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

[Belligerent Savant]

.

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.

Precisely.

[WakeUpAndLive]

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.

You are not alone.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

The CIA-Repubs are creating a diversion from Jamie Leigh Jones vs Halliburton, in discovery and scheduled for a May 2011 trial.

She was drugged, beaten up, gang-raped, and imprisoned in a container.

CIA media has been publishing decoys of this imagery for years.

[Nordic]

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.

Actually that's what I did do the last election.

[justdrew]

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.

Actually that's what I did do the last election.

well there you go and somehow you don't even seem to have electoral politics cooties.

[Nordic]

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.

Actually that's what I did do the last election.

well there you go and somehow you don't even seem to have electoral politics cooties.

Well I'm hoping that possibly they don't really care about some of the local issues, but I do.

Also, I don't mind registering a protest vote, just in case somebody's actually keeping track.

[seemslikeadream]

Poster in New York



The poster advertises a Texas-based group called Life Always, which campaigns against what it calls a "genocidal plot" against unborn babies. It is on display in the SoHo area of Manhattan.

[Nordic]

Like they care about black people .......

The fact that they don't makes that poster all the more racist.

[compared2what?]

I'm with justdrew. Your choices in an election may all totally suck, or what few distinctions you're able to make between the ways that they suck may be slight, or -- what the hell -- they may in fact be identical to one another in their suckiness. All of that is beside the point. And even trivial. Your right to vote is yours, not the candidate's. That he or she doesn't value it is very likely true. Because its devaluation serves his or her interests always. And yours never. If you don't exercise your rights, they atrophy, same as anything else. And that's where we're at in the United States at the moment. We're a nation of 310 or so million people, fewer than half of whom have just enough strength left to waste it all bemoaning the failure of our elected representatives to value our rights more highly than we do.

And come on. Of course they fucking don't. It's not even their job to. I mean, their our representatives, after all. You can hardly say they don't represent us by treating the rights that we threw away like trash.

Nevertheless. We the people are not, individually or severally or collectively, to blame for the enormous fucking mess in (or through) which we're living right now. But we are responsible for doing something about it. Nobody -- and sorry, that includes Ron Paul -- is going to restore your autonomous and free political will to you. You have to regain it through regular exercise. Even if you're only capable of crawling, you simply do not have a better option than to start crawling in the direction of your rights. You deserve one, for sure. But you don't have one.

And you should have hope, btw. I mean, why shouldn't you? Despair isn't going to get you anywhere. And although there probably isn't a much better option than crawling right around the corner where you can't see it, there might be. You'll never know if you don't crawl there and check it out, however. You shouldn't have unrealistic hopes, obviously. But I believe that I already covered that implicitly with the vote-for-Ron-Paul-if-you-must-but-don't-vote-for-him-or-anybody-else-because-you-feel-they're-going-to-save-you-comma-they're-not stuff.

That corner/crawling metaphor isn't really so apt, on consideration. And since it's certaintly not much of an inducement to participation, I guess it doesn't actually have a single thing going for it apart from my having typed it already and being unable to think of another right this second.

Hmm. I guess a somewhat better simile would be that it's like recovery, in the 12-step sense of the word. Admitting you have the problem and the fact-facing that goes with that is a very tough hurdle to clear. But once you do, it's mind-boggling how nearly miraculously improved the same prospects that looked dire before you did reveal themselves to be. Again, to revert to an earlier not-quite-right simile, sort of like exercise. Difficult at the outset, then easier, then so rewarding it seems inconceivable that you were ever foolish enough to postpone or disregard it. Then sooner or later you get complacent and quit. And then it's difficult at the outset, etcetera.

That one's actually not so bad as a simile. People never learn and they're therefore always learning and that's not so bad, really. Which is a lucky thing, since that's how it is.

[eyeno]

Voting- A process in which people select what they desire.

Election- A process in which people get what they desired.

Diebold Voting Machine- A machine that is calibrated never to produce a desired result.


Let us just pull the handle over and over. It may pay off some day. Not.

If people stop pulling the lever it will become apparent that we are told what we can and cannot do. Until then, we believe we actually chose.

[alwyn]

change is possible at the local level. When enough people participate to change things at the local level, it may be possible to change it at the macro level...go Egypt. Go Wisconsin.

[compared2what?]

Voting- A process in which people select what they desire.

Election- A process in which people get what they desired.

Diebold Voting Machine- A machine that is calibrated never to produce a desired result.


Let us just pull the handle over and over. It may pay off some day. Not.

If people stop pulling the lever it will become apparent that we are told what we can and cannot do. Until then, we believe we actually chose.

You did actually choose. You just had shitty choices. That's a very transient circumstance. You can choose to work toward changing it. But it is work. Hard work. And furthermore, hard work that may never pay dividends that you live long enough to enjoy. Or you can choose not to do it, if you prefer. That's entirely up to you. Try to know it for what is is, though. Either way. Because it's not as faceless, vast and menacing as the very reductive summation above suggests. Nothing that's really alive ever is. It just feels that way sometimes.

[Nordic]

You can choose to work toward changing it. But it is work. Hard work. And furthermore, hard work that may never pay dividends that you live long enough to enjoy. Or you can choose not to do it, if you prefer. That's entirely up to you. Try to know it for what is is, though. Either way. Because it's not as faceless, vast and menacing as the very reductive summation above suggests. Nothing that's really alive ever is. It just feels that way sometimes.

Sorry, there's more of that myth. Right up there with the Horatio Alger and the whole "a relationship can be successful if you just work hard enough at it".

No! Anything of real import to them, they have locked up. They won't let you have the choice. The establishment has the game locked up. Especially now with the Diebold voting and all of that nonsense.

The only way to get anywhere is to get the whole system changed, from the ground up. The system itself is what's rotten, so you can't win using THEIR rotten system.

It's a myth. And it's one of those myths that keeps us under their thumb.

"Yeah, we're just not working hard enough, that's it. We're just lazy! If we REALLY wanted to, we could get out there and change things!"

Nah, and even if you got farther than they ever expected, they'd just fucking kill you .

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Alas, Nordic's take may be spot on. It's only Death though -- the spirit lives on! Not much consolation to some.

I think alwyn touches on a good point however -- change CAN occur at the local level -- enough 'localized' disturbances would undoubtedly impact the 'Macro Level' system, but we'd need a whole bunch more "Wisconsin-like" disturbances to have any real impact, and at the moment, there remains a substantial amount of folks still comfy with the status quo, so they're not quite 'inspired' enough to make a fuss.

Mother Nature may lend us a hand though -- if we are truly at the onset of some major/dramatic shifts in weather/temperature/natural disasters, it's only a matter of time before the inevitable CHAOS will rouse the Sleeping Giant -- the MASSES -- from their collective slumber.

And then that's when it may get interesting...

[Jeff]

This seems to me a reasonable thread in which to post such unfathomable, crazy-making shit.

Ga. Law Could Give Death Penalty for Miscarriages

— By Jen Phillips
| Wed Feb. 23, 2011 4:32 AM PST

It's only February, but this year has been a tough one for women's health and reproductive rights. There's a new bill on the block that may have reached the apex (I hope) of woman-hating craziness. Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin—who last year proposed making rape and domestic violence "victims" into "accusers"—has introduced a 10-page bill that would criminalize miscarriages and make abortion in Georgia completely illegal. Both miscarriages and abortions would be potentially punishable by death: any "prenatal murder" in the words of the bill, including "human involvement" in a miscarriage, would be a felony and carry a penalty of life in prison or death. Basically, it's everything an "pro-life" activist could want aside from making all women who've had abortions wear big red "A"s on their chests.

I doubt that a bill that makes a legal medical procedure liable for the death penalty will pass. The bill, however, shows an astonishing lack of concern for women's health and well-being. Under Rep. Franklin's bill, HB 1, women who miscarry could become felons if they cannot prove that there was "no human involvement whatsoever in the causation" of their miscarriage. There is no clarification of what "human involvement" means, and this is hugely problematic as medical doctors do not know exactly what causes miscarriages. Miscarriages are estimated to terminate up to a quarter of all pregnancies and the Mayo Clinic says that "the actual number is probably much higher because many miscarriages occur so early in pregnancy that a woman doesn't even know she's pregnant. Most miscarriages occur because the fetus isn't developing normally."

Holding women criminally liable for a totally natural, common biological process is cruel and non-sensical. Even more ridiculous, the bill holds women responsible for protecting their fetuses from "the moment of conception," despite the fact that pregnancy tests aren't accurate until at least 3 weeks after conception. Unless Franklin (who is not a health professional) invents a revolutionary intrauterine conception alarm system, it's unclear how exactly the state of Georgia would enforce that rule other than holding all possibly-pregnant women under lock and key.

...

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011 ... ty-georgia