Thursday 26th of December 2024

how to avoid drinking the koolaid and taking the aspirin...

protectors
Knowledge is not intrinsic. But from the time we are born, we usually try to find ways to eliminate pain. This is our first primal cry. From then on we are educated and released upon the world of survival and stylistic adventures with a million fake ideas, wrong premises into what to believe from people who have already tried the KoolAid and the aspirin.

What makes us accept, reject, or challenge other people’s ideas? Common sense, compassion, selfishness, comfort, habit, peer pressure, education, cash? 


Original thinking is hard work. Being part of the mob is often more rewarding, whether the mob is Hitler’s or Hillary’s. We wave placards of support and/or wear yellow vests in protest. The lone king is bullshitting and winning.

And original thinking is often not original. Some other dudes already have gone the route but got dumped by the mob because it was not the fashion of the time. Sometimes we resurrect ideas that are second class or not valid per se.
We suddenly become despondent and troubled because our idols show to be merely idiots or crafty liars. 
And an image can be interpreted in various ways… Today, two publications of notably opposite viewpoints use the same cartoon from the 1880s. Frist The American Conservative


https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/making-the-world-safe-for-oligopoly/

“The Protectors of Our Industries” — Puck Magazine 1883. (Wikimedia Commons)

On December 21, 2000, in the closing hours of the 106th Congress, the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, complete with a lethal provision absolving certain toxic financial derivatives from regulation, glided quietly through the Senate, and was duly signed into law without demur by President Bill Clinton. For years, like the shark in Jaws, it moved beneath the surface, invisible to a heedless public. Then, in 2008, it erupted terrifyingly into the sunlight, as the world watched the global financial fabric ripped to shreds by the immensely destructive derivatives it had been protecting. In many ways, we are still recovering from that disaster.

Despite the destructive effects they can inflict on the rest of us, financial legislation, rules, and regulations all too often lurk amid thickets of small print, unnoticed by the world at large. This is neither surprising nor coincidental, given the generally incomprehensible language in which they are written. Who but a securities lawyer or bank lobbyist would have known, for example, the real meaning and purpose of footnote 563 of the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission’s implementing rules for the 2011 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act?

Dodd-Frank, among other things, was supposed to curb the worst excesses of derivatives trading as enabled by the earlier act. But footnote 563 (out of 662) to the rules reads: “Requirements should not apply if a non-U.S. swap dealer or non-U.S. MSP [the counterparty, or person on the other side of a trade] relies on a written representation by a non-U.S. counterpart that its obligations under the swap are not guaranteed with recourse by a U.S. person.”



The other is the OffGuardian :
https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/05/anti-capitalism-is-not-anti-semitism/

A political cartoon from 1883, depecting four notable Robber Barons being supported by their workers. Is this image a hate crime? Will it be described as such soon?

Rhetoric about the 1 per cent and economic inequality has the same underlying theme – anti-capitalism masks and normalises anti-Semitism.

The above quote appeared in the Financial Times over the weekend. It is a piece of twisted logic, designed to demonise an entire political movement. And it is a lie, BUT it does tell an important truth, it just does it by accident.

Namely – that “antisemitism” in Labour is a political invention, used to curb a popular movement against corruption, austerity and growing inequality.

Labour doesn’t have an antisemitism crisis. It doesn’t need to “listen more” or “try harder”. It isn’t toxic. Or racist. Or full of bullies. None of that is true.

Nobody is denying antisemites exists. There’s a small minority of people who hate Jews just for being Jews. This is unfortunate, but also true of every race, sexual orientation and religion. Everybody, somewhere, has someone who hates them for what they are. The problem is relatively small, and in the Labour party, it’s even smaller than in the general public.
--------

Both article are strangely joined at the hip: the rich are manipulating the system to salt their chips. We toil. Under our more “democratic” system though, we can have some side benefits like holidays — while in the past, pleasure was very limited for slaves and for those who believed in hell. You don’t believe in hell, do you still? Hell is pain by excellence. It’s a fake concept to make you bend the knees and join the mob of dead angels in the greater sky, as long as you pay cash to the institutions that do not pay taxes. 
One article is from a conservative point of view in order to limit abuse of the spoils of the rich, while the other is from a lefty point of view trying to shake fake ideas that are attached by the media to the ideals of the left in order to promote the right’s right to rob you. Anti-semitism is usually a good foil for this exercise. 
The image at top is from OffGuardian. The image below is from The American Conservative and titled "Fat Cats". Both were used "on the same day"...
Read on.

fat cats...

fat cats

The difference with the one at top is the colours are slightly more intense.  

other puck cartoons of the day....

cronyism, corruption et all

The weekly magazine was founded by Joseph Keppler in St. Louis. It began publishing German language periodicals in March 1871, though initially the German-language periodical publication failed.[6] After working with Leslie's Illustrated Weekly in New York--a well-established magazine at the time--Keppler created a satirical magazine called Puck, originally published in German. In 1877, after gaining wide support for an English version of Puck, Keppler published its first issue in English. The first English edition was 16 pages long and was sold for 16 cents.[7] Puck gained notoriety for its witty, humorous cartoons and was the first to publish weekly cartoons using chromolithography in place of wood engraving, offering three cartoons instead of one.[8] In its early years of publication, Puck's cartoons were largely printed in black and white, though later editions featured colorful, eye-catching lithographic prints in vivid color. 

The English language magazine continued in operation for more than 40 years under several owners and editors, until it was bought by the William Randolph Hearst company in 1916, which had been involved with the magazine for years (one cartoon featured Hearst's comic characters of the time campaigning for his bid for Congress in 1906). The publication lasted two more years; the final edition was distributed September 5, 1918. A typical 32-page issue contained a full-color political cartoon on the front cover and a color non-political cartoon or comic strip on the back cover. There was always a double-page color centerfold, usually on a political topic. There were numerous black-and-white cartoons used to illustrate humorous anecdotes. A page of editorials commented on the issues of the day, and the last few pages were devoted to advertisements.

"Puckish" means "childishly mischievous". This led Shakespeare's Puck character (from A Midsummer Night's Dream) to be recast as a charming near-naked boy and used as the title of the magazine. Puck was the first magazine to carry illustrated advertising and the first to successfully adopt full-color lithographyprinting for a weekly publication.[citation needed] The magazine consisted of 16 pages measuring 10 inches by 13.5 inches with front and back covers in color and a color double-page centerfold. The cover always quoted Puck saying, "What fools these mortals be!" The jaunty symbol of Puck is conceived as a putto in a top hat who admires himself in a hand-mirror. He appears not only on the magazine covers but over the entrance to the Puck Building in New York's Nolita neighborhood, where the magazine was published, as well.

In May 1893, Puck Press published A Selection of Cartoons from Puck by Joseph Keppler (1877–1892)featuring 56 cartoons chosen by Keppler as his best work. Also during 1893, Keppler temporarily moved to Chicago and published a smaller-format, 12-page version of Puck from the Chicago World's Fair grounds. Shortly thereafter, Joseph Keppler died, and Henry Cuyler Bunner, editor of Puck since 1877 continued the magazine until his own death in 1896. Harry Leon Wilson replaced Bunner and remained editor until he resigned in 1902.[9] Joseph Keppler Jr. then became the editor.

Years after its conclusion, the "Puck" name and slogan were revived as part of the Comic Weekly Sunday comic section that ran on Hearst's newspaper chain beginning in September 1931 and continuing until 1989, when the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, the last paper running a comic section under that name, folded.

 

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puck_(magazine)

 

Even with the best of intent, our little site YD still has a lot to do to reach the intense level of Puck's satire. But we try...

other dual purposes...

Used and abused by various political parties... Quite cheap for $40 considering that some pictures of the Kardashians go into the tens of thousands, otherwise paparrazzis would go broke.

 

One hand rests on her furrowed brow. In the other, she holds a sheet of paper — the type that looks to be bearing bad news.

The photograph is a powerful visual metaphor that speaks to the precarious nature of life facing her generation: failing health, financial hardship and social isolation.

Which is why in the decade since it was first taken, this $40 photo of the lady in the purple dressing gown has become a familiar stock image of choice for many journalists, marketers, advertisers and political parties.

And over the past few years, she has featured regularly in campaign material for both Labor and the Liberals before graduating to become a key visual motif of Liberal Party's "retiree tax" campaign targeting Labor's proposed franking credit reforms.

 

old chook

She was also used in an Obama campaign...

 

 

read more;

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-03/$40-stock-photo-becomes-the-face-of-liberals-campaign/10849480

 

and jonathan freedland adds more guardian crap...

mural

...

The result is that sometimes we can’t even see it, even when it is right in front of us. Recall that Jeremy Corbyn’s first response on hearing that the notorious mural depicting Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of the poor was to be removed, was to ask, “Why?” He literally could not see the problem. (An image of that mural will be included in the exhibition, alongside other examples of antisemitic depictions of supposed Jewish power.)

Given the 2,000-year-old history of this equation between Jews and the wickedness of money, it is absurd to imagine any one of us would be immune to it. Inevitably, plenty of Jews have themselves internalised it – including no less than Karl Marx, whose writings are peppered with anti-Jewish sentiment, who referred to money as “the jealous god of Israel”, and who looked forward to “the emancipation of mankind from Judaism”. 

It is equally absurd to think that merely announcing yourself as an anti-racist automatically inoculates you from this history. It doesn’t. Instead it has to be brought into the open and confronted. But first we have to admit that it’s there.

• Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

 

Read 2000 years of more crap:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/09/jews-money-antisem...

 

The mural is not antisemitic – Mear One, the artist, said so himself, here are his exact words on the matter:

It was also [the media’s] interpretation, and never mine, to point out “hook noses” “crooked noses” and other vile Nazi, Third Reich anti-Semitic propaganda, even concocting cuckoo ideas like how the naked figures under the monopoly board depicted “starving holocaust victims” when they actually represent the multi-races of humanity! As a thinking feeling human being to hear such stuff makes me sick to my stomach.


 

a one-way relationship...

Andrew Sullivan comments on the U.S.-Israel relationship and the role of “pro-Israel” lobbying groups in our politics in a new essay. There are several things that I think Sullivan gets wrong, but perhaps the most significant and pervasive error in the piece is his repeated description of the relationship an “alliance.” He notes that the U.S. gets nothing in return for the extensive military and diplomatic support that it provides, he acknowledges that the U.S. “suffers internationally” on account of its close relationship with Israel, and he marvels at how badly its government under Netanyahu has behaved towards the U.S. Nonetheless, he writes, “I would defend the alliance despite this, because of my core belief in a Jewish state.” The trouble with all this is that there is no alliance and Israel is not our ally. Its government does not behave as an ally does, it has never fought alongside U.S. forces in any of our foreign wars, and its interests are not aligned with ours as an ally’s should be. There is no formal treaty and no binding obligations that require our governments to do anything for the other.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/israel-is-not-americas-a...

 

"it has never fought alongside U.S. forces in any of our foreign wars?" Er... Syria and Iran comes to mind. Sure, there is no formal agreement with the USA and Israel fights for its own aggression, but it ends up being on the US's side nonetheless...

 

Israel needs a reality check — something that its leftist media does quite well. 

 

 

Read from top.