I have lived 63 years. When people said awful things about JFK

and how he would ruin the US and build a tunnel to the Vatican, being an Irish Catholic Democrat in a Yankee Republican world, I turned my cheek and said "IT will pass, these people are nuts, the President will have the time to prove these people wrong."

When MLK was killed, I said the same thing..."this was a random nut, not my country, turn the other cheek."

I said the same thing when RFK was killed..."It was some nut, turn the other cheek."

I'm not turning, or understanding, or forgiving or explaining anymore...there is no time left.

My message to Republican leaders is "if you people don't begin to condemn this murderous talk you will have the respomsibility for it." And to the Democrate: "don't make the mistakes I did and turn the other cheek, this is serious and you will have a role in ending the hate."

I am firmly convinced that if we, as a decent people, don't begin to speak out and say how wrong this hatetalk is, we will mourn...and hate will become a part of the American experience and discourse and the only people who will thrive are the talking heads and the deranged haters who love this stuff...it is their red meat it is our downfall as a united country.

look like, I'd say watch the television. We're witnessing it now.

for this President. Someone has to stand up against it.

I think all of us need to stand up and make our voices heard.

one fact is that Rwanda started from media propaganda.

Media propaganda
According to recent commentators the news media played a crucial role in the genocide: local print and radio media fueled the killings, while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued events on the ground.<9> The print media in Rwanda is believed to have started hate speech against Tutsis which was later continued by radio stations. According to commentators anti-Tutsi hate speech "became so systemic as to seem the norm." The state-owned newspaper Kangura had a central role, starting an anti-Tutsi and anti-RPF campaign in October 1990. In the ongoing International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the individuals behind Kangura have been accused of producing leaflets in 1992 picturing a machete and asking "What shall we do to complete the social revolution of 1959?" - a reference to the Hutu revolt that overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and the subsequent politically orchestrated communal violence that resulted in thousands of mostly Tutsi casualties and forced roughly 300,000 Tutsis to flee to neighboring Burundi and Uganda. Kangura also published the infamous "10 Hutu Commandments," which called upon Hutus to massacre Tutsis, and more generally communicated the message that the RPF had a devious grand strategy (one feature article was titled "Tutsi colonization plan").<10>

Due to high rates of illiteracy at the time of the genocide, radio was an important way for the government to deliver messages to the public. Two radio stations key to inciting violence before and during the genocide were Radio Rwanda and Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). In March 1992, Radio Rwanda was first used in directly promoting the killing of Tutsi in Bugesera, south of the national capital Kigali. Radio Rwanda repeatedly broadcast a communiqué warning that Hutu in Bugesera would be attacked by Tutsi, a message used by local officials to convince Hutu that they needed to protect themselves by attacking first. Led by soldiers, Hutu civilians and members of the Interahamwe subsequently attacked and killed hundreds of Tutsi.<11> At the end of 1993, the RTLM's highly sensationalized reporting on the assassination of the Burundi president, a Hutu, was used to underline supposed Tutsi brutality. The RTLM falsely reported that the president had been tortured, including castration of the victim (in pre-colonial times, some Tutsi kings castrated defeated enemy rulers). From late October 1993, the RTLM repeatedly broadcast themes developed by the extremist written press, underlining the inherent differences between Hutu and Tutsi, the foreign origin of Tutsi, the disproportionate share of Tutsi wealth and power, and the horrors of past Tutsi rule. RTLM also repeatedly stressed the need to be alert to Tutsi plots and possible attacks and called upon Hutu to prepare to 'defend' themselves against the Tutsi.<11> After 6 April 1994, authorities used RTLM and Radio Rwanda to spur and direct killings, specifically in areas where the killings initially were resisted. Both radio stations were used to incite and mobilize, then to give specific directions for carrying out the killings.<11>

The RTLM had used terms such as inyenzi (cockroach in Kinyarwandan) and Tutsi interchangeably with others referring to RPF combatants and warned specifically that RPF combatants dressed in civilian clothes were mingling among displaced people fleeing combat zones. These broadcasts gave the impression that all Tutsi were necessarily supporters of the RPF force fighting against the government.<11> Women were part of the anti-Tutsi propaganda prior the 1994 genocide, for example the "Ten Hutu Commandments" published in December 1990 by "Kangura" included four commandments which portrayed Tutsi women as tools of the Tutsi people, as sexual weapons that would be used by the Tutsi to weaken and ultimately destroy the Hutu men.<12> Gender-based propaganda also include cartoons printed in newspapers depicting Tutsi women as sex objects. Examples of gender-based hate propaganda used to incite war rape include statements by perpetrators such as "You Tutsi women think that you are too good for us" and "Let us see what a Tutsi woman tastes like ".<12>


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

I saw that movie with Don Cheadle and it hit very close to home when they showed the people being incited to atrocities by hateradio.:( 2004!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/

and the OP is spot-on as well.

... Yugoslavia was a made up country, in which different factions who hated each other were mashed up together. As soon as Tito died, the small thread that held them together dissapeared and then the bullets started flying.

Propaganda was not as big of a factor as the deeply seethed hatred dating centuries, looking for a spark to ignite the full blown desintegration of a country which should have never existed to begin with.

A similar notion can be applied to Rwanda, thinking that it was just a matter of "hate talk" which led to the ethnic conflict is very naive, and ignores the historical precedents of full out hostilities between the two factions involved which went back centuries...

I think sometimes Americans need a simple solution to explain a very complex situation. Both countries were made up collections of factions that hated each other... this was done by the colonial powers of the day which were following the typical "divide and conquer" approach to maintain power over large populations with a reduced number of troops and capital.

and I've posted links here on the topic before. Yugoslavia had a diverse culture, but by the time Tito's death there were many large well-integrated peaceful urban areas. The disintegration followed an organized campaign of ethnic demonization stretching over many years, and some of the stories are heart-rending: "You and I were friends. We attended each other's children's weddings! Why are you doing this to us?"

Thursday, 23 July 2009 08:36

Journalists are in the dock for their role in provoking the wars of the 1990s across the former Yugoslavia which left more than 100,000 dead.

“We’re analysing the influence of certain Serbian media on war crimes committed in the 1991-95 wars,” Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for the Special War Crimes Prosecutor in Belgrade told IPS. “The analysis deals with the atmosphere and ambience within the media at the time.”

Examination of the criminal responsibility of media began after some people were sentenced last year for the execution of almost 200 Croatian prisoners of war in the town of Vukovar in 1991.

“One of them clearly said he watched TV and then went to ‘give those <Croats> what they deserved’,” Vekaric said ...

http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/international-news/7251-balkan-media-may-be-called-to-account-over-war-crimes.html

Milosevic's Propaganda War
By Judith Armatta
Institute of War and Peace Reporting
February 27, 2003

... Serbian television and radio's repetitive use of pejorative descriptions, such as "Ustashe hordes", "Vatican fascists", "Mujahedin fighters", "fundamentalist warriors of Jihad", and "Albanian terrorists", quickly became part of common usage.

Unverified stories, presented as fact, were turned into common knowledge - for example, that Bosnian Muslims were feeding Serb children to animals in the Sarajevo zoo. In these stories, friends and neighbours, fellow countrymen and women were turned into "the other", lacking humanising or individual characteristics ...

... KOG operative, Mustafa Candic, described the use of technology to fabricate conversations, making it sound as if Croat authorities were telling Croats in Serbia to leave for an ethnically pure Croatia.

The conversation was broadcast following a Serb attack on Croatians living in Serbia, forcing them to flee ...

http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=162&paper=884

Naval War College Review
by Clemson G. Turregano
Wntr, 2004

... This book provides chilling, first-person insight into the decline of the Yugoslavian media into nationalism and into its contribution to the destruction of the Yugoslav federation. Kurspahic, a Bosnian Muslim, paints a picture of the disintegration of the former republic that, like many horror stories, is at once riveting, revolting, and compelling. This is a work that is riveting in its honesty, revolting in its facts, and ultimately compelling in its insight. The author's journalistic style easily dissolves the complexity of politics and personality, offering the reader a valuable glimpse into a political arena rarely seen, much less understood, by Westerners unfamiliar with the Balkans.

The first chapter's treatise on the author's thoughts and beliefs concerning journalism during Josip Broz Tito's socialist revolution evokes an optimism shared by many Yugoslavs during the days of the "Balkan miracle." This optimism offers a starting point for the reader's compassion for the people of the former Yugoslavia and their lost dream. Many readers will find here an illuminating perspective on the lost opportunities during Tito's regime--a time of great hope for unity but ultimate belief in nationalism, ethnicity, and culture.

The importance of ethnicity became excruciatingly clear during the early 1990s, when, as the author describes, the nationalist parties and leaders in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia managed to capture the press. Playing on themes and seams between cultures that had been glossed over by Tito's press, journalists began an easy decline into uncontested nationalist rhetoric. According to Kurspahic, "the Yugoslav public ... still had only one ruling party and its ideology. What was once a Communist controlled media became a nationalist-controlled media. Milosevic simply renamed his party--from Communist to Socialist--and switched ... from 'brotherhood and unity' to 'hatred toward neighbors.'" These divisions provided stronger focal points for the parties and easier writing for the media, and they reinforced the nationalist bias of the people ...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JIW/is_1_57/ai_113755361/

...nothing. People tend to be caught up in the present with no real reflection on the past. The attitude of "it cannot happen again" is all around us, and that is the tool the regressives use to make it happen again. I've given up on our representatives for the most part. It really is up to us now. Actually, it always was.

...they perpetrate the lies, distortions and hate is all for the lust of money.
These sons-a-bitches care absolutely nothing about this country or it's people...only if their ratings are high or going higher.

They forget that one day the Democrats may well rise up against these bastards and (I hope) hold a Guillotine Party.
Their actions have killed many and their actions have hurt All.

it was in play for 60 years and protected us from people propagandize the public --

that's how we've gotten the GOP's gun nuts, and anti-abortion murderers -- and now

those opposing health care in overly aggressive ways which are destructive of democracy.

That was my neighbor Mike talking about what he sees as the biggest danger. And he wasn't joking.

... who shot-up a church because getting at the 100 people targeted by Bernie Goldberg would have been too difficult.

has also commenced --

you need to look no further than the Bible --

than Christian preaching from the pulpit --

and to the RCC's "Hammer of Witches" which led to the women's holocaust --


And, needless to say, pornography -- which is basically right-wing propaganda against females
-- and which directly attacks the very ideals of female equality.

It's all the same -- it's all always been the same!

Remember that patriarchy could not declare itself superior -- and invented organized

patriarchal religion to do so for them. "God" now says that males are superior!!

Organized patriarchal religion and patriarchy ARE FASCISM!!!

No one will take the time to view this series of chilling 10-minutes videos, and I am tired of posting on DU. I'll try it again, but this time, instead of all the 6 video links, here is the link to the trailer. I can't believe that no one on here, of all places, will watch these videos!!! It is an eye-opening journey of discovery.

On YouTube, here is the trailer to The Century of the Self Trailer and Links(BBC Documentary)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_0g1RUQMVQ

don't be so _______

whatever!?

can't you say in a sentence what the video argues?

Is it a secret?

"passive totalitarianism" was how Marcuse referred to it

teach American corporations for the first time how to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make ppl want things they didn't need by linking mass produced goods to thier unconscious desires. OUT OF THIS WOULD COME A NEW POLITICAL IDEA OF HOW TO CONTROL THE MASSES....."

edited to correct spelling - I must have been unconscious when I typed unconscious the first time...lol
and yes, I am shouting the succinct message of this video series since others apparently will not take the time to watch them.

still

i confess i have not read this or seen the video

my sound is not working so it is useless to try

not to detract from this, but this is not a new idea

adam smith, himself, discussed how to create markets for products, where no markets existed or where markets were saturated

a famous 20th century marxist social theorist, david harvey, also coined the wonderful phrase, "the
artifices of needs inducement," to refer to corporations' ability to elicit in people the feeling of needing to purchase something they not only didn't need but also hadn't wanted.....

as for 'controlling the masses', well much ink has been spilled on this as well

i mean, Marx, himself, wrote at length about the notion of 'false consciousness', whereby individuals within a capitalist system would have a 'commodity fetish' ( a desire for more and more things, products, commodities....along with the value system that rates 'worth' in terms of material possessions) and would also internalize the values, norms, strictures, etc. of capitalism...

the capitalist state, for Marx, is the place where capitalist accumulation occurs, and the essence of the state is to promote and protect its capitalism.....

so the governing polity, as well as all the coercive and cultural apparatuses of the state emerged out of the capitalist mode of production.....

and an individual with false consciousness subscribes to all the 'propaganda' disseminated by the state....

and so forth

could/would take the time to watch this series. For me, the series is riveting, and each 10-minute clip can be treated as a chapter in a book. We're only talking six, 10-minute films. If one starts watching the film and assumes it is just about American consumerism and then stops watching, they've missed the most significant point of this series, in my opinion: that of how mass-consumer persuasion became a POLITICAL tool on how to CONTROL the MASSES. And this film series shows such applications.

I found a longer film series summary on luxstock's side bar next to the first film in the series:

"The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. (keep reading)

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar. (keep reading - the point is in the 3rd sentence of the next paragraph)

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world.

Category: Education

Tags: The+Century+of+Self Happiness+Machines documentary film Sigmund+Freud http://www.luxstock.net machines propaganda manipulation Bernays Freud media social science business mind control commentary analysis gotcha! news grassroots outreach"

If only enough people would watch and be educated....what a difference it could make in our country....just my opinion.

I share those memories, and your prescription. Thanks for posting.

I am struck by your eloquence!

Now I know where Will gets it...;-)

And of course, how right you are.

There is NO time left, none...

K&R

:patriot:

a deep abiding respect for free speech and we refrain from preventing others from expressing their feelings and beliefs. But I thik some of the "speakers" have crossed the line and there are those in our party who may be afraid to confront that because, after all, it is very violent. But that's the point, isn't it?

Yeah, that is the point.

What's happening to our society? What's happened to respect for the rule of law?

I don't know.

we need to return to the Fairness Doctrine. Idiots like those protesting health

care reform could not be swept away by right wing propaganda if other opinions than

right wing hate speech could be heard.

While I would dearly love to see Bush/Cheney held responsible for torture and murder

of prisoners and civilians -- turning over that barrel of crime and exposing it would

be a shock to many who have been hearing about torture as "hazing" -- and torture as

a positive thing on "24" -- !!!

We have to understand that this is an overall effort by the right wing -- which has

involved huge amounts of money, heavily funded think tanks, co-option of government and

its agencies --- and full use of MSM as a tool to create a violent America.

TURN OFF THE TVs is my best advice -- and do everything you can to rid our media of

violence.

in this society. Those of us who have discovered that "...the emperors (corporate America) have no clothes" are the ones who are a danger to the possibility of overthrow...keep speaking out - that's all we can do - you have a responsibility, I have a responsibility, all of us who know the truth have a responsilibity to spread the truth.

:applause: :woohoo: :yourock: :woohoo: :applause:

:woohoo: :yourock: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo:

:yourock: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :yourock:

free speech

form versus content

we want to ensure the right to free speech, but what happens if the content becomes problematic?

many laws do address some of this

'hate' speech is prohibited, for example, in most contexts

as is yelling "fire," in a crowded theater (as a joke)

i'm not up on the legal side of this, but it seems these people have crossed the line in many ways, not least of which are the sometimes only thinly veiled and other times overt calls for violence

all very scary

You made my day... at the very least. I hope this post gets K/Red as much as it deserves.

my humanity goes out the window. That's it.

insist that our guys/gals take a stand. This is not acceptable for a Democracy.

and asked that they list the Republican Party as a hate group, since the leadership (an oxymoron)not only condons this, but encourages and actively participates in this racist hatemongering. Then I sent it to Keith.

ENOUGH!

PS: I'm 63 also, and agree with everything you said, Raven. All the signs are there. Every time a "Breaking News" announcement comes on, my heart just stops.

...still freaks me out. I was traumatized by "Special Reports" - I know there were years in between them, but my memories and the emotional upheaval of the events make them seem as though they were one right after the other.

And I agree wholeheartedly.

I read through that Rwanda post above and just changed a few details, and it sounds like here, now. The psychopaths are whipping the psychotics into a frenzy, and there will be Hell to pay.

we were protesting America's involvement in another Asian war.

Hey, wait--that WAS yesterday.

Jeez, I've spent my whole life on the barricades, and we never once got to storm the Bastille.

I often think that we are going to have a good 4 or 8 years with Obama, then a serious slide into a Mad Max-like society after that. :(

The New Deal had brought that under control -- now we're more than back where

FDR started -- without an FDR!!! And with corporate wealth and control very

deeply embedded in our government/government agencies -- and overall politics.

This, of course, involves assassinations over decades -- and stolen elections for

decades.

AND THE COMPLICITY OF THE CORPORATE PRESS.

America also has to begin to wake up to 9/11.

yesterday's rally been so erroneously inflated?? Another tactic to manipulate the masses into believing there is a great division among the masses - Another diversionary tactic to keep us under control and divided. Another tool of corporate media having the reThugs believe the fantasy of "liberal" media...it goes on and on
"Divide and conquer".....
Scary that people don't see this, isn't it? :(

to Obama or his family.

Anything those fuckers dish out and have dished out before will blow back on them 10-FOLD.

That's a fuckin' ironclad guarantee.

:nuke:

to my wife that I have finally had enough with this First Amendment argument going on. On the way home I was surfing stations when Michael Savage popped up and what I heard him say against some Obama appointee that he was railing against made me lose it. It was so bad his own station cut him in the middle of a sentence amd you could hear him complaining about why they were objecting to what he said.

As far as I'm concerned, the kind of talk I'm hearing is violent and calling for assassinations.

The difference between, for example left wing radicals yelling violent things in an atmosphere in which people isolate them as fringe, and one in which the mainstream media is conveying and transporting the speech, is like the difference between yelling fire when everybody is outside already, and yelling fire when people are packed in a closed room.

I've had enough of the hate talk going on right now. And I'm tired of hearing people yell about First Amendment like it's applied in a vacuum. Circumstances matter. And I'm hearing dog whistles being blown all over the place. The fact that the media is giving it play, and really as far as I'm concerned, creating it, makes them think and feel that they are mainstream and this kind of behavior is not only okay, but right to do. People are going to die.

:applause:

a range of people from all walks of life and political persuasions.

World leaders, artists, writers.

I hope that someone reads this post and takes the steps.

Outstanding post.

Recommended.

:patriot:

But you can turn your cheek once too often.

Bobby, Martin and John turned their cheeks one time too many.

"I am firmly convinced that if we, as a decent people, don't begin to speak out and say how wrong this hatetalk is, we will mourn...and hate will become a part of the American experience and discourse and the only people who will thrive are the talking heads and the deranged haters who love this stuff...it is their red meat it is our downfall as a united country."
Unfortunately you might be right!

The wing-nut nuts are having a field day. We must stand up to them. Obama wasn't my first choice; but he is MY PRESIDENT! I really resent this "We're tired of 'this' and won't take it anymore," crap. "Take" what? Obama was elected by a margin Bush could only dream of, most of us chose him to be our President. We need to stand up and quote Karl Rove: "You lost. Get over it!"

:kick:

The Dems are weak, fearful appeasers. The Repukes own the media and are above the law. When one of the nuts finally blows his top and kills the President, Hate Radio will be on the air before he's even cold, blaming liberals for it. As DUer T Wolf expressed it recently, th only way to get it to stop is to produce some consequences for the actions.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=6352425#6352583

The lunatics get the lions' share of air time.

be able to act on their own for us -- all liberal/progressive leadership needs

a lot of help.

One thing that would substantially help is ridding the Democratic party of its

corporate-wing -- the DLC!!!

:patriot:

"Ouch, that hurts, stoppit! Please! Ow! I'm gonna tell! Stop! Not fair!"

The problem, as you see, is that Democrats and liberals are the little mouthy motherfucker who always backs out of fights, even the ones he can win. Unfortunately our current politicians have been subdued and cowed for so long that we can write them off as useless for anything other than an emergency airline buffet.

... sometimes I get the impression that the whole hippie/kumbaya/interpretative dancing contingent of the progressive political spectrum in this country, was started to turn the left in the US into a completely ineffectual and weak sector of drones.


You can never win anything, if the first order of business seems to be wondering how not to hurt the feelings or interests of those who want nothing but the total anihilation of every single liberal policy that led to the betterment of this society. Every modern "liberal" president(there are few if any real liberal presidents in the past few decades) always seem to start any major policy item by compromising with the agents who benefit the most from keeping the status quo. So I am not surprised on how this whole health care debacle is turning out to be.

The left in this country needs to stop being afraid of showing their teeth. Not in an armed violent whacked out fashion, but in the ability to stand their ground and put lines in the sand. We could achieve far more withe a well organized general strike, which hurts the powers that be directly in their pockets. And these assholes only understand one thing: money. No amount of shooting or viollence or crap like that would have the same effect that liberals organizing and being able to affect the bottom line of the vermin at the top. Then I am sure things would move fairly quickly.

that was not a retreat ; if anything it was such a radical idea and approach that even the traditional polite, establishment liberals couldn't deal with the fact that we saw not just policy corrections that needed to be made, but a radical rethinking of how we all relate to the planet , and everyone living on it. From my perspective, it's the suit and tie establishment left that has rolled over and played dead in front of the right wing; those that internalized the "hippie ethic" ( but are not stuck back in the 60's either; I always say I have one foot firmly planted there, but only one) are the ones who are appalled at the compromises ( i.e. cowardly appeasement and surrender) with the ever more dangerous hate mongers of the right by the "leaders, who were by and large, NOT really ever "hippies" . Just my opinion, in, as my sigline says, solidarity with all of you (us).

I know shit-talking the hippies is tantamount to suicide around here - next thing I know I'll be swarmed by a bunch of fifty-somethings throwing their crocs and bread machines at me - but that "movement" sure as hell WAS a "retreat." The basic philosophy was that if enough people stopped participating in "The System" then the system would shut down. It was essentially a bunch of kids going "I'll run away, then you'll be sorry!" and it got about the same response. The hippies achieved nothing, did nothing, and then voted for Reagan.

As far as i can figure, all it was was a new spin on the "man, I was sooooo dumb when I was a kid!" stories that every generation has. Imagine thirty years from now, all the people talking about their days looking like this:

I know I still laugh about my big hair and stylishly ripped jeans!

coming from an alleged progressive. As much point in discussing this any further with you than trying to convince a Glenn Beck fan that they're full of shit. Have a nice nice time wallowing in your ignorance. Bye...

"You can never win anything, if the first order of business seems to be wondering how not to hurt the feelings or interests of those who want nothing but the total anihilation of every single liberal policy that led to the betterment of this society. "

While you qualify it, this whole idea of disregarding interests and not hurting feelings is what got us to this mess in the first place, and it's very visible right here on DU. People now, especially younger ones, want to see just how TOUGH they can be, then wonder why life is shitty and every day is a damned struggle.

Back in my dirtyhippiecommiepinkobum days, we actually DID care about the feelings of others... the problem was that we didn't have the skills or the materials available to BUILD those skills of how to listen, how to strengthen each other. We now have those materials, but people now aren't interested in learning the skills... being TOUGH is so much more enchanting.

Where I will agree is that when dealing with bullies, the approach is totally different. Although, people like Nelson Mandella certainly were able to affect great change by employing respect. I don't know how to do that, and obviously it isn't a skill in evidence in DU. But, his example is certainly worth thought.

It's close, so let's go, folks.

Reasoning, etc. doesn't seem to work with them. They are operating on blind hate.

They've had that chance many, many times over. No more messages to Republicans. They take discourse as a sign of weakness anyway, so we do ourselves disfavor by trying to talk to them.

We need to project power FIRST, like those who know how to wield it do. When those people want to negotiate, they FIRST break a finger, or the nose, or the like, and only THEN begin negotiations. If it does not go their way, something else is broken or cut off. Repeat until the outcome is to our liking.

it recalls things said about Franklin Roosevelt by right-wing radio talk show hosts in the 1930's - that he was secretly , his "real" name was Rosenfeld - and that he was a Communist. It is the SAME BULLSHIT they are piling on our President, exactly the same lies they told in the 1930's and ever since.

The Republicans have exactly NOTHING to offer our country but threats of violence and outrages designed to stir up hatred in the uneducated imbeciles who comprise the right in the US. These fools are the blunt instruments of the GOP, their means to gain attention from the media for their stale lies.

Raven, you know this, I know this, the media knows this but they act as if the GOP still is a valid political party instead of a well financed group of thugs preying on our nation for personal gain.

mark

Thank you for your words. As a black man living in a smaller city/rural America, I find it easy to witness how changes in the national political scene are reflected in the day-to-day realities of the social climate, often for the positive, but not lately. The surge in ammo sales, the talk I hear about preparing to take the government back, it's not just television talk. All responsible people in government, and especially us as everyday people, need to stand up against the craziness that the media is aiding and abetting. It's no joke, everyone - it's a dangerous time, and we need to get back to where we can at least talk across the aisles about solutions to our problems. I lived through some of the rounds of school integration in the 70s, and it's starting to seem like that again around where I am. We surely don't want to backslide any further.

I'm with you - thanks again!

n/t

Raven said everything that needs saying on the subject.

I never went back to a structured Church again. I would do it all over if I lived it over too! You have to stand for what is right!

you had written this OP! ha

:hi: :headbang: :hi:

in not forcefully and aggressively standing up to this ever increasing level of hate and thinly ( if that)-veiled threats of violence is something we all will pay, and already are paying, a terrible price for.I'm 58, and when I was young , the republican party actually had moderates and even some liberals in it among the conservatives. And even the conservatives were for the most part, decent people who we had disagreements with ( the lunatic racist fringe were the southern Democrats of course). That republican party began ceasing to exist the moment LBJ signed the civil rights bill. He knew it, and expressed that thought at the moment he signed it. This cowardly appeasement ( oops, I mean reaching out in the spirit of bi-partisanship) of the republicans and their media storm-troopers on Fox and elsewhere will be the ruination of us all.

Maybe they have and I'm missing it.

Leaders of the Senate for example, should be interviewed and condemning Wilson in terms strong enough to get those RW gasbags upset.

Wilson seems to get rewarded with 15 minutes of fame instead.

There is just no pleasing some people!!!

asking the question of whether we feel safer 8 years after 9-11, then showing the nutjobs brandishing guns and wanting to "water the tree of liberty...". These are the real terrorists we need to worry about.

do I mean every journalist? No.

Do I mean ALL of corporate-press hierarchy? Yes --

And those who want to keep their jobs have stayed to do the dirty work --

those who objected left.

Many of them, I'm sure, sensed what was going down with stolen elections --

and certainly that didn't begin in 2000 -- rather it's been going on for decades.

Probably since the computers came -- which was, coincidentally, just around the

time we were passing The Voting Rights Act!!

Americans and DU also have to wake up to 9/11 MIHOP.

And, without doubt, the "MSM" were complicit in that --

as well as helping to keep all of the political violence over the past 50 years

covered up.

lends credence to the lunatic fringe and makes it appear to have legitimate grievances tells me we are on the brink of a disaster.
They have legitimized the Ku Klux Klan.
These teabag windbag douche bags have the same rhetoric as the segregationists of the 1950s.

gone far enough.

While there is a HUGE problem in this country with hate and lies, blaming it all on one side is dangerous to the max.

One close look at DU shows that it isn't limited to one side... there are no angels here.

Just like with climate change, we are up against a time wall, and continuing to ignore this and blame it on others is at our own peril.

We ALL must learn new listening skills, and learn how, as Rodney King so eloquently put it, to just get along.

WE have learning to do, too.

propaganda have come from the right --

And that the right-wing corporate-press has been complicit in keeping it covered up.

All of it --

There is no comparable group on the left to "pro-life" murderers --

There is no comparable group on the left to NRA/gun nuts --

There is no comparable group on the left to PATRIARCHY . . .

nor organized patriarchal religion --

BOTH OF WHICH ARE BASIC FASICM!!!

Yes -- we do have people out of line with language here at times at DU --
and when mentioned they do, IMO, decide that becoming like the right wing isn't
a good idea!

But let's not be confused about what's really been going on from genocide of the
Native American to enslavement of the African in America. THAT is the right-wing.

You want to look to oppression of women -- THAT is the right-wing --

You want to examine exploitation -- "Manifest Destiny" - "Man's Dominion Over Nature"
all of which was the license to exploit nature, animal-life, natural resources and
even other human beings? THAT is the right wing -!

this isn't "Conspiracy-free America," folks ....

Carl Bernstein reported more than 400 CIA journalists in the 1970s' . . . a
short time later, the reports were 1,200 -- and our Congress has repeatedly failed
to put a stop this this with legislation.

The right wing can only ever rise in one way - political violence, stolen elections . .
hateful propaganda re "Welfare Queens", etal -- and we've seen all of this ---
PRETTY MUCH OUT IN THE OPEN -- since '63 and the JFK coup which was in fact a coup on
the very concept of a "people's" government.

So -- almost 50 years of open political violence in America by the right wing --
and for all of that time this "hate speech" has been there. Directed at women --
directed at reproductive freedom -- directed at homosexuals, and directed at liberals/
progressives.

The GOP has been outspokenly anti-female --
and overall sexist, racist, and homophobic.

Does anyone remember the videos from the RNC which turned up where they were play-acting
out these hatreds? They were shown on TV for a brief time and certainly didn't bring
forth the uproar from the public they deserved!

And this is what we've seen OPENLY . . . certainly this has long been going on covertly
for eons.

Also keep in mind that the electronic voting machines and large computers used by "MSM"
began coming in just about the time America was passing The Voting Rights Act!

What you saw in 2000 with Jon Ellis/Fox PREDICTING and CALLING Florida for Bush was done
by a network because that's what the large computers permitted them to begin doing.
Prior to the large computers in mid-1960's, networks could only report actual vote tallies.
Yes, they could mumble around among themselves about the way states and districts were
likely to go, but it was the large computers which now gave them the ability to
actually PREDICT and CALL areas -- and to PREDICT and CALL "wins" for candidates.

AGAIN . . . none of this hate-speech, this aggression, this violence -- nor vote stealing --
could be going on if we didn't have the "MSM" helping to protect this right wing activity/


It's also time for all Americans and DU'ers to wake up to 9/11.


If anyone is interested, two journalists did investigate the computer corruption which
was visible to them in the late 1960's.

See Votescam/The Stealing of America
Their book about their investigation has been FREE on line for some time.

http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm

what is being said by these people. I want to get in their faces and shout them down, or worse. I wonder how Ted Kennedy would handle it. I wonder why our democratic leaders just let it continue. I wonder why republicans allow these sick people to speak for them.

I cannot turn the other cheek and allow it to continue, either. I just don't know what to do about it. It's not like they all live in one area and you can avoid their neighborhood. They are thugs who live everywhere. They don't show their faces in my community so I can't confront or avoid them.

The media is to blame for the most of this and how do you stop them? They love this stuff. I wish I was just a mindless fool who didn't care, but I can't turn it off. I don't know what else to say.

I live in a town with a conservative rag as it's flagship paper. The local news is white, urban, and conservative. The whole county has a history going back to the years after the civil war of leaning heavily Republican and Conservative. Though, demographically, the population is trending toward the left, the media remains in the hands of people who prefer to remain well right of center.

It is up to the people to confront a tool that is used against it. When the news is incorrect we need to tell them. Most people, however, are not like those of us here. Most people will not so much as squeak, the go with the flow.

But it is not the media, but those that control the media. If civil war and ethnic cleansing comes to a neighborhood near me or you, it will be our own neighbors who commit those acts while thinking that they are patriots.

in keeping assassinations and election steals covered up --

and in the past keeping assassinations and other political violence from

being questioned openly.

9/11 MIHOP, of course, was basically a "MSM" event -- and until Americans

and DU'ers wake up to that, we're not going to change anything!

Fairness in Broadcasting Doctrine has to be restored --

Regulation of capitalism must be restored --
unregulated capitalism is merely organized crime!

Campaign Finance BRIBERY must be stopped --

Computer voting has to be declared "unconstitutional" --

That would do it for starters .. .

And, of course, breaking up the monopolies -- AGAIN!!!

Congress won't, the president can't, it's not a political thing. It's a community movement.

There used to be a whole, more visible political community thing going -- I'm not

familiar with it, however, so must be gone a long time! OTOH, GOP seems to have it!

My experience with Dems at local level is swarms of people come in to change the system

-- and they are used pre-elections and then shooed away. Meanwhile, the citizens get a

pretty good look then at the monied end of the Dem Party and they also understand what's

going on.

It's near impossible to do anything without at least some leadership -- which they keep

eliminating as fast as it rises; not taking any chances any longer on another JFK or MLK

or FDR rising.

We really need some new ideas -- both re demonstrations and with a Plan B.

We have large pools of money, but no strings on Democrats.

As I've said before, how about liberal/progressive Americans hire Erin Brockovich to represent us?

It's really disappointing that the AFL-CIO didn't call their union members out and Dems out

to demonstrate for MEDICARE FOR ALL --

And, where are the liberal women's groups? Certainly this is a huge issue for women/children!

He told us that it was up to us to make the change. Meanwhile, we're all star struck and still riding on the high of the Nov 2008 win and the hate mongers are running over us.

At the least we should have been able to knock out Baucus!!!

If we keep sitting around like this we're going to miss the boat, I think !!!

:)

totally destroy democracy -- !!!

You have to begin to control the excess privileges of the right wing elites --

reign in wealth again as the New Deal did --

Renew the Fairness Doctrine -- STOP campaign finance BRIBERY -- break up monopoly

corporations -- Renew regulations on capitalism . . . unregulated capitalism is

merely organized crime!

And can you do this with a two-party system owned by corporations?

Where's the Plan B?


What you're looking at and reacting to are the "thugs" the right-wing creates because

they're they're able to with lies --

Not unlike their "pro-life" murderers who seriously believe that women should be

denied self-determination because a fertilized egg is involved!

Not unlike males still under the spell of patriarchy who want to reinforce male supremacy.

Not unlike the GOPs/NRA gun nuts -- who fear other Americas and think they can protect
themselves from our military!

And not unlike their newly created "no health care" reform nuts -- newly minted by the GOP!

It's not the thugs you have to control -- it's those behind them!

2-party system is to KEEP the masses divided. God forbid that we should come together against corporate-controlled America!

I just saw this and was inspired-hope you will be too.



www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWKsR0gugww&feature=PlayList&p=EE82AF2EF6339CE5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

So inspiring - thank you so much for sharing - will have to get the movie - it's a keeper. Have you tried posting this in the political videos? It's from 2007 I think and mau have already been posted, but it would be worth a try to post anyway - too good not to share. If it's archived, maybe post the archived link?

hope but I hope someone can. This was from the man (Tommy Douglas) that championed Canadian health care among other things. He could school Obama. This message needs to get out and I think we haven't heard it is not because this happened in Canada, but because a little mouse with an idea can be very dangerous to fat cats.

and they don't fear the citizens, which is one reason things have gotten so bad. If some right-wing corporatist blood were to be spilt, you might finally see some change.

before long. So poor unemployed person, no benefits, no money, hungry. will just snap on day and blame these CEO's and their golden parachutes and go off the deep end.

between Americans and would -- eventually -- be the worst of dangers caused by Reaganism.

those years you're talking about and I feel the clock is ticking away and we just keep watching and waiting for......... WHAT??

I'm tired of saying it over and over again... We MUST Protest! We MUST find some way to get it done! We MUST get really serious about it too! The Corporations & Big Shots ARE NOT going to give up any power and they are mowing us down like sheep, EVERY... SINGLE... DAY!!!

They mean well, but lack the fundamentals of humanity. Remember we outnumber them. Perhaps, we need to ORGANIZE. Perhaps, we need to EDUCATE. Perhaps we need to say NO to BIG BUSINESS and BUY LOCAL. ETC., ETC., ad infinitum. Perhaps we need to get off the internet and ACT.

they will be now be treated as the true fringe minority that they are. They get press because they are loud- there are more of us and maybe we need to be LOUDER!!! good post

I might as well say it - are they with THEM or against THEM?

I'm totally expecting the worst by year-end, and not sure how to play it.

a very joyful bridal shower for my soon to be wonderful daughter in law and other running around. It struck me today that I am experiencing a swing between such joy and such saddness at what is happening to us as a nation. That being said, I thought tonight that we might start with the people we support...our senators and reps...the people we put so much faith in...where the hell are they?

Maybe a first step is to contact them...as their faithful supporters..and tell them that they must speak NOW because ultimately the worst sin is when good men do nothing.

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

I know that some people object to the AA approach but these words say it all. We can change this. We must change this. I really believe there are lives in the balance.

Let's get to our own people and talk to them about courage...and decency.

I think that might be a first step for all of us.

please read my response in #123. It is to corporate America's advantage to keep the masses divided into a 2-party system, and all of us, like blind sheep, are playing right into their hands.

:grr:

They come across more as enemies of the state (literally) than as Americans. The fact that we are stuck with them forever depresses me no end. I wish I believed in the Rapture, so I could cling to the hope that the worst of them would be Raptured away, but of course that is just more of their brain-dead superstition.

It doesn't look good for America, folks.

I am descended from Native Americans. I had to laugh when I read your post, because I read it from a Native American perspective. I'm not offended, just amused. :hi:

So right I am struck snarkless and witless! And that takes a lot.

mainly for being in your position more times than I would like to admit! LOL
Your post was right on - only a few of us would have seen the humor in it....

Peace.

lost to an a dusty archive, imo.

Father Coughlin, who had to be silenced when he started to get in the way of the war effort.

Walter Winchell, who was one of the sprearheads of anti-communist hysteria.

The entire Hearst organization, which decided policy and started and stopped wars.

And so many others in the past who kept the hatreds of the times alive. Are we any worse now than when we had Jim Crow laws? Labor riots and massacres? Thomas Nast cartoons? Two thirds of the population not having the right to vote?

The ugly side of America is again coming out from under its rocks and dark places, but as bad as it seems to us now, we may be hearing the death rattles of this primitive ignorance.

(I hope so, anyway.)

of the hate/religion tie I spoke of. He was perceived as speaking God's word by many people. In reality he was a deranged, hateful, anti semetic "Crusader".