Nader is pulling 4% in the Polls right now (last I checked. In a state like Mass where Gore definitely stands a chance to win, a couple of percentage points given to Nader will not give Bush a win. Likewise in a state like Texas where Bush has a 60% lead, a vote for Nader serves the same purpose. Like the Reform Party where they have had a greater than 5% turnout in previous presidential elections (Perot) a greater than 5% turnout guarantees that future presidential runs from that party will have access to federal election funds... Which means more exposure for the party, less money for the major two parties and inclusion in future debates. I am sure that Nader will win his lawsuit against the Massachusetts Electoral College he (and other parties that qualify with 5%+) will not get excluded next time around. Even if you (or I) are not Green Party, a vote for Nader may be a principle vote that will break the two party system and hopefully (in our dreams I think) eliminate the electoral college and get elections decided on pure popular votes.
Being a free-thinking individual doesn't mean taking a single position -- like the belief that voting is a moral imperative -- and always adhering to it. In part, it means recommitting to decisions, considering them anew each time.
The current political system doesn't promote democracy by encouraging debate and diversity. It stifles debate and diversity by limiting the participants to two people from two parties who espouse only slightly different versions of two ideologies: liberalism and conservatism, both to my mind equally discredited and outdated.
It operates by character assassination; it uses technology to promote negative and distorted imagery. Its elemental ideology is marketing, not morals. It's become possible to discuss ideas and solutions in the mediasphere. One day, perhaps, the Net will offer a new kind of space for a different brand of politics. I believe it will. But it doesn't yet.
Read Katz post again, and specifically the above and tell me that I am off-topic. DUH?
Today the intellectual class and the left don't talk about socialism or communism, because it would send people screaming from the room. Besides, their various causes would no longer be able to accumulate funds in the billions of dollars. The New Left doesn't call itself by its real name; it has become very clever and by doing so has succeeded in achieving its goals far better than an open and honest guy like Gus Hall did. Though Gus Hall was a communist, there is more to admire in his activities than in those of the current crop of totalitarians.
Who are the new totalitarians? By what name do they call themselves, and what is their dogma and creed? Nowadays they call themselves radical feminists, environmentalists, multiculturalists and radical homosexuals. They are anti-Christian and anti-Orthodox Judaism, they are against ageism, sexism, racism, homophobia, species-ism, and any number of causes and conditions.
PC is the new American religion, and it is more fanatical than any fundamentalist religion ever thought of being. It is more dangerous than any fundamentalist religion because it now has control of the court system, the trial lawyers, the media, and one of the major parties. PC-ism is dangerous because it demands equal conditions and, more importantly, equal outcomes. It does so by taking money and tribute from one group and handing it to the government or to some aggrieved PC entity. When an individual rises to prominence or wealth, the PC philosophy says it is because of some unfair condition in society.
PC has succeeded for the most part because it got control of the language, revised history, created division, destroyed the Bill of Rights, made traditional, or Christian, Western culture and values the repository of all evils.
The soldiers of modern PC have successfully put the establishment of Western tradition on the defensive. Meanwhile, they have effectively killed free speech at the universities, in discussion, in the mainstream media, and among various groups of Americans, and stunted the growth of creativity and art, as well as political discussion. The result is the balkanization of America and the growing radicalization of various groups of Americans fed up with the fact that their free speech and their belief in constitutional government and the Bill of Rights are being destroyed.
PC is more dangerous than communism because it has taken the moral high ground through manipulation of the facts and denial of the truth.
Grounded in egalitarianism, PC is of the same milieu as that of the French Revolution. Maximilien Robespierre, the French lawyer and chief butcher of that revolution, was probably the first adherent of PC.
The bloody terror of that time was not nearly as cruel and bloody toward the rich and the noble in Paris as it was toward the people in the countryside of France. The blood of ordinary French people who dared speak against the "terror" ran freely in the streets of every province and town in France; ordinary people were massacred by the thousands.
To the first soldiers of PC, "liberty and fraternity" were concepts applied to citizens who went along with its excesses and supported completely the leaders of the massive bloodletting. Even those who followed the new regime in sheep-like fashion were not spared. They died like everyone else, rich or poor, screaming their allegiance to the Revolution and to the leadership of the Revolution.
Whether it is the PC mind-set of today or that of the French Revolution, free speech is only free when it follows PC notions of what is or is not allowed, and even then you might not be safe.
Today PC culture and philosophy are doing a much better job of creating the New Age totalitarian state than communism or the French Revolution were able to do. It is succeeding because it uses the language and the innate sense of decency of most Americans and of the Western tradition, which they have absorbed through their culture, religion, and the tenets contained in the Founding documents.
The sensible and fair American understands that the country has never been perfect. Most Americans know that various groups of people have been abused and treated unfairly, and America has turned itself inside out trying to address those injustices and grievances. However, the truth is that addressing those grievances is not what PC is about. PC is about destruction and tyranny.
The leaders and followers of PC want complete and total capitulation. They want Western culture and tradition to go away. Yet none of them are quite sure what will replace it except some ephemeral PC platitudes.
This phantom utopian state considers all humankind to be perfectible if only there are enough rules, regulations and readjustment to new notions of right and wrong. The problem arises when the standard utopia varies from person to person, just as it did during the French and Russian revolutions. The American Founders gave us incredible concepts, in the basic documents of the Republic, that allow for anyone to believe what he will and for that belief to be allowed free expression. In the world of PC, communism, and fascism, the only "freedom" left is the decision to submit to the tyrannical state or die.
The great jurist Robert Bork defined what is happening in America very well: " our culture is now politicized our politics [are] culturized the idea that everything is ultimately political has taken hold. [I]t is [about] the oppression of women, Western imperialism, colonialism, and racism. Political correctness now assaults one's opponent as not merely wrong but morally evil."
PC is rampant even in the high culture of America. The Smithsonian Institution is not immune. At an exhibit in the 1990s that featured the American Frontier from 1820-1920, the Smithsonian's historians mutilated historical interpretation so badly that historian and former librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin wrote: "A perverse, historically inaccurate, destructive exhibit. No credit to the Smithsonian."
Political correctness is neither objective nor inclusive nor fair. It condemns the brilliant and too often lauds the mediocre, inane and barbaric. Political correctness, in its demonization and vilification of traditional Western culture and philosophy, creates the eventual conditions for its own demise. Yet it does not recognize this as it glorifies non-Western cultures and conditions while totally ignoring their barbarisms.
The problem with PC is that what it seeks to replace Western traditional or classic culture with will not be egalitarian, fair or inclusive. What will fill the vacuum is a chaotic blend of banality, half-truths and political philosophy, based on primitive notions of good and evil, fair and unfair, justice and truth.
PC is more tribal and separatist than anything currently going on in the Aryan Nations, militia groups, skinhead cults and odd but still free associations of people in the United States and the world today. It will continue to do vast harm to the United States, which has been by far the most fair and inclusive civilization in the history of humankind.
If PC achieves final victory, American social, intellectual, spiritual and political life will become more tyrannical and diabolical than any yet invented by the dark side of human nature.
Words Matter
It wasn't that long ago that the language of communism sounded pretty ridiculous. Remember laughing at such phrases as "running-dog capitalists" and "exploiters of the poor and downtrodden"? These and other inanities were easy to laugh off.
It is another circumstance, however, to laugh off phrases like "despoilers of the environment" and words like "racist," "bigoted," "homophobes," "sexist," "chauvinist." It is much more difficult to laugh off such terms as "extreme right wing" or "white supremacist" or "patriarchal oppressors of women and minorities." However, such use of language is absolutely no different from what communists did from the 1920s to the 1990s.
Inherent in accusatory language is a value judgment based on nothing but hatred for traditional values. These days it is a safe bet to target Western traditional culture and values and those rights as defined in the American Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
Those who honestly believe in the Bill of Rights would not for a second try to curtail the free speech rights of the proponents and followers of PC. I repeat, for the hardheaded PC types: Those who honestly believe in the Bill of Rights would not for a second try to curtail the free speech rights of the proponents and followers of PC. If such had been the case, Gloria Steinem, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, the Sierra Club, the Green Party, PETA, the National Council of Churches, members of the U.N. and all the other PC groups would be serving heavy-duty time in the slammer.
However, those of the PC faith in turn do not tolerate ideas or those who follow Western tradition, Christianity, or Orthodox Judaism. Intolerance is part and parcel of all dictatorial creeds, and PC is merely the most recent manifestation of that tendency of mankind to seek control over others through any means possible. Attacks by the PC crowd on targets from Dr. Laura to the Boy Scouts, from capitalism to farmers, from pro-life to Christmas displays, from guns to tobacco, from home schooling to parochial schools continues, and tyranny over these groups through legislation and the courts has been very successful.
The root of all stupidity, in all times, is pride, arrogance, disrespect and intolerance. Add a lack of forgiveness, envy, bitterness and self-pity, and PC is currently the ultimate in a pathetic religion of victimology and moral one-upmanship. It manipulates the facts and distorts the truth. Western society has seen this before, and each and every time it has led to bloodletting and tyranny.
If Gus Hall had been born today, he might have become a modern totalitarian. He probably would have been a disciple of PC or one of its subsets. PC is the most dangerous mind-set of our times because it is the modern replacement for communism and fascism. It has nearly won the cultural battle for the soul of America.
Gus Hall, however, was more admirable than today's advocates and disciples of PC. The things he stood for were plain, clear and understandable. We knew who the opposition was.
Once upon a time in a different America, we all knew that communism was a despicable philosophy that was used to condemn billions to slavery, poverty and oppression. It was clearly the enemy of Western tradition, particularly Christianity and Judaism, as well as all the great world religions. The enemy was definable and therefore the plan of action against it possible.
Currently, the followers of the Western tradition have no such luck. PC is winning the minds of kids in schools and perverting the understanding of recent immigrants to the United States. It destroys the intent of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It takes our liberty and replaces it with the new totalitarianism couched in religious terms. It gives back a black hole that will suck up the best and brightest and destroy everything it touches.
The problem with PC is that it is the New World Order religion
Eventually there will be no need to differentiate. It is 'mail'. As the need for the hand delivery of pressed wood pulp diminishes, then will we really care to recognize the difference? Let us drop the 'e' from all buzz-words. It is getting old now. e-biz, e-commerce, e-royalties, e-cash, e-referral, e-porn... business is business, mail is mail, cash is cash...
Even if you disagree with some or many of the front burner issues for all of the candidates, you should vote for the one that you think will best lead this nation. Originally I thought that I could not vote for any of these people on a clear conscious. One of them will end up in office whether I vote or not. Make the best choice. - Third party is the best choice if you feel as I do... The biggest problems we have with the election process is the two party system and the electoral college.
For those who missed presidential debate 2, this is a transcript of what was said:
Lehrer: Welcome to the second presidential debate between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush. The candidates have agreed on these rules: I will ask a question. The candidate will ignore the question and deliver rehearsed remarks designed to appeal to undecided women voters.
The opponent will then have one minute to respond by trying to frighten senior citizens into voting for him. When a speaker's time has expired, I will whimper softly while he continues to spew incomprehensible statistics for three more minutes.
Let's start with the vice president. Mr. Gore, can you give us the name of a downtrodden citizen and then tell us his or her story in a way that strains the bounds of common sense?
Gore: as I was saying to Tipper last night after we tenderly made love the way we have so often during the 30 years of our rock-solid marriage, the downtrodden have a clear choice in this election.
My opponent wants to cut taxes for the richest 1 percent of Americans. I, on the other hand, want to put the richest 1 percent in an ironclad lockbox so they can't hurt old people like Roberta Frampinhamper, who is here tonight.
Mrs. Frampinhamper has been selling her internal organs, one by one, to pay for gas so that she can travel to these debates and personify problems for me. Also, her poodle has arthritis.
Lehrer: Gov. Bush, your rebuttal.
Bush: Governors are on the front lines every day, hugging people, crying with them, relieving suffering anywhere a photo opportunity exists. I want to empower those crying people to make their own decisions, unlike my opponent, whose mother is not Barbara Bush.
Lehrer: Let's turn to foreign affairs. Gov. Bush, if Slobodan Milosevic were to launch a bid to return to power in Yugoslavia, would you be able to pronounce his name?
Bush: The current administration had eight years to deal with that guy and didn't get it done. If I'm elected, the first thing I would do about that guy is have Dick Cheney confer with our allies. And then Dick would present me several options for dealing with that guy. And then Dick would tell me which one to choose.
You know, as governor of Texas, I have to make tough foreign policy decisions every day about how we're going to deal with New Mexico.
Lehrer: Mr. Gore, your rebuttal.
Gore: Foreign policy is something I've always been keenly interested in.
I served my country in Vietnam. I had an uncle who was a victim of poison gas in World War I. I myself lost a leg in the Franco-Prussian War. And when that war was over, I came home and tenderly made love to Tipper in a way that any undecided woman voter would find romantic.
If I'm entrusted with the office of president, I pledge to deal knowledgeably with any threat, foreign or domestic, by putting it in an ironclad lockbox. Because the American people deserve a president who can comfort them with simple metaphors.
Lehrer: Vice President Gore, how would you reform the Social Security system?
Gore: It's a vital issue, Jim. That's why Joe Lieberman and I have proposed changing the laws of mathematics to allow us to give $50,000 to every senior citizen without having it cost the federal treasury a single penny until the year 2250.
In addition, my budget commits $60 trillion over the next 10 years to guarantee that all senior citizens can have drugs delivered free to their homes every Monday by a federal employee who will also help them with the child-proof cap.
Lehrer: Gov. Bush?
Bush: That's fuzzy math. I know, because as governor of Texas, I have to do math every day. I have to add up the numbers and decide whether I'm going to fill potholes out on Rt. 36 east of Abilene or commit funds to reroof the sheep barn at the Texas state fairgrounds.
Leher: It's time for closing statements.
Gore: I'm my own man. I may not be the most exciting politician, but I will fight for the working families of America, in addition to turning the White House into a lusty pit of marital love for Tipper and me.
Bush: It's time to put aside the partisanship of the past by electing no one but Republicans.
How Bush's Language Problems and Short Attention Span Would Affect Us
A reporter recently used Texas public information laws to obtain 900 pages of George W. Bush's governor's schedules and correspondence and discovered "a governor who works short hours and spends little time studying specific issues or working on executive matters. The schedules show that Mr. Bush typically had his first office meeting about 9 a.m., took two hours of "private time" at lunch for a run, and then wrapped up his last meeting by about 5 p.m. A large portion of the officially scheduled meetings were "photo opportunities," interviews with reporters, or meetings with school groups or other ceremonial occasions. Relatively little of the day was devoted to hard-core examination of the issues." NYT reporter Nicholas D. Kristof goes on to note that the schedules were taken from one of Bush's busiest periods as governor, 1997, a year in which the Texas Legislature met.
Since Bush has often told the nation to look at his Texas record to determine what kind of president he would be, one wonders how he would function under the extreme pressures and very long days common to the presidency. Bush is unwilling to put a label on his language and attention problems, which appear to be the reason for his short days in the governor's office. However, his friends and business acquaintances have commented on these problems.
Doug Hannah, a friend since childhood, has found that the attention problem runs in the family: "They have an attention span of about an hour." When he and George were boys, he remembers, "Mr. Bush would pick us up to take us to the movies and leave after an hour and 20 minutes.... At ball games George would sometimes want to leave in the fifth inning." "Even today," writes Gail Sheehy in the October Vanity Fair, "nothing engages Bush's attention for more than an hour, an hour max-more like 10 or 15 minutes. His workday as governor of Texas is "two hard half-days," as his chief of staff, Clay Johnson, describes it. He puts in the hours from 8 to 11:30 A.M., breaking it up with a series of 15-minute meetings, sometimes 10-minute meetings, but rarely is there a 30-minute meeting, says Johnson. At 11:30 he's "outtahere." He tries everything possible to have at least two hours of what he calls private time in the middle of the day to go over to the University of Texas track or run a hard three to five miles on a concrete path at a pace of 7.5 minutes a mile, then relax and return to the office at 1:30, where he'll play some video golf or computer solitaire until about three, and then it's back to the second "hard half-day" until 5:30."
It's not just that Bush begins to lose focus earlier than most administrators in high pressure jobs, but his language breaks down and he sometimes becomes incomprehensible. When reporters began writing about his language difficulties after the New Hampshire primaries, excuses were made by both Bush spinners and sympathetic reporters that he only made his language gaffes late in the day. Then it was late in the day and early in the morning. After that it was late in the day, early in the morning, and when under pressure. Then Bush began to schmooze with reporters on his plane and we were given stories that he didn't sleep well on the road and missed the comfort of his Austin bed. All of these explanations are true, but they don't really get to the heart of the matter. Bush appears to be incapable of working long, hard, pressure-filled days, the kind of days common to the presidency, without suffering a loss of attention and an inability to clearly communicate. Can we afford a president who works a six hour day and devotes little of those hours to "studying specific issues or working on executive matters"? Bush may want to do more, but his language and attention problems appear to prevent him from doing more.
The cellular process that results in the number of chromosomes in gamete-producing cells being reduced to one half and that involves a reduction division in which one of each pair of homologous chromosomes passes to each daughter cell and a mitotic division.
Then I would collect royalties from all types of sexual reproduction: Children, agriculture, pet breeders... etc. Figure I'd cash in on my patent before cloning becomes popular, since many of those techniques are already patented and there still is a market for sexual reproduction.
I have a degree double major Chem/Microbiology, but my Oracle cert has gotten me farther in the workplace than my degree that I do not utilize. Still, I would be a strong advocate of a bachelor's at least, especially from the University experience. I would assume that as the market saturates, the skills with the piece of paper will be the desired. Plus, considering how the market is doing, I would invest in an education and not the stock options.
I did not bring up Picasso. The post I replying to did... No, medieval tapestries are not art. They are craft, and serve a purpose not being created for art's sake. Maybe a better example would be Egyptian tombs. This 'art' served a purpose, and was not created as art but a necessity for the afterlife. The tapestry is the same, and the same would go for someone that painted in the style of an impressionist today. Art needs to innovate in the current period and as well be challenging to the viewer.
Which artist deserves most praise? Pablo Picasso, whose art unquestionably is among the most revolutionary ever; or some long-forgotten cave-dweller who, with red rock on a cave wall, drew a stick-animal and created art and with it all visual communication?
This is easily arguable in the sense that the latter was not art in its true sense. The cave paintings were probably one of two things:
1. Communication where there were no words to communicate a given idea, or it was a visual summary. Like a medieval tapestry, or the AIDS quilt.
2. A form of ritual-divination where man would communicate to the spirit world, or a religious icon. Like the many 'mother' figures or a crucifix.
Art needs to step out of these boundaries. Picasso does that.
Slashdot Mirror
The current political system doesn't promote democracy by encouraging debate and diversity. It stifles debate and diversity by limiting the participants to two people from two parties who espouse only slightly different versions of two ideologies: liberalism and conservatism, both to my mind equally discredited and outdated.
It operates by character assassination; it uses technology to promote negative and distorted imagery. Its elemental ideology is marketing, not morals. It's become possible to discuss ideas and solutions in the mediasphere. One day, perhaps, the Net will offer a new kind of space for a different brand of politics. I believe it will. But it doesn't yet.
Read Katz post again, and specifically the above and tell me that I am off-topic. DUH?
Who are the new totalitarians? By what name do they call themselves, and what is their dogma and creed? Nowadays they call themselves radical feminists, environmentalists, multiculturalists and radical homosexuals. They are anti-Christian and anti-Orthodox Judaism, they are against ageism, sexism, racism, homophobia, species-ism, and any number of causes and conditions.
PC is the new American religion, and it is more fanatical than any fundamentalist religion ever thought of being. It is more dangerous than any fundamentalist religion because it now has control of the court system, the trial lawyers, the media, and one of the major parties. PC-ism is dangerous because it demands equal conditions and, more importantly, equal outcomes. It does so by taking money and tribute from one group and handing it to the government or to some aggrieved PC entity. When an individual rises to prominence or wealth, the PC philosophy says it is because of some unfair condition in society.
PC has succeeded for the most part because it got control of the language, revised history, created division, destroyed the Bill of Rights, made traditional, or Christian, Western culture and values the repository of all evils.
The soldiers of modern PC have successfully put the establishment of Western tradition on the defensive. Meanwhile, they have effectively killed free speech at the universities, in discussion, in the mainstream media, and among various groups of Americans, and stunted the growth of creativity and art, as well as political discussion. The result is the balkanization of America and the growing radicalization of various groups of Americans fed up with the fact that their free speech and their belief in constitutional government and the Bill of Rights are being destroyed.
PC is more dangerous than communism because it has taken the moral high ground through manipulation of the facts and denial of the truth.
Grounded in egalitarianism, PC is of the same milieu as that of the French Revolution. Maximilien Robespierre, the French lawyer and chief butcher of that revolution, was probably the first adherent of PC.
The bloody terror of that time was not nearly as cruel and bloody toward the rich and the noble in Paris as it was toward the people in the countryside of France. The blood of ordinary French people who dared speak against the "terror" ran freely in the streets of every province and town in France; ordinary people were massacred by the thousands.
To the first soldiers of PC, "liberty and fraternity" were concepts applied to citizens who went along with its excesses and supported completely the leaders of the massive bloodletting. Even those who followed the new regime in sheep-like fashion were not spared. They died like everyone else, rich or poor, screaming their allegiance to the Revolution and to the leadership of the Revolution.
Whether it is the PC mind-set of today or that of the French Revolution, free speech is only free when it follows PC notions of what is or is not allowed, and even then you might not be safe.
Today PC culture and philosophy are doing a much better job of creating the New Age totalitarian state than communism or the French Revolution were able to do. It is succeeding because it uses the language and the innate sense of decency of most Americans and of the Western tradition, which they have absorbed through their culture, religion, and the tenets contained in the Founding documents.
The sensible and fair American understands that the country has never been perfect. Most Americans know that various groups of people have been abused and treated unfairly, and America has turned itself inside out trying to address those injustices and grievances. However, the truth is that addressing those grievances is not what PC is about. PC is about destruction and tyranny.
The leaders and followers of PC want complete and total capitulation. They want Western culture and tradition to go away. Yet none of them are quite sure what will replace it except some ephemeral PC platitudes.
This phantom utopian state considers all humankind to be perfectible if only there are enough rules, regulations and readjustment to new notions of right and wrong. The problem arises when the standard utopia varies from person to person, just as it did during the French and Russian revolutions. The American Founders gave us incredible concepts, in the basic documents of the Republic, that allow for anyone to believe what he will and for that belief to be allowed free expression. In the world of PC, communism, and fascism, the only "freedom" left is the decision to submit to the tyrannical state or die.
The great jurist Robert Bork defined what is happening in America very well: " our culture is now politicized our politics [are] culturized the idea that everything is ultimately political has taken hold. [I]t is [about] the oppression of women, Western imperialism, colonialism, and racism. Political correctness now assaults one's opponent as not merely wrong but morally evil."
PC is rampant even in the high culture of America. The Smithsonian Institution is not immune. At an exhibit in the 1990s that featured the American Frontier from 1820-1920, the Smithsonian's historians mutilated historical interpretation so badly that historian and former librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin wrote: "A perverse, historically inaccurate, destructive exhibit. No credit to the Smithsonian."
Political correctness is neither objective nor inclusive nor fair. It condemns the brilliant and too often lauds the mediocre, inane and barbaric. Political correctness, in its demonization and vilification of traditional Western culture and philosophy, creates the eventual conditions for its own demise. Yet it does not recognize this as it glorifies non-Western cultures and conditions while totally ignoring their barbarisms.
The problem with PC is that what it seeks to replace Western traditional or classic culture with will not be egalitarian, fair or inclusive. What will fill the vacuum is a chaotic blend of banality, half-truths and political philosophy, based on primitive notions of good and evil, fair and unfair, justice and truth.
PC is more tribal and separatist than anything currently going on in the Aryan Nations, militia groups, skinhead cults and odd but still free associations of people in the United States and the world today. It will continue to do vast harm to the United States, which has been by far the most fair and inclusive civilization in the history of humankind.
If PC achieves final victory, American social, intellectual, spiritual and political life will become more tyrannical and diabolical than any yet invented by the dark side of human nature.
Words Matter
It wasn't that long ago that the language of communism sounded pretty ridiculous. Remember laughing at such phrases as "running-dog capitalists" and "exploiters of the poor and downtrodden"? These and other inanities were easy to laugh off.
It is another circumstance, however, to laugh off phrases like "despoilers of the environment" and words like "racist," "bigoted," "homophobes," "sexist," "chauvinist." It is much more difficult to laugh off such terms as "extreme right wing" or "white supremacist" or "patriarchal oppressors of women and minorities." However, such use of language is absolutely no different from what communists did from the 1920s to the 1990s.
Inherent in accusatory language is a value judgment based on nothing but hatred for traditional values. These days it is a safe bet to target Western traditional culture and values and those rights as defined in the American Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
Those who honestly believe in the Bill of Rights would not for a second try to curtail the free speech rights of the proponents and followers of PC. I repeat, for the hardheaded PC types: Those who honestly believe in the Bill of Rights would not for a second try to curtail the free speech rights of the proponents and followers of PC. If such had been the case, Gloria Steinem, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, the Sierra Club, the Green Party, PETA, the National Council of Churches, members of the U.N. and all the other PC groups would be serving heavy-duty time in the slammer.
However, those of the PC faith in turn do not tolerate ideas or those who follow Western tradition, Christianity, or Orthodox Judaism. Intolerance is part and parcel of all dictatorial creeds, and PC is merely the most recent manifestation of that tendency of mankind to seek control over others through any means possible. Attacks by the PC crowd on targets from Dr. Laura to the Boy Scouts, from capitalism to farmers, from pro-life to Christmas displays, from guns to tobacco, from home schooling to parochial schools continues, and tyranny over these groups through legislation and the courts has been very successful.
The root of all stupidity, in all times, is pride, arrogance, disrespect and intolerance. Add a lack of forgiveness, envy, bitterness and self-pity, and PC is currently the ultimate in a pathetic religion of victimology and moral one-upmanship. It manipulates the facts and distorts the truth. Western society has seen this before, and each and every time it has led to bloodletting and tyranny.
If Gus Hall had been born today, he might have become a modern totalitarian. He probably would have been a disciple of PC or one of its subsets. PC is the most dangerous mind-set of our times because it is the modern replacement for communism and fascism. It has nearly won the cultural battle for the soul of America.
Gus Hall, however, was more admirable than today's advocates and disciples of PC. The things he stood for were plain, clear and understandable. We knew who the opposition was.
Once upon a time in a different America, we all knew that communism was a despicable philosophy that was used to condemn billions to slavery, poverty and oppression. It was clearly the enemy of Western tradition, particularly Christianity and Judaism, as well as all the great world religions. The enemy was definable and therefore the plan of action against it possible.
Currently, the followers of the Western tradition have no such luck. PC is winning the minds of kids in schools and perverting the understanding of recent immigrants to the United States. It destroys the intent of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It takes our liberty and replaces it with the new totalitarianism couched in religious terms. It gives back a black hole that will suck up the best and brightest and destroy everything it touches.
The problem with PC is that it is the New World Order religion
Lehrer: Welcome to the second presidential debate between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush. The candidates have agreed on these rules: I will ask a question. The candidate will ignore the question and deliver rehearsed remarks designed to appeal to undecided women voters.
The opponent will then have one minute to respond by trying to frighten senior citizens into voting for him. When a speaker's time has expired, I will whimper softly while he continues to spew incomprehensible statistics for three more minutes.
Let's start with the vice president. Mr. Gore, can you give us the name of a downtrodden citizen and then tell us his or her story in a way that strains the bounds of common sense?
Gore: as I was saying to Tipper last night after we tenderly made love the way we have so often during the 30 years of our rock-solid marriage, the downtrodden have a clear choice in this election.
My opponent wants to cut taxes for the richest 1 percent of Americans. I, on the other hand, want to put the richest 1 percent in an ironclad lockbox so they can't hurt old people like Roberta Frampinhamper, who is here tonight.
Mrs. Frampinhamper has been selling her internal organs, one by one, to pay for gas so that she can travel to these debates and personify problems for me. Also, her poodle has arthritis.
Lehrer: Gov. Bush, your rebuttal.
Bush: Governors are on the front lines every day, hugging people, crying with them, relieving suffering anywhere a photo opportunity exists. I want to empower those crying people to make their own decisions, unlike my opponent, whose mother is not Barbara Bush.
Lehrer: Let's turn to foreign affairs. Gov. Bush, if Slobodan Milosevic were to launch a bid to return to power in Yugoslavia, would you be able to pronounce his name?
Bush: The current administration had eight years to deal with that guy and didn't get it done. If I'm elected, the first thing I would do about that guy is have Dick Cheney confer with our allies. And then Dick would present me several options for dealing with that guy. And then Dick would tell me which one to choose.
You know, as governor of Texas, I have to make tough foreign policy decisions every day about how we're going to deal with New Mexico.
Lehrer: Mr. Gore, your rebuttal.
Gore: Foreign policy is something I've always been keenly interested in.
I served my country in Vietnam. I had an uncle who was a victim of poison gas in World War I. I myself lost a leg in the Franco-Prussian War. And when that war was over, I came home and tenderly made love to Tipper in a way that any undecided woman voter would find romantic.
If I'm entrusted with the office of president, I pledge to deal knowledgeably with any threat, foreign or domestic, by putting it in an ironclad lockbox. Because the American people deserve a president who can comfort them with simple metaphors.
Lehrer: Vice President Gore, how would you reform the Social Security system?
Gore: It's a vital issue, Jim. That's why Joe Lieberman and I have proposed changing the laws of mathematics to allow us to give $50,000 to every senior citizen without having it cost the federal treasury a single penny until the year 2250.
In addition, my budget commits $60 trillion over the next 10 years to guarantee that all senior citizens can have drugs delivered free to their homes every Monday by a federal employee who will also help them with the child-proof cap.
Lehrer: Gov. Bush?
Bush: That's fuzzy math. I know, because as governor of Texas, I have to do math every day. I have to add up the numbers and decide whether I'm going to fill potholes out on Rt. 36 east of Abilene or commit funds to reroof the sheep barn at the Texas state fairgrounds.
Leher: It's time for closing statements.
Gore: I'm my own man. I may not be the most exciting politician, but I will fight for the working families of America, in addition to turning the White House into a lusty pit of marital love for Tipper and me.
Bush: It's time to put aside the partisanship of the past by electing no one but Republicans.
A reporter recently used Texas public information laws to obtain 900 pages of George W. Bush's governor's schedules and correspondence and discovered "a governor who works short hours and spends little time studying specific issues or working on executive matters. The schedules show that Mr. Bush typically had his first office meeting about 9 a.m., took two hours of "private time" at lunch for a run, and then wrapped up his last meeting by about 5 p.m. A large portion of the officially scheduled meetings were "photo opportunities," interviews with reporters, or meetings with school groups or other ceremonial occasions. Relatively little of the day was devoted to hard-core examination of the issues." NYT reporter Nicholas D. Kristof goes on to note that the schedules were taken from one of Bush's busiest periods as governor, 1997, a year in which the Texas Legislature met.
Since Bush has often told the nation to look at his Texas record to determine what kind of president he would be, one wonders how he would function under the extreme pressures and very long days common to the presidency. Bush is unwilling to put a label on his language and attention problems, which appear to be the reason for his short days in the governor's office. However, his friends and business acquaintances have commented on these problems.
Doug Hannah, a friend since childhood, has found that the attention problem runs in the family: "They have an attention span of about an hour." When he and George were boys, he remembers, "Mr. Bush would pick us up to take us to the movies and leave after an hour and 20 minutes.... At ball games George would sometimes want to leave in the fifth inning." "Even today," writes Gail Sheehy in the October Vanity Fair, "nothing engages Bush's attention for more than an hour, an hour max-more like 10 or 15 minutes. His workday as governor of Texas is "two hard half-days," as his chief of staff, Clay Johnson, describes it. He puts in the hours from 8 to 11:30 A.M., breaking it up with a series of 15-minute meetings, sometimes 10-minute meetings, but rarely is there a 30-minute meeting, says Johnson. At 11:30 he's "outtahere." He tries everything possible to have at least two hours of what he calls private time in the middle of the day to go over to the University of Texas track or run a hard three to five miles on a concrete path at a pace of 7.5 minutes a mile, then relax and return to the office at 1:30, where he'll play some video golf or computer solitaire until about three, and then it's back to the second "hard half-day" until 5:30."
It's not just that Bush begins to lose focus earlier than most administrators in high pressure jobs, but his language breaks down and he sometimes becomes incomprehensible. When reporters began writing about his language difficulties after the New Hampshire primaries, excuses were made by both Bush spinners and sympathetic reporters that he only made his language gaffes late in the day. Then it was late in the day and early in the morning. After that it was late in the day, early in the morning, and when under pressure. Then Bush began to schmooze with reporters on his plane and we were given stories that he didn't sleep well on the road and missed the comfort of his Austin bed. All of these explanations are true, but they don't really get to the heart of the matter. Bush appears to be incapable of working long, hard, pressure-filled days, the kind of days common to the presidency, without suffering a loss of attention and an inability to clearly communicate. Can we afford a president who works a six hour day and devotes little of those hours to "studying specific issues or working on executive matters"? Bush may want to do more, but his language and attention problems appear to prevent him from doing more.
hmmm... if it was made of Lego you'd like it though?
I like the way it looks in those images.
The cellular process that results in the number of chromosomes in gamete-producing cells being reduced to one half and that involves a reduction division in which one of each pair of homologous chromosomes passes to each daughter cell and a mitotic division.
Then I would collect royalties from all types of sexual reproduction: Children, agriculture, pet breeders... etc. Figure I'd cash in on my patent before cloning becomes popular, since many of those techniques are already patented and there still is a market for sexual reproduction.
Another great resource is Homepower.
Using nature and technology to liberate.
Mod this UP!
This is easily arguable in the sense that the latter was not art in its true sense. The cave paintings were probably one of two things:
1. Communication where there were no words to communicate a given idea, or it was a visual summary. Like a medieval tapestry, or the AIDS quilt.
2. A form of ritual-divination where man would communicate to the spirit world, or a religious icon. Like the many 'mother' figures or a crucifix.
Art needs to step out of these boundaries. Picasso does that.