Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat
Individual Freedom For Everyone

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Newsweek: David Friend: 'Before Donald Trump Was President, Online Sex Videos, Bill Clinton & The Naughty 90s Changed America'

Source:Newsweek- With the way things are now, please take me back to the 1990s!
Source:The Daily Review

"It was January 26, 1992, a drowsier time when daily papers controlled the narrative of presidential campaigns; when CNN was the only cable news network on the air, and blogs didn't exist. Bill Clinton was the favorite to win the Democratic nomination and face President George H.W. Bush in November."

From Newsweek

And then he had what a chief adviser of his would come to call a catastrophic "bimbo eruption." Her name was Gennifer Flowers, and the Star, the supermarket tabloid, was about to publish a story saying that she and Clinton had had a 12-year affair. In response, the first couple of Arkansas had agreed to a do an emergency interview with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes, to talk about their marriage. The Arkansas governor and his wife insisted on appearing together, and it was her words, more than his, that saved his candidacy.

"During this decade, the United States moved into a new era of domestic progress and evolving technology, but foreign conflicts and terrorism foreshadowed troubles on the horizon.  Join WatchMojo.com as we count down our picks for the top 10 defining moments in 1990s America."

From Watch Mojo

Source:Watch Mojo- I'll give you a penny if you name all three of these guys. Tax free, by the way. LOL
Now that I think about it and this Newsweek article that was written by David Friend contributed to it and even though he didn't argue this himself, but the more I think about it the 1990s is the decade when Liberals won the Cultural War.

In the 1990s there was one scandal after another both in politics and government, but in entertainment as well and yet America survived it and we prospered so much as a country in that decade with the end of the Cold War and the economic boom of that decade thanks to new trade, new technology, the deficit coming down and actually leading to a balanced budget by 1998. (Ask a Millennial what a balanced budget is and they'll tell you its a budget where everything is spent equally, because they've never seen one before) And a lot of Americans perhaps especially my Generation X, but Baby Boomers decided as a generation and country that its OK.

So what if a politician sleeps with women they're not married to and cheats on their wives. Thats bad for their wives and their children, but that doesn't affect me and its not my business anyway. Which I believe was the attitude about all of these scandals where it didn't involve people actually getting physically hurt or falsely accused.

We go from the King of Tabloids who was Donald Trump (yes, the same man) in New York and all of his affairs with other women when he was married with kids at the time, to Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas who just happened to be running for President in 1991-92 and one famous affair that he had in that time period of the late 1980s and early 1990s with Gennifer Flowers.

We had entertainment celebrities like Tommy Lee (from Motley Crew) and actress Pam Anderson and they having their sexual affair literally in public and making a video about it. O.J. Simpson was a real true crime story with two real murders involved and in that sense at least was a real story with real significance. And in that extent at least it was a serious story. But it was a tabloid story because of the main character involved, the other serious characters involved and where the story took place which was Los Angeles.

But go from the mid 1990s to the late 1990s and again with Bill Clinton who in many ways was a Hollywood character like John F. Kennedy with the cameras always on him with reporters writing down everything they hear and find out about him, but  then reporting it, unlike with JFK. With the Jack Stanton character from the movie Primary Colors (played by John Travolta) almost seeming too real. To Bill Clinton's last sex scandal from the 1990s involving him and a White House intern in Monica Lewinsky who is only two years older than me and 27 years younger than Bill Clinton obviously young enough to be his daughter.

But if that doesn't seem to be a big enough Hollywood story for you, how about the Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich who made it a priority of his to remove President Bill Clinton from the White House (one way or another) and was President Clinton's biggest critic of the 1990s, as well as one of his best partners as far as the legislation they were able to pass together in that divided government and continually bashed the President as being immoral for his sex scandals especially the Lewinsky scandal, gets caught having an affair with his secretary while he was married to another women. Newt Gingrich winning the title of Hypocrite in-chief. The closest he would ever come to being President.

America goes through all these scandals, the Christian-Right in America which has had more of their own share of sex scandals and other scandals in America (Jim Bakker, Jim Swaggart, etc) and yet they reach their highest point in America as far as political power and having a veto voice inside the Republican Party as far as where they have to be politically and get to decide its presidential nominees.

The Republican Party wins complete control of Congress of 1994 winning back the House for the first time since 1953 which they would hold onto until 2007 and win back the Senate in 1994 that they would hold onto until 2001. Plus the GOP would hold at least 30 governorships and a majority of state legislatures in the mid and late 1990s and would hold all of that power other than losing the Senate in 2001 and win back the presidency in 2001, until the late 2000s when Democrats finally won back the House and Senate in 2006.

With all of this political power moving to the Right and even Far-Right in the 1990s, Americans as a people and I believe with Generation X completely coming of age in the 1990s being a big factor of this, we essentially decided as a country, so what! So what if free adults have consensual affairs with people other than their spouses. Thats a matter between them and their families. Not something that should be decided by government certainly and shouldn't cost people their jobs even in public office simply because they are disloyal spouses.

I believe the 1990s gave rise to gay rights movement of the 2000s, and movements that opposed the War on Drugs, privacy thanks to the War on Terror in the 2000s, becoming a big issue and concern with the belief that government was becoming big government in our personal lives. The Culture War was ending in the 1990s because of everything that we went through as a country and people being able to see all of these individual scandals that in the 1950s would have ruined most Americans if those scandals were made public and in many cases people would have faced serious legal consequences for them even if they were private and consensual.

Americans saw these scandals and saw a lot of people behaving badly and irresponsibly, but deciding that those affairs aren't mind and people weren't getting hurt physically, financially, or being falsely libeled because of what someone did to them, this is not something that I should be personally concern with. And just let the people who were affected by this personal behavior decide for themselves what and if should be done about it. Instead of big government stepping in.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Bill Ayers: Notes On Violence

Source: Democracy Now-
Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat Plus

If you look at leftist social-democratic and counter-cultural movements from the 1960s and today, you have three different movements on the Left in America.

The Martin L. King civil rights and then later People’s Campaign from the 1960s. That I believe is now represented by the Bernie Sanders/Jill Stein Democratic Socialists of America.

The Hippie counter culture movement who were by enlarge peace loving people who were taking on the establishment culturally and looking for a new way of life in America and didn’t feel the need to live the way their parents and grandparents lived. But weren’t looking to destroy the American system and force every American to live their way of life.

And then you have the radicals who feel it was their duty to not just to try to take on the establishment, but to tear down by any means necessary. (To quote Minister Malcolm X) But the New-Left radicals of the 1960s and their kids and grandkids from today have a different meaning of by any means necessary. Malcolm X was talking about taking on racists even though violent means, but only in self-defense and not go looking for violent confrontations. The New-Left radicals meaning of by any means necessary is not only use violence to confront violence, but use violence to obtain their political objectives. Which means for them taking on right-wing racists and other bigots and taking on our capitalist system and the people who control it. Corporate America and others.

Dr. Martin King was not just a Socialist, but also a pacifist. The Weather Underground and other New-Left radical groups of the 1960s and 1970s were not just Socialists, but in many cases were Communists. One of the reasons why they opposed the Vietnam War was because America was not just involved in another country’s civil war, but was fighting communism in Vietnam.

And today The Weather Underground has become was is called ANTIFA which is short for anti-fascists. People who oppose what’s called white supremacy. Groups like the KKK and Neo-Nazis who want to America to separate and create a new Protestant European nation inside of America. And of course there are terrorists in this Far-Right movement who would murder non-European-Protestant Americans. Including Jews who racially are the same, but differ ethnically and religiously from English and German Protestants in America and Europe.

And ANTIFA sees it as their duty to not just take on these Far-Right fascist groups and protest against them and use their free speech rights to take them on, but to destroy them. Again by any means necessary. They call themselves antifascists, but they’re not, because they would use fascism to not just cut off, but destroy movements they disagree with like the Far-Right and others.
Democracy Now: ANTIFA- A Look At The Antifascist Movement

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Classic Film and TV Cafe: A Fever in The Blood (1961)

Source:Classic Film & TV Cafe- Angie Dickinson & Efrem Zimbalist.
Source:The Daily Review

"As a fan of courtroom dramas and films about political intrigue, I was particularly pleased to discover A Fever in the Blood on Warner Archive's streaming service. Co-written by Roy Huggins (Maverick, The Fugitive), this 1961 feature examines the impact of a sensationalistic murder trial on a gubernatorial race. Thus, we get all the usual courtroom theatrics, plus behind-the-scenes political machinations."


"Angie Dickinson, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., and Don Ameche star in this intriguing mix of politics and courtroom drama. Ameche is a senator, Zimbalist a judge, and Jack Kelly an ambitious D.A.--and they all want to secure their party's nomination for governor."

Source:Classic Film & TV Cafe- Angie Dickinson


A Fever in The Blood is a picture of courtroom drama and political cinema, intrigue, and ambition. You have three powerful influential ambitious men who want to be the next governor of their state, which is never named in the movie. A sitting city judge, (played by Efrem Zimbalist) a district attorney, (played by Jack Kelly) and a sitting U.S. Senator. (Played by Don Ameche) And while all of this is going on you have high profile murder case involving a successful local businessman and his separated dead wife. With the husband being accused of the crime.

And you also have the adorable, gorgeous, and sexy Angie Dickinson, who has a smaller but very important character in the movie as the wife of Senator Alex Simon (played by Don Ameche) who is more interested in Judge Leland Hoffman (played by Efrem Zimbalist) and sees her husband as too power hungry and ambitious, as well as somewhat shady. I mean the cast and characters alone should get you interested in this movie. Unless you just hate courtroom dramas and fictional political films.

You have this local murder case in an unknown city with the District Attorney Dan Callahan (played by Jack Kelly) deciding to prosecute the case himself instead of assigning the case to one his top deputies. Because again Callahan wants to be governor of this mysterious state that will go nameless simply because it is never announced what state this movie takes place in. You have Judge Leland Hoffman who only gets this case assigned to him because he does his own wheeling and dealing ( I hate that expression) And Senator Alex Simon who is probably the favorite going into to win his unknown party's nomination for governor, but knows this murder case could be the boost that his top two opponents need to win the nomination. And actually ends up bribing Judge Hoffman in the Judge's office to let the case go.

There's a lot of backroom inside politics in this movie. That any great high profile drama has. The movie is also over two-hours but more than worth the time to watch it. Especially if you just like seeing Angie Dickinson in a great movie and she's had several. Not a movie for people simply looking for romantic comedies and softball humor. There's a good deal of humor in this movie, but a lot of that involves Don Ameche, as well as how Jack Kelly and Efrem Zimbalist in the courtroom. With the District Attorney accusing the Judge of ruling against him for political reasons. Great movie for political junkies such as myself but also for people who like courtroom dramas and even soap operas.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

TruthDig: Opinion- Chris Hedges: How ANTIFA Mirrors The Alt-Right

Source: TruthDig-
Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat 

Dr. Martin L. King has a lot of beautiful and famous quotes as most of us know. And he has this one quote on violence that goes like this. "Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets greater toughness. Returning violence for for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that."

Dr. King's point on this is that if you fight violence with violence even if you're doing for a good cause like trying to stamp out bigots from a community, you're only going to get more violence in return. That violence will come back at you. Especially if you're fighting back with violence against violent terrorists like Neo-Nazis on the so-called Alt-Right.

I'm not a pacifist myself unlike Dr. King and believe there are times when violence is the only credible and workable option. Like when you're under physical attack yourself. Sure, you could wait until someone comes to rescue you and argue that if you physically fight back yourself you'l just receive more physical punishment from your attacker. Or you could take a stand physically and defend yourself to prevent future damage against yourself and end the attack on yourself altogether. I believe most Americans would choose the latter on that question.

But what the so-called anti-fascist radically socialist and even anarchist group known as ANTIFA is doing is not physically defending themselves. What they're doing is taking on these Neo-Nazis with violence even when they're not under physical assault themselves. In the name of drowning out hate speech and racism. Even if that means cutting off the free speech of other Americans, which is what the Alt-Right are. Un-American as far as their racist and fascist politics, but just as American as people who treat people as people and don't judge others by their race, ethnicity or gender. Because they share the same American citizenship as the non-haters.

When you're talking about ANTIFA, you're not talking about peace loving hippie Socialists from the 1960s. The political movement that Senator Bernie Sanders the only self-described Socialist in Congress represents today. ANTIFA represents the Che Guevara wing of the socialist movement in the country and around the world. The Marxist-Socialist wing that believes to achieve the Socialist Utopia that Socialists want you have to use revolutionary means and that includes violence. And destroying the people who are in power and keeping the liberal capitalist and liberal order in place.

The Communist Republic of Cuba wasn't established through democratic means. But through civil war. The authoritarian Batista Regime in Cuba, against the Fidel Castro-Guevara revolutionaries that wanted to throw the Batista's out-of-power and then establish a Marxist State in Cuba which is what they eventually did. Whatever you think of Occupy Wall Street from 2011-12, they represented the Bernie Sanders peace loving hippie Socialists. And weren't Marxist revolutionaries. Unlike ANTIFA today that feels the need to fight capitalism and Neo-Nazism with violence.
Jamarl Thomas: How ANTIFA Mirrors The Alt-Right