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wvParticipantWow. I was totally unaware they were even working on that.
I’ll have to process that for a while.
Hard for me to believe it will ever be cheap enough for poor people to afford.
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wvParticipantBtw, just as some of the folks you post don’t think we should talk about the Russia thing . . . I’m beginning to think leftists shouldn’t talk about “the deep state.” Or maybe find different terms. Why? Because the right has latched onto this and is using it to push for a purge of government, from top to bottom. NOT to end any “deep state.” But to make sure it’s ALL in far-right, GOP hands. Most of it already is. But they aren’t satisfied with that.
Second biggest reason: Their spin is to say it’s all a Democratic Party coup against Trump. Fox and fiends and all of Trump TV land says the “deep state” consists of Dems and ONLY Dems.
The left shouldn’t be in the business of aiding and abetting folks like Hannity, Tucker Carlson, much less Trump himself.
Gotta be another way to critique government corruption and empire, etc.
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Oh yeah. I agree with you about the term. Most of the time i hear it
used here in WV, its used by Alex-Jones-Types in a real paranoid way.I like the term for lots of reasons (for one, its a conversation starter —
‘what do you mean by deep state…”), but I use it in some places and i avoid it in others. I use it ‘here’ but i would not use it a lot of places.w
vwvParticipantWhat Kind of Times Are These
By Adrienne RichThere’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.wvParticipantTHE POLAR BEAR
What I’m asking is will watching The Discovery
Channel with my young black boy instead
of the news coverage of the riot funerals riot arrests
riot nothing changes riots be enough to keep him
from harm? We are on my bed crying for what we’ve done
to the polar bears, the male we’ve bonded with on-screen
whose search for seals on the melting ice has led him
to an island of walruses and he is desperate, it is late-
summer and he is starving and soon the freeze
will drive all life back into hiding, so he goes for it,
the dangerous hunt, the canine-sharp tusks
and armored hides for shields, the fused weapon
they create en masse, the whole island a system
for the elephant-large walruses who, in fear, huddle
together, who, in fear, fight back. This is not an analogy.
The polar bear is hungry, but the walruses fight back.
A mother pushes her pup into the icy water
and spears the hunter through the legs, the gut,
his blood clotting his fur as he curls into the ice
only feet away from the fray—where the walruses
have gathered again, sensing the threat has passed.
My boy’s holding his stuffed animal, the white body
of the bear he loves, who will die tonight (who
has already died) and my boy asks me if this is real.
What I’m asking is how long will we stay walruses,
he and I, though I know this is not an analogy.———–
Jennifer Givhan: “My son and I watch science shows because he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. Online, the morning after we watched a show about the ice caps, I watched a mother taking her son away from the Baltimore riots and I wrote this poem.” (website)wvParticipantCollins on political poems:http://www.kwls.org/event-coverage/billy-collins-on-politics-poetry-and-war/
“I’m not a political poet,” asserts Billy Collins as he begins to usher the KWLS audience through an exploration of political poetry. He follows with a funny anecdote about his time as Poet Laureate, when a child asked him what his place in line was to be president.
There are two problems with the political poem, according to Collins: It has a shelf life, and it must adhere to a topic. Political poems usually do not transcend time because of their connection to the day’s headlines. Written as current events, Collins says, “[they] read like yesterday’s paper.”
Poetry should develop organically, Collins believes, taking form as the poet is writing. Ideally, he says, a poem’s topic is more “launchpad” than contrivance. Despite these obstacles, Collins selects highlights of the sub-genre and masterfully recites them, eliciting a broad range of emotion from the audience at San Carlos.
Collins begins his homage to political poetry by reciting Walt Whitman’s “Election Day, November, 1884,” illuminating Whitman’s argument that the “power of the country lies in the power to vote.” With his signature wit, Collins breaks up any somberness, and the audience can’t help but laugh at his analysis.
He also dwells on the realities of war and its effects. His recitation of “Photograph from September 11” by Wislawa Szymborska, in which the poet attempts to not write the last line, is especially poignant. By the end of the poem, the audience falls silent. Billy notes that one can “assess the silence right after the poem to measure the power of it.”
Staying with the subject of war, he recites his own poem, “Building with Its Face Blown Off,” taking the audience from a war-torn place to one of peace, ending with “olives.” He swears to the audience that in writing it, he made no conscious connection to the symbolism of “olive-branch.”
Finally, he leaves us with “The Polar Bear,” by Jennifer Givhan. While the poem brings us back to current events, it also evokes a sense of fear that is timeless in America. While political poetry may have its obstacles, Billy Collins’s choices prove that policy always intersects with humanity.
wvParticipantIsrael-Gate. The gate that MSNBC and the DNC and the MSM will never talk about…
I didnt realize Kushner actually contributes money to build settlements. Sigh.
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link:https://consortiumnews.com/2017/12/08/missing-the-significance-of-israel-gate/
“….
…………Dennis Bernstein: Jared Kushner is a broker for illegal settlements.Ali Abunimah: He is a donor to illegal settlements, a philanthropist for illegal settlements. How many headlines have been devoted to Kushner failing to disclose important information in his government ethics filings? The latest is that he failed to disclose the fact that he was a director of his family’s foundation, which has donated to building settlements in the occupied West Bank, particularly the settlement of Beit El, the same settlement that receives philanthropic donations from David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador in Tel Aviv.
Kushner, who is supposedly charged with coming up with a peace plan, is actually busy funding settlements. Kushner’s family are close friends of Benjamin Netanyahu. It is just farcical to pretend that anyone like Jared Kushner could ever be an honest broker.
Dennis Bernstein: Is all of this legal?
Ali Abunimah: That’s questionable. Actually, in the past year there were lawsuits filed challenging this massive multi-billion dollar flow of tax-deductible, so-called charitable funds for illegal purposes, including the construction of settlements and massive donations to groups like Friends of the IDF.
Another issue is this whole business of what Jared Kushner was doing during the transition, when he was trying to undermine the policy of the sitting Obama administration and stop the UN Security Council resolution passed last December condemning Israeli settlements. This all came out in the context of the Mueller investigation and Michael Flynn’s guilty plea, which revealed not so much a collusion with Russia as a very close collusion between the Trump transition and Israel.
Dennis Bernstein: You would think then that MSNBC, which makes a living on pumping up Russiagate, would want to jump into this case of collusion.
Ali Abunimah: The Michael Flynn revelation did not show collusion with Russia and certainly did not show any interference in the US election. What Flynn pled guilty to was lying about two meetings. Flynn is a serial liar, he lied about his work for the Turkish government.
The facts that were filed in the documents with his plea show that a “very senior member” of the Trump transition team, who has since been identified as Jared Kushner, had ordered Flynn to contact every member of the UN Security Council to try to defeat this resolution criticizing Israel. It was also reported in The New York Times that Kushner had acted at the urging of Netanyahu.
None of this has anything to do with Russian interference in the elections. What it does show is clear collusion at the highest level with a foreign government [Israel] to undermine and sabotage the policy of the sitting administration.
President Donald Trump places a prayer in-between the stone blocks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, May 22, 2017. (Official White House Photo by Dan Hansen)
Dennis Bernstein: It doesn’t appear that Arab outrage is going to have much influence over what happens with this plan to move the capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Ali Abunimah: On the contrary, I think that it has actually been facilitated by the fact that Saudi Arabia, which markets itself as the guardian of Islam, has been engaging in this major rapprochement with Israel, pressuring the Palestinians to accept what amounts to surrender, in order to get them out of the way so that Saudi Arabia and Israel can embrace each other and go to war together against Iran.
The New York Times reported details of the so-called Trump peace plan that Jared Kushner has been putting together, which basically creates a Palestinian state in name only. The Palestinians would have very limited autonomy in very small non-contiguous areas of the West Bank. They would have no control, no sovereignty, no capital in East Jerusalem, no right of return for refugees, and so on. But they would be free to call this a Palestinian state if they want to.
All of this sounds familiar to people who have followed this issue because this is a rehashing of the kind of schemes that have been put forward since the 1990’s. What is different this time is that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, was called to Riyadh last month and told by Mohammad bin Salman that he was going to accept this or else. The thinking behind it is that the Palestinian issue is a thorn in the side of the Saudi/Israeli alliance that wants to escalate the catastrophic confrontation with Iran.
Dennis Bernstein: How does the crisis with the prime minister in Lebanon play into all of this?
Ali Abunimah: The Saudis have been behind so many of the regional disasters, including escalating the situation in Syria by funding a proxy war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. For two years they have been bombing the poorest Arab country, Yemen, with millions suffering famine and tens of thousands killed and injured. Saudi Arabia has been unable to defeat the people resisting them in Yemen. They were trying to destabilize Lebanon and that failed because [Prime Minister] Hariri went home and rescinded his forced resignation under pressure from the Saudis.
Dennis Bernstein: I guess maybe the one silver lining in all of this is the boycott/divestment movement. There is not much else going on in terms of global resistance to the brutality in occupied Palestine.
Ali Abunimah: I suppose it is possible to look at all of this and just feel immobilized and hopeless. But I think it is important to feel hope as well. Even in Jerusalem, Palestinians have been standing up to Israel and winning victories, as they did this summer when they forced Israel to back down from its efforts to impose stricter control on entrance to the al-Aqsa mosque compound. That was a real victory for people power in Jerusalem against one of the strongest armies in the world.
Despite a twenty-fold increase in lobbying, Israel has not been able to stop the “impressive growth” of the Palestine solidarity movement, particularly the boycott/divestment/sanctions movement. So it’s not time to be hopeless, it’s time to get on with the work, because there is lots to do and people power is still winning victories.
Dennis Bernstein: I guess you could say that proof of those victories is the amount of repression and clamp-down of Palestinian students and their supporters all over the country.
Ali Abunimah: And it is across the board now, including the effort of the big Silicon Valley companies who are helping the establishment to censor and limit the reach of independent media like us. They know that people are listening and we are powerful, even though we may sometimes feel small in the face of the forces that are trying to reshape the world.
Dennis J Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom. You can access the audio archives at http://www.flashpoints.net.
March 3, 2018 at 12:34 am in reply to: Despite success Rams staying busy…& other "what do they have to do" pieces #83387wvParticipantGonzalez is pretty good. I enjoy reading his stuff. He’s got the Jim Thomas role, I suppose, and he’s good at it.
I wonder about Barwin. Sure, he’s a UFA, but he isn’t going to get any money anywhere. I mean…the Rams can afford Barwin without thinking twice. He wasn’t particularly impressive to me last season, but he knows what he’s doing, and they need somebody there. I would think the Rams would make an effort to keep him. Especially if Barron doesn’t fit. You don’t really want to give up on 3 LBs in the same offseason.
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Things went so well last year, If Wade Phillips wanted to cut Aaron Donald, and replace him with Jimmy Kennedy, I’d probly just go “well of course.”
I think Wade Phillips name should always be Bolded btw.
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vwvParticipantGideon Levy gives a heckof-a powerful speech here. Quite a speaker.
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vwvParticipantSigh. Probably the right thing to do at this point while he still has some value,
but I will miss Quinn. Or I will miss what he used to be, and still showed flashes of last season.Shame about his back problems.
Vintage, Healthy Quinn was an awesome force to behold.
I guess they can sign Watkins and Donald and Joyner now.
Maybe they draft a pass-rusher.
I hope they get a third rounder for Quinn.
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vwvParticipantwvParticipantWhitworth is what? 6’7″, 35″ arms and 330?
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arms:https://www.milehighreport.com/2015/4/9/8353255/broncos-2015-draft-arm-length-and-the-offensive-linewvParticipantIt’s a bit of a sobering thought, isn’t it? Since Nixon, it’s been about escalating the arms race and becoming the greatest imperial power in foreign affairs, and deregulating finance, weakening unions and the social safety net, and running up the score on Wall Street.
wvParticipantYes.
Though, when i read things like this, I am skeptical:
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“…its decline. As he wrote then, ‘Thirty-five years from now, America’s official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now. We are likely to begin to look ever more like a giant version of England at the end of its imperial run, as we come face to face with, if not necessarily to terms with, our aging infrastructure, declining international clout, and sagging economy.’…”
———I read that kind of thing all the time. I’ve been reading that kind of thing for two decades, and i really dont see any evidence of it.
I think the Empire is growing and ‘adjusting’ to new circumstances all the time.
The Empire just looks more Fascist-like to me, but it doesnt look ‘weaker’ to me.Just seems like the Empire is based on Military/Weapons sales/production. And Gas/Oil/Energy Corpse. And Entertainment/Media/Propaganda industries. And Agro-bizness.
I dont see any of those things faltering anytime soon.
Granted China and Asia and Europe and Russia will carve out pieces of the pie. But I dont see America becoming another England. Who knows though.
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vwvParticipantTeams that use him right will get value from it.
…
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I hope so, but I dunno. He’s gonna have to get his confidence back as a punt returner. And he’s gonna have to stop putting the ball on the ground.
And as the hits mount his speed is gonna erode, of course.
I’d love to see him zooming around like he did in college, but I’m skeptical at this point about his value.
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vwvParticipantI doubt that much will come of Mueller’s investigation. This woman could be made a scape goat and everyone and te higher-ups who pull the strings will get nothing. I expect to be disappointed.
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I dont think much will come of it either. Republican Senate. Republican House. Republican Judges. Propagadized, dazed, confused, Human, Citizens.
America is toast.
Have a nice day 🙂
w
vwvParticipant1 Improve Run Defense. How? I dunno, draft a big fat DT ?
2 Improve Redzone Offense. How? I dunno.
3. Quality depth on OLine. Draft/sign some players.
4. Sign Donald, Joyner, Watkins, Quinn.
5. Draft lots of good CBs and a LB.
Is that about it?
w
vwvParticipantNixon was the last president
who gave a rat’s ass about
the working people.============
Well.
I think if we are now missing Richard Nixon
these may not be the best of times.w
vMarch 1, 2018 at 9:37 am in reply to: Chaos and Corruption in Trumpland. Huge newsday yesterday #83310wvParticipantThat said, I do have to give Trump some credit for his gun control summit. If he keeps his word — ”
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guns:https://shareblue.com/trump-bans-bill-nelson-school-safety-nra/
Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, an NRA opponent, was not invited to a White House school safety event even though he represents the community targeted.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) supports the teenage survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High school shooting, but he has been excluded by Trump from a White House meeting on school safety.
Trump did invite other Florida lawmakers to the event, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has been a vocal proponent of the NRA….
wvParticipant… I am on rooting for the tipping point. No more business as usual . Something good could come out of it….
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So many of us have or have-had this thot/notion/idea/hope^^^
I’ve read this same idea from some many people. See the vid below. I set it up to run at the point where ‘this’ point is discussed…Fwiw.wvParticipantPS — if anyone watches that vid in the post just above this, check out the 28 minute mark or so. The Australian progressive sez Bernie Sanders would be considered a rightwinger in Australia. Thats how far to the right America has become. According to her.
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vwvParticipantHey, WV,
Gotta run some errands but will come back to watch Dore. I respect him.
Could you add your own thoughts regarding the first video? And, if you feel like it, thoughts about my response to it?
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First Vid? Well, i posted it before i watched it. Always a dum move 🙂
I thought it was less than scintillating. Way too much yacking about legal definitions of ‘traitor’ and not enough give and take on the russia-gate thing.
I ‘did’ agree with Greenwald obviously, so i liked the rest of his comments more than you. His emotionalism didnt really bug me. You saw it as ‘defensive’ — i
just saw it as ‘passionate.’…i’m watchin this tonite….If u watch it for a few mins, I like the “Hulk Smash” line, btw 🙂
wvParticipantJust some actual examples of the ‘russian interference.’ Fwiw.
I find it interesting that i have to wait for Jimmy Dore to show me this stuff. I never see collections of concrete examples on the MSM. Maybe they show them, but i never see them anywhere.
wvParticipantwvParticipantwvParticipantBut Trump has already killed more than Obama did in his eight years, according to an article I saw on Business Insider. So, first-year death totals probably go Nixon, LBJ, Trump and then Obama.
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Ok, so if we are talking about flat-out Killing humans, then Trump is not even close to being the worst president. At least so far. Is that what we are saying?
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February 28, 2018 at 1:16 pm in reply to: Schefter: “Rams finalizing trade with Chiefs for CB Marcus Peters #83270wvParticipantThe trade just makes perfect sense to me, given the totality of the circumstances. Ie, the Rams need at that position, the Rams being on the cusp of challenging for a title, the cap-space, the talent of the player in question, the wisdom of Wade, etc.
Reminds me a bit of the Randy Moss pickup by the Pats, years ago. It was a risk, but they were ready to make a serious run at a title.
Just makes perfect sense.
And its still a risk.
And btw, despite what the KC fans think — giving a 2nd round pick is not chicken-feed. Thats a premium pick. It aint ‘nuthin’. They can get a solid starter with that pick and the rams lose a solid starter for that pick.
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vFebruary 28, 2018 at 12:32 pm in reply to: teachers (images/ideas of teachers in the wake of Florida) #83265wvParticipantLol.
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vwvParticipantNo politician in American history has gotten away with as much illegality, immorality, mendacity or personalized viciousness toward others as Trump has.
I have to call my own number here. Early in election discussions, some people flirted with the idea that Trump wouldn’t be that much worse than any standard issue dem. My view was, he was going to be far far worse. By a huge margin. I think that’s exactly how it played out.
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Well, to me this is not an easy analysis or comparison. Because of foreign policy.
I agree totally Trump is the worst prez of my lifetime as far as domestic policies. He’s in a league all his own. And what makes it Beyond-Words, iz that he has the Senate, the House and the Courts. And we know what Chomsky called the Rep-party — something like “the most dangerous organization in the history of the world” or somethin like that.
His-AND-The-REPS domestic policies are gut-wrenchingly, heart-breakingly, heart-stoppingly, heart-stompingly, mind-numbingly deadly for the poor and the oppressed.
Its so bad i rarely even comment on Trump anymore. I mainly stick to his base and the voters in general. I’m more curious about ‘them’ because he is just too much for words.
But on the foreign policy things get tricky for me. ONE way to think about FB is to simply add up the murders. Who killed more in his first year? Nixon? LBJ? Obama? Trump? That gets a little tricky. For me, anyway. For me.
It also gets complicated because domestic environmental policies can kill people abroad…over time. Trumps hideous enviro policies may doom gazillions abroad over the next fifty years or so. So THAT might make him the worst ever. I dunno.
But so far, i would guess Nixon killed more Asians than Trump his killed abroad.w
vwvParticipant< But I think the impeachment process will bring out so much Trumpian ugliness, he’ll be forced to step down by his own party.
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I’d bet the house against that ever happening. Trump step down because of Republican pressure, ugliness or whatever? Never. Ever. His nature is to fight, fight, fight. And then fight some more. His base will never leave him. Ever.
He’d fight impeachment to the end. And so would his base. He’s here for the duration of his term at the very least. Imho 🙂
I always keep in mind, fwiw, that it took actual TAPES for Nixon to be forced out. Nothin else mattered. It was only the existence of the tapes that did him in. He would have and could have stonewalled everything except for the tapes. Aint no tapes with Trump. Just witnesses sayin this or that. He’ll just disagree with them witnesses, play dum, turn it into a political circus, etc.
The upcoming Dem vs Rep elections will be interesting. Maybe the Reps will gain seats. Who knows. This country is a shit-stain country 🙂
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vwvParticipant“…Still, only 45% give the President a positive rating on handling the economy and almost three in five (58%) say the country is heading in the wrong direction.
Even worse for Mr. Trump, more voters overall say they are worse off financially today (43%) than say they are better off (35%). And the numbers who say that “having Donald Trump as President makes them pessimistic” are higher today than they were one year ago….”
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