Planned Parenthood and the Magician's Other Hand - and stuff

[Maddy]

lol Yeah, Jack, I'll do that! If its possible anyhow. Besides, you're sweet to look "just because" it was me. Though in a sense even the derailment has somewhat to do with this topic, since, as has been pointed out, it really is two sides of the same coin when it comes to agenda.

And yes, I perceive this attack against Planned Parenthood as a theocratic attack, which is one of the things that really scares me about seeing the direction that the US has taken, and clearly continues to take.

[JackRiddler]

it's an open democratic system. go take over your local democratic party. it's not that hard at the moment since so few people can be bothered to vote. Develop candidates. get them name recognition, then they can get elected and DO DIFFERENT THINGS. Sure, if they try to go too far off the rails the corporate whore media will try to destroy them. THAT IS THE BATTLE. that is the heart of the matter.

No, that's the myth. The system doesn't actually work that way.

It would work a lot more that way if the people were willing to put up the kind of fight and make the kind of sacrifices that workers did until the 1930s, or that the civil rights movement showed in the 1950s and 1960s, or if the military rank and file went on quasi-strike, like in Vietnam.

Wisconsin is a start because it's the first time that protesters didn't just go home and watch to see if they got TV coverage.

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[Belligerent Savant]

Your mistake is to think the differing presentations do not matter. If everyone voted for the Republicans, this would be an explicit popular endorsement of their presented program, and a disaster for all. In that case we wouldn't get the "SAME" option but an incomparably worse extreme.

If no one voted for the Republicans (I'll just put this as a negative that may find agreement), we might get the "SAME" option, but the vote would have been universally understood as a rejection of that option. It would become impossible to legitimately impose that option. If that option was imposed anyway, we would all know we were stuck involuntarily under a Mubarak (metaphor, hello), rather than live in the delusion that a majority or a powerful segment of our compatriots support Mubarak so there's nothing we can do against it. We would rise up to demand what we had actually and clearly chosen. This is why, if the Republicans had only lost by large margins in all elections since 1980, we would today have a social democracy in the US, without an empire or violent occupations of distant countries.

JR: I'll have to read through your entire response a bit later, but the portion above caught my attention. I concur with your premise in the above-quote, though I don't believe I indicated that differing presentations "do not" matter. Rather, they are of paramount importance to the theatre, the spectacle of it all. Opinions are molded and shaped to the point where The Majority cast their vote based on what they believe is their "choice" --- but how much of it is truly their "choice", and not simply implanted through various means?

Alternatively, perhaps adjustments or 'tweaks' are made to the various methods of thought-influence based on what is observed by the citizenry's reaction to events/news, altering their propaganda with what we may believe we want, but ultimately serving/benefiting the very few.

They NEED the semblance of "opposing" parties to pull off the Grand Parlor Tricks we observe.

In the end however, it is the agendas of the very few that are serviced, not that of The People.

at any rate, back to my "job" -- pardons for the expedited response. On EDIT -- Apologies as well for any derailment from the OP.

[lupercal]

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oh come on, don't blame a democratic president for the actions of the republican party.

Who were only elected because so many "oh it doesn't make any difference" people sat on their hands and didn't vote for the better (not perfect) candidates.

Are we still arguing that one option was "better" than another? Hasn't it become quite clear at this point that BOTH options are crap? Or perhaps, more precisely, both "options" are ultimately little more than the SAME option, just presented differently to each targeted demographic?

Voting. What a quaint premise.. a VOTE. The PEOPLE's CHOICE! LET YOUR VOICES BE HEARD!! If you don't vote, your voice will NOT be heard. Can't complain if you didn't vote.
--- there are those in here that still subscribe to this fallacy? Like, even a little bit??

tsk, tsk

oh for phucks sweet sake. both options are NOT clearly and demonstrably NOT the gawd damn SAME.

look at the constituencies. Look at the voters look at who makes up the rank and file. That alone tells you all you need to know.

both options exist within a wider cultural situation. and it is that wider culture that is what is first and foremost fucked. I guarantee you democrats would not be trying to destroy collective bargaining rights. Believe me they take it away from those state workers, then you can kiss the existence of unions in American good bye. and the whole list of disgusting travesty, perpetrated by who REPUBLICANS. KNOW YOUR ENEMY.

yes, shitty corporate whore "so-called liberals" suck, but that is the cultural context we live in that REQUIRES such compromises. The republican party is CLEAR as day, a pro-corporate pro-fascist, pro-new-0fuedalism party from one end to the other. and constitutes a FAR greater threat.

We are not, repeat not now, and never going to get people on board with a "third party" it won't work. FIX the democrats and destroy the republicans. we don't even need parties. It's about picking the better candidate. Not the perfect, the better.

vote and you can get decent people elected. Sit at home and cry about how terrible everything is, and only the teapartiers will go to vote. and guess who wins then? I really can not begin to comprehend how you think not voting makes things better. that seems to me an utterly foolish and blind point of view. lazy in fact. pre-defeated.

Word. Yes they both stink but one is lethal.

[Nordic]

Wisconsin is a start because it's the first time that protesters didn't just go home and watch to see if they got TV coverage.

Great quote.

[Belligerent Savant]

vote and you can get decent people elected. Sit at home and cry about how terrible everything is, and only the teapartiers will go to vote. and guess who wins then? I really can not begin to comprehend how you think not voting makes things better. that seems to me an utterly foolish and blind point of view. lazy in fact. pre-defeated.

Actually, if we truly have any aspirations to overthrow the current power structure, NOT VOTING en masse would be the way to do it. It would send a clear message that WE aren't swallowing the BS any more. We refuse to accept it, and as such, will no longer PARTICIPATE in the farce. They can only continue their dirty work so long as we play along in the charade. There'd be nothing to rig/fix if there are no votes cast. So long as we continue to participate, the lies/propaganda/manipulations will continue.

But if we all -- ALL -- choose to pull off a Bartleby the Scrivener and "prefer not to" participate, they'd be rendered powerless against such a COLLECTIVE VOICE of OPPOSITION, left with no platform to build the LIES.

However, allow me abruptly cut off my Romanticism -- given the current state of Human Evolution/Spirit, such a collective effort simply will not happen; we remain disjointed, fragmented, as a race. And even if we somehow manage to pull it off, we'd invariably set up another "system" that will eventually lead us down an all too familiar path... after all, only need a few bad apples to turn it all rotten again.

Perhaps several hundred [thousand?] years from now, when our species takes the next leap in evolution and inherently, intuitively, collectively see the folly of our ways, we can simply STOP the BS by mere collective thought, obtaining that ever-elusive harmony on earth so many of us strive towards..

Or, we'll simply devolve to barbarism.

[JackRiddler]

JR: I'll have to read through your entire response a bit later, but the portion above caught my attention. I concur with premise of the above-quoted assessment, though I don't believe I indicated that differing presentations "do not" matter.

[...]

at any rate, back to my "job" -- pardons for the expedited response. On EDIT -- Apologies as well for any derailment from the OP.

OMG, don't concur, ask for pardon, or apoglogize... now I'll feel guilty wondering if I was too harsh!

[Laodicean]

Speaking of the System, electing "decent" candidates, voting, and funding (or in this case lack-there-of) of important programs for citizens (Planned Parenthood OP)...to further illustrate just how incredibility idiotic all of it has become...

2012: The Year Of The Billion-Dollar Campaigns?

The 2012 presidential election is shaping up to be a multibillion-dollar contest. President Obama's re-election committee is expected to raise at least $1 billion, and Republicans have high hopes that their nominee will reach the 10-figure level as well.

That's brand-new territory for presidential candidates. In 2008, Obama raised nearly $746 million. That was double what George W. Bush raised just four years earlier — which itself was double what Bush raised four years before that.

It's the first time ever that presidential fundraising shot up that fast. And it puts the Obama re-election operation within reach of raising $1 billion: a volume of cash that takes the campaign out of politics-as-usual.

"He would be a Top 100 advertiser," says Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media, a New York ad agency. "You know, it's what Home Depot spends, about a billion dollars a year."

One billion dollars could buy up all the Super Bowl ads — for four Super Bowls.

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/18/133809150 ... -campaigns

It's hard for me to agree with justdrew's reasoning of getting involved in the electoral game that spends so much goddamn money where only a select few are allowed to play. Promise this, promise that, vote for me and I'll make sure it's taken care of (funding), and when the time comes, and the people cheer that real Hope and Change has finally arrived - there is no money to do anything. Cut Planned Parenthood funds, break the backs of Unions (working families)... the whole thing is insane. I keep dreaming of a day when money has no place in our society anymore. Where when people need help, it will be given to them without expecting anything in return. Knowing that when the time came, the same would be given in return. I know it's such a naive and innocent outlook to have, and to hold on to. I hope I'm not the only one.

[8bitagent]

When Planned Parenthood's charter mission was to sterilize black and "feeble minded" women and wipe out blacks and other minorities way back yonder, the fascists in America and Europe
couldn't praise and finance them enough.

Now, that their mission is to help minority and poor women in general with pap smears/exams/child planning/healthcare, well now the fascists want to throw them under the boat.

Is there any proof that one penny of US taxpayer dollar has gone for a woman's elective abortion?

Second, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41154527/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/ this the dark future if abortion is outlawed

[eyeno]

I really can not begin to comprehend how you think not voting makes things better. that seems to me an utterly foolish and blind point of view. lazy in fact. pre-defeated.

Diebold voting machines with rigged algorithms?

Develop candidates. get them name recognition, then they can get elected and DO DIFFERENT THINGS. Sure, if they try to go too far off the rails the corporate whore media will try to destroy them. THAT IS THE BATTLE. that is the heart of the matter.

Nice premise. It would work too maybe, if we didn't have television, which mesmerizes most into a state of non-critical thinking. (this or that) When the same message is conveyed to millions at the same time it moves the herd in a pre-defined direction with all roads leading to the same point. Results seem to indicate that a television with proper controls erases critical thinking. Go east, go west, and both roads eventually lead south.

Do you think it's any kind of a politically meaningful or valid position to advise concerned informed and educated persons that should should NOT PARTICIPATE in THEIR OWN democracy?

Participate in the world of Diebold voting? Unless the swamp is drained and the baby thrown out of the bath water I am not sure how participating in the current paradigm will change anything. The system as it now stands is not functional for the people. The baby is farting in the bath water. Regardless of direction of current flow when the bubbles pop out, the water stinks.

Unlimited contributions to politicians. This thing needs to be ripped up by the roots. We need new seed. It would have to literally be a "ripping" too. Roots do not go casually.

[JackRiddler]

.

Something interesting happened in the 2009 election in New York. First Bloomberg pulled off a kind of coup d'etat, undoing term limits by a vote of the pliant City Council (many of whom also wanted third terms) instead of a referendum, although term limits had been imposed by two referenda of the people. I think term limits are pretty much meaningless, by the way, but I think a vote of the people on the matter should be sacrosanct.

So then he went about spending $150 million out of his own pocket to reelect himself. And why not, during his time in office his fortune has increased from a valuation of $2 billion to something like $18 billion today, so being mayor is apparently good business for him. Anyway, so every day I had to throw away Bloomberg junk mail, sometimes literally a stack, and most days I had to field Bloomberg calls. (I'd ask the live callers if they were being paid, which of course they were, and then urge them not to vote for Bloomberg.) All "viable" candidates didn't dare to stand for the election, because it was made known that Bloomberg would eat their testicles/ovaries and make sure they'd never have another friend in this town again. The guy who was left to run against Bloomberg was literally nobody until that point, known to his closest friends and family. He was also a singularly terrible speaker, just all hem-haw and pause and fall flat, worse than most of the politicians you like to make fun of, not even a good malapropism to offer. It was like the rigged elections in Fahrenheit 451, where the opposition candidate drones on forever and picks his nose on camera. And Bloomberg ran a relentless attack campaign against the patsy, too, probably spent a third of his budget just smearing the guy, let's say 30 million just for that while the guy I think had a grand total of 4 million for his campaign. And remember that Bloomberg is not just the owner of one of the most influential and important media companies because of its position in the economy, but his company also has joint ventures or directly owns parts of or is otherwise allied with the other major media in New York, including all three of the papers. And if you were watching TV in New York, you also know that Bloomberg was no doubt the number one buyer of commercial time on the city stations in 2009. The news, the polls, the endorsements, everything was overwhelmingly fixed on his behalf.

The results were shocking. Thompson somehow got 46 percent of the vote, and this can only be explained as an anti-Bloomberg vote. Even given the same relative money, a charismatic candidate with name recognition would almost certainly have killed Bloomberg! I realized that all along, Bloomberg had been financing his own anti-Bloomberg campaign. The more his machine filled up the mailboxes every day, put out the live and robo calls, put his face on the TV and demonized Thompson, stuck paid personnel to distribute leaflets on half the corners in the city, the more they were making people HATE BLOOMBERG.

I don't know if it will be soon enough in 2012 to somehow jiu-jitsu the flood of money into getting a majority to vote for the candidate with no money at all, but I think this opportunity may be there; it needs a squeaky-clean charismatic with a known name, which is tough to find.

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[Nordic]

What eyeno said. Participating in the current system? It's a waste of time, and simply perpetuates the same flawed system. I am reminded of people in Vegas sitting at slot machines. It's a game, it's been figured out, it's rigged, and they let enough people "win" to keep people coming in to literally GIVE THEM money.

Leave the slot machines alone.

Yes, ripping it up by the roots and starting over is the only way it's gonna change. OR America goes down in flames, which I think is far more likely, and will happen sooner, than Americans getting off their asses and simply ADMITTING that their system doesn't work.

It's much easier to think we can simply "consume" our way out of this by choosing better candidates. You know, it's like eating organic! It'll save the earth. No, sorry, you have terminal cancer. No antioxidants in the world is gonna save your ass at this point.

Seriously.

Justdrew's position is one of "hope". And that's all it is. Hope is what strings people along, hope is the carrot we follow as we head for the cliff.

Take your eyes off the carrot.

[Belligerent Savant]

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I don't know if it will be soon enough in 2012 to somehow jiu-jitsu the flood of money into getting a majority to vote for the candidate with no money at all, but I think this opportunity may be there; it needs a squeaky-clean charismatic with a known name, which is tough to find.

Therein lies the dilemma: a "squeaky-clean" charismatic -- one that is not compromised. Good Luck! Especially at the National level.

Still, the point regarding the recent NY election is a cogent one. Although I never truly felt Bloomberg would lose, it became increasingly clear many were beginning to LOATHE his egregious campaigning methods, the absurd amounts of money being funneled into his campaign, his name spread across almost any available billboard or viewable space for miles... would have been a marvelous event had he lost. Though perhaps, it's better he DIDN'T lose, as a loss would have clearly sent ripples of shockwaves to the elite, and they'd simply adjust their methods accordingly. Perhaps him winning may yet cause some filthy politico to overspend, to his ruin.

Wishful thinking, anyway. [unless, of course, it's part of "The Plan" to have an egregiously wealthy politician lose to keep the populace lured into the charade, provide renewed glimmers of 'hope'... how cynical we've become, ay? Or maybe I should speak for myself..]

[justdrew]

What eyeno said. Participating in the current system? It's a waste of time, and simply perpetuates the same flawed system. I am reminded of people in Vegas sitting at slot machines. It's a game, it's been figured out, it's rigged, and they let enough people "win" to keep people coming in to literally GIVE THEM money.

Leave the slot machines alone.

Yes, ripping it up by the roots and starting over is the only way it's gonna change. OR America goes down in flames, which I think is far more likely, and will happen sooner, than Americans getting off their asses and simply ADMITTING that their system doesn't work.

It's much easier to think we can simply "consume" our way out of this by choosing better candidates. You know, it's like eating organic! It'll save the earth. No, sorry, you have terminal cancer. No antioxidants in the world is gonna save your ass at this point.

Seriously.

Justdrew's position is one of "hope". And that's all it is. Hope is what strings people along, hope is the carrot we follow as we head for the cliff.

Take your eyes off the carrot.

b b but it's MY carrot

a...and it's a YOUR carrot

an ol' granny smith's got a carrot too

er anyway nordic, you're just rationalizing non-participation, hold your nose and vote, then go on and do all those things you think should be done, explain to everyone why you're voting for the best candidate on offer, not the one you'd consider ideal. We don't live in an ideal world. It's a flawed system, as you say, but we don't have any better options, but to tweak this system.

Heck, just yesterday I was saying, "this country's going to BURN!" - and maybe it will, but in the meantime, while we wait, let's just TRY to elect some decent candidates and say screw the money and put as many man-hours into it as is reasonable for each person.

There is ZERO point in sitting around mopping about what the republicans are doing to "us" now, all the while saying it's ok, because by not voting I'm speeding the collapse of our flawed society. Come on. Collapse? We'd be looking at millions dead in short order. Isn't it worth trying to avoid that?

[Pele'sDaughter]

The problem I see is that anyone who gets to that level of politics is going to be compromised. How would you ever elect a majority of honest representatives since they've all had to accept "special interest" money just to run? If you notice these campaigns it's all about the financing, and we all know where the big financing comes from. They'll say anything to get the contributions, and anyone who doesn't isn't going to win. There's just no way I can be a part of that. I can't lower my standards enough to do it.