Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead becomes Give Them A Shoutout Before Andrew Ridgeley’s Dead this time around. It’s the Wham! song titled Freedom.
Category Archives: opinion
THE HISTORY OF TIME TRAVEL (2014)
THE HISTORY OF TIME TRAVEL (2014) – This is not a bad movie, it’s simply a weird movie and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s a low-budget affair done as a faux documentary and since those have been done to death this film has not gotten the kind of attention it deserves.
Writer and director Ricky Kennedy has managed to combine the fake documentary approach with well-established time travel motifs to tell a story that is so touching I was literally in tears at the end. I’m not going Kevin “The Kryer” Smith on you readers, I’m just saying that if you pay attention to the tale unfolding in this enjoyable but challenging movie you can’t help but feel very moved.
The emotional impact has caused me to elevate The History of Time Travel above my previous favorite time travel film, Primer. Just like Primer, this Ricky Kennedy creation requires a viewer’s full attention to be appreciated. If you’re not in the mood to devote as much focus to THOTT as you would to reading a book then save it for a time when you ARE in such a mood.
The movie begins as a seemingly straightforward documentary about a scientist who pioneered actual time travel but that’s just the narrative device for examining the way time travel would enable changes to “history” without the larger world even being aware of what changes have been made. And yes, I know plenty of time travel stories have addressed such issues but THOTT combines it with a powerful emotional punch that sets it apart. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, opinion
POLITICAL CARTOON ROUNDUP: MAY 13th
First off another look at the delusional fascist Stacey Abrams, who is still playing the Democrats’ irrational game of refusing to accept election results … unless a Democrat wins. Abrams is part imbecile and part Hillary.
And here’s a nice reminder that de facto Third Party President Donald Trump – the new FDR and new JFK – has many leadership qualities that the weak, inept and crooked little man named Barack Obama lacked.
This next one nicely points out how Obama’s politicization of the FBI, NSA and CIA far surpassed the abuses of even the worst presidential administrations of the past. Obama’s scumbags made even the Watergate crooks look almost honest by comparison.
A look at Democrat hypocrisy, one of the constants in life. (Biden the criminal and Bernie the sellout.)
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
PUCK: ROBBER BARONS THEN AND SILICON VALLEY ROBBER BARONS NOW
Puck magazine (1871-1918), the well-known political humor magazine, was at its height under original founder and creative director cartoonist Joseph Keppler. Here is a February 23rd, 1881 Keppler political cartoon depicting Jay Gould, the telegraph monopolist, and Cornelius Vanderbilt the railroad baron.
The point of the cartoon is the way those two Robber Barons – allied with like-minded newspaper tycoons whose papers were represented by the bonds around Uncle Sam’s arms and torso – abused their wealth and political influence to bind the United States (represented here by Uncle Sam) to their will.
Joseph Keppler was outraged at the power so unethically wielded by such figures to cloak themselves in righteous, philanthropic public images while in reality they – in Keppler’s words – clutched “the United States and all its institutions by the throat.”
This is similar to the way the Silicon Valley and Social Media Robber Barons of today cloak themselves in “socially conscious” public images while in reality clutching the United States and all its institutions by the throat.
The Robber Barons criticized by Puck magazine exerted their ugly influence on behalf of right-wing politicians. The Robber Barons of the 21st Century tend to exert their ugly influence on behalf of left-wing politicians. The end results are equally totalitarian. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion, Puck Magazine
TECHNO-FASCISTS OF SILICON VALLEY STRIKE AGAIN
Privileged white one-percenter and capitalist scumbag Jack Dorsey of Twitter (right) is just one of the Techno-Tyrants or Techno-Fascists who have been abusing their influence to the degree where breaking up their monopolies or suing them for being publishers and not platforms are two options that keep getting discussed … and with good reason.
For right now here’s an appropriate rerun of my 2018 blog post DYSTOPIA NATION: TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY –
THE TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY – The modern-day versions of the disgusting old Robber Barons might well be the corporate fascists aka techno-fascists in assorted tech industries, not just regarding Silicon Valley but also privacy-violating rich pigs at Facebook and elsewhere.
In fact, you could make the case that people like Mark “Skippy” Zuckerberg and his fellow corporate fascists are even worse since I don’t recall bloated rich pigs like E.H. Harriman or Cornelius Vanderbilt trying to police other people’s every thought, word and deed. The invasive and ever-expanding tentacular reach of techno-fascists or in this fictional case Techno-Tyrants would make these villains a very credible threat to political freedom and freedom of expression.
In recent years outfits like Twitter, Facebook and others even made public noises about banning customers based on their conduct UNRELATED TO THOSE UTILITIES! Can you imagine the old, old Ma Bell monopoly cutting off people’s phone service because their operators caught those users discussing voting for political candidates disapproved of by Ma Bell’s upper echelons or expressing opinions frowned upon by Ma Bell?
Even worse, places like Google and others have made it firing offenses to be caught holding opinions at odds with the one percenters and bloated rich pigs who run those tech-related outfits. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion
DEMOCRAT ATROCITY ROUNDUP: STACEY ABRAMS EDITION
Democrat Stacey Abrams is still denying that she lost her failed campaign to become governor of Georgia in 2018. She insists she won it.
Yes, just like career criminal Hillary “Fake Charity” Clinton, ANOTHER Democrat – the party which pretends President Trump will be as destructively fascistic as they are if he loses his reelection bid in 2020 – has blatantly defied election results.
In fact, Abrams blatantly said that Democrats “don’t have to concede anymore” (see below). She claimed that since “the system” is “unfair” then election results under an unfair system don’t need to be honored. Except, apparently, when Democrats win. Seriously, it’s ridiculous how Democrat fascists can support Abrams’ remarks (silence IS consent, Democrats are forever sniveling) yet claim it will be horrible if President Trump behaves the same way.
TWO DEMOCRAT FASCISTS WHO REJECT THE ELECTORAL PROCESS.
So, Stacey and your fellow Democrat fascists, how about when Republicans of Color lose elections? Is that, too, just a sign of an unfair system? Should THOSE election results be disregarded, too? If prominent Democrat Party members like Abrams – who is often touted as a potential Vice Presidential candidate in 2020 – publicly endorse the notion that election results don’t need to be accepted then that’s an open invitation to violence.
And by the way, DON’T BLAME THIS ON ABRAMS’ RACE. Plenty of Candidates of Color who are Republicans are mature and accept election results. IT IS STACEY ABRAMS’ STATUS AS A DEMOCRAT THAT MAKES HER ENDORSE THE FASCIST NOTION OF IGNORING ELECTION RESULTS.
PEOPLE CANNOT HELP WHAT THEIR SKIN COLOR IS, BUT THEY CAN HELP WHAT POLITICAL PARTY THEY BELONG TO. MAKING THE CONSCIOUS DECISION TO BELONG TO THE PARTY OF THE KU KLUX KLAN, SLAVERY, JIM CROW, THE TRAIL OF TEARS, THE JAPANESE INTERNMENT, THE REJECTION OF ELECTION RESULTS, ETC SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT A PERSON’S NATURE.
#WALKAWAY FROM THE DEMOCRATS AND BECOME AN INDEPENDENT VOTER LIKE SO MANY OF US FORMER DEMOCRATS HAVE. The Democrat Party is too disgusting to be associated with. It’s a home now for fascists like Stacey Abrams and anti-Semitic hatemongers like Ilhan Omar.
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
NICK GILDER: HOT CHILD IN THE CITY
Balladeer’s Blog’s feature Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead is back with Nick Gelded Gilder and his Wide World of High-Pitched Voices hit Hot Child in the City. I was tempted to start a new category titled I Always Thought That Was A Woman Singing That but decided against it.
EVEN TWO CNN REPORTERS ADMIT JOE BIDEN IS LYING ABOUT TRUMP’S “FINE PEOPLE” REMARK
When even some reporters at the Democrat media outlet CNN realize that the lies Democrats tell about President Trump’s Charlottesville remarks have been exposed you’d think Joe Biden would know better than to try peddling them.
Or maybe not. The reason so many of us former Democrats decided to #WALKAWAY is because being a Democrat now means lying on a daily basis.
At any rate CNN’s Jake Tapper and Steve Cortes called out the lies Biden was throwing around about President Trump’s remarks about Charlottesville last year. Trump NEVER called hatemongers like Nazis and Klansmen “fine people.” The “very fine people on both sides” remark clearly referred to there being fine people on both sides of the public debate regarding old war monuments and on what happened at Charlottesville.
Democrats and their media outlets have been trying to sell their lies about Trump’s remarks ever since then, with Crazy Joe Biden even perpetuating that lie when he joined 9,783 other Democrats in the presidential race.
Anyway, as even veteran Trump-hater Jake Tapper had to admit:
“Now, elsewhere in those remarks, Trump did condemn neo-Nazis and white supremacists. So he’s not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people.”
That rare moment of honesty from Tapper was good to see, but the way so many Democrats continue pushing that lie wins stronger support for Trump among his supporters and people on the fence. As the now-cliché goes about Democrats’ dishonest attacks on the President, “Do you want more Trump? Because THIS is how you get more Trump.”
Among the many sources where you can verify that President Trump clearly condemned the Neo-Nazis, Antifa Fascists and Neo-Klansmen and did NOT call them “fine people”: Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
TRANSGRESS WITH ME: MAY 3rd
Time for another edition of Balladeer’s Blog’s feature Transgress With Me:
Even the least attentive people are beginning to realize why America’s thuggish “Intelligence Agencies” like the CIA, NSA and FBI are so deservedly despised. They’re also beginning to notice the way that people who get elected to even the most junior positions in Congress wind up as multi-millionaires in just a few years. (Some of the more subtle crooks use their male or female spouses as their fronts, letting them acquire wealth via government contracts.)
De facto Third Party President Donald Trump has turned over the rock on the career criminals called the Democrat and Republican Parties. As an Independent Voter it is the experience of a lifetime to watch the way that Trump’s rocking of the crooked boat in the open-air cesspool of Washington DC has panicked both left-wing and right-wing crooks.
The behavior of our bought and paid-for elected officials has laid bare all of the corruption and malfeasance that we adults always suspected were there. The masks have been removed. Getting the outsider – Trump – and his supporters has become all that matters to the Swamp Creatures.
We’re living history but some people are so narrow-minded and so short-sighted that they’re letting their irrational hatred of one man prevent them from acknowledging the fact. It’s like the old saying “Some people feel the rain while others just get wet.”
Even if you’re someone who hates Donald Trump with a passion, you are just plain delusional if you can watch the dramas and gang warfare of the past few years and pretend that he is the worst of the bunch. Hell, I myself started out as a Hillary backer years ago (2008-2015) but her repulsive conduct and increasingly undeniable criminal behavior brought an end to that. It’s okay to admit you were mistaken.
A few years back I posted some political poses that even the most irrational anti-Trumpers can use if they absolutely cannot bear to say anything positive about President Trump. Here are some more:
Try saying “I hope they ALL go down in flames from both parties, not just Trump.”
Try saying “The others are every bit as disgusting as Trump. We need Third Parties.”
Try saying “Who would have thought Donald Trump would turn out to be the most honest crook in Washington?”
Try saying “At least Trump is not a career politician. The other crooks have been plundering the treasury their whole careers.”
If you’re from overseas we know you relish making snobbish comments about the U.S. so try saying “The Americans should never again sanctimoniously lecture any other country about Free Elections after the way the Obama Administration used the FBI, CIA and NSA to interfere in the 2016 campaign and afterward.”
… Or you folks from overseas could try saying “What does it say about the corruption of the American government when even Donald Trump looks honest compared to their career politicians?”
As always I offer those poses to you because I know many of you sheepishly rely on reflexively anti-Trump comments just because you think it’s the path of least conversational resistance. And who can blame you given the fascistic nature of the hardcore Trump-haters? Pro-Trump people tend to be polite and reasonable so it seems like the easier route to pretend you disagree with them whether you really do or not. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
BILLY IDOL: CRADLE OF LOVE
It’s another installment of Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead here at Balladeer’s Blog. This time around it’s Cradle of Love from Billy Idol.
Filed under opinion
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