Listen to a reading of this article:
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Have you ever wondered why a famous person whose work you’ve enjoyed has such a myopic perspective on world events? How someone can stir you at your most intimate depths with their words or their music and yet have a blinkered mainstream political worldview that is manufactured by think tanks and spinmeisters?
Celebrities have been particularly odious empire sycophants these last few days, and it’s probably worth taking a moment to reflect on what’s going on when that happens.
Bette Midler has been drawing headlines for her recent let-them-eat-cake remark about baby formula shortages, taking to Twitter to tell Americans, “TRY BREASTFEEEDING! It’s free and available on demand.”
There are of course many reasons why parents might be unable to consistently provide breast milk to their baby, including but not limited to the very health problems and long working hours that the US status quo often creates. More than this, telling individuals what to do in response to a systemic problem created by the wealthy and the powerful serves to divert attention away from criticisms of those people and those systems.
I’ll happily pay more for gas for her. pic.twitter.com/MxUPgUnKYK
— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) March 11, 2022
Midler often uses her Twitter account to broadcast her indifference to the struggles of the less fortunate, like in March when she tweeted “I’d happily pay more for gas for her” with a picture of a child holding a Ukrainian flag. Midler has an estimated net worth of a quarter billion dollars.
While we’re on the subject of Ukraine, U2’s Bono and the Edge recently played a concert in Kyiv in support of the world-threatening US proxy war against Russia, because of course they fucking did. Bono, who says he has “grown very fond” of war criminal George W Bush and praised capitalism at the World Economic Forum and teamed up with warmonger Lindsey Graham to promote US empire narratives about Syria in 2016, would of course be seen singing “Stand by Ukraine” in support of US empire narratives in a Kyiv subway in 2022.
The immensely popular Indian spiritual leader known as Sadhguru Jagadish Vasudev recently tweeted “May Israel inspire the world” in praise of the apartheid ethnostate’s farming practices even as its tyranny and bloodshed draws international headlines. Few of the enlightenment merchants on the spiritual marketplace have anything worthwhile to say about individual awakening, and virtually all of them are fast asleep when it comes to consciousness about the external world.
Horror author Stephen King made the bizarre decision to tweet “I stand with Nina Jankowicz” the other day in support of the freaky shitlib who will be leading the Department of Homeland Security’s Ministry of Truth. Nothing really to say about that beyond what it is.
I stand with Nina Jankowicz.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 10, 2022
This kind of thing happens so often because within an empire that is held together by propaganda, capitalism and mass military violence, those who are elevated to prominence within that empire have a symbiotic relationship with those things.
Someone who is worth a quarter billion dollars is unlikely to support the end of capitalism and the elimination of vast wealth inequality. Someone whose wealth and status come from Hollywood is unlikely to oppose the imperial propaganda machine of which Hollywood is a crucial part. Someone who benefits from status quo politics is unlikely to promote meaningful opposition to them.
And it goes both ways. The imperial machine is not going to elevate people who seek its death. Anti-imperialist journalist Aaron Maté will never win a Pulitzer. Antiwar comic Dave Smith will never star in a mainstream Hollywood movie. Chart-topping songs will tend to glorify money and affluence and will never amplify any opposition to the mechanisms which make them possible.
You don’t generally become rich and famous without the cooperation of people who have the power to facilitate your doing so. Those people will always be invested in the continuation of status quo systems, because they are intimately intertwined with those systems. If you seek the end of capitalism or empire or Israeli apartheid or US sanctions or cold war brinkmanship, you are unlikely to be helped toward the top by any of those people.
And then once you are granted your golden ticket to fame and fortune, you immediately find yourself surrounded by people who are deeply invested in the status quo systems which just elevated you. You go to their parties. You make friends with them because it’s difficult to form normal friendships with ordinary people when you’re very famous. Before you know it you’re in a tighty cloistered echo chamber of the status quo worldview.
Bono visits George W. Bush at his Texas ranch; "He has a huge heart … not to mention a decent voice," Bush said. https://t.co/yQO53UygKq pic.twitter.com/nmypfv68dx
— ABC News (@ABC) May 27, 2017
So fame is a self-reinforcing feedback loop of support for establishment power in numerous ways, and it’s a major problem. It’s a major problem because it means that the people with the most influential voices in our society will always necessarily be people who have benefited tremendously from status quo systems. Their voices eclipse those countless millions who are suffering under those same systems, not because they are more valid or more truthful but solely because they are more amplified.
When you’ve got all the loudest voices talking about the world and their nation in a way that suggests that the system is working fine while all the far more numerous voices saying the opposite are going virtually unheard, what happens? It creates the illusion that the system is working fine. That status quo politics is getting the job done, and no massive, sweeping changes are needed.
In this way the contentment of celebrities with the current establishment order becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, because it keeps enough of the population thinking that the status quo must be working. That any difficulties they are having making ends meet and keeping their head above water is a failure not of the system, but of themselves. That the answer is not revolution and change but self-defeating self-blame and learned helplessness.
To be a celebrity within the oligarchic empire is, with very few notable exceptions, to be an agent of that empire. The weird plastic-faced freaks who fill our screens and shape our worldviews are as much a part of the oppression machine as the Pentagon and the police force.
Just a useful thing to be aware of while navigating this mess.
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74 responses to “Celebrities Are Such Scumbags Because They’re Invested In The Status Quo”
Great job as always Caitlyn. Bono reminds me of Mother Theresa- the “benevolent” face of imperialism. barf.
“I never know how much of what I say is true.” – Bette Midler
– Well, I’ll give her credit for that, at least.
You should be fair and admit that for a lot of celebrities their sycophancy is genuine. And you should have mentioned that a real factor in all the obedience is the dirt the CIA/FBI/5 Eyes have on people, indeed this may be the biggest factor, and it needn’t even be explicitly brought into play to keep people in line. A lot of people not being actively blackmailed know they could be. Why do you think Lindsay Graham appears to be outright owned by the war machine? And speaking of GW Jr, I can tell you with high confidence that any number of foreign intelligence agencies have a big fat file on GW Sr’s coke head fratboy son. And why did Hillary order state department employees to steal the credit card numbers of UN staff? For blackmail. I expect the US dirt mongering budget far exceeds that of the Stasi or KGB, and they don’t spend it for nothing. And I was in enough security briefings to know there may not have been a US president in my lifetime who could have properly gotten a security clearance.
I’d sooner take the word of a plumber than a celebrity. At least they know that shit runs downhill.
Around 2007 or 2008 there was a man sitting across from me on a bus that was missing both legs with round scars all over his arms. He was sitting with his wife. It was a long ride and eventually I asked him how he lost his legs while thinking… “Iraq”? He told me he’d been in the army, served in Iraq, and that an IED blew up his vehicle. He said he now worked underneath cars (didn’t want handouts). He said he was doing ok without his legs and talked about all the children that died over there (sometimes for taking candy from the soldiers) and then started crying about them. From that moment I never forgot George Bush, who he was and his responsibility for the misery that his ignorance and pride inflicted on so many innocent people. I feel like throwing up when clueless morons like Bono praise Bush. Everyone hates Hitler but there are many leaders that the media applauds that are also in the Hitler category when it comes to mass murder and misery.
If you were sucking on the tit and it made you wealthy would you stab the cow.
Bette Middler’s facile quip about the little girl conjures up memories of John Belusi’s famous riff in the Blues Brothers.
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People such as dead Harvey Weinstein and other powerful Israeli mobsters own and control Hollywood. They are globalist. They thrive on destruction and bloodlust.
This column is true, for the most part. But there are exceptions. For example, t’s nearly 14 years since George Carlin died. He started his career as part of the establishment, r at least, in an attempt to join the establishment. But, over time, he became disillusioned with so much the the activists and alternate media are addressing now. He warned us of the oligarchs. He showed us how the the D.C. politicians were all in the ‘same big club,’ that the average guy never will be and that they simply don’t care about us – at all, at all at all.He’s just one example.
Harry Chapin (many doesn’t know him, but his fans still adore him and his music). His biggest hit was”Cat’s In The Cradle – and he was a humanitarian. He averaged 260 concerts a year and 130 of them were benefit concerts. He was the originator of the fight against global hunger (and domestic hunger too). The creation of nationwide food banks is due to his efforts. And he lobbied Congress and President Jimmy Carter, until Carter formed The resident’s Commission On Hunger which, sadly, was tossed to the wayside by his successor Ronald Reagan..Those are just a few of Harry’s contributions.
He made a lot of money, but never kept much for himself – just enough to take care of his family and the organizations that he supported through his music and poetry.
Sorry for a few typos – I do have vision problems.
Line 3 – or, not r
Line 7 – at all. He’s – left out the space between the period and the capital H.
Line 14 – President’s not residents.
PS Meant to end with: Until we replace capitalism, we cannot blame anyone for working honestly within it. What matters is what they do with the money and on the positions they take and stand behind.
thanks for sharing this view, harry. well worth reading, typos and all.
Thanks for reminding me of Cat’s in the Cradle and here’s to Harry Chapin:
https://youtu.be/etundhQa724
I worked in corporations for thirty-one of my forty-one years in the workforce. For, I’d say, the first fifteen of those corporate years, I kept expecting management to suggest laying off the most unproductive, talentless, and expensive people in the organization, but they decided to keep themselves on the payroll every time.
What it takes to succeed in Hollywood is precisely what it takes to succeed in any part of the system: corruptibility and flattery in the service of malice. The rest of us are just hanging on, hoping for something to work out.
expecting management to suggest laying off the most unproductive, talentless, and expensive people in the organization
And so so often that is management itself – that is the most unproductive, talentless, and expensive people in the organization.
I worked a few years in a corporate structure (it made me want to puke) so I took the dive and went self-employed (made less money, but oh my the psychological relief for not having to answer to a Moron).
Quite off topic but related in the section “celeb’ scumbags”, here’s an article explaining how Canada’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, is the grand daughter of a Ukrainian banderista, nazi collaborator during WWII as editor of an antisemitic rag, and how she’s now a firm supporter of the Ukrainian neonazis along with Justin Trudeau – complete with funding with Canadian taxpayers’ money, weapons delivery, training… the whole enchilada:
https://www.voltairenet.org/article216785.html
It is of course “Russian disinformation”. What, even the photos?
Icing on the cake, she’s also a “global leader” and member of the board of the WEF for those who thought the nazi touch of the Great Reset stopped at Klaus Schwab’s akzent in spite of the eye-opening Freedom Convoy repression…
We already had Ursula von der Lugen being the grand daughter of a civil servant of the first European Commission presided upon by former nazi and Wehrmacht Oberleutnant Walter Hallstein and currently die-hard supporter of the Ukrainian neonazis, now we’re in stereo :o)
Sorry. the daughter Ursula is (not the grand)
You nailed it Pascal!!
I know, right!?!! Can we stop pretending people aren’t aware of what they’re doing and you’re just wiping ass with glee! Like wtf, right?
Isn’t this a bit like what Marcuse wrote about in “One-Dimensional Man”? Art in the pre-industrial world had a special status that either transcended the existing order or tended to undermine it. In the present, however, art is quickly absorbed in and by the present order so that it offers no real challenge to the way things are.
True! The thirty pieces of silver will always buy a person’s soul to be indifferent to the plight of fellow human beings. None of us is immune to this. Truth be told, they were in Ukraine to march along with their Judas Iscariot club colleague who sold out on his country big time.
Thank you Caitlin. The hardest part of having some degree of “waking up” or “clear seeing” is to live with just how fucked up this human created mess really is. And it’s a lonely place because most people don’t see it, or at least don’t want to see it.
Almost everyone currently “winning” feels the same…don’t want anything to change the status quo if it will alter their “winning”…so basically nothing that will actually matter. Modern society as we know it is a result of domination and wealth and power consolidation…it should matter how and why, but never does…as long as the “winning” continues…and now they make it so convenient…just got my Wayfair! Hard to have much compassion for masses since they pretty much do all the petty things TPTB do just on a smaller scale…won’t stay in their lane…always nudging, manipulation, coercing outcomes…TPTB just do it way better and at scale…I’ll take away your iPhone mister. Frazzled teachers with broken lives berating the kids to do as they say…why? So they kids can grow up broken and sad like them? Leave your pamphlet on the table but don’t get in other people’s lane.
Below is just one example of why Aaron Mate shouldn’t win ANY award for “journalism” (Pulitzer? Don’t make me laugh). He’s a propagandist, not a journalist – he frequently asserts falsehoods and isn’t even subtle about it.
Take this quote from a recent Maté piece: https://mate.substack.com/p/urging-regime-change-in-russia-biden
“No amount of spin can obscure the obvious: Just like when he blurted out the truth that the US and its allies supported an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency in Syria, Biden has laid bare the United States government’s longstanding regime change aims in Russia, with Ukraine used as the tip of the spear.”
There are at least two propagandistic elements here. Firstly, the one I described in my earlier reply to you. The only evidential support Maté provides for his claim that “Biden has laid bare the United States government’s longstanding regime change aims in Russia” is the very brief line from Biden’s recent (post brutal invasion) speech – that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”. Indeed, that line from that speech is the trigger for Maté’s piece (along with many similarly framed recent Russian state media pieces) – as the piece’s title & timing makes clear. But that brief line from Biden’s speech does NOT necessarily imply what Maté asserts that it does. It’s a propagandistic technique of using an element that can *possibly* support a certain narrative, without necessarily or even most likely supporting it, and then writing in such a way as if the causal connection between the element and the narrative is beyond doubt. Or as I put it more concisely in my earlier reply to you, when you do this regularly in a certain direction, it’s propaganda.
Another propagandistic element of Maté’s quote, above, is the part about how Biden “blurted out the truth that the US and its allies supported an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency in Syria”. It’s false. If you check his linked source (a video of Biden embedded in a tweet), you find that Biden says something fundamentally different – he complains that it’s a “big problem” that US allies (not the US itself) are funding terrorists in Syria. So Maté’s claim here is simply false. But it’s also propagandistic in the sense that he conflates “the US side” (in his linked tweet, referring to the US’s allies) with the US (itself) “and” its allies. In fact, Biden’s “biggest problem” and “largest problem”, in his own words, is with what US allies are doing here (this is clear from the video – does Maté think his readers are stupid?).
When your framing and selection of talking points regularly and precisely mirrors state propagandistic media (whether Russian or “Western”), maybe you should give up the “journalist” title and just openly call yourself a propagandist or polemicist.
(Cue more pretzel attack…)
i’m used to your lying and worthless propaganda. nobody is impressed with your sophistry but you.
LOL. On cue. When you get around to making an argument rather than hurling insults, I’m here for you.
Let’s not get involved in this conversation. We might prevent it from degenerating.
The idea of weakening or bringing about regime change in Russia has been overtly published by the people recommending it; Maté can hardly be said to have discovered it.
you havent made any arguments. you just have smears, and you hope nobody reads the article you linked to.
Clearly, I have made arguments. I have supported my claims with reference to quotes in the article I linked to. That’s why what I wrote isn’t “smears” – it’s supported by verifiable evidence. VERIFIABLE. Your total lack of engagement with the arguments (as always) is no argument. Like Maté, you’re a propagandist. But at least Maté makes an effort – unlike you with your lazy, shoddy dismissals.
clearly, you have not. you didnt even read the piece you linked to, in which he provides evidence, or just lied about it. your idea of an argument is “Dore has a house in LA LOL”. there is no argument there, just an attempted smear.
amen!
Why is this guy trolling this/these threads?
One can agree or disagree with a particular point of view or with the subject of a particular interview that Mate does. However, one can usually learn something real from his interviews or investigative work.
This is possible bcause Mate (and his colleagues come prepared, ask questions intended to illuminate and are prepared to engage in dialog with friend and potential foe, alike.
Listen to NPR, Sky News and most of Fox for as long as maintaining your sanity will let you–which is important in order to stay grounded in just how bad the MSM really is and why the public is so badly mis– or dis–informed. Then listen to an interview done by the likes of Mate and his like.
“Anti-imperialist journalist Aaron Maté will never win a Pulitzer” (quote from Caitlin’s post). Which couldn’t possibly be because of absence of merit in his case, and the fact there are literally thousands of lesser-known journalists who have infinitely more journalistic ability and integrity than Maté. In fact, the only thing that sets Maté apart is his propagandistic niche, which isn’t at all “anti-imperialist” when it comes to Putin’s brutal imperialism.
(Cue pretzel attack…)
Hallo mistress Johnson,
it is impossible to dissent from your article. But what to think of the fact that tens of millions of people, many of them heavily penalized by the system, gladly identify with the scumbags in question?
Might it be that the system is not only based on its gigantic mind control apparatus, on capitalism and repression, but mainly on the herd’s superficiality and its gregarious instincts? That the average human being is utterly and sheepishly uninterested in thinking on his own and only concerned in introjecting and then bleating any manitou his masters sway in front of his eyes?
Perhaps you should rething the problem and extend your blame a little bit.
I think most people are aware that most celebrities are kind of dumb, including the dumb people. They’re celebrities mostly because dumb people find them entertaining. The odd thing to me is that the less dumb people worry about this, or become peeved. Stupidity, ignorance, and laziness are facts of life in which we all share to some extent 5and we have to learn to live with them. Dwelling on the curious opinions of the masses about foreign policy or quantum mechanics is not profitable.
The majority of people want to belong in the majority, which leads to easy manipulation by the manipulators, which leads to even more need to belong by the manipulated. At this point, all they have left is virtue signaling.
The only celebrities I listen to are Caitlin, Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Russell Brand. And sometimes Joe Rogan (except when he has a shitlib on). And Donald Trump, who I don’t support.
Celebrity myopia has two acute symptoms: diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.
Graphic but… true. Of course, the question is if what comes out of the mouth doesn’t come from the brain, then where does it come from? The wallet?
Speaking of killing humans for sport, looks like my home town is going to be in the news for a bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugaCCP6Okck
Why did the Nazi killer – and now, instant international celebrity – pick Buffalo for his kill zone? Well, we almost elected a socialist to be our mayor. That might have something to do with it.
All ten victims were black, so it looks like a standard American hate slash mass race crime, but something tells me the Buffalo mayoral race played a part. Both candidates were black, the socialist India Walton vs the neo-liberal incumbent Byron Brown, and I can tell you, there are a lot of folk in Buffalo, and elsewhere in nearby regions, who were not happy about this lack of choice.
Lmao … Could be wrong of course, for all I know the killer may be apolitical. Either way, we’re going to find out, because apparently he wrote a manifesto.
I admire your faith in what we might learn from the alleged manifesto. I can give you the answer already: we’ll need more internet censorship and “disinformation governance”. Of course climate change didn’t help but it’s all Putin’s fault anyway :o)
I want to know why he by-passed New York City, Albany, Syracuse, and Rochester, which all have Tops in black communities and are all much closer, and drove instead all those extra miles to arrive at a Buffalo Tops to kill black people.
The only thing that makes my home town different from those towns, and every other city in America for that matter, is Buffalo was at one point the heavy favorite* to elect a Socialist, as mayor, for the first time in the US since the early 1970’s.
Put it this way, I will be betting some local folk here in the coming days and weeks, even up, that the “manifesto” will show that the target was both black people and Socialism (communism, radical leftism, un-Americanism, etc…)
My antenna are tingling Pascal. Not my Conspiracy antenna, but my “this is not a simple open and shut case” antenna.”
*Until the national Democratic machine stepped in, and put an end to the Socialist dream of having a .00000001% percent say in America’s future.
No, no! It’s because of Tucker Carlson (whom I had forgotten :o)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-demented-and-selective-game-of?token=eyJ
Got my first bet. With my brother, 20 bucks. He thinks I’m nuts, I think I’m a lock. I also have a clause in the bet, that if the authories don’t release the entire manifesto, I win the twenty.
Greenwald, is right wing stooge! ;o)
what does climate change have to do with this?
Proof that we are a phoney society! Scratch a bit and there is nothing below.
Acclaimed actress and Academy Award nominee Rosamund Pike has become – unwittingly? – a spokesperson for the devil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoAOpBskEOU&t=15s
It’s one thing to sell-out for the cabbage, it’s quite another to work for Evil Incorporated.
When was the last major American anti-war film? That’s a tough question.
Here’s one list of all the anti-war films that have been made since the beginning. It’s a pretty slim one, if you think about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-war_films
It’s American Sniper for me. Clint got his message through the censors, and man was the DoD picking over every aspect of the making of that film with a fine tooth comb. They knew the hero of the story, Chris Kyle, was a time-bomb.
A man who bragged in his autobiography that he had killed 30 Americans for the crime of looting. Shot em dead from the roof of the Superdome during hurricane Katrina. Not the kind of soldier the DoD wants held up to the brightest of lights.
The killers. Those that take pleasure in it, and can’t get enough of it.
This not to say that all war machines aren’t dependent on such folk, just that some war machines don’t want their civilian base to know about them.
The music industry was always rather crass to say the least however at least in the past some of it’s denizens tried to put a alternative view across against the main stream, alas now it seems to have sold it’s soul, i never did like Bono or U2 i always thought them highly overrated not unlike all of the rest of them nowdays, like most celebrities they are full of shit, one can only wonder how long it will take for people to realise just much they have hoodwinked into this unwarrantable narrative being promoted by the propaganda machine known as the western media ….. God help us
I am happy to say I once flipped George the bird. The motorcycle escort around the limo sort of lost their shit.
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🙂
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It was when he was being re-elected and came to town. On the way to a fund raising dinner.
Wow, never read about Bono sucking up to GW Bush war criminal, how sad. What a total asshole Bono is! Could he be that fucking clueless and out of touch with what GW Bush/Cheney did? Not only reducing Iraq to an depleted uranium rubble heap; but also turning the USA into a military police state. I still clearly recall how easy it was before 9-11 to cross into Canada: you didn’t even need a passport, and they often didn’t even ask to see your driver’s license. And don’t get me started about the hell they turned flying on a plane into, all thanks to GW Bush/Cheney. Bono can now be proud he fundamentally stands against what rock music always was, i.e. anti-war, pro peace, hippies, liberation etc. Bono now stands for war, occupation and militarism. How fitting for him to sing for the Azov nazis and its Pinochet style president Zelensky. Moving onto another total rock star cum asshole: David Gilmour of Pink Floyd! To amplify his arrogance and stupidity last March to demonstrate his support for NATO/ USA /Ukraine, he pulled ALL of his music from being sold in Russia! Think about that for a minute. So, in Gilmour’s brain dead, brain washed mind, EVERY PERSON in Russia that previously liked his music is deserving of being sanctioned, and denied market access to his music. This is collective punishment, pure and simple. Even worse, this is weaponizing music, which is the utter antithesis of what music is all about: bringing people together. It is beyond Gilmour’s small mind to remotely comprehend that there are Russians who don’t support the war and want peace, detente. I’m sure Gilmour supports the ongoing weaponized culture ban of all Russian musicians, cat breeders, athletes, etc. What an asshole Gilmour is! Thankfully Roger Waters at least stands up for the Palestinians and Assange, in stark contrast to Gilmour. Remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks at the start of GW Bush’s Iraq war, when they said to the audience live in Ireland that they didn’t like Bush and were against the war? Bush’s P.R. team immediately went into KILL MODE to destroy their band! I remember the Dixie Chicks being banned from radio stations, and even some idiots down south had a Dixie Chick CD burning party where they piled up thousands of their CDs in a huge pile and some idiot crushed them all with a tractor. Yep: and that’s Bono’s best friend now. What a shit country the USA has become.
“Wow, never read about Bono sucking up to GW Bush war criminal, how sad. What a total asshole Bono is! Could he be that fucking clueless and out of touch with what GW Bush/Cheney did?”
Very nicely put. Wow, that 1 tweet was a wonderful visual aid for Caitlin’s piece, proving her point to anybody dragging their feet while reading.
Bette Midler seems to have forgotten that she became famous playing to the customers of gay bathhouses. Now that she is a society matron, she has decided to keep licking the butts of the oligarchy, of which she is now a member. I preferred the original her.
Culture greats and pretty faces of the free world democracy or brainless nurdles in the flush of virtual reality they feed us (never liked the little irish frog).
You deleted my post about a holocaust. Is this temporary while you review my facts?
Unfortunetly, I don’t have the awesome ability with words as you do Caitlin. So I’ll cut to the chase, everyone of these “celebrities” have got where they are today, by sucking the establishment tit. No way, would any of these people, ever turn around and denigrate those that have elevated them to their lofty positions. In fact, these people are being used by the establishment to propagate their agenda if they refuse, that’s the end of them. Just as every Australian politician is heavily compromised. They KNOW, the very second, they utter anything contrary to the agenda given to them, that’s the end of their high hopes for their golden handshake. Thus they ALL cowtow to the establishment.
I can only agree.
Narcissists rolling with sociopaths, the morally flexible getting a selfie with the unaccountable, the influential promoting a witless cheer team-these things are logical, they make sense.
The thing we have been told is theTruth does not, and anyone who says otherwise is __________________, worthy of all the resentment, derision & scorn created by knowing a lie that seems inescapable.
All indicators in theWest are skewed. We vote for someone to make decisions affecting people we don’t know because she makes good brownies or he went to “my” church. We employ people who lack interpersonal skills to staff Fortune500 companies because a university claims they’re qualified. We watch theNews because it’s convenient and the 8th grade civics class outlined a class divide decades ago.
The last time I enjoyed BetteMidler was when my mom took me to the theater to see TheRose when it was released in 1979; she couldn’t find a sitter.
I read everything StephenKing published until TheDrawingOfTheThree; he wrote at the end that Roland’s story might take the rest of life to finish. I read the next five books over a weekend 20 years later because I saw the last two on display at the local library and the others were on the shelf. The end of that story said more than most want to know.
Art is in the act not the result, fashion is not available in stores, a terrific meal will be unrecognizable the following day, fame is more seductive and dangerous than theSirens, and life is too short for stale cookies.
In grad school I read a lot of feminist cultural historians and greatly admired their work. Lately, I’ve stumbled upon some of their recent pieces regarding Ukraine. I couldn’t believe how myopic these pieces were. “Republicans vs. Dems, Putin lovin’ Trump” type of shit. I was stunned. It really made me think about what the academy feeds us in addition to Hollywood.
I was also slightly pleased that these pieces illumined my intellectual evolution. I’ve come a long way since my twenties, and what a damn shame how many “scholars” are stuck in their little cages. It’s almost embarrassing. I feel embarrassed for these people.
In the past it was Marlon Brando, Ed Asner, Norman Lear (perhaps), George Carlin. Today it’s Roger Waters, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, Oliver Stone, Danny Glover (I think, not sure anymore about where he’s at) . . .
Nonetheless, point taken: these people within the celebrity set are exceedingly rare.
As to the price of gas, its price is heavily subsidized, not the least by the US military presence in the Middle East and all over the world. While it is about $5 a gallon right now, its true price is hard to estimate but may be $10-$20 dollars.
In essence the US is deferring the true cost of gasoline so the future generations and more vassal nations to pay its whole price.
As to Steven King, he writes horror novels en masse, so he could have meant that Nina Jancowicz is massively horrible. He writes fiction, that basically is acknowledged disinformation. If she is the queen of disinfo, he is the king of disinfo.
The value of their assets is propped up by the empire’s narratives, so they are the captive songbirds of the empire.
To make more US dollars, the Fed opens a computer and types a new number, then all of the empire’s men get paid from this conjured up “money”. If they stop singing praises for the empire, the whole thing just may collapse.
I am starting to wonder why would anybody want to work for money that is worthless to start with.
Being an older generation person, I think it has not always been this extreme. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and many of my generations’ well well-known musicians created and performed songs that stood for values other than $$ and power. Movie stars, probably not so much. “The times they are a’ changin’”….
yeah and to that you could add The Grateful Dead and probably another dozen or so.Ive never seen Robert Plant or Jimmy Page playing benefits to buy more rocket launchers for “moderate Syrian rebels” or mugging for pictures at Davos hotels with G. Soros.The sad, deranged thing is how for out of their way megalomainac lumpen bourgeois posers “Bono” or Bette Midler go, to make sure everyone knows they are such gaping assholes. They could just remain quiet, barricaded in segregated privilege, but they go the extra mile to let all the untermenchen they despise , know just how much they hate them.
I don’t see a lot of rockers turning out too badly. You have a handful of rock stars turning to shitlibs. David Lee Roth comes to mind. But loads more basically didn’t. I haven’t seen Johnny Mascis, Kevin Shields or Bilinda Butcher, the guys from the Melvins, or countless others have much of a political sellout scheme.
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They do show up sometimes with opinions, but few seem to sell out. Jarvis seems to have a bit to say to “The Common People” about Brexit and general intolerance. Iommi kicked Trump out of a Sabbath show. Ho-hum, I guess, but you can’t really sing “War Pigs” and then cameo with any of the actual, real life, War Pigs. Geezer seems like he could have written some of this blog.
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NB: Most of these people are not class-A celebs though, household names like Bette Midler or Bono (or Pink Floyd). Not really even close. There might be some difference there? Thoughts?
Right on. You describe them very well.
You don’t get let into the club unless you demonstrate you can play by the rules.
My thoughts exactly Gregg.
When the revolution comes it will be off to the Alpo factory with them.
Ha ha ha ha ha!