What I find truly interesting

is the implication that the thinly veiled bigotry and hate-mongering that's become so prevalent here is so vile and disgraceful by real-world standards that the Democratic Party is repulsed by it and seeks to avoid any possible contact lest they be tarred by association with such disreputable filth.

There's been much discussion of late about how DU has changed over the years, perhaps the time has come to consider if the name "Democratic" still applies, or whether it has become a safe haven for something else.

I think the best way to promote progressive policies is to support Democratic candidates.

I don't always agree with everything they do, and sometimes I'm disgusted by how cowardly and conservative they can be. But I recognize that they're the only chance we have to make real progress, and I don't want to add to the constant shitstorm of abuse and vilification coming from the organized Republican reactionaries who just want to drag them down.

As much as I hate having to settle for the lesser evil at times, I've lived long enough to see what happens when the greater evil gets a free pass, and I know it makes enough of a difference to be worth fighting for.

So I don't really feel comfortable siding with either the bashers or the cheerleaders when things start getting nasty around here, and I don't see much point in wading into the crossfire. The term "third way" comes to mind, but that's already been appropriated by stealth Republicans. The term "middle way" has some interesting spiritual resonance but just seems wishy-washy in a political context.

Maybe I should start a "no-team" team for people who just don't fit into the extreme team purity squads and don't always agree on everything. Then again, maybe that's what most of the Democratic Party already is.

I dined with the Duchess of Lee

Who asked; "Do you fart when you pee?"

I replied, with some wit;

"Do you belch when you shit?"

And considered it one up for me.


Sorry folks, this is just getting too insane to take seriously.

Another candidate for The Journal of Irreproducible Results

These "reefer madness" propaganda pronouncements are consistently characterized by:

Politically biased agenda

Overt financial conflict of interests (funding from DEA or British political office)

Deliberate use of invalid methodology

Deliberate introduction of uncontrolled variables

No valid control group

Statistically insignificant sample size

Sensationalized claims made directly to tabloid press without publication in a legitimate peer reviewed journal

Sensationalized claims from a single source not confirmed by any other independent research and contradicted by previous large scale studies using valid methodology

That's a gross exaggeration - what we are is a second world nation.

Although we've fallen below the standard of living of the industrialized first world democracies, we're still well above the crushing poverty of the undeveloped agrarian third world.

Where we are now is more like Russia and China: our economy is industrialized, but we no longer enjoy the economic advantages of democracy because our government is controlled by a corrupt, self-serving elite that sucks all the real wealth and growth out of the country for itself.

"I got old & shit in my pants"

The mystics of all religions teach the same truth - "All is one".

The fundamentalists of all religions teach the same falsehood - "Ours is the only true teaching and it's contained in our scripture which is divinely authored and literally true in every detail."

Practical applications of Sturgeon's Laws

I was "illegally detained" by the D.C. police during the 1971 Mayday demonstration against the War

(reposted from a DU2 discussion of civil disobedience : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5853801&mesg_id=5856376)

At least that's how the Federal courts ruled when the ACLU filed suit afterward - the result of a "criminal conspiracy" between Nixon's top aides and the D.C. police chief to "violate the civil rights of demonstrators". On the one hand I wasn't doing anything illegal when they caught me and they didn't follow legal arrest procedure, but on the other hand I had just spent most of the morning deliberately obstructing traffic as part of a civil disobedience action. I found out later that the police had orders to arrest any male under 30 who wasn't wearing a necktie.

At the time I was just trying to stop the slaughter that was going on every day in Viet-Nam, but years later Daniel Ellsberg revealed that Nixon was plotting a nuclear attack and that this demonstration deterred him into postponing it until after the election for fear of the political backlash. By that time he was preoccupied with the unraveling Watergate cover-up. (Details are spelled out in his introduction to the New York Times edition of the Pentagon Papers.)

Leaks from White House staff later revealed that Nixon disregarded the 500,000 person legal protest march the week before as "commuters" who weren't seriously committed, but that 10,000 people committing civil disobedience in the streets of Washington seriously shook him up with the prospect of a real political rebellion.