January 31, 2016

Imagine if you reduced and mangled history to a false talking point.

Malcolm and Martin, closer than we ever thought
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/05/19/Malcolmx.king/

The civil rights movement prevailed until 1965 because tens of thousands of people were willing to violate unjust laws and put their bodies on the line against extremist violence, even as many liberals were urging them to be more pragmatic! "Pragmatism" doesn't get to steal that.



http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/

January 31, 2016

God should not be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Pledge of Allegiance should be taken out, period. No such thing should be required to recite in schools. Especially not a pledge to a piece of cloth, which anyone can wave and claim for themselves. That kind of shit belongs in totalitarian systems.

Schools should educate about democracy generally and in particular the form of government in the United States (democratic or not). Students should be learning the Constitution from Preamble to Bill of Rights, the history of the amendments and major court decisions, their rights and privileges and duties and requirements as citizens generally, the means for organizing to protect their rights, how to get involved in and influene the politics that affects their lives (not only inside the voting booth), why it's important...

EDITING TO ADD POST #39 HERE:

http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/case.aspx?id=442

Writing for the SC majority in 1943, when Jehovah's Witnesses refused to say the pledge, Justice Robert Jackson:

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

January 25, 2016

Clinton blesses Bloomberg as a back-up if she loses to Sanders.

Tell me that's an unfair reading!

"Sanders can't win in November" having been toppled, Clinton and the Democratic establishment are now switching to "Vote for Clinton because otherwise we will have the means to make sure Sanders won't win in November."

Bloomberg is not a good friend of mine! You?

EDIT:

As a response to some of the first comments in defense, I want to see people ask themselves what she should have said. Here is what I wrote below (#13).

There is only one (politically) acceptable response to the question.

At least, if she's still part of her party first and a candidate second. (Ha ha.)

And that would have been that Bloomberg can do what he wants but that he is not a good candidate for president. And of course (even if he's a "friend&quot in the "impossible" situation that I, Clinton, should lose, then certainly I will support the Democratic candidate against all comers.

Anything else implies a public countenancing of this particular oligarch's ambitions (assuming Clinton's fail, of course). A good friend! Who cares! To the other 300 million people, he is a politician like her, so the question she should be answering is whether she supports his politics. Does she? Well duh!!!

FINAL CHANGE:

Headline change to "blesses," since people are hung up on some formal meaning of "endorses" and prefer to miss the open sharing of Bloomberg's concerns about Sanders as legitimate (which DWS did in an even more open fashion soon after, post 163). This statement amounts to her saying, "No worries Bloomberg, I got this."

January 25, 2016

Yes, the Denver defense will be good.

A lot better than what Arizona can offer against the Carolina juggernaut. Hey, they stopped Brady! It will probably be a closer game than what we're watching right this moment, but it's very unlikely the Denver defense can make up for the awesome difference between the offenses.

January 24, 2016

Good luck being sober in this milieu!

What did David Brock say today? How communist atheist is Sanders anyway? Clinton speaks to Goldman Sachs for charity! Vote for her or you are sexist, racist and stupid! Why do you hate Obama? You're supporting Trump!

January 24, 2016

Q. Will you release your Goldman Sachs transcripts? HRC: Ha ha ha!

Hillary Clinton Laughs When Asked if She Will Release Transcripts of Her Goldman Sachs Speeches
Lee Fang
Jan. 23 2016, 9:37 a.m.

After Hillary Clinton spoke at a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Friday, I asked her if she would release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. She laughed and turned away.

Clinton has recently been on the defensive about the speaking fees she and her husband have collected. Those fees total over $125 million since 2001.

Her rival Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, has raised concerns in particular over the $675,000 she made from Goldman Sachs, an investment bank that has regularly used its influence with government officials to win favorable policies.

Watch the video:

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/23/clinton-goldman-sachs-laugh/

The laugh sounds performative, not involuntary. Some serious hubris going on. Is it a case of "those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad?" Or just arrogant as all hell?

January 22, 2016

Bill: “People like me and Hillary can afford to go to college. The government can’t help everyone."

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/22/faint-praise-for-bernie-sanders-from-bill-clinton-his-slogans-are-easier-to-say/

Without mentioning Mr. Sanders by name, Mr. Clinton dismissed one of his main campaign pledges, to provide free college tuition for all. “She does not agree that tuition should be free for everybody,” he said of his wife. “People like me and Hillary can afford to go to college. The government can’t help everyone. We should have money to put into jobs and infrastructure.”

If you can't afford it: tough shit!

January 22, 2016

Okay!

Good thing we don't get to peek into the real lives of Homer, Shakespeare, the cave painters of Lascaux and the rest, including all the unknown authors of traditionals and drinking songs. Or we'd have to line up a lot of the works attributed to them against the wall! And forget about the modern philosophers, really the whole imperial lot, even Marx.

It's a fundamental of art that it tends to take on its own autonomous existence, and that the recipient (re)makes the work every time. Especially if it's largely persona-independent, or, as in this case, has nothing to do with the acts of the man. Songs especially are birds that fly on their own. It's a song that a couple of hundred million people have played and sung without almost ever thinking that Don McLean wrote it. It's about the death of Buddy Holly.

And I told you, his behavior isn't even personal, it's abhorrent and should be punished (assuming the truth of it is determined in a court of law). Of course, by your standard of exclusion - not just of physical abusers, an always serious and inexcusable matter, but also "hypocrites" and "liars" and "etc." - pretty much no one will be left to listen to.

January 22, 2016

It's a robocall poll.

I know anytime a robot calls, I hang the fuck up, as do higher proportions of people than with humans.

The results fluctuate by more than 10% per day!

The "finish" is ages away, the all-caps headlines on the site are a tipoff on the intellectual tenor of the outfit.

Emerson College-based, but a for-profit outfit (.com, there's a page for putting in bids) that exploits student labor.

"Methodology" at http://www.theecps.com/#!methodology/c1iwz.

Through the use of a screening question, we usually seek out "likely voters" which has been shown to give a much more representative sample of the populations for most political polling.

All of which is arbitrary, especially given the extraordinary circumstances of 2016.

January 20, 2016

You proud of Carter's head on a platter, are you?

You're right, it's not apartheid. I don't recall that South Africa ever spent a month bombing a densely populated, enclosed refugee prison full of children. It's worse, and in this country - the one that just gives a few billion in tax dollars to Israel every year - your legalistic hair-splitting trying to disguise an order based on religious colonialism, racism and violence plays only to a very narrow support base of pro-Israel and Republican-Christian-endtimes fanatics. You live in a bubble. Good day to you sir.