We all remember the scene from A Clockwork Orange: Alex, bound in a straitjacket, strapped to a theatre seat, eyelids mechanically propped open, injected with extreme nausea-inducing drugs, and forced to watch horrific films of beatings, murder, rape, and gore. After his “treatments” he will be conditioned to become uncontrollably sick when he tries to return to his previous life of ultra-violence.

Now that’s Aversion Therapy in wide-screen Warnercolor.

Back in 1990, just up the street from the treatment center I was percolating in for 28 days, was a treatment facility that promised freedom from alcoholism in just 10 days (with a couple of 2-day follow-ups) using Aversion Therapies.

One of my fellow in-mates “graduated” from that place. The fact that he was sitting across from me at this treatment center didn’t speak highly of the other one. But then again a couple of months after we both got out of treatment he was back on the booze and drugs again. There are some people who can only stay sober if they’re locked up. The outside world is a vast mysterious and dangerous place for those who refuse to read the rule book.

The Elite surround themselves with their peers, minions, and court jesters. Their minions are expendable, the jesters replaceable, and periodically they wage war against their peers. But … The Elite can always agree on this:

They never support anything that would thwart whatever it is they want to do. And they want what all gangsters have always wanted … more.

Yesterday I read the latest at the Brilliant at Breakfast Blog:

The rise and fall of prog-talk radio

http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.ca/2013/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-prog-talk-radio.html

She extensively quotes from a column at Truthout.org written by Peter B. Collins.

An Insider's View of the Progressive Talk Radio Devolution

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14355-an-insiders-view-of-the-progressive-talk-radio-devolution

The blogger and Peter B. got some of it right but most of it wrong.

Through the power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, Christian Crusader and Faith Healer Kathryn Kuhlman cured my father-in-law twice from liver cancer … before he died of liver cancer. I do not hold Jesus responsible for the death of my father-in-law. I’d say Jesus’ role in the whole affair was pretty much nonexistent because at the time He, The Son of Gawd, had been dead for almost two millennia. You can’t blame Him if His batteries were running a little low.

My father-in-law was a very pragmatic, no-nonsense, Richard Nixon-Republican, until his doctors told him he was Going To Die. Fearing for his life, he drove down to the Shrine Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles and joined the thousands of disciples, the desperate, and the doomed. He went onstage, Kathryn Kuhlman simply touched him, and filled with the Holy Spirit, he keeled right over. When he got to his feet he was cured. Later his doctors continued to tell him Very Bad News about his liver so he went back to LA for a Holy Spirit Booster Shot. That cure worked as well as the first one did. Soon after my father-in-law continued along the 5-step Kübler-Ross path, regained his dignity, and died about as well as anyone could.

Note: The first time I heard about "A Short History of Conservative Obstruction to Progress" was on Mike Malloy's radio program in 2008. I was so impressed with it I put it up in the "rants" section on Superbeans (http://superbeans.com/rant_02_01_08.htm)  as a readily accessible reminder that The Elite, and the Crazy Stupid People that follow them, have unrelentingly opposed everything and anything that would benefit We The People.

The key word here is unrelentingly. Conservatives are like the movie monsters from the Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th movies. You can’t stop them. You can stab them in the neck, set them on fire, or whack them in the head with a machete, but after a few seconds of getting their movie-monster-mojo together … they rise up again and again and again … and their murderous rampage continues until the closing credits. Unlike their victims, the movie monsters don’t need to stop to sleep, eat, or even catch their breath. But when their hapless quarry takes a breather … Watch Out … that’s when The Monsters Get You.

The Elite and their Crazed Conservative Shills in Congress are even more powerful than their silver screen counterparts. They can lose elections and still have the power to destroy. How could these people deny relief to hurricane Sandy victims? Because they’re monsters. Why are they still trying to destroy our social safety nets? George Carlin explained it all perfectly:

“They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. … And now they’re coming for your social security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it.”

They’ll get it because they’ve spent decades and untold billions to create and condition enough dumb-asses that don’t know what the hell is going on but believe, and deeply care about, gibberish.