Re: Lester Maddox. Introduce yourself to Indiana's sitting governor.

Post #396,927 by mmoffitt 12/7/14 4:52:48 PM Reply	Re: Lester Maddox. Introduce yourself to Indiana's sitting governor. Or our about-to-be-indicted former Secretary of Education. Don't sell these guys short.
Post #396,928 by boxley 12/7/14 5:34:14 PM Reply	does he sell autographed axe handles? Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #396,935 by mmoffitt 12/8/14 9:34:44 AM 12/8/14 9:35:20 AM Reply	That would actually be better. From our Governor... "I've met David Koch on several occasions. I'm grateful to have enjoyed his support and the support of many of the people that support Americans for Prosperity across Indiana and across this country," Pence said in an interview as he headed into a private AFP dinner featuring remarks from Koch and a keynote speech by columnist and pundit George Will. "I'm very grateful for the leadership of this organization," Pence said of Americans for Prosperity, which has backed his tax-slashing agenda in Indiana, and which is comprised partly of a foundation arm chaired by Koch. "I'm just honored to be able to come down today and be a part of this gathering and express my real appreciation for what Americans for Prosperity has meant in this country and in Indiana, in particular." […] "Americans for Prosperity has demonstrated that you can bring together people from all across this movement who will work in concert to advance the principles of fiscal responsibility, pro-growth policies and limited government," Pence said. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/29/1325641/-Mike-Pence-joins-the-cult-of-Koch# Some info on our former Superintendent... Bennett, a protege of former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, resigned as Florida's schools chief in August 2013 after the AP published emails showing he had overhauled Indiana's "A-F" school grading system to benefit a charter school run by a prominent Republican donor. The full Bennett investigation document alleges that from Jan. 1, 2012, to Dec. 31, 2012, there were more than 100 violations of wire fraud laws. The investigator identified 56 instances by 14 Bennett employees that he said supported wire fraud charges. In a section labeled "Scheme to Defraud," the inspector general's office laid out its case, saying Bennett "devised a scheme or artifice to defraud the State of Indiana of money and property by using State of Indiana paid employees and property, for his own personal gain, as well as for his own political benefit" to be re-elected. The allegations fell into five categories: political campaign fundraising, responding to political opponent's assertions, calendar political activity meetings, political campaign call appointments and general political campaign activity. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-exclusive-bennett-probe-called-prosecution-27314222 Edited by mmoffitt Dec. 8, 2014, 09:35:20 AM EST Expand All History
Post #396,949 by Ashton 12/8/14 5:43:24 PM Reply	Well, per NYT it seems the Repos want all-eggs-in-one coffin: soon. so that all those Undisclosed Donors can put all resources into perpetual maintenance of the dis-US {for certain definitions of perpetual.} No point in wasting money fighting among the 100-or-so Rulers, is there? They Have Said It: now watch for the world's fastest four-handed-game (except when ... it slips out..?) to reach a rollicking consensus on who shall next become the Keeper of the Flame Wars. Real-soon-now. Imagine: A.F.[My!] Prosperity ... actually controlling who get's 'elected' ... and how they must vote!! (Do they think we are all Idiots.. or something?)
Post #396,954 by mmoffitt 12/8/14 8:22:05 PM 12/8/14 8:23:18 PM Reply	And so, Ashton, from your posts these long years ... I take you, perhaps wrongly but perhaps not, as someone who abhors violence. In the face of all of we've written over the years, do you maintain that we can be saved without significant bloodshed? Perhaps it was my upbringing, realizing that Tsar Nicholas and his family had to be slaughtered else some (many?) Russians would at some later date seek a "bloodline to the throne" to restore feudalism to the Soviet Union (much as we did in Kuwait for the sake of cheap oil), but I cannot, for my soul, imagine a path to a just US of A that doesn't include significant violence and bloodshed. It is not so much that I am eager to see it, but that I see no possible other course. Do you, at last, retain enough faith in the fables of our first landed aristocracy to believe such is possible in the absence of violent revolution? Edited by mmoffitt Dec. 8, 2014, 08:23:18 PM EST Expand All History
Post #396,961 by boxley 12/8/14 11:07:38 PM Reply	we need a snake plisken emp the whole motherfucker. Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #396,993 by Ashton 12/10/14 5:18:52 AM 12/10/14 6:33:13 AM Reply	I remain steadfastly bi-polar on that huge Question.. It's likely too-long, but more legible sentences happen as a non-squeezed separate post. (Takes moi more words, trying to be neutral ... on an impossible scale.) Stop at 2) if you see that already==probability 0, eh? I wish that 'neutral' seemed rosier, but.. we get daily doses of Pollyanna in every bloviation of a Politico. It's basic Stuart Chase. Initially--and still--I too cannot see any slow.. rational.. Patient! route from this massive cluster-fuck--of virtually every aspect of the many systems--as magically overturning the incomparable-$$$-Power amassed by the Ruling Handful of über sociopaths. Zippo.. nada.. none comes to imagination (other than fantasy-Unicorn-grade.) (My psyche prizes equanimity as the least-insane place to be--even at gunpoint--which remains to be determined, of course.) I deem it a Good Thing that the Futchah is completely un-Predictable. But it's the grand-daddy of essay questions, innit? This, and then: OTOH That. Pity, unlike tortoises, our species gets so-soon old and so-very-late smart. There's! that Pit for the swinging-Pendulum. Guess I'll have to see if my imagination has caught up with the zeitgeist, but anyone who doesn't punt on any specific 'predictions', or who conceives of "algorithms for future-engineering?" should be placed under clinical observation. Maybe all the cliche projections apply or none of them; none can be taken as inexorable: Cosmic humor exists or doesn't, but it's fun to blame. The population-level Alone.. is a deal-breaker, if one ever wants to peer over the nearest horizon. And no-one Can peer into more than a few-massive-problems at-a-time; Homo-sap has grown massively in an instant of planetary-time. But only in numbers, not in smarts, except in only some.. persons' detailed factoids--solely in techno-understanding of the physical-Laws and their applications. To moi it seems that, relative to ruminations of many ancient Sages: our comprehension of the species' mental operations and their aberrations: we've learned little-more of psych or psyches and especially of inchoate mobs. That last is likely to negate efforts of even (almost-wise Pols..?) when next, unrest manifests itself in surprising, new modes. These Ruling mofos were born ethics-free (from same school as that unter-mofo from Redmond, way-back maybe at IW still?) His quip: If it's legal it's ethical! Yup, he said that, exactly, after various snipings re M$ clear pact-with-Lucifer. These ~100 Rulers have no slightest interest in any of the base-mores of an actually-Livable Society of humans. (I don't think this is seriously arguable to moi, after eons of listening to BS-rationalizations of so many CIEIOs: to escape the Greed-tag or make it seem benevolent (after St. Ronnie re-defined it ..for a willing audience.) I can parse what I've deemed the main obstacles against Muricans acting wisely next and in time, but that won't be possible in sound-bites, because they are all about being cute. Or just cynical, which may be the same thing(?) 1) They. won't. change. 2) So the mass Must. The hugely-Improbable must occur despite the facts: of the dis-USA tribe's addiction to fantastic-levels of personal comfort 24/7. The very many who have proven that they will Kill anything that moves! (forests, rivers, any humans not-them, animals of all species, mountain-tops-leveled, Mercury-tailings left to infiltrate water sources everywhere) ... all in pursuit of a 'Success' which always manifests in a cargo-cult-ship full of Stuff, piled higher and deeper. Carlin grokked this to Fullness, (amidst: the many Giants upon whose shoulders he stood, Defiantly.) 3) The coddled-many would have to divert their lusts: from infinite #Objects ... into a lust for an authentic Life (not their daily quiet desperation, within-the-cubicles for all-daylight-hours) thence, only to have to face the crumbling-Everything and the violent, insane ramblings on most Channels--face that-all, even after too-many hits of favorite winding-down substances? Maybe before dinner. Could such ones vacate for a time, that comfy couch-with-attached-TV and begin to DO THINGS? 'Speak Truth to Power'? Sure. it's a start. But ACT, next? any next?? So then, back to you: what ARE the fucking-odds on (the first-ever) mass epiphanies?? [Except: "epiphanies in our dreams"]--so Murican: vicariously!--by reading (OK watching; we are nothing if not passive adsorbers) those histories which chronicle events wherein: many of The Masses coalesced, conflated discontents to a few stirring, inclusive-slogans and: DID THINGS (for many of them, too: for the first time in their miserable existences.) There were quite fewer of us, then. Now, with sane limits not yet even discussable! re our current overpopulation: HS-math shows the inevitable geometric -vs- exponential divergence. And political-folk can't handle such inevitabilities as (say, Energy-costs in terms of individuals as a ƒ(Δaffluence?) ... across the Billions.) This one Will be Interesting, whenever ~faced. (I can see n plots for the Don't Care extrapolation. Our current Masters don't extrapolate well, at all: 'Power' is easy! if the only variable is money accumulation, in a kultur which worships Only-that.. as a plurality. {{sigh}} 4) I'm open always to the Improbable, including many of Scott's oft insightful arguments for intelligent moderation. Were there more 'Scotts' in the tribe, the dis-USA couldn't have happened! But this tribe generates wasp-nests of (not just white-privilege) My Grammas. Their stentorian howlings are multiplexed and multiplied well-beyond their actual numbers. Techno has massively aggravated the matter, perhaps terminally. (And that magnifier/catalyst can only grow, in any next. We cannot un-Do that.) I'm sure that no one here wants to see this dilemma deepened-unto-Ignition! as 5) I fear it Shall: given the next two tenuous YEARS of unprecedented daily disinformation, funded by bottomless pockets. Perhaps.. as with the Cops-as-killers and the now widespread revelations of how absurdly-FEW are all the Plutocrats it takes to Buy-out most of the citizens' Reps via re-election handouts? Is that enough realization, yet? (in the collective ears of the masses, I mean.) There's some reason for the popularity of various authors' takes on dystopias; is there wistfulness there, for replacing a/any present-one? or just more vicarious escapes to a Can't Ever Happen Here, fantasy? (I was once decent at the art of grenade throwing (ain't no baseball, that iron-cased thing) but would now be little use in some forms of the DOINGS. But I can make phlogiston, that simple chemical combo which--fortunately, to-date--has escaped notice amongst the new legions of Disgruntled. So far.. 6) Maybe.. the Web, if it can stay un-muzzleable for most-all: Can produce a sufficiency of Aha!!s thus enough individual epiphanies to reach critical-mass: to create for the First-time ever on these shores: a Clean-enough Map for authentic democracy to be sanely-introduced/also quickly-enough. Authentic? == sans gameable-Electoral Colleges, Money-as-speech and ... Biz-Corps as People! (partial list.) But.. you know... (only very-approximate, mere probabilities--those are just 'maths' We Like; Reality: never.) to reach: 7) Success! a new Democracy arises! from the ashes of the Failed-experiment … RIP 1776-2015, -2016? -2020? -Never? ;-/ : Format. I'll be 'on the Barricades' if the core is indeed rotted-out, of course. Not vicariously though; find me in the necessary er, supply-chain of useful 'tools' for the athletic-supporter Arm. (Mil. schools may have taught me Why I'd never join a real-militia, but I did learn some skillz which I thought I'd never need, or at least, never wanted to Use.) Oh. Well. Hmmm.. "Aircraft + phlogiston" go together like a horse and carriage, so who knows? And if the Crazies snag the W.H. for another 4, 8? years: that would be Twenty or Twenty-four Years of Leadership, non compos mentis: as the [-] slope never wavered to a [+]. More than a Generation of the Disgruntled. Quite a Petri-dish in which to grow (Something.) Keep that license current, eh? It is going to be, next, unarguably ... a Squeaker! whatever else it "becomes." Edited by Ashton Dec. 10, 2014, 06:33:13 AM EST Expand All History
Post #396,957 by Another Scott 12/8/14 8:52:14 PM Reply	OTOH: Wasting their money may help the economy. National Jorunal: But a funny thing happened on the way to the polls. Yes, Democrats were swept from power, and Reid from his post as leader. Yet few observers would place the blame on a lack of money. Instead, most would point to a tough political environment, a hostile Senate map, and—more than anything else—an unpopular president, as the factors that dragged down Democrats nationwide. Although Koch-linked organizations targeted key Senate races with negative ads in the spring, that effort was far in the rearview mirror by Nov. 4. Come summer and fall, Democrats had found the funds to answer. As Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told me a few days before the election, "It's clear that the early spending blitz by the Koch brothers was a giant waste of money." In fact, although the midterm elections are believed to have set a new record, with nearly $4 billion spent on hundreds of thousands of mailers and about 1 million TV ads, political strategists on both sides of the aisle identify few, if any, major races where money was the biggest determining factor. The Democratic hype that the Kochs were buying the Senate proved overblown; so did the GOP's own fear campaign about liberal billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer purchasing the upper chamber. In the end, the two parties appear to have begged, borrowed, and fundraised their way to, if not parity, at least a financial draw. Each side had more than enough money to get its message out in the most important races; it just wasn't enough for Democrats, in the face of their other obstacles, to win. "I don't know, looking at the map, if you can point to any one race and say someone won or lost because of money," says Brian Walsh, a Republican strategist who was communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2012. There is too much money in politics. It's corrosive because it's tied up with access. But once a candidate has enough, having more doesn't matter as far as the election is concerned. We joke and scream about the grifters taking advantage of the poor rubes out there. They are probably grifting the Kochs, too... Cheers, Scott.

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