kanesrealm

No matter how many times well funded lobbyists and political organizations say it and no matter how gravely wrong the U.S. Supreme Court got it, money is not free speech. The Citizens United case brought the subject directly to the highest court and the majority, including Antonin Scalia got it wrong. They essentially took a position that says money in and of itself is an expression of free speech, irrespective of how much of it is dumped into an issue or political candidate and no matter how fact free the message is. It says that free speech isn't free, it's for sale to the highest bidder and that those who have no money to combat those messages are equal because you can still stand on the corner, in your legally designated space, and see if you can get someone to listen. Hillary Clinton has said that she would fight for a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United but that is highly unlikely to happen and it isn't necessary. Congress can take legislative actio...

Aesop, Grimm, Tolkien, Rowling and countless other writers have portrayed the ageless troll. Cute and diminutive to ugly and giant, no matter the demeanor, always entertaining. Our modern trolls on the other hand, are anything but entertaining. They don't have pink fuzzy hair and sit on the end of a pencil or ten feet tall with stone faces living in caves. They look just like you and me on the outside. On the inside they are filled with a poison that leaves a vitriolic poop trail all through the internet. These trolls live in cyberspace, a world that we spend more and more time in. There are mercenary trolls paid by corporations and governments to sow seeds of misinformation, discredit or frighten those who voice an opinion that is not liked or threatens to reveal something. Then there is the garden variety troll that just likes to walk through your little corner of the cyber world and wipe their ass all over your thoughts. They're not interested in constructive dialogue, they...

As regular readers know I've previously stated my lukewarm feelings about social media in general. I didn't bother to ever join Facebook because I thought it was a waste of time, for me. Other than connecting with family members, which I guess some people are into, though I can't imagine why. If I want to talk to my family, I don't, I'll call them. You're probably all members of Facebook so you know the basics. You have a homepage, your house in the cyber world. There you are free to post and share whatever you want or are you? On September 25, 2016 I shared a post from The Godless and Irreligious, a Facebook site, which was a meme depicting Christians burning people at the stake like Islamic fundementalists. This meme drew a vile and disrespectful attack on me on my own homepage by one of my Facebook "friends" who had never before communicated anything to me. I responded to his attack with a respectful response he certainly didn't deserve. He ha...