freshwest

freshwest's Journal

January 28, 2015

They're busy translating it from Russian, just be patient a little while longer.

January 28, 2015

All this goes to show, it that the Obamas are the reincarnated pharoahs and way above them!

Bow down everyone! Quick, before he shoots laser beams from his eyes and turn 'em all into crispy critters!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025099417#post9

No wonder RWNJs are skeert! But your and I, friend, are safe from the Wrath of the Obamas! Quick, Omar's coming!

I think...

January 28, 2015

So Prince Charles has made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Interesting:

I thought only Muslim men were permitted to encircle that big rock. IDK, some say it's a meteor.

Maybe Charles has converted? But I'm wondering alternatively, if it has to do with being royalty?

January 27, 2015

That makes it all A-Okay! Take that, running dog lackey yankee capitalist imperialists!

So organized crime gets a free pass now. No wonder the GOP loves Putin.

Even if Putin's a capitalist and his foreign policy is imperialist.

At least he isn't a yankee!

Okay, that's settled. Back to our regularly scheduled program of how Putin will bring a socialist utopia.

As disgusted as I am with predatory capitalism, and all capitalism for that matter, and fascist privatization schemes, I don't think Putin is gonna help.

He's near Koch brothers level in his personal wealth now. Of course, that's why Libertarians love the man!

For when DU's headbang icon isn't enough.

January 27, 2015

Okay, here it is, almost an hour. Nothing flashy about it like the slick Infowars videos:

Eisenhower & Patton Visit The Nazi Death Camps

Published on Jun 25, 2014

While perusing the National Archives I came across this film about the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps by the US at the end of the Second World War. It was at once repulsive and fascinating. It is an in your face look at the ultimate horror. We get A view of the aftermath of large scale mechanized slaughter of countless numbers of innocent people, and the shattered survivors. Below is a breakdown of what the film contains

Anyway it is an important film but not for those who are offended by the showing of graphic images. If you are DON'T WATCH!

Those are comments by the uploader, ChiTownView. It has not even gotten 2,000 views, when AJ, et al, get millions.

R.1: Army Lt. Col. George C. Stevens, Navy Lt. E. Ray Kellogg and U.S. Chief of Counsel Robert H. Jackson read exhibited affidavits which attest to authenticity of scenes in film. Map of Europe shows locations of concentration camps in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovokia, Danzing, Denmark, France, Germany, Isle of Jersey, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland and Yugoslavia. At Leipsig Concentration Camp, there are piles of dead bodies, and many living Russian, Czechoslovakian, Polish and French prisoners. At Penig Concentration Camp, Hungarian women and others display wounds. Doctors treat patients and U.S. Red Cross workers move them to German Air Force hospital where their former captors are forced to care for them.

R.2: At Ohrdruf Concentration Camp, inspection team composed of Allied military leaders, members of U.S. Congress and local townspeople tours camp. Among them are Generals Dwight David Eisenhower, Supreme Headquaters Allied Expeditionary Forces commander; Omar Nelson Bradley; and George S. Patton. General Eisenhower speaks with Congressmen. They see bodies heaped on grill at crematorium and Polish, Czechoslovakian, Russian, Belgian, German Jews and German political prisoners. Col. Heyden Sears, Combat Command A, 4th Armored Division commander, forces local townspeople to tour camp. U.S. officers arrive at Hadamar Concentration Camp, where Polish, Russian and German political and religious dissidents were murdered. Maj. Herman Boelke of U.S. War Crimes Investigation Team (WCIT) examines survivors. Bodies are exhumed from mass graves for examination, identification and burial. Four-man panel interviews facility director Dr. Waldman and chief male nurse Karl Wille.

For more on this part of the story follow this link:

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/articles/during-wwii-general-eisenhower-ordered-every-citizen-of-gotha-germany-to-tour-a-concentration-camp-after-seeing-the-camp-the-mayor-hanged-himself.html

R.3:At Breendonck Concentration Camp, Belgium, methods of torture are demonstrated. At Harlan Concentration Camp near Hannover, U.S. Red Cross aides Polish survivors. Allied troops and able-bodied survivors bury dead. At Arnstadt Concentration Camp, German villagers are forced to exhume Polish and Russian bodies from mass graves.

R.4: At Nordhausen Concentration Camp, there are piles of bodies. Troops treat, feed and remove survivors who are mainly Polish, Russian and French. At Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Navy Lt. Jack H. Taylor stands with fellow survivors and describes his capture, imprisonment and conditions at Mauthausen. Volunteers bathe victims.

R.5: At Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Army trucks arrive with aid for survivors. Piles of dead, mutilated and emaciated bodies. Some survivors among dead. Huge ovens and piles of bone ash on floor of crematorium. Civilians from nearby Weimar are forced to tour camp. They see exhibits of lampshades made of human skin, and two shrunken heads.

R.6: British commander of Royal Artillery describes conditions at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. German Army Schutzstaffel (SS) troops are forced to bury dead and aid survivors. Woman doctor, former prisoner, describes conditions in female section of camp. Belson commander Kramer is taken into custody. German guards bury dead. Bulldozer pushes piles of bodies into mass graves.

Producer: National Archives
Creative Commons license: CC0 1.0 Universal
National Archives and Records Administration - ARC 43452, LI 238.2 - NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS - DVD Copied by Ann Galloway. Series:
Producer: National Archives and Records Administration
Language: English
Keywords: archives.gov; public.resource.org
Creative Commons license: CC0 1.0 Universal

This is what I saw in school. It's why little people do shocks me and manufactured outrage doesn't move me.

This is the real thing, not a sanitized version. Eisenhower thought we should know what happened. In our current era, we have fantasies presented with only slogans, no deep thinking or feelings about how to protect others from being made into the 'Other.' Which is just what happened in Germany.

BTA, please post the links to those other threads and I'll try to look at them tomorrow. I will PM you about some stuff later this week if I remember.

January 27, 2015

Got your number, Scar!

Where is the proof that what Joe says in the OP is a lie?

Right here:

BERNIE SANDERS Uncovers 1980 Koch Agenda- "What Do the Koch Brothers Want?"

What else do the Koch brothers want?

In 1980, David Koch ran as the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980.

Let’s take a look at the 1980 Libertarian Party platform.

Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”

“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”

“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”

“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”

“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”

“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”

“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”

“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”

“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”

“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”

“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”

“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”

“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”

“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”

“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”

“We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”

“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”

“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”

“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”

“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”

“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”

“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”

“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”

“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”

“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”

In other words, the agenda of the Koch brothers is not only to defund Obamacare. The agenda of the Koch brothers is to repeal every major piece of legislation that has been signed into law over the past 80 years that has protected the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the most vulnerable in this country...

Tomorrow it will be Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, repealing the minimum wage. It seems to me that the Koch brothers will not be content until they get everything they believe they are entitled to.

Our great nation can no longer be hijacked by right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers.

For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, for the sake of our economy, we have got to let democracy prevail.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024806298

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/koch-brothers

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a7980koch

to kpete:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024806298

We've heard these memes for years, Americans have come to believe this is how it has to be.

Another explanation of this here:

How Freedom Became Tyranny

Rightwing libertarians have turned “freedom” into an excuse for greed and exploitation.

George Monbiot - December 19, 2011

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

Right-wing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange. Their conception of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.

So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterised as a clash between negative and positive freedoms.

More at the link about the meaning of positive and negative freedoms and how the word is being used against us:

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/19/how-freedom-became-tyranny/

So, really, what in that platform opposes crony capitalism?

NOTHING. Sending all public assets into private hands is done by crony capitalists!

What in it appeals to moderates who want to keep the social safety net?

NOTHING. It is a manifesto to eliminate that.

Where is the denunciation of ALEX with all its egregrious attacks on Equality and the Public Good?

NOWHERE. Joe and Mika, like Walker, Scott (both of them), Christie, Perry, Paul, Boehner and so many others - are nothing more than paid lackeys for the Kochs.

Even though we've discussed them a good deal on DU, the majority of Americans know little of them or how their agenda affects their well-being, that of their children and future generations. They still believe that news is as fair as it was in the best of the Morrow days, and don't appear to know the Fairness Doctrine has been eviscerated, and the networks aren't required to show boths sides, and don't have to prove they exist in the public interest. That was once a mandatory annual review.

There is so much more wrong in the media, from emotional or psychological brainwashing, the distortion of facts, the denial of human truths... that the American Mind is blown away and doesn't know where to start. Meanwhile, Rush, O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity and the rest of them are paid tens of millions of dollars annually.

And he who pays the fiddler, picks the tune, they'll say anything!

January 27, 2015

My first experience with thundersnow was December 1990 in Seattle:

The Mother of All Convergence Zones

Posted on December 23, 2012

...Tuesday, Dec. 18, 1990, began on a relatively calm note in Seattle, with temperatures at the stroke of midnight resting in the low- to mid-40s under overcast skies. To the north, however, there was trouble brewing—with arctic air from Canada slowly sinking toward the Washington border.

As night turned to morning, the cold air began spilling into the state, dropping the temperature around Puget Sound into the upper 30s. Then, right around lunchtime, a powerful—and unpredicted—Puget Sound Convergence Zone formed near Lynnwood, and all hell broke loose...

Heavy, wet snow fell in droves as the Convergence Zone roared south into Seattle in the early afternoon, blanketing freeways and blinding motorists. Accompanied by howling northerly winds, the Zone peaked in intensity right over downtown—dumping a foot of snow in the heart of the city. As if that weren’t enough, lightning flashed overhead as peals of thunder boomed from the sky—treating stunned Seattleites to a spectacular display of thundersnow. (Thundersnow—thunder, lightning and snow, all rolled into one—also hit the region on Mar. 7, 2002 and Dec. 18, 2008, courtesy of the Convergence Zone.)

The Zone also spread its wrath to the other side of Lake Washington, dropping up to 14 inches of snow in places like Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond as the afternoon wore on. The heavy snow caught the entire region off guard—so much so that over a thousand children in the area, trapped at school when the storm hit, were forced to spend the night in their classrooms.

Eventually, the Zone began fizzling as it meandered south of Renton, bringing only 2.5 inches of snow to Sea-Tac Airport. In the wake of the blizzard, however, the mercury plummeted as cold Canadian air settled in. By 11 p.m., the temperature at Sea-Tac stood at 21 degrees, with bitter north winds gusting to 43 mph. In Bellingham, it was even worse, with a 16-degree temperature and winds blasting above 60 mph...

http://www.seattleweatherblog.com/snow/the-mother-of-all-convergence-zones/

We lucked out. The kid got home from school just before kids got stuck and had to spend the night there. We'd already stocked up on food and Christmas gifts, didn't need anything. I was surprised by the thunder and cracked sounds of lightning. Kept thinking "Whaa?"

So we did very well. School was out and we never lost heat or power and took tons of pictures out in the snow later and out the window where the living Christmas trees were covered with the snow. We watched all that was happening on television and were very grateful to keep power and be able to stay at home.

I felt very sorry for those who were out in the weather, trying to get to work and the parents and kid who were separated for a while from the snow event. As it settled in we had a great time. Others, not so much.

Hope that our DUers in all these areas are able to keep their power and heat on and stay off the roads. For those who must get out, take care and our wishes for your safety in all of this weather with no car accidents, or slips on the stairs or pavements!