February 2010 archive

This mornings Illuminati salute goes go WBZTV in Boston for pointing out that imminent threat of Boston Harbor accepting a LNG tanker from that Axis of Evil state Yemen.  Extra security is being installed to make sure you peasants will pay tribute to the military-industrial complex in support of the new Russia replacement enemy, Islam.  And the question of the day is.

As a society are we too retarded to be allowed to play with matches

Here is the second part of Paul Jay’s talk with journalism professor Jeff Cohen of FAIR and the Park Center for Independent Media.

Cohen here goes into much more depth about the history and the evolution of the corporate influences that took took both Democrats and Republicans to the far right in a long attempt beginning in the late 1960’s and 70’s at taking over the Republican Party, at marginalizing the left, the antiwar movement, and progressives, and then a corporate movement beginning in the 80’s to coopt the Democratic Party, and how we got into the current political situation.

Part 1 of this interview is here.

Part 3 is still to come…

Open Thread

Jeff Cohen is a media critic and lecturer, founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, a national center for the study of media outlets that create and distribute content outside traditional corporate systems and news organizations, where he is an associate professor of journalism.

Cohen also founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986.

Here Cohen talks with Paul Jay of The Real News about the larger significance and social context of the Massachusetts election, about the message of “change” that has been a staple of Democratic candidates for decades, and about the the term “swing voter” and what it means in the context of today’s politics, and concludes that the key attribute of swing voters is that they are not ideological at all, and that if Obama and the Democrats don’t deliver real change they will simply vote against them.

In other words it seems that people like your average (if there is such a thing) DD’er are representative of a very large segment of the population, and hold the future of political parties in their hands, from what Cohen is saying here.

He also tackles the question of why it is that Democrats seem to be never able to deliver on their messages of change, and comes out with some very interesting observations.

Cohen’s own site is JeffCohen.org

I get the strange feeling for some reason that Cohen might have been reading DD and places like it.

Part 2 of this interview is here.

A Docudharma correspondent recently caught up with Hoover Institution’s very own Brain Trust, Daniel Pipes, for a Q&A on the polymath’s ever-evolving views on a wide range of critical topics.

Q:  What are your thoughts on Barack Obama’s first year in office?

A:  I don’t customarily ask Presidents to bomb Iran, but I’ll make an exception, in this case: Bomb Iran!

Q: You describe the Obama administration as “tottering.”  What do you mean by this?

A:  Obama can only salvage himself by bombing Iran.

Q:  In what ways do you find this administration “ruefully deficient?”

A:  They have failed to bomb Iran.

Q:  What’s the one sure-fire way this administration could pass your “laugh test?”

A:  Bombing Iran.

Q:  Domestically, shouldn’t Obama be sharply focused on a collapsing economy?

A:  Not without a devastating first-strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Q:  You have said that Obama “needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.”  Are you talking about health care reform?

A:  Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapon capacity.

Q: Is there any way for Obama to live up to George Bush’s legacy, piss off liberals, AND make conservatives swoon?

A:   An overwhelming air strike to annihilate, crush, demolish, lay waste and raze to a nub Iranian nuclear sites.

Q: I know you are pressed for time, seeing how you are constantly creating and refining fresh and staggering public policy ideas at Hoover.  Let’s sample some of your more wide-ranging thoughts outside of the partisan political arena using a lightning round of free-association.  I’ll say a word or phrase, and you say the first thing that comes to mind.  Okay?

A:  Bombs away.

Haitian earthquake –> Bomb Iran

Wall Street reform –> Bomb Iran

Tim Tebow –> Bomb Iran

Cadbury Eggs –> Bomb Iran

M51 spiral nebula –> Bomb Iran

Punxatawney Phil with shadow –> Bomb Iran

Punxatawney Phil sans shadow –> Bomb Iran

Thank you , Daniel Pipes, Homo universalis.

Well, it seems the Christian Soldiers have taken it all to another level:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/i…

Apparently, mainstream white evangelicals (like Dobson) are merging mixed martial arts/UFC with church and God stuff, because :

“The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.”

(New York Times)

The Fight Within…

Chirst, Harden Me Against THe Weak Fighter with a Pathetic Voice who cries for the Round to be over instead of praying for endless time on the mat…

from anointedfighter.com,  http://www.anointedfighter.com/

“This whole generation is raised on the idea that they’re in a culture war for the heart and soul of America,” said Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University.

Paul Burress, 35, a chaplain and fight coach at Victory Baptist Church in Rochester, said mixed martial arts had given his students a chance to work on body, soul and spirit. “Win or lose, we represent Jesus,” he said. “And we win most of the time.”

But on that cold night in Memphis, Mr. Renken, the pastor from Xtreme Ministries, watched as two of his three fighters were beaten, one emerging with a broken ankle.

Another, Jesse Johnson, 20, a potential convert, was subdued in a chokehold and decided not to return home with the other church members after his bout. He stayed in Memphis, drinking and carousing with friends along Beale Street, this city’s raucous, neon-lighted strip of bars.

NYT –

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02…