Category Archives: mainstream media

Cruising mean streets in the popemobile


The mainstream media love big, easy stories — natural disasters, inaugurations, papal elections. The election by the College of Cardinals of Jorge Bergoglio was a softball lobbed right over the plate, and the media knocked it out of the park. … Continue reading →

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Shoeshine boys debate job creation


[The job creators] have no intention of creating jobs now or in the future. They don’t have to create jobs and there’s nobody out there to make them do it. They simply will reduce the number of jobs they have … Continue reading →

Posted in economic collapse, Great Compression, life in the big city, mainstream media, Philadelphia, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Being white in Philly Mag


[Update: I walked into a South Philly CVS and saw that headline again, screaming at me in bold white caps, and I thought oh no, race war, end of the world!] It’s hard to read Philadelphia Magazine‘s March cover piece, … Continue reading →

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Chavez was flawed, but he had Bush’s number


Right-wingers celebrated the death this week of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a dictator and much worse, but only because he wouldn’t play ball with American oil companies or refrain from criticizing hypocrites who put a noble spin on … Continue reading →

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Thank Obama, the anti-FDR, for the sequester


America is waiting for a message of some sort or another. – David Byrne and Brian Eno It ain’t pretty, the damage Barack Obama has done to working people by trying to cozy up to Republicans over the last four-plus … Continue reading →

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Throwing truth to the lions


There’s no such thing as the simple truth. The goodness of the good guys is always exaggerated by the media. History is written by the victors. From Laura’s Miller’s review of The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a … Continue reading →

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On the links (Obama and Big Oil)


It will be interesting to see how Rachel Maddow and her liberal-lite colleagues at MSNBC spin the story if Barach Obama ends up backing the Keystone XL Pipeline. They speak no evil of the chief, ever. From Common Dreams: So … Continue reading →

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There will be blood (or more apathy)


There’s nothing new about eras in which the rich grow richer as the majority slips into the ditch. Or about gilded ages being followed by periods in which worker incomes rise. In between are those interesting chapters in which the … Continue reading →

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Obama’s jobs plan… Is that all there is?


OK, here it is, the one substantive suggestion regarding job creation in Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, dutifully reported by The Hill: “Tonight, I propose a ‘Fix-It-First’ program to put people to work as soon as possible on … Continue reading →

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Will Obama get real about jobs?


[Hard to tell why the woman in the video is working herself up to jump off a bridge. Maybe it’s Jolson’s voice.] I’m posting this right before the State of the Union address, in the hope that my remarks will … Continue reading →

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