Displaying 121 To 150 Of 222 Comments Just READ the piece… it has less to to with what YOU think than it does with what the MASSES do. “The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.” -Samuel Adams » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 4, 2011 @ 12:13 pm Forgive me my dear friend… but your complacency is part of the problem… and your “Neville Chamberlain” approach will reap the same results. Fox news now IS the republican party. READ the piece, and THEN let us have this discussion. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 4, 2011 @ 11:41 am The medium that we are NOW using is a start… but if necessary (and I truly believe that it is), we need to get into the STREETS… infiltrate the rallies of the scumbags like Bachmann, Palin and the rest of the seditionists. Get the media to focus on US instead of just those who are part of the problem… get in their FACES. CREATE A SCENE like the gop did in 2000 when their orchestrated “outrage” stormed the offices of the recount.. Every time a teabagger rally is organized.. SHOW UP just as organized to CALL THEM OUT on their ignorance and hypocrisy. Fight FIRE with FIRE. ENOUGH with these “pretty please” responses to their WAR on US. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 4, 2011 @ 11:39 am The alternative was spelled out plainly in my rant… “It is time to call these miscreants out out onto the carpet of public scrutiny.. loudly, unapologetic, and unfettered by the obsequious cowardice that mitigates the true nature of the cancer that we are confronting.” TRUTH is the answer…. and “parliamentary niceties” be DAMNED. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 4, 2011 @ 9:41 am I’m NOT advocating that we “ostracize” anyone…. I’m saying that they must be DEFINED as what they truly are… the greatest threat to the very existence of this “democracy” in the history of our country… and in a manner that NO LONGER MINCES WORDS. Grayson didn’t mince them and he was CRUSHED by the ‘machine’. Feingold didn’t mince them and he was CRUSHED by the ‘machine’. Even Weiner (warts and all) didn’t mince them and he was CRUSHED by the ‘machine’. Yes, I’m talking about the “politicians” (including their enablers who are TOO FUCKING LAZY even to THINK anymore)… but MOSTLY (as I wrote) to “those cynics who spend all of their days deliberately spreading their poison; the “pretend populists”, the counterfeit “news networks”…. who contemptuously and willfully hoist the resultant standards of the sickness that is consuming our culture”. … as a fan of Gandhi, god knows I’ve tried to take the “high road”. But even the Mahatma felt that the British shouldn’t have fought an aggressive war against Hitler.. He was wrong. What he forgot.. what we are ALL forgetting is that the concept of “civil disobedience” as a strategy of political opposition can succeed only with a government ruled by CONSCIENCE .. and what we will most CERTAINLY end up with if these degenerates ever get power here is EXACTLY the OPPOSITE of that. This is LITERALLY a fight for our lives… and it is ABOUT TIME we treated it as such. If you are TRULY INTERESTED in seeing exactly what we are up against.. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525 THEN tell me how we are supposed to “unite” when the DUPES and the DRONES are quickly becoming the “electorate”. This is a fucking WAR, and the sooner we realize it, the better the chance that we might prevail. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 4, 2011 @ 9:39 am FUCK “CIVILITY”. You know… perhaps I should succumb to the missives to treat “those who have an “opposite opinion” regarding the direction that our country is plummeting towards. Perhaps I should hold my tongue and treat those with the “respect” that they feel is due them. Perhaps I should “play by the rules” and just let those who seem hellbent on destroying everything that America was founded for… but, as I become more and more cynical regarding the mindset of those who seem to spend every fiber of their being trying to turn the clock back several CENTURIES to a time when women were relegated to the status of “property” and people of color should just ‘shut up’…those pissing on everything that we are SUPPOSED to stand for. I’m beginning to feel otherwise. Sorry. FUCK THEM ALL. By falling for this “peace offering”, all we are doing is POKING OURSELVES in the eye. [img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/267896_1961270464550_1026457768_31771083_2484328_n.jpg[/img] Now is not the time for “diplomacy”… nor is it the time for any more of the breathtakingly phony calls for “civility” that our ENEMIES are insisting upon (even as they fail to themselves)… quite the contrary. Too much is at stake. It is our responsibility as patriotic Americans to shine a bright light directly into the eyes of those cynics who spend all of their days deliberately spreading their poison; the “pretend populists”, the counterfeit “news networks” and the putrescent politicians who contemptuously and willfully hoist the resultant standards of the sickness that is consuming our culture. It is time to call these miscreants out out onto the carpet of public scrutiny.. loudly, unapologetic, and unfettered by the obsequious cowardice that mitigates the true nature of the cancer that we are confronting. And that is EXACTLY WHAT THESE pieces of SHIT ARE… a CANCER that needs to be EXCISED. Nothing less than our existence depends on it. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 3, 2011 @ 8:32 pm To you as well my friend. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 4, 2011 @ 9:57 am Casey Anthony: Guilty or Not Guilty? HAAAH!!!! » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 4, 2011 @ 9:50 am Please… this is TABLOID NIRVANA. If Casey was a poor black woman, this would still be on page 35 below the fold. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 4, 2011 @ 9:49 am Indeed.. nobody is advocating otherwise. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 3, 2011 @ 7:53 pm Nevertheless, my old and respected colleague, it IS my opinion, and I fail to see why it is less relevant than any other here. This is TABLOID journalism.. and I feel it BENEATH what this site is supposed to represent. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 3, 2011 @ 7:41 pm My dear friend.. what she MIGHT have been and what she IS could very well be as different as night and day. No matter WHAT the situation is (and remember that peacekitten.. my significant other was horribly abused by her husband to the point of attempted murder).. there is NEVER an excuse for deliberately MURDERING your own child.. or ANY child for that matter. She could very well be innocent… I hope she is as she is most certainly damaged and in need of help… but the facts seem to point otherwise. Of ALL of the women needed to be “role models” in this era where degenerate factions are trying to rolL their status back to that of “property” in this country… the LAST one I would choose is MEDEA. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 3, 2011 @ 7:40 pm What has this to do with “the disastrous way we leave single moms to fend for themselves”?? “Correct” WHAT? This is PRURIENT HOGWASH touted as “social relevance”. Meh. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 3, 2011 @ 7:14 pm Hear HEAR!!! Enough of this TABLOID BULLSHIT. Let the system work and let us concentrate on more IMPORTANT THINGS. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 3, 2011 @ 6:57 pm Who gives a FLYING FUCK? » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 3, 2011 @ 6:48 pm The Age Of Reason As An Argument To The Age Of Fear An excerpt of an essay by Henry A. Giroux… The promise of democracy and economic justice and social rights necessitates a new language of public purpose, rationality and formative culture embedded in democratic public values, collective struggles and a social movement willing to fight for a new kind of politics, democracy and future. We don’t need privatized utopias, but models of a democratic society and social state in which public values and democratic interests are expressed in a range of economic, political and cultural institutions. The world needs a new army of critical and passionate messengers alert to the need for progressive social solidarities, social agency, collective action and a refusal to stare hopelessly at the rotting corpsȇs, gated communities and the walking dȇad that turn the promise of democracy into an advertisement for global destruction. Hopefully, the myriad mistakes we Americans have made over the years can serve as a cautionary tale to those brave souls who, as we speak, are literally laying their lives on the line for what they believe in…. values that, alas, we seem to have forgotten. As we move into the second Gilded Age with its reproduction of massive inequalities and a life of privilege for the few, we are confronted with a level of suffering that is unprecedented. While the statistics cannot portray the level of existential pain caused by the inequalities that produce so much unnecessary suffering, they do provide snapshots of those structural forces and institutions that increasingly make life difficult for millions of Americans under a ruthless form of economic Darwinism. Such statistics also bring home the importance of going beyond just criticizing in the abstract the values and rationality that drive neoliberal / neoconservative market fundamentalism. As Slavoj Zizek has rightly pointed out, when it comes to this crisis, the social and economic problem that must be addressed forcefully is the growing gap and antagonism between the included and the excluded. And this gap must not only be made visible, but it must be confronted with pedagogical care around the question of whether democracy is still an appropriate name for the United States’ political system given the gulf, if not chasm, between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the underprivileged. It applies to the RESPONSIBILITIES inherent in all CIVILIZED SOCIETIES that we are ALL MORALLY BOUND TO TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. The catastrophe that marks the current historical moment no longer wraps itself in the mantle of progress. On the contrary, the storm brewing in the United States and other parts of the globe represent a kind of anti-progress, a refusal to think about, invest in or address the shared responsibilities that come with some vision of the future and “the good society”. The historical forces producing this storm and its accompanying catastrophes are incorrigibly blind to the emergence of a “pulverized, atomized society spattered with the debris of broken inter-human bonds and their eminently frail and breakable substitutes.” This is best exemplified in the now infamous and cruel tenets of a harsh neoliberalism stated without apology by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s in their mutual insistence that “government is the problem not the solution” and “there is no such thing as society.” Composing meaningful visions of the good society that benefit citizens in general, rather than a select few, are now viewed as “a waste of time, since they are irrelevant to individual happiness and a successful life.” Bounded by the narrow, private worlds that make up their everyday lives, the American public has surrendered to the atomizing consequences of a market-driven morality and society and has replaced the call for communal responsibility with the call to further one’s own interests at all costs. The social and its most significant embodiment – the welfare state – is now viewed as an albatross around the neck of neoliberal notions of accumulation (as opposed to “progress”). Society has become hyper-individualized, trapped by the lure of material success and stripped of any obligation to the other. Zygmunt Bauman argues that in such a society. Individual men and women are now expected, pushed and pulled to seek and find individual solutions to socially created problems and implement those solutions individually using individual skills and resources. This ideology proclaims the futility (indeed, counter productivity) of solidarity: of joining forces and subordinating individual actions to a “common cause”. It derides the principle of communal responsibility for the well-being of its members, decrying it as a recipe for a debilitating “nanny state” and warning against care for the other leading to an abhorrent and detestable “dependency”. » Posted By BlueStateMan On July 8, 2011 @ 7:46 pm
» Posted By BlueStateMan On July 8, 2011 @ 6:57 pm Was President Obama’s decision to take part in this mission an “impeachable offense” as some have suggested? Good question.. COMPLEX ANSWER: No. Because this ISN’T A DECLARATION OF WAR (which would INDEED require Congressional approval).. it is NOT an invasion to occupy a Sovereign Nation. It is an action taken in accordance with our BINDING AGREEMENTS (also approved by Congress) to participate in a military engagement WHEN CALLED FOR BY THE UNITED NATIONS & NATO (who is currently in the process). It is NOT a violation of the War Powers Act nor is it a violation of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. TREATIES RATIFIED BY AN ACT OF CONGRESS HOLD THE RULE OF LAW. This is boilerplate jurisprudence exclusive of any well meaning hyperbole expressed by people of good heart. » Posted By BlueStateMan On August 23, 2011 @ 3:24 pm The Libyans should take a cue from Hugo Chavez and NATIONALIZE their oil. and they need to do it RIGHT AWAY. When Royal Dutch Shell objected to the new ‘profit sharing’ offer made to them in Venezuela, they were told in no uncertain terms that they could “take the new deal or they get NOTHING”. They cowed. » Posted By BlueStateMan On August 23, 2011 @ 2:31 pm At the main square in Benghazi, people have been gathering to celebrate the end of the rule of Muammar Qaddafi. As euphoric Libyan rebels advanced into Tripoli on Sunday, there were scenes of jubilation in the rebels’ de facto capital, Benghazi, where thousands celebrated in the streets. One large sign in the middle of the square in Benghazi features a picture of the “Fantastic 4” (from right to left): Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and U.S. Ambassador the U.N. Susan Rice. The text on the sign reads: “God Bless You All. Thanks For All.” Now I know that I’ve been at odds with many of my friends on this (after all, we wouldn’t be true Liberals if there wasn’t a healthy amount of infighting) but I’m convinced that in the end, Obama did the right thing. The President said that we would hand over the leadership of the mission to NATO in “days, not weeks”, and he did. He said that he would stop Gaddafi from leveling Banghazi (slaughtering over a hundred thousand people), and he did. NOW, it’s paying off.. without a single US casualty. Here’s my dilemma. I truly believe that one of the most moral things that we can do with our military is to protect those, who without it, would certainly perish at the hands of some tyrant, yet when we open that door will we be in a state of perpetual combat? Where do we draw the line?? Are we only to consider the economic repercussions? The political ones? Is it only when we are called to join other nations in the name of humanitarianism or should we solely act with the same avaricious and narcissistic motivations that “justified” our exertions when we started the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Conundrums such as these cut to the very quick of our souls as a people and can’t be reduced to political polemics and simplistic talking points. Even individuals who might hold to “pacifistic absolutes” would be hard pressed to see someone suffering a brutal attack in their presence and not be compelled to lend a hand to help, wouldn’t they? As to those accusing President Obama of lying in his initial speech about Libya were never able to point out a single untruth specifically. Those insisting that this was a “war for oil”, (despite the fact that we get 0.7% of our oil from Libya) were never able to admit that it is a flawed rationale.. and when they make the laughable claim that we were “forced by France” into this operation… they are never able to back it up with anything other than neoconservative nincompoopery. Those who continued to make the breathtakingly vapid contention that this was “just like Iraq” were never able to cite anything even close to a historical parallel other than uneducated attempts to compare apples and oranges. Then, there are the professional whiners on both sides of the isle who would sooner sever a limb rather than to admit that maybe, just once, they were actually wrong about something. And last but not least, let’s not forget the willfully ignorant baggers and their representatives who insist on making their putrescent presence known just to bellow the latest asinine bumpersticker slogans that they might have picked up on some demagogic right wing site or campaign posters wielded by “Bachmann / Perry / Paul / Caine / Palin / Romney / whoever for President” drones .. Ready and eager to demonstrate their lack of intellect around as if they were doing anything else but reminding us how lucky the rest of us were to have gotten a decent upbringing and a good education. President Obama handled this PERFECTLY, despite the palpable desperation of those unable to prove otherwise. They lost what they thought was a chance to take him down… and all they got was another nail to add to their caskets. heh![img]http://freerangetalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/LIbyans.jpg[/img] » Posted By BlueStateMan On August 22, 2011 @ 11:00 pm ….. on the “BitTorrent” issue… They are “creations”.. same thing. The copyright is the “patent” and, through many organizations, these people are indeed “coming out in unison to decry the “theft” of their “property”. This is serious, my dear friend… and, even as it is against the odds to “do anything about it” we still must try. Why> Because, simply, it is the right thing to do. » Posted By BlueStateMan On June 20, 2011 @ 2:02 pm The agreement with the artists is that the USE of their creations are compensated.. not through the record companies, but through independent entities such as ASCAP and BMI, who monitor sales as well as how many times their material might have been broadcast over the radio, television, and even the net (iTunes, for example). This country was practially built on the common man’s inventions, creations, etc…. and the PROTECTIONS of those inventions and writings… It is precisely the protection of the common persons inventions that these new laws need to be put into place.. and catering to the interests of those who enable the theft of those creations is counterproductive. I’m perfectly willing to admit that there are two sides to the coin…. while even major corporations might be entitled to some compensation (as in cases wherein an artist makes a deal and relinquishes part of the proceeds to (whomever) fine… but the ARTIST is the one to decide).. but they cause a problem for everyone by their greed. Because of their greed, people have a hard time seeing the cases I am talking about, the writer whose intellectual property is being stolen.. the musician who’s material is being copied and redistributed… NOT just to a few “friends” (which is fine), but to MILLIONS of people over the net. Many people have a hard time as seeing this as theft in part because of the monopolizing of intellectual property by the big guys.. so they just think, “oh this is not stealing these people have all kinds of money”. It not only obscures the TRUTH, but the MORALITY as well. » Posted By BlueStateMan On June 20, 2011 @ 10:06 am The Weekend Music Thread – Water My very dear friend for 36 years, Clarence Clemons has died. He had a massive stroke a few days ago and underwent several brain surgeries and for a while it was looking as if he was going to pull through. Alas, he just slipped away a few hours ago. He was only 69…. he’ll live forever. Let’s send some thoughts out to his wife Victoria and his sons Clarence III, Charles, Christopher and Jarod. Requiscat in pace, big man. “Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage.. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly 40 years. He was my great friend, my partner and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.” ~~ Bruce Springsteen
» Posted By BlueStateMan On June 18, 2011 @ 8:18 pm A Viewers Guide to Tonight’s GOP Debate in NH The last time I saw a lineup like this, they all tumbled out of the same car at Ringling Brothers. » Posted By BlueStateMan On June 14, 2011 @ 3:31 am Between a Rock and a Hard Place Sorry.. but this, THE FIRST “SEX SCANDAL” that involved NO SEX WHATSOEVER is just a smokescreen to obfuscate what the GOP is REALLY trying to do. Blow smoke to cover up their own deviant sexual agenda. Only when those degenerate republicans who seem to feel that it is incumbent upon them to interfere with the right a woman has to hold sovereignty over her own body.. those who feel that women who are victimized by the sort of deviants that they proudly consider their “base”… As soon as these “lawmakers” are willing to stand by idly and watch their wives or their sisters or their mothers or their daughters being savagely raped by the most ghastly elements of society.. the dredges of humanity… As soon as these unapologetic misogynists will agree to pay the expenses and raise the progeny of these heinous crimes.. As soon as these who tout “personal responsibility”, even in the face of their own hypocrisy.. and agree to pay for the lifetime of therapy that is needed for women who have been violated so that they can even marginally deal with what happened to them and try to have some semblance of a “life”… Only then, will their opinions have any real credence. Until then, they should just shut the fuck up. Thomas Jefferson Should these men have been cast aside as well for their own indiscretions? We would have no country. The childishness of people unable to separate what is the business of the public, like the congressman bought and paid for by corporations, from people who have PRIVATE weaknesses that have affected them in no way at all, is one of the biggest reasons this country is in such trouble. When a voter is no longer capable of distinguishing what genuinely concerns them (like has their representative been a genuine criminal) to what is NONE of their business, like a representative’s private life that has broken no laws, it’s time to reconsider why that person deserves the right to vote in the first place. » Posted By BlueStateMan On June 14, 2011 @ 3:32 am Why are so many people in this country so happy to be so uninformed.. so willing to accept what they see on the “news” without question?
The depths to which our “4th Estate” have sunk is the result of a deliberate plan to obscure the differences between contrived drama and reality.. and it will be very difficult to turn around now that several generations have already been indoctrinated.
After the so-called “Liberal Press” had successfully caused the resignation of Richard Nixon.. and the imprisonment of many of his Administration, the right-wing knew that it had to make changes.
Did the disgraced GOP see the error of their ways and try to conduct themselves as honest lawmakers , trying to help govern in the spirit of compromise and genuine debate?
Nope.
They decided to just call their friends occupying the boardrooms of America (and elsewhere), get a few financial syndicates together and buy most of the corporations that owned news operations and then control them to the extent that zero “negative” news exposing their criminality would reach the mass market, and only their particular political propaganda would be presented.
The “privatization” of truth. They then hired the first of their “beards”, a vapid, 3rd rate actor named Ronald Reagan who did what he was told, and, in one of his first acts as President, canceled the “Fairness Doctrine” (which mandated that those who broadcast editorials while leasing parts of the public airwaves allot equal editorial time to the Public who OWNS those airwaves so as to express opposing viewpoints) the last vestiges of a truly free, independent press was sent into oblivion… giving only those with lots of money a forum in which to spread their lies… at the same time silencing the views of all others.
It’s more than ironic that, since Reagan’s ‘claim to fame’ as an “actor” was co-starring with a CHIMP , that the second ‘beard’ injected into the Oval Office was the CHIMP ITSELF. It’s worse now than ever… even more reason to fight with everything we have… for without honest information, we are lost.
The medium in which we are now communicating is most likely our LAST hope.
Let’s not give up. » Posted By BlueStateMan On June 4, 2011 @ 3:28 am Weekend Music Thread – Back In The Saddle 😉 » Posted By BlueStateMan On May 8, 2011 @ 3:04 pm Jes wondering….. it’s been a few days. Also, what’s up with the “SUBMIT FOR REVIEW” thing?????? » Posted By BlueStateMan On May 8, 2011 @ 2:20 pm OFF TOPIC…. but I tried to submit 2 stories and they are still “PENDING”. I also noted that I can’t “publish” anymore.. only able to “SUBMIT FOR REVIEW”. WTF? » Posted By BlueStateMan On May 8, 2011 @ 1:44 pm Trojana Huffington: Queen of Progressives? Here’s something I submitted to “Free Range Talk” before PLANET POV came to the rescue. http://freerangetalk.com/?p=4076 . » Posted By BlueStateMan On April 30, 2011 @ 10:17 amComments Posted By BlueStateMan
George Washington
Benjamin Franklin
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