April 1, 2013

Great parenting style there. Here's a candid shot of Barack and Malia:

Looked like a running jump kind of hug there.

And that big Easter bunny always reminds me of 'Harvey.'

April 1, 2013

Well, I'll just haul this one out for those who want it:

Thom Hartmann: Conservative Millennials, Boomers & Libertarians all being Conned

Multigenerational political influence by a very narrow special interest group is rare, but we're seeing it played out right now in front of us. A billionaire family - the Kochs - have gone from influencing my father's generation, to my generation, to my kids' generation - and very few Americans realize it. Daddy Koch - Fred - made his first millions palling around with Joe Stalin in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. As the fascists rose to power in Europe in the 1930s, he was an enthusiastic supporter of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who invented the word "fascist," meaning essentially the takeover of democratic governments by big business interests. Mussolini went so far as to dissolve the Italian parliament, and replace elected politicians with representatives of each district's largest corporations. Fred Koch and Mussolini both particularly hated the trade unionists and their sometimes allies, the communists. So after Mussolini, along with his ally Hitler, lost World War II against America, Fred Koch brought the anti-communist pro-business-running-goverment - what some would call "facist" - torch to America big time, helping start the John Birch Society.

Two of their biggest efforts are pretty well known. After the Supreme Court ruled, in 1954, in the Brown versus Board of Education case, that segregation in schools was unconstitutional, the John Birch Society put up billboards all across America calling for the impeachment of the Chief Justice of the Court, Earl Warren. Daddy Fred Koch was very concerned about the integration of our schools - in fact, he wrote, "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America." With JFK's election, Fred Koch's John Birch Society went off again - this time against JFK. Using rhetoric not that different from the "secret Muslim" plots the Tea Party promotes about Obama, in a 1963 speech Fred said that " infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the President is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.”

When JFK was scheduled to come to Dallas that year, the JBS distributed flyers saying, "Wanted, for Treason" all around the town two days before his arrival. On the day JFK was assassinated, large ads ran in the Dallas newspapers attacking Kennedy as being soft on Castro, among other things. That was my dad's generation. Daddy Koch died, and his sons Charles and David took over the family business of promoting the business and billionaire takeover of our American government.

They're doing it with a two-pronged attack. For people over forty, they're funding the Tea Party through a variety of groups, most notably Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks. And for people under forty, they're funding Libertarian think tanks, like the Charles Koch Foundation (which was renamed as the Cato Institute), and the Reason Foundation, where David Koch is a trustee, which happily embraces a new generation of young people with the idea that "freedom" means the "freedom" to buy politicians and the "freedom" to pollute. For the young people, of course, the Libertarians throw in the "freedom" to smoke dope and hire a hooker, but those are just bones being cynically tossed to young potheads and young protoge's of Dick Morris.

But the Koch's have been inside the Libertarian movement from its beginning - 32 years ago this year, David Koch was the Libertarian Party's official candidate for Vice President of the United States. It's really pretty incredible, but it's all true. The main agenda of the Koch's John Birch Society was to enhance the power and control of our government by big business and billionaires, while fighting organized labor and people like me who were protesting the Vietnam War. The main agenda of the Koch's Tea Party is to get millionaires elected to Congress and have them cut taxes and regulations for Koch Industries and other polluting corporations, while fighting organized labor and people like me who were protesting the Iraq War.

And the main agenda of the Koch's Libertarians - again, funded and trained by the Koch Brothers - is to keep intact the power of big money over our government, cut taxes and regulations on billionaires and polluting industries, while fighting organized labor and people like me who are protesting the corporate takeover of the United States of America. Three generations of Americans, all duped by the same billionaire family. Three generations buying into the idea that "what's best for industry and billionaires is best for America" - and that government is our "enemy" rather than something that our nation's founders fought and died to create for all of "We The People" And, increasingly, it's not just the Koch family. The Walton family - whose combined wealth is greater than 40 percent of all Americans - funded a covert campaign to rename the estate tax as the "death tax" and lobbied so hard they got the estate tax eliminated entirely in 2010.

Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out yesterday that - so far - we know of 26 billionaires - worth over $146 billion - who have already "invested" or committed to invest over $561 million dollars in this election cycle - most of it to defeat Democrats who want to raise their taxes. The good news is that young people are waking up and realizing that the Libertarian hustle the billionaires are feeding them is just that - a hustle. Just like Tea Partiers are waking up to their having been had by billionaires who want to privatize their Social Security. Hopefully, soon, America will regain its sanity and we'll go back to viewing cranky billionaires the way my Dad's generation did - as Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower did - when Eisenhower referred to their ilk as "small in number and stupid" They're not stupid any more, and if we really value American traditions, we really must push back on this kind of power and influence in American politics.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101744227

For all we know, this is what JFK was talking about before he was murdered. The JBS was after him and posted wanted for treason signs in Dallas the week that he was killed. The atmosphere had been made toxic. JFK served in WW2 and may have known about this family and their designs on doing what Roosevelt's VP Wallace said how American fascism could become reality:

"The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence.

His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power...

They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest.

Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

~ U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, quoted in the New York Times, April 9, 1944

They are the force behind a lot of disinformation and hatred.

April 1, 2013

Nope, this what much of this was always about. Always.

I grew up hearing the rantings of the John Birch Society, KKK and Nazis, although not from any of my family or friends. I blame the Koch brothers, Bain, Murdoch and the rest for inciting this and giving it ideological cover. From what I recall, this was always part of the part to destabilize, start riots and civil war. Then they said they'd kill all of those who didn't go along with them and install their fascist regime. It was stated publicly and often in the fifties and sixties.

April 1, 2013

It's a bit crazy, but it appeals to a certain audience that's getting bigger.

Stockman may be going that way, but then he appeared to have always been a zealot from the Wikipedia piece. I've reads some praise of him, because the GOP of that era, despite laying the groundwork for destruction of the New Deal entirely, were not all as socially conservative as the current crop is. That grew under the aegis of Reagan with the televangelists, and it's gone around the bend. Stockman may be attempting to go the route of Paul Craig Roberts, who was called the 'father of Reaganomics' and still says that he supports the overall plan.

Roberts is revered and seen as an intellectual light. He is the darling of the Tea Party, Ron Paul, Alex Jones, Patriot crowd. They all talk about the wisdom of 'Austrian economics,' gold, silver and stocking up for the collapse of society. In fact, they are banking on it and cleaning up shilling for the same system pushed by the Koch brothers.

We see some of these gurus and ideas paraded here from time to time along with rails against the banksters, the Federal Reserve and other stuff that is usually hidden quickly, because it's TOS territory. Same sources. Even Romney, Ryan, Gingrich and Sanctorum went out of their way to appeal to the CTers.

These guys say things that are common sense, although bound with fear. Paul Craig Roberts is much like the surprising subject of the Tim Wise piece called 'Of Broken Clocks, Presidential Candidates, and the Confusion of Certain White Liberals.'

I think Stockman wants in on a piece of this. AFAIK, Preppers and Gun Freedom Fanatics are not in economic straits. Their passions require a good deal of cash or credit. They vote and contribute to a lot of media.

I hope that answers what you asked but logically, no, it's not crazy to try to hold onto things. We have those on the left who are no different in their fears of global collapse - just different cause offered for the their most treasured TEOTWAWKI. I've heard this for twenty years. The real TEOTWAWKI is Obama, and the right knows it. The end of their world as they knew it has happened, but it's not the end for everyone. It never is, even though sometimes in our disgust, we might wish that!