Congratulations, KoKo! You have won the DU "Next Great Distraction Contest"

[Zorra]

July 14th:

Can anyone guess what the next great distraction will be?

KoKo (70,652 posts)

31. The Royal Baby is due sometime this month.....

It will consume weeks. Perfect for Summer Entertainment. We will have endless stories about Grandma Di and her tragic death and it will be a blockbuster.

What it will hide is the question....though. There's always something in August that precedes bad news down the road.

Well done!

[longship]

1. Mmm!

[onehandle]

2. Sorry, I can't read past your subject line because I'm thinking about the royal baby. nt

[PowerToThePeople]

3. A Royal Baby!!

Wowzers... I guess I can stop caring about the struggle to feed and house my family now.

[Voice for Peace]

4. has the royal baby been born?

I'm so out of touch

[L0oniX]

5. G0d save the queen...

[awoke_in_2003]

6. Woo hoo- distraction. nt

[Pathwalker]

7. At least it's a happy !Squirrel! this time.

n/t

[90-percent]

8. Crowd sourcing

This thread is an example of crowd sourcing the means to know when we are being propagandized by our own government. For example, the Snowden thing has really exposed how inept our government can be when deliberately lying. The choosing of gov't vs Snoden as the hero/villain is telling about who is a government shill and who is a bona fide journalist.

I'm a big fan of crowd sourcing, not of current times, but a factoid that stuck in my memory as profound; So called Delphi Studies validated the hypothesis that the more people engaged in solving a problem, the higher the validity of the end result. We could actually have a collective consciousness that would be the union of the 99% against our own government.

One topic could be Ed Schultz, who I happen to like a lot because he's a Republic basher and he's hyper pro organized labor. But he firmly planted himself early on in the snowden=traitor side.

Another would be the lying under Oath before Congress of NSA Chief General Keith Alexander. Was not Bill Clinton impeached for roughly the same offense?

Do I understand it to be correct that it is now legal for the American governments official propaganda division to point that propaganda on the entire population of The USA? Wasn't that already being done any way? There are examples almost daily.

The root of this half-fleshed concept is from Frank Zappa, who was in favor of revolution, albeit done wisely, peacefully and channeling the forefathers as much as possible, suggested pointing "The Establishments weapons back at themselves". He was referring to television at the time. We sure can't own our own networks, but my guess is there's more people currently on the internet now than there were watching TV back in the 60's.

They have their weapons. Our weapon of choice clearly must be the internet. Now how do we utilize that to overcome their evilly successful divide and conquer strategies? And their propaganda machines?

Many people I know feel like we have an oligarchy or plutocracy now. We are the 99%, surely there are those amongst us with the patriotism, wits, drive, energy, leadership and tolerant character to restore America to what the Constitution tells the world we stand for?

[dreamnightwind]

11. Mostly off-topic but excellent

Should be an OP. If we learn to crowd-source solutions to the issues we face, then follow that up with crowd-action, we can indeed bring real change to our lives. DU, for example, has a lot of great minds, but the resultant vectors from DU are more short whiny protestations rather than society-changing organization. If we could learn to use our vast resources to identify solutions and implement them, it would be revolutionary.

I would not only support this as an OP, but as a DU group, a group dedicated to morphing this site from an argumentative one to a problem-solving one. Not sure what form an of this should take, just seeing the potential and giving it support. Thanks for your post.

[90-percent]

17. thanks

I'm gonna flesh it out a bit more and run with it as an OP.

Thanks again. And if this is the next Facebook I'll make you a co-founder!

-90% Jimmy

[KoKo]

9. lol's........

But....it's September that I'm still worried about.

Maybe it's just my "9/11" hangover. What we didn't see coming in August that year....

[Zorra]

12. Not unreasonable, especially after all the hoop-dee-doo over NSA spying.

I hope Dick Cheney is not already rehearsing his "See? I told you so, we need to strengthen the Patriot Act!" speech.

That would be the last nail in the coffin of US democracy.

Let's face it, these are definitely not honest, ethical people we are discussing here.

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

10. I don't give two fucks about another carbon footprint, but if the little bugger

keeps Snowden/Greenwald/NSA out of the news cycle, then I say bring it on!

It was interesting in the first 48 hours or so, but I don't like when the media dwells on things. I like them to report and move on with the next story.

I'm a political/news junkie... not a broken record connoisseur.

[sabrina 1]

15. 'The little bugger's first royal duty is to do exactly that 'to keep Snowden and the leaks, and the

brutal austerity programs inflicted by the Banks, and the backing for Al Queda in Syria which even Cameron the coward, is kind of backing away from due to the 'extremists' in the opposition, until he gets his marching orders from the Neocons, OUT OF THE NEWS.

He arrived just in time, although I think the influence of royal babies during times like these has waned a little considering the serious state of the world.

[TeeYiYi]

13. k+r for KoKo. Well played, KoKo...

...

TYY

[WinkyDink]

14. "There's always something in August that precedes bad news...." It's July 22.

[KoKo]

16. True...John Dillenger was shot and killed by FBI Agents as he left a movie.

's

THE HISTORY PLACE:

July 22

July 22, 1934 -THE HISTORY PLACE:

July 22

July 22, 1934 - Bank robber John Dillinger (1902-1934) was shot and killed by FBI agents as he left Chicago's Biograph Movie Theater after watching the film Manhattan Melodrama starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy. Dillinger was the first criminal labeled by the FBI as "Public Enemy No. 1." After spending nine years (1924-1933) in prison, Dillinger went on a deadly crime spree, traveling through the states of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. He was reportedly betrayed by the "Lady in Red."

http://www.historyplace.com/specials/calendar/july.htmr after watching the film Manhattan Melodrama starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy. Dillinger was the first criminal labeled by the FBI as "Public Enemy No. 1." After spending nine years (1924-1933) in prison, Dillinger went on a deadly crime spree, traveling through the states of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. He was reportedly betrayed by the "Lady in Red."

http://www.historyplace.com/specials/calendar/july.htm

[Zorra]

18. kick