Michelle Bachmann

Well to begin with this... woman... makes me fucking shudder.

Why? Oh very simple... She is retarded in the modern-term usage as she is incredibly stupid, possibly ACTUALLY retarded.
The first thing that needs pointing out here is that she thinks African-Americans were better off back when SLAVERY was legal. Which literally makes me facepalm every single time I think about it. Not only that, but it appears that she still thinks that the Cold War is happening. Apparently Bachmann feels like the Soviet Union is still a threat to America (http://bit.ly/oGh45x).

So she's pro-slavery, completely ignorant when it comes to foreign policy, but there's one more thing I think I'm forgetting here...

Oh yeah... She's completely un-photogenic

So clearly I have an opinion in politics. So you may be asking if not Bachmann... Who from the GOP is your candidate? Well...

One important thing to note here is I've always considered myself to be liberal and democratic and thought the entire republican party were a bunch of morons... So the fact I'm even going into the Republican candidates shows just how bad Obama has done. Besides that though Ron Paul isn't like the rest of the bible bashing, gun-toting, gay-hating candidates. I certainly don't agree with everything in his policies, but he seems like the only one who can actually fix the economy alongside (hopefully they'll combine their ticket) Gary Johnson.

BART Protest & The Power of Social Media

Following yet another incident of police shooting a man Anonymous simply had enough and decided to stage a protest at the Civic Center in the Bay Area Rapid Transit area of downtown San Francisco. BART's response? Censorship.
BART had plans to shut down cell service to the area in order to prevent people from protesting or from using their cell phones to organize.. Even in case of emergency, they simply wanted certain cell phone carriers to deny service in the station. Which apparently is completely legal since it is the BARTs property.

Nobody seems to like that however and following quick search on YouTube anyone can find raw footage of the protest today: http://bit.ly/oEQ18Q

One thing I would like to point out here, is the power of social media. For instance... how many cameras do you see in the picture above?? Granted a lot of those could simply be media outlets but it's the power of social media that brought them there in the first place.

Social Networking in this age of the internet is remarkable in the sense that it allows anyone and everyone to communicate an idea instantaneously  to other people. While some may view this as dangerous, others see it as something sacred (I included). To put a censor on the activities of a group that uses social networking is like trying to put a cap on the Freedom of Speech, and evidently Facebook is attempting to do just that (http://bit.ly/p6L2Af)
It would appear that Facebook is trying to censor political activism, or at least misinterpreting politics as spam.

While a lot of people may find politics a bad topic to talk about... either simply not caring or finding it annoying... You think Facebook would have the sense to not shut someone up about their opinion. You have a right to whine and complain about how much you hate politics as much as someone has a right to whine and complain that you don't care enough about it.  Which reminds me of a saying...

"Just because you don't take an interest in politics, it doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." - Pericles 430 BCE

Wake up sheeple... Before you reach the slaughterhouse.

UK = > US Riots

One thing I'm constantly hearing about the London riots is that they have no purpose behind them, that they are simply blind violence against local people, people taking advantage of a situation.. While this is somewhat true there are also other reasons behind why the people are mad.

They will say that the riots started after a man was shot and killed by police officers, but truth is I think that there are more reason behind it than one man being shot. This is a group of young people speaking out the only way they know how, violence. They are hopeless, they don't see much of a future for themselves because of the austerity cuts and the crumbling economy, or they simply can't find their place in society. This rioting is a way for the people to get their point across that they are pissed and that they are not going anywhere.

Riots such as this could easily be coming to the US as well. The US has already drafted up plans in case dissenter would try to rise up:

“If what happened in London ever happened in the US, the military has plans – CONPLAN 3501 and 3502 to suppress the insurrection,writes Ambinder. The instructions contained with the CONPLAN guidelines are believed to be initiatives that the US can enact during times of domestic disturbances."

Americans are (or should be) just as pissed off as citizens in the UK. The debt ceiling deal that passed did not solve any problems, it trimmed a pebble off of our mountain of debt. Even if we did fix the deficit, there is one huge problem that not many people seem to see: the Federal Reserve.

In case you didn't know, the "Federal" Reserve is in fact not owned by the federal government at all, rather a privatized service we use to print our money. This means, that whenever we have them print a dollar for us, we owe them more money than what they are printing to begin with. Currently we owe approximately $0.25 for every $1.00.  If you care to educate yourself a little more about this issue, here is a fun cartoon to tell you all you need to know (It's actually kind of funny).

Sources:
http://rt.com/usa/news/riots-us-minorities-london/

Indiana State Fair

4 were killed and at least 40 were injured when during a storm the stage at the Indiana State fair collapsed.

Approximately 12,000 people were at the concert and the last performer Sarah Bareilles commented on what a beautiful night it was 30 minutes before a 53 MPH thunderstorm struck and caused the stage to collapse on the "Sugar Pit", a VIP area where over 200 people were seated.

It is the first tragedy during such a public event in the State of Indiana since 1963. On Halloween night that year, during a "Holiday on Ice" skating exhibition at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum, a propane gas explosion killed 74 people and injured nearly 400.

More on this later..


Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63GKrWWF5d8
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44133994/ns/us_news-life/
http://rt.com/news/indianapolis-stage-collapse-video/

Journalism

As you may gather from the title, this post is going to be more of an introduction as to what I think Journalism is or what it should be, I will also talk about what it has become and my feelings toward that.

Let me begin by saying I hold Freedom of Speech to be one of the most important things in the Bill of Rights. As it protects dissenters and followers alike. My freedom to speak has enabled me to create a blog like this, and enables me to use my voice to try and make a difference. When freedom of speech is stifled and is wrestled from the people such as what is happening in UK right now with the London riots, it just makes people more angry. When used properly, the Freedom of Speech can make or break governments... It simply depends on how satisfied the people are with the government they have.
I begin with the short piece about the freedom of speech because it's the essential component when it comes to journalism to me. Granted I haven't taken any classes, and have virtually NO experience with journalism, I have a deep drive and passion to tell people exactly what is going on... I see a huge difference between what is going on in the mainstream media vs what is actually going on around the world. To quote a fellow journalist:

The mainstream media is too busy telling people HOW and WHY the robbers took the money, to tell people about WHO they were and WHICH WAY they were going! - Keith Olbermann 

While the mainstream media was busy focusing on the ridiculous Casey Anthony case I was looking behind it at the effects that the media was causing. There was actually someone who ran over a fellow citizen because she looked like Casey Anthony... Her reasoning? The victim was "trying to hurt babies" and she was on a mission “to stop it before it happened again."


While I don't necessarily look down on mainstream media (MSM), I do think they aren't doing a good enough job... They either completely ignore the important stories or blow them out of proportion. I think that MSM is not longer the "watch-dog of democracy" as Jefferson envisioned it, but rather it's a circus act designed to delude the American people into thinking they know what is happening while backroom deals and corporate influences change the future behind closed doors. 


Well... I'm here to hopefully change that.


Thank you for reading, please follow or subscribe to this blog if you care to see more, even just a comment will show that someone cares.


Sources:
http://rt.com/usa/news/casey-anthony-blackwell-nalley/