View allAll Photos Tagged Demagogue
This year on our annual trek to Pacific Beach, we found ourselves walking through ground fog which obscured our destination. It perfectly illustrated my feeling of unease at journeying into the unknown as a nation with an ignorant demagogue as a leader. I try hard not to despair, but sometimes I feel like I am truly a 'stranger in a strange land'.
"A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles."
~ Tim Cahill
"It's actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you'll be okay."
~ Alan Cumming
to men he knows to be idiots ;-(
H.L. Mencken
HPPT! Truth Matters! Resist!!
sasanqua camellia, 'Autumn Spirit', j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carilina
so that they believe they are as clever as he ;-(
Karl Klaus
HGGT! Hate Will Not Make Us Great! Resist!!
prunus, Fuji cherry, 'Shikizaki', j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carolina
youtu.be/4WddJVy4y-8 (The Dictator Decides - Pet Shop Boys)
Will someone please say the unsayable?
Will someone please tell me I'm wrong?
I live every day like a sad beast of prey
For I have to appear to be strong
And that's wrong
I'm too weak to be strong
Today I met with the generals
And the head of my secret police
Discussing conspiracies and prison facilities
For opponents I can never release
And there'll be no peace
Until they're released
Of course I'm in league with the army
It's not like I've got any choice
They officially adore me and my father before me
But gunpoint has a firm voice
The joke is I'm not even a demagogue
Have you heard me giving a speech?
My facts are invented
I sound quite demented
So deluded it beggars belief
It would be such a relief
Not to give another speech
Can someone please say the impossible?
Crowds should be out on the street
I've lost any will to threaten or kill
I'll be easy for you to defeat
And any resistance I meet
I'll beat a retreat
I'd rather that you didn't shoot me
But I'd quite understand if you did
Watch out for the army
The generals will go barmy
At the thought of a takeover bid
Oh please will somebody put me
Out of my misery?
This sad old dictator must sooner or later
Flee so that you can be free
If you get rid of me
We can all be free
Stagira was an ancient Greek city located near the eastern coast of the peninsula of Chalkidice, which is now part of the Greek province of Central Macedonia. It is chiefly known for being the birthplace of Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and polymath, student of Plato, and teacher of Alexander the Great. The ruins of the city lie approximately 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) north northeast of the present-day village of Stagira, close to the town of Olympiada.
Stagira was founded in 655 BC by Ionian settlers from Andros. Xerxes I of Persia occupied it in 480 BC. The city later joined the Delian League, led by Athens, but left in 424 BC: as a result, the Athenian demagogue Cleon laid siege to it in 422 BC. However, Cleon was a poor strategist and his conduct of the siege was very inefficient: so much so that the ancient Greek comedy writer Aristophanes satirised him in the play The Knights. Cleon died in the same year, in the battle of Amphipolis. Later, during the Peloponnesian War, Stagira sided with Sparta against the Athenians.
In 348 BC, Philip II of Macedon occupied and destroyed the city. In return for Aristotle's tutoring of his son Alexander, Philip later rebuilt the city and resettled the old city's inhabitants. Many new structures were built at this time, including an aqueduct, two shrines to Demeter, and many houses.
Tradition has it that the natives of Stageira transferred Aristotle's relics to the city, buried it there, and founded a festival in his honour which was called “Aristoteleia”
Olympiada is a town in the northeastern part of the peninsula of Chalkidiki, Central Macedonia, Greece, with 649 inhabitants in the 2001 census. It is a municipal district of the same name, within the municipality of Stagira-Akanthos. Main occupation of its residents is tourism and fishing. It is located 35 km from Ierissos and 90 km from Thessaloniki. Approximately 700 meters from it lies the archaeological site of ancient Stagira. The area is declared as a protected zone by the Natura 2000 programme.
Protesters gather to exercise their sacred & cherished rights to peacefully assemble & freedom of speech in protesting the demagogue elect to the highest office of the land.
Temperance. Prudence. Courage. Justice.
The classic virtues are embodied by those who have earned the distinction to watch over the most sacred place in our country. In times of uncertainty, in times of war, in times of peace and prosperity, these young men and women remain ever vigilant, determined to achieve perfection in their duty.
None of them know who is entombed here. It is impossible to know if the unknown soldiers lived in a manner consistent with the honor bestowed upon them - it is unimportant. The tomb symbolizes the great sacrifice ordinary citizens have paid in order to secure the Blessings of our Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
Unfortunately, in an age of increased jingoism espoused by demagogues, this symbolism often becomes distorted. Our nation thrives not because good men and women paid the ultimate measure of devotion to its cause. That sacrifice can never be repaid, nor should it be the goal to which our youth are called to aspire.
Constitutional scholar and Professor of Law at Duke University, H. Jefferson Powell finished an essay (published in The Summer 2006 edition of The Green Bag) entitled 'Constitutional Virtues' with the following: "The Constitution requires of us that we achieve decency and humanity. In that demand it achieves authority over us, not because we the People made it, but because it makes of us a People that we ought to be."
What matters more than the symbolism of the Tomb of the Unknowns is the fact that, in every generation, principled young men and women aspire to uphold these virtues above any circumstance or outside influence surrounding them. It is in the dedication of the Sentinel, who guards the honored unknown, that the power of their sacrifice is best represented. How powerful it would be if more Americans would routinely take 21-seconds to pause, vigilantly reflect, and aspire to be more humane and decent...in other words, more perfect in our duty as citizens.
I'm running way behind today flickr was off and on for me today. My guess is that it has something to do with Comcast; but I don't know that....
The television stuntman addicted to PR opportunities, the populist right-winger always offering oven-ready solutions that don't work, the great demagogue promising highways of diamonds that don't exist, the friend of the people who would let poor kids go hungry but pump more money into Britain's global military presence, the man we in the UK have voted into power - our great embarrassment.
Quote: Trump`s speech after election victory
Demagogue: "a leader who gains popularity by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation" (wikipedia) "using arguments based on emotion rather than reason"
Part of "res noscenda note notiz sketch skizze material sammlung collection entwurf überlegung gedanke brainstorming musterbogen schnittmuster zwischenbilanz bestandsaufnahme rückschau vorschau" - Schöne Welt????
#wahl #wählen #election #trump #donald #präsident #president #wahlergebnis #sieg #demagogie #rede #zitat #quote #speech #rede #demagogy #populismus #postfaktisch #demagoguery #beauty #beautiful #schriftbild #satzzeichen #verlauf #schwarz #black #grau #grey #gray #grauton #graustufen #red #rot #letter #buchstabe #schrift #schreiben #form #inhalt #aussage #botschaft
It's hard to put into words the dismay one feels after seeing the events in Washington last night A demagogue incites and then condones a mob who attack his own seat of government and constitution . The only people who will have enjoyed watching the scenes of American carnage will be the autocratic leaders in the world opposed to democratic governance . It was in some ways the logical conclusion of four years of lies conspiracy and the deliberate stoking of division .
Back to photographs
While the inside of this Baptistery is breathtaking its exterior is I believe also quite remarkable particularly when one remembers it was constructed in the 5th century.
At the top of the comments is an interior shot of part of the mosaics in the chapels ceiling .
The Baptistery of Neon is a Roman religious building in Ravenna, Italy. The most ancient monument remaining in the city, it was partly erected on the site of a Roman bath. The octagonal brick structure was erected during the late Western Roman Empire by Bishop Ursus at the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century, as part of his great Basilica (destroyed in 1734). The baptistery was finished by Bishop Neon at the end of the 5th century, at which time the mosaic decorations were added. The original floor is now some 3 meters underground, so the proper structure and extent of the building can no longer be seen. The octagonal design of the building, employed in virtually all Early Christian baptisteries, symbolises the seven days of the week plus the Day of the Resurrection and Eternal Life.
THANKS FOR YOUR VISITING BUT CAN I ASK YOU NOT TO FAVE AN IMAGE WITHOUT ALSO MAKING A COMMENT. MANY THANKS KEITH.
ANYONE MAKING MULTIPLE FAVES WITHOUT COMMENTS WILL SIMPLY BE BLOCKED
Be wary of the despots that curse these lands.
All they see are subjects.
Be wary of the demagogues that whisper in your ear.
-
Thanks goes to The Maestro for the edit.
The Battle of Amphipolis was a battle fought between Athens and Sparta over control of the Macedonian city of Amphipolis. The Peloponnesian war was in its 7th year and both sides were still willing to fight. Athens was led by the demagogue Cleon who was willing to continue the war, while many Spartan generals like Brasidas had the same idea. After a year long ceasefire between Athens and Sparta, Cleon decided to try and recapture Amphipolis. The city itself was an Athenian colony founded decades before the war and was captured by Brasidas without a fight in 424 B.C. which led to the initial ceasefire in 423 B.C. Cleon would arrive in the region with 1,200 hoplites and 300 cavalry and other Athenian allies. During his time in the region he would recapture the towns of Torone and Scione. Brasidas had around 2,000 hoplites and 300 cavalry and other allies. He felt like he couldn't defeat Cleon in a pitched battle so he moved his forces back to the city to prepare for an attack. Cleon knew this was coming and was reluctant for a fight before his reinforcements arrived so he ordered a retreat. The Spartans took advantage and defeated the Athens soundly. The Athenians lost 600 men, while the Spartans lost a mere 7. Cleon was killed in the fighting, while Brasidas was fatally wounded and taken back to the city. He would hear of his victory and would later die. He would have the honor of being buried within the city walls and be declared its founder.
Two of the biggest warhawks of the Peloponnesian war were now dead. This would pave the way for the peace of Nicias between Athens and Sparta brokered by the Athenian general Nicias and the Spartan King Pleistoanax in 421 B.C. that basically resulted in barely any territorial changes between the alliances with few exceptions and rather generous terms for both sides. Amphipolis would be returned to Athens. The peace would last for 5 years and the war would resume for nearly 20 years. Thucydides, the Athenian general and historian who wrote about this battle, would be exiled for failing to protect the city.
After playing Assassins creed Odyssey, I knew I had to build something related to ancient Greece. The game is amazing and is a great source of inspiration. The battle itself is featured in the game with some inaccuracies, but mainly for gameplay and story purposes. I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out, especially with the temple. I was going to bring it to BFVA but that got cancelled unfortunately.
Okay, John and Jax. Having been tagged by both of you in less than 24 hours, I guess I really need to go ahead and devote the time to this task. My favorite 10 albums of all time. IMPOSSIBLE! It simply cannot be done. To try and cultivate into a mere 10 albums (and let alone rank them) a half a century of musical tastes and preferences is physically impossible. So I cannot even begin to do so.
I can however, relate to you perhaps ten albums that, for a plethera of reasons, have impacted who I am, how I feel about life or world issues or just everyday living, or have seeded themselves firmly into the medley of musical variations I have come to enjoy over the span of 50 years. Some are rock, some are country, some are blues, some are just uniquely different. But the majority of them have had their early roots in the blues, or have been influenced by various blues artists to some degree. So in no particular order, here they are.
SRV, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The Sky is Crying.
Released about one year after Vaughan's death in 1990, the album features ten tracks originally recorded between 1984 and 1989.
The Sky Is Crying illustrates many of Vaughan's musical influences, including songs in the style of traditional Delta blues, Chicago blues, jump blues, jazz blues, and Jimi Hendrix. The album's tone alternates primarily between uptempo pieces and gritty, slow blues. The album includes a Grammy-winning extended instrumental cover version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing"; "Chitlins con Carne", a jazz instrumental; and, "Life by the Drop", a song written by Vaughan's friend Doyle Bramhall and played on acoustic guitar. This song is not about Vaughan's struggle with drug abuse, as many think, but actually about Vaughan's friendship with Doyle Bramhall from Bramhall's perspective.
ZZ Top, Tres Hombres.
Tres Hombres is the third album by American blues-rock band ZZ Top, released in 1973, and marked the first of many times the band worked with engineer Terry Manning. It proved to be the group's commercial breakthrough, attracting a far larger fanbase. The album hit the top ten while the single "La Grange" hit 41 on the singles chart.
The band's name is often said to be a combination of two popular brands of rolling paper, Zig-Zag and Top. It has also been claimed as a tribute to blues singer Z. Z. Hill. However, Gibbons wrote in his autobiography, Rock + Roll Gearhead, that it actually came from a tribute to and a play on the name of blues guitar master B. B. King. The band had planned to call themselves Z.Z. King, but felt it was too similar. Since B.B. King was at the "top", they settled on ZZ Top.
In January 1973, ZZ Top opened for The Rolling Stones three shows in Hawaii. They also began recording with engineer Terry Manning at Ardent Studios in Memphis. The resultant third album, Tres Hombres (1973), was the first for which the band gained a million-seller and wide acclaim. Hombres featured ZZ's classic hit "La Grange", written about the Chicken Ranch, a famous La Grange, Texas bordello (that was also the subject of the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas). Other album cuts like "Waitin' for the Bus" and its immediate follower "Jesus Just Left Chicago" became fan favorites and rock-radio staples. However, my favorite tune to be spawned on this album was "Hot, Blue and Righteous".
Delbert McClinton, Never Been Rocked Enough.
This album is probably the most currently produced album on my list here, and possibly on my list of the 50 most influential albums for me. It as produced and relased in 1992. Nothing since then, at least to my immediate knowledge, would make the list.
Delbert McClinton (born 4 November 1940, Lubbock, Texas) is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, harmonica player, and pianist. Active as a side-man since at least 1962 and as a band leader since 1972, he has recorded several major-label albums, and charted singles on the Billboard Hot 100, Mainstream Rock Tracks, and Hot Country Songs charts. His highest-peaking single was "Tell Me About It", a 1992 duet with Tanya Tucker which reached #4 on the Country charts. He has also had four albums that made it to #1 on the U.S. Blues chart, and another that reached #2.
His 1992 release of this album featured the hit single "Every Time I Roll the Dice", which made it to #13 on the US Mainstream Rock charts, While the album only made it to #113. He has written for and recorded with a group of musicians that reads like the who's who or the music industry, including John Lennon.
And at the legendary Skyliner Ballroom, where McClinton's band was the only white act to play its Blue Monday nights AND be the backing band for the headliners, he received a first-class tutelage from the masters of blues music like Jimmy Reed, Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson. McClinton cut a number of local and regional singles before hitting the national charts in 1962 playing harmonica on Bruce Channel's now classic “Hey! Baby.” On a subsequent package tour of England, Delbert showed some of his harp licks to the rhythm guitarist for a young band at the bottom of the bill. The lessons he gave John Lennon were later heard on hit singles by The Beatles; when the two met Lennon already knew the instrument's basics, and the experienced McClinton shared some new licks with him.
Pink Floyd, Momentary Lapse of Reason
A Momentary Lapse of Reason is the thirteenth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. It was released in the UK and US in September 1987. In 1985 guitarist David Gilmour began to assemble a group of musicians to work on his third solo album. At the end of 1986 he changed his mind, and decided that the new material would instead be included in a new Pink Floyd album. Subsequently Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright (who had left the group in 1979) were brought on board for the project. Although for legal reasons Wright could not be re-admitted to the band, he and Mason helped Gilmour craft what would become the first Pink Floyd album since the departure of lyricist and bass guitarist Roger Waters in December 1985.
The album was recorded primarily on Gilmour's converted houseboat, Astoria. Its production was marked by an ongoing legal dispute between Waters and the band as to who owned the rights to Pink Floyd's name, which was not resolved until several months after the album was released. Unlike most of Pink Floyd's studio albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason has no central theme, and is instead a collection of rock songs written mostly by Gilmour and musician Anthony Moore. Although the album received mixed reviews and was derided by Waters, with the help of an enormously successful world tour it easily out-sold their previous album The Final Cut. A Momentary Lapse of Reason is certified multi-platinum in the US.
Although the amazing talents of Water's were not present on this album, it still spawned two of my all time favorite songs, "Dogs of War", and "On the Turning Away".
Iron Maiden, Live After Death.
Live After Death is a live album by the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, released on October 14, 1985 on EMI in Europe and its sister label Capitol Records in the US (it was re-released by Sanctuary/Columbia Records in the US in 2002). It was recorded during the band's World Slavery Tour. The album was instrumental in establishing the band as an extraordinary live band and is regarded as one of the best live albums ever recorded.
For anyone with a love of metal, Iron Maiden is a must hear band. The cover art was done by Derek Riggs, and pictures the band's mascot, Eddie rising from a grave. On that grave is a tombstone with a quote from the fantasy and horror fiction author H. P. Lovecraft's The Nameless City:
"That is not dead which can eternal lie
Yet with strange aeons even death may die."
The proper quote is actually "And with strange..." instead of "Yet with strange...". A similar version of this phrase is used in Metallica's song "The Thing That Should Not Be" from the Master of Puppets album.
Queensryche, Operation Mindcrime.
Operation: Mindcrime is a concept album by American progressive metal band Queensrÿche. Released on May 3, 1988, it is the band's third full-length album. A rock opera, its story follows a man who becomes disillusioned with the society of the time and reluctantly becomes involved with a revolutionary group as an assassin of political leaders. The album is highly regarded within the heavy metal community, often labelled as one of the genre's finest works. It ranked at number 10 at metal-rules.com's best heavy metal albums ever. In January 1989, it ranked #34 on Kerrang! magazine's "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums Of All Time."
The album begins with the protagonist, Nikki, in a hospital. He lies in a near catatonic state, unable to remember anything but snippets from his past. Suddenly, Nikki's memories come flooding back in a torrent. He remembers how, as a heroin addict and would-be political radical frustrated with contemporary society, he was manipulated into joining a supposed secret organization dedicated to revolution. At the head of this organization is a political and religious demagogue known only as Dr. X, who by manipulating Nikki through a combination of his heroin addiction and brainwashing techniques, uses Nikki as an assassin. Whenever Dr. X uses the word "mindcrime" Nikki becomes his docile puppet, a state which Dr. X uses to command Nikki to undertake any murder that the Doctor wishes. Through one of Dr. X's probable associates, a corrupt priest named Father William, Nikki is offered the services of a prostitute-turned-nun named Sister Mary. Through his friendship and growing affection toward Sister Mary, Nikki begins to question the nature of what he is doing. Dr. X notices this and, seeing a potential threat in Mary, orders Nikki to kill both her and the priest. Nikki goes to Mary's church and kills the priest, but after confronting Mary fails to comply with the command to murder her. He and Mary decided to leave the organization together, and Nikki goes to Dr. X to tell him that they are out. Dr. X, however, reminds Nikki that he is an addict, and that he is the one who can provide him with his daily fix. Nikki leaves, conflicted and returns to Mary, only to find her dead, hanging from her own rosary. He cannot cope with the loss, as well as the possibility that he himself may have killed her and not known it, and begins to succumb to insanity. The police, arriving on the scene, arrest him for Mary's murder and the murders he committed for Dr. X. He is put into a hospital, where he begins to remember what has happened.
Rush, Hemispheres.
Hemispheres is the sixth studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush, released in 1978. The album was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales and mixed at Trident Studios in London. This album continues Rush's trend of using the fantasy and science fiction lyrics written by Neil Peart. Similar to their 1976 release, 2112, Hemispheres contains a single, epic song broken into chapters as the first half of the album ("Cygnus X-1, Book II: Hemispheres") while the second half contains two more conventionally-executed tracks ("Circumstances", "The Trees"), then is rounded out by the nine-and-a-half-minute instrumental, "La Villa Strangiato".
The album contains examples of Rush's adherence to progressive rock standards including the use of epic, multi-movement song structures, complex rhythms and time signatures, and flexible guitar solos, like those found in "La Villa Strangiato".
Hemispheres was Rush's fourth consecutive Gold album upon release in 1978 and would subsequently go Platinum in the US. For a short period of time, the album was released on Canadian red vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with poster (catalogue number SANR-1-1015), and as a limited edition picture disc (catalogue number SRP-1300),both have which become much sought after collectors items.
Hang in there, folks....only 3 to go. I apologize, but I try not to halfway do anything...LOL!
Metallica, Ride the Lightning.
Ride the Lightning is the second studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on July 27, 1984 through Megaforce Records and was re-released on November 19, 1984 by Elektra Records. Ride the Lightning was certified gold by the RIAA on November 5, 1987 and was most recently certified 5x platinum on June 9, 2003.
Ride the Lightning retains the speed of Kill 'Em All on songs like "Trapped Under Ice" and "Fight Fire with Fire", but also contains the first of Metallica's longer, more intricate tracks, such as "Fade to Black" and the nearly 9-minute closing instrumental "The Call of Ktulu". "Ride the Lightning" is the last Metallica album to credit former member, Dave Mustaine. Ride the Lightning was listed at #3 on a list compiled by metal-rules.com of the Top 100 Metal Albums of All Time.
"Ride the Lightning" is Metallica's first song which directly pointed on the misery of the criminal justice system. The song is one of two on the album that credits former member Dave Mustaine. The lyrics of the song "Ride the Lightning" are written from the perspective of someone who is forthcoming death-by-electrocution, although he didn't commit murder.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was composed by Cliff Burton, James Hetfield, and Lars Ulrich. The songs inspiration is Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls about the dishonor of modern warfare and Robert Jordan's eminent doom during the bloody Spanish Civil War, with specific allusions to the scene in which five soldiers are obliterated during an air-strike, whilst taking a position on a hill.
The lyrics of Fade to Black suggest a man contemplating, then eventually committing suicide. Metallica revealed that they have received letters from fans who were dissuaded from committing suicide by the song.
"Creeping Death" describes the Plague of the Firstborn (Exodus 12:29). The lyrics deal with the 10 plagues on Egypt, and throughout the song, four of the ten plagues are mentioned as well as the Passover.
"The Call of Ktulu" was Metallica's second instrumental song, following the first instrumental "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth" from Kill 'Em All. The song working title was originally "When Hell Freezes Over".
The idea of the song "The Call of Ktulu" is based upon H.P. Lovecraft's book The Shadow Over Innsmouth which was first introduced to the rest of the band by Cliff Burton. The song's name was taken from one of H.P. Lovecraft's main stories featuring Cthulhu, The Call of Cthulhu, which was written in 1928 for the magazine Weird Tales. The name "Ktulu" is originally written "Cthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft.
And all this time you thought they were just a bunch of fucking stoners.....hehehe.
Led Zeppelin, IV.
The fourth album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin was released on 8 November 1971. No title is printed on the album, so it is generally referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, following the naming standard used by the band's first three studio albums. Also the album has alternatively been referred to as , Four Symbols, The Fourth Album (those two titles each having been used in the Atlantic Records catalogue), Untitled, Runes, Sticks, ZoSo and The Hermit. Zoso is also the moniker for the band's guitarist, Jimmy Page.
Upon its release, Led Zeppelin IV was a commercial and critical success. The album is one of the best-selling albums in history at 37 million units. It has shipped over 23 million units in the United States alone, putting it third on the all-time list in the United States and twelfth world-wide. In 2003, the album was ranked 66th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
"Black Dog" got its name from a stray black dog that was roaming about the concourse of Headley Grange during recording sessions for the song.
"The Battle of Evermore" and "Misty Mountain Hop" are references to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels.
"Going to California" is a reference to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
The idea for each member of the band to choose a personal emblem for the cover was Page's. In an interview he gave in 1977, he recalled:
After all this crap that we'd had with the critics, I put it to everybody else that it'd be a good idea to put out something totally anonymous. At first I wanted just one symbol on it, but then it was decided that since it was our fourth album and there were four of us, we could each choose our own symbol. I designed mine and everyone else had their own reasons for using the symbols that they used.
Page stated that he designed his own symbol himself and has never publicly disclosed any reasoning behind it. However, it has been argued that his symbol appeared as early as 1557 to represent Saturn. The symbol is sometimes referred to as "ZoSo", though Page has explained that it was not in fact intended to be a word at all.
Bassist John Paul Jones' symbol, which he chose from Rudolf Koch's Book of Signs, is a single circle intersecting 3 vesica pisces (a triquetra). It is intended to symbolise a person who possesses both confidence and competence.
Drummer John Bonham's symbol, the three interlocking rings, was picked by the drummer from the same book. It represents the triad of mother, father and child, but also happens to be the logo for Ballantine beer.
Singer Robert Plant's symbol was his own design, being based on the sign of the supposed Mu civilisation.
There is also a fifth, smaller symbol chosen by guest vocalist Sandy Denny representing her contribution to the track "The Battle of Evermore"; it appears in the credits list on the inner sleeve of the LP, serving as an asterisk and is shaped like three triangles touching at their points.
And finally we make it home with....
Allman Brothers, Live at Fillmore East.
At Fillmore East is a double live album by The Allman Brothers Band. The band's breakthrough success, At Fillmore East was released in July 1971. It ranks Number 49 among Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and remains among the top-selling albums in the band’s catalogue. It is often cited as being one of the most well-known live recordings in history.
Recorded at the Fillmore East concert hall, the storied rock venue in New York City, on Friday and Saturday March 12, 1971–March 13, 1971, it showcased the band's mixture of blues, Southern rock and jazz. The cover of Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro Blues" which opens the set showcases Duane Allman's slide guitar work in open E Tuning. "Whipping Post" became the standard for a long, epic jam that never lost interest (opening in 11/8 time, unusual territory for a rock band), while the ethereal-to-furious "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", with its harmonized melody, Latin feel and burning drive invited comparisons with John Coltrane (especially Duane's solo-ending pull-offs, a direct nod to the jazz saxophonist).
The album was produced by Tom Dowd, who condensed the running time of various songs, occasionally even merging multiple performances onto one track. At Fillmore East peaked at #13 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart.
Two other songs recorded during the same set of shows, "Trouble No More", and the memorable "Mountain Jam", were later released on Eat a Peach, the latter spanning two sides of the double album.
Those songs were later included in their entirety, along with uncut versions of some, re-edited versions of others, and some previously omitted tracks, on a new release of the Fillmore material entitled The Fillmore Concerts (1992). "Stormy Monday" gained back a harmonica solo; "Don't Keep Me Wonderin'" and "Drunken Hearted Boy" were included as well.
In 1998 a 5.1 DTS mix of the original version was released with Duane Allman in the left rear channel, Dickey Betts in the right rear channel, Jai Johanny Johanson in the front left channel, Butch Trucks in the right front channel and Gregg Allman and Berry Oakley both spread out over the front and center channels.
George Kimball of Rolling Stone magazine hailed them as "the best damn rock and roll band this country has produced in the past five years." A few months later, group leader Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident. The group survived that and the death of bassist Oakley in another motorcycle accident a year later; with replacement members Chuck Leavell and Lamar Williams, the Allman Brothers Band achieved its peak commercial success in 1973 with the album Brothers and Sisters and the hit single "Ramblin' Man". Internal turmoil overtook the band soon after; the group dissolved in 1976, reformed briefly at the end of the decade with additional personnel changes, and dissolved again in 1982.
In 1989, the group reformed with some new members and has been recording and touring since. A series of personnel changes in the late 1990s was capped by the departure of Betts. The group found stability during the 2000s with Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, the nephew of their drummer, serving as its guitarists, and became renowned for their month-long string of shows in New York City each spring. The band has been awarded eleven gold and five platinum albums between 1971 and 2005 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Rolling Stone ranked them 52nd on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004.
This one goes out to everyone who thinks that Germany is a gray industrial country with nothing to see. This spot in the south looks like straight from a fairy tale but it's yet another proof that fiction tends to fall short of reality. It's full of stories about visionary kings who went mad and genius men of music who befriended them. It is a land that does not forget its history but instead builds on it. A land that has rebuilt itself from the ashes to become an economic powerhouse. One can only hope that the dignified Germany, the nation that treasues knowledge and education, the always smart Deutschland endures this new wave of demagogues who want to convince her that a great future can be built if only you forget the mistakes of the past. May Germany continue to be a brighly lit beacon of prosperity, progress and peace for the world. May the German genius prevail.
And those who define it. One daylight LED lamp and two LED spotlights; edited (a bit dramatically) in Fujifilm's raw converter and in Luminar. Drama, however, it is. The UK, all of it, i.e. Government, Parliament and the People, have not been able to deal adequately with Brexit. We in the UK are now entering a new phase of public campaigning, and the demagogues are already on the spot harvesting the anger of the People and pretending to speak on their behalf. The truth is, that since 2016 we have not heard what the People actually want now.
Still very busy and hope to be back on flickr soon, but in the meantime, I could not resist making a little political commentary, albeit quite cynical. Clearly, I have a very low regard for the past, present and future of American politics.
Sony A7R-II + Sony-Zeiss 55mm f/1.8
Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away
From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;
This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours
Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,
And the age changed unto a mimic play
Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:
For all our pomp and pageantry and powers
We are but fit to delve the common clay,
Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
Which bare a triple empire in her hand
When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!
Oscar Wilde
In 1794, the demagogue Maximillian Robespierre was executed, bringing an end to the "Reign of Terror" in France. His leadership would soon be replaced by the "Directory", a committee of five members governing the French Republic along with a 500 member legislature. Despite these new changes and some semblance of normalcy, the next 4 years would be rocked by political gridlock, inflation, revolts, corruption and war. The Directory would wage several successful wars against the great powers of Europe, but could do nothing about the discontent at home. It was hated by the Jacobins and the Royalists alike who the Directory would seek to crush in the streets of Paris. Due to the political gridlock, the Directory had to use the military to enforce its decrees with generals like Napoleon Bonaparte and Barthelemy Joubert playing a role in this.
Eventually the rule of the Directory would come to an end in the Coup of 18 Brumarie (November 9, 1799). The political instability and military defeats abroad were too much for the French people who decided that uncertain authoritarianism was better than the chaos of the republic. The Directory was replaced by the French Consulate with Napoleon Bonaparte as the head. The chaotic and unstable revolution had come to an end and so began the Napoleonic Era.
At first this build started with the catacombs, which I thought would be a cool build to do. I then decided to add the city of Paris itself, but I had a limited time window since the catacombs themselves are relatively new (historically speaking). I decided to go with the French revolution as its one of the most interesting and important events in world history. Many of the buildings were inspired by what's seen in Assassins Creed Unity. I did include an Arno Easter egg in the catacombs because why not. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it!
Or ‘the rise of the demagogue?’ … I will not say much about the recent happenings in the US, but they have the potential to be devastating for democracy, science (which cuts close to home for me as a scientist) and humanity. Hoping for the tide to turn.
"A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough. People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.”
El home fort del califat, ja no el califa mateix, sino el demagog Almansor, aquell que saquejà Barcelona el 984. Per mol que pretengués donar una pàtina d'esplendor al edifici, ja no és sino una copia mediocre, grossa però sense valor en si mateixa.
La gran mesquita, ara catedral, de Còrdova, és un edifici grandiós, complex i impressionant; és Patrimoni de la Humanitat de la UNESCO. La primera mesquita fou construida el 785, i la darrera ampliació el 987. Convertida en catedral cristiana el 1236, el 1523 es feu una malaurada i gens original construcció catedralicia al centre. Fins i tot l'emperador Carles I renegà del que es feu en nom seu.
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesquita_de_C%C3%B2rdova
smarthistory.khanacademy.org/the-great-mosque-of-cordoba-...
================================================
The last expansion of the mosque of Cordoba, built by the fanatic and demagogue Almanzor, who only did a huge but simpler copy of the former designs.
The former mosque, now catholic cathedral of Cordoba, is a huge and charming building, World Heritage of the UNESCO. It's first phase dates from AD 785, and it was completed in 987. Transformed to a christian cathedral in 1236, they put a baroque church structure in the middle of the forest of columns in the XVI Century, destroying part of it's charm.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque%E2%80%93Cathedral_of_C%C3%B3...
smarthistory.khanacademy.org/the-great-mosque-of-cordoba-...
© Copyright notice: Do not use my images without my written permission, even for a non commercial use. If you're interested in any of my photos you must contact me first. All my images are under full copyright.
© All rights reserved worldwide.
Listen to "Et si en plus il n'y a personne" - Alain Souchon :
www.radioblogclub.fr/open/42494/et_si_en_plus_il_n_y_a_pe... Souchon - Et si en plus il n'y a personne
or watch it :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay5lnY_Dk1E
Océan Atlantique - Plage du Porge – Gironde – France
Beach in Le Porge
L'homme a créé des dieux ; l'inverse reste à prouver.
The man created gods; the reverse remains to be proven.
Serge Gainsbourg
Qu'est-ce que l'homme ? Il est cette force qui finit toujours par balancer les tyrans et les dieux.
What is the man? He is this force which always ends up throwing the tyrants and the gods out.
Albert Camus
Et si en plus y'a personne
Paroles et Musique: Alain Souchon, Laurent Voulzy
Abderhamane, Martin, David
Et si le ciel était vide
Tant de processions, tant de têtes inclinées
Tant de capuchons tant de peur souhaitées
Tant de démagogues de Temples de Synagogues
Tant de mains pressées, de prières empressées
Tant d'angélus
Ding. Qui résonnent
Et si en plus
Ding. Y'a personne
Abderhamane, Martin, David
Et si le ciel était vide
Il y a tant de torpeurs
De musiques antalgiques
Tant d'anti-douleurs dans ces jolis cantiques
Il y a tant de questions et tant de mystères
Tant de compassions et tant de révolvers
Tant d'angélus
Ding. Qui résonnent
Et si en plus
Ding. Y'a personne
Arour hachem, Inch Allah
Are Krishhna, Alléluia
Abderhamane, Martin, David
Et si le ciel était vide
Si toutes les balles traçantes
Toutes les armes de poing
Toutes les femmes ignorantes
Ces enfants orphelins
Si ces vies qui chavirent
Ces yeux mouillés
Ce n'était que le vieux plaisir
De zigouiller
Et l'angélus
Ding. Qui résonne
Et si en plus
Ding. Y'a personne
And if moreover, there is nobody
Abderhamane, Martin, David
And if the sky was empty
So many processions, so many tilted heads
So many caps, so many desired fears
So many demagogues, Temples, Synagogues
So many pressed hands, hastened prayers
So many Angelus
Ding! Which resound
And if moreover,
Ding. There is nobody.
Abderhamane, Martin, David
And if the sky was empty
There are so many torpors
Antalgic musics
So many of anti-pains in these pretty canticles
There are so many questions and so many mysteries
So many compassions and so many revolvers
So many Angelus
Ding! Which resound
And if moreover,
Ding. There is nobody.
Arour hachem, Inch Allah
Are Krishhna, Alleluia
Abderhamane, Martin, David
And if the sky was empty
If all the tracer-bullets All the in hand weapons
All the ignorant women The orphan children
If these lives which capsize These wet eyes
It was only the old pleasure to kill
And the Angelus
Ding. Which resounds
And if moreover,
Ding. There is nobody.
Babel Fish translation
El home fort del califat, ja no el califa mateix, sino el demagog Almansor, aquell que saquejà Barcelona el 984. Per mol que pretengués donar una pàtina d'esplendor al edifici, ja no és sino una copia mediocre, grossa però sense valor en si mateixa.
La gran mesquita, ara catedral, de Còrdova, és un edifici grandiós, complex i impressionant; és Patrimoni de la Humanitat de la UNESCO. La primera mesquita fou construida el 785, i la darrera ampliació el 987. Convertida en catedral cristiana el 1236, el 1523 es feu una malaurada i gens original construcció catedralicia al centre. Fins i tot l'emperador Carles I renegà del que es feu en nom seu.
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesquita_de_C%C3%B2rdova
smarthistory.khanacademy.org/the-great-mosque-of-cordoba-...
================================================================
The last expansion of the mosque of Cordoba, built by the fanatic and demagogue Almanzor, who only did a huge but simpler copy of the former designs.
The former mosque, now catholic cathedral of Cordoba, is a huge and charming building, World Heritage of the UNESCO. It's first phase dates from AD 785, and it was completed in 987. Transformed to a christian cathedral in 1236, they put a baroque church structure in the middle of the forest of columns in the XVI Century, destroying part of it's charm.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque%E2%80%93Cathedral_of_C%C3%B3...
smarthistory.khanacademy.org/the-great-mosque-of-cordoba-...
Cold ones are the Dark Elves' mount of choice during all seasons, but foremost in winter, when shadows get frosty and the lizards thrive. General Murcielago and Demagogue share their hate of warm beings and flowers of any kind.
For a list of customization techniques see here: www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/141361-g...
Transhumanism (abbreviated as H+ or h+) is an international and intellectual movement that aims to transform the human condition by developing and creating widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as the ethics[3] of using such technologies.The most common thesis is that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into different beings with abilities so greatly expanded from the natural condition as to merit the label of posthuman beings.The contemporary meaning of the term transhumanism was foreshadowed by one of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new concepts of the human" at The New School in the 1960s, when he began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles and worldviews "transitional" to posthumanity as "transhuman".This hypothesis would lay the intellectual groundwork for the British philosopher Max More to begin articulating the principles of transhumanism as a futurist philosophy in 1990 and organizing in California an intelligentsia that has since grown into the worldwide transhumanist movement.
The year 1990 is seen as a "fundamental shift" in human existence by the transhuman community, as the first gene therapy trial,[8] the first designer babies,[9] as well as the mind-augmenting World Wide Web all emerged in that year. In many ways, one could argue the conditions that will eventually lead to the Singularity were set in place by these events in 1990.[original research?]Influenced by seminal works of science fiction, the transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives including philosophy and religion.Transhumanism has been characterized by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as among the world's most dangerous ideas,to which Ronald Bailey countered that it is rather the "movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative and idealistic aspirations of humanity".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
What does it mean to be human? Biology has a simple answer: If your DNA is consistent with Homo sapiens, you are human — but we all know that humanity is a lot more complex and nuanced than that. Other schools of science might classify humans by their sociological or psychological behavior, but again we know that actually being human is more than just the sum of our thoughts and actions. You can also look at being human as a sliding scale. If you were to build a human from scratch, from the bottom up, at some point you cross the threshold into humanity — if you believe in evolution, at some point we ceased being a great ape and became human. Likewise, if you slowly remove parts from a human, you cross the threshold into inhumanity. Again, though, we run into the same problem: How do we codify, classify, and ratify what actually makes us human?Does adding empathy make us human? Does removing the desire to procreate make us inhuman? If I physically alter my brain to behave in a different, non-standard way, am I still human? If I have all my limbs removed and my head spliced onto a robot, am I still human? (See: Upgrade your ears: Elective auditory implants give you cyborg hearing.) At first glance these questions might sound inflammatory and hyperbolic, or perhaps surreal and sci-fi, but don’t be fooled: In the next decade, given the continued acceleration of computer technology and biomedicine, we will be forced to confront these questions and attempt to find some answers.
Transhumanism is a cultural and intellectual movement that believes we can, and should, improve the human condition through the use of advanced technologies. One of the core concepts in transhumanist thinking is life extension: Through genetic engineering, nanotech, cloning, and other emerging technologies, eternal life may soon be possible. Likewise, transhumanists are interested in the ever-increasing number of technologies that can boost our physical, intellectual, and psychological capabilities beyond what humans are naturally capable of (thus the term transhuman). Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), for example, which speeds up reaction times and learning speed by running a very weak electric current through your brain, has already been used by the US military to train snipers. On the more extreme side, transhumanism deals with the concepts of mind uploading (to a computer), and what happens when we finally craft a computer with greater-than-human intelligence (the technological singularity). (See: How to create a mind, or die trying.Beyond the obvious benefits of eternal life or superhuman strength, transhumanism also investigates the potential dangers and ethical pitfalls of human enhancement. In the case of life extension, if every human on Earth suddenly stopped dying, overpopulation would trigger a very rapid and very dramatic socioeconomic disaster. Unless we stopped giving birth to babies, of course, but that merely rips open another can of worms: Without birth and death, would society and humanity continue to grow and evolve, or would it stagnate, suffocated by the accumulated ego of intellectuals and demagogues who just will not die? Likewise, if only the rich have access to intelligence- and strength-boosting drugs and technologies, what would happen to society? Should everyone have the right to boost their intellect? Would society still operate smoothly if everyone had an IQ of 300 and five doctorate degrees?As you can see, things get complicated quickly when discussing transhumanist ideas — and life extension and augmented intelligence and strength are just the tip of the iceberg! This philosophical and ethical complexity stems from the fact that transhumanism is all about fusing humans with technology — and technology is advancing, improving, and breaking new ground very, very quickly. Humans have always used technology, of course — our ability to use tools and grasp concepts such as science and physics are what set us apart from other animals — but never has society been so intrinsically linked and underpinned by it. As we have seen in just the last few years, with the advent of the smartphone and ubiquitous high-speed mobile networks, just a handful of new technologies now have the power to completely change how we interact with the the world and people around us..Humans, on the other hand, and the civilizations that they build, move relatively slowly. It took us millions of years to discover language, and thousands more to discover medicine and the scientific method. In the few thousand years since, up until the last century or so, we doubled the human life span, but neurology and physiology were impenetrable black boxes. In just the last 100 years, we’ve doubled our life span again, created bionic eyes and powered exoskeletons, begun to understand how the human brain actually works, and started to make serious headway with boosting intellectual and physical prowess. We’ve already mentioned how tDCS is being used to boost cranial capacity, and as we’ve seen in recent years, sportspeople have definitely shown the efficacy of physical doping.An early television: It would've seemed incredibly alien to our grandparentsIt is due to this jarring juxtaposition — the historical slowness of human and societal evolution vs. the breakneck pace of modern technology — that many find transhumanism to be unpalatable. After all, as I’ve described it here, transhumanism is almost the very definition of unnatural. You’re quite within your rights to find transhumanism a bit, well, weird. And it is weird, don’t get me wrong — but so are most emerging technologies. Do you think that your great grandparents weren’t wigged out by the first television sets? Before it garnered the name “television,” one of its inventors gave it the rather spooky name of “distant electric vision.” Can you imagine the wariness in which passengers approached the first steam trains? Vast mechanical beasts that could pull hundreds of tons and moved far faster than the humble — but state-of-the-art — horse and carriage.The uneasiness that surround new, paradigm-shifting technologies isn’t new, and it has only been amplified by the exponential acceleration of technology that has occurred during our lifetime. If you were born 500 years ago, odds are that you wouldn’t experience a single societal-shifting technology in your lifetime — today, a 40 year old will have lived through the creation of the PC, the internet, the smartphone, and brain implants, to name just a few life-changing technologies. It is unsettling, to say the least, to have the rug repeatedly pulled out from under you, especially when it’s your livelihood at stake. Just think about how many industries and jobs have been obliterated or subsumed by the arrival of the digital computer, and it’s easy to see why we’re wary of transhumanist technologies that will change the very fabric of human civilization.The good news, though, is that humans are almost infinitely adaptable. While you or I might balk at the idea of a brain-computer interface that allows us to download our memories to a PC, and perhaps upload new memories a la The Matrix, our children — who can use smartphones at the age of 24 months, and communicate chiefly through digital means — will probably think nothing of it. For the children of tomorrow, living through a series of disruptive technologies that completely change their lives will be the norm. There might still be some resistance when I opt to have my head spliced onto a robotic exoskeleton, but within a generation children will be used to seeing Iron Seb saving people from car crashes and flying alongside airplanes.The fact of the matter is that transhumanism is just a modern term for an age-old phenomenon. We have been augmenting our humanity — our strength, our wisdom, our empathy — with tools since prehistory. We have always been spooked by technologies that seem unnatural or that cause us to act in inhuman ways — it’s simply human nature. That all changes with the children of today, however. To them, anything that isn’t computerized, digital, and touch-enabled seems unnatural. To them, the smartphone is already an extension of the brain; to them, mind uploading, bionic implants and augmentations, and powered exoskeletons will just be par for the course. To them, transhumanism will just seem like natural evolution — and anyone who doesn’t follow suit, just like those fuddy-duddies who still don’t have a smartphone, will seem thoroughly inhuman.
www.extremetech.com/extreme/152240-what-is-transhumanism-...
Humanity+ is an international nonprofit membership organization that advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. In other words, we want people to be better than well.Our Humanity+ conferences explore innovations of science and technology and their relationship to humanity. Recent conferences have been held at San Francisco State University, Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, California Technology Institute, and Harvard University.
humanityplus.org/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwipi4BRD7t6zGl6m75IgBEiQAn...
Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition. The meaning of the term humanism has fluctuated according to the successive intellectual movements which have identified with it.Generally, however, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of human freedom and progress. In modern times, humanist movements are typically aligned with secularism, and today humanism typically refers to a non-theistic life stance centred on human agency and looking to science rather than revelation from a supernatural source to understand the world.[
Dear Reader,
I’ve been thinking about George Washington. Or, I should say, I had a discussion some time ago with The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, about America’s first president, which began the process that resulted in my cover story for the November issue about how Donald Trump is the kind of demagogue that Washington warned us could one day gain the presidency, abuse its powers, and refuse to relinquish office.
Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged. They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the “spirit of revenge” that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics.
No man who has ever held the office is more unworthy of it than Trump—but he may hold it yet again.
Initially, I didn’t want to write this article. Perhaps like many other Americans, my understanding of Washington was limited to the things I’d learned in school a half century ago. This is something of an irony, because I know a lot about Washington’s military campaigns: I taught them as a professor at the Naval War College. If you wanted an explanation of, say, the battle of Yorktown as an example of a joint and allied operation, I was your man.
But Washington himself was, to me, something of a cipher. (This is partly because I grew up in Massachusetts, where local revolutionaries such as John Adams were our heroes.) And so I studied him anew, including a visit to his home at Mount Vernon.
As I stood in the rooms where he lived and died, I realized how human he was, with his own weaknesses and shortcomings, and how much he’d struggled with difficult decisions throughout his life while always trying to do right by his fellow citizens. (Even in his last hours, he thought of others, as he tried to reassure his grieving doctor that he was not afraid to die.) Unlike Trump, who grasps for power to serve his own interests, Washington regarded his offices as authority entrusted to him by the American people.
I know that Atlantic readers value history and the guidance it can offer us in our daily lives as citizens. I know, too, that these are stressful political times, when the American idea—the concepts of liberty for which Washington risked his life—are under siege. But I hope that you will find some inspiration, as I did, in remembering Washington, and that you can take heart from his example: He showed us that true patriotism is not some heroic act, but a virtue we can express every day if we are guided by an innate sense of decency and a thoughtful love of country.
The votes cast in November will be more consequential than those in any other American election in more than a century. As the United States confronts the choice between democracy and demagoguery, we should give thought to Washington’s example and the qualities that he possessed—ones we once expected, and should again demand, from our presidents.
The Moment of Truth
BY TOM NICHOLS
The reelection of Donald Trump would mark the end of George Washington’s vision for the presidency—and the United States.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbPZSM8R-o
You got my gaze, I'm just a phase
A shift in your point of view
Your rocks are off, you demagogue
I'm just someone to talk to
You will find 184 of my poems HERE. fno.org/poetry/index.html
The Trump Supreme Court in the USA suddenly cast off any pretense of being judicial by overturning Roe vs. Wade and a New York gun control law. We are seeing partisan, Republican policies advanced under the guise of fatuous legalisms.
We suddenly have protection for the unborn while school children are murdered by assault weapons that are wrongly permitted. The USA has taken a horrible turn to the right thanks to Trump loading the court with ideologues.
Stirring the pot
I have been known
Now and then
To stir a pot
Or two
Or three
To ask embarrassing questions
And aim poems at injustice
Avarice
And greed
I have
Now and then
Lobbed irony at hypocrisy
And fact-checked imposters
Clowns
And demagogues
I have stirred the pot
Added pepper flakes
And cooked up a hot sauce
Or two
Or three
From time to time
Laughing at the Emperor’s new clothes
Mocking the Pretender’s throng
And singing that old song
We shall overcome!
© Jamie McKenzie, all rights reserved
You will find more of my poems and songs here
and in The Storm in Its Passing and Flights of Fancy.
My songs are at
The United States Capital, Washington, D.C.
January 6, 2021 - The world is in shock after the attack on the US Capitol Building. What Americans, their Republican Party, and the world need to remember ... this attack didn't come from the Chinese, Russians, Mexicans, Muslims, or Black Lives Matter. It came from extreme supporters of a malignant narcissist, sociopathic, demagogue president, whose lies and conspiracy theories have spawned and encouraged their activities in a way that can only be described as cult-like.
The world is watching. USA, get your shit together and destroy Trumpism now.
Photo taken March, 1995
The east front of the United States Capitol at night.
The United States Capitol, often called the Capitol Building, is the meeting place of the United States Congress and the seat of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government. It is located on Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C
Bronica GS-1
Zenzanon-PG 100mm f/3.5
Fujichrome Velvia 50
Scan: Nikon Super CoolScan 8000 ED
► All my images are my own real photography, not fake AI fraudography.
■ Please don't use my images for any purpose, including on websites or blogs, without my explicit permission.
■ S.V.P ne pas utiliser cette photo sur un site web, blog ou tout autre média sans ma permission explicite.
© Tom Freda / All rights reserved - Tous droits réservés
162/365
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgqSI1BESVE
Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.
Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.
---- General Douglas MacArthur
Queen Svetlana's speech to her soldiers before one of countless ”civil wars” with the other frozen faction up north… a disclaimer: none of the words uttered by this nationalistic popular political speech are in any way my opinion!!! Her words are only representing her demagogic deranged world view that she uses as a lure to get ”her people” to do her biddings… the Speech here is cited only for entertainment and for educational purposes…
Queen Svetlana's Speech:
Soldiers of the frozen realm, I mean those who are out of my race’s pure blood, frozen but pure, we are superior, you should be proud of your heritage.
You are pure as thawing spring ice from the mountains, you are not as those filthy Vikings, Not like those barbaric Huns, not like those heathen Finns and not as those nasty Reindeer herders living in tents…
How often have you not been entangled in a bureaucratic web of bureaucracy when visiting a Nordic shopkeeper, like a spider tangling up its prey, before sucks your intestines dry, they use their red tape thread to bewilder your mind…
That is not how we do it.. we our pure breed pedigree stemming from generations of frozen people, we are not like the Huns who ride on horses everywhere, actually the horses they ride are actually more civilized than them…
Soldiers, do you agree with me?
(A bloodlust scream of Ay echoes in the winter palace!)
I know soldiers! I know that you feel like me, they are ripping us off, in war they are no reliable alleys. Do you remember the battle of Snowfield plains???
First the Huns started fleeing, then the Danes, then the coward Svitjods left their position, do you remember how they left the eastern flank exposed? How many of us died, I’ll tell you every single man, but the fleeing cowards all survived…
(One voice breaks the queens speech)
But my lady! That was 350 years ago!
(The queen carries on her speech)
Oh look who said that, Stanislav Nordström, the child of a viking father and a mother reproducing in a way that makes her a traitor, soldiers club the traitor to death…
Ok I will make a break here in Svetlana's speech since from now on her racist speech will become too extreme to publish here…
She feeds her soldiers pure hate for hours…
But a fun fact is that she in her ancestry is one of the most mixed people in the whole north, her family tree includes Franconian prices, Stani Emirs and even some Easterling, but last but not least, her grandfather was the great Viking King known as Snorre Snorresson the Great Dane with blue teeth…
But of course, no one questions a queens ancestry!?
Hollande was born in Rouen, to a middle-class family. His mother, Nicole Frédérique Marguerite Tribert (1927–2009), was a social worker, and his father, Georges Gustave Hollande, an ear, nose, and throat doctor who "had once run on a far right ticket in local politics.The family moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, a highly exclusive suburb of Paris, when Hollande was thirteen. Hollande was raised Catholic, but became an agnostic in later life,and now considers himself as an atheist[8] (In December 2011, Hollande told the French Christian magazine La Vie that he respects all religious practices but has none of his own).He attended Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-la-Salle boarding school, a private Catholic school in Rouen, the Lycée Pasteur, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, then graduated with a bachelor's degree in law from Panthéon-Assas University. Then he studied at HEC Paris where he graduated in 1975, before attending the Institut d'études politiques de Paris and the École nationale d'administration. He graduated from ENA in 1980[10][11] and chose to enter the prestigious Cour des comptes. He lived in the United States in the summer of 1974 while he was a university student. Immediately after graduating, he was employed as a councillor in the Court of Audit.Early political career: Five years after volunteering as a student to work for François Mitterrand's ultimately unsuccessful campaign in the 1974 presidential election, Hollande joined the Socialist Party. He was quickly spotted by Jacques Attali, a senior adviser to Mitterrand, who arranged for Hollande to stand for election to the French National Assembly in 1981 in Corrèze against future President Jacques Chirac, who was then the Leader of the Rally for the Republic, a Neo-Gaullist party. Hollande lost to Chirac in the first round. He went on to become a special advisor to newly elected President Mitterrand, before serving as a staffer for Max Gallo, the government's spokesman. After becoming a municipal councillor for Ussel in 1983, he contested Corrèze for a second time in 1988, this time being elected to the National Assembly. Hollande lost his bid for re-election to the National Assembly in the so-called "blue wave" of the 1993 election, described as such due to the number of seats gained by the Right at the expense of the Socialist Party.First Secretary of the Socialist Party (1997–2008)François Hollande in 2004: Hollande with his former partner Ségolène Royal, at a rally for the 2007 elections. As the end of Mitterrand's term in office approached, the Socialist Party was torn by a struggle of internal factions, each seeking to influence the direction of the party. Hollande pleaded for reconciliation and for the party to unite behind Jacques Delors, the president of the European Commission, but Delors renounced his ambitions to run for the French presidency in 1995, leading to Lionel Jospin's resuming his earlier position as the leader of the party. Jospin selected Hollande to become the official party spokesman, and Hollande went on to contest Corrèze once again in 1997, successfully returning to the National Assembly.
That same year, Jospin became the prime minister of France, and Hollande won the election for his successor as first secretary of the French Socialist Party, a position he would hold for eleven years. Because of the very strong position of the Socialist Party within the French government during this period, Hollande's position led some to refer to him the "vice prime minister". Hollande would go on to be elected mayor of Tulle in 2001, an office he would hold for the next seven years.The immediate resignation of Jospin from politics following his shock defeat by far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the 2002 presidential election forced Hollande to become the public face of the party for the 2002 legislative election but, although he managed to limit defeats and was re-elected in his own constituency, the Socialists lost nationally. In order to prepare for the 2003 party congress in Dijon, he obtained the support of many notable personalities of the party and was re-elected first secretary against opposition from left-wing factions.
After the triumph of the Left in the 2004 regional elections, Hollande was cited as a potential presidential candidate, but the Socialists were divided on the European Constitution, and Hollande's support for the ill-fated "Yes" position in the French referendum on the European constitution caused friction within the party. Although Hollande was re-elected as first secretary at the Le Mans Congress in 2005, his authority over the party began to decline from this point onwards. Eventually his domestic partner, Ségolène Royal, was chosen to represent the Socialist Party in the 2007 presidential election, where she would lose to Nicolas Sarkozy.
Hollande was widely blamed for the poor performances of the Socialist Party in the 2007 elections, and he announced that he would not seek another term as first secretary. Hollande publicly declared his support for Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, although it was Martine Aubry who would go on to win the race to succeed him in 2008.
Following his resignation as first secretary, Hollande was immediately elected to replace Jean-Pierre Dupont as the president of the General Council of Corrèze in April 2008, a position he holds to this day. In 2008 he supported the creation of the first European Prize for Local History (Étienne Baluze Prize), founded by the "Société des amis du musée du cloître" of Tulle, on the suggestion of the French historian Jean Boutier. François Hollande awarded the first prize on 29 February 2008 to the Italian historian Beatrice Palmero in the General Council of Corrèze.2012 presidential campaign: French presidential election, 2012. Following his re-election as president of the General Council of Corrèze in March 2011, Hollande announced that he would be a candidate in the upcoming primary election to select the Socialist and Radical Left Party presidential nominee.[13] The primary marked the first time that both parties had held an open primary to select a joint nominee at the same time. He initially trailed the front-runner, former finance minister and International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.Following Strauss-Kahn's arrest on suspicion of sexual assault in New York City in May 2011, Hollande began to lead the opinion polls. His position as front-runner was established just as Strauss-Kahn declared that he would no longer be seeking the nomination. After a series of televised debates throughout September, Hollande topped the ballot in the first round held on 9 October with 39% of the vote, not gaining the 50% required to avoid a second ballot, which he would contest against Martine Aubry, who had come second with 30% of the vote.The second ballot took place on 16 October 2011. Hollande won with 56% of the vote to Aubry's 43% and thus became the official Socialist and Radical Left Party candidate for the 2012 presidential election.[14] After the primary results, he immediately gained the pledged support of the other contenders for the party's nomination, including Aubry, Arnaud Montebourg, Manuel Valls and 2007 candidate Ségolène Royal.Hollande's presidential campaign was managed by Pierre Moscovici and Stéphane Le Foll, a member of Parliament and Member of the European Parliament respectively.[16] Hollande launched his campaign officially with a rally and major speech at Le Bourget on 22 January 2012 in front of 25,000 people.[17][18] The main themes of his speech were equality and the regulation of finance, both of which he promised to make a key part of his campaign.[On 26 January, he outlined a full list of policies in a manifesto containing 60 propositions, including the separation of retail activities from riskier investment-banking businesses; raising taxes on big corporations, banks and the wealthy; creating 60,000 teaching jobs; bringing the official retirement age back down to 60 from 62; creating subsidised jobs in areas of high unemployment for the young; promoting more industry in France by creating a public investment bank; granting marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples; and pulling French troops out of Afghanistan in 2012.On 9 February, he detailed his policies specifically relating to education in a major speech in Orléans.On 15 February, incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he would run for a second and final term, strongly criticising Hollande's proposals and claiming that he would bring about "economic disaster within two days of taking office" if he won.Hollande visited Berlin, Germany, in December 2011 for the Social Democrats Federal Party Congress, at which he met Sigmar Gabriel, Peer Steinbrück, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Martin Schulz;[23][24] he also travelled to Belgium before the United Kingdom in February 2012, where he met with Opposition Leader Ed Miliband; and finally Tunisia in May 2012.Opinion polls showed a tight race between the two men in the first round of voting, with most polls showing Hollande comfortably ahead of Sarkozy in a hypothetical second round run-off.The first round of the presidential election was held on 22 April. François Hollande came in first place with 28.63% of the vote, and faced Nicolas Sarkozy in the second round run-off.[28] In the second round of voting on 6 May 2012, François Hollande was elected President of the French Republic with 51.7% of the vote.President of France (2012–present)[ François Hollande was elected President of France on 6 May 2012. He was inaugurated on 15 May, and shortly afterwards appointed Jean-Marc Ayrault to be his Prime Minister. He also appointed Benoît Puga to be the military's chief of staff, Pierre-René Lemas as his general secretary and Pierre Besnard as his Head of Cabinet. On his first official visit to a foreign country in his capacity as president of France, the airplane transporting him was hit by lightning.[31] The plane returned safely to Paris where he took another flight to Germany. The first measures he took were to lower the income of the president, the prime minister, and other members of the government by 30%, and to make them sign a "code of ethics".Budget: Hollande's economic policies are wide-ranging, including supporting the creation of a European credit rating agency, the separation of lending and investment in banks, reducing the share of electricity generated by nuclear power in France from 75 to 50% in favour of renewable energy sources, merging income tax and the General Social Contribution (CSG), creating an additional 45% for additional income of 150,000 euros, capping tax loopholes at a maximum of €10,000 per year, and questioning the relief solidarity tax on wealth (ISF, Impôt de Solidarité sur la Fortune) measure that should bring €29 billion in additional revenue. Hollande has also signalled his intent to implement a 75% income tax rate on revenue earned above 1,000,000 euros per year, to generate the provision of development funds for deprived suburbs, and to return to a deficit of zero percent of GDP by 2017.[33][34] The tax plan has proven controversial, with courts ruling it unconstitutional in 2012, only to then take the opposite position on a redrafted version in 2013.[35][36]
Hollande has also announced several reforms to education, pledging to recruit 60,000 new teachers, to create a study allowance and means-tested training, and to set up a mutually beneficial contract that would allow a generation of experienced employees and craftsmen to be the guardians and teachers of younger newly hired employees, thereby creating a total of 150,000 subsidized jobs. This has been complemented by the promise of aid to SMEs, with the creation of a public bank investment-oriented SME's, and a reduction of the corporate tax rate to 30% for medium corporations and 15% for small.Hollande's government has announced plans to construct 500,000 public homes per year, including 150,000 social houses, funded by a doubling of the ceiling of the A passbook, the region making available its local government land within five years. In accordance with long-standing Socialist Party policy, Hollande has announced that the retirement age will revert to 60, for those who have contributed for more than 41 years.LGBT rights: Further information: Law 2013-404; Hollande has also announced his personal support for same-sex marriage and adoption for LGBT couples, and outlined plans to pursue the issue in early 2013.[37] In July 2012, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced that "In the first half of 2013, the right to marriage and adoption will be open to all couples, without discrimination [...]", confirming this election promise by Hollande.The bill to legalize same-sex marriage, known as Bill no. 344, was introduced to the National Assembly of France on 7 November 2012. On 12 February 2013, the National Assembly approved the bill in a 329–229 vote.The Right-wing opposed the bill. The Senate approved the full bill with a 171–165 majority on 12 April with minor amendments. On 23 April, the National Assembly approved the amended bill, in a 331–225 vote, and following approval of the law by the Constitutional Council of France, it was signed into law by President François Hollande on 18 May 2013, with the first same-sex weddings under the law taking place eleven days later.Labour reform: As President, Hollande pursued labour reform to make France more competitive internationally. Legislation was introduced in late 2012 and after much debate passed the French lower and upper house in May 2013. The bill includes measures such as making it easier for workers to change jobs and for companies to fire employees. One of the main measures of the bill allows companies to temporarily cut workers' salaries or hours during times of economic difficulty. This measure takes its inspiration from Germany, where furloughs have been credited with allowing companies to weather difficult times without resorting to massive layoffs. Another measure that aims to simplify the firing process. Layoffs in France are often challenged in courts and the cases can take years to resolve. Many companies cite the threat of lengthy court action – even more than any financial cost – as the most difficult part of doing business in France. The law shortens the time that employees have to contest a layoff and also lays out a scheme for severance pay. The government hopes this will help employees and companies reach agreement faster in contentious layoffs.Another key measure introduced are credits for training that follow employees throughout their career, regardless of where they work, and the right to take a leave of absence to work at another company. The law will also require all companies to offer and partially pay for supplemental health insurance. Lastly, the law also reforms unemployment insurance, so that someone out of work doesn't risk foregoing significant benefits when taking a job that might pay less than previous work or end up only being temporary. Under the new law, workers will be able to essentially put benefits on hold when they take temporary work, instead of seeing their benefits recalculated each time.Pension reform: As President, Hollande pursued reform to the vast and expensive pension system in France. The process proved to be very contentious, with members of Parliament, Labor Unions, and general public all opposed. Mass protests and demonstrations occurred throughout Paris. Despite the opposition, the French Parliament did pass a reform in December 2013 aimed at plugging a pension deficit expected to reach 20.7 billion euros ($28.4 billion) by 2020 if nothing were to be done. Rather than raising the mandatory retirement age, as many economists had advised, Hollande pursued increases in contributions, leaving the retirement age untouched. The reform had a rough ride in parliament, being rejected twice by the Senate, where Hollande's Socialist Party has a slim majority, before it won sufficient backing in a final vote before the lower house of parliament. French private sector workers will see the size and duration of their pension contributions increase only modestly under the reform while their retirement benefits are largely untouched.[43] Several scholars and economists argue the reform did not go far enough.[who?] Foreign affairs: See also: List of presidential trips made by François Hollande
Leaders of Belarus, Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine at the summit in Minsk, 11–12 February 2015. As President, Hollande promised an early withdrawal of French combat troops present in Afghanistan in 2012.He also pledged to conclude a new contract of Franco-German partnership, advocating the adoption of a Directive on the protection of public services. Hollande has proposed "an acceleration of the establishment of a Franco-German civic service, the creation of a Franco-German research office, the creation of a Franco-German industrial fund to finance common competitiveness clusters, and the establishment of a common military headquarters". As well as this, Hollande has expressed a wish to "combine the positions of the presidents of the European Commission and of the European Council (currently held by José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy respectively) into a single office...and that it should be directly chosen" by the members of the European Parliament.Hollande made a state visit to the United States in February 2014; a state dinner was given in his honor by U.S. President Barack Obama.On 27 February 2014, Hollande was a special guest of honor in Abuja, received by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in celebration of Nigeria's amalgamation in 1914, a 100-year anniversary. In September 2015, Hollande warned former Eastern Bloc countries against rejecting the EU mandatory migrant quotas, saying: "Those who don't share our values, those who don't even want to respect those principles, need to start asking themselves questions about their place in the European Union".Intervention in Mali: Hollande reviews troops during the 2013 Bastille Day military parade. On 11 January 2013, Hollande authorised the execution of Operation Serval, which aimed to curtail the activities of Islamist extremists in the north of Mali.[44] The intervention was popularly supported in Mali, as Hollande promised that his government would do all it could to "rebuild Mali".During his one-day visit to Bamako, Mali's capital, on 2 February 2013, he said that it was "the most important day in [his] political life". In 2014, Hollande took some of these troops out of Mali and spread them over the rest of the Sahel under Operation Barkhane, in an effort to curb jihadists militants.Co-Prince of Andorra: The President of the French Republic is one of the two joint heads of state of the Principality of Andorra. Hollande hosted a visit from Antoni Martí, head of the government, and Vicenç Mateu Zamora, leader of the parliament.Approval ratings: An IFOP poll released in April 2014 showed that Hollande’s approval rating had dropped five points since the previous month of March to 18%, dipping below his earlier low of 20% in February during the same year.[57] In November 2014, his approval rating reached a new low of 12%, according to a YouGov poll.[58] Following the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January 2015, however, approval for Hollande increased dramatically, reaching 40% according to an IFOP poll two weeks after the attack,[59] though an Ipsos-Le Point survey in early February showed his rating declining back to 30%. Personal life: For over thirty years, his partner was fellow Socialist politician Ségolène Royal, with whom he has four children: Thomas (1984), Clémence (1985), Julien (1987) and Flora (1992). In June 2007, just a month after Royal's defeat in the French presidential election of 2007, the couple announced that they were separating.A few months after his split from Ségolène Royal was announced, a French website published details of a relationship between Hollande and French journalist Valérie Trierweiler. In November 2007, Trierweiler confirmed and openly discussed her relationship with Hollande in an interview with the French weekly Télé 7 Jours. She remained a reporter for the magazine Paris Match, but ceased work on political stories. Trierweiler moved into the Élysée Palace with Hollande when he became president and started to accompany him on official travel.On 25 January 2014, Hollande officially announced his separation from Valérie Trierweiler[63] after the tabloid magazine Closer revealed his affair with actress Julie Gayet.[64] In September 2014 Trierweiler published a book about her time with Hollande titled Merci pour ce moment (Thank You for This Moment). The memoir claimed the president presented himself as disliking the rich, but in reality disliked the poor. The claim brought an angry reaction and rejection from Hollande, who said he had spent his life dedicated to the under-privileged.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Hollande
Today will be the happiest day of François Hollande’s term as president of France. In the least surprising surprise result of the year, Hollande has defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, with whom much of France had become frustrated and fed up. Public sentiment is easy enough to understand. Sarkozy rode into office on a wave of expectations which he seemed tempted to inflate at every turn. But he, like France, was ill-equipped to handle the economic crisis that now threatens to pull France into Europe’s troubled bottom tier, down with Italy, Spain, and Greece. Sarkozy’s brand of center-right nationalism had met its match. Now it’s time for Hollande’s, shall we say, socialist nationalism. Despite his reputation as a would-be “Mr. Normal,” Hollande offers an ideology far more grandiose in its self-regard than any associated with Sarkozy. Sarkozy’s egotism suited a party that believed it knew the future. Hollande’s apparent personal humility is an all-too-poetic fit with the animating spirit of his political creed — a wilfull ignorance of its own futility and obsolescence. There are many illustrations to come of why socialism is dead on arrival in twenty-first century France, and François Hollande will find no shortage of disappointments and calamities waiting for him at the peak of power. But right now, we can already identify five key reasons why Hollande is destined to fail: 1. No mandate. Whatever else can be said about socialism or François Hollande, there is no disputing the fact that his public support comprises a soberingly small slice of the French electorate. As it stands, he has not cracked 52% of the vote. What you may not know is that one in four voters rejected every candidate, with 20% casting no ballot and 5% casting a blank one. France’s radicals may tolerate him in a resigned sort of way, but the French right will simply bide their time and drum up some challenger who reminds no one of Sarkozy. The far right, on the other hand, will drive Hollande to distraction. He will be pushed toward the terrible choice either of demonizing them or trying to ignore them. Both alternatives will strengthen them, so long as Hollande actually advances his policies. Anything trans-nationalist will give the Front National fits, while anything else will be occasion for a pitched battle with Hollande over what nationalism is for. Hollande’s support is shallow and weak, fueled largely by a combination of dismayed hope and relief that at least one needn’t endure Sarkozy’s variety of failure anymore. To strengthen his support, Hollande will have to demagogue and cut left. The more he does this, the narrower his appeal will become. No matter what kind of changes in policy he achieves, they will be transitory. France, and Europe, are already waiting for the other shoe to drop. It will.
2. Nationalist nonsense. Barack Obama’s foreign policy has proven itself to be incoherent but acceptable to many Americans. François Hollande’s foreign policy will prove unacceptably incoherent. The French left has always favored greater European togetherness, but now associates the European project with Germany’s economic domination of the Continent. Hollande wants to square the circle by spearheading a European push for ‘more growth’, but he associates pro-growth economic reforms with so-called austerity. (Simply not spending substantial new sums counts as austerity.) As Gideon Rachman observes, France “is a country where the state already consumes 56 per cent of gross domestic product, which has not balanced a budget since the mid-1970s, and which has some of the highest taxes in the world.” And Hollande’s vision of growth is a product of his leftist view of nationalism:Mr. Hollande has vowed to restore social equilibrium in France, in part by pushing back against the austerity championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and the European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi. Mr. Hollande’s plans include rolling back tax breaks that Mr. Sarkozy gave to the wealthy, and increasing state-sponsored investment, in part by creating tens of thousands of civil sector jobs. 4 Essential Tips To Becoming A Better Leader Hollande is correct to realize that Germany lacks the political authority to successfully impose its fiscal habits upon Europe. But he is a fool to believe he ought to do more of precisely what caused Germany to try in the first place. Massive government spending is actually not the problem (although if Paul Krugman is right, France and Europe would require a volume of deficit spending that Hollande hasn’t a chance in hell of securing). The problem is not the amount of money that Hollande takes in, from whatever source, but how he will spend it: on government jobs. The secret killer of Europe’s economy has been government jobs, which have grown to absorb so much of Europe’s economies because so many European governments have functioned as if the EU had done nothing to weaken nationalism. There is little more nationalist than a government job, and little more hostile to European togetherness. The more government jobs, the farther away a common labor market. Civil sector jobs strengthen nationalism just at the moment of its most startling failure, yet they are the centerpiece of Hollande’s vision of normalcy. It’s a view that puts him on a collision course with the viability of the Eurozone and the EU itself. Once the left really accepts this, Hollande will become a scapegoat for whatever doesn’t work, which eventually will be everything. Left nationalism is as useless in the face of this crisis as Sarkozy’s center-right Gaullism. Sarkozy got off easy. Hollande won’t. 3. More globalization. Globalization will not reverse itself out of deference to François Hollande. For now, France is itself a globalizer, not a victim of globalization. But by the time Hollande is done with France, that may well change. The markets do not like Hollande — and why should they? — but, try as Hollande might, France is a market, and a big one. If he impairs the vitality of French business in Europe — and he will — he’ll make firms from around the world an offer they’ll be unlikely to refuse. This time, Germany won’t be first in line, especially if Hollande gets his way. The European left’s resistance to Germany is stronger than its resistance to China. China, meanwhile, is busy developing a new approach to Europe that can capitalize on this attitude. Just as the French left will find itself more nationalist, yet more beholden to foreign powers, it will be more antagonistic to globalization, yet more dependent upon it. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3: take Europe’s economic situation, add French socialism, and stir. 4. Focused opposition. France’s political right may be fraying and fragmenting now, but by the time Hollande is up for re-election, France’s needs — and the right’s — will become clear. Long gone will be the days when only a few isolated American and British commentators advance opinions concerning the necessity of one or another kind of new Napoleon in France. The heavyweight argument on that count involves a recognition that French nationalism and European togetherness can only be reconciled through a kind of French-led continental unity for which Napoleon’s First Empire is the only available inspiration. But a more easily digestible argument, capable of reuniting the right, looks something like this:Given the inevitable collapse of a future Hollande administration – either through economic failure or political ineptitude – what will save France from this poisonous consensus of decline and disorder? To return to the Napoleonic/Gaullist model, it needs a strong man (or woman) to advance bold, wholesale reform. It doesn’t require a dictator: the rule is that every successive great leader adopts and preserves the best of the constitution that came before. But France surely needs a president who will a) reject sectional politics that pits one class or region against another, b) resist pandering to the mob, and c) do what must be done to deregulate the French economy. Once the right accepts these things, an intelligible, coherent answer to Hollande will come into focus. The key piece will involve spanning the nationalist-versus-transnationalist divide. It will come as a matter of logic — before, not after, Hollande is replaced. The big picture for the French right is a realization that France cannot be kept strong and proud unless it asserts its political leadership over the whole of Europe. If it does not, failed states and hostile interests will hem it in on all sides, and unmet longings will bring chaos to its politics and its streets. 5. The force of history. The objection will be raised that the French right will never unite to beat Hollande unless the right individual — a truly remarkable individual — steps forward. Circumstances, however, have a habit of thrusting to the forefront someone who will do. By the time Hollande’s term is up, France will, historically speaking, have tried everything but a far-right government led from Paris. And the far right is too factional to swiftly step into effective command. Europe’s shambles and France’s limbo will form a vacuum reminiscent of the one that Napoleon stepped forward to fill. The people will be ready for it. After Hollande, they will be exhausted by politics and sick of themselves. Socialism will have proven itself completely unable to reconcile nationalism and transnationalism, as we already know it to be. The task will fall to the French right. Today, Hollande’s opponents seem incompetent to fulfill this task. But whatever the institutional preparedness of the French right appears to be, France will face the kind of historic moment that makes great statesmen, not waits on them. France’s savoir won’t be Hollande, thanks to the one-two punch of his orthodoxy and his disposition. His administration will exacerbate the troubles that already dwarf him. Whether he is aware of this or not, the outcome will be the same.
www.forbes.com/sites/jamespoulos/2012/05/06/five-reasons-...
French unemployment rose to near a record high in the third quarter, the latest sign that President Francois Hollande is struggling to meet a pledge to create jobs.Unemployment climbed to 10.6 percent in the three months through September from 10.4 percent the previous quarter, national statistics office Insee said in an e-mailed statement. That’s in contrast to Germany, where the jobless rate fell to a record-low 6.3 percent in November.While jobless claims have been steadily climbing for the past four years to reach a record 3.6 million in October, Hollande has been able to point to France’s growing population as part of the reason. The unemployment rate, by contrast, has stayed below the all-time high reached in 1997.The third-quarter increase now leaves unemployment at its highest in 18 years and just shy of the the 10.7 percent record. While the economy is showing some signs of sustained growth for the first time since Hollande took power in May 2012, the labor-market numbers represent a political defeat for the Socialist president, who has said that job creation is a condition for his own re-election in 2017.Separately on Thursday, Markit Economics said its composite manufacturing and services gauge fell to 51 in November from 52.6 in October. While that’s above the key 50 level indicating expansion, it lower than the initial estimate and signals the slowest growth of private sector output since August.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-03/french-unemplo...
Lamb curry
You will find more than 184 of my poems HERE. fno.org/poetry/index.html
Recently I have been horrified by war crimes committed by Putin and his mob and wrote 4 poems attacking him in my article, "Where have all the flowers gone?"
We must stop Putin now before he sweeps across Europe like Hitler did, gobbling up Romania, Bulgaria and other independent nations.
Stirring the pot
I have been known
Now and then
To stir a pot
Or two
Or three
To ask embarrassing questions
And aim poems at injustice
Avarice
And greed
I have
Now and then
Lobbed irony at hypocrisy
And fact-checked imposters
Clowns
And demagogues
I have stirred the pot
Added pepper flakes
And cooked up a hot sauce
Or two
Or three
From time to time
Laughing at the Emperor’s new clothes
Mocking the Pretender’s throng
And singing that old song
We shall overcome!
© Jamie McKenzie, all rights reserved
You will find more of my poems and songs here
and in The Storm in Its Passing and Flights of Fancy.
My songs are at
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
A poem written by Martin Niemöller, which criticized German's unwillingness to stand up to the Nazis as the regime cracked down on the political freedoms of socialists, trade unions, Jewish people, and, finally, "me."
Such a poignant poem that even in today's time {when you think we should have learned from our mistakes in the past) is very much relevant with a demagogue trying to seek the higher office by demonizing minority groups to invoke nationalist, xenophobic fervor.
// "When Trump came for the Mexicans, I did not speak out ---
Because I was not a Mexican.
When he came for the Muslims, I did not speak out ----
Because I was not a Muslim.
And then he came for me--- and there's no one left to speak for me."
#A #whatwouldjesusdo #TheBroncoBuster #FredericRemington #statue #ovaloffice #disinfectant #bleach #chlorox #lysol #chlorinebleach #101 #wipes #DrTrump #Medusa #ClashoftheTitans #Snake #Rattlesnake #Slimeball #ForkedTongue #scales #hairdye #eastereggdye #PAAS #loreal #missclairol #DonaldTrump #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #JaredKushner #DonaldTrumpJr #COVID19 #Coronavirus #Pandemic #DrAnthonySFauci #MikePence #testicle #penis #dick #balls #AsktheMortician #disease #pneumonia #infection #flu #JimmyKimmel #JimmyFallon #StephenColbert #SethMyer #minilogue #quarantine #sociadistancing #6feet #MitchMcConnell #handsanitizer #novelcoronavirus #trumplies #wipes #stayathome #workfromhome #homeschooling #deathtoll #StevenMnuchin #MikePompeo #testspositive #testsnegative #farright #freaks #ventilator #medicalmask #hospitalbed #temporarymorgue #WuhanChina, #novelcoronavirus #sociallydistant #selfquarantine #SeanHannity #FakeNews #infectiousdisease #FoxNews #epidemic #publichealthemergency #CDC #AndrewCuomo #CenterForDiseaseControl #CNN #flatteningthecurve #worldhealthorganization #recession #depression #contagious #WHO #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #positive #negative #coronavirus #pandemic #COVID19 #infection #Dr.AnthonyFauci #trumpcausescancer #windmill #windpower #windturbine #antivaxxer #bigfoot #UFO #lochnessmonster #flyingsaucer #mythology #atlantis #bermudatriangle #flatearth #wikileaks #angels #fallenangels #45 #BiggestBaby #dirtydiaper #TheMuellerInvestigation #WilliamBarr #AttorneyGeneral #Report #TheEmperorsNewClothes #TheExorcist #Pazuzu #God #JesusChrist #LindaBlair #possessed #KingofDemons #SarahSanders #hypocrite #Exorcism #Pampers #TheWall #NeverGiveIn #Bullshit #dirtydiaper #diaperrash #PooPooBaDoop #Clemson #Wendys #burgerking #football #KellyanneConway #SarahHuckabee #Trolls #Kremlin #KremlinTroll #RussianTroll #RobertMueller #FISA #SteveBannon #MikePence #Twitter #Tweet #wiretap #Twit #wiretapped #Twat #dontaldtrump #WashingtonDC #MamaAyeshas #wallofpresidents #CIA #GOP #KKK #ISIS #FBI #BLM #LGBT #Russia #VladimirPutin #Russianinterference #AlternativeFacts #MicrowaveOven #Camera #sexdrugsandrockandroll #HillaryClinton #BernieSanders #BarackObama #PresidentoftheUnited #plannedparenthood #bigot #jihad #OsamabinLaden #DumpTrump #NotMyPresident #Dontee #DonteesInferno #thewalkingdead #republican #pedophile #WomensMarch #badhombre #conservative #rape #RiencePriebus #DonaldMcGahn #FrankGaffney #JeffSessions #GeneralJamesMattis #GeneralJohnKelly #StevenMnuchin #AndyPuzder #WilburRoss #CathyMcMorrisRodgers #MitchMcConnell #KTMcFarland #MikePompeo #NikkiHaley #LtGenMichaelFlynn #BenCarson #BetsyDeVos #TomPrice #ScottPruitt #SeemaVerma #PaulRyan #TrumpTower #MarriageEquality #KuKluxKlan #NewYorkCity #Hanksy #MelaniaTrump #BarronTrump #IvankaTrump #TiffanyTrump #EricTrump #DonaldTrumpJr #JaredKushner #conflictofinterest #emolument #RiggedElection #TemperTantrum #Tweet #Twitter #Twit #ManChild #DiaperBlowout #Trump #poop #turd #bigbaby #manindiapers #Inauguration #ScottBaio #TedNugent #TheRockettes #RadioCityMusicHall #MormonTabernacleChoir #Medusa #breitbart #lies #NationalEnquirer #douchebag #POS #Pussy #PussyGrabber
#terrorist #Taliban #jihad #MexicanWall #racism #jihad #nobannowall #confederateflag #Nazi #Islam #Freedom #AmericanNaziParty #TheRollingStones #Democrat #CivilRights #Idiot #abortion #tinfoilhatsociety #tyrant #foxnews #MerylStreep #Liberal #SaturdayNightLive #AlecBaldwin #MelissaMcCarthy #AdolfHitler #BenitoMussolini #Dictator #Megalomaniac #KingComplex #Demagogue #Narcissist #Delusional #Nuts #Oligarch #Populist #tyrant #Narcissistic #Autocracy #Oligarchy #DelusionsofGrandeur #GodComplex #MangoMussolini #DerPumpkinfuhrer #Apocalypse #NuclearButton #OvalOffice #civilliberties #goldenshowers #tinyhands #discrimination #TrumpGate #freedomandjusticeforall #TheBible #JesusChrist #The12Apostles #FredPhelps #GodHatesFags #WestboroBaptistChurch #RedNeck #ScienceFiction, #rapistsandmurderers #antiGay #homophobe #dinosaurs #religiousright #AmericanFamilyAssociation #hategroup #BruceJenner #CaitlynJenner #BarbieandKen #Mattel #PopeFrancis #QueenElizabeth #KeepYourPeckerUp #PatRobertson #BatteredWomanSyndrome #FranklinGraham #Cracker #JudyGarland #TheWizardofOz #BarbraStreisand #BettyWhite #MarilynMonroe #ValleyoftheDolls #PeytonPlace #DowntonAbbey #MaggieSmith #JudyDench #EvaGreen #MissPeregrine #DarylDixon #jabbathehutt #EmperorPalpatine #StarWars #StarTrek #RickGrimes #TeaParty #GlennBeck #RushLimbaugh #fakeNews #politicallyincorrect #BillMaher #AngelaMerkel #TheresaMay #RosieODonnell #MegynKelly #TheManchurianCandidate #BadCombOver #commemorativecoin #collectorsitem #ebay #buffalonewyork #artvoice #carlpaladino #byecarl #OutrageFatigue #hotair #weaponsofmassdestruction #motherofallbombs #farts #farting #robertmueller #bombingsyria #kellyanneconway #brettkavanaugh #sexualassault #harrassment #metoo #supremecourt #kanyewest #kimkardashian #idiot #incoherent
52 Weeks of 2021. Week 1: Out with the Old.
After suffering 4 long and painful years watching this president tear down this nation with lies and corruption, he has finally done the unthinkable. Out with this demagogue.
While the final results will take days to tabulate, we do know one thing: this is no Biden blowout. In fact, more people voted for Donald Trump in 2020 than voted for him in 2016.
To start out with, we can’t (and shouldn’t) pretend that what Trump has awoken is some sort of aberration. It turns out that this is what this country is. We as a nation aren’t better than this. This is who we are.
We are a nation that votes for incompetent racist demagogues who flaunt their corruption and peddle hate. Full stop. Despite whatever hopes we may have held for a blue wave this year, it is clear now that 2016 was not an isolated moment of madness. The idea that America is an exceptional nation based in freedom and democracy, with institutions and norms that are sound and unchanging, is a mirage.
Over the past few years, I’ve increasingly looked back on the hope and excitement of 2008 with bewilderment. What the hell happened? How did we go from that—to this? Perhaps Barack Obama is a once-in-a generation political talent and/or
John McCain and Mitt Romney didn’t wake the white supremacy dragon. In some sense, Trump has thrown gasoline on a smoldering fire. It’s as though some voters do want what the Democrats are selling—a higher minimum wage, better-paying jobs, worker protections, affordable healthcare—but not when those things come along with rights for Black people, LGBTQ people, and women. And yes, that’s maddening.
It may be several days before we know the results of the presidential election—an election that should not have ever been close.
So where to from here? In the near future, I plan to make a list of things I can do to become more aware of and involved in state and local politics (to the extent that I have the time and energy, of course). I am also going to think of other ways I can work to benefit my community—to learn more about what charities need support, what causes need pushing, etc. Wherever we are, we can be a cause for good—even in the midst of chaos.
None of this makes what happened yesterday okay. Still, for my own sanity, I am increasingly feeling a need to shift my focus away from the national level to focus on the things I can change. Oh—and it’s time to step away from social media. While your milage may vary, for me, social media has begun to feel increasingly unhealthy. It doesn’t help, and it only results in an increase in anxiety. There has to be a better way.
(Excerpted from an opinion blog by Libby Anne of Love, Joy, Feminism)
This expresses pretty well where the Green Valley Boys find ourselves now.
#A# #DonaldTrump #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #JaredKushner #DonaldTrumpJr #COVID19 #Coronavirus #Pandemic #DrAnthonySFauci #MikePence #testicle #penis,#dick #balls #AsktheMortician #disease #pneumonia #infection #flu #JimmyKimmel #JimmyFallon #StephenColbert #SethMyer #minilogue #quarantine #sociadistancing #6feet #MitchMcConnell #handsanitizer #novelcoronavirus #trumplies #wipes #stayathome #workfromhome #homeschooling #deathtoll #StevenMnuchin #MikePompeo #testspositive #testsnegative #farright #freaks #ventilator #medicalmask #hospitalbed #temporarymorgue #WuhanChina, #novelcoronavirus #sociallydistant #selfquarantine #SeanHannity #FakeNews #infectiousdisease #FoxNews #epidemic #publichealthemergency #CDC #AndrewCuomo #CenterForDiseaseControl #CNN #flatteningthecurve #worldhealthorganization #recession #depression #contagious #WHO #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #positive #negative #coronavirus #pandemic #COVID19 #infection #Dr.AnthonyFauci #trumpcausescancer #windmill #windpower #windturbine #antivaxxer #bigfoot #UFO #lochnessmonster #flyingsaucer #mythology #atlantis #bermudatriangle #flatearth #wikileaks #angels #fallenangels #45 #BiggestBaby #dirtydiaper #TheMuellerInvestigation #WilliamBarr #AttorneyGeneral #Report #TheEmperorsNewClothes #TheExorcist #Pazuzu #God #JesusChrist #LindaBlair #possessed #KingofDemons #SarahSanders #hypocrite #Exorcism #Pampers #TheWall #NeverGiveIn #Bullshit #dirtydiaper #diaperrash #PooPooBaDoop #Clemson #Wendys #burgerking #football #KellyanneConway #SarahHuckabee #Trolls #Kremlin #KremlinTroll #RussianTroll #RobertMueller #FISA #SteveBannon #MikePence #Twitter #Tweet #wiretap #Twit #wiretapped #Twat #dontaldtrump #WashingtonDC #MamaAyeshas #wallofpresidents #CIA #GOP #KKK #ISIS #FBI #BLM #LGBT #Russia #VladimirPutin #Russianinterference #AlternativeFacts #MicrowaveOven #Camera #sexdrugsandrockandroll #HillaryClinton #BernieSanders #BarackObama #PresidentoftheUnited #plannedparenthood #bigot #jihad #OsamabinLaden #DumpTrump #NotMyPresident #Dontee #DonteesInferno #thewalkingdead #republican #pedophile #WomensMarch #badhombre #conservative #rape #RiencePriebus #DonaldMcGahn #FrankGaffney #JeffSessions #GeneralJamesMattis #GeneralJohnKelly #StevenMnuchin #AndyPuzder #WilburRoss #CathyMcMorrisRodgers #MitchMcConnell #KTMcFarland #MikePompeo #NikkiHaley #LtGenMichaelFlynn #BenCarson #BetsyDeVos #TomPrice #ScottPruitt #SeemaVerma #PaulRyan #TrumpTower #MarriageEquality #KuKluxKlan #NewYorkCity #Hanksy #MelaniaTrump #BarronTrump #IvankaTrump #TiffanyTrump #EricTrump #DonaldTrumpJr #JaredKushner #conflictofinterest #emolument #RiggedElection #TemperTantrum #Tweet #Twitter #Twit #ManChild #DiaperBlowout #Trump #poop #turd #bigbaby #manindiapers #Inauguration #ScottBaio #TedNugent #TheRockettes #RadioCityMusicHall #MormonTabernacleChoir #Medusa #breitbart #lies #NationalEnquirer #douchebag #POS #Pussy #PussyGrabber
#terrorist #Taliban #jihad #MexicanWall #racism #jihad #nobannowall #confederateflag #Nazi #Islam #Freedom #AmericanNaziParty #TheRollingStones #Democrat #CivilRights #Idiot #abortion #tinfoilhatsociety #tyrant #foxnews #MerylStreep #Liberal #SaturdayNightLive #AlecBaldwin #MelissaMcCarthy #AdolfHitler #BenitoMussolini #Dictator #Megalomaniac #KingComplex #Demagogue #Narcissist #Delusional #Nuts #Oligarch #Populist #tyrant #Narcissistic #Autocracy #Oligarchy #DelusionsofGrandeur #GodComplex #MangoMussolini #DerPumpkinfuhrer #Apocalypse #NuclearButton #OvalOffice #civilliberties #goldenshowers #tinyhands #discrimination #TrumpGate #freedomandjusticeforall #TheBible #JesusChrist #The12Apostles #FredPhelps #GodHatesFags #WestboroBaptistChurch #RedNeck #ScienceFiction, #rapistsandmurderers #antiGay #homophobe #dinosaurs #religiousright #AmericanFamilyAssociation #hategroup #BruceJenner #CaitlynJenner #BarbieandKen #Mattel #PopeFrancis #QueenElizabeth #KeepYourPeckerUp #PatRobertson #BatteredWomanSyndrome #FranklinGraham #Cracker #JudyGarland #TheWizardofOz #BarbraStreisand #BettyWhite #MarilynMonroe #ValleyoftheDolls #PeytonPlace #DowntonAbbey #MaggieSmith #JudyDench #EvaGreen #MissPeregrine #DarylDixon #jabbathehutt #EmperorPalpatine #StarWars #StarTrek #RickGrimes #TeaParty #GlennBeck #RushLimbaugh #fakeNews #politicallyincorrect #BillMaher #AngelaMerkel #TheresaMay #RosieODonnell #MegynKelly #TheManchurianCandidate #BadCombOver #commemorativecoin #collectorsitem #ebay #buffalonewyork #artvoice #carlpaladino #byecarl #OutrageFatigue #hotair #weaponsofmassdestruction #motherofallbombs #farts #farting #robertmueller #bombingsyria #kellyanneconway #brettkavanaugh #sexualassault #harrassment #metoo #supremecourt #kanyewest #kimkardashian #idiot #incoherent
Cold ones are the Dark Elves' mount of choice during all seasons, but foremost in winter, when shadows get frosty and the lizards thrive. General Murcielago and Demagogue share their hate of warm beings and flowers of any kind.
For a list of customization techniques see here: www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/141361-g...
The one, the only................ #donaldtrump #dumptrump #makedonalddrumpfagain #newyorkcity #tinytrump #adolphhitler #dontee #donteesinferno #45 #WhiteHouseEasterEggRoll #BillO’Reilly #Easter #EasterPussyHunt #WillyWonka #TrumpBombsSyria #CruiseMissle #Syria #ChemicalWeapons #LateNightWithSethMeyers #SethMeyers #SpicerIsland #Wiretapping #WireTap #Tapp #AngelaMerkel #TinFoilHat #ConspiracyTherory #DonaldTrump #KellyanneConway #SeanSpicer #SteveBannon #MikePence #Twitter #WashingtonDC #MamaAyeshas #wallofpresidents #CIA #GOP #KKK #ISIS #FBI #BLM #LGBT #Russia #VladimirPutin #Russianinterference #AlternativeFacts #sexdrugsandrockandroll #HillaryClinton #BernieSanders #BarackObama #PresidentoftheUnited #plannedparenthood #bigot #OsamabinLaden #DumpTrump #NotMyPresident #Dontee #DonteesInferno #thewalkingdead #republican #pedophile #WomensMarch #badhombre #conservative #rape #RiencePriebus #DonaldMcGahn #FrankGaffney #JeffSessions #GeneralJamesMattis #GeneralJohnKelly #StevenMnuchin #AndyPuzder #WilburRoss #CathyMcMorrisRodgers #MitchMcConnell #KTMcFarland #MikePompeo #NikkiHaley #LtGenMichaelFlynn #BenCarson #BetsyDeVos #TomPrice #ScottPruitt #SeemaVerma #PaulRyan #TrumpTower #MarriageEquality #KuKluxKlan #NewYorkCity #Hanksy #MelaniaTrump #BarronTrump #IvankaTrump #TiffanyTrump #EricTrump #DonaldTrumpJr #JaredKushner #conflictofinterest #emolument #RiggedElection #TemperTantrum #Tweet #Twitter #Twit #ManChild #DiaperBlowout #Trump #poop #turd #bigbaby #manindiapers #Inauguration #ScottBaio #TedNugent #TheRockettes #RadioCityMusicHall #MormonTabernacleChoir #Medusa #breitbart #lies #NationalEnquirer #douchebag #POS #Pussy #PussyGrabber #clown #killerclowns #jihad #terrorist #Taliban #MexicanWall #racism #nobannowall #confederateflag #Nazi #Islam #Freedom #AmericanNaziParty #TheRollingStones #Democrat #CivilRights #Idiot #abortion #tinfoilhatsociety #tyrant #foxnews #MerylStreep #Liberal #SaturdayNightLive #AlecBaldwin #MelissaMcCarthy #AdolfHitler #BenitoMussolini #Dictator #Megalomaniac #KingComplex #Demagogue #Narcissist #Delusional #Nuts #Oligarch #Populist #tyrant #Narcissistic #Autocracy #Oligarchy #DelusionsofGrandeur #GodComplex #MangoMussolini #DerPumpkinfuhrer #Apocalypse #NuclearButton #OvalOffice #civilliberties #goldenshowers #tinyhands #discrimination #TrumpGate #freedomandjusticeforall #TheBible #JesusChrist #The12Apostles #FredPhelps #GodHatesFags #WestboroBaptistChurch #RedNeck #ScienceFiction, #rapistsandmurderers #antiGay #homophobe #dinosaurs #religiousright #AmericanFamilyAssociation #hategroup #BruceJenner #CaitlynJenner #BarbieandKen #Mattel #PopeFrancis #QueenElizabeth #KeepYourPeckerUp #PatRobertson #BatteredWomanSyndrome #FranklinGraham #Cracker #JudyGarland #TheWizardofOz #BarbraStreisand #BettyWhite #MarilynMonroe #ValleyoftheDolls #PeytonPlace #DowntonAbbey #MaggieSmith #JudyDench #EvaGreen #MissPeregrine #DarylDixon #jabbathehutt #EmperorPalpatine #StarWars #StarTrek #RickGrimes #TeaParty #GlennBeck #RushLimbaugh #fakeNews #politicallyincorrect #BillMaher #AngelaMerkel #TheresaMay #RosieODonnell #MegynKelly #TheManchurianCandidate #BadCombOver #commemorativecoin #collectorsitem #ebay #buffalonewyork #artvoice #carlpaladino #byecarl #OutrageFatigue