Labor Day, Then and Now

from http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/09/labor-day-then-and-now.html

"...Things like Social Security, Medicare, Workman’s Compensation Insurance, The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance, child labor laws, federal minimum wage, occupational health and safety standards, the Environmental Protection Agency, The Centers for Disease Control, The departments of Education and Health, Labor Unions and workers’ rights, and yes, even Welfare, all of these things were created for a reason. For a good reason. For a compelling reason. 

These things were created because when you leave it up to the church and charity to fed the hungry and clothe the poor and heal the sick, a hell of a lot of people go hungry and cold and ill.  It is really just that brutally simple. 

These things were created because when you leave it up to charity and family to take care of old people, a hell of a lot of old people end up stacked like cordwood in institutions. The moldering remnants of such places are all around us.

These things were created because when you leave it up to people to save for their retirement or a rainy day or for accident and infirmity, a hell of a lot of them don’t, or can’t, or won’t.

These things were put in place because when you leave it solely up to the market to weed out poor products and fake medicine and unsafe machines, they don’t, or can’t, or emphatically won’t. 

These things were put in place because when you leave it up to industrialists and share holders to treat their workers with dignity and respect and to pay them a living wage for their hard work, you end up with indentured servitude...

These things were put in place because when you leave it up to the benevolence of industrialists to decide fair pay scales and safety and working hours, you get child labor at a pauper’s wages. When you leave it solely up to bankers and the factory owners and the CEOs, well Sir, then what happens is they end up owning it all and you get to pay them for the privilege of eating out of their garbage can.

And right up until very recently that’s exactly how it was...."

The Party of No

"...You can’t reason with people who are not reasonable. You just can’t.

This nonsense, literally non-sense, is a disturbing symptom of a much larger sickness – one that expresses itself in a hundred different ways, from Holocaust denial to climate change denial to creationism to seeing commies lurking in every shadow to the belief that you can actually turn an enemy into a friendly democracy if you just drop enough ordinance on them. 

There’s a reason, a damned good reason, why these people are called The Party of No.

It’s because they have institutionalized pessimism.

More, they’ve turned it into a reflex; If Obama is for it, they’re automatically against it. Q.E.D.
And this reflexive pessimism, this reflexive denial, taints everything...."

http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/02/preemptive-pessimism-isnt-plan.html

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun has decided to run for Senate

"...his inability to craft any paragraph longer than one sentence. It's like a very angry children's book. It's like crackpot haiku. Damn it, Georgia, teach your legislators how to write—even crazy voters deserve better than this...."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/14/1186938/-Paul-Broun-wants-to-be-a-senator-because-Obama-s-a-Marxist-Leninist-who-rules-with-iron-fist

Progressive Reasons for Southern Secession

From Daily Kos:

Are we 'Better Off Without 'Em?' A live Q & A with author Chuck Thompson about southern secession

"...A large part of my book is intended to show how North and South have historically and still are operating as fundamentally different societies, with sharply contrasting agendas and values. My primary position is simply that a union based on such diametrically opposed approaches to societal organization is like a bad marriage that needs to end in order to save the children from turning into the same dysfunctional assholes as the parents...."

access to the complete article is below

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/21/1146581/-Are-we-Better-Off-Without-Em-A-live-Q-A-with-author-Chuck-Thompson-about-southern-secession?showAll=yes

Ronald Reagan's Misrepresented Legacy

This post is a link and a partial quote.  Enjoy the facts.  Read, witness, comprehend, and consider how the current Republican party would tar, feather, and burn at the stake everything that RR was, did, and stood for, if not for the fiction which has become his legacy.

http://voxverax.blogspot.com/2011/03/whitewashing-of-ronald-reagan.html

"The Whitewashing of Ronald Reagan

By Tom Maertens
(A version of this originally appeared in the Mankato, MN Free Press.)

A Gallup poll taken in 1992 found that Ronald Reagan was the most unpopular living president apart from Nixon, and ranked even below Jimmy Carter; just 46 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Reagan while Carter was viewed favorably by 63 percent of Americans.

This was before the Hollywood-style re-write of Reagan’s presidency that created the fictional character portrayed during Reagan’s 100th birthday celebration. The campaign was led by Grover Norquist and his “Ronald Reagan Legacy Project,” along with corporate-funded propaganda mills like Heritage and American Enterprise Institute that underwrote hundreds of flattering books to create a mythic hero and perpetual tax-cutter. They singled out Reagan’s 1981 tax cut that lowered top marginal rates from 70% to 28% as the basis for the campaign, leaving out the inconvenient reality that he subsequently raised taxes eleven times...."

That Obama 2016 screed

So, I look around out there and the most charitable thing I see about the so-called "documentary" is that it's a "slick infomercial," while the opposite end calls it "poisonous speculation."  Okay, I'll admit, I wrote that last one, based on the WWW searching I did, mostly on Bill Maher (link below) doing a serious number on the "filmaker" and the fact that the guy is basing the "documentary" on his book "The Roots of Obama's Rage."

To me, it's a clear link to where the guy is coming from, and I have to believe that people who are giving each other knowing looks about it are either:

1) pre-disposed to a particular (shall we say, right-ish) viewpoint or,
2) thinking like me that this is just another right-wing hatchet job in an election year where the Republican candidate is seen as a very weak option for that side.

As things move forward on this blog, I'll gather some material and add it to this post, just as a reference location that I can point folks toward when they try to suggest that I should "go and see it because it'll show me the truth."

One thing I'm seriously convinced of is that the truth is nowhere near what's being distributed and broadcast in this attempting-to-be-bought-and-paid-for election.  When, at this writing, over 17 million dollars in out-of-state anonymous money has been spent on a senatorial election in Ohio, surely it's clear to everyone that this campaign finance thing is out of control.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bill-maher-takes-apart-dinesh-d-souza-over

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cenk-uygur-destroys-anti-obama-author-dinesh-dsouza/

http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/doing-right-wing-limbo-how-low-can-the

View these links to read (and watch video).  They explain about how this hatchet job is bought and paid for by entities with power, influence, and authority, supported by anonymous money that's permitted and enabled by our partisan Supreme Court.  Anyone with a little bit of internet savvy can find lots and lots more.

Blue Georgia Preface

Hello and welcome to Blue Georgia.

The idea here is to gather resources that resist the sometimes-overwhelming accumulation of so-called "red" influence in Georgia. 

Towards that end, my initial efforts here are to bring together references that build and promote "blue" information details.

First off, some links.  Eventually, a little bit of detail on some of 'em.

http://www.stonekettle.com/

http://thinkprogress.org/

http://www.dailykos.com/

http://crooksandliars.com/

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

http://wonkette.com/

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/

http://alicublog.blogspot.com/

http://www.georgiaunions.org/

http://www.addictinginfo.org/

http://aattp.org/

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/

http://www.gaprogress.com/

http://bettergeorgia.com/

http://bluemassgroup.com/

http://madmikesamerica.com/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com

http://nunsonthebus.com/

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/

http://voxverax.blogspot.com/

http://www.motherjones.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://americancleanelections.com/

http://mugsysrapsheet.com