tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42622137060796164582024-03-13T12:01:11.843-07:00From Out of Nowhere...A collection of facts, photos and thoughts that ultimately prove to be either helpful or trivial.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-33962551833930937442016-10-06T08:02:00.000-07:002016-10-25T16:54:36.153-07:00How Donald Trump Swindled The Republican Party, And Why "Know Nothing" Alt-Right Conservatives Love Him For Having Done It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: xx-large;">I</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> <b>know what you're thinking if you've been following my posts on this blog within the past year: "Oh, God---he's going to criticize Trump again". Well, you're absolutely right. However, I must point out one very important fact before I begin this post, and that is this: a presidential nominee will never be anything more than a reflection of the party that allowed him (or her) to win their party's nomination; and since this is true, then the Republican Party is in a world of trouble as a result of Donald Trump being their nominee for President in 2016.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>As I have already tried to point out in previous posts, there can be little doubt as to how so many Republican voters were willing to sell their party's soul in order to make certain that Trump would win the nomination, especially when a large percentage of angry, poorly-educated white conservatives within the GOP were already waiting for someone who was as effective at channeling their resentment towards Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party as Donald Trump. Facts, figures and statistics have never mattered to this "Alt-Right" crowd, and they never will as long as someone like Trump keeps telling them to blame everyone other than themselves for what is wrong with their own party and America in general. The only thing that matters to Trump's voting base is guaranteeing that their voices will always be more prevalent than the overwhelming numbers of demographic groups in the U.S. who are vehemently opposed to right-wing conservative ideology.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Clearly this is an indication that voters who support Donald Trump's candidacy for President are more than willing to embrace authoritarian fascism over democracy or any other form of governing in which a majority of people determine how their nation functions. Considering that there are many within the conservative movement who already believe that America was never intended to have a government which was based on the principles of democratic populism, federal authority, legislative and judicial equality or separation of powers, it isn't too difficult to understand why so many among the far right accept Trump's "strong man" unilateral approach to governing. As far as they're concerned, only one person should have absolute control of all governing functions within the U.S., and Donald Trump is that one person for 2016. Don't bother trying to explain the concept of what a banana republic is to an infantile-minded group of people like Trump's voting base who look at politics the same way as playing an adult version of "Simon Says" or "Follow The Leader". They couldn't care less what a banana republic is as long as they're convinced that it doesn't cause them to lose their disdain for the Federal government and helps secure their place at the table when it comes to attacking the influence of liberalism within the Democratic Party.* </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Another factor that plays into the popularity of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential candidacy has been the lock-step "know nothing" mentality which has crept back into the puritanical and poorly informed tendencies of conservative Republican thought like never before. Naturally a despot con artist like Trump has been aware of this mentality for quite some time and has been using it to his advantage throughout Barack Obama's presidency in the hopes of ultimately winning the Republican nomination and going on to win the general election in November. If there's one thing that can be said about Donald J. Trump, it would have to be this: He never does anything coincidentally or accidentally. Like any conniving, opportunistic charlatan who sells a faulty product to his own customers to see if he can get away with making a quick fortune at the expense of rubes, Trump methodically uses ignorance, arrogance, demagoguery and deception as weapons against even the very people who support him, and his supporters only confirm how dangerous their own willful ignorance is by having placed his incendiary rhetoric above any form of objective or rational thought. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>As I have also mentioned in previous posts, the fact that Trump has even been taken seriously as a contender for the 2016 presidency is an obvious sign of desperation within the Republican Party itself, and this desperation is the result of having a platform which no longer benefits the majority of Americans. From policies that promote fear-mongering and varying degrees of prejudice to the blatant hypocrisy of using politics and religion to promote oligarchy and serfdom over democracy, conservatism's influence has done little if anything to insure the future of the Republican Party, and Donald J. Trump has now become the living embodiment of what could end up being the Republican National Committee's inevitable and long-overdue downfall.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b> Even if Trump should win the general election next month (despite not having received endorsements from any reputable conservative news outlets), there's a very good possibility that his presidency won't make it through an entire four-year term. The reason for this is due to the fact that New York State investigators are now looking into re-opening a case based on a civil suit that was filed in California earlier this year in which Trump allegedly raped a thirteen year-old girl while she was visiting his home at the Mar-a-Lago Estate in Palm Beach, Florida during 1994, not to mention what damning information will be discovered in the eventual release of his tax returns. However, an even bigger problem would arise if Trump were to resign his presidency or end up getting impeached, and that bigger problem has a name: Mike Pence.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Like others within the Republican Party who pander to the extreme right-wing members of their voting base in order to move up in American politics, Mike Pence has earned a reputation for placating hostile, anti-establishment conservative voters while serving as Governor of Indiana after replacing Mitch Daniels in 2012. This wasn't too difficult for Pence given the fact that he helped to generate a lot of the hostility among conservatives in Indiana while working from 1994 to 1999 as a local radio and television talk show host before successfully winning his bid for Indiana's 2nd Congressional District seat in 2000.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Like his running mate Donald Trump, Mike Pence has also used manipulative tactics for the purpose of self-promotion within the confines of the Republican Party. This in turn has allowed him to use religion in particular as a vehicle for signing into law legislation which blatantly discriminates against minorities (the homeless, single mothers, the LGBT community, etc.) while serving as Indiana's 50th Governor. In short, Mike Pence is perhaps the most dangerous Vice Presidential selection that has been made since George W. Bush selected Dick Cheney for his running mate.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I genuinely hope that this will be my last post regarding the dangers of Donald Trump's candidacy for President. I can't stress enough how much trouble the Republican Party and the United States will be in as a result of him winning the general election. This fraudulent, egotistical, vindictive little man who isn't above using wealth, power, influence and demagoguery to deceive as many voters as possible in order to get everything he wants as a celebrity presidential contender (book deals, TV appearances, etc.) has all but guaranteed that his presidency will be nothing short of exercising his own self-gratification at the expense of a country which he believes has already rejected him as both a public figure and a private citizen in spite of his already-existing popularity. There have been reports that Trump even intends to cash in on the publicity of his presidential run by starting up his own cable television network if he should lose to Hillary Clinton in the general election. This should come as no surprise either given the fact that no publicity is the only form of negative publicity in a mind that's as twisted, diabolical and self-serving as Trump's.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Regardless of the outcome next month, American democracy has already received a major black eye as a result of Trump's candidacy for the 45th presidency, and November 8, 2016 will decide whether America is willing to tolerate or reject Donald J. Trump's brand of fascist tyranny once and for all. Hopefully there is a substantial number of voters left within the U.S. who still appreciate democracy enough to keep this pathetic excuse for a human being from ever becoming President of the United States, and those who don't care about preserving democracy in the U.S. or anywhere else on this planet can pack their bags and live like recluses in obscurity someplace beyond U.S. jurisdiction instead of voting for Trump in next month's election---or in any other election for that matter---as far as I'm concerned.</span></b></span></div>
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<b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>*For further reference, read my blog post from October 16, 2014 entitled "Obama's Legacy: A Damning Indictment on White Conservatism in America".</i></span></b></div>
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-48075626947755553042016-04-07T12:51:00.000-07:002016-04-10T13:29:23.935-07:00Why I believe that fascism could end up replacing democracy in the U.S. within my lifetime<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>-Adolf Hitler</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">t's not easy being a moderate Republican or Democrat in America's current political climate, and the reason for this is due to the fact that there has been a tectonic shift within both parties in recent years from bipartisanship and compromise to ideology, extremism and the polarization that comes with both. While this may seem like a positive inevitability at first glance, it also has the potential of leading to the very form of political and social despotism that George Washington spoke of in his presidential farewell address while warning his audience about the dangers of factional dissension and the destruction of public liberty as a result of it.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If you're hoping to find a reason that justifies the level of puritanism within both parties during this presidential campaign season, you might as well stop reading this post and look for some other outlet that will help you to avoid facing some ugly realities that will be addressed here. American politics is an ugly business, and like it or not, that ugliness is due in large part to the fact that the American public have allowed it to become that way.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>I."Triumph Of The Swill"</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The main reason for why I became a registered independent voter in 2007 is because I had to come to a harsh, grim realization, and that realization was this: all political parties in the United States---regardless of the "purity" of their agenda---rely on private funding from lobbyists who represent special interest groups in Federal, State and Municipal government. In other words, <u>EVERY</u> politician who works in the U.S. is on someone else's payroll other than taxpayers alone, and that payroll helps to keep <u>EVERY</u> politician's bank account nice and fat. Of all the people who are working to undermine democracy in America, lobbyists and special interest groups have to be at the top of the list if for no other reason than because voters are too ignorant and arrogant to see them for the threat to democratic liberty that they really are. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">II."Crock Of Ages"</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> One of the biggest misnomers that has ever been intentionally promoted by the conservative movement in the United States is the notion that America was founded on Judaeo-Christian principles. I could write an entire thesis on how this garbage became popular among social conservatives as a result of lobbyists who represent Christian schools in Washington, D.C. like Oral Roberts University, but quite frankly, it would take up too much of my personal time to invest in such an endeavor. Instead, I'll keep it brief for this post.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States, once stated the following in 1808: "Erecting the wall of separation between Church and State is absolutely essential in a free society." The reason why Jefferson made this statement is because, like other founders of American democracy, he was knowledgeable enough to understand the dangers of theocracy within society along with the values of secularism within government. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Contrary to popular belief among evangelical Christian conservatives, separation of Church and State serves two purposes: One, it prevents government from dictating which religion(s) shall be mandated onto society, and two, it prevents government from mandating which religion(s) shall be prohibited from society. Contrast this to the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 which made Christianity the only religion to be sanctioned in Germany by the Third Reich while outlawing the practice of Judaism and other religions altogether, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why separation of Church and State is absolutely essential in a free society indeed. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">III. "Mass Stupidity Makes For Better Election Results"</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Perhaps the most intentional and deceptive forms of legislation that Republicans in Federal, State and local government have passed into law in recent years for the sole purpose of broadening their voting base have been forms of legislation which cut spending for public education. While conservative Republicans may argue that there is too much bureaucracy within America's educational system and needs to be removed for the greater good, one needs to understand what is really being insinuated behind their "greater good" rhetoric.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Institutions of higher learning like public schools are not only intended to teach the values of reading, writing and arithmetic, but they are also intended to give students an opportunity to understand the values of civics, public discourse and objectivity: the very ideals which help to preserve democracy in society. Since the end of the 1960s, conservatives have made a concerted effort to remove all forms of fundamental understanding of democratic thought from America's public school system. This in turn has led to legislation which cuts tax dollars from being used to help students learn about the values of democracy itself. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>As you have probably figured out by this point, when a student is no longer taught the values of democracy within a democratic society, that student is more likely to either vote without properly vetting candidates or simply not vote at all, but either result inevitably works to the Republican Party's advantage in the long run with devastating consequences for civil liberty in general.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>This leads me back to the quote by Adolf Hitler at the beginning of this post, because Hitler understood that in order to elevate himself on the ruins of public liberty in Germany, he would have to prey upon the weaknesses within the German people's lack of understanding in regards to democracy under the Weimar Republic following World War One. Hitler also understood that in order to further the cause of his vision for a "Thousand-Year Reich", he would have to rely on the ignorance and arrogance of German youth to carry out his plans for perpetuating National Socialist ideology among future generations of Germans or anyone else in the world who became disillusioned with democracy and wanted to be led by a fuhrer rather than have control of his or her own government.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>In the seventy-plus years since Adolf Hitler's death, this mentality has crept into the minds of both conservative and liberal voters within the United States. While it should come as no surprise that conservatives have chosen to embrace Hitler's ideology of "strong man" authoritarianism over democracy, it's troubling for me to watch this ideology also take hold among liberal-progressives in regards to the Democratic Party's choice of presidential candidates and the current leadership within the Democratic National Committee itself during this election year of 2016. What troubles me even more is the fact that many supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have stated that if their candidate doesn't win the nomination, then they will either take their proverbial political marbles and go home by not voting or support whoever the Republican nominee is in the hopes of generating a "real revolution in America". Naturally, both of these ideas among liberal-progressives work to the Republican Party's advantage when all is said and done. This is also one of those ugly realities that have come into existence as a result of an ignorant American electorate.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>So I have now been forced to come to a rather grim conclusion regarding the future of democracy in the United States, and that grim conclusion is this: Unless there is a genuine effort to restore bipartisan governing, I may very well live long enough to see the day when American democracy will be replaced with a totalitarian form of fascism not unlike what Adolf Hitler had envisioned for himself at the expense of Germany and the rest of Europe. What makes this conclusion all the more disturbing is that unlike the millions of Germans who pledged their allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi Party after World War One, Americans have been used to living in a democratic system of governing. And because of this, Americans also have less of an excuse to reject democracy than those millions of Germans who chose Nazism over the Weimar Republic.</b></span><br />
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-37043407316309979412015-12-12T00:12:00.000-08:002016-01-20T01:02:03.071-08:00"I Hate to Say 'I Told You So', But..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>Men worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?"</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>-Revelation 13:4</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>Those who would give up essential Liberty, even to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>-Patrick Henry</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>I would rather be right than be President.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>THE FOLLOWING POST INCLUDES CONTENT WHICH MAY BE CONSIDERED AS OFFENSIVE. VIEWER DISCRETION IS STRONGLY ADVISED.</b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">O</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">n August 19, 2015</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">, I posted what I thought would be the definitive blog column on why Donald Trump would prove himself to be the worst possible presidential candidate in the history of the Republican Party. I thought that whoever read the column would realize how much of a mockery Trump would make of Republican voters to the point that they would refuse to accept him as a viable presidential contender. I thought that whoever read the column would realize how much of an opportunistic charlatan Trump really is when it comes to taking advantage of people's fears and then using those fears to expose everything that has been wrong with the Republican Party since the end of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency. All in all, I thought that the column would actually help Republican voters to put their "Party Before Country" attitude aside and be objective enough to avoid making the embarrassing mistake of handing their party over to someone as lacking in ethics, decency and other forms of civil respectability as Donald Trump...</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">...Stupid me. What was I thinking?</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I should have known as I was writing my column in August that Donald Trump would end up becoming as popular as he is among Republican voters today, just as I should have known all along that words like "objectivity", "ethics", "decency" and "civility" have been all but removed entirely from the Republican vocabulary since the end of FDR's presidency and World War II when Republicans in Congress attempted to use "The Red Scare" as a means to smear the reputations of prominent liberal Democrats in both public and private life for political gain. And because of this, I also should have realized more than ever that anyone who is white, protestant and portrays himself as a hybrid of Adolf Hitler, Joe McCarthy, George Wallace and Charles Foster Kane would be accepted as the quintessential candidate to support among Republican voters if and when that person announced his candidacy for the highest and most honorable office in the United States after eight years of Barack Obama's presidency. Xenophobes, racists, misogynists and other assorted sociopaths in America can rejoice now that Donald Trump is their "voice of reason" for the White House in 2016. "Praise The Lord, Pass The Ammunition, Close The Borders, To Hell With The Constitution, and Political Correctness Be Damned!"</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As for the Republicans in Congress who have made the headlines this week by "condemning" Donald Trump for his statements about banning all Muslims from the United States, make no mistake: Despite their attempts at publicly denouncing Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, you can all but guarantee that the majority of House and Senate Republicans will end up becoming too reluctant to announce that they would be willing to either vote for articles of impeachment or renounce their party affiliation if Donald Trump ends up winning the nomination and goes on to win the 2016 presidency. Keep in mind that these are the same Republicans in Congress who used similar campaign rhetoric in 2010 against President Obama and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in order to win their seats on Capitol Hill.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Always remember that Republicans in Congress must answer<br />to crowds like this now.</b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I personally would be willing to argue that a large percentage of Republicans in Congress would have no other alternative but to accept Trump's nomination even if he were to announce that he had chosen former Ku Klux Klan leader and current Tea Party spokesperson David Duke to be his running mate after winning a majority of delegates at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio next Summer. When you create a mess, you have one of two options: You can either be a mature adult, take responsibility for the mess that you have created and clean it up before it becomes disastrous, or you can act like an immature delinquent, add to the already-existing mess until it becomes disastrous, and then blame others for the disaster that you have created. The majority of the Republican electorate have clearly chosen the latter option by showing their overwhelming support for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential candidacy, and it's a safe bet that even the most hardened anti-Trump Republicans in Congress will ultimately cave in and choose the latter option as well if he should win the Republican nomination next Summer in Cleveland.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Former Ku Klux Klan leader-turned-Tea Party<br />representative David Duke</b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Knowing how much Trump likes to portray himself as the ultimate anti-government/anti-establishment hero who doesn't have a problem with using negative or blatantly shameless publicity in order to keep his name in the headlines, it wouldn't be all that surprising to me if he actually did make the decision to select David Duke or some other influential white supremacist Tea Party leader as his running mate if he ends up winning the Republican nomination, especially if no one within the Republican establishment wanted to be remembered as the man or woman who took the job of being Donald Trump's choice for vice president. Consider this: The potential for a Trump/Duke presidency would help give the more radical element among conservatives a legitimate excuse to get out the neo-Confederate/Tea Party "White Pride" vote in the South and in other rural and suburban sections of the U.S. before the general election in November. Taking this into consideration, can you think of any other 2016 Republican presidential candidate who would select a white supremacist as his or her running mate for the general election with the same level of gall and calculated shock value as Donald Trump?</span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>You can expect to see more billboard ads like these in the U.S.<br />if Donald Trump selects David Duke as his vice presidential<br />running mate and wins the 2016 general election.</b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For obvious reasons, neither Dr. Ben Carson or Senator Marco Rubio would continue to be thought of as credible Republican contenders among "White Pride"conservative voters if either of them were to select David Duke as their running mate after winning the 2016 nomination. For Senator Ted Cruz, selecting Duke as his running mate would be too much of a risk for him to consider because it would only sour his relations with fellow House and Senate Republicans even more on Capitol Hill. As for Jeb Bush, the prospect of selecting David Duke as his running mate would only add more injury to insult if his brother George W. Bush were to campaign for both of them. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In short, only Donald Trump would have the audacity to pull off such a potentially disastrous stunt after winning the Republican nomination and get away with doing it unscathed from the consequences among white conservative voters; and it's mainly because no one in Congress would take Trump seriously if he were elected president, regardless of his choice for vice president. Democrats in Congress have no reason to take him seriously as a presidential contender already, and Republicans in Congress would be forced into taking him seriously if they wanted to keep their jobs in Washington, D.C. after his inauguration. Add David Duke to that equation, and the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency looks even more like a profile in stupidity among the Republican electorate than a demographics victory for the Republican Party as a whole. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This brings up something else that should be considered as a nightmare scenario for the Republican establishment in particular: Given the amount of racism and xenophobia that already exists within the Republican electorate (which, as I will explain later in this post, is due in large part to the conservative media), what Republican member of the House or the Senate would dare to risk losing his or her seat in Congress by standing up against their own constituents and declaring Trump's candidacy for president as being too dangerous for their party and for the country after he selected David Duke to be his running mate following the 2016 Republican National Convention? At this point in time, Donald Trump already has the Republican Party by the balls enough to know that he can do or say whatever he wants on the campaign trail as long as it keeps his numbers up in the polls. If by chance that should include selecting David Duke as his running mate after winning the nomination in Cleveland next Summer, then everyone from Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to the local Republican mayor in "Hometown, U.S.A." would have no other choice but to accept Trump's selection of David Duke for vice president as being legitimate. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Stop and think about that for a moment before continuing to read further, because it should give anyone an idea as to how much conservative Republicans would like to drive the United States off the cliff of progressive thought and into the dark, putrid abyss of their regressive and unhinged ideology. </span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>When all is said and done, the real battle for the heart and<br />soul of the Republican Party can be best determined by the<br />above statement.</b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">While the possibility of Donald Trump selecting David Duke as his running mate for the 2016 general election may be seen as an implausible scenario within the Republican establishment and among a certain number of Democrats and independent voters, it is nevertheless too much of a plausible temptation for white conservative voters to resist if such a possibility were to become likely. The fact of the matter is this: Despite his former leadership status within the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke remains a somewhat popular and influential figure among white conservatives in the Southern region of the United States. Couple that with the eight years of Barack Obama's term in the White House along with the lock-step, "Party Before Country" mentality that exists within the Republican electorate, and it wouldn't be too presumptuous to speculate that Trump could actually win a large portion of the South and several key voting districts in other parts of the country with David Duke as his vice presidential running mate in a general election scenario. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For members of the Republican establishment and a certain number of Democrats and independent voters who don't know any better, the idea of Donald Trump winning the South and other sections of the country with David Duke as his running mate could be compared to the old joke about Southern white conservative Dixiecrats who used the voting booth because they could never beat Northern Yankee liberals in their own backyard with any other weapon after the Civil War. But in many sections of the South, however, the voting booth is still thought of as less of a joke and more as a strategic weapon in an ongoing, vindictive campaign of political and cultural subterfuge against the Federal government, and it is used with the intention of being successful on a national level instead of in Southern voting districts alone. Just the fact that a substantial number of white conservative voters from beyond the Mason-Dixon Line were literally howling for their states to secede from the Union immediately following Barack Obama's presidential election victories in 2008 and 2012 is proof that "The Southern Strategy" remains in existence and has the potential of being more of a genuine threat to centralized government, representative democracy and race relations in the U.S. than during the post-World War II Civil Rights era.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Reactionary images like this became popular in the South</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b> following President Harry S. Truman's executive order to</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>mandate racial equality within the U.S. armed forces</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>during the Summer of 1948.</b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nowhere else in America does the adage "old soldiers never die" apply more than in the hearts and minds of post-Civil War Southern white conservatives, and white supremacist leaders like David Duke have all but guaranteed that the South's "old soldiers" will live on in the hearts and minds of white conservative voters in Dixie and elsewhere in the country, regardless of how negative the consequences could end up in the United States when it comes to race relations and responsible governing within the general populace. The fact that the conservative media plays into the concept of generating fear among their audiences while promoting white separatist propaganda, institutionalized bigotry and Jim Crow-era state's rights under the guise of religious freedom and American patriotism doesn't help to improve the situation from a demographics perspective either.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">For the record, it should also be noted that only one group of people have been intentionally targeted for the purpose of accepting and perpetuating the conservative media's unified attack on race relations in America, and this group is the same targeted demographic that white supremacist leaders like David Duke have appealed to for decades. The group in question is made up of white voters who claim to have been disenfranchised by the Democratic Party because of the progress attributed to the Civil Rights movement within their communities. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Since the end of Harry Truman's presidency, t</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">his group of white voters and their descendants have argued that they have been disenfranchised by liberals and Democrats because they haven't personally benefited from the idea of civil rights and equality being part of their everyday lives. In reality, this group has continuously </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">refused to accept or acknowledge civil rights and other forms of equality as being anything other than offensive to their own way of life altogether</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">. This is also the same group of white voters who unequivocally despise the idea of political correctness being a part of mainstream, everyday-American society because it doesn't allow them to "exercise" (i.e., abuse) their First Amendment right to free speech by using words like "nigger", "wetback", "wop", "kike", "rag-head", "faggot" or "retard" in casual conversation without being held accountable, as opposed to when they are with others who think and behave like themselves at private gatherings or public demonstrations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">It is this targeted demographic of irrational and unreasonable white voters who are now making a genuine attempt at seizing control of the Republican Party in an effort to restore legislative white supremacy and other forms of institutionalized bigotry in the United States under the moniker of conservative values, and it is also this targeted demographic of irrational and unreasonable white voters who have chosen to invest the future of the Republican Party into Donald Trump or anyone else within the 2016 field of presidential candidates who can appeal to their bigoted aspirations more than he does before the Republican National Convention next Summer. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Statements like this apply just as easily to elections among<br />Southern white conservatives today as they did to the<br />battlefield during the Civil War. </b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Taking this into consideration, it also wouldn't be too presumptuous to speculate that a Trump/Duke campaign victory for the 2016 presidency would prove to be the ultimate political litmus test in determining whether or not the Republican Party can remain a credible and viable faction among independent voters in other sections of the country besides the South. Imagine how four years of a Donald Trump/David Duke presidency would effect the political and cultural climate in the U.S., and it becomes more obvious just how devastating the results could become for the Republican Party on a national scale in regards to independent voters by November of 2020 and beyond.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Anti-progressive propaganda like this actually helps to<br />promote white supremacy by giving the impression that<br />white conservatives are being victimized by political<br />correctness in American culture.</b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As I stated earlier, when you create a mess, you have one of two options: You can either be a mature adult, take responsibility for the mess that you have created and clean it up before it becomes disastrous, or you can act like an immature delinquent, add to the already-existing mess until it becomes disastrous, and then blame others for the disaster that you have created. In the minds of Southern white conservatives and the conservative media that promotes their agenda, the latter option has proven to be an effective tool in getting a large percentage of the country to empathize with the already-existing hatred for the Federal government and the cause for civil rights in the South. However, the demographics numbers have clearly shown in recent years that conservatism is on a steady decline because of poor race relations between the Republican Party and an overwhelming majority of non-white voters in the U.S., including within the South. Basically, this means that the biggest victims of the conservative media's propaganda campaign to polarize Americans on the issues of federalism, civil rights and equality in general have been, and continue to be, the one group of people who drink the toxic Kool-Aid of conservative propaganda more than anyone else in the United States: White, conservative Republican voters. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Irony always strikes at the best and worst of times when all is said and done, indeed. </span></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Quotes like these from Lee Atwater and Sen.<br />Lindsey Graham reflect how much racism plays</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>a significant role in Republican politics.</b></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Yes, I honestly thought that the majority of Republican voters and elected officials would have realized by now just how far Donald Trump would go to bring their party to the brink of political and cultural ruin, but alas, I was proven wrong. Instead of rejecting Trump for exposing everything that has been proven to be failures within their party for the last 70 years, Republicans have chosen to embrace their party's failures in the personification of Donald Trump and his inflammatory, hate-filled demagoguery and megalomania, which he proudly displays like a two-dollar swastika armband around the sleeve of his high-priced, custom-tailored business coats, and expresses just as proudly with all the charisma, charm, grace and sophistication of a rabid pit bull on Prozac. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I even made the mistake of thinking that Republican voters would have felt insulted to be described as "The Silent Majority" again by Donald Trump or any other presidential contender after the humiliating degradation of Richard Nixon's presidency and Watergate. But instead of feeling insulted, Trump's supporters proudly describe themselves as members of his "Silent Majority". I'm at the point now where I can't help but wonder how many Republicans would vote to re-elect "Tricky Dick" and "Sneaky Spiro" if they were alive and running for the Republican nomination again instead of Donald Trump. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Are Republican voters so desperate to keep their party relevant in American politics that they're actually willing to jeopardize their party's future by letting a blatant fraud like Donald Trump become their next presidential nominee? And if so, then just exactly what are they willing to compromise in order to guarantee Trump's success in the November general election and beyond? Trump himself has made it clear that he doesn't have a problem with circumventing the Constitution to satisfy his fascist tendencies. Are conservatives actually hoping to replace almost 250 years of representative democracy and self-governance with Donald Trump's crude, obnoxious, vitriolic and vulgar brand of Holy Roman imperialism just so that they can thumb their collective noses at liberals once and for all, or has the Republican National Committee become so terrified of their party being thought of as obsolete that they're willing to continue dragging their own country through the mud of history until they have succeeded at getting the rest of America to go along with their corporate lobbyist-driven agenda? Your guess is as good as mine as to which of these is the real motive behind the fevered popularity of Donald Trump's candidacy among Republican voters at this point in the 2016 presidential election cycle.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">One thing is definitely certain: Regardless of who he selects to be his vice presidential running mate, Donald Trump's legacy as president of the United States would prove to be the most embarrassing and degrading chapter in America's history if he were to be nominated in Cleveland, Ohio next Summer and go on to win in the 2016 general election, and Republican voters would have no one else to blame but themselves for the disgrace that they will have brought onto their country as a result of his presidency. Republicans might as well gamble away their party's credibility in November of next year, because they have already chosen to gamble away whatever shred of dignity is left within their party by allowing a tasteless and unapologetic con artist like Donald Trump to run for the White House under their banner, along with having chosen to gamble away whatever integrity America still has left in the modern, civilized world.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If repeating the same mistakes over and over again while hoping for a different outcome each time is the best description of insanity, then Donald Trump is the latest and most blatant example of how much the Republican National Committee is having difficulty with keeping their "Southern Strategy"-influenced lunatics from taking over the asylum. </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Abraham Lincoln once said that America will never be destroyed from the outside, and that if we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. Given the current situation that Republicans find themselves in with the growing popularity of Donald Trump's candidacy for the 2016 presidency, Lincoln's words could not be more hauntingly prophetic than they are now for the political party that he helped to establish. I should have known in August what I know now, and what I know now is this: As long as the Republican National Committee continues down the road towards plutocratic fascism in order to compensate for their party's lack of any substantive foreign and domestic policies that would benefit all U.S. citizens, then there will always be more fraudulent demagogues like Donald Trump to manipulate fear-obsessed voters into accepting the cowardly, delusional and unpatriotic notion that plutocratic fascism has and always will play an important role in America's future. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">*J</span><span style="font-size: large;">ust as a precautionary side note, I would like to remind both Facebook users and employees that you have already agreed to the conditions of both Google's Adult Content Policy and Blogger's Terms of Service Policy before viewing this post. So if you are contemplating the idea of reporting or removing this post because you don't want it to be viewed on Facebook, don't bother unless you would like to see Facebook,Inc. risk facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy as the result of a private and/or class action lawsuit for practicing unlawful online discrimination and censorship by way of violating Facebook's own community standards policies.</span></b></span><br />
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-22071358471589693712015-10-13T19:03:00.000-07:002015-10-14T14:13:04.113-07:00"Every town has one..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;">W</b><span style="font-size: large;">ith Halloween just around the corner, I have decided to write about a subject that is as much a part of October 31st as costumes and candy corn: Ghost stories that feature an old haunted house in them. But rather than focus on the typical examples of haunted houses, I would like to introduce the reader to a certain type of house which also has its fair share of chilling stories surrounding it, and that is the nearby funeral home which is no longer in business and yet remains standing, dilapidated and abandoned.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the U.S., such funeral homes can be found mostly in rural areas where urban development is generally frowned upon by locals and practiced only when it is absolutely necessary. Such funeral homes are also considered as important cultural landmarks in rural communities because of the amount of business that they once had when their doors were opened to the public. Most families in these areas of the country can tell stories of what it was like for them to attend the viewing of a departed loved one for the first time and how important the funeral home was in taking proper care of that viewing for friends and family members of the deceased.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">However, there are also those who live in these rural communities who are willing to give "swear to God and hope to die" accounts of paranormal activity within such funeral homes. Some of the accounts are provided by former employees, and some are provided by those who were in attendance during a funeral service, a viewing or both. For instance, there is a story involving an abandoned funeral home just outside of a rural South Carolina town which featured a large, nineteenth-century mirror in the reception parlor between the front entrance and the viewing chapel, along with a large grandfather clock. Both the mirror and the clock were heirlooms that belonged to the owner and proprietor of the funeral home which he had inherited from his father. The owner was last seen alive by the funeral director at approximately 11:30 pm on the evening of May 16, 1968 after a viewing reception for a ten year-old local boy who died after being struck by a car. The next morning, the funeral director found the owner lying dead on the floor in front of the mirror in the reception parlor with his right hand clutching his chest and his left hand pointing towards the viewing chapel. The official time of his death was recorded at approximately 12:00 am. Police records state that cemetery clay was found smeared onto the antique mirror. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">According to the legend, the owner was getting ready to leave the funeral home when he suddenly heard a loud, scraping sound in the reception area. He turned the lights back on after he walked into the reception parlor and noticed that someone had smeared fresh cemetery clay across the mirror. As the grandfather clock began to chime at midnight, the owner saw the image of the ten year-old boy staring back at him in the mirror from the entrance of the viewing chapel, which caused the 65 year-old owner to die of a massive heart attack on the spot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although there was no evidence to suggest that there were any intruders, it remains a mystery as to how the reddish-orange cemetery clay ended up on the mirror. What's even stranger is that the medical records for the funeral home owner showed that he had no signs of coronary problems before his sudden and fatal heart attack. The funeral home eventually went out of business three years later as a result of the owner's son having to sell it for collateral to pay off a gambling debt. Since then, it has been rumored that the mirror and the grandfather clock remain inside the reception parlor. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Some people have claimed to see the lights in the reception parlor turn on and off at 11:55 pm inside of the now-abandoned funeral home despite the fact that the power has been turned off for over forty years, and some have even claimed that anyone who goes inside and stays until midnight will hear the faint sound of scraping on the mirror as the clock chimes twelve, even though the clock hasn't worked within the last forty-five years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There is another story about a funeral home in a small town in Kentucky which was forced out of business by local health code officials because of a foul odor which filled the main office area during the last week of May in 1973. Employees and health code inspectors described the odor as being like that of decomposing flesh, and the smell had reached the point where it was attracting large swarms of flies into the funeral home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What makes this story unusual is that upon further inspection by police and health code officials, there was no indication that the employees of the funeral home were violating any regulations, and there was no sign of foul play or any dead animals in or around the funeral home itself. To this day, anyone who worked at the funeral home or the local health department that is still living cannot explain what caused the nauseating odor. However, there is a rumor that a photograph was taken by one of the health code inspectors which shows the image of a light-blue mist that is in the shape of a human figure and standing by a window inside of the main office. Unfortunately no one knows what became of the photograph because the health code inspector who allegedly captured the image died of an aneurysm one year to the day after he photographed the apparition. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There is one more haunted funeral home-related story that I would like to share, and this one is perhaps more disturbing than the first two. It involves a funeral home/mortuary which was located in a small Georgia town near the Okefenokee Swamp. As the story goes, the director of this particular funeral home hanged himself in his office on the second floor facing a two-lane street which runs through the town on September 30, 1934. He had left a suicide note which stated that he could no longer continue living as a result of his wife's mysterious death in the swamp during a July 4th picnic that year. However, there was some speculation within the community that the real reason for his suicide was due to the fact that the local district attorney was preparing to charge the funeral director with premeditated murder because of evidence linking him to his wife's death. A month after the death of the funeral home director, the owner decided to move his business to another section of town in order to avoid losing customers as a result of controversy. The abandoned funeral home/mortuary was finally demolished in order to make room for a restaurant in February of 1953. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There are two different ghost stories that are related to the funeral home director's suicide. The first is based on eyewitnesses who claimed that they saw the glowing image of a man hanging from a noose within the second-story office of the abandoned funeral home every September 30th from 1935 until 1952, and the second is based on claims by members of a local family who said that they heard the sound of a woman moaning and crying out for help during the evening hours of July 4, 1961 in the section of the Okefenokee Swamp where the body of the funeral director's wife was discovered in 1934.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;">T</b><span style="font-size: large;">hese are just three examples of paranormal activity which involve funeral homes and have been told through the years by people who either claim to be witnesses of such activity, or by those who claim to know these witnesses and have been told of such activity. Perhaps these stories are told to keep kids from going into old, dilapidated buildings in general, particularly abandoned funeral homes which hold a special place in the hearts and minds of people who live near them. On the other hand, current and former employees of funeral homes and mortuaries have a certain credibility when it comes to accounts of paranormal activity at their workplace, especially when these employees have nothing to gain by giving such accounts.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Regardless of the reasons, accounts like these have validity if they continue to remind us of how disturbing a good ghost story can be.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>HAPPY HALLOWEEN</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-65262759174189022462015-08-28T16:56:00.000-07:002015-10-13T19:11:53.629-07:00A "tribute" to Fox News Channel in memes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;">G</b><span style="font-size: large;">iven the fact that it was Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler who made the above statement while planning to invade sovereign nations for the purpose of exterminating entire populations of people in Europe, I have decided to post a collection of memes created by myself and others to illustrate the parallels between Germany during the 1930s and the United States in the 21st century because of the Republican Party's use of propaganda within the mainstream conservative media.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of all the conservative media outlets in America, Fox News Channel is by far the most influential and the most dangerous network in U.S. history. The following memes will help to point out the reasoning for my argument...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Think of it this way: If hundreds of people are creating and posting memes that point out what is wrong with watching a cable network like Fox News Channel, then why would anyone in their right mind ignore the warnings? Perhaps writer Gore Vidal was right after all when he made the following observation...</span></div>
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-67213343254697954962015-08-19T04:21:00.000-07:002016-01-31T14:13:18.189-08:00Why Donald Trump is the perfect Republican presidential candidate for 2016 (unless you happen to be a Republican)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><i><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Democracy, which means despair of finding any Heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them.</span></b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>-Thomas Carlyle</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><i><b>Fascism is capitalism in decay.</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>-Vladimir Lenin</b></span><br />
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<i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: xx-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">There's a sucker born every minute.</span></b></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>-P.T. Barnum</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;">T</b><span style="font-size: large;"><b>here's an old saying which states that democracy is only as good as those who participate in it. If this old saying is true (and I happen to believe that it is), then 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump is proof that democracy is in critical condition and needs to be put on life support in order to survive within the United States.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>In case you haven't figured it out by now, the Republican Party is in a state of crisis like never before in its history. This is due in large part to the fact that despite their efforts to attract more voters to their brand of politics, the Republican National Committee has been held hostage by their most loyal voting base which is made up of constituents who no longer believe in the idea that bipartisan compromise leads to greater electoral victories when it comes to who represents their party. Instead, their belief is much more rigid, simplistic and to the point: "Give us what we demand, or we will find someone else who will". Only in recent decades has this spoiled-rotten mentality of extreme partisanship found its way into the American political mainstream, and it is this infantile mentality that con artists like Donald Trump are now taking advantage of to further their own reputations at the expense of American culture.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Trump appeals to and epitomizes the two main groups of thought within the Republican Party: Those who believe that wealth, power and influence are the only determining factors in regards to how successful a person is in society, and those who are willing to insult and dehumanize anyone who disagrees with them. In both groups, historical facts and figures only stand in the way of what they want to see or hear every time Donald Trump opens his mouth. Any form of intellectual, objective or rational thought has no place at the table for supporters of Trump's candidacy, and he is already well aware of it.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>What makes Donald Trump's candidacy for the 2016 presidency disturbing is that it is a reflection on how self-absorbed and isolated a certain percentage of the American electorate have become as a result of years of foreign and domestic failures within the Republican Party, and these failures are the main reason why Republicans have ironically chosen to blame everyone other than themselves for the problems created within their own faction. The "know nothing/believe anything" attitude that exists within the Republican electorate is at its most elevated level whenever someone who openly challenges the decency and fairness of American society decides to run for public office under the GOP's banner. Put simply, Republicans want someone who will pander to their innermost destructive demons regardless if they happen to claim otherwise, and no one knows this and is putting it into practice for 2016 more than Donald Trump. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b> Another disturbing aspect of Trump's candidacy is the fact that his supporters honestly believe that he has the ability to relate to them on a personal level. This is another example of the "know nothing/believe anything" attitude within the Republican electorate which continues to isolate their party, especially given the fact that the majority of voters are already familiar with Trump's reputation as a man who credits no one other than himself for his success as an entrepreneur in real estate and the celebrity that has come with it. Keep in mind that the only person who has ever given Donald Trump a run for his money when it comes to self-aggrandizement (and was rather successful at doing it) was New York hotel mogul Leona Helmsley during the 1980s.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>For Helmsley, however, her success also led to her downfall because of her decision to willfully avoid paying income taxes, which resulted in her being convicted for tax evasion and being sentenced to serve time in Federal prison. After her death in August of 2007, it was discovered that Helmsley had entrusted all of her remaining wealth to her pet dog... "Queen of Mean" indeed.</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The other reason for why I mention Leona Helmsley is because her shallow outlook on success permeates throughout the Republican agenda at this point in time. Greed, selfishness, corruption, criminality, arrogance---behavior that used to be kept behind closed doors within the GOP is now accepted as virtuous and to be celebrated, along with the notion that such behavior should be legitimized as a reason for making arguments to eliminate Federal spending for departments like the Internal Revenue Service. Even novelist Ayn Rand was proven to be a hypocritical fraud when it was discovered that she collected Social Security benefits while writing about the "virtuous" advantages of putting one's own interests above the needs of others, but that doesn't prevent conservatives from placing Rand's ideology of "rugged individualism" above the concept of using tax dollars for the purpose of civil charity towards the least fortunate and most vulnerable in American society. As I have already alluded to earlier, facts and figures only get in the way for "know nothing/believe anything" Republican voters who would rather see a good political dust-up that helps to further their party's agenda during an election season, even if that agenda only benefits the smallest and wealthiest percentage of the U.S. population after the dust settles.</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>But perhaps the biggest reason for Donald Trump's popularity among the Republican electorate has more to do with the amount of desperation within the GOP since the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency than anything else, especially when one considers the damaging effects of Reagan's foreign and domestic policies combined with the disastrous blunders of "less government" neo-conservatism during George W. Bush's term in the White House. Even before Reagan became governor of California during the 1960s, the Republican Party had a reputation for using desperate tactics like, for example, the use of propaganda laced with blatantly false accusations aimed at Democrats and other rival political factions for the purpose of remaining relevant in the minds of voters following World War II when communism was beginning to replace Euro-fascism as the new political bogeyman in American society. Yet U.S. historians and economists have already proven that a large number of wealthy and prominent Republicans privately financed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany during the 1930s instead of using their money to help stabilize the damaging effects of the Great Depression within their own country; a fact that only a certain percentage of Americans are aware of in this day and age, and a fact that the RNC would rather sweep under the carpet of time so that future generations of voters will never find out about it.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Desperate people have a tendency to do or say things that are considered as legitimate in times of political and/or social unrest, even if what they are doing and/or saying is proven to be nothing more than expressions of vitriolic hypocrisy. These desperate people also have a tendency to not allow the cooler heads to prevail in such circumstances. Considering the current situation that Republicans find themselves in regarding their party's lack of popularity among the majority of voters, it really is no wonder as to why so many of them are enthralled with the prospect of having a self-aggrandizing megalomaniac like Donald Trump become the next president of the United States. For the average "know nothing/believe anything" Republican voter, desperate times call for desperate measures, and no one within the field of 2016 presidential hopefuls panders to the preposterous and bellicose desperation among Republican voters by using campaign rhetoric loaded with the perfect blend of defamation, demagoguery and fear-mongering better than "The Donald". It could be argued that when it comes to the majority of the 2016 Republican electorate who support Trump's candidacy for president, false hope is better for their party than no hope at all.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Whatever the reasons are for his high approval ratings among Republicans, one thing is certain: Donald J. Trump is most likely to become the one Republican presidential candidate who exposes everything that is wrong with the GOP before he is finished. Whether or not Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus or any conservative lobbyist likes it, Trump could end up taking the Republican Party down with him by simply giving Republican voters exactly what they demand for and, to a large extent, what they deserve: A presidential candidate who will tell them everything that they want to hear regardless of how devastating the consequences will be for their own party by November of 2016.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">J</span><span style="font-size: large;">ust as a precautionary side note, I would like to remind both Facebook users and employees that you have already agreed to the conditions of both Google's Adult Content Policy and Blogger's Terms of Service Policy before viewing this post. So if you are contemplating the idea of reporting or removing this post because you don't want it to be viewed on Facebook, don't bother unless you would like to see Facebook, Inc. risk facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a result of a class-action lawsuit for practicing unlawful online discrimination and censorship by way of violating Facebook's own community standards policies.</span></b></span></div>
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-72366577550822552842015-07-28T20:35:00.000-07:002016-06-13T16:19:30.943-07:00AC/DC: A Legacy of Hard Rock, Hard Living and Hard Memories<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;">T</b><span style="font-size: large;">he history of rock and roll is filled with stories of bands and artists whose careers in the music industry drove them to excesses which ultimately led to their own personal destruction. In fact, one could argue that more people have died of unnatural or mysterious causes while working in the world of rock and pop music than in any other profession outside of the military, organized crime or the porno industry. It's a lifestyle that encourages those who want to make a lucrative career by performing onstage or in the studio to go the extra mile by pushing everything to the limit with no regrets, exceptions or consideration towards the consequences of one's own actions.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">AC/DC in 1977 (left to right): Malcolm Young-guitar, Bon<br />Scott-vocal, Angus Young-guitar, Phil Rudd-drums, Cliff<br />Williams-bass</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It was this lifestyle that was joyously reflected in the rock group AC/DC during Bon Scott's tenure as the band's lead vocalist and lyricist. Aside from the fact that the group featured two incredibly talented guitarists with a strong, working-class ethic (brothers Malcolm and Angus </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Young) , AC/DC's music and image epitomized (and, to a large extent, glorified) anti-authoritarianism and non-conformity, which in turn made them one of the most popular rock groups in Australia within a short period of time.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">AC/DC's third album "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap". The<br />release of this 1976 LP sealed the group's popularity in Australia<br />and would help prepare them for their future success in the UK.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">By the end of 1976, the band had moved to England and were expanding their fan base at the height of the punk rock era. It wouldn't take long for AC/DC to win over punks and headbangers with their brand of anti-establishment hard rock. The reason for this was two-fold: For punks, AC/DC's sound was much more refined than their punk rock counterparts like the Sex Pistols. For hard rock fans in the UK, AC/DC was a reminder of what rock music sounded like before progressive groups like Yes, Genesis and Emerson, Lake & Palmer had come along. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">By the Summer of 1977, AC/DC believed that they were ready to make their name known in the United States. The band recorded and released their fourth album entitled "Let There Be Rock", an eight-song masterpiece of raw, unadulterated power. The U.S. release of "Let There Be Rock" (the group's debut album in America) would also feature a remixed version of the song "Problem Child", which was released on their "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" album the previous year. The U.S. and European release would also feature cover art which included what would become the band's official logo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Despite the initial release of "Let There Be Rock" in the U.S., American audiences were not as accepting to AC/DC as in Australia or the UK. The reason for this was simple: Unlike in other parts of the world, radio stations in the U.S. were hesitant about playing songs from hard rock groups because of disco's popularity at the time. Even bands and artists who began their careers in the hard rock genre found themselves having to compromise their careers by adding disco-themed songs and/or soft-rock ballads to their repertoire or risk facing obscurity by the late 1970s. For an anti-authoritarian, multi-watt, no-holds-barred rock group like AC/DC, such a musical climate would prove to be more difficult to conquer... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Difficult, but not impossible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">1978 would see AC/DC embarking on their first world tour to promote their fifth album entitled "Powerage". The album itself would be the band's first on Atlantic Records and would feature a much more polished sound than their previous releases. The album also featured the talents of new bassist Cliff Williams, who replaced Mark Evans following the release of "Let There Be Rock" the previous year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Another significant change that can be heard on "Powerage" is the quality of lyrics from vocalist Bon Scott, which remains one of the more underrated aspects of this album. Put simply, "Powerage" is arguably AC/DC's best work under the production of Harry Vanda and George Young (Malcolm and Angus Young's older brother).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It was during this period that AC/DC would also be introduced to American audiences like never before by making their first televised appearance in the U.S. while performing live on the popular late-night series "The Midnight Special".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1979, AC/DC were finally gaining recognition in the U.S. with the release of their live album "If You Want Blood You've Got It" during the Fall of 1978. However, they still needed to release a studio album that would receive considerable airplay in America. It was decided that a change in production was needed in order to make this happen. The group left longtime producers Vanda and Young and looked for someone who would help in capturing every aspect of AC/DC's live sound and then bring it to the forefront in the studio. At first, famed Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin producer Eddie Kramer was brought in to produce the album. After that idea fell through as a result of constant arguments between Kramer and members of the band, a relative newcomer to the music industry named Robert John "Mutt" Lange was called in to produce the new album.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The album's title and songs would reflect the general direction that the band had been on at the time, and also the hope of having that direction change for the better. The title: "Highway To Hell". </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Lange's production techniques are clearly evident on "Highway To Hell", but in more ways than what has been already stated by others who have expressed their opinions of this album. For example, there's an ominous atmosphere to the title track and the last song on the album entitled "Night Prowler" which probably wouldn't have existed if Eddie Kramer or Vanda and Young had worked on them (legend has it that both songs were intentionally slowed down to create an eerie effect). Add to that an equally-ominous album cover which shows lead guitarist Angus Young portrayed as a sneering devil and holding a barbed tail that's pointing down towards vocalist Bon Scott, who's shown laughing while the other members of the band have serious expressions on their faces, and you have an LP that is all but guaranteed to stir up enough controversy to make an impact in a country like the United States. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The band went on another world tour in 1979 to promote the album as a headlining act before it was even released, which is a clear indication of how confident AC/DC, their management and Atlantic Records were in the success of "Highway To Hell" once it became available in record stores in August of that year.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">1979 promotional ad for "Highway To Hell" </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For the first time in their careers together, AC/DC were beginning to achieve international recognition as major players in the genre of hard rock. Both "Highway To Hell" and "If You Want Blood You've Got It" had earned the band gold records by the end of 1979. As U.S. audiences were growing weary of disco and light-rock artists, many of them were beginning to discover what bands like AC/DC were providing as an alternative, and that was high-volume party music without all of the excessive frills and drama.<br /><br />However, the constant touring and the growing popularity of being in AC/DC would take its toll on one of the group's most recognized members.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Bon Scott in January of 1980, one of the last-known photos taken of</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">While taking a break from writing lyrics for the band's follow-up album to "Highway To Hell", Bon Scott and a friend named Alistair Kinnear decided to visit a local club in London called "Music Machine" on the night of February 18, 1980. While at the club, Bon had ordered seven double whiskeys and drank them. Afterwards, Scott and Kinnear left "Music Machine" in Kinnear's car. According to Kinnear, Bon had passed out in the passenger's seat by the time they had arrived at his flat. After unsuccessfully attempting to wake him up, Kinnear drove Scott to his home in King's College during the early-morning hours of February 19, 1980 and left Bon in his car to sleep off his drinking spree at the club. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Sadly, it was the last time that Kinnear or anyone else would see Bon Scott alive again. He was 33 years old.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">During the late-evening hours of February 19, 1980, the tragic news of Bon Scott's death from alcohol poisoning was becoming an international headline in the world of rock music. Those who had seen AC/DC in concert only months before were now wondering if the band would continue on. The band's founding members Malcolm and Angus Young were wondering if AC/DC should even continue on. It was during this time that some critics within the music press decided to let their hostilities towards the band be known by attacking Bon personally for his behavior onstage and off. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After Scott's funeral in Australia, the decision was made to keep the group going in his memory. AC/DC wouldn't just return after losing Bon Scott. They would return with a vengeance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"Mutt" Lange, whose production of "Highway To Hell" was successful for the band, would return to work on the follow-up to "Highway". On July 21, 1980 (less than six months after Bon Scott's death), AC/DC would release their most successful album to date; the ironic-yet-hauntingly titled "Back In Black". With its grim, no-nonsense jacket cover, new lead vocalist Brian Johnson and relentless sonic attack, "Back In Black" would prove to be a fitting tribute to Bon Scott. It would also prove to be the one hard rock album that signaled the official demise of disco, especially within the United States. All anyone had to do was drop the needle onto side one on his or her stereo and hear the mournful bell tolls which open "Hells Bells" to know that disco music's popularity was being laid to rest because of this album. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Given the fact that disco was the one form of music that prevented AC/DC from reaching success sooner within the United States, songs like "Hells Bells", "Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" and the album's title track were appropriate anthems to announce the end of the disco era in North America.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">With the success of "Back In Black" in the U.S. came the inevitable popularity of the band's earlier work with Bon Scott. The first example of this was the 1980 release of the concert/documentary film entitled "Let There Be Rock" in theaters, which chronicled AC/DC's December 9th 1979 performance at the Pavillion De Paris in Paris, France. This was also due in large part to Atlantic Records' decision to re-release AC/DC's album catalog, along with the release of "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" in North America during the Summer of 1981.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The first official AC/DC box set was released by Atlantic<br />Records in 1981 and features vinyl LP versions of "High<br />Voltage", "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" and<br />"Powerage".</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> In 1984, Atlantic also released "'74 Jailbreak", a compilation of songs from the band's first three albums which were not featured on the re-releases. </span><br />
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Although AC/DC would never match the commercial success of "Back In Black", the band continues to be recognized as one of the greatest and most influential acts in the history of rock music. In recent years, AC/DC's popularity has even generated interest in several touring cover bands who only perform AC/DC's songs onstage. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">One of the more popular AC/DC cover bands is the all-female group called "Hell's Belles",</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> whose lead guitarist Adrian Conner performs in a schoolgirl uniform and, like Angus Young, does a striptease act which is complete with her mooning the audience.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Keeping it real: Hell's Belles' lead guitarist Adrian Conner</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the forty years since the release of their debut album "High Voltage", AC/DC has proven to be a band whose no frills brand of hard rock music remains an international force to be reckoned with. Despite the recent absence of rhythm guitarist and founding member Malcolm Young, the group continues to record albums and perform live, which is a testimony to their determination to finish what they have started.</span><br />
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-64018223955423275092015-01-10T17:24:00.000-08:002015-04-16T00:36:31.339-07:00The Fine Line Between Satirical Humor and Gratuitous Obscenity (and the hypocrisy that comes with it)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Immersion (Piss Christ)", by Andres Serrano</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;">I</b><span style="font-size: large;">n 1987, American artist and photographer Andres Serrano unveiled his latest portrait to the public which was basically an enlarged photo featuring a small, plastic Roman Catholic crucifix submerged in a glass of his own urine. The title of Serrano's portrait---"Immersion (Piss Christ)"---proved to be as controversial as the image itself, and it created a firestorm of outrage from Catholics and Protestants alike. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Many within the Christian community (including many Christian conservatives in the United States) accused Serrano of promoting sacrilege, heresy and even Satanism because of his portrait. What made all of the outrage so ironic is that Serrano's inspiration for the portrait was his own anger at those within the Christian faith whom he believed had made Jesus seem less like a genuine redeemer and more like an imaginary figure of tyranny and commercialism. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the Summer of 1977, the British punk rock band known as the Sex Pistols released a single during Queen Elizabeth's 25th anniversary on the throne entitled "God Save the Queen", which criticized loyalty to the British monarchy. The song created such outrage among conservative British nationalists after its release that both the members of the Sex Pistols and their manager Malcolm McLaren were forced into temporary exile by the end of the year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">At this point, McLaren himself was already notorious for being the co-owner of a clothing boutique in London's King's Road District called "Sex", which specialized in sex-oriented attire, along with customized clothing designed by his business partner Vivienne Westwood. The clothing store became a popular hangout for many young people in London during the mid-1970s, including some who would go on to start what became the punk movement in London's West End.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">How's this for an advertising gimmick?: fashion designer Vivienne</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Westwood </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">(center-right) and fellow employees at "Sex" in </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">London mooning </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">the camera in 1976.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The punk movement was, in essence, a blatant rejection of all forms of authoritarian conformity in the U.K. at the time. Bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash would reflect the attitude that was felt by many within the punk movement who believed that anything was better for the U.K. than what mainstream Brits considered as acceptable or even tolerable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /><br />But of all the punk rock bands in the U.K., the Sex Pistols were the most popular and the most controversial by the time "God Save the Queen" was released during the celebration of Her Majesty's Silver Jubilee in 1977, thus making them the biggest targets of scorn and ridicule by the British mainstream. Two of the band's members (vocalist Johnny Rotten and drummer Paul Cook) were violently attacked, and McLaren would end up being charged with resisting arrest during a concert promoting "God Save the Queen" on board a small yacht sailing along the Thames River. <br /><br />Within a year after the release of "God Save the Queen", the Sex Pistols would break up immediately following a brief tour of the United States. The punk movement itself would end up becoming less of a threat and more of a novelty in British society as the years progressed. This would prove to be nothing more than another victory for the Monarchy and the conformists who support it.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">But perhaps the most controversial example of blatant non-conformity in recent history came in the form of a popular magazine published in Paris, France called "Charlie Hebdo". This particular publication features artwork and commentary which ridicules and criticizes any and every aspect of Western culture. From politics to religion, nothing was considered sacred or out of bounds as far as the editors, writers and artists at "Charlie" were concerned. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Like Andres Serrano in 1987 and the Sex Pistols ten years earlier, the artists, writers and editors of "Charlie Hebdo" had received their fair share of scathing criticism by those within the French conservative mainstream for their non-conformist views. And like "Immersion (Piss Christ)" in the U.S. and "God Save the Queen" in the U.K., "Charlie Hebdo" attracted a generation of people in France who believed that they were disenfranchised by those within mainstream French society and were fed up with having to choose conformity over individuality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">However, the one particular group of people who were most offended by the publication of "Charlie" were radical Islamic extremists because of the magazine's portrayal of the Muslim prophet Muhammad by artists and journalists who worked for the publication. I refuse to post such cartoon images or commentaries from "Charlie Hebdo" which feature the prophet Muhammad in them because of the fact that both the artwork and the statements are genuinely tasteless, vulgar and inflammatory. While I do believe in free speech and freedom of expression, I also believe that all religions should be respected equally.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">What I will state in regards to the artwork and commentary featured in "Charlie" is this: On the one hand, it isn't too difficult to understand why a certain percentage of Jews, Muslims and Christians would find this magazine so offensive towards their religious beliefs. On the other hand, I personally don't understand how committing acts of unspeakable violence against the employees of a publication like "Charlie" does anything more than justify the writers' and artists' views on religious extremism within that publication.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">There are two opposing thoughts that I will end this post with, and then I will leave it to the reader to decide which thought makes the most sense... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The first thought comes from an old saying where I once lived: "If you stir up a nest of hornets, you're only asking to get stung". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The second thought comes from another old saying: "If something makes you want to kill or die in the name of your cause, then why should your cause be considered as something worth living for?"</span><br />
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-35206184660934970702014-12-26T03:40:00.000-08:002015-01-26T12:44:28.553-08:00"Skydog": The Life and Legacy of Duane Allman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-size: xx-large;">E</b><span style="font-size: large;">ven though it has been almost 45 years since legendary guitarist Duane Allman last performed onstage or in a recording studio, and even though there have been several articles written about him within that 45-year span of time, I figured that it was time for me to put my two cents' worth into this discussion. Hey, better late than never, right?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">My first introduction to Duane as a guitarist was rather unpleasant, to say the least. I was three years old when the song "Layla" by Derek and the Dominos was beginning to receive airplay on radios all over America in March of 1971. Having little knowledge or awareness of hard rock music at the time, I became terrified when I first heard Duane's wailing, high-pitched slide-guitar solo on "Layla". It was unlike anything else that I had ever heard before, and it scared the hell out of me.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">As I became more aware of guitar playing, I found myself beginning to appreciate Duane Allman's contribution to "Layla", especially after hearing the full-length version of the song. I began to understand Duane's talent as an interpreter of blues guitar to the point that whenever I hear "Layla" now, I can't help but feel stupid for having been so terrified of the song back in 1971. The naivete of youth makes us all feel like idiots in the long run, I suppose.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">My appreciation for Duane Allman as a guitarist would grow on me as I became more aware of his work with the Allman Brothers Band. It was during this time that I realized just how talented he was at being versatile as a musician. His ability to combine blues music with jazz and hard rock seems effortless when listening to songs like "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" (an instrumental written by fellow Allman Brothers' guitarist Dickey Betts while sitting in Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia), along with other notable songs like "Whipping Post" and "Stormy Monday".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One could make the argument that Duane Allman was the American equivalent to such British contemporaries like Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, and I personally don't believe that such a comparison would be too much of an exaggeration. Like Page, Clapton and Beck, Duane would begin his career working as a studio musician before attempting to form bands of his own. And also like Page, Clapton and Beck, Duane was gaining recognition for his talent at improvisation when it came to performing with different artists in the studio during the 1960s.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Duane Allman with Wilson Pickett during the "Hey Jude"<br />recording sessions in November of 1968</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">From 1961 until the time of his death, Duane Allman had recorded numerous guitar tracks for different artists whose music ranged from rock and pop to R&B and soul. Throughout the decade, Duane was able to earn a living by traveling to different studios and working with such artists as Doris Duke, Clarence Carter, King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Otis Rush and Boz Scaggs, to name a few. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It was his work on Wilson Pickett's rendition of The Beatles' song "Hey Jude" in November of 1968 that brought Duane Allman's name to the attention of other notable artists in the music industry, including guitarist Eric Clapton...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> <i>"I remember hearing Wilson Pickett's 'Hey Jude' and just being astounded by the lead break at the end. I had to know who that was immediately---right now."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Ironically, Duane had to talk Pickett into adding a cover of "Hey Jude" to the list of songs for his album. After its release in 1969, Pickett's version of "Hey Jude" would reach number 16 on the pop music charts, and it secured full-time work for Duane at the FAME/Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Not bad for a guitarist who had dropped out of high school in Daytona Beach, Florida so that he could focus his attention on having a career in music. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It was also in 1969 that Duane and his younger brother Gregg were forming the Allman Brothers Band. The two brothers had attempted to form a couple of bands during the 1960s, but were unsuccessful in their efforts. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">After Gregg was having a difficult time working as a studio musician for Liberty Records in Hollywood, California, Duane gave Gregg a phone call from Jacksonville, Florida telling him to come back so that he could join a new group that he was putting together. Duane himself had grown weary of working as a studio musician and wanted to form a band that was unlike any other at the time. Gregg agreed to the offer, and then flew back to Jacksonville to join his brother.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Allman Brothers Band were Duane Allman (guitar), Gregg Allman (keyboards, guitar, vocals), Dickey Betts (guitar, vocals), Berry Oakley (bass), Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson (drums, percussion) and Butch Trucks (drums, percussion). In May of 1969, the band would take up residence in a friend's apartment building at 309 College Street in Macon, Georgia, where they would be met with disapproval by conservative locals in the city because of their long hair and liberal attitudes towards music, psychedelic drugs and racial integration. Duane would later move into a separate apartment at 1125 Bond Street in Macon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Allman Brothers' self-titled debut album was released on Atco/Capricorn Records in November of 1969 and was received with little accolades (it sold less than 40,000 copies). However, the group would form a bond with each other during the recording of this album, and that bond would become a literal brotherhood by the time their second album "Idlewild South" was released in September of 1970. In March of that year, the band moved into a large, Victorian-style house at 2321 Vineville Avenue in Macon which Berry Oakley's wife (named Elizabeth) had rented. The house would come to be known simply as "The Big House". </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> "Skydog" and "Slowhand": Duane Allman (far-right) with <br />Eric Clapton (center) and the other members of Derek<br />and the Dominos in 1970</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">While working on "Idlewild South", veteran producer Tom Dowd received a phone call to inform him that Eric Clapton would be working on an album with his new band at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida during the month of August, 1970, and that Clapton wanted to know if Dowd would be available to help produce the album. The name of Clapton's new group was "Derek and the Dominos", and the working title for the album was "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Upon hearing the news from Dowd, Duane indicated that he would love to drop by Criteria Studios and watch Eric Clapton and his new band record the album, if it was okay with Clapton. Duane called Dowd later to inform him that the Allman Brothers Band would be in Miami to perform a benefit concert on August 26th. When Clapton learned of this news from Dowd, he insisted on attending the concert, saying, <i>"you mean that guy who plays on the back of </i>(Wilson Pickett's) <i>'Hey Jude'?...I want to see him play...let's go."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">After the concert, Duane met with Clapton and asked if he could come by the studio and watch some of the recording sessions. <i>"Bring your guitar"</i>, Clapton replied. <i>"You've got to play." </i>The rest is history.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Although "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" didn't do well in sales after its initial release in November of 1970, the title track "Layla" would go on to become one of the most memorable songs in rock music, and it would help launch Duane Allman's reputation as a guitarist even more as time passed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">After ten years of working as a session guitarist and constant touring with his own band, Duane Allman was beginning to reach the pinnacle of recognition for his contributions to the rock music industry. The 1971 live album "At Fillmore East" (the Allman Brothers' third album) was receiving high praise from the music press and would ultimately give the Allman Brothers Band their first gold record by October of that year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sadly, Duane Allman wouldn't live to see his band continue having success.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">During a vacation from touring, Duane drove his Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle over to "The Big House" from his new home at 1160 Burton Avenue in Macon's West end to help celebrate the birthday of Berry Oakley's wife Elizabeth. After staying for a little while, Duane left and began heading out of Macon, traveling West on Hillcrest Avenue during the early evening hours of October 29, 1971. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">At approximately 5:45 p.m., Duane was driving fast towards the intersection of Hillcrest Avenue and Bartlett Street when a flat-bed truck with a lumber crane attached to it made a sudden right turn onto Bartlett in the opposite lane on Hillcrest and stopped in front of him. According to eyewitnesses who were at the scene, Duane was driving his motorcycle at least 20 miles over the speed limit when the truck turned onto Bartlett from Hillcrest. Duane tried to swerve into the left-hand lane in order to avoid the vehicle, but ended up clipping the back of it and was literally sent flying through the air before hitting the pavement with his motorcycle landing on top of him. Both he and his motorcycle skidded 90 feet before finally coming to a full stop, with Duane pinned underneath it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Duane was rushed to a nearby hospital with severe internal injuries. Despite the efforts made in trying to save his life, Duane Allman was pronounced dead several hours after arriving at the hospital from the scene of his accident. He was 24 years old.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Whatever his reasons were for traveling on Hillcrest Avenue that particular evening, Duane would never reach his destination.* </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Just a little over a year later (November 11, 1972, to be exact), Allman Brothers' bassist Berry Oakley would end up dying of cerebral brain swelling from a skull fracture three hours after crashing his Triumph motorcycle into the side of a city bus as he was entering Macon, Georgia on Napier Avenue. What makes his crash so disturbing is that it took place only two blocks over and 100 yards away from where Duane had his motorcycle accident the previous year. Berry was also 24 years old at the time of his death. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Despite both tragedies, Gregg Allman and the Allman Brothers Band would continue recording albums and touring well into the 1970s, '80s, '90s and into the 21st century, adding new members along the way before finally calling it quits after performing their last concert at New York's Beacon Theater on October 28, 2014---one night before the 43rd anniversary of Duane Allman's death.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Duane Allman and Berry Oakley's grave site at Rose Hill<br />Cemetery in Macon, Georgia</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Just above the banks of the Ocmulgee River in Macon, and past a pair of well-used railroad tracks that wind their way through the city, there are a pair of graves on a hill near the back section of Rose Hill Cemetery enclosed within a wrought-iron, gated fence that face Northward. Within that pair of almost-identical graves are the last human remnants of a legacy which helped put the city of Macon, Georgia on the map of rock music history. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It is here that the bodies of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley remain in their final resting place. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Apart from the Allman Brothers Museum at 2321 Vineville Avenue (a.k.a. "The Big House"), there are no other monuments, markers or statues commemorating the existence of Duane Allman or Berry Oakley in Macon except for a bridge and a highway named after them, along with a small historical marker just to the right-hand side of those two adjoining graves in Rose Hill Cemetery. I guess the fact that the Allman Brothers Band spent time hanging out and writing songs in that cemetery during their early days in Macon is a monument to them in itself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It is my hope that at some point in the not-too-distant future, I will be able to visit that grave site. And when I do, I know that I will end up walking away having wiped tears from my eyes and shaken off a cold, bitter chill that will have crept down my spine as I remember Gregg Allman's sad, haunting lyrics that close the song "Melissa" from the Allman Brothers' 1972 album "Eat a Peach", which happened to be Duane's favorite song that Gregg wrote in 1967, and was recorded by the Allman Brothers Band five years later in Duane's memory...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><i>"Crossroads, will you ever let him go?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><i>Will you hide the dead man's ghost? </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Will he lie beneath the clay, </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">or </i><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">will his </i><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">spirit float away?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But I know that he won't stay</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">without Melissa."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One more thing: While I'm in Macon, I will also remember to eat a peach for peace.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">*</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>According to one account, Duane was driving back to his home on 1160 Burton Avenue to gather presents and a cake to take back to "The Big House" for Elizabeth Oakley's birthday party.</i></span></div>
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-43313976378681125372014-10-16T17:33:00.000-07:002015-09-16T05:34:43.832-07:00Obama's Legacy: A Damning Indictment on White Conservatism in America (or, "Would the last conservative leaving the Democratic Party remember to take the Confederate flag with you?")<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>T</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">he art of leadership...consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">--Adolf Hitler, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Germany's president and Nazi Party leader (1933-1945)</span></div>
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<i><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">f Dwight Eisenhower had come back from the war and decided to run as a Democrat---which he almost did---there would be no Republican party today. They would be like the Ku Klux Klan, small knots of hate-crazed rich people scattered in walled ghettos around the country, instead of the dominant ruling autocracy that they have been for most of the last four decades.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">--Hunter S. Thompson, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">excerpt from "Better Than Sex" (1994)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>B</i></span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>arack Obama is not a person who would defend the rights and heritage of the European-American people. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">--David Duke,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> former Ku Klux Klan leader and current T.E.A. Party spokesperson </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(quoted in 2008)</span></div>
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<i><b style="font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">O</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">bama, I think he'</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">s a piece of shit. I don't care that his mother is white...I don't think America wants a black president. Most of them are too afraid to say that they believe the way I believe.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">--Ron Edwards;</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Imperial Wizard, Imperial Klans of America (quoted in 2008)</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; font-style: italic;">he single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">--Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">National Journal</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">interview (10/23/10)</span><br />
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-large; font-weight: bold;">T</i><span style="font-size: large;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">he demographics race we're losing badly. We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">--Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) on the future of the Republican Party </span>(Washington Post interview, 8/30/12)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">t t</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>akes a certain level of hypocrisy for anyone who is</b> conservative and Caucasian in the United States to argue that the main reason for his or her resentment towards Barack Obama isn't because he happens to be half-African-American, especially given the fact that so many Caucasian conservatives have done everything possible to make sure that Caucasian Democrats and independents end up feeling a sense of guilt for having elected Obama as president since the beginning of his term in 2009. This certain level of hypocrisy is nothing new in American politics of course, but it really has come to the forefront in such a way that it is now laughable to hear white </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">conservatives blame Obama for everything that is wrong with the U.S. while attempting to justify Richard Nixon's counterculture-fueled paranoia and George W. Bush's calloused ineptitude during their terms in the White House.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Obama "Sock Monkey": The first warning </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">sign </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">of a racist backlash from white </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">conserv-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">a</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">tives </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">towards Barack Obama's </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">candidacy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> during </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">the 2008 </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">presidential campaign.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Regardless of whether or not it is because "white, right and uptight" conservatives feel a desperate sense of entitlement to attack Democrats by </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">whatever means necessary for political gain, their inability to feel any sense of shame regarding how they are seen by the rest of the world when it comes to attacking the first African-American president in U.S. history only bolsters the impression of how ass-backwards white conservatives in America really are. It's no wonder as to why the United States continues to be treated more like a bad joke internationally instead of as a respectable superpower when a certain percentage of the U.S. population refuses to accept an African-American as their president solely on the basis of his skin color. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What makes the punchline to this joke so tragically ironic is that this deep-seated resentment towards an African-American president being in office is coming from current representatives of a political faction whose purpose was founded on the basis of emancipating slavery within the United States---the Republican Party. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Of course I blame the T.E.A. Party movement and the conservative social media for the perpetual amount of "silly season", "kiss-up/kick-down" politics which has fueled the GOP's determination to bring out the most delinquent aspects of American culture since Obama's presidency began. What makes it all the more worse for both the GOP and the T.E.A. Party is the fact that what started as a somewhat-legitimate movement to stop unnecessary Federal spending became nothing more than a corporate-sponsored/lobbyist-funded excuse to legitimize the existence of bigotry in the U.S., even to the point of making democracy itself a target for practicing discrimination by attempting to pass legislation which prohibits voters from being able to cast their ballots with anything other than a voter I.D. card, including a birth certificate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But there is something more to this than mere political tactics based on resentment towards a sitting U.S. president from an opposing faction; something more insidious and nefarious within the extreme partisanship of the conservative movement itself.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Every picture tells a story": Photo of a racist in attendance at a<br />Mitt Romney presidential campaign rally in 2012.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Let's get down to brass tacks and be honest with ourselves once and for all: To say that racism has played a large part in the amount of vitriol being expressed by white conservatives in the U.S. towards President Obama really would be an obvious understatement at this point in time. All this talk among conservatives about constitutionality, less government and more freedom will mean nothing once Republicans are able to gain a majority in Federal, State and local government. Unfortunately, the only time that conservative voters choose to bitch about big government and less freedom is when Democrats have any amount of influence in Federal, State or local government. But whenever Republicans gain a bureaucratic majority, it's amazing how conservatives suddenly become silent about having to pay more in taxes for unnecessary spending and for legislation which limits their freedoms. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ask yourself: When was the last time you heard a conservative complain about having paid taxes for the outsourcing of U.S. jobs or the Patriot Act?... Think about it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I know that Republicans have a reputation for putting their party's platform above everything else when all is said and done, but to include within that platform the idea of getting citizens to pay taxes for the purpose of outsourcing jobs and for passing legislation which limits civil liberties only proves how far Republican politicians and voters are willing to go in compromising their own country's founding principles just to preserve their party's financial interests. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">When you actually stop and take this into consideration, you must admit that it doesn't get much more un-conservative, un-patriotic and un-American than that. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">PRIORITIES QUIZ: What kind of demo-<br />cratic republic allows only the wealthiest<br />one percent of its population to make the<br />rules for the other ninety-nine percent to<br />live by?</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Regardless of how sincere or disingenuous conservatives are about believing that Barack Obama is everything that they have accused him of being, I am quite certain that they would have made similar arguments in response to Hillary Clinton had she won the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. The difference is that their arguments against Hillary probably wouldn't have included tasteless images of her as an African witch doctor if she had ended up winning the 2008 presidential election over John McCain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Attacking the credibility of the Democratic Party is to be expected from Republicans and conservatives when it comes to furthering their political and social agendas, but for these same Republicans and conservatives to argue that Barack Obama will be remembered as the worst president in U.S. </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">history </span><span style="font-size: large;">without taking responsibility for their own actions in trying to guarantee such an assessment is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has been paying even a modicum amount of attention to both Obama's presidency and how the post-Reagan-era Republican Party chose to react to it.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">A harsh revelation for uninformed conservatives who<br />vote Republican in 21st-century America.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The sad truth that the Republican National Committee will have to face in the years ahead is the fact that their decision to accept "white, right and uptight" conservatives into their party has done nothing more than help to create a political, economic and social agenda within the Republican establishment which mandates that only "Christian" Caucasians should be classified as legitimate citizens, and that all others are (in their personal opinion) savage outsiders and/or foreigners who should have very little or no say in how the U.S. is governed, even if those "savage outsiders" or "foreigners" were born within the United States, like themselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If such an agenda appears similar to what white separatist/racist hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan have been preaching for decades within the U.S., well that's because both agendas are similar, quite frankly. </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I mean let's face it: If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it sure as hell isn't a pony, right?</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This image of an Obama lynching is </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">brought</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> to you by your </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">local "white,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> right </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">and uptight" T.E.A. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Party </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-align: left;">T</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-align: left;">o </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-align: left;">put this in a more theoretical perspective, what better way for pro-Confederate domestic terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan to perpetuate the idea that the Civil War didn't end with General Lee's surrender to General Grant in 1865 than to use their financial resources for the purpose of infiltrating the very political party that Abraham Lincoln used to promote federalism and the abolition of slavery, and then manipulate that party financially in order to promote "traditional Southern-Christian values" like anti-federalism, racism, secession, slavery and social castes? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-align: left;">"Seems too crazy to be true", you say? It isn't so crazy when you consider that the Ku Klux Klan has relentlessly attempted to play an active role in undermining America's political process and national sovereignty since the group's inception following the Civil War.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Your local T.E.A. Party leader could also be a member of the<br />Ku Klux Klan, and you wouldn't even know it unless you </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"But the Klan was formed by white <u>Democrats</u> in the South after the Civil War", you argue. Continue reading, because what you're about to discover has been the Republican Party's dirtiest and ugliest little secret for the last fifty years... </span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;"> </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Anti-Obama memes like this one reflect</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">the blatant </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">level of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">racism </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">among </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">white </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">conservatives </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">in the U.S. today.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">For those of you who didn't know this already, it helps to keep in mind that a large percentage of white conservatives in the South and in other parts of the country abandoned the Democratic Party and became registered <b>Republicans</b> after feeling betrayed and disillusioned by President Lyndon Johnson because of his decision to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. This explains why so many white conservatives have such a genuine </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">resentment towards liberalism in America. Whenever white conservatives claim that liberalism drove them out of the Democratic Party, what they're actually implying is that they left the Democratic Party because liberal Democrats refused to tolerate their inherently-prejudicial beliefs regarding race, gender, class and </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">religion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This was how the derogatory expression "Northern Yankee Liberalism" originated among white conservatives above and below the Mason-Dixon Line.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Alabama Governor George Wallace. Many U.S. political<br />historians believe that Wallace (a segregationist) was one</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">the more influential con</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">servative legislators in the South </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">who </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">promoted </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">the idea among fellow white conservatives </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">to </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">abandon the Democratic </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Party</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">after </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Presi</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">dent </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Lyndon </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">John</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">son signed the Civil Rights </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Act </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">of 1964 </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">and</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Voting </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Rights </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Act of 1965 into law. Wallace </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">himself ran for </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">presi-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">dent as an independent </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">candidate</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> in 1968 after leaving</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Democratic Party.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his views regarding the ideology of preserving racial inequality among white conservatives within both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party when he made the following statement during a 1958 interview...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>"Actually, the negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic Party. The Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the Southern Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed him by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of reactionary right-wing Northern Republicans. And this coalition of Southern Dixiecrats and right-wing Northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards liberal legislation in the area of civil rights."</i></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (center-left) watches as</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Lyndon Johnson himself (a Democrat from Texas) was worried about how Southern conservative Democrats would respond after he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. According to his former White House aide Bill Moyers, Johnson told Moyers the following day, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"I think we've just delivered the South to </span></i><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">the </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Republican Party for the rest of my life, and yours"</span></i><span style="font-size: large;">. Sadly, President Johnson was proven correct in his assessment as Southern white conservatives were increasingly abandoning the Democratic Party instead of renouncing the South's history of racism and inequality by the time of his death in January of 1973.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">John Ehrlichman was just one of many members in Richard<br /> Nixon's White House who made an effort to criminalize those </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">in the African-American community who were opp</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">osed</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> to </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">the Vietnam war by equating those members</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> with </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">drugs </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">and criminal activity within the anti-war </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">movement </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">during the late 1960s and early '70s. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As you have probably figured out by now, this abandonment of the Democratic Party by white conservatives in the South and in other regions of the U.S. following the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act being signed into law proved to be a golden opportunity for the Republican National Committee to capitalize on politically. Since then, the RNC has been shamelessly continuing to capitalize on President Johnson's decision to make civil rights and voting rights for African-Americans and other U.S. citizens of different ethnic and economic persuasions a reality.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Regardless of what colors they choose to fly, the Ku Klux<br />Klan's message of hatred for democracy, ethnicity, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">equality </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">justice </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">still </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">remains prevalent.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Leave it to Caucasian conservatives within the GOP to take their racist views into the voting booth and use their ballots in order to piss on the graves of Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Baines Johnson, and all for the cause of preserving white supremacy in 21st-century America. Not only is the level </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">of animosity towards President Obama authentic from white conservatives within the Republican Party, but it is also a level of animosity that </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">has been five decades in the making. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b4Zs12Y68-Q/VJieGFmTJKI/AAAAAAAAF6U/P3ouYdWBQXE/s1600/Voting%2BRights%2BAct%2B001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b4Zs12Y68-Q/VJieGFmTJKI/AAAAAAAAF6U/P3ouYdWBQXE/s1600/Voting%2BRights%2BAct%2B001.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">President Lyndon Johnson (center), signing the Voting Rights<br />Act into law on August 6, 1965</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">This also explains why so many white conservatives in the U.S. want to undermine (and ultimately repeal) the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 today. The reason why conservative Caucasians didn't want the acts passed into law in 1964 and '65 is because they wanted to preserve racism, segregation and other institutionalized forms of bigotry and inequality in America, plain and simple. Well, t</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">hat mentality still exists among the majority of white conservatives in America fifty years later. Surprised? Don't be. As I have already stated, if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it sure as hell isn't a pony.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PSc-RX_byNU/VSDFH9McpYI/AAAAAAAAIDc/7uYBKlxsya0/s1600/Segregation%2B002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PSc-RX_byNU/VSDFH9McpYI/AAAAAAAAIDc/7uYBKlxsya0/s1600/Segregation%2B002.JPG" width="340" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The more things change for the better in America,<br />the more white conservatives want things to remain<br />the same---for the worse.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It should also be noted that the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that there was a 280 percent increase in the number of memberships to known racist hate groups within the United States like the Ku Klux Klan since the beginning of Barack Obama's presidency. Given the amount of vitriol that has been expressed by Republicans and conservatives towards Obama within the social media, this report from the Southern Poverty Law Center should come as no surprise either.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"We want our country back": Whether conservatives</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> like</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> it or not, their </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">ideology can be traced directly back</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> to </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">white supremacist/race-hate groups like</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Ku Klux Klan.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Any political faction making the argument that civil rights and voting rights need to be reevaluated while using immature and blatantly racist tactics to discredit their rivals clearly doesn't have a constituency with the collective intellectual capacity to realize or understand how much their argument could come back to haunt them someday. For the Republican Party and its Caucasian conservative base, the demand for "reevaluating" (i.e. repealing) civil rights and voting rights legislation while using racism as an excuse to attack an African-American president and his constituents ultimately works to no one's advantage in the U.S.---especially theirs.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If for no other reason, Barack Obama's presidency will be remembered for the level of racism that was exhibited not by any Democrat in public office, and not by any liberal journalist, analyst or pundit in the social media, but by the majority of white conservatives within the Republican Party who were more than willing to express their racist views in protest to his election in 2008 and 2012...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">...A certain level of hypocrisy indeed. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DFaAPg46Mog/VIIofkkpX2I/AAAAAAAAFsk/2ettelWB-kI/s1600/100_0187.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DFaAPg46Mog/VIIofkkpX2I/AAAAAAAAFsk/2ettelWB-kI/s1600/100_0187.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"The South Will Rise Again"?: Apparently someone forgot </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">to tell this T.E.A. Party "genius"about the number of </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">victories that the U.S. Marine Corps had in defeating </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Con</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">federate forces during the Civil War.</span></td></tr>
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<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-19086596041576826172014-09-13T02:01:00.003-07:002014-12-15T14:57:16.302-08:00Germanium Fuzz Tone: The Ultimate Distortion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If you're familiar with rock music from the 1960s, then you know that the one distinct characteristic which made rock music an iconic staple during that particular decade was the sound of an electric guitar plugged into a fuzz distortion pedal that was made with germanium or silicon transistors. From the Rolling Stones to average studio musicians, many bands from the '60s and early 1970s featured guitarists who owe their success and popularity to companies that manufactured germanium or silicon fuzz distortion pedals for them to use on recordings and onstage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In recent years, the use of germanium fuzz distortion has made somewhat of a comeback as more contemporary guitarists have been adding the use of germanium fuzz tone to their recordings. The unique sound of germanium fuzz tone remains a personal favorite for aspiring guitarists who want to showcase their talents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I have decided to list six guitar pedals which are considered to be the best on the market in regards to germanium fuzz tone... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>1. The Maestro Fuzz-Tone</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RDRPc3UOJsU/U-s7lZiyQLI/AAAAAAAADmI/RmlaRpGFjBQ/s1600/000_0011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RDRPc3UOJsU/U-s7lZiyQLI/AAAAAAAADmI/RmlaRpGFjBQ/s1600/000_0011.JPG" height="400" width="366" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Maestro Fuzz-Tone is the original and most sought-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">after germanium fuzz distortion pedal on the<br />market.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>2. The Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3_vbBRRBWts/U-s7mQ_oYAI/AAAAAAAADmQ/P96FzrfWfS0/s1600/000_0012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3_vbBRRBWts/U-s7mQ_oYAI/AAAAAAAADmQ/P96FzrfWfS0/s1600/000_0012.JPG" height="327" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">What makes the Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face unique is </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">that it was the first guitar pedal to be manufactured in<br />a round casing.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NQOBNE5lE90/U-s8X5gWL2I/AAAAAAAADnE/bSayAgWc6t8/s1600/000_0014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NQOBNE5lE90/U-s8X5gWL2I/AAAAAAAADnE/bSayAgWc6t8/s1600/000_0014.JPG" height="400" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Chrome humbucker pickups<br />like the kind featured on this<br />Gibson SG Standard guitar<br />can help improve the sound<br />quality while using fuzz </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">distortion.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>3. The Z.Vex Effects Fat Fuzz Factory</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zey16DzbyzU/U-s7pZFeTJI/AAAAAAAADmg/XVsIZf9oUqI/s1600/000_0014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zey16DzbyzU/U-s7pZFeTJI/AAAAAAAADmg/XVsIZf9oUqI/s1600/000_0014.JPG" height="237" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Z.Vex Effects Fat Fuzz Factory is a great pedal for </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">those who want to add that '60s germanium fuzz sound</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> to their arsenal of guitar effects. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>4. The Wampler Leviathan Fuzz</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zRev8Jn9Fyk/U-s7qkYAcBI/AAAAAAAADmo/tbfYr4KIxks/s1600/000_0015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zRev8Jn9Fyk/U-s7qkYAcBI/AAAAAAAADmo/tbfYr4KIxks/s1600/000_0015.JPG" height="400" width="376" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Leviathan Fuzz by Wampler is a compact pedal<br />with a monster-sized germanium sound. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>5. The EarthQuaker Devices Hoof Reaper</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7YnLjfj45Pw/VAiSD0n_D-I/AAAAAAAAEDI/0jragVE9U20/s1600/000_0001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7YnLjfj45Pw/VAiSD0n_D-I/AAAAAAAAEDI/0jragVE9U20/s1600/000_0001.JPG" height="321" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Hoof Reaper pedal features germanium and silicon<br />transistors, along with an octave effect which makes it<br />virtually three pedals in one.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>6. The Way Huge Electronics Swollen</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Pickle MKII Jumbo Fuzz</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hs2f-KbUqrc/VAyAMxE3eOI/AAAAAAAAEHA/izbHO17Ivfs/s1600/000_0001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hs2f-KbUqrc/VAyAMxE3eOI/AAAAAAAAEHA/izbHO17Ivfs/s1600/000_0001.JPG" height="381" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Swollen Pickle MKII Jumbo Fuzz from Way Huge<br /> Electronics provides several options in order to create<br />and adjust whatever style of germanium fuzz tone the <br />user wants, which makes this pedal both convenient <br />and practical.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7XLqjqcb_ws/U-s8WgyYAbI/AAAAAAAADm8/4fVv50da34w/s1600/000_0015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7XLqjqcb_ws/U-s8WgyYAbI/AAAAAAAADm8/4fVv50da34w/s1600/000_0015.JPG" height="640" width="274" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Gibson Les Paul Custom SG is an<br />excellent guitar for using germanium<br />fuzz tone.</span></td></tr>
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<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-39395479380663631372014-08-28T09:12:00.001-07:002015-01-13T17:45:57.024-08:00To Nuke Or Not To Nuke: That Is The Question <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span></b><span style="font-size: large;">here's a question that needs to be addressed in regards to how the United States should deal with international terrorism, especially given the fact that America has become the number one target for terrorist groups when it comes to committing acts of brutal violence and savagery.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">That question is this: Should the U.S. consider the use of long-range nuclear weapons against nations that harbor and/or finance extremist groups as a way to curb the threat of international terrorism?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">For some people, the thought of America or any other nation using any kind of nuclear weapon in order to combat terrorism may seem as drastic and as brutal as any Jihadist in the Middle East. On the other hand, imagine what kind of a message it would send to Islamic extremists in the U.S. or Europe if they were to find out that the government which had been sponsoring their plans to commit a terrorist act was blown off the map with a long-range nuclear missile. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Can you think of a better way to tell brainwashed extremists around the world that America can be just as crazy as they are when push comes to shove? Can you also think of a better way to send a message to oil company executives that they need to come up with alternative sources for fuel than to wipe oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq right off the map with nukes? Hey, war is hell, like it or not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment: The only reason that fundamentalist Islamic extremist groups are even in existence right now is because of Western civilization's dependency on foreign oil... That's it, in a nutshell. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Don't believe me? Okay. Then explain why one of the first objectives that the Jihadist group known as "The Islamic State" (or I.S.I.L.) was to seize control of oil fields in Iraq. It certainly wasn't because they wanted to build more mosques in those locations. Hell no! It's because I.S.I.L. has figured out the dirty little secret regarding the West's dependency on their country's largest commodity, and now they're hoping to manipulate the West into accepting their vision of Allah in order for countries like the U.S. and Great Britain to continue remaining dependent on foreign oil rather than coming up with alternative sources for energy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It really has become one of those situations in which one has to wonder who's crazier: the radical Jihadist who knows that he can get away with murder and mass destruction as long as his country uses oil as a bargaining chip, or the Western politician who's willing to tolerate the radical Jihadist's demands in order to continue receiving campaign contributions from oil companies who do business with countries which also provide funding to the radical Jihadist so that he can terrorize the West by whatever means necessary.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ejVDk4i42NQ/VLSdUOGPvHI/AAAAAAAAGaY/8jx_Bqjs9OU/s1600/Gas%2BPump%2B001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ejVDk4i42NQ/VLSdUOGPvHI/AAAAAAAAGaY/8jx_Bqjs9OU/s1600/Gas%2BPump%2B001.JPG" height="271" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Believe it or not, the money that consumers of foreign oil<br />put into their cars helps fund radical Islamic extremists in<br />the Middle East.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If you really want to get an idea as to just how much oil companies have the United States by the balls right now, look no further than the parents of U.S. hostages who send videotaped messages to radical Islamic leaders begging for the lives of their sons and daughters who are held in captivity. These parents are all but willing to sell their souls to Satan in order to guarantee that their kids will be returned home safely, for crying out loud! Meanwhile, companies like Exxon, Shell and Haliburton still make deals with the very people who are funding the bastards responsible for holding Americans as hostages in the Middle East(!!!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If there was ever a legitimate reason for discovering alternative energy, it would have to be for the purpose of starving radical Islamic extremists out of existence. Until then, you can expect more Jihadist groups to keep cropping up in the Middle East and threatening to annihilate Western civilization.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One of two things will have to take place in order for the United States and other Western nations to successfully reduce the threat of Islamic extremism: Either scientists will have to receive more government and private funding for the purpose of developing alternative fuels that can replace oil, or countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Syria are going to have to be blown off of the map with long-range nuclear missiles. There are no other alternatives or exceptions. The vicious circle that oil has created must be broken one way or the other. </span><br />
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<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-32123693322733274272014-08-07T13:33:00.001-07:002016-03-25T22:00:53.177-07:0040 Years Later, It's Still the Party of Nixon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span><span style="font-size: large;">he alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.</span></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">--- George Washington (excerpt from his farewell address, </span><span style="font-size: large;">September 19, 1796)</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">S</span></b><span style="font-size: large;">aturday, August 9, 2014 will mark the 40th anniversary of one of the darkest days in U.S. history, and certainly one of the darkest days in the history of the Republican Party---the resignation of Richard Milhous Nixon as the 37th President of the United States. Although Lyndon B. Johnson came close to doing so by 1968, no other sitting U.S. president since Abraham Lincoln has created the level of genuine animosity and division between Republicans and Democrats the way that Nixon did during his tenure in the White House. And in the 40 years since his resignation following the aftermath of Watergate, Richard Nixon's legacy of animosity and division remains the driving force behind the Republican Party's desire for a permanent majority in Federal, State and local government at the expense of bipartisan democracy.</span></span><br />
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Rather than focus strictly on Watergate, I have decided to focus on Nixon's early years in politics (including his early years as president) in order to point out the parallels between the Republican Party then and now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Nixon's Early Years in Politics...</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">R</span></b><span style="font-size: large;">ichard Nixon's career in politics began during the early days of "The Red Scare" immediately following Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency and the end of World War Two when in 1945 Republicans in California's 12th congressional district began searching for a consensus candidate who would run a strong campaign against Democratic incumbent Congressman Jerry Voorhis. After the committee failed to attract higher-profile candidates, a branch manager at the Bank of America in Whittier, California named Herman Perry suggested Nixon, a friend of the family whom he had served with on the Whittier College board of trustees before the war. After Nixon was selected by the committee and left the Navy in 1946, he and his wife Pat returned to Whittier where he campaigned extensively against Voorhis throughout the year. Nixon contended that Voorhis had been ineffective as a member of Congress and suggested that Voorhis' endorsement by a group linked to communists meant that he must have radical views. Nixon won the election, receiving 65,586 votes to Voorhis' 49,994.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As a member of Congress, Richard Nixon supported the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, a Federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. Nixon also became a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). It was during this time that Nixon was able to reveal that a former State Department official named Alger Hiss had lied to HUAC about ever having been a communist after weeks of dramatic hearings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In late 1949, Nixon announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate along with Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas in order to replace Democratic incumbent Sheridan Downey. After a vicious primary battle with Douglas in March of 1950, Downey withdrew and announced his retirement. L.A. Daily News publisher Manchester Boddy joined the race and attacked Douglas by accusing her of being a leftist and was the first to compare Douglas with New York Congressman Vito Marcantonio, who was accused of being a communist at the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nixon would later use the same arguments against Douglas after she won her primary by defeating Boddy and would go on to win the election by a vote count of 2,183,454 to Douglas' 1,502,507. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nixon never regretted using such tactics in order to win the election. Instead, he defended his use of such tactics by stating that Douglas was "far too left" to represent California in the U.S. Senate. As a senator, Nixon took a prominent stance in opposing global communism, travelling frequently and speaking out against the threat. He also maintained friendly-but-distant relations with fellow anti-communist Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and criticized President Harry S. Truman for the handling of the Korean war.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Eisenhower and Nixon in the Oval Office</span> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After General Dwight D. Eisenhower was nominated for the presidency by Republicans in 1952, he had no preference for a vice presidential candidate. Officeholders and party officials recommended Nixon to Eisenhower, who agreed to the selection. Among the other candidates considered along with Nixon were Ohio Senator Robert Taft, New Jersey Governor Alfred Driscoll and Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen. On the campaign trail, Eisenhower spoke of his plans for the country while leaving the negative campaigning to Nixon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In mid-September, the Republican ticket faced a serious crisis when it was reported by the media that Nixon had a private political fund that was maintained by his backers which reimbursed him for political expenses. Although the fund was not illegal, it exposed Nixon to allegations of a possible conflict of interest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As pressure was building for Eisenhower to demand for Nixon's resignation from the ticket, Nixon went to address an audience of nearly 60 million TV viewers on September 23, 1952 in what would become known as "The Checkers Speech". The speech prompted an overwhelming outpouring of support for Nixon, which was best remembered for the gift that he received, but wouldn't return: <i>"a little cocker spaniel dog... sent all the way from Texas. And our little girl---Tricia, the six year-old---named it 'Checkers'".</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Following the success and popularity of "The Checkers Speech", Eisenhower decided to keep Nixon on the ticket, which in turn proved to be a victorious decision in the November election.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Richard Nixon would serve two terms as the 36th Vice President of the United States. In 1959, he announced his candidacy for president and won the Republican nomination the following year, only to end up losing to Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts in a close election. In 1962, local and national Republican leaders encouraged Nixon to challenge incumbent Pat Brown for the California Governor's race. Despite initial reluctance, Nixon entered the race.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The campaign was clouded by public suspicion that Nixon viewed the office of governor as a stepping-stone for another presidential run. There was also opposition from the far-right within the GOP, along with Nixon's own lack of interest in being California's governor. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Despite Nixon's hope that a successful campaign would confirm his status as the nation's leading Republican at the time and would ensure that he remained a prominent figure in national politics, he lost to Brown by more than five percentage points, and the defeat was believed to be the end of Nixon's political career. Nixon blamed the media for favoring his opponent during an impromptu concession speech the following morning after the election, saying, "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After a brief stint travelling through Europe, Nixon returned to the United States and would support Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater's candidacy for president in 1964, although Nixon personally believed that it would be very difficult for a Republican to defeat Democratic incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson following John F. Kennedy's assassination. Nixon was proven right in his assessment as Johnson would win by a landslide, and it would prove to be one of the worst defeats in the GOP's history.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Nixon's First Term as President (1969-1972)...</b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Nixon (right) with Vice Presidential nominee Spiro Agnew</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span></b><span style="font-size: large;">t the end of 1967, Richard Nixon told his family that he was planning to run for president a second time. Nixon believed that with Democrats divided over the issue of the war in Vietnam, a Republican had a good chance of winning the presidency, although he expected the election to be as close as it was in 1960.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Following the Tet Offensive in 1968, President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination for a second term after doing unexpectedly poor in the New Hampshire primary. Johnson's decision to withdraw from the race led to a tumultuous election year for Democrats, which resulted in the assassination of candidate Robert Kennedy immediately following his victory in the California primary, along with Vice President Hubert Humphrey's controversial nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, which was under siege by protesters of the Vietnam war.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the Republican side, Nixon's main opposition was Michigan Governor George Romney, though New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and California Governor Ronald Reagan were both hoping to be nominated in a brokered convention in Miami Beach, Florida. Nixon secured the nomination and selected Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew as his running mate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nixon believed that his selection of Agnew would unite the party by appealing to both Northern moderates and Southern conservatives who had become disaffected with Democrats. Throughout the campaign, Nixon portrayed himself as a figure of stability during a period of national unrest and upheaval. His appeal was aimed at what he would later describe as "the silent majority", which was made up of socially conservative Americans who disliked the "hippie" counterculture and anti-war demonstrators. Agnew became an increasingly vocal critic of these groups, solidifying Nixon's position with the right-wing voting base.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Nixon and Agnew's main targets of opportunism were those </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">within the anti-war movement who were opposed to the </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It was during 1967 that Nixon first became aware of an executive producer for a then-locally televised talk-variety program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania called "The Mike Douglas Show". Nixon appeared as a guest on the show that year and got into a spirited discussion about the role of television in politics with the show's executive producer. Although Nixon took the view that television was merely a gimmick during the show, he would later hire the program's executive producer in 1968 as a media advisor for his presidential campaign after "The Mike Douglas Show" received national syndication and won two Emmys.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The executive producer whom Nixon became aware of and would hire as a media advisor for his presidential run in 1968 was <b>Roger Ailes</b>. As a result of Ailes' efforts, Nixon would spend a large portion of his time using television as part of his campaign strategy. Nixon waged a prominent television advertising campaign, meeting with supporters in front of cameras. He stressed that the crime rate was too high, and attacked what he perceived as a surrender of U.S. nuclear superiority by the Democrats.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nixon never released specifics on how he would end the war in Vietnam. Instead, he simply promised "peace with honor" and vaguely proclaimed that new leadership would end the war and win the peace in the Pacific.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In a three-way race between Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and independent candidate Alabama Governor George Wallace, Nixon defeated Humphrey by nearly 500,000 votes. Though it was a close election, Nixon's professional relationship with Roger Ailes paid off for both of them.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Roger Ailes (right) with Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">During the early 1970s, Ailes sent a memo to the Nixon administration which would be discovered years later in the Nixon Library. The memo, entitled "<b>A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News</b>", not only provides insight into what kind of plans were being contemplated between Roger Ailes and Richard Nixon during that time, but it also provides some idea of how shrewd and cynical both Ailes and Nixon really were as political strategists.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The plan within the memo was to bring pro-Nixon administration stories to television networks around the country in place of honest, objective and unbiased journalism. It reads as follows: <i><b>"Today television news is watched more often than people read newspapers, than people listen to the radio, than people read or gather any other form of communication. The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit--watch--listen. The thinking is done for you."</b></i></span><br />
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Although Nixon himself fortunately never had the time to carry out Roger Ailes' strategy of using propaganda as a way to undermine the public's trust in the national news media as it was explained in the memo, Ailes would go on to use his own philosophy years later after leaving his post as president of CNBC in February of 1996 and then being hired by Fox owner Rupert Murdoch to create <b>Fox News Channel</b> in October of that year, along with 89 additional employees of various NBC networks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Nixon's Visit to China...</b></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Nixon (right) with communist dictator Chairman Mao </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Zedong in Beijing, China on February 21, 1972</span></td></tr>
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T</span></b><span style="font-size: large;">he last week of February in 1972 could explain why Richard Nixon never went into details regarding how he was planning to end the war in Vietnam during his election campaign for the presidency four years earlier, and it could also explain why Nixon was so uncertain of being re-elected in November of 1972 that he was willing to cover up the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., which ultimately led to his resignation. The event which took place during that last week of February in 1972 was Nixon's visit to the People's Communist Republic of China to have trade talks with dictator Chairman Mao Zedong (or Tse-tung).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The purpose for the meeting was to prevent China from having any further military alliance with the North Vietnamese government by allowing U.S. business owners to send jobs out of the country in exchange for Chinese products being sold within the United States. This decision by the Nixon administration would become a template for further outsourcing of U.S. jobs in the decades to come.</span><br />
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Nixon himself had this to say about his visit to China: <i><b>"This was the week that changed the world, as what we have said in that communique is not nearly as important as what we will do in the years ahead to build a bridge across 16,000 miles and 22 years of hostilities which have divided us in the past. And what we have said today is that we shall build that bridge."</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When one takes into consideration that this statement was made by the same Richard Milhous Nixon who began his political career by accusing Democrats of fraternizing with Marxists and conspiring to undermine the United States by promoting communism within their own country, it isn't too difficult to understand why his visit to the People's Communist Republic of China would cause Nixon to have doubts about his chances at being re-elected as president in 1972; even to the point that he could have given permission for Howard Hunt's team of "plumbers" to burglarize the Democratic National Committee headquarters inside the Watergate Hotel in June of that year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Final Synopsis...</b></span> </div>
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I</span></b><span style="font-size: large;">n the 40 years since his resignation as the 37th President of the United States, Richard Milhous Nixon not only left behind a legacy of corruption, deception and divisiveness seldom seen or talked about in the history of American politics, but he also helped to create a blueprint for politicians to use as a means to an end while campaigning for public office. Few politicians were able or willing to use and manipulate voters with the level of ambition, insincerity, opportunism and superficiality that Nixon used to his advantage during his time in public life. Sadly, that same level of ambition, insincerity, opportunism and superficiality can be found in American politics---particularly within the Republican Party---now more than ever since Nixon was forced to resign his presidency on August 9, 1974.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Perhaps if his successor Gerald Ford had decided not to grant him a full pardon for his role in the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon's legacy of fraudulence would have been exposed enough to prevent the Republican Party (and American voters in general) from ever tolerating anymore candidates like him running for public office. This is something to consider as well. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Hail to the Thief": Richard Nixon after resigning his<br />presidency on August 9, 1974</span></td></tr>
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<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4262213706079616458.post-34708369068652679942014-07-31T14:11:00.000-07:002014-12-04T12:59:24.149-08:00 Ten Quotes Worth Reading Regarding The Republican Party<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>"O</b>vergrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>--- George Washington</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"T</b>he liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of a private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>--- Franklin Delano Roosevelt</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"A</b> bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>--- Harry S. Truman</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"I</b>f Dwight Eisenhower had come back from the war and decided to run as a Democrat --which he almost did-- there would be no Republican party today. They would be like the Ku Klux Klan, small knots of hate-crazed rich people scattered in walled ghettos around the country, instead of the dominant ruling autocracy that they have been for most of the last four decades.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>--- Hunter S. Thompson</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"I</b>n this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>--- H.L. Mencken</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"W</b>hat we need to affirm is that Jesus is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Whenever we marry Jesus to a political party, we are committing the sin of idolatry. We are making Jesus into the image of our political party.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>--- Tony Campolo</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i><b>"Y</b>ou have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>--- Jackie Kennedy</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"R</b>onald Reagan was long thought to be the most conservative of Republicans. And by any standard today he is the most popular Republican in modern history. Yet he raised taxes 11 times, supported a ban on assault rifles and the Brady Bill, and established amnesty for 3 million undocumented workers.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>--- Mark McKinnon</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"O</b>bamacare is a private mandate that will drive billions to the insurance industry, much like the auto insurance mandate. Hardly socialism. In fact, it was a Republican plan to begin with.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>--- Adam McKay</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"H</b>ypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican Party. We get lectured by people all day long about moral values by people who have their own moral shortcomings.<b>"</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>--- Dr. Howard Dean</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08752909235301738354noreply@blogger.com0