Your Other Left Video: Doing It Wrong, or If We Can Brexit They Can Fix It

A rant about brexit and the lack of dialectic in our current multitude of schismatic subjects.

Your Other Left: Up The Republic: Feel The Paine

Now that my party, The Democratic Party, has a presumptive nominee, I am bewildered at how few people understand our political process.  Having worked closely with the national party, worked for several state, county and town Democratic and Republican Party organizations/committees, I'd be happy to counsel any voters who are confused as to what the process is, what things mean and how it works.  To the same point, if anyone feels they are confused about civics and government in general, I am glad to explain the inner workings of the republic to you.....or you could watch the West Wing on Netflix.

Your Other Left: Putin's Fan Club

Did somebody say theocracy?

Little by little, the media has begun to notice the deliberately careless slaughter of civilians in Syria by the Russian division of the Iranian armed forces.A theocratic axis consisting of the Iranian twelver Shia cult regime, the Syrian Alawite Ba'athist reality TV aficionado and murderer of 200,000, and the serial poisoner controlled Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation makes the Turkish aspiring dictator, ISIS cheerleader, Hitler enthusiast and recent extorter of the EU look like an amateur.Somehow there is such mass eagerness to accept any criticism of President Obama at face value, that Putina has become the favored opposition and claims made by him, his army of comment trolls or the RT: "Fox News on krokodil" propaganda juggernaut get swallowed and parroted by gangs of mutants, perpetual con-marks in Baghdad, right wing race cults and left wing suicide fetishists alike.

Vladimir Putin, 2014 Time Magazine Person of the Year, has been praised by celebrity imbecile Donald Trump, British Nazi Seance organizer Nick Griffin, famous anti-semitism groupie/Iran TV personality Jeremy Corbyn, and the Ba'ath Party's favorite cosplay kinkster kitten George Galloway.With this clown car coalition of the deranged behind him, and the announcement that the Russian Orthodox Church has declared him god on earth, his holiness, the patron saint of anti-gay violence and the man who brought breadline poverty back to Russia, Vladimir Putin has put his lifelong ambition to ressurrect Russian imperialism in Eastern Europe on hold while he mounts a crusade to support the oppressed, downtrodden and victimized regimes of Iran and Syria. Someone had to stand up for those poor mullahs and despotsRather than being content with his new status as some sort of half-man half-God creature, (I'd have asked the church to make me a centaur instead, but whatever lifts his luggage) Putin has made it his divine mission to defame and debase the President of the United States.This is all one needs to do to be lauded across the globe.The asinine casting of President Obama as arch and cruel by millions of Americans has had all sorts of sad consequences.Creating a western audience for Putinism may prove the worst.

It never ceases to surprise me the rabbit hole of logic that Obama-hatred carries people down.The viral memes presenting a choice between Putin and Obama with questions like "who is stronger leader," "who is better friend to Kurds" and "who is better looking" are hilarious, but indicative of the pervasivenes of the bizarre logic that holds that "if Obama is doing a bad job, Putin must be doing a good job." I don't think Obama is doing a good job in the Middle East, but that has nothing to do with whether Putin is doing a good job or even a good thing.Ask yourself why Putin is there?Does Putin actually care what happens to the Kurds or anyone else?

Putin said he would attack ISIS but he attacked every Sunni fighting against Assad except for ISIS for months.Putin aids and protects the genocidal dictator Assad. Putin has participated in a cynical manipulative move through Assad and clandestine channels to assist ISIS.Putin has taken sides in the sectarian civil war and the power struggle between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. I have no fondness for Saudi Arabia, but the Iranian regime out does the Saudis at theocratic sadism and is universally acknowledged by Iran's neighbors as the biggest threat facing the region.Israel has more Sunni friends than Iran.

Iran attacks Kurds.They depopulate Sunni villages in Iraq and Syria, which exasperates the refugee situation.They are the largest state funder of jihadist terror.When Iran "got rid of" their nuclear materials they sent them to Russia for safe keeping. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, they're likely to use it on Bahrain or Israel.Putin has taken it upon himself to intervene in the sectarian conflict on behalf of the Iranian regime.Barack Obama might have a confusing strategy and he may be shamefully silent on the Turkish campaign against the Kurds, but he provides air support for the Peshmerga and YPG, while Putin provides air support for Hezbollah.

Obama has done a lousy job in Iraq and Syria, but he has done one thing absolutely right: he said he will fight ISIS and he is fighting ISIS. Turkish National Islamist President Erdogan declared last summer that Turkey would begin attacking ISIS, and the air strikes rained down on the Kurds instead.When Putin said Russia was joining the fight against ISIS what he meant was they were joining the fight against Syrian rebels and civilians who are not in ISIS.It is a tragic moral failing that President Obama hasn't condemned Turkey's AKP regime and declared absolute support for and partnership with the Kurds.However, none of Barack Obama's failures excuse or validate Vladimir Putin's crimes or lies.

I'll remain opposed to dictatorship, theocracy, terrorism and civilian slaughter no matter how poorly western leaders perform. Russia is a theocratic dictatorship with a vast propaganda operation set on hurting the west with some true, but mostly fabricated or exaggerated claims which sow hysteria and fuel far right and far left maniacs in Europe.

Obama leaves office next January.His replacement is likely to be one of the candidates who have publicly expressed support for the YPG: Hillary Clinton and nearly every Republican candidate.Sheikh Putin, as he is known among some Ayatollah fans in Iraq, will still be the anointed demigod of the Russia Today Orthodox Federation Church. He'll still be terrorizing and molesting his neighbors.He'll still be the partner, mouthpiece, and muscle for the Iranian cult of messianic Shiite rapture.He'll still be the protector and enabler of Assad and Hezbollah.He'll still be the dictator who murders journalists and politicians who criticize him.He'll still be the Russian version of Recep Tayyip Erdogan......with a nuclear arsenal.

Your Other Left: You Call Yourself A Liberal? Resist Left Wing L'appel Du Vide

Liberalism has long been conflated with the left in American politics. Ever since the civil rights era, the Democratic Party, traditionally home to southern white racists, has been the home of most left of center politicians. Before the sixties, the Republican Party was the party of civil rights. Both parties had social liberals and social conservatives in their ranks until the landscape shifted in the tumultuous decade the baby boomers won't allow us to forget. Over the next few decades the political migration of liberals and minorities to the Democrats and conservatives and southern whites to the Republicans settled into a status quo. The conflation of Democrat with left wing and Republican with right wing has made for a confused glossary of political terms.

Ideological orthodoxy is enforced along the lines of 'left vs right' and we no longer expect liberals to uphold liberal principles and conservatives to uphold conservative principles. In fact many liberals prefer the term 'progressive' nowadays, even though it is increasingly clear that these terms are not synonymous. Tribal identity politics has become the dominant force in much of western society, and the classic dichotomy of liberal vs reactionary has been shredded. So let's talk about liberalism and determine if that is what you are, shall we?

Liberals believe in the principles of individual liberty, gender equality, freedom of expression, secular government, and a right to life, liberty, and due process under the law. It can be said that "the rule of law" or the concept of "freedom under law" which was perhaps the most crucial phrase in the proto-enlightenment document: Magna Carta. From there we can trace the advances of civilization and culture to the radical liberals who fought for freedom of expression, equal and civil rights, secular values, and the establishment of democracy in place of monarchy and totalitarian rule. To be conservative was to be reactionary and support the status quo whether it was serfdom or somewhat more advanced. To be liberal was to be radical and change the status quo to remove power from the few and expand individual liberty.

Liberals tend to value science, education, and creative expression. They take a laissez faire or 'live and let live' attitude toward other peoples and cultures, a notion which, in theory, makes very good sense. While monarchs, tyrants, theocratic despots and later communists and fascists promised utopia, paradise, perfection and purity, radicals, enlightenment thinkers and Magna Carta liberals were fighting for and demanding liberty and functionality.

The status quo is always going to be imperfect for somebody because there is no perfect. By the time the enlightenment liberal revolution reached critical mass with the American and French revolutions, liberalism had a manifesto in Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, a declaration of principles in the Declaration of Independence, and an updated Magna Carta in the American Bill of Rights. Later in the twentieth century, representatives from nations who had benefited most from these liberal concepts drafted a document to be upheld as the liberal's grandest aspirational document: the universal declaration of human rights.

The liberal's greatest achievements include the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, the defeat of fascism in Europe, and more recently, the civil rights and women’s equal rights movements. Liberals believe that rights are universal and inalienable. They believe in gender equality, and standing up for women, homosexuals, minorities, and the physically or mentally challenged. If you actively support or apologize for people or ideologies that reject these rights, you are not a liberal. If you apply different standards to different people and societies for any reason, you are probably not a liberal.

Liberals believe that all people are entitled to dignity, fairness, and equal treatment under the law. If you believe people with different skin color, beliefs, or nationalities should be treated differently, infantilized, or held to lower moral standards, you are not a liberal. Principles are more important to liberals than identity. We cannot be equal if we are not equally free and accountable.

Liberals believe in secular democratic representative government, regardless of their own personal philosophical or religious beliefs. Yet many support or ignore those who actively and unapologetically espouse tyranny, theocracy, or even genocide. If you fail to see the hypocrisy in such behavior, you are not a liberal.

Liberals do not support aggression, violence, murder or ethnic cleansing. If you sympathize with those who espouse violence and terror as legitimate political weapons, particularly against innocents and children, you are not a liberal.

Liberals believe in freedom of speech and expression. Yet many who call themselves liberals support silencing those with differing opinions and beliefs simply because they disagree with them or are not partial to their nationality, ethnic background or religion. They very often denounce and smear their interlocutors as racists and bigots, without feeling any need to explain or justify such accusations, much less concern themselves with their consequences. These are not liberal, serious or ethical people.

Liberals believe in science, reason, art, music and education. If you support or enable those who wish to proscribe others from such pursuits or pleasures, you are not a liberal.

Liberals believe in the rule of law and that all people are innocent until proven guilty. If you support or sympathize with those who administer medieval justice, torture, or execute people in the public square without a fair trial, you are not a liberal.

Liberals come from a tradition of enlightenment principles which, above all, value the importance of the individual and his or her quest for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you believe more in the rights of groups than individuals, or that identity politics and political correctness are more valuable to the human experience than individual rights, you are not a liberal.

Granted, liberalism, by definition, will forever be an imperfect paradox, nebulous and in constant flux, expanding, contracting, and even collapsing in on itself. Lest we forget, from liberal we also get the word libertine, or one who lacks a sense of moral restraint. But for all its blemishes and imperfections, when it comes to fulfilling equality, human rights, and the aspirations of the common people, it’s the only game in town.

(Written by Rufus Chicolini and Keith Carbone, two liberals)

Your Other Left: Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

In Turkey it's become almost rote

That the Sultan just can't take a joke.

If the world were a dairy,

Deutschland is the canary,

But Europe, dear friends, is the goat.

                                                 "Let's show him what we do to jokers."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to have abandoned western liberal principles. Her motivation may not be clear, but her choice to authorize prosecution of German comedian Jan Bohmermann for a satirical joke about the president of Turkey disqualifies her from political leadership positions in civil society.  Bohmermann is to be charged with violating an obscure law against contumely of foreign representatives, a ridiculous law which Chancellor Merkel said will be discarded by 2018.

"Before they hit the big time, Angie and Erdo met on the City Council in Peoria."

The querulous leader of the Justice and Development Party or AKP, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a burgeoning dictator, Ottoman nostalgist and EU extortionist rumored to be an avid lover of animals and habitual MDMA abuser.* Erdogan has a temper and he routinely takes time out of his busy schedule of ridding Turkey of its free press, dismantling its democracy, praising Hitler, sheltering ISIS, bombing Kurds, and counting Euros to round up children and journalists who criticize him.  It is a moral imperative that he be subjected to execration and obluquy on a scale no international public figure has experienced.
(*Help start this rumor by using these hashtags: #ErdoganSwine #ErdoganIsAPigDiddler #ErdoganBlowsGoats  #InsultErdogan)

"After one too many whip-its, they got that look in their eyes: they danced until dawn. At lunch time dancing was banned in Germany."

Merkel is only the most embarrassing of the many western milksop "liberals" currently doing everything they can to push people into the arms of the far right. The term regressive left is overused and often misused.  This is what it actually means: self identified lefties, progressives and liberals who embrace, apologize for, lie about and defend illiberal or fascist ideologies, actors and concepts for the sake of political correctness, identity tribalism or ideological motives; liberals who abandon liberal principles, intellectual honesty and objective truth for the sake of political orthodoxy or other unscrupulous motivations.

We don't need a new term for a bastard like Erdogan.  He is pure swine.

Your Other Left: Caligulan Populism: Deep Tedium 2016

The Grand Old Party has allowed their message and indeed every ounce of their base's energy to be transformed by the most reactionary and noisome con artists. They eagerly acquiesced and surrendered to their previously exiled mutants in order to rile up the hordes with rage, victimhood and paranoia. William F. Buckley purged the Klan and Birchers from the conservative coalition and the Republican Party.Now Buckley is gone and the benighted brutes are back and they're pissed.

The cynical GOP leadership gleefully staffed out the entire conservative platform to the personalities who could take them where the energy was.This makes some sense from a strategic marketing perspective, and the Democrats have had their own fringe message coup in an effort to compete.However attractive this enterprise must have appeared with each passing panic, the GOP establishment wishes they could hop in a delorean and stop themselves from engineering their own destruction.Examine the candidacy of Donald Trump from the perspective of the ordinary American citizens who have been told by our politicians that they can do things they simply cannot do.Resist the urge to revel in political schadenfreude because we need those establishment Republicans who the Trumpkins are so angry with if Western society is to right itself.The Bernie Sanders supporters are a different story.We never needed them before.They should return to the right wing pseudo-liberal Occupy tent with their poppers and wait for the next asinine fascist rally against free trade.

As much sense as this chorus of mouthbreathers operation may have made to the Republican country club set and Democratic consultant class who set it in motion, there doesn't seem to have been any doubt as to the wisdom or responsibility of this strategy on their part. It must have been irresistible if you consider the free messaging and organizing muscle that came with anger radio, and all the disciplined recruitment performed by televangelists, assorted Christian right media, and tabloid cable news that could tap into emotions, define issues and develop mass acceptance of political narratives for an audience who tend to vote without having to be begged or persuaded, unlike their liberal counterparts who incessantly vomit trite syllables approximating the deeply tedious half thought "lesser of two evils" sonnet. The right has a natural constituency of frightened and angry people who are quite good at following a routine.These lowest hanging denominators and the millions of indoctrinated Evangelicals make up the right wing coalition along with the young libertarian dudes and credulous conspiracy theory cultists that exploded onto the scene of a once silent reactionary counterculture. These are the people who suddenly dominate much of the national political conversation with more power than they merit and there is nowhere near enough sedative on hand to dull their malignant rage.Where there was once an establishment party of patriotic deal makers there is now flash, blustery belligerence and magnificently unapologetic hatred.

The working class and middle class, weakened and deluded by constant demagoguery, are feeling alien to their culture.They feel as though they are taboo in their country and they've been told to blame it on multiculturalism.These people are not stupid.They just have few alternatives to the sensory overload of clickbait media culture.This tabloid Saturnalia of sensationalism seems to have produced a psychotic political movement of paranoiacs at whose pleasure we now live.They're mostly in Congress.

The grown-up party of conservative, responsible, middle of the road, Alex Keaton type young Republicans, the unabashedly stuffy exclusive country club party of Poppy Bush and the Cold Warrior party that sheltered spooky Roy Cohn or E. Howard Hunt types is long gone.Those very stalwarts torched their reasonably successful moderate conservative brand of the "grown up" or "daddy party" and auctioned off their message to unscrupulous fiends who prey on credulous hordes.They now more resemble the party of your creepy uncle who still insists Ike was a pinko.

The old Republican establishment had such a reputation by the New century that Democrats were paralyzed and perpetually rattled by President Bush's popularity after September of 2001. They too fed their energy and enthusiasm deficit wherever they could.The progressive left, as it likes to be called, has an insatiable appetite for wish thinking and thought sanitation that is dwarfed by their compulsive cognitive dissonance and delusional dogmatism. The Democratic Party was infiltrated by naive pseudo-liberal progressives, 60's drop out nostalgists, failed spiritual seekers and social justice goose steppers who share the fundamentalist Chomskyite belief that motive can be discerned without evidence. When this crunchy lot of conspiracy theorists discovered that the mass media used populist white victimhood claiming hysterics to turn working men and homemaker women into diehard conservatives they saw diabolical sophistication where there was none. That mindset made for fertile ground for antisemitic mythology and it didn't take long to turn excessive white guilt and unfettered paranoia into mind reading.Did you know you're a racist? Now you know, and so does everybody else.

Welcome to 2016. After years of repetition, the phrase "lesser of two evils" is beginning to resonate, and the similarities, not between two parties as has been claimed for years, but between two mirrored edges of the ideological horseshoe are becoming rote, menacing and depressing.

The nation is divided between the two reactionary conservative factions of frightened and stubborn amnesiacs who are unaware of their similarities.The left and right are of one mind.They simply follow different politicians.Each day it becomes more and more difficult for liberals to align with the reactionary tattered edges of the horseshoe as they shout in unison what becomes a chant of "make free stuff great again."

"A republic, if you can keep it," Benjamin Franklin once said in the early days of the nation founded on Thomas Paine's radical liberalism and Thomas Jefferson's pen, but can we keep it away from ourselves? 

HUMAN SOLIDARITY NOW

For more than five thousand consecutive days we have been attacked by an enemy that can never achieve their theocratic goals, but can and have contributed to our weakened condition. By "we" of course I am referring to civil society and the ordinary decent people in every nation and culture who want to live life free of the menace of barbaric suicide cults, theocratic bastards and ideological tribal bloodsport.  Civil society was viciously disrupted by the Bin Ladenist suicide cult on September 11th of 2001 and ever since then there has been confusion as to what is even happening.

 The unpleasant realities some people refuse to face is that we have enemies with which coexistence is impossible: the global jihadist insurgency, their booster club of Islamists, psychotic sectarian tribes, colluding criminal compatriots and the excrement that is the enabling reactionary regressive anti-western ideologues form the foundation of the totalitarian resurgence.  We need international human solidarity now.  We need to remember what binds us.  Destroy the bastards.