Being Liberal and a Progressive in a RED STATE is not an easy thing these days. I started this blog to vent my frustrations on our lives being taken over by right wing conservatives with their propaganda machines. I have also learned an important lesson in the last year, it is that reading is the only way to get real information, you cannot depend on the news you see on TV.

"I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE"....Howard Beale (NETWORK)

Monday, January 31, 2005

Deja Vu

From Washington Monthly:

LESSONS OF HISTORY?....Tom Cleaver of Redress Press sends along this clip from the New York Times. The date is September 3, 1967:

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

....A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.

The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.

I know, I know, this doesn't mean Iraq is Vietnam. But you have to admit, this story is pretty spooky.

This is really scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 in 3 teens says First Amendment goes 'too far'


...when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories....

When I read this article I was profoundly frightened. Are our children growing up with Fox News and Russ Limbaugh and being propagandized to that the so-called "Liberal Media" is a left wing conspiracy and should be silenced by the government? I have noticed the rhetoric in the media concerning the protestors of the war and of Bush and his policies. They were called "loonies," nut jobs, freaks, un-American, unpatriotic. I guess they forget that one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Or that Mark Twain said, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." When you conceive the idea that our Founding Fathers created a Free Press to challenge the government and to prevent it from abusing its power it is quite chilling to hear children say they think the government should tell the press what to print.


Prominent Statisticians Urge Investigation of 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Results

Press Release:
Monday, January 31, 2005

Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies in New Edison/Mitofsky Report and Urge Investigation of U.S. Presidential Election Results.

President Bush won November's election by 2.5% yet exit polls showed Kerry leading by 3%. Which was correct?

"There are statistical indications that a systematic, nationwide shift of 5.5% of the vote may have occurred, and that we'll never get to the bottom of this, unless we gather the data we need for mathematical analysis and open, robust scientific debate.", says Bruce O'Dell, USCountVotes' Vice President

U.S. Counts Votes.org

U.S. Counts Votes
Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report


More Intolerance

New Education Secretary Margaret Spellings tells PBS she had "very serious concerns" about an episode in which a little girl in Vermont introduces cartoon bunny Buster Baxter to her mother and her mother's lesbian partner. Spellings suggested that funding for future programming could be in jeopardy.
When politics, fear and funding cook a rabbit



"First, they tell us SpongeBob's gay. Then, just when we think it's safe to go back in the water ...
Government lacks common sense


The Mess in Iraq

"Iraq is on track to become another corrupt, oil-rich quasi-democracy, like Russia and Nigeria."

Fareed Zakaria Newsweek:

Elections Are Not Democracy

Then read:

Audit: $9 Billion Unaccounted for in Iraq






Saturday, January 29, 2005

Ban Tolerance Promote Hate


Paramount Pictures

New York Times:
Conservatives Pick Soft Target: A Cartoon Sponge



Recently the founder of Focus on the Family


Dr. James Dobson, spoke against a new video for children featuring SpongeBob SquarePants and other kiddy celebrities. The video, "We are Family" was made to teach children about multiculturalism and to promote tolerance. The film was to be distributed to elementary schools and shown to young children along with a tolerance pledge, which in part reads, "I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own." The film also includes a teacher aide pamphlet that advises teachers among many other things about how to handle situations arising from questions asked when children have same sex parents. Dr. Dobson opines that SpongeBob has been enlisted in a pro homosexual video and a spokesperson for his organization sees the film as "manipulating and brainwashing children."


In the long hard fight to end bigotry and promote a progressive society, Dr. Dobson's message seems quite chilling. If tolerance for homosexuals is not taught to our children then what does Dr. Dobson suggest? Even if one believes that gays and lesbians are morally hedonistic wouldn't teaching compassion be better than abhorrance? If hate and loathing are the suggested solutions, does Dr. Dobson think homosexuality will just go away? Is he inferring that teaching tolerance toward homosexuality increases the gay community?

Dr. Dobson has every right to his opinions about sexual orientation but to promote Christianity (as he does on his Website) and then want to ban tolerance is shameful and an embarrassment to our society.

Bushie Scares even some Conservatives!

Former Ronald Reagan speech writer and Bush supporter Peggy Noonan opines about the Inaugural Address:

"The inaugural address itself was startling. It left me with a bad feeling, and reluctant dislike. Rhetorically, it veered from high-class boilerplate to strong and simple sentences, but it was not pedestrian. George W. Bush's second inaugural will no doubt prove historic because it carried a punch, asserting an agenda so sweeping that an observer quipped that by the end he would not have been surprised if the president had announced we were going to colonize Mars."

Full column here:

Way Too Much God



Conservative Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during 1981-82 under Ronald Regan:

"Not so long ago I would have identified the liberal media as the New York Times and Washington Post, CNN and the three TV networks, and National Public Radio. But both the Times and the Post fell for the Bush administration's lies about WMD and supported the US invasion of Iraq. On balance CNN, the networks, and NPR have not made an issue of the Bush administration's changing explanations for the invasion."

Full column here:

End-Timers & Neo-Cons
The End of Conservative
s




WHERE is the LIBERAL MEDIA? I want to watch it!!!

Ok, I admit it I'm a democrat. So here I am switching channels, going from one 24 hour news channel to another trying to find the news from my point of view. I find Fox News Network, wow they lean so far to the right they may be in jeopardy of falling into the Atlantic Ocean. CNN? Too balanced for me. "Well, you say, there is Paul Begala and James Carville," but I say they are cancelled out by Bob Novak and Tucker Carlson. Wolf Blitzer and Judy Woodrift seem pretty down the middle asking the hard questions to both sides. Maybe MSNBC, will they perform to my liberal attitudes 24 hours a day? I watch Chris Matthews and that was sure a breath of fresh air, but then Joe Scarborough appears and I have to turn the channel again. Yea, I found C-Span, oh goody they are reviewing a book on those bad Republicans, this is it I say, ok I am home now, when low and behold they start reviewing a book on those bad democrats.

So where is this Liberal Media I keep hearing about, that is so prevalent in the world today that it seems to be the top priority subject matter by such unbiased (haha) pundits as Russ Limbaugh, Laura Ingrahm, Ann Coulter and many others. I sure wish someone would tell me, I want to watch it.

It's not fair that the Right Wingers get their own 24 hour a day news channel. Where is the Rupert Murdock of the Left, please we need you. Look, six million viewers watched the Republican convention on Fox. Now that is scary! Think about it, six million Americans watching the Republican Convention hearing all the opinions from pundits that slant to the right. That's alot of people who actually think they are getting a "Fair and Balanced" version and who are really being brainwashed from a conservative media outlet.

So Warren Buffet this is for you, get off your butt, buy a news network, hire Michael Moore, Al Franken and Bill Maher and we liberals could rule the world.