Archive for the ‘New York Yankees’ Category
The Feel Good Society – Baseball, Hotdogs & Obama In Boys Town
August 26, 2010: Jerry Mazza / Infowars.com – August 25, 2010
I like to watch the Yankees on TV. I used to like visiting the stadium until they built the uber billion dollar baby and the ticket prices, food and drink soared.
What I also don’t like, at home or at the stadium, is the extra hour of commercials, advertisements for the “feel good” society’s goods and services, urging perennially happy, smiling consumers to buy more cars, rebuild their houses at Home Depot, Live Better at Wal-Mart, drink more beer (hotties will love you) and in general keep chasing the hedonistic, pleasure-seeking dream of endless plenty. It’s over, kids. Get back to earth. Mom’s looking for you.
We had a total loss of 221,000 jobs last month, according to the New York Times. And “Friday’s (8/6/2010) jobs report renewed pressure on lawmakers to consider the next steps they might take to bolster the economy. Along with the consideration of aid to states (a $26 billion education package), a fierce discussion is still to come whether to let the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush expire at the end of the year.” Did anyone need to debate that except the multi-millionaires and billionaires and their lackey politicians? No.
Re the extra hour of commercials, my son and I discovered that when we went to see the ace minor league Brooklyn Cyclones housed in the Municipal Credit Union (MCU) field, the game came in at two hours and six minutes, with a searing shut-out by the Cyclones (Short-Season A classification New York – Penn League) against Buffalo, in a nine-inning game, with lots of great glove-flashing on both sides. Of course, we had some cheerleaders and a chunky pitch man for the local car dealership. Even with that, it was beautiful.
Cyclones MCU Park comfortably seats five thousand fans, has wide aisles, easily accessed from Surf Avenue next to the boardwalk, the classic Cyclone roller coaster towards left field, the freshly-restored red parachute tower towards right field (sans parachutes), the Wonder Wheel in the distance (center field), with a view of the ocean. We sat 17 rows back from home plate in field box seats that cost about twelve bucks each, parking five, and a great sausage sandwich about six, drinks about four, which for the two of us wouldn’t get one mezzanine seat at Yankee Stadium, or one upper deck front row box seat.
The park also drew lots of nice families, moms, kids, grandpas, grandmas, and a general feeling of well-being that my old borough of Brooklyn is famous for. In fact, a line of kids ran on the field with the Cyclones, providing them with the biggest thrill of their young lives, waving as they faded off to the sidelines.
But, the plastic-flashing “feel good” crowd at Yankee Stadium is still whooping it up in the boxes and suites, which these days are often empty. Yet, out at the Cyclones Field, the working and middle classes are still enjoying life, without the Steinbrenner sting. And we are not missing that extra hour of wall to wall TV commercials that add to the length of the game, which the commissioner of baseball and other aficionados are always bemoaning is too long. So we can still take pleasure in living, and in a truly diverse crowd, as the dusk falls, the multi-colored lights fade up and the moon smiles down at us. Long may we live and propagate.
Of course, if you wanted to think bad thoughts, there was always Ben Bernanke printing money and trying to buy more “feel good” prosperity. Our “bought and paid” for stock market and economic recovery came at the expense of massive government borrowing and spending. As Mike Larson of Martin Weiss’s Money Markets writes, Fed Insanity Crushes Stocks!
It seems that neither the Fed nor the Federal Government can stop throwing money away in pointless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, mercenary armies, financing tax cuts to the rich and blaming it on Social Security, from which they would love to steal even more money, cash, the real kind, not the funny money they’re using, that will come back to bite us in the rear one ugly day like the one on which the market tanked 777 points.
But nobody can say no to the boys in the pleasure dome (not the one in Coleridge’s poem, Xanadu), but in Washington, D.C. where the boys are partying hard in the stately pleasure dome of the Capital. In fact, you can read how hard some of the boys like Rahm and Obama are partying in Man’s Country, a 30-year old gay men’s bath house in uptown Chicago, article courtesy of the distinguished investigative reporter and ex-Navy Intelligence officer, Wayne Madsen. Or you can find it at lawyer/investigative journalist Tom Flocco’s Rummormillnews.com.
It is Mr. Madsen’s point of view that the corruption, moral bankruptcy, and depravity depicted in this tale puts our nation at risk of blackmailing by the wrong powers. And so the participants’ adventures in the “feel good” life of Chicago’s “boys town” are in fact seriously endangering us all. For those interested, the news is here. It concerns the flightiness of some of our major politicians and high members of White House staff, some of whom have escaped the D.C. Pleasure Dome of recent. But the tentacles of this male bath house extend far and wide as you will see, at least for as long as this link lasts.
Apart from that, we return to our “field of dreams,” which was built so we could come and enjoy ourselves in a modest manner. We are still here, playing the role of “the salt of the earth,” capable of living within our means, not pursuing murder as a career, or plunging our nation and the world into the hell of bankruptcy and depression. In other words, we are not the elites, the illuminati, the Bilderbergs, the New World Order. We are just folks, the glue of American life that holds this circus together with our taxes, labor and love day after day, year after year, as the charlatans come and go, “talking in the room of Michelangelo,” as Eliot would say.
And may I remind you, both New Yorkers and visitors, that only two short blocks from Cyclones Field you can find Nathan’s Hotdog Stand, with probably the best dogs and all the trimmings in the world. And before the boardwalk is totally privatized by real estate developers who feel the neighborhood has “soul,” a quality in short quantity in the “feel good society” of celluloid images, hyped marketing strategies, and daily corruption, y’all come out and see us.
P.S. sports fans, there is also the Staten Island Yankees team, a beautiful free ferry ride away in Richmond County Bank Ball Park. From there, you can not only see the game of tomorrow’s stars but the Bay of New York, liners going by, and Lady Liberty hold her torch up high in spite of it all, the creeps, the low-lifes, the ten percenters (as Hem called them), the skimmers, the closeted bad boys, the busted politicians, the Chicago gang, Obama booster Tony Rezko (now in solitary), et al. And the thing is, I believe we the people, the glue of this whole show who turn up at work every day, pay our taxes, do our jobs, raise our families, feel good within our skin, on our own dimes, not OPM (Other People’s Money), are going to win the game in the long run.
In fact, despite the billionaires’ attempts to scuttle Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all genuine entitlements, we shall overcome as King said, and live to see the rabble of the rich in the chains they have earned, that is from the boardrooms of Goldman Sachs on down to the cells of rendition prisons. Just hang in everybody and do the right thing, as Spike Lee would say. Do the right thing and that will make you feel really good, like maybe you never felt before.
[Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, life-long resident of New York City. His book “State Of Shock – Poems from 9/11 on” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on American and world politics as an Associate Editor of Online Journal.]
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Having played baseball at a competitive level as a switch-hitting catcher, I used to love sitting behind homeplate at the old Yankee Stadium when I lived in Manhattan back in the ’90s, especially during a Yankees-Boston series. Now, I too prefer to go to minor league games where the sport, the people, and the surroundings bring back memories of old, when life was still somewhat simple and real, when a “field of dreams” was still possible, before the extravagant trappings and narcissism that have put us in this mess took hold and infected America like a terminal cancer. We all must fight it and beat it, together as “one people, under God, with Liberty and Justice for all,” or there will be no future for the Little Leaguer’s of today. – SJH
Link to original article below…
http://www.infowars.com/adventures-in-the-feel-good-society/
Israel, Big Money And Obama – A Crown And The Chicago Zionists
August 20, 2010: Margaret Kimberly / Black Agenda Report via Aletho News – August 18, 2010
Lester Crown (left), Shimon Peres (center), Martin S. Kraar (right)
“Barack Obama has established a strong record as a true friend of Israel, a stalwart defender of Israel’s security, and an effective advocate of strengthening the steadfast U.S.-Israel relationship, publicly stating that Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state should never be challenged.” – Lester Crown (Chicago)
Lester Crown is a Chicagoan with a net worth of four billion dollars. He owns a large stake in, and is a former president and board chairman of, defense contractor General Dynamics.
He also has held large holdings in Hilton Hotels, Maytag (now Whirlpool), and the Chicago Bulls and New York Yankees.
Crown was an early supporter of Barack Obama’s candidacy first for the U.S. Senate, and then for president. He is one of the first, and one of his most, prodigious fundraisers. As the Obama presidential campaign website says, the candidate “… systematically built a sophisticated, and in many ways quite conventional, money machine.” The Crowns were an integral part of that machinery. One of Lester Crown’s children, James Crown, personally bundled $500,000 in campaign contributions for Obama and served as chairman of the Illinois fund raising effort. Lester Crown and his wife Renee hosted a fundraiser for Obama in 2007 at their home. The event invitation made it clear; their support for Obama was due to his support of Israel, its “right to exist“ and his willingness to strike militarily against Iran.
Every American president has wealthy individuals and families dedicated to getting them elected. The reliance of candidates for public office on the largesse of the rich may be common and expected, but it is nonetheless extremely dangerous. This corruption insures access for the rich, which guarantees that their interests are at the top of any president’s agenda, usually at the expense of what is good for everyone else.
For Lester Crown the top issue on his agenda is Israel. As he has said himself, “While my involvement in politics is motivated by a variety of issues, there is one issue that is fundamental: My deep commitment to Israel and to a strong US-Israel relationship that strengthens both Israel’s security and its efforts to seek peace.”
According to a recently published article in The Atlantic, Israeli general Amos Yadlin traveled to Chicago in an effort to enlist Crown’s help in convincing the administration to attack Iran. White House visitor logs show that Crown did in fact visit the White House in April of this year to meet with Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applied “hidden pressure” on Obama which came “from Chicago.”
When asked about this report, Crown denied only that Yadlin traveled to Chicago. He confirmed that the two spoke and were in agreement about wanting the United States to attack Iran. “’I support the president,’ Crown said. ‘But I wish [administration officials] were a little more outgoing in the way they have talked. I would feel more comfortable if I knew that they had the will to use military force, as a last resort. You cannot threaten someone as a bluff. There has to be a will to do it.’”
Lester Crown’s opinions are not like anyone else’s two cents. He is a defense contractor, meaning he has a personal interest in maintaining the state of permanent war for the United States. He is also a very wealthy man who worked hard to get Barack Obama elected. Crown’s October 1, 2007 fundraiser was directed primarily at Jewish contributors who may have been insufficiently convinced of Obama‘s support for maintaining the status quo in America‘s relations with Israel. The event invitation read in part, “The purpose of the evening is to show Barack how appreciative we are of his steadfast, honest and proud support of Israel.”
Those are the words out of Crown’s own mouth. No one should be squeamish about questioning his actions and his motives and the very fact that a private citizen conducts foreign policy in secret. Lester Crown was not elected to any office, he was not appointed to pursue foreign policy on behalf of the government, he hasn‘t been confirmed by the United States Senate. If congress had even a small amount of courage, Crown would be subpoenaed to testify about his communications with Yadlin and with the president and his advisors.
The story of a presidential campaign contributor’s contacts with a general of a foreign nation’s military ought to be front page news. Sadly, that lack of coverage is not surprising. The corporate controlled media would reveal too much about themselves if they told us the truth about the little bit of democracy we have left. No one becomes a serious presidential contender without first passing muster with the Lester Crowns of the world. All of which means that American style democracy is little more than a sham. Iowans and New Hampshirites don’t determine who will be president. The Crowns and their ilk are the ones who get to choose before anyone pulls a lever in a voting booth.
The story of Lester Crown’s foray into foreign policy will not make headlines as it should. Congress will not question him under oath. Only individuals who are interested enough and savvy enough will know a little of the tale of how a nation’s people gave up their rights so that the rich might have their way. The issue at hand for Lester Crown is Israel, but the CEOs and board chairmen of other industries hold sway in their spheres as much as Lester Crown does in his.
There will always be people of great wealth who influence what happens to people in the rest of world. Today Israel, tomorrow big pharma, and big oil the day after that. BP poisons the Gulf of Mexico with impunity and Lester Crown wants to commit a crime of his own. The only crime worse than an attack on Iran is acquiescence in the face of corporate control of our lives.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Meanwhile, it has recently been revealed that the lone holdout on the jury in the Blagojevich trial here in Chicago was a woman who with her husband, were both prior Blago supporters and campaign donors. This city truly is a veritable cesspool of American traitors… Imagine my surprise! – SJH
Link to original article below…
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/israel-big-money-and-obama/
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