Always the free-thinker bob... you've even started adopting his mannerisms.

Give yourself just a moment of self-reflection and ask yourself what that says about you Bob... that you are already talking like him.

Who knows you might enjoy thinking for yourself... Bigly.

did you just advocate indoctrination and brainwashing of children?
trading religious doctrine for secular doctrine?
while one may be more attractive to you than the other..it is STILL:brainwashing and indoctrination!

how about we step away from those practices and instead actually teach children how to utilize information in a positive fashion.give them the techniques to analyze,criticize and formulate their own conclusions?

you know...
the ability to be a free thinker.
how about that?
can we do that?
i think thats a much better idea.

/drops mic
*christ on a stick..brainwashing kids..........cant be serious.....

Yes...because if we don't agree with the angry anti-Obama right wing BS we MUST by definition be brain dead leftists wishing we had an American Che' to take us into socialism.
I am so sick of that insanity, born from 'if you're not with us you're against us' mentality fostered by the right and clearly stated repeatedly by their leaders. Because many free thinkers see the right spouting BS and vitriol constantly and call it out does not make them leftists as you would like to claim.
That's a simple minded ploy to allow one to ignore any descent from a narrow minded argument that can't stand up to real scrutiny. At least, that's how it looks from here.

@VoodooV
dont be too harsh on our boy @blankfist at least he has us talking about some pretty important issues.

if we do not discuss the hard issues and deal with truths and only hold onto our own biased ideology,then nothing gets accomplished.

i do not subscribe to blankies capitalistic unrestricted free market position.
i have been learning much about the free market and it does have some substantial strengths in many regards.

the problems arise,in my opinion,in regards to societal responsibility.
unrestricted capitalism makes everything a commodity.
and some things should NEVER be considered a commodity.

so i am against the privatization of schools and commodifying children.
and for those of you who wish to berate me for my position allow me to point to our current prison system:prisoners=commodity

now by me saying this does NOT automatically mean i am in support of our current education system.
i am not.

the system we have now is a bloated and stagnating beast which does little to educate and everything to indocrinate and create obedient workers.

and who is blamed for all this?
the teachers!
of course!
bind their hands,gag their mouths,stifle their creativity and crush their imagination.

and THEN turn around and say "there...theres your problem.the teachers".

so @ blankfist is not entirely off the mark when he infers or implies that it is government that is at fault.

because they are.

the real question is why?
now i am wading into postulation waters here but this is what i suspect.
1.the american government nor corporations wish to have a truly educated and informed citizenry with critical thinking skills and the ability to consume data and form rational conclusions.
people with those abilities will always challenge power.

they would rather have a docile and submissive public that does not question authority.
best get em while they are young.

so it doesnt matter if the schools are privatized or publicly funded.
they BOTH seek the same results and will BOTH be/are equally corrupt.

and most likely BOTH will blame the teachers for a perceived failure.

because BOTH will ignore,either knowingly or unknowingly,the systematic failure of HOW they teach children.

no longer is art taught.
nor civics (at least not where i live),
nor the humanities.
they are teaching these kids to be systems managers,not free-thinkers.

i believe that education all the way up and through to higher education should be a public responsibility.the investment will pay dividends greater than anything put IN to the system.
i am not going to list them all,just think about what a well educated citizen can bring to table.
see:finland

because at its heart,its essence,is not society a collective practice in community?
there are some things that should never be socialized.
education is not one of them.

money is not the problem.
teachers are not the problem.
its the SYSTEM and how it teaches,that is the problem.

remove the politicians and the special interest from the equation and allow the actual educators to do their jobs.

instead we have turned teachers into baby-sitters and schools into factories of the banal.

what a disgrace.

No, you are wrong.
Simply Put: Exploitation of its workers

Wal-Mart has a proven track record of doing the absolute minimum for it's workers in all cases.
The insurance they offer is a joke. Almost every employee is part time so they don't have to pay benefits. If you miss a shift because you need to work two jobs to get by, they cut your hours down to almost none.

http://www.amazon.ca/How-Walmart-Destroying-America-World/dp/1580086683
http://videosift.com/video/Confessions-of-a-Wal-Mart-Hit-Man
http://videosift.com/video/Mother-of-Dead-Soldier-Sued-by-Wal-Mart-for-Insurance-Money

There is nothing wrong with Capitalism as a model as long as you compensate your workers and reward them fairly for going above and beyond. If the system is designed to squeeze every possible dollar out of the system at the expense of your workers then that system is flawed and exploitative..

>> ^My_design:

Wow, the "free thinkers" lash out.
Not a corporate shill, but work in a corporate environment. Not saying that corporate actions are always right, but you guys only ever want to tear down, and never propose how to fix it. Your own hatred blinds you to reality.
So F_ck Walmart, F_ck Target, F_ck Coke and Pepsi and all the other companies that make "ridiculous" profits at the expense of consumers and employees. Stop buying their crap, form a commune and move to the hills. Consumerism and free market are screwing up the country/planet right? So let's seize corporate profits, block them at every angle and get us back to the good old days, you know before Carnegie, Ford, JP Morgan, and Rockefeller. Hell before Edison while we're at it. Oh wait there has always been corporations doing business in the US. Oh well, enjoy your new life with the Amish.
No options for jobs?
Here's a 160 pages of options just for the 50 miles around Chicago:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobResults.aspx?lr=cbcb_ct&siteid=cb_ctnpqsb&use=all&s_rawword
s=Chicago&s_freeloc=Il&s_jobtypes=ALL&uJobsF
oundCount2%3Ajlrd=50&Submit=GO
There are always options. We tend to forget that just 50 years ago people were subsistence farming, living with 3 generations in a household, working 2 jobs, and no health insurance. Hell in some places that is still going on. But now we complain and strike because the manager bullies us and causes unnecessary stress (0:22) If that is really the case, then document it. It is called contributing to a hostile work environment and is covered under the sexual harassment laws in the US.
"Because I'm tired of working at a company where workers get cheated and cheaters get rewarded" What? Umm that would be a class action lawsuit like the ones that hit Walmart in the past.

>> ^My_design:

Wow, the "free thinkers" lash out.
Not a corporate shill, but work in a corporate environment. Not saying that corporate actions are always right, but you guys only ever want to tear down, and never propose how to fix it. Your own hatred blinds you to reality.
So F_ck Walmart, F_ck Target, F_ck Coke and Pepsi and all the other companies that make "ridiculous" profits at the expense of consumers and employees. Stop buying their crap, form a commune and move to the hills. Consumerism and free market are screwing up the country/planet right? So let's seize corporate profits, block them at every angle and get us back to the good old days, you know before Carnegie, Ford, JP Morgan, and Rockefeller. Hell before Edison while we're at it. Oh wait there has always been corporations doing business in the US. Oh well, enjoy your new life with the Amish.
No options for jobs?
Here's a 160 pages of options just for the 50 miles around Chicago:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobResults.aspx?lr=cbcb_ct&siteid=cb_ctnpqsb&use=all&s_rawword
s=Chicago&s_freeloc=Il&s_jobtypes=ALL&uJobsF
oundCount2%3Ajlrd=50&Submit=GO
There are always options. We tend to forget that just 50 years ago people were subsistence farming, living with 3 generations in a household, working 2 jobs, and no health insurance. Hell in some places that is still going on. But now we complain and strike because the manager bullies us and causes unnecessary stress (0:22) If that is really the case, then document it. It is called contributing to a hostile work environment and is covered under the sexual harassment laws in the US.
"Because I'm tired of working at a company where workers get cheated and cheaters get rewarded" What? Umm that would be a class action lawsuit like the ones that hit Walmart in the past.


For me it's much simpler. Requires very little thinking through, this hatred for all that Walmmart represents. The worst form of mega-corporate usurping of the individual, of regional infrastructure, local architecture....Walmart has killed the souls of so many small towns and has done it through a systematic cheapening of goods and services. The hydra is self-perpetuating with your help....One of her strongest tentacles is this inbred bitch's legal department working tirelessly to maintain the machine's tactics and contempt for the people who have bought their line and their sub-standard goods from a country that has gone from a fundamentally repressive government with the largest population of any country to one, massive sweatshop PLANETOID of human wage-slaves.

People have been groomed for accepting quantity over quality, convenience over consciousness.
Apologies for the harsh words, glad to hear you have nothing to do with this particular beast-I fucked Coke, Pepsi, Target, etc. years ago...Don't frequent any chain restaurants or purchase new cars either. Shop at thrift stores for clothing and order consumer goods online through "ma and pa" internet businesses.
From America, in America, but not OF America.

Wow, the "free thinkers" lash out.
Not a corporate shill, but work in a corporate environment. Not saying that corporate actions are always right, but you guys only ever want to tear down, and never propose how to fix it. Your own hatred blinds you to reality.
So F_ck Walmart, F_ck Target, F_ck Coke and Pepsi and all the other companies that make "ridiculous" profits at the expense of consumers and employees. Stop buying their crap, form a commune and move to the hills. Consumerism and free market are screwing up the country/planet right? So let's seize corporate profits, block them at every angle and get us back to the good old days, you know before Carnegie, Ford, JP Morgan, and Rockefeller. Hell before Edison while we're at it. Oh wait there has always been corporations doing business in the US. Oh well, enjoy your new life with the Amish.

No options for jobs?
Here's a 160 pages of options just for the 50 miles around Chicago:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobResults.aspx?lr=cbcb_ct&siteid=cb_ctnpqsb&use=all&s_rawwords=Chicago&s_freeloc=Il&s_jobtypes=ALL&uJobsF
oundCount2%3Ajlrd=50&Submit=GO
There are always options. We tend to forget that just 50 years ago people were subsistence farming, living with 3 generations in a household, working 2 jobs, and no health insurance. Hell in some places that is still going on. But now we complain and strike because the manager bullies us and causes unnecessary stress (0:22) If that is really the case, then document it. It is called contributing to a hostile work environment and is covered under the sexual harassment laws in the US.

"Because I'm tired of working at a company where workers get cheated and cheaters get rewarded" What? Umm that would be a class action lawsuit like the ones that hit Walmart in the past.

>> ^lantern53:

Well...Chomsky is a free-thinker, that's for sure. But he endorsed Jill Stein, the green party candidate. Jill Stein is one of the goofier candidates around, but check her out on youtube yourself.


I just read through the position that Jill Stein takes on the issues. Not only is it the most sane and democratic approach I've seen, it's also the most comprehensive list explaining what to do. If Obama or Romney were honest and tried to put out a list this good, they'd never get elected because we'd know what they were actually going to do.

Jill will never get elected either, but if you gave her half a billion dollars I'll bet she'd get elected because she addresses a lot of issues the way most americans would support, if they were educated on the subjects.

Title is misleading. At no point does he explicitly say "vote for Obama". Like lantern53 says above, Chomsky is a free thinker, if anything, in this sound bite he encourages you be the same.

Well...Chomsky is a free-thinker, that's for sure. But he endorsed Jill Stein, the green party candidate. Jill Stein is one of the goofier candidates around, but check her out on youtube yourself.

>> ^Enzoblue:

Please please please forgive me, but if Jillette has never smoked pot or drank iIN HIS LIFE... I just can't trust that constitution. I don't know what to say, do I think less of him? Do I distrust his motivations? Seems to me that any human who has never jumped off the wagon just to see what happens next can't relate to me, or pretty much most of the free thinkers I do relate to.

Would he have to suck a dick before you could trust his position on gay marriage? He's on the correct side of the issue, afaic. Why does he need any different motivation than simply recognizing that there are hundreds of thousands of people sitting in prison for a victimless, non-violent "crime"? He can't be outraged unless he's smoked pot?

LaClair deserves a medal (perhaps he is the new Hitch, we need one). He stands as an inspiration to those who want, but are to afraid, to speak out against insidious, religious, indoctrination. Believe in whatever bronze age myth you choose, but keep it out of school and politics (imagine Romney, a follower of LDS, as president), and allow rational free thinkers to get on with life in the real world.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^Enzoblue:
Please please please forgive me, but if Jillette has never smoked pot or drank iIN HIS LIFE... I just can't trust that constitution. I don't know what to say, do I think less of him? Do I distrust his motivations? Seems to me that any human who has never jumped off the wagon just to see what happens next can't relate to me, or pretty much most of the free thinkers I do relate to.

I hear ya.
I also don't know how to relate to that.
Not even a sip of wine? Did he always feel superior? Or, just his own fear?


That is such a weird stance to take. What is it about drugs and alcohol that is so integral to your experience that you don't know how to relate to a person that's never tried it? I drink, but there's nothing magical about alcohol. I'd be the exact same person if I'd never had any.

Do you feel the same way about other people that have never tried other experiences? Have never eaten beetles or fermented fish or rotten soybeans or killed a man or surfed on the north shore or climbed a mountain?

You've never climbed a Russian bridge and stood on the rails? Did you always feel superior?

>> ^Enzoblue:

Please please please forgive me, but if Jillette has never smoked pot or drank iIN HIS LIFE... I just can't trust that constitution. I don't know what to say, do I think less of him? Do I distrust his motivations? Seems to me that any human who has never jumped off the wagon just to see what happens next can't relate to me, or pretty much most of the free thinkers I do relate to.


I hear ya.

I also don't know how to relate to that.

Not even a sip of wine? Did he always feel superior? Or, just his own fear?

Please please please forgive me, but if Jillette has never smoked pot or drank iIN HIS LIFE... I just can't trust that constitution. I don't know what to say, do I think less of him? Do I distrust his motivations? Seems to me that any human who has never jumped off the wagon just to see what happens next can't relate to me, or pretty much most of the free thinkers I do relate to.