Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

[JackRiddler]

Maybe we could unpack this a bit, I think it gets at what I see to be the basic "social dilemma" in mass culture. Our dear leader of the free world makes official statement displaying complete ignorance of historical fact. Now Russia can't reply officially, setting the record straight, because then it looks like saying, "our meddling is nothing compared to America's meddling."

Actually, at his press conference Putin went into a lot of this (not all) in detail.

But "setting the record straight" does have a home in mainstream media, in the mainstream alternative represented by corporate outfits like RT and offguardian.

Off-Guardian is corporate?

The question then is what will help most, reinforcing the social structure of mass culture, or staying out of it, letting mass culture unfold without a transgressive voice to rally against. So it's like a matter of a pushing of society, a kind of social accelerationism, or letting it go on its merry way without interruption. The dilemma is in figuring out which tactic to take at each moment, to help bring the society of mass culture to its ultimate and inevitable breakdown point sooner rather than later.

Usually the answer will have to be to attempt set the record straight, because otherwise it's an unassailable monopoly. True enough that the 'transgression' serves as sand to the making of more propaganda pearls. Also, I differ about which is likelier to accelerate the 'inevitable breakdown', or that it's inevitable.

As pathetic as it sounds, to quote Hedges on his interminable RT promo they've been running for years already: 'Squeak we must'.

.

[Harvey]

.@POTUS: "How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries and everybody knew it? What would it be like if we engaged in activities that he engaged in? It diminishes the standing of a country."

What would it be like, Joe? It would be exactly like what it is, and everybody knows it. To consider this a gaff or mistake is to miss the point: that he's saying this is a de facto admission that everybody knows the opposite is true.

[dada]

You're taking me very literally, but it doesn't really take anything away from the point of view. Yes Putin can get into it in the language of diplomacy, but the setting of the record straight can never be actually confrontational, or engaging directly to actually set the record straight, which would end debate, going against the diplomactically sanctioned rules silently stating that the debate must continue endlessly.

Also offguardian is corporate in form. It is even clearly positioning itself for a target market in the name. Using the mainstream martyr complex as consumer appeal to the "mainstream alternative" brand indentifiers.

I think the question was which tactic to use in each moment, create tension or let it naturally unravel into the next news cycle. It's a matter of knowing when to push and when not to, like constructing a musical composition. Maybe the end of mass culture society isn't inevitable for everyone, and it ends everytime someone cancels their subscription and unfollows it.

But attempting to set the record straight can not be the issue, when there is a monoply on how the truth is used. Funny, I was going to write something recently about my "small, squeaky voice" from the wilderness. But I erased the line, because it is pathetic, and if you and Hedges want to squeak like mice you're certainly welcome to. There is a place for you in the mass culture.

[dada]

I guess where this is leading is the inescapable truth, that if I continue along these lines, I'll have to transgress further in. Not further out, like the post modern luddite off the grid, but like a player breaking old games, to make them fun and productive in new ways. That if I'm honest, I have to search for new, transgressive ways of engaging with mass culture, finding avenues that work around, ignore or collapse the artificial boundaries of all the garden walls.

Figure this here board is on the fringe of all fringes of the mass culture society, populated with investigative minds that have navigated through the media cracks to the big radish in the middle. So, this is my "target demographic," since only those who have come this far can even register my voice over the hedges. A boundary, between mass culture and transgressive culture, maybe the only demographic area where I can compete with mass production for consumer viewership on a somewhat even playfield, at all.

But I have a sense of historical placement, not seeing the moment as "the moment we lost the battle against corporate censorship," but clearly a sea change moment, where even the fringe of all fringes at the boundary of mass culture is finally swallowed up whole.

[dada]

Anyway I don't want to spoil the onion fields with my radish harvesting combine-mech. Let vegtables be vegtables, I always say. Life, liberty and the pursuit of vegetables, even.

The problem for me though, and I'll leave after this, isn't being reduced to a squeak, but being crowned the "jester's foil." Silent teller to Penn's loud, purposefully distracting antics. Maybe trotted out now and again to take a buster keaton pratfall, or build up the audience before the sitcom is shot. Wind them up for the clowns in the main act.

[Joe Hillshoist]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-jus ... 021-06-22/

U.S. Justice Department backs bill to end disparities in crack cocaine sentences

WASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's Justice Department is urging Congress to pass legislation to permanently end the sentencing disparities between crack cocaine and powder, a policy that has led to the disproportionate incarceration of African Americans across the United States.

In written testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department lambasted the "unwarranted racial disparities" that have resulted from the differences in how drug offenses involving crack and powder cocaine are treated under current law, and said the misguided policy was "based on misinformation about the pharmacology of cocaine and its effects."

"We believe it is long past time to end the disparity in sentencing policy between federal offenses involving crack cocaine and those involving powder cocaine," the department wrote, noting that as of March 2021, U.S. Sentencing Commission data showed that 87.5 percent of the people serving federal prison time for drug trafficking offenses primarily involving crack cocaine were Black.

The testimony was released late Monday, ahead of a Tuesday hearing where lawmakers will hear from experts about proposed legislation known as the EQUAL Act, short for Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law.

The disparities between crack and powder cocaine date back to war-on-drugs policies in the 1980s.

In 1986, Congress passed a law to establish mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking offenses, which treated crack and cocaine powder offenses using a 100 to 1 ratio. Under that formula, a person convicted for selling 5 grams of crack cocaine was treated the same as someone who sold 500 grams of powder cocaine.

The 100 to 1 ratio was later reduced in 2010 under the Fair Sentencing Act, down to 18 to 1.

In 2018 during the Trump administration, Congress passed the First Step Act, which sought to help more lower-level crack cocaine offenders take advantage of the less stringent ratio and apply retroactively for sentence reductions.

But in a blow to criminal justice reform advocates, the Supreme Court last week ruled that low-level crack cocaine offenders could not retroactively apply to have their sentences reduced.

In its testimony, the Justice Department urges Congress to ensure that the EQUAL Act, unlike the previous laws, be applied retroactively.

"We support retroactivity because it is the right thing to do," the department said.

[Iamwhomiam]

Meet the Father Who Tricked Ex-NRA Head into Addressing 3,044 Empty Chairs for Gun Violence Victims
JUNE 25, 2021

The parents of a student killed in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School duped a former president of the National Rifle Association into giving a high school graduation speech defending gun rights in front of 3,044 empty white chairs — one chair for each student who could not graduate this year because they were killed by gun violence. David Keene, who still serves on the NRA board, thought he was giving a rehearsal speech for graduating students at the James Madison Academy in Las Vegas, but no such school exists. Video of the speech was turned into a viral video promoting universal background checks. The stunt was organized by the group Change the Ref, which was founded by Manuel and Patricia Oliver, whose son Joaquin was shot dead in the Parkland, Florida, massacre. Manuel Oliver says the video has led to an outpouring of support from across the U.S. “We need to do these more often, because it shows that the NRA, the gun industry and the gun lobby are not as powerful as they say,” he says.

visit link for transcript

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/6/25/nra_president_fake_graduation_speech_stunt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tief6e0Dxjs

[Harvey]

^ It's not a 'stunt' it's a profound work of art.

[Iamwhomiam]

Yes, Harvey, I agree, it is indeed a profound work of art, one instigated by a profoundly obscene act of violence.

[stickdog99]

[stickdog99]

https://www.rt.com/news/541149-euthanas ... ated-only/

Assisted death only for vaccinated, euthanasia association says

[stickdog99]

For fans of high weirdness

[stickdog99]

The FDA needs to take another look at laser-based ‘vaginal rejuvenation’

[MacCruiskeen]

You know that feeling when you want to keep your soul as America by embracing your dreams democratically but just can't find the tip of the spear? Sean is here to help.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMl5lvvXEAA ... me=900x900

Good to have that cleared up.

[Harvey]

You know that feeling when you want to keep your soul as America by embracing your dreams democratically but just can't find the tip of the spear? Sean is here to help.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMl5lvvXEAA ... me=900x900

Good to have that cleared up.

Interesting that Mr Penn should look so exactly like a conglomeration of every single piss-head that I know.