Have advertisements ever gotten you to buy something you later wished you hadn’t? Do you know of things others have bought that you knew they shouldn’t have? Of course. We all know this happens. We see it every day. Often, we don’t even realize we were scammed.

How many times have you gone to a movie that is supposed to be the best movie ever, only to find that it’s bunk. We will often chalk this up to just a difference of opinion between us and the critics, when in reality it is a discrepancy between what was promised and what was delivered.

Knowing how bad cigarette smoking is for us and how bad it smells and how it costs every single tax payer to help those being poisoned, we should question how anyone would ever be fool enough to get hooked. The answer is simple. Advertising is successful at getting you and me to do things and to buy things that are not in our best interests. The examples are endless.

Some people are more susceptible to marketing and different marketing affects different types of people. The more obvious the “bad purchase” is, the more susceptible the buyer is to marketing. But, we are all susceptible. With the years and years and billions of dollars that have been devoted to marketing research, most of us are easy pickings.

Is it morally acceptable for a company to advertise cigarettes?

My unscientific numbers show that people who buy political lies buy many other bad purchases. Of course, they don’t think smoking is a bad purchase any more than they think they made a mistake with their party.

In order to be competitive, a company today has to resort to unethical marketing or they will be washed aside. 25 years of Reganonomics (A. K. A.: Voodoo Economics) only the monster corporations survive. Ma Bell is coming back together, our Military Industrial Complex is moving offshore to avoid taxes, cigarette companies are still making billions. Why? Because we’ve been believing the Greed is Good marketing of the Free Market advertisers.

Why do we not have a national health system? Because of the same unethical marketing.

How do we fix this problem? How do we educate those most susceptible to unethical marketing (and the Corrupt Corporate Media)? How do we train buyers to resist this barrage of marketing?

Many college programs have courses on ways to take advantage of marketing and how to help avoid it. Everyone needs this training and the marketers need to be paying the bill for this education. Without the unethical marketing, there would be no need for the training.

Hence, we need a marketing tax. For every dollar spent on marketing, advertisers should be paying another dollar to help teach people to avoid their lies. However, how do we avoid charging the ethical advertisers to help protect us from the unethical ones? We also need to charge the big marketers more than the little shops as we can all but guarantee that the big fish got big by being just that little bit more ruthless, aggressive, and unethical.

I guess the real question is, is there a difference?

Other than infomercials, every advertisement is intent on getting us to buy something that we otherwise know we don’t need and don’t want.

We also need more strict penalties for unethical marketing and need a government that is serious about protecting the buyers.

So, this week we find out that the Bush Administration has not only corrupted the Justice Department, but has been having retired military performing illegal propaganda against America. This is not only illegal, but in my mind, borders on treason. Yes, Bush and now our military betrays us. Where will this end? A real tyrant in Bush’s position could now easily take over the country and become our furor, our great leader, our dictator.

If we don’t do something about this now, we may find Bush unwilling to leave when he is voted out and the Corrupt Corporate Media will  just silently support it.

Why hasn’t the Corporate Media picked up this story with blinding headlines like, Illegal Propaganda Scheme Uncovered? Why? Because the Corrupt Corporate Media is as much as part of the problem as our mentally retarded president. What a team. GO TEAM!

The Corrupt Corporate Media will avoid this as long as they can and the only way Americans are going to find the truth is to turn off the TV and start reading their news online. Then again, many people are so stupified from years of Fox news that they don’t even care any more. “Fox doesn’t make a big deal of it so it must not be a big deal.”

It’s time to impeach! Or is it already too late?

For all those rabid Hillary supporters out there, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I support Hillary. I volunteered for her more than once and have donated hundreds of dollars to her campaign.

But!

I’m beginning to question that decision. It’s time to write another donation check and I’m not sure I want to send it to Hillary.

The Hillary camp has come to the possibly correct conclusion that they can’t win the nomination without using Republican underhanded tactics. With her approach that she will do anything to win, even take down the Democratic party, to do so, I worry about the money I donated.

If she can’t win the nomination without walking like a Republican and talking like a Republican and campaigning like a Republican, then maybe she needs to step down and let the best man win.

On the other hand, if she really is the better candidate then she can win on her strengths. By resorting to negative campaigning, she is admitting that she doesn’t have strengths to run on so she has to attack the strengths of her opponent.

This is straight from the Republican smear campaign’s playbook.

Hillary, I have supported you for years now, but it’s time for you to quit the negative campaign or most Americans, like me, will cease to support you.

What the hell is Hillary thinking? Is it okay to win at any cost? If so, then she’s just another Republican bent on personal gain and totally clueless to the harm she is doing to the party and the country.

Hillary, it’s time to stop the negative campaign. Run on your strengths or bow out gracefully. If you want to run a negative campaign, smear McCain, but don’t discredit a fellow Democrat. Show some self-respect now and you will be setting yourself up for a future win. Force the issue now and you not only hurt your country, but you hurt yourself.

How humiliating for America and for General Petraeus to be up in front of Congress selling George Bush’s Amway crap. When did this country stoop to the level of taking a decorated military general and parading him like some mini-skirted little elementary school cheer leader, singing, “Ra, ra, ra for Bush’s Surge”. How humiliating. Petraeus, how low will you stoop? There’s no question how low Bush will go to use the military as props for his propaganda machine, but a decorated general should really have some self respect.

When asked if we’re safer, now, Petraeus slipped into a full-blown all-points talking head for the administration spewing the endless line of lies and distortions parroted by the most ignorant of the bunch. When did our military become a tool for the president? Shame on you!

Just as importantly, though, I would like to know why our “Liberal Media” failed to even mentioned the obvious conflict of interest. This is such an obvious example of how our media is failing the American people. We need to reform our media and we need to retire generals who betray us.

Bush and the Republicans keep trying to paint the Democrats as the party of defeat. With enough money spent on lying and deceitful ads, America just may begin to believe it. But, let’s take inventory, here:

1. Bush forces through tax cuts for the insanely wealthy in America so “Boost the economy”. Well, Bush and Friends, this is the worst economy that America has seen since the last Republican Depression. Failure! Bush defeats himself and America on the economy.
2. Bush invades an unarmed nation, Iraq, saying we’ll be treated as liberators. Defeat! 5 long years and over 4,000 dead Americans and countless veterans destroyed for life, and no progress to date! Defeat for Bush and his Republican friends.
3. Bush kills almost 1,000 American soldiers in his “Surge”, and promises that we need this just long enough for the Iraqi government to work out a deal. Well, here we are over a year later, almost 1,000 dead and no progress. Defeat for Bush’s Surge and for all those who supported the failed notion. Bush and the Republican Party of Defeat.
4. “Take care of the businesses and they will take care of the environment.” We don’t need an Environmental Protection Agency. Bush has filled all the government’s agencies with failed managers, one failure after the next. America and the world are at the gates of hell on the environment and Bush promises that as soon as he leaves office, someone will clean up after him, just like in Iraq. Yet another defeat for Bush and his cronies.
5. “Let’s privatize Social Security.” Fortunately for us, America already defeated Bush and his billionaire investment cronies or our social security would be down the toilet with the rest of the investments in Bear Sterns and the rest of the hemorrhaging investment companies. America isn’t that stupid, Bush! Chalk this up as yet another failure and another Bush defeat.

And the examples just keep coming and coming. Let’s not mention being defeated by Al Queda, N. Korea, Iraq paying for itself, being greeted as liberators, yes, it just goes on and on.

Republicans, The Party of Defeat. Now of course, they’ll try to paint everyone else as defeatists, but America knows the truth.

Wow, just Wow!

That was an amazing speech by Obama, today. You can check out Obama’s Speech at Crooks and Liars.

Hello, again, to all my loyal readers. Please forgive the long hiatus, but I am back.

While away, I heard an interesting story that I just knew you would all enjoy.

The year is 2009 and Bush and his corrupt Administration, along with almost all the Conservatives in DC have left office and America is looking forward to a fruitful and prosperous recovery from the latest Conservative government, even worse than the last one. But, the optimism is short-lived.

As it turns out, Earth is invaded by aliens from other worlds, here to satisfy their need for our resources. These new invaders are far superior to us lowly humans and can predict and thwart any attack we have planned. Before long, all humans are rounded up and pushed off to the far reaches of the planet to try to eek out an existence without sufficient space or resources.

More than half the population die in the first few years and only by the work of the new rulers are some humans saved.

We try to negotiate with the rulers and plead for humane treatment, but always hear the aliens say, “so what, they’re just humans.”

We humans realize that our new rulers are far superior to us intellectually, but lack the simplest of morals. How could they be so insensitive to our basic needs. When new resources have been found around our human colonies, entire towns were simply eradicated of the troublesome human presence.

A most morbid event happens every spring. A few of the more aggressive of the aliens single out some of the most educated and healthiest of the humans and free them, only to hunt them down and murder them in cold blood.

We humans can look at our new leaders and know in our souls that we have the upper hand when it comes to morals. These new leaders know nothing about treating others as they would like to be treated.

What kind of morbid creatures would decimate entire populations of lesser creatures just to have room to exploit the environment? How sick and twisted must these aliens be to hunt down and kill the most promising of our species. What kind of morbid immoral superior race would say, “so what, they’re just humans?”

Well, I’ll tell you. The kind of superior race that is so morbid and immoral is the human race. These things that we would all recognize as reprehensible and ruthless being done to us are things we have learned to ignore when we do it to other species.

When God gave us dominion over the Earth, he didn’t exonerate us for terrorizing and murdering lesser animals for our morbid pleasure. He gave us this Earth to respect and honor and take care of. Do you think God is proud of his children when he sees what we have become? We can fool ourselves all day long about how noble it was to attack Iraq, but we all know in our hearts that God knows the truth and is horrified by our actions.

We are polluting and destroying the Earth, the gift He gave us, every time we fire up that ol’ gas-guzzling SUV, and He knows we know and that we continue to do it anyway.

He sees the hundreds of thousands of people that die every year due to lack of health care and know that it’s our greed and lack of morals that makes it happen. Would God love a national health system for America or would He prefer to see our children die?

Oh, we see ourselves as so intellectually superior but in reality, we’re no better than those monsters who invaded the Earth for our resources. It’s time to wake up and put things in perspective. It’s time to get Progressive.

Bush Driving the Final Nail in the Conservative Coffin
by
David Schlecht

Many people have said that the Bush Administration has been the kiss of death for the Republican party. More Republican voters are abandoning the Greedy Ol Party than any time in the recent past. Even I have said that Bush has done long-term harm to the Republican Party.

That’s still as accurate as ever, but it’s a Conservative talking point, and it’s important for us all to know that it’s not just Bush that has caused the demise of the Republican Party. Bush is just an example of what the Conservative agenda is after.

Bush has been the sweetheart of the Conservatives and the Conservatives have convinced the more gullible of the Republican Party that the Republican interests are the same as the Conservative interests. Don’t fool yourself and don’t let the Conservatives fool you. They are not the same.

The Conservatives have been exposed for the nonsense they have pursued through the Bush Administration. America now knows that they want nothing to do with this unAmerican nonsense and have been rejecting the Conservative poisons for two years now.

So, what’s a poisonous Conservative party to do when the public sees you for what you really are? Blame your poisons on Bush and pretend that it’s not your agenda he pursues.

And, that’s exactly what the Conservatives are doing, blaming Bush for their foolish notions.

Do you want to steal from the poor and give tax breaks to the rich? Then you’re a Conservative. Do you want to forbid the public from pooling their money to put into a non-profit health system? Then you’re a Conservative. Do you want to shut down all the food and drug oversight? Then you’re a Conservative.

None of these agenda items are Republican in nature, they are only Conservative, and the Republican Party has been invaded by the Conservatives.

The nail in the coffin should really be the coffin of the Conservative agenda, but they’re successfully making it a nail in the coffin of the Republican party, while trying to distance themselves from the failures. Truly upstanding moral people, don’t you think?

There will be many vigils around the country and around the world to mark the 5th year of this never-ending war — or as McSame McCain would say, 100 more years.

Write the press and join a vigil. The easiest way to get involved is to go to the MoveOn website and  put in your zip code. Put it on your calendar. Wednesday, March 19th. Let your voices be heard.
Wow! Five years, already, and the violence is surging. I guess the surge worked, huh Bush? The economy is tanking. Why don’t we give it just 100 more years? “It’s working, can’t ya tell?”

The Bush administration will continue to ignore the voters’ wishes until there are too many of us to ignore. Get out there and protest and reclaim the America we all know this country can and should be.

Crimes and Politics
by
David Schlecht

Have you ever been a victim of a crime? Most of us have. Has anyone you know ever been a victim? All of us know someone who has been a victim.

These victims are victims of politics. I’ll explain why.

There are hundreds of crimes that occur on or around the UNR campus in Reno every year. Most go unreported since the police don’t ever (EVER)  follow up on them unless there’s something awful enough to make the front page of the local newspaper. I know people who have had their cars broken into multiple times, but still no investigations.

Not only are there no investigations, but even though there are numerous crimes committed in a relatively small area, there aren’t enough police on patrol to reduce the number of crimes.

Why do we have so many crimes? Where are our police when we need them? Where are all our tax dollars going? Will you be the next victim? Will I? Will someone you love be the next victim?

For every officer patrolling the streets, there are many personnel behind the scenes taking care of such things as supervision, filing reports, maintenance of buildings and vehicles, you name it. So, for every office that is taken off the beat to pursue unimportant crimes, there are many people that would normally been available to prevent the real crimes.

What crimes are important enough to take patrolmen off the streets? What crimes are important enough that we can endure rapes and homicides and burglaries and worse?

I know.

It’s so important that we investigate and pursue the awful crimes of the neighbor college kids smoking dope in the privacy of their own homes, that I would gladly suffer being shot to death in a home robbery, just to make sure we catch the pot smokers. And, even worse, there might be pornography going on in the darkness of someone’s bedroom. I’d gladly have you shot to death in a robbery so my cops can spend their time investigating the heathens up the street.

What?

Even a single officer being taken off real crime patrol to work on stupid law breaking like drug use is just plain stupid. Stupid!

So, why do we have our police doing this kind of stuff rather than doing what’s really important? It’s because some of our politicians have gotten elected by claiming that their opponents are soft on crime. Following this silly reasoning, any law that we could be enforcing, and taking police works away from real crimes, could get a politician elected. “Let’s have more drug laws and fewer police on real crime.” Who would ever vote for such a politician? Lots of people do.

I would say that the “soft on crime” negative advertisements come mostly from the Republican party, but there are plenty of misguided Democratic candidates that do the same, just to get elected.

If we hear a politician use the “soft on crime” argument, then we should immediately see them for what they are. They’re interested only in getting elected, even if it makes you less safe in the process. We don’t want these kinds of people in our government.

Repeal the silly laws and get our police out there doing the jobs they really want to do and doing the things we really want them to so. Keep us safe. There are plenty of crimes with victims that we don’t need to waste our time or money passing and enforcing laws that don’t have victims.