only want to look at their computers.
Printups parent company, the International Speedway Corp.
(ISC), has
invested significant sums to reach this demographic with
little to
show for it.
We have a digital firm that represents nearly all our
tracks in the ISC,
he went on, noting that Watkins Glen, which drew about
16,000 fans
this past weekend, is one of the few exceptions to the
decline in
numbers. The digital platform is about the only way you can
get to
them. We target them.
We buy lists. We hire an agency that tracks their Web and
Internet
interactions. If they bring up racing, we want to be there.
When a kid
Googles Ferrariracingsports car we are one of the top 10
lists. We
pay for that. It is not cheap. Thats how you have got to
get these
kids. But its not working the way it should.
Robert D. Putnam pointed out the decline of independent
civic
engagement, or what he called our social capital, in his
book
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community. He
noted that our severance from local communal and civic
groups brought
with it not only loneliness and alienation, but also a
dangerous and
passive reliance on the state.
Totalitarian societies, including our own, inundate the
public with a
steady stream of propaganda accompanied by mindless
entertainment.
They seek to destroy independent organizations. In Nazi
Germany the
state provided millions of cheap, state-subsidized radios
and then
dominated the airwaves with its propaganda. Radio receivers
were
mounted in public locations in Stalins Soviet Union; and
citizens,
especially illiterate peasants, were required to gather to
listen to
the state-controlled news and the dictators speeches. These
totalitarian states also banned civic organizations that
were not
under the iron control of the party.
The corporate state is no different, although unlike past
totalitarian
systems it permits dissent in the form of print and does not
ban
fading civic and community groups. It has won the battle
against
literacy. The seductiveness of the image lures most
Americans away
from the print-based world of ideas. The fascination with
the image
swallows the time and energy required to attend and maintain
communal
organizations. If no one reads, why censor books? Let Noam
Chomsky
publish as much as he wants. Just keep his voice off the
airwaves. If
no one attends community meetings, group events or
organizations, why
prohibit them? Let them be held in near-empty rooms and left
uncovered
by the press until they are shuttered.
The object of a totalitarian state is to keep its citizens
locked
within the parameters of official propaganda and permanently
isolated.
Propaganda and isolation make it difficult for an individual
to
express or carry out dissent. Official opinions, little more
than
digestible slogans and clichés, are crafted and disseminated
by public
relations specialists on behalf of the power elite. They are
repeated
endlessly over the airwaves until the public unconsciously
ingests
them. And the isolated public in a totalitarian society is
unable to
connect its personal experience of despair, anxiety, fear,
frustration
and economic insecurity to the structures that create these
conditions. The isolated citizen is left feeling that his or
her
personal misfortune is an exception. The portrayal of
society by
systems of state propagandacontent, respectful of
authority, just,
economically secure and freeis mistaken for reality.
Totalitarian propaganda, accompanied by isolation, or what
Arendt
called atomization, makes it possible for a population not
to
believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own
experience;
they do not trust their eyes and ears but only their
imaginations,
which may be caught by anything that is at once universal
and
consistent in itself. This propaganda, Arendt went on,
gave the
masses of atomized, undefinable, unstable and futile
individuals a
means of self-definition and identification.
Corporate propaganda saturates the public, especially a
generation
wedded to new technology, with these lies. Its power,
however, comes
from the meticulous study of the moods, prejudices, whims
and desires
of the public, to manipulate the masses in their own
language and
emotions. Konrad Heiden made this point when he examined
fascist
propaganda in Nazi Germany, noting that propaganda must
detect the
murmur of the public and translate it into intelligible
utterance and
convincing action.
The true aim of political propaganda is not to influence,
but to
study, the masses, Heiden wrote. The speaker is in
constant
communication with the masses; he hears an echo, and senses
the inner
vibration. Heiden, forced to flee Nazi Germany, went on:
When a
resonance issues from the depths of the substance, the
masses have
given him the pitch; he knows in what terms he must finally
address
them. Rather than a means of directing the mass mind,
propaganda is a
technique for riding with the masses. It is not a machine to
make wind
but a sail to catch the wind.
Dissent will only be possible when we break the dark spell
of
corporate propaganda and the isolation that accompanies it.
We must
free ourselves from corporate tyranny, which means refusing
to invest
our emotional and intellectual energy in electronic images.
We must
build what the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin called
voluntary
associations for study and teaching, for industry, commerce,
science,
art, literature, exploitation, resistance to exploitation,
amusement,
serious work, gratification and self-denial.
We know well the means by which this association of the
lord, priest,
merchant, judge, soldier, and king founded its domination,
Kropotkin
wrote.
It was by the annihilation of all free unions: of village
communities, guilds, trades unions, fraternities, and
medieval cities.
It was by confiscating the land of the communes and the
riches of the
guilds; it was by the absolute and ferocious prohibition of
all kinds
of free agreement between men; it was by massacre, the
wheel, the
gibbet, the sword, and the fire that Church and State
established
their domination, and that they succeeded henceforth to
reign over an
incoherent agglomeration of subjects, who had no direct
union more
among
themselves.
Corporate propaganda has become so potent that many
Americans are
addicted.
We must leave our isolated rooms. We must shut out these
images. We
must connect with those around us. It is only the communal
that will
save us. It is only the communal that will allow us to build
a
movement to resist. And it is only the communal that will
sustain us
through mutual aid as climate change and economic collapse
increasingly
dominate our future.
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/ The
Lonely
American
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_lonely_american_20150628/
Posted on Jun 28, 2015
By Chris Hedges
Sandy Johal uses a selfie stick to take a picture of herself
in New
Yorks Times Square in January. (Seth Wenig / AP) Michael P.
Printup,
president of Watkins Glen International, one of the
countrys largest
racetracks, stood with a group of about a dozen race fans at
8:30 a.m.
Saturday. Next to him were boxes of free doughnuts and
coffee.
A line of men with towels, who had spent the night in nearby
RV
campers, pop-up campers and tents, stood patiently outside
the door to
a shower room.
A light drizzle, one that would turn into a torrential
downpour and
lead to the races being canceled in the afternoon, coated
the group,
all middle-aged or older white men. They were discussing,
amid the
high-pitched whine of cars practicing on the 3.4-mile,
11-turn circuit
racetrack, the aging demographic of race fans and the
inability to
lure a new generation to the sport.
Maybe if you installed chargers for phones around the track
they
would come, suggested one gray-haired man.
But it is not just sporting events. Public lectures, church
services,
labor unions, Veterans of Foreign Wars halls, Masonic halls,
Rotary
clubs, the Knights of Columbus, the Lions Club, Grange Hall
meetings,
the League of Women Voters, Daughters of the American
Revolution,
local historical societies, town halls, bowling leagues,
bridge clubs,
movie theater attendance (at a 20-year low), advocacy groups
such as
the NAACP and professional and amateur theatrical and
musical
performances cater to a dwindling and graying population. No
one is
coming through the door to take the place of the old
members. A
generation has fallen down the rabbit hole of electronic
hallucinationswith images often dominated by violence and
pornography. They have become, in the words of the
philosopher Hannah
Arendt, atomized, sucked alone into systems of information
and
entertainment that cater to Americas prurient fascination
with the
tawdry, the cruel and the deadening cult of the self.
The entrapment in a world of nonstop electronic sounds and
images,
begun with the phonograph and radio, advanced by cinema and
television
and perfected by video games, the Internet and hand-held
devices, is
making it impossible to build relationships and structures
that are
vital for civic engagement and resistance to corporate
power. We have
been transformed into commodities. The steady decline of the
white
male heaven that is NASCARwhich has stopped publishing the
falling
attendance at its tracks and at some speedways has begun to
tear down
bleachersis ominous. It is the symbol of a captive society.
We dont see the youth coming in, Printup said. The
millennial, the
younger adults 18 to 35, is our target. We spend millions of
dollars a
year to target that group. But its hard. Look around. Whos
the
youngest person here? Thats our problem. Every sport from
the NFL to
NHL is struggling with the 18 to 35 demographic. They call
them weird.
They call them difficult.
They only want to look at their computers.
Printups parent company, the International Speedway Corp.
(ISC), has
invested significant sums to reach this demographic with
little to
show for it.
We have a digital firm that represents nearly all our
tracks in the ISC,
he went on, noting that Watkins Glen, which drew about
16,000 fans
this past weekend, is one of the few exceptions to the
decline in
numbers. The digital platform is about the only way you can
get to
them. We target them.
We buy lists. We hire an agency that tracks their Web and
Internet
interactions. If they bring up racing, we want to be there.
When a kid
Googles Ferrariracingsports car we are one of the top 10
lists. We
pay for that. It is not cheap. Thats how you have got to
get these
kids. But its not working the way it should.
Robert D. Putnam pointed out the decline of independent
civic
engagement, or what he called our social capital, in his
book
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community. He
noted that our severance from local communal and civic
groups brought
with it not only loneliness and alienation, but also a
dangerous and
passive reliance on the state.
Totalitarian societies, including our own, inundate the
public with a
steady stream of propaganda accompanied by mindless
entertainment.
They seek to destroy independent organizations. In Nazi
Germany the
state provided millions of cheap, state-subsidized radios
and then
dominated the airwaves with its propaganda. Radio receivers
were
mounted in public locations in Stalins Soviet Union; and
citizens,
especially illiterate peasants, were required to gather to
listen to
the state-controlled news and the dictators speeches. These
totalitarian states also banned civic organizations that
were not
under the iron control of the party.
The corporate state is no different, although unlike past
totalitarian
systems it permits dissent in the form of print and does not
ban
fading civic and community groups. It has won the battle
against
literacy. The seductiveness of the image lures most
Americans away
from the print-based world of ideas. The fascination with
the image
swallows the time and energy required to attend and maintain
communal
organizations. If no one reads, why censor books? Let Noam
Chomsky
publish as much as he wants. Just keep his voice off the
airwaves. If
no one attends community meetings, group events or
organizations, why
prohibit them? Let them be held in near-empty rooms and left
uncovered
by the press until they are shuttered.
The object of a totalitarian state is to keep its citizens
locked
within the parameters of official propaganda and permanently
isolated.
Propaganda and isolation make it difficult for an individual
to
express or carry out dissent. Official opinions, little more
than
digestible slogans and clichés, are crafted and disseminated
by public
relations specialists on behalf of the power elite. They are
repeated
endlessly over the airwaves until the public unconsciously
ingests
them. And the isolated public in a totalitarian society is
unable to
connect its personal experience of despair, anxiety, fear,
frustration
and economic insecurity to the structures that create these
conditions. The isolated citizen is left feeling that his or
her
personal misfortune is an exception. The portrayal of
society by
systems of state propagandacontent, respectful of
authority, just,
economically secure and freeis mistaken for reality.
Totalitarian propaganda, accompanied by isolation, or what
Arendt
called atomization, makes it possible for a population not
to
believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own
experience;
they do not trust their eyes and ears but only their
imaginations,
which may be caught by anything that is at once universal
and
consistent in itself. This propaganda, Arendt went on,
gave the
masses of atomized, undefinable, unstable and futile
individuals a
means of self-definition and identification.
Corporate propaganda saturates the public, especially a
generation
wedded to new technology, with these lies. Its power,
however, comes
from the meticulous study of the moods, prejudices, whims
and desires
of the public, to manipulate the masses in their own
language and
emotions. Konrad Heiden made this point when he examined
fascist
propaganda in Nazi Germany, noting that propaganda must
detect the
murmur of the public and translate it into intelligible
utterance and
convincing action.
The true aim of political propaganda is not to influence,
but to
study, the masses, Heiden wrote. The speaker is in
constant
communication with the masses; he hears an echo, and senses
the inner
vibration. Heiden, forced to flee Nazi Germany, went on:
When a
resonance issues from the depths of the substance, the
masses have
given him the pitch; he knows in what terms he must finally
address
them. Rather than a means of directing the mass mind,
propaganda is a
technique for riding with the masses. It is not a machine to
make wind
but a sail to catch the wind.
Dissent will only be possible when we break the dark spell
of
corporate propaganda and the isolation that accompanies it.
We must
free ourselves from corporate tyranny, which means refusing
to invest
our emotional and intellectual energy in electronic images.
We must
build what the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin called
voluntary
associations for study and teaching, for industry, commerce,
science,
art, literature, exploitation, resistance to exploitation,
amusement,
serious work, gratification and self-denial.
We know well the means by which this association of the
lord, priest,
merchant, judge, soldier, and king founded its domination,
Kropotkin
wrote.
It was by the annihilation of all free unions: of village
communities, guilds, trades unions, fraternities, and
medieval cities.
It was by confiscating the land of the communes and the
riches of the
guilds; it was by the absolute and ferocious prohibition of
all kinds
of free agreement between men; it was by massacre, the
wheel, the
gibbet, the sword, and the fire that Church and State
established
their domination, and that they succeeded henceforth to
reign over an
incoherent agglomeration of subjects, who had no direct
union more
among
themselves.
Corporate propaganda has become so potent that many
Americans are
addicted.
We must leave our isolated rooms. We must shut out these
images. We
must connect with those around us. It is only the communal
that will
save us. It is only the communal that will allow us to build
a
movement to resist. And it is only the communal that will
sustain us
through mutual aid as climate change and economic collapse
increasingly
dominate our future.
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/will_the_machines_ever_rise_
up_201
50629/
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