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  • July 3, 2018 at 10:48 pm in reply to: Pam Keith — Progressive #87822
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    Richard Wolff on Class. Nicely done.

    July 3, 2018 at 4:13 pm in reply to: Syria #87811
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    “…To begin with, media coverage and debate about the Syrian war — in the East and West — have been largely colored with the propaganda interests of both Qatari and Saudi regimes. Both regimes control — directly or indirectly — almost all of the various media of the Arab world.

    Beyond their media ownership, both regimes have been able to control or influence the narratives of Western journalists and pundits through heavy investments in the elite Washington foreign policy community, especially through think tanks and PR firms. Think tanks in Washington, such as the Brookings Institution, the Middle East Institute, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, are notoriously awash in funding from Gulf regimes and thus, reflect their agenda……
    … AIPAC would have fought to undermine the influence of these newer Gulf players to shape the discourse had their views on Syria not been congruent with Israel’s interests….”
    ==============

    Well see this is my mantra this year. The layers and layers and layers of lies upon lies upon lies upon lies. Otherwise known as propaganda. From Putin. From Trump. From the Deep State. From the Media. From Think-tanks. And on and on and on.

    It makes it very very very hard to really know what to think about ______ (Fill in the blank)

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    July 1, 2018 at 8:52 pm in reply to: James to Lakers #87769
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    I guess he’ll be show’in up at Ram games maybe.

    He’s a basketball player, right?

    I say Willis Reed will shut him down.

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    July 1, 2018 at 12:30 pm in reply to: more of the same #87757
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    June 30, 2018 at 8:16 pm in reply to: Intersectonal politix #87742
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    The vid mentioned Blake Simons.

    link:http://blackyouthproject.com/yes-black-people-commodify-black-lives-matter-too-and-its-a-major-problem/

    Yes, Black liberals commodify Black Lives Matter too and it’s a major problem
    by Staff

    May 12, 2017

    By Blake Simons

    The present day Movement for Black Lives, which I argue was revived by the people of Oakland after the murder of Oscar Grant, and came into fruition because of the rebellion that working class Black folks started in Ferguson after the murder of Mike Brown, has been co-opted by Black capitalistic neo-liberals.

    Neo-liberalism is a type of politics that favors free market capitalism with little to no government interference. Furthermore, neo-liberalism brings “massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services.” Essentially, neo-liberalism is a branch stemming from the tree of capitalism.

    Capitalism in America is an economic system that is rooted in the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Afrikans. Thus, the country’s wealth was created at the expense of enslaved Afrikans who built this country for the white elite ruling class. Capitalism is inherently racialized, and it is most harmful to working-class Black people.

    While it has been working-class Black folks who have laid the foundation of the Movement for Black Lives, Black neo-liberals are weaponizing their Blackness – through identity politics (usually single issue politics), which uses their Black identity as an “excuse” for exploitative capitalistic behaviors. It’s important that we critique Black neo-liberalism, a system which seeks to commodify Blackness, especially Black pain.

    One of the major ways the Movement has been commodified is through the #BankBlack Movement. This Movement has been “spearheaded” by Kevin Cohee, who is the CEO of OneBank United, the nation’s largest Black bank. Kevin himself enjoys capitalistic lifestyle, which includes once living in a six-million-dollar oceanfront mansion that was paid for by OneBank United’s corporate account.

    The #BankBlack Movement is dangerous because it suggests that Black capitalism is better than white capitalism. In fact, it poses Black capitalism as a solution to white supremacist racial terrorism. But, as revolutionary Black Panther Fred Hampton once said, “you don’t fight capitalism with capitalism.”

    OneUnited Bank operates no differently than any other white owned bank. It is owned by one person and has the same corporate for-profit structure as other banks, like Wells Fargo, that have harmed our communities. This corporate structure is capitalism with a Black face, and it does not provide material benefits to Black communities across the country.

    OneUnited recently partnered with Black Lives Matter and its network of chapters across the nation. According to a press release from OneUnited, “A historic partnership has been born between OneUnited Bank, the largest Black owned bank in the country, and #BlackLivesMatter to organize the $1.2 trillion in spending power of Black America and launch the “Amir” card during Black History Month”. It suggests that if we all #BankBlack and harness our “spending power” that somehow we won’t be shot dead by the racist right-wing police. If only Michael Brown had a OneUnited debit card before encountering Darren Wilson.

    I have said previously that the idea of Black people having “spending power” under capitalism is a lie. The term “spending power” is a capitalistic idea that refers to how much a community spends on consumer goods. Wealth, on the other hand, is ownership that is passed down from generation to generation. In this case, “power” implies that you have ownership over the means of production. Black people do not control capitalism, white elites do. So how can “Black spending power” actually exist?

    The #BankBlack Movement is not about the people though.Rather, it is making money off of the deaths of mostly Black working class people for capitalistic gain.

    This Black conservative nationalist politic, which is a politic that uses racial separation as a means to practice Black capitalism, is not new. According to Guy Emerson Mount at AAIHS, “Cornel West identified this key paradox in black nationalist politics back in 1982 where he exposed black nationalists/capitalists as a petite bourgeoisie cynically profiting from racial segregation by promoting a very conservative brand of black capitalist self-help respectability politics.” We need to understand the Bank Black Movement for what it is: anti-revolutionary at its core.

    We are also seeing the commodification of Black Lives Matter in the television and film industries. Netflix’s series “Dear White People” – and the previous movie of the same name – is a prime example, displaying Black student experiences at a historically white institution (HWI’s) in a TV show format directed towards the white gaze. The show profits from the racial terrorism that many Black students face at HWI’s. If Netflix was Black owned and owned by the workers, and the profits were being used to fund Black Student Unions, that would be another story.

    While the show is employing Black people, the majority of this money is being made for Netflix, a white owned company that does little to help the Black community.

    As a former Black student organizer, it pains me to see the Black student struggle commodified. Being an organizer on a hostile campus ain’t cute. It comes with a mental, social, physical, and academic tax. Simply put, “Dear White People” is the commodification of the racist experiences facing Black students across the country all buttoned up for white capital gain. And a Black liberal is the director of it all.

    Another prime example of the commodification of Black Lives Matter by Black liberals is Van Jones. The ex-Obama appointee recently made headlines for signing with Roc Nation for “activism”. I, like many other organizers doing work in Black communities, didn’t realize you needed a management firm to do something meaningful for our people.

    What makes this dangerous is that Van Jones has taken the spotlight in the Movement even though he isn’t in movement spaces. He has been appointed as the token Negro by white corporations such as CNN, which funds his hot takes on activism. This even includes him praising Donald Trump.

    Van Jones has used the Black Lives Matter movement to propel his own career. He is using faux activism to make a name for himself and to collect a (presumably large) check. His signing with Roc Nation shows us that our own people will corporatize activism. If Roc Nation was a worker-owned company and if Van Jones actually had leftist politics, this might be a different story. But that simply isn’t the case.

    It is our duty to call out the ways we see capitalism leeching off of radical movements. If it is not called out, it cannot be corrected.

    I believe it is important to educate the masses on the harmful systems that are rooted in white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalism. The goal of critiquing is to provide the people guidance, in order to build up our ideology. Though I am doing the critiquing, myself, and this piece are also not above critique.

    There are solutions to the commodification of Black struggle, and the most immediate way to end it is by abolishing capitalism. Fred Hampton said we must fight capitalism with socialism. To add onto chairman Hampton’s words, we must fight white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalism with an intersectional decolonial socialism. While the task ahead of us is daunting, there are a ways to work towards an intersectional socialist revolution.

    There are many ways to show you are down with the Movement without participating in its commodification. In response to the #BankBlack movement, an anti-capitalist solution would be to begin creating not-for-profit people-owned credit unions. While this is still operating under the umbrella of American capitalism, it is an anti-capitalist effort which divests from major banks which historically have been an enemy to the Black community.

    Another solution is Black worker-owned businesses. I’ve been to plenty of Black businesses that are owned by one Black person and don’t employ any other Black folks. This is not changing the system, it’s replicating it.

    An example of a Black business that is anti-capitalist is Mandela Food Coop, which is a Black worker owned grocery store in West Oakland. Instead of one owner making the majority of the profit, the profit is equally distributed amongst the entire staff.

    Likewise, the Dream Defenders, which is a social justice organization based in Florida, created Rebel Threads, a worker owned company that makes movement wear and helps fund the organization.

    We must dream of a world without exploitation, and our dreams must be followed with anti-capitalist actions.

    Blake Simons is an organizer, writer, and educator from the Bay Area. He also co-hosts a podcast dubbed Hella Black. You can follow and engage with Blake on Twitter here.

    June 30, 2018 at 7:10 am in reply to: more of the same #87729
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    right to film:https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/a-major-victory-for-the-right-to-record-police/533031/

    Americans have a constitutional right to film on-duty police officers in public, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled Friday. The three-judge panel’s decision is not the first of its kind, but it marks a significant milestone: Half of U.S. states are now covered by rulings protecting the videotaping of law enforcement.

    In its decision in Fields v. City of Philadelphia, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel said the First Amendment’s protections extended to two people who used their smartphones to record police interactions with a third party….
    …
    ….Despite the broader victory on First Amendment grounds, the panel handed Fields and Geraci a major defeat on the lawsuit itself. Two of the three judges agreed with the city that qualified immunity applied for the officers in both situations, effectively shielding them from legal liability for the incidents. That drew a partial dissent from Judge Richard Nygaard, who agreed with his colleagues on the First Amendment question but parted ways on the qualified-immunity ruling….see link

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Avatar photowv.
    June 29, 2018 at 7:38 am in reply to: "Sorry to Bother You" trailers #87718
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    June 28, 2018 at 1:58 pm in reply to: Ocasio-Cortez wins primary. #87708
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    Listen to the Idiot-question by the MSM-er here:

    June 27, 2018 at 4:41 pm in reply to: Ocasio-Cortez wins primary. #87688
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    Izrael wont like this.

    link:https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Pro-Palestinian-Bernie-Sanders-protege-wins-upset-in-NYC-primary-race-561008

    June 27, 2018 at 4:26 pm in reply to: Ocasio-Cortez wins primary. #87687
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    June 27, 2018 at 4:16 pm in reply to: Ocasio-Cortez wins primary. #87686
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    June 27, 2018 at 4:13 pm in reply to: Ocasio-Cortez wins primary. #87685
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    June 27, 2018 at 4:08 pm in reply to: Ocasio-Cortez wins primary. #87684
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    realnews:https://therealnews.com/stories/progressive-challengers-won-big-in-races-across-the-country-and-in-maryland-tuesday-night

    “…In Maryland the political establishment suffered stinging defeats, with the Bernie Sanders-endorsed Ben Jealous winning a six-week governor’s race in Democratic primary. He defeated party pick Prince George’s Executive Rushern Baker, who was endorsed by the entire Democratic Party establishment. Jealous promises Medicare for All, taxing the rich, legalizing pot to pay for universal pre-K, and a program that would offer public sector jobs to people the private sector won’t hire. He’ll face a formidable opponent in incumbent Larry Hogan in November. Hogan has thus far outfundraised all of his Democratic opponents combined, and enjoys high favorability ratings, even among Democrats.

    Mary Washington and Antonio Hayes defeated incumbent senators in Maryland’s 43rd and 40th districts, and Obama administration alum Nate Loewenthal lost his bid to win a seat in the House of Delegates in the 41 District, despite raising over $400000. Meanwhile, uber-establishment incumbent U.S. Senator Ben Cardin cruised to victory over former NSA whistleblower, prisoner, and trans activist challenger Chelsea Manning, who also ran on abolishing ICE, but did not run much of a campaign…”

    June 27, 2018 at 3:06 pm in reply to: Ocasio-Cortez wins primary. #87683
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    cnn:https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/26/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-crowley-new-york-14-primary/index.html

    June 26, 2018 at 12:06 pm in reply to: I feel the need to announce this #87662
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    I have the cooking skills of a second-grader. I suppose maybe the best thing i can manage is spaghetti squash. I bake it and then smear it with spicy-black-bean-hummus and goat cheese and whatever else i have lying around.

    I am also known for my baked books.

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    June 25, 2018 at 4:31 pm in reply to: Juan Cole: The hostages are about the mid-terms #87639
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    Zooey wrote:

    I think Immigration is a winning issue for Trump because I think it will energize his base more than it will energize the “blue” base.

    And here is where I believe we are in this country. I think we are at a Crossroad. Probably the biggest Crossroad since the Civil War, but certainly the biggest Crossroad since the Civil Rights Act. I think that the pundits got it all wrong when they said Trump was appealing to blue collar folks who lost their union jobs, although there is some truth to that. I think the issue that we are actually fighting over is the picture of what America is.

    Demographics are changing in this country. Whites are becoming a smaller percentage of the country, and Christians are becoming a smaller percentage of the country. That is the trend.

    The people who love the idea of America as God’s Favorite Country, and a country founded on enlightened principles (insert whatever subjective vision of enlightened you want here, even if it contradicts history), a country of do-it-yourselfers who persevered against all odds to tame the wilderness and innovate itself without cumbersome government, a star-spangled awesome fireworks display of WHITE European descendants…those people are pitted against a pluralistic America, one that includes the Chinese New Year parades on equal footing with hotdogs at the 4th of July picnic, an America that believes the “justice for all” portion of the Pledge include LGBQT, Muslims, blacks, and god-knows-what-else, and which is simply willing to let Mayberry go away as a defining vision of America. That is what I think we are fighting about at its core.

    Trump is willing to destroy the constitution (and the entire world alliance) in order to preserve the former, and the Ayn Randian Kochs, Mercers, and Cato Institute types are happy to slipstream his ass because he’s now the lead blocker for a breakaway run for absolute power.

    But at its core, this is a Civil War over America’s Identity. That is the key issue. And Trump supporters right now are willing to have everything taken away from them if it means that the multi-culturalists don’t win. So Immigration is Trump’s strongest play with those people, and I believe he has the upper hand in that debate in the sense that I think more of his base will come out in response to that issue than the multi-culturalist’s base, as I said earlier.

    A couple of things work against Trump and the GOP, though. One is that a lot of “swing voters” are going to be put off by the WAY he is going about this, and the way he is going about everything, basically. He is going to fire up the Party Uber Alles types, but alienate the swingers. That’s one thing against him. The other thing is that Mueller hangs over him like Damocles’ sword. Although Mueller has been about as off-the-record as possible, it was said that he wants to conclude his investigation sooner rather than later because he doesn’t want it to come out and influence the election before people have had proper time to process the report.

    No matter what is going on right now at the border, and in the courts, and in the Red Hen, the Mueller Report is going to blow all of that away and completely redefined the midterm elections. And there is Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit. That stuff is going to make the difference in the end as to who votes, and how they vote.

    ===========================

    Well, I dont know. There are so many factions on the right, and factions in the center and factions on the ‘left’, and progressives of various kinds — that i dont know how to articulate a grand-narrative about what any of this means.

    Everyday i try to put together some sort of story or narrative, and none of them quite fits. Or all of them seem partly-true.

    So, i dunno.

    All i see at the moment is a great big, red-white-and-blue Salvadore Dali painting.

    And i dont like Dali. Never have.

    …PS. I got that “Adults in the Room” book u were posting about. Its damn good, so far.

    PPS. The Immigration thing. I know in my gut the immigration issue is an ultra-powerful one for trump because (1) His smart-evil advisors have all said so, and (2) In my OWN progressive, far-leftist heart that immigration issue pulls even ME towards the dark side. That issue is like Sauron’s Ring. It poisons people. I mean, I have this deep-gut-instinct that sez “hell yes, we have too many people now, we dont need more…” Thats inside ME. I have to fight that INSTINCT with reason. Which of course takes mental-effort. So if the issue does that to a leftist like ME….

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    June 24, 2018 at 8:11 pm in reply to: Juan Cole: The hostages are about the mid-terms #87618
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    Cal wrote:

    <

    Trump seems like he’s floundering to me..

    =================

    I dunno, last time i checked his numbers were up.

    I also think anytime the focus is on immigration, trump and the reps win. Even if he goes too far like with the family separation thing, i still think overall, after the initial storm ebbs, the reps win as long as the debate is about immigration. Just a gut feeling.

    I dont think the Dems have any single issue that compares to the Rep-Immigration issue. Though universal-health-care might be in the ballpark.

    ratings:https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx

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    June 24, 2018 at 10:00 am in reply to: did he really say that? #87605
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    A quote by adam smith, fwiw.

    “[H]e whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations … generally becomes as … ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment … But in every … society this is the state into which … the great body of the people must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.” —Book 5. Ch. 1. Line 178.
    link:https://truthout.org/articles/todays-capitalism-is-a-far-cry-from-what-it-was-intended-to-be/

    ================
    One wonders how Adam Smith would describe most American voters these days. One wonders what a modern-corporotacracy does to citizens. I’m not thinking of the working-class voters, I’m thinking of the wallstreeters and ‘professional’ classes that vote for corporate-dems. What has the corporotacracy done to them?

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    June 23, 2018 at 9:31 am in reply to: the never ending "Donald's really good" thread #87590
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    zn wrote:

    I notice some people assume Donald is asking for too much, and some people assume the Rams are offering too little. Right now though it’s all just assumptions either way.

    …

    ======================

    Homo Assumians, is what scientists should have named us.

    All i know is, if i dont get to see Suh and Donald lined up next to each other for sixteen games, i want my money back.

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    June 23, 2018 at 7:34 am in reply to: Bill Maher #87589
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    There’s a good Maher and a bad Maher, as i think we all agree.

    I think there’s also a good Hitchens and a bad Hitchens. This is the good Hitchens:

    June 23, 2018 at 7:15 am in reply to: Bill Maher #87588
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    June 23, 2018 at 7:13 am in reply to: The Bible in the hands of a bigot #87587
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    TSRF wrote:

    Funny, I don’t remember ever hearing this one as a Sunday Gospel:

    The Bible, a rich and sprawling book, offers another angle on these matters. At one point in the New Testament, Jesus calls a child over and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

    I’m struggling to redefine my moral compass as my mother lays on her death bed.

    I was raised Catholic, and grew up in the fear of that vengeful god. Now I’m old and unafraid it is time for re-assessment:

    Is the above quote really from the Bible? Doesn’t sound like something “my” Jesus would say.

    Why does my 94 year old mother have to go through her life’s savings just to die a slow motion, almost scripted death (get me on the last train to Amsterdam when my time is near…).

    Name that song:

    We live for just these twenty years
    Do we have to die for the fifty more?

    OK, it is Young Americans by David Bowie, who knew a thing or two about dying, and, in my opinion, did it well.

    I have to go pick up a sister at the airport, and my daughter is taking the train from Boston. Hopefully they both get here in time.

    I don’t know what to believe any more (and haven’t for a while). Definitely not the Catholic god; but is it just life and not life? Is there anything of us that makes it past the divide?

    I can’t believe in the Catholic god. I’m hopeful there is a hereafter, but the scientist in me says that when you’re gone, you’re gone.

    One constant in life: the cat that woke me up an hour ago wants back in…

    ============================

    94?

    My mom is 88. Sometimes i wonder what women that old must think about society today. So much change.

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    June 22, 2018 at 11:11 pm in reply to: happy thomas frank on the russian facebook ads #87575
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    …if nothing else skip to the 20 minute mark and listen to a few mins. He gets serious and talks about the fact ‘something is going on’ with the MSM.

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    June 22, 2018 at 7:19 pm in reply to: the never ending "Donald's really good" thread #87565
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    Its interesting that neither side is leaking anything. I mean we dont know anything about what the issues are.

    Do we?

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    June 22, 2018 at 7:15 pm in reply to: Frog eats lightning bug #87564
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    So can people eat fireflies ? Or lightning bugs as we call them around here.

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    June 22, 2018 at 1:11 pm in reply to: Frog eats lightning bug #87553
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    Zooey wrote:

    That’s shocking.

    ==========

    Well zooey, dont even get me started on salamanders.

    The MSM is totally silent on the Salamander ban.
    ==============

    Killer Fungus news:https://earther.com/scientists-call-for-total-ban-on-amphibian-imports-to-s-1820976014

    America has the highest salamander biodiversity of any country in the world. But that incredible natural heritage is threatened by a killer fungus that has already decimated salamander populations in Europe. Now, a dozen scientists who study amphibians and conservation are calling for a total ban on amphibian imports into the United States in an effort to prevent a mass die-off of our nation’s salamanders…

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    June 22, 2018 at 8:47 am in reply to: behind the grind…episodes 1-10 #87547
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    I watched about fifteen minutes of episode 8 and i had to turn it off.

    I cant stomach the “Public Relations” aspect of the NFL. It makes me gag.

    Sincerely,

    wv ‘Mr. Crabby’ ram

    June 22, 2018 at 7:33 am in reply to: Frog eats lightning bug #87546
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    I have another complaint about amerika — our frogs are boring. Dull, green.

    Other nations have some awesome-gorgeous frogs. Real progressive frogs.

    June 21, 2018 at 8:30 am in reply to: Ocasio-Cortez #87520
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    June 21, 2018 at 8:05 am in reply to: Juan Cole: The hostages are about the mid-terms #87519
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    PA Ram wrote:

    I used to think Trump was just a stupid oaf who appealed to a certain block of ignorant voters. And Trump is in many ways a stupid oaf. But he does understand his base. He gets that. He knows who he’s playing to. And he seems to have a strategy. .

    ================

    Yeah, he is a policy-idiot, but he’s far from a ‘ratings’ idiot.

    He (with Bannon’s help) is a master at Politics-as-Pro-Wrestling. His Apprentice show got top ratings. Thats what politics is to him. He’s like a pro-wrestling show that gets a forty-percent share of the tv-watching-public. He knows his audience, indeed.

    And it only works because the SYSTEM has dummed down a great percentage of the amerikan population. And by dummed-down i dont mean anything insulting. The system also dummed-down the college-educated-professional class in a different way. Its just as dum to be a Hillery-ite. Ya know.

    The system brought the public Trump vs Hillary.

    We iz living in a modern corporate dystopia. There’s still a progressive tribe out there in the desert but its not a large group.

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