Open Thread 8-4-16: Shut Yer Bloody Gob!

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I'm currently reading "A Start in Life", a 1970 novel by one of my favorite authors, Alan Sillitoe. His books have tough Northern England types who get by on "cunning" and are brutally honest. In the spirit of that...

Bernie doesn't have a secret plan to replace Hillary as the nominee. It is not going to happen. He will be working for her election. Meanwhile send him $3 for "Our Revolution". I know...it sounds suspiciously like send $3 for this or send $3 for something else. In other words, a campaign run by the same people who wanted money for the Dems. But surely it's different, right? I don't think so. You might complain and say he's got a plan but you know what? He doesn't! Shut yer bloody gob!

Then There's Hills

Meanwhile...I wrote this as a parody of what Hillbots say but, on re-reading this, I think this is actually saner than their exhortations.

I get it, I really do. You have values and there's nothing wrong with that. But grow up! Instead of acting like a spoiled child who didn't get his way, it's time to think about the Supreme Court, stupid! While you Bernie Bros are spouting all your sexist, racist nonsense we're in real danger of the greatest threat to the USA ever, Donald Trump, getting elected President. It's time you put aside your infantile misogyny and started going door to door for Hillary Clinton, the most qualified person ever to run for the Presidency.

The closest I can come to a qualified endorsement of Hillary involves ignoring everything I hate about her and echoing what Bernie said, that she has a chance (Jill Stein doesn't) and that there are some minor similarities between her stances on the issues and Bernie's. Although...what does that mean, right? A position that gets forgotten isn't worth much.

I Expressed Myself re: Music on Facebook

There's a thing going around, where you fill in the blanks on various music items like "band you hate", "overrated band", "underrated band", "band you secretly love", "favorite band" etc. So I happened to mention I hate Led Zeppelin and...ummm...received some amusing replies, like "your list sucks!" Not that I care. It's all in fun. Then I wrote "I only said Led Zeppelin because I didn't know how to spell REM". Unsurprisingly it didn't spark lots of agreement. It all got me thinking, though. Hardly anyone commented on my "underrated band" or my "favorite band". No, they focused on "band I hate". What does that say for people's attention? I'm not sure but I'm theorizing that people are protective. They'd rather defend that they consider important than share what they like. Which is weird. But don't "diss" me for saying that! (that's what grownups say..."diss". They used to be kids but it was so long ago that they're out of college now).

Clinton Highlights Billionaires' Support As A Way To Try To Undermine Trump

hoo boy....isn't that swell?

http://www.npr.org/2016/08/03/488568418/hillary-clinton-uses-billionaire...

So now the Democratic Party is the party of the 1% and war. "We've got billionaires on our side! U-S-A! U-S-A!" it's kind of depressing. Oh, you noticed that?

So Do I Vote This Time or Not?

Jill Stein has picked Ajamu Baraka as her VP choice. I've mentioned elsewhere that I don't like the pick. Consider the other tickets. Some Hairball and a Governor. Some Mad Bomber and a Governor. Some ex-Governor and an ex-Governor. And the Greens have a doctor and an activist/writer. The Greens seem to prefer selecting tokens as their running mates rather than try to expand their base. Those of you who especially like Bernie will find this interesting, from Baraka:

In their desperate attempt to defend Sanders and paint his critics as dogmatists and purists, the Sanders supporters have not only fallen into the ideological trap of a form of narrow “left” nativism, but also the white supremacist ethical contradiction that reinforces racist cynicism in which some lives are disposable for the greater good of the West.

Here's the link

http://www.ajamubaraka.com/tag/foreign-policy-of-bernie-sanders/

I pretty much agree with him on that although I don't see it in exactly those terms. In any case, while Baraka strengthens the policy side of the Greens he does zero to increase visibility. His selection is a net zero. No choice at all would have had the same effect. So do the Greens really care about winning? About growing into an alternative? I don't know. And, by the way (as Bernie likes to say), how did Jill Stein get to be the only Green choice for President? How is that different from Hillary's coronation?

All in all, it's making me less likely to vote for Jill. I'm back to thinking of writing in Eugene Debs.

I Think, Though, We're Getting Hillary

The press is sure going after Trump. He's an easy target, too. He's a $#^%ing idiot bully. It makes you wonder just how stupid the people are with whom he does business. You've got to be really dumb to say "Yes, sir, Mr. Trump". He's known as a someone who stiffs vendors. His whole persona is that he's gonna cheat you. Why would anyone work with him?

I've been thinking that he sees this as an opportunity to increase his wealth after he loses but maybe not. Maybe he's really delusional and thinks he can win....which he can't. My latest theory is that the Republicans will abandon Trump like they did whoever it was who ran for Senate from Connecticut when Lamont won the Dem primary and Lieberman ran as an independent. Alan Schlesinger, that's the guy's name, who was the Repub in the race. Man oh man! Reading about it now...what a sucky country this is. Here's what some CNN anchor really, actually said about Lamont:

How does this factor into the Lieberman/Lamont contest? And might some argue, as some have, that Lamont is the Al-Qaeda candidate?

Geezes Christomonti! In any sane society that guy would have been fired on the spot. Anyway, Schlesinger ended up with 9.6% of the vote. Could that happen to Trump? I think it can, with Gary Johnson being the biggest threat to Her Ladyship.

The media has finally turned against Trump, pretty viciously. More and more Republicans are now endorsing Hillary. Of course they are. One might wonder why but, of course, it's no mystery.

And So, My Friends, In Conclusion...

It's hopeless, we should drop out, form a counterculture or three, let those who want to play in the muck get themselves dirty. And if you want to argue with me about that, shut yer bloody gob!

The Meaning of Life

The Exciters

The Small Faces

Little Richard (of course!)

The Edsels

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martianexpatriate's picture

on Trump is simply this.

Trump is doing the same thing he's always done, in a slightly different environment. Keep in mind that almost none of his financial dealings have ever actually worked out. He has survived by funneling money from one account to another and then declaring bankruptcy to destroy the hollowed out shells of the corporations behind him.

He survives because idiots are too stupid to do math and read spreadsheets. They assume that at some point someone who had made an error will feel guilty, and this guilt can be read on their countenance. Therefore he never acts guilty, and never admits defeat. This is incidentally exactly how con men behave. It's also why the people at Enron got away with screwing so many people. Right up until the end, they continued saying they had never done anything wrong.

Most of the population of America are idiots, and we no longer trust journalists (as we shouldn't.) That means that the facts have never been so unimportant, and Trump knows that.

So he just keeps on ignoring experts and saying stupid things. He even insists to people briefing him on foreign affairs that he really could use nuclear weapons.

In a way, though I don't want everything to end personally, I think that Trump might be gods perfect idiot for our times. It would be fitting to our national character if we elected him President. All the idiots would celebrate and caper under the sun as they celebrate the ascendance of a man who speaks his mind and isn't politically correct, and then look up wonder as he unleashes nuclear hell because someone insulted him.

I guess its a quicker way to go then cooking ourselves in our environment at least.

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He says it's possible Trump is doing all this to increase his "brand" because what his taxes really reveal is he is not a billionaire or even millionaire; just that he is swimming in debt and that no US bank will loan money to him so he is looking to get it from a Russia, Chinese or other foreign Oligarch.

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

is what cuckoo Roger Stone thinks about Trump losing because voters will rig it and vote ten times. Another stupid bed the Clintons made themselves during the primary, not to mention DNC corruption exposed by wikileaks. Lay in it. Lie in it. Whatever.

DemocracyNow!: Trump Says Election May Be "Rigged;" His Confidant Warns of "Bloodbath" If Clinton Wins

Donald Trump has continued to suggest he believes the November election may be "rigged." Pointing to recent court decisions against restrictive voter ID laws in North Carolina and Wisconsin, Trump said Tuesday that the decisions increased the possibility of voter fraud. Trump said, "The voter ID situation has turned out to be a very unfair development. We may have people vote 10 times." Studies of voter fraud in the U.S. have concluded the type of fraud Trump warned about is extremely rare. This comes after Republican political operative and Trump supporter Roger Stone warned of a "bloodbath" if Trump doesn’t win in November. Speaking with Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos, Stone said, "We will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government. It will be a bloodbath."

Incite much? Dude that is a terrible use of your right to free speech. fts I guess some folks are so armored-up they think they can overcome a militarized police force, in that case yes it will be.

Oom. Any other ideas how to stop the madness escalating? Now there is some meme spreading about "why not use nukes". Help us FSM.

Thanks

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I'd have to go with Bachman Turner Overdrive. They put out numerous albums with a single song. A musician friend told me that was style, so I told him it was tedious.
A write-in candidate would be Jon Stewart. Colbert could be his VP. Could Congress get any less done if they spent half their time yelling "Stephen! Stephen!"?
(Just the ramblings of a caffeine deprived slacker)

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

martianexpatriate's picture

as productive as the last congress was, but they would be a lot more entertaining.

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Big Al's picture

station in Portland, asking them to stop playing so much Led Zep. Didn't get a reply of course.

Sanders' revolution, can't believe people fell for that, or still are falling for it. To me it was always clear it was nothing more than "more and better democrats", something many on here should be quite familiar with.

I gave this stat out recently but again, out of over 500,000 elected offices in this country, the Green party is running for approx. 117 of them. I say approximately because their website and database is so rudimentary its difficult to tell. IF all goes well, the Green party should have enough clout in Congress to impact decisions by 2075. If there is a 2075,

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Big Al's picture

"The fact that so many white leftist supporters of Sanders can politically and psychologically disconnect his domestic program from his foreign policy positions that objectively support U.S. and Western neoliberal hegemony means that not only have they found a way to be comfortable collaborating with imperialism, but that they have also decided that they can support the implicit hierarchy that determines from an imperial perspective that lives in the White West matter more than others."

Hard for me to complain about this guy.

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Lookout's picture

that the media played softball with T-rump all during the primary - with all the talking heads saying no way will he get the nomination. Then the MSM pivot and T-rump can do no right (so elect the $hill). It has become more obvious to me that it's all about the TPP (at least for corporate media). The intellectual property rights in the trade agreement assure them obscene profits!

As to your conclusion the $hill will win, may as well listen to the advice of the skillet lickers from about 100 years ago (some of whom lived and died nearby our place)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49tsYtp3qQI]

Here's a nice rag by them too (from 1930) about 3 min
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bItaBzKric]

Y'all have a good day!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

That's why the Establishment is supporting Hillary and going after Trump. And he's been helping them lately. We're doomed.

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and so is LZ in moderation.

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jwa13's picture

were SALIVATING at the prospect of a T-Rump/$hill contest (many eyeballs during Ratings Time, etc.). They got it -- now they have to pick winners/losers. That's all that is going on --

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When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

mimi's picture

You may want to read the article to the end.

Microsoft Pitches Technology That Can Read Facial Expressions at Political Rallies

At both the Republican and Democratic conventions, Microsoft sponsored event spaces for the news outlet Politico. Politico, in turn, hosted a series of Microsoft-sponsored discussions about the use of data technology in political campaigns. And throughout Politico’s spaces in both Philadelphia and Cleveland, Microsoft advertised an array of products from “Microsoft Cognitive Services,” its artificial intelligence and cloud computing division.

At one exhibit, titled “Realtime Crowd Insights” a small camera scanned the room, while a monitor displayed the captured image. Every five seconds, a new image would appear with data annotated for each face – an assigned serial number, gender, estimated age, and any emotions detected in the facial expression. When I approached, the machine labeled me “b2ff,” and correctly identified me as a 23-year-old male.

It interpreted my facial expression as “neutral,” with a bit of “surprise.”

I asked Christina Pearson, a nearby Microsoft spokesman, to confirm that the technology was meant to be used on a large crowd, like at a Trump rally. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Or it’s meant to be the Super Bowl, whatever you want.”

“Realtime Crowd Insights” is an Application Programming Interface (API), or a software tool that connects web applications to Microsoft’s cloud computing services. Through Microsoft’s emotional analysis API – a component of Realtime Crowd Insights – applications send an image to Microsoft’s servers. Microsoft’s servers then analyze the faces, and return emotional profiles for
each.

In a November blog post, Microsoft said that the emotional analysis could detect “anger, contempt, fear, disgust, happiness, neutral, sadness or surprise.”

But the use of facial analysis at political events is eerily reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984, where the government monitors faces for any sign of dissatisfaction, or “facecrime.” In Orwell’s world, “to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense.”

Microsoft’s Realtime Crowd Insights could potentially pick out the stern faces of dissenters, or angry faces of future protestors, all in a matter of seconds.

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lunachickie's picture

and disconcerting. If I'm being scanned and I find out I'm being scanned, though? Boy, are they gonna get a fake put-on show Wink

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There were 2 goons in suits standing behind Bernie when he addressed his delegates before the convention, at a breakfast I think (when they booed at his mention of Hilary). They were aiming their phones, scanning the crowd the whole time. I thought they had facial recognition software to ID the people, but this makes more sense since the delegates' identities were well known.

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Granma's picture

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shaharazade's picture

Why bother to get all tweaked about the selection of the next asshole and chief. The people who own and run our government put on a circus and stir the hate culture wars. The leftie intellectuals are great at academic theory and lofty talking about all the real problems we all face but seem to have no intention of organizing effectively to take on the masters of the universe. I'll vote eyes wide open for Jill and the greens because maybe if enough people exit the D's- R's people could build and support a third party that might speed up the process of collapse.

Led Zeppelin, after having to listen to Robert Plant's dick swinging his every inch for years as my teenage son was a big time head banger, I have to say I grew to hate them. I was free lancing, worked from home and spent a lot of time saying headphones please! Although Chicago and a lot of pre-punk, new wavey 70's bands really irritated and bored me, the Doobie Bros? Most overrated, The Smiths and U2. Favorite band is like favorite movie director or writer. Hard to boil it down to one. Guess I go for the Beatles as In my life I Loved You More. Then there is Chuck Berry or The Clash, late Beach Boys, so many great bands. Most underrated, ummmm. I'll go with Rockpile and the multifaceted career of Nick Lowe.

I'm so sick of politics and pols at this point it's hard to even read the net. People who I respect have all gone crazy. Misplaced fear and loathing all over the place. 'Nazis in the bathroom, underneath the stairs'

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NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Alex Ocana's picture

... be my favorite music. Barbershop harmony on top of Blues.

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From the Light House.

enhydra lutris's picture

Peace & Freedom.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

jwa13's picture

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When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.