“…the same faction that spent...

“…the same faction that spent the last decade demanding fealty to the Commander-in-Chief in a Time of War upon pain of being accused of a lack of patriotism (or worse) now openly sides with a foreign leader over their own President. The U.S. Congress humiliates itself by expressing greater admiration for and loyalty to this foreign leader than their own country’s. And because this is all about Israel, few will find this spectacle strange, or at least will be willing to say so.”

- Glenn Greenwald (via azspot)

“There is a cult of ignorance...

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

- Isaac Asimov (via azspot)

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth,...

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register…

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”

- Kurt Vonnegut (via whiporwill)

“…for each generation, America...

“…for each generation, America is a very different place, and the America we lost on 9/11 — the America that didn’t profile citizens, torture people, or monitor their phone calls — isn’t even a distant memory for the children and teenagers of today’s America.”

- The Mystery of Osama bin Laden

Why Healthcare Costs So Much

“They make it seem like a social issue...

“They make it seem like a social issue, like you see someone stand up on a talk show and say ‘How am I supposed to explain to my child that two men are getting married?’ Eh, I don’t know, it’s your shitty kid, you fucking tell him, why is that anyone else’s problem? Two men are in love but they can’t get married because you don’t want to talk to your ugly child for five fucking minutes?”

-

Louis CK (via weshouldwritepornography)

This is from Louis’ stand-up special Shameless, I think. The transcribed quotation doesn’t do him justice; this guy is so funny.

“After the Clinton...

“After the Clinton administration began paying down America’s debt, Republicans passed the Bush tax cuts, waded into a trillion-dollar war in Iraq, and approved an unfunded prescription medicine benefit — all by borrowing from China. Then-Vice President Dick Cheney scoffed that “deficits don’t matter.” This borrow-and-spend Republican history makes it galling when Republicans now assert that deficits are the only thing that matter — and call for drastic spending cuts, two-thirds of which would harm low-income and moderate-income Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. To pay for tax cuts heaped largely on the wealthiest Americans, Republicans in effect would gut Medicare and slash jobs programs, family planning and college scholarships. Instead of spreading opportunity, federal policy would cap it.”

- Nicholas Kristof (via azspot)

“Nope. Zero,”

““Nope. Zero,” the president said to the speaker. Mr. Boehner tried again. “Nope. Zero,” Mr. Obama repeated. “John, this is it.” A long silence followed, said one participant in the meeting. “It was just like an awkward, ‘O.K., well, what do you do now?’””

-

President Obama to Speaker Boehner about how much he would be willing to cut from Planned Parenthood funding. (via comeondontbullshitme)

This makes me happy. REMEMBER WHEN THE GOP TRIED TO HOLD WOMEN’S BODIES HOSTAGE AND OUR PRESIDENT WAS LIKE NOPE?

(via wingspans)

Is he making tiny swings with the presidential pimp cane? Because I’ve been waiting for this since January ‘09.

(via bogart-)

I had to copy that one in it's entirety. I just love the pimp cane remark. Oh I know it might be resist but i love the image! More pimp cane swinging please!

“We shouldn’t be surprised that Bristol believes self-promotion...

“We shouldn’t be surprised that Bristol believes self-promotion is a worthy cause for which she should be well compensated. The villains here are those who enabled her: The Candies Foundation, Dancing With the Stars, The Secret Life of The American Teenager, where she appeared in a cameo last summer. The problem isn’t just that the abstinence, which Palin promotes, is ineffective. It’s also that Palin is a walking advertisement for teen motherhood. After declining for more than a decade, recent studies have shown that teen pregnancy is on the rise, with 7 percent of teenage girls becoming pregnant in 2006, the last year for which we have figures. For many girls, it’s because they don’t have access to sex education or contraception; as the Guttmacher Institute has pointed out, the increase in teen pregnancy rates coincides with the growth of abstinence-only education programs in public schools. But the problem goes beyond birth control. A U.S. government report from last year found that a fifth of sexually active girls actually welcomed a pregnancy. Some girls, seeking love and a purpose in life, are getting pregnant on purpose.”

- Bristol Palin’s Abstinence Campaign Payday: Her Latest Teen Pregnancy Outrage - The Daily Beast

“A nation that destroys its systems of education...

“A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.”

- Chris Hedges, “Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System”

Gun Point

HUCKABEE: I don’t know anyone in America who is a more effective communicator [than David Barton.] I just wish that every single young person in America would be able to be under his tutelage and understand something about who we really are as a nation. I almost wish that there would be something like a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, forced — at gun point no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.

A Scandal

“Socialism never took root...

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

-

John Steinbeck

“Liberals want to nurture...

“Liberals want to nurture the brotherhood of man while Conservatives deem this mythical brotherhood just another left-wing conspiracy trying to separate them from their money. Conservatives are sincerely of the opinion that they stole all their stuff fair and square, while Liberals think people with too much stuff should give some of their stuff to people who don’t have any stuff. The problem is nobody considers their collection of stuff to be too much. Liberals want to reform prisoners. Conservatives don’t believe in taking any. Liberals would rather lose honorably than be accused of acting unfairly. As a matter of fact, Liberals are more comfortable losing than they are winning. Conservatives will do whatever it takes to win, including painting their kids’ teachers as the enemy. Not only are they bad losers, they’re bad winners as well.”

- Will Durst (via azspot)

“The average life span of a...

“The average life span of a transgendered person is twenty-three years. The statistic is shocking, until it begins to make sense. Gender non-conformists face routine exclusion and violence. Transgendered people are disproportionately poor, homeless, and incarcerated. Many of the systems and facilities intended to help low-income people are sex-segregated and thereby alienate those who don’t comply with state-imposed categories. A trans woman may not be able to secure a bed in a homeless shelter, for example. Spade writes that just as the feminist movement tended to “focus on gender-universalized white women’s experience as ‘women’s experience,’” the lesbian- and gay-rights movement has focused primarily on a white, middle-class politic, centered on marriage and mainstream social mores.”

Dean Spade is the first openly trans law professor. Meaghan Winter interviews him for Granta.

“100 guys got together...

“100 guys got together and ordered a pizza cut into 100 slices. The first guy took 80 slices. When someone then suggested he only take 79 slices, the first guy yelled, ‘That’s socialism!’

- Bill Maher, “Real Time with Bill Maher” on making the income gap understandable to even the Tea Baggers.

“This is an impressive crowd: the Have’s and Have-more’s. Some people call you the elites. I call you my base.”

- George Bush, at a fundraiser

“Why is NPR biased...

“Why is NPR biased to the left? Because it simply doesn’t accept as truth the numerous conspiracy theories that modern conservatives believe in. NPR doesn’t show support for discrimination against gay people and muslims. NPR is factual in saying that death panels don’t exist. NPR is right to dismiss the conspiracy theories regarding climate change. NPR doesn’t agree that Obama is not a US citizen. Being factual has now become liberal because mainstream conservatives have moved into a paranoid reality where facts don’t apply in the face of conspiracy theories.”

- Ziyu Ziyu

“Religious fundamentalism is dangerous...

“Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert. It is dangerous, especially in America, because it is anti-democratic and is suspicious of ‘the other,’ in whatever form that ‘other’ might appear. To maintain itself, fundamentalism must always define ‘the other’ as deviant”

-

Peter Gomes

“Homosexuality is illegal...

“Homosexuality is illegal in eighty countries and punishable by death in five. Four hundred years after Shakespeare penned Romeo and Juliet, the real tragedy is that human beings are still not free to love each other as they choose.”

- Reclaiming the F Word, Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune