2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.
In our last post we recycled a photo-toon showing how corrupt the Supreme Court had become since the 2010 Citizens United decision which gave the rich unfettered power to influence politicians. We had a link to an old post with another photo-toon about the Supreme Court’s corruption which we’ve decided to repost as well.
2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the BilgeBucket Gazette. Our first issue was on May 19, 2003 and we’ve been shoveling it to the public, just like the corporate media, ever since. We changed our format to a WordPress blog in 2011 so all of our earlier material was archived. We’ve been reposting many of those archived articles, headlines, photo-toons, BilgeBucket Lists and other content over the past twelve years. In honor of our 20th, and because we’re sick of the current state of affairs in the world, we’ll be reposting more items from 2003 through 2009 throughout this year.
We’re environmentalists and science enthusiasts here at the Bucket and we’ve harped time and time again about how we need to the put Earth’s health first in economical decisions because there is no other planet we know of that supports life. Capitalist economies have protected the destructive fossil fuel and mining industries and now with climate change wreaking havoc on our planet’s ecosystems the lives of every living creature in is peril.
There’s an excellent video posted recently on YouTube by BigThink featuring astronaut Ron Garan that states this case beautifully. “We need to move from thinking economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy. That’s when we’re going to continue our evolutionary process,” Garan concludes.
In this season of peace on Earth, watch the video and reflect on how fragile our planet is and how important it is that we protect it.
The coronavirus pandemic rages on with over 1.4 million cases in the U.S. and over 88 thousand deaths (that’s almost 30 9/11s folks). And yet, many states, like Wisconsin, have decided that it doesn’t matter that the curve hasn’t flattened yet in the U.S., the economy must be restarted, damn the consequences. The gods of greed on Wall Street must be sated and stock prices must climb no matter how many people become sick and die. Money, money, money! Greed, greed, greed!
We’ve commented many times about the hypocrisy of right-wing, conservative, christian Republicans who proclaim their love of Jesus but in the same breath advocate the ramblings of Ayn Rand, who taught the gospel of greed: greed is a good thing; who cares about community; promote yourself constantly, to hell with all others; I got mine, screw you. We’ve got evangelical hucksters preaching the prosperity gospel. Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, professed to be a catholic but at the same time admired Rand. But Rand’s philosophy is the exact opposite of Jesus’ teachings as this linked article points out. Rand promoted being selfish where Jesus said that being selfless and caring about your fellow man is the way to live your life.
Now we’re atheists here at the Bucket, so at first glance one might think we’d be in Rand’s corner, since she was atheist, too. But we’re also non-materialistic environmentalists. We need to live in harmony with our environment. We advocate the ‘simplify, simplify’ mantra of Henry David Thoreau. We also live our lives according to the golden rule, which is completely in line with the teachings of Jesus. We’re absolutely anti-greed and anti-corporation and call out the conservative christian Republican hypocrites who see no problem promoting both Rand and Jesus.
The grand problem for today’s christians is that they’ve been brainwashed by our capitalistic overlords that socialism is a bad thing when in actuality, Jesus’ teachings were socialistic. Unfortunately, our brand of capitalism has taken root throughout the civilized world and it’s taken the coronavirus pandemic to show how utterly cruel, empty, unethical, immoral, corrupt, depraved, inhumane and unchristian modern day capitalism is. Greed is not good!If humans have to sacrifice themselves at the altar of capitalism so the economy can function, then maybe we should look to another economic system like socialism to keep our civilization sane, wise and healthy.
In our previous post we commented about America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and ‘stable genius’ Donald Trump and his mind boggling, head spinning pivots on authority for opening up the coronavirus during the COVID-19 pandemic. One day he says he has authority, the next day he says the governors have authority and then the day after that he encourages civil war by urging his brain dead troglodyte followers to LIBERATE their respective states.
But the stupidity of these MÆGAMorons is off the charts on the bat shit insanity meter. These shutdown orders are to save your lives not to inconvenience you. What’s next? These idiots will protest taking shelter during a tornado warning because it violates their constitutional freedom. There were even signs among the protesters that proclaimed “My body, my choice.” But yet these same assholes are perfectly fine with the government telling a woman what to do with her uterus. What colossal dumbass hypocrites! These people are actually choosing to be exposed to a debilitating disease which may kill them or kill their loved ones; all in order to maybe bump the stock market up a few points and keep our plutocratic overlords wealthy. Un-f*cking-believable!
There has been more than 40,000 lives lost in the last two months due to COVID-19. Our leaders should be taking this seriously. The goal should be reopening the country when we have proper testing available so more people won’t fall victim to the virus. But what does Florida governor Rick DeSantis do? He reopens beaches around Jacksonville while Florida is still getting slammed by the virus. The conservative Republicans values have been exposed for all to see and. . . surprise, surprise. . . the only thing they care about is money, wealth and power.
One of the big pieces of news recently outside the ever expanding vortex of the House impeachment inquiries is the announced candidacy of Michael Bloomberg running for President as a . . . wait for it . . . a Democrat. Yes, that colossal, egotistical billionaire plutocrat. former Democrat-Republican-Independent-Democrat mayor of New York City and corporate media mogul has decided in his infinite wisdom that only another plutocrat with a gargantuan ego can possibly defeat America’s CEO/Dictator and megalomaniac man child Donald Trump. He’s already bombarding the Internet, television stations and all other media outlets with salvos of ads touching all the Democrat’s talking points and, like Trump, has a bottomless pit of money to spend on the campaign.
We agree with others who say that the best way Mr. Bloomberg can help out this country is by buying Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network. That lie machine has been pumping out disinformation, deceptions and crackpot conspiracy theories for almost a quarter of a century and is the main reason we have a cult of evangelical Trump followers running our democracy and rule of law into the ground. Bloomberg and fellow Democratic plutocrats Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang could pool their resources and do it easily. This would be the best use of the plutocrats’ billions: ridding this nation of the real fake news once and for all.
We shouldn’t be surprised though. We’ve commented before about how unregulated capitalism (a.k.a. no laws to check corporations or corporate power) breeds colossal amounts of greed, avarice, selfishness and corruption. We’ve become a SEGUMUCA nation. More people than ever are trying to get rich quick using whatever possible method, even if it’s illegal. Just watch some episodes of American Greed. It’s enough to make you sick. Capitalism is nothing more than indirect cannibalism.
So Mark Zuckerberg is no different than Donald Trump or any greedy capitalist serving in his administration(Wilbur Ross, Steve Mnuchin, etc…) or unethical Republican in the House or Senate who looks the other way while Trump commits crime after crime. They worship the almighty buck and will support all others with the same money-grubbing, materialistic mindset. These callous automatons are only interested in our data so they can make more money off of us schmucks in the middle class who do all the work. And right now, these greedy, soulless capitalists are in complete control of this nation.
The Trump impeachment inquiry grinds onward but last week, the 2nd worst president of our lifetime, George W. Bush, a.k.a. Dubya, reappeared in the national arena when a football broadcast showed talk show host Ellen DeGeneres palling around with ol’ Dub Dub, who supported at one time a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, at a Dallas Cowboy’s game in luxury seats. This has sparked much controversy, some celebrities being supportive of Ellen’s new buddy and others, like Mark Ruffalo, not so supportive. Given how much we’ve griped about Dubya since 2003, we tend to agree with Ruffalo’s statements. In fact. we say Bravo!
We’ve noted before about the recent normalization of Dubya’s clusterf*cked administration now that Trump is in office. Make no mistake, Bush was awful!His administration tried to undermine rule the law just like Trump is doing now because. . . you know . . . that’s what Republicans do.Dubya lied repeatedly to the public and his Attorney General Alberto Gonzales did for Bush what Bill Barr is doing for the orange haired, megalomaniac man child in the White House. Remember, Gonzales tried to fire federal prosecutors back in 2007 for political purposes. He also had a litany of other controversies, which eventually led to his resignation. That’s just part of the Republican’s eternal blue print to destroy government regulations (or laws!) and privatize everything for the good of the plutocrats of corporate America.
We recommend that everybody review the history of these conservative Republican con artists from the Bush era. They should be held accountable but instead people choose to forget. We like Ellen. But it’s too bad that she is so willing to look past Dubya’s war crimes, because he should be held accountable for them. But, in true conservative fashion, Bush has not apologized and will never apologize for his transgressions, because in his mind, conservatives never make mistakes and to admit a wrongdoing is a sign of weakness. Sound like anybody currently occupying the White House?
Well, in America, we guess when you’re a rich celebrity, money trumps everything else. Who cares if you tortured people and started a war on false pretenses that screwed up the entire Middle East. Let’s enjoy a football game together in luxury seats because we’re famous and wealthy. What Ellen should have done was to offer up her seat to one of the many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who lost limbs or who are suffering from PTSD. Better yet, why don’t Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and all those other millionaires and plutocrats who profited from those wars pay all the medical costs for those veterans who are now suffering. Nope; like everything else, we the people end up paying for everything while the wealthy skate away with their money without a care in the world and without accountability.
Here’s photo-toon featuring Dubya and Fredo ‘Pinocchio’ Gonzales from our June 26, 2007 issue.
But fear not Wilbuuuuurrr fans. We’ve noticed that this filthy rich plutocrat bear a striking resemblance to the Cryptkeeper from the classic anthology series Tales from the Crypt. We have no doubt that if Hollywood decides to reboot this series, Ross would be a natural. He’s already shown adeptness at keeping the swamp in Washington D.C.; we’re sure he’ll be able to entertain all the boils and ghouls with his rapid fire wit and ghastly puns.