Tag: Slogans

What The Hell Does MAGA Really Mean?

Still searching for why.

WE all know what the acronym stands for, Make America Great Again, that is just a bunch of letters thrown together to sell a con on the voter….but what do those idiots really see when they see the MAGA?

MAGA is also closely related among Republicans with an “America First” policy. This is partly about having a strong military – a common theme among Republican respondents – and “making America the superpower” again, one respondent wrote.

Republicans also wrote that putting America first means emphasizing strict enforcement of immigration laws against “illegals” and cutting off foreign aid. For example, one Republican respondent said that MAGA meant “stopping illegals at the border, ending freebies for illegals, adding more police and building a strong military.”

Finally, Republicans see the slogan as calling for a return to “traditional” values. They expressed a strong desire to reverse cultural shifts that Republican respondents perceive as a threat.

As one Republican put it, MAGA “means going back to where men would join the military, women were home raising healthy minded children and it was easy to be successful, the crime rate was extremely low and it used to be safe for kids to hang out on the streets with other kids and even walk themselves places.”

In other words step back into the 1950s….

What about Democrats?

Democrats have a very different understanding of the MAGA slogan. Many Democrats view MAGA as a white supremacist movement designed to protect the status of white people and undermine the civil rights of marginalized groups.

One Democrat argued that “‘Make America Great Again’ is a standard borne by people who’ve seen a decrease in the potency of their privilege (see: cisgendered white men) and wish to see their privilege restored or strengthened. In essence, it’s a chant for all racist, fascist and otherwise bigoted actors to unite under.”

Another Democrat wrote that MAGA was a call to “take us backwards as a society in regards to women’s, minority’s, and LGBTQ people’s rights … It would take us to a time when only White men ruled.”

Democrats also view MAGA as a form of nostalgia for a heavily mythologized past. Many Democratic respondents described the past longed for by Republicans as a “myth” or “fairytale.” Others argued that this mythologized past, though appealing on the surface, was repressive for many Americans.

https://theconversation.com/what-maga-means-to-americans-259241

Read the article and see if you agree.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Defunding

Awhile back some Dem mentioned defunding the police and presto change-o the Right has a new and enduring campaign attack.

But while the Repubs are embracing the police and using comments as a way to influence the voter….some are calling for the defunding of the VA…..

Republican legislators are starting to suggest defunding the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), the office founded in 1989 to assist with veteran needs. The VA assists with getting veterans mental and physical healthcare, educational opportunities, community support, and other everyday housing and living needs.

An Arizona legislator, captured on video participating in a mock congressional hearing, said he supported shutting down the department.

“That’s sort of what I’m thinking because … I hear no good stories. I had zero in my district,” the legislator said in a video posted by the far-right watchdog group Patriot Takes. “So I guess it’s a matter of us leading the fight to defund it.”

A second video, posted by the same account, showed Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz advocating for defunding the VA while speaking at an event held by FreedomWorks, a conservative and libertarian advocacy group.

“This is my question to the group. Is it savable? Why not abolish the VA, take all of the money that we are otherwise spending and go to an any willing provider system inside of our communities?” Gaetz says in the video. “And then, if people get bad care, they can vote with their feet and you don’t have a two-tier system of healthcare in this country with our veterans and then with everyone else.”

Generally speaking, Republican policies favor the privatization of all government functions, thinking that a “small government,” “free-market,” “for-profit” privatization provided by a corporation can solve any market ill.

https://www.rawstory.com/republicans-suggest-defunding-veteran-affairs-even-though-it-helps-9-million-vets/

But I thought the GOP was the champion of the veterans and their needs…..

This incidence is not the first time the GOP has taking aim on the VA….

When you hear Republicans praising veterans, do not believe it for a minute. Congressional Republicans blocked or filibustered bill after bill that would have aided veterans, all in an attempt to undermine President Barack Obama and cut taxes for the wealthy. They do not want this man to have a positive legacy.

Mitch McConnell and his cohorts filibustered $21 billion in funds that would have expanded veteran benefits and saved expansions.

Republicans:

• blocked a $1 billion jobs bill that would have helped millions of vets

• blocked a bill that would have kept benefits on par with the cost of living

• killed the Wounded Veteran Job Security Act

• killed the Veterans Retraining Act

• killed the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Act

• killed the Disabled Veterans Home Improvement Act

• killed the Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship Act

(lasvegassun.com)

The Dems need to jump on this with both feet….take a page from the GOP playbook….hammer their desire to defund the VA.

But will they?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

“Defund The Police”

Oh boy the GOP has a new slogan for the next election cycle….a slogan but NO policy to address the term…..or the problem (which is typical these days….lots of slogans and NO policies)

This is nothing new….as a matter of fact I have addressed the idea on several occasions……

https://lobotero.com/2020/07/21/is-it-police-reform-or-defund-or-abolition/
 
 
 
(Why I bother to offer background info is beyond me)
 
The basic fact is that police reform is a moot point…..the police cannot be reformed….
Why would I make such a statement?

The American police have more funding than any military besides our own or China’s. This certainly makes any sort of revolution, no matter the strength of organizing, extremely difficult. Despite this mismatch, we see a weak spot: the police themselves.

It they can’t even handle criticism, they likely will continue to roll over when class contradictions heighten. The American Right, while horrifying in their institutional power, extremism, militancy and stupidity, are above all a small and cowardly lot. They are overrepresented in the courts, the cops and in political office.

But without a whole lot of dark money and big guns behind them, they fold, and fold quickly. In some ways it may be surprising that the largest chunk of police abolition has been by the police being so snowflake they can’t hang with massive peaceful protests. Yet this is a sign that this approach is working. Noam Chomsky has recalled the unprecedented nature of the global protests following George Floyd. These protests worked to defund the police, even when politicians predictably opted mostly for symbolism.

The Police Can’t Be Reformed

I offered up possible ways to reform the police….sadly none will ever happen…..I mean look at Biden…..https://lobotero.com/2021/04/14/biden-and-police-reform/

A good start….but where will it go in this spineless Congress?

I am sorry but I do not see any thing actually changing in the policing of our streets in my lifetime…..of course that is not that long because I am an old fart.

I wish someone somehow could formulate a plan that would put more equity on our streets….but sadly all this is just a fart in a hurricane….all this rhetoric signifies nothing.
 
Turn The Page!
 
I Read, I Write, You Know
 
“lego ergo scribo”

Lock Her Up……Lock Him Up!

The chant made famous by those supporters of the president…..

There is a bit of a dispute among people that do not like the president and his antics and lies….

Sunday at the World Series game the president was booed and treated to the chant of “lock him up”…..

The anchors of MSNBC’s Morning Joe thinks it is un-American to chant this….

When you hear Morning Joe and Trump in a sentence together, you probably expect them to be on opposite sides. Not so much this time: The married MSNBC morning show hosts are taking the president’s side, sort of, after he was booed at a World Series game Sunday night. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Monday morning took issue with the chants of the crowd at Washington, DC’s National Park to “lock him up.” That’s a play, of course, on Trump’s calls to “lock her up” related to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. “It’s just un-American,” said Scarborough of the chant. “It started with Donald Trump, in fact he’s made it the centerpiece of his campaign rallies.” Added Brzezinski, “We find it sickening when it happens at his rallies.”

Scarborough continued: “Of course it’s sickening. We are Americans and we do not do that. We do not want the world hearing us chant ‘Lock him up’ to this president or to any president. That’s why I’m saying, let’s hope as we move forward maybe this is one less fascist tactic he and his supporters use during chants.” As the Daily Dot reports, the internet did not agree. The site rounds up social media criticism for the pair insisting there was nothing wrong with the chant, and leading Scarborough to respond on Twitter: “So let’s see if I’ve got this straight: When crowds chant ‘Lock her up’ toward Hillary, it is illiberal and anti-American. (I agree). But when crowds chant the same toward Trump, it is suddenly a fulsome exercise of sacred First Amendment rights.” Brzezinski was slightly less staunch in her defense: “While I understand why it happened…And that Trump created this atmosphere, the scene worried me, for exactly that. It is a race to the bottom. Its very difficult not to get caught up. #gohigh.”

That is MoJo’s opinion and now we have someone else to weigh in on this debate…..

President Trump attended Game 5 of the World Series — the first baseball game that he has attended since his swearing in as president of the United States — which was being played between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals. In so doing, Trump himself became a target of baseball’s notorious heckling. And that heckling was nothing short of patriotic. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-world-series-booed-video-lock-him-up-nationals-park-reaction-a9174781.html

My feeling….what is good for the goose is good for the gander….if he cannot take the ribbing then he should just stay home and watch FOX for they will massage his genitals for him….and make him feel all better.

There was a time when I would have thought this was a stupid idea, booing someone, but in the age of stupid I say…WHY NOT?

In the past I tried to be civil but that did nothing to bring the conversation forward……in an age of BS news and lies and accusations then booing is acceptable…..at least to me.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Those Empty Slogans

Since I started this blog I have been writing about just how much I hate a politician’s empty slogans and promises.

The GOP candidates have, in the past, been the worse at silly slogans….Make America Great Again is one such bizarre and silly slogan (America has always been a great country just not so much as a society).

But since the Dems won the House I have noticed that they are starting to sling a slogan or two…..(this quote is from the WaPo that will do what it can to sabotage any progressive agenda this op-ed is a prime example)…..

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post thinks Democrats are starting to look like the Republicans of 2016, and she doesn’t mean that as a compliment. They’re “emphasizing empty slogans instead of evidence-based policy, rejecting experts in favor of cranks, handwaving away questions about implementation, and promising that an expensive policy will magically ‘pay for itself’ through economic growth,” writes Rampell. And one of those she calls out is a fellow millennial, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, specifically over the Green New Deal championed by the new congresswoman. That policy promises to save the environment by achieving carbon-emission targets that far exceed anything on the table so far, but the plan skips over the details on how to get there, along with any sacrifices that Americans would have to make.

AOC dismisses this kind of criticism by saying the plan will pay for itself by creating jobs, but that’s not nearly good enough, writes Rampell. She finds the same kind of “lazy sloganeering” present in “Medicare-for-all,” and thinks it’s a mistake because it comes at the expense of “vibrant, nuanced debate” on health care, tax policy, and climate policy. As for the 2016 comparison, it’s true that President Trump won the White House with some “empty slogans” of his own, writes Rampell. But “right now, Democrats still retain a monopoly on expertise and evidence-based policy,” she writes. “They should not relinquish it easily.” Click for the full column, in which Rampell takes issue with the Modern Monetary Theory that’s been gaining in popularity

I agree with the main point….that with silly slogans the Dems are slowly becoming the GOP……(could it be that they also think the American people is easily swayed by moronic slogans as does the GOP?)

The with this op-ed is that to have a rigorous debate you need a willing opponent and the Dems do have have such an opponent…all they have is the GOP and their silly slogan and lies.

I suggest the WaPo needs to call out one then call out all.

Then There Is “American Exceptionalism”

As always during an election there will be those inevitable cheers about “American Exceptionalism” from one party or the other……in other words it is a call to see who loves America more.

But where did all this begin?  (And yes this is one of my historical perspectives….in case you were confused)…..and I am pleased you asked……

American Exceptionalism – What Makes America Different?
What is American Exceptionalism? Five decades after America gained independence, French political analyst Alexis de Tocqueville remarked on the exceptional character of the United States and gave us a great snapshot of what makes America different. Unlike other nations that were defined by ethnicity, geography, common heritage, social class, or hierarchal structures, America was a nation of immigrants bond together by a shared commitment to the democratic principles of liberty, equality, individualism and laissez faire economics.

But that is all well and good….but where did the term originate?

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney contrasts his vision of American greatness with what he claims is Barack Obama’s proclivity for apologizing for it. The “president doesn’t have the same feelings about American exceptionalism that we do,” Romney has charged. All countries have their own brand of chest-thumping nationalism, but almost none is as patently universal — even messianic — as this belief in America’s special character and role in the world. While the mission may be centuries old, the phrase only recently entered the political lexicon, after it was first uttered by none other than Joseph Stalin. Today the term is experiencing a resurgence in an age of anxiety about American decline.

Read on, McDuff……..

‘American Exceptionalism’: A Short History

I had thought that it originated with Woodrow Wilson about the time of the beginning of World War One…..I was mistaken….it appears that it was originated by Joseph Stalin as a derogatory statement aimed at the US …..

Basically the cheer from the Right about the land we call America was originated by a…..wait for it…..a COMMIE!

You gotta love the ironic twist.

“Making America Great Again”

Ah!  Nothing like one of those campaign slogans that gets everyone’s juices flowing and gives one a slight orgasmic tingle, right?

Every election there is one that sticks out as the number one slogan of the season…..this one is right up there….the problem is that it is not that original at all….

The original was more along the lines of “American First” and it was one associated with Woodrow Wilson back in the early years of the 20th century…..and since I am known for my historical perspectives I thought I would share this bit of history with my readers….and thanx to the American Conservative did the work for me…..and I thank them…….

I long ago passed into and perhaps beyond the Elvis Costello “I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused” attitude toward politics, but I suppose I’ll be in love with political Americana till the day I die.

My office is festooned with posters and pinbacks, including those bearing my two favorite slogans in American political history: “Come Home, America,” the plaintive motto of the patriotic prairie liberal George McGovern in 1972, and “America First,” which rings an oval photograph of that doughty foe of U.S. intervention in the world war … Woodrow Wilson. 

WTF? as the young ’uns say.

Source: The Meaning of ‘America First’ | The American Conservative

There is little that is new in this election……how sad is that?

Warning:  I will be taking on the old “American Exceptionalism” next….stay tuned for the fun….chuq

Who is that ‘Great Satan’?

I do hope that everyone had a lovely weekend….Summer is winding down and there is a hint of Autumn…..But I need to get back to work…….

First my morning bitch…….I live in an area that has had little rain in 90 days…..and today rain and clouds is the forecast….of course it is….that means I will get to miss the astronomical event of the year….the blood moon and the eclipse…..next one will be when I am departed .   joy…joy…..

Monday and I start another week of extreme mental stress…..I have not heard anything about Jade Helm recently….so I am guessing that piece to crap is over with right?

One more thing before I start…..what happened to the solar plane that was flying around the world?  Or did I miss it?

There are many of the Right wing people that like to refer to “The Great Satan”….when attacking anything Iranian…….right?

But what or who made the statement?  What is it all about?  You may not care because it is a convenient slogan that can be used so thought is not necessary…..but I will give you the knowledge whether you want it or not…..

I found an interesting article written by a professor at Columbia University in New York……it is a good read if you would like more info of the term…..after all if you are going to use it maybe knowing if you are using it properly would be in order….

I know that is not what we Americans do….get the info before we lambaste something or someone…..

But try it…..you might like it!

Source: Who is the ‘Great Satan’? – Al Jazeera English

Please this is in NO way a approval of the use of the term…I just thought some might be interested in knowing where this crap comes from…..if I am mistaken then please forgive my presumption…….

We’ll Never Limit Government

It has begun!  The media sideshow…..the media circus that we lovingly call our election process……

If you are a conservative then you will be bombarded with the promise of a “limited government”……that evil brought to you by those no good liberals…..

Guess what!  That “limited government” is a pipe dream….a slogan for the mindless to nod in approval…..as government is today…you will NEVER have that elusive fantasy of a “limited government”…….

Why?

 

We’ll Never Limit Government Unless We Ditch Foreign Intervention by Justin Raimondo — Antiwar.com.

It’s Time to Rethink American Exceptionalism | The Nation

I have written a few times on the subject of “American Exceptionalism”……I have found that it is a subjective topic….has many definitions and some not so comprehensible…….it has been a rallying call…..and a political slogan……and a bumper sticker……..but seldom understood.

Regardless what you think the term means…..maybe it is time to re-think the slogan……I found this article over the weekend……give it a read and let me know what you think……

 

It’s Time to Rethink American Exceptionalism | The Nation.