David Sirota on horse's ass radio tonight

Montana media critic and political commentator David Sirota, known and loved by listeners to The Al Franken Show will join David Goldstein (KIRO Sundays 7-10p) tonight at 8p to discuss his new book, Hostile Takeover.
He'll be in Seattle, Thursday, July 27, at 7p to do a Town Hall speech, Q & A and book signing. For more information on the event, call Elliott Bay Books at 206-624-6600.

Comments

[joanie]

Oh cool! I highly respect David Sirota! He's a regular on Franken and I've read Hostile Takeover! "He's got a great blog!" I'll be listening for sure! What a coup, Goldy. You better have some good questions for this guy!

[Recife]

The Bill of No RightsWe, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some commonsense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other bed-wetters.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dumb that they require a Bill of No Rights.

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc., but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You don't have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and won't lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you'd like. However, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and a funny hat.

ARTICLE IX: You don't have the right to a job. All of us sure want all of you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE X: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to pursue happiness -- which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights."

[sparky]

Bla'M is gonna kick your ass all the way down the block.

[joanie]

Oh, if Goldy doesn't learn to talk without that sing-song voice, I'm gonna quit listening!

Also, he blew it with Sirota. He's gotta be more prepared. Sirota is a goldmine of well-documented information. Talk about the flat tax, social security, corporate greed . . . so many good subjects. I tried to call but he didn't repeat the phone number . . .I know, I shudda written it down at the beginning.

David's got to quit trying to lead the conversation . . . Sirota said it: we've got to hold these politicians (on the left) feet to the fire. Then Goldy goes off on a "save Cantwell" rant. . . to which Sirota tepidly agreed. What else could he do?

Now he's got another "yawn" conversation going with a libertarian who isn't . . . I'm totally confused by libertarians. They don't seem to know what they want or even who they are. Sorry Lukobe, that includes you.

David Goldstein needs to get some passion!

I'm just frustrated right now!

And Goldy, if you want to see racism and hate, go read your own blog.

[sparky]

Actually, you will find that in the COMMENTS section of his blog. What Goldy writes is not hateful or racist.

[The Anti KIRO]

I've given Goldy he's chance.

It's time for him to go. Sorry. But we need passion and hosts that are going to challenge guests...not just kiss their asses.

[joanie]

I agree, Sparky. Goldy allows that. He could change it.

AntiK - or expect his guests to support his line of liberalism. He needs to sharpen the dialogue a lot!

[sparky]

Well, Free Speech has its consequences. I think if he eliminated negative comments, he would just be criticized for sanitizing the dialog. The comments say a whole lot about the people who make them. Same as Blatherwatch, huh?

heheheh

[joanie]

Hmmm . . . I think he loses a lot of commenters because of the nature of his repeating posters. But, if you look at SLOG (The Stranger's blogJ) under politics, it is really the same.

Do you think TPM, Daily Kos and other more serious blogs censor?

[joanie]

Randi Rhodes has a powerful commentary going tonight. She often rants too much for me but tonight is very informative. She knows her stuff!

[KS]

Goldy's interview with Postman last Sunday night (7/16) was pretty good and revealing about both of them. However, I was not impressed with what I heard (~12 minutes) of him last night. How does Randi Rhodes feel about the Israel- Hezbollah encounter ? I'd be surprised if she didn't blame a significant part of it on Bush.

[sparky]

yes, Randi spends hours doing research.
I dont know about TPM, but Daily Kos lets the users decide. After you have been posting for awhile, ( it was over a year for me) you get something called "Trusted User Status." It allows you to use a "troll" button and people actually use it sparingly. But when someone becomes abusive all it takes is two troll ratings and the post is removed from sight of all those who dont have TU status, effectively erasing it from the view of most users.
Smirking Chimp has Board Nanny who sometimes locks threads or bounces people who get abusive.
On Thom Hartmann's chat room you can put people on ignore and you dont have to see what they are saying. That is the one I prefer..it lets people be free to say what they want but the rest of us dont have to read it...of course on here, you can just skip by people's posts, so its sort of the same thing...

[joanie]

This isn't Michael Crichton (by the way, did you look at Sparky's links?), "The Israeli invasion of Lebanon was planned between top Israeli officials and members of the Bush administration."

[sparky]

yes, Randi spends hours doing research.
I dont know about TPM, but Daily Kos lets the users decide. After you have been posting for awhile, ( it was over a year for me) you get something called "Trusted User Status." It allows you to use a "troll" button and people actually use it sparingly. But when someone becomes abusive all it takes is two troll ratings and the post is removed from sight of all those who dont have TU status, effectively erasing it from the view of most users.
Smirking Chimp has Board Nanny who sometimes locks threads or bounces people who get abusive.
On Thom Hartmann's chat room you can put people on ignore and you dont have to see what they are saying. That is the one I prefer..it lets people be free to say what they want but the rest of us dont have to read it...of course on here, you can just skip by people's posts, so its sort of the same thing...

[KS]

The bottom line is that Hezbollah (also Hamas) is an arm of Iran, whose mission is wipe Israel off the face of the map. These same people want to kill Americans because they defend Israel and are fighting on the other side in the war on terror, which is really the war on Islamofascism.

There should not be an intervention by Bush or the US. Better to let them fight it out - Israel will win by inflicting heavy losses on Hezbollah in Lebanon. It started when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. The real invasion by Hezbollah was planned by Iran to divert attention away from their development of nuclear weapons to arm the terrorist organizations that they harbor. Israel is fighting an enemy that uses innocent Lebanese as human shields and lobs missles into Haifa and other heavily populated areas of Israel near the Lebanon border.

That article from Global Research.ca is written with an anti-Israel slant which comes across as pro-Islamist and Zionist. Have any other press outlets covered this event ? So from this, are we to say that Israel is wrong & Hezbollah is right ?

Well, it plays into the assumption that Bush and Cheney are bad. Look at the big picture and consider the alternative, which in the eyes of sane people is way worse - Hezbollah and the Islamists are out to kill the infidel or convert you to Islam and subject you to 10th century style rule and suppress women's rights and human rights lest you pray five times daily to Allah.

[KS]

Should read pro-Islamist and anti-Zionist..

[joanie]

KS, not to dispute anything you say but . . . what's your source?

[joanie]

KS,
Here's another "conservative's view" on your guy, Bush, and his handling of foreign policy.

[KS]

Multiple sources - Orbusmax.com, worldpress.com, Time magazine, various talk radio sources and filtering out the objectivity from the subjectivity.

William F. Buckley is correct, even though he actually said Bush is a decisive leader - which I have a problem with - maybe in a few areas but not in most areas. A good leader is not woefully weak in PR like he really is. CBS was basically interested in accentuating the negative from a conservative.

With that said, he cites clear examples of why Bush is not a good conservative and an underlying message that he is not a good president. A good quote from an article read on the air by Michael Savage - "Bush reminds me of a Forrest Gump without the lucky breaks".

[joanie]

What! The "Decider" is indecisive? Give me a break! You are hopeless as well as Klueless. And full of contradictions: is it a matter of poor PR or is he operating on less than a full deck? (as implied in your Forest Gump reference)

[KS]

Let me clarify my point jumpin one.. Regarding the borders, Bush is indecisive (I really think he is sides with big business and those of the one world order, which is inconsistent and Forrest Gump-like)and IMO - a disgraced leader. Tony Snow and the rest of White House crew would deny that, but I don't believe it...

Before going into Iraq, he and the other cabinet members should have read about the Arab culture and history (they probably didn't even recollect books like; Arabian Nights and Ali Baba and his Forty thieves) - so they would have been less ignorant and clueless about what they were getting us into & needless to say, its too late now. This could have had a profound effect on recent history. However, they chose to be ignorant and invade like they did with an ineffectual plan. In summary;
Ineffectual plan in Iraq = indecisive.

One more example - his privitization of Social Security plan was poorly communicated and he dumped it - maybe because it was too much like a box of chocolates (sic), which also qualifies as indecisive.

[joanie]

He didn't dump social security . . . it came back in his budget.

You and Ron have the same logic teacher?