Wasn't always this way. The craziness used to be confined to the right-fringe but during the Clinton.... Actually, it would be easier to just link you to an article I recently wrote on the subject: http://mugsysrapsheet.com/2013/10/23/the-hunting-of-yet-another-president/

And it's a completely closed bubble. Any attempt to correct them just makes them hold their misconceptions even harder.

but I can't fault your history in that article- which by the way, was well written and crisp. How refreshing.

To impeach Obama but that it has to be taken as a serious possbility.

I'd just have to learn to survive cold and snow up there

and 30 years ago? I remember day after day when the temp never rose to above -10 and night regularly fell to -25, -30.

It was so cold that the snow was dry and squeaked under my Sorel Pacs.

It feels more like southern New England these days.

And I don't believe that's because South Carolinians are inherently lacking in natural ability. Its because it's much more difficult to start your own business when you're poor. You need start up capital, plus money to pay for education and training. The Horatio Alger fantasy of coming to America with $8 in your pocket and working your way up to be a millionaire is, at best, confined to a tiny segment of the population and at worst, 100% grade A bullshit.

invests in all kinds of programs that support entrepreneurship and there are multiple active "slow money" is actively practice in Vermont with such groups as the Vermont Community Fund. And of course, there's an educated populace with less income disparity.

http://www.investinvermont.org/

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/new-york-state-leads-in-income-inequality/?_r=0

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/smallbusiness/2013/06/18/best-places-entrepreneurs/2.html

Which is as irrelevant to the OP as your post.

...and it's not a melanin issue, it is a cultural issue.

There are a few states that would make up the field of "Whitest State in America", but I'd put my money on Vermont.

It can't be an issue of racism when nobody other-than-white lives there.

There is and I've seen it, but at the same time, there's an active war against it by a lot of Vermonters- and the state government. Also, Vermont was behind only HI and DC in supporting President Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Jesse Jackson got a lot of support in Vermont when he ran.

VT has 22.1% under $25,000 while US has 24.4% under $25,000.

VT has 19.4% over $100,000 while US has 21.6% over $100,000.

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml

So while Vermont is a little less unequal than the United States, it is not by a lot.

Before I went to Portland, I'd never seen a translucent person before, I thought I had found Anne Rice's vampires.

Alger didn't write stories about people who came to America with $8 in their pockets and worked their way up to be millionaires, he wrote moral-filled fables (excruciatingly bad ones at that) about dirty, poor boys who hooked up with rich benefactors and worked their way up to respectable lower-middle-class citizenry. There's no such thing as rags to riches and even Horatio Alger knew it.

I've just heard it referred to as "the Horatio Alger fantasy" so many times that I never really questioned it. Whatever you call it, the fantasy of nice, sepia-toned immigrants in flat caps working their way up from nothing (not to be confused with today's parasitic, disease-ridden immigrants, who only want their welfare check) is a potent one, and not just on the far-right.

I was flattered by an allusion to my current sig. line in the last sentence of the essay.

Thanks for posting.

-Laelth

At least the ones who create that shit.
What they are doing is applying the lessons they learned from reading Orwell's 1984.
They have learned it does not matter how big the lie is, just tell it often and keep saying it and it becomes the truth in the minds of their sheeple.

What seems to be occurring to me now is that the "sheeple" they've tricked for so long are now becoming bold and getting into offices and are taking their crazy with them.

But who knows what is in their mind.
But I still think the ones who creates these memes know it is bullshit, but feed it to their followers cause they know it works...and the followers pretend to believe it in order to be in the group.
But who really knows?...you could be right...ether way it is a sad thing.

I run into people here in Georgia who never have been to Florida. In Texas it was routine for me to talk to people and find out they had never left the state on a trip. They were proud of this.

- almost catastrophic economic shape and all the economically strong states are Republican. It is one of those things that all right-wingers "know" like when Bush was President America was highly respected in the world - But during the days of Clinton and now Obama - they have made America the laughing stock of the world. Or the mainstream American media has a pro-socialist, pro-Muslim, pro-Palestinian - anti- American, anti-Christian, anti-Israeli, anti-capitalism and anti-American bias - Almost all right-wingers know things like this to be a fact. These ideas really are common "knowledge" among them.

and reporter in the US was either controlled or duped by Moscow, except for an elite few businessmen and CIA agents: it's literally a do-over of Nesta Webster's Judeocommie Illuminati; by 1988 the Central American RW media was calling *Reagan* a Muscovite agent

the Second Red Scare was actually pushed because during the war they had 1) either said we were fighting on the wrong side or 2) violated your parishioners regardless of gender while blaming Moscow for dancing or race-mixing

I can't stress that enough. It's wrong, it's indisputably wrong and easy to refute, but the feeling is very, very strong: they think you're stealing from them.

They think you're rich and they're poor because the hard working folk of SC or TN or wherever have been robbed by the socialists of the northeast.

We have to do something to counter that.

they also believe the diametrically opposed Democratic states are in worse shape than Repub states and are "less free".

How crazy is that?

And yet, here's the craziness of politics: the fact that we are indisputably right ultimately doesn't matter.

We have to counter this.

Blue states on average give far more in fed taxes relative to what they get back, than do red states. The blue states subsidize the red, not the reverse.

The fact that, as Carville put it 20 years ago, we're right and they're wrong doesn't ultimately matter politically. We have to persuade them.

than focusing on converting the delusional and diametrically opposed. There are far more votes to be had on the sidelines but the beltway has zero interest in appealing to those folks because to do so would directly conflict with the power and resource grab for the benefit of the wealthy few and the multinational corporations.

The policies required to attract and maintain these constituencies just won't attract the big donors or curry favor for those plum positions for the big corporations after "public service".

bwahahahahahaaaa

What really amazes me is how both the media Journalist and politicians do not tell the real story. Then for days or weeks America goes into breaking news theatrics commercial thumping pining you down to stay tuned for the real delicious juicy shams, scandals, smears, and other popular k12 playground mental zoonosis chatter.

To hear that now famous saying “it’s been a very busy news week.” Makes me laugh and chuckle when for real legions of the one percent professionals should be arrested, convicted jailed, but only pay fines while the Supreme Court sifts around legal ease in head open black garments.

In contrast Islamic women stir moving around in public with those black burkas to give mystery or camouflage with little holes that may very well hold political surprises in Michigan. It’s interesting how this area was the domain of the Christian Jesuits missions now changed to the Republican tyranny.

Better pay attention to the news because if not a free trip to hades is conjectured. A one way free ticket to the underworld God many call hell just sign up for your free chance to win. One of the best prophets of the stygian caverns is Huckabee.

It’s so much fun to watch that down home friendly Jim Nabors type guy former governor the Gomer Pyle of truthiness the bible flim flamer Mike Huckabee.

But what he will not talk about is the reality of any budget talk. Many of the other popular professional news makers are about the same without the bible woven rhetoric Huckabee slips into the big church Texas/ Tennessee biblical bunker style. Especially, the football -Colosseum University type Mega-churches a very attractive social group to pontificate. Good red votes to begotten there.

From my view and starting to go through the Congressional and Senate rules and laws one thing should be in the law with any biography listed in government records that is the IRS returns must be posted along with the biography. It would be nice if wicked pedia would do it too.

Then all America would likely watch a huge flow of those twenty five year political flim flamers leave the political gaming system; quickly as a religious mythical myth, reflecting out like a rainbow in a miracle of change for the better improvement in government.

And nobody measures up to Fictional Reagan...



http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/09/colbert-hypothetical-contemporary-super-reagan/

Someone once said never underestimate the stupidity of the American people, and these days you can see the truth in that. Accepting the propaganda and outright non truths spouted all day on Faux News at face value - talk about a lack of critical thinking.

So many middle class and even some lower class people continually believe a few welfare queens are ruining their lives rather than obscenely wealthy banksters, the plutocracy, etc. it continues to madden and amaze me.

And now we're here and because too many in the US lack and kind of critical thinking we're in this mess. Sign after sign saying keep you government hands off my Medicare, stickers that say support are veterans, unbelievable, minds are a terrible thing to waste.

No-one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American Public.

He also said:

No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
— H L Mencken, quoted by Gore Vidal in the the Foreword to The Impossible H L Mencken, Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, ed.

I suspect that the 'quote' is a misquote or a distillation of Mencken, that notable curmudgeon.

For more than 20 years the American people have been subjected to preposterous propaganda, with almost no truth penetrating. This is the result.

about "States Rights".

I have been using articles from Newsmax lately to email to my 2 rigid RW sibs. Newsmax is one of their most often used media to send me and overall it is very conservative but they do publish stories that damage the RW talking points too. Just search their website and one will usually come up. Like the GOP guy who made racist comments confessing the real reason for NC photo ID is to kick the Dem's butts which my sister has refused to acknowledge. Sent a few so far ..and no response! I think I may be getting thru!

Along with Maoist Farmer's Almanac.

Almost every day, one or two letters will be a repeat of Fox News, investigate the IRS, Benghazi, Selendra, Dems are socialists, Obama violates the Constitution. All are rehash of what is on Fox News all day long. But don't forget, Fox news does this to make money. They have found a niche that brings in viewers and sells advertising. Fox is not about political beliefs, but about making money. If showing puppy executions would make them money, they would run that.

probably Fox News sock puppets.

Everyone has to make a living, dontcha know.

If I could handle the cold climate I'd live there.

This is the real danger of religion, training people to believe something without reasoning and contradictory to reality.

And they've stripped all spirituality out of religion. Wouldn't want the people to have any actual spiritual experience, it might lead to embarrassing questions or shake their faith-based foundation.

eom

looks like we have a rivalry going on!

http://www.mountainx.com/article/35281/Forrester-stands-by-cesspool-of-sin-comment-insults-Wilmington-Chapel-Hill-too

State Sen. James Forrester, one of the main sponsors of the proposed anti-same sex marriage amendment, is standing by his remarks calling Asheville (NC) "a cesspool of sin," according to a report from M2M radio. Forrester also dubbed Asheville, Chapel Hill and Wilmington as competitors for "the worst place in the state."

Burlington entropenours could also seize an opportunity for some fun:

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

Or the South for that matter. Please keep point that in the back of your mind.

South Carolina: 28 percent African-American

Vermont: 1 percent African-American

is the thing I like least (Burlington is a pretty diverse city) but I'm not sure what that has to do with the OP.

It is almost 90 percent white as of the 2010 census.

The state of Vermont is one of the two or three least diverse states in all of the US.

How is this not relevant?

John Tucker of the Peace and Justice Center in Burlington, himself an African-American, has said that it is very difficult for African-Americans who live in Vermont. He compared the experience to that of Jackie Robinson's first two years in the major leagues.

It is unfair to use selective statistics in order to sing the praises of one state while denigrating another.

even in the Kingdom and not all of them feel as Tucker does.

And I'm sorry, but you're just wrong when it comes to your claim of "selective" statistics. That's false. Those are the statistics. That YOU don't like them and want to deny facts, is your problem.

Interesting how YOU attack me and have jack to say about the comments in the op from freeperville which actually do denigrate. I sad NOTHING that denigrates SC. I used facts.

VT is governed by liberals. SC is governed by tea party types. Go ahead, deny that. Tell me that's "denigrating" SC.

blah blah blah.

I've been a little frustrated by what appears to be a generally negative presentation of the states in the South. It seems to be bubbling up a lot on DU. I'm not sure if it was your intention, but I feel that your OP really painted South Carolina in an unflattering light. The fact of the matter is that South Carolina is, quite literally, 10 times more diverse than Vermont.

Burlington, which you defined as "pretty diverse" has an African-American population that comprises less than 4 percent of the population of the city. Contrast that with Columbia, the largest city in South Carolina, where African-Americans comprise over 40 percent of the population.

because they kept on mouthing this type of shit.

Believing the convenient and easy instead of facing reality is just the next logical step.

"Faith is believing what you know aint so"

I swear these people are nuckin futz...............

People that like what SC is about can move there. People who like what Vermont is about can move there. And hippies moving there is what tilted the state far towards the left.

It sucks for folks who can't move. I hated living in red states and rural areas and I'm sure cons feel miserable in blue states and cities.

Someone actually brought up the states rights question in a RepubliCON debate when it comes to gay marriage, and they were doing intellectual somersaults trying to explain why gay marriage can't be a state's right because its not equal for everyone in the nation. It was funny and sad at the same time.

left alone to get a free speech free ride.

it's the biggest political mistake in our history.

It is a huge factor. I don't know if it's a mistake or if it's just that there is big money behind the RW, always has been, and big money wants to conduct its business without government looking over its shoulder to see if they're serving the public interest.

I still remember how Clear Channel sponsored huge pro-Iraq War rallies in cities all across the country.

Any ideas on how the left could respond to RW radio dominance?

I haven't seen any efforts with deep enough pockets to make a lot of difference.

Another part of the problem is that advertisers generally prefer to support RW ideology, since it serves their corporate interest to do so. There are some left-leaning businesses (Ben and Jerry's, CostCo) but they are hugely outnumbered and outspent.

Anyway I agree it is a huge problem and should receive more attention from the left, not clear to me though what the answer is.

i think if limbaugh's attacks on anita hill had gotten a reaction like the sandra fluke reaction we wouldn't have clarence thomas and limbaugh and RW radio wouldn't have gone unnoticed - the US today would be very different.

i had forgotten about those pro-war rallies to go with their constant propaganda.

i think once the 'left' stops ignoring RW radio the corporate support will dry up as it shakes down into those owners who actually support the limbaughs. the limbaugh boycotts have been doing some of that....

i have been suggesting a few main treatments for RW radio

1) it works because their work is unreadable and practically invisible until it's everywhere and too late to refute. use of transcription software to automatically transcribe the national and main local talkers and make that available for searching for repetition and memes. state dem headquarters should be doing that for local talkers now, before the 2014 elections so they can respond to lies from state and national talkers referencing their candidates and issues. if there are copyright problems the material can maybe be scrambled somehow so it can still be searched - the context is understood. knowing what they're saying and how much and making it readable will make it possible to shame politicians and media that repeat the lies/distortions and will allow the left to know what it's doing in real time instead of playing catch up all the time.

2) students faculties and communities need to demand their state funded colleges look for apolitical alternatives to broadcast their sports. see link in sig. 28% of limbaugh stations piggyback the community cred and advertising power of more than 70 major universities. RW radio won't survive if those unis start honoring their mission statements. RW radio depends heavily on those associations and it needs to end. https://sites.google.com/site/universitiesforrushlimbaugh/

3) progressive orgs need to get serious about RW radio- it undoes much of what they do. whenever we start making progress - local or national- it is noted and the think tanks design PR ops to counter it - starting at the RW radio level. they need to start including RW radio in their strategies. much activism and donations are wasted because there is no challenge to RW radio.

4) we need peaceful protesting at stations that attack our representatives and lie about progressive efforts, etc. protests can be ignored now because one local blowhard reaches tens of thousands, attacking protestors and distorting their aims and issues for long after the protests are over. most major protests should be including RW radio stations- those are GOP teabagger HQ's- and media and politicians will notice.

Thanks for that, well thought-out. If you haven't posted such info as an OP it would make a good one.

I like the idea of ferreting out their talking-points and memes, transcription software would be a way to help make it happen. Not sure about copyright issues, but if you just used their talk to do searches and matching on, it wouldn't come into play, so you could at least do that much, and probably more. There are media people who would be all over the output of such an effort (Thom Hartmann, Jon Stewart, some of the MS-NBC hosts, etc.)

I've always wished DU would extend its focus to this kind of thing, organizing teams of people to perform specific tasks towards defined goals, rather than just posting info and opinions in threads.

Excellent point re sports and RW talk. We went through that locally, maybe 15 years ago, I forget. I used to constantly hassle our local sports station which broadcasted SF Giants games, because it drove me crazy that they carried Limbaugh. Luckily it's a very liberal area and enough people spoke up that they did eventually drop Limbaugh. He got picked up by the station's local competitor, but at least he was no longer getting into the lives of so many of us Giants fans.

Universities for Limbaugh, right on. I think I had stumbled on this before, perhaps from you. Excellent way to fight back, those universities should have no ties to RW talk radio.

I used to work at a small company that would literally pipe Limbaugh over their company intercom into all of our offices. I got that to stop, though it was awkward to do so and probably damaged my relationship with that employer. It worked out, though, they didn't fire me, and I would have quit if they hadn't stopped the practice, that's torture.

I agree about protesting stations that carry RW talk, especially if that's mostly what they do or if there isn't a significant amount of their broadcast that gives voice to more progressive messages. Contacting and/or boycotting their advertisers is also effective.

There's an app, I haven't used it yet though I have downloaded it, called Buycott, to help people to spend money in accordance with their beliefs (voting with their dollars). I know it is configurable for different criteria that the user cares about. I have no idea if it could be used to determine whether a product or the product's manufacturer advertises on RW radio, but if not perhaps it could be modified to do so.

So many ideas, so little organization, and so little money behind any cause that represents the left side of the spectrum. We do have a lot of people-power, if we can organize it and focus it into effective activism. So there is a lot of hope in that.

i wish the general left would wake up and realize how much harder their activism has to be because there is so little effort targeted to the right's best weapon

if you ever try to mobilize something about this. A PM is fine, I might miss an OP.

I spoke with my father today who is an alumni and longtime donor at one of the universities on the universities for Limbaugh list, he will be contacting them about it, maybe that will do some good.

But I was thinking about a larger effort, have some free time while I look for computer programming work.

democratic campaign office, state or national, could use to track RW radio as discussed above, in time for the next elections.

for eg., a way to apply transcription software (while avoiding copyright restrictions) to online broadcasts including some way to make whatever voice training is necessary easier (training with RW talking points, words, etc), allow searching transcripts along various parameters, automate it for weekly or end of day alerts (mentions of candidates and issues, etc.

those and other functions integrated in a simple software package might be valuable to the dem party, media orgs, progressive orgs, etc.

or, a business that could offer those services to the interested parties mentioned above...

great to hear about your dad.

When these people who are still fighting the Cold War wish to converse like adults and not like petulant children spouting childish crybaby nonsense, then they can talk to me.

I've had right wingers flat out refuse to believe me when I tell them that CA actually has a budget surplus, and that we got it by enacting that thing conservatives fear most: a tax hike on the rich.

Oh and, our economy didn't crumble like they all said it would either.