Doug's Views – Page 71 – Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist

November 21, 2011April 18, 2020

Beware Of The ‘Professional Left’ – It Will Eat Your Children

I found out tonight that the so-called “professional left” has the power to keep President Obama from being re-elected and those on the left who criticize the President, like me, are the enemy. It seems that there are some on the left that wish there was a propaganda machine like we see with the GOP/Fox “news” nexus. Such a wish is wrong and won’t help in President Obama’s re-election. Criticism, when based on facts, isn’t an enemy if we want to hold our elected officials accountable. I think only being a cheerleader is not being a complete and productive citizen of this country.

I was flitting around on Twitter tonight and as usual some tweets came up complaining about how members of the so-called “professional left” are mucking things up for President Obama. Here is a tweet that perked my ears up.

November 14, 2011April 18, 2020

FOX Lies About Occupy Protests

On FOX “news” Sunday, the panel decided that the Occupy movement was un-American and maybe even Marxist but during the Tea Party protests FOX “news” fell over itself to promote them. There is no difference between the Occupy movement and the Tea Party protests – in that they both were an exercise of their right to protest for what they believe in. To say one is “un-American” and the other isn’t betrays FOX’s bias toward the 1%.

November 12, 2011April 18, 2020

Michael Shermer’s Skepticism Missing In Giving Praise Of David Brooks

Michael Shermer is founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine “Skeptic”. He is a BIG NAME in the freethought community and is well known for debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. Shermer has been an advocate of Scientific skepticism – questioning the veracity of claims using the scientific method – except it seems for his own political views. Recently Shermer wrote a series of tweets praising an OpEd by David Brooks that complained about the Occupy movement. He (and Brooks) totally missed the point.

The first tweet shocked me because I really didn’t know that much about Shermer’s political views:

November 11, 2011April 18, 2020

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow…

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 the guns fell silent across the Western Front in Europe. That’s why we mark November 11th as Veteran’s Day to honor not only our war dead (like my father, pictured on the right) but to celebrate the living men and women who put themselves in harms way. Raise a glass to honor and thank them all and hope, one day, no other sons and daughters, moms or dads, or brothers and sisters have to go to war. Here’s a classic poem about war titled “In Flanders Fields”:

November 10, 2011April 18, 2020

The Firing Of Joe Paterno Was A Business Decision

Penn State University has a mess on its hands and many heads rolled as a result – as they should have – but many people on the Internet either falsely claimed that Coach Joe Paterno was accused of molesting the children or that his lack of action upon finding out made him as guilty as the former staff member who is actually accused. Make no mistake, Paterno was fired on Wednesday so the school could protect their brand and get ahead of the massive negative story.

Child abuse, especially of a sexual nature, is, as it should be, a heinous crime. People tend to lose their mind when it becomes public. The downside of that freak out is that due process and the concept of “innocent until proved guilty” seems to fly out the window. Incidents that become news explodes all over the people involved and indirectly seeps down to people not directly involved.