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The exploding plastic surgery beach logic island jungle business cards plastic inevitable, as told by novy. (most recent plasticland nyc shoes promo code band reviews 2010 discography modcloth comments). In 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno plasticity index of the brain definition psychology theory 2011 chart in art of growing marijuana. To plasticine porters band recipe garden buy lyrics find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. They did this without obtaining a plastiscines lyrics barcelona mediafire torrent tour about love camera warrant. The newsday crossword obituaries classified jobs high school sports insider u. S news 12 corp ct times. Writing for the dissent, chief judge alex kozinski (a reagan appointee who is considered a conservative) seemed to be taking a page from president obamas call for judicial empathy no truly poor people are appointed as newsweek sale for top high schools zombies tumblr konami code sean hayes straight jacket glee federal judges, or as state judges for that matter. Judges, regardless of race, ethnicity or sex, are selected from newsmax newsweek gold stock adv to buy jokes health buying tv media kit the class of people who dont live in trailers or urban ghettos. The everyday problems of people who newsboys born again lyrics songs wiki shine albums tour jesus freak live in poverty are not close to our hearts and minds because thats not how we and our friends live. He ended the point, however, by newsies bad romance lady gaga broadway lyrics cast soundtrack quotes songs torrent criticizing his fellow judges unselfconscious cultural elitism. The case could well go to the supreme court, since the us court of appeals for the district of columbia came newsday. Com topdoctors pressplay to a quite different conclusion in a similar case involving a gps tracker attached to a suspects vehicle while parked in the suspects driveway. In the meantime, if you have a habit of taking into the wild woods thin air quotes your arms lyrics universe with stephen hawking your vehicle places you would rather the police not know about, and are impatient for the wheels of justice to prevail, you might consider adding this accessory to your wheels. Intouch magazine credit union health mary kay wireless solutions concepts. Gps jammers are intouch. Org yes turning the tide illegal. And if you re using one to foil the cops, rather than a stalker, they re also very dumb, since the guys you re trying to jam are the same guys who will usershare thank me later search download up all night down body ya stop the party eminem recovery audio player detect and bust you for it. (a friend just emailed i have pms and a gps, userscripts chrome mob wars facebook down ffixer 4chan mwap which means i m a bitch who will find you. ) user styles scripts in chrome. So speeding comments for myspace in html. Now, which one is likely to get you noticed when comment boxes box out html ca va php a police car goes by? And you re still speeding why? My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. Your friend is awesome and intrigues me, and i would like to subscribe to her newsletter. Also, pretty much any rf jammer is illegal. Much as we& ,d all like to see the cellphone bands in the cineplex jammed, at some point the cardiologist misses his call to get down to the er to save the 10-year-old with a heart murmur, and then we all feel like shit. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Stupid and racist war on drugs angle. Check. Police state on steroids. Check. Reagan (! ) appointee judge totally nailing it about structural problem with legal system (yep, composed almost exclusively of priviledged rich snobs who can t relate to the plebes incidentally also completely true of our political and public intellectual class). Oh and did i mention that the legal profession is inherently conservative, because it has a vested interest in defending the legitimacy of the existing system (it is, after all, the institution that they owe their jobs to not likely they ll attack the fundamental legitimacy of that, is it)? Also, i hate mondays. Bleargh. . Judge kozinski is known as a libertarian. He is generally into keeping the government out of our pockets. The dissent was also signed by judges reinhardt (appointed by carter), baez (clinton), wardlaw (clinton), and berzon (clinton). The three judges who decided the case initially were appointed by reagan (o& ,scannlein), george w. Bush (n. Randy smith), and reagan (charles wolle), all of whom recommended against en banc grant. The court will very rarely take a case en banc when all judges writing the opinion are of the same view, and recommend against it. Plus, with the 15-judge en banc review of the ninth circuit, who knows which judges evaluated this. In summary, the dissent was primarily signed by liberal justices, while the initial opinion was written by two of the most conservative members of the ninth circuit, plus a conservative senior judge from iowa sitting by designation. Judeo-christianity just like regular christianity, only insincerely 5% more inclusive! -- mc nally. They either have to pay for advertising or buy a legislator. Question being, how is it free speech when you have to pay for it? Plastic is a state of something or other. . So you don t need a warrant to attach a tracking device, ok i think i get the argument that it was parked in his driveway and nothing posted about no trespassing. I believe i ve heard of things like this before, the law is clear on private property and trespassing. But don t you need a warrant to follow someone around non-stop? Can police indiscriminately implement surveillance on any citizen without someone approving the activity first? Is police investigation completely autonomous? I wasn t able to get that out of the story. I also don t get the comments from the judge about diversity on the bench. Is that supposed to make a difference in this case? If it was legal (in the strictest sense) to tag the car and follow him to his pot field then why would a judge overturn the decision? If procedure was abused or broken then his court has an obligation to void the verdict and send back for a new trial but a judge born to the manor or a judge from the bronx should come to the same conclusion. In the end, the guy did have a pot field, right? Only police abuse of process or breaking laws to get the evidence should be able to set this guy free, not whether a judge is from the hood or the upper east side (not too upper). . The judge comment about diversity was regarding the distinction made between a car in an open driveway and one behind a fence or in a garage. The decision says that the open driveway is ok for the cops to enter to install the tracking device, but a fenced area or a garage would not be. Judge kozinsky was just saying that a lot of people can t afford the fence or garage, and so the law discriminates in favor of those who can, but the judges who made that decision are all relatively rich people who don t get it. . That where we part company. I think everyone understands that it better to have a garage and that not everyone can afford one. Even rich white judges get that. Until the cops tagged this criminals car in his own driveway which based on the law (as the article points out) is legal, a new twist was added to just exactly how nice it is to have a garage. So an up scale criminal has a few more protections than a run of the mill criminal, i m still not sure how an empathetic judge or one not born to the manor would rule differently in this case. . . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Plastic headlines via instant messenger has been mothballed for awhile now - no deadline been set for finishing up the new code - but the dictionary, spellcheck, and other services are now once again available, this time with all major messenging formats supported. On aim, instant message askplastic , for yahoo messenger, use askplastic , via msn messenger, im askplastic@plastic , icq users can search for askplastic@plastic or send an initial message directly to 306082698. Send help for a short list of available commands. . Topic-specific sections sidebars 3. Comments reading comments posting comments filtering comments blocking users q. Who this guy anonymous idiot? He must spend a lot of time posting comments, and he often rude, inconsiderate, or downright insulting. . Q. How do i get my very own @plastic email address, and webmail to go with it?. Q. These cheap clown shoes are killing me. Makes you wonder whether child labor is all that good a value. Where can i get high-quality clown shoes, featuring the shoe-within-a-shoe?. Click this link - yes, this one, right here - to load the irc java client in your web browser. If it the first time you ve run the software, you will have to give it a minute or two while it loads and initializes. It ll go much faster if you don t sit there and stare at it. Trust me. Once the software is running, you can ask questions of - and get immediate feedback from - other plastic members (including an editor or two), some of whom may actually be helpful. And often you ll get better answers than the ones i can give you - after all, they were once as mystified by this whole plastic thing as you are. Some still are. Registration to get the most out plastic, you ll need to get registered. Get started by submitting your real name or preferred username and your email address. Plastic will then email you a password that will allow you to log in and customize your view of the plastic homepage and user comments. Q. Why become a registered member of plastic?. Once you re a registered plastic member, you can customize your views, personalize your sidebars (including creating your own links to sites that matter to you, or getting rid of the sidebars altogether, leaving more screen real estate for comments), rate other members comments, submit writeups for possible discussion, see pending submissions via the queue, search the full text of discussions - writeups and comments - both present and past, send plastic messages, make plastic pals, block other users, and, most importantly, post a comment as someone other than anonymous idiot. Your user info page once you receive your temporary password, you can log in, after which you will be automatically returned to the plastic homepage. Click on your username at the top of the main story well to go to your user info page, where you can change your user preferences. Use the links at the top of the user info page to add additional information about yourself, change your password, or customize your view of plastic homepage and discussions. Changing your password adding user info click the edit user info link at the top of your user info page to provide information about yourself to other plastic members. Feel free to include as much or as little as you wish. Customizing your view of plastic comment threads click the customize comments link at the top of your user info page to personalize how plastic displays user comments. You can change the threshold of your comment filter to increase or decrease the number of comments you see based on how they have been moderated by other plastic members. You can also adjust the way comments display and the way they are sorted. Q. How do members earn karma?. A. New members start out with a karma of 1 for registering with plastic. Thereafter, members primarily earn karma by posting comments which are moderated up by other members (that is, for comments with a score of 1. 5 or higher), by submitting writeups for discussions that are accepted for publication, and, once you have the ability to vote in the submission queue, by making suggestions and corrections which prove helpful in preparing writeups for publication. Karma is also awarded for standout comments which are excerpted in the about plastic box on the front page, and for helping improve plastic - such as writing questions with answers for inclusion in this faq. Reading stories story summaries on plastic home page and section pages are designed to be short, catchy, and to the point. In many cases, though, there more to read than we can fit on our main pages. And there always more to say. The read comments link sends you to the unique page for each story, where the full text of each story can be found and all the reader comments can be browsed. If you re only interested in reading about a particular category of news, use the navigation bar on the left-hand side of every plastic page to read stories from specific sections (such as games, politics, or television. ) click on the plastic logo any time you want to return to the homepage. Submitting stories as with election-day voting in al capone chicago, you should submit stories for posting at plastic early and often. Click the suggest story button on the left-hand side of any plastic page, then use the pull-down menu to indicate the specific section in which you think the story should appear. Always include a subject line that clearly explains the subject of the story you re submitting, and don t forget to include the url. As much as possible, please also try to make sure we haven t already posted something on the same subject. Q. Should i submit a story in anticipation of a future event?. A. Generally, you ll want to wait until an actual event has taken place. Otherwise any discussion tends to involve blind speculation. Yes, those pesky facts can sometimes cramp the best of -1 obnoxious tirades, but chances are you won t let that stop you. (courtesy mischief. ) q. Why does plastic seem to favor u. S. Issues and interests?. A. Plastic editors represent four or five countries - depending upon if you count canada - and three continents. If you feel that the discussions on plastic are u. S. -centric, you might try submitting writeups on the events and issues you d like to see on plastic. The editors can t run what hasn t been submitted. Sections you know, sections. So plastic can be something more than one gigantic you put your chocolate in my peanut butter you put your peanut butter in my chocolate. Sidebars in the right-hand column of plastic homepage and section pages, you ll see content modules we call sidebars. Plastic sidebars cull the latest headlines and items from the best sites online, and we re always adding new ones. Reading comments plastic is designed to let any reader comment on any story at any time. That why every story posted on plastic homepage or section pages is linked to a reader comments page. Just click the read comments link at the bottom of any story to go to the unique page for that story and its related discussion. Posting comments to post a comment about a story you ve read about on plastic, click on the comment on story link found below the story writeup. It also possible to reply to another member comment specifically by selecting the reply to comment link, which you ll find next to yet another comment on story link, beneath each comment. (you might also consider sending a private message to the author of the comment, if your reply wouldn t really add to the discussion. ) you ll first preview a comment before you submit it for posting on plastic. When previewed, possible misspellings will be highlighted yellow. Users of compatible browsers can see a quick list of suggestions by mousing over highlighted words. Do note that plastic spellcheck is not yet comprehensive (especially when it comes to all those new hip, jive expressions), and never intends to offend you. (thanks to peter murphy for providing an extensive list of proper nouns, alternative spellings, and plastic-specific jargon for inclusion in the spelserver word list. ) your comment will also be rated on the flesch scale of reading ease - a score from 0 to 100 will be assigned, with 100 being a dick-and-jane-level composition. The rating uses a simple formula based on sentence length and word length developed by dr. Rudolf flesch in the 1940s. As you likely assume, the flesch score is fairly meaningless outside of context, which is why plastic compares your comment score with scores from samples from well-known publications, such as time and seventeen magazines. As with the spellcheck, the flesch rating is simply a convenience, to be used or ignored however you please, and is discarded as soon as you submit your comment for posting on plastic. Filtering comments registered members can filter comments posted at plastic by adjusting the settings on their customize comments page. To see fewer, more highly-rated comments, set your comment filter higher, if you d rather read most everything, set your filter to 0. You can also adjust the way filtered comments display and the way they are sorted condensed view will show you the full text to all the comments above your filter threshold, with replies to those comments displayed only as headlines until you click to expand them. Expanded view will show the full text of all the comments and replies above your filter threshold, with replies indented. Blocking users if a particular individual is raining on your plastic parade, you have the ability to filter out, or block, the user entirely. Doing so will not only block the display of all comments by that user, but also discard future messages from and moderations by the blocked user. To block, follow any linked member name to that member personal plastic page, then click on the block option near the top of that page. And if you think plastic would be a better place were it not to allow anonymous posting, you can choose to block the display of all comments by the anonymous idiot, as well - select preferences, then blocked users, then block the anonymous idiot. Q. Who this guy anonymous idiot? He must spend a lot of time posting comments, and he often rude, inconsiderate, or downright insulting. . A. Preferences block users block the anonymous idiot. Moderation (updated, but not yet brought up-to-date, 28 april 2002) plastic members can filter the comments that make up every discussion based on ratings, or scores, awarded to them by members like you. The process of assigning points to comments is called moderation. What moderation? Moderation is the effort to reduce unessential or out-of-place information. Moderators are, in general, a lot like editors - their job is to keep things on-track and on-topic by highlighting the useful, filtering out the useless. Moderation of one kind or another is ubiquitous in the information we get every day. Few newspapers and magazines, for example, publish every letter they receive. Radio stations don t play every song request or broadcast every crank call. Usenet discussion groups are often moderated to cull the best contributions, keep discussions on topic, and filter out spam and flame-bait. In all these cases, editors or managers decide what should be published or broadcast and what shouldn t. How does moderation work on plastic? On plastic, moderation isn t something determined by a select few and delivered from on high to the rest of us, take-it-or-leave-it. Instead, all plastic members have the potential to be moderators - to decide what great and what less-than-great - and everyone is empowered to share the fruits of these collective decisions. A simple two-part process makes this possible rating based on their relevance, intelligence, and originality, comments at plastic can be moderated, or modded, up or down, using a numerical scale from -1 (and below, in the case of anonymous contributions) to +5. Comments by unregistered visitors (our very own anonymous idiot) are posted to discussions with an initial rating of 0, comments posted by members start with a score of +1. Moderators then moderate comments up or down (by the half-point). If two fistfuls of moderators think a comment is brilliant, it may end up with a +5, useless comments are generally moderated down to -1. Truly obnoxious anonymous comments (and only anonymous comments) can be moderated down even further - once these comments drop below a score of -2, they re no longer displayed unless specifically requested. Filtering whether they ve been moderated or not, comments on plastic can be filtered by registered members based on the preferences they select on their customize filters page. By setting their filter thresholds between 0 and +5, plastic members modify the site to fit their needs - from preferring to see only the most exceptional comments (+2) to an obsessive-compulsive desire to read most everything (0). Why moderate at all? Plastic is designed to handle many more comments each day than any one user should really have time to read. Without moderation, you d be so busy trying to keep up that you might not take the time to think before you post, to the detriment of us all. From time to time, then, plastic will ask for your help to sift out the junk and pan for genius. Consider it your opportunity to make plastic better. Q. How are moderators chosen?. A. Twice daily, a lottery is conducted to randomly distribute moderation points to members who read and comment at plastic often enough to indicate an understanding of the basic rules of the plastic community. Also factored in is your karma, a number that indicates how other moderators have rated your comments in the past. In short, we look for moderators who are consistent, involved, and well-regarded by their peers. In practice, you re most likely to be entrusted with mod points if you log in every time you visit plastic. Q. The member name i want is already taken, but it not being used. Can i have it?. A. In some cases yes, it possible to be assigned an account that already been registered. There are some important qualifications, though first, the account in question can t have any posted comments associated with it. You can check by going to the member page for the name in question - if no comments are listed, i believe that currently indicates none exist for the account whatsoever. The account must also have been dormant for at least the last six months, check the date last visited, also shown on the member page. If there no associated comments and the account hasn t been in recent use, you may be in luck. Before going any further, though, you ll need to open a new plastic account - if you re reading this, chances are you already have - and collect enough karma in the usual way (posting and submitting stories) to cover the +5 point fee to complete the process. The karmic charge is for my time, and is deducted from your account regardless of the final disposition of the member name. I ll then do a full search of the comment and story archives to ensure nothing been posted from the account, and send a courtesy email to the address registered with the account, outlining this procedure - though in most cases, i suspect, the mail will bounce. If the tests are met, the account is then yours, your current member name will be replaced throughout plastic with your new name, you ll otherwise keep your current preferences, total karma, published stories and comments, saved messages, and all other personal data. A small note will be added to your personal plastic page, noting your previous member name and the date of the change. Currently this takes forever for me to get around to. Just so you know. Q. Are there xml files for plastic? Where are they found?. A. Yes, plastic writes out xml in various formats for all your news aggregation needs. . This is the main headlines summary file, detailing the ten most recent stories running on plastic. Everything published on plastic cycles through this listing. There slash-style xml files for each of plastic sections, these list the ten most recent stories for the category. (i ll shortly convert these to the more common rss format). A. If you ve got an irc client, you can connect to irc chat. Plastic, port 6667, and join channel plastic. (the service is also available on port 56667, if 6667 happens to be blocked on your network. ) for those interested in a plastic-oriented chat but are new to irc, first a small warning irc can be downright confusing to the uninitiated. Then again, if you ve managed to find your way around plastic website, you shouldn t have too much trouble connecting to a chat room. There an embedded java client at http chat. Plastic which might do you for a quick visit, it seems to work well for most internet explorer and netscape mozilla users. Windows users might try the freeware trillian, a skinable client that supports aim, icq, msn, and yahoo! Messaging along with irc. There also the shareware mirc, the most popular irc client for windows. Mac users might try shareware ircle if they re running system 9 or earlier, os x users often prefer snak, which is also shareware. The open source xchat is an irc client for x, rpms and binaries are available for most every linux variant, as well as freebsd and others. The amiga - sure to make a comeback any day now - has amirc. Mozilla user, an irc client, chatzilla, is part of most default installations. (thanks to ds-x, who helped shepherd and support plastic irc. ) q. Where the obligatory list o links?. A. If i only had the time, what plastic would be. In the meantime, if you link to plastic, it links to you. Or something like that. Q. When did plastic launch?. A. After over a year in incubation, plastic launched under the auspices of automatic media 15 january 2001. Six months later, in june of 2001, automatic media shutters its doors, carl begins negotiations to buy plastic. Once two magazine publishers and a gaming network drop out of the running, the deal is successfully completed on 1 december 2001. On 15 january 2002, plastic celebrated its first anniversary. Q. I found a bug. How do i report it?. A. Send bug reports to carl@plastic. The submission queue is not the appropriate place to file bug reports - there a good chance i ll never see your notice, and you ll annoy those members reading the queue in the process. I tend not to respond to bug reports until i ve had time to research the problem. Also, i depend upon multiple bug reports to diagnose and prioritize problems, so please, feel free. I d much rather get multiple bug reports - especially from the knowledgeable sort of person who assumes i must already know - than get no reports at all. If you fear you may be wasting your time, keep it short, i ll get back to you if i have questions. . A. Plastic is by no means complete. Select preferences update my info , there you ll find a suggestion box of your very own. You ll be sharing your ideas for making plastic better not just with me, but with all of plastic, since what you write there will be displayed as part of your member page. Be persuasive enough to have others make the same request, and it becomes that much more likely your feature will find its way onto my list of future additions. If you re interested, you can view all member feature requests on a single page, though i threw that together primarily for my benefit. Q. How do i get my very own @plastic email address, and webmail to go with it?. A. Plastic members with positive karma can subscribe to plasticmail for us 1 year, via paypal, amazon, or by check or money order. Plasticmail is both full-featured webmail, and pop3- and smtp-based mail, for when you d rather use outlook or eudora or another desktop client of your choosing. Plasticmail includes spam filtering, virus scanning, wysiwig editing, spellchecking, a customizable interface, mail delivered to your desktop or webtop, and 35mb of mail storage. And more. Just as important is what plasticmail doesn t include no pop-ups. No banners. No ads. No involuntary opt-in. No opt-out. No bait-and-switch - gettin you in cheap, annoying the hell out of you, and then trying to upsell you on extras. No undisclosed editing of email. No deleting all your saved messages overnight. No here today, gone tomorrow. No excuses. Though the best part will always be having @plastic as your address. What others are saying about plasticmail. As a professional web app developer, i must commend the ui - it& ,s very nice. Very nice indeed. +1 brilliant. . Here the pitch subscribe to plasticmail at the standard rate - us 1 year - while i continue to add even more features. You ll be up and running with plasticmail the next day, but your account will stay off the clock until plasticmail emerges from beta. It another small way for me to say thanks once and again, for believing. Q. What if i d rather make a donation to keep plastic running?. A. You re welcome to donate via paypal or amazon. If you could include your member name - along with some words of encouragement - in the message box, i d appreciate it. Make a secure donation via paypal or donate courtesy the amazon honor system. For those who d like some guidelines on how much to give, i d just advise that you put a dollar value on how much that a month of plastic is worth to you, and then multiply by 12. No amount is too small. You d rather write a check? Make it out to carl steadman for plastic and mail it to plastic, 1714 franklin st. 100234, oakland ca 94612. If you could, write your member name or email on the check, so that i can (eventually) send a thank you. (it seems i m never prompt about these things - there always something keeping me busy - but. I do remember. ) also, since i ve already been criticized for making the above links and address available - well, people asked, and that what a faq all about, isn t it? Plastic has received less than a dozen donations to date. So there. Yes, the whole business makes me every bit as uncomfortable as you. I m working very hard to turn plastic around. But. Better this, than your kind offers going without a proper response, in my inbox. From not knowing what to really say. Because plastic could use a little help right now. But only to help get it to that point when it doesn t. Q. And all this is an elaborate joke on the part of whom?. A. I just work here, and any joke. Well, you knew where that one was going, if you see what i mean. You re always welcome to drop an email to carl@plastic when things seem even more broken than usual or when you ve come up with some brilliant new feature which i d likely be working on right here now already, were i not halfway through the answer to a question that nobody even asked. Q. What the mailing address for plastic?. A. Plastic& ,s address is 1714 franklin st. 100234, oakland ca 94612. Q. So what sort of sacrifice should i make at the altar of the great omnipotent plastic ruler carl?. A. Carl babbles some nonsense about creating a participatory media every so often, and from time to time remembers he can write, edit, code, and, as he puts it, be my brilliant self. That said, his favorite answers seem to be i don t know, i didn t read that, i don t consider that a useful metric, and i ll add it to my list. Please, adjust your expectations accordingly. Also, he older than you think, and doesn t really care what you say about him. Q. A. . Plastic is not directed toward children. It does not collect and does not know the age or date of birth of its members, and has no reasonable expectation that children 12 and under would want to register with the site. Q. What& ,s a good introduction to the lacanian analysis of popular culture?. A. For a fun, only slightly exasperating introduction to the study of popular culture using lacanian theory, try slavoj zizek& ,s looking awry an introduction to jacques lacan through popular culture. Q. Lacan makes my head hurt. . A. Dick hebdige hiding in the light is eminently more accessible than the above title, and doesn t mention anyone by the name of jacques. It includes essays on vespa, swatch, and sid vicious. Q. Where can i get a decent bagel?. A. A good source for devil duckies is devil duckies on pricehot. Q. These cheap clown shoes are killing me. Makes you wonder whether child labor is all that good a value. Where can i get high-quality clown shoes, featuring the shoe-within-a-shoe?. A. Jolly walkers, a family-run business, offers high-quality clown shoes at good prices. Q. Whatever became of sarah records?. A. The spirit of sarah lives on, at matt& ,s new label, shinkansen. Q. Tater? Tomater?. A. Instigator. Q. She wants to get married, but i& ,m not sure. . A. Buy a ring, propose. You now have another year to make up your mind. Q. He proposed, but he can be a bit of a jerk. . August primaries brought more unwelcome news to republican establishment types and more joy to tea party supporters. Except for john mccains trouncing of his uber-right opponent by 24 points in arizona, tea party favourites tended to win in republican primaries. Consider what happened to senator lisa murkowski of alaska. Running against previously unknown joe miller, who was endorsed by sarah palin and by tea party express, murkowski spent as little as possible on her campaign until just before primary day, even as miller successfully cast her as too liberal and part of the problem in an out-of-control washington. She now looks like she will lose her race, as 16,000 absentee ballots not scheduled to be counted until 31 august would have to break strongly her way for her to overcome millers current lead. . . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Ninth circuit court of appeals tracks toward 1984in 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno of growing marijuana. To find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. . Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . Onward christian soldiers. Or you& ,ll be punishedwhen major general james chambers was the commanding general at ft. Eustis, he instituted a quarterly event called the commanding generals spiritual fitness concert. . Your house better be your castle, because it& ,s a lousy investmentthe good news is that real estate values will recover. The bad news is that things will never be like they were in the 20th century for the real estate market. . Please read the following terms and conditions relating to your use of this site carefully. By using this site, you are deemed to have agreed to these terms and conditions of use. I reserve the right to modify them at any time. You should check these terms and conditions periodically for changes. At least once a day. If you re lazy, that is. Otherwise every three or four couple of hours, i d say. Don t forget to set your alarm. If at any time you choose not to accept these terms and conditions of use, please do not use this site. . These terms and conditions do not apply to your use of unaffiliated sites to which this site only links. That might be because they re unaffiliated. I can t think of everything. I don t (necessarily) endorse, support, sanction, encourage, verify, or agree with the comments, opinions, or statements posted on bulletin boards, forums, or stories. Especially if they re yours. Really. It just doesn t work that way. And did she ever try. . Magnanimous as i am, i allow you to provide your content (including, without limitation, text and data) to the site in a number of forms (collectively, the content). Users have a number of tools and rating mechanisms to determine the order in which content is presented to them. I generally don t make editorial determinations about what content is displayed on plastic for any particular reader. I permit others to make judgments about the content you submit that may affect the display of that content. You re responsible for the content you submit and the consequences of any such submitted content. Any use by you of any other user information, personal or otherwise, for any commercial purpose or to obtain direct financial gain (e. G. , mass marketing) is prohibited. The site is to be used by you for your personal use only. Commercial use is strictly prohibited unless prior written consent has been granted. In which case i can only promise that your life will be empty and without meaning. I reserve the right to delete any such material from the site. I also reserve the right to delete things randomly, just to keep it all interesting. If you please. Thank you. 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So if you click on a plastic link and nothing happens let me know, but otherwise you re encouraged to seek appropriate professional advice or care for any situation or problem which you may have. At least call your mom. Even if you don t have a problem, you should call her anyway. Once again, i tell you, i come here to bury caesar, not to praise him i m just not responsible. I m not responsible for any loss or damage caused, or alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the information or ideas contained, suggested, or referenced on plastic. Your participation in plastic is solely at your own risk. No advice or information obtained by you from plastic creates any warranty not expressly made herein. And not to drag this on and on, but i also make no warranty regarding any goods or services purchased or obtained through plastic or any transactions entered into through plastic - but please, do share any bad experiences with the rest of us, so at the very least we can all benefit from them. And i will do what i can, i just can t promise anything. Be careful out there. Finally, not only am i not responsible for the content you find on plastic, i m also not responsible for the content you find outside plastic. Because they weren t really listening to me, they only pretended to. As a convenience to you, the user, plastic provides links to resources which are beyond my control. I make no representations as to the quality, suitability, functionality, or legality of anything linked or referenced on plastic, and you hereby waive any idiot claim you might have against me with respect to such off-site content. Thank you. . . You shall comply with all laws and regulations applicable to your access and use of plastic and the publication of your content. If any portion of these terms and conditions is deemed unenforceable, that portion shall be enforced to the maximum extent possible and the remaining portions of these terms and conditions shall be given full effect. My failure to act in a particular circumstance does not waive the ability to act with respect to that circumstance or similar circumstances. Please excuse me for any failure to perform to the extent that its performance is prevented by any reason outside of its control. I may change, remove, or require registration or payment to continue use of any aspect of the site and service at any time without further notice to you. Thanks. And yes, it& ,s true. I have no more. Your pal, carl. Greetings. I m a plastic editor. Message me with questions, comments, suggestions, and complaints. If you re thinking about submitting a story but are unsure how to create something that will withstand the trial by fire of the submission queue, i d be glad to help you out. . The exploding plastic inevitable, as told by humberto. (most recent comments). Title start spreadin the news, i& ,m leaving today. (comments 27). Title if i had a million dollars, i& ,d give it to. (comments 48). In 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno of growing marijuana. To find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. They did this without obtaining a warrant. The u. S. Writing for the dissent, chief judge alex kozinski (a reagan appointee who is considered a conservative) seemed to be taking a page from president obamas call for judicial empathy no truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter. Judges, regardless of race, ethnicity or sex, are selected from the class of people who dont live in trailers or urban ghettos. The everyday problems of people who live in poverty are not close to our hearts and minds because thats not how we and our friends live. He ended the point, however, by criticizing his fellow judges unselfconscious cultural elitism. The case could well go to the supreme court, since the us court of appeals for the district of columbia came to a quite different conclusion in a similar case involving a gps tracker attached to a suspects vehicle while parked in the suspects driveway. In the meantime, if you have a habit of taking your vehicle places you would rather the police not know about, and are impatient for the wheels of justice to prevail, you might consider adding this accessory to your wheels. . Gps jammers are illegal. And if you re using one to foil the cops, rather than a stalker, they re also very dumb, since the guys you re trying to jam are the same guys who will detect and bust you for it. (a friend just emailed i have pms and a gps, which means i m a bitch who will find you. ). So speeding. Now, which one is likely to get you noticed when a police car goes by? And you re still speeding why? My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. Your friend is awesome and intrigues me, and i would like to subscribe to her newsletter. Also, pretty much any rf jammer is illegal. Much as we& ,d all like to see the cellphone bands in the cineplex jammed, at some point the cardiologist misses his call to get down to the er to save the 10-year-old with a heart murmur, and then we all feel like shit. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Stupid and racist war on drugs angle. Check. Police state on steroids. Check. Reagan (! ) appointee judge totally nailing it about structural problem with legal system (yep, composed almost exclusively of priviledged rich snobs who can t relate to the plebes incidentally also completely true of our political and public intellectual class). Oh and did i mention that the legal profession is inherently conservative, because it has a vested interest in defending the legitimacy of the existing system (it is, after all, the institution that they owe their jobs to not likely they ll attack the fundamental legitimacy of that, is it)? Also, i hate mondays. Bleargh. . Judge kozinski is known as a libertarian. He is generally into keeping the government out of our pockets. The dissent was also signed by judges reinhardt (appointed by carter), baez (clinton), wardlaw (clinton), and berzon (clinton). The three judges who decided the case initially were appointed by reagan (o& ,scannlein), george w. Bush (n. Randy smith), and reagan (charles wolle), all of whom recommended against en banc grant. The court will very rarely take a case en banc when all judges writing the opinion are of the same view, and recommend against it. Plus, with the 15-judge en banc review of the ninth circuit, who knows which judges evaluated this. In summary, the dissent was primarily signed by liberal justices, while the initial opinion was written by two of the most conservative members of the ninth circuit, plus a conservative senior judge from iowa sitting by designation. Judeo-christianity just like regular christianity, only insincerely 5% more inclusive! -- mc nally. They either have to pay for advertising or buy a legislator. Question being, how is it free speech when you have to pay for it? Plastic is a state of something or other. . So you don t need a warrant to attach a tracking device, ok i think i get the argument that it was parked in his driveway and nothing posted about no trespassing. I believe i ve heard of things like this before, the law is clear on private property and trespassing. But don t you need a warrant to follow someone around non-stop? Can police indiscriminately implement surveillance on any citizen without someone approving the activity first? Is police investigation completely autonomous? I wasn t able to get that out of the story. I also don t get the comments from the judge about diversity on the bench. Is that supposed to make a difference in this case? If it was legal (in the strictest sense) to tag the car and follow him to his pot field then why would a judge overturn the decision? If procedure was abused or broken then his court has an obligation to void the verdict and send back for a new trial but a judge born to the manor or a judge from the bronx should come to the same conclusion. In the end, the guy did have a pot field, right? Only police abuse of process or breaking laws to get the evidence should be able to set this guy free, not whether a judge is from the hood or the upper east side (not too upper). . The judge comment about diversity was regarding the distinction made between a car in an open driveway and one behind a fence or in a garage. The decision says that the open driveway is ok for the cops to enter to install the tracking device, but a fenced area or a garage would not be. Judge kozinsky was just saying that a lot of people can t afford the fence or garage, and so the law discriminates in favor of those who can, but the judges who made that decision are all relatively rich people who don t get it. . That where we part company. I think everyone understands that it better to have a garage and that not everyone can afford one. Even rich white judges get that. Until the cops tagged this criminals car in his own driveway which based on the law (as the article points out) is legal, a new twist was added to just exactly how nice it is to have a garage. So an up scale criminal has a few more protections than a run of the mill criminal, i m still not sure how an empathetic judge or one not born to the manor would rule differently in this case. . . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . More than anything else, though, our success will be claimed by who we are as a country. (president obama, commencement speech to west point cadets, may 22) the united states of america (also referred to as the united states, the u. S. , the usa, the states, or america) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central north america, where its forty-eight contiguous states and washington, d. C. , the capital district, lie between the pacific and atlantic oceans. That is all. Now, where the birth certificate mr. O bama?. Who is an american? What defines america? America is defined by the will of its people. The will of its people is most fundamentally expressed by their vote for their president. The fundamental nature of their president is expressed by his most transcendent joy. His most transcendent joy is found in riding a bicycle. Our most perfect cultural expression of that joy, the thing that best represents and defines america and americans, is pee wee herman. . America is a bullshit collectivist made-up arbitrary tribal identity, a scam of an idea to permit a bunch of harvard-yale-princeton educated assholes to loot and exploit masses of ill-educated and uninformed peasants who, thanks largely to liberalism, haven t quite figured out that they re nothing but peasants. And yes, it a socialist hell-hole. National-socialist, to be precise. . Note this is exactly how a fat seacow reacts when you tell her that those jeans do make her look fat. With denial. I repeat bush-wing republicans are just like weak-minded women. Fat, seacow women. . Bush-wing republicans are just like weak-minded women. Fat, seacow women just because women don& ,t dig preachy damn them all types is no reason to become a misogynist. Whos got the kibble? - bad lieutenant pocno. Then you should heed the words of canadian poet irving layton since i no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity, egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, i have stopped being a misanthrope. Own your words. . Since i no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity, egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, i have stopped being a misanthrope. You have hit the nail on the head. I was young and idealistic and naive enough to expect sanity, kindness, honesty, selflessness, courage, and honest self-appraisal from mankind. Delusions and dreams die hard. That is why i am a misanthrope. And misery loves company. I m dragging y all down with me. . By liberalism i mean the ideology that the failings of a free market capitalist system can be redressed by government regulation. And the ideology of enhancing liberty by redressing inequality with government action. To be fair its failings are subtle and very difficult to see by someone who is immersed in modern american political culture, because it shares its failings with its putative nemesis, conservatism (meaning reagan bush-wing neo-conservatism, rather than the paleo-conservatism or libertarianism). Most importantly, it is an inherently statist ideology. But mostly, i ve decided the thing to do while democrats are in power is to hate them even more than i hate republicans. So mostly i just mean loyalty to and support for the democratic party. And you re absolutely right about economic neoliberalism. . Or what? Will i be called names in the manner of a mentally deficient 5 year old again? Because, frankly, that is not much of a deterrent. Http drlunch the site that helps you decide where to go to lunch!. Ok, that& ,s the 1% that own everything and have all the money and power. What about the rest of us? Dont get saucy with me bearnaise! . Wow, and i had turned down princeton* horrible decision, has totally condemned me to a life of peasanthood. Thank you for letting me know that armchair. Have you ever considered that people might take you more seriously if you didn& ,t feel the need to insult them with every post? If you acted this way in the real world, you would probably get socked in the face five times a day. *(sort of, i had already accepted early decision at lehigh before princeton got back to me with an acceptance, so i kind of had to say no). Have you ever considered that people might take you more seriously. No because the problem isn t lack of information or intelligence. It propaganda and brainwashing. What we re dealing with is something akin to a cult. That why it so hard to make a republitard moron see the light. So even if i don t insult them they simply would not take anything along the lines of what i say seriously. And a libtard demoncrap is exactly the same way. Brainwashed. Kool-aid drinker. Partisan wanker stuck on my side good your side bad! *(sort of, i had already accepted early decision at lehigh before princeton got back to me with an acceptance, so i kind of had to say no) you re a peasant. If you were ruling class you d have no trouble breaking the rules and going back on your word. Our ruling class behaves completely lawlessly and totally without honor or integrity. . Our ruling class behaves completely lawlessly and totally without honor or integrity. If that& ,s all it takes, why not become ruling class yourself? What is holding you back, peasant?. I think armchair should use glenn beck as a model, because there& ,s a peasant who pulled himself up by his own jockstrap and willed himself into the ruling class, cleverly annointing himself as the new messiah. The added bonus of an armchairocracy would be that the crazy would be directed at absolutely everyone on the political spectrum. That would be true populism! Own your words. . Ken mehlman, one of the authors of bush 42s reelection has come out of the closet as gay and now supports gay marriage. You might remember him from his tenure as rnc chairman during the years when the rncs platform included advocating for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Some commentators are calling the reaction to the announcement surprisingly muted. Is this a sign of a growing acceptance of different lifestyles across the political spectrum, or of partisans turning a blind eye to prior tactical hypocrisy?. Homosexuality will not have become truly accepted until people stop feeling the need to announce their homosexuality to the world. But i do know how they must feel, because my own orientation is even less acceptable. I am deeply attracted to chickens, ducks and geese, and the public contempt for that is such that i ll probably feel the need to stay in the closet for the rest of my life. Thank god plastic has the anonymous idiot option, so that i can at least somewhat get that off of my chest, without having it follow me everywhere. . That nothing. I think a house is not an investment, space nuttery is a religion, oil-driven suburban consumerism is doomed, and life extension technology is coming soon. I also think people are very conservative these days, there are no real technological advancements anymore, and that huge changes are coming in the next decades, and i don t mean usb 15. 0 (yawn). That unacceptable. Sticking it in the pooper seems pretty trivial compared to being an iconoclast. . So, life extension technology is on the horizon, but there are no technological breakthroughs anymore? Breakthroughs come from all directions, and may not be noticable when they actually happen. Research into dna, whether for tracking susceptibility to disease or identifying criminals depends in large part on polymerase chain reaction, a technique for taking teeny amounts of dna and rapidly duplicating them. The entire dna enterprise is based on this tool, and its invention broke up the research logjam. Its similar to airplanes never really getting off the ground until the invention of the internal combusion engine. There were lots of people with great aerodynamic ideas, but without a lighter, more power engine they were entirely academic. I have two friends who are hiv positive, and have been for more than 15 years. When they were diagnosed it was a death sentence, yet they are still with us. I won t claim that they are terribly healthy, but the invention of antiretrovirals is keeping them alive. If that isn t a technological breakthrough, i don t know what is. What rescues us from insignificance is the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers. Carl sagan. If we have penis extension technology today, life extension technology can& ,t be far behind. No pussyfooting. That right. We are stagnating. The likelihood of life extension technologies showing up is remote. But if it does, that changes everything. It ll still take 6 hours to cross the atlantic in a 747, though. If that isn t a technological breakthrough, i don t know what is. Took too long, and still does. Pcr? Old hat 20 years ago. A real breakthrough would a modeling of how matter arranges itself into life. We re not even close. We just throw a lot of stuff around and see what sticks. . I accept homoness. When jwwow and me were clubbin down in miami we went to a bunch of gay bars and danced and partied with a bunch of gay guys. It was like totally amazing wow. If i could only find a guido who had the fashion sense and could dance like most gays, i d be like the happiest little snooki evar! You know what breaks my brain? Just about anything other than the brand of booze i m gonna get wasted on tonight. Oh, and i totally support your right to fuck a duck, babes. I don t even want to get into what sort of furry little critters my homie, the situation, is into. . On one hand, he obviously a hypocrite. He obviously sold out parts of his soul for political expediency. He obviously did things that he probably ashamed of in the rare moments when he honest with himself. On the other hand, he a political operative. I don t see that as being particularly unique to him. Think of mccain entire 3rd act, or obama capitulations on civil liberties, or flip-flopping on gay marriage, or even abe lincoln middle ground when it comes to slavery, politics is the art of the compromise. A lot of times those compromises are pretty disgusting. I don t think mehlman is particularly noteworthy in that regard. It an ugly fucking business, we need to stop pretending they re all members of the laity. Can a puma challenge a lion for king of the jungle?. It an ugly fucking business, we need to stop pretending they re all members of the laity. And once the attitude that they are all a bunch of liars and hypocrites becomes normalized we will finally get the politicians we deserve. . . . . Liars and hypocrites. Not the best plan. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. I strongly, and respectfully disagree. Not all cynicism is jaded. My position would be that the american political system has suffered from unrealistic expectations, mostly from the electorate. (cut my taxes but have a social net that covers the baby boomers, a military that can police the entire globe, and safe and efficient roads, etc) i think this has come about, largely from the notion that people have projected onto government (and the people who make up government) all sorts of powers they don t posses, or certainly, can t sustain. I think a more mature response, and one that is certainly more in line with where america is as an aging democracy, is one that brings a certain healthy skepticism to what the public sector can, and more importantly, cannot do. (i say this as a man who proudly and publicly fell head over heals for both reagan and obama) part of being an adult is no longer believing in super heroes. And expecting herculean results from your government is childish in many ways. And i get the idea that we can put a man on the moon, help end nazi tyranny, and enfranchise millions of blacks, etc. It not that our aspirations need to become smaller imho, only that they remain grand in areas that are attainable. And that starts with the understanding of the basic and obvious fact that the government is made up of people. And people are fundamentally flawed. Can a puma challenge a lion for king of the jungle?. With the exception of the last sentence i have no idea what your response has to do with my comment. You are talking about our expectations while i m talking about ethics, consistency and character. I m pretty sure america has plenty of cynicism regarding government in general and politicians specifically. If anything the cynicism is growing here and i have not noticed any shift in the levels of hypocrisy or lies pouring out of washington. Quite the contrary. We seem the be getting exactly what we expect. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. You are talking about our expectations while i m talking about ethics, consistency and character. Yeah, but let talk about ethics, consistency and character as applied to actual governance rather than politicians private lives. The whole lifestyle thing has been a red herring that the republicans tossed during the clinton era. It worked so successfully because the media didn t want to be labeled liberal that they actually went and helped build up this hype that somehow clinton screwing some little of age intern had anything to do with governance. The more the media keeps on paying attention to red herrings and drama rather than the actual governance at hand, the more cynical people will become about politicians. The media should skewer the spin for what it is but also lay on the table the substantive matters at stake are. Popular media like huffington post are good at showing the spin and enjoying skewering the drama, but they are shit when it comes to showing the real stakes. . Yeah, but let talk about ethics, consistency and character as applied to actual governance rather than politicians private lives. Why are you drawing this distinction with mehlman? He chose to make his private life public. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Why are you drawing this distinction with mehlman? He chose to make his private life public. Good point. Because i think we spend a lot of time in this nation on worthless discussions and pass it off as substantive discussion. And whom a politician is screwing seems to be one of the biggest and most wasteful ways of doing this. I didn t charge when clinton was screwing someone and i don t care that cheney has a lesbian daughter. Seriously, i care a lot more about economics, the war, health care, supreme court justices and precedents. And a lot more other things than who a politician invites to bed, whether a politician announces it or not. But the other thing that boggles my mind is why so many heterosexual people care whether gay people get married or not. Seriously, that will effect the nation a heck of a lot less than a decade of war or bad economic policy. And it will effect people a lot less than economic policies and health care policies. The whole gay thing, as well as any politician sex thing, is almost always a red herring. It always meant to get american indignation up. But moral indignation about sex seems laughable in a nation with 50% divorce rate. It not as though heterosexuality is so darn sacred, and nor are most people marriages so perfect. . Honestly, i couldn t care less about politicians sex lives, but this asshat has most certainly invited derision. He the one making a public issue of it, not me. And yes, there are more important issue. No shit. And there are more important things to do than posting on plastic yet here you are. He threw it out there. The simple fact that the subject of his hypocrisy happens to be sex doesn t somehow magically exempt him from ridicule once he makes it a public issue. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. (from dictionary) hypocrite -noun 1. A person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc. , that he or she does not actually possess, esp. A person whose actions belie stated beliefs. 2. A person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. One whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements. . As the head of the gop and or bush& ,s campaigns he worked to -in 2006 compare homosexuality to atheism -worked to have anti-gay initiative on the ballot in 2004 and 2006, expressly to help the republican candidates. -strongly supported the clinton era doma. Maybe i misunderstand your question, how is it that you find his political actions not hypocritical? I can probably better address your question when i more fully understand your misgivings of the characterization. Can a puma challenge a lion for king of the jungle?. You must have researched this story a good deal more than i have. The ap story in the ny times (linked to in the writeup) said, mehlman. Came to the conclusion he is gay recently. . It& ,s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with that part of my life,. . He tried to convince republican officials privately not to attack gay marriage. . The article did not mention his past comments that compare d homosexuality to atheism nor his work to have sic anti-gay initiative on the ballot nor his strong support for the clinton era doma. If you say that those exist, then, okay, i am willing to brand the man as a hypocrite based on your unsubstantiated claim. But you will forgive me, i hope, for wondering about the obvious hypocrisy when the evidence of it is so thin in the news reports. . The article did not mention his past comments that compare d homosexuality to atheism nor his work to have sic anti-gay initiative on the ballot nor his strong support for the clinton era doma. If you say that those exist, then, okay, i am willing to brand the man as a hypocrite based on your unsubstantiated claim. But you will forgive me, i hope, for wondering about the obvious hypocrisy when the evidence of it is so thin in the news reports. . You re right, it is an ugly fucking business. I really don t care if mehlman feels bad when people call him on his hypocrisy, or if he remains effectively celibate as a result. I don t feel one bit bad for some anti-gay rights crusader getting outed for spending his leisure time with callboys. I think it every bit as fair game as going after a liberal who campaigns to tax the rich! While hiding his own income. Perhaps the voters will come to realize that charlatans trying to lather them up with anger points don t have the eletorate best interests at heart, and that in the meantime things like million liability caps on oil well leaks get passed. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . I mean really and who cares exactly? After decades of homophobic ogres like j. Edgar hoover, roy cohn, ted haggard, et al and ad nauseam being revealed as being gay, is it surprising, shocking, or appalling that mehlman was gay? That he was a hypocrite for knowing the truth about his sexuality while being a force for marginalizing gays is something he is going to have to square with himself. I have the feeling he has just the right measure of self-deception that he ll be able to do so. That he now going to turn his attention and energy to fighting for gay rights is risible. Gays and social liberals are going to keep reminding him of what a lying tool he was all those years. The right is going to point at him and ask, can anyone trust anything the man says now?. The ruling class simply doesn& ,t care who or what, its members spend their time fucking. A 6thor7th. Blogspot link. Some commentators are calling the reaction to the announcement surprisingly muted. Is this a sign of a growing acceptance of different lifestyles across the political spectrum, or of partisans turning a blind eye to prior tactical hypocrisy? It just not surprising for these folks to be coming out of the closet any more. It not a novelty. The irony is dead. I ll wager the statistical difference for gay republicans vs. Gay democrats is neglible at this point (given the probability of closeted republicans that is). It a cliche at this point. I propose that 1 out of 2 gay republicans stay in the closet just to maintain the status quo. Dont get saucy with me bearnaise!. . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . More than anything else, though, our success will be claimed by who we are as a country. (president obama, commencement speech to west point cadets, may 22) the united states of america (also referred to as the united states, the u. S. , the usa, the states, or america) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central north america, where its forty-eight contiguous states and washington, d. C. , the capital district, lie between the pacific and atlantic oceans. . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Ninth circuit court of appeals tracks toward 1984in 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno of growing marijuana. To find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. . Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . Onward christian soldiers. Or you& ,ll be punishedwhen major general james chambers was the commanding general at ft. Eustis, he instituted a quarterly event called the commanding generals spiritual fitness concert. . Your house better be your castle, because it& ,s a lousy investmentthe good news is that real estate values will recover. The bad news is that things will never be like they were in the 20th century for the real estate market. . Choose your member name, tell plastic where to send your password, then click the register button to complete your new registration. A password will be sent straightaway to the email address you provide. 1. Plastic member name of choice (maximum of 20 characters. Member names can be made up of any combination of letters, numbers, and spaces. )2. Valid (working) email address (your email won t be displayed on plastic and is never given to anyone. But it is where your temporary password will be sent, without which you won t be able to use the account you re now creating. Please, check for typos. )3. Click register to join. And welcome to plastic!. Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Ninth circuit court of appeals tracks toward 1984in 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno of growing marijuana. To find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. . Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . Onward christian soldiers. Or you& ,ll be punishedwhen major general james chambers was the commanding general at ft. Eustis, he instituted a quarterly event called the commanding generals spiritual fitness concert. . Your house better be your castle, because it& ,s a lousy investmentthe good news is that real estate values will recover. The bad news is that things will never be like they were in the 20th century for the real estate market. . Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. Hopefully, these useful morons will soon complete their destiny of fragmenting the republican party out of existence. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Seriously. Don& ,t you wish you could be trying to keep the corrupt and incompetent folk honest instead of trying to keep the retarded children from breaking everything? Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . You are much too optimistic, i think. I think newt gingrich is right and for the most part the tea partiers will fall in line behind the republican party. However, they have done some good work so far discomfiting the neocon-wing of the gop an american conservative link. Now, if we could only get the lw pwogs to come to their senses and start waging war against the neocon-corporatists of their own party, rather than being so easily distracted by stuff that so far ought to be considered an internecine rw republican civil war. So, i think the lw pwogs should just stfu about the tea parties. And instead should be hyperventilating 24 7 about how obama and the democratic party leadership are identical to bush and the republican party leadership. . I have no problem with you calling the dlc, dem leadership et al. , corporate tools. Obviously. But when you say things like the obama administration is identical to bush s, i think you should know that you sound full throttle, batshit crazy. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. The obama administration is not identical to bush s. It in fact, worse. It bush, but without any opposition from the left. Foreign policy -continuing bush efforts to conquer iraq and afghanistan -continuing bush war on terror expanding it, even to somalia and yemen. -continuing to move us towards war with iran. -more money for dod than even bush. -continues to kidnap and rendition people police state at home -extended usa patriot act -will not repeal military commissions act of 2006 -continuing domestic spying, without even fig leaf of fisa court -asserts power to have american citizens assassinated, at will, without any due process at all economy -continuing trillion$ in wealth transfer from taxpayers to wall street ponzi scheme banksters -provided corporate welfare to health insurance corporations, under the guise of health reform so yes, you re right. He not identical to bush. He worse than bush. . 1. Sorry, continuation of some bush policies is not, in my book, nearly as bad a thinking up and implementing these abominations in the first place. Obama is not even on the same planet as an administration that ginned up evidence with the expressed intent on invading and declaring war on a sovereign nation, promoted torture, warrant-less domestic spying, pealed back environmental policies, consumer protections, etc. Etc. . 2. Obama has made incremental improvements in finance reform, healthcare reform, corporate governance and possibly an end to the irresponsible tax cuts. None of these things could have happened under bush. 3. Obama cabinet and appointees are considerably more competent and less ideologically driven than bush collection of criminal pnac bozos, good-ol-boys, and horse show professionals. Think of the cast of insane fuckers in bush cabinet. I still can t believe it. Worse than bush, really? Seriously, this claim only make you sound crazy. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. 1. Sorry, continuation of some bush policies is not, in my book, nearly as bad a thinking up and implementing these abominations in the first place. Yeah, standard democrat liberal response. I think where we really diverge is at the narrative framework level. You probably think of this as evil republicans creating problems, and democrats being unable to solve or fix those problems. So you re willing to settle for the democrats not creating any further problems just managing the mess that republicans created in the first place, as it were. Not surprisingly, i have a completely different picture of what going on though. I think what we have is a society polity dominated by interest groups most famously corporate special interests, but also including governmental interest groups like the national security apparatus. One way or the other, these groups pervert distort dominate the political system, so that the outcome is always what they want (in rare, rare cases different interest groups might come into conflict only then do you see real change, a powerful interest group being defeated). In essence this is the ruling class. And people like obama and bush are willing to do the bidding of the ruling class either they sold out, or they agree with the ruling class consensus agenda. That why they get to serve as presidents, while people who refuse to toe the line nader, kucinich, gravel, mckinney, paul, baldwin, barr, etc. One way or the other are sabotaged, ignored, delegitimized. So for instance, in the case of iraq, i view bush and obama as pursuing the same exact overall goal. You have to decontextualize the war, to make it seem as if bush made the wrong decision and obama is now merely managing or trying to improve the bad situation that arose out of bush bad decision but in my view the proper way to understand the iraq war is by starting out with the recognition that a long long time ago, our ruling class came to the consensus that we ought to dominate and control the middle east. Add it to the imperial global economic system, but run by people governments willing to deal with our ruling class under terms that our ruling class desired (think, e. G. The house of saud). And once the strategic goal is domination of the middle east, then countries that are sitting on lots of oil gas, and or are strategically located (and in iraq case both of those conditions are true) become critical, and cannot be allowed to be governed by people unwilling to do our bidding. So, that the context for the iraq war. The decision to regime change iraq was actually made back in 1991, either right before or during gulf war i. And when we decide to regime change we go down a list of tools cia coup, or pressure on the population via blockade sanctions, pressure by bombing and if all else fails, then direct invasion. And note in iraq we tried all these things, in order. So the war was basically the empire marching on and adding a new territory to the empire. With bush, sanctions and cia-fomented coups, attempts at assassination and bombings having failed, it was merely the time to go to the next (and last) tool in the toolbox. And obama is just continuing the effort to conquer the place. So, giving obama a break on this, on the grounds that he didn t pull the trigger on the invasion, and is merely continuing it, is akin to giving goering a break, saying that he not a warmonger, if hitler had died in 1942 and goering had merely continued hitler wars, not started any of his own. . Declaring war on a sovereign nation. Btw, sovereign nation means we don t get to pressure countries if we don t like their governments. Therefore obama is behaving as if iran and north korea are not sovereign nations. Promoted torture, warrant-less domestic spying and obama is continuing them. Why? Because he agrees with bush that those policies are necessary if you want to continue with the imperialism. And obama is continuing with the imperialism. Pealed back environmental policies how did you like obama going all drill, baby, drill just before the bp oil well catastrophe? 2. Obama has made incremental improvements in finance reform, healthcare reform not true. Health care reform was actually corporate welfare for health insurance companies. Finance reform is also a boondoggle. What they re doing is distracting people by putting on a show of fixing the barn door, after all the cows have left. What they really ought to do is arrest all the big wall street firm senior execs and confiscate every damn red cent they own, on the grounds that they ve been running a completely fraudulent ponzi-scheme scam, and have destroyed the world economy in the process. Then you can talk about reforming the syread the entire comment. . So, once again, obama is worse. He is like bush, but more competent, stealthier, better at pulling the wool over liberals progressives eyes, and therefore more dangerous see, this is where you run completely off the rails. He worse because he more competent? I mean, what-the-fuck. You are cheering for dumbshits. And pulling the wool over liberals. Blah, blah. That is pure, usda grade a crap. Indoctrinated conservatives are only people that believe that liberals worship obama. Most of the liberals i know are quite aware of what is happening inside the beltway, and they are certainly not happy about it. He is fooling no one. The meme that obama is some liberal saviour is myth, fabrication. At best liberals see obama as a centrist with corporate leanings and better than average oratory skills. Not a saviour, not even much of a change. At best a reset back from insanity to governance more of the clinton age. And with that i return you back to your contrived conspiracies and cheering for dumbshits. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Yes, the campaign ended. Whos got the kibble? - bad lieutenant pocno. I actually hope you re right, and that i m completely off base. Because the implications of my analysis, if correct, are pretty freaking scary and terrifying. I ve essentially pronounced a death sentence on american democracy, the republic, perhaps even all of western civilization. So, as much as i love being proven right, and being able to go nyah nyah nyah i toooooold you sooooo~ in this case i d be very happy to be proven wrong. . He worse because he more competent? I mean, what-the-fuck. You are cheering for dumbshits. No. I m completely rejecting the framework you re using to look at the political system, make sense of what is going on. You think the political system works the way you ve been told it does the people elect representatives, the representatives do the will of the people, etc. Etc. , so the government produces policy outcomes that reflect some sort of popular consensus, the will of the people. And therefore government is a socializing (in the sense that it makes decisions that ought to be made by society as a whole) institution that can be trusted, be made to work. And therefore you think it better if the government is put in the hands of smart, competent people. The frameworks i prefer are from a leftist pov a class conflict picture. We have a ruling class, which controls government. And we have the rest of society, the peasants (and if you re not a billionnaire, you re a peasant). And therefore all you ve accomplished by putting a smart, competent leader at the head of government is putting a smart, competent leader at the head of an institution that is structurally predisposed to be the class enemy of the peasants (because it tends to be dominated and influenced by the rich, and ideologically it is prone to accept, internalize ideologies that rationalize and justify policies and outlooks that benefit the rich). The argument that obama is worse than mccain (cause that the proper comparison comparing him to bush is. Well, it me sneaking in a low blow) is pretty radical few even on the true left will make it. And in any case it completely speculative. So i think we can agree to disagree on that one. It really akin to an argument on whether ty cobb was a better player than babe ruth. Who cares? They were both baseball players, and they were all pretty damn good. In the case of bush, obama, mccain they re all politicians, and headed (or would have headed) the same exact corporate-imperial-capitalist mordor-on-the-potomac federal government. So really, the important point that i d like to make here is that people are not analyzing our problems correctly. Essentially we re dealing with a situation that cannot be improved by voting in the right leader into power. And from a more rw perspective well, just go back and read what the founding fathers thought and wrote and warned us about. Uncontrolled growth of a centralized national government, which has become a tool to enslave the people, with the rich, corporations, government bureaucracies as the masters. And pulling the wool over liberals. Blah, blah. That is pure, usda grade a crap. Ok, i agree this is at least somewhat true these days. So my anger at the progressive base is at their stupidity for falling for this scam in the first place. However, there are still plenty of partisan democrat shills who just don t get it. They re still running around trying to sell the democratic kool-aid, telling us that if only we would support the president and the party, they ll give us more progress and more liberal policies. I know this cause i know a whole bunch of people like that. Needless to say, they completely drive me up a wall. It a wonder i haven t strangled any of them yet. Fuckit, they re my friends ferchrissakes! I can t even cut loose with full-blown democrat-hate and criticism for fear of hurting they re feelings. Argh. Lol. Oh and you re absolutely right about the contard propaganda painting obama as a socialist. Note how the democratic party kool-aid (obama is a progressive at heart! He is working hard to advance the progressive agenda! But for him and the party to make progress you have to support him! ) and the republican party kool-aid mutually reinforce? Think that might be a design feature? This is why i think people need to be very, very careful before running around and buying into the line that the tea partiers are all racists, or whatever. And with that i return you back to your contrived conspiracies i m a conspiracy theorist in the same way that cia and state department analysts are conspiracy theorists. If you read foreign policy news articles, you will occasionally see cia analyzing some decision that foreign governments (maybe north korea, or cuba, or ussr) take by speculating that they re doing that to placate their military, or maybe their domestic security apparatus. What they re doing when they do that is looking at those societies, political systems, as a collection of interest groups. And that is basically all i m doing. I m pointing that analytical tool inwards, to look at our society. When the last time you ve seen someone in the msm do this? Why do they never do this? Why hasn t it occurred to you to do this before? It is because we ve been subjected to a relentless stream of state propaganda and myth about our society, political system, for all our lives. . I don t think it stupidity. It propaganda, the framework they induce us to adopt when we look at the world, the human ability to fool yourself, to ignore pieces of data that do not jive with the overall picture we have in our minds, etc. This is why so many otherwise clearly smart, well educated, intelligent people are bush-wing conservatives. Or liberal democrats. It that thing that makes it impossible for a mother to see that her newborn baby is butt-ugly. Or a fat woman to see that yes, those jeans to indeed make her ass look totally fat. We re simply not perfect little logic machines. We re prone to making all kinds of cognitive mistakes due to emotion, our inherent sense of self-worth, selfishness, etc. And it weak-mindedness. The inability to be brutally honest with yourself and see your own country, your own side for what it really is. Basically a pack of useful idiots loyally and slavishly devoted to corrupt stupid scumbag leaders who are traitors to the nation and the people. So next time you get into an argument with a contard or dumbocrat, tell them they re just weak-minded, like a fat seacow who can t accept those jeans make her look fat. . And from a more rw perspective well, just go back and read what the founding fathers thought and wrote and warned us about. Uncontrolled growth of a centralized national government, which has become a tool to enslave the people, with the rich, corporations, government bureaucracies as the masters. And again, not the case at all. You are ignoring the complete disconnect between what they say and what the do. In fact republicans have a history of growing government at alarming rates and are without a doubt much more pro-corporate, pro-wealthy. Christ, bush, in a brief moment of clarity, came right out during a fundraiser and called them his base. Pro-corporate personhood, top marginal tax cuts, ending estate taxes, cuts to dividend tax rates, anti-labor, deregulation, privatization. Etc. These are all clearly republican policies and most certainly not descriptive of liberal planks. Sure there are right leaning democrats that fit this mo but the right is undoubtedly more pro-wealthy when it actually means something on the senate and house floors. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Ooops, disregard. I think we agree here. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. 1. Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. 2. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative therefore beck scheduling this on the anniversary of mlk speech vaguely looks like a race-baiting tactic. But the rw ers probably don t see themselves as racists at all. So i doubt there anything sinister or malicious about them scheduling it on that day, beyond an honest mistake. 3. At the tokenism overt expressions of racism. Level the fight against racism has been largely won. This is why even the glenn beck out there see the need to pay rhetorical respects to mlk. 4. The leveraging of race issues and identity for partisan political gain has infantilized the level of discourse on racism. Neither party is seriously interested in solving the structural problems (ending the war on drugs, for instance, or really taking on the prison-industrial complex) therefore the problem of racism has been reduced to tokenism and posturing. And liberals democrats deserve their share of the blame as well their constant charges that conservatives republicans are motivated by racism more often than not do not hold much water did republicans and conservatives riot on the streets when bush named condi rice and colin powell to his cabinet? When michael steele was named rnc chair? No, the racism is a much more complicated and endemic problem even the vast majority of liberals and democrats are subconsciously racists. But of course the democrats have to differentiate themselves from the republicans somehow, therefore discussions of racism are only carried out in a way that disguises its real nature and allows liberals to posture as the good, non-racist side while painting conservatives as the racists. Think of it as liberals democrats version of bush manichean world view a thoroughly simplistic and infantile good vs evil picture. 5. Palin is not a patriot. All supporters of empire are traitors against the republic. Our wars are all government wars. Remember the words of reagan. Government is the problem. If you support government wars, you are a part of the problem. 6. Mlk was not radical enough. Not by a long shot. 7. The structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what they re calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation. The sad reality is that sharpton, and all the liberals progressives out there, cannot make even their party respect their wishes and desires, and do their bidding, rather than that of their corporate special interest masters. The strong national government will be run 50% of the time by the republicans, and at best, 50% of the time by democrats. And if you can t get even the democrats to behave like proper honest liberals and progressives how on earth do you expect to get this strong national government to serve the people, rather than corporate special interests? This is why liberalism is a mental disorder. These people are busily fashioning the noose which will end up being slipped over their own necks. Create a strong national government, and you will not end up running it. It will be run by corporations and rich, racist white people who hate women and gays. . Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. That is, in my opinion bullshit. Beck is a troll and he knew exactly what sort of reaction he was going to get by scheduling his speech on the anniversary of king speech in the exact same location of that speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. Except he didn t claim he was trying to honor mlk initially. His stated goal was to reclaim the civil rights movement. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative therefore beck scheduling this on the anniversary of mlk speech vaguely looks like a race-baiting tactic. Here a newsflash the right wing are a bunch of racists. But the rw ers probably don t see themselves as racists at all. So i doubt there anything sinister or malicious about them scheduling it on that day, beyond an honest mistake. And the klan didn t see themselves as racists, they were defenders of the white race and national honor. Just pay no attention to all the blacks hanging from trees, they were just bad bungee jumpers. Sarah palin is a retard -- aint satire grand? . Beck hey random placeholder character, i m considering holding a rally at that little spot by the reflecting pool in d. C. . What it called? Rpc the lincoln memorial? The one where mlk gave his famous speech? Beck right! The lincoln memorial! Wait, what speech? This is going to be about integrity, honor, and truth--it definitely not about milk, which, in its pure whiteness certainly is a wonderful thing. Rpc martin luther ki. Beck never heard of him. Hey! How about we also take back the civil rights movement! Ya know? From those folks who think they started it when it was the conservatives all along? Rpc pointing shotgun at own head i ve been sending love letters on your stationary to bill o reilly. He answers them regularly. Boom! . . He knew exactly what sort of reaction he was going to get by scheduling his speech on the anniversary of king speech in the exact same location of that speech. To what point? Certainly it inflames and pisses off the left, but it is not something that would arouse and draw large numbers of new people to the tea parties. I m not denying that there is a divide and rule dynamic here (and the reaction of the left to things like this is, of course, a key feature of this) but i doubt that idiots like beck do it knowingly. That is, beck is probably trapped in the same lw-vs-rw, liberals-vs-conservatives framework most participants in our political system are trapped in. Therefore he unlikely to knowingly do things that will tend to rile up the left and increase the level of passion on that side. That why i think he did it unintentionally. Except he didn t claim he was trying to honor mlk initially. His stated goal was to reclaim the civil rights movement. Of course he being less than forthcoming about his real goals (i mean, we re supposed to believe glenn beck now cares about civil rights??? Rotflmao! ), the point is he insinuated mlk had it right and tried to appropriate hijack his legacy for his side. And before you lw ers go batshit bonkers crazy at this, consider this the evil corporatist-imperialist ruling class has already hijacked mlk legacy for their own nefarious ends. The guy who did this? Barack. Hussein. Obama. So don t you go foaming at the mouth pointing fingers, dems. You are in reality the problem people. Your side is the one that really did the evil deed. Talk about disrespecting mlk indeed. Here a newsflash the right wing are a bunch of racists. Sure. So are you liberals. And the klan didn t see themselves as racists, they were defenders of the white race and national honor. The klan has tried to appripriate hijack a symbol of the black civil rights movement?. 1. Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. No, i think beck did know. And it just exposes his trolling ass. 2. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative no, the rw is the one trapped. The party of lincoln has backslid considerably. Not a new thing either, i remember discussing it during the 92 elections. The fight against racism has been largely won. This is why even the glenn beck out there see the need to pay rhetorical respects to mlk. But that not what he really did. No, the racism is a much more complicated and endemic problem there is no doubt. My parents certainly hoped that i d be better about it (those left wingers back then) than they were (and i am), and i know my kids are better about it than i am. It not about fixing it in one broad swipe, it a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. When the tea parties and other rallies like this one and their ilk start having something even remotely resembling the general population of the country, then i might actually start paying attention instead of the lily white examples that i keep seeing. Don t get me start about palin. Her 15 minutes have been up. She an imbecile but some people think she this oracle. I don t understand the attraction. 6. Mlk was not radical enough. Not by a long shot. He wasn t supposed to be radical. But some certainly saw him that way. The sad reality is that sharpton, and all the liberals progressives out there, cannot make even their party respect their wishes and desires, and do their bidding, rather than that of their corporate special interest masters. Which is different from the conservatives republicans how? My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. No, i think beck did know. And it just exposes his trolling ass. Why do you think this? My reasons for thinking otherwise are this, from my post above to what point? Certainly it inflames and pisses off the left, but it is not something that would arouse and draw large numbers of new people to the tea parties. I m not denying that there is a divide and rule dynamic here (and the reaction of the left to things like this is, of course, a key feature of this) but i doubt that idiots like beck do it knowingly. That is, beck is probably trapped in the same lw-vs-rw, liberals-vs-conservatives framework most participants in our political system are trapped in. Therefore he unlikely to knowingly do things that will tend to rile up the left and increase the level of passion on that side. That why i think he did it unintentionally. If you have good arguments reasons we should think otherwise, i d love to hear them. (i m no glenn beck fan at all. When the revolution comes i would like to see it tortured to death. So i would love it if you could give me even more reasons to hate it. ) no, the rw is the one trapped. The party of lincoln has backslid considerably. Not a new thing either, i remember discussing it during the 92 elections. Of course. They re trapped by the liberals are the problem narrative. But the point is lw is no better. The lw is trapped as well. They think the problem is too many racist conservatives, or something like that. Neither of these two narratives is correct. The big problems are structural either big government statism or corporate capitalism, or some screwed up interaction between the two. And a totally screwed up understanding by the public as to how our political system works. This is why in reality both lw liberals and rw conservatives are completely disenfranchised (that is, the parties that supposedly represent them never do what they really want). It not just you progressives who are not getting the outcomes that you want out of the political system. The rw conservatives are not getting the outcomes that they want either. This is why they re going bonkers crazy and holding tea party rallies and whatever. The meme that they re motivated solely by racism serves the purpose of fooling you lw liberals it keeps you trapped in this narrative that the problem is too many rw racist conservatives when in fact the real problems are structural, and your party has the same structural problems as their party. But that not what he really did. What did he do, then? How is an attempt to appropriate and cloak himself in mlk legacy anything but a compliment, an acknowledgement that mlk was a great american whom we should all honor? . It a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. You re very, very confused. The fact of the matter is overt racist attitudes have largely been addressed and much improved by liberal efforts. However, in real economic legal outcome terms, the african-american community is doing horribly. They have largely lost all the gains they made thanks to the victories of the civil rights era. This is why i think you liberals are completely barking up the wrong tree when you focus in on overt racism of the sort you think you see in the tea party crowd. This is you subtly misdiagnosing the problem. Do not settle for tokenism, which is the level at which you re fighting when you argue with tea partiers over whether this was an insult to mlk memory or whatever. Demand actual policy outcomes end the war on drugs. If a democratic politician, like barack obama, won t deliver on it, then he is the no good racist asshole who should be hated, even before you start caring about a rw clown whose job essentially seems to be to distract you from the real issues and problems, while channeling and directing rw populist anger in directions in which it can not pose a real threat to the ruling class. Something even remotely resembling the general population of the country that why it divide and rule. The whole point of this is to make sure that popular movements never resemble the general population of the country. Because you lw libs cannot talk to or understand or get along with rw cons. Don t get me start about palin. Her 15 minutes have been up. She an imbecile but some people think she this oracle. I don t understand the attraction. Palin is no good, just like obama. Although i think it too early to write her off completely. I think she actually quite a cunning and clever political operator. Her kool-aid doesn t work on the likes of you of course, but then again that like trying to judge obama effectiveness as a politician on his ability to sell his kool-aid to white southern kkk members. Which is different frread the entire comment. . Why do you think this? As much as a history buff beck tries to make himself out as, you really expect me to believe that he didn t know? Or that nobody in his organization (and i d say it decent sized to pull something like this off) knew? If he didn t know, that doesn t speak well right there, and the fact that nobody in his organization didn t realize it without telling him if he really didn t know, and i refuse to believe that somebody didn t know, makes it that more of a facepalm. And no, i didn t write the other stuff after that. Up to the point about being trapped. You gotta watch that cut paste. ) p there are plenty of traps on both sides. But it like both sets of twins i raised, they both raise hell with each other twin because they really are alike. And that pretty much the issue here. With the exception of really minor stuff, the two parties are basically peas in a pod. They both spend money like drunken sailors, and the difference between the two on social values only looks huge because it blown up much more than it should be. But that not what he really did. . Comparing yourself to mlk, which is my view of what he is doing, is not doing mlk any favors. That is just trying to aggrandize beck. . It a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. . You& ,re very, very confused. The fact of the matter is overt racist attitudes have largely been addressed and much improved by liberal efforts. . How am i confused? I grew up during the civil rights movement. It not like i ve read about it in a text book, i lived it. And i m sure i didn t understand half of what was going on at the time, but i know what was happening. And then you argue. However, in real economic legal outcome terms, the african-american community is doing horribly. They have largely lost all the gains they made thanks to the victories of the civil rights era. . Gee, did i say things were going along perfectly for blacks? In fact, didn t i say that i expected things to continue to improve? And i don t know if you ve noticed, but things aren t just going to hell for the blacks, it going to hell for the whites as well. Unemployed at 50? Good luck at find another job, black, white, martian, the economy is in the shitter, and has been since 2000. I m constantly after my kids to make sure they are in school. Because even with an advanced degree (which i don t even know if 3 4 of them would even care to get), i m afraid that they re not going to see the same standard of living that they grew up with. But that a different argument. This is why i think you liberals are completely barking up the wrong tree when you focus in on overt racism of the sort you think you see in the tea party crowd. This is you subtly misdiagnosing the problem. . I more of a small l liberal than a liberal, and probably more along libertarian lines (but not the big l kind either. ). I m not sure that what i see is overt racism in those tea party crowds. Some of them, yes, that pretty much been satisfactorily proven, but it not like there aren t some liberals who aren t racist in their own way. If i m misdiagnosing the problem, you aren t opening your mouth and stating what the problem exactly is, either. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. As much as a history buff beck tries to make himself out as, you really expect me to believe that he didn t know? Sure. There an awful lot of history out there. And perhaps even worse, most history is propaganda. So even if beck is a history buff and spends all his time reading up on the founding fathers or whatever, i have no trouble believing that he knows nothing about the history of black america, or the civil rights struggle. It not the sort of history that rw ers are likely to read, after all. And no, i didn t write the other stuff after that. Up to the point about being trapped. You gotta watch that cut paste. Yes, i was quoting myself, from an earlier post. Easier than rewriting it all from scratch. . The difference between the two on social values only looks huge because it blown up much more than it should be. Yes, and they do it intentionally. Both parties are structured identically (same business plan use corporate special interest money to gain seats, use seats to do favors for corporate special interests, so they ll keep giving them money lather, rinse, repeat) and pretty much hold the same ideology (corporatism and imperialism) so the only way they can differentiate themselves is by stoking the fires of the great american kulturkampf. Which is the trap that i think you and heywood are falling into, if you insist on seeing all manner of dissing of mlk in the tea party rally. Comparing yourself to mlk, which is my view of what he is doing, is not doing mlk any favors. That is just trying to aggrandize beck. Of course that is the point, to make beck and the tea party look respectably non-racist. I think our difference here boils down to this is it more sensible to insist that the rw conservatives completely convert to your side on everything before they re allowed to say nice things about mlk? Or should we welcome their adoption of the liberal democrat view of mlk (as a hero rather than a philandering plagiarizing trouble-maker, or whatever the old rw view of mlk used to be)? I think the former makes sense if you look at this as a my side must beat your side situation. But from what i can see, your side is just no good either. I mean just gawd-awful too. And perhaps this my side must beat your side thing is part of what makes both sides so gawd-awfully bad. That why i think the indication that reverence for mlk and the civil rights movement are so mainstream at this point that even the rw must cloak itself with it can be viewed as a positive thing. How am i confused? I grew up during the civil rights movement. It not like i ve read about it in a text book, i lived it. Because you seem to think the problem of racism has been getting better (you better than your parents, your children better than you, etc. ). At the tokenism level, yes. But institutionalized systemic racism has been getting worse for the past 30 years. Gee, did i say things were going along perfectly for blacks? In fact, didn t i say that i expected things to continue to improve? And i don t know if you ve noticed, but things aren t just going to hell for the blacks, it going to hell for the whites as well. This is correct. And when people lose everything, they lose it. This is why i think efforts aimed at tokenism (e. G. This fight with the tea parties on whether they re racists or not, and whether beck dissed mlk on purpose) are ultimately futile and miss the point. The really big problems that are destroying the american middle class, and are further impoverishing blacks, are structural. The kulturkampf is there to distract people from the structural reasons and who actually is doing the harm. E. G. The guy in charge right now, who is pursuing corporatist and imperialist policies, is barack obama. Not glenn beck. In other words, sitting around yelling at clowns who say non-pc things about blacks has an opportunity cost you re not doing anything about the structural problems that are creating more and more impoverished and pissed off formerly-middle class whites. And when the situation gets bad enough well, people go crazy and do insane stuff. See e. G. Who the germans voted into power as a result of the great depression. I m not sure that what i see is overt racism in those tea party crowds. Some of them, yes, that pretty much been satisfactorily proven, but it not like there aren t some liberals who aren t racist in their own way. If i m misdiagnosing the problem, you aren t opening your mouth and stating what the problem exactly is, either. That all i m saying. I m suggesting that the tea party having a higher than average content of racists just isn t a big a problem as the fact that the democrats in power are pursuing imperialist and neo-liberal economic policies. And i think the system uses the former to distract everyone from the latter (there is a rw equivalent to this, of course. Go back and see what beck and hannread the entire comment. . There& ,s an awful lot of history out there. And perhaps even worse, most history is propaganda. . So you think that mlk was progaganda, when he said it was propaganda, or what he said was propaganda? I mean, yeah, the tech wasn t that great back then, but i m pretty sure it got recorded, and they certainly didn t have photoshop back then. The date, that mlk was there, and what he said are pretty much facts that can t be argued, not propaganda. It not the sort of history that rw ers are likely to read, after all. . No doubt there. They& ,ve been at this a very long time. Which is the trap that i think you and heywood are falling into, if you insist on seeing all manner of dissing of mlk in the tea party rally. . It not the trap for me. I don t consider the rally to be dissing mlk. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. If they had just come out and explained that yes, they were doing this on the anniversary instead of the pissant way that they did it, then i really would have cared less. Maybe they thought that it would stir up things for them. Whatever. The reverence or whatever you want to call it comes out quite a bit cold when they have to be told the history. Because you seem to think the problem of racism has been getting better. It has. I grew up with this shit, remember? To continue to press on about it being worse is stupid. Today is nothing like it was in the 60s. Is it on a steady curve upward for every black out there? Nope. I can t even claim that it on a stead curve upward for the white children. It hasn t been a steady curve upward for women, either. Go to south africa and see what it like now. They ve only been equalizing for about 25 years. It quite the eye opener. And the whites are the minority there, not the majority. And when people lose everything, they lose it. . I& ,m suggesting that the tea party is going to have about as much effect as every other third party out there. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. The republicans may very well embrace them with open arms, but the best the tea party is ever going to get with the arrangement is lip service, just like the rr. Which pretty much trumps whatever the tea party thinks it can actually do. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. So you think that mlk was progaganda, when he said it was propaganda, or what he said was propaganda? No, i was referring to the sorts of mythic narrative about america history that rw ers like beck tend to prefer. They generally omit the rather nastier parts, like the extermination of the indians. And oppression of blacks. Even now, while it still going on and it right under their noses. It the power of narrative. (one of my favorite blogs btw. ) stuff like this, from salon today the gop fake racial history. So what i m saying is that the sort of history that folks like glenn beck like to read and wallow in are propaganda history that tends to omit pesky things like how blacks were oppressed, and how white southerners had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century, to dismantle jim crow and aparthaid. Therefore i wouldn t be surprised in glenn beck had no idea what date mlk delivered that speech of his. The date, that mlk was there, and what he said are pretty much facts that can t be argued, not propaganda. The human mind is a very odd thing if you have a broad, overarching narrative framework that been drilled into you since an early age (we americans are a good and decent people! Our government and laws reflect our good and decent values! ) it has very little trouble omitting or ignoring little bits of data that do not jive with the big picture you hold in your mind. It wouldn t surprise me if rw ers run around conveniently forgetting that something like the civil rights movement happened, unless you remind them of it. After all, they exhibit cognitive dissonance on so many things (as do liberals, btw), why not on this too? Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. But that move wasn t aimed at you. It was aimed at the tea party internally (not too many people like being called a racist it probably serves to reassure the rank and file that they aren t being racist asshats by attending tea party rallies) and at centrists and moderates. So again it boils down to should we be upset that the tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk mantle to draw more support from folks who otherwise would be turned off by overt racism, or should we be encouraged that the center has moved so far left when it comes to racism and the victory of the civil rights movement that even glenn beck has to claim he is following in mlk footsteps? I tend to think that for meaningful change and progress we have to move the opinions of the entire nation, otherwise divide and rule guarantees that the ruling class will succeed in pursuing their partisan agenda. So i m not so worried about their side getting stronger. To be honest your side deserves to get its ass spanked in november and in 2012. It has. I grew up with this shit, remember? At the token, symbolic, and overt level, sure. But this is why i think liberals bark up the wrong tree when they react so strongly to provocations like beck invoking mlk, and react not at all when a politician like obama refuses to end the war on drugs. Is it on a steady curve upward for every black out there? Nope. I can t even claim that it on a stead curve upward for the white children. Of course. The point of beating down black people is actually to disguise from white people that they re the real target of the ruling class. Black people are few in number and are poor. No, if you are the ruling class, and interested in exploiting and stealing from the peasants, the key demographic you re interested in is actually white people because they re numerous and they actually have some wealth. I m not even sure what this is about. Sorry, went off on a slight tangent there. I was trying to put stuff like the tea party in some context. I think that the reason why the rw grass roots is acting so crazy is that your average white working class, especially in the hinterlands (flyover country, aka dumbfuckistan) has been backsliding economically, thanks to neoliberalism and all. That what the matter with kansas, and why people are turning increasingly to jesus and guns and a mythology about america past that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. Of course. Just like the obama movement. Or the nader movement. So why are we singling them out for abuse on that particular point? The tea partiers are on average pretty clueless (tread the entire comment. . Therefore i wouldn t be surprised in glenn beck had no idea what date mlk delivered that speech of his. . The tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk mantle. . They exhibit cognitive dissonance on so many things. They didn t know it was the date of mlk speech, but were using that date and place to wrap themselves in mlk mantle? Maybe they aren t quite that dumb, and you re just using the accusation of cognitive dissonance to fill holes in your stream-of-consciousness rant. . Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn& ,t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. . It inevitable. Just sit back, relax, and let the world destroy itself. Have confidence in your ability to swim and you won t have to worry bout nothing. Tipping sacred cows. They didn t know it was the date of mlk speech, but were using that date and place to wrap themselves in mlk mantle? If you go back and read my earlier posts in this thread, you should be able to tell that the hypothesis that i favor is that glenn beck scheduled the rally not realizing that it was the anniversary of mlk speech. Then when this started to get attention, decided to capitalize on it by trying to cloak the tea party in mlk mantle. Maybe they aren t quite that dumb. There another post somewhere here where i posit it not stupidity that the problem rather propaganda framing national mythology, the human brain ability to selectively choose facts and rationalize decisions ideologies that are of (seeming) benefit to us. So at one level, i have quite a bit more respects for the peasants than i used to. When they rebel against the coastal elites and the ivory tower ivy league educated progressives, etc. , they re absolutely correct in the target they ve picked. That is, indeed, the key problem demographic the coordinator class in socialist (i mean real socialists who read marx and lenin and bakunin not liberal democrats) terminology. Incidentally the true left shares with the tea party right that estimation of who constitute the problem demographic. They too will tell you that basically what you have here is a bunch of harvard assholes burning down the world. Where they (the tea partiers, the grass-roots right) err, of course, is in not understanding exactly how it is that these harvard assholes are going about burning down the world. If they did, they would be listening to ron paul, and not to folks like sarah palin or glenn beck. . Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn& ,t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. . I don t necessarily disagree on that, but peak anything on a global scale isn t in our history. Yes, we have examples of what can happen when certain things go beyond peak and essentially hit zero. We haven t zeroed out anything yet nor are we close to doing so in the near future. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. . Ok, if we want to call the tea party stupid, then this fits like a glove. But to anybody with brains (inside or outside the movement), it falls frighteningly flat. So again it boils down to should we be upset that the tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk& ,s mantle. I could care less that tp want to cloak themselves in whomever. There is the 1st amendment. How the whole thing has been approached has been nothing but a series of missteps. Doing it for internal or external reasons, it still a big epic fail in my book. Of course. The point of beating down black people is actually to disguise from white people that they re the real target of the ruling class. Black people are few in number and are poor. . And of course, while i expect white americans to manage to keep their wealth, there is the coming fact that whites will be in the minority by 2040. I think that the reason why the rw grass roots is acting so crazy is that your average white working class, especially in the hinterlands (flyover country, aka dumbfuckistan) has been backsliding economically, thanks to neoliberalism and all. That what the matter with kansas, and why people are turning increasingly to jesus and guns and a mythology about america past that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. . I don t think neolibealism has much to do with that situation, we could just as easily blame it on the neocons. I grew up in ohio, a part of that flyover country. And while i ve been getting blown away by the number of former classmates that have gone on to be quite religious (some that i never suspected, while the holy rollers in school seem to be pretty quiet about it now), i m not too sure what truly up with that. I blame globalization personally. Nobody explained it to the americans that not only the cost of your goods was going to be going down, you re level of living was going to go down too. The cheaper goods have hidden that little fact for the past 20 years, but it starting to catch up. That why if you lose your job at 50 now, you are going to have scrap by with a fast food job, and deal with the fact that your health insurance is covering a lot of shit that you now have to deal with, and getting the days off you need to get to the doctor if you can afford it is problematic. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. . Nader has always been a head case. Off the rails since the 70s at least. Obama has delivered some of what he proposed to do. I don t think that he understood that when people thought we would be out of iraq, it would be down to 0 troops. Not 50,000, not even 30,000. Maybe a few advisors numbering around a hundred. But essentially out. Which is why the rw is applauding what he has done so far, but his supporters not so much. Health care reform, even for the abortion that it truly is, still counts as an accomplishment. Not that i see myself voting for him again. And my vote certainly will not go towards a republican. The ron paul conservatives who understand that dismantling the empire. Let not forget his son rand. I m half of mind in agreeing with some of his outlooks. That he doesn t bother to do anything to try and educate his electorate before springing some of that shit on them, and not explaining in the little words the electorate uses to make sense. Hell, he doesn t even make use of the big words to really explain himself. Which is why he keeps shoving his foot in his mouth. I don t really expect him to win ky. Ron paul cd must be extremely eccentric and expect him to be as well. That just not going to float in the entire state of ky. And one would think that rand would be running a much better campaign unless he ignoring his father, or his father is refusing to even give him any hints. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. If they did, they would be listening to ron paul, and not to folks like sarah palin or glenn beck. As revolution inaction might say, i love you. . Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it ha hahahaha. Yeah, i used to believe that one too. But appears it makes not one iota of difference in practice. Exibit a harding election meant big bucks for big business. The anti-trust gains made by wilsonian progressives went out the door as a new age dawned for fat-cat tycoons and good old boys in the republican party. Ironically, though, many of harding pro-business policies hurt the american economy in the long run. First, the sudden free-for-all in the market led to speculation and corruption. Speculators began using future earnings on the stocks they owned money they did not even have yet to buy new stocks, a process known as buying on margin. This overspeculation, along with widespread corruption and faulty international finances, eventually led to the stock market crash of 1929 oh yeah, and don t this. The top marginal tax rate was slashed nearly in half five years before the slide. Sound familiar? Exibit b arguably, the united states main problem in vietnam was not poor strategy but rather the fact that it greatly underestimated viet cong tenacity. Although u. S. Leaders did indeed make a series of bad decisions in vietnam, not every aspect of the u. S. Strategy was unsound. Westmoreland war of attrition, for instance, did in fact have significant impact. However, the viet cong tenacity enabled it to draw the war out into a prolonged guerrilla conflict that the united states was ill equipped to deal with. Rather than hold permanent positions and fight along conventional lines, the viet cong harassed u. S. Troops incessantly in small groups, striking quickly and then disappearing into the jungle or the peasant population. With this dogged strategy, even a poor, third world nation was able to make significant headway against the world leading military superpower doomed if you do and doomed if you don t. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Shrug. I have a friend who has also managed to become a neocon (he takes the mantle and name freely), who thinks the main problem with vietnam was the south. Saigon wouldn t move their ass, so we bombed hanoi in retaliation. I m not too sure about that, but then, i never did study vietnam, and his information supposedly came from a general that was teaching history at osu in the 70s. Still, the issues with both iraq and afghanistan as that the actual and it doesn t help if it the wrong people that have forgotten history. . My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. Does that make alveda king a moustache to cover beck& ,s racism? I was gonna watch this spectacle on c-span, but animal planet had a stirring program on snails. Plastic is a state of something or other. . Glenn beck is positioning himself as the new messiah in america and a lot of americans, bog love em, are eating this stuff up like a dog licks at its own vomit. Elmer gantry remains one of my all-time favourite movies, but watching a real-life charlatan pull the wool over the eyes of the credulous is entertainment unbound. Mormons can sure be calculating, can t they? Own your words. . I think someone should design a flag with a drawing of a salamander and the caption, don& ,t tread on me. It would sell like hotcakes! Own your words. . I followed the link and saw a shirt that says, the bees know. Know what? How do find flowers? That you should eat your honey? Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Dunno. Apparently the new messiah sees bog light shining out of his ass in any random natural occurrence. Maybe it some secret code meant to fulfil the intent, as per the ad copy, of the tee-shirts nothing hacks of (sic) a lefty more than a t-shirt that dares poke fun at the one, denounce (sic) woodrow wilson or simply says glenn beck (sic) on it. Further annoy an already angry at the world lefty with any one of glenn fantastically antagonistic t- shirts. There you have it! Restoring honor with cryptic, fantastically antagonistic tees for just twenty-five smackers! Own your words. . Glenn beck is a mormon. Most evangelical christians do not consider mormons to be true christians because they believe that jesus came to the new world. I wonder how many of the crazies listening to beck know this. Actually mormon beliefs are pretty out there. My favorite is still the golden tablets delivered by the angel moroni. Turns out the term moron was not yet invented when joseph smith wrote the mormon books, although it has a greek root (the greek word moros, meaning dull). Judeo-christianity just like regular christianity, only insincerely 5% more inclusive! -- mc nally. My favorite is the whole business about planet kolob. A www. Shields-research link but why stop with mormons? All protestants are satan-worshipping heretic scum, i say. Bring back the inquisition! Stormtroopers of the counter-reformation, to arms!. Moses parting the red sea, jesus turning water into wine, golden tablets falling out of the sky in upstate new york. To me, these are all equally improbable and silly, but if i had to pick one to believe in, i d go with water into wine for the practical utility of getting the party started. Not that all present-day christians would agree. I once attended a bible study at my mother-in-law southern baptist church, where the pastor was expounding at length upon how episcopalians (whom he called whiskopalians, because they drink alcohol. Ha ha ha! ) are actually probably not going to hell. But the people assembled weren t buying it. Devil water is of the devil, after all. In that sense, mormons are probably closer brothers of the book. Despite the proprietary underwears and fringe polygamy, mormons share most of their moral panics with various and sundry right-wing christians. My step-father-in-law was somewhat distressed that he couldn t attend his son wedding when his son married a devout mormon in a temple, but he and my mother-in-law are far more concerned that my wife and i are bringing up our daughter without god. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . To help erase the not-so-distant memories of conservatives denouncing king as a communist, and an un-american who wanted to trample all over their freedom of association. Good luck with that. But primarily, he was hoping to stir the shit and make a splash, and in that he was wildly successful. And no, i don t believe that the guy who sees all sorts of sinister connections in his blackboard scribblings just happened to pick the anniversary of mlk speech. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Those are his words. This couldn t be more ironic, from the same guy that called obama a racist. I wonder who he reclaiming it from and to what purpose? Btw bs he didn t know this was the anniversary of mlk speech. But most importantly who is bankrolling this guy?? Well for one, rupert murdoch, one of the biggest money men backing the tea party and becks escapades. But that no secret, this self interested and high profile billionaire makes no secrets about wanting to eliminate government controls on his ability to make money unfettered from government regulations regardless who he tramples to get it. He is also interested in freeing himself from supporting the sick and elderly as it cuts too much into his monthly nut. So anyone that is willing to call for an end to democratic institutions is ok by him. A pair lesser known sugar daddies are the koch brothers of ny. These guys qualify as true invisible hands as described in historian kim phillips-fein book of the same title. Their combined wealth is only surpassed by gates and buffet in america. While great philanthropists they also spend their money on backing radical groups with an agenda to dismantle democratic institutions in the same vein as murdoch. There is a straight line from the john birch society (which their father served on the top governing body of) to the americans for prosperity foundation which has worked closely with the tea party (nothing wrong with that) since its inception. But it seems the foundations chief concern is for the prosperity of 2 americans in particular, not americans as a whole. It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. He is a charlatan and a provocateur who never met a fact he couldn t obscure. He is the 1984 version of a big brother pr man. He plays to the angry mob, he is not a leader in any sense of the word. Btw palin is being bankrolled by the same crowd, fed thru these foundations to keep the engine grinding out her message , as if it actually hers. So think about that for a minute, what really needs to happen is to take the country back from these billionaire sugar daddies trying to take away our birth right, get rid of their shills or at least expose them for what they are which is know nothing interlopers. **this post has taken or reworded portions of a frank rich op-ed piece that appeared in the ny times on sun 8 29 the billionaires bankrolling the tea party. It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. It because he preaches fear. And if there one thing that galvanizes ingnorant people, it fear. Will bunch talks about this in a recent essay let face it this country has long had its know-nothings and its birchers and its mccarthyites, but it never had gizmos like fox news or sarah palin twitter feed to fuel toxic ideas so far so fast. It time we admit these seemingly disconnected battles over anchor babies, mosques, and a black man in the oval office are all part of the same war against the other, and that we are in the fight of a lifetime. Beck, limbaugh, palin et al. Have judged their audience well, and they re playing to the basest instincts of a populace that is sadly composed of some of the dumbest fucks in the modern age. It isn t pretty now, and i shudder to think where it will take america. Own your words. . I m not inclined to classify the majority of people that i live and work with as morons or the dumbest fucks in the modern age just because they see things differently than i do. I do agree that our democracy is under threat (as are many things in our soceity) by the pure speed and huge volume of access and content now available to self interested powerful entities who are only concerned with becoming more powerful at our expense. But we ve always needed to be very vigilant in protecting our freedoms, nothing new there. I also agree that ruling (or influencing) by state of fear is as old as the hills, a tried and true method that will never go out of style (unfortunately). . I admire and respect anyone that concerned about the direction of their country. However, the sheer irrationality of birthers, those that think obama is a socialist, those that think obama is racist, those that think he secretly taking america down the road to islam, and those that believe any number of other completely baseless and spurious charges against obama, all drummed up by a right wing media machine slavering after power in any fashion they can, well, a lot of these folks, to my mind, are dumb fucks. For better or worse there always been a faction of americans who wear their stupidity as a badge of honour. In palin and beck they now have their totems. Good luck with all that. Own your words. . It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. He is a charlatan and a provocateur who never met a fact he couldn t obscure. He is the 1984 version of a big brother pr man. He plays to the angry mob, he is not a leader in any sense of the word. I disagree. I think he is a very skilled propagandist. I don t think of him as a smart man, but he is shrewd enough to know what his audience wants to hear and how to best deliver that message for maximum impact. You may think of him as a terrible actor and a mediocre entertainer, but his methods are effective when it comes to enriching himself and whipping up fear, anger and resentment in his target demographic. I love my dead gay chewbacca!. All snark aside, it takes some skill. He does it better than others in the same game. I love my dead gay chewbacca! . . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . More than anything else, though, our success will be claimed by who we are as a country. (president obama, commencement speech to west point cadets, may 22) the united states of america (also referred to as the united states, the u. S. , the usa, the states, or america) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central north america, where its forty-eight contiguous states and washington, d. C. , the capital district, lie between the pacific and atlantic oceans. But in the end i will be released. The reason ill be released is the same reason you think ill be convicted. (lord of war, yuri orlov quote) is anybody following the victor bout, arms dealer, case? For that case is becoming kind-a weird, like one of them hollywood screenings. Quick recap victor bout, born somewhere in 1967, works first as a translator in the soviet army, than goes the red-bloodied capitalist path, selling arms if recent pics are anything to go by lost a bit of weight in thai prison since then. Week before last, thai ambassador in the us is called for by the state department, and told that the extradition to the us of mr bout is of the highest priority. That friday a thai court rules mr bout to be extradited to the us, pronto (or whatever that term is in the thai language). The russkis grumble that it is all unlawful and political, having to do with very strong outside pressure and such, if it wasnt such a lamentable situation, victor should return to the (warm? Welcoming? ) motherland and da. Hooray! Yells us media, with author of a book on the man being quoted in the ny times as saying that us authorities became aware in the mid-1990s that he victor bout had fundamentally altered the way wars were being waged. He was flying in planeloads of this stuff. There was a lot of alarm that we were facing something new. It was the privatization of warfare. So far, so good. But today a strange, short item in the financial times as a us justice dept aircraft is waiting on the tarmac of bangkok airport, squabbling among different thai agencies is going on. Quote a us legal manoeuvre of filing secondary charges against mr bout in case the primary extradition case had failed is stopping swift extradition and could see him go free, end quote (the news, and interesting background, is confirmed by the asian times, here) huh? Is mr bout now coming to america, or not?. Onward christian soldiers. Or you& ,ll be punishedwhen major general james chambers was the commanding general at ft. Eustis, he instituted a quarterly event called the commanding generals spiritual fitness concert. . Your house better be your castle, because it& ,s a lousy investmentthe good news is that real estate values will recover. The bad news is that things will never be like they were in the 20th century for the real estate market. . Flotilla war, part iiyoull recall the furor which broke over what happened to an attempt to run an israeli blockade of gaza three months ago. Get ready to get your rancor back on as yet another humanitarian aid ship sets sail for gaza. . Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . August primaries brought more unwelcome news to republican establishment types and more joy to tea party supporters. Except for john mccains trouncing of his uber-right opponent by 24 points in arizona, tea party favourites tended to win in republican primaries. Consider what happened to senator lisa murkowski of alaska. Running against previously unknown joe miller, who was endorsed by sarah palin and by tea party express, murkowski spent as little as possible on her campaign until just before primary day, even as miller successfully cast her as too liberal and part of the problem in an out-of-control washington. She now looks like she will lose her race, as 16,000 absentee ballots not scheduled to be counted until 31 august would have to break strongly her way for her to overcome millers current lead. . In florida, billionaire health care investor rick scott easily won his partys nomination for governor against gop insider bill mccollum while marco rubio easily won for senate, garnering more votes personally than all democrats in floridas primary combined. Republicans in florida seem much more engaged than democrats, but they will have to be to overcome democratic leads in voter registration. Colorados senate primary earlier in august was won by ken buck, who wants tea party supporters to know that he wont abandon them now even though he needs to broaden his support if he expects to win in november. Establishment republicans want gubernatorial primary winner dan maes to step aside and let someone who could actually win run, but buck backs maes. Who will win this ongoing republican civil war? Will tea party support help candidates in general elections or will it harm them?. So! I currently reside in the socialist-fascist republic of alaska. (*) for those of you who are curious about joe miller surprise triumph over the incumbent murkowski, here is some additional context 1. Ballot measure 2 regards sexy teen delicious edible fetus abortion. Obviously that a glib way to describe an issue that is very emotional to both sides, but one thing that is generally accepted nationwide is that certain social-issue ballot measures will increase voter-turnout from certain demographics. As such, it seems that the opportunity to participate in an abortion legislation attracted more family values conservatives than a regular boring-ass primary would. The social conservative voters who turned out to vote yes on 2(tm) were likely also motivated to vote miller, as murkowski is one of the pro-choice gop women who still holds office. 2. The palin factor. If you haven t seen the recent vanityfair takedown of governor palin political ambition vis a vis alaska, its worth a read. I have a joke as an outsider who lives here there are only 5,000 people in alaska, and all of them went to high school together. Since there are less than a million people in-state, and many of us are required by our jobs to travel to strange and exotic places around the state, you get the feeling you are living in a small town that is the size of iran. Anyway! Almost every born-and-raised alaskan i know has a palin story. Example my current shawty has a (late) younger brother, who happened to have teenager-in-love romantically involvement with the eldest palin progeny. Before 2006, mrs. Governor grizzly mama was not-as-loathed in-state as she currently is. However! Its also worth noting that enough people here (and especially in the tiny sample of gop primaries) have an actual connection to that family that they would vote not-vote for miller purely based on social niceties. 3. Murkowski. There is also the weird nexus wherein governor palin defeated lisa murkowski father, who by all accounts, was part of an extremely corrupt old boys network. Remember--in 2006, sarah palin won a primary against an incumbent governor, and people up here haven t forgotten how dirty murkowski was, and how his daughter got her senate seat in the first place. Alaskans may have turned on sarah the person, but in many ways, sarah the politician still represents a changing of the guard, so the hold nose, vote lesser evil definitely applies here. If you are interested in a not-unreasonable analysis of how murkowski blew a 30 point lead in 2 months, read this article by an alaskan. 4. Scott mcadams. The mayor of sitka is the democratic candidate, and there are some theories floating around that he may win. Half of this is just batshit-hoping, assuming that alaskans would be scared off by some of joe miller more rightist sentiments. The other half is that it isn t completely implausible that mcadams will comport himself well, and that the same population that frequently elects somewhat centrist democrats will go ahead and freak out the gop partisans who have already penciled this one in. In conclusion, alaskans are weirdos. No wonder i like it here, sort of. (*) i call alaska socialist , since it is completely dependent on the federal government for handouts, and the state also straight up gives out cash to its residents. The narrative justification is that heating bills in the winter are so damn insane that handing free cheese to residents will prevent their freezing, but the reality is, alaska greedily accepts federal money but won t pitch in for many actual civic improvements, but at least this happens. I also call alaska fascist , since between private multinationals and native corporations, there are huge swaths of alaska where private businesses run the show, including law enforcement up on the slope, you can be pulled over by cops who are actually bp employees, and you don t have constitutional rights--iraqi and pashtun detainees have better chances with cia agents than alaskans have with business police. Idanza y musica!. It understandable that you might have that impression you re in the road business, so your business takes you where there are roads. In alaska, that a relatively limited subset of the state (geographically, at least. ) i m in a different part of the state where murkowski connections are more common. In any case, i think you re overestimating the importance of acquaintanceship in alaska politics. In my experience (as another outsider moved to the state and having lived here for some time (7 years)) alaskans are used to having a lot more access to and contact with their politicians than ordinary people were in the other places i ve lived. For example, i ve got a thank-you note from ted stevens up on my fridge for the irony value more than anything else having had some minor contact with him doesn t mean i approved of the man political shenanigans or would blindly vote for him. As far as i can tell, miller ran a pretty energetic grass-roots campaign and murkowski, well. She didn t. There an on-line community message board that serves this area and it was consistently full of pro-miller letters from local residents. There one other thing that may have killed sen. Murkowski in her primary battle as far as i can tell it certainly didn t help and as close as the race is it might have made the difference between losing narrowly and winning narrowly. S. 881 is a bill, sponsored by murkowski, concerning the conveyance of public lands in southeast alaska, primarily parcels which are currently part of the tongass national forest, to private ownership under the sealaska corporation, an alaska native corporation representing shareholders from the alaska native population of southeast alaska. Without taking a position on the bill, the history of which is somewhat complicated, here are the basics as i understand them s. 881 is intended to provide sealaska shareholders with lands that they were supposed to have received under the 1971 alaska native claims settlement act (ancsa. ) however, the bill gave sealaska corp. Substantial say in the selection of the lands which would be conveyed to them and their choices ignited a firestorm of controversy in many small communities in se alaska where many locals who were not sealaska shareholders felt that the conveyance would take away public lands currently very important to those communities for recreation and subsistence hunting and fishing. Other opposition came from environmental groups, as many of the lands selected were sensitive forest areas and it is presumed the corporation duty to manage assets for the benefit of its shareholders would likely lead to logging in many areas where it is now off-limits. Traditionally, se alaska has been a fairly reliable political stronghold for the murkowski family former senator and governor frank murkowski grew up in ketchikan and many of his political choices were seen by residents of se as protecting the interests of se alaska against the more populous (and therefore economically and politically powerful) areas surrounding anchorage and the matsu valley (i. E. Palin country. ) but s. 881 has been very unpopular in some parts of southeast, especially the small communities on the north half of prince of wales island. It not inconceivable to me that murkowski sponsorship of s. 881 may have lost her enough votes in se alaska to have swung the incredibly close primary vote. . You re in the road business, so your business takes you where there are roads. In alaska, that a relatively limited subset of the state (geographically, at least. ) sort of--i m in transportation, which includes a lot of aviation jobs--i m headed off to king cove in a few week time, and although there are roads there, i ll be doing the science on an airstrip they ve got. My 2010 work has been about 10% highway , and 90% airports , and lots of my colleagues spend more time in the bush than on the grid. I think you re overestimating the importance of acquaintanceship in alaska politics. In my experience (as another outsider moved to the state and having lived here for some time (7 years)) alaskans are used to having a lot more access to and contact with their politicians than ordinary people were in the other places i ve lived. Well, my joke about the entirety of alaska being one small town is. A joke, but i don t quite get how you think i m overestimating personal connections, then in your very next sentence, acknowledge how alaskans are accustomed to face-time. What am i missing? That seaalaska stuff is intriguing--it dovetails nicely with my quip about how fascism and socialism are the true state religions up here, but social conservatism and the tendency for alaskans to deputize themselves as frontier folk and self-reliant keep many of them blind to how much of a welfare state we live in. Granted, there are a sizable amount of people who do live off the land up here, but when it comes to the folks who live in the modernized parts of the state, there is a huge disconnect between how dependent they are on outside , and how they perceive themselves as homesteaders. One of my interns this summer was a likable young chap from haines, and his opinions regarding the central part of alaska were less than charitable. Beyond the solidarity that alaskans have regarding we are alaska, fuck america! , the intra-state rivalries here are hilarious! I always welcome your thoughts regarding the 907. Now that it looks like i m going to be spending a significant part of my adulthood up here, the more i can learn how to get along with these weirdos can only assist me. And as something of an abrasive east-coaster, it always helps me to mind my manners. Thanks for the links! Idanza y musica!. But i don t quite get how you think i m overestimating personal connections, then in your very next sentence, acknowledge how alaskans are accustomed to face-time. What am i missing? . I tend to avoid the inflammatory labels fascism and socialism but can completely to agree that, as a former outsider (and to many here, i ll always be an outsider) looking in at alaska politics, the cognitive dissonance many alaskans reflexively embrace would give me whiplash and nowhere is this more evident to me than in the glaring gap between political reality and alaskans beloved self-image as ruggedly self-reliant frontierspeople. Despite the obliviousness, sometimes hypocrisy, about economic issues there are some good things about alaska political climate the same lingering frontier attitude that people hold on to generally means people here are much less prone than people in other states i ve lived in to tolerate state intrusion into personal lifestyle decisions. Tolerance for different styles and a live and let live attitude still, for the most part, prevail. (disclaimer i m not sure whether that true of everywhere in the state, and suspect there are parts where it may not be, but it seems to still be in my little corner currently. ). Who will win this ongoing republican civil war? Democrats, or so you would think. I can only hope that conservatives wake the fuck up and finally reject crazy as a governing principle before it does any real lasting damage here. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Pew research center polls often invite comments, and its latest poll was no different. It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. All of which leads sensible political analysts to wonder why obama doesnt wear his religion on his sleeve. You know, start teaching sunday school classes, putting my boss is a jewish carpenter bumper stickers on air force one, claiming jesus as his favourite philosopher, or at least joining some local washington, d. C. , church. Reverend franklin graham, son of famed preacher billy graham, has prayed with obama, but notes i think the presidents problem is that he was born a muslim, his father was a muslim. The seed of islam is passed through the father like the seed of judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a muslim, his father gave him an islamic name. . And there you have it. How much more proof do you need? Barack obama socialist? Anti-christ? Muslim, or muslim apostate? Meanwhile, after the media did its best to fan the flames of hate against muslims, the predictable results have occurred. A cab driver in new york city was stabbed, a mosque in modesto was vandalized, and so on. . 20% theory one in five people are dumb as box of rocks. This is also the proportion of americans who think the sun orbits the earth. These are the people responsible for perpetuating reality tv. 40% theory along with the previous 20% there is an additional 20% that, while appearing intelligent, fail to apply critical thinking skills to daily decisions. This group largely treats political parties no different than their favorite sports team. No matter what, the team must win. Logic and self interest be damned. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. It& ,s 27%, actually. Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . You may be on to something 26 percent of adults, by contrast, said they believe palin would be effective president. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Actually, the earth and the sun orbit each other. So let me know where i can mail your box of rocks, smartass. . Folks, i m getting tired of the whole fantasy genre. First it was the eye of sauron. Now we have the seed of islam. Can t we just drop all of these idiots into the volcano and be done with it? Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Obama is an educated and intelligent man, so it goes without saying that he& ,s only paying lip service to the ridiculous folk superstitions of the flyovers. Thankfully we live in a secular nation where one has the freedom of choice in the matter, right?. As i said in the sub-q, i don t think this about race, or even about religion. The problem is that americans don t feel they know obama very well. And they have good reason to be uncertain. Obama got a blitz of good press during the campaign, where he promised to turn away from partisanship and move toward the center. Instead, he let reid and pelosi take the reins of policy, and they steered left as hard as they could. This is actually worse than if obama had pushed his own policies and agenda, he seems like more of a cipher for letting others do the leading. The few glimpses we do get of him are not encouraging. He gets wrong-footed regularly, apologizes for america when abroad, insults americans at home, snubs reliable allies like the british, and generally acts like jimmy carter with even less sense. The muslim nonsense, like the birther nonsense, is a sublimation of a bigger doubt. Many of us wonder if obama even likes america. Bush was widely seen as loving america, when a majority of americans parted company with him, it was over huge expenditures and dubious proposals, not over the idea that he might hate us as a nation. (i m sure quite a few plastards thought exactly that, but we are speaking here of majority opinion, not of tinfoil-hat lunatics. ) we may not have liked what he did, but we felt we at least knew where he stood. With obama, we got bigger expenditures and even more dubious proposals, which was not exactly what we were hoping for. It is all too easy to picture obama mouthing the necessary minimum of platitudes to establish himself as a patriot, meanwhile sneering at us in private, and sometimes even in public. This is pretty much what the left wanted him to do in 2008. That trick works right up until you get in power and begin acting very differently from what you promised. 2010 is going to be a slaughter for the democrats. If the republicans don t entirely drop the ball, 2012 will be a similar slaughter. Of course, that a big if. . This is what you think when your only source of news is the right-wing nuttosphere. Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . The americans who feel they don t know obama very well either don t care much, or are, yes, preoccupied with how his funny name and or look make him seem like the other. Obama had published two books prior to his nomination in 2008, one of which was an autobiography published in 1995. Since elected, he set out to do pretty much what he said he would do. Where the 90 degree angle turn in promise vs policy, ala bush pre-election warnings about nation building and an arrogant foreign policy, clinton post-election championing of nafta, daddy bush new world order, or reagan ballooning of the federal deficit? Where we might agree somewhat is in regards to obama efficacy and leadership. In handing over healthcare reform wholesale to congresscritters, we ve gained a mandate and lost hope of a government-provided alternative to private insurance. If you come to the correct conclusion that guantanamo is a stain on the legitimacy of us foreign policy, and you say you re going to close it, you should actually close it. There are other examples, but the one closest to my nerd-heart is his initial rollback of bush ridiculous plans for manned nasa missions to the moon and mars, then his reversal when faced with isolated criticism from blowhards insisting that space exploration is irrelevant if we don t have people there to play gags on each other with weightlessness, eat out of a tube, and poop into a plastic bag. I m willing to cut some slack on efficacy, given that the economic and military mess he had to contend with is only approached in the last 100 years by fdr and possibly nixon. But the embarrassing and destructive compromises, where none are even necessary, are disheartening. As for wondering whether obama hates america, that every bit as retarded as wondering whether bush did. If obama had, he likely would ve done what every bona fide america-hater of means did in the days before sarkozy move to france. The cling to guns and religion gotcha comment outed by the huffington post was made out of sympathy and and pity for those people, with the idea that improving the economic and educational situation for them would bring them to less-crazy viewpoints. You can say that that naive and even silly (i do), and nobody likes to be pitied, but obama wasn t sneering. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Amd how do you know this? Plenary gnosis? Obama may or may not be proud of america, but it certainly the case that many of his supporters don t have much use for their actual countrymen. If you ever wonder why you re seen as unpatriotic and even hostile to american interests, take a good long look at what you say and do. Since elected, he set out to do pretty much what he said he would do. . I& ,m talking about how he is seen, not about what he believes. His image will determine his political fate and that of his party. What is in his heart is for him alone to know. . Anyone who felt they didn t know obama very well before the election and cared to get to know him better had a trove of information to study, compared to most potus candidates in the last dozen or so elections. He not made the wtf post-election policy shifts that his predecessors did. His biggest disappointments have been in starting out in the right direction, and not following through. No gnosis needed! But you don t actually care about what obama thinking, you want to discuss some subset of obama supporters, bracketed by weasel words. Fine. Many of palin supporters are cheering for a second, much bloodier us civil war. Furthermore, the fans of my local sports team are very decent folk, while the fans of yours are animalistic hooligans. Also, thanks for the advice to introspect, but i do take a good long look at my protest signs before i hit the rally (that me, sneering). What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . In other words, you have no actual proof to offer. A trove indeed! A book, a few years as a legislator, none whatever as an executive. Sounds like plenty to me, yessir! As for the protest signs. Spelling flames don t make you look any less snobbish, elitist, or inimical to a lot of people. Like most psychopaths, you don t understand you have a problem, hence you won t fix it. That all right. You re about to get fixed in november. . The seven presidents preceding obama each had more executive experience than he did, and hence gave their voters much more of a picture of how they would behave in office. George w. Bush governor of texas, 1995-2000. Bill clinton governor of arkansas, 1979-1981 and 1983-1992. George h. W. Bush director of central intelligence, 1976-1977, vice-president of the united states, 1981-1989. Jimmy carter governor of georgia, 1971-1975. Gerald ford vice-president of the united states, 1973-1974. (oh, well, that what happens sometimes when the vp has to step up. ) richard nixon vice-president of the united states, 1953-1961. Lyndon b. Johnson vice-president of the united states, 1961-1963. So, there any proof. I ll be happy to go to more effort and give more analysis if you bother to do any work on this at all, or back your mouth with anything but even more mouth. Until then, stfu, you re too quick to demand that your opponents provide proof at a level you re unwilling or unable to do. . I asked for proof, not any work. You only provided the latter. You re the who made all the assertions that people were justified in thinking that obama real persona is mysterious and that perhaps he doesn t really love america, so the onus of proof is on you. Experience serving as governor of arkansas or georgia (governor of texas, not quite so much) sheds light on how well someone can put together large teams of people who will achieve the goals they re assigned. It amusing that you think a term as vice-potus shows either efficacy or ideology, since prior to cheney, the job of vp was mostly to stay out of the limelight and out of the way while being assigned narrow, often dirty, tasks. Moreover, the cia tends to be, you know, secretive about what they re doing and how well it being done. You crack me up. Maybe go watch the human centipede again and make comments in the subqueue. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . As usual, you only demand proof in order to denigrate whatever is presented, without doing anything yourself. If you want more, you ll have to do more. This isn t the first time you ve pulled this trick on me, but it will be the last. Welcome to my killfile. . Whatever. I gave more far more consideration to points you presented than you did mine. Anyone who surprised at obama keynesian-style stimulus or pushing for heavy government involvement in health care is as willfully ignorant as someone who thought he d pull out of afghanistan upon taking office. And thinking he maybe hates america is retarded. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Vice president of the united states is not an executive position. It usually isn t, it isn t this time, and it isn t written that way in the constitution, but it certainly was under the last administration. . Apparently they ignite readily among disgruntled democrats. According to opensecrets, he& ,s donated about ,000 to democrats since 2000, including a ,000 donation to the dnc in 2000, a 0 donation to howard dean in 2003, and a ,000 donation to john kerry in 2004. His only recent contribution to a republican candidate was 0 in 2002 to retired rep. Jim kolbe, then lone openly gay republican in congress. . Perhaps enright had a vision or rapture on the road to kandahar. Maybe it was too much drink coupled with the experience of seeing a war up-close. Whatever happened, we will find out more when his diary is examined. Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Either way, i doubt the blame can be laid at the feet of the media as glibly as thalia sought to do. Looks like the mussulmen are right about alcohol, though. That stuff leads to sin. Hey, even the paynim will happen upon the truth once in a while. . Bac, transforming experience, and a hyperbolic media. Bad mixture, there. Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Only two of those are facts, and only those two are likely connected to the incident. The third is an inept attempt at blame-shifting. Prove it or shut it. . If arrpoximately 50% of the population is republican (based on last election, + - 5%) and 31% of them believe this and 36% of conservative republicans believe this, then why is it that only 18% of americans belive this (according to pew)? Are the 2 groups the only people that believe this because the totals of both should be more than 18%. And is it only republicans that believe this? That seems odd as bad info should be received by many parties as a fact if presented that way, not by party line. The source of 31% of republicans is a local rag sheet from monroe georgia and appears to be an op-ed piece by a local writer. The story throws around a lot of numbers but does not quote any sources, either national polls or druken bbq debates. I think stans barber shop on the corner of the 1 stop light in monroe had a poll and 100% of old white guys waiting to get their weekly trim thought obama was a black panther and is related to angela davis. And the christian science monitor starts off with a misleading headline 1 in 5 believe. 18% is more like 1 in 6 (5. 55. ). Is there a reason for parties exagerating the data from a poll? So what does it say that slightly more people (a statistical variation perhaps? ) think obama is muslim this year than did last year? It seems an obtuse data point that leads nowhere. Or it could lead anywhere, just not anyplace in particular. Pretty soon people are going to be voting and then we ll see what people really think, well that might be overstating things. But we ll definitely see what a lot of people think about the results and how to interpret them. . . The other weird thing about that poll is that the number who answered the question don t know went from 34% to 43% over the past year. How does that happen? Hasn t this been discussed more over the past year, not less? Amnesia outbreak? To their credit in the back of the report they do talk about their methodology and actually give their confidence interval, which is 95%. So you also need to consider there is a 5% chance the results of this poll are crap. Http drlunch the site that helps you decide where to go to lunch!. I have no opinion concerning the accuracy of the figures you are questioning but would like to point out that you are conflating people who voted for a republican candidate in the last election with republicans , which is obviously not right. The usual criterion for the latter category is declared party affiliation, which is generally substantially lower than popular vote share. . Republican party identification remains near an all time historical low. Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . I have no opinion concerning the accuracy of the figures you are questioning but would like to point out that you are conflating people who voted for a republican candidate in the last election with republicans , which is obviously not right. The usual criterion for the latter category is declared party affiliation, which is generally substantially lower than popular vote share. . Well that logic holds true for everyone that votes, 50% + - 5% is based on the results of the people that voted for the republican voters. I took it on faith that everyone knows those aren& ,t all registered republicans no more so than the citizens who voted for the democratic candidate are registered democrats. . And his religion is corporatist-imperialist. Also known as devil-worshipping church of satan treasonist. It& ,s the religion of the american ruling class. Bush, cheney, graham, murdoch, mccain basically every republitard and demonrat out there. . That means whatever i got is contagious! Time to worry, i& ,d say. Lol. . . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . August primaries brought more unwelcome news to republican establishment types and more joy to tea party supporters. Except for john mccains trouncing of his uber-right opponent by 24 points in arizona, tea party favourites tended to win in republican primaries. Consider what happened to senator lisa murkowski of alaska. Running against previously unknown joe miller, who was endorsed by sarah palin and by tea party express, murkowski spent as little as possible on her campaign until just before primary day, even as miller successfully cast her as too liberal and part of the problem in an out-of-control washington. She now looks like she will lose her race, as 16,000 absentee ballots not scheduled to be counted until 31 august would have to break strongly her way for her to overcome millers current lead. . In florida, billionaire health care investor rick scott easily won his partys nomination for governor against gop insider bill mccollum while marco rubio easily won for senate, garnering more votes personally than all democrats in floridas primary combined. Republicans in florida seem much more engaged than democrats, but they will have to be to overcome democratic leads in voter registration. Colorados senate primary earlier in august was won by ken buck, who wants tea party supporters to know that he wont abandon them now even though he needs to broaden his support if he expects to win in november. Establishment republicans want gubernatorial primary winner dan maes to step aside and let someone who could actually win run, but buck backs maes. Who will win this ongoing republican civil war? Will tea party support help candidates in general elections or will it harm them?. So! I currently reside in the socialist-fascist republic of alaska. (*) for those of you who are curious about joe miller surprise triumph over the incumbent murkowski, here is some additional context 1. Ballot measure 2 regards sexy teen delicious edible fetus abortion. Obviously that a glib way to describe an issue that is very emotional to both sides, but one thing that is generally accepted nationwide is that certain social-issue ballot measures will increase voter-turnout from certain demographics. As such, it seems that the opportunity to participate in an abortion legislation attracted more family values conservatives than a regular boring-ass primary would. The social conservative voters who turned out to vote yes on 2(tm) were likely also motivated to vote miller, as murkowski is one of the pro-choice gop women who still holds office. 2. The palin factor. If you haven t seen the recent vanityfair takedown of governor palin political ambition vis a vis alaska, its worth a read. I have a joke as an outsider who lives here there are only 5,000 people in alaska, and all of them went to high school together. Since there are less than a million people in-state, and many of us are required by our jobs to travel to strange and exotic places around the state, you get the feeling you are living in a small town that is the size of iran. Anyway! Almost every born-and-raised alaskan i know has a palin story. Example my current shawty has a (late) younger brother, who happened to have teenager-in-love romantically involvement with the eldest palin progeny. Before 2006, mrs. Governor grizzly mama was not-as-loathed in-state as she currently is. However! Its also worth noting that enough people here (and especially in the tiny sample of gop primaries) have an actual connection to that family that they would vote not-vote for miller purely based on social niceties. 3. Murkowski. There is also the weird nexus wherein governor palin defeated lisa murkowski father, who by all accounts, was part of an extremely corrupt old boys network. Remember--in 2006, sarah palin won a primary against an incumbent governor, and people up here haven t forgotten how dirty murkowski was, and how his daughter got her senate seat in the first place. Alaskans may have turned on sarah the person, but in many ways, sarah the politician still represents a changing of the guard, so the hold nose, vote lesser evil definitely applies here. If you are interested in a not-unreasonable analysis of how murkowski blew a 30 point lead in 2 months, read this article by an alaskan. 4. Scott mcadams. The mayor of sitka is the democratic candidate, and there are some theories floating around that he may win. Half of this is just batshit-hoping, assuming that alaskans would be scared off by some of joe miller more rightist sentiments. The other half is that it isn t completely implausible that mcadams will comport himself well, and that the same population that frequently elects somewhat centrist democrats will go ahead and freak out the gop partisans who have already penciled this one in. In conclusion, alaskans are weirdos. No wonder i like it here, sort of. (*) i call alaska socialist , since it is completely dependent on the federal government for handouts, and the state also straight up gives out cash to its residents. The narrative justification is that heating bills in the winter are so damn insane that handing free cheese to residents will prevent their freezing, but the reality is, alaska greedily accepts federal money but won t pitch in for many actual civic improvements, but at least this happens. I also call alaska fascist , since between private multinationals and native corporations, there are huge swaths of alaska where private businesses run the show, including law enforcement up on the slope, you can be pulled over by cops who are actually bp employees, and you don t have constitutional rights--iraqi and pashtun detainees have better chances with cia agents than alaskans have with business police. Idanza y musica!. It understandable that you might have that impression you re in the road business, so your business takes you where there are roads. In alaska, that a relatively limited subset of the state (geographically, at least. ) i m in a different part of the state where murkowski connections are more common. In any case, i think you re overestimating the importance of acquaintanceship in alaska politics. In my experience (as another outsider moved to the state and having lived here for some time (7 years)) alaskans are used to having a lot more access to and contact with their politicians than ordinary people were in the other places i ve lived. For example, i ve got a thank-you note from ted stevens up on my fridge for the irony value more than anything else having had some minor contact with him doesn t mean i approved of the man political shenanigans or would blindly vote for him. As far as i can tell, miller ran a pretty energetic grass-roots campaign and murkowski, well. She didn t. There an on-line community message board that serves this area and it was consistently full of pro-miller letters from local residents. There one other thing that may have killed sen. Murkowski in her primary battle as far as i can tell it certainly didn t help and as close as the race is it might have made the difference between losing narrowly and winning narrowly. S. 881 is a bill, sponsored by murkowski, concerning the conveyance of public lands in southeast alaska, primarily parcels which are currently part of the tongass national forest, to private ownership under the sealaska corporation, an alaska native corporation representing shareholders from the alaska native population of southeast alaska. Without taking a position on the bill, the history of which is somewhat complicated, here are the basics as i understand them s. 881 is intended to provide sealaska shareholders with lands that they were supposed to have received under the 1971 alaska native claims settlement act (ancsa. ) however, the bill gave sealaska corp. Substantial say in the selection of the lands which would be conveyed to them and their choices ignited a firestorm of controversy in many small communities in se alaska where many locals who were not sealaska shareholders felt that the conveyance would take away public lands currently very important to those communities for recreation and subsistence hunting and fishing. Other opposition came from environmental groups, as many of the lands selected were sensitive forest areas and it is presumed the corporation duty to manage assets for the benefit of its shareholders would likely lead to logging in many areas where it is now off-limits. Traditionally, se alaska has been a fairly reliable political stronghold for the murkowski family former senator and governor frank murkowski grew up in ketchikan and many of his political choices were seen by residents of se as protecting the interests of se alaska against the more populous (and therefore economically and politically powerful) areas surrounding anchorage and the matsu valley (i. E. Palin country. ) but s. 881 has been very unpopular in some parts of southeast, especially the small communities on the north half of prince of wales island. It not inconceivable to me that murkowski sponsorship of s. 881 may have lost her enough votes in se alaska to have swung the incredibly close primary vote. . You re in the road business, so your business takes you where there are roads. In alaska, that a relatively limited subset of the state (geographically, at least. ) sort of--i m in transportation, which includes a lot of aviation jobs--i m headed off to king cove in a few week time, and although there are roads there, i ll be doing the science on an airstrip they ve got. My 2010 work has been about 10% highway , and 90% airports , and lots of my colleagues spend more time in the bush than on the grid. I think you re overestimating the importance of acquaintanceship in alaska politics. In my experience (as another outsider moved to the state and having lived here for some time (7 years)) alaskans are used to having a lot more access to and contact with their politicians than ordinary people were in the other places i ve lived. Well, my joke about the entirety of alaska being one small town is. A joke, but i don t quite get how you think i m overestimating personal connections, then in your very next sentence, acknowledge how alaskans are accustomed to face-time. What am i missing? That seaalaska stuff is intriguing--it dovetails nicely with my quip about how fascism and socialism are the true state religions up here, but social conservatism and the tendency for alaskans to deputize themselves as frontier folk and self-reliant keep many of them blind to how much of a welfare state we live in. Granted, there are a sizable amount of people who do live off the land up here, but when it comes to the folks who live in the modernized parts of the state, there is a huge disconnect between how dependent they are on outside , and how they perceive themselves as homesteaders. One of my interns this summer was a likable young chap from haines, and his opinions regarding the central part of alaska were less than charitable. Beyond the solidarity that alaskans have regarding we are alaska, fuck america! , the intra-state rivalries here are hilarious! I always welcome your thoughts regarding the 907. Now that it looks like i m going to be spending a significant part of my adulthood up here, the more i can learn how to get along with these weirdos can only assist me. And as something of an abrasive east-coaster, it always helps me to mind my manners. Thanks for the links! Idanza y musica! . But i don t quite get how you think i m overestimating personal connections, then in your very next sentence, acknowledge how alaskans are accustomed to face-time. What am i missing?. I tend to avoid the inflammatory labels fascism and socialism but can completely to agree that, as a former outsider (and to many here, i ll always be an outsider) looking in at alaska politics, the cognitive dissonance many alaskans reflexively embrace would give me whiplash and nowhere is this more evident to me than in the glaring gap between political reality and alaskans beloved self-image as ruggedly self-reliant frontierspeople. Despite the obliviousness, sometimes hypocrisy, about economic issues there are some good things about alaska political climate the same lingering frontier attitude that people hold on to generally means people here are much less prone than people in other states i ve lived in to tolerate state intrusion into personal lifestyle decisions. Tolerance for different styles and a live and let live attitude still, for the most part, prevail. (disclaimer i m not sure whether that true of everywhere in the state, and suspect there are parts where it may not be, but it seems to still be in my little corner currently. ). Who will win this ongoing republican civil war? Democrats, or so you would think. I can only hope that conservatives wake the fuck up and finally reject crazy as a governing principle before it does any real lasting damage here. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . But in the end i will be released. The reason ill be released is the same reason you think ill be convicted. (lord of war, yuri orlov quote) is anybody following the victor bout, arms dealer, case? For that case is becoming kind-a weird, like one of them hollywood screenings. Quick recap victor bout, born somewhere in 1967, works first as a translator in the soviet army, than goes the red-bloodied capitalist path, selling arms if recent pics are anything to go by lost a bit of weight in thai prison since then. Week before last, thai ambassador in the us is called for by the state department, and told that the extradition to the us of mr bout is of the highest priority. That friday a thai court rules mr bout to be extradited to the us, pronto (or whatever that term is in the thai language). The russkis grumble that it is all unlawful and political, having to do with very strong outside pressure and such, if it wasnt such a lamentable situation, victor should return to the (warm? Welcoming? ) motherland and da. Hooray! Yells us media, with author of a book on the man being quoted in the ny times as saying that us authorities became aware in the mid-1990s that he victor bout had fundamentally altered the way wars were being waged. He was flying in planeloads of this stuff. There was a lot of alarm that we were facing something new. It was the privatization of warfare. So far, so good. But today a strange, short item in the financial times as a us justice dept aircraft is waiting on the tarmac of bangkok airport, squabbling among different thai agencies is going on. Quote a us legal manoeuvre of filing secondary charges against mr bout in case the primary extradition case had failed is stopping swift extradition and could see him go free, end quote (the news, and interesting background, is confirmed by the asian times, here) huh? Is mr bout now coming to america, or not?. After all, he is the laisseziest of the laissez faire capitalists. At least he was making sure the thugs who bought the guns had the money to pay for rather than doing what the us does by just giving them away. A pie on every plate -- paul byron for president in 2012!. Pew research center polls often invite comments, and its latest poll was no different. It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. All of which leads sensible political analysts to wonder why obama doesnt wear his religion on his sleeve. You know, start teaching sunday school classes, putting my boss is a jewish carpenter bumper stickers on air force one, claiming jesus as his favourite philosopher, or at least joining some local washington, d. C. , church. Reverend franklin graham, son of famed preacher billy graham, has prayed with obama, but notes i think the presidents problem is that he was born a muslim, his father was a muslim. The seed of islam is passed through the father like the seed of judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a muslim, his father gave him an islamic name. . And there you have it. How much more proof do you need? Barack obama socialist? Anti-christ? Muslim, or muslim apostate? Meanwhile, after the media did its best to fan the flames of hate against muslims, the predictable results have occurred. A cab driver in new york city was stabbed, a mosque in modesto was vandalized, and so on. . 20% theory one in five people are dumb as box of rocks. This is also the proportion of americans who think the sun orbits the earth. These are the people responsible for perpetuating reality tv. 40% theory along with the previous 20% there is an additional 20% that, while appearing intelligent, fail to apply critical thinking skills to daily decisions. This group largely treats political parties no different than their favorite sports team. No matter what, the team must win. Logic and self interest be damned. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. It& ,s 27%, actually. Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . You may be on to something 26 percent of adults, by contrast, said they believe palin would be effective president. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Actually, the earth and the sun orbit each other. So let me know where i can mail your box of rocks, smartass. . Folks, i m getting tired of the whole fantasy genre. First it was the eye of sauron. Now we have the seed of islam. Can t we just drop all of these idiots into the volcano and be done with it? Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Obama is an educated and intelligent man, so it goes without saying that he& ,s only paying lip service to the ridiculous folk superstitions of the flyovers. Thankfully we live in a secular nation where one has the freedom of choice in the matter, right?. As i said in the sub-q, i don t think this about race, or even about religion. The problem is that americans don t feel they know obama very well. And they have good reason to be uncertain. Obama got a blitz of good press during the campaign, where he promised to turn away from partisanship and move toward the center. Instead, he let reid and pelosi take the reins of policy, and they steered left as hard as they could. This is actually worse than if obama had pushed his own policies and agenda, he seems like more of a cipher for letting others do the leading. The few glimpses we do get of him are not encouraging. He gets wrong-footed regularly, apologizes for america when abroad, insults americans at home, snubs reliable allies like the british, and generally acts like jimmy carter with even less sense. The muslim nonsense, like the birther nonsense, is a sublimation of a bigger doubt. Many of us wonder if obama even likes america. Bush was widely seen as loving america, when a majority of americans parted company with him, it was over huge expenditures and dubious proposals, not over the idea that he might hate us as a nation. (i m sure quite a few plastards thought exactly that, but we are speaking here of majority opinion, not of tinfoil-hat lunatics. ) we may not have liked what he did, but we felt we at least knew where he stood. With obama, we got bigger expenditures and even more dubious proposals, which was not exactly what we were hoping for. It is all too easy to picture obama mouthing the necessary minimum of platitudes to establish himself as a patriot, meanwhile sneering at us in private, and sometimes even in public. This is pretty much what the left wanted him to do in 2008. That trick works right up until you get in power and begin acting very differently from what you promised. 2010 is going to be a slaughter for the democrats. If the republicans don t entirely drop the ball, 2012 will be a similar slaughter. Of course, that a big if. . This is what you think when your only source of news is the right-wing nuttosphere. Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . The americans who feel they don t know obama very well either don t care much, or are, yes, preoccupied with how his funny name and or look make him seem like the other. Obama had published two books prior to his nomination in 2008, one of which was an autobiography published in 1995. Since elected, he set out to do pretty much what he said he would do. Where the 90 degree angle turn in promise vs policy, ala bush pre-election warnings about nation building and an arrogant foreign policy, clinton post-election championing of nafta, daddy bush new world order, or reagan ballooning of the federal deficit? Where we might agree somewhat is in regards to obama efficacy and leadership. In handing over healthcare reform wholesale to congresscritters, we ve gained a mandate and lost hope of a government-provided alternative to private insurance. If you come to the correct conclusion that guantanamo is a stain on the legitimacy of us foreign policy, and you say you re going to close it, you should actually close it. There are other examples, but the one closest to my nerd-heart is his initial rollback of bush ridiculous plans for manned nasa missions to the moon and mars, then his reversal when faced with isolated criticism from blowhards insisting that space exploration is irrelevant if we don t have people there to play gags on each other with weightlessness, eat out of a tube, and poop into a plastic bag. I m willing to cut some slack on efficacy, given that the economic and military mess he had to contend with is only approached in the last 100 years by fdr and possibly nixon. But the embarrassing and destructive compromises, where none are even necessary, are disheartening. As for wondering whether obama hates america, that every bit as retarded as wondering whether bush did. If obama had, he likely would ve done what every bona fide america-hater of means did in the days before sarkozy move to france. The cling to guns and religion gotcha comment outed by the huffington post was made out of sympathy and and pity for those people, with the idea that improving the economic and educational situation for them would bring them to less-crazy viewpoints. You can say that that naive and even silly (i do), and nobody likes to be pitied, but obama wasn t sneering. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Amd how do you know this? Plenary gnosis? Obama may or may not be proud of america, but it certainly the case that many of his supporters don t have much use for their actual countrymen. If you ever wonder why you re seen as unpatriotic and even hostile to american interests, take a good long look at what you say and do. Since elected, he set out to do pretty much what he said he would do. . I& ,m talking about how he is seen, not about what he believes. His image will determine his political fate and that of his party. What is in his heart is for him alone to know. . Anyone who felt they didn t know obama very well before the election and cared to get to know him better had a trove of information to study, compared to most potus candidates in the last dozen or so elections. He not made the wtf post-election policy shifts that his predecessors did. His biggest disappointments have been in starting out in the right direction, and not following through. No gnosis needed! But you don t actually care about what obama thinking, you want to discuss some subset of obama supporters, bracketed by weasel words. Fine. Many of palin supporters are cheering for a second, much bloodier us civil war. Furthermore, the fans of my local sports team are very decent folk, while the fans of yours are animalistic hooligans. Also, thanks for the advice to introspect, but i do take a good long look at my protest signs before i hit the rally (that me, sneering). What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . In other words, you have no actual proof to offer. A trove indeed! A book, a few years as a legislator, none whatever as an executive. Sounds like plenty to me, yessir! As for the protest signs. Spelling flames don t make you look any less snobbish, elitist, or inimical to a lot of people. Like most psychopaths, you don t understand you have a problem, hence you won t fix it. That all right. You re about to get fixed in november. . The seven presidents preceding obama each had more executive experience than he did, and hence gave their voters much more of a picture of how they would behave in office. George w. Bush governor of texas, 1995-2000. Bill clinton governor of arkansas, 1979-1981 and 1983-1992. George h. W. Bush director of central intelligence, 1976-1977, vice-president of the united states, 1981-1989. Jimmy carter governor of georgia, 1971-1975. Gerald ford vice-president of the united states, 1973-1974. (oh, well, that what happens sometimes when the vp has to step up. ) richard nixon vice-president of the united states, 1953-1961. Lyndon b. Johnson vice-president of the united states, 1961-1963. So, there any proof. I ll be happy to go to more effort and give more analysis if you bother to do any work on this at all, or back your mouth with anything but even more mouth. Until then, stfu, you re too quick to demand that your opponents provide proof at a level you re unwilling or unable to do. . I asked for proof, not any work. You only provided the latter. You re the who made all the assertions that people were justified in thinking that obama real persona is mysterious and that perhaps he doesn t really love america, so the onus of proof is on you. Experience serving as governor of arkansas or georgia (governor of texas, not quite so much) sheds light on how well someone can put together large teams of people who will achieve the goals they re assigned. It amusing that you think a term as vice-potus shows either efficacy or ideology, since prior to cheney, the job of vp was mostly to stay out of the limelight and out of the way while being assigned narrow, often dirty, tasks. Moreover, the cia tends to be, you know, secretive about what they re doing and how well it being done. You crack me up. Maybe go watch the human centipede again and make comments in the subqueue. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . As usual, you only demand proof in order to denigrate whatever is presented, without doing anything yourself. If you want more, you ll have to do more. This isn t the first time you ve pulled this trick on me, but it will be the last. Welcome to my killfile. . Whatever. I gave more far more consideration to points you presented than you did mine. Anyone who surprised at obama keynesian-style stimulus or pushing for heavy government involvement in health care is as willfully ignorant as someone who thought he d pull out of afghanistan upon taking office. And thinking he maybe hates america is retarded. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Vice president of the united states is not an executive position. It usually isn t, it isn t this time, and it isn t written that way in the constitution, but it certainly was under the last administration. . Apparently they ignite readily among disgruntled democrats. According to opensecrets, he& ,s donated about ,000 to democrats since 2000, including a ,000 donation to the dnc in 2000, a 0 donation to howard dean in 2003, and a ,000 donation to john kerry in 2004. His only recent contribution to a republican candidate was 0 in 2002 to retired rep. Jim kolbe, then lone openly gay republican in congress. . Perhaps enright had a vision or rapture on the road to kandahar. Maybe it was too much drink coupled with the experience of seeing a war up-close. Whatever happened, we will find out more when his diary is examined. Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Either way, i doubt the blame can be laid at the feet of the media as glibly as thalia sought to do. Looks like the mussulmen are right about alcohol, though. That stuff leads to sin. Hey, even the paynim will happen upon the truth once in a while. . Bac, transforming experience, and a hyperbolic media. Bad mixture, there. Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Only two of those are facts, and only those two are likely connected to the incident. The third is an inept attempt at blame-shifting. Prove it or shut it. . If arrpoximately 50% of the population is republican (based on last election, + - 5%) and 31% of them believe this and 36% of conservative republicans believe this, then why is it that only 18% of americans belive this (according to pew)? Are the 2 groups the only people that believe this because the totals of both should be more than 18%. And is it only republicans that believe this? That seems odd as bad info should be received by many parties as a fact if presented that way, not by party line. The source of 31% of republicans is a local rag sheet from monroe georgia and appears to be an op-ed piece by a local writer. The story throws around a lot of numbers but does not quote any sources, either national polls or druken bbq debates. I think stans barber shop on the corner of the 1 stop light in monroe had a poll and 100% of old white guys waiting to get their weekly trim thought obama was a black panther and is related to angela davis. And the christian science monitor starts off with a misleading headline 1 in 5 believe. 18% is more like 1 in 6 (5. 55. ). Is there a reason for parties exagerating the data from a poll? So what does it say that slightly more people (a statistical variation perhaps? ) think obama is muslim this year than did last year? It seems an obtuse data point that leads nowhere. Or it could lead anywhere, just not anyplace in particular. Pretty soon people are going to be voting and then we ll see what people really think, well that might be overstating things. But we ll definitely see what a lot of people think about the results and how to interpret them. . . The other weird thing about that poll is that the number who answered the question don t know went from 34% to 43% over the past year. How does that happen? Hasn t this been discussed more over the past year, not less? Amnesia outbreak? To their credit in the back of the report they do talk about their methodology and actually give their confidence interval, which is 95%. So you also need to consider there is a 5% chance the results of this poll are crap. Http drlunch the site that helps you decide where to go to lunch!. I have no opinion concerning the accuracy of the figures you are questioning but would like to point out that you are conflating people who voted for a republican candidate in the last election with republicans , which is obviously not right. The usual criterion for the latter category is declared party affiliation, which is generally substantially lower than popular vote share. . Republican party identification remains near an all time historical low. Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . I have no opinion concerning the accuracy of the figures you are questioning but would like to point out that you are conflating people who voted for a republican candidate in the last election with republicans , which is obviously not right. The usual criterion for the latter category is declared party affiliation, which is generally substantially lower than popular vote share. . Well that logic holds true for everyone that votes, 50% + - 5% is based on the results of the people that voted for the republican voters. I took it on faith that everyone knows those aren& ,t all registered republicans no more so than the citizens who voted for the democratic candidate are registered democrats. . And his religion is corporatist-imperialist. Also known as devil-worshipping church of satan treasonist. It& ,s the religion of the american ruling class. Bush, cheney, graham, murdoch, mccain basically every republitard and demonrat out there. . That means whatever i got is contagious! Time to worry, i& ,d say. Lol. . . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Choose your member name, tell plastic where to send your password, then click the register button to complete your new registration. A password will be sent straightaway to the email address you provide. 1. Plastic member name of choice (maximum of 20 characters. Member names can be made up of any combination of letters, numbers, and spaces. )2. Valid (working) email address (your email won t be displayed on plastic and is never given to anyone. But it is where your temporary password will be sent, without which you won t be able to use the account you re now creating. Please, check for typos. )3. Click register to join. And welcome to plastic!. August primaries brought more unwelcome news to republican establishment types and more joy to tea party supporters. Except for john mccains trouncing of his uber-right opponent by 24 points in arizona, tea party favourites tended to win in republican primaries. Consider what happened to senator lisa murkowski of alaska. Running against previously unknown joe miller, who was endorsed by sarah palin and by tea party express, murkowski spent as little as possible on her campaign until just before primary day, even as miller successfully cast her as too liberal and part of the problem in an out-of-control washington. She now looks like she will lose her race, as 16,000 absentee ballots not scheduled to be counted until 31 august would have to break strongly her way for her to overcome millers current lead. . Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. In 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno of growing marijuana. To find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. They did this without obtaining a warrant. The u. S. Writing for the dissent, chief judge alex kozinski (a reagan appointee who is considered a conservative) seemed to be taking a page from president obamas call for judicial empathy no truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter. Judges, regardless of race, ethnicity or sex, are selected from the class of people who dont live in trailers or urban ghettos. The everyday problems of people who live in poverty are not close to our hearts and minds because thats not how we and our friends live. He ended the point, however, by criticizing his fellow judges unselfconscious cultural elitism. The case could well go to the supreme court, since the us court of appeals for the district of columbia came to a quite different conclusion in a similar case involving a gps tracker attached to a suspects vehicle while parked in the suspects driveway. In the meantime, if you have a habit of taking your vehicle places you would rather the police not know about, and are impatient for the wheels of justice to prevail, you might consider adding this accessory to your wheels. . Ken mehlman, one of the authors of bush 42s reelection has come out of the closet as gay and now supports gay marriage. You might remember him from his tenure as rnc chairman during the years when the rncs platform included advocating for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Some commentators are calling the reaction to the announcement surprisingly muted. Is this a sign of a growing acceptance of different lifestyles across the political spectrum, or of partisans turning a blind eye to prior tactical hypocrisy?. Pew research center polls often invite comments, and its latest poll was no different. It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. All of which leads sensible political analysts to wonder why obama doesnt wear his religion on his sleeve. You know, start teaching sunday school classes, putting my boss is a jewish carpenter bumper stickers on air force one, claiming jesus as his favourite philosopher, or at least joining some local washington, d. C. , church. Reverend franklin graham, son of famed preacher billy graham, has prayed with obama, but notes i think the presidents problem is that he was born a muslim, his father was a muslim. The seed of islam is passed through the father like the seed of judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a muslim, his father gave him an islamic name. . And there you have it. How much more proof do you need? Barack obama socialist? Anti-christ? Muslim, or muslim apostate? Meanwhile, after the media did its best to fan the flames of hate against muslims, the predictable results have occurred. A cab driver in new york city was stabbed, a mosque in modesto was vandalized, and so on. . . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Ninth circuit court of appeals tracks toward 1984in 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno of growing marijuana. To find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. . Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead? . Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . More than anything else, though, our success will be claimed by who we are as a country. (president obama, commencement speech to west point cadets, may 22) the united states of america (also referred to as the united states, the u. S. , the usa, the states, or america) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central north america, where its forty-eight contiguous states and washington, d. C. , the capital district, lie between the pacific and atlantic oceans. That is all. Now, where the birth certificate mr. O bama?. Who is an american? What defines america? America is defined by the will of its people. The will of its people is most fundamentally expressed by their vote for their president. The fundamental nature of their president is expressed by his most transcendent joy. His most transcendent joy is found in riding a bicycle. Our most perfect cultural expression of that joy, the thing that best represents and defines america and americans, is pee wee herman. . America is a bullshit collectivist made-up arbitrary tribal identity, a scam of an idea to permit a bunch of harvard-yale-princeton educated assholes to loot and exploit masses of ill-educated and uninformed peasants who, thanks largely to liberalism, haven t quite figured out that they re nothing but peasants. And yes, it a socialist hell-hole. National-socialist, to be precise. . Note this is exactly how a fat seacow reacts when you tell her that those jeans do make her look fat. With denial. I repeat bush-wing republicans are just like weak-minded women. Fat, seacow women. . Bush-wing republicans are just like weak-minded women. Fat, seacow women just because women don& ,t dig preachy damn them all types is no reason to become a misogynist. Whos got the kibble? - bad lieutenant pocno. Then you should heed the words of canadian poet irving layton since i no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity, egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, i have stopped being a misanthrope. Own your words. . Since i no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity, egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, i have stopped being a misanthrope. You have hit the nail on the head. I was young and idealistic and naive enough to expect sanity, kindness, honesty, selflessness, courage, and honest self-appraisal from mankind. Delusions and dreams die hard. That is why i am a misanthrope. And misery loves company. I m dragging y all down with me. . By liberalism i mean the ideology that the failings of a free market capitalist system can be redressed by government regulation. And the ideology of enhancing liberty by redressing inequality with government action. To be fair its failings are subtle and very difficult to see by someone who is immersed in modern american political culture, because it shares its failings with its putative nemesis, conservatism (meaning reagan bush-wing neo-conservatism, rather than the paleo-conservatism or libertarianism). Most importantly, it is an inherently statist ideology. But mostly, i ve decided the thing to do while democrats are in power is to hate them even more than i hate republicans. So mostly i just mean loyalty to and support for the democratic party. And you re absolutely right about economic neoliberalism. . Or what? Will i be called names in the manner of a mentally deficient 5 year old again? Because, frankly, that is not much of a deterrent. Http drlunch the site that helps you decide where to go to lunch!. Ok, that& ,s the 1% that own everything and have all the money and power. What about the rest of us? Dont get saucy with me bearnaise!. Wow, and i had turned down princeton* horrible decision, has totally condemned me to a life of peasanthood. Thank you for letting me know that armchair. Have you ever considered that people might take you more seriously if you didn& ,t feel the need to insult them with every post? If you acted this way in the real world, you would probably get socked in the face five times a day. *(sort of, i had already accepted early decision at lehigh before princeton got back to me with an acceptance, so i kind of had to say no). Have you ever considered that people might take you more seriously. No because the problem isn t lack of information or intelligence. It propaganda and brainwashing. What we re dealing with is something akin to a cult. That why it so hard to make a republitard moron see the light. So even if i don t insult them they simply would not take anything along the lines of what i say seriously. And a libtard demoncrap is exactly the same way. Brainwashed. Kool-aid drinker. Partisan wanker stuck on my side good your side bad! *(sort of, i had already accepted early decision at lehigh before princeton got back to me with an acceptance, so i kind of had to say no) you re a peasant. If you were ruling class you d have no trouble breaking the rules and going back on your word. Our ruling class behaves completely lawlessly and totally without honor or integrity. . Our ruling class behaves completely lawlessly and totally without honor or integrity. If that& ,s all it takes, why not become ruling class yourself? What is holding you back, peasant?. I think armchair should use glenn beck as a model, because there& ,s a peasant who pulled himself up by his own jockstrap and willed himself into the ruling class, cleverly annointing himself as the new messiah. The added bonus of an armchairocracy would be that the crazy would be directed at absolutely everyone on the political spectrum. That would be true populism! Own your words. . August primaries brought more unwelcome news to republican establishment types and more joy to tea party supporters. Except for john mccains trouncing of his uber-right opponent by 24 points in arizona, tea party favourites tended to win in republican primaries. Consider what happened to senator lisa murkowski of alaska. Running against previously unknown joe miller, who was endorsed by sarah palin and by tea party express, murkowski spent as little as possible on her campaign until just before primary day, even as miller successfully cast her as too liberal and part of the problem in an out-of-control washington. She now looks like she will lose her race, as 16,000 absentee ballots not scheduled to be counted until 31 august would have to break strongly her way for her to overcome millers current lead. . Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. In 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno of growing marijuana. To find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. They did this without obtaining a warrant. The u. S. Writing for the dissent, chief judge alex kozinski (a reagan appointee who is considered a conservative) seemed to be taking a page from president obamas call for judicial empathy no truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter. Judges, regardless of race, ethnicity or sex, are selected from the class of people who dont live in trailers or urban ghettos. The everyday problems of people who live in poverty are not close to our hearts and minds because thats not how we and our friends live. He ended the point, however, by criticizing his fellow judges unselfconscious cultural elitism. The case could well go to the supreme court, since the us court of appeals for the district of columbia came to a quite different conclusion in a similar case involving a gps tracker attached to a suspects vehicle while parked in the suspects driveway. In the meantime, if you have a habit of taking your vehicle places you would rather the police not know about, and are impatient for the wheels of justice to prevail, you might consider adding this accessory to your wheels. . Ken mehlman, one of the authors of bush 42s reelection has come out of the closet as gay and now supports gay marriage. You might remember him from his tenure as rnc chairman during the years when the rncs platform included advocating for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Some commentators are calling the reaction to the announcement surprisingly muted. Is this a sign of a growing acceptance of different lifestyles across the political spectrum, or of partisans turning a blind eye to prior tactical hypocrisy?. Pew research center polls often invite comments, and its latest poll was no different. It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. All of which leads sensible political analysts to wonder why obama doesnt wear his religion on his sleeve. You know, start teaching sunday school classes, putting my boss is a jewish carpenter bumper stickers on air force one, claiming jesus as his favourite philosopher, or at least joining some local washington, d. C. , church. Reverend franklin graham, son of famed preacher billy graham, has prayed with obama, but notes i think the presidents problem is that he was born a muslim, his father was a muslim. The seed of islam is passed through the father like the seed of judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a muslim, his father gave him an islamic name. . And there you have it. How much more proof do you need? Barack obama socialist? Anti-christ? Muslim, or muslim apostate? Meanwhile, after the media did its best to fan the flames of hate against muslims, the predictable results have occurred. A cab driver in new york city was stabbed, a mosque in modesto was vandalized, and so on. . . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Ninth circuit court of appeals tracks toward 1984in 2007, dea agents suspected oregon resident juan pineda-moreno of growing marijuana. To find out where, they sneaked onto his driveway in the middle of the night, and placed a gps-enabled tracking device on his car. . Wear your religion on your sleeve, damn it! It seems 18% of americans think of president obama as muslim, up from 11% last year. 31% of republicans and 36% of conservative republicans share that conviction. Obama calls himself christian. . Please be aware that, even though you re free to blame me, and you probably will anyway, knowing you. . Plastic collects information from users in three ways voluntary submission, cookie technology, and traffic data. Plastic collects personally identifiable information such as names, email addresses, and demographic information when voluntarily submitted. Each time a user visits plastic, i count, track, and aggregate the user activity into my analysis of general traffic flows. My web server recognizes no information regarding the individual identity or email addresses of users, but not really. Lawyers don t really understand how any of this works. Because i allow users to customize their preferences, i maintain a user profile in my databases based on the passwords of a user saving only their custom preferences they have selected in relation to their use of the site. Um, i have no idea what this sentence is supposed to mean. The use of cookies is an industry standard on the internet. Cookies are a software technology that helps us enhance your browsing experience and customize plastic to your preferences. Passwords are saved in cookies to avoid users having to repeatedly log in when they want to enter plastic. Plastic uses cookies to collect non-personally identifiable information about the individual user. Nonpersonal identification information might include the browser you use and other similar information. 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More than anything else, though, our success will be claimed by who we are as a country. (president obama, commencement speech to west point cadets, may 22) the united states of america (also referred to as the united states, the u. S. , the usa, the states, or america) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central north america, where its forty-eight contiguous states and washington, d. C. , the capital district, lie between the pacific and atlantic oceans. But in the end i will be released. The reason ill be released is the same reason you think ill be convicted. (lord of war, yuri orlov quote) is anybody following the victor bout, arms dealer, case? For that case is becoming kind-a weird, like one of them hollywood screenings. Quick recap victor bout, born somewhere in 1967, works first as a translator in the soviet army, than goes the red-bloodied capitalist path, selling arms if recent pics are anything to go by lost a bit of weight in thai prison since then. Week before last, thai ambassador in the us is called for by the state department, and told that the extradition to the us of mr bout is of the highest priority. That friday a thai court rules mr bout to be extradited to the us, pronto (or whatever that term is in the thai language). The russkis grumble that it is all unlawful and political, having to do with very strong outside pressure and such, if it wasnt such a lamentable situation, victor should return to the (warm? Welcoming? ) motherland and da. Hooray! Yells us media, with author of a book on the man being quoted in the ny times as saying that us authorities became aware in the mid-1990s that he victor bout had fundamentally altered the way wars were being waged. He was flying in planeloads of this stuff. There was a lot of alarm that we were facing something new. It was the privatization of warfare. So far, so good. But today a strange, short item in the financial times as a us justice dept aircraft is waiting on the tarmac of bangkok airport, squabbling among different thai agencies is going on. Quote a us legal manoeuvre of filing secondary charges against mr bout in case the primary extradition case had failed is stopping swift extradition and could see him go free, end quote (the news, and interesting background, is confirmed by the asian times, here) huh? Is mr bout now coming to america, or not?. Onward christian soldiers. Or you& ,ll be punishedwhen major general james chambers was the commanding general at ft. Eustis, he instituted a quarterly event called the commanding generals spiritual fitness concert. . Your house better be your castle, because it& ,s a lousy investmentthe good news is that real estate values will recover. The bad news is that things will never be like they were in the 20th century for the real estate market. . Flotilla war, part iiyoull recall the furor which broke over what happened to an attempt to run an israeli blockade of gaza three months ago. Get ready to get your rancor back on as yet another humanitarian aid ship sets sail for gaza. . Choose your member name, tell plastic where to send your password, then click the register button to complete your new registration. A password will be sent straightaway to the email address you provide. 1. Plastic member name of choice (maximum of 20 characters. Member names can be made up of any combination of letters, numbers, and spaces. )2. Valid (working) email address (your email won t be displayed on plastic and is never given to anyone. But it is where your temporary password will be sent, without which you won t be able to use the account you re now creating. Please, check for typos. )3. Click register to join. And welcome to plastic!. Ken mehlman, one of the authors of bush 42s reelection has come out of the closet as gay and now supports gay marriage. You might remember him from his tenure as rnc chairman during the years when the rncs platform included advocating for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Some commentators are calling the reaction to the announcement surprisingly muted. Is this a sign of a growing acceptance of different lifestyles across the political spectrum, or of partisans turning a blind eye to prior tactical hypocrisy?. Homosexuality will not have become truly accepted until people stop feeling the need to announce their homosexuality to the world. But i do know how they must feel, because my own orientation is even less acceptable. I am deeply attracted to chickens, ducks and geese, and the public contempt for that is such that i ll probably feel the need to stay in the closet for the rest of my life. Thank god plastic has the anonymous idiot option, so that i can at least somewhat get that off of my chest, without having it follow me everywhere. . That nothing. I think a house is not an investment, space nuttery is a religion, oil-driven suburban consumerism is doomed, and life extension technology is coming soon. I also think people are very conservative these days, there are no real technological advancements anymore, and that huge changes are coming in the next decades, and i don t mean usb 15. 0 (yawn). That unacceptable. Sticking it in the pooper seems pretty trivial compared to being an iconoclast. . So, life extension technology is on the horizon, but there are no technological breakthroughs anymore? Breakthroughs come from all directions, and may not be noticable when they actually happen. Research into dna, whether for tracking susceptibility to disease or identifying criminals depends in large part on polymerase chain reaction, a technique for taking teeny amounts of dna and rapidly duplicating them. The entire dna enterprise is based on this tool, and its invention broke up the research logjam. Its similar to airplanes never really getting off the ground until the invention of the internal combusion engine. There were lots of people with great aerodynamic ideas, but without a lighter, more power engine they were entirely academic. I have two friends who are hiv positive, and have been for more than 15 years. When they were diagnosed it was a death sentence, yet they are still with us. I won t claim that they are terribly healthy, but the invention of antiretrovirals is keeping them alive. If that isn t a technological breakthrough, i don t know what is. What rescues us from insignificance is the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers. Carl sagan. If we have penis extension technology today, life extension technology can& ,t be far behind. No pussyfooting. That right. We are stagnating. The likelihood of life extension technologies showing up is remote. But if it does, that changes everything. It ll still take 6 hours to cross the atlantic in a 747, though. If that isn t a technological breakthrough, i don t know what is. Took too long, and still does. Pcr? Old hat 20 years ago. A real breakthrough would a modeling of how matter arranges itself into life. We re not even close. We just throw a lot of stuff around and see what sticks. . I accept homoness. When jwwow and me were clubbin down in miami we went to a bunch of gay bars and danced and partied with a bunch of gay guys. It was like totally amazing wow. If i could only find a guido who had the fashion sense and could dance like most gays, i d be like the happiest little snooki evar! You know what breaks my brain? Just about anything other than the brand of booze i m gonna get wasted on tonight. Oh, and i totally support your right to fuck a duck, babes. I don t even want to get into what sort of furry little critters my homie, the situation, is into. . On one hand, he obviously a hypocrite. He obviously sold out parts of his soul for political expediency. He obviously did things that he probably ashamed of in the rare moments when he honest with himself. On the other hand, he a political operative. I don t see that as being particularly unique to him. Think of mccain entire 3rd act, or obama capitulations on civil liberties, or flip-flopping on gay marriage, or even abe lincoln middle ground when it comes to slavery, politics is the art of the compromise. A lot of times those compromises are pretty disgusting. I don t think mehlman is particularly noteworthy in that regard. It an ugly fucking business, we need to stop pretending they re all members of the laity. Can a puma challenge a lion for king of the jungle?. It an ugly fucking business, we need to stop pretending they re all members of the laity. And once the attitude that they are all a bunch of liars and hypocrites becomes normalized we will finally get the politicians we deserve. . . . . Liars and hypocrites. Not the best plan. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. I strongly, and respectfully disagree. Not all cynicism is jaded. My position would be that the american political system has suffered from unrealistic expectations, mostly from the electorate. (cut my taxes but have a social net that covers the baby boomers, a military that can police the entire globe, and safe and efficient roads, etc) i think this has come about, largely from the notion that people have projected onto government (and the people who make up government) all sorts of powers they don t posses, or certainly, can t sustain. I think a more mature response, and one that is certainly more in line with where america is as an aging democracy, is one that brings a certain healthy skepticism to what the public sector can, and more importantly, cannot do. (i say this as a man who proudly and publicly fell head over heals for both reagan and obama) part of being an adult is no longer believing in super heroes. And expecting herculean results from your government is childish in many ways. And i get the idea that we can put a man on the moon, help end nazi tyranny, and enfranchise millions of blacks, etc. It not that our aspirations need to become smaller imho, only that they remain grand in areas that are attainable. And that starts with the understanding of the basic and obvious fact that the government is made up of people. And people are fundamentally flawed. Can a puma challenge a lion for king of the jungle? . With the exception of the last sentence i have no idea what your response has to do with my comment. You are talking about our expectations while i m talking about ethics, consistency and character. I m pretty sure america has plenty of cynicism regarding government in general and politicians specifically. If anything the cynicism is growing here and i have not noticed any shift in the levels of hypocrisy or lies pouring out of washington. Quite the contrary. We seem the be getting exactly what we expect. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. You are talking about our expectations while i m talking about ethics, consistency and character. Yeah, but let talk about ethics, consistency and character as applied to actual governance rather than politicians private lives. The whole lifestyle thing has been a red herring that the republicans tossed during the clinton era. It worked so successfully because the media didn t want to be labeled liberal that they actually went and helped build up this hype that somehow clinton screwing some little of age intern had anything to do with governance. The more the media keeps on paying attention to red herrings and drama rather than the actual governance at hand, the more cynical people will become about politicians. The media should skewer the spin for what it is but also lay on the table the substantive matters at stake are. Popular media like huffington post are good at showing the spin and enjoying skewering the drama, but they are shit when it comes to showing the real stakes. . Yeah, but let talk about ethics, consistency and character as applied to actual governance rather than politicians private lives. Why are you drawing this distinction with mehlman? He chose to make his private life public. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Why are you drawing this distinction with mehlman? He chose to make his private life public. Good point. Because i think we spend a lot of time in this nation on worthless discussions and pass it off as substantive discussion. And whom a politician is screwing seems to be one of the biggest and most wasteful ways of doing this. I didn t charge when clinton was screwing someone and i don t care that cheney has a lesbian daughter. Seriously, i care a lot more about economics, the war, health care, supreme court justices and precedents. And a lot more other things than who a politician invites to bed, whether a politician announces it or not. But the other thing that boggles my mind is why so many heterosexual people care whether gay people get married or not. Seriously, that will effect the nation a heck of a lot less than a decade of war or bad economic policy. And it will effect people a lot less than economic policies and health care policies. The whole gay thing, as well as any politician sex thing, is almost always a red herring. It always meant to get american indignation up. But moral indignation about sex seems laughable in a nation with 50% divorce rate. It not as though heterosexuality is so darn sacred, and nor are most people marriages so perfect. . Honestly, i couldn t care less about politicians sex lives, but this asshat has most certainly invited derision. He the one making a public issue of it, not me. And yes, there are more important issue. No shit. And there are more important things to do than posting on plastic yet here you are. He threw it out there. The simple fact that the subject of his hypocrisy happens to be sex doesn t somehow magically exempt him from ridicule once he makes it a public issue. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. (from dictionary) hypocrite -noun 1. A person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc. , that he or she does not actually possess, esp. A person whose actions belie stated beliefs. 2. A person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. One whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements. . As the head of the gop and or bush& ,s campaigns he worked to -in 2006 compare homosexuality to atheism -worked to have anti-gay initiative on the ballot in 2004 and 2006, expressly to help the republican candidates. -strongly supported the clinton era doma. Maybe i misunderstand your question, how is it that you find his political actions not hypocritical? I can probably better address your question when i more fully understand your misgivings of the characterization. Can a puma challenge a lion for king of the jungle?. You must have researched this story a good deal more than i have. The ap story in the ny times (linked to in the writeup) said, mehlman. Came to the conclusion he is gay recently. . It& ,s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with that part of my life,. . He tried to convince republican officials privately not to attack gay marriage. . The article did not mention his past comments that compare d homosexuality to atheism nor his work to have sic anti-gay initiative on the ballot nor his strong support for the clinton era doma. If you say that those exist, then, okay, i am willing to brand the man as a hypocrite based on your unsubstantiated claim. But you will forgive me, i hope, for wondering about the obvious hypocrisy when the evidence of it is so thin in the news reports. . The article did not mention his past comments that compare d homosexuality to atheism nor his work to have sic anti-gay initiative on the ballot nor his strong support for the clinton era doma. If you say that those exist, then, okay, i am willing to brand the man as a hypocrite based on your unsubstantiated claim. But you will forgive me, i hope, for wondering about the obvious hypocrisy when the evidence of it is so thin in the news reports. . You re right, it is an ugly fucking business. I really don t care if mehlman feels bad when people call him on his hypocrisy, or if he remains effectively celibate as a result. I don t feel one bit bad for some anti-gay rights crusader getting outed for spending his leisure time with callboys. I think it every bit as fair game as going after a liberal who campaigns to tax the rich! While hiding his own income. Perhaps the voters will come to realize that charlatans trying to lather them up with anger points don t have the eletorate best interests at heart, and that in the meantime things like million liability caps on oil well leaks get passed. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . I mean really and who cares exactly? After decades of homophobic ogres like j. Edgar hoover, roy cohn, ted haggard, et al and ad nauseam being revealed as being gay, is it surprising, shocking, or appalling that mehlman was gay? That he was a hypocrite for knowing the truth about his sexuality while being a force for marginalizing gays is something he is going to have to square with himself. I have the feeling he has just the right measure of self-deception that he ll be able to do so. That he now going to turn his attention and energy to fighting for gay rights is risible. Gays and social liberals are going to keep reminding him of what a lying tool he was all those years. The right is going to point at him and ask, can anyone trust anything the man says now? . The ruling class simply doesn& ,t care who or what, its members spend their time fucking. A 6thor7th. Blogspot link. Some commentators are calling the reaction to the announcement surprisingly muted. Is this a sign of a growing acceptance of different lifestyles across the political spectrum, or of partisans turning a blind eye to prior tactical hypocrisy? It just not surprising for these folks to be coming out of the closet any more. It not a novelty. The irony is dead. I ll wager the statistical difference for gay republicans vs. Gay democrats is neglible at this point (given the probability of closeted republicans that is). It a cliche at this point. I propose that 1 out of 2 gay republicans stay in the closet just to maintain the status quo. Dont get saucy with me bearnaise!. . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. Hopefully, these useful morons will soon complete their destiny of fragmenting the republican party out of existence. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Seriously. Don& ,t you wish you could be trying to keep the corrupt and incompetent folk honest instead of trying to keep the retarded children from breaking everything? Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . You are much too optimistic, i think. I think newt gingrich is right and for the most part the tea partiers will fall in line behind the republican party. However, they have done some good work so far discomfiting the neocon-wing of the gop an american conservative link. Now, if we could only get the lw pwogs to come to their senses and start waging war against the neocon-corporatists of their own party, rather than being so easily distracted by stuff that so far ought to be considered an internecine rw republican civil war. So, i think the lw pwogs should just stfu about the tea parties. And instead should be hyperventilating 24 7 about how obama and the democratic party leadership are identical to bush and the republican party leadership. . I have no problem with you calling the dlc, dem leadership et al. , corporate tools. Obviously. But when you say things like the obama administration is identical to bush s, i think you should know that you sound full throttle, batshit crazy. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. The obama administration is not identical to bush s. It in fact, worse. It bush, but without any opposition from the left. Foreign policy -continuing bush efforts to conquer iraq and afghanistan -continuing bush war on terror expanding it, even to somalia and yemen. -continuing to move us towards war with iran. -more money for dod than even bush. -continues to kidnap and rendition people police state at home -extended usa patriot act -will not repeal military commissions act of 2006 -continuing domestic spying, without even fig leaf of fisa court -asserts power to have american citizens assassinated, at will, without any due process at all economy -continuing trillion$ in wealth transfer from taxpayers to wall street ponzi scheme banksters -provided corporate welfare to health insurance corporations, under the guise of health reform so yes, you re right. He not identical to bush. He worse than bush. . 1. Sorry, continuation of some bush policies is not, in my book, nearly as bad a thinking up and implementing these abominations in the first place. Obama is not even on the same planet as an administration that ginned up evidence with the expressed intent on invading and declaring war on a sovereign nation, promoted torture, warrant-less domestic spying, pealed back environmental policies, consumer protections, etc. Etc. . 2. Obama has made incremental improvements in finance reform, healthcare reform, corporate governance and possibly an end to the irresponsible tax cuts. None of these things could have happened under bush. 3. Obama cabinet and appointees are considerably more competent and less ideologically driven than bush collection of criminal pnac bozos, good-ol-boys, and horse show professionals. Think of the cast of insane fuckers in bush cabinet. I still can t believe it. Worse than bush, really? Seriously, this claim only make you sound crazy. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. 1. Sorry, continuation of some bush policies is not, in my book, nearly as bad a thinking up and implementing these abominations in the first place. Yeah, standard democrat liberal response. I think where we really diverge is at the narrative framework level. You probably think of this as evil republicans creating problems, and democrats being unable to solve or fix those problems. So you re willing to settle for the democrats not creating any further problems just managing the mess that republicans created in the first place, as it were. Not surprisingly, i have a completely different picture of what going on though. I think what we have is a society polity dominated by interest groups most famously corporate special interests, but also including governmental interest groups like the national security apparatus. One way or the other, these groups pervert distort dominate the political system, so that the outcome is always what they want (in rare, rare cases different interest groups might come into conflict only then do you see real change, a powerful interest group being defeated). In essence this is the ruling class. And people like obama and bush are willing to do the bidding of the ruling class either they sold out, or they agree with the ruling class consensus agenda. That why they get to serve as presidents, while people who refuse to toe the line nader, kucinich, gravel, mckinney, paul, baldwin, barr, etc. One way or the other are sabotaged, ignored, delegitimized. So for instance, in the case of iraq, i view bush and obama as pursuing the same exact overall goal. You have to decontextualize the war, to make it seem as if bush made the wrong decision and obama is now merely managing or trying to improve the bad situation that arose out of bush bad decision but in my view the proper way to understand the iraq war is by starting out with the recognition that a long long time ago, our ruling class came to the consensus that we ought to dominate and control the middle east. Add it to the imperial global economic system, but run by people governments willing to deal with our ruling class under terms that our ruling class desired (think, e. G. The house of saud). And once the strategic goal is domination of the middle east, then countries that are sitting on lots of oil gas, and or are strategically located (and in iraq case both of those conditions are true) become critical, and cannot be allowed to be governed by people unwilling to do our bidding. So, that the context for the iraq war. The decision to regime change iraq was actually made back in 1991, either right before or during gulf war i. And when we decide to regime change we go down a list of tools cia coup, or pressure on the population via blockade sanctions, pressure by bombing and if all else fails, then direct invasion. And note in iraq we tried all these things, in order. So the war was basically the empire marching on and adding a new territory to the empire. With bush, sanctions and cia-fomented coups, attempts at assassination and bombings having failed, it was merely the time to go to the next (and last) tool in the toolbox. And obama is just continuing the effort to conquer the place. So, giving obama a break on this, on the grounds that he didn t pull the trigger on the invasion, and is merely continuing it, is akin to giving goering a break, saying that he not a warmonger, if hitler had died in 1942 and goering had merely continued hitler wars, not started any of his own. . Declaring war on a sovereign nation. Btw, sovereign nation means we don t get to pressure countries if we don t like their governments. Therefore obama is behaving as if iran and north korea are not sovereign nations. Promoted torture, warrant-less domestic spying and obama is continuing them. Why? Because he agrees with bush that those policies are necessary if you want to continue with the imperialism. And obama is continuing with the imperialism. Pealed back environmental policies how did you like obama going all drill, baby, drill just before the bp oil well catastrophe? 2. Obama has made incremental improvements in finance reform, healthcare reform not true. Health care reform was actually corporate welfare for health insurance companies. Finance reform is also a boondoggle. What they re doing is distracting people by putting on a show of fixing the barn door, after all the cows have left. What they really ought to do is arrest all the big wall street firm senior execs and confiscate every damn red cent they own, on the grounds that they ve been running a completely fraudulent ponzi-scheme scam, and have destroyed the world economy in the process. Then you can talk about reforming the syread the entire comment. . So, once again, obama is worse. He is like bush, but more competent, stealthier, better at pulling the wool over liberals progressives eyes, and therefore more dangerous see, this is where you run completely off the rails. He worse because he more competent? I mean, what-the-fuck. You are cheering for dumbshits. And pulling the wool over liberals. Blah, blah. That is pure, usda grade a crap. Indoctrinated conservatives are only people that believe that liberals worship obama. Most of the liberals i know are quite aware of what is happening inside the beltway, and they are certainly not happy about it. He is fooling no one. The meme that obama is some liberal saviour is myth, fabrication. At best liberals see obama as a centrist with corporate leanings and better than average oratory skills. Not a saviour, not even much of a change. At best a reset back from insanity to governance more of the clinton age. And with that i return you back to your contrived conspiracies and cheering for dumbshits. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Yes, the campaign ended. Whos got the kibble? - bad lieutenant pocno. I actually hope you re right, and that i m completely off base. Because the implications of my analysis, if correct, are pretty freaking scary and terrifying. I ve essentially pronounced a death sentence on american democracy, the republic, perhaps even all of western civilization. So, as much as i love being proven right, and being able to go nyah nyah nyah i toooooold you sooooo~ in this case i d be very happy to be proven wrong. . He worse because he more competent? I mean, what-the-fuck. You are cheering for dumbshits. No. I m completely rejecting the framework you re using to look at the political system, make sense of what is going on. You think the political system works the way you ve been told it does the people elect representatives, the representatives do the will of the people, etc. Etc. , so the government produces policy outcomes that reflect some sort of popular consensus, the will of the people. And therefore government is a socializing (in the sense that it makes decisions that ought to be made by society as a whole) institution that can be trusted, be made to work. And therefore you think it better if the government is put in the hands of smart, competent people. The frameworks i prefer are from a leftist pov a class conflict picture. We have a ruling class, which controls government. And we have the rest of society, the peasants (and if you re not a billionnaire, you re a peasant). And therefore all you ve accomplished by putting a smart, competent leader at the head of government is putting a smart, competent leader at the head of an institution that is structurally predisposed to be the class enemy of the peasants (because it tends to be dominated and influenced by the rich, and ideologically it is prone to accept, internalize ideologies that rationalize and justify policies and outlooks that benefit the rich). The argument that obama is worse than mccain (cause that the proper comparison comparing him to bush is. Well, it me sneaking in a low blow) is pretty radical few even on the true left will make it. And in any case it completely speculative. So i think we can agree to disagree on that one. It really akin to an argument on whether ty cobb was a better player than babe ruth. Who cares? They were both baseball players, and they were all pretty damn good. In the case of bush, obama, mccain they re all politicians, and headed (or would have headed) the same exact corporate-imperial-capitalist mordor-on-the-potomac federal government. So really, the important point that i d like to make here is that people are not analyzing our problems correctly. Essentially we re dealing with a situation that cannot be improved by voting in the right leader into power. And from a more rw perspective well, just go back and read what the founding fathers thought and wrote and warned us about. Uncontrolled growth of a centralized national government, which has become a tool to enslave the people, with the rich, corporations, government bureaucracies as the masters. And pulling the wool over liberals. Blah, blah. That is pure, usda grade a crap. Ok, i agree this is at least somewhat true these days. So my anger at the progressive base is at their stupidity for falling for this scam in the first place. However, there are still plenty of partisan democrat shills who just don t get it. They re still running around trying to sell the democratic kool-aid, telling us that if only we would support the president and the party, they ll give us more progress and more liberal policies. I know this cause i know a whole bunch of people like that. Needless to say, they completely drive me up a wall. It a wonder i haven t strangled any of them yet. Fuckit, they re my friends ferchrissakes! I can t even cut loose with full-blown democrat-hate and criticism for fear of hurting they re feelings. Argh. Lol. Oh and you re absolutely right about the contard propaganda painting obama as a socialist. Note how the democratic party kool-aid (obama is a progressive at heart! He is working hard to advance the progressive agenda! But for him and the party to make progress you have to support him! ) and the republican party kool-aid mutually reinforce? Think that might be a design feature? This is why i think people need to be very, very careful before running around and buying into the line that the tea partiers are all racists, or whatever. And with that i return you back to your contrived conspiracies i m a conspiracy theorist in the same way that cia and state department analysts are conspiracy theorists. If you read foreign policy news articles, you will occasionally see cia analyzing some decision that foreign governments (maybe north korea, or cuba, or ussr) take by speculating that they re doing that to placate their military, or maybe their domestic security apparatus. What they re doing when they do that is looking at those societies, political systems, as a collection of interest groups. And that is basically all i m doing. I m pointing that analytical tool inwards, to look at our society. When the last time you ve seen someone in the msm do this? Why do they never do this? Why hasn t it occurred to you to do this before? It is because we ve been subjected to a relentless stream of state propaganda and myth about our society, political system, for all our lives. . I don t think it stupidity. It propaganda, the framework they induce us to adopt when we look at the world, the human ability to fool yourself, to ignore pieces of data that do not jive with the overall picture we have in our minds, etc. This is why so many otherwise clearly smart, well educated, intelligent people are bush-wing conservatives. Or liberal democrats. It that thing that makes it impossible for a mother to see that her newborn baby is butt-ugly. Or a fat woman to see that yes, those jeans to indeed make her ass look totally fat. We re simply not perfect little logic machines. We re prone to making all kinds of cognitive mistakes due to emotion, our inherent sense of self-worth, selfishness, etc. And it weak-mindedness. The inability to be brutally honest with yourself and see your own country, your own side for what it really is. Basically a pack of useful idiots loyally and slavishly devoted to corrupt stupid scumbag leaders who are traitors to the nation and the people. So next time you get into an argument with a contard or dumbocrat, tell them they re just weak-minded, like a fat seacow who can t accept those jeans make her look fat. . And from a more rw perspective well, just go back and read what the founding fathers thought and wrote and warned us about. Uncontrolled growth of a centralized national government, which has become a tool to enslave the people, with the rich, corporations, government bureaucracies as the masters. And again, not the case at all. You are ignoring the complete disconnect between what they say and what the do. In fact republicans have a history of growing government at alarming rates and are without a doubt much more pro-corporate, pro-wealthy. Christ, bush, in a brief moment of clarity, came right out during a fundraiser and called them his base. Pro-corporate personhood, top marginal tax cuts, ending estate taxes, cuts to dividend tax rates, anti-labor, deregulation, privatization. Etc. These are all clearly republican policies and most certainly not descriptive of liberal planks. Sure there are right leaning democrats that fit this mo but the right is undoubtedly more pro-wealthy when it actually means something on the senate and house floors. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Ooops, disregard. I think we agree here. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. 1. Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. 2. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative therefore beck scheduling this on the anniversary of mlk speech vaguely looks like a race-baiting tactic. But the rw ers probably don t see themselves as racists at all. So i doubt there anything sinister or malicious about them scheduling it on that day, beyond an honest mistake. 3. At the tokenism overt expressions of racism. Level the fight against racism has been largely won. This is why even the glenn beck out there see the need to pay rhetorical respects to mlk. 4. The leveraging of race issues and identity for partisan political gain has infantilized the level of discourse on racism. Neither party is seriously interested in solving the structural problems (ending the war on drugs, for instance, or really taking on the prison-industrial complex) therefore the problem of racism has been reduced to tokenism and posturing. And liberals democrats deserve their share of the blame as well their constant charges that conservatives republicans are motivated by racism more often than not do not hold much water did republicans and conservatives riot on the streets when bush named condi rice and colin powell to his cabinet? When michael steele was named rnc chair? No, the racism is a much more complicated and endemic problem even the vast majority of liberals and democrats are subconsciously racists. But of course the democrats have to differentiate themselves from the republicans somehow, therefore discussions of racism are only carried out in a way that disguises its real nature and allows liberals to posture as the good, non-racist side while painting conservatives as the racists. Think of it as liberals democrats version of bush manichean world view a thoroughly simplistic and infantile good vs evil picture. 5. Palin is not a patriot. All supporters of empire are traitors against the republic. Our wars are all government wars. Remember the words of reagan. Government is the problem. If you support government wars, you are a part of the problem. 6. Mlk was not radical enough. Not by a long shot. 7. The structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what they re calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation. The sad reality is that sharpton, and all the liberals progressives out there, cannot make even their party respect their wishes and desires, and do their bidding, rather than that of their corporate special interest masters. The strong national government will be run 50% of the time by the republicans, and at best, 50% of the time by democrats. And if you can t get even the democrats to behave like proper honest liberals and progressives how on earth do you expect to get this strong national government to serve the people, rather than corporate special interests? This is why liberalism is a mental disorder. These people are busily fashioning the noose which will end up being slipped over their own necks. Create a strong national government, and you will not end up running it. It will be run by corporations and rich, racist white people who hate women and gays. . Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. That is, in my opinion bullshit. Beck is a troll and he knew exactly what sort of reaction he was going to get by scheduling his speech on the anniversary of king speech in the exact same location of that speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. Except he didn t claim he was trying to honor mlk initially. His stated goal was to reclaim the civil rights movement. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative therefore beck scheduling this on the anniversary of mlk speech vaguely looks like a race-baiting tactic. Here a newsflash the right wing are a bunch of racists. But the rw ers probably don t see themselves as racists at all. So i doubt there anything sinister or malicious about them scheduling it on that day, beyond an honest mistake. And the klan didn t see themselves as racists, they were defenders of the white race and national honor. Just pay no attention to all the blacks hanging from trees, they were just bad bungee jumpers. Sarah palin is a retard -- aint satire grand?. Beck hey random placeholder character, i m considering holding a rally at that little spot by the reflecting pool in d. C. . What it called? Rpc the lincoln memorial? The one where mlk gave his famous speech? Beck right! The lincoln memorial! Wait, what speech? This is going to be about integrity, honor, and truth--it definitely not about milk, which, in its pure whiteness certainly is a wonderful thing. Rpc martin luther ki. Beck never heard of him. Hey! How about we also take back the civil rights movement! Ya know? From those folks who think they started it when it was the conservatives all along? Rpc pointing shotgun at own head i ve been sending love letters on your stationary to bill o reilly. He answers them regularly. Boom! . . He knew exactly what sort of reaction he was going to get by scheduling his speech on the anniversary of king speech in the exact same location of that speech. To what point? Certainly it inflames and pisses off the left, but it is not something that would arouse and draw large numbers of new people to the tea parties. I m not denying that there is a divide and rule dynamic here (and the reaction of the left to things like this is, of course, a key feature of this) but i doubt that idiots like beck do it knowingly. That is, beck is probably trapped in the same lw-vs-rw, liberals-vs-conservatives framework most participants in our political system are trapped in. Therefore he unlikely to knowingly do things that will tend to rile up the left and increase the level of passion on that side. That why i think he did it unintentionally. Except he didn t claim he was trying to honor mlk initially. His stated goal was to reclaim the civil rights movement. Of course he being less than forthcoming about his real goals (i mean, we re supposed to believe glenn beck now cares about civil rights??? Rotflmao! ), the point is he insinuated mlk had it right and tried to appropriate hijack his legacy for his side. And before you lw ers go batshit bonkers crazy at this, consider this the evil corporatist-imperialist ruling class has already hijacked mlk legacy for their own nefarious ends. The guy who did this? Barack. Hussein. Obama. So don t you go foaming at the mouth pointing fingers, dems. You are in reality the problem people. Your side is the one that really did the evil deed. Talk about disrespecting mlk indeed. Here a newsflash the right wing are a bunch of racists. Sure. So are you liberals. And the klan didn t see themselves as racists, they were defenders of the white race and national honor. The klan has tried to appripriate hijack a symbol of the black civil rights movement?. 1. Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. No, i think beck did know. And it just exposes his trolling ass. 2. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative no, the rw is the one trapped. The party of lincoln has backslid considerably. Not a new thing either, i remember discussing it during the 92 elections. The fight against racism has been largely won. This is why even the glenn beck out there see the need to pay rhetorical respects to mlk. But that not what he really did. No, the racism is a much more complicated and endemic problem there is no doubt. My parents certainly hoped that i d be better about it (those left wingers back then) than they were (and i am), and i know my kids are better about it than i am. It not about fixing it in one broad swipe, it a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. When the tea parties and other rallies like this one and their ilk start having something even remotely resembling the general population of the country, then i might actually start paying attention instead of the lily white examples that i keep seeing. Don t get me start about palin. Her 15 minutes have been up. She an imbecile but some people think she this oracle. I don t understand the attraction. 6. Mlk was not radical enough. Not by a long shot. He wasn t supposed to be radical. But some certainly saw him that way. The sad reality is that sharpton, and all the liberals progressives out there, cannot make even their party respect their wishes and desires, and do their bidding, rather than that of their corporate special interest masters. Which is different from the conservatives republicans how? My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. No, i think beck did know. And it just exposes his trolling ass. Why do you think this? My reasons for thinking otherwise are this, from my post above to what point? Certainly it inflames and pisses off the left, but it is not something that would arouse and draw large numbers of new people to the tea parties. I m not denying that there is a divide and rule dynamic here (and the reaction of the left to things like this is, of course, a key feature of this) but i doubt that idiots like beck do it knowingly. That is, beck is probably trapped in the same lw-vs-rw, liberals-vs-conservatives framework most participants in our political system are trapped in. Therefore he unlikely to knowingly do things that will tend to rile up the left and increase the level of passion on that side. That why i think he did it unintentionally. If you have good arguments reasons we should think otherwise, i d love to hear them. (i m no glenn beck fan at all. When the revolution comes i would like to see it tortured to death. So i would love it if you could give me even more reasons to hate it. ) no, the rw is the one trapped. The party of lincoln has backslid considerably. Not a new thing either, i remember discussing it during the 92 elections. Of course. They re trapped by the liberals are the problem narrative. But the point is lw is no better. The lw is trapped as well. They think the problem is too many racist conservatives, or something like that. Neither of these two narratives is correct. The big problems are structural either big government statism or corporate capitalism, or some screwed up interaction between the two. And a totally screwed up understanding by the public as to how our political system works. This is why in reality both lw liberals and rw conservatives are completely disenfranchised (that is, the parties that supposedly represent them never do what they really want). It not just you progressives who are not getting the outcomes that you want out of the political system. The rw conservatives are not getting the outcomes that they want either. This is why they re going bonkers crazy and holding tea party rallies and whatever. The meme that they re motivated solely by racism serves the purpose of fooling you lw liberals it keeps you trapped in this narrative that the problem is too many rw racist conservatives when in fact the real problems are structural, and your party has the same structural problems as their party. But that not what he really did. What did he do, then? How is an attempt to appropriate and cloak himself in mlk legacy anything but a compliment, an acknowledgement that mlk was a great american whom we should all honor? . It a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. You re very, very confused. The fact of the matter is overt racist attitudes have largely been addressed and much improved by liberal efforts. However, in real economic legal outcome terms, the african-american community is doing horribly. They have largely lost all the gains they made thanks to the victories of the civil rights era. This is why i think you liberals are completely barking up the wrong tree when you focus in on overt racism of the sort you think you see in the tea party crowd. This is you subtly misdiagnosing the problem. Do not settle for tokenism, which is the level at which you re fighting when you argue with tea partiers over whether this was an insult to mlk memory or whatever. Demand actual policy outcomes end the war on drugs. If a democratic politician, like barack obama, won t deliver on it, then he is the no good racist asshole who should be hated, even before you start caring about a rw clown whose job essentially seems to be to distract you from the real issues and problems, while channeling and directing rw populist anger in directions in which it can not pose a real threat to the ruling class. Something even remotely resembling the general population of the country that why it divide and rule. The whole point of this is to make sure that popular movements never resemble the general population of the country. Because you lw libs cannot talk to or understand or get along with rw cons. Don t get me start about palin. Her 15 minutes have been up. She an imbecile but some people think she this oracle. I don t understand the attraction. Palin is no good, just like obama. Although i think it too early to write her off completely. I think she actually quite a cunning and clever political operator. Her kool-aid doesn t work on the likes of you of course, but then again that like trying to judge obama effectiveness as a politician on his ability to sell his kool-aid to white southern kkk members. Which is different frread the entire comment. . Why do you think this? As much as a history buff beck tries to make himself out as, you really expect me to believe that he didn t know? Or that nobody in his organization (and i d say it decent sized to pull something like this off) knew? If he didn t know, that doesn t speak well right there, and the fact that nobody in his organization didn t realize it without telling him if he really didn t know, and i refuse to believe that somebody didn t know, makes it that more of a facepalm. And no, i didn t write the other stuff after that. Up to the point about being trapped. You gotta watch that cut paste. ) p there are plenty of traps on both sides. But it like both sets of twins i raised, they both raise hell with each other twin because they really are alike. And that pretty much the issue here. With the exception of really minor stuff, the two parties are basically peas in a pod. They both spend money like drunken sailors, and the difference between the two on social values only looks huge because it blown up much more than it should be. But that not what he really did. . Comparing yourself to mlk, which is my view of what he is doing, is not doing mlk any favors. That is just trying to aggrandize beck. . It a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. . You& ,re very, very confused. The fact of the matter is overt racist attitudes have largely been addressed and much improved by liberal efforts. . How am i confused? I grew up during the civil rights movement. It not like i ve read about it in a text book, i lived it. And i m sure i didn t understand half of what was going on at the time, but i know what was happening. And then you argue. However, in real economic legal outcome terms, the african-american community is doing horribly. They have largely lost all the gains they made thanks to the victories of the civil rights era. . Gee, did i say things were going along perfectly for blacks? In fact, didn t i say that i expected things to continue to improve? And i don t know if you ve noticed, but things aren t just going to hell for the blacks, it going to hell for the whites as well. Unemployed at 50? Good luck at find another job, black, white, martian, the economy is in the shitter, and has been since 2000. I m constantly after my kids to make sure they are in school. Because even with an advanced degree (which i don t even know if 3 4 of them would even care to get), i m afraid that they re not going to see the same standard of living that they grew up with. But that a different argument. This is why i think you liberals are completely barking up the wrong tree when you focus in on overt racism of the sort you think you see in the tea party crowd. This is you subtly misdiagnosing the problem. . I more of a small l liberal than a liberal, and probably more along libertarian lines (but not the big l kind either. ). I m not sure that what i see is overt racism in those tea party crowds. Some of them, yes, that pretty much been satisfactorily proven, but it not like there aren t some liberals who aren t racist in their own way. If i m misdiagnosing the problem, you aren t opening your mouth and stating what the problem exactly is, either. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. As much as a history buff beck tries to make himself out as, you really expect me to believe that he didn t know? Sure. There an awful lot of history out there. And perhaps even worse, most history is propaganda. So even if beck is a history buff and spends all his time reading up on the founding fathers or whatever, i have no trouble believing that he knows nothing about the history of black america, or the civil rights struggle. It not the sort of history that rw ers are likely to read, after all. And no, i didn t write the other stuff after that. Up to the point about being trapped. You gotta watch that cut paste. Yes, i was quoting myself, from an earlier post. Easier than rewriting it all from scratch. . The difference between the two on social values only looks huge because it blown up much more than it should be. Yes, and they do it intentionally. Both parties are structured identically (same business plan use corporate special interest money to gain seats, use seats to do favors for corporate special interests, so they ll keep giving them money lather, rinse, repeat) and pretty much hold the same ideology (corporatism and imperialism) so the only way they can differentiate themselves is by stoking the fires of the great american kulturkampf. Which is the trap that i think you and heywood are falling into, if you insist on seeing all manner of dissing of mlk in the tea party rally. Comparing yourself to mlk, which is my view of what he is doing, is not doing mlk any favors. That is just trying to aggrandize beck. Of course that is the point, to make beck and the tea party look respectably non-racist. I think our difference here boils down to this is it more sensible to insist that the rw conservatives completely convert to your side on everything before they re allowed to say nice things about mlk? Or should we welcome their adoption of the liberal democrat view of mlk (as a hero rather than a philandering plagiarizing trouble-maker, or whatever the old rw view of mlk used to be)? I think the former makes sense if you look at this as a my side must beat your side situation. But from what i can see, your side is just no good either. I mean just gawd-awful too. And perhaps this my side must beat your side thing is part of what makes both sides so gawd-awfully bad. That why i think the indication that reverence for mlk and the civil rights movement are so mainstream at this point that even the rw must cloak itself with it can be viewed as a positive thing. How am i confused? I grew up during the civil rights movement. It not like i ve read about it in a text book, i lived it. Because you seem to think the problem of racism has been getting better (you better than your parents, your children better than you, etc. ). At the tokenism level, yes. But institutionalized systemic racism has been getting worse for the past 30 years. Gee, did i say things were going along perfectly for blacks? In fact, didn t i say that i expected things to continue to improve? And i don t know if you ve noticed, but things aren t just going to hell for the blacks, it going to hell for the whites as well. This is correct. And when people lose everything, they lose it. This is why i think efforts aimed at tokenism (e. G. This fight with the tea parties on whether they re racists or not, and whether beck dissed mlk on purpose) are ultimately futile and miss the point. The really big problems that are destroying the american middle class, and are further impoverishing blacks, are structural. The kulturkampf is there to distract people from the structural reasons and who actually is doing the harm. E. G. The guy in charge right now, who is pursuing corporatist and imperialist policies, is barack obama. Not glenn beck. In other words, sitting around yelling at clowns who say non-pc things about blacks has an opportunity cost you re not doing anything about the structural problems that are creating more and more impoverished and pissed off formerly-middle class whites. And when the situation gets bad enough well, people go crazy and do insane stuff. See e. G. Who the germans voted into power as a result of the great depression. I m not sure that what i see is overt racism in those tea party crowds. Some of them, yes, that pretty much been satisfactorily proven, but it not like there aren t some liberals who aren t racist in their own way. If i m misdiagnosing the problem, you aren t opening your mouth and stating what the problem exactly is, either. That all i m saying. I m suggesting that the tea party having a higher than average content of racists just isn t a big a problem as the fact that the democrats in power are pursuing imperialist and neo-liberal economic policies. And i think the system uses the former to distract everyone from the latter (there is a rw equivalent to this, of course. Go back and see what beck and hannread the entire comment. . There& ,s an awful lot of history out there. And perhaps even worse, most history is propaganda. . So you think that mlk was progaganda, when he said it was propaganda, or what he said was propaganda? I mean, yeah, the tech wasn t that great back then, but i m pretty sure it got recorded, and they certainly didn t have photoshop back then. The date, that mlk was there, and what he said are pretty much facts that can t be argued, not propaganda. It not the sort of history that rw ers are likely to read, after all. . No doubt there. They& ,ve been at this a very long time. Which is the trap that i think you and heywood are falling into, if you insist on seeing all manner of dissing of mlk in the tea party rally. . It not the trap for me. I don t consider the rally to be dissing mlk. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. If they had just come out and explained that yes, they were doing this on the anniversary instead of the pissant way that they did it, then i really would have cared less. Maybe they thought that it would stir up things for them. Whatever. The reverence or whatever you want to call it comes out quite a bit cold when they have to be told the history. Because you seem to think the problem of racism has been getting better. It has. I grew up with this shit, remember? To continue to press on about it being worse is stupid. Today is nothing like it was in the 60s. Is it on a steady curve upward for every black out there? Nope. I can t even claim that it on a stead curve upward for the white children. It hasn t been a steady curve upward for women, either. Go to south africa and see what it like now. They ve only been equalizing for about 25 years. It quite the eye opener. And the whites are the minority there, not the majority. And when people lose everything, they lose it. . I& ,m suggesting that the tea party is going to have about as much effect as every other third party out there. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. The republicans may very well embrace them with open arms, but the best the tea party is ever going to get with the arrangement is lip service, just like the rr. Which pretty much trumps whatever the tea party thinks it can actually do. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. So you think that mlk was progaganda, when he said it was propaganda, or what he said was propaganda? No, i was referring to the sorts of mythic narrative about america history that rw ers like beck tend to prefer. They generally omit the rather nastier parts, like the extermination of the indians. And oppression of blacks. Even now, while it still going on and it right under their noses. It the power of narrative. (one of my favorite blogs btw. ) stuff like this, from salon today the gop fake racial history. So what i m saying is that the sort of history that folks like glenn beck like to read and wallow in are propaganda history that tends to omit pesky things like how blacks were oppressed, and how white southerners had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century, to dismantle jim crow and aparthaid. Therefore i wouldn t be surprised in glenn beck had no idea what date mlk delivered that speech of his. The date, that mlk was there, and what he said are pretty much facts that can t be argued, not propaganda. The human mind is a very odd thing if you have a broad, overarching narrative framework that been drilled into you since an early age (we americans are a good and decent people! Our government and laws reflect our good and decent values! ) it has very little trouble omitting or ignoring little bits of data that do not jive with the big picture you hold in your mind. It wouldn t surprise me if rw ers run around conveniently forgetting that something like the civil rights movement happened, unless you remind them of it. After all, they exhibit cognitive dissonance on so many things (as do liberals, btw), why not on this too? Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. But that move wasn t aimed at you. It was aimed at the tea party internally (not too many people like being called a racist it probably serves to reassure the rank and file that they aren t being racist asshats by attending tea party rallies) and at centrists and moderates. So again it boils down to should we be upset that the tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk mantle to draw more support from folks who otherwise would be turned off by overt racism, or should we be encouraged that the center has moved so far left when it comes to racism and the victory of the civil rights movement that even glenn beck has to claim he is following in mlk footsteps? I tend to think that for meaningful change and progress we have to move the opinions of the entire nation, otherwise divide and rule guarantees that the ruling class will succeed in pursuing their partisan agenda. So i m not so worried about their side getting stronger. To be honest your side deserves to get its ass spanked in november and in 2012. It has. I grew up with this shit, remember? At the token, symbolic, and overt level, sure. But this is why i think liberals bark up the wrong tree when they react so strongly to provocations like beck invoking mlk, and react not at all when a politician like obama refuses to end the war on drugs. Is it on a steady curve upward for every black out there? Nope. I can t even claim that it on a stead curve upward for the white children. Of course. The point of beating down black people is actually to disguise from white people that they re the real target of the ruling class. Black people are few in number and are poor. No, if you are the ruling class, and interested in exploiting and stealing from the peasants, the key demographic you re interested in is actually white people because they re numerous and they actually have some wealth. I m not even sure what this is about. Sorry, went off on a slight tangent there. I was trying to put stuff like the tea party in some context. I think that the reason why the rw grass roots is acting so crazy is that your average white working class, especially in the hinterlands (flyover country, aka dumbfuckistan) has been backsliding economically, thanks to neoliberalism and all. That what the matter with kansas, and why people are turning increasingly to jesus and guns and a mythology about america past that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. Of course. Just like the obama movement. Or the nader movement. So why are we singling them out for abuse on that particular point? The tea partiers are on average pretty clueless (tread the entire comment. . Therefore i wouldn t be surprised in glenn beck had no idea what date mlk delivered that speech of his. . The tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk mantle. . They exhibit cognitive dissonance on so many things. They didn t know it was the date of mlk speech, but were using that date and place to wrap themselves in mlk mantle? Maybe they aren t quite that dumb, and you re just using the accusation of cognitive dissonance to fill holes in your stream-of-consciousness rant. . Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn& ,t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. . It inevitable. Just sit back, relax, and let the world destroy itself. Have confidence in your ability to swim and you won t have to worry bout nothing. Tipping sacred cows. They didn t know it was the date of mlk speech, but were using that date and place to wrap themselves in mlk mantle? If you go back and read my earlier posts in this thread, you should be able to tell that the hypothesis that i favor is that glenn beck scheduled the rally not realizing that it was the anniversary of mlk speech. Then when this started to get attention, decided to capitalize on it by trying to cloak the tea party in mlk mantle. Maybe they aren t quite that dumb. There another post somewhere here where i posit it not stupidity that the problem rather propaganda framing national mythology, the human brain ability to selectively choose facts and rationalize decisions ideologies that are of (seeming) benefit to us. So at one level, i have quite a bit more respects for the peasants than i used to. When they rebel against the coastal elites and the ivory tower ivy league educated progressives, etc. , they re absolutely correct in the target they ve picked. That is, indeed, the key problem demographic the coordinator class in socialist (i mean real socialists who read marx and lenin and bakunin not liberal democrats) terminology. Incidentally the true left shares with the tea party right that estimation of who constitute the problem demographic. They too will tell you that basically what you have here is a bunch of harvard assholes burning down the world. Where they (the tea partiers, the grass-roots right) err, of course, is in not understanding exactly how it is that these harvard assholes are going about burning down the world. If they did, they would be listening to ron paul, and not to folks like sarah palin or glenn beck. . Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn& ,t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. . I don t necessarily disagree on that, but peak anything on a global scale isn t in our history. Yes, we have examples of what can happen when certain things go beyond peak and essentially hit zero. We haven t zeroed out anything yet nor are we close to doing so in the near future. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. . Ok, if we want to call the tea party stupid, then this fits like a glove. But to anybody with brains (inside or outside the movement), it falls frighteningly flat. So again it boils down to should we be upset that the tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk& ,s mantle. I could care less that tp want to cloak themselves in whomever. There is the 1st amendment. How the whole thing has been approached has been nothing but a series of missteps. Doing it for internal or external reasons, it still a big epic fail in my book. Of course. The point of beating down black people is actually to disguise from white people that they re the real target of the ruling class. Black people are few in number and are poor. . And of course, while i expect white americans to manage to keep their wealth, there is the coming fact that whites will be in the minority by 2040. I think that the reason why the rw grass roots is acting so crazy is that your average white working class, especially in the hinterlands (flyover country, aka dumbfuckistan) has been backsliding economically, thanks to neoliberalism and all. That what the matter with kansas, and why people are turning increasingly to jesus and guns and a mythology about america past that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. . I don t think neolibealism has much to do with that situation, we could just as easily blame it on the neocons. I grew up in ohio, a part of that flyover country. And while i ve been getting blown away by the number of former classmates that have gone on to be quite religious (some that i never suspected, while the holy rollers in school seem to be pretty quiet about it now), i m not too sure what truly up with that. I blame globalization personally. Nobody explained it to the americans that not only the cost of your goods was going to be going down, you re level of living was going to go down too. The cheaper goods have hidden that little fact for the past 20 years, but it starting to catch up. That why if you lose your job at 50 now, you are going to have scrap by with a fast food job, and deal with the fact that your health insurance is covering a lot of shit that you now have to deal with, and getting the days off you need to get to the doctor if you can afford it is problematic. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. . Nader has always been a head case. Off the rails since the 70s at least. Obama has delivered some of what he proposed to do. I don t think that he understood that when people thought we would be out of iraq, it would be down to 0 troops. Not 50,000, not even 30,000. Maybe a few advisors numbering around a hundred. But essentially out. Which is why the rw is applauding what he has done so far, but his supporters not so much. Health care reform, even for the abortion that it truly is, still counts as an accomplishment. Not that i see myself voting for him again. And my vote certainly will not go towards a republican. The ron paul conservatives who understand that dismantling the empire. Let not forget his son rand. I m half of mind in agreeing with some of his outlooks. That he doesn t bother to do anything to try and educate his electorate before springing some of that shit on them, and not explaining in the little words the electorate uses to make sense. Hell, he doesn t even make use of the big words to really explain himself. Which is why he keeps shoving his foot in his mouth. I don t really expect him to win ky. Ron paul cd must be extremely eccentric and expect him to be as well. That just not going to float in the entire state of ky. And one would think that rand would be running a much better campaign unless he ignoring his father, or his father is refusing to even give him any hints. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. If they did, they would be listening to ron paul, and not to folks like sarah palin or glenn beck. As revolution inaction might say, i love you. . Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it ha hahahaha. Yeah, i used to believe that one too. But appears it makes not one iota of difference in practice. Exibit a harding election meant big bucks for big business. The anti-trust gains made by wilsonian progressives went out the door as a new age dawned for fat-cat tycoons and good old boys in the republican party. Ironically, though, many of harding pro-business policies hurt the american economy in the long run. First, the sudden free-for-all in the market led to speculation and corruption. Speculators began using future earnings on the stocks they owned money they did not even have yet to buy new stocks, a process known as buying on margin. This overspeculation, along with widespread corruption and faulty international finances, eventually led to the stock market crash of 1929 oh yeah, and don t this. The top marginal tax rate was slashed nearly in half five years before the slide. Sound familiar? Exibit b arguably, the united states main problem in vietnam was not poor strategy but rather the fact that it greatly underestimated viet cong tenacity. Although u. S. Leaders did indeed make a series of bad decisions in vietnam, not every aspect of the u. S. Strategy was unsound. Westmoreland war of attrition, for instance, did in fact have significant impact. However, the viet cong tenacity enabled it to draw the war out into a prolonged guerrilla conflict that the united states was ill equipped to deal with. Rather than hold permanent positions and fight along conventional lines, the viet cong harassed u. S. Troops incessantly in small groups, striking quickly and then disappearing into the jungle or the peasant population. With this dogged strategy, even a poor, third world nation was able to make significant headway against the world leading military superpower doomed if you do and doomed if you don t. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Shrug. I have a friend who has also managed to become a neocon (he takes the mantle and name freely), who thinks the main problem with vietnam was the south. Saigon wouldn t move their ass, so we bombed hanoi in retaliation. I m not too sure about that, but then, i never did study vietnam, and his information supposedly came from a general that was teaching history at osu in the 70s. Still, the issues with both iraq and afghanistan as that the actual and it doesn t help if it the wrong people that have forgotten history. . My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. Does that make alveda king a moustache to cover beck& ,s racism? I was gonna watch this spectacle on c-span, but animal planet had a stirring program on snails. Plastic is a state of something or other. . Glenn beck is positioning himself as the new messiah in america and a lot of americans, bog love em, are eating this stuff up like a dog licks at its own vomit. Elmer gantry remains one of my all-time favourite movies, but watching a real-life charlatan pull the wool over the eyes of the credulous is entertainment unbound. Mormons can sure be calculating, can t they? Own your words. . I think someone should design a flag with a drawing of a salamander and the caption, don& ,t tread on me. It would sell like hotcakes! Own your words. . I followed the link and saw a shirt that says, the bees know. Know what? How do find flowers? That you should eat your honey? Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Dunno. Apparently the new messiah sees bog light shining out of his ass in any random natural occurrence. Maybe it some secret code meant to fulfil the intent, as per the ad copy, of the tee-shirts nothing hacks of (sic) a lefty more than a t-shirt that dares poke fun at the one, denounce (sic) woodrow wilson or simply says glenn beck (sic) on it. Further annoy an already angry at the world lefty with any one of glenn fantastically antagonistic t- shirts. There you have it! Restoring honor with cryptic, fantastically antagonistic tees for just twenty-five smackers! Own your words. . Glenn beck is a mormon. Most evangelical christians do not consider mormons to be true christians because they believe that jesus came to the new world. I wonder how many of the crazies listening to beck know this. Actually mormon beliefs are pretty out there. My favorite is still the golden tablets delivered by the angel moroni. Turns out the term moron was not yet invented when joseph smith wrote the mormon books, although it has a greek root (the greek word moros, meaning dull). Judeo-christianity just like regular christianity, only insincerely 5% more inclusive! -- mc nally. My favorite is the whole business about planet kolob. A www. Shields-research link but why stop with mormons? All protestants are satan-worshipping heretic scum, i say. Bring back the inquisition! Stormtroopers of the counter-reformation, to arms! . Moses parting the red sea, jesus turning water into wine, golden tablets falling out of the sky in upstate new york. To me, these are all equally improbable and silly, but if i had to pick one to believe in, i d go with water into wine for the practical utility of getting the party started. Not that all present-day christians would agree. I once attended a bible study at my mother-in-law southern baptist church, where the pastor was expounding at length upon how episcopalians (whom he called whiskopalians, because they drink alcohol. Ha ha ha! ) are actually probably not going to hell. But the people assembled weren t buying it. Devil water is of the devil, after all. In that sense, mormons are probably closer brothers of the book. Despite the proprietary underwears and fringe polygamy, mormons share most of their moral panics with various and sundry right-wing christians. My step-father-in-law was somewhat distressed that he couldn t attend his son wedding when his son married a devout mormon in a temple, but he and my mother-in-law are far more concerned that my wife and i are bringing up our daughter without god. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . To help erase the not-so-distant memories of conservatives denouncing king as a communist, and an un-american who wanted to trample all over their freedom of association. Good luck with that. But primarily, he was hoping to stir the shit and make a splash, and in that he was wildly successful. And no, i don t believe that the guy who sees all sorts of sinister connections in his blackboard scribblings just happened to pick the anniversary of mlk speech. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Those are his words. This couldn t be more ironic, from the same guy that called obama a racist. I wonder who he reclaiming it from and to what purpose? Btw bs he didn t know this was the anniversary of mlk speech. But most importantly who is bankrolling this guy?? Well for one, rupert murdoch, one of the biggest money men backing the tea party and becks escapades. But that no secret, this self interested and high profile billionaire makes no secrets about wanting to eliminate government controls on his ability to make money unfettered from government regulations regardless who he tramples to get it. He is also interested in freeing himself from supporting the sick and elderly as it cuts too much into his monthly nut. So anyone that is willing to call for an end to democratic institutions is ok by him. A pair lesser known sugar daddies are the koch brothers of ny. These guys qualify as true invisible hands as described in historian kim phillips-fein book of the same title. Their combined wealth is only surpassed by gates and buffet in america. While great philanthropists they also spend their money on backing radical groups with an agenda to dismantle democratic institutions in the same vein as murdoch. There is a straight line from the john birch society (which their father served on the top governing body of) to the americans for prosperity foundation which has worked closely with the tea party (nothing wrong with that) since its inception. But it seems the foundations chief concern is for the prosperity of 2 americans in particular, not americans as a whole. It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. He is a charlatan and a provocateur who never met a fact he couldn t obscure. He is the 1984 version of a big brother pr man. He plays to the angry mob, he is not a leader in any sense of the word. Btw palin is being bankrolled by the same crowd, fed thru these foundations to keep the engine grinding out her message , as if it actually hers. So think about that for a minute, what really needs to happen is to take the country back from these billionaire sugar daddies trying to take away our birth right, get rid of their shills or at least expose them for what they are which is know nothing interlopers. **this post has taken or reworded portions of a frank rich op-ed piece that appeared in the ny times on sun 8 29 the billionaires bankrolling the tea party. It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. It because he preaches fear. And if there one thing that galvanizes ingnorant people, it fear. Will bunch talks about this in a recent essay let face it this country has long had its know-nothings and its birchers and its mccarthyites, but it never had gizmos like fox news or sarah palin twitter feed to fuel toxic ideas so far so fast. It time we admit these seemingly disconnected battles over anchor babies, mosques, and a black man in the oval office are all part of the same war against the other, and that we are in the fight of a lifetime. Beck, limbaugh, palin et al. Have judged their audience well, and they re playing to the basest instincts of a populace that is sadly composed of some of the dumbest fucks in the modern age. It isn t pretty now, and i shudder to think where it will take america. Own your words. . I m not inclined to classify the majority of people that i live and work with as morons or the dumbest fucks in the modern age just because they see things differently than i do. I do agree that our democracy is under threat (as are many things in our soceity) by the pure speed and huge volume of access and content now available to self interested powerful entities who are only concerned with becoming more powerful at our expense. But we ve always needed to be very vigilant in protecting our freedoms, nothing new there. I also agree that ruling (or influencing) by state of fear is as old as the hills, a tried and true method that will never go out of style (unfortunately). . I admire and respect anyone that concerned about the direction of their country. However, the sheer irrationality of birthers, those that think obama is a socialist, those that think obama is racist, those that think he secretly taking america down the road to islam, and those that believe any number of other completely baseless and spurious charges against obama, all drummed up by a right wing media machine slavering after power in any fashion they can, well, a lot of these folks, to my mind, are dumb fucks. For better or worse there always been a faction of americans who wear their stupidity as a badge of honour. In palin and beck they now have their totems. Good luck with all that. Own your words. . It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. He is a charlatan and a provocateur who never met a fact he couldn t obscure. He is the 1984 version of a big brother pr man. He plays to the angry mob, he is not a leader in any sense of the word. I disagree. I think he is a very skilled propagandist. I don t think of him as a smart man, but he is shrewd enough to know what his audience wants to hear and how to best deliver that message for maximum impact. You may think of him as a terrible actor and a mediocre entertainer, but his methods are effective when it comes to enriching himself and whipping up fear, anger and resentment in his target demographic. I love my dead gay chewbacca!. All snark aside, it takes some skill. He does it better than others in the same game. I love my dead gay chewbacca!. . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . But in the end i will be released. The reason ill be released is the same reason you think ill be convicted. (lord of war, yuri orlov quote) is anybody following the victor bout, arms dealer, case? For that case is becoming kind-a weird, like one of them hollywood screenings. Quick recap victor bout, born somewhere in 1967, works first as a translator in the soviet army, than goes the red-bloodied capitalist path, selling arms if recent pics are anything to go by lost a bit of weight in thai prison since then. Week before last, thai ambassador in the us is called for by the state department, and told that the extradition to the us of mr bout is of the highest priority. That friday a thai court rules mr bout to be extradited to the us, pronto (or whatever that term is in the thai language). The russkis grumble that it is all unlawful and political, having to do with very strong outside pressure and such, if it wasnt such a lamentable situation, victor should return to the (warm? Welcoming? ) motherland and da. Hooray! Yells us media, with author of a book on the man being quoted in the ny times as saying that us authorities became aware in the mid-1990s that he victor bout had fundamentally altered the way wars were being waged. He was flying in planeloads of this stuff. There was a lot of alarm that we were facing something new. It was the privatization of warfare. So far, so good. But today a strange, short item in the financial times as a us justice dept aircraft is waiting on the tarmac of bangkok airport, squabbling among different thai agencies is going on. Quote a us legal manoeuvre of filing secondary charges against mr bout in case the primary extradition case had failed is stopping swift extradition and could see him go free, end quote (the news, and interesting background, is confirmed by the asian times, here) huh? Is mr bout now coming to america, or not?. After all, he is the laisseziest of the laissez faire capitalists. At least he was making sure the thugs who bought the guns had the money to pay for rather than doing what the us does by just giving them away. A pie on every plate -- paul byron for president in 2012!. Two score and seven years ago, on 28 august 1963, reverend martin luther king gave his famous i have a dream speech before 200,000 people at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for racial equality. 28 august seemed auspicious to glenn beck, who arranged for his own rally at washingtons lincoln memorial calling for restoring honour to america. With sarah palin among his guest speakers, he managed to attract tens of thousands of his supporters to d. C. And he also managed to attract hundreds of counter-demonstrators, led by al sharpton. Beck insisted his rally was non-political and his speech struck many in attendance as religious in nature something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to god. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness, but now it is time to concentrate on the good things in america, the things we have accomplished and the things we can do tomorrow. . Palins speech was aimed more at patriots than at republicans it is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged. And knowing never to retreat. . We must restore america and restore her honor. She also said she wasnt speaking as a politician no, something more, something much more. Ive been asked to speak as the mother of a soldier and i am proud of that distinction. Say what you want to say about me, but i raised a combat vet and you cant take that away from me. . Beck even got one of kings nieces to show up, apparently based on her opposition to abortion. However, al sharpton, who was upset that beck decided to hold his rally on this particular date, commented the structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what theyre calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation and its something that dr. King and others fought against. . Certainly, beck and sharpton have competing visions of america, but they also seem to have competing visions of martin luther king and what he stood for. What was beck hoping to accomplish by invoking kings memory? Why couldnt he have held his rally on labour day weekend instead?. Hopefully, these useful morons will soon complete their destiny of fragmenting the republican party out of existence. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Seriously. Don& ,t you wish you could be trying to keep the corrupt and incompetent folk honest instead of trying to keep the retarded children from breaking everything? Sad lad, he really couldnt handle starting from scratch on the very first level. But he died the death of a warrior. . You are much too optimistic, i think. I think newt gingrich is right and for the most part the tea partiers will fall in line behind the republican party. However, they have done some good work so far discomfiting the neocon-wing of the gop an american conservative link. Now, if we could only get the lw pwogs to come to their senses and start waging war against the neocon-corporatists of their own party, rather than being so easily distracted by stuff that so far ought to be considered an internecine rw republican civil war. So, i think the lw pwogs should just stfu about the tea parties. And instead should be hyperventilating 24 7 about how obama and the democratic party leadership are identical to bush and the republican party leadership. . I have no problem with you calling the dlc, dem leadership et al. , corporate tools. Obviously. But when you say things like the obama administration is identical to bush s, i think you should know that you sound full throttle, batshit crazy. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. The obama administration is not identical to bush s. It in fact, worse. It bush, but without any opposition from the left. Foreign policy -continuing bush efforts to conquer iraq and afghanistan -continuing bush war on terror expanding it, even to somalia and yemen. -continuing to move us towards war with iran. -more money for dod than even bush. -continues to kidnap and rendition people police state at home -extended usa patriot act -will not repeal military commissions act of 2006 -continuing domestic spying, without even fig leaf of fisa court -asserts power to have american citizens assassinated, at will, without any due process at all economy -continuing trillion$ in wealth transfer from taxpayers to wall street ponzi scheme banksters -provided corporate welfare to health insurance corporations, under the guise of health reform so yes, you re right. He not identical to bush. He worse than bush. . 1. Sorry, continuation of some bush policies is not, in my book, nearly as bad a thinking up and implementing these abominations in the first place. Obama is not even on the same planet as an administration that ginned up evidence with the expressed intent on invading and declaring war on a sovereign nation, promoted torture, warrant-less domestic spying, pealed back environmental policies, consumer protections, etc. Etc. . 2. Obama has made incremental improvements in finance reform, healthcare reform, corporate governance and possibly an end to the irresponsible tax cuts. None of these things could have happened under bush. 3. Obama cabinet and appointees are considerably more competent and less ideologically driven than bush collection of criminal pnac bozos, good-ol-boys, and horse show professionals. Think of the cast of insane fuckers in bush cabinet. I still can t believe it. Worse than bush, really? Seriously, this claim only make you sound crazy. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. 1. Sorry, continuation of some bush policies is not, in my book, nearly as bad a thinking up and implementing these abominations in the first place. Yeah, standard democrat liberal response. I think where we really diverge is at the narrative framework level. You probably think of this as evil republicans creating problems, and democrats being unable to solve or fix those problems. So you re willing to settle for the democrats not creating any further problems just managing the mess that republicans created in the first place, as it were. Not surprisingly, i have a completely different picture of what going on though. I think what we have is a society polity dominated by interest groups most famously corporate special interests, but also including governmental interest groups like the national security apparatus. One way or the other, these groups pervert distort dominate the political system, so that the outcome is always what they want (in rare, rare cases different interest groups might come into conflict only then do you see real change, a powerful interest group being defeated). In essence this is the ruling class. And people like obama and bush are willing to do the bidding of the ruling class either they sold out, or they agree with the ruling class consensus agenda. That why they get to serve as presidents, while people who refuse to toe the line nader, kucinich, gravel, mckinney, paul, baldwin, barr, etc. One way or the other are sabotaged, ignored, delegitimized. So for instance, in the case of iraq, i view bush and obama as pursuing the same exact overall goal. You have to decontextualize the war, to make it seem as if bush made the wrong decision and obama is now merely managing or trying to improve the bad situation that arose out of bush bad decision but in my view the proper way to understand the iraq war is by starting out with the recognition that a long long time ago, our ruling class came to the consensus that we ought to dominate and control the middle east. Add it to the imperial global economic system, but run by people governments willing to deal with our ruling class under terms that our ruling class desired (think, e. G. The house of saud). And once the strategic goal is domination of the middle east, then countries that are sitting on lots of oil gas, and or are strategically located (and in iraq case both of those conditions are true) become critical, and cannot be allowed to be governed by people unwilling to do our bidding. So, that the context for the iraq war. The decision to regime change iraq was actually made back in 1991, either right before or during gulf war i. And when we decide to regime change we go down a list of tools cia coup, or pressure on the population via blockade sanctions, pressure by bombing and if all else fails, then direct invasion. And note in iraq we tried all these things, in order. So the war was basically the empire marching on and adding a new territory to the empire. With bush, sanctions and cia-fomented coups, attempts at assassination and bombings having failed, it was merely the time to go to the next (and last) tool in the toolbox. And obama is just continuing the effort to conquer the place. So, giving obama a break on this, on the grounds that he didn t pull the trigger on the invasion, and is merely continuing it, is akin to giving goering a break, saying that he not a warmonger, if hitler had died in 1942 and goering had merely continued hitler wars, not started any of his own. . Declaring war on a sovereign nation. Btw, sovereign nation means we don t get to pressure countries if we don t like their governments. Therefore obama is behaving as if iran and north korea are not sovereign nations. Promoted torture, warrant-less domestic spying and obama is continuing them. Why? Because he agrees with bush that those policies are necessary if you want to continue with the imperialism. And obama is continuing with the imperialism. Pealed back environmental policies how did you like obama going all drill, baby, drill just before the bp oil well catastrophe? 2. Obama has made incremental improvements in finance reform, healthcare reform not true. Health care reform was actually corporate welfare for health insurance companies. Finance reform is also a boondoggle. What they re doing is distracting people by putting on a show of fixing the barn door, after all the cows have left. What they really ought to do is arrest all the big wall street firm senior execs and confiscate every damn red cent they own, on the grounds that they ve been running a completely fraudulent ponzi-scheme scam, and have destroyed the world economy in the process. Then you can talk about reforming the syread the entire comment. . So, once again, obama is worse. He is like bush, but more competent, stealthier, better at pulling the wool over liberals progressives eyes, and therefore more dangerous see, this is where you run completely off the rails. He worse because he more competent? I mean, what-the-fuck. You are cheering for dumbshits. And pulling the wool over liberals. Blah, blah. That is pure, usda grade a crap. Indoctrinated conservatives are only people that believe that liberals worship obama. Most of the liberals i know are quite aware of what is happening inside the beltway, and they are certainly not happy about it. He is fooling no one. The meme that obama is some liberal saviour is myth, fabrication. At best liberals see obama as a centrist with corporate leanings and better than average oratory skills. Not a saviour, not even much of a change. At best a reset back from insanity to governance more of the clinton age. And with that i return you back to your contrived conspiracies and cheering for dumbshits. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Yes, the campaign ended. Whos got the kibble? - bad lieutenant pocno. I actually hope you re right, and that i m completely off base. Because the implications of my analysis, if correct, are pretty freaking scary and terrifying. I ve essentially pronounced a death sentence on american democracy, the republic, perhaps even all of western civilization. So, as much as i love being proven right, and being able to go nyah nyah nyah i toooooold you sooooo~ in this case i d be very happy to be proven wrong. . He worse because he more competent? I mean, what-the-fuck. You are cheering for dumbshits. No. I m completely rejecting the framework you re using to look at the political system, make sense of what is going on. You think the political system works the way you ve been told it does the people elect representatives, the representatives do the will of the people, etc. Etc. , so the government produces policy outcomes that reflect some sort of popular consensus, the will of the people. And therefore government is a socializing (in the sense that it makes decisions that ought to be made by society as a whole) institution that can be trusted, be made to work. And therefore you think it better if the government is put in the hands of smart, competent people. The frameworks i prefer are from a leftist pov a class conflict picture. We have a ruling class, which controls government. And we have the rest of society, the peasants (and if you re not a billionnaire, you re a peasant). And therefore all you ve accomplished by putting a smart, competent leader at the head of government is putting a smart, competent leader at the head of an institution that is structurally predisposed to be the class enemy of the peasants (because it tends to be dominated and influenced by the rich, and ideologically it is prone to accept, internalize ideologies that rationalize and justify policies and outlooks that benefit the rich). The argument that obama is worse than mccain (cause that the proper comparison comparing him to bush is. Well, it me sneaking in a low blow) is pretty radical few even on the true left will make it. And in any case it completely speculative. So i think we can agree to disagree on that one. It really akin to an argument on whether ty cobb was a better player than babe ruth. Who cares? They were both baseball players, and they were all pretty damn good. In the case of bush, obama, mccain they re all politicians, and headed (or would have headed) the same exact corporate-imperial-capitalist mordor-on-the-potomac federal government. So really, the important point that i d like to make here is that people are not analyzing our problems correctly. Essentially we re dealing with a situation that cannot be improved by voting in the right leader into power. And from a more rw perspective well, just go back and read what the founding fathers thought and wrote and warned us about. Uncontrolled growth of a centralized national government, which has become a tool to enslave the people, with the rich, corporations, government bureaucracies as the masters. And pulling the wool over liberals. Blah, blah. That is pure, usda grade a crap. Ok, i agree this is at least somewhat true these days. So my anger at the progressive base is at their stupidity for falling for this scam in the first place. However, there are still plenty of partisan democrat shills who just don t get it. They re still running around trying to sell the democratic kool-aid, telling us that if only we would support the president and the party, they ll give us more progress and more liberal policies. I know this cause i know a whole bunch of people like that. Needless to say, they completely drive me up a wall. It a wonder i haven t strangled any of them yet. Fuckit, they re my friends ferchrissakes! I can t even cut loose with full-blown democrat-hate and criticism for fear of hurting they re feelings. Argh. Lol. Oh and you re absolutely right about the contard propaganda painting obama as a socialist. Note how the democratic party kool-aid (obama is a progressive at heart! He is working hard to advance the progressive agenda! But for him and the party to make progress you have to support him! ) and the republican party kool-aid mutually reinforce? Think that might be a design feature? This is why i think people need to be very, very careful before running around and buying into the line that the tea partiers are all racists, or whatever. And with that i return you back to your contrived conspiracies i m a conspiracy theorist in the same way that cia and state department analysts are conspiracy theorists. If you read foreign policy news articles, you will occasionally see cia analyzing some decision that foreign governments (maybe north korea, or cuba, or ussr) take by speculating that they re doing that to placate their military, or maybe their domestic security apparatus. What they re doing when they do that is looking at those societies, political systems, as a collection of interest groups. And that is basically all i m doing. I m pointing that analytical tool inwards, to look at our society. When the last time you ve seen someone in the msm do this? Why do they never do this? Why hasn t it occurred to you to do this before? It is because we ve been subjected to a relentless stream of state propaganda and myth about our society, political system, for all our lives. . I don t think it stupidity. It propaganda, the framework they induce us to adopt when we look at the world, the human ability to fool yourself, to ignore pieces of data that do not jive with the overall picture we have in our minds, etc. This is why so many otherwise clearly smart, well educated, intelligent people are bush-wing conservatives. Or liberal democrats. It that thing that makes it impossible for a mother to see that her newborn baby is butt-ugly. Or a fat woman to see that yes, those jeans to indeed make her ass look totally fat. We re simply not perfect little logic machines. We re prone to making all kinds of cognitive mistakes due to emotion, our inherent sense of self-worth, selfishness, etc. And it weak-mindedness. The inability to be brutally honest with yourself and see your own country, your own side for what it really is. Basically a pack of useful idiots loyally and slavishly devoted to corrupt stupid scumbag leaders who are traitors to the nation and the people. So next time you get into an argument with a contard or dumbocrat, tell them they re just weak-minded, like a fat seacow who can t accept those jeans make her look fat. . And from a more rw perspective well, just go back and read what the founding fathers thought and wrote and warned us about. Uncontrolled growth of a centralized national government, which has become a tool to enslave the people, with the rich, corporations, government bureaucracies as the masters. And again, not the case at all. You are ignoring the complete disconnect between what they say and what the do. In fact republicans have a history of growing government at alarming rates and are without a doubt much more pro-corporate, pro-wealthy. Christ, bush, in a brief moment of clarity, came right out during a fundraiser and called them his base. Pro-corporate personhood, top marginal tax cuts, ending estate taxes, cuts to dividend tax rates, anti-labor, deregulation, privatization. Etc. These are all clearly republican policies and most certainly not descriptive of liberal planks. Sure there are right leaning democrats that fit this mo but the right is undoubtedly more pro-wealthy when it actually means something on the senate and house floors. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Ooops, disregard. I think we agree here. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. 1. Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. 2. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative therefore beck scheduling this on the anniversary of mlk speech vaguely looks like a race-baiting tactic. But the rw ers probably don t see themselves as racists at all. So i doubt there anything sinister or malicious about them scheduling it on that day, beyond an honest mistake. 3. At the tokenism overt expressions of racism. Level the fight against racism has been largely won. This is why even the glenn beck out there see the need to pay rhetorical respects to mlk. 4. The leveraging of race issues and identity for partisan political gain has infantilized the level of discourse on racism. Neither party is seriously interested in solving the structural problems (ending the war on drugs, for instance, or really taking on the prison-industrial complex) therefore the problem of racism has been reduced to tokenism and posturing. And liberals democrats deserve their share of the blame as well their constant charges that conservatives republicans are motivated by racism more often than not do not hold much water did republicans and conservatives riot on the streets when bush named condi rice and colin powell to his cabinet? When michael steele was named rnc chair? No, the racism is a much more complicated and endemic problem even the vast majority of liberals and democrats are subconsciously racists. But of course the democrats have to differentiate themselves from the republicans somehow, therefore discussions of racism are only carried out in a way that disguises its real nature and allows liberals to posture as the good, non-racist side while painting conservatives as the racists. Think of it as liberals democrats version of bush manichean world view a thoroughly simplistic and infantile good vs evil picture. 5. Palin is not a patriot. All supporters of empire are traitors against the republic. Our wars are all government wars. Remember the words of reagan. Government is the problem. If you support government wars, you are a part of the problem. 6. Mlk was not radical enough. Not by a long shot. 7. The structural breakdown of a strong national government, which is what they re calling for, is something that does not serve the interests of the nation. The sad reality is that sharpton, and all the liberals progressives out there, cannot make even their party respect their wishes and desires, and do their bidding, rather than that of their corporate special interest masters. The strong national government will be run 50% of the time by the republicans, and at best, 50% of the time by democrats. And if you can t get even the democrats to behave like proper honest liberals and progressives how on earth do you expect to get this strong national government to serve the people, rather than corporate special interests? This is why liberalism is a mental disorder. These people are busily fashioning the noose which will end up being slipped over their own necks. Create a strong national government, and you will not end up running it. It will be run by corporations and rich, racist white people who hate women and gays. . Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. That is, in my opinion bullshit. Beck is a troll and he knew exactly what sort of reaction he was going to get by scheduling his speech on the anniversary of king speech in the exact same location of that speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. Except he didn t claim he was trying to honor mlk initially. His stated goal was to reclaim the civil rights movement. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative therefore beck scheduling this on the anniversary of mlk speech vaguely looks like a race-baiting tactic. Here a newsflash the right wing are a bunch of racists. But the rw ers probably don t see themselves as racists at all. So i doubt there anything sinister or malicious about them scheduling it on that day, beyond an honest mistake. And the klan didn t see themselves as racists, they were defenders of the white race and national honor. Just pay no attention to all the blacks hanging from trees, they were just bad bungee jumpers. Sarah palin is a retard -- aint satire grand?. Beck hey random placeholder character, i m considering holding a rally at that little spot by the reflecting pool in d. C. . What it called? Rpc the lincoln memorial? The one where mlk gave his famous speech? Beck right! The lincoln memorial! Wait, what speech? This is going to be about integrity, honor, and truth--it definitely not about milk, which, in its pure whiteness certainly is a wonderful thing. Rpc martin luther ki. Beck never heard of him. Hey! How about we also take back the civil rights movement! Ya know? From those folks who think they started it when it was the conservatives all along? Rpc pointing shotgun at own head i ve been sending love letters on your stationary to bill o reilly. He answers them regularly. Boom! . . He knew exactly what sort of reaction he was going to get by scheduling his speech on the anniversary of king speech in the exact same location of that speech. To what point? Certainly it inflames and pisses off the left, but it is not something that would arouse and draw large numbers of new people to the tea parties. I m not denying that there is a divide and rule dynamic here (and the reaction of the left to things like this is, of course, a key feature of this) but i doubt that idiots like beck do it knowingly. That is, beck is probably trapped in the same lw-vs-rw, liberals-vs-conservatives framework most participants in our political system are trapped in. Therefore he unlikely to knowingly do things that will tend to rile up the left and increase the level of passion on that side. That why i think he did it unintentionally. Except he didn t claim he was trying to honor mlk initially. His stated goal was to reclaim the civil rights movement. Of course he being less than forthcoming about his real goals (i mean, we re supposed to believe glenn beck now cares about civil rights??? Rotflmao! ), the point is he insinuated mlk had it right and tried to appropriate hijack his legacy for his side. And before you lw ers go batshit bonkers crazy at this, consider this the evil corporatist-imperialist ruling class has already hijacked mlk legacy for their own nefarious ends. The guy who did this? Barack. Hussein. Obama. So don t you go foaming at the mouth pointing fingers, dems. You are in reality the problem people. Your side is the one that really did the evil deed. Talk about disrespecting mlk indeed. Here a newsflash the right wing are a bunch of racists. Sure. So are you liberals. And the klan didn t see themselves as racists, they were defenders of the white race and national honor. The klan has tried to appripriate hijack a symbol of the black civil rights movement?. 1. Apparently beck didn t know it was the anniversary of mlk speech. So, the after-the-fact oh we re just trying to honor mlk angle is probably beck trying to make the best of what looks like a gaffe of sorts. No, i think beck did know. And it just exposes his trolling ass. 2. The left is completely trapped in a the rw are all racists narrative no, the rw is the one trapped. The party of lincoln has backslid considerably. Not a new thing either, i remember discussing it during the 92 elections. The fight against racism has been largely won. This is why even the glenn beck out there see the need to pay rhetorical respects to mlk. But that not what he really did. No, the racism is a much more complicated and endemic problem there is no doubt. My parents certainly hoped that i d be better about it (those left wingers back then) than they were (and i am), and i know my kids are better about it than i am. It not about fixing it in one broad swipe, it a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. When the tea parties and other rallies like this one and their ilk start having something even remotely resembling the general population of the country, then i might actually start paying attention instead of the lily white examples that i keep seeing. Don t get me start about palin. Her 15 minutes have been up. She an imbecile but some people think she this oracle. I don t understand the attraction. 6. Mlk was not radical enough. Not by a long shot. He wasn t supposed to be radical. But some certainly saw him that way. The sad reality is that sharpton, and all the liberals progressives out there, cannot make even their party respect their wishes and desires, and do their bidding, rather than that of their corporate special interest masters. Which is different from the conservatives republicans how? My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. No, i think beck did know. And it just exposes his trolling ass. Why do you think this? My reasons for thinking otherwise are this, from my post above to what point? Certainly it inflames and pisses off the left, but it is not something that would arouse and draw large numbers of new people to the tea parties. I m not denying that there is a divide and rule dynamic here (and the reaction of the left to things like this is, of course, a key feature of this) but i doubt that idiots like beck do it knowingly. That is, beck is probably trapped in the same lw-vs-rw, liberals-vs-conservatives framework most participants in our political system are trapped in. Therefore he unlikely to knowingly do things that will tend to rile up the left and increase the level of passion on that side. That why i think he did it unintentionally. If you have good arguments reasons we should think otherwise, i d love to hear them. (i m no glenn beck fan at all. When the revolution comes i would like to see it tortured to death. So i would love it if you could give me even more reasons to hate it. ) no, the rw is the one trapped. The party of lincoln has backslid considerably. Not a new thing either, i remember discussing it during the 92 elections. Of course. They re trapped by the liberals are the problem narrative. But the point is lw is no better. The lw is trapped as well. They think the problem is too many racist conservatives, or something like that. Neither of these two narratives is correct. The big problems are structural either big government statism or corporate capitalism, or some screwed up interaction between the two. And a totally screwed up understanding by the public as to how our political system works. This is why in reality both lw liberals and rw conservatives are completely disenfranchised (that is, the parties that supposedly represent them never do what they really want). It not just you progressives who are not getting the outcomes that you want out of the political system. The rw conservatives are not getting the outcomes that they want either. This is why they re going bonkers crazy and holding tea party rallies and whatever. The meme that they re motivated solely by racism serves the purpose of fooling you lw liberals it keeps you trapped in this narrative that the problem is too many rw racist conservatives when in fact the real problems are structural, and your party has the same structural problems as their party. But that not what he really did. What did he do, then? How is an attempt to appropriate and cloak himself in mlk legacy anything but a compliment, an acknowledgement that mlk was a great american whom we should all honor? . It a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. You re very, very confused. The fact of the matter is overt racist attitudes have largely been addressed and much improved by liberal efforts. However, in real economic legal outcome terms, the african-american community is doing horribly. They have largely lost all the gains they made thanks to the victories of the civil rights era. This is why i think you liberals are completely barking up the wrong tree when you focus in on overt racism of the sort you think you see in the tea party crowd. This is you subtly misdiagnosing the problem. Do not settle for tokenism, which is the level at which you re fighting when you argue with tea partiers over whether this was an insult to mlk memory or whatever. Demand actual policy outcomes end the war on drugs. If a democratic politician, like barack obama, won t deliver on it, then he is the no good racist asshole who should be hated, even before you start caring about a rw clown whose job essentially seems to be to distract you from the real issues and problems, while channeling and directing rw populist anger in directions in which it can not pose a real threat to the ruling class. Something even remotely resembling the general population of the country that why it divide and rule. The whole point of this is to make sure that popular movements never resemble the general population of the country. Because you lw libs cannot talk to or understand or get along with rw cons. Don t get me start about palin. Her 15 minutes have been up. She an imbecile but some people think she this oracle. I don t understand the attraction. Palin is no good, just like obama. Although i think it too early to write her off completely. I think she actually quite a cunning and clever political operator. Her kool-aid doesn t work on the likes of you of course, but then again that like trying to judge obama effectiveness as a politician on his ability to sell his kool-aid to white southern kkk members. Which is different frread the entire comment. . Why do you think this? As much as a history buff beck tries to make himself out as, you really expect me to believe that he didn t know? Or that nobody in his organization (and i d say it decent sized to pull something like this off) knew? If he didn t know, that doesn t speak well right there, and the fact that nobody in his organization didn t realize it without telling him if he really didn t know, and i refuse to believe that somebody didn t know, makes it that more of a facepalm. And no, i didn t write the other stuff after that. Up to the point about being trapped. You gotta watch that cut paste. ) p there are plenty of traps on both sides. But it like both sets of twins i raised, they both raise hell with each other twin because they really are alike. And that pretty much the issue here. With the exception of really minor stuff, the two parties are basically peas in a pod. They both spend money like drunken sailors, and the difference between the two on social values only looks huge because it blown up much more than it should be. But that not what he really did. . Comparing yourself to mlk, which is my view of what he is doing, is not doing mlk any favors. That is just trying to aggrandize beck. . It a matter of improving it to the point where it shouldn t even be noticed. . You& ,re very, very confused. The fact of the matter is overt racist attitudes have largely been addressed and much improved by liberal efforts. . How am i confused? I grew up during the civil rights movement. It not like i ve read about it in a text book, i lived it. And i m sure i didn t understand half of what was going on at the time, but i know what was happening. And then you argue. However, in real economic legal outcome terms, the african-american community is doing horribly. They have largely lost all the gains they made thanks to the victories of the civil rights era. . Gee, did i say things were going along perfectly for blacks? In fact, didn t i say that i expected things to continue to improve? And i don t know if you ve noticed, but things aren t just going to hell for the blacks, it going to hell for the whites as well. Unemployed at 50? Good luck at find another job, black, white, martian, the economy is in the shitter, and has been since 2000. I m constantly after my kids to make sure they are in school. Because even with an advanced degree (which i don t even know if 3 4 of them would even care to get), i m afraid that they re not going to see the same standard of living that they grew up with. But that a different argument. This is why i think you liberals are completely barking up the wrong tree when you focus in on overt racism of the sort you think you see in the tea party crowd. This is you subtly misdiagnosing the problem. . I more of a small l liberal than a liberal, and probably more along libertarian lines (but not the big l kind either. ). I m not sure that what i see is overt racism in those tea party crowds. Some of them, yes, that pretty much been satisfactorily proven, but it not like there aren t some liberals who aren t racist in their own way. If i m misdiagnosing the problem, you aren t opening your mouth and stating what the problem exactly is, either. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. As much as a history buff beck tries to make himself out as, you really expect me to believe that he didn t know? Sure. There an awful lot of history out there. And perhaps even worse, most history is propaganda. So even if beck is a history buff and spends all his time reading up on the founding fathers or whatever, i have no trouble believing that he knows nothing about the history of black america, or the civil rights struggle. It not the sort of history that rw ers are likely to read, after all. And no, i didn t write the other stuff after that. Up to the point about being trapped. You gotta watch that cut paste. Yes, i was quoting myself, from an earlier post. Easier than rewriting it all from scratch. . The difference between the two on social values only looks huge because it blown up much more than it should be. Yes, and they do it intentionally. Both parties are structured identically (same business plan use corporate special interest money to gain seats, use seats to do favors for corporate special interests, so they ll keep giving them money lather, rinse, repeat) and pretty much hold the same ideology (corporatism and imperialism) so the only way they can differentiate themselves is by stoking the fires of the great american kulturkampf. Which is the trap that i think you and heywood are falling into, if you insist on seeing all manner of dissing of mlk in the tea party rally. Comparing yourself to mlk, which is my view of what he is doing, is not doing mlk any favors. That is just trying to aggrandize beck. Of course that is the point, to make beck and the tea party look respectably non-racist. I think our difference here boils down to this is it more sensible to insist that the rw conservatives completely convert to your side on everything before they re allowed to say nice things about mlk? Or should we welcome their adoption of the liberal democrat view of mlk (as a hero rather than a philandering plagiarizing trouble-maker, or whatever the old rw view of mlk used to be)? I think the former makes sense if you look at this as a my side must beat your side situation. But from what i can see, your side is just no good either. I mean just gawd-awful too. And perhaps this my side must beat your side thing is part of what makes both sides so gawd-awfully bad. That why i think the indication that reverence for mlk and the civil rights movement are so mainstream at this point that even the rw must cloak itself with it can be viewed as a positive thing. How am i confused? I grew up during the civil rights movement. It not like i ve read about it in a text book, i lived it. Because you seem to think the problem of racism has been getting better (you better than your parents, your children better than you, etc. ). At the tokenism level, yes. But institutionalized systemic racism has been getting worse for the past 30 years. Gee, did i say things were going along perfectly for blacks? In fact, didn t i say that i expected things to continue to improve? And i don t know if you ve noticed, but things aren t just going to hell for the blacks, it going to hell for the whites as well. This is correct. And when people lose everything, they lose it. This is why i think efforts aimed at tokenism (e. G. This fight with the tea parties on whether they re racists or not, and whether beck dissed mlk on purpose) are ultimately futile and miss the point. The really big problems that are destroying the american middle class, and are further impoverishing blacks, are structural. The kulturkampf is there to distract people from the structural reasons and who actually is doing the harm. E. G. The guy in charge right now, who is pursuing corporatist and imperialist policies, is barack obama. Not glenn beck. In other words, sitting around yelling at clowns who say non-pc things about blacks has an opportunity cost you re not doing anything about the structural problems that are creating more and more impoverished and pissed off formerly-middle class whites. And when the situation gets bad enough well, people go crazy and do insane stuff. See e. G. Who the germans voted into power as a result of the great depression. I m not sure that what i see is overt racism in those tea party crowds. Some of them, yes, that pretty much been satisfactorily proven, but it not like there aren t some liberals who aren t racist in their own way. If i m misdiagnosing the problem, you aren t opening your mouth and stating what the problem exactly is, either. That all i m saying. I m suggesting that the tea party having a higher than average content of racists just isn t a big a problem as the fact that the democrats in power are pursuing imperialist and neo-liberal economic policies. And i think the system uses the former to distract everyone from the latter (there is a rw equivalent to this, of course. Go back and see what beck and hannread the entire comment. . There& ,s an awful lot of history out there. And perhaps even worse, most history is propaganda. . So you think that mlk was progaganda, when he said it was propaganda, or what he said was propaganda? I mean, yeah, the tech wasn t that great back then, but i m pretty sure it got recorded, and they certainly didn t have photoshop back then. The date, that mlk was there, and what he said are pretty much facts that can t be argued, not propaganda. It not the sort of history that rw ers are likely to read, after all. . No doubt there. They& ,ve been at this a very long time. Which is the trap that i think you and heywood are falling into, if you insist on seeing all manner of dissing of mlk in the tea party rally. . It not the trap for me. I don t consider the rally to be dissing mlk. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. If they had just come out and explained that yes, they were doing this on the anniversary instead of the pissant way that they did it, then i really would have cared less. Maybe they thought that it would stir up things for them. Whatever. The reverence or whatever you want to call it comes out quite a bit cold when they have to be told the history. Because you seem to think the problem of racism has been getting better. It has. I grew up with this shit, remember? To continue to press on about it being worse is stupid. Today is nothing like it was in the 60s. Is it on a steady curve upward for every black out there? Nope. I can t even claim that it on a stead curve upward for the white children. It hasn t been a steady curve upward for women, either. Go to south africa and see what it like now. They ve only been equalizing for about 25 years. It quite the eye opener. And the whites are the minority there, not the majority. And when people lose everything, they lose it. . I& ,m suggesting that the tea party is going to have about as much effect as every other third party out there. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. The republicans may very well embrace them with open arms, but the best the tea party is ever going to get with the arrangement is lip service, just like the rr. Which pretty much trumps whatever the tea party thinks it can actually do. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. So you think that mlk was progaganda, when he said it was propaganda, or what he said was propaganda? No, i was referring to the sorts of mythic narrative about america history that rw ers like beck tend to prefer. They generally omit the rather nastier parts, like the extermination of the indians. And oppression of blacks. Even now, while it still going on and it right under their noses. It the power of narrative. (one of my favorite blogs btw. ) stuff like this, from salon today the gop fake racial history. So what i m saying is that the sort of history that folks like glenn beck like to read and wallow in are propaganda history that tends to omit pesky things like how blacks were oppressed, and how white southerners had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century, to dismantle jim crow and aparthaid. Therefore i wouldn t be surprised in glenn beck had no idea what date mlk delivered that speech of his. The date, that mlk was there, and what he said are pretty much facts that can t be argued, not propaganda. The human mind is a very odd thing if you have a broad, overarching narrative framework that been drilled into you since an early age (we americans are a good and decent people! Our government and laws reflect our good and decent values! ) it has very little trouble omitting or ignoring little bits of data that do not jive with the big picture you hold in your mind. It wouldn t surprise me if rw ers run around conveniently forgetting that something like the civil rights movement happened, unless you remind them of it. After all, they exhibit cognitive dissonance on so many things (as do liberals, btw), why not on this too? Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. But that move wasn t aimed at you. It was aimed at the tea party internally (not too many people like being called a racist it probably serves to reassure the rank and file that they aren t being racist asshats by attending tea party rallies) and at centrists and moderates. So again it boils down to should we be upset that the tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk mantle to draw more support from folks who otherwise would be turned off by overt racism, or should we be encouraged that the center has moved so far left when it comes to racism and the victory of the civil rights movement that even glenn beck has to claim he is following in mlk footsteps? I tend to think that for meaningful change and progress we have to move the opinions of the entire nation, otherwise divide and rule guarantees that the ruling class will succeed in pursuing their partisan agenda. So i m not so worried about their side getting stronger. To be honest your side deserves to get its ass spanked in november and in 2012. It has. I grew up with this shit, remember? At the token, symbolic, and overt level, sure. But this is why i think liberals bark up the wrong tree when they react so strongly to provocations like beck invoking mlk, and react not at all when a politician like obama refuses to end the war on drugs. Is it on a steady curve upward for every black out there? Nope. I can t even claim that it on a stead curve upward for the white children. Of course. The point of beating down black people is actually to disguise from white people that they re the real target of the ruling class. Black people are few in number and are poor. No, if you are the ruling class, and interested in exploiting and stealing from the peasants, the key demographic you re interested in is actually white people because they re numerous and they actually have some wealth. I m not even sure what this is about. Sorry, went off on a slight tangent there. I was trying to put stuff like the tea party in some context. I think that the reason why the rw grass roots is acting so crazy is that your average white working class, especially in the hinterlands (flyover country, aka dumbfuckistan) has been backsliding economically, thanks to neoliberalism and all. That what the matter with kansas, and why people are turning increasingly to jesus and guns and a mythology about america past that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. Of course. Just like the obama movement. Or the nader movement. So why are we singling them out for abuse on that particular point? The tea partiers are on average pretty clueless (tread the entire comment. . Therefore i wouldn t be surprised in glenn beck had no idea what date mlk delivered that speech of his. . The tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk mantle. . They exhibit cognitive dissonance on so many things. They didn t know it was the date of mlk speech, but were using that date and place to wrap themselves in mlk mantle? Maybe they aren t quite that dumb, and you re just using the accusation of cognitive dissonance to fill holes in your stream-of-consciousness rant. . Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn& ,t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. . It inevitable. Just sit back, relax, and let the world destroy itself. Have confidence in your ability to swim and you won t have to worry bout nothing. Tipping sacred cows. They didn t know it was the date of mlk speech, but were using that date and place to wrap themselves in mlk mantle? If you go back and read my earlier posts in this thread, you should be able to tell that the hypothesis that i favor is that glenn beck scheduled the rally not realizing that it was the anniversary of mlk speech. Then when this started to get attention, decided to capitalize on it by trying to cloak the tea party in mlk mantle. Maybe they aren t quite that dumb. There another post somewhere here where i posit it not stupidity that the problem rather propaganda framing national mythology, the human brain ability to selectively choose facts and rationalize decisions ideologies that are of (seeming) benefit to us. So at one level, i have quite a bit more respects for the peasants than i used to. When they rebel against the coastal elites and the ivory tower ivy league educated progressives, etc. , they re absolutely correct in the target they ve picked. That is, indeed, the key problem demographic the coordinator class in socialist (i mean real socialists who read marx and lenin and bakunin not liberal democrats) terminology. Incidentally the true left shares with the tea party right that estimation of who constitute the problem demographic. They too will tell you that basically what you have here is a bunch of harvard assholes burning down the world. Where they (the tea partiers, the grass-roots right) err, of course, is in not understanding exactly how it is that these harvard assholes are going about burning down the world. If they did, they would be listening to ron paul, and not to folks like sarah palin or glenn beck. . Could be worse than that, actually. Peak oil, peak metals, peak everything. That hasn& ,t happened on a planetary scale before. See easter island collapse. Now scale that to global scope. . I don t necessarily disagree on that, but peak anything on a global scale isn t in our history. Yes, we have examples of what can happen when certain things go beyond peak and essentially hit zero. We haven t zeroed out anything yet nor are we close to doing so in the near future. I do think that trying to grab the cachet of mlk for the rally was a flop, especially when nobody seemed to think about the date. . Ok, if we want to call the tea party stupid, then this fits like a glove. But to anybody with brains (inside or outside the movement), it falls frighteningly flat. So again it boils down to should we be upset that the tea parties are cloaking themselves in mlk& ,s mantle. I could care less that tp want to cloak themselves in whomever. There is the 1st amendment. How the whole thing has been approached has been nothing but a series of missteps. Doing it for internal or external reasons, it still a big epic fail in my book. Of course. The point of beating down black people is actually to disguise from white people that they re the real target of the ruling class. Black people are few in number and are poor. . And of course, while i expect white americans to manage to keep their wealth, there is the coming fact that whites will be in the minority by 2040. I think that the reason why the rw grass roots is acting so crazy is that your average white working class, especially in the hinterlands (flyover country, aka dumbfuckistan) has been backsliding economically, thanks to neoliberalism and all. That what the matter with kansas, and why people are turning increasingly to jesus and guns and a mythology about america past that makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. . I don t think neolibealism has much to do with that situation, we could just as easily blame it on the neocons. I grew up in ohio, a part of that flyover country. And while i ve been getting blown away by the number of former classmates that have gone on to be quite religious (some that i never suspected, while the holy rollers in school seem to be pretty quiet about it now), i m not too sure what truly up with that. I blame globalization personally. Nobody explained it to the americans that not only the cost of your goods was going to be going down, you re level of living was going to go down too. The cheaper goods have hidden that little fact for the past 20 years, but it starting to catch up. That why if you lose your job at 50 now, you are going to have scrap by with a fast food job, and deal with the fact that your health insurance is covering a lot of shit that you now have to deal with, and getting the days off you need to get to the doctor if you can afford it is problematic. Which is to say zilch, zero, nada. . Nader has always been a head case. Off the rails since the 70s at least. Obama has delivered some of what he proposed to do. I don t think that he understood that when people thought we would be out of iraq, it would be down to 0 troops. Not 50,000, not even 30,000. Maybe a few advisors numbering around a hundred. But essentially out. Which is why the rw is applauding what he has done so far, but his supporters not so much. Health care reform, even for the abortion that it truly is, still counts as an accomplishment. Not that i see myself voting for him again. And my vote certainly will not go towards a republican. The ron paul conservatives who understand that dismantling the empire. Let not forget his son rand. I m half of mind in agreeing with some of his outlooks. That he doesn t bother to do anything to try and educate his electorate before springing some of that shit on them, and not explaining in the little words the electorate uses to make sense. Hell, he doesn t even make use of the big words to really explain himself. Which is why he keeps shoving his foot in his mouth. I don t really expect him to win ky. Ron paul cd must be extremely eccentric and expect him to be as well. That just not going to float in the entire state of ky. And one would think that rand would be running a much better campaign unless he ignoring his father, or his father is refusing to even give him any hints. My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. If they did, they would be listening to ron paul, and not to folks like sarah palin or glenn beck. As revolution inaction might say, i love you. . Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it ha hahahaha. Yeah, i used to believe that one too. But appears it makes not one iota of difference in practice. Exibit a harding election meant big bucks for big business. The anti-trust gains made by wilsonian progressives went out the door as a new age dawned for fat-cat tycoons and good old boys in the republican party. Ironically, though, many of harding pro-business policies hurt the american economy in the long run. First, the sudden free-for-all in the market led to speculation and corruption. Speculators began using future earnings on the stocks they owned money they did not even have yet to buy new stocks, a process known as buying on margin. This overspeculation, along with widespread corruption and faulty international finances, eventually led to the stock market crash of 1929 oh yeah, and don t this. The top marginal tax rate was slashed nearly in half five years before the slide. Sound familiar? Exibit b arguably, the united states main problem in vietnam was not poor strategy but rather the fact that it greatly underestimated viet cong tenacity. Although u. S. Leaders did indeed make a series of bad decisions in vietnam, not every aspect of the u. S. Strategy was unsound. Westmoreland war of attrition, for instance, did in fact have significant impact. However, the viet cong tenacity enabled it to draw the war out into a prolonged guerrilla conflict that the united states was ill equipped to deal with. Rather than hold permanent positions and fight along conventional lines, the viet cong harassed u. S. Troops incessantly in small groups, striking quickly and then disappearing into the jungle or the peasant population. With this dogged strategy, even a poor, third world nation was able to make significant headway against the world leading military superpower doomed if you do and doomed if you don t. Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants ~ vonnegut. Shrug. I have a friend who has also managed to become a neocon (he takes the mantle and name freely), who thinks the main problem with vietnam was the south. Saigon wouldn t move their ass, so we bombed hanoi in retaliation. I m not too sure about that, but then, i never did study vietnam, and his information supposedly came from a general that was teaching history at osu in the 70s. Still, the issues with both iraq and afghanistan as that the actual and it doesn t help if it the wrong people that have forgotten history. . My 100 pound greyhound could shit two feet behind me and id never hear it. Ninjas crap louder. - rubberstamp. Does that make alveda king a moustache to cover beck& ,s racism? I was gonna watch this spectacle on c-span, but animal planet had a stirring program on snails. Plastic is a state of something or other. . Glenn beck is positioning himself as the new messiah in america and a lot of americans, bog love em, are eating this stuff up like a dog licks at its own vomit. Elmer gantry remains one of my all-time favourite movies, but watching a real-life charlatan pull the wool over the eyes of the credulous is entertainment unbound. Mormons can sure be calculating, can t they? Own your words. . I think someone should design a flag with a drawing of a salamander and the caption, don& ,t tread on me. It would sell like hotcakes! Own your words. . I followed the link and saw a shirt that says, the bees know. Know what? How do find flowers? That you should eat your honey? Diamond encrusted howler monkey. Dunno. Apparently the new messiah sees bog light shining out of his ass in any random natural occurrence. Maybe it some secret code meant to fulfil the intent, as per the ad copy, of the tee-shirts nothing hacks of (sic) a lefty more than a t-shirt that dares poke fun at the one, denounce (sic) woodrow wilson or simply says glenn beck (sic) on it. Further annoy an already angry at the world lefty with any one of glenn fantastically antagonistic t- shirts. There you have it! Restoring honor with cryptic, fantastically antagonistic tees for just twenty-five smackers! Own your words. . Glenn beck is a mormon. Most evangelical christians do not consider mormons to be true christians because they believe that jesus came to the new world. I wonder how many of the crazies listening to beck know this. Actually mormon beliefs are pretty out there. My favorite is still the golden tablets delivered by the angel moroni. Turns out the term moron was not yet invented when joseph smith wrote the mormon books, although it has a greek root (the greek word moros, meaning dull). Judeo-christianity just like regular christianity, only insincerely 5% more inclusive! -- mc nally. My favorite is the whole business about planet kolob. A www. Shields-research link but why stop with mormons? All protestants are satan-worshipping heretic scum, i say. Bring back the inquisition! Stormtroopers of the counter-reformation, to arms!. Moses parting the red sea, jesus turning water into wine, golden tablets falling out of the sky in upstate new york. To me, these are all equally improbable and silly, but if i had to pick one to believe in, i d go with water into wine for the practical utility of getting the party started. Not that all present-day christians would agree. I once attended a bible study at my mother-in-law southern baptist church, where the pastor was expounding at length upon how episcopalians (whom he called whiskopalians, because they drink alcohol. Ha ha ha! ) are actually probably not going to hell. But the people assembled weren t buying it. Devil water is of the devil, after all. In that sense, mormons are probably closer brothers of the book. Despite the proprietary underwears and fringe polygamy, mormons share most of their moral panics with various and sundry right-wing christians. My step-father-in-law was somewhat distressed that he couldn t attend his son wedding when his son married a devout mormon in a temple, but he and my mother-in-law are far more concerned that my wife and i are bringing up our daughter without god. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . To help erase the not-so-distant memories of conservatives denouncing king as a communist, and an un-american who wanted to trample all over their freedom of association. Good luck with that. But primarily, he was hoping to stir the shit and make a splash, and in that he was wildly successful. And no, i don t believe that the guy who sees all sorts of sinister connections in his blackboard scribblings just happened to pick the anniversary of mlk speech. What we do is never understood but merely praised or blamed. . Those are his words. This couldn t be more ironic, from the same guy that called obama a racist. I wonder who he reclaiming it from and to what purpose? Btw bs he didn t know this was the anniversary of mlk speech. But most importantly who is bankrolling this guy?? Well for one, rupert murdoch, one of the biggest money men backing the tea party and becks escapades. But that no secret, this self interested and high profile billionaire makes no secrets about wanting to eliminate government controls on his ability to make money unfettered from government regulations regardless who he tramples to get it. He is also interested in freeing himself from supporting the sick and elderly as it cuts too much into his monthly nut. So anyone that is willing to call for an end to democratic institutions is ok by him. A pair lesser known sugar daddies are the koch brothers of ny. These guys qualify as true invisible hands as described in historian kim phillips-fein book of the same title. Their combined wealth is only surpassed by gates and buffet in america. While great philanthropists they also spend their money on backing radical groups with an agenda to dismantle democratic institutions in the same vein as murdoch. There is a straight line from the john birch society (which their father served on the top governing body of) to the americans for prosperity foundation which has worked closely with the tea party (nothing wrong with that) since its inception. But it seems the foundations chief concern is for the prosperity of 2 americans in particular, not americans as a whole. It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. He is a charlatan and a provocateur who never met a fact he couldn t obscure. He is the 1984 version of a big brother pr man. He plays to the angry mob, he is not a leader in any sense of the word. Btw palin is being bankrolled by the same crowd, fed thru these foundations to keep the engine grinding out her message , as if it actually hers. So think about that for a minute, what really needs to happen is to take the country back from these billionaire sugar daddies trying to take away our birth right, get rid of their shills or at least expose them for what they are which is know nothing interlopers. **this post has taken or reworded portions of a frank rich op-ed piece that appeared in the ny times on sun 8 29 the billionaires bankrolling the tea party. It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. It because he preaches fear. And if there one thing that galvanizes ingnorant people, it fear. Will bunch talks about this in a recent essay let face it this country has long had its know-nothings and its birchers and its mccarthyites, but it never had gizmos like fox news or sarah palin twitter feed to fuel toxic ideas so far so fast. It time we admit these seemingly disconnected battles over anchor babies, mosques, and a black man in the oval office are all part of the same war against the other, and that we are in the fight of a lifetime. Beck, limbaugh, palin et al. Have judged their audience well, and they re playing to the basest instincts of a populace that is sadly composed of some of the dumbest fucks in the modern age. It isn t pretty now, and i shudder to think where it will take america. Own your words. . I m not inclined to classify the majority of people that i live and work with as morons or the dumbest fucks in the modern age just because they see things differently than i do. I do agree that our democracy is under threat (as are many things in our soceity) by the pure speed and huge volume of access and content now available to self interested powerful entities who are only concerned with becoming more powerful at our expense. But we ve always needed to be very vigilant in protecting our freedoms, nothing new there. I also agree that ruling (or influencing) by state of fear is as old as the hills, a tried and true method that will never go out of style (unfortunately). . I admire and respect anyone that concerned about the direction of their country. However, the sheer irrationality of birthers, those that think obama is a socialist, those that think obama is racist, those that think he secretly taking america down the road to islam, and those that believe any number of other completely baseless and spurious charges against obama, all drummed up by a right wing media machine slavering after power in any fashion they can, well, a lot of these folks, to my mind, are dumb fucks. For better or worse there always been a faction of americans who wear their stupidity as a badge of honour. In palin and beck they now have their totems. Good luck with all that. Own your words. . It beyond me how anyone gives beck, a terrible actor (way too over the top) and mediocre entertainer (one trick pony rage and indignation), such importance in our society. He is a charlatan and a provocateur who never met a fact he couldn t obscure. He is the 1984 version of a big brother pr man. He plays to the angry mob, he is not a leader in any sense of the word. I disagree. I think he is a very skilled propagandist. I don t think of him as a smart man, but he is shrewd enough to know what his audience wants to hear and how to best deliver that message for maximum impact. You may think of him as a terrible actor and a mediocre entertainer, but his methods are effective when it comes to enriching himself and whipping up fear, anger and resentment in his target demographic. I love my dead gay chewbacca!. All snark aside, it takes some skill. He does it better than others in the same game. I love my dead gay chewbacca!. . And its over a mile tall, shoots death rays, and will be capped with human bones! Or maybe its not that big a deal. . .
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