... a Christmas tree with lots of Christmas badgers.
I heard singing and experienced it as Christmas music — I was focused on the visual, not the audio — and finally I noticed the words — "Solidarity forever, solidarity forever..." It was the Solidarity Singers, a longstanding vestige of the 2011 protests. It's a free-speech forum, the Wisconsin rotunda. You don't have to sing about Christmas, but you can sing about Christmas.
ADDED: Did I hear "Solidarity Forever"? I'm not sure. I heard the word "solidarity," but I think it might have been labor union words sung to the tune of a Christmas carol. On their Facebook page, I see words like "God Bless You Very Wealthy Men."
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Have they been at it nonstop since the Walker events or is this fresh and new for our president elect?
The Solidarity Singers: Error magnified by doggedness.
There are many inexplicable things that contribute to an atmosphere of general gloom about the fate of the West and Liberty. Among them are flat-earthers, socialism, and the Solidarity Singers.
You don't have to sing about Christmas.
You can sing about Christmas.
You won't sing about Christmas.
Merry Christmas
German Americans brought the Christmas tree tradition to the US. Good people
My Madison Christmas Tree song:
CAN I TAKE MY THINGS WITH ME?? I NEED MY COAT!!!!
Warm feeling inside :-) ....
12/22/16, 4:35 PM Delete
Solidarity with what ? The Working Class ? Or the Lumpenintelligentsia ?
Do the Solidarity Singers demand that toy train NOT run on time as a protest against Walker and Trump?
Nice example of the warmth and courtesy of the gay marriage set today in New York.,
This is the last Christmas without Trump as president for at least four years. That is something small to be grateful for.
Trump, the Grinch who will steal future Christmases from the masses because he wants it all for himself, told his lame elves / co-conspirators to stop using the expression "Drain the swamp!" He said he never liked the expression (or obviously the sentiment). It is clear to me that the he and his ilk ARE the swamp that no global-warming drought will be able to drain.
Perhaps, there will be a true counter-revolution in four years, after he destroys millions of lives, and his jockstraps, i.e., supporters wake up. I reserve that bit of hope at Christmas time because I'm not a vindictive sourpuss like Trump is.
The version of Solidarity Forever I've heard all my red diaper baby life is actually the Battle Hymn of the Republic with ridiculous communist propaganda lyrics awkwardly shoehorned into the melody. Since it's a hymn (albeit "folk") it's not surprising your ear heard Christmas music.
You don't have to sing about Christmas, but you can sing about Christmas.
Right. Because what the heck should peace on earth and goodwill toward men have to do with solidarity for working folk, anyway.
Hank the Herald Angles Sing. Hank is the lead herald.
Descant is the highest form of patriotism.
Amazingly, these people literally have nothing better to do. Sad
God bless ye very wealthy men.
God bless you poor and working folks
It’s time to take a stand
For decent wages, health, and pensions
Are our just demands
It’s time to fight, we must unite!
Now, won’t you lend a hand?
O tidings of a world to be gained, a world to be gained
O tidings of a world to be gained!
"...but you can sing about Christmas."
For now.
That's from the Solidarity Sing Along Facebook page.
What's on the band. I just worked the B's, Belgium and Brazil.
It's very nice having a radio right by the mouse.
B is for break.
"Right. Because what the heck should peace on earth and goodwill toward men have to do with solidarity for working folk, anyway."
Ritmo, you're funny.
For decent wages, health, and pensions
Are our just demands
It was pretty good until there. You can't split pensions into an acciaccatura.
Trumpit, Ritmo's funny. You're not. Come back next December and show us all how Trump ruined everything. Don't worry. I'll wait.
I wonder whether the Solidarity Singers have contemplated the crucial roll they played in the election and reelection of Scott Walker, election and reelection of Ronjohnson, and Trump's winning the State of Wisconsin.
role --damned autocorrect!
God bless you, Jerry Mandelbaum.
Local Man says life under Trump will be dog eat dog. Under Hillary it would have been the other way around.
God bless ye very wealthy men.
I think they've already been blessed enough, Meade. Or are you saying they're unappreciative?
Is your concern with insufficient homage to the wealthy based on a fantasy that you are or could become one of them? Or just a basic slavish need to fawn over and declare yourself beneath them?
Which is it based on?
Help me to understand this need for piling limitless numbers of commemorative rocks on top of tall buildings.
O tidings of a world to be gained!
Channeling Adolf Hitler at Yuletide. Shame! Shame! Shame!
CAN I TAKE MY THINGS WITH ME?? I NEED MY COAT!!!!
What's was wrong with Mizz Purple Pansy? Didn't she watch An Inconvenient Truth?
Here's an Althouse post of old that I revisit with glee now and again.
I don't have a pension -- am I oppressed?
"I reserve that bit of hope at Christmas time because I'm not a vindictive sourpuss like Trump is."
No, I suspect you are more like the asshole gay lawyer who screamed at his daughter and her children.
He wrote: 'He didn't accost her directly. When he got on and saw her, sitting behind me, he said "oh my god. This is a nightmare" and was visibly shaking.
'He said, "They ruin the country now they ruin our flight!"
Do you shake if you see a Trump, trumpit ?
Is your concern with insufficient homage to the wealthy based on a fantasy that you are or could become one of them?
Well, you see, the wealthy are sort of irrelevant. I realize that there are many who look at, for instance, Bill Gates and ask why is he rich and I am not rich. Well, he had some talent, he worked hard, and he got lucky. But that has nothing to do with me or with you or with the millennials living in their parents' basements. If Bill Gates had never existed neither you nor I nor those millennials would be any differently off. So who cares about him? Besides the sort of folks with shriveled souls who assume that Gates is rich because they're poor and not that they're poor because they're without talent, lack a strong work ethic, or failed to take advantage of such lucky breaks as came their way, or some combination thereof.
I reserve that bit of hope at Christmas time because I'm not a vindictive sourpuss like Trump is.
I happen to hope that Trump really is vindictive. Not petty vindictive like Barack Obama, but ready and willing to make people sorry for doing stupid and unprincipled things. George W. Bush and his daddy were too kind-hearted. I think that a good politician has to be a bit like a high-priced call girl -- if they want to f**k with you make sure they pay dearly for the privilege.
Well, you see, the wealthy are sort of irrelevant.
Not for campaign funding. What the hell are you thinking? Your party is so full of lobbyist/donor shills that it took an alleged billionaire to beat them.
Ask Bill Gates his views on taxation someday. Or just go and watch any one of a number of videos made while interviewing him on the subject.
No, they don't need more favors from government or to continue skewing things in their favor to make it easier for them, financially. No one cares that he's rich, and they don't think he deserves to have things any easier than he already has them because of it.
People will invent things and want to work/be productive regardless of the financial reward. There are non-financial values worth having in life.
I think that a good politician has to be a bit like a high-priced call girl
So much for "draining the swamp."
That was what most caught my attention, Michael K.; the fellow in the seat in front of the Kushners, Marc Sheff, an artist of some sort, I gather, while loudly proclaiming his progressivist bona fides none the less was obliged by his conscience to admit (on his Facebook page) that the idiot Bernstein (do I have the name right?) "was visibly shaking", "(h)e was also not what I would describe as calm", "(a)gitated maybe", and that "(h)onestly, if I was her security I would have made the same call [to remove the couple and their child]". "I don't _think_ the man was capable of violence, sure. But I would worry that he would leave his seat or cause a scene in some way. And his husband had tweeted that he planned on doing that." Those two are lucky the Secret Service people didn't have them sent off to a holding cell. Tsk, tsk.
Most of the money Gates made was not due to anything he invented, anyway. But due to inventions that he stole.
There is an etymology to the word entrepreneur. It's from the French. It means, "to take (between two parties)".
Solidarity at the capital rotunda?
That's just weird at this point. It's been five years since all the protests. What the heck? I'd demand some Christmas music, lol.
Most of the money Gates made was not due to anything he invented, anyway. But due to inventions that he stole.
Mostly false. He bought the rights to a clone of CP/M developed by someone else and it became MS/DOS. But Microsoft was a successful small software house before IBM came knocking on its door -- as witness the fact that IBM visited Microsoft before calling on Gary Kildall. Microsoft bought the rights to the Sybase code base and turned it into SQL Server, however there is hardly anything left of the original Sybase kernel code in SQL Server 2016 (I was told that by a friend working in Redmond that SQL Server 2000 had essentially no remaining Sybase left in its kernel.) Windows NT was developed in Redmond from scratch using Microsoft cash and employees.
Microsoft certainly copied the look and feel of the Apple MacIntosh OS, but when Apple sued for copyright infringement, and the judges discovered that Apple had itself stolen the Mac's look and feel concepts from Xerox PARC, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Microsoft.
So, R&B, I give you three Pinocchios, and the tip of a nose.
They both stole them from Xerox you give away the game by saying it was a "small house." But let's go calling other people liars. Those are the most salient facts. The rest of your paean to Microsoft is just verbiage. And threatening to put others out of business if they don't give you the rights to acquire and shelve their best potential products is as good as theft, in my book. Worse, in fact. As Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said,
Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft's actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft's core products. Microsoft's past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft's self-interest.
So yeah. Go write a mendacious defense to that.
R&B, your version is the angry leftist version. Gary Kindall was out flying his airplane when the IBM guys came calling.
He told his wife he would not sign a "confidentiality Agreement" that IBM wanted him to sign, so they went to Microsoft since they were already out here. They gave it to Gates and he signed.
Xerox PARC was a brilliant bunch of guys with an idiotic corporate headquarters that told them, "quit messing around and get back to working on copiers.!"
There are two books about that story.
Nothing Lasts Forever
We had the fall elections that we lost instead of won
So we grabbed our drums and bugles for some protestin’ fun
Yet our force was weaker than Walker’s awesome strength of one
Damn our gravy train is gone.
Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, For our gravy train is gone.
The public finally realized that we are the greedy parasite
Nobody bought this serfdom shit once our compensation came to light
Sure there’s always something left for us to organize and fight
But our gravy train is gone.
Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, For our gravy train is gone.
It is we who make you wait forever at the DMV
Because we used to start at ten and quit at half past three
Now voting is like coming here you’ll need a state ID
For our gravy train is gone.
Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, For our gravy train is gone.
The world that's staffed by idle drones was ours and ours alone
But that’s history because Walker cut our budgets to the bone
Now we have to type and file and answer the goddamn phone!
Because that gravy train is gone.
Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, For our gravy train is gone.
We have taken untold millions that the public toiled to earn,
And the unions spent their 10% so that fact was never learned
Now those were times that we will forever yearn, Because our gravy train is gone.
Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, For our gravy train is gone.
Now our protests sound tired and oh so very lame,
We can’t think of anything else to chant but that idiotic “shame”,
Our last chance will be recalls that will surely end the same,
And our gravy train is gone!
Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, Nothing lasts forever, For our gravy train is gone.
@R&B, once upon a time Microsoft really was a small software house. Here's the famous photo of the entire company back in 1978 when it was still in Albuquerque, NM. That's the whole company, counting tech writer and bookkeeper.*
Netscape's demise can be traced to Apple agreeing to adopt Explorer for the Mac. Microsoft dropped its partnership with IBM basically by stabbing them in the back, and it doesn't get dirtier than what they did and how they did it (IBM should never have allowed an outside company to implement OS/2). I'm personally aware of an instance where Microsoft managers threatened a small high tech startup, telling the startup that they (Microsoft) could throw ten times as many programmers at developing the same capability. The startup's founder literally laughed at the Microsoft managers -- throwing lots of programmers at a problem doesn't get you the latest and greatest disruptive software. It gets you OS 360.
Everything I wrote in my 9:09 comment is true, as is everything I've written right now. Anyone can readily verify that truth. That you hate Gates for his wealth or Microsoft for its largeness and success seems obvious. Really, all that guys like you have going for yourselves is hatred. Not creativity. Not talent. Not a work ethic. Just hatred.
Getting back to my basic point, let's do a thought experiment. What if Gary Kildall had signed the IBM NDA and licensed CP/M for the IBM PC? Let's further suppose that Microsoft, whose main product before buying the rights to DOS was a BASIC interpreter, eventually withered away like so many other small high-tech startups back in the day. Gary Kildall had no head for business so eventually somebody none of us have ever heard of would have created today's iconic operating system running on Intel processors, and the firm wouldn't be called Microsoft and it probably wouldn't be located in a suburb of Seattle and the name of the operating system probably wouldn't be "Windows." But how would you, personally, have been impacted? What would have changed in your life? Hardly anything would have changed in mine. So there's no reason that I can see to be bitter towards Bill Gates -- if it wasn't him getting rich from software for PCs then it would have been someone else.
________________
* You want doubled letters, Professor Althouse? Take a look at "bookkeeper"!
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is His brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
I just think the Sherman antitrust statutes aren't and shouldn't be dead, yet. The settlement was eventually watered down, but I'd like to think that MS at least learned their lesson from the ordeal. Gates was getting a bit too arrogant for his own good, and afterward seemed to have matured and wisened up and embraced philanthropy. How would I know the impact of innovative software being intimidated out of the market? I wouldn't. But I have no reason to suspect it's a consumer-friendly, pro-competitive business practice. I don't think success in a market should allow a company to re-write the rules or imperil the competition at will. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see how that benefits anybody.
I hear Wisconsin is "full of fat people and bad pretzels".
http://www.gq.com/story/the-least-influential-people-of-the-year See the section on Hillary.
He blames her, which she deserves, but the lack of insight into the rest of the problem, while he's demonstrating it, is just stunning.
Having asked recently about whether this was still going on, I am both amused and saddened..
Happy Hollowheads
"I could replace Billy Bush with a fern and get the exact same ratings." - from the Mary Beth link.
This guy thinks he could replace people? That is code for murder right? Do we kill or be killed, that is the query.
I could replace Lena Dunham with my cock and all subsequent ratings of anything would forever be known as "half-cock" or "three-quarters cock" or even "ninety-nine hundredths cock" (but never could anything ever equal the full cock) the replacement would be so divinely grand.
I do applaud GQ for not going bankrupt yet, the 95% discounts to rape anyone dumb enough to advertise in the shitheelled rag are innovative even if short-cocked, like all the subhumans that would allow themselves to be published therein.
"Really, all that guys like you have going for yourselves is hatred. Not creativity. Not talent. Not a work ethic. Just hatred."
I have always envied guys (and gals, but less so) as described herein. Creativity, talent, and a work ethic opiate mass vats of gratitude, a necessary ingredient to achieve other than vanity.
"But the important thing about Taylor Swift in 2016 is how badly she got owned by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, refuting Kardashian's claim that Swift personally approved of Kanye mentioning her in one of his songs, only to have Kardashian post audio of the exchange on Snapchat to refute that refutal (is that a word?" -Mary Beth's article referenced above.
"The 2016 Celebrity 100
1 Taylor Swift $170,000,000 USA
2 One Direction $110,000,000 UK
3 James Patterson $95,000,000 USA" - http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2016/07/13/full-list-the-worlds-highest-paid-celebrities-of-2016/#78178e104ee2
Fair bargain proggies: the GOP owns all government power for the next decade, but SNL will MOCK and DESTROY and OWN Trump and his crazy orange aura.
You see politics is further on down the line from culture, so you are really setting those hicknorant rubes up for one heck of a turnaround a decade or century or two from now.
Just like all that indoctrination you been up to this last century. You are smart winners-because-the-bullies-are-actually-scared-and-just-want-to-be-beta-and-loved-but-mostly-miracle-dictu-they-just-want-to-be-more-like-you.
Don't you go changing now, ya hear.
It was a wonder to relate, no miracle. Miracle mirable dictu's happen but not here, not now.
O tidings of a world to be gained!
And what will it profit you if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?
Telling...
You know, all of my lefty facebook friends seem to have calmed down.
The NY Times has not calmed down. They've been all out anti-Trump every day, and will continue every day until ... his term is up, he gets sick and dies, they inspire some clown to assassinate him, etc.
his term is up
Which one- first or second?
Third. If Obama can parts of the first and second amendments that he didn't like surely Trump can do the same to the twenty-second.
"God bless ye very wealthy men"
Well.
I did get my not inconsiderable Kritmus bonus today.
So. Yeah. Bless em.
Murray Kritmus!
I just think the Sherman antitrust statutes aren't and shouldn't be dead, yet.
The Sherman Antitrust Act was feeble and ineffectual from the beginning. we deserve better.
However the worst form of monopoly is a government monopoly.
However the worst form of monopoly is a government monopoly.
Then don't run your business through one. Make your own traffic lights, roads, sewage, national defense (or just through contractors), etc. Whatever.
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