November 23, 2016, 12:07 PM
flashguyquote:
Originally posted by sdy:
.... and third, and perhaps foremost , he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.”
Although the Arabs did make significant contributions to those fields, IIRC it all happened prior to the emergence of Islam in those countries. I cannot think of a single thing that Muslims have contributed to the World that is positive.
flashguy
November 23, 2016, 12:16 PM
feersum dreadnaughtUpscale progressives have gotten used to tuning out the voice of the Trump voter. But there's an America out there that they can no longer ignore.
By David Marcus NOVEMBER 23, 2016
Three days after the election, my wife and I were shopping at the Fairway Market in Red Hook, Brooklyn. For those unfamiliar with it, Fairway is a less corporate, more co-op version of Whole Foods, offering pretty produce and exotic cheeses that don’t come cheap. The mood in the store was glum. As in most of Brooklyn, people stared ahead, moving slowly, still in shock from the political earthquake of Tuesday night.
After getting our Brazilian Arabica ground for drip (I know, I should really use a French Press), Libby and I walked towards the organic maple syrup. That’s when it started. I suppose there had been music playing in the store, but I hadn’t noticed until a familiar guitar lick pierced the air and a soft voice said, “Turn it up.”
Libby and I both stopped and looked at each other. “Seriously?” said my wife, a very disappointed Clinton supporter. She started gripping her soft Tomme Crayeuse a little too hard. By the time Ronnie Van Zant’s drawl started in with “Big wheels keep on turnin’,” everyone in the store was standing in shock. Brows were furrowed, people mumbled to each other. The song seemed to get louder as one of those New York moments happened, when everyone was thinking the exact the same thing.
A woman in her fifties, wearing a Love Trump Hates button, turned to her Brooklyn-bearded husband and said loudly, “This is unbelievable!” She found the nearest store clerk, a young woman in a green apron who was staring up at the ceiling, looking for the invisible speakers blaring this message from the other America. “This is so inappropriate,” the woman said. “Can we turn this off?”
Brooklyn was the epicenter of the Clinton campaign. Throughout the summer and fall in Brooklyn Heights, you could see young staffers near the campaign headquarters: expensive coffee in hand, eyes bright, ready to tackle the future. Cafés turned into phone banks, where you could buy a croissant and make a few calls to flyover country. Buttons, banners, and bumper stickers were everywhere.
As the election grew near, confidence was overflowing. A big victory was on the horizon for Lena Dunham and the new Brooklyn. This ground zero for upscale progressivism was ready for a party; white male supremacism was about to be crushed beneath a professional high heel.
Fittingly, perhaps, the only exception to Clinton mania in Brooklyn was in the southern part of the borough. In Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst, big trucks could be seen with “Hillary for Prison” and “Make America Great Again” detailed on their back windows. This is not the Brooklyn of “Girls” or “The Slap.” It is the Brooklyn of “Blue Bloods,” the home of cops and firemen, plumbers and construction workers immune to the appeal of a President Clinton. These are people who listen to Skynyrd, and not ironically.
I couldn’t stop laughing as the Fairway patrons tried to continue shopping with “Sweet Home Alabama” blasting in the background. And in retrospect, the moment was a perfect encapsulation of a very old fight within America
The song itself was written in response to two songs by Neil Young: “Southern Man,” and “Alabama.” It was 1974, and as the Civil Rights era faded into history, the South and Southern rock was reasserting pride in their culture and way of life. Last year, “Garden and Gun” talked to Gary Rossington, the last surviving member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, about the creation of the song. He said:
“Neil Young had “Southern Man,” and it was kind of cutting the South down. And so Ronnie just said, We need to show people how the real Alabama is. We loved Neil Young and all the music he’s given the world. We still love him today. It wasn’t cutting him down, it was cutting the song he wrote about the South down. Ronnie painted a picture everyone liked. Because no matter where you’re from, sweet home Alabama or sweet home Florida or sweet home Arkansas, you can relate.”
For his part, Young would eventually agree that he had painted the South with too broad a brush. In his 2012 autobiography “Waging Heavy Peace,” Young would write, “My own song ‘Alabama’ richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don’t like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue.”
If “accusatory and condescending” sounds familiar, it should. Along with being called deplorable, Trump’s supporters (of which I was not one) have been treated in a way that is rare in American politics, and deeply troubling. The campaign that emerged from Brooklyn didn’t just attack the politics of people who don’t live in big cities. It attacked their entire way of life, and promised it was dying.
When the angry older woman with the anti-Trump button asked the clerk to turn off the song, the younger woman looked at her sympathetically and said, “I don’t know how.” In that moment, something seemed to click.
Of course, this woman thought that “Sweet Home Alabama” could just be turned off. After all, we can block out things we disagree with. We can unfriend people on Facebook, block them on Twitter, and decide not to let their negativity be a part of lives. For many progressives, this is the key to wellness.
But turning off Skynyrd doesn’t make it go away. Somewhere in the land where the stars still shine, it plays on, whether you hear it or not. The shock and despair in Brooklyn over Hillary Clinton’s unfathomable defeat comes in no small part because her denizens refused to hear the rumblings of an America they chose to ignore.
Just like a hillbilly band rocketing to the top of the national charts, Donald Trump has awakened the right sort to the fact that they do not control everything. For Trump and his supporters, the protests and challenges to the Electoral College should be seen as another victory. Not only did they win, they are being heard—even in Brooklyn.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/...everyone-lost-minds/November 23, 2016, 12:49 PM
entropyMorons.
They should click on their beloved and worshipped Wikipedia and read what the song was about. Maybe even listen to the lyrics.
"In Birmingham they love the Governor...boo boo boo.
We all did what we could do...
Watergate does not bother me.
Does your concience bother you?...
Oh yea. Thats racist.
Next they'll be burning books.
November 23, 2016, 12:50 PM
c1steveIt is so ironic that those "liberal" voters are incredibly aggressive, narrow minded, and elitist. Theoretically liberal values embrace others different from themselves, but today the opposite is true. I call them "phony liberals", because they are left leaning but completely un-liberal.
Listening to some of the news commentators deriding blue collar works because they are not "college educated" and therefore inferior almost made me sick. I should have been looking for a safe space to retreat to. However I had to go to work, and during the day often reflected how phony those people are.
November 23, 2016, 12:51 PM
sigmonkeyquote:
Originally posted by SIG4EVA:
The freaking weakness of these idiots is mind boggling. Playing a song that has been out for decades is now racist and offensive because of the state in the lyrics?
I heard if you play it loud and long thier heads implode, sort of like the Martians in Mars Attacks, but in reverese, cuz the aliens have big brains, and, well, these idiots... not so much.
November 23, 2016, 12:58 PM
roberthquote:
Originally posted by parabellum:
In case you're losing your fire...
Don't forget- The MSM wasn't just repeating lies about Hillary Clinton. They were also actively supporting her by abdicating their journalistic responsibility:
The MSM continues to lie and distort reality. I hear "news" on the talk show stations I listen to and most of it is lies and distortion. My hope is that more people join the ranks of those who do not trust the MSM.
Trust Trump, we voted for him to lead us out of the morass, now we need to let him lead.
November 23, 2016, 03:20 PM
StramboNice, go Betsy! She looks squared away to me.
Gee, with Nikki, Betsy, probably Carson, can we (the LameSM) move on from the "no diversity" in the cabinet crap? No, didn't think so, but I can hope....
November 23, 2016, 04:45 PM
mbinky^^^^
Man I am REALLY liking these President-Elect messages to the American people. Not only do they deliver a good message, they do so without being ran through the blender that is the media. No commentary, no questions, just a simple message. Truely speaking to the people, not at them.
As someone else said, the modern day fireside chat.
