April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

partisan politics

The Koch Brothers Billionaires Club

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Isn’t it great when a few friends can gather together for a couple of beers, shoot the shit, bitch about class warfare and control an entire country?

the two-day event is not just “fun in the sun”. This will be a meeting of “doers”, men and women willing to fight the Obama administration and its perceived attack on US free enterprise and unfettered wealth.

As the invitation says: “Our goal must be to beat back the unrelenting attacks and hold elected leaders accountable.”

The reference to the accountability of America’s elected leaders is ironic, bearing in mind that the gathering has been convened by two brothers who have never been elected to public office and are among the most unaccountable and secretive political players in the country.

David and Charles Koch enjoy a combined fortune of $35bn (£22bn), run the second largest private company in the US, Koch Industries, and are increasingly using their fabulous riches to push their special interests within America’s political process. Nobody knows precisely how much they spend on influencing elections and lobbying Congress, but it is thought to be scores of millions of dollars.

By similar vein, the guestlist for their gathering on Sunday is unknown. Past attendees at the twice-yearly event include supreme court judges, rightwing media celebrities such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, prominent governors of southern states such as Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) and Haley Barbour (Mississippi), as well as leading figures from Wall Street and energy companies, and titans of industry.

But you can be sure there won’t be any of them there elites in attendance! Just us regular folk nothing to see here..

10 Reasons why I don’t care if you don’t like my blog

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Seems there is a meme going around with people making conform or else lists.

Never being one who enjoyed being dictated to, I’ve decided to counteract that meme. Join in if you wish!

1) My blog is my space and will be decorated and re-decorated to suit my tastes and reflect my interests, passions, and needs. If you don’t like the colours, layout whatever…go decorate your own blog.

2) I write to what interests, inspires, angers or moves me. Not everyone will share those impressions. But I am writing from my experience not yours.

3) I like techie things. I like the feature galleries, and video embedding etc. My last template was pretty slick that way. Unfortunately some people are dealing with older computers that no likie that. So I downsized my techie. Still sad 🙁 but I do love this template too.

4) My topics, and lately it seems to be the same one or two, won’t appeal to everyone. I’m not trying to garner mushy middle readers. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. – Bishop Desmond Tutu

5) I am not a grammarian–again with the rules. If you are focusing on editing instead of reading you probably aren’t interested in what you are reading anyway.

6) I’ve set this blog up with different areas for different subjects, an Activism area and a couple of ads for BnR affiliated sites. Likely no one reads the extra areas but some things I do as much for me as anything. 🙂

7) Me, me, me. Of course there is a lot of me in my blog. Were you expecting someone else? 8)

8 ) I don’t have the time to write to every news story or political development. I also run two aggregators, a board, a board blog, write to Birth Pangs on occasion, am trying to start a business and in my spare time have a house to run and kids to care for. I don’t have time for the multi post type blog. And I refuse to do partisan politics. My emphasis is on rights and freedoms and caring for the environment. None of the parties are impressing me with their commitment to same.

9) I used to have as an avatar on the board a quote by Maggie Kuhn; “Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind — even if your voice shakes.” I see blogging as way to speak my mind, to take back power, to allow more than the pre-packaged pablum much of the main stream media has become to filter through. My voice (writing) may shake, but I will speak my mind.

10) If you don’t read my blog it probably won’t affect either one of us greatly. I won’t stop writing, you may not start reading. But it is in the act of allowing each of us our space, our way of doing things. Our unique gifts, talents and expressions, that we embody the best that can be said of any culture; “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.” Voltaire