Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory

(01-24-2020, 12:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-22-2020, 12:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-21-2020, 05:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Astrology and cycle theories are all connected.

The conservative ideology today is making America a banana republic again.

Yes, they both seem to be directly  connected to you. Dude, I don't live in a liberal run banana republic like St.Paul or Minneapolis. I live in an American suburb that has no interest in ending up being like either of them. We have to remind the Democratic politicians that they could easily be directly challenged and replaced by any of us if they forget where they live and get to far out of line with our values and start acting more like city liberals than Democrats these days. You see, the greatest threat to them are the private sectors who aren't interested in doing jobs these days. Yes, you run the risk of losing talent to us like you have been doing for years and are seeing the results of these days.

You live in the banana republic. St. Paul/Minneapolisis is a metropolous. The democrats know how to run a republic; the Republicans only know how to turn it into a banana republic, whose prosperity is only reserved for a few owners. 

Your Republican policies reduce taxes on the wealthy and eliminate their responsibility to the republic in order to increase their profits. Your side (Trump) takes away regulations on industry so that it can pollute the water, and then claims this is stimulating the economy. The American Banana Republic is being created by this trickle-down economics scheme. But wealth does not trickle down. Your scheme only results in the rich getting richer. They buy out other companies, concentrate wealth and power, fire workers, buy the government, send jobs overseas, replace jobs with robots, cause depressions with speculation, destroy public schools so that young people have less opportunity, destroy our health and our environment, and seek immigrants to come and take over the high paying jobs while shutting out those who are not competitive with Americans.

Trickle down economics appeals to you guys because you hate people of color coming into our country. You think blacks and browns are lazy and take your tax money, and that Democrats depend on them for their positions in government. But the brown kitty cats are out of the bag. There are lots more hispanics in our country now, and they are turning the southwest blue because they resent what Trump does to their fellow hispanics: treat honest people seeking opportunity in America like animals, starving them, putting them in cages and taking them off the street like nazis and putting them in jail. Once Arizona and then Texas turns blue, your game will be up for good.

I actually live in the greater twin cities that PB referenced. I live in an area the Democrats still run with an understanding that there are people with equal or greater capabilities and intelligence levels who are watching them who could replace them anytime and also the ones who are in charge of making most of the important decisions for them these days.  We have a so so Democratic mayor who has run unopposed for many years because no one like me or anyone like me with higher credentials or city related positions are interested in his job these days. I know him personally. He got into a legal dispute with one of my friends (a brother of one of my close high school friends) and lost. You see, the mayor tried to blame the problem ( a flooded basement caused by a plugged culvert) on everything other than an obvious lack of routine maintenance by the city. My friend won the argument that should not have been an argument in the first place. But, that's the kind of guy the mayor is when he's mayor. He's OK and reasonable when he's not mayor. He did the same thing when his son was caught making money the wrong way while he was working as an assistant manager at our public owned golf coarse.

(01-24-2020, 09:55 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-24-2020, 12:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Your Republican policies reduce taxes on the wealthy and eliminate their responsibility to the republic in order to increase their profits. Your side (Trump) takes away regulations on industry so that it can pollute the water, and then claims this is stimulating the economy. The American Banana Republic is being created by this trickle-down economics scheme. But wealth does not trickle down. Your scheme only results in the rich getting richer. They buy out other companies, concentrate wealth and power, fire workers, buy the government, send jobs overseas, replace jobs with robots, cause depressions with speculation, destroy public schools so that young people have less opportunity, destroy our health and our environment, and seek immigrants to come and take over the high paying jobs while shutting out those who are not competitive with Americans.

Trickle down economics appeals to you guys because you hate people of color coming into our country. You think blacks and browns are lazy and take your tax money, and that Democrats depend on them for their positions in government. But the brown kitty cats are out of the bag. There are lots more hispanics in our country now, and they are turning the southwest blue because they resent what Trump does to their fellow hispanics: treat honest people seeking opportunity in America like animals, starving them, putting them in cages and taking them off the street like nazis and putting them in jail. Once Arizona and then Texas turns blue, your game will be up for good.

I actually live in the greater twin cities that PB referenced. I live in an area the Democrats still run with an understanding that there are people with equal or greater capabilities and intelligence levels who are watching them who could replace them anytime and also the ones who are in charge of making most of the important decisions for them these days.  We have a so so Democratic mayor who has run unopposed for many years because no one like me or anyone like me with higher credentials or city related positions are interested in his job these days. I know him personally. He got into a legal dispute with one of my friends (a brother of one of my close high school friends) and lost. You see, the mayor tried to blame the problem ( a flooded basement caused by a plugged culvert) on everything other than an obvious lack of routine maintenance by the city. My friend won the argument that should not have been an argument in the first place. But, that's the kind of guy the mayor is when he's mayor. He's OK and reasonable when he's not mayor. He did the same thing when his son was caught making money the wrong way while he was working as an assistant manager at our public owned golf coarse.

As Donald Trump has shown, politics is not a test of intellectual talent. Trump would have likely lost to the weakest other nominee for President from a major Party in the last century -- probably Harding -- in a contest of intellectual capacity. Because that century is coming to a close, I would have to think of something else very soon. Then again, Albert Einstein would have been a horrible politician. So, probably, would be your physician (the top end of the intellectual spectrum is full of physicians, attorneys, and college professors -- with research scientists, engineers, dentists, and CPA's just lagging behind. The best politicians are typically attorneys -- smart generalists like Barack Obama, FDR, or Lincoln.

The current Republican Party has little to offer poor people in the cities. What? Tax cuts so that the super-rich can hire more domestic help? Pay cuts that reduce the spending power of the working poor? The current GOP is committed to the idea that the sole measure of economic success is that those who already have everything get even more at the expense of everyone else. 

Plugged culvert? Our politicians are not elected for engineering skill, and that is the sort of thing one would not notice unless one does the dirty work of public maintenance

(01-24-2020, 08:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]liberal culture better prepare itself for the education it's going to receive for the next decade or so as it continues to clash and finds itself at odds with good old American values and core American principles.

The mad 45% of which you are a part approves of the job performance of a president who openly and defiantly opposes and obstructs good old American values and core American principles. He wishes to set himself up as dictator. The mad 45% considers the duly-elected congress to be illegitimate, and therefore its subpoenas can be categorically opposed across the entire government by the cult con-man figure it has imposed upon us as our president.

What you may not like is the fact that in the suburbs across America, such as the one in which you reside, polls now show that whereas their male voting population supported Trump by 4% or so, it now opposes him by about that much, and female support has dropped from marginally opposed to hugely-opposed. It may be that the suburbs you claim to be populated by good old Americans may not support the president of whose criminal conduct you approve.

quote:

Our survey makes it clear that while Trump’s record and rhetoric on immigration, border security, race relations and corruption are top issues for Trump’s base to support him, they are also reasons for a majority of suburban voters to vote for somebody else. The more he focuses on these issues in an effort to motivate his supporters, the more he will turn off the suburban voters who have already been moving away from Republicans in recent years and make up a significant portion of the electorate in these key battleground states.
https://priorities.org/memos/battlegroun...n-problem/

The Suburban Backlash Against the GOP Is Growing
Donald Trump’s strategy of revving up his rural base may not be worth the cost.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...ia/601504/

(01-25-2020, 02:09 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-24-2020, 08:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]liberal culture better prepare itself for the education it's going to receive for the next decade or so as it continues to clash and finds itself at odds  with good old American values and core American principles.

The mad 45% of which you are a part approves of the job performance of a president who openly and defiantly opposes and obstructs good old American values and core American principles. He wishes to set himself up as dictator. The mad 45% considers the duly-elected congress to be illegitimate, and therefore its subpoenas can be categorically opposed across the entire government by the cult con-man figure it has imposed upon us as our president.

What you may not like is the fact that in the suburbs across America, such as the one in which you reside, polls now show that whereas their male voting population supported Trump by 4% or so, it now opposes him by about that much, and female support has dropped from marginally opposed to hugely-opposed. It may be that the suburbs you claim to be populated by good old Americans may not support the president of whose criminal conduct you approve.

quote:

Our survey makes it clear that while Trump’s record and rhetoric on immigration, border security, race relations and corruption are top issues for Trump’s base to support him, they are also reasons for a majority of suburban voters to vote for somebody else. The more he focuses on these issues in an effort to motivate his supporters, the more he will turn off the suburban voters who have already been moving away from Republicans in recent years and make up a significant portion of the electorate in these key battleground states.
https://priorities.org/memos/battlegroun...n-problem/

The Suburban Backlash Against the GOP Is Growing
Donald Trump’s strategy of revving up his rural base may not be worth the cost.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...ia/601504/

I have a hard time believing that majority of my neighbors (Democrats, Republicans and Independents) are crazy and clueless as your politicians in the House. Here's the deal, a large portion of this country doesn't vote because they don't trust the liberal Democrats anymore than they trust the Republicans these days. The liberal Democrats have been demonizing the Republicans and their policies since the 1990's while peoples jobs were streaming over seas, cheap mid level labor was streaming in from over seas, jobs were being outsourced to foreign companies over seas and cheap low level labor has been flowing in through porous borders and other ports of entry while the Democratic politicians and liberal elites have been getting richer and richer by the day. Like I said, you are digging your own graves and don't even seem to realize it or understand who is to blame these days. I'm not speaking to you, your going to stick with the party that pays or provides because that's the kind of voter you are in my opinion. I see it in your opinions, positions, your writings and your reactions. It's obvious to me. You see most liberal posters flap their gums and don't pay pay much attention to what's coming out their mouths. We are here to establish positions, make valid points that stick and win arguments with pseudo intellectuals and quasi socialists.

Now, if you want to keep the dunce cap on and continue believing or hoping that we will change and continue to ignore that liberal politics are hurting your state that's fine. I don't live in you're God forsaken state or a God forsake liberal city that's turning into a banana republic. Read this, maybe you'll figure out why liberal cities and liberal state are having so many problems these days. Minnesota still has a decent sized population of more conservative Democrats that keep the Democratic party pretty well centered here. In short, we don't have as many liberal Democrats living outside the urban center.

(01-25-2020, 07:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]I have a hard time believing that majority of my neighbors (Democrats, Republicans and Independents) are crazy and clueless as your politicians in the House. Here's the deal, a large portion of this country doesn't vote because they don't trust the liberal Democrats anymore than they trust the Republicans these days. The liberal Democrats have been demonizing the Republicans and their policies since the 1990's while peoples jobs were streaming over seas, cheap mid level labor was streaming in from over seas, jobs were being outsourced to foreign companies over seas and cheap low level labor has been flowing in through porous borders and other ports of entry while the Democratic politicians and liberal elites have been getting richer and richer by the day. Like I said, you are digging your own graves and don't even seem to realize it or understand who is to blame these days. I'm not speaking to you, your going to stick with the party that pays or provides because that's the kind of voter you are in my opinion. I see it in your opinions, positions,  your writings and your reactions. It's obvious to me. You see most liberal posters flap their gums and don't pay pay much attention to what's coming out their mouths. We are here to establish positions, make valid points that stick  and  win arguments with pseudo intellectuals and quasi socialists.  

Now, if you want to keep the dunce cap on and continue believing or hoping that we will change and continue to ignore  that liberal politics are hurting your state   that's fine. I don't live in you're God forsaken state or a God forsake liberal  city that's turning into a banana republic.  Read this, maybe you'll figure out why liberal cities and liberal state are having so many problems these days. Minnesota still has a decent sized population of more conservative Democrats that keep the Democratic party pretty well centered here. In short, we don't have as many liberal Democrats living outside the urban center.

I am dubious not about demonizing taking place since the 1990s, but that it started then. Abolitionists and slavers were going at it while the Republican Party was being created. Adams and Jefferson were going at it way back in the Washington administration. While I haven’t looked it up, I’d guess the Yorks and the Lanchasters were saying ugly things about each other back in the War of the Roses, and demonization was old even then. Demonizing sorta goes with politics. A lot of folk do negative propaganda. People demonize. You of all people should know that.

I won’t deny it was going on in the 1990s, only that it went in one particular direction only.

The question is what one tries to do about it. I could point out that the Republicans have always been the party of the elites, though the Democrats were taking money from the elites too about the same time the jobs were being sent overseas. You could try to repeal Citizens United, but that is a Democratic initiative. You could try to emphasize taking smaller donations from the people rather than big donations from the elites, but that is more a Democratic initiative. I wouldn’t be opposed to working with the conservatives to promote campaign finance reform, to fight the predominance of elite influence, to make the politicians work for the people again instead of the elite, but what conservative programs could I support?

Immigration is one of the few issues where following the money trail does not yield the obvious result. You would think the Republicans would be on the side of encouraging it, to see cheap labor. You would think the Democratic support for the People earning a good wage that would put them against it. But instead, it seems to run the other way around. The Democrats are supporting minorities and family. The Republicans are splitting families and trying to ignore humanitarian policies trying to fight drug war. Tis a bit odd. I can agree jobs shouldn’t be shipped overseas, that the trade policies of the late 20th century were bad for the US working people (as opposed to the corporations and the elites). I am just not sure the current way the Republicans are fighting immigration is right.

Minnesota? Well, it does explain partially your inclination to support violence. The twin cities do have a hyped up hood, and were at the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement. Massachusetts had its share of desegregation issues once upon a time, so I shall spare you the racism based thing. Still, as a more rural Massachusetts voter, it seems the propensity towards violence is hardly typical.

Turning into a banana republic? Which party is backing Trump, trying to get rid of the traditional Enlightenment / American ideals of no man being above the law, a lack of foreign influence, a coequal balance of power, and free and fair multi party elections? That particular piece of demonization could be turned around easy enough. (Oh. I forgot. You are supposedly remaining willfully ignorant of what Trump is doing.)

But the big thing is the confluence of fighting the government’s attempt to help the poor with racism. Since the Reagan administration there has been a conservative push against helping the poor, against domestic spending, towards small government, towards cutting taxes. This has had an element of racism, has through the conservative era. If you want to hurt minorities, you hurt the poor, which accidentally made America not so great. Yes, the conservative policies of the conservative era ended America’s greatness, the feeling that America could and should do anything. The jobs left, and the generations that came of age in the conservative era were introduced to poverty. This was primarily the result of conservative striving. How do you look to fight it from the conservative side? What conservative programs should I support to reverse the trend?

Thus your post becomes an incoherent ramble, a poor attempt at demonization. I could be all in favor of the liberals borrowing a little common sense from the middle of the country. I would be pleased to support a working together if the racist, violent and tribal thinking elements could be stripped off.

That is virtually impossible. What conservative programs or policies could be supported?

(01-25-2020, 07:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-25-2020, 02:09 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-24-2020, 08:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]liberal culture better prepare itself for the education it's going to receive for the next decade or so as it continues to clash and finds itself at odds  with good old American values and core American principles.

The mad 45% of which you are a part approves of the job performance of a president who openly and defiantly opposes and obstructs good old American values and core American principles. He wishes to set himself up as dictator. The mad 45% considers the duly-elected congress to be illegitimate, and therefore its subpoenas can be categorically opposed across the entire government by the cult con-man figure it has imposed upon us as our president.

What you may not like is the fact that in the suburbs across America, such as the one in which you reside, polls now show that whereas their male voting population supported Trump by 4% or so, it now opposes him by about that much, and female support has dropped from marginally opposed to hugely-opposed. It may be that the suburbs you claim to be populated by good old Americans may not support the president of whose criminal conduct you approve.

Quote:Our survey makes it clear that while Trump’s record and rhetoric on immigration, border security, race relations and corruption are top issues for Trump’s base to support him, they are also reasons for a majority of suburban voters to vote for somebody else. The more he focuses on these issues in an effort to motivate his supporters, the more he will turn off the suburban voters who have already been moving away from Republicans in recent years and make up a significant portion of the electorate in these key battleground states.
https://priorities.org/memos/battlegroun...n-problem/

The Suburban Backlash Against the GOP Is Growing
Donald Trump’s strategy of revving up his rural base may not be worth the cost.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...ia/601504/

I have a hard time believing that majority of my neighbors (Democrats, Republicans and Independents) are crazy and clueless as your politicians in the House.

Maybe 'our' liberal politicians are not so crazy and clueless as you think. Maybe they -- and we liberals -- are the ones who can hit Donald Trump as easily from the Right for violation of benign and necessary traditions as they can from the Left for economic distress. The practical solutions of our Founding Fathers have often worked extremely well in preventing despotism; we throw those out (most blatantly, slavery) and add to them (women's rights, workers' rights, conservation and environmentalism, protection of the rights of ethnic minorities, handicap rights, and LGBT rights with due care and consideration. Progress has often required the expression of progress as an expression of some tradition. I need not be LGBT to recognize that LGBT rights are necessary for promoting law and order without which human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law become meaningless.     

Quote:Here's the deal, a large portion of this country doesn't vote because they don't trust the liberal Democrats anymore than they trust the Republicans these days. The liberal Democrats have been demonizing the Republicans and their policies since the 1990's while peoples jobs were streaming over seas, cheap mid level labor was streaming in from over seas, jobs were being outsourced to foreign companies over seas and cheap low level labor has been flowing in through porous borders and other ports of entry while the Democratic politicians and liberal elites have been getting richer and richer by the day.

Much of this results from such economic reality as cheap shipping. It costs less to ship a bulk cargo of items from Yokohama to Long Beach than from Long Beach to even Las Vegas, Phoenix, or Fresno. Over-water shipping has been the cheapest way to get stuff from one part of the world to another since antiquity. Truck, train, and air transport all remain far more costly than sea, lake, river, and canal transport.  It cost less for the Romans to get stuff from Seville to Tyre than from Marseilles to Lyon, and it still costs less to get stuff from Boston to Houston by sea than from Houston to Dallas by land. 

I look at the innovation of container shipping which prevents pilferage, once a huge cost of moving stuff around. A sealed container box (it fits easily onto a cargo train or an eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer) is one way to ensuring that a load of stuff attractive to thieves (liquor, clothes, cosmetics, electronics) goes unmolested from factory to seaport or from seaport to 'distribution center). Today, longshoremen no longer need transfer items from a ship to a rail car or a trailer -- and longshoremen no longer need armies of security guards watching to make sure that they do not load some whiskey or color TVs to the open trunks of their cars in the parking lot. Shipping is much cheaper now than it was for that purpose alone.

Nobody made any political choice to allow that; it made eminent sense for such entities as Matsushita as a manufacturer and Wal*Mart as a retailer. I remember seeing a spoof about longshoremen living very well in MAD Magazine: one question on how one could tell whether one was a longshoreman was "How many color TV's do you own (this was in the 1960's, when color televisions were still fiendishly expensive. "Six" or more suggested a longshoreman. "None" -- one is not a longshoreman. Nobody said that the longshoreman bought them.  No longshoreman could own those on his pay. The people who really could buy them were upscale people who had little use for television unless 'for the maid'. Today the longshoreman must buy his own TV's, liquor, clothes, etc, and not take a little grab from the dock. 
 
One consequence was that it was no longer necessary to make much of our industrial production here. By 1985 was cheaper to get stuff from China to a place like Chicago (which really is a water port -- lake and river) than from Philadelphia or Atlanta. Lower wages in the Third World became first-world wages as countries such as Japan and South Korea 'lost' their 'Third World' characteristics.  

Some of the other decisions, like the HB-1A visa were political decisions (it would be better for America to bring over high-performing engineers from India and pay them well, and bring their families over -- or, for a real improvement in America, invite such people to our gene pool!) to ensure that people got underpaid. Cheap labor at any level is an economic temptation and a human disaster. Just think of slavery. But plenty of people are making out well on cheap labor, and it isn't only Democrats.   

 

Quote:...you (liberals) are digging your own graves and don't even seem to realize it or understand who is to blame these days. I'm not speaking to you, your going to stick with the party that pays or provides because that's the kind of voter you are in my opinion. I see it in your opinions, positions,  your writings and your reactions. It's obvious to me. You see most liberal posters flap their gums and don't pay pay much attention to what's coming out their mouths. We are here to establish positions, make valid points that stick  and  win arguments with pseudo intellectuals and quasi socialists.

 
We are very careful about what we write. We prefer to not be misunderstood. Now take Sarah Palin in her day and Donald Trump
now -- please!* Those conservatives exude bosh from their mouths or from a computer keyboard. Obama at least circulated a press release among his trusted advisors for editing out grammatical errors and ambiguities before releasing them. He ended up spending less time having to explain what he really meant, which is one good way to save time. 

You are not winning your point. Economic reality shows the Hard Right... quite wrong. I suppose that is better than "dead wrong", a consequence of something so stupid as confusing a solution of hydrochloric acid with vodka. 

Quote:Now, if you want to keep the dunce cap on and continue believing or hoping that we will change and continue to ignore  that liberal politics are hurting your state   that's fine. I don't live in you're God forsaken state or a God forsake liberal  city that's turning into a banana republic.  Read this, maybe you'll figure out why liberal cities and liberal state are having so many problems these days. Minnesota still has a decent sized population of more conservative Democrats that keep the Democratic party pretty well centered here. In short, we don't have as many liberal Democrats living outside the urban center.

There are good parts of every state and bad parts of every state. I have taken trips from Silicon Valley to Yosemite National Park and recognized that the Central Valley is not a good place to live. It is hard to believe that Traverse City and Detroit are in the same state -- but they are. From what I hear, Huntsville, Alabama is a far nicer place in which to live than Hartford, Connecticut even if Connecticut is supposedly the best state in which to live and by the same criteria Alabama is one of the worst. 

I expect many people who have voted for the likes of Reagan and Trump to recognize the folly of so voting in due time -- like November of this year. Such people will still be conservatives, but some will steadily go away from a Party that vilifies learning, trivializes the environment, and exploits ethnic and religious resentments without addressing poverty. Republicans from Reagan to Trump have seen poverty as an appropriate tool of enforcing compliance with the plutocracy for which they stand.  

 * deliberate allusion to the late comedian Henny Youngman -- going into a monologue he would drift into "take my wife -- please!"

(01-25-2020, 09:21 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]But the big thing is the confluence of fighting the government’s attempt to help the poor with racism.  Since the Reagan administration there has been a conservative push against helping the poor, against domestic spending, towards small government, towards cutting taxes.  This has had an element of racism, has through the conservative era.  If you want to hurt minorities, you hurt the poor, which accidentally made America not so great.  Yes, the conservative policies of the conservative era ended America’s greatness, the feeling that America could and should do anything.  The jobs left, and the generations that came of age in the conservative era were introduced to poverty.  This was primarily the result of conservative striving.  How do you look to fight it from the conservative side?  What conservative programs should I support to reverse the trend?

Thus your post becomes an incoherent ramble, a poor attempt at demonization.  I could be all in favor of the liberals borrowing a little common sense from the middle of the country.  I would be pleased to support a working together if the racist, violent and tribal thinking elements could be stripped off.

That is virtually impossible.  What conservative programs or policies could be supported?

Wow, you come at me with an argument loaded with a plethora of pseudo intellectual rambles and rants when it basically boils down to this portion of it that directly matters most to you. I don't know Bob, you tell me how we are supposed fulfill our obligation to people like you with millions of other poor people who have similar needs flowing in from other countries for other reasons and their kids along with other liberals voting to get what you and millions of others here have worked and are legally entitled to receive. I don't see it working out myself and I don't see the American right going along with it for much longer Where are the Democrats who think and view things more like me these days. Now, I'm not a Republican but I could be a Tea Party that splits the Democratic party in half and fills the obvious American void that missing in the Democratic party right now that most everyone wants to show up and tilt the scale heavily in favor of America these days. In short, I'm not in your position (physical condition) Bob. I'm physically fit and emotionally fit and quite capable of holding my own and defeating groups of liberals. I'd defeat Nancy (the closest person on the liberal side to becoming President these days) if Pelosi had the guts to face me. Do you think I would respect Nancy's gender and Nancy's position of authority and her title, or do you think I would ignore them all together and take her on one on one, tit for tat, exchange vs exchange, no holds bared if she goes there and it becomes necessary like I would with any other person on the liberal side.

As far as demonizing, if you do it ( which you still do) you should expect to see it coming back at you in return regardless whether you believe ( are able to take ownership and admit it or stop it) you're guilty of it or not. Honestly, I don't care what you believe about yourself or me, it's what I see about you and know about myself that counts. I'm not a racist but I know that there is a difference good and bad black people, brown people, white people, yellow people and red people these days and the bad are no longer restricted to the poor people. The fact is, I've met a helluva lot more people and been to a helluva lot more areas than you or anyone else on the liberal side has been because none of you do what I do for a living or do what I enjoy doing with my free time. I'm related to a rural area that I've been visiting since I was a little kid.

(01-25-2020, 06:58 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Wow, you come at me with an argument loaded with a plethora of pseudo intellectual rambles and rants when it basically boils down to this portion of it that directly matters most to you. I don't know Bob, you tell me how we are supposed fulfill our obligation to people like you with millions  of other poor people flowing in from other countries and their kids voting to get what you and others here are legally entitled to receive. Where are the Democrats who think and view things more like me. Now, I'm not a Republican but I could be a Tea Party that splits the Democratic party in half and fills the obvious void that missing in the Democratic party right now that most everyone wants to show up and tilt the scale heavily in favor of America these days. In short, I'm not in your position (physical condition) Bob. I'm physically fit and emotionally fit and quite capable of holding my own and defeating groups of liberals. I'd defeat Nancy (the closest person on the liberal side to becoming President these days) if Pelosi had the guts to face me. Do you think I would respect Nancy's gender and Nancy's position of authority and her title, or do you think I would ignore them all together and take her on one on one, tit for tat, exchange vs exchange, no holds bared if she goes there and it becomes necessary like I would with any other person on the liberal side.

As far as demonizing, if you do it ( which you still do) you should expect to see it coming back at you   in return regardless whether you believe ( are able to take ownership and admit it or stop it) you're   guilty of it    or not. Honestly, I don't care what you believe about yourself or me, it's what I see about you and know about myself that counts. I'm not a racist but I know that there is a difference good and bad black people, brown people, white people, yellow people and red people these days and the bad are  no longer restricted to the poor people. The fact is, I've met a helluva lot more people and been to a helluva lot more areas  than you or anyone else on the liberal side has been because none of you do what I do for a living or do what I enjoy doing with my free time. I'm related to a rural area that I've been visiting since I was a little kid.

If you try to talk policy, you are an intellectual?  I would rather do that than people person type demonizing, so I’m criticized for that?  As I said once before, it takes all types, but looking for real policy from you is difficult.  You stay locked to your own and shy away about actually proposing anything.  

You did spend two sentences on immigration.  I spent more, so I don’t think your two lines are worthy of a response.  You are empty.  Just, empty.

There was a lot more threat of violence.  I have not been much impressed by the people who talk the talk loudly since I studied karate and kung fu.  I figured I knew enough to take care of those who set themselves against unknown opponents and stopped worrying about it.  Never came close to using it in earnest except against one dog.  He took one look at how I had shifted from a casual walk to an instant crane stance, hands out of reach, obviously ready to kick.  He turned around real fast.  By the time he got in range of the kick, I knew I wouldn’t have to.  The whole incident took as long as the dog could switch from running all out one way, to running all out the other.  Odd, I had oft sparred using primarily cat stance, but in hindsight crane was perfect for this particular opponent.

I’ve been watching the spiral of violence and think you a way off outlier.  Most reject violence as a way of changing America.  You are just tone deaf, un American.  I sort of expect you to stay that way.

In my working career I spent some time in Colorado near Pike’s Peak, Montana downstream of where the Missouri goes through the mountains, California twice, once near the blimp hangers, and another time near the launch pads, Maryland near Washington DC, Arizona next to Tombstone, Pennsylvania by Valley Forge, Omaha next to, next to, well allegedly near Nebraska, and Georgia where I tried dogfighting aircraft.  (Gee.  Look at that tiny little parachute tower.)  I have been around likely more than you think.  It is true that I have mostly been on military bases and high tech areas.  I have not spent a lot of time abroad among rural places or people on their home dirt.  I suspect living in cranberry country back in Massachusetts was the best experience of that.  Two of my homes were/are near bogs.  Still, I have been around.

My one thought is that your demonizing would be more effective if you don’t remain as willfully ignorant.  Well, I suppose that is my more intellectual approach speaking.

Still wondering.  If you take the racism, violence and tribal thinking out of conservative policy, what is left?

(01-25-2020, 09:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-25-2020, 06:58 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Wow, you come at me with an argument loaded with a plethora of pseudo intellectual rambles and rants when it basically boils down to this portion of it that directly matters most to you. I don't know Bob, you tell me how we are supposed fulfill our obligation to people like you with millions  of other poor people flowing in from other countries and their kids voting to get what you and others here are legally entitled to receive. Where are the Democrats who think and view things more like me. Now, I'm not a Republican but I could be a Tea Party that splits the Democratic party in half and fills the obvious void that missing in the Democratic party right now that most everyone wants to show up and tilt the scale heavily in favor of America these days. In short, I'm not in your position (physical condition) Bob. I'm physically fit and emotionally fit and quite capable of holding my own and defeating groups of liberals. I'd defeat Nancy (the closest person on the liberal side to becoming President these days) if Pelosi had the guts to face me. Do you think I would respect Nancy's gender and Nancy's position of authority and her title, or do you think I would ignore them all together and take her on one on one, tit for tat, exchange vs exchange, no holds bared if she goes there and it becomes necessary like I would with any other person on the liberal side.

As far as demonizing, if you do it ( which you still do) you should expect to see it coming back at you   in return regardless whether you believe ( are able to take ownership and admit it or stop it) you're   guilty of it    or not. Honestly, I don't care what you believe about yourself or me, it's what I see about you and know about myself that counts. I'm not a racist but I know that there is a difference good and bad black people, brown people, white people, yellow people and red people these days and the bad are  no longer restricted to the poor people. The fact is, I've met a helluva lot more people and been to a helluva lot more areas  than you or anyone else on the liberal side has been because none of you do what I do for a living or do what I enjoy doing with my free time. I'm related to a rural area that I've been visiting since I was a little kid.

If you try to talk policy, you are an intellectual?  I would rather do that than people person type demonizing, so I’m criticized for that?  As I said once before, it takes all types, but looking for real policy from you is difficult.  You stay locked to your own and shy away about actually proposing anything.  

You did spend two sentences on immigration.  I spent more, so I don’t think your two lines are worthy of a response.  You are empty.  Just, empty.

There was a lot more threat of violence.  I have not been much impressed by the people who talk the talk loudly since I studied karate and kung fu.  I figured I knew enough to take care of those who set themselves against unknown opponents and stopped worrying about it.  Never came close to using it in earnest except against one dog.  He took one look at how I had shifted from a casual walk to an instant crane stance, hands out of reach, obviously ready to kick.  He turned around real fast.  By the time he got in range of the kick, I knew I wouldn’t have to.  The whole incident took as long as the dog could switch from running all out one way, to running all out the other.  Odd, I had oft sparred in cat stance, but in hindsight crane was perfect for this particular opponent.

I’ve been watching the spiral of violence and think you a way off outlier.  Most reject violence as a way of changing America.  You are just tone deaf, un American.  I sort of expect you to stay that way.

In my working career I spent some time in Colorado near Pike’s Peak, Montana downstream of where the Missouri goes through the mountains, California twice, once near the blimp hangers, and another time near the launch pads, Maryland near Washington DC, Arizona next to Tombstone, Pennsylvania by Valley Forge and Georgia where I tried dogfighting aircraft.  (Gee.  Look at that tiny little parachute tower.)  I have been around likely more than you think.  It is true that I have mostly been on military bases and high tech areas.  I have not spent a lot of time abroad among rural places or people on their home dirt.  I suspect living in cranberry country back in Massachusetts was the best experience of that.  Two of my homes were/are near bogs.  Still, I have been around.

My one thought is that your demonizing would be more effective if you don’t remain as willfully ignorant.  Well, I suppose that is my more intellectual approach speaking.

Still wondering.  If you take the racism, violence and tribal thinking out of conservative policy, what is left?

We aren't the policy makers. So, what is the point of us wasting time doing that here? We are the policy supporters or objectors/voters related to changing, abolishing, reforming and legal enforcement/continuation.  As far as your question, it's a dumb question to ask a conservative. If you you take the fear of racism out of so called liberal policy, what's left? If you take the fear of violence out of liberal policy, what's left? if you take the fear of tribal thinking out of liberal policy, what's left? One other thing, if you've been all over the country then you should know us much better than you seem to know us. I've got you pegged pretty good.

I got into a disagreement with a nasty dog once. The dog leaped at me with his jaw open and ended up wallowing around on the ground a few feet away acting like he didn't know what hit him. It wasn't a perfectly timed Judo move but it was pretty damn close. The leg move didn't stop him but the counter move planted a vicious half breed German shepherd in la la world. He got up and tucked his tail between his legs and ran off never to be seen again. I love dogs but I don't care much for vicious dogs. I got into another with an off duty police dog that could have got ugly or even deadly while working at a cop's house but that was my fault. I forgot what the cop told us about how we had to carry our tools if the dog was outside in the backyard. It was a really nice dog otherwise.

(01-26-2020, 02:33 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]We aren't the policy makers. So, what is the point of us wasting time doing that here? We are the policy supporters or objectors/voters related to changing, abolishing, reforming and legal enforcement/continuation.  As far as your question, it's a dumb question to ask a conservative. If you you take the fear of  racism out of so called liberal policy, what's left? If you take the fear of  violence out of liberal policy, what's left? if you take the fear of  tribal thinking out of liberal policy, what's left? One other thing, if you've been all over the country then you should know us much better than you seem to know us. I've got you pegged pretty good.

The local bog farmers seemed more concerned that I walk on the road and did not stray into his bog.  It was less that I would harm crops, but that his pesticides would harm me.  They were mostly friendly.  While the edge of a bog is a decent place to set up a shooting range, it didn’t much happen.  It has been a really long time since a native raider came out of the woods, or a British frigate had to be turned back by two light house keeper’s daughters armed with a fife and a drum.  (My teacher sister got quite hot because the state school testing board rated that incident as a mythic retelling, but the Scituate schools teaches it as an historical event.  All the Scituate students were dinged on the official required test.  The fife, meanwhile, is in a local museum.  The local area is full of the two women’s descendants.)

The local bog owners are upset that a few decades ago, the corporation that buys most of their berries found a few areas away from Plymouth County that could produce cranberries.  They developed those areas, produced a surplus of cranberries, and the law of supply and demand resulted in cut prices and desperate farmers.  A deliberate policy?  A lot of folks went bankrupt, and are still muttering against conservative policies that favor the corporations and elites over local farmers.  Conspiracy theories abound and make perfect economic sense.

No Industrial Age talk of a revolution or civil war.  Lots of muttering against conservatives and their policies, customized to center on one particular corporation.

A lot of old bogs are growing power these days.  The local area is generally hills and trees.  The old bogs are flat and already cleared.  Thus, there are former bogs now full of solar panels.  One local dirt mover is currently flattening hills near a nearby housing complex that has already converted the nearby bogs.  One of their selling points is cheap renewable power from off the local grid. Of course, each converted bog represents some local farmer's failed attempt to make a living.

In the years after the local corporation put the pressure on local bogs, there was an increase in fertilizer that leeched into the pond across the street.  It became full of slime, much less usable for the summer population, for everybody.  We were less bothered in our pond across the street, and got a few extra beach visitors.  Eventually the local improvement association triumphed and the upstream bogs were abandoned.  It took years.

It turns out that the solar farms are much better than the windmills.  Too big.  With locals unaware of what was coming, the landowner would build a tower that makes local houses uninhabitable for some and decrease in value for all.  The local governments sided with the tower builders initially.  Anything to lower taxes.  They are rather quickly learning to keep the locals in the loop and be reluctant to approve new projects near residential areas.  Not keeping the local voters happy is a good way to get removed from government.  Locally, you want to keep the windmill towers well off shore.  The Massachusetts coast is too well populated to do much else.

My rented property is next to The Great Sandpit of Doom. The area was once hills and trees with a few houses and cranberry bogs. The hills were removed to create one great big flat area. Some developers and town officials are attempting to turn the area into an industrial complex. More closed cranberry bogs. A retired couple that intended to spend their life there were forced, forced mind you, to accept lots of money. Someone whose property was spread across two towns almost lost property value due to the threat of eminent domain. Just think of the tax benefits! But…. Not in my backyard! Think of the traffic through the residential area! The developers are absolutely ruining a perfectly good area for shooting up and prostitution! Wetlands! Coyotes!

In other words, small town politics as usual, including the demonizing of several parties.

So it goes with Greater Boston growing to the point of effecting towns near the Cape Cod Canal.  The locals generally welcome the increased business, but also want to keep the rural feel and tourist dollars.  The balance is still liberal.  This is still Massachusetts after all, and the elites do care more for the almighty dollar than their neighbors.  That is how they became elites after all.  Still, the neighbor’s fights are fought with legislatures and votes, not with bullets.   Not even with fife and drums.  

While Massachusetts may have its hoods, they are generally north of here.  I haven’t encountered them since flirting with the edges of Roxbury on my commute to Northeastern University.  Detouring by Symphony involved too much traffic.  The closest I came to a problem was a young kid on a tricycle who hadn’t learned fully about objects in motion staying in motion.  I think that was the one time I started to break well before the object of the potential collision turned his steering wheel but did not change course.  Of course I broke.  He was obviously going too fast.

I hear and have seen people in the middle of the country having their own battles between the family farm owners and corporate farming.  I can sympathize that elites and corporations hurting family farms are happening there too.  Corporatations generally have the reserve funds to jump on the periodic hard times that seems to come with family farming.  The people in the middle of the country could find unlikely allies in liberal Massachusetts, but they seem more inclined to assume hostility.  Not clear.  It is a matter of recognizing the enemy.

What is left of liberal politics when the violence, racism and tribal thinking is removed?  Not much changes.  We are not planning any wars, trying to put down any minorities, or favoring particular classes and religions.  In abstract, we buy into all men being created equal under law.  Oh, we don’t care much for the elites, those who hoard a lot of resources at the expense of the working people.  Still, that is minor next to the militias, the racism, the pro elite policies of the conservatives.

If you are dreaming of a Democratic equivalent of the Tea Party, our dreams may be far closer together than you think.

And if you find areas where all are not equal under law, we will try to correct that.  We are apt to fail.  Corruption, prejudice and violence are old and deep seated.  Only a few corrections can be made in any given crisis or progressive era.  In one crisis, we may get rid of kings.  The next, slaves.  Later, Jim Crow.  It takes time.

So many conservative policies.  So little time.

(01-25-2020, 06:58 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-25-2020, 09:21 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]But the big thing is the confluence of fighting the government’s attempt to help the poor with racism.  Since the Reagan administration there has been a conservative push against helping the poor, against domestic spending, towards small government, towards cutting taxes.  This has had an element of racism, has through the conservative era.  If you want to hurt minorities, you hurt the poor, which accidentally made America not so great.  Yes, the conservative policies of the conservative era ended America’s greatness, the feeling that America could and should do anything.  The jobs left, and the generations that came of age in the conservative era were introduced to poverty.  This was primarily the result of conservative striving.  How do you look to fight it from the conservative side?  What conservative programs should I support to reverse the trend?

Thus your post becomes an incoherent ramble, a poor attempt at demonization.  I could be all in favor of the liberals borrowing a little common sense from the middle of the country.  I would be pleased to support a working together if the racist, violent and tribal thinking elements could be stripped off.

That is virtually impossible.  What conservative programs or policies could be supported?

Wow, you come at me with an argument loaded with a plethora of pseudo intellectual rambles and rants when it basically boils down to this portion of it that directly matters most to you. I don't know Bob, you tell me how we are supposed fulfill our obligation to people like you with millions of other poor people who have similar needs flowing in from other countries for other reasons and their kids along with other liberals voting to get what you and millions of others here have worked and are legally entitled to receive.

What is your definition of an intellectual? Someone making a living formulating, refining, and sharing ideas as a living? A creative person who, instead of shaping precursor materials into objects of material utility (let us say ladders or gloves) turns words or visions into stimulating ideas? To be sure there are some intellectuals such as Rush Limbaugh who can create thought-ending memes that largely convince people of what they already believe and hack artists who churn out sentimental Kitsch... I read some passages of imaginative thought, I see magnificent art, or I hear magnificent music and I am awed as if I were looking at Half Dome or Big Sur... or "even" Tahquamenon Falls. 

(Hey, Classic X'er -- You might want to see Tahquamenon Falls some time. It's in Michigan's Upper Peninsula,  so it could almost be a day trip. Take in nearby Pictured Rocks Lakeshore, and you have a great weekend of seeing very good Nature. Head north on I-35 to Duluth, take US 2 through northwestern Wisconsin, and  not far into Michigan take Michigan 28 past Marquette... Niagara Falls has a great light show, but Tahquamenon has a spectrum of colors due to tannin from the nearby trees...)

You seem to lack imagination. But stretch your imagination some, and you will come to recognize the emptiness of consumer Kitsch and empty status symbols. You do not need to own a Cezanne to appreciate it; nobody really owns Bruckner's Fifth Symphony anymore; and most of the literary masterpieces are in the public domain.  When it comes to expanding the intellectual basis of life -- if it feels good it really is good, which is more than I can say of booze, drugs, and other ephemeral delights.      

Maybe we need to start treating poverty as something to be relieved instead as a tool of command and control of people not in the elites. Most of the poor in America are white people born and bred here in the Good Old U. S. of A., especially in the parts of America (the Mountain and Deep South) that for some reason attract few immigrants. Maybe we need to relearn how to live well with having to do less to make the iron pails, undergarments, and video of third-rate feature films. We still need such commodities as rice, milk,  undergarments, motor fuel...

The Right had its solution: all must dedicate everything to the enrichment, pampering, and power of extant elites -- ever more every day. First we had an economic bubble and then we had scarcity to manage for monopoly profits. How is life better than it was before 1980? Sure, we have some marvelous technologies which make life more of a gilded cage -- but it is still a cage. We are obliged to work longer and harder under harsher conditions (and working longer means taking a second job to make ends meet) on behalf of people who consider their insatiable greed and lust for sybaritic indulgence in the presence of great misery a sort of benefice. Having learned the tools of the intellectual I can demonstrate how absurd and cruel such is. I can cast moral judgment because I understand the consequences of immoral choices such as cruelty. I have never seen good come from cruelty. Tough love, perhaps? Fine. Delivering someone from addictive behaviors is a genuine liberation. Turning someone into a debt-bonded serf, which is about what the economic elites seek to do to most of us, is simply evil.  

Quote: I don't see it working out myself and I don't see the American right going along with it for much longer Where are the Democrats who think and view things more like me these days. Now, I'm not a Republican but I could be a Tea Party that splits the Democratic party in half and fills the obvious American void that missing in the Democratic party right now that most everyone wants to show up and tilt the scale heavily in favor of America these days. ... I'm physically fit and emotionally fit and quite capable of holding my own and defeating groups of liberals. I'd defeat Nancy (the closest person on the liberal side to becoming President these days) if Pelosi had the guts to face me. Do you think I would respect Nancy's gender and Nancy's position of authority and her title, or do you think I would ignore them all together and take her on one on one, tit for tat, exchange vs exchange, no holds bared if she goes there and it becomes necessary like I would with any other person on the liberal side.

The Tea Party is a big part of the reliable vote for the Reactionary Party. It accepts the intellectual pabulum that the GOP and its spokesmen offer to get people in line with the exploiters and abusers who make life miserable for millions so that the economic elites can live like sultans. If it is a matter of brute force against 'effete' liberals, you would certainly beat me with a bad back not the result of any fault on my part. But if it is an intellectual contest... I am quite confident of my ability to knock you out intellectually as if you were sparring  in the ring with Mike Tyson.   

As for standing for America as opposed to some other country... (1) there are other countries that have as valid rights to exist and to national pride, and (2) "American" does not imply some specific culture. There are parts of New Mexico that have people who settled there who typically represent cultural mixes of Spanish and First Peoples culture who have been there from roughly the time of the Cavalier settlement of Jamestown and the Pilgrim settlement of Massachusetts Bay. Since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 those people in New Mexico  have been as legitimately "American" as you and I. Then consider some Americans who look little like the English settlers on America's east coast because their ancestors were dragooned from Africa to do cheap labor on behalf of... you know... by default those people are Americans in accordance with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. (On occasion I hear someone saying "I am a 10th Amendment American", and all I can think of is "What about the 13th, 14th, and 15th?"). As the historian David Hackett Fischer described the descendants of African slaves in the New World, the slave-owners stripped them of all African heritage except for their genes, and what we consider "black culture" in America is something formed here in America, often with great ingenuity and imagination -- but it is distinctly American and does not fit in any way in Africa.    
   

Quote:As far as demonizing, if you do it ( which you still do) you should expect to see it coming back at you   in return regardless whether you believe ( are able to take ownership and admit it or stop it) you're   guilty of it    or not. Honestly, I don't care what you believe about yourself or me, it's what I see about you and know about myself that counts. I'm not a racist but I know that there is a difference good and bad black people, brown people, white people, yellow people and red people these days and the bad are  no longer restricted to the poor people. The fact is, I've met a helluva lot more people and been to a helluva lot more areas  than you or anyone else on the liberal side has been because none of you do what I do for a living or do what I enjoy doing with my free time. I'm related to a rural area that I've been visiting since I was a little kid.

What you say about Bob you largely say about me... or David Horn... or Eric... or others. The person who denies something "I am not a racist" often accuses himself of something close. At least you recognize that there are good and bad in all groups -- but you could have adopted that meme from a liberal. We do not own that meme. You may know people, but your knowledge of ideas is decidedly low in development. your discussion of physical sparring with people to show what is true or right is void. I don't want to get in a fight with Mike Tyson, but I could rip him to pieces in an intellectual match. I am surprisingly adept at tearing down people who claim intellectual superiority. I know my limits and I consider them embarrassing. That is not new; such is the teaching of Socrates. 

Much of the problem comes from people who consider themselves well-learned despite knowing little yet think themselves better than the experts. Donald Trump is a prime example.

(01-26-2020, 06:34 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]What you say about Bob you largely say about me... or David Horn... or Eric... or others. The person who denies something "I am not a racist" often accuses himself of something close. At least you recognize that there are good and bad in all groups -- but you could have adopted that meme from a liberal. We do not own that meme. You may know people, but your knowledge of ideas is decidedly low in development. your discussion of physical sparring with people to show what is true or right is void. I don't want to get in a fight with Mike Tyson, but I could rip him to pieces in an intellectual match. I am surprisingly adept at tearing down people who claim intellectual superiority. I know my limits and I consider them embarrassing. That is not new; such is the teaching of Socrates. 

Much of the problem comes from people who consider themselves well-learned despite knowing little yet think themselves better than the experts. Donald Trump is a prime example.

I am an American liberal. A liberal doesn't see things one way or only takes one issue into account or believes what one group has to say and so forth. I don't judge people based on their appearance, their class, their political affiliation or the color of their skin either. In other words, I don't judge a book by its cover. You and every other liberal here does that as they're tooting their horn calling themselves liberal and using the term liberal to describe their views and attract people who identify with the term and its values. Hint...I often refer to you folks as so called liberals because I don't view you guys as liberal.

Intellectuals flap their gums and promote themselves and their views/ideas for a living. Intellectuals use their academic titles/ college degrees and use high minded language/terms and high minded reasons/excuses as a means to distract or awe/convince and basically punk others who aren't intelligent/knowledgeable/naive enough to be able to see through it and understand exactly what they're really up to or/ trying to convince others to go along or believe in and so forth. Trump has been around the block more times than the liberals which is why Trump is such a threat to liberals and the Washington elites.

(01-26-2020, 05:44 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]The local bog farmers seemed more concerned that I walk on the road and did not stray into his bog.  It was less that I would harm crops, but that his pesticides would harm me.  They were mostly friendly.  While the edge of a bog is a decent place to set up a shooting range, it didn’t much happen.  It has been a really long time since a native raider came out of the woods, or a British frigate had to be turned back by two light house keeper’s daughters armed with a fife and a drum.  (My teacher sister got quite hot because the state school testing board rated that incident as a mythic retelling, but the Scituate schools teaches it as an historical event.  All the Scituate students were dinged on the official required test.  The fife, meanwhile, is in a local museum.  The local area is full of the two women’s descendants.)

The local bog owners are upset that a few decades ago, the corporation that buys most of their berries found a few areas away from Plymouth County that could produce cranberries.  They developed those areas, produced a surplus of cranberries, and the law of supply and demand resulted in cut prices and desperate farmers.  A deliberate policy?  A lot of folks went bankrupt, and are still muttering against conservative policies that favor the corporations and elites over local farmers.  Conspiracy theories abound and make perfect economic sense.

No Industrial Age talk of a revolution or civil war.  Lots of muttering against conservatives and their policies, customized to center on one particular corporation.

A lot of old bogs are growing power these days.  The local area is generally hills and trees.  The old bogs are flat and already cleared.  Thus, there are former bogs now full of solar panels.  One local dirt mover is currently flattening hills near a nearby housing complex that has already converted the nearby bogs.  One of their selling points is cheap renewable power from off the local grid.  Of course, each converted bog represents some local farmer's failed attempt to make a living.

In the years after the local corporation put the pressure on local bogs, there was an increase in fertilizer that leeched into the pond across the street.  It became full of slime, much less usable for the summer population, for everybody.  We were less bothered in our pond across the street, and got a few extra beach visitors.  Eventually the local improvement association triumphed and the upstream bogs were abandoned.  It took years.

It turns out that the solar farms are much better than the windmills.  Too big.  With locals unaware of what was coming, the landowner would build a tower that makes local houses uninhabitable for some and decrease in value for all.  The local governments sided with the tower builders initially.  Anything to lower taxes.  They are rather quickly learning to keep the locals in the loop and be reluctant to approve new projects near residential areas.  Not keeping the local voters happy is a good way to get removed from government.  Locally, you want to keep the windmill towers well off shore.  The Massachusetts coast is too well populated to do much else.

My rented property is next to The Great Sandpit of Doom.  The area was once hills and trees with a few houses and cranberry bogs.  The hills were removed to create one great big flat area.  Some developers and town officials are attempting to turn the area into an industrial complex.  More closed cranberry bogs.  A retired couple that intended to spend their life there were forced, forced mind you, to accept lots of money.  Someone whose property was spread across two towns almost lost property value due to the threat of eminent domain.  Just think of the tax benefits!  But…. Not in my backyard!  Think of the traffic through the residential area!  The developers are absolutely ruining a perfectly good area for shooting up and prostitution!  Wetlands!  Coyotes!

In other words, small town politics as usual, including the demonizing of several parties.

So it goes with Greater Boston growing to the point of effecting towns near the Cape Cod Canal.  The locals generally welcome the increased business, but also want to keep the rural feel and tourist dollars.  The balance is still liberal.  This is still Massachusetts after all, and the elites do care more for the almighty dollar than their neighbors.  That is how they became elites after all.  Still, the neighbor’s fights are fought with legislatures and votes, not with bullets.   Not even with fife and drums.  

While Massachusetts may have its hoods, they are generally north of here.  I haven’t encountered them since flirting with the edges of Roxbury on my commute to Northeastern University.  Detouring by Symphony involved too much traffic.  The closest I came to a problem was a young kid on a tricycle who hadn’t learned fully about objects in motion staying in motion.  I think that was the one time I started to break well before the object of the potential collision turned his steering wheel but did not change course.  Of course I broke.  He was obviously going too fast.

I hear and have seen people in the middle of the country having their own battles between the family farm owners and corporate farming.  I can sympathize that elites and corporations hurting family farms are happening there too.  Corporatations generally have the reserve funds to jump on the periodic hard times that seems to come with family farming.  The people in the middle of the country could find unlikely allies in liberal Massachusetts, but they seem more inclined to assume hostility.  Not clear.  It is a matter of recognizing the enemy.

What is left of liberal politics when the violence, racism and tribal thinking is removed?  Not much changes.  We are not planning any wars, trying to put down any minorities, or favoring particular classes and religions.  In abstract, we buy into all men being created equal under law.  Oh, we don’t care much for the elites, those who hoard a lot of resources at the expense of the working people.  Still, that is minor next to the militias, the racism, the pro elite policies of the conservatives.

If you are dreaming of a Democratic equivalent of the Tea Party, our dreams may be far closer together than you think.

And if you find areas where all are not equal under law, we will try to correct that.  We are apt to fail.  Corruption, prejudice and violence are old and deep seated.  Only a few corrections can be made in any given crisis or progressive era.  In one crisis, we may get rid of kings.  The next, slaves.  Later, Jim Crow.  It takes time.

So many conservative policies.  So little time.

For what it's worth, I've never viewed us as being all that far apart domestic policy wise. We differed greatly on foreign policy and global policy. I don't have an attachment to a political party/term or an attachment to a particular side of an old forum or a group here either at this point. Like I side, the Democratic party completely turned me (lost my support) off long ago. So, I tend to vote Republican these days. I'm pro American worker, pro American family, pro American rights and pro American overall. I guess that what makes me more in line with the Tea Party today. I'm not so much dreaming it, I'm seeing it's influence with Republicans these days.

(01-25-2020, 09:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]You did spend two sentences on immigration.  I spent more, so I don’t think your two lines are worthy of a response.  You are empty.  Just, empty.

I'm not empty, I'm just not much of a writer these days. I think the two sentences pretty well summed up the uncomfortable position that most Democratic supporters of old are either finding themselves facing now or finding themselves facing tomorrow until they eventually see things are way and side with the American right.

(01-27-2020, 01:08 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-25-2020, 09:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]You did spend two sentences on immigration.  I spent more, so I don’t think your two lines are worthy of a response.  You are empty.  Just, empty.

I'm not empty, I'm just not much of a writer these days. I think the two sentences pretty well summed up the uncomfortable position that most Democratic supporters of old are either finding themselves facing now or finding themselves facing tomorrow until they eventually see things are way and side with the American right.

I doubt this is the issue that will break the Democrats. Those who have empathy will feel for what is being done with the families. Those who like to demonize (and they do exist both ways) are given lots of opportunity to say the administration in general and the president in particular is heartless, lacks empathy. For those who vote with their hearts this looks like a Democratic win. For the heartless, those that are looking primarily to their own pocketbook, it looks different.

I don't see that flipping.

That you are uncomfortable is no surprise. Everyone ought to be uncomfortable. The War on Drugs and asylum aspects make it more complex. It is not just an economic issue. If you simplify it you can get weird ideas. The people who are looking just at the families are simplifying it as much as any.

(01-27-2020, 12:08 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]For what it's worth, I've never viewed us as being all that far apart domestic policy wise. We differed greatly on foreign policy and global policy. I don't have an attachment to a political party/term or an attachment to a particular side of an old forum or a group here either at this point. Like I side, the Democratic party completely turned me (lost my support) off long ago. So, I tend to vote Republican these days. I'm pro American worker, pro American family, pro American rights and pro American overall. I guess that what makes me more in line with the Tea Party today. I'm not so much dreaming it, I'm seeing it's influence with Republicans these days.

One problem is that your view on things like policy oversimplifies, and you are inclined to demonize those who do not oversimplify the same way. That makes you an easy target. My approach assumes everybody has their own well justified perspective, and the view of the situation is not complete until you have included all the perspectives. (And that does not even count angles like astrology, which are not justified, but some people view it as if they were valid.)

Problems like the Middle East and the Republicans are not simple or limited to a few things. I mean, the economic way of looking at things from the middle of the country is fine, but you have to be aware that the Middle East is switching from Agricultural Age values to modern and that is always ugly. The Republican Party has been infected with racism, elites allegiance and loyalty to specific groups. You cannot just ignore these for an economic view.

From my perspective, much jumping around between ways of looking at the world is required. Bringing it back to one approach is just incomplete.

(01-27-2020, 02:49 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-27-2020, 01:08 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-25-2020, 09:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]You did spend two sentences on immigration.  I spent more, so I don’t think your two lines are worthy of a response.  You are empty.  Just, empty.

I'm not empty, I'm just not much of a writer these days. I think the two sentences pretty well summed up the uncomfortable position that most Democratic supporters of old are either finding themselves facing now or finding themselves facing tomorrow until they eventually see things are way and side with the American right.

I doubt this is the issue that will break the Democrats.  Those who have empathy will feel for what is being done with the families.  Those who like to demonize (and they do exist both ways) are given lots of opportunity to say the administration in general and the president in particular is heartless, lacks empathy.  For those who vote with their hearts this looks like a Democratic win.  For the heartless, those that are looking primarily to their own pocketbook, it looks different.

I don't see that flipping.

That you are uncomfortable is no surprise.  Everyone ought to be uncomfortable.  The War on Drugs and asylum aspects make it more complex.  It is not just an economic issue.  If you simplify it you can get weird ideas.  The people who are looking just at the families are simplifying it as much as any.

Hearts vs Minds....I know it's an issue that's going to break/impact the Democrats. Who/which party/which side has to become more socialist these days Bob?

(01-27-2020, 01:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]... Who/which party/which side has to become more socialist these days Bob?

I'm obviously not Bob, but I would like to know: when you ask this question, what do you mean by "socialist"?

(01-27-2020, 04:25 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-27-2020, 12:08 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]For what it's worth, I've never viewed us as being all that far apart domestic policy wise. We differed greatly on foreign policy and global policy. I don't have an attachment to a political party/term or an attachment to a particular side of an old forum or a group here either at this point. Like I side, the Democratic party completely turned me (lost my support) off long ago. So, I tend to vote Republican these days. I'm pro American worker, pro American family, pro American rights and pro American overall. I guess that what makes me more in line with the Tea Party today. I'm not so much dreaming it, I'm seeing it's influence with Republicans these days.

One problem is that your view on things like policy oversimplifies, and you are inclined to demonize those who do not oversimplify the same way.  That makes you an easy target.  My approach assumes everybody has their own well justified perspective, and the view of the situation is not complete until you have included all the perspectives.  (And that does not even count angles like astrology, which are not justified, but some people view it as if they were valid.)

Problems like the Middle East and the Republicans are not simple or limited to a few things.  I mean, the economic way of looking at things from the middle of the country is fine, but you have to be aware that the Middle East is switching from Agricultural Age values to modern and that is always ugly.  The Republican Party has been infected with racism, elites allegiance and loyalty to specific groups.  You cannot just ignore these for an economic view.

From my perspective, much jumping around between ways of looking at the world is required.  Bringing it back to one approach is just incomplete.

Bob, I notice that you keep using racism and continue imposing/applying racism and continue going along the so called liberal view/accusation of us and the party that we support as being racially driven and motivated and so forth. Yes, I understand you're need for jumping around and including a bunch irrelevant information/ liberal nonsense and ignoring sentences that get straight to the heart/center of an issue directly related to you and the so called liberal party that you support these days vs playing your game and fucking around with you.

Did you know that there are 21 million pro-life Democrats who live in this country who are free to switch their allegiance at anytime? Did you know that there are also millions of American workers associated with American unions who are free to switch their political allegiance at anytime as well? Now, if you want to stick to the heart and stick to emotional pleas and continue with trying to use guilt or shame or false accusation or demonizing or imposing fear as a means and stick to doing whatever else the so called liberals are doing or telling/showing you to do these days that's fine with me because I don't care if the so called liberals continue digging your graves and continue breaking American laws, ignoring constitutional process's, continue supporting left wing lunatics and their crazy ideas and continue turning off more good American people and continue burning bridges with most of America itself.

(01-27-2020, 02:08 PM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-27-2020, 01:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]... Who/which party/which side has to become more socialist these days Bob?

I'm obviously not Bob, but I would like to know: when you ask this question, what do you mean by "socialist"?

You don't know what socialist means? I suggest that you look it up, learn what it means and see how well it fits your views and the positions that you take and so forth. Marx and Lennon may have been cool or viewed as a heroic figure by many back in the day. Where are they now? Hint...What happened back then is just beginning to happen now and you already know the outcome.