By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
The Amerikkkan corporate mass media have been all aflutter recently about the death of longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and have, in fact, elevated him to the status of national hero.
Why?
What did “Joe Pa” ever do besides coach a university football team – “behemoths rolling in the mud?”
That he may have been a terrific university football coach, was, in the grand scheme of things, totally irrelevant. It’s what he failed to do that must dominate any ultimate assessment of his life.
And what he failed to do was take action after he learned that his assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, was raping children in the team’s facilities – facilities over which “Joe Pa” had total control.
In the final days of his long life, Paterno acknowledged this failing and pleaded for understanding on the basis that he didn’t quite know how to handle the situation.
But the way to handle the situtation should have been obvious all along. read more »
Joe Paterno should’ve died behind bars
Romney’s perverted vision for Amerikkka
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
At several points during last Thursday’s Southern Republican presidential debate on CNN, presumed frontrunner Mitt Romney let it all hang out.
The mega-millionaire wannabe president – whose net worth has been estimated as high as $300 million – who got to be filthy rich off the misery of other Americans, dared to accuse United States President Barack Obama and the Democrats of wanting to divide the country and “wage class warfare.”
It is Mitt Romney’s class – the Top One Percent – the megamillionaires, billionaires and megabillionaires – who have waged war against the Other 99 Percent – the poor, the working class and even the middle class – since the advent of capitalism 500 years ago and especially for the pat 30 years.
Sure, Mitt Romney was born with a gold spoon in his mouth as the son of multi-millionaire former Michigan governor George Romney. But he was not yet part of the Top One Percent. read more »
SOPA, PIPA coffins must be buried deep
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
In the aftermath of this week’s mass hammering of the United States’ proposed SOPA and PIPA bills, care must be taken to ensure that these two draconian and anti-democratic pieces of legislation are buried deep below the ground and never again see the light of day.
SOPA – the House of Representatives’ bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act – and PIPA – the Senate’s version called the Protect Intellectual Property Act – were both among the most dangerous and anti-democratic bills ever introduced in either house of Congress.
In effect, they would have killed the Internet as we know it and dealt a massive body blow to Amerikkka’s dying “democracy.”
Ostensibly intended to protect the owners (read originators) of intellectual property, they would have given massive, harsh and dictatorial powers to such corporate miscreants as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA).
And the reason the entertainment industry would have won out over the high-tech industry is that the entertainment industry spent $94 million on buying politicians last year while Silicon Valley spent only $15 million buying politicians. Obviously, the spoils always go to the highest bidder. read more »
Mitt Romney: The greatest jobs destroyer?
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
The Amerikkkan political class and the corporate mass media love to refer to the Top One Percent as “job creators.”
But for the past 30 years they have been nothing but American job destroyers, the most notable of which might be leading Republican Tea Party presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
Yeah, that same Mitt Romney who is likely to win the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday and who refuses to release his tax returns so the public can see just how super-rich he really is.
And, yeah, the same Mitt Romney who came to amass a personal fortune of more than $300 million by shipping tens of thousands of American jobs overseas, abolishing company pension plans and paying almost no taxes on his massive lifetime earnings. read more »
The screwing of the masses continues
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
While the Other 99 Percent in Amerikkka may have to wait a few more weeks to learn whether their payroll tax cut will be extended, the extreme right-wing government of Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered its double whammy to the masses on New Year’s Day.
No, hard-working Canadians will not get a payroll tax cut. They will have to pay more into both the Canada Pension Plan and unemployment insurance.
And the reason those hard-working Canadian masses will not get a payroll tax cut is that the shabby and immoral federal government needs extra money to finance yet another tax cut for corporations, this time reducing the minuscule corporate tax burden by almost 10 percent to just 15 percent. And a great many profitable Canadian corporations get away with paying even less than that – all too often, nothing.
But that was not all the bad news for Canada’s poor, working class and middle class – the Other 99 Percent – this past week. read more »
Caterpillar bulldozes its own workers
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
A very ugly situation is evolving in London, Ontario, Canada – the city where I live – as global construction equipment giant Caterpillar is embarking on a campaign of total destruction of the lives and livelihoods of its own workers.
Caterpillar’s subsidiary there, ElektroMotive, has erected a high fence around its plant and is attempting to force its unionized workers to either go on strike or be locked out.
The previous contract has expired and the Amerikkkan mulinational is determined to cut wages and benefits by 50 percent and abolish the company pension plan.
One would think that Caterpillar must be going through hard times, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Caterpillar is the largest manufacturer of heavy construction equipment in the world and its multi-billion-dollar annual profits soared last year to a new record high.
So why is Caterpillar attempting to bulldoze its own workers? In a word: Greed. In two words: Unbridled Greed. read more »
2011: A great year for Amerikkka’s rich
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
As 2011 draws to a welcome close, it is worth considering who the year’s winners and losers were.
While the downward spiral continued for the Other 99 Percent of Americans – and indeed the Other 99 Percent across much of the world – the Top One Percent of Amerikkkans did just fine, thank you.
They continued to widen the gap between The Rich and The Rest to a point where the horrific imbalance is now more extreme than ever – and still widening.
And, of course, they continued to get off scot free for the millions of individual major felonies committed by literally thousands of gangster bankster corporate executives.
Now, as Barack Obama’s first – and quite possibly last – term as United States president limps into its final year, all looks just as bloomy for the Top One Percent as it appears gloomy for the Other 99 Percent. read more »
On Bill Gates’ nefarious notion of ‘charity’
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
Over the past few years, Bill Gates and a handful of his fellow mega-billionaires have garnered billions of dollars worth of free favourable publicity around the world for themselves and the corporations they control by making vague promises that they would “someday” give away all their billions.
In the meantime, while they are supposedly downsizing their vast holdings, they are – in reality – actually expanding their inordinate wealth by playing a phony “charity” game.
In Gates’ case, we have simply to look as his malaria vaccination program in equatorial Africa.
True, Gates has given about a billion dollars to give out “free” vaccinations that may, in reality, be inflicting incalculable future damage on the recipients.
But there’s a catch! These free vaccines don’t even work unless the recipient also receives multiple doses of an accompanying medication.
That medication, however, is only produced by multinational pharmceutical giant Glaxo Smith Kline. The problem is that this side medication costs several times as much as the “free” vaccines cost Bill Gates. read more »
In Amerikkka, it’s Xmas feast or famine
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
Amerikkka’s seven largest banks – each of which in the past four years has received tens of billions of dollars in bailouts from the United States Government and hundreds of billions of dollars in free loans from the Federal Reserve – are doling out $160 billion in bonuses to their executives this Christmas.
Assuming there are as many as 160,000 executives receiving bonuses, it works out to an average yearly bonus of one million dollars – that’s right, their average annual bonus.
They’ll all be pigging out at the Buffet Banquet of the Bankster Buffoons – not just on Christmas Day but all year ‘round.
At the other end of the income spectrum, 1.6 million American kids will be homeless this Christmas.
Oh sure, most will get a toy or two and a turkey dinner with all the trimmings on Christmas Day – thanks to the Salvation Army or some other local church or mission.
But what heppens to them the other 365 days a year (2012 is, after all, a Leap Year)? read more »
Peddling misinformation & disinformation
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
There is a great irony in two new major factoids revealed in the past few days and that irony should be a source of bemusement for most thinking Americans.
The first item was the revelation that, accroding to the latest U.S. Census, almost one in two Americans qualifies as either poor or low-income – in the richest country in the world.
And the second item is the revelation that a new poll shows that 43 percent of Amerikkkans are not aware of any income gap between the rich and the poor.
How can anyone live in today’s Amerikkka and not be aware of the enormous gap between the rich and the rest that is threatening to swallow the country whole?
The answer lies in where they live and where they get their news. read more »
