Philip A. FarruggioPhilip A. Farruggio -- World News Trust
May 23, 2015
Interesting how this empire of ours operates through its embedded and controlled mainstream media.
This is why so many of us go to the internet to get our news, even though a portion of it is not vetted and sometimes questionable. What choice do we have when the mainstream is so full of ****? Here's an example of hypocrisy in reporting by our empire's corporate-run news: The Thursday May 21st USA Today Money Section ran a "puff" piece entitled "New PayPal CEO gets his hands dirty."
The story then went on to report (huh?) "... while running Virgin Mobile, Dan Schulman, 57, hit the streets of New York without a penny to his name to better understand the plight of homeless teens the company was trying to help."
One wonders if Schulman, who the Wall Street Journal reported earned over 40 million dollars from the split of Pay Pal from E-Bay, ever gave a sizeable portion of that "found money" to some of the homeless teens and their families that he ran across. After all, Schulman was homeless for gee whiz one whole day!? Imagine the nerve of not only Schulman but a paper like USA Today to laud such a joke!? To add insult to injury the article goes on to report: "As head of American Express (how much did he learn while there one wonders?) he spent a day trying to cash checks without the benefit of his true financial background."
I kid you not -- this is what they had the gall to write about: A mega millionaire who "slums it" for 24 hours or even less! I will bet that so-called "rich liberals" like Schulman will be standing in line to fork over cash for Hillary 2016 just as the phony so-called "conservatives"' like the Koch brothers and their right-wing compatriots will do the same for the Republicans 2016. Either way, the corporate Fat Cats win and we serfs lose!
Scholar, scientist and parliamentarian reformer Francis Bacon (1560-1621) understood the nature and failings of empire: "Upon the breaking and shivering of a great state and empire, you may be sure to have wars." Sadly, it will be we working stiffs, who carry the load of our current Amerikan empire, who will first shiver and break. The Fat Cats always have buffers to keep the wolf from their door... until of course the buffers run out... or run away!
Here is the 64 Trillion Dollar question: How much longer can our infrastructure, schools, libraries, social services and first-providers see major cuts or no upgrades while we fight these phony wars? Add that to the fact, not the theory, that over half of our federal taxes goes for military spending. Does anyone care anymore that to keep one soldier in Afghanistan (illegally and immorally by the way) at a cost of approximately $1.2 MILLION a year, we could have used that money to subsidize the hiring of 25 school teachers or policeman or fireman at $50,000 salaries for one year?
Imagine that instead of ordering another (not needed) Boeing Apache Helicopter at the cost of, are you ready for this, $52 MILLION, we could fix the teeth of hundreds of thousands of us out there who have NO dental coverage. I mean, how many drones with how many missiles are costing taxpayers each time we continue in this so called "War on ISIS?"
Let the nations of the Middle East join together and defeat ISIS without our interference. After all, well, we all know why groups like ISIS even got born, if it wasn't for our empire's foreign policy decisions... by both Republican (the worst) and Democrat (the lesser worst) administrations.
Are things hopeless? My buddy and street corner compatriot Jim R. says YES. I waver back and forth on that question. I will say this, though: If the overwhelming majority of working stiffs out there do not wake up and see the light concerning our Military Industrial Empire, and demand a pullback of it...
PA Farruggio
Memorial Weekend 2015
(Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC, longshoremen. He is a free ance columnist (found on World News Trust, Nation of Change Blog, Truthout.org, TheSleuthJournal.com, The Intrepid Report, The Peoples Voice, Information Clearing house, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice and many other sites worldwide). Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25 percent. Philip can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)