DonCoquixote
DonCoquixote's JournalHey, all you Good ole boys of the GOP
Y'all who hate Obama coz in your eyes, he ain't no real American, who think he and his commie liberal types are what brought down America, y'all just did more damage to the nation then Ben Ladin could have dreamed of.
After all, two government shutdowns in 20 years?, all because we tried to give the sort of healthcare every other rival nation does? All so that a bunch of morons could do the bidding of the ultra wealthy, the same Kochs and Bushes that would not consider half of you worthy to Golf on the same courses as they do?
Guiess, what, the world sees this, and because of this, they will not entrust their future, or their money, to American companies. Granted, the ultra wealthy can bank in Switzerland or Dubai, but that is because they are the modern day version of Pirates, who move their craft about and plunder. But money will lose it's allegiance to America, and the West in general, because the countries we used to lord over will produce their own brand of parasite profiteer. Granted, they will screw over China and India as much as your masters screwed over America, but by then, you will be just another bunch of spent ashes in the rubbish bin of history. And to quote Harlan Ellison, "if you hear me cry, it is ONLY because you managed to kill me too, you fuckers!"
If we cave in now
Let me be blunt. If we cave into the GOP now, we will not only be killing Americans that die for want of healthcare, we will be setting the stage for complete, uncomprised domination and exploitation of this country by the superwealthy.
We know the Tea Party is paid for by the Koch Brothers and other superwealthy types, the sort of people for whom Millionaires are just another butler, maid, or hunk of meat to be ground into dog food. The Superwealthy will span any number of parasites and stormtroopers, throwing them all the needed money. Our Media of course, being the detestable whores they are, will grovel, and try to make things worse because that only makes them more money. You think Newt Gingrinch and ted Cruz are the worst we can see, wait until the Tea Party and their masters release the next batch, the ones that will OPENLY CALL for Medicare, Social Security, Voting Rights, and Public Education to be sent to the Gallows!
Yes, it boggles the mind, but if we cannot even defend what even Obama supporters have to admit is a hioghly compromised, highly weakend, dog-bone of a social program, we might as well hang it up. I hate to use the anology of rape, but considering the tea party folks are the same folks who are trying to reduce women to chattel by taking away even the very right to control their own wombs, it fits. The Super-rich want to rape us, and force us to bear their kid so that they can sell it to the slave market. There is no room for compromise here, it is a matter of win or die.
Advice about the new DU rules
I got permission to post this from another DUer. It is NOT offensive, but I would not be surprised if some think it is. Let me say, do not insert names or personal thoughts, as IMHO, there are many people it applies to. Italics are mine, for emphasis.
And without further adieu:
Some advice:
As I'm sure you've all read, there are new changes to the jury system & how hidden threads will be handled in the future. If you aren't aware, there is a thread here, by Skinner: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10132863
Of note is the new rule that if you have 5 hidden posts in 90 days, you will be barred from posting until the oldest of the 5 posts "falls off" of your record after a period of 90 days.
I bring this up because previously, hidden threads only resulted in a member's transparency page being visible to other members, less chance of serving on a jury, and possibly being given a few-weeks-up-to-a-month time-out in a particular forum (as some of our friends here are aware).
However now, the price for hides is much greater. It will not just potentially get you a time-out from a forum/group, but it will ban you from DU for upwards of 90 days.
If I'm not making myself clear, I will state it outright:There is now an incentive to goad people to reply in a manner that will get their post hidden.
DO NOT TAKE THE BAIT THAT OTHERS ARE GOING TO THROW AT YOU IN HIGH-TENSION FORUMS/GROUPS
There are certain posters, whose names I do not need to mention but whom I feel we all know intimately, who are notorious for making posts that walk right up to that line between "appropriate" and "inappropriate" and yet their posts are never hidden. The responses to those posts are.
There are certain posters, whose names I do not need to mention but whom I feel we all know intimately, whose posts are never hidden, regardless how offensive, bigoted, hateful those posts may be.
We've all seen the jury results: "Well I've seen (insert group here) say mean things in the past so I'm going to let this slide," (insert group here) should grow a thicker skin," "
insert group here) people on DU are a minority so I'm going to let this stay,"etc etc.
Folks, don't fall for the tactics they now have an incentive to employ.
And make no mistakes, THEY WILL EMPLOY IT
Our voices have already been silenced by the loss of many great members. They left voluntarily or not, and the reasons are not as important as is the fact that their voices are gone.
Some suggestions, if I may:
- use ignore. If you haven't used it before, use it now, and use it generously.
- update your jury blacklist if you haven't. If you are limited by not being a star member, please remember that you can be a star member for as little as $1 for an entire year and greatly increase the number that you can place on your jury blacklist
- employ a "time out" before responding to posts: Wait 10 minutes before replying. Or don't reply at all. As you know, many members on this site seem to exist only to get a rise out of others. Don't feed the trolls and don't take their bait.
- Relinquish your need to "get the last word." We know that bigoted, anti-(insert group here) posts won't be hidden, or at least have a large chance of not being hidden. Don't make their jobs easy. Let their hate stand for all to see.
We all need each other in order for there to be a cohesive voice of rationality on this board. When one of us is silenced, either through banning, voluntary leaving, or banishment from a group/forum, all of our voices are diminished.
Please, realize what these changes mean and how they change the stakes of what were previously just "innocous" posts that resulted in a hide.
And If DQ can humbly add, the purpose of my post is not to "Whine about DU", it is a call for everyone to keep their heads and not let this place devolve into a mess. I do not envy the jobs of Skinnet et al, but if we want a place where cliques and thugs do not intimidate people, we have to hold certain impulses in check, and draw certain lines. Yes, it is political, because the same bullying, evasive technique, Gish Gallops, that prevent us from solving problems are right here. We can either cry about it, whine about it, or keep our heads, until the bullies and haters realize that their tricks have worn off. It eventually does happen; sonner or later, in politics, and in chat rooms, the people that have nothing to back themselves up but lies and intimidation lose, and then we surivvie, and keep on doing the work we do, the work that sustains everything that does not suck.
Editorial: The rhyme of the greenhorn senator
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-the-rhyme-of-the-greenhorn-senator/2143903Excerpt:
Cruz's talk-a-thon was the fourth-longest Senate floor speech in more than a century and included a reading of Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham. In that spirit, here is our view of the tea party's favorite senator:
Do you like political greenhorns and verbose spam?
Do you not like Ted Cruz? You think he's a sham?
as I told someone earlier
George W. Bush - Out of Power
Silvio Berlusconi - Out of Power
Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy -Out of Power
Tony Blair - Out of Power
Angela Merkel - Still in the driver's seat, running over flowers and pedestrians on a quest to push her country to the right.
Foundation renamed for all three Clintons
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/foundation-renamed-for-all-three-clintons-89759.htmlOK Billy, I understand there is a campaign to get your wife elected Queen, but to throw Chelsea into this?
Yes, Chelsea may work hard there, and many in the world work hard too, but she would be just another college kid if not for you. If you think we do not see you padding your daughter's resume for a dynasty, you are an idiot.
It sure does not help that a lot of what your foundation does is allow the bigwigs and pork-laden politicos cover as they play chess with our lives.
Why America owes an apology to the Mafia
inspired by:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023668480#post20
Okay, I am not fond of extortion artists, but I have what Johnathon Swift might call a "modest proposal."
America owes the Mafia an apology. The reason being, our government has done everything the Mafia does, and many things even the Mafia would not.
Take the example of Numbers running. It was a small, local lottery, with small payouts, but much better chances of winning than any state Lotto, much less powerball. The cops broke them up, and then ran their own "numbers" game. What is worse, they used the proceeds to lower taxes on the rich, taking funds not only from the poor, but from the schools.
Take the example of competence: Yes, if you are a Mafiosi, you can have power, but if you screw up, you sleep with the fishes, or at least get a broken kneecap. To be blunt, if Larry Summers, Karl Rove, or any numbers of the potentates and pundits that are wrong, again and again, were in the mafia, they would have been wearing cement shoes a long, long time ago.
Take the issue of Liberty: Wiretaps sounded like a great idea when it was used on Mafiosi, back when Google was just a number only professors cared about. Now, lo and behold, we are now getting it. Funny how these wiretaps do not get used a New England social Brahmins, or Good Ole Boy Southern social clubs.
Take the "crime" of gambling: Everywhere in Las Vegas, that heavily regulated place of Gambling, there is constant surveillance of all details, from much much damage can cards take before they must be thrown away, to whether the blackjack dealer claps his hands to show he is not cheating. There is even a whole branch of Math called Game theory, which calculates the odds of Dice. Every factor in gaming must be accounted for. There is even a class of "professional" gamblers who make it because they simply have studied the math, and can calculate right down to the decimal the odds of a card being drawn. Soem are so good they are banned from casinos, because the card games, being glorified Math problems, are predictable by those who can do Math in their head. Now, compare that do your average Wall Street derivative, or "AAA" stock. Standard and Poor has been caught being wrong, if not outright dishonest; the Mafia would never employ a Bookee our Accountant with the Track record of Wall Street.
Take the idea of Patriotism: The Godfather of a major city knows that if his city is poor, he will not get to milk much from the residents. Your current Wall Street types know that wealth is "Global" which is a very fancy word for "I can take my wealth elsewhere because I know I can." Hell, they know they can even export the jobs and still make money, not even having to corrupt a union. Even the Mafia realized you needed unions, even if they were part of a scheme, because only a strong union could intimidate the managers.
So, to La Cosa Nostra, I say, we owe you an apology. You may be scum, but you are honorable scum, which is far more than we can say for our current types in power.
There is a LOT of truth here, BUT
I truly loved this OP, as it explains a lot of the frustration I have with certain factions. I still remember being in Florida, having Nader voters yell at me after elections day, because they had heard the folks on right wing talk Radio brag about how they used the Naderites to make sure Gore Lost. Of course, their yelling at me was pre-emptive, even though I was holding back my "are you happy now" speech. As a note, I have heard all versions of the "Nader did not cost Gore the election" speech, and I will not ignore the simple math. Yes, a third party vote may be just fine in California, but as a resident of that one swing state, I KNOW I cannot treat voting as a game.
So when Obama turned out to be less leftish, I held my breath. After all, a lot of the Socialists still hate FDR with a passion, because he "saved capitalism" rather than let it die so that we could have that Fourth Communist International Comrade Trotsky promised us. Social Security was slammed as not being strong enough, yet it matured, so I was willing to see if ACA would bear the same fruit.
HOWEVER, the problem is, Obama turned into Bill Clinton, which is to say, someone who really, really thinks the Right is just misguided, the idea that "there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America." The bad part of that is, it prevents us from healing the really deep flaws, namely the money worship and sacrament of war. Until Money and War are seen as tools, and not our reason for being, we can and will drift rightward, because we are playing the right's game on their turf, where they have the table tilted rightward. Obama has proven that he is not interested in replacing the table, he may do about 60 percent of the right thing, but only after a LOT of PRESSURE is placed, and even then, he always tries to curry the favor of those mythical "centrists" that the right has successfully compromised.
So,I have no problem putting pressure, because that is what works, that includes criticism,and my wallet. However, just because I see that the DLC is full of shit does not mean I do not see where people will use the FRONT of criticism just to snipe at everything not them.
Let me be real Blunt:
Jane Hamsher, I look forward to you making excuses for Hillary Clinton when she governs to Obama's right, doing things you would have made cute Racial jokes about Obama for doing.
Glenn Greenwald: All your civil liberty crap will mean nothign when the companies you like to worship do everything the Feds do and far, far worse. Until you apologize for your defense of Citizens United, which downgraded the very value of a person to just another corporate asset, I will not take you seriously, even if you drunkenly stumble into truth.
Medea Benjamin: I admired you until you made that valentine to Ron Paul. Care to explain to women why you had to enable one of the strongest Anti-Choice advocates? You could have easily called RP that "broken clock right twice a day" without a Valentine.
Arriana Huffington: You sure love giving Grover Norquist and Mark Penn space to bash Obama. If you think that I will forget the days when you were the Belle of the Right Wing ball, you are wrong.
Ted Rall: The supposed hard left communist that whines that the internet ruined his payday, and who slammed OWS and the Egyptians because they did not kill people. Who made use of the right wing slurs like calling Obama an example of "affirmative action."
I could go on and on, especially with Ralph "I have no problem taking right wing money" Nader.
And it is not that I do not see we need a hard left, but sadly, we have a lot less Bernie Sanders, people who try to explain to people what is happening, and a LOT more Dennis Kucinich, someone who will gladly take a payday on Fox network because it gives them a point to slam Obama, even though they hear Karl Rove popping champagne in the back room, because we load our circular firing squad again!
Red Lobster ‘None (N-word)’ Customer Receiving Threats, Denies Writing Racial Slur
"Whoopsie! For those of you following the story of the Red Lobster server, Toni Jenkins, who was left a receipt with no tip and a racial epithet, it turns out the name of the customer was printed on the receipt, in addition to his signature, and has spread around the Internet."
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/14/red-lobster-none-ngger-customer-receiving-threats-denies-writing-racial-slur/
Of course, what was Red Lobster's response?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/12/red-lobster-suspends-waitress-who-received-none-nr-as-a-tip/
"Instead Of Standing By Their Employee, Red Lobster Suspends Waitress Who Received ‘None N****r’ As A Tip"
LOVELY....
About Putin's NYT editorial
"the best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity" - William Butler Yeats "The Second Coming."
As usual, the worst from all sides came out to howl at this. Let's put the emotions aside.
First off, Putin did not say anything that was not true.
No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.
Now,is any of that a lie, NO. Granted, it is possible to throw a lot of good solid rebuttals to this, as Russia and China have disagreed with the UN when they did not have the same interests, but now, since they are in sync, seem to stand by the UN. Yes, it SHOULD be brought up that Putin is NO champion of human rights. However, just because someone says the sky is Blue, do you insist it is now purple? No.
Facts, are facts. Truth be told, the UN has been compromised for a long, long time, because the big nations use it as a toy, especially the so called "permanent members." Part of the reason there is so much war is because all nations have done whatever they can to hamstring the UN. Of course, the UN does not help matters; such it when it kept denying there was any link between the cholera epidemic in Haiti and the troops they sent there fresh from a Cholera epidemic. When even a disaster-ridden nation like Haiti distrusts you when you bring help, you have a serious problem. The UN has it's own credibility issues, which is why neither Israel nor Palestine is willing to trust them to broker peace.
And that is right where we run into the "exceptional-ism" thing. Look, every nation has ideals, including and especially US, all nations fall far short of those ideals, including and especially US. France is invading Mali, Canada is building the Keystone pipeline, and indeed, any and every nation will have some moral failure that others can and will point at, without exception. None of that removes us from the responsibility to try and live up to those ideals. If we want to be exceptional, we will have to act it, and that includes telling the people that offer the same old solutions to shut up. There is no need for any sort of national gotcha or shame.
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Member since: Thu Apr 17, 2008, 05:51 PMNumber of posts: 13,616