If the Republican Party and it’s congregation comprising of Bible thumping, gun hoarding,tea-bagging bigots and assorted semi-illiterate racists, believe that the country is headed toward Socialism, then instead of marching on the streets with their balls dangling on their confederate hats, they should be the first to show REAL dissent: Give up MEDICARE and SOCIAL SECURITY — both SOCIAL programs that aging Republican bigots are happily enjoying.
Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria. Medicare operates as a single-payer health care system. The Social Security Act of 1965 was passed by Congress in late-spring of 1965 and signed into law on July 30, 1965, by President Lyndon B. Johnson as amendments to Social Security legislation. At the bill-signing ceremony President Johnson enrolled former President Harry S. Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card.
The most bigoted Republicans are senior citizens — unable to give up their LYNCHING MENTALITY of the past. Give up your monthly Social Security Payments, your Medicare benefits and start lining up at hospital emergency rooms, for us to take your SOCIALIST rants seriously!
President Obama is just trying address the inequities that exist in this country — very modestly! ….Give it Up!!
From Publishers Weekly: Inspired by Richard Hofstadter’s trenchant 1963 cultural analysis Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Jacoby (Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism) has produced an engaging, updated and meticulously thought-out continuation of her academic idol’s research.
Dismayed by the average U.S. citizen’s political and social apathy and the overall crisis of memory and knowledge involving everything about the way we learn and think, Jacoby passionately argues that the nation’s current cult of unreason has deadly and destructive consequences (the war in Iraq, for one) and traces the seeds of current anti-intellectualism (and its partner in crime, antirationalism) back to post-WWII society.
Unafraid of pointing fingers, she singles out mass media and the resurgence of fundamentalist religion as the primary vectors of anti-intellectualism, while also having harsh words for pseudoscientists.
Through historical research, Jacoby breaks down popular beliefs that the 1950s were a cultural wasteland and the 1960s were solely a breeding ground for liberals.
Though sometimes partial to inflated prose (America’s endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been grievously exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism), Jacoby has assembled an erudite mix of personal anecdotes, cultural history and social commentary to decry America’s retreat into junk thought. (Feb. 12)
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From The New Yorker: Identifying herself as a “cultural conservationist” (but by no means a cultural conservative), Jacoby laments the decline of middlebrow American culture and presents a cogent defense of intellectualism.
America, she believes, faces a “crisis of memory and knowledge,” in which anti-intellectualism is not only tolerated but celebrated by those in politics and the media to whom we are all “just folks.”
The Internet, for all its promise, is too often “a highway to the far-flung regions of junk thought.” Meanwhile, twenty-five per cent of high-school biology teachers believe that human beings and dinosaurs shared the earth, and more than a third of Americans can?t name a single First Amendment right.
In such an environment, Jacoby argues, the secular left and the religious right can have no fruitful dialogue on issues like the separation of church and state.
She offers little hope that the situation will improve, opining that, despite increasing levels of education, “Americans seem to know less and less.” — Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker
The first time I heard of Chuck Norris was in the movie “Way of The Dragon” — originally released as “Return of the Dragon.” in the early seventies.
I was in my early teens, I loved action movies…and still do decades later. Growing up in Africa, we rarely watched movies, and whenever we did, it was a very special occasion.
I remember sneaking into a theater while an under-age teenager and watching the sexually explicit Swedish movie — “Language of Love,” a living-room-type discussion of sex, interspersed with mimed and actual illustrative sequences, including genital close-ups. The movie was meant to be educational — and it was, graphics and all.
In the early seventies, this was serious pornography, by African standards. I remember my mother warning me while waving a BIBLE — never to watch the movie.
I went anyway, only to come back home to a thorough whipping — from both mom and dad! They were petrified — how could I go watch un-godly naked white men and women! LOL!
Even at that age, I was convinced that the bigger “evil” was that BIBLE she was waving. The Europeans came to Africa, stole everything they could lay their hands on, mesmerized and indoctrinated the populace with “Charlatan Lies and Fairytales,” …..then they left, “awarding” Africans “Independence” — Independence “roped” tightly to the IMF, World-Bank and other tools of Neo-Colonialism…..and left Africans holding the BIBLE……dis-organized and well set for a murderous, thieving and genocidal future.
George Carlin On Religion:
“When it comes to bullshit . . . truly, major league bullshit . . . you have to stand back in awe . . . in awe, of the all time heavyweight champion of false promises and exaggerated claims . . . religion! Organized religion! It’s no contest!
Religion easily . . . easily, has the best bullshit story of all time! Think about it . . .
Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do . . . and if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place . . . of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish . . . for you to live forever . . . and suffer and burn and scream . . . until the end of time! [The muslim version of this crap -- 72 Virgins: Hadith number 2,562 in the collection known as the Sunan al-Tirmidhi says, "The least [reward] for the people of Heaven is 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome of pearls, aquamarine and ruby.“……ETC.]
But he loves you! . . . he loves you! . . . and he needs money!
He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing and all-wise . . . just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions and billions of dollars . . . they pay no taxes, and somehow they always need money! You’re talking about a good bullshit story! . . . If I may be permitted a small pun; Holy Shit! . . . HOLY SHIT!”
But, my first love was martial arts featuring Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Chen Singh and many other oriental stars.
I loved the movie (Return of the Dragon), and Bruce Lee was my hero. I loved Chuck too, and have enjoyed subsequent action/war/drama movies starring Mr. Norris…..upto and including “Walker — Texas Ranger” — re-runs of which I still watch today.
Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris in “Way of The Dragon”
During the 2007/2008 US presidential primaries Chuck Norris supported right-wing Republican Mike Huckabee, a xenophobic anti-immigrant bigot, for president — I really paid no attention….Chuck was still my childhood hero…until this morning, when I saw the clip below:
Chuck Norris vs. Arianna Huffington
Bill O’Wino Thinks Arianna is NAZI — LOL!
Chuck’s moronic arguments with Arianna persuaded me to dig in deeper using my favorite Internet Tool — Google.
Chuck Norris’s religious lunacy and gung-ho THUG attitude is appalling, and his unbalanced reasoning does not match the “Karate Discipline and Balance” that I have always associated him with.
It saddens me that my childhood hero has turned into Bible Thumping, Gun-Totting Christian Fanatic.
