June 29, 2014

The Dazzle and the Desolation of Stadiums in World Cup Host Cities

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/sports/worldcup/world-cup-2014-residents-wonder-how-new-stadiums-will-benefit-region-after-cup.html?_r=0


I have to say, this is sobering, especially as for Rio, there will probably be more of what Brazilians call "Pharaoh" level construction projects.

June 28, 2014

Because (warning offensive but true)

Because in the eyes of the right wing, a problem is not really a problem until someone they like dies of it. Remember how AIDS was God's judgement? Remember how little was done about crack until white kids starting doing it? If something kills people the Right wing dislikes, they see it as a desirable goal and benefit. A DESIRABLE GOAL.

However, once someone else exploits this that could be a rival to their power, then they care. Remember how at first the GOP all acted like they cared about NYC? How long did it take for Ann Coulter to make her comment about "the only thing they did wrong was not bomb the New York Times?"

This is about aboprtion, but it is also about an even bigger issue. America, thanks to the fact it was founded by a bunch of people who interpreted John Calvin as saying "poor people deserve to suffer", Americans LOVE to see pain and suffering inflicted upon people they feel are rivals. For all the talk of Jesus, this is really pure Darwin, mixed in with some Ayn Rand. That is why protests against the right wing have to take on a coercive nature. They have to know that the days of appealing to them to see us a human beings with rights is over, they need to know that we will go for their wallet.

Note I did not say throat, because as appealing as violence is, it will only play right into their martyr mentality. The God of Abraham, whther in his Jaizuzz Kreist costume, or his "Allu Akhbar" costume, makes religious codes that encourage death and suffering, with a shiny reward in heaven. We do not want to make it easier for them to put on that "martyred saint" costume, because it will shut their eyes, ears, and make them immune to reason.

Religion is about inflating and preserving the EGO, and the only way to cut these folks down is to cut that ego down to size, which means to impoverish and humiliate! That is why we need to start making the people who keep feeding the till box humilated for feedign the priests and preachers. That is why we need to make our own chairties and our own private schools to compete with the religions. Yes, I would rather there be no charter schools at all, but until then, we need to make environments where children do not need to learn to kiss Christian ass to get an education. We need to actively SUE churches, and yes, even bring out the RICO statutes that brought the Mafia down low. Unless the Churches are actively discouraging violence, they are encouraging it, and need to be held accountable!

June 28, 2014

Hey Pope Francis!

Here is a time to earn some real lib cred. How about making an edicty that those who use violence against abortion providers and clients are guilty of mortal sin?

June 24, 2014

It is not that the Clintons are rich

Certainly, they did a lot more to earn their wealth than any Bush, Koch, Romney, or for that matter most of the Kennedys. Indeed, Bill Clinton is one of America's few leaders who actually did come from the working classes, from a broken home in Hope, Arkansas.

However, there are three things that the Clintons are ignoring:

One: what is getting people angry is that just because they are not as rich as some that I mentioned, they talk as if they are John and Jane Middleclass. Yes, 80 Million would be chump change to a Walton or Koch, but most of us will never see a quarter of one million, much less 80.


Two: What is also getting people angry is the way they got rich, by ripping away protections that used to keep people in the middlecalss, against things much worse than losing a mansion.

Glass-Steagall: the repeal of this law is what primed the explosive that blew the economy away.
Telecomuncations "reform": which is what allowed Fox news to grow
Welfare reform: which made the poor poorer.

The fact that they defend Wall Streey does not help. They do not need to defend Lloyd Blankfeld, they need to agree to pillory him. Hillary does not need to do speeches defensing outsourcing and H1b Visas, she needs to ban them.

Three: An inability to show regret:

Yes, she finally expressed regret for the Iraq war vote, and if it keeps Barack from going to war, great, but on the other hand, she shows no regret for Syria, Libya, or other disasters that came very close to getting us into another war. When she publicly decalred that she wanted to be more agressive in Syria, there was no regret, even though that support helped froth up the mess that is ISIS, even though many of the people we would have armed were supporters of what would become Isis.

June 20, 2014

Of C words, and Censorship

Now, let me go ahead and say two things that must seem like a paradox, but actually are not.

One: the reason the First Amendment protects offensive speech is because any idea that threatens the power of someone will be deemed "offensive." Talk about how the Confederate flag is a symbol of slavery, some will call you a damn yankee. Talk about how Palestinians are killed by Israelis, some will shout "anti-Semite!" Talk about how Jews are killed by Palestinians, some will scream Zionist. Note I say some, some, because many times, the more vocal and pugnacious people who scream "I am offended!" at the top of their lungs are NOT, repeat NOT, REPEAT NOT at all representative of most people in the group they CLAIM to be speaking for. What happens is that "I am offended" is meant to SILENCE discussion, as surely as a Guillotine severs a neck. You can insert any variable, and the procedure flows smoothly, regardless of creed, gender, or any other variable. That is why any society that does not protect speech, EVEN offensive speech, will allow the most agreesive people to stifle speech.

Two: on the other hand, if you go ahead saying incidenary shit, you have absolutely NO RIGHT to whine about how people are mad at you. You claimed the right, you must claim the responsibilty. Yes, modern society encourages, even needs, big loud fucking words just to keep people from snoozing off. Indeed, when you talk about offensive matter, such as oh, the fact Ann Coulter has advocated the execution of liberals, you do not want to be limited to just wearing white gloves. However, the fact is, too many people are taking up the mantle of hero/heroine just because they say a lot of fucking nasty words against some easy targets! What that does is ensure lazy, cheap, and easily disputed points which the Koch brothers will glady knock down with their money. It also helps to undermine the SOLIDARITY that the left will need if we are ever going to have a chance of breaking the stranglehold that the right is getting not just on this nation, but all of humanity!

Simply put, if the only insult you can think of using against Ann Coulter is the C word, you are not simply RUDE, you are not a PUNDIT, you are just WEAK! That sort of lazy weakness is exactly what the right weants to see, as frankly, they want nothing more than to see us fight, especially if it is white males versus everyone else. Why, because they know that if they can keep the males gettign scoffed at the idea of "priviledge" and everyone else thinking that they are just in this alone, then they will have us divided and conquered, and they know damned well the only reason why they are still ALIVE is because we on the left would much rather be "offended" and would much rather "offend" people on our own side!

June 13, 2014

can schools be democratic, and if not what replaces them?

This is inspired by this:

http://www.alternet.org/story/151850/8_reasons_young_americans_don%27t_fight_back%3A_how_the_us_crushed_youth_resistance?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark

in particular this:

"Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy. Upon accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award on January 31, 1990, John Taylor Gatto upset many in attendance by stating: “The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.” A generation ago, the problem of compulsory schooling as a vehicle for an authoritarian society was widely discussed, but as this problem has gotten worse, it is seldom discussed.

The nature of most classrooms, regardless of the subject matter, socializes students to be passive and directed by others, to follow orders, to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities, to pretend to care about things they don’t care about, and that they are impotent to affect their situation. A teacher can lecture about democracy, but schools are essentially undemocratic places, and so democracy is not what is instilled in students. Jonathan Kozol in The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home focused on how school breaks us from courageous actions. Kozol explains how our schools teach us a kind of “inert concern” in which “caring”—in and of itself and without risking the consequences of actual action—is considered “ethical.” School teaches us that we are “moral and mature” if we politely assert our concerns, but the essence of school—its demand for compliance—teaches us not to act in a friction-causing manner. "

So, many believe schools do harm, and I can agree. However, if this is to be said, how do you actually educate people? Children do not want to learn many times,. especially if religons and parentys are perfectly fine with the kid growing up dumb, because it will mean they are just like them. However, society cannot afford that. So, if not school, which admittedly does have to force people to do things they do not want to do, what?

June 12, 2014

Ruth: Home-grown terror

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/ruth-home-grown-terror/2183964

choice quotes:

"It is tempting to dismiss all these illiterate dolts running around in their brown shirts, spouting Mein Kampf and their love for the good days of the Fatherland as a twisted outtake from Mel Brooks' Springtime for Hitler production number.

But they are not. This more closely resembles "Triumph of the Swill."

We fear the return to hostilities of five Taliban bad guys thousands of miles away. But we tend to dismiss the more immediate — and very real — threat of heavily armed delusional antigovernment traitors in our own backyards."

June 12, 2014

Mass Grave of Dead Babies in Ireland Used as Guinea Pigs for Pharmaceutical Company

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/24112-mass-grave-of-dead-babies-in-ireland-used-as-guinea-pigs-for-pharmaceutical-company

Ok, so it is not merely that these babies wer killed, and their m others exploited like slaves. No, now we find they were experimented on. Did not we hang some Nazis for doing very similar things?

Pope Francis, we know you are sayign some nice things, but the truth is, you were put in place because the Church has a huge huge mess to atone for, that a few anti capitalist gestures will NOT undo.

June 8, 2014

a great quote for democrats

"And in social battles, the sweetheart will always have some disadvantages: the sweetheart’s talent for seeing things from his opponent’s perspective deprives him of bold self-certainty, and he is less willing to trample others for his ends. Social movements sometimes do well when led by a moralising jerk. I will not mention specific examples, lest I err and offend."

In other words, Barack tires to be a sweetheart, and as a result, gets trampled. Demcorats try to be fair, we get trampled, unles we have a jerk leading us like Bill Clinton.

June 5, 2014

What Maureen Dowd's Cannabis accident tells us

for those who do not know the story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/03/maureen-dowd-tries-marijuana_n_5442224.html

OK, Dowd is a journalist. One of the things she is supposed to do is ASK QUESTIONS and GATHER FACTS. If she were unable to do this, it would be like saying I am a chef, but I do not know how to boil water or handle a knife. Apparently, she failed to do just that. Any one of us would ask a doctor how to take a drug: do we take it with food, morning, nightimes, can it make us drowsy, etc. Again, she failed to do that. So she not only showed a lack of professional skills (asking a question) but failed to use the same common sense we all use when we go to a doctor, or pick up a prescription at a Walgreens or CVS.

But, does her admitted mistake cause her to realize she made one...NO, she gets on and spins a tale of Reefer madness, blaming everyone BUT herself, and she can get away with that because she is a NYT reporter! Never mind who gets hurt, or that the conservatives will likely use this as a horror story to kill a reform of Cannabis laws "see, even dat Liberal Dowd got into trouble!" It says a lot where we allow people to do at the very least ignore the truth, and be fools, because they are our fools, in our papers, and they say something we like on occasion. It sure doe not hurt that, for all of Obama's sad foot dragging on the issue, The obama presidency will be known as being the era where states first started to treat Cannabis as just another intoxicant or medicine, something Maureen is helping to take back, even though she is simply avoiding the fact she failed to or refused to ask questions.