Dissecting some recent New York Time’s propagandist cheerleading on the fiscal cliff deal as “progressive taxation”, Yves Smith calls it as it is – ‘A Big Lie’. Her article appears in the NYT Examiner which is a site dedicated to analyzing the corporate spin of the New York Times.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Matt Taibbi piece she links to is also worth your time to read.

When you have an economic system that rewards those who can most effectively exploit society and the environment, then psychopaths invariably rise to the top of the socio-economic heap. That’s why Obama has no hesitation in carrying out extrajudicial assassinations, or that former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo lead the charge on profiteering from sub-prime mortgages, or that BP CEO Tony Hayward can set off an epic ecocide in the Gulf of Mexico and call it “tiny” and then complain that he “wants his life back.” The book ‘The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success’ lists the top four jobs for psychopaths as:

1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (TV/radio)
4. Salesperson

I can’t believe that politicians didn’t even make it into the top ten.

Politicians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths,” says clinical psychologist and author Dr. Martha Stout…”I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder who would dispute this,” Stout continued. “That a small minority of human beings literally have no conscience was and is a bitter pill for our society to swallow — but it does explain a great many things, shamelessly deceitful political behavior being one.” – link