For several months Riverdaughter at The Confluence was a vocal advocate of Occupy Wall Street. Yesterday was the long-advertised reboot of OWS, with demonstrations planned across the country.
So where was Riverdaughter?
She didn’t do any posts promoting yesterday’s activities. She didn’t travel to Zuccotti Park to live-blog the events. She didn’t even mention OWS. Is she okay? Did she finally see the light have a change of heart? Did she not see the bat signal?
Inquiring minds want to know. I would ask her myself but she banned me.
BTW – Lambert and the Corrente Crew were pretty quiet too.
The Crawdad Hole 
Obama ate a dog.
Maybe they’ve realized that OWS will never be the Tea Party of the left? Where are the OWS candidates ? Isn’t that how you change the system?
I certainly think OWS is probably making the Tea Party look better and better to the middle.
According to Gallup, Tea Party is pretty much the middle with 41% Dems/Indies/Pumas. That’s me, a “DIP” 😀
Their silence speaks volumes.
No mention of yesterday’s events in today’s post either:
http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/pfizer-begins-to-divest-and-cuts-research-by-30/
RD’s a very smart lady, I wish she’d consider teaching. Also, she could do well as a Drug Rep.
I haven’t commented on any of the controversies swirling around Elizabeth Warren mainly because I live in California. Whether or not she should be a senator is up to the voters of Massachusetts.
But I had a bad feeling about her candidacy from the time it was first announced. They ran her out of DC and denied her a job she earned, then urged her to run for the Senate. I think she would make an outstanding senator but I had a sneaking suspicion she was being set up.
Maybe it’s just me but she was thoroughly vetted by the FBI so the White House would have access to her deepest, darkest secrets and leaking dirty laundry is an Obama specialty.
Obama doesn’t like women who can challenge him. It wouldn’t surprise me if this were one of the many “surprises” Obama, et al, have in store for anyone who seeks power while TehOnce (t/h angienc) is in office.
I think 0 doesn’t like women, period.
I live in MA, and I’m not particularly displeased with Scott Brown. I never worshiped at the Kennedy throne, and, frankly, anyone not named Kennedy was a breath of fresh air. I worked for Martha Coakley because it’s time that MA send more women to DC, but that was the only real reason I backed her. When she walked down the wrong garden path, I was disappointed, but I’m pretty good at dusting myself off.
I’m prepared to vote for Elizabeth Warren, but I’m not working for her. I really am a moderate, and she’s too far left and too authoritarian for me. I did go hear her speak, and I left unimpressed. The night I heard her speak she talked about businesses taking from the community and giving nothing back. That hasn’t been my experience, and I have been a “local official”. Businesses around here give a lot back to our community. I wish she was running on what she really is, which is a wealthy Harvard professor, instead of embellishing her past to try to be just one of the folks. It makes her look as sleazy as the rest of the bunch. But if everyone is sleazy, the sleaze that gets elected might as well wear a skirt. There is another woman in the race who appears to be the real deal, but Scottie will eat her for lunch if she gets the nomination.
The primary in MA isn’t until September so there’s plenty of time for the Democrats to flush Warren. Or maybe they’re not displeased with Scottie either, and they’re out to embarrass Warren for whatever crimes against the administration they believe she committed. Her fundraising lately is pale compared to Brown’s so while initially it looked like she would as well-funded as he is, now not so much.
You know, my impression from the tea party-leaning blogs is that they think Brown sold out to the establishment and they aren’t interested in supporting him for a 2nd term. But when Warren started making supportive noises about OWS, the tea party peeps decided that she sounded dangerous and they might as well send a few buck to Brown to keep her out of power.
So her presence actually might be helping Brown’s fundraising by polarizing the race.
No Republican, including Mitt Romney, who can get himself or herself elected to anything in MA will ever satisfy the Tea Party. Conservatives will always have to settle for “better than the Democrat” here. That being said, MA doesn’t seem to have as big a problem electing Republicans to statewide office as we do exporting them to DC. Before Brown, the last Republican senator was Edward Brooke who lost his bid for re-election to a third term to Tsongas in 1978. While Brooke was the first black senator ever, we’ve never elected a woman. Thus my vote for Warren while my support for her ideology is tepid.
I’d take a MA pol over a Chicago pol, either party, any day. 😀
I don’t know. We’ve sent the last three Speakers of House to jail. lol
And we’ve sent at least 3 recent governors to jail here in IL. And don’t even mention the representatives, aldermen, and suburban mayors that are under indictment or in (or recently released from) jail.
I agree. Here’s what I said on the P&L fanpage about it yesterday:
I’d still vote for her, but she deserves to get dinged for this. The boys do when they embellish their military records, etc.
Still, even though I think this, I can’t help but also feel it’s traditional Massachusetts sexism rearing its ugly head. What is up with their resistance to vote for women? Freakin’ Mary Dyer and Anne Hutchison statues adorn either end of their statehouse, but they still haven’t learned anything about witch hunts? How serious is this in the grand scheme of things, and how much of it is New England pretense for avoiding gender diversity once again?
Some of it is sexism. But some of the disenchantment with her is coming from people who are tired of the “nannyism” that’s going around. We have the the police chief in Middleboro asking for fines for swearing in public, the people in Concord voting to ban the sale of individual sized water in plastic bottles, and who knows what the People’s Republic of Cambridge will come up with next. They’ve already tried to force restaurants to go vegan one day a week. Warren represents herself as being in favor of more regulations. At some point it doesn’t matter whether the regulations are good or not. While we may be “bluer than blue”, that doesn’t mean that we’re ultra-liberal. If we were, six of the last ten governors wouldn’t have been Republicans.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/01/10000-bounty-offered-online-for-obama-college-transcripts/
I saw that yesterday. I wonder if people will chip in more money for the bounty. LOL,
When I do the laundry today, I’m sending them all of the money I find in elliesdad’s pockets.
FoolishReporter puts his Seattle MayDay pix on his blog
http://foolishreporter.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/may-day-madness-black-bloc-anarchists-go-hulk-smash-on-seattle/
It seems like the anarchists take away our freedom by removing the ability to hold a large, peaceful demonstration. They show up and bring chaos, destruction and tear gas (from police).
Parts of Seattle were shut down by the behavior of anarchists yesterday and the damage and riots are all anyone remembers about the protest.
Yup. And they give the govt cover to further crack down on civil liberties.
I don’t doubt that there were anarchists in Seattle – or anywhere else, but it has also been my firsthand experience that there are inflitraters (gov’t sponsored) who also lead the destruction and chaos in order to discredit those who gather with the goal of peaceful demonstrations. Say what you will, but that did happen in chicago during the anit-bush/Iraq war protests. And I’m certain in other cities as well.
That’s what happened in my home country. Bombs during protests were the official justification for the formal declaration of martial law.
All the same – if the real protesters actually had a clear agenda of non-violence, they would not have allowed the anarchists to march with them. That makes it harder to be infiltrated. Peaceful protesting requires discipline and commitment and strong leadership. Without that you just have a mob and that always does what mobs do.
What would the current administration’s motives be for wanting to discredit OWS? I understand why an administration would want to infiltrate a demonstration against its policies, but it appears that Obama supports OWS.
Not with the purpose of discrediting OWS but with the goal of stirring up unrest and violence across the nation (which includes Sharpton’s inciting AAs to violence in the name of Trayvon).
It’s a common strategy for authoritarian regimes – stir up some violence and then say that you are saving the day by cracking down with stricter rules for everyone.
I really hope the American public doesn’t fall for it.
I don’t know about other places, but here in chicago, anything seen by the mayor’s office as potentially problematic, is “cleared out or cleaned up” asap. I also think that when the CPD or other agencies “create” chaos and then ride in to “straighten things up”, they seduce the “man on the street” (or not on the street in this case) into thinking he/she has just been saved… again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-whopper-about-an-ohio-river-bridge/2012/04/30/gIQA7NMasT_blog.html
Ohio does not “own” the Ohio river. Kentucky owns it. So when Obummer appeared on the Ohio river side and blasted Boehner he appeared to not know which of the 57 states actually co-owns along with the federal government the interstate bridges along the river.
I’m shocked, shocked I say that TehOne does not knowl about US geography or government or social mores or anything else. I mean, he was taught in another country, how could he know? /s
I don’t have a problem with Obama not knowing which state owns the Ohio River. Most people educated in the United States not living in Ohio or Kentucky probably don’t know, either. I do have a problem with his not having a competent staff to keep him from continually making gaffes in prepared speeches and a protocol office to manage his lack of knowledge of social mores. He needs a “gaffe czar”.
So the fact that Anonymous anarchists have been deeply involved in OWS from the start, not just “hanging around the edges” as some claim, is starting to be more evident to a lot of people. One OWS organizer had a rare moment of honesty on MSNBC:
I’m seeing many OWS defenders no longer denying that the anarchists and communists and radicals are even around in any great numbers (which is what they were saying before.) Now they’ve shifted to “well, you can’t control who shows up when you hold a protest”.
Sure you can. You can confront them when they show up. You can publicly go on camera and say that radical communists and anarchists are NOT welcome. You can carry signs pointing at the “infiltrators” as NOT WITH US. You know, all the things that the teapartiers did when a few dickheads showed up at their rallies. You can exclude them from your tents and organizational meetings and planning sessions.
The creeps have been part of the movement from day one, and OWS has made no effort at all to expel them, and has in fact welcomed them. Saying that “MOST of us are peaceful and didn’t bust any windows” doesn’t negate that association that they themselves accepted and encouraged.
Here’s the video. “Anarchy isn’t easy.” But see, they are just some guys who showed up, no connection to OWS. Even though this guy is involved enough in organizing that MSNBC picked him to interview.
Oh, and as for “showing what life is like without the 99%”, I really wish the 1% would take them up on that game. Let’s strip them of their capitalist clothes, their capitalist computers, their capitalist food produced by Big Ag, their capitalist tents, and anything else made and produced by the hated capitalist system. Shut off the cellphones too, because those networks are maintained by those capitalist telecom giants.
I’m not saying that our big corporations in conjunction with govt. don’t have some issues that need to be addressed. They do. But turning it all into a blanket condemnation of capitalism is just childish.
Every single person in this country, regardless of any rich/poor gap, has a better lifestyle and more goods and services than MOST of the planet. You know what did that? Capitalism did. You can make an effort to correct and cushion some of the inevitable abuses of capitalism without throwing out the system that has resulted in more prosperity for more people than any other system in the world.
Capitalism can tend to make people unequally wealthy. But all the others tend to make people equally poor, and still maintain a privileged class at the very top, consisting of the elite politicos. Easy choice, IMO.
When you are a frequent commenter to MSNBC, you are no longer an anarchist. sheesh~
think that maybe riverdaughter has fallen off the ideo log….
I also wanted to suggest to her that her time would be better spent networking with people who actually had jobs and might know of an opening somewhere for her, but I tread on dangerous ground over there too often already.
I hope this guys gets arrested – hits a woman cop in the back of the head while she’s not looking:
http://www.therightscoop.com/cheap-shot-occupier-assaults-female-cop-in-the-back-of-head-with-snare-drum
Assaulting a police officer can bring some serious slammer time. IhopeIhopeIhope. It’s so obvious their only goal is provoking authority for those “bad” photo ops of police brutality.
Yawnnnnn. On deck, Chicago next week ? I keep reading tidbits that the police are asking residents in certain areas near the Nato Summit to evacuate for the duration.
It’s utterly crazy. They have told us at work to cancel our vacations. Some people are actually being directed to be at work the entire weekend (without any extra pay of course) jist in case. There has been such hysteria on the part of the police and city gov’t. There is a “red zone” that is growing every day (I am told – as I don’t work near downtown) with heavy police presence in enforcement garb waiting for trouble to start. I’m not going anywhere near that area for the next month, at least.
Sections of highways into the city are going to be closed making it nearly impossible for some people to get to work even though they work far from that area. TehOne and his thugs are making their mark by creating an environment that is destined for trouble.
JUST in case.
my ytping sucks.
Leslie, that just sucks. How long is the area supposed to be closed off? We’re supposed to drive down to downtown Chi-town early June.
Fem, the highway I am most certain of is the Stevenson (I-55). So it depends on which direction you’re driving. But by June, everything should be clear. The summit is (I think) the third weekend around the 20th. If it lasts even a week, it will be over by the end of the month. I hope you enjoy your visit.
Right now, there is a zone around the Federal Bldg. in the Loop. I understand the nearer to the summit date, the wider the net will be. I don’t know why they began so early in the month. Maybe they are simply practicing. Because I work west of the Loop, and I come from the north, I don’t pass anywhere near the Fed. I haven’t seen anything.
Cartoon of the day
Stay classy ladies.
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/04/30/unite-against-the-war-on-women-march-los-angeles/
The most annoying thing about some of those signs is the melding and confusing of “keep it legal” with “You have to pay for it.”
Guess what, women? If you stop making the fight over choice about legality, and start making it a fight about “You guys have to pay for my elective abortion!”, we are going to LOSE that fight.
Sorry, but we are. Fucking idiots.
“Free abortion on demand.” 🙄
I object to “Rock the Sluts”. I don’t want to own that word. Whether I agree with anything they stand for or not, I won’t go anywhere near them. How can we object to Limbaugh using that word with women marching in their underwear under a banner that declares that women are sluts?
I have a problem with that too. They frequently do this for Take Back the Night Marches. Slut attire for the Slut Walk.
I so agree with this. Taking on the word “slut,” using symbols of cartoon f*ck-me dolls, etc. is nothing more than wrapping the patriarchy in a pink bow & calling it feminism. I want nothing to do with it.
Also, the real truth is, as long as both parties can keep women distracted with these distractions about contraception & abortion, the longer we will stay without what we really need: Economic Parity. 40 years of the “women’s movement” and we’re still paid 77 cents for every dollar a man makes in the exact same job. That is what we should be concerned with -not contraception, not abortion — Economic Parity. If we had that, all the other issues would resolve themselves.
Me three. I hate the s-word.
“That is what we should be concerned with -not contraception, not abortion — Economic Parity. If we had that, all the other issues would resolve themselves.”
Yes, yes, yes. Economic Parity is what we need. If Obama didn’t know that this is women’s real concern then the makers of that Tom Hanks narrated tripe wouldn’t have slipped in the words Fair Pay Act during the scene where he’s signing Lily Ledbetter. But Obot women will still salivate as that carrot is dangled in front of them.
Oh, fembot, don’t even get me started on the lies surrounding the Lily Ledbetter Act — the Obots, to a (wo)man all going around saying it guarantees “equal pay” when we all (here at least) know that it doesn’t. The Fair Pay Act didn’t pass; Lily Ledbetter merely extends the statute of limitations to bring a pay discrimination claim against an employer & it does that for both men & women who may have such a claim. It doesn’t even make proving such a claim any easier. But the Obots will believe whatever TehOnce tells them as they clearly can’t even read his books, much less actual laws.
angienc, from what I can tell, Lily Ledbetter is mostly going to benefit trial lawyers more than anything else.
The guardian says TSA makes the USA a police state. Can’t argue with that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/18/tsa-mission-creep-us-police-state
The TSA’s mission creep is making the US a police state
The out-of-control Transportation Security Administration is past patdowns at airports – now it’s checkpoints and roadblocks
Bringing it on-topic – I have a great suggestion for OWS. If they want to get real wide-spread support, they should start protesting the TSA.
Oh wait, I forgot that they aren’t against government, they are against private enterprise.
Yup. Today’s left seems to have no problem with govt oppression, so long as it’s oppression “from the left” of people they don’t like. They insist that the problem is that corporations have bought our govt, and don’t want to consider that perhaps its also that our govt has bought/controlled certain of our corporations via the power of regulation and tax policy.
Govt is a great check on corporate power, so long as the rules are simple, fair, and apply to all. The moment govt starts picking winners and losers, and writing regulations that favor this corporation over that corporation, and this sector gets a waiver while that sector gets crushed, then the problem is as much Big Govt as it is Big Corp.
As I’ve said repeatedly over the years, I don’t hate either govt OR corporations. I’m just pissed that BOTH of them have a) overstepped their bounds, and b) gotten in bed together. And this pollyanna business of viewing that as ALL the fault of the corporations overpowering our poor poor weenie govt is bullshit. If the way to make a better profit is to suck up to the rules-makers to get things gamed in your favor, guess what they are going to do?.
OWS was carefully designed as a cult with abstract lofty goals and an organizational structure and rules created to never be able to succeed at those goals. Make people spin their wheels, burn up their energy, be more dependent on the organization, and very importantly not really see the real leaders making decisions, as they lead them by the nose around in circles. It was done using the template developed for OFA and the original Obama campaign mechanisms.
What has been the result. A lot of liberal energy was burned up. Independent Dem leaning people were divided. It kept a lid on any anti-Obama efforts by independent Dem leaning people. It helped prevent any primary efforts against Obama. Think about it, before OWS Sanders and a few others were saying they would primary Obama. Michael Moore and others were starting to make noise against Obama. There was more and more division in the Dem ranks. With OWS, all of that got shut down.
Many of us saw Obama for what he was, and many of us saw OWS for what it was. In both cases, for seeing through the BS we got called names, banned, and isolated. Both movements have been effective. The result is the near destruction of the liberal brand and the Dem brand. It’s almost the ultimate victory for the 1% as some call it. Helped along by people that should know better.
Yup. You are exactly right, Dandy. It makes one look at the determination of the TeaParty (whether you agree with all their goals or not) with newly appreciative eyes.
They haven’t been 100% successful, but they have certainly made a dent. They got a lot of the old guard GOP primaried in 2010, and are doing it again in 2012. They are taking over their local party delegate system and machinery in many states. After the first round of rallies to draw attention, they packed up their signs and went home to WORK at organizing and taking over the GOP. Because they are not stupid. They understand that holding signs and chanting may draw attention, but isn’t going to actually change anything. The media cracks me up with their musings at how the TeaParty has “disappeared”. ROTFL! Yeah, because if you are not out running around with signs and yelling, you are not doing anything at all. That’s a hoot.
The teaparty now has the GOP at least respectful and wary of them, if not scared shitless and enraged. And there has been pushback from the entrenched GOP, because they have been effective. And they are busy online and in their local communities working on seizing the levers of political power, not futilely marching.
No one on the Dem side even bothers to pushback against OWS. Wanna know why? Because they know that not only are they no threat to the status quo, they are actually very helpful.
Exactamundo.
And the TP didn’t have the need for “rape-free zones”….
While I totally agree, I do think it’s time we stopped licking our wounds. Who gives a fuck if we were betrayed and called names? We learned our lesson and now we get to be as ruthless with them and their hopes and dreams as they were with us and ours.
Why do we even care what RD is up to anymore? She very definitely has demarcated the line in the sand. She doesn’t want to stand with us and PUMA has been so fractured to hell and back I’m seriously considering one of those archetype posts making fun of the different routes people have taken (usually back to the veal pen).
Fuck them all. Our ideas are the ascendant ideas. The people whose votes are up for grabs are falling in line with us, not them. We need to recognize this, empower ourselves with it, and work for victory, instead of keeping ourselves small licking these wounds that will never heal. FTR, I’m not bitching at you, DT, I’m just saying my 2 cents on the matter.
That sounds fun. 😀
I get the “who cares” but I also think myiq is entitled to as many neener-neener posts as he wants considering how he’s always one of their favorite punching bags. File it under cheap but satisfying therapy. 😉
Ha! I don’t disagree, though Oswald did write this. I don’t mind the neener neener posts, because at least that’s aggressive. I don’t even mind the wound-licking. To each her or his own. But sometimes the whole we-got-called-names-and-banned thing comes across as you’re-still-talking-about-that-dude/chick? You broke up, like, 3 years ago!
RD made a big stink about OWS being the new messiah. She shouldn’t try to sneak off and pretend she doesn’t know them.
I haven’t forgotten, myiq. Please don’t misunderstand me to be defending RD. That’s maybe not the LAST thing I’d do, but close to it.
No wound licking. I have no wounds from any of this. When obots or owsies call me racist or whatever, they’re like small children making rude noises. It doesn’t mean anything, and I consider the source. Just like when a Republican calls me or most any Dem or ex-Dem a commie. Whatever dude.
I’m voting against Obama as a protest vote and the same for any big, aggressive supporter of Obama. I’m voting to mess up the system and cause trouble. I’m voting for a bit of chaos. I don’t have any delusions that Romney would be better. Indeed he could even be worse, though I doubt it. At least when he does the same stuff as Obama, it won’t hurt the Dem brand, if there is any brand left.
Mostly we want to make noise and call these people on their BS. Any efforts of race baiting or any other crap the OWS/OFA BS brigade is pulling, they should be called out and ridiculed. These people represent the ultimate in cynical faux rage and faux caring of the little guy I’ve ever seen, and are destroying any real movement or policy ideas of actually doing something to make for a more just and fair world. In a word, they’re evil.
I get the point that Lola is making, but that isn’t how I’ve read your posts. That it was more of an attempt to place into context exactly why a bunch of liberals are ABO within that particular news story or new Obama illusionary/divisive/self-serving policy.
Wanting to purge the party of Obots is the cynical but in my opinion pragmatic solution. And the same one that the Tea Party came to with their party….many months after us.
So licking wounds is the last thing I read….
More like this is Obama’s modus operandi and resistance isn’t futile.
Fair enough, both of you.
Like I said below, I get your point. But we get a lot of drive by posters who assume that due to one thread they’ve spotted a Republican rat-f*cker operation. Even RD accused us of that for the temerity of being right about a lot more topics than Obama. Posters she walked with for years!
To prove our ideas are the ascendant ideas, to those lurkers, drive by posters, pinged articles, and twitter followers they’ve been actively engaging with, you have to state your case from time to time.
DT is proudly showing battle scars of proven wisdom not offering up boo-boos for RD or anyone else to kiss.
Oops…this didn’t nest where I thought it would…lol
I did get your point above, but I also don’t give a fuck about being accused of ratfuckery. I AM a ratfucker. I ratfuck for women. I’ll attempt to convince anybody any time to vote for women, all of ’em, every time until we actually achieve parity. And I don’t mind being underhanded about it. If six year olds could vote I’d be bribing their asses with toys, that’s how important this is. If that’s ratfucking, so be it. The charge is infantile, made by idiots, and we really shouldn’t care what powerless children are doing. Again, my 2 cents.
Now I want a t-shirt that says “I ratfuck for women.” 😀
Good points. And you are right, even if you are accused of ratfuckery, getting that info out there is important. As well as wearing that accusation proudly.
One of the non-political sites I started visiting to blow off steam has been my newest place to drop info about Obama, the health care bill, war on women, RBC meeting. No one was really challenging Obama on threads that I could see.
So now it’s a few months later and they are talking about the WH correspondents dinner. And post after post isn’t supportive of Obama. There were so many negative posts that the Obama supporters were asking if it was a conservative site that they’ve been reading for years. 😉
Obviously, I can’t be sure my negative posts had anything to do with it…but there was too much blind Obama love to stay quiet even at the fun site.
LOL…at the toys line.
“It [OWS] kept a lid on any anti-Obama efforts by independent Dem leaning people. It helped prevent any primary efforts against Obama.”
Absolutely.
Taliban says Kabul bomb killing 7 is their response to Obama’s visit. If true, that makes it his most expensive campaign trip, imo, since it cost civilian lives.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/01/afghan-official-reports-3-explosions-shooting-in-capital-city
I know this is an unpopular opinion around here, but I understand why people wanted OWS to be something it was never going to be. We the people have been abandoned by the uni-party. Are we truly a democracy when we have no real options in the voting booth? IMO, it’s pretty damn depressing. While I’m content in voting Green, others wanted and hoped for another choice to open up. I can’t blame them. It’s only human to hope.
The Hope™ snake-oil peddlers have snookered a lot of people. Now they’re selling Anarchy™. Shame on them, the slimy bat rastards.
On a lighter note, Anarchists from Ohio would make a great name for a band.
I totally understand why – I wanted it to be a real movement for the people. I wanted it to be a tea party of the left, reforming the establishment left just as the TP attempts to reform the establishment right.
But it turned out to be a trojan horse from the start.
Exactly
I understand why people wanted OWS to be something it was never going to be.I just have a problem with people who let themselves be snookered. Again. You know that old “fooled me once” line that Bush had so much trouble with. I think that for some people who rejected the whole “hope thing” in 2008, like Riverdaughter, went straight to desperation. Mostly it makes me sad.
It’s sad that not only did they fall for it when they should have known better, they started attacking friends who tried to warn them.
Very cultish.
Amen! 🙂
Yes, votermom, this is key — and tragic, since we need/ed to keep our alliances (i.e. what I still refer to as “PUMA”) intact for the upcoming election. Personal meltdowns and gratuitous attacks by RD against posters for having different view points and using “incorrect” terminology is really sad. Who knew it would end up this way….
I didn’t know what to expect, so last fall, I visited the OWS site in chicago to find out who and what was there. At that time (only a week or so into OWS -Chicago) there were some people who were as hopeful as could be that this would be a movement with the energy and intelligence to make a difference and change the direction. There were people with anti-obama as well as ant-WS signs. But I was less impressed with some of the leaders who challenged me in particular about my invwestment in the future. One young man asked me if I wasn’t feeling guilty that I was using up his Social Security !!!!! First, I don’t and won’t receive SS and second, he was all about what he could get for NOTHING. I said he wasn’t doing himself or The Movement any favors by talking like that to people – especially people who were demonstrating against big government and corrupt business before he was ever born. I then expressed myself in less-than-polite terms before I left.
No, that pretty sums up my feelings as well. I wanted OWS to be more than it turned out to be, and completely understand why people got caught up in it. But the whole thing smelled from the start.
It truly is a shame that so many people are being snookered. And that Obama doesn’t have enough honor to win re-election with actual policy gains. Nor does he try and lead these kids to a more productive service model for his re-election or policy changes.
He had a lot more to say about the Tea Party than these destructive OWSers/kids. He could lead OWS to peaceful protests with one of his infamous speeches and most of them would follow and shun those who don’t. But he told them to get into people’s faces….
Occupy Wall Street report card (also notes silence of blogs like DKos)
http://leestranahan.com/my-occupy-wall-street-report-card
Having fun tagging this photo
More Trayvon-linked violence. http://hamptonroads.com/2012/05/beating-church-and-brambleton
This summer is going to suck. Last summer waves and waves of black teens started randomly attacking white people in cities around the country. Now they have politicization of Trayvon’s death to add fuel to the fire. All part of the show.
I had forgotten about those flash mobs. You are absolutely right.
I expect gun sales to go really high too, in reaction to this.
This made me LOL
Ok, that made me laugh out loud. Just Ellie and me here so she’s giving me that humans are stupid look.
Anybody reading this?
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/06/young-barack-obama-in-love-david-maraniss
What a puking mindfuck!
Well, there’s been a lot of “speculating” going on about why none of Obama’s girlfriends from his college years have come forward. The speculation being that there were no girlfriends, only boyfriends. I would guess that this article is supposed to put that speculating to rest. The timing is impeccable anyway.
LOLOLOL. You could not pay me to read that oh-so-exquisite romance.
Ok, twitter is having a lot of fun with composite girlfriends now because of that , and this
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/05/obama-ny-girlfriend-was-composite-character-122272.html
https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23compositegirlfriends
I finally saw a post by lambert on black bloc ops yesterday – it was tucked away on “quick hits” which means it is not on the front page.
http://www.correntewire.com/theres_always_an_asshole_black_bloc_smashy_smashy_in_seattle
DeNile runs strong in this one.
Uh huh. Because the fact that many of these Black Bloc assholes have shared the tents, the chores, the planning sessions, the organizing, the advertising, the structure, and the funding for OWS with no complaints or attempts to kick them out by anyone, makes them SO a very separate “brand”.
Keep dreaming, Corrente.
One of the idiots in Ohio was the Occupy Cleveland spokesman.
Reason.tv usually puts out a good video…..from the May Day march…it’s a fast 5 minutes 😀
wait, we’re those zombies actually making fun of Occupy protesters?
Didn’t the Reason guy ask them if the change they wanted be helped by dressing as … zombies? Heh.
Okay, I know nothing about this guy here in TX, but I may have to vote for him simply for having the nerve and sense of humor to run this ad.
It’s time for a politician who has the sense God gave a goat not to pee on the electric fence. Bonus points for quoting Will Rogers. 😀 😀 😀
😆
Now that right there is funny, I don’t care who you are.
ROTFLMFAO ;D
He’d have my vote.
Amen! 🙂
LMAO! Brilliant!
that is great. If he becomes railroad commissioner, I have the feeling more trains would run on time.
Gah. Just sprayed entire back yard with Cutter (the concentrate kind you hook to the hose). Pardon me, my organic-only lovelies, but the bugs out here were eating us and the dogs alive. I figure if bombardier beetles can blow explosives out their ass, and various plants can exude poisons to keep pests at bay, and jellyfish can secrete all manner of nasties if annoyed, then man evolved to enlarge on those ideas and spray the hell out of those little effing biters.
It’s DARWIN, baby, and I’m top o’ the food chain. Meet Homo sapiens, PINNACLE OF NATURE, muthafuckers. *SQUIIIIIIIIIRTTTTTTTTT!!!!*
Speaking of Darwin, my husband loves feeding the squirrels and rabbits = squirrels and rabbits tearing up my butterfly/hummingbird garden. Cute goes only so far …. grrrrr 😉 I’m an original bunny hugger too, I do catch and release for house flies. HOWEVER, if any critter, no matter how low on the chain, interrupts my RIGHT to be comfortable, I’ll smash the guts out of them 😀
Most of our fertilizing, etc is organic, and we feed EVERYTHING in our yard. We have at the moment SEVEN bird feeders, plus suet for the woodpeckers, plus a couple of whole peanut feeders for the squirrels. Oh, and a bungee-cord thing for the squirrels that we hang big blocks of pressed corn/seed on. That one is funny, because they bounce. We also have two trickle water fountains in the yard for the critters.
We have the fattest squirrels and rabbits and birds you ever saw. I go so far as to set out live mealworms in winter for the birds. Oh, and the possums and raccoons get fed too. Our squirrels come up onto the patio, hop onto the table with us sitting right there, and give us the dirty eyeball: “Where’s my fecking PEANUTS, lady?!” They will then wait right there on the table while I go inside to get some, and take them out of my hand.
I love nature, but I have my limits. Start eating up my legs and I’ll go as safe as I can with the chemicals, but you are gonna be DEAD, Mr. bug.
Start eating my legs … or flying in my face with mass swarms — yeah, I’m talking to you gnats! — you’re gonna get smooshed!
Rest assured, wmcb, bugs will outlive human kind.
OT: http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/05/obama-ny-girlfriend-was-composite-character-122272.html
Well this explains a lot. Obama doesn’t even see us as real people, just related bits of ladydom to be strung together into one women.
I hope Michelle kicks his scrawny ass.
Oh crap, I reposted this way down thread. We are merely pieces of the holograph to him.
if meeeschelle paid close to $3,000 for this sweater, she got took.
that has to be one of the ugliest sweaters I have ever seen.
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/05/02/shared-sacrifice-queen-michelle-sporting-3000-sweaters/
Check this out –
maybe that is why she and backtrack get along, her taste is like dog crap
That toilet paper masterpiece she wore on inauguration day was the worst. It looked like someone turned an old bedspread into a prom dress.
Several of her designers have gone out of business. I can see why.
champagne pocket book – chamber pot taste
Who wears SILK shirts to NASCAR events? Most people show up in t-shirts in case the rubber flies on them, or other parts of oily burning car parts hit them.
Ben Shapiro:
This wasn’t an essay test. It was a letter to his girlfriend.
Anyone who can expound on poetry like that is not right in the head. No wonder Chris Bowers loves him.
writing letters like that he did not make out much did he?
I went out with 20 something young men years ago. I raised a son. I worked with mostly males in the newspaper industry and the railroad industry, I can not think of one who would write like this and think they could impress a woman
I just think it is funny that this crap is coming out now. Needed for re election maybe??????
They must think the Mittens campaign is about to float something “unseemly” from his extended adolescence. They are trying to make him look normal with his composite girlfriends. I bet they are a figment of Ayers imagination too. And this boring crap is funny in its pretentious oddness.
If the girlfriends are composites, might not the “purple” love letters be as well? [that is, fake?]
Lulu, might it not be a preemptive showing of Obama’s high intellect from that era? Did you see someone is offering $10k for any Obama college transcript. If those transcripts show him to have mediocre grades (which I suspect), these love letters will show him for the genius they told us he was in 2008.
http://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2012/05/02/the-last-guy-to-make-a-composite-girlfriend-was-victor-frankenstein/
thought this was perfect
Booman:
It’s called trying to impress people with how smart you are. It’s Mandos’ milieu.
It’s also called being an asshole.
Tru dat
I call it being a pretentious asshole.
Althouse:
She’s right.
That’s exactly the kind of pretentious writing style that you find in books with soft focus blurry outline landscape covers, with the words “A Novel” right under the title (lest you mistake it for a power tool). That come with rave reviews from professors you never heard of, an aimless excuse of a plot, and one-dimensional characters that spout quotes and allusions to other writers in lieu of dialogue.
*shudder*
It’s the kind of writing you find in the desk drawers of english teachers who are only working as english teachers until their great American novel is published.
I find it hard to believe that BO read Eliot, Pound, Yeats, etc. — in class or out of class. Especially with regards to Pound and Eliot’s FOUR QUARTETS, WASTELAND, or the seminal essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” which at best would only be read in undergraduate classes in excerpt form, such texts/authors are usually read in their entirety in graduate school (or if your undergraduate thesis is on one of these authors). Rarer still is for an undergraduate student to have read all of these authors works …. one or two would be believable, but all of the above…no way. Furthermore, as a law student he never would have had time to read these texts. This “letter” is absolute bogus.
I’d like to see BO’s transcripts, specifically the classes he took as an undergraduate or graduate where these texts/authors were taught. And there is no way he read these texts on his own.
The other clue the letter is bogus is that Obama is the least intellectually curious person I’ve ever seen in my life.
I’m sure he copied it in his own handwriting.
Hot Air:
I guess he’s always had issues with women.
he does take the joy out of things for other people.
a sore loser with an ego more inflated than is warranted.
I just do not like that man. Not only for political reasons, he is just not a good man
I do Politcal Sloppy Seconds Best 🙂
http://bloghopenchangery.com/2012/05/02/sweet-floor-cleaning-jesus-not-a-political-post-so-move-on/
today’s bumper sticker
I’d vote for that!
Pray for me – I’m gonna try to wade thru that Vanity Fair hagiography.
If I don’t come back it means I slit my wrists.
That calls for a novena.
I’d rather have stitches.
The bucket is here for you, just emptied.
{{puke}}
Thanks. You want it back?
How was it?
What’s interesting to me is that if a woman who has dated a string of black guys wrote a memoir and included a “composite” sketch of all her rainbeaus, she’ be called a racist and a white bitch.
Likewise if a white man had written in his biography that, while he liked black women and even dated a few, for his political career he’d have to marry a white woman, he’d also be excoriated for racism.
But it’s okay if you are Obama. Actually it’s okay if you’re a black man. Black women can’t even write about their own rainbeaus without getting a thought police patrol from brothers concerned they are betraying the race, even if the brother in question is himself dating or married to a white woman. Check out black women’s blogs sometimes. It’s crazy what those ladies have to endure. But heeeey, it’s a selling point with Obama. WTF?
Nah, i’m good.
Happy Cinco de Quattro.
Don’t forget the real reason for Obama’s lying about the NY girlfriend – ““That was an example of compression I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends, partly out of respect for them.” He just respected them so much that he slammed them without naming them. Ya know, cause he’s such an awesome feminist.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/05/obama-ny-girlfriend-was-composite-character-122272.html
That “composite girlfriend” must have been where he studied about inflation.
Iowa Hawk
we will have a drink to the host
Oh, Gawd. There goes a true glutton for punishment.
I really miss booze right now.
TBogg’s reaction:
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/05/02/the-negroes-took-our-dates/
The stupid is so thick in that little post that it buuuuurns.
1) No one cares about BO sleeping with a white girl. I haven’t heard anyone even mention any racial aspect of it. No. One.
2) I have not heard a single conservative claim that shooting Trayvon Martin was a “good thing”. I’ve heard that it was a sad tragedy, but perhaps a justified shooting – we’ll know when a jury decides.
3) I’ve also not heard a single conservative claim that killing Bin Laden was a bad thing. Not one.
But hey, if just pulling things out of your ass and simply assigning thoughts and motivations to other people is the way the game is played, I can do that too!!
BARARCK OBAMA shot Bin Laden !!! Although Bin Laden may have been a stand-in for any random Muslim, so…… Democrats intent on Muslim genocide!
And, in case it comes up in lefty circles again and I’m not back in time to explain it:
It was a good thing when John Edwards porked his campaign staff, covered it up with campaign money, and humiliated his dying wife. Lefties are all for that kind of thing.
It was a bad thing when Sarah Palin gave birth to her handicapped child, because lefties are ALL raving eugenicists who want to euthanize the handicapped.
TBogg, how can you advocate for killing the handicapped, Muslim genocide, and sleazebag philandering? Don’t argue – I’ve just proven (via the strange alchemy of declaratory sentences) that you do!
I for one welcome our declaratory sentence overlords.
When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Turns out there IS a DHS-OWS connection. Except it’s the other way around – OWS has infiltrated the DHS. LOLOLOLOL.
owies upset at backtrack. O MY that does not look good for him when even the mindless are catching on
http://freebeacon.com/occupy-hope-and-change/
From that article “Other Occupy protesters—who spent the majority of Tuesday cluttering city streets in a series of disorganized mass demonstrations celebrating May Day—accused the president of behaving like a “Nazi,” a charge that could be found particularly offensive in light of accusations that a cohort of Occupy sympathizers are anti-Semitic.”
This is not Obama’s year. There is real fury at him and it is starting to be expressed without fear of name calling. People just don’t care if it is PC or not.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/297488/occupy-s-totalitarian-temptation-charles-c-w-cooke#
This piece really shows what OWS is and why it is not working. They are basically authoritarians and want to appoint themselves to decide every facet of our lives. Obama is one of them.
Freedom and democracy are pretty ugly in practice.
That is what makes it so very interesting. It is messy and contentious. Everyone should be allowed to participate if they want to do so. What we have now is one group telling almost everyone they are not smart or worthy. Persuasion is an art and takes a lot of work.Consensus is hard. They don’t want to do the work to build it. It is easier to demean people and order them around.
Great catch. Good read.
BTW, I might have to make some bulk purchases of Liberal Fascism and send it to all the people who disowned me in the wake of 2008. I still have addresses. 😀
I object to Jonah’s complete misuse of many terms and definitions in that book. And some of it is laughably slanted. However, he’s not stupid, and accurately points out some very uncomfortable truths about the historic authoritarianism of the left. Which I think is needed, since we do get warned about the dangers of the authoritarians of the right all the time.
It always starts out with the noble idea that of course people are going to agree with you regarding what is “good for society”. The problem comes when they discover that (*gasp!*) people generally have their own ideas about what their self-interest is. And convincing and persuading is sooooo hard, and takes too long, and may not work at all. So what to do? How do you make people do what’s good for them? And who decides? And how do you keep the deciders from becoming utterly corrupt themselves? They inevitably get more and more authoritarian as time goes by, to enforce their vision of good.
That’s my problem with collectivist utopianism, no matter what name it goes by. It’s a great theory. A beutiful one in many ways. If it weren’t for those pesky human beings that get in the way every damn time. Individual liberty within a rough framework of prudent laws is the best we are going to do, given human nature – despite its messiness and lack of perfectibility.
Aye. I would expect nothing less from Jonah, of course. He’s very smart, but in many ways a useful tool. Unfortunately, it’s often the case that the truth is hidden somewhere in a mile wide river of bullshit.
Meh. As far as I’m concerned, there are rivers of bullshit both left and right. And given that no one has a “pure stream” of info, I’ve taken to plucking nuggets of truth from either, wherever I may. Shit-free truths are not really to be found these days – I rinse where I need to. 😀
The theory is universally applicable. It’s led to a cherry-pickin’ lifestyle, but we do what we have to. C:)
There really are rivers of BS flowing freely from both sides of the aisle. I don’t believe in the Right’s authoritarianism, being against gays, demanding abstinence only, etc, but I also don’t believe in the Left’s mandatory recycling, mandatory charity, mandatory taxes. I’ve lived long enough to realize there are people who are going to do “wrong” things, things you might think are not in their or anyone elses best interests. And you have to just suck it up because it’s called freedom. People have the freedom to make themselves miserable anyway they see fit. I actually believe that us bleeding hearts have a harder time accepting that then the far Right does. We want to save everybody from their own selves and the line between individual freedom and our own self righteousness often gets blurred.
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/05/02/friendly-fire-san-fran-occupier-hits-fellow-occupier-with-brick-to-the-face/
the oh shit moment of yesterday
Oops! The mayor of Seattle, who has been a huge fan of Occupy, had his home vandalized and his windows smashed last night. Suddenly he’s a big fan of individual property rights and wants the protestors to get a clue.
Ah, the sweet sweet irony. And the scuz-bucketiness as well. Because what, it was all fine for Mr. Mayor when other people’s property and businesses were getting smashed? What an asshole.
All the fine young cannibals think the stew pot is just desserts, because they always imagine that it will be that other guy bubbling. And you know, it never is in the end. Eventually, they start looking hungrily at you.
This is why you have to protect the rights of those who you think are bad people. I thought we had learned that lesson in this country.
backtrack’s family tree
http://www.thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/people-s-genealogy-presents-barack-obama-s-family-tree-t8878.html
About yesterday’s march in Seattle…..
I word for FedEx in Seattle. Luckily my evening route yesterday was in the South of Downtown district but today I was doing a downtown route. Nobody on my route was the least bit impressed with the march and the four or five other couriers I talked to said the same. Nobody thought the march was a good thing. In fact the most common description of the marchers where “They were a bunch of jerks”. I don’t know what they were trying to prove but unless it was to piss everyone off they failed and let me tell you what a bunch of dirty effing hippies we have up here.
Fucking Giants.
They scored 2 in the 9th to tie just to lose in 10
WTF?
David Burge @iowahawkblog
Good lord, that’s not a tan – it’s a human creme brulee
LOL.
Tru dat 😆
http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-jered-weaver-20120502,0,2154730.story
Angels no hitter