About

This blog started as a small project with a group of friends with differing political views and insights. We are not professional analysts or political scientists. We are real people sharing real views of what’s wrong or right with the way things are in America. This is still the greatest country on earth but it will only stay that way if we attack the cancer of apathy that runs rampant in the USA. Please comment to let us know your views, and share if you like what we are writing about.

20 Responses to About

  1. Jeff Poster says:
    December 9, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    Hi. Dean followed me earlier so I was hoping to get him to check out my book, “Reality Check.” It encompasses all of the principles of the Occupy Movement. And it includes the guidelines to The Initiative Movement.

    It’s available via sbpra.com/pivot but I’d love to send you the Word files.

    Thanks.

    Sincerely,

    Jeff Poster

    P.S. Here’s a recent review:

    “Reality Check” is a thought-provoking, unconventional work…examining how we’ve taken Mother Earth to the breaking point. This sometimes dark work, is also at the same time enlightening… filled with important insights into society’s imperfections. The author, going by the pen name of “Pivot”, examine’s
    America’s shortcomings in a disturbing account of corporate greed and human selfishness. The author contends that America has a penchant for a “long and violent abuse of power….The cause of America, in great measure, is the cause of all mankind.” (Paine)
    Offering a dismal portrait of American society, “Reality Check” has been penned as a “wake-up” call for all thoughtful inhabitants of planet Earth. Indeed, a gut-check for all those willing to think hard, the book speaks to the frailty of the human condition. Pivot contends that society is spinning out of control…. assails bad parenting…how we are failing the children. How, as trusted stewards of the planet, we have been negligent. How we allow the “prosperous few” to dominate and take advantage of the “restless many” (Chomsky). Filled with interesting quotes from A to Z…this book is different and unforgettable.
    If you’re looking for a light-hearted, quick read, then don’t buy “Reality Check.” On the other hand, if you can stomach a sometimes-bitter pill, “Reality Check” can be food for the soul. This eye-opening account exposes injustices rife in America today…contending we must come to grips with our problems, in order to find solutions!

    http://ronrambles.com/book-review-reality-check/

    P.P.S. Here are some excerpts:

    “Mr. Pivot,” said young Johnny Appleseed, “I think I understand what you’re saying. When people are ignorant and confused they make themselves scared; and vice versa; and so on. So now, us kids have to pay for all your fucked up shit. But there’s one thing that I still don’t get. I have an uncle who has a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend; the government says that they can’t get married and have the same rights as a couple of the opposite sex; plus, sometimes they get beat up because they can’t make babies. So, then, shouldn’t we be beating up old heterosexual couples, too?”
    “Well, Johnny, everyone gets scared when they see someone living a different lifestyle because it could mean that their own way isn’t as good, or could even possibly be wrong. But their fear would vanish if they understood that a different way of living isn’t necessarily better or worse, but just weird, uhm, I mean, different.”
    “But, Mr. Pivot,” queried some kid on the right side of the room, “why do you say that they should be allowed to get married and thus be entitled to all of the legal benefits that go along with that?”
    “I should ask you why you say that they should be denied that, especially in light of the fourteenth amendment which says that ‘No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.’ What is it exactly that you hope to accomplish or avoid with that denial, anyway? Perhaps if you could provide some rationale for that, then we could come to a meeting of the minds on this.”
    “Because it says in the Bible—”
    “According to the first amendment it is unconstitutional to base legislation on the Bible. The government can only maintain laws pertaining to citizens between each other, not between citizens and God.”
    “But, still, Mr. Pivot, you have to admit, it’s kind of disgusting behavior, ya know? Do you really think that society should formally condone such onerous behavior?”
    “Just because the government doesn’t prohibit something, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is condoning it. Besides, who are you or I to call it disgusting? ‘Disgusting’ is in the eye of the beholder. You may find some people’s styles of expressing love repulsive, or certain forms of entertainment infantile, crude, shocking and offensive, such as that Howard Stern fella, but, right or wrong, obnoxious or enlightening, people have a right to live according to their heart and conscience as long as they don’t undermine the happiness and long-term survival of others. Moreover, people have to make a living; and you can’t very well expect folks to voluntarily curtail less than noble standards as long as we’re living under the auspices of to-the-victor-goes-the-spoils/to-the-loser-goes-the-shaft capitalism.

    EXCERPT BREAK

    A current example of contention revolves around a Supreme Court ruling made in 1976 (Buckley vs. Valeo) in which the court struck down the limits on citizens’ expenditures towards politicians. They ruled that it would be an infringement on the first amendment to set such limits. But, by the very nature of what it means to achieve balance, it should be clear that a ruling that allows for unrestricted…expression must inherently be lopsided, and, therefore, not balanced, nor just. Because, again, by definition, balance requires restriction, or limitation. Yet Sean Parnell of the Center for Competitive Politics would have us believe that “Money enables free speech; and if you’re going to limit the ability of money to be spent to promote political speech, then you are necessarily limiting political speech.”
    Actually, Sean, since it is called FREE speech one doesn’t need any money for one’s speech to be enabled. Hence, if we are going to limit the amount of money that can be spent on political speech, it does not necessarily limit political speech. It merely limits the medium by which (every)one can express it. Because if you really think about it, the right to not have our speech abridged refers to the content of our speech, not the medium by which we express it. And, if you think about it a little more, since Bill Gates et al. have no political spending limits on their speech the amount of speech that I have IS necessarily limited, by comparison. Moreover, thanks to highly duplicitous Supreme Court rulings, the right of so-called corporate personhoods to invoke Constitutional protections has lead to corporations overriding the protections that individuals are supposed to have. For example, although pleading guilty to causing deaths due to fraudulent marketing, Pfizer pharmaceuticals merely had to pay a steep fine—but nobody in the decision-making process actually had to go to jail the way normal citizens do when held accountable for murder, ironically.

    EXCERPT BREAK

    I also pointed out that we need to examine where the line should be drawn between cost/profit and discretionary income; which you do by categorizing professions/salaries in a hierarchy of the most productive at the top, and the least productive at the bottom; a.k.a. prioritizing. For example, presently, C.E.O.s of major banks and insurance companies, and folks such as Wolf Blitzer and Matt Laur and Brian Williams and Drew Carey and Al Roker and Piers Morgan and Ryan Seacrest and Anderson Cooper and Glenn Fucking Beck and John Paulson and the Koch brothers are paid obscenely exorbitant salaries, yet their occupations add no actual value to the universe. Teachers, however, are obscenely underpaid, yet they’re the most valuable resource that a society has.
    To wit: “In 2009, the worst economic year for working people since the Great Depression, the top 25 hedge fund managers walked off with an average of $1 billion each. With the money those 25 people ‘earned,’ we could have hired 658,000 entry-level teachers. Those educators could have brought along over 13 million young people, assuming a class size of 20. That’s some value. …The wealthy will have placed an estimated $2 trillion into hedge funds by the end of this year.” Not to mention that in 2010 Goldman Sachs bankers received $15.3 billion in bonuses alone.

    “waste”: any human activity which absorbs resources, but creates no value ~Taiichi Ohno

    “What we want and what we need has been confused.” ~Michael Stipe

    “We can have a democratic society or we can have a great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.”
    ~Justice Louis Brandeis

    “Every empirical study of both historic and contemporary cultures finds that the ‘leisure time’ state of ‘freedom’ is enjoyed by only a very small class of people within the city/state: its economic and political rulers.
    ~from Thom Hartmann’s The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight

    “Free enterprise and the market economy mean war; socialism and planned economy mean peace. We must plan our civilization or we must perish.” ~Harold Laski

    “Capitalism….is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous—and it doesn’t deliver the goods.”
    ~John Maynard Keynes

    EXCERPT BREAK

    I’ll spare you any details from David C. Korten’s “devastating” book, When Corporations Rule the World. Suffice it to say, such a book exists. However, I can’t afford to leave out a portion of John Ralston Saul’s international bestseller The Unconscious Civilization, copyright 1995: “The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good. Corporatism is an ideology which claims rationality as its central quality. The overall effects on the individual are passivity and conformity in those areas which matter and non-conformism in those which don’t.
    “Economics as a prescriptive science is actually a minor area of speculative investigation. Econometrics, the statistical, narrow, unthinking, lower form of economics, is passive tinkering, less reliable and less useful than car mechanics. The only part of this domain which has some reliable utility is economic history, and it is being downgraded in most universities, even eliminated because, tied as it is to events, it is an unfortunate reminder of reality.
    “Over the last quarter-century economics has raised itself to the level of a scientific profession and more or less foisted a Nobel Prize in its own honor onto the Nobel committee thanks to annual financing from a bank. Yet, over the same 25 years, economics has been spectacularly unsuccessful in its attempt to apply its models and theories to the reality of our civilization. It’s not that the economists’ advice hasn’t been taken. It has, in great detail, with great reverence. And, in general, it has failed. [(“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.” –Alan Greenspan/FAILURE)]
    “A ‘profession’ implies both real parameters and professionals who bear some responsibility for the effects of their advice. If economists were doctors, they would, today, be mired in malpractice suits.
    “Many are surprised that this management elite continues to expand and prosper at a time when society as a whole is clearly blocked by a long-term economic crisis. There is no reason to be surprised. The reaction of sophisticated elites, when confronted by their own failure to lead society, is almost invariably the same.
    “To be precise: we live in a corporatist society with soft pretensions to democracy.
    “A simple test of our situation would involve examining the health of the public good. For example, there has never been so much money—actual money—disposable cash—in circulation as there is today. I am measuring this quantity both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis. Look at the growth of the banking industry and the even more explosive growth of the money markets.
    “There has never been so much disposable money, yet there is no money for the public good. In a democracy this would not be the case, because the society would be centered, by general agreement, on disinterest. In a corporatist system there is never any money for the public good because the society is reduced to the sum of the interests. It is therefore limited to measurable self-interest.
    “I would argue that confronting reality—no matter how negative and depressing the process—is the first step towards coming to terms with it.
    “[It is] my right as a citizen—my Socratic right—to criticize, to reject conformity, passivity and inevitability.
    “It is worth trying to do better.”

    To simplify: we’ve designed a system which allows inordinate amounts of wealth to be held in the private sector while the government is left with its hands tied to actually effect noticeable change because they’ve got hardly any money to pay for anything.
    The point: THE HOARDING OF WEALTH DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTES TO THE DECAY OF SOCIETY. Anyone with the slightest understanding of economics knows that the foremost rule to a healthy economy, society, is CIRCULATION. We all “know” this, yet those of you at the top 2 percent with all of the money and control seem to think that the rules of cause and effect don’t apply to you.
    But instant karma IS going to get you, eventually.

    “Property is theft. Nobody owns anything. When you die, it stays here. I read about these billionaires: Sam Walton, 20 billion; Daniel Ludwig, 15 billion. They’re both dead. They’re gone, and the money is still here. It wasn’t their money to begin with. Property is theft.”
    ~George Carlin

    “He who dies with the most toys still dies.”

    “During the fifty years preceding 1914 a host of brilliant, eloquent, and desperate artists sought to wake the ruling European bourgeoisie out of its deadly lethargy. The bourgeoisie did not at first believe it was lethargic, because it was so busy making money. ‘Making money is not heroic action!’ cried the artists. ‘Making money is boring you to death!’”
    ~Charles Van Doren

    “It was the end of the fifties, and most young people were disillusioned with what was called the Establishment. There seemed nothing to look forward to but affluence and more affluence. The Conservatives had just won their third election victory with the slogan, ‘You’ve never had it so good.’ I and most of my contemporaries were bored with life.”
    ~Stephen Hawking

    “They debated the NAFTA trade bill for a long time; should we sign it or not? Either way, the people get fucked. Trade always exists for the traders. Anytime you hear businessmen debating ‘which policy is better for America,’ don’t bend over.”
    ~George Carlin

    Reply
  2. tituswu says:
    January 4, 2013 at 10:41 pm

    You say that this website is made by people “with differing political views,” by I feel that most of the bloggers here are anti-Obama and conservative.

    Reply
  3. Lois says:
    January 9, 2013 at 1:57 pm

    There is a news report out that VP Biden noted that executive orders or actions might be used for gun control. I could not get email though to my senators but here is my message to them:

    “I had planned to take time to write and to send you a cogent letter but I just saw a news report that VP Biden said “The president is going to act. There are executives orders, there’s executive action that can be taken” when speaking about gun control, so I feel I have to write to you immediately.

    It is part of your responsibility as a member of congress to protect my constitutional rights. You swore an oath to do so. An executive order that infringes on a citizen’s right to own firearms, ammunition and accessories would be an unconstitutional order.

    Law abiding persons should have the same right to protect themselves and their families as members of congress and wealthier persons do. It was recently reported that some private schools have armed guards to protect students. Those of us in the “other” USA have to protect our own children. The federal government should lift whatever “regulation” created gun-free zones” around the schools in Maine and allow trained persons to undertake that effort. If you “take” guns from the law abiding, then only out-laws will have guns.

    I rely on you to use the checks and balances built into our government to protect citizens from emotionally charged regulation that is ill-considered and/or not properly debated in congress. I am appalled the President’s Office would be considering any executive order that imperils rights enumerated in the US constitution and guaranteed the Constitution of the State of Maine.”

    Reply
  4. David Stone says:
    January 15, 2013 at 12:21 pm

    Dean, Have you seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx9GxXYKx_8&sns=em
    Someone just sent it to me and I was shocked. Let me know what you think.

    Reply
  5. Mickey says:
    January 30, 2013 at 2:43 pm

    Dean, I subscribed to your letter a couple of weeks ago. I thank you for what you do. I also have newsletter that I send to many friends and I always encourage my readers, as you do, to do their homework. No one should ever take anothers word, but I have found what you write to be factual. May I suggest you read a short book by Jonathan Cahn called “The Harbinger”…it will explain alot of what is happening in our country, in a biblical point of view, you won’t be able to deny it. I was amazed. Then I watched a DVD called “Agenda: Grinding America Down”, this one affected me so badly, I have almost lost hope for our country. Anyone reading this should see Agenda… You will finally see the horror being perpetrated on our country, nothing happening in Washington is chance…it is all by design, and now I realize how evil our Gov’t is. I wish I could be more objective.

    Reply
  6. exmaninblues says:
    February 20, 2013 at 11:50 pm

    Dean, a friend of mine shared your article “Is It Time To Organize The Revolution?” I think in many ways you are right, our Government has moved decidedly toward authoritarianism. Republican, Democrat, whatever the flavor, the job of Washington is not getting done. Anyhow, like you I like to blog (exmainblues.wordpress.com). Anyhow, your story inspired me to write out a draft of a Declaration if you care to read it. It is a bit long, so email would probably be the best medium. Let me know.

    Reply
  7. Sue says:
    February 26, 2013 at 10:53 pm

    Dean – may I ask a personal question? Did you ever live in Huntington, Indiana?

    Reply
  8. Dave Dubé says:
    March 1, 2013 at 8:21 am

    Dean, I felt it best rather than share on FB, i would simply send this information to you in this manner. I’ve been reading a book entitled Shooting Blanks, by Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman.
    On page 107 an event is described which troubled me a bit, since I recognized the name. I have family in Seattle, and they watch TV. I don’t. I recalled something regarding him other than the ‘stolen’ Glock 9mm (I think he gave it away), but I found this while browsing: http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Mags/kerlikowske.htm I have no idea who Dave Kopel is or was. All I know is that Mr. Kerlikowske is a hypocrite, and should be exposed as one.

    Reply
  9. Robert Michael says:
    March 1, 2013 at 3:39 pm

    Greetings-

    I was sent an email re your Constitution and Guns article. I found it interesting, historically correct, and legally on point. I am a Free America patriot. I have been trying to educate America on the peril it faces. I began in 2007 with an online book titled Obama: A Risk Too Great To Take. America took the risk and reaped her rewards.

    In 2010 I wrote a book titled Executive Order One and the Bolshevik Papers explaining precisely where America has fallen, and our prospects for recovery.

    I am fully familiar with weapons and earned my living carrying one or more. I am a retired captain from the Los Angeles Police Department. I have studied, academically and practically, Russian and Soviet poliitical history for over 50 years. I understand street combat, I understand the excitement of rounds whizzing by the head, and I understand violent death. If you haven’t been there you can’t understand.

    I have several tenets I present to individuals and groups (Tea Party and wannabe militia… see LAPD Captain Michael on Youtube):

    1. We must identify who has taken Free America down;
    2. The venerable Karl Marx says Socialism is the first step OF Communism and not toward;
    3. Socialism is lower communism and the higher communism (the stateless and classless society) is higher communism;
    4. Bolshevism is not ideological, but tactical;
    5. It is not communism that is the threat, but rather Bolshevism;
    6. Communism first came to America in 1872 when the First Communist International was HQ’d in New York City and Philadelphia;
    7. The first communist party was founded in America in 1876…and still exists;
    8. Russian (Soviet to follow) communism was to follow nearly 30 years later in Russia than in the U.S.;
    9. Lenin was the face of Russian Bolshevism, but since Bolsheviks were democratic he was more often than not outvoted;
    10. American Bolsheviks became active in the late ’50s, early ’60s and the current face of American Bolshevism is Obama;
    11. A fire triangle needs fuel, oxygen, and ignition (spark). The communist fuel and oxygen have been here for over 140 years. The spark (the Bolsheviks) for over 50 years.
    12. Communists always saw the “glorious communist America” in a future lifetime and not necessarily theirs. Obama excitedly proclaimed after he received the Democratic nomination, ” We are the ones we have been waiting for.” That is, “We are the communists we communists have been waiting for.” In Baltimore he questioned if others thought him a Bolshevik.
    13. On January 27, 1838 before the Young Mden’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech titled The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions (Free America).I have pertinent portions on the back piece of my 817 page book. He said that, ” If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide (by our own hands).” He said the evil will be from among us and not from abroad. Lincoln said the destroyer will first try doing good, but if that fails he ‘…would set boldly to the task of pulling down (1829 Webster meaning destroying)”. Lincoln concludes by saying, “…the man possessed to its utmost stretch…will require the people to be united…to successfully frustrate his designs.”
    14. We are not, and cannot be united, and thus have lost (unless the American Bolsaheviks blink).
    15. A grand gun battle against American Bolshevism is a dream of young men lingering in the old. It is easy to talk about, but if you haven’t been there, you can’t imagine.
    16. The battle is not canon vs. canon and musket vs. musket. It is gunships, naplam, tanks, heat seeking vision. My county of 10,000 could be wiped out, i.e. men, women, and children, in a day.
    16. Who would have thought (not me, and I should have known) that today the Russians would call us Land of the Red…a communist country, and declare themselves to be free of Bolshevism.
    17. We are the new USSR, i.e. The United States Socialist Republic (the North American USSR).
    18. Free America is in a coma.
    19. Only God can ressurect us…and why should He?

    I respect your efforts, I fear my generation is the generation Ronald Reagan feared would let Free America down.

    Please let me know this was received as spamming declaration is an insidious way of cancelling emails.

    Bob Michael

    Reply
  10. steven j blanchard, sr says:
    June 23, 2013 at 4:07 am

    I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!

    Reply

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  12. Jim Bowman says:
    December 23, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    How to submit?

    Reply
  13. Jim Bowman says:
    December 23, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    Would like to submit original articles to D.C. Clothesline

    Reply
  14. Fuh Queue says:
    March 21, 2022 at 6:48 pm

    I found the Russian stooges!

    Reply
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    March 21, 2022 at 6:49 pm

    Is this an unlocked comment thread? Lmfao

    Reply
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    March 21, 2022 at 6:51 pm

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    Reply
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