Liberty is the answer. You have to convince Americans that they don't stand for simple freedom, they stand for motherfucking liberty; which accounts for all people, not one people or the other.

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness...

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This is remarkably similar to the shit the NFL is pulling here in Minneapolis where we were "awarded" the Super Bowl in 2018. From the local newspaper:

"Free police escorts for team owners, and 35,000 free parking spaces. Presidential suites at no cost in high-end hotels. Free billboards across the Twin Cities. Guarantees to receive all revenue from the game’s ticket sales — even a requirement for NFL-preferred ATMs at the stadium."

The NFL's secret (secret!) list of specifications runs to 153 pages.

Fuck pro sports and everyone involved.

Ugark first doubts the wisdom of bringing children to a peaceful protest inferring safety concerns maybe, and then show Mr. 'nice cop', 'for the children' cop, 'being taped and covered by media ' cop, with some lead-in to whatever clap-trap so predictable as to nauseate follows. No doubt, it's the 'bad cop' version of what cops are NOT supposed to be like. Fuck you.

All cops are felons, therefore.....What? They get a pass and the common-folk don't? Fuck you Cenk, and your alternative diatribe circle-jerk.

Sorry Timmy, they're are less 'good' cops than Lot and his old lady could find in the twin cities before they turned that bitch into salt!

Actually there are a lot of people that aren't "white" in Minnesota... well the Twin Cities area at least. If I'm not mistaken it has the largest population of Somali immigrants in the country. There's also a large Hmong and Hispanic community, as well as a large African American population. That said there's a lot of Scandinavians and Germans too.

As for the Carlson School of Mgmt... I can't stand that place. It's a school for taking spoiled little children that haven't worked a day in their lives and trains them to be the next generation of middle management, or worse, executives. Luckily the building is surrounded by the Arts Quarter, so at least they're outnumbered during their brief tenure at the U.

>> ^therealblankman:

Hey here's a question... are there any black people in Minnesota? If there are, apparently none of them go to this school.

douchebag:

n., adj. fr. "douche", fr. French, fr. Italian "doccia"

1. An object used for vaginal hygiene.
2. A student or instructor at the Carlson School of Management at the University
of Minnesota Twin Cities.
3. Andy Schlafly

1. A vaginal cleansing is simply incomplete without a proper douchebag.
2. Only a douchebag would consider accounting a tough class.
3. Andy Schlafly is a douchebag.

This is just what's been disclosed since September.
Politico:
"A review of similar records for the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee turned up no similar spending.

But all the spending by other candidates pales in comparison to the GOP outlay for the Alaska governor whose expensive, designer outfits have been the topic of fashion pages and magazines.

What hasn’t been apparent is where the clothes came from – her closet back in Wasilla or from the campaign coffers in Washington.
The answer can be found inside the RNC’s September monthly financial disclosure report under “itemized coordinated expenditures.”
It’s a report that typically records expenses for direct mail, telephone calls and advertising. Those expenses do show up, but the report also has a new category of spending: “campaign accessories.”

September payments were also made to Barney’s New York ($789.72) and Bloomingdale’s New York ($5,102.71).
Macy’s in Minneapolis, another store fortunate enough to be situated in the Twin Cities that hosted last summer’s Republican National Convention, received three separate payments totaling $9,447.71. The entries also show a few purchases at Pacifier, a top notch baby store, and Steiniauf & Stroller Inc., suggesting $295 was spent to accommodate the littlest Palin to join the campaign trail. An additional $4,902.45 was spent in early September at Atelier, a high-class shopping destination for men."

I think alot of Americans misunderstand the roots of the criticism.

I am not American, but I believe in the idea and ideals that lie behind America as a nation expressed through the Bill of rights, the Constitution and in the countless writings of the founding fathers who have tried to address almost every possible problem that might befall the nation, if only all their words were taught more thoroughly in schools rather in universities.

It's the fusion of many ideas of liberty and democracy, starting with perhaps with Rome, the Magna Carta in Britain right up to the French revolution and so on.

I criticize the US not from a blind hatred towards its foreign policy or corporate hegemony but because it is perhaps the strongest beacon of individualism and democracy that remains in our world, almost every nation regardless of its personal views strives to achieve what America allows for it's people, the idea that any man or woman can achieve progress through hard work, that they can influence the course of government, that they essentially have a voice. A fundamental idea that still has to take stronger roots elsewhere in the world, especially now with a rise of a new neo-despotic capitalism taking place in Russia and China.

This is not to say that America has perfected the idea or it's execution, no not at all but is has come close, but it has hit obstacles, corporate control has replaced population control and the vote of the people only because the people have slowly forgotten their civil liberties over the liberties of the dollar and the corporate sector.

In this way America sets the standard for the rest of the world, this is why seeing the War on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan was so heart breaking because the thinking goes if America can do it... so can any one else, the moral high ground of being against torture has been lost. That's why the criticism is so harsh, the world wants America to be better, in fact it wants it to be the best. I think its like that perhaps to the wide spread of it's culture, the fact that its in reality the representation of many populations of the world coming together.

This is my personal belief. I think developed from reading these words for the first time when I was younger.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883

"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), written in 1883 and, in 1903, engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the Statue of Liberty.

These words, that essential idea is something all Americans need to remember. There is such richness of ideas in American political and constitutional history with regards to liberity, that really makes me happy inside. Like reading about liberty for someone who has known only the shackles of jail all their life.

Go Twin Cities!!!!