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

Good summary of what's going on.

(12-14-2016, 07:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Good summary of what's going on.

[   White space





]

... In Erie 


URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CLEVELAND OH
159 PM EST WED DEC 14 2016

.AN ARCTIC COLD FRONT WILL MOVE SOUTH ACROSS THE AREA TONIGHT
BRINGING THE COLDEST AIR OF THE SEASON THUS FAR. WESTERLY WINDS
ACROSS LAKE ERIE WILL CAUSE LAKE EFFECT SNOW SHOWERS TO DEVELOP
OVER THE LAKE...SHIFTING ONSHORE TONIGHT. LAKE EFFECT SNOW WILL
CONTINUE ON THURSDAY AS WINDS SHIFT AROUND OUT OF THE NORTHWEST.
SNOW WILL BE HEAVY AT TIMES AND WILL COMBINE WITH STRONG SURFACE
WINDS TO CAUSE CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF SNOW. SNOWFALL
RATES COULD APPROACH 2 INCHES PER HOUR WITH THE HEAVIER BANDS. THE
INTERSTATE 90 CORRIDOR EAST OF CLEVELAND WILL BE IMPACTED BY THE
SNOW BANDS. WIND CHILL VALUES WILL ALSO DROP BELOW ZERO LATE
TONIGHT AND REMAIN BELOW ZERO INTO FRIDAY.

OHZ013-PAZ003-150300-
/O.UPG.KCLE.LE.A.0009.161215T0000Z-161216T0900Z/
/O.EXB.KCLE.LE.W.0010.161215T0000Z-161216T1500Z/
GEAUGA-CRAWFORD-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...CHARDON...MEADVILLE
159 PM EST WED DEC 14 2016

...LAKE EFFECT SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO
10 AM EST FRIDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN CLEVELAND HAS ISSUED A LAKE
EFFECT SNOW WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING
TO 10 AM EST FRIDAY. THE LAKE EFFECT SNOW WATCH IS NO LONGER IN
EFFECT.

* ACCUMULATIONS...6 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW...WITH THE HIGHEST
 AMOUNTS ACROSS THE NORTHERN HALF OF GEAUGA AND NORTHEAST
 CRAWFORD COUNTIES.

Sorry, Eric. The video does not work.

Sorry you can't see it.

Here it is on you tube




worth sharing..........

(12-12-2016, 05:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Bernie Sanders calls out the BIG LIAR:

OMG,  a fake peacock on a fake news site.   Friends don't let friends use fake news sites.  Eric, you should know better.
Fake News sites = [MSNBC, CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, Facefuck, Wahoo.com]

Real news @ nakedcapitalism.com, oftwominds.com, mish.com, etc.



Here's a non faux peacock.

(12-14-2016, 07:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry you can't see it.

Here it is on you tube




worth sharing..........

Some consequences...

1. These people utterly exclude basically the center-right to the Left. Not only have they no room for a John Kennedy in the system -- they have no room for a Gerald Ford. A government by extremists does crazy things... like starting wars for spreading the extremist gospel where that gospel is unwelcome.

2. An extremist regime leaves outsiders with no role in the political processor simply a sham. Sell-outs who agree to some power-sharing arrangement that allows survival of their faction to survive may wax fat and get to put up a show of token and ineffective opposition for getting to be the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters. But the Globetrotters play to entertain and life is rarely like that. The token opposition may even have its own nomenklatura that lives very well.  But that token opposition has no chance of winning, and people who might like the agenda of the token opposition get nothing.

That's how East Germany operated, and that is how China operates today. There are opposition parties that together have about 30% representation in the national legislature that serves as a rubber-stamp. America could be headed that way, perhaps with the Democrats splintered into factions separated by ethnicity and occupational group (let us say a party that is effectively a party for Blacks, one for Hispanics, one for Asian-Americans, one for craft unions, one for 'educators' -- many Parties that can never form an effective coalition .

3. People on the outside get the shaft-- hard. They find their wages kept down. Although insiders get favorable tax treatment, outsiders get to pay heavy taxes and get monopoly prices. There is no economic justice. Such economic growth as there is comes at a great price, and it never trickles down.

4. It is not good for domestic tranquility. Outsiders may have the alternatives of selling out, emigrating, submitting, or rebelling. Rebellion against a dictatorial regime usually gets one killed -- or worse. As regimes like Stalin's Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Baathist Iraq, ISIS, and North Korea show, there are fates worse than death.

Emigrate? You probably can't sell what you have, you probably lose your bank account, your chance of collecting Social Security, and of course whatever economic network you ever had. You end up elsewhere -- penniless, and with few opportunities for work. Sell out? You must betray people who depended upon you for their welfare, which is easy enough -- if you are a sociopath and have people to betray. If you are not a sociopath and lack the people to betray, you cannot do it. Submission? You have just accepted some new form of peonage that can end only with the downfall of the regime.

5. It promotes extremism on the Other Side. Think of all those people who graduated from "Teacher's State University" who took a political theory class in which they experienced a short discussion of Karl Marx and why he was irrelevant in a consumer society in which working people get cars, refrigerators, televisions, furniture, electricity, cable TV, and two weeks' vacation. When all that outsiders get is exhausting toil under brutal conditions for near-starvation pay, then Karl Marx becomes almost attractive when free elections are strictly an antique.

I can imagine the Left pushing much the same fear about a government that it dislikes. That pushes people to the Hard Left... if the State hasn't shutdown all media hostile to the Government.

I remember back in the late sixties and into the seventies it was commonplace for people to understand that capitalism was what was wrong with America.

They said, it makes life into competition, when cooperation works better for all.

They said that business interests are only interested in maximizing profit. Those pursuing this aim have less concern with quality, or safety, or promoting quality relationships, which are reduced to buying and selling rather than anything authentic and fulfilling. Market values become uppermost, and degrade everything else: culture, the environment, fairness, honesty, and all other higher purposes in life. Everything is reduced to the market nexus, said folks like John Kenneth Galbraith. How many people here remember him? How many people here remember the human potential movement, and what transformational value it had for people?

They said it puts the bosses in charge and makes people work too much for too little.

They said it promotes imperialism in order to profit from the tools of war.

But the backlash and the reaction has grown from the sixties onward, as the capitalist interests have fought back. Since Reagan and his followers took over, "socialism" has been named as the problem. There were always some who said this, but they used to be seen as fringe, right-wing extremists. But they have taken over.

But they are wrong. Socialism is not the problem; it has never even been a threat. How many socialists have been elected to office? How many votes do socialist parties get in general elections?

No, the problem remains capitalism. It defines our society. It owns our society, and runs our society. We just have been brainwashed into forgetting.

That is the big lie. Socialism is not our problem; capitalism is our problem. Always has been.

(12-14-2016, 08:00 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: [ -> ]Fake News sites = [MSNBC, CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, Facefuck, Wahoo.com]

Real news @ nakedcapitalism.com, oftwominds.com, mish.com, etc.

Fake news is practiced mostly by the right wing. Its chief targets are Muslims and Hillary Clinton. You yourself and many others have gotten confused by some of it, particularly when it concerns Mrs. Clinton. And the chief practitioners of fake news are Trump and his allies and henchmen, like General Flynn.

Trump's National Security Adviser Shared Fake News About Clinton






Retired general Michael Flynn also shared conspiracy theories about Muslims.

http://fortune.com/2016/11/19/trump-security-adviser-hoax/

As Donald Trump puts together his cabinet, some of his picks are getting critical attention for past comments they made that suggest they hold racist or otherwise offensive views about various groups. One of those getting scrutiny is General Michael Flynn, Trump’s nominee for National Security Advisor.

Flynn is a former Lieutenant General who led the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years, from 2012 to 2014, before being forced out. A Pentagon official told the Washington Post at the time that his vision of the future of the DIA was “disruptive,” and others said his management style was “chaotic.”

On Twitter in particular, Flynn has not been shy about holding forth about Muslims, terrorism, and Hillary Clinton. And in several cases he has shared fake news stories about those subjects.

Just a few days before the election, the generaltweeted a link to a news hoax from a right-wing conspiracy theory site called True Pundit, and said the New York Police Department had evidence of new Hillary Clinton emails that proved her involvement in or knowledge of money laundering and sex crimes with children, among other things.

Quote:U decide – NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc…MUST READ!https://t.co/O0bVJT3QDr
— General Flynn (@GenFlynn)November 3, 2016

Flynn also retweeted a conspiracy theory that the United Nations Agenda 21 program, which is designed to create sustainable development in emerging nations, would actually put in place a global church in which Christianity would be forbidden and would “undermine America’s sovereignty.”
Earlier this year, the general also linked to a tweet that had a photo of Hillary Clinton wearing a head scarf and claimed that this showed “solidarity with Islamic terrorists.” In fact, she was wearing it out respect during a visit to a mosque in Pakistan in 2009 as Secretary of State. Flynn said Clinton was “showing disrespect for American Values and Principles.”

Quote:[/url]

 Follow
General Flynn 

✔@GenFlynn
This is not showing respect. This is showing disrespect for American Values and Principles. #NeverHillary https://twitter.com/realscotternst/status/753762991858814976 …
7:12 PM - 14 Jul 2016

• 
  
  
  

Flynn has also made a number of comments about Muslims that have led some to question whether he is fit to become National Security Adviser. In one tweet following a terrorist attack in France, hesaid that Arab and Persian world leaders needed to “declare their Islamic ideology sick” and to admit that it “must be healed” within the next 24 hours.
The general also posted a comment earlier this year in which he said that it was “rational to fear Muslims” and asked his followers to forward a video that claimed Islamophobia is rational and that Islam wants 80% of the world to be enslaved or killed. “The truth fears no questions,” Flynn said.

Quote:General Flynn 

✔@GenFlynn
Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions...http://youtu.be/tJnW8HRHLLw 
5:14 PM - 26 Feb 2016

• 
  
   
  
• 
   1,8651,865 Retweets
   
  
• 
   1,8461,846 likes
  

On another occasion, Flynn retweeted a right-wing, anti-Semitic commentator, Jared Wyland, who shared a video clip that he claimed was of an ex-Muslim telling President Obama about how ISIS is “practicing Islam to the letter.” Flynn said in his retweet: “Brother Rashid is worth listening to. Most powerful message I’ve heard in a long time.”

Quote:

 Follow
General Flynn 

✔@GenFlynn
Brother Rashid is worth listening to for 8:47. Most powerful message I've heard in a long time. @FieldofFight https://twitter.com/jaredwyand/status/763808041154277376 …
1:00 PM - 11 Aug 2016

• 
  
   
  
• 
   333333 Retweets
   
  
• 
  [url=https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=763827382381838337] 325325 likes
  

(12-15-2016, 05:14 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-14-2016, 08:00 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: [ -> ]Fake News sites = [MSNBC, CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, Facefuck, Wahoo.com]

Real news @ nakedcapitalism.com, oftwominds.com, mish.com, etc.

Fake news is practiced mostly by the right wing. Its chief targets are Muslims and Hillary Clinton. You yourself and many others have gotten confused by some of it, particularly when it concerns Mrs. Clinton. And the chief practitioners of fake news are Trump and his allies and henchmen, like General Flynn.

Trump's National Security Adviser Shared Fake News About Clinton






Retired general Michael Flynn also shared conspiracy theories about Muslims.

http://fortune.com/2016/11/19/trump-security-adviser-hoax/

As Donald Trump puts together his cabinet, some of his picks are getting critical attention for past comments they made that suggest they hold racist or otherwise offensive views about various groups. One of those getting scrutiny is General Michael Flynn, Trump’s nominee for National Security Advisor.

Flynn is a former Lieutenant General who led the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years, from 2012 to 2014, before being forced out. A Pentagon official told the Washington Post at the time that his vision of the future of the DIA was “disruptive,” and others said his management style was “chaotic.”

On Twitter in particular, Flynn has not been shy about holding forth about Muslims, terrorism, and Hillary Clinton. And in several cases he has shared fake news stories about those subjects.

Just a few days before the election, the generaltweeted a link to a news hoax from a right-wing conspiracy theory site called True Pundit, and said the New York Police Department had evidence of new Hillary Clinton emails that proved her involvement in or knowledge of money laundering and sex crimes with children, among other things.

Quote:U decide – NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc…MUST READ!https://t.co/O0bVJT3QDr
— General Flynn (@GenFlynn)November 3, 2016

Flynn also retweeted a conspiracy theory that the United Nations Agenda 21 program, which is designed to create sustainable development in emerging nations, would actually put in place a global church in which Christianity would be forbidden and would “undermine America’s sovereignty.”
Earlier this year, the general also linked to a tweet that had a photo of Hillary Clinton wearing a head scarf and claimed that this showed “solidarity with Islamic terrorists.” In fact, she was wearing it out respect during a visit to a mosque in Pakistan in 2009 as Secretary of State. Flynn said Clinton was “showing disrespect for American Values and Principles.”

Quote:[/url]

 Follow
General Flynn 

✔@GenFlynn
This is not showing respect. This is showing disrespect for American Values and Principles. #NeverHillary https://twitter.com/realscotternst/status/753762991858814976 …
7:12 PM - 14 Jul 2016

• 
  
  
  

Flynn has also made a number of comments about Muslims that have led some to question whether he is fit to become National Security Adviser. In one tweet following a terrorist attack in France, hesaid that Arab and Persian world leaders needed to “declare their Islamic ideology sick” and to admit that it “must be healed” within the next 24 hours.
The general also posted a comment earlier this year in which he said that it was “rational to fear Muslims” and asked his followers to forward a video that claimed Islamophobia is rational and that Islam wants 80% of the world to be enslaved or killed. “The truth fears no questions,” Flynn said.

Quote:General Flynn 

✔@GenFlynn
Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions...http://youtu.be/tJnW8HRHLLw 
5:14 PM - 26 Feb 2016

• 
  
   
  
• 
   1,8651,865 Retweets
   
  
• 
   1,8461,846 likes
  

On another occasion, Flynn retweeted a right-wing, anti-Semitic commentator, Jared Wyland, who shared a video clip that he claimed was of an ex-Muslim telling President Obama about how ISIS is “practicing Islam to the letter.” Flynn said in his retweet: “Brother Rashid is worth listening to. Most powerful message I’ve heard in a long time.”

Quote:

 Follow
General Flynn 

✔@GenFlynn
Brother Rashid is worth listening to for 8:47. Most powerful message I've heard in a long time. @FieldofFight https://twitter.com/jaredwyand/status/763808041154277376 …
1:00 PM - 11 Aug 2016

• 
  
   
  
• 
   333333 Retweets
   
  
• 
  [url=https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=763827382381838337] 325325 likes
  

Ahem, I forgot.  Yes, Twitter is very much a fake news source.  And I  don't listen to Rush Limbaugh and the like on the radio either. Twitter is banned from my puter 'cause it's trashy like facefuck.

(OR BOTH)

I haven't banned facebook yet, but it takes some effort sometimes to check out and debunk the nonsense. I never tweet; I'll leave that to the peacocks and other fancy birds.

(12-15-2016, 04:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]That is the big lie. Socialism is not our problem; capitalism is our problem. Always has been.

I'd say the problem is elite classes gathering too much power, unchecked by the working classes. This problem manifests under either capitalism or socialism. The communists took it to quite an extreme, but the capitalists are working on it.

(12-15-2016, 07:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-15-2016, 04:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]That is the big lie. Socialism is not our problem; capitalism is our problem. Always has been.

I'd say the problem is elite classes gathering too much power, unchecked by the working classes.  This problem manifests under either capitalism or socialism.  The communists took it to quite an extreme, but the capitalists are working on it.

All systems create an over-class to maintain them.  Jefferson thought the solution was a little revolution every 25 years or so.  After the ACW, that idea died for good.  So here we are with no corrective except electoral politics, and that's under siege. 

When the historians look back from 50 to 100 years, they may find that the theme of this 4Twas how to keep our democratic republic intact -- assuming we do, of course.

(12-15-2016, 07:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-15-2016, 04:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]That is the big lie. Socialism is not our problem; capitalism is our problem. Always has been.

I'd say the problem is elite classes gathering too much power, unchecked by the working classes.  This problem manifests under either capitalism or socialism.  The communists took it to quite an extreme, but the capitalists are working on it.

The capitalist extreme is fascism, where the free market is displaced by government sanctioned oligopoly.  That has been tried too.

The crisis cannot be resolved from the top down, not intentionally.  At least some of the elites must be cut down to size, one way or another. It's not going to happen voluntarily.

(12-15-2016, 12:16 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-15-2016, 07:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-15-2016, 04:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]That is the big lie. Socialism is not our problem; capitalism is our problem. Always has been.

I'd say the problem is elite classes gathering too much power, unchecked by the working classes.  This problem manifests under either capitalism or socialism.  The communists took it to quite an extreme, but the capitalists are working on it.

The capitalist extreme is fascism, where the free market is displaced by government sanctioned oligopoly.  That has been tried too.

The crisis cannot be resolved from the top down, not intentionally.  At least some of the elites must be cut down to size, one way or another.  It's not going to happen voluntarily.

I like your statement much better than Eric's.

I figure the politicians that get power will serve the group that can give them the most power.  Through the unravelling, the politicians have been serving the elite.  Campaign contributions seem to have gotten one into power better than actively serving the people.  The most positive thing I can say about the Trump phenomena is that a pretense and promise of shunning the establishment was spoken of.  Hillary's association with politics as usual hurt her, as it hurt all those Republican candidates Trump beat.  Trump's pretense to be an outsider helped him.  Of course, Obama ran on 'change' as well.  

The disgust level of the American people is not unknown.  The problem is getting real action.  Obama was frustrated by Congress.  Trump, after promising to drain the swamp, has hired a lot of alligators.  While it is early to say that all Trump's populist promises will prove empty, I don't see that the elites are being cut down to size.  It seems likely that the anger at the elites hasn't come close to peaking.

Of course, the alternative to a very frustrating very empty democratic process is violence.  There is talk enough of this on these forums.  I'm not seeing the spirals of violence really moving yet, though.

Aside from big infrastructure projects that will more than anything else enrich his cronies and to cut taxes for the Master Class, the only promise that I have absolute certainty that he will carry out is to cut down the educated middle class to the level of the unskilled laborer in pay and dignity.

I expect that the greatest meaning in life that many of us will have is in resisting a government that shows autocratic tendencies and exudes racial and religious bigotry. I expect to be in plenty of demonstrations and protests. I expect to make placards similar to those that excoriated Ferdinand Marcos and Communist dictators in central and Balkan Europe in the late 1980s. I expect that things will be that serious very fast.

(12-15-2016, 01:05 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ][quote pid='15402' dateline='1481822180']
...
Of course, the alternative to a very frustrating very empty democratic process is violence.  There is talk enough of this on these forums.  I'm not seeing the spirals of violence really moving yet, though.

[/quote]

One observation which I've been keenly aware of lately for some reason ... things can progress (devolve?) extremely quickly. 

The period between the assassination of the Archduke to the first declaration of war (Austia-Hungary on Serbia) was 30 days.  Germany declared war on Russia 4 days later ... with the Tsar responding to the King with "I would gladly have accepted your proposals had not the German ambassador this afternoon presented a note to my Government declaring war.".

Kneejerk reactions seems to be pretty common these days.

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-...ed-2016-12

Facebook is going to use Snopes and other fact-checkers to combat and bury 'fake news'

Alex Heath

Facebook is going to start fact-checking, labeling, and burying fake news and hoaxes in its News Feed, the company said Thursday.

The decision comes after Facebook received heated criticism for its role in spreading a deluge of political misinformation during the US presidential election, like one story that falsely said the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump.

To combat fake news, Facebook has teamed up with a shortlist of media organizations, including Snopes and ABC News, that are part of an international fact-checking network led by Poynter, a nonprofit school for journalism in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Starting as a test with a small percentage of its users in the US, Facebook will make it easier to report news stories that are fake or misleading. Once third-party fact-checkers have confirmed that the story is fake, it will be labeled as such and demoted in the News Feed.

A company representative told Business Insider that the social network will also use other signals, like algorithms that detect whether a story that appears fake is going viral, to determine if it should label the story as fake and bury it in people's feeds.

"We've focused our efforts on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain, and on engaging both our community and third party organizations," Facebook News Feed chief Adam Mosseri said in a company blog post on Thursday.

A team of Facebook researchers will also review website domains and send sites that appear to be fake or spoofed (like "washingtonpost.co") to third-party fact-checkers, a Facebook representative said. Of the 42 news organizations that have committed to Poynter's fact-checking code of ethics, Facebook is starting out with the following four: Snopes, Factcheck.org, ABC News, and PolitiFact.

The Associated Press will also be a fact-checking partner.

"We are only involved to the extent that Facebook relies on the list of signatories to our code of principles as a starting point for the organizations it chooses to verify," a Poynter representative told Business Insider. "Facebook is the only organization certifying third party fact-checkers on its platform."

Facebook has given its four initial fact-checking partners access to a tool that will let them label stories in the News Feed as fake, a Facebook spokesperson said. The person said Facebook is not paying the organizations to fact-check.

(12-15-2016, 12:16 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-15-2016, 07:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-15-2016, 04:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]That is the big lie. Socialism is not our problem; capitalism is our problem. Always has been.

I'd say the problem is elite classes gathering too much power, unchecked by the working classes.  This problem manifests under either capitalism or socialism.  The communists took it to quite an extreme, but the capitalists are working on it.

The capitalist extreme is fascism, where the free market is displaced by government sanctioned oligopoly.  That has been tried too.

The crisis cannot be resolved from the top down, not intentionally.  At least some of the elites must be cut down to size, one way or another.  It's not going to happen voluntarily.

Finally. a point of agreement!  Yes, the elites have to be reduced in stature -- especially the moneyed elites.  Lets assume that the French and Russian solutions are off the table, what do you suggest?

(12-15-2016, 04:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-...ed-2016-12

Facebook is going to use Snopes and other fact-checkers to combat and bury 'fake news'

Yeah, but Facefuck is still an aggregater  of its users personal information. You see, if some product, like , yes Facefuck is free of charge for those who choose to use it, then it's the users who are the product. It's simple because there are rarely free lunches in this universe.  Next, a lot of folks can sort of have a free lunch on Zuckerberg by trying thisP:
Description here :  http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/classaction/facebook.asp
More here.
https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/fr...settlement

So, I did get said $15.00 check , compliments of Zuckerberg which is how I did in fact obtain a free lunch.

Nextly, even though Facefuck promises to use Snopes.com to weed out "fake news", there are still problems.
First, of course is obvious.  One should never, ever "like" random stuff on the interwebs bacause that infromation goes into Facefuck's database about Y'ALL. Nextly, one's Facefuck actual account is a roach trap where users give out all sorts of personal information . And... if you click on any Facefuck ads, you're telling Facefuck, exactly which sorts of products that you as Facefucks product like. That means that essentially the business model of Facefuck is the linkages of products as:

1. The users are product 1, set
2. There are lots of product 2, a set of products provided by those who buy ads on Facefuck proper.

Then of course, Twitter is exactly like Facefuck.

Now, the Lamestream Media operate on a slightly different business model.  If you don't have pay TeeVee,  then it's just the stupid commercials one has to endure. This is a time =money. You waste your time watching stupid ads in exchange for free TeeVee. Pay Teevee is way, way, way worse. You pay of course to have some number of channels sent to a cable/satellite box [which you may also pay rent on] . Next, I really don't think anyone actually watches every channel. 150 channels does not work that way. Besides a lot of said channels are trashy, trashy, stuff like reality TeeVee, shopping channels, ESPN for some of us since things like the NFL feature spoiled players and spoiled managers.  Then here's where some "fake news" happens a lot as well, which make the signal to noise ratio very low and devalues the actual worth of pay TeeVee even more. Then of course for Rags, well Rags has lots of mind meds which have priority over essentially trashy TeeVee. And... Rags is certainly part of the working poor and works with selfsame. The younger ones are still with parents because , well their Millies and  are stuck between a rock and a hard place. You either gamble with a college degree which makes you a debt serf or you just go off and work minimum wage. That's the reality here in flyover country. Then of course the Lamestream Media never gets why lots of folks think theres no recovery. The fact is there has been no recovery in fly over country. I guess the bi coastal bubble zones got a recovery, but none is to be seen where I live. That means when the Lamestream Media says how wonderful the economy is, well from here they look like idiots spouting bullshit because they never bothered with some exception of a few stops in battleground states, just reported on election related stuff.  So, stupid, stupid stupid journalism has happened. The newscasters never got the hint of how much stuff sux here. And of course, obviously, we have stupid here unto ourselves. Essentially, if you live in fly over country, you need to turn off Limbaugh because he's a culture warrior and says zip about the economy. Limbaugh is just exactly like special snowflake SJW's, just he's a red variant with his own agenda. There's nothing, I mean nothing different between flyover country Jesus freaks and SJW's. A pox on both houses, for sure. It's the economy stupids, not culture war crap. Rags just wants his Social Security and Medicare in the future to be in place.  Speaking of which, yes, playwrite is absolutely correct when it comes to Xer's like Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is a social darwin sort of Xer. He and Xer's who like him are stupid, stupid, stupid because really, Paul Ryan wants to take YOUR Medicare and Social Security away. The place where Playwrite is correct is "long term thinking is not one of GenX's strong suits", well paraphrased because Rags is too lazy to go off and find the relevant post.
Hmmmm.......................................................................................................................................................
long post, weird. Lack of sleep last night has Rags feeling sorta strange. Now, wrt GenX, some GenX here are physical , some not so much. Rags thinks joining assorted physical aligned groups is not a smart thing for GenX either. GenX is middle aged and can , never, never , ever keep up with a subset of fit Millies. YO! Some GenX guys especially need to look in the mirror. You're middle aged! That means we're going downhill. Just look for gray hair, lost hair, and well perhaps belly button fuzz ' cause the belly button hole deepens with age for the most part. If GenX guys have that stuff and GenX ladies have droopy boob, again, YO! We're middle aged now. I fail to see a clash with younger/fitter subset of Millies working out. It's In fact, I see that situation as a major fail. Because you see, in just 10 short years, we're gonna yell at kids to get off the lawn if we own lawns. We're also gonna be grouchy old men/women. So yes, I can close with a well known muppet from younger days.

So what was old will be new again.   Oscar's the one in green fur.  Oscar is our [GenX] emblem and he will become even more cogent as back aches and arthritis kick in.  In just 1 decade, the US will face a bunch of old grouches.

The lesson for individuals is, as I see it, not to boycott everything. The answer is to use your thinking, reading and intuitive skills, like a human being, instead of like a typical Trump follower. Don't be swept away by emotions and cling to ideologies. Don't believe everything you read; check it out. Compare to known data.

We are stuck with someone owning media outlets, which means they manipulate you to get more business from you; unless we want the government owning them. Not a much better prospect. I'm glad some pressure has been put on facebook to be a gatekeeper, like reputable news companies used to be. Facebook is not that, but at least it's something-- although too late to avoid irreparable harm to the people and the planet they depend on.