The Merchants of Death Hit a Snag

It's hard out there for oligarchs and their pimps when they suddenly try to do the right thing, only to discover that what passes for their souls or moral compasses has been missing in action for decades, if not centuries and epochs.

Last week the hypocrisy became all too painfully evident when the ruling class and their media sycophants announced, after the seating of predator Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, that it is time to stop your kvetching and  move on to the most important event ever in their lifetimes, your lifetimes, in anybody's lifetime in all of human history - the 2018 Midterm Elections.

There is too much divisiveness and backlashing in the populace going on for the comfort of the ruling class. So shut up, and register to vote if you have not done so already.  Their comfort depends upon you as you avail yourself of the last crumb of democracy they have deigned to heap upon your plates.

Michelle Obama is certainly doing her part to Get Out the Vote. She even redundantly redeemed war criminal frat boy George Bush on the Today Show last week. You might remember that it was Bush who'd gotten the whole Kavanaugh ball rolling when he promoted his prized preppie minion to the federal bench from his White House position of writing legal briefs justifying torture and death. He'd even set Kavanaugh up with his own personal secretary and the two eventually married.

So lest Bush be newly tainted by the Brett Mess, Michelle gushed that she and Bush function as "partners in crime" whenever the ex-presidents gather, and as such, "I love him to death."

This paints such a warm fuzzy picture of George Bush loving millions of innocent people to death with his illegal invasion of Iraq, before enjoying his retirement years painting warm fuzzy pictures of maimed veterans. This undeserved comfort was all made possible because Michelle's husband refused to investigate his administration -- which included Brett Kavanaugh -- for its crimes against humanity. 

So everybody get out there and vote!

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the elected #Resistance miraculously got over their token disgust with Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh long enough to quietly fast-track a whole new slew of ultra-right Trump court appointees. Schumer altruistically caved to Trump's blackmail threat to keep Congress in session during campaign season, and thereby prevent our good liberal representatives from raking in all those hundreds of millions in corporate cash during the run-up to the most important event in their lifetimes, our lifetimes and anybody's lifetime in all of human history. 

They nobly sacrificed governing in the public interest just so that you little people could enjoy the privilege of getting swamped with their negative TV commercials and their slick glossy campaign mailers for the entire month of October. So do your civic duty. Stay glued to your TVs and Internet screens and always answer your door whenever one of their unpaid volunteers comes a-knocking. Democrats are an endangered species, suffering as they do from both osteoporotic spines and gonadal insufficiency. Keep them on life support as "they make a serious run" at saving their own hides if not yours.

 And get to the polls on 11/6!

They need you so very much every two and four years, that it's all that their propagandists and sugar daddies can do to maintain the fleeting illusion that you matter more to them than money and power does. 

But wouldn't you know it?  Just when they had you almost convinced that they hate murderous despots like Vladimir Putin, their hypocrisy has become painfully exposed in L'Affaire Jamal Khashoggi.

Little did I, or perhaps most of us, know that even as the New York Times was railing against Donald Trump, Russiagate, and the absolute pressing necessity of voting for Democrats in November in order to keep the fascism at bay, the Paper of Record had been sordidly investing its time, record-breaking subscription revenue and journalistic talent into propping up the murderous and repressive Saudi Arabia dictatorship.

It turns out, though, that even late-stage capitalism on steroids has its limits, its momentary surges of conscience whenever bad publicity threatens. This moral compass was certainly moribund as the debonair crown prince of Saudi Arabia was recently feted by the American ruling class despite his regime's long history of bombing Yemeni civilians and beheading its own dissenting citizens. But when he stooped so low as to order the torture, murder and dismemberment of an important rich professional just like themselves, the Ruling Class Racketeers must at last pretend to act shocked and appalled. After all, this time the victim was a wealthy man who spanned the worlds of diplomacy, mainstream media propaganda and power-broking. He was one of them.

The Times simply cannot avoid owning up to its own complicit role in boosting the Saudi dictatorship, but tries nonetheless to save face by soft-pedaling it as ruefully as it possibly can. After all, even the most important media outlets and personalities and billionaires and corporations were duped by all that money and all that sparkling Saudi royal charm as the crown prince schmoozed them to death. There hasn't been anything like it since the Bernie Madoff debacle exposed the greed and stupidity of the upper echelons when his investment scheme collapsed in 2009.

  Media critic Jim Rutenberg writes,  

Vanity Fair noted at the time that the festivities were not marred by talk of civilian deaths in Yemen from Saudi-led airstrikes; the crown prince’s “anti-corruption” move to imprison scores of Saudi businessmen, including the owners of Saudi television networks and key rivals, at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton; or the five-year prison sentence the Saudi royal court handed the journalist Saleh al-Shehi for criticizing the government.

The embrace between the American establishment and the leader known as M.B.S. was set to continue in Riyadh later this month at a business conference hosted by Crown Prince Mohammed. The sponsors, partners and participants of the conference — known informally as “Davos In The Desert” — included a number of media companies: CNBC, The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, CNN and Fox Business Network.

So even Donald Trump of all people is making empty threats to the Saudis. He won't stoop so low as to stop selling them billions of dollars worth of the weapons they need to keep killing Yemenis, because that might hurt the livelihoods of the Americans who manufacture these weapons. Let's face it -- the well-being of our nation is grotesquely defined by the stock market, which in its own turn is largely measured by how many people our elected representatives can impoverish, maim and kill. The business of America is death. Their lives and livelihoods depend on it.

Therefore, don't forget to cling to your own health and life long enough rush right out to vote for which team you'd like to do the killing and the weapon-selling for you, either Democrat or Republican. Because when it comes to war and obscene war profits for billionaires, no debate is ever needed. All they need is the fig leaf of your participation in their free and fair elections.

  As Trump told CBS News, which broke momentarily from the mainstream media script of pretending to despise him because of their mutual addictive dependence on lies, cash and weapons:

 "I'll tell you what I don't want to do. I don't want to hurt jobs. I don't want to lose an order like that. And you know what, there are other ways of punishing.
There's a lot at stake. And, maybe especially so because this man was a reporter. There's something, you'll be surprised to hear me say that, there's something really terrible and disgusting about that if that were the case. We're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment."

He'll keep braying that refrain until November 6th. After that, Khashoggi will most likely go the way of Kavanaugh, down the Orwellian memory hole of public discourse. Money will quietly change hands, deals will be struck in back rooms, the story will be buried in favor of the next nugget of manufactured outrage, and everything will be tempered by the usual feel-good fluff about the doings of the rich and famous.

Meghan and Harry are pregnant! is already doing the diversionary trick on the front pages and breaking news emails.

Now get out there and vote. 

And while you're waiting for your five minutes of democratic fame, do what they did in the future home of the Obamas' $500 million shrine on Saturday. 

 Thousands of people have marched through downtown Chicago to express their displeasure at President Donald Trump and encourage voters to go to the polls for next month’s midterm election.
The march took place Saturday after a rally in Grant Park organized by Women’s March Chicago. The group dubbed the event March to the Polls.
A sea of people took to the streets, chanting “Let’s go vote!” as they walked from Grant Park to Federal Plaza. Some voters cast ballots at nearby early voting sites. Chicago is a Democratic stronghold.

Needless to say, there was none of what the corporate media is wont to describe as egalitarian "clashes" between the marchers and the police. This was a rally and march sanctioned by the powers that be, not by the powerless themselves.

Maybe when all that's left of The November 6th Event are tattered campaign fliers and broken promises, the people will finally take it upon themselves to march on behalf of themselves and their fellow human beings.

One can only hope. And agitate a whole hell of a lot.