Saw this pic on Reddit

[Courtesy Flush]

[NYC_SKP]

1. That's pretty clever! K/R (eom)

[DeSwiss]

2. K&R

"The mendacity of American capitalism is once again so clearly visible that most adults, with or without a “higher” education, can see it. That the “lower classes” blame the “higher classes” for it is not surprising, since they see that mendacity seems to be one powerful ingredient of “higher” education.

It’s not a new condition but one that is historically habituated. Most of the people who came here from Europe were pushed into it by destitution. They came determined to “make a better living.” For them, capitalism was “freedom” and “liberty”—the freedom to steal land from the “Indians”, the “liberty” to tolerate the importation and slavery of Africans for decades, followed by more decades of racial discrimination. They accepted unjust competition and the build-up of huge personal fortunes as “inevitable”. With the exception of the Civil War and the labor rebellions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they did not struggle to change things. They just moved West—until the West ran out.

When they were told by their overlords that they must fight wars because “communism” and “socialism” would “take over”, they did not have the mental tools necessary to unmask the deceit and evaluate the overall situation more accurately. Besides, they were afraid because they knew the “isms” were complicated, and they were ignorant—and helpless.

Even today a large proportion of the population still believes in social and political injustice. They still are mainly interested in their own well-being and are misled by their unflagging hope that they can “improve” their condition, most often meaning “make more money.”

The system of capitalism feeds on these attitudes and fights against anything that refutes them. A measure of how insecure capitalism is, how vulnerable and frightened of falling on its face, is the degree to which media and surveillance must be used to constantly brainwash and frighten “the public” and prop up this rickety structure.

It’s a top-heavy house of cards, and can’t help itself because it has separated itself from balance, criticism, originality and change.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/the_origin_of_americas_intellectual_vacuum_20101115/#366695">~By gerard, November 15, 2010

[Old Codger]

3. Grabbed

and posed on facebook