America is a sick society

[Eric the Green]

(01-26-2017, 01:15 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-09-2017, 04:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 07:52 PM)radind Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 05:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 09:31 AM)radind Wrote: You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens. 
For now , all we have is speculation.

How does it get better? We get for all practical practical purposes a single-Party system.We have a ruling elite which believes that no human suffering is in excess so long as there is a profit to be had from it. The President-Elect is a demagogue and a sociopath. Corporate lobbyists wield the real power in the legislative branch. We will have an economic order with no mercy.

I do not see Donald Trump becoming a good person. He acts like a juvenile delinquent who never grew up. Had he been brought up poor he would be a gangster -- and still dangerous. If he were middle class he would be the sort of businessman who operates a sleazy business -- maybe some real-estate dealer who sells troubled properties and tells gulled  customers "Sorry, I can;t do anything more", or the operator of a bait-and-switch outfit.

It is as if Gilded-Age politicians of the 1920s and earlier and southern racist agrarians have joined in establishing an anti-worker system. Sure, there will be work -- but it will be paid far less.

We have totally different views of the situation. I was concerned about the future of the USA if Clinton had been elected.
I expect reforms to help US business and jobs. We will know later.

There was no basis for concern for the future if Clinton had been elected. 

-- wtf??!!!!??????? Eric, the bitch was trying to start a war with Russia. Not some pisspot on the other side of the world, but Russia.. on the other side of the Bering Strait. If you slap a bridge across that sukkah it only takes around an hr to get there. Or for them to get here. I'm guessing boats can cross it in pretty much the same amt of time. Do you (& the other $hillbots around here) honestly think that if she had droned Russia (or whatever hostile act) they wouldn't have invaded us? If so, then y'all are nuttier than she is

You guys are entirely wrong, Marypoza. Hillary was a diplomat and was entirely aware of the dangers. It was supremely important to help the free Syrians from the continual genocidal war crimes committed by Assad and the Russians. That massacre is endangering the liberal consensus in Europe because of all the refugees, and contributed to Trumpbrexit. We may have no alternative to the Trump world now, because Hillary was unable to help the Syrians.

[Marypoza]

(01-26-2017, 01:48 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 01:15 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-09-2017, 04:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 07:52 PM)radind Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 05:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: How does it get better? We get for all practical practical purposes a single-Party system.We have a ruling elite which believes that no human suffering is in excess so long as there is a profit to be had from it. The President-Elect is a demagogue and a sociopath. Corporate lobbyists wield the real power in the legislative branch. We will have an economic order with no mercy.

I do not see Donald Trump becoming a good person. He acts like a juvenile delinquent who never grew up. Had he been brought up poor he would be a gangster -- and still dangerous. If he were middle class he would be the sort of businessman who operates a sleazy business -- maybe some real-estate dealer who sells troubled properties and tells gulled  customers "Sorry, I can;t do anything more", or the operator of a bait-and-switch outfit.

It is as if Gilded-Age politicians of the 1920s and earlier and southern racist agrarians have joined in establishing an anti-worker system. Sure, there will be work -- but it will be paid far less.

We have totally different views of the situation. I was concerned about the future of the USA if Clinton had been elected.
I expect reforms to help US business and jobs. We will know later.

There was no basis for concern for the future if Clinton had been elected. 

-- wtf??!!!!??????? Eric, the bitch was trying to start a war with Russia. Not some pisspot on the other side of the world, but Russia.. on the other side of the Bering Strait. If you slap a bridge across that sukkah it only takes around an hr to get there. Or for them to get here. I'm guessing boats can cross it in pretty much the same amt of time. Do you (& the other $hillbots around here) honestly think that if she had droned Russia (or whatever hostile act) they wouldn't have invaded us? If so, then y'all are nuttier than she is

You guys are entirely wrong, Marypoza. Hillary was a diplomat and was entirely aware of the dangers. It was supremely important to help the free Syrians from the continual genocidal war crimes committed by Assad and the Russians. That massacre is endangering the liberal consensus in Europe because of all the refugees, and contributed to Trumpbrexit. We may have no alternative to the Trump world now, because Hillary was unable to help the Syrians.

--she can shove her brand of "diplomacy" where the sun don't shine. I for one, much prefer Tulsi's:

http://time.com/4649555/tulsi-gabbard-ba...t-meeting/

[Eric the Green]

(01-26-2017, 01:57 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 01:48 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 01:15 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-09-2017, 04:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 07:52 PM)radind Wrote: We have totally different views of the situation. I was concerned about the future of the USA if Clinton had been elected.
I expect reforms to help US business and jobs. We will know later.

There was no basis for concern for the future if Clinton had been elected. 

-- wtf??!!!!??????? Eric, the bitch was trying to start a war with Russia. Not some pisspot on the other side of the world, but Russia.. on the other side of the Bering Strait. If you slap a bridge across that sukkah it only takes around an hr to get there. Or for them to get here. I'm guessing boats can cross it in pretty much the same amt of time. Do you (& the other $hillbots around here) honestly think that if she had droned Russia (or whatever hostile act) they wouldn't have invaded us? If so, then y'all are nuttier than she is

You guys are entirely wrong, Marypoza. Hillary was a diplomat and was entirely aware of the dangers. It was supremely important to help the free Syrians from the continual genocidal war crimes committed by Assad and the Russians. That massacre is endangering the liberal consensus in Europe because of all the refugees, and contributed to Trumpbrexit. We may have no alternative to the Trump world now, because Hillary was unable to help the Syrians.

--she can shove her brand of "diplomacy" where the sun don't shine. I for one, much prefer Tulsi's:

http://time.com/4649555/tulsi-gabbard-ba...t-meeting/

Tulsi was entirely wrong on Syria, and is promoting lies.

[Marypoza]

(01-26-2017, 02:02 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 01:57 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 01:48 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 01:15 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-09-2017, 04:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: There was no basis for concern for the future if Clinton had been elected. 

-- wtf??!!!!??????? Eric, the bitch was trying to start a war with Russia. Not some pisspot on the other side of the world, but Russia.. on the other side of the Bering Strait. If you slap a bridge across that sukkah it only takes around an hr to get there. Or for them to get here. I'm guessing boats can cross it in pretty much the same amt of time. Do you (& the other $hillbots around here) honestly think that if she had droned Russia (or whatever hostile act) they wouldn't have invaded us? If so, then y'all are nuttier than she is

You guys are entirely wrong, Marypoza. Hillary was a diplomat and was entirely aware of the dangers. It was supremely important to help the free Syrians from the continual genocidal war crimes committed by Assad and the Russians. That massacre is endangering the liberal consensus in Europe because of all the refugees, and contributed to Trumpbrexit. We may have no alternative to the Trump world now, because Hillary was unable to help the Syrians.

--she can shove her brand of "diplomacy" where the sun don't shine. I for one, much prefer Tulsi's:

http://time.com/4649555/tulsi-gabbard-ba...t-meeting/

Tulsi was entirely wrong on Syria, and is promoting lies.

-- what lies?

[Eric the Green]

She denies that Syrian civil war was an uprising of the people against Assad, their genocidal dictator. They demonstrated peacefully, and then Assad started shooting them. Then came the tanks, planes and chemical weapons. The USA was slow to provide help to the Syrians, and we should have done better. Not by sending troops, but aid. Tulsi thinks the Syrian Arab-Spring uprising is a war between Assad and terrorists fomented by the United States of America. That is just the lie that Assad tells in order to oppress and kill his people.

Good luck with Tulsi in 2020; I could not vote for her unless I lived in a swing state, because of these lies. Her horoscope score is 11-6; pretty good, but not better than Trump's. The Democrats need someone with a much better score in order to win. Tulsi does not have enough experience in government either, and that probably still matters to some folks (although not to Trump voters, who won't vote for her anyway).

[Marypoza]

(01-26-2017, 02:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: She denies that Syrian civil war was an uprising of the people against Assad, their genocidal dictator. They demonstrated peacefully, and then Assad started shooting them. Then came the tanks, planes and chemical weapons. The USA was slow to provide help to the Syrians, and we should have done better. Not by sending troops, but aid. Tulsi thinks the Syrian Arab-Spring uprising is a war between Assad and terrorists fomented by the United States of America. That is just the lie that Assad tells in order to oppress and kill his people.

-- l'm not seeing that in the Time article l linked to, or any of the other links (google Tulsi Syria trip) the Guardian article does outline a brief history of the conflict, however. What Tulsi does correctly point out is that Assad is the Syrian Prez, like it or not. You can't cut him out of any peace deal. You have to deal with him.

A similar analogy is that the Donald is prez, like it or not. We have to deal with him. We just simply can't blow off either one of these 2 clowns. That's the reality

Eric Wrote:Good luck with Tulsi in 2020; I could not vote for her unless I lived in a swing state, because of these lies. Her horoscope score is 11-6; pretty good, but not better than Trump's. The Democrats need someone with a much better score in order to win. Tulsi does not have enough experience in government either, and that probably still matters to some folks (although not to Trump voters, who won't vote for her anyway).

-- alot can happen between now & 2020, but yeah, l'd say Tulsi is positioning herself for a run. We'll have to see how things roll 
[/quote]

[Eric the Green]

(01-26-2017, 03:07 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 02:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: She denies that Syrian civil war was an uprising of the people against Assad, their genocidal dictator. They demonstrated peacefully, and then Assad started shooting them. Then came the tanks, planes and chemical weapons. The USA was slow to provide help to the Syrians, and we should have done better. Not by sending troops, but aid. Tulsi thinks the Syrian Arab-Spring uprising is a war between Assad and terrorists fomented by the United States of America. That is just the lie that Assad tells in order to oppress and kill his people.

-- l'm not seeing that in the Time article l linked to, or any of the other links (google Tulsi Syria trip) the Guardian article does outline a brief history of the conflict, however. What Tulsi does correctly point out is that Assad is the Syrian Prez, like it or not. You can't cut him out of any peace deal. You have to deal with him.

A similar analogy is that the Donald is prez, like it or not. We have to deal with him. We just simply can't blow off either one of these 2 clowns. That's the reality

I don't disagree with you there. I'd say though that with Trump winning the USA election and the USA having not supported the rebels adequately, the USA has dealt itself out of the current difficult (or impossible?) peace process in Syria, now sponsored by Turkey and Assad's allies. Kerry admitted as much. So, Trump will likely have little if any say in this matter.

As for Tulsi, yes; we'll see. There will be other candidates who will step up, whom we can look at. Tulsi may be one of the better ones, but it is by no means clear that she can win.

[Marypoza]

(01-26-2017, 03:18 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 03:07 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 02:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: She denies that Syrian civil war was an uprising of the people against Assad, their genocidal dictator. They demonstrated peacefully, and then Assad started shooting them. Then came the tanks, planes and chemical weapons. The USA was slow to provide help to the Syrians, and we should have done better. Not by sending troops, but aid. Tulsi thinks the Syrian Arab-Spring uprising is a war between Assad and terrorists fomented by the United States of America. That is just the lie that Assad tells in order to oppress and kill his people.

-- l'm not seeing that in the Time article l linked to, or any of the other links (google Tulsi Syria trip) the Guardian article does outline a brief history of the conflict, however. What Tulsi does correctly point out is that Assad is the Syrian Prez, like it or not. You can't cut him out of any peace deal. You have to deal with him.

A similar analogy is that the Donald is prez, like it or not. We have to deal with him. We just simply can't blow off either one of these 2 clowns. That's the reality

I don't disagree with you there. I'd say though that with Trump winning the USA election and the USA having not supported the rebels adequately, the USA has dealt itself out of the current difficult (or impossible?) peace process in Syria, now sponsored by Turkey and Assad's allies. Kerry admitted as much. So, Trump will likely have little if any say in this matter.

As for Tulsi, yes; we'll see. There will be other candidates who will step up, whom we can look at. Tulsi may be one of the better ones, but it is by no means clear that she can win.

-- ok now l know Tulsi did the right thing. The hacks are jumping all ovah her ass. That & my homeboy Dennis went with her


http://thehill.com/news/house/316634-gab...ad-meeting

[Eric the Green]

[Eric the Green]

America Is Now a ‘Second Tier’ Country
Some 17 others, including all of Scandinavia, outperform the U.S. by a wide margin when it comes to well-being.
By Eric Roston
June 21, 2017, 1:45 AM PDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...er-country

America leads the world when it comes to access to higher education. But when it comes to health, environmental protection, and fighting discrimination, it trails many other developed countries, according to the Social Progress Imperative, a U.S.-based nonprofit.

The results of the group’s annual survey, which ranks nations based on 50 metrics, call to mind other reviews of national well-being, such as the World Happiness Report released in March, which was led by Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, or September’s Lancet study on sustainable development. In that one, Iceland, Singapore, Sweden, and the U.S. took spots 1, 2, 3, and 28—respectively.

The Social Progress Index released this week is compiled from social and environmental data that come as close as possible to revealing how people live. “We want to measure a country’s health and wellness achieved, not how much effort is expended, nor how much the country spends on healthcare,” the report states. Scandinavia walked away with the top four of 128 slots. Denmark scored the highest. America came in at 18.



The U.S. may be underperforming, but so is the rest of the world. American progress, like that of other rich nations, has stalled for four years running. Based on overall world GDP, humanity as a whole could be doing a much more efficient job taking care of itself. Tough graders, these social-progress folks.

Of course it’s easy enough to dismiss or belittle these occasional reports, each with their unique methodologies and almost identical conclusions. Another approach, however, would be to look at them all together and conclude that they represent “mounting evidence.” In that case, Houston (and Dallas, New Orleans, Tulsa, St. Louis, Baltimore, Chicago, and New York), we have a problem.

SPI produces the report in part to help city, state, and national policymakers diagnose and (ideally) address their most pressing challenges. The group’s chief executive, Michael Green, said America “is failing to address basic human needs, equip citizens to improve their quality of life, protect the environment, and provide opportunity for everyone to make personal choices and reach their full potential.”

As a result, the U.S. is ranked as a second-tier nation within the multilevel structure of the Social Progress Index 2017 report, which comes complete with interactive graphics. Second-tier countries demonstrate “high social progress” on core issues, such as nutrition, water, and sanitation. However, they lag the first-tier, “very high social progress” nations when it comes to social unity and civic issues. That more or less reflects the U.S. performance. (There are six tiers in the study.)

Its lowest marks come in the categories of “tolerance and inclusion” and “health and wellness.”

Since 2014, as discrimination in America rises based on race, religion, sexual identity, and national origin, U.S. scores in the “tolerance and inclusion” category fell, according to the study.

The authors note that wealth is no guarantee to first-tier access. Even among nations with similar GDP, “countries achieve widely divergent levels of social progress.” It’s true a little bit of economic growth goes a long way toward improving lives, but those gains taper off at more mature stages of development.

[pbrower2a]

Donald Trump is as much symptom as cause. We have the severest economic inequality since the 1920s, and that is without regional under-development of the sort that existed in the 1920s or the institutional racism as it was known to exist as late as the 1960s. White privilege may be real, but it is not so severe that being a Mexican-American in Houston is worse for one's hopes in life than is being white in southeastern Kentucky.

Tolerance and inclusion? The UK looks like paradise in contrast to America. But then, Britain abolished slavery thirty years before the USA, didn't need a bloody civil war to decide that slavery was unsuited to a modern society, and never went through a Jim Crow era in any of its colonies except in South Africa.

Health and wellness? Is the image of Americans developing the bulk of football linebackers while drinking sodas or beer and eating chips while watching TV unique to America?

[pbrower2a]

(06-29-2017, 11:45 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-29-2017, 10:32 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump is as much symptom as cause. We have the severest economic inequality since the 1920s, and that is without regional under-development of the sort that existed in the 1920s or the institutional racism as it was known to exist as late as the 1960s. White privilege may be real, but it is not so severe that being a Mexican-American in Houston is worse for one's hopes in life than is being white in southeastern Kentucky.

Tolerance and inclusion? The UK looks like paradise in contrast to America. But then, Britain abolished slavery thirty years before the USA, didn't need a bloody civil war to decide that slavery was unsuited to a modern society, and never went through a Jim Crow era in any of its colonies except in South Africa.

Health and wellness? Is the image of Americans developing the bulk of football linebackers while drinking sodas or beer and eating chips while watching TV unique to America?

Europe has its sucky points though. Sure, they may seem to have more social justice than the US. But, in Europe, you need to be white to make it past a certain level. And even what type of white (or more properly, Caucasian) one is matters a lot. The native born, native ethnic still occupy the most important slots. Who your parents are / were, where you went to school, etc, matter a lot. The notion of a self made person is rare. This is one of the reasons why the social safety nets there are so extensive - the ability to be self made or reinvent is much less than here. This is why the rising inequality and bad trend in business formation here in the US are so sad. We have traditionally been exceptional in these regards, and this was noted even way back when by De Toqueville. That made up in many ways for our relatively smaller and less centralized government and lack of social safety net as compared with post mid-19th Century Europe. But now ... we are losing those traditional advantages.

Two world wars have reshaped the gene pool of France. Many people who consider themselves French have Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, or Russian ancestry coming from people who replaced the great casualty lists of Frenchmen who died in the First World War. Sarkozy is a Hungarian surname.

To be sure, where one went to school (Oxford and Cambridge in Britain, the Sorbonne or the Polytechnique in France) can give one overpowering advantages. So what. It is far more likely that someone who did his undergraduate studies at Harvard is likely to get further ahead in life than someone who attended "Kegger State", the latter specializing in "Education", "Agriculture", or "Hospitality Management", and getting few applicants with SAT scores in the 700s. Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago or even U-Michigan or UC Berkeley are more likely destinations for those in the top 5% of college board scores. There is a cognitive elite, and it is far better to be in the Talented Tenth of African Americans than to be a white person of middling talent.

America didn't need a safety net when it had a frontier. But that is over. High densities of population are the urban landlord's best friend, which explains why Donald Trump, a really bad businessman, can be fabulously rich. The higher that incomes are of the Talented Tenth of any ethnic group, the more rent someone like Donald Trump can collect. It's arguable that it is far easier to get rich leasing apartments to software engineers in Silicon Valley than it is to be a software engineer. Europe had its feudal elites that dictated who was going to make the money off business enterprises like railroads, mines, and factories; America didn't have such elites except in the more backward parts (the South) that largely rejected any commercial or industrial means of making a fortune when the exploitation of slaves or sharecroppers was an easier way to make elite money.

...Galen is partially right about America not being capitalist enough. But his idea of how to make America more capitalist is to enrich those already rich  and ensure that they get their way by closing off opportunities for others. We will likely see more efforts at small-scale enterprise as people recognize the low glass ceilings of opportunity in bureaucracies in existing business and choose to start businesses or go free-lance. That will create far more opportunity. So the big bureaucracies start getting fewer good applicants? Tough luck! Where I live, many of the founders of new small businesses are Mexicans.

[Eric the Green]

Another ode to America by George Carlin

[Odin]

(06-29-2017, 11:45 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-29-2017, 10:32 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump is as much symptom as cause. We have the severest economic inequality since the 1920s, and that is without regional under-development of the sort that existed in the 1920s or the institutional racism as it was known to exist as late as the 1960s. White privilege may be real, but it is not so severe that being a Mexican-American in Houston is worse for one's hopes in life than is being white in southeastern Kentucky.

Tolerance and inclusion? The UK looks like paradise in contrast to America. But then, Britain abolished slavery thirty years before the USA, didn't need a bloody civil war to decide that slavery was unsuited to a modern society, and never went through a Jim Crow era in any of its colonies except in South Africa.

Health and wellness? Is the image of Americans developing the bulk of football linebackers while drinking sodas or beer and eating chips while watching TV unique to America?

Europe has its sucky points though. Sure, they may seem to have more social justice than the US. But, in Europe, you need to be white to make it past a certain level. And even what type of white (or more properly, Caucasian) one is matters a lot. The native born, native ethnic still occupy the most important slots. Who your parents are / were, where you went to school, etc, matter a lot. The notion of a self made person is rare. This is one of the reasons why the social safety nets there are so extensive - the ability to be self made or reinvent is much less than here. This is why the rising inequality and bad trend in business formation here in the US are so sad. We have traditionally been exceptional in these regards, and this was noted even way back when by De Toqueville. That made up in many ways for our relatively smaller and less centralized government and lack of social safety net as compared with post mid-19th Century Europe. But now ... we are losing those traditional advantages.

I think this is why Obama was treated basically like a rock star by Europe, he was basically a symbol, in a good way, of what makes the US different from Europe.

[Odin]

(06-29-2017, 01:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(06-29-2017, 11:45 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-29-2017, 10:32 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump is as much symptom as cause. We have the severest economic inequality since the 1920s, and that is without regional under-development of the sort that existed in the 1920s or the institutional racism as it was known to exist as late as the 1960s. White privilege may be real, but it is not so severe that being a Mexican-American in Houston is worse for one's hopes in life than is being white in southeastern Kentucky.

Tolerance and inclusion? The UK looks like paradise in contrast to America. But then, Britain abolished slavery thirty years before the USA, didn't need a bloody civil war to decide that slavery was unsuited to a modern society, and never went through a Jim Crow era in any of its colonies except in South Africa.

Health and wellness? Is the image of Americans developing the bulk of football linebackers while drinking sodas or beer and eating chips while watching TV unique to America?

Europe has its sucky points though. Sure, they may seem to have more social justice than the US. But, in Europe, you need to be white to make it past a certain level. And even what type of white (or more properly, Caucasian) one is matters a lot. The native born, native ethnic still occupy the most important slots. Who your parents are / were, where you went to school, etc, matter a lot. The notion of a self made person is rare. This is one of the reasons why the social safety nets there are so extensive - the ability to be self made or reinvent is much less than here. This is why the rising inequality and bad trend in business formation here in the US are so sad. We have traditionally been exceptional in these regards, and this was noted even way back when by De Toqueville. That made up in many ways for our relatively smaller and less centralized government and lack of social safety net as compared with post mid-19th Century Europe. But now ... we are losing those traditional advantages.

Two world wars have reshaped the gene pool of France. Many people who consider themselves French have Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, or Russian ancestry coming from people who replaced the great casualty lists of Frenchmen who died in the First World War. Sarkozy is a Hungarian surname.

To be sure, where one went to school (Oxford and Cambridge in Britain, the Sorbonne or the Polytechnique in France) can give one overpowering advantages. So what. It is far more likely that someone who did his undergraduate studies at Harvard is likely to get further ahead in life than someone who attended "Kegger State", the latter specializing in "Education", "Agriculture", or "Hospitality Management", and getting few applicants with SAT scores in the 700s. Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago or even U-Michigan or UC Berkeley are more likely destinations for those in the top 5% of college board scores. There is a cognitive elite, and it is far better to be in the Talented Tenth of African Americans than to be a white person of middling talent.

America didn't need a safety net when it had a frontier. But that is over. High densities of population are the urban landlord's best friend, which explains why Donald Trump, a really bad businessman, can be fabulously rich. The higher that incomes are of the Talented Tenth of any ethnic group, the more rent someone like Donald Trump can collect. It's arguable that it is far easier to get rich leasing apartments to software engineers in Silicon Valley than it is to be a software engineer. Europe had its feudal elites that dictated who was going to make the money off business enterprises like railroads, mines, and factories; America didn't have such elites except in the more backward parts (the South) that largely rejected any commercial or industrial means of making a fortune when the exploitation of slaves or sharecroppers was an easier way to make elite money.

...Galen is partially right about America not being capitalist enough. But his idea of how to make America more capitalist is to enrich those already rich  and ensure that they get their way by closing off opportunities for others. We will likely see more efforts at small-scale enterprise as people recognize the low glass ceilings of opportunity in bureaucracies in existing business and choose to start businesses or go free-lance. That will create far more opportunity. So the big bureaucracies start getting fewer good applicants? Tough luck! Where I live, many of the founders of new small businesses are Mexicans.

France is a bit of an outlier in Europe due to it's civic nationalist mentality. To them as long as you speak French and act French (that is, you completely and fully assimilate) you are French to matter what your blood ancestry may be. Their issue is more with racism and Islamophobia than with ethno-nationalist "blood and soil" thinking.

[Eric the Green]

Before people like Bob complain about people like me saying what we say about Red Americans, and say the "values-lock " problem exists on both sides, maybe they should read this article. Debunk it if you can. I think it says the truth.

Fundamentalism, racism, fear and propaganda: An insider explains why rural, Christian white America will never change

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/fundamen...er-change/

Forsetti
FORSETTI'S JUSTICE, ALTERNET
28 JUN 2017 AT 17:49 ET

As the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump is still being sorted out, a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: “Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.”

Trump supporters are saying this. Progressive pundits are saying this. Talking heads across all forms of the media are saying this. Even some Democratic leaders are saying this. It doesn’t matter how many people say it, it is complete bullshit. It is an intellectual/linguistic sleight of hand meant to throw attention away from the real problem. The real problem isn’t east coast elites who don’t understand or care about rural America. The real problem is rural America doesn’t understand the causes of their own situations and fears and they have shown no interest in finding out. They don’t want to know why they feel the way they do or why they are struggling because they don’t want to admit it is in large part because of choices they’ve made and horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe.

I grew up in rural, Christian, white America. You’d be hard-pressed to find an area in the country that has a higher percentage of Christians or whites. I spent most of the first 24 years of my life deeply embedded in this culture. I religiously (pun intended) attended their Christian services. I worked off and on, on their rural farms. I dated their calico skirted daughters. I camped, hunted, and fished with their sons. I listened to their political rants at the local diner and truck stop. I winced at their racist/bigoted jokes and epithets that were said more out of ignorance than animosity. I have also watched the town I grew up in go from a robust economy with well-kept homes and infrastructure turn into a struggling economy with shuttered businesses, dilapidated homes, and a broken down infrastructure over the past 30 years. The problem isn’t that I don’t understand these people. The problem is they don’t understand themselves, the reasons for their anger/frustrations, and don’t seem to care to know why.

In deep-red white America, the white Christian God is king, figuratively and literally. Religious fundamentalism is what has shaped most of their belief systems. Systems built on a fundamentalist framework are not conducive to introspection, questioning, learning, change. When you have a belief system that is built on fundamentalism, it isn’t open to outside criticism, especially by anyone not a member of your tribe and in a position of power. The problem isn’t “coastal elites don’t understand rural Americans.” The problem is rural America doesn’t understand itself and will NEVER listen to anyone outside their bubble. It doesn’t matter how “understanding” you are, how well you listen, what language you use…if you are viewed as an outsider, your views are automatically discounted. I’ve had hundreds of discussions with rural white Americans and whenever I present them any information that contradicts their entrenched beliefs, no matter how sound, how unquestionable, how obvious, they WILL NOT even entertain the possibility it might be true. Their refusal is a result of the nature of their fundamentalist belief system and the fact I’m the enemy because I’m an educated liberal.

At some point during the discussion, “That’s your education talking,” will be said, derogatorily, as a general dismissal of everything I said. They truly believe this is a legitimate response because to them education is not to be trusted. Education is the enemy of fundamentalism because fundamentalism, by its very nature, is not built on facts. The fundamentalists I grew up around aren’t anti-education. They want their kids to know how to read and write. They are anti-quality, in-depth, broad, specialized education. Learning is only valued up to the certain point. Once it reaches the level where what you learn contradicts doctrine and fundamentalist arguments, it becomes dangerous. I watched a lot of my fellow students who were smart, stop their education the day they graduated high school. For most of the young ladies, getting married and having kids was more important than continuing their learning. For many of the young men, getting a college education was seen as unnecessary and a waste of time. For the few who did go to college, what they learned was still filtered through their fundamentalist belief system. If something they were taught didn’t support a preconception, it would be ignored and forgotten the second it was no longer needed to pass an exam.

Knowing this about their belief system and their view of outside information that doesn’t support it, telling me that the problem is coastal elites not understanding them completely misses the point.

Another problem with rural, Christian, white Americans is they are racists. I’m not talking about white hood-wearing, cross-burning, lynching racists (though some are). I’m talking about people who deep down in their heart of hearts truly believe they are superior because they are white. Their white God made them in his image and everyone else is a less-than-perfect version, flawed and cursed.

The religion in which I was raised taught this. Even though they’ve backtracked on some of their more racist declarations, many still believe the original claims. Non-whites are the color they are because of their sins, or at least the sins of their ancestors. Blacks don’t have dark skin because of where they lived and evolution; they have dark skin because they are cursed. God cursed them for a reason. If God cursed them, treating them as equals would be going against God’s will. It is really easy to justify treating people differently if they are cursed by God and will never be as good as you no matter what they do because of some predetermined status.

Once you have this view, it is easy to lower the outside group’s standing and acceptable level of treatment. Again, there are varying levels of racism at play in rural, Christian, white America. I know people who are ardent racists. I know a lot more whose racism is much more subtle but nonetheless racist. It wouldn’t take sodium pentothal to get most of these people to admit they believe they are fundamentally better and superior to minorities. They are white supremacists who dress up in white dress shirts, ties, and gingham dresses. They carry a Bible and tell you, “everyone’s a child of God” but forget to mention that some of God’s children are more favored than others and skin tone is the criterion by which we know who is and who isn’t at the top of God’s list of most favored children.

For us “coastal elites” who understand evolution, genetics, science…nothing we say to those in fly-over country is going to be listened to because not only are we fighting against an anti-education belief system, we are arguing against God. You aren’t winning a battle of beliefs with these people if you are on one side of the argument and God is on the other. No degree of understanding this is going to suddenly make them less racist, more open to reason and facts. Telling “urban elites” they need to understand rural Americans isn’t going to lead to a damn thing because it misses the causes of the problem.

Because rural, Christian, white Americans will not listen to educated arguments, supported by facts that go against their fundamentalist belief systems from “outsiders,” any change must come from within. Internal change in these systems does happen, but it happens infrequently and it always lags far behind reality. This is why they fear change so much. They aren’t used to it. Of course, it really doesn’t matter whether they like it or not, it, like the evolution and climate change even though they don’t believe it, it is going to happen whether they believe in it or not.

Another major problem with closed-off, fundamentalist belief systems is they are very susceptible to propaganda. All belief systems are to some extent, but fundamentalist systems even more so because there are no checks and balances. If bad information gets in, it doesn’t get out and because there are no internal mechanisms to guard against it, it usually ends up very damaging to the whole. A closed-off belief system is like your spinal fluid—it is great as long as nothing infectious gets into it. If bacteria gets into your spinal fluid, it causes unbelievable damage because there are no white blood cells in it whose job is to fend off invaders and protect the system. This is why things like meningitis are so horrible. Without the protective services of white blood cells in the spinal column, meningitis spreads like wildfire once it’s in and does significant damage in a very short period of time. Once inside the closed-off spinal system, bacteria are free to destroy whatever they want.

The very same is true with closed-off belief systems. Without built-in protective functions like critical analysis, self-reflection, openness to counter-evidence, willingness to re-evaluate any and all beliefs, etc., bad information in a closed-off system ends up doing massive damage in short period of time. What has happened to too many fundamentalist belief systems is damaging information has been allowed in from people who have been granted “expert status.” If someone is allowed into a closed-off system and their information is deemed acceptable, anything they say will readily be accepted and become gospel.

Rural, Christian, white Americans have let in anti-intellectual, anti-science, bigoted, racists into their system as experts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, any of the blonde Stepford Wives on Fox, every evangelical preacher on television because they tell them what they want to hear and because they sell themselves as being “one of them.” The truth is none of these people give a rat’s ass about rural, Christian, white Americans except how can they exploit them for attention and money. None of them have anything in common with the people who have let them into their belief systems with the exception they are white and they “speak the same language” of white superiority, God’s will must be obeyed, and how, even though they are the Chosen Ones, they are the ones being screwed by all the people and groups they believe they are superior to.

Gays being allowed to marry are a threat. Blacks protesting the killing of their unarmed friends and family are a threat. Hispanics doing the cheap labor on their farms are somehow viewed a threat. The black president is a threat. Two billion Muslims are a threat. The Chinese are a threat. Women wanting to be autonomous are a threat. The college educated are a threat. Godless scientists are a threat. Everyone who isn’t just like them has been sold to them as a threat and they’ve bought it hook, line, and grifting sinker. Since there are no self-regulating mechanisms in their belief systems, these threats only grow over time. Since facts and reality don’t matter, nothing you say to them will alter their beliefs. “President Obama was born in Kenya, is a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood who hates white Americans and is going to take away their guns.” I feel ridiculous even writing this, it is so absurd, but it is gospel across large swaths of rural America. Are rural, Christian, white Americans scared? You’re damn right they are. Are their fears rational and justified? Hell no. The problem isn’t understanding their fears. The problem is how to assuage fears based on lies in closed-off fundamentalist belief systems that don’t have the necessary tools for properly evaluating the fears.

I don’t have a good answer to this question. When a child has an irrational fear, you can deal with it because they trust you and are open to possibilities. When someone doesn’t trust you and isn’t open to anything not already accepted as true in their belief system, there really isn’t much, if anything you can do. This is why I think the whole, “Democrats have to understand and find common ground with rural America,” is misguided and a complete waste of time. When a 3,000-year-old book that was written by uneducated, pre-scientific people, subject to translation innumerable times, edited with political and economic pressures from popes and kings, is given higher intellectual authority than facts arrived at from a rigorous, self-critical, constantly re-evaluating system that can and does correct mistakes, no amount of understanding, no amount of respect, no amount of evidence is going to change their minds, assuage their fears.

Do you know what does change the beliefs of fundamentalists, sometimes? When something becomes personal. Many a fundamentalist has changed his mind about the LGBT community once his loved ones started coming out of the closet. Many have not. But those who did, did so because their personal experience came in direct conflict with what they believe. My own father is a good example of this. For years I had long, sometimes heated discussions with him about gay rights. Being the good religious fundamentalist he is, he could not even entertain the possibility he was wrong. The Church said it was wrong, so therefore it was wrong. No questions asked. No analysis needed. This changed when one of his adored stepchildren came out of the closet. He didn’t do a complete 180. He has a view that tries to accept gay rights while at the same time viewing being gay as a mortal sin because his need to have his belief system be right outweighs everything else.

This isn’t uncommon. Deeply held beliefs are usually only altered, replaced under catastrophic circumstances that are personal. This belief system alteration works both ways. I know die-hard, open-minded progressives who became ardent fundamentalists due to a traumatic event in their lives.

A really good example of this is the comedian Dennis Miller. I’ve seen Miller in concert four different times during the 1990s. His humor was complex, riddled with references, and leaned pretty left on almost all issues. Then 9/11 happened. For whatever reasons, the trauma of 9/11 caused a seismic shift in Miller’s belief system. Now he is a mainstay on conservative talk radio. His humor was replaced with anger and frustration. 9/11 changed his belief system because it was a catastrophic event that was personal to him.

The catastrophe of the Great Depression along with the progressive remedies by FDR helped create a generation of Democrats from previously die-hard Republicans. People who had, up until that point, deeply believed the government couldn’t help the economy only the free market could change their minds when the brutal reality of the Great Depression affected them directly, personally.

I thought the financial crisis in 2008 would have a similar, though lesser, impact on many Republicans. It didn’t. The systems that were put in place after the Great Recession to deal with economic crises, the quick, smart response by Congress and the administration helped make what could have been a catastrophic event into merely a really bad one. People suffered, but they didn’t suffer enough to where they were open to questioning their deeply held beliefs. Because this questioning didn’t take place, the Great Recession didn’t lead to any meaningful political shift away from poorly regulated markets, supply side economics, or how to respond to a financial crisis. This is why, even though rural Christian white Americans were hit hard by the Great Recession, they not only didn’t blame the political party they’ve aligned themselves with for years, they rewarded them two years later by voting them into a record number of state legislatures and taking over the U.S. House.

Of course, it didn’t help matters there were scapegoats available they could direct their fears, anger, and white supremacy towards. A significant number of rural Americans believe President Obama was in charge when the financial crisis started. An even higher number believe the mortgage crisis was the result of the government forcing banks to give loans to unqualified minorities. It doesn’t matter how untrue both of these are, they are gospel in rural America. Why reevaluate your beliefs and voting patterns when scapegoats are available?

How do you make climate change personal to someone who believes only God can alter the weather? How do you make racial equality personal to someone who believes whites are naturally superior to non-whites? How do you make gender equality personal to someone who believes women are supposed to be subservient to men by God’s command? How do you get someone to view minorities as not threatening personal to people who don’t live around and never interact with them? How do you make personal the fact massive tax cuts and cutting back government hurts their economic situation when they’ve voted for these for decades? I don’t think you can without some catastrophic events. And maybe not even then. The Civil War was pretty damn catastrophic yet a large swath of the South believed and still believes they were right, had the moral high ground. They were/are also mostly Christian fundamentalists who believe they are superior because of the color of their skin and the religion they profess to follow. There is a pattern here for anyone willing to connect the dots.

“Rural, white America needs to be better understood,” is not one of the dots. “Rural, white America needs to be better understood,” is a dodge, meant to avoid the real problems because talking about the real problems is viewed as “too upsetting,” “too mean,” “too arrogant,” “too elite,” “too snobbish.” Pointing out Aunt Bee’s views of Mexicans, blacks, gays…is bigoted isn’t the thing one does in polite society. Too bad more people don’t think the same about the views Aunt Bee has. It’s the classic, “You’re a racist for calling me a racist,” ploy. Or, as it is more commonly known, “I know you are but what am I?”

I do think rational arguments are needed, even if they go mostly ignored and ridiculed. I believe in treating people with the respect they’ve earned but the key point here is “earned.” I’ll gladly sit down with Aunt Bee and have a nice, polite conversation about her beliefs about “the gays,” “the blacks,” “illegals,”…and do so without calling her a bigot or a racist. But, this doesn’t mean she isn’t a bigot and a racist and if I’m asked to describe her beliefs these are the only words that honestly fit. No one with cancer wants to be told they have cancer, but just because no one uses the word, “cancer,” it doesn’t mean they don’t have it. Just because the media, pundits on all sides, some Democratic leaders don’t want to call the actions of many rural, Christian, white Americans, “racist/bigoted” doesn’t make them not so.

Avoiding the obvious only prolongs getting the necessary treatment. America has always had a race problem. It was built on racism and bigotry. This didn’t miraculously go away in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. It didn’t go away with the election of Barack Obama. If anything, these events pulled back the curtain exposing the dark, racist underbelly of America that white America likes to pretend doesn’t exist because we are the reason it exists. From the white nationalists to the white, suburban soccer moms who voted for Donald Trump, to the far left progressives who didn’t vote at all, racism exists and has once again been legitimized and normalized by white America.

The honest truths that rural, Christian, white Americans don’t want to accept and until they do nothing is going to change, are:

-Their economic situation is largely the result of voting for supply-side economic policies that have been the largest redistribution of wealth from the bottom/middle to the top in U.S. history.

-Immigrants haven’t taken their jobs. If all immigrants, legal or otherwise, were removed from the U.S., our economy would come to a screeching halt and prices on food would soar.

-Immigrants are not responsible for companies moving their plants overseas. Almost exclusively white business owners are the ones responsible because they care more about their share holders who are also mostly white than they do American workers.

-No one is coming for their guns. All that has been proposed during the entire Obama administration is having better background checks.

-Gay people getting married is not a threat to their freedom to believe in whatever white God you want to. No one is going to make their church marry gays, make gays your pastor, accept gays for membership.

-Women having access to birth control doesn’t affect their life either, especially women who they complain about being teenage, single mothers.

-Blacks are not “lazy moochers living off their hard earned tax dollars” anymore than many of your fellow rural neighbors. People in need are people in need. People who can’t find jobs because of their circumstances, a changing economy, outsourcing overseas, etc. belong to all races.

-They get a tremendous amount of help from the government they complain does nothing for them. From the roads and utility grids they use to the farm subsidies, crop insurance, commodities protections…they benefit greatly from government assistance. The Farm Bill is one of the largest financial expenditures by the U.S. government. Without government assistance, their lives would be considerably worse.

-They get the largest share of Food Stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

-They complain about globalization but line up like everyone else to get the latest Apple product. They have no problem buying foreign-made guns, scopes, and hunting equipment. They don’t think twice about driving trucks whose engine was made in Canada, tires made in Japan, radio made in Korea, computer parts made in Malaysia.

-They use illicit drugs as much as any other group. But, when other people do it is a “moral failing” and they should be severely punished, legally. When they do it, it is a “health crisis” that needs sympathy and attention.

-When jobs dry up for whatever reasons, they refuse to relocate but lecture the poor in places like Flint for staying in towns that are failing.

-They are quick to judge minorities for being “welfare moochers” but don’t think twice about cashing their welfare check every month.

-They complain about coastal liberals, but the taxes from California and New York are what covers their farm subsidies, helps maintain their highways, and keeps their hospitals in their sparsely populated areas open for business.

-They complain about “the little man being run out of business” then turn around and shop at big box stores.

-They make sure outsiders are not welcome, deny businesses permits to build, then complain about businesses, plants opening up in less rural areas.

-Government has not done enough to help them in many cases but their local and state governments are almost completely Republican and so too are their representatives and senators. Instead of holding them accountable, they vote them in over and over and over again.

-All the economic policies and ideas that could help rural America belong to the Democratic Party: raising the minimum wage, strengthening unions, infrastructure spending, reusable energy growth, slowing down the damage done by climate change, healthcare reform…all of these and more would really help a lot of rural Americans.

What I understand is that rural, Christian, white Americans are entrenched in fundamentalist belief systems; don’t trust people outside their tribe; have been force-fed a diet of misinformation and lies for decades; are unwilling to understand their own situations; and truly believe whites are superior to all races. No amount of understanding is going to change these things or what they believe. No amount of niceties will get them to be introspective. No economic policy put forth by someone outside their tribe is going to be listened to no matter how beneficial it would be for them. I understand rural, Christian, white America all too well. I understand their fears are based on myths and lies. I understand they feel left behind by a world they don’t understand and don’t really care to. They are willing to vote against their own interest if they can be convinced it will make sure minorities are harmed more. Their Christian beliefs and morals are truly only extended to fellow white Christians. They are the problem with progress and always will be, because their belief systems are constructed against it.

The problem isn’t a lack of understanding by coastal elites. The problem is a lack of understanding of why rural, Christian, white America believes, votes, behaves the ways it does by rural, Christian, white America.

[pbrower2a]

http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...tml#pid185

Post from last year, connecting authoritarianism to right-wing politics, religious fundamentalism, and rejection of science.

Religious fundamentalism is a scam -- and people scammed are often the ones who most defend the scammer when confronted with objective evidence of scamming.

[Eric the Green]

I agree about the not-so beneficial impact of NAFTA, but your cart is before the horse on that. The Religious Right dates back to the 1970s, and probably its ancestors to the 1920s at least. Flyover country was taking refuge in and enclosing their minds in fundie churches long before NAFTA. The Bible Belt has a long history.

As the article mentions, it is more likely that fly-over country caused its own problems because of their retrograde ideas, values and votes, than by economic policies that ignored them. So, they feel their economic pain now, but their solution in 2016 was to vote for Trump. That just shows their apparently-incurable ignorance and inability to grasp solutions.

[David Horn]

(07-31-2017, 01:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I agree about the not-so beneficial impact of NAFTA, but your cart is before the horse on that. The Religious Right dates back to the 1970s, and probably its ancestors to the 1920s at least. Flyover country was taking refuge in and enclosing their minds in fundie churches long before NAFTA. The Bible Belt has a long history.

As the article mentions, it is more likely that fly-over country caused its own problems because of their retrograde ideas, values and votes, than by economic policies that ignored them. So, they feel their economic pain now, but their solution in 2016 was to vote for Trump. That just shows their apparently-incurable ignorance and inability to grasp solutions.

Assuming you are right, and the author of the referenced article is as well, nothing short of a cataclysmic crash that triggers mass dislocation and even starvation is going to overcome that mind set.  As a nation, we can't survive that and rebound to anything greater than second class status, so another answer needs to be found.  I don't have it, and no one seems to be proposing one either.  Bernie Sanders did yeoman's work trying to raise the flag and get things rolling, but we let that opportunity pass.  Trying a second time will be ignored in much the same way all other evidence-based solutions are ignored.

I'm convinced that this won't be fixed in our lifetimes, so our discussions here are of academic interest but little else.  If the right wins the day in this 4T, and they are heading in that direction, then the next 2T will either start the new ball rolling or it won't.  In any case, it will take another 4T to get it resolved.  The world will look dramatically different by then.

[David Horn]

(07-31-2017, 02:56 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Flyover country was on track to a better developed future with higher educational attainment, prior to being decimated by globalism.

I don't think so.  Globalism would have been replaced by automation, leading to the same end.  Industrialization impacted society in much the same way, but there was a safety valve in all those industrial jobs industrialization created.  We don't have that this time.  Working smart is good for those who have the inclination and ability.  I think the ability is there.  I'm less certain about inclination.