Jason Levin - "Crash" and Burn

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Jason Levin, the guy who came up with the "Crash the Tea Party" concept is now unemployed. The AP is reporting that he resigned before the Beaverton School District had a chance to keep him or fire him because of their investigation already in process. In April, he was put on administrative leave after school officials were contacted by various sources concerning the fact that Levin posted to the forums on CrashTheTeaParty.org (now defunct) during school hours (and may have also used school computers to do so). The state of Oregon Teacher Standards and Practice Commission is still considering their own investigation against him. [Source]

"Levin has said he would seek to embarrass Tea Partiers by attending their rallies dressed as Adolf Hitler, carrying signs bearing racist, sexist and anti-gay epithets and acting as offensively as possible -- anything short of throwing punches." [Source]

Just goes to show there is a right way and a wrong way to attempt to bring about political change.

The Future of Socialism

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Having talked about what has happened in the UK so far, and having sen an awful lot of social change in my own lifetime, I would like to look ahead on where I see Socialism going.

Anyone who has followed the series so far will know that the best laid plans from both Left and Right wing politicians have foundered on the rocks, not so much because of the weaknes of the theory, but down to the human failings of those who were asked to carry these plans out.( Read more... )

Today's "are you f*cking kidding me" moment

[http://users.livejournal.com/aviation_/]

Julian Assange has been charged with rape in Sweden and will surrender to police soon. UPDATE:Sweden withdraws warrant.

I don't want to discredit anybody who might be a victim of rape. This might be authentic.
But I do not buy it at this point. Not one little bit. It sounds to me like he is being framed. Either through false allegations arranged by the US government, or though political pressure on Sweden to make false allegations. This is a smear campaign because the US is frightened of what the additional documents contain. They cannot prosecute Assange legally because of Times v. United States, which is very clear on its position. I suspect that the documents we have yet to see contain something much "bigger."

While this is meant to turn people against Assange, it makes me that much more certain that something isn't right here. The timing is too perfect. The fact that TWO women have come forward (who supposedly met him as part of his mission - aka might have been plants from the start) right now is too perfect.

Thoughts? Thoughts free of ad hominem please.

Edit: Sweden withdraws warrant.

History of Anti-Mosque sentiment

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I imagine many people are confused by this sudden upswell of outrange against the Muslim cultural center that is being built near where the Twin Towers existed in New York.

I mean, people have known about it forever and nobody cared. It was on the front page of the New York Times so people had certainly heard about this project. It had unanimous support by the New York City community board. At the end of last year, the wife of the founder was on the Oreily Factor who's guest host at the time said she "Liked what they were trying to do", referring to the fact that the whole point of this center is to fight Islamic extremism.

In fact, really the only major opposition at the time was a certain blogger. One Pamela Geller. Nobody payed too much attention at the time though, because she constantly writes anti-Islam shpeels. Its sort of her MO-- far right-wing anti-Islamism. Nothing new for her to be calling it a monstrosity in the shadow of Islamic death and destruction, or a monument built on conquered land. Side by side with her claims that Malcom X was Obama's father, or that 'President Hussein is working to remove Hamas from the terrorist organization list' it doesn't seem that extraordinary for her to be frothing at the mouth.

Generally though, crazies are crazies and nobody pays them much attention.


So we jump forward just a month and suddenly her opinion is everywhere. How did that happen?

Well, Newscorp got ahold of it is what. Specifically, Geller teamed up with a certain 'Robert Spencer' who runs the blog 'Jihad Watch'. You can imagine his stance on the issues. His blog isn't quite so loony, but it's still all about covering any little bad thing he can find that might have been done by a Muslim. They start a group: "Stop Islamization of America".

From there, their little campaign gets wind of the Post. The Post writes some inflammatory articles and from there it suddenly jumps to all of Newscorp's media outlets. Presto, right-wingers everywhere repeat it.

So, the question is- why is it suddenly popular to be against it when Newscorp decides it should be? Everyone knew about it before, but nobody cared until Newscorp told them to care. That is where this came from. When Fox covered it positively nobody cared even though the information was exactly the same. When they told people it was bad, suddenly everyone believes in their heart of hearts that it is bad. You can find crazy anywhere, but isn't it troubling that one media company can whip people up so easily to fear whatever they say to fear?

Another article
Most info from here

It's All OBAMA'S Fault...

[paft.livejournal.com]

Byron York, Washington Examiner, 8/20/10:

Since Smitty the barber first asked the question 25 years ago, Barack Obama has been reluctant to discuss his Muslim roots. Except, of course, when he’s been eager to discuss his Muslim roots. And roots aside, to the outside observer, Obama sometimes doesn’t appear to practice any faith at all. Put it all together, and is it any wonder the public is confused?

So according to Byron York, the lies and attacks on Obama’s religion are the fault, not of the Republican Party’s and the media's willingness to pander to the likes of Pam Geller, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, but Obama himself. See, our president just too unwilling to talk about his “Muslim roots.” Except when he’s been too willing to discuss them.

“Is it any wonder the public is confused?” asks York, who’s perversely consistent in blaming his own confusing lack of logical consistency on President Obama.

This comes across less as a reasoned assessment than nervousness about just how obvious the Republican Party’s long term flirtation with right wing extremism has become -- and where it could lead.

Rather than painfully reassess the GOP’s dabbling in extremist rhetoric, York is putting forth a tentative alibi to be resurrected if some crackpot who believes Beck and Limbaugh’s garbage takes a shot at Obama.

crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

(no subject)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Obama's war on lobbyists was just a lot of hot air

"In the last six years," candidate Obama declared back in 2007, "our leaders have thrown open the door of Congress and the White House to an army of Washington lobbyists who have turned government into a game only they can play." In the past 18 months, that hasn't changed.

Let's see. He hasn't turned back the Patriot Act, instead he's expanded it a little bit more (only so much he can do without more legislation). He hasn't actually freed anyone from Guantanamo or shut it down. He failed to allow public comments on bills for 5 days before signing them. And he hasn't done anything about lobbyists; in fact he's hired a bunch of them even after saying explicitly that he he wouldn't. So, what big thing has he promised and actually delivered on? More and more people seem to be saying that he's just like Bush, and that would be another thing he said he wasn't going to be.

Faith sells

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Ave!, dear religious fanatics friends of reason! I'm sure you haven't heard of this particular case, but you must've been familiar with similar ones, as I think it's very symptomatic about the way faith often gets intertwined with the economy (business, trade, the free markets, etc).

See, the land I walk on every day is pretty ancient. The Balkans are a crossroads between two (three?) major historic areas, a bridge between the continents of the Old World, and the place still keeps treasures dating back, if not from the very fist civilizations on Earth, at least from the second wave of civilizations. My home city Plovdiv itself is the 6th oldest continuously populated town in the world up till now, and the oldest in Europe (6000-8000 years of continuous habitation, which means 2 times older than Athens and 3 times older than Rome). All this means that archeology is a very big thing here. We all remember the looting of the priceless Sumerian artifacts from the Baghdad Museum of History, which happened soon after the invasion of Iraq. A horrible crime against the memory of humanity, by any means. Well, the trade with such artifacts is still alive and well, and it also includes, and passes through, the Balkans.

In this background, the following story which happened at the end of last month, contrasts sharply. On July 28, during excavations near the coastal town of Sozopol (more than 5000 years old, and famous for being one of the most prosperous outposts of ancient Greece), a box containing some bones probably dating from the first centuries after Christ was found near an ancient church. It also contained an inscription saying "Ioannus", meaning John.

The media exploded instantaneously, calling Sozopol the New Jerusalem. Some newspapers even attributed supernatural qualities to the relic. The political leaders of Bulgaria are now hoping that the discovery will bring a miracle for the economy, as well as on the next elections. Surely, Sozopol is one of the most popular Black Sea resorts, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists every summer. The world financial crisis has left its dent on the industry, but not as bad as most other industries. Tourism is heavily relied upon to balance the national budget.

The solemn display of ancient teeth and knuckles is a rather unusual way of attracting tourists and distracting the electorate's attention during hard economic times. Whether these bones are really part of John the Baptist or not, is irrelevant, as it turns out. Those who believe in Christ the Savior have already made up their mind about it, even though no scientific expertise has been done yet. And it will probably never be done.

( How Faith + Money > Scientific Fact )

 

You can't have it both ways.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

In light of the responses by non US residents in this thread, I'm confused.

The US gets criticized for not paying attention to the rest of the world. Yet we also get criticized for meddling in the rest of the world (aka world domination). So what do you want?

If one says "You should pay attention to X happening in country Y" that to me means that you want us to do something about it. If not, then why bother paying any attention to something over which we have no control and didn't cause? Aren't we supposed to allow you the opportunity to solve your own problems?

The average US citizen doesn't know about much of the world for the simple reason that nobody can know everything about everything and most of what is happening isn't perceived as significant enough in their lives to warrant attention. So why expect some response other than "Oh, I didn't know that was going on." Why don't YOU know what is going on in Butte, Montana? Montana is larger than Germany. Why don't YOU know which two states Kansas City covers? One of those states has a larger GDP than Poland, the other a larger GDP than Malaysia and KC is a major hub for both of those economies. If you don't know it is largely because you really don't care and that's perfectly OK. So why isn't it OK when the shoe is on the other foot?

So what do you want: should the US continue meddling in everything or should the US stay the fuck out? If the latter, and you still want the attention of the average US citizen, why do you find it necessary to be such a drama queen?

Christianity and the US Military

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

Whenever I read an article on the Huffington Post that isn't being covered by the mainstream media I tend to take it with a huge grain of salt. I may be a bleeding heart pinko commie socialist liberal but that doesn't mean I take everything George Soros tells me as fact. ;)

However this article has given me much food for thought. I've never given much thought to how closely the US government ties Christianity to our military but apparently it's a regular occurrence. I've never heard of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation but personally I'm glad that they're around.

Should the military be allowed to indoctrinate any religion in our military? Are there any benefits from doing so?