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Saturday, July 11, 2015

Open Thread

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So, what's on your mind?

Here is your chance to opine according to the parameters below:

We welcome civil dialogue at Always on Watch. Comments that include any of the following are subject to deletion:
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Note: comments consisting of blog gossip will be deleted as soon as an administrator of this blog becomes aware of such comments.

46 comments:

  1. SURREAL!

    From [Memphis City] Council Votes To Move Nathan Bedford Forrest's Remains:

    -The Memphis City Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday to move the remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife from Health Sciences Park.

    They have been buried in a park on Union Avenue for 110 years.

    Council members are also moving ahead with plans to remove the statue of Forrest, even looking at selling the statue to anyone who wants it.

    "The Forrest family is solidly opposed to digging up the graves and moving them any place," said Lee Millar with the Son’s Of Confederate Veterans."...


    Dig up remains which have been at rest for 110 years? Grave robbery!

    As for Nathan Bedford Forrest himself, apparently THIS does not matter:

    In July 1875, Forrest demonstrated that his personal sentiments on the issue of race now differed from that of the Klan, when he was invited to give a speech before an organization of black Southerners advocating racial reconciliation, called the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association. At this, his last public appearance, he made what the New York Times described as a "friendly speech"[10] during which, when offered a bouquet of flowers by a black woman, he accepted them as a token of reconciliation between the races and espoused a radical agenda (for the time) of equality and harmony between black and white Americans. His speech was as follows:...

    Read the rest HERE.

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    Replies
    1. Winston Smith, please report to Memphis.

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    2. Dont't see what the University of Tennessee making a land grab has to do with Winston.

      Any relationship between this and the battle flag removal seems coincidental.

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    3. This is an example of rewriting history to conform to current "policy".
      You see it as a land grab? I actually thought I missed something after your comment. The removal of the statue and grave are akin to soviet communist erasures of personalities from public paintings, documents, etc.
      Ergo, Winston.

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    4. Yes, Ed! The first thing I thought of was a picture of Stalin standing next to a pair of shoes. They airbrushed Trotsky out - but left his shoes.

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    5. Bay, great minds think alike.
      Then again, so do you and I. :)

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    6. It's just another knee jerk attempt to re-write history. I read the speech. Lovely. Not earth shattering, but encouraging to know that a man's heart can be shifted. That alone makes it a worthy story to commemorate and share.

      Contrast with THIS monstrosity that is 'celebrated' (and hotly debated) in our town - the mushroom cloud sculpture out of chains.
      http://tinyurl.com/Our-Local-Sculpture

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    7. Bay, What is going on there?
      Are they celebrating a mushroom cloud?

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    8. The fleeing of Republican pol's over the Confederate flag issue has goaded the Progs into launching a cavalry charge on what they believe to be retreating infantry. Wait until they reach Stonewall...

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    10. I'm waiting for the progressive Taliban to dynamite Stone Mountain.

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    11. Let me be clear - I don't care about the Confederate flag. It was mothballed from 1865 to 1958, brought back by racist Democrats opposed to desegregation. The New Deal progressives of the South that saddled us with a welfare state before black people could even safely vote in the South hung that flag back up, they can take it down.

      To me, the South represents multi-generational military heroism, clean environments, and kind, hospitable people.

      NO ONE retires and moves up North. At the end of the day, the South will be training astronauts for space flight, and the educated elites of the North will still be bumbling around trying to discern the difference between a beach and a medical waste dump.

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    12. Once again Beamish I have to remind you how the current Republican Party became constituted.

      First they absorbed Strom Thurmond and his Dixiecrat brethren. This branch of the party probably hit its apex with Jesse Helms.

      Second they got Billy Graham on the job and mobilized the religious fanatics.

      Mix in corporate overlord to keep this constituency rabid while their corporate overlords pick their pockets and you have the current Republican Party.

      Ever spent the summer in Truro, Beamish? I recommend it.

      If I'm not mistaken you're from St. Louis, one of our freaking garden spots. Sit around on a summer night in the 90 degree heat and sniff the garbage scows moving down the Mississippi. What an Eden.

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    13. Ducky,

      You are at a strong disadvantage here, because history is my passion and forte, and history disagrees with you on several points.

      * The overwhelming majority of "Dixiecrats" remained Democrats until the day they died. The "Dixiecrats" (and Dixiecrats-by-proxy) that remain among the living ARE STILL DEMOCRATS. Jimmy Carter, William Fulbright's apt pupil Bill Clinton, Al Gore Sr 's son - all still Democrats.

      * A look at election maps election cycle to election cycle shows decades of Democrat dominance of the South up until the mid-1990s. Are we really supposed to believe Republicans - allegedly racists all - couldn't swing southern voters to have Republicans represent them in Congress until 1994, nearly 30 years after the Civil Rights movement?

      * Billy Graham was one of the earliest proponents of desegregation. The Southern Baptists, along with Presbyterians, were the first denominations in America to desgregate their seminary schools. The Southern Baptists, Bikky Graham's denomination, had fully desegregated their seminaries by 1952, and it didn't take federal troops to enforce it.

      * The most outspoken advocate of segregated schools in politics today (2015) is Democrat Governor Jay Nixon, of Missouri.

      ----

      As for the rest of your fail, I live 40-something miles west of St. Louis, but I can tell you the only smells you'll encounter downtown by the Mississippi River are perhaps the beer brewery. Barges going by are carrying grain or coal. Not garbage.

      I'm originally from Birmingham, Alabama, where my grandfather's business was firebombed by DemoKKKrats for employing blacks in solid state electronics, appliances, television, and radio repair in the 1950s and 1960s. He also worked to register black people to vote when it was dangerous to do so, and there's a credible chance he registered Condaleeza Rice's parents as Republicans.

      Your bullshit won't play here.

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    14. I would add:

      * South Carolina, birthplace of the Confederacy, has elected a female Indian-American Sikh their Republican Governor TWICE in a row, despite the SC State Chairman of the Democratic Party's impassioned campaigns to send the "raghead" back "to wherever the hell she came from."

      * Dixiecrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore campaigned under the Confederate flag, and failed to win any Deep South states.

      * As President, the racist Dixiecrat Bill Clinton wrote several letters to the racist Daughters of the Confederacy organization, thanking them for upholding the values he shares with their Klansman forefathers.

      * Who was that President that resurrected the KKK with federal subsidies back in the 1910s? Oh yeah, now I remember... PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT Woodrow Wilson...

      'nuff said? Coz I have more for you...

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    15. * Whiskey bootlegger and patriarch of the Kennedy clan, Democrat political machine leader Joseph Kennedy, was Adolf Hitler's greatest ally in American government.

      * Democrat President Harry Truman, the man who ordered the atomic firebombing of Japanese cities, was a notorious anti-Semite and ardent Asian hating member of the Ku Klux Klan. He served as Vice-President to the socialist Franklin Roosevelt that placed Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps.

      * Andrew Jackson, the first Democrat President, ordered the ethnic cleansing of various native American tribes from lands upheld as sovereign by the US Supreme Court

      I'm seeing a pattern here.

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    16. Beamish,
      This may interest you....

      Over at Infidel Bloggers Alliance, I posted about the "necessity" of digging up Nathan Bedford Forrrest's body, and a commenter popped in with the following:

      To expose the silliness and overreach of this sort of nonsense (which is in no way related to the SC flag issue) I recommend we fight this fire with fire of our own:

      1) Demand that the National Cathedral remove Woodrow Wilsons remains. He is the man responsible for segregating the civil service and military.

      2) Demand that the FDR memorial be removed since he ordered the internment of Japanese Americans.

      3) Make further demands as necessary to cleanse the US of celebrating its racist past. Make certain to educate the Low Information Voters that the sanctioned scoundrels are uniformly Democrats.

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    17. Well, if I wanted to falsely claim Thomas Jefferson as a Democrat, as Democrats do, I would have mentioned the racist language enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.... ;)

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  2. Well the social justice warriors are at it again.

    Monet was a racist

    This one frankly has me confused.

    The painting in question was recently restored and loaned to the Kyoto Museum of Art where visitors participated in a similar event (including racist Western tourists, I assume) before it was returned to permanent exhibition at the MFA.

    Point of interest is that the kimono in question was supplied by a Japanese broadcasting company which sponsored the event.

    Looking at this further I came on a Tumble page for these bobos and read their demands which include being consulted on the curation of the Japanese collection including consultation on the origin of the works.
    Now mind you there is an exhibit of Buddhist temple statuary that was decomposing in Japan and was sold by the Japanese government to the MFA for restoration.
    The protesters seem to think everything in the collection (one of the finest in the world) was looted by commander Perry.

    Their knowledge of the ongoing Hokusai exhibit seemed equally comprehensive.

    Social justice warriors. Looking for a reason to come to your town.

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    Replies
    1. Winston Smith, please report to Boston.

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    2. Perhaps instead of commiserating about the past 50 years of "celebrating diversity", we can look forward to a future dedicated to completely ignoring it. Or better yet, a "swirling" something in-between! ;)

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    3. You've got to accentuate the positive
      eliminate the negative
      Latch on to the affirmative
      But don't mess with mister in between.

      Sums it up, eh?

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    4. Why do you lament this, Ducky? The social justice screamers are your peeps.

      You helped light the fuse; enjoy the explosion.

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    5. The kicker on this story? It went over big in Japan. People are attracted by the new, the different, what they haven't seen or know about. It's why we GO to museums! What dolts.

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    6. That's not the only kicker, Baysider.

      There were maybe a dozen protesters total. None of them were Japanese. They were Pacific Islanders, Koreans and Chinese protesting American cooption of Japanese culture.
      The only Japanese protester i'm aware of was a secondary school Japanese language teacher who was SUPPORTING the exhibit and was upset that his students couldn't participate.

      Now Koreans and Chinese protesting the cooption of Japanese culture is a whole ironic topic of its own but the one Asian cultural group which had no issues was the Japanese.

      I think Ed's 1984 reference works on a level but maybe not the one he intended. We are further into the age of Newspeak than we realize. The enemy? Not the government. They just need to let the Internet and the iPhone filter all the meaning out of communication.

      AOW knows this is happening with the written word and I see it all the time in the visual culture.
      It ain't the government, it ain't the D's, it ain't the R's. Pogo Possum had it right, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

      No silverfiddle. These geeks aren't my peeps but your comment does represent one of the reasons the national dialog has become such crap.
      Take Greece for instance. Here's a case where a crack has developed in the wall of crony capitalism. Now you might not see it that way but I say it's an idea worth discussing since I know you are no more a fan of crony capitalism than I am.
      But it would break down to name calling, you come with libtard and statist and I just shake my head, say thank-you and laugh.

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    7. Poor, poor, put-upon Ducky. Always so charitable and full of good-will toward his fellow interlocutors...

      The anti-Money rabble are your ideological confrères. Leftwing progressivism built and fed this monster; were you all really so foolish to believe it wouldn't turn on you as well? Do you study history? Read Prometheus? Frankenstein? Any revolution and the purging that comes after as sure as night follows day?

      As for Greece, stay tuned. I have one more post on that topic Monday, and we may have some points of agreement. The banksters' hands are not clean.

      The larger point, Ducky, is that many on the right are waking up to the demons in our attics; I haven't seen such self-reflection on the left. Perhaps you are more nuanced than most, but not being a total fringe nut is hardly reason to pat yourself on the back.

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    9. No. "Caucasian (not Latino or Hispanic) Castle."

      Then we move on McDonald's, with their hateful caricature of Scotsmen as pasty white, wiry redheads with alcoholism-reddened noses.

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    10. Beamish,

      I'm glad you're back. I've missed the biting, sarcastic, extra-crispy humor.

      Delete
  3. Say what you will about Donald Trump,I respect him and he has taken something very dear and precious away from the MSM, the Narrative. And he's speaking for me right now..I must confess this:

    Unlike past elections where I have argued vociferously for casting a vote for ANY Republican over 3rd party, let me say that, if Trump rens as a 3rd party candidate, he has my vote

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  5. I said it yesterday here, and I'll say it again today:

    We are going through a cleaned-up, digital remaster of the old analog French Revolution...

    Guillotines, twitter volleys, social media maumauing, torches, pitchforkes, angry mobs excited at the whiff of blood and fear...

    ...and it's just beginning.

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  6. http://tinyurl.com/OPM-Hacks

    My beef: while our president has put so much energy into weaponizing his agenda, he's ignored clear and pressing needs that are actually HIS JOB as the executive in charge (instead of, say, illegally rewriting laws Congress passed). Ya, we know he's had NO executive experience. It shows.

    The IBD's recent editorial shows how bad his disregard for security has been. Two major unions have filed suit for "reckless failure to safeguard personal information" in the big hacks of government personnel data. He's tried to make light of it by calling it an incident of data exfiltration. But the OPM's inspector general has been warning for YEARS this needed to be fixed.
    2009 - security policies compromise the integrity of information
    2012 - can't detect unauthorized devices on their network
    2014 - didn't do routine scans of its network for trouble and had substandard authentication requirements. They were warned to shut down the system. the OPM essentially said F- you.

    It sounds like this problem was known in the Bush years, as the 2009 warning said it continues to be a problem. But it clearly is not the better, smarter government wave he surfed into office on.

    The unions' suit language of "reckless failure to safeguard" is really a better motto for this administration.

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    Replies
    1. IMO, the Unions are only squawking because they can smell some cash in their future if anyone responds to their cries.

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    2. Totally agree! These are NOT Obama foes as a rule.

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  7. American Mothers, Hide Your Daughters.

    Late Breaking News!

    Mexico drug kingpin 'Chapo' Guzman escapes prison again, massive manhunt News Flash!
    A manhunt has been launched to find Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman after he escaped from prison, Mexico's National Security Commission said in a statement Saturday. Guards at the Altiplano Federal Prison found that Guzman, also known as "El Chapo," was missing .

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    Replies
    1. Virtually everything Donald Trump says is wildly exaggerated malarkey.
      1)Business owners have been bringing Mexicans here since the 30's because Americans don't want the jobs they "take"....(Ask Trump about the Mexican workers he brought in to work on Trump Tower.)
      2)Mexican kids are known to be far more mannerly and eager to learn than our little darlings, and most are athletic, sharp as a tack, and bilingual.
      3) American hospitals have been routinely overcharging us ($60 bucks for Tylenol, etc.) since the 70's so they're in no imminent danger of collapsing from the limited presence of doctor-shy Mexicans.
      4)There's no shortage of white criminals crowding our jails and our prison system is a corrupt slave labor business that profits from having large populations.
      5) The Department of Agriculture statistics show there are FAR fewer Mexicans on food stamps than whites, and although most pay the same taxes as the rest of us many return home before collecting social security benefits and rarely if ever receive workman's comp or other worker protections we take for granted.
      -------Don't take my word for it without researching these facts for yourself.
      While some have been needlessly harping about Mexicans, most of our good-paying jobs have skulked overseas, resulting in shoddy, toxic products being shipped into the country right under the nose of the FDA.
      ---Trump is just another Clown from the GOP’s Clown car just tickling your ears over nothing. Get Real!!

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  8. It seems that all these Stupid liberal's care about is Gay's and Confederate flags. How can so many people be so incredibly stupid?
    Why We Don't Care About Benghazi? Is it isso boring. that Four people died???
    Open up one of Hillary Clinton's closet and out pours a mountain of skeletons.

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  9. Speaking to a crowd of over 20,000 in Arizona. Donald Trump said, (without any Teleprompters). We are going to rebuild the American dream! I’m telling you if he keeps that up he might have a shot.
    Trump is certainly correct on illegal immigration and Mexico. It's refreshing to hear someone finally speaking the truth.

    ReplyDelete

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