The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(01-14-2022, 03:01 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I am always amazed that right wing zealots like Classic Xer denounce "billionaires and donor class/aristocracy" when it is their Party which does everything possible to boost their interests and hurt the rest of us. It amazes me that Classic Xer can turn his own faults around and shove them back at us. But that is always what liars and tyrants do.

High tech is not so heroic to him, but Big Oil, utilities, defense contractors, and agribusiness are closer to being his heroes than are those who innovate in communications and entertainment.  Big Tech allows people to share ideas that he dislikes, so that is the problem. 

Let's look at Koch industries: it has typically bought low-tech businesses that are lucrative but well past prime.  Paper. Oil. Plastics. Minerals. Chemicals (some former DuPont ). Livestock ranching (really, really low-tech). It is not a technological innovator on the cutting edge. One cannot fault it for that, as we all need the stuff that Koch supplies, although there is typically another provider. The objectionable feature of Koch industries is the effort to subordinate the political system to it, one sell-out pol at a time.

Koch is heavily involved in the purchase of the American political system as an owned-and-operated subsidiary. That is scary. Democracy entails representation of voters irrespective of status. Government representing wealth or bureaucratic power? That is feudal if low-tech; fascist if it has the means of modern communication under its thumb. I once saw a proposal of the long-past oil baron H L Hunt suggesting that government represent asset owners only because they alone achieved anything. People like he would be represented.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-14-2022, 04:22 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-14-2022, 03:01 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I am always amazed that right wing zealots like Classic Xer denounce "billionaires and donor class/aristocracy" when it is their Party which does everything possible to boost their interests and hurt the rest of us. It amazes me that Classic Xer can turn his own faults around and shove them back at us. But that is always what liars and tyrants do.

High tech is not so heroic to him, but Big Oil, utilities, defense contractors, and agribusiness are closer to being his heroes than are those who innovate in communications and entertainment.  Big Tech allows people to share ideas that he dislikes, so that is the problem. 

Let's look at Koch industries: it has typically bought low-tech businesses that are lucrative but well past prime.  Paper. Oil. Plastics. Minerals. Chemicals (some former DuPont ). Livestock ranching (really, really low-tech). It is not a technological innovator on the cutting edge. One cannot fault it for that, as we all need the stuff that Koch supplies, although there is typically another provider. The objectionable feature of Koch industries is the effort to subordinate the political system to it, one sell-out pol at a time.

Koch is heavily involved in the purchase of the American political system as an owned-and-operated subsidiary. That is scary. Democracy entails representation of voters irrespective of status. Government representing wealth or bureaucratic power? That is feudal if low-tech; fascist if it has the means of modern communication under its thumb. I once saw a proposal of the long-past oil baron H L Hunt suggesting that government represent asset owners only because they alone achieved anything. People like he would be represented.

You're  funny, you have no fucking clue what's going on these days. You are actually talking about yourselves/each other and you are to dumb to figure that out too, Hint..The Democrats just failed to circumvent the American democratic process. I guess that there's still a couple of American's left on the Democratic side these days. You can't see the realignment that has already take place and becoming more complete as we speak. America has already turned on Biden. The Biden/Harris Administration has no other choice than to do or say and try whatever it thinks it needs to keep it's dwindling base of support together at this point. I don't know how low his base of support must go before he is rendered incompetent and incapable and no longer befitting to be President. I know he's done, the majority of the electorate knows that he's done and the only people who haven't figured it out are you guys so to speak. So, what are y'all clinging too? What are y'all going to do when Acirema aka Blue America implodes before your own eye's.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-13-2022, 10:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Uh, Hitler offed himself in 1945. 

Quote:As you can see, I'm anything but Perfect?

We all fall short of God's desires, says any Christian clergyman of whom I know. I have big problems with some tendencies within Christianity, including the treatment of all flawed behavior a "sin". I'm not going to confuse overeating with perpetration of the Holocaust.
. 

Quote:I mean, what won't I do PB? What aren't I free to do? Is there anything a Rotten won't do PB? Are you in with the Rotten that we see or the Perfect who are Rotten that we see? You ain't Perfect. You've proven beyond all doubt many times. You ain't Rotten to the core like most of your politicians and billionaires and donor class/aristocracy these days. I mean, you got to be Rotten to do business with the Devil and they're all Rotten PB. So, which blue shit hole do you and the others prefer to be dropped off and left to die in PB? Right now, you have choices that you won't have for much longer. Like I've said, you better pull your head out/wise up and start showing me/us  something other than the shit you've been showing me/us for over a decade now.

You seem to be a fervent supporter of Donald Trump, a man of pervasive depravity. I need say no more. I have no respect for any admirer of gangsters, serial and mass murderers, shysters or scammers, or terrorists. Anyone who admires such people has a huge moral gap in need of rectification.

I liked him more than the mindless piece of shit that you and the others elected. Trump may have been an asshole but he wasn't a complete fuck up. I'm sorry about your disdain for fowl language I couldn't think of anything nicer to say about him. PB, you're not talking to Hitler. You're talking to an American who could have destroyed Nazi Germany and forced Hitler to off himself in a bunker. You haven't figure out that it's moved to Us vs Them. Weren't you listening to Biden and weren't you listening to his divisive language the other day? Guess what, Biden is turning out to be a bigger asshole than than Trump. Do you prefer to be Us or Them PB? I'm going to refer to you and the others as Them since a lot of Democratic supporters are referring to you and the others as Them these days.

[Bob Butler 54]

This is a crisis.  The conflict is devisive.  The leader will be too.  The question of the moment is whether to punish someone who attempted to overthrow democracy.  Underneath are the problems of Covid, saving the environment, racism and more or less infrastructure.  You have to decide whether you wish to solve these problems or not.  In all prior American crisis, the problems have been addressed.  Granted, these problems are more visible and problematic in the densely populated areas.  There is a big enough difference of the severity of the problem to create a divide.  Still, the problems in the past have been addressed.

My proposition is that in the Information Age cultures can be altered through protest and legislation, as the suffragettes, Gandhi and Martin Luther King demonstrated.  That seems to be holding true.  The January sixth insurrection seems to be the peak of the violence.  Violence and protest faded since.  The Democrats have been making little progress since then.  The stay the same faction has enough power left to gum up the works.  Still, they have had to oppose progress and the will of the people to do so.  Of late, the party holding the presidency has lost ground in congress in the mid term elections.  The question is whether the lack of progress will be blamed on the Republicans voting as a block against progress and reversing the trend.

Right now the problem is that while the Democrats have the nominal majority in Congress, there are a few conservative Democrats that have blocked most progress.  The Democrats need a few more votes to overcome this lack.

Your personal obsession with violence and disregard for what is actually happening has put you way out in left field.

[Eric the Green]

(01-15-2022, 07:00 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: My proposition is that in the Information Age cultures can be altered through protest and legislation, as the suffragettes, Gandhi and Martin Luther King demonstrated.  That seems to be holding true.  

It's not so clear. 

In the USA, a reactionary minority is able to decide policy, restrict voting, block reforms and threaten or attempt violent coups. They support the police and vigilantes who shoot and kill unarmed young people and protesters without cause. Outside the wealthy countries of Europe, Japan and the Anglosphere, and some countries in the Americas like Chile, brutal, ruthless dictators without any conscience are able to stamp out huge protest and people-power movements. The dictators have the weapons and the people are powerless. In some other large developing countries, such as The Phillipines, Brazil and India, democracy is tenuous and current leaders are seeking to monopolize power or use violence for control. In Eastern Europe, in countries such as Turkey, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, the people themselves have voted in tyrants who have manipulated the system to assume authoritarian rule, so that the people no longer have any power.

We see the people rising up and being shot down, jailed and tortured in such countries as Syria (the worst case), Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Tunisia, Sudan, Mozambique, Iran, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet republics, and others in Africa and elsewhere. In other countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Indonesia and Pakistan, democracy is tenuous and in crisis and the outcome is unclear.

People power is largely failing. The people will have to get weapons and fight back where it fails. The tyrants cannot be appealed to by the methods of Gandhi and King; they have no morality, values or conscience to appeal to. Right now this fight-back is having some success in Burma (known as Myanmar as named by the tyrants). In others like Syria and Venezuela, the people fighting back have been defeated by foreign allies of the tyrant. Russia (a country controlled entirely by one man) is the biggest ally of tyranny in the world.

Right now we are on the verge of world war. It is democracy versus tyranny all over the world. Climate change is fueling the fight. Russia threatens to invade Ukraine and China threatens to invade Taiwan. People everywhere will get weapons and fight their tyrants and get support from democracies and NATO. I am predicting that the war will not break out this year, but may break out in 2025 or perhaps 2024 or 2026. Certainly the USA itself will not be in a war footing until then. Well, we'll see.

[Eric the Green]

(01-15-2022, 04:15 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-13-2022, 10:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Uh, Hitler offed himself in 1945. 

Quote:As you can see, I'm anything but Perfect?

We all fall short of God's desires, says any Christian clergyman of whom I know. I have big problems with some tendencies within Christianity, including the treatment of all flawed behavior a "sin". I'm not going to confuse overeating with perpetration of the Holocaust.
. 

Quote:I mean, what won't I do PB? What aren't I free to do? Is there anything a Rotten won't do PB? Are you in with the Rotten that we see or the Perfect who are Rotten that we see? You ain't Perfect. You've proven beyond all doubt many times. You ain't Rotten to the core like most of your politicians and billionaires and donor class/aristocracy these days. I mean, you got to be Rotten to do business with the Devil and they're all Rotten PB. So, which blue shit hole do you and the others prefer to be dropped off and left to die in PB? Right now, you have choices that you won't have for much longer. Like I've said, you better pull your head out/wise up and start showing me/us  something other than the shit you've been showing me/us for over a decade now.

You seem to be a fervent supporter of Donald Trump, a man of pervasive depravity. I need say no more. I have no respect for any admirer of gangsters, serial and mass murderers, shysters or scammers, or terrorists. Anyone who admires such people has a huge moral gap in need of rectification.

I liked him more than the mindless piece of shit that you and the others elected. Trump may have been an asshole but he wasn't a complete fuck up. I'm sorry about your disdain for fowl language I couldn't think of anything nicer to say about him. PB, you're not talking to Hitler. You're talking to an American who could have destroyed Nazi Germany and forced Hitler to off himself in a bunker. You haven't figure out that it's moved to Us vs Them. Weren't you listening to Biden and weren't you listening to his divisive language the other day? Guess what, Biden is turning out to be a bigger  asshole than than Trump.  Do you prefer to be Us or Them PB? I'm going to refer to you and the others as Them since a lot of Democratic supporters are referring to you and the others as Them these days.

I am so thankful that Biden is showing the power of rhetoric and leadership. He is stepping up as a fourth turning leader against the tyranny, fascism, racism and reactionary ignorance of the likes of you, Classic Xer. He is leading the USA to turn back the attack on its soul and values led by your side. He is becoming the new FDR and Lincoln, and Trump is the new Jefferson Davis. There is absolutely no doubt about this. Whether the conflict will become violent will not be entirely clear until 2025, but the reactionary fascist threats are growing, the Justice Department is taking action against your side Classic Xer, and the forces of freedom and democracy as exemplified by Senator Warnock are growing too.

[Eric the Green]

Joe Biden's first 2022 speech in defense of America against the attacks from the Classic Xers

[Eric the Green]

Joe Biden's second speech in defense of America against the attacks by the Classic Xers





Thank you Mr. President for becoming our fourth turning leader!

(my reference to Classic "Xer" is not meant to claim that this is a battle between generations)

[Eric the Green]

The 4th turning fight is now being waged in congress to persuade two DINOs to protect democracy against the attacks on it being waged by Trump and his followers. Ari Berman reports on this and on the nationwide attack on democracy and the struggle to protect it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-15-2022, 02:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Right now we are on the verge of world war. It is democracy versus tyranny all over the world. Climate change is fueling the fight. Russia threatens to invade Ukraine and China threatens to invade Taiwan. People everywhere will get weapons and fight their tyrants and get support from democracies and NATO. I am predicting that the war will not break out this year, but may break out in 2025 or perhaps 2024 or 2026. Certainly the USA itself will not be in a war footing until then. Well, we'll see.

I'd like to see what happens with the mid terms, but I think there is a good chance the peak in violence occurred January 6th.  Both the protests and the violence peaked then.  If the mid terms should go Republican, I could easily see the protests restart, and the violence could follow.  Still, I see the timing of the DOJ efforts as designed to peak with the mid terms.

We shall indeed see.

[Eric the Green]

(01-15-2022, 04:16 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-15-2022, 02:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Right now we are on the verge of world war. It is democracy versus tyranny all over the world. Climate change is fueling the fight. Russia threatens to invade Ukraine and China threatens to invade Taiwan. People everywhere will get weapons and fight their tyrants and get support from democracies and NATO. I am predicting that the war will not break out this year, but may break out in 2025 or perhaps 2024 or 2026. Certainly the USA itself will not be in a war footing until then. Well, we'll see.

I'd like to see what happens with the mid terms, but I think there is a good chance the peak in violence occurred January 6th.  Both the protests and the violence peaked then.  If the mid terms should go Republican, I could easily see the protests restart, and the violence could follow.  Still, I see the timing of the DOJ efforts as designed to peak with the mid terms.

We shall indeed see.

Yes, we'll see. Right now, the Republicans are gerrymandering congress so clearly that the House will go Republican no matter how the people vote. It will be very hard to fight gerrymandering through the courts. Sinema and Manchin appear ready to support gerrymandering, vote suppression and vote subversion this weekend. Even if they vote to support the right to vote bills instead, I am not even sure the law will guarantee that independent commissions are instituted nationwide this year, so that the voters choose their representatives instead of vice versa. Then the Supreme Court could strike down these new bills. Meanwhile, the militias are actively planning to bring their guns to threaten or shoot election officials if they don't do their will. Republicans are supporting every attack on democracy now; compromise and principle have disappeared from their minds and hearts. Dr. King's method will not work on Classic Xer's faction of Trump worshippers. They have no conscience at all for the people to appeal to.

There was every reason to conclude that in the green information age that we have risen above violence as the means to decide issues. Now it appears worldwide that this is no longer the case. Despite people power, the power of the people is being trampled.

[pbrower2a]

(01-15-2022, 04:15 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [quote pid='80146' dateline='1642129886']
We all fall short of God's desires, says any Christian clergyman of whom I know. I have big problems with some tendencies within Christianity, including the treatment of all flawed behavior a "sin". I'm not going to confuse overeating with perpetration of the Holocaust.
. 

Quote:I mean, what won't I do PB? What aren't I free to do? Is there anything a Rotten won't do PB? Are you in with the Rotten that we see or the Perfect who are Rotten that we see? You ain't Perfect. You've proven beyond all doubt many times. You ain't Rotten to the core like most of your politicians and billionaires and donor class/aristocracy these days. I mean, you got to be Rotten to do business with the Devil and they're all Rotten PB. So, (where) do you and the others prefer to be dropped off and left to die in PB? Right now, you have choices that you won't have for much longer. Like I've said, you better pull your head out/wise up and start showing me/us  something other than (what) you've been showing me/us for over a decade now.

You seem to be a fervent supporter of Donald Trump, a man of pervasive depravity. I need say no more. I have no respect for any admirer of gangsters, serial and mass murderers, shysters or scammers, or terrorists. Anyone who admires such people has a huge moral gap in need of rectification.

I liked him more than the mindless piece of shit that you and the others elected.
[/quote]

Mercifully, as bad a person as Trump is he did far less harm than I dreaded. He was too incompetent and full of himself to achieve much as President. This said, he nominated three hacks to the US Supreme Court, three who will be laughing stocks in the annals of the US Supreme Court He has also coarsened the rhetoric of politics through vile rhetoric and behavior.  

I'm not going to praise the fellow who plans a bank robbery and is stopped from doing the horrible crime  because he runs out of gasoline along the way.   

Quote:Trump may have been an asshole but he wasn't a complete fuck up.

But he could make life miserable for people who deserved no such misery.

A review of one treatment:

Quote:ASSHOLES: A THEORY (John Walker). 81 minutes. Opens Friday (November 29). See listing. Rating: NNN

---

Pick up a paper, turn on the news or just check Twitter, and it won’t be long before you hear a story about someone behaving badly. That’s partially because bad behaviour gets people’s attention, whether for the schadenfreude or because it’s genuinely newsworthy, but also because there are a lot more assholes around. 

Some of them are in charge of entire countries some are running provinces, in the hopes of failing further upward. Others are just ordinary assholes, abusing what social standing or authority is available to them. The term has become so normalized that it’s going up on theatre marquees this week, as John Walker’s new documentary Assholes: A Theory opens. 

Using Aaron James’s 2012 book as a jumping-off point, Walker (Quebec: My Country, Mon Pays, Arctic Defenders, A Drummer’s Dream) builds a mostly serious look at the preponderance of privileged, entitled jerks – almost always male, almost always white – who bully their way into positions of dominance in Western society.

The filmmaker interviews dozens of people from all walks of life, all of whom have stared arrogance and aggression in the face. John Cleese speaks of his beloved London becoming a playground for indifferent finance bros. Italian activist Vladimir Luxuria discusses the vainglorious dickishness of Silvio Berlusconi. And former Mountie Sherry Lee Benson-Podolchuk speaks to a more dangerous sort of entitlement, discussing the misogynistic culture she experienced within the RCMP, which led her to write her 2007 memoir, Women Not Wanted.

It’s a thoughtful accounting of society’s most noxious people, balancing hard psychology with anecdotal shit-talking, with special loathing reserved for financial-sector hustlers, blustering faux-populist politicians and surfers who cut into other surfers’ waves – which was what inspired James to write his book in the first place. 

It’s maybe not as funny as Walker wants it to be – a burbly jazz score tries very hard to force some lightness into the material – but it’ll leave you thinking about the assholes in your life, and whether you’re being one right now.
@normwilner

A hint: blustering faux-populist politicians is a reference to Donald Trump and others. . 

Quote:I'm sorry about your disdain for fowl language I couldn't think of anything nicer to say about him.

Fowl language? Sorry; I have never been able to figure what hens say in a coop.  With respect to foul language... it is usually easy to replace with something less troublesome.   

Quote:PB, you're not talking to Hitler. You're talking to an American who could have destroyed Nazi Germany and forced Hitler to off himself in a bunker.

Strictly speaking it was the Soviet Army that approached the Bunker in which Hitler blew his brains out.  Once the Soviet Union had Berlin in its grasp the US military stated that it had no desire to enter Berlin in combat. 

Quote:You haven't figure out that it's moved to Us vs Them. Weren't you listening to Biden and weren't you listening to his divisive language the other day?

President Biden's speech was far more measured than the usual Trump fare.  He chose the time at which to make the speech and denounce the continuing myth of a stolen election. He all but named names, probably because he saw a list of people to be indicted for plotting the Capitol Putsch and some extreme charges. Naming names would tip off some people who might take interstate flight to avoid arrest here in the USA.     

Quote:Guess what, Biden is turning out to be a bigger  asshole than than Trump.

How would you know? 

Tell me one good result of the Capitol Putsch. I double-dog dare you.  Show me objective evidence that significant cheating occurred that made the difference between an honest Trump win and a fraudulent Biden win. Your dislike for the electoral result is as irrelevant relating to the 2020 Presidential election as my dislike of the result of the 2016 Presidential election. 

Quote: Do you prefer to be Us or Them PB? I'm going to refer to you and the others as Them since a lot of Democratic supporters are referring to you and the others as Them these days.

I am sorry that you feel as you do. Your idea of what constitutes America is severely limited and damned to severe limitation. What you fail to recognize that America has multiple traditions that think themselves equally valid to the once-dominant WASP community. For me, "Us" can be people who look little like me, have a very different set of r4eligious values, have sex in ways that I do not, and have different educational or vocational qualities. Different as we are we may share some important values that make cooperation possible. 

We Democrats believe, unlike you, in "One Big Us" that recognizes the shared values of people who actually have a chance to do real good for Humanity. It recognizes some differences as benign and inevitable.  Many different forms of "Them", mutually hostile because people see ethnic or  religious differences as signs of evil? Absolutely not. Your view of differences is tribal, and that is good for at best shaky cohesion based upon hierarchies and division of the graft while most people get cheated. That's how things were in Yugoslavia, and that did not turn out well. Eventually the common people recognize that they get nothing while leaders unaccountable to them while defined as "theirs" aren't getting enough to spread to them. 

"One Big Us" means that nobody is condemned to victimhood due to ethnicity, creed, or gender preference. A permanent underclass, which you tolerate because it lets you do some things on the cheap, is grossly unjust. It ensures failure and resentments. Maybe you miss the cheap restaurant meals and cheap food of the Neoliberal era that began with Ronald Reagan. Fair pay for the work that one does is a good thing, as it strengthens families and communities. America was a better place in which to live when people of limited education (college education is still for people of at least above-average intelligence. It does little good for dullards and intellectually-lazy people) could make a good living in a factory in a small town. Cheap imports that one can't afford because one is obliged to toil for less than a living do one no good.  

One of ny favorite expressions of what it means to be an American is Dearborn, Michigan. It's a suburb of what may be the sleaziest city in America: Detroit. It has a large and influential Muslim minority, and that minority seems to have some wholesome family values that it expects support for in public life. Michigan Avenue in western Detroit exemplifies the worst in secular American life: lots of liquor stores and sexually-related businesses. It has drunks, addicts, whores, and pimps (many of the pimps and whores are also alcoholics or addicts -- no surprise!) You do not want your precious children to go there, but they might if they are scared off or practically abandoned. The Muslims of Dearborn vote for politicians who insist on tough policing. That rot ends at the Detroit-Dearborn city limits, and there is a Dearborn police car stationed just at the city limits. Wander over under a chemical haze or wearing a prostitute's get-up or pimp style and you will be busted. In return, Dearborn residents get a safe community that can be normal. 

I need not be a Muslim to like that. I prefer not having people wandering about drunk or on drugs or prostitutes offering themselves in plain sight. Crime rates are low in a not-particularly-rich suburb; that is worth some minor sacrifices, like not being able to get rowdy in a bar. Oh, you can get a couple of drinks in a bar, but patrons are well-behaved. Islam precludes alcohol, but apparently it tolerates a little for non-Muslims. Just don't get drunk in plain sight. So I will never see a place that offers "Sophisticated Adult Entertainment" on a marquee with an allusion to a scantily-clad young woman. I have my idea of what sophisticated adult entertainment is. Bright kids might enjoy it because they are grown up in every way but sexuality. Great art, drama, and music? I'm glad to welcome teenagers to that. 

"One Big Us" includes religious faiths to which I have no chance of converting. In case you think that Dearborn is a Muslim slum -- plenty of Christians, Jews, and secularists like things that way, too. 

"One Big Us" means that people share common concepts of human decency and dignity, the hope that their efforts will pay off in a good living, that kids actually learn something in school. That well describes people as disparate as the Black Bourgeoisie and just about every Asian-American community. Maybe we can indulge a bit in each other's culture where attractive. Cuisine? Music? Art? That's fine with me. The culture into which I was born is remarkably empty. When my parents moved from rural Michigan to the San Francisco Bay Area I got to discover some very different ways of life. East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) aesthetics had something to offer. Because I shared the same ethical standards with people with surnames similar to mine I ended up with plenty of Jewish friends. Blacks and Latinos were not predictably downtrodden. I had some fear of being seen as a hayseed among people far less sophisticated than I. I had trouble with gangs who were full of resentment and who thought anyone not part of their gangs as prey. Gangs are not part of "One Big Us". They really are "Them". F--- the Bloods, Crips, MS-13, and the Aryan Brotherhood. By the way -- the scariest gangs that I encountered were the white ones. Some of those thought swastikas, Death's Heads, and SS-runes attractive. Yuck!

The different ethnic groups all had people who valued learning, sought economic success through work or enterprise, and held criminality in contempt. I could relate to such people. If I had stayed there after college I might have ended up with a wife who might not look like me except for skin color (if it is skin color, plenty of East Asians are indistinguishable from white people) or I might have married some Nice Jewish Girl and converted to Judaism (which is a good match for my values). 

"One Big Us" is forming in America. It has nothing to do with ethnicity of religious doctrine. We want to do good and do well. We insist upon fair play. We recognize that if cultures are different, ethical values can transcend ethnicity and culture because those make life tolerable and rewarding. It recognizes the validity of differences. You stand for a "smaller Us" -- one far narrower in origin. Think of the shameful inter-ethnic squabbles that have resulted in mass death, as in Rwanda. I'll stick with my idea of "One Big Us".

[pbrower2a]

(01-15-2022, 07:00 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: This is a crisis.  The conflict is devisive.  The leader will be too.  The question of the moment is whether to punish someone who attempted to overthrow democracy.  Underneath are the problems of Covid, saving the environment, racism and more or less infrastructure.  You have to decide whether you wish to solve these problems or not.  In all prior American crisis, the problems have been addressed.  Granted, these problems are more visible and problematic in the densely populated areas.  There is a big enough difference of the severity of the problem to create a divide.  Still, the problems in the past have been addressed.

It is intellectually easy, but fiscally tricky. Some people see government spending as a pure drain upon the other. Some like me see it as the creation of fresh opportunities to do well for oneself by solving real problems. We are not through the Crisis Era, and we don't seem close to its end. We don't have an apocalyptic war with a turning point after which everything is recognized as destiny for all that follows, as at Midway, El Alamein, or Stalingrad. The Devils' Reich and Thug Japan were still capable of occasional reverses of the Inevitable and were still able to enforce much blood-letting to buy time for the survival of leadership that ultimately showed contempt even for the lives of their own people. It is easy to interpret historical facts (aside from culpability for World War I) after the fact. In the meantime the discussion includes the demonization of the Other Side. 

Maybe we will come out of this Crisis better than we went in. We are going to recognize that science learned inquiry do more good than does superstition, that community is preferable to social atomization, and that democratic institutions are preferable to such alternatives as despotism. Democracy depends upon people recognizing that electoral losses are a necessary part of the game -- if the game is to be honest. Any dishonest version of democracy either gets rectified by the People or descends into tyranny; this rule is becoming obvious in America.     

Quote:My proposition is that in the Information Age cultures can be altered through protest and legislation, as the suffragettes, Gandhi and Martin Luther King demonstrated.  That seems to be holding true.  The January sixth insurrection seems to be the peak of the violence.  Violence and protest faded since.  The Democrats have been making little progress since then.  The stay the same faction has enough power left to gum up the works.  Still, they have had to oppose progress and the will of the people to do so.  Of late, the party holding the presidency has lost ground in congress in the mid term elections.  The question is whether the lack of progress will be blamed on the Republicans voting as a block against progress and reversing the trend.

I hope that you are right about January 6, 2021 as the peak of danger for American institutions. That Trump had to be defeated electorally if America were to remain consistent with the necessary visions of the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and FDR and not go into a slide into despotism. I would have found Donald Trump insufferable even if he had expressed economic and cultural values similar to mine. I see him as a right-wing version of Hugo Chavez, who steadily eroded democracy in Venezuela in the name of "socialism".

I see some good trends, Generational politics do not favor the Hard Right. The Hard Right that we now know  is aging into political weakness  and ultimate irrelevance. To be sure, many of the changes vital to the refinement of democracy (Suffragettes and the Civil Rights struggle) can happen outside of a Crisis Era. Abolition of slavery came during the Civil War crisis, and workers got rights of effective organization during the Crisis of 1940. The American idea of a peaceful world was to offer basically the New Deal as the Marshall Plan. 

Crisis eras end well when the honest, moral, and rational people prevail. As the definitive Christmas Carol from a Crisis Era puts it, "The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, and Peace on Earth, good will toward men". 

Quote:Right now the problem is that while the Democrats have the nominal majority in Congress, there are a few conservative Democrats that have blocked most progress.  The Democrats need a few more votes to overcome this lack.

 

As troubling is that there are so few dissident Republicans capable of determining that principle must overtake power when power serves perverse ends. 

Quote: (Classic X'er's) personal obsession with violence and disregard for what is actually happening has put (himself) way out in left field.

If he is a left-fielder he jumped into the stands and thinks that he took away what the batter thought was a home run. The ball that he threw back for a triple play instead of a grand slam reads "Little League Baseball". The umpiring crew will quickly rule the home run valid and the triple play void.

Violence of the sort that Classic X'er supports is no viable solution to anything other than his strange vision that denies "One Big Us".

[David Horn]

(01-15-2022, 02:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-15-2022, 07:00 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: My proposition is that in the Information Age cultures can be altered through protest and legislation, as the suffragettes, Gandhi and Martin Luther King demonstrated.  That seems to be holding true.  

It's not so clear. 

In the USA, a reactionary minority is able to decide policy, restrict voting, block reforms and threaten or attempt violent coups. They support the police and vigilantes who shoot and kill unarmed young people and protesters without cause. Outside the wealthy countries of Europe, Japan and the Anglosphere, and some countries in the Americas like Chile, brutal, ruthless dictators without any conscience are able to stamp out huge protest and people-power movements. The dictators have the weapons and the people are powerless. In some other large developing countries, such as The Phillipines, Brazil and India, democracy is tenuous and current leaders are seeking to monopolize power or use violence for control. In Eastern Europe, in countries such as Turkey, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, the people themselves have voted in tyrants who have manipulated the system to assume authoritarian rule, so that the people no longer have any power.

We see the people rising up and being shot down, jailed and tortured in such countries as Syria (the worst case), Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Tunisia, Sudan, Mozambique, Iran, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet republics, and others in Africa and elsewhere. In other countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Indonesia and Pakistan, democracy is tenuous and in crisis and the outcome is unclear.

People power is largely failing. The people will have to get weapons and fight back where it fails. The tyrants cannot be appealed to by the methods of Gandhi and King; they have no morality, values or conscience to appeal to. Right now this fight-back is having some success in Burma (known as Myanmar as named by the tyrants). In others like Syria and Venezuela, the people fighting back have been defeated by foreign allies of the tyrant. Russia (a country controlled entirely by one man) is the biggest ally of tyranny in the world.

Right now we are on the verge of world war. It is democracy versus tyranny all over the world. Climate change is fueling the fight. Russia threatens to invade Ukraine and China threatens to invade Taiwan. People everywhere will get weapons and fight their tyrants and get support from democracies and NATO. I am predicting that the war will not break out this year, but may break out in 2025 or perhaps 2024 or 2026. Certainly the USA itself will not be in a war footing until then. Well, we'll see.

Sorry Bob, but I have to go with Eric on this one.  The tools available to would-be tyrants and the controls over those tools make their use almost a foregone conclusion.  Worse, we have a polity that is broken into a hate camp and a rules camp.  Not much chance that plays well.  It's like two fighters: one willing do anything and the other following Marquis of Queensbury rules.  In the ring, the honorable fighter will be cheered as he (or she) is removed from the ring coverred in blood.

[pbrower2a]

(01-16-2022, 10:58 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-15-2022, 02:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-15-2022, 07:00 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: My proposition is that in the Information Age cultures can be altered through protest and legislation, as the suffragettes, Gandhi and Martin Luther King demonstrated.  That seems to be holding true.  

It's not so clear. 

In the USA, a reactionary minority is able to decide policy, restrict voting, block reforms and threaten or attempt violent coups. They support the police and vigilantes who shoot and kill unarmed young people and protesters without cause. Outside the wealthy countries of Europe, Japan and the Anglosphere, and some countries in the Americas like Chile, brutal, ruthless dictators without any conscience are able to stamp out huge protest and people-power movements. The dictators have the weapons and the people are powerless. In some other large developing countries, such as The Phillipines, Brazil and India, democracy is tenuous and current leaders are seeking to monopolize power or use violence for control. In Eastern Europe, in countries such as Turkey, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, the people themselves have voted in tyrants who have manipulated the system to assume authoritarian rule, so that the people no longer have any power.

We see the people rising up and being shot down, jailed and tortured in such countries as Syria (the worst case), Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Tunisia, Sudan, Mozambique, Iran, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet republics, and others in Africa and elsewhere. In other countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Indonesia and Pakistan, democracy is tenuous and in crisis and the outcome is unclear.

People power is largely failing. The people will have to get weapons and fight back where it fails. The tyrants cannot be appealed to by the methods of Gandhi and King; they have no morality, values or conscience to appeal to. Right now this fight-back is having some success in Burma (known as Myanmar as named by the tyrants). In others like Syria and Venezuela, the people fighting back have been defeated by foreign allies of the tyrant. Russia (a country controlled entirely by one man) is the biggest ally of tyranny in the world.

Right now we are on the verge of world war. It is democracy versus tyranny all over the world. Climate change is fueling the fight. Russia threatens to invade Ukraine and China threatens to invade Taiwan. People everywhere will get weapons and fight their tyrants and get support from democracies and NATO. I am predicting that the war will not break out this year, but may break out in 2025 or perhaps 2024 or 2026. Certainly the USA itself will not be in a war footing until then. Well, we'll see.

Sorry Bob, but I have to go with Eric on this one.  The tools available to would-be tyrants and the controls over those tools make their use almost a foregone conclusion.  Worse, we have a polity that is broken into a hate camp and a rules camp.  Not much chance that plays well.  It's like two fighters: one willing do anything and the other following Marquis of Queensbury rules.  In the ring, the honorable fighter will be cheered as he (or she) is removed from the ring covered in blood.

For a short time the curious were able to circumvent censorship through the Internet. The censors in China and Russia have caught up.  There's always someone willing to sell out freedom for a thirty pieces of silver or whatever the rate is for selling a soul. Some Americans, I regret to say, would do so for somewhat more money than that; I just saw a roll of Roosevelt dimes (the cheapest silver coins in America) for sale at roughly $120. I suppose that thirty pieces of silver would go for about $72, so that is a little low.

The hate camp is strong, and I do not trust it to follow rules if given the chance. This country would be a nasty place to live had Trump been re-elected.

[Eric the Green]

The demographics look good for the Democrats in the future, but this advantage is becoming more doubtful. The white rural areas that have so much disproportionate power are usually able to brainwash their young to their extremism. Most of the immigrants are hispanics, and they are only marginally more Democratic or liberal. The right-wing is solidifying its power with extreme gerrymandering and takeover of election officials. I'm not sure there's anything that can be done to stop this voter subversion at this point. The Democrats do not have the Senate majority that we thought they might have. The Courts in red states will support whatever the tyrant Republicans do. The Supreme Court will not stop gerrymandering. The House is likely to revert to Republican control, ending all reform proposals. How much more damage will the white power faction do to our climate and our inequality while they can still block all progress? How much can strong campaigns for congress do to offset the gerrymandering in 2022, and can Democrats retake the Senate too, now that Biden is unpopular?

According to my astrological reading, progress was indicated to restart this year after the long period of reaction. But the Lord of Spirit in the Cosmos cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The USA may simply too backward and ignorant ever to make any progress ever again. If it doesn't restart in the 2020s, we are toast, and we can have no hope for any future turning.

[pbrower2a]

(01-16-2022, 01:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The demographics look good for the Democrats in the future, but this advantage is becoming more doubtful. The white rural areas that have so much disproportionate power are usually able to brainwash their young to their extremism. Most of the immigrants are Hispanics, and they are only marginally more Democratic or liberal.

Aside from Cuban-Americans, especially in Florida, Hispanics are still relatively liberal. They are liberal enough to be the difference in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania,  and Wisconsin. Cuban-Americans were drifting D until a bunch of right-wingers convinced many that the ideal President would "liberate" Cuba and re-install many Cuban-Americans as semi-feudal exploiters to lord it over the people still in Cuba. Many of those who fall for that pitch had grandparents who abandoned Cuba who really had little to lose there because they were doing at best middling-well. There just isn't enough land to return to allow easy living from an aristocratic lifestyle by those who dream of it. It's hard to figure what the remaining Cubans want, but I doubt that they want to be lorded over by True Believers in pure plutocracy.

Recent immigrants of course do not vote. They will not vote until they reach 18 or achieve citizenship, whichever comes last. Let's consider what is going on in some rural areas. Giant farms are buying out small farmers who move to Suburbia. The voting population shrinks, but those who own and manage those giant farms need a large rural proletariat  to work in the feedlots, dairies, and slaughterhouses. Those workers serve as much of the basis of representation in Congress by people who hold them in contempt. When such people start voting, then the game is up for the Hard Right in rural America. 

Quote:The right-wing is solidifying its power with extreme gerrymandering and takeover of election officials.

Republicans used their opportunities to gerrymander in 2000 and 2010. There isn't much more opportunity left. Republicans made significant gains in the House in 2020, so there isn't much low-hanging fruit to pick off. Add to this, Donald Trump remains toxic, and such will remain so it such few swing districts as  there will be. Takeover of election officials? Such is not as reliable as it might look. Consider that Trump tried to finagle 'just enough votes to win Georgia'. Whether out of principle or a desire to avoid a prison term for doing so, that official refused to nullify a result that he likely voted against. Trump is the one potentially in legal trouble for felony crimes for that.

Quote:I'm not sure there's anything that can be done to stop this voter subversion at this point.

Criminal statutes. Both Parties have recently made legislation to prevent electoral fraud and even innocent errors. People in charge of elections have soft, often well-remunerated, jobs that they will not risk being fired from, let alone being imprisoned for electoral fraud.

Quote:The Democrats do not have the Senate majority that we thought they might have. The Courts in red states will support whatever the tyrant Republicans do. The Supreme Court will not stop gerrymandering. The House is likely to revert to Republican control, ending all reform proposals. How much more damage will the white power faction do to our climate and our inequality while they can still block all progress? How much can strong campaigns for congress do to offset the gerrymandering in 2022, and can Democrats retake the Senate too, now that Biden is unpopular?

Republicans hold two Senate seats that are "low-hanging fruit". I have no faith in any Republican who sold out to Trump.
 

Quote:According to my astrological reading, progress was indicated to restart this year after the long period of reaction. But the Lord of Spirit in the Cosmos cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The USA may simply too backward and ignorant ever to make any progress ever again. If it doesn't restart in the 2020s, we are toast, and we can have no hope for any future turning.

That depends to a great extent how much of the American people is like the "Real Americans" that Classic X'er touts.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-15-2022, 02:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-15-2022, 07:00 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: My proposition is that in the Information Age cultures can be altered through protest and legislation, as the suffragettes, Gandhi and Martin Luther King demonstrated.  That seems to be holding true.  

It's not so clear. 

In the USA, a reactionary minority is able to decide policy, restrict voting, block reforms and threaten or attempt violent coups. They support the police and vigilantes who shoot and kill unarmed young people and protesters without cause. Outside the wealthy countries of Europe, Japan and the Anglosphere, and some countries in the Americas like Chile, brutal, ruthless dictators without any conscience are able to stamp out huge protest and people-power movements. The dictators have the weapons and the people are powerless. In some other large developing countries, such as The Phillipines, Brazil and India, democracy is tenuous and current leaders are seeking to monopolize power or use violence for control. In Eastern Europe, in countries such as Turkey, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, the people themselves have voted in tyrants who have manipulated the system to assume authoritarian rule, so that the people no longer have any power.

To be clear there is a difference between autocratic and democratic cultures.  The suffragettes, Gandhi and Martin Luther King did their stuff where democracy was taken seriously.  Things are a bit different in autocratic cultures.  The government and elites can attempt to ignore the people, so the process can be quite different.

The collapse of the Soviet Union is one example of how you might transition from autocratic to democratic.  Of course that transition was partial or reversed.  China is also having economic troubles at the moment.  While they are into confrontation, censorship and bluff, they are attempting capitalism without democracy with dubious results.  They may or may not be able to sustain it.  In the Middle East, a lot of the people who favor democracy just left, immigrated to democratic cultures.  You have to look at the process as varying highly depending on where your culture is at.

[David Horn]

(01-16-2022, 01:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The demographics look good for the Democrats in the future, but this advantage is becoming more doubtful. The white rural areas that have so much disproportionate power are usually able to brainwash their young to their extremism. Most of the immigrants are hispanics, and they are only marginally more Democratic or liberal. The right-wing is solidifying its power with extreme gerrymandering and takeover of election officials. I'm not sure there's anything that can be done to stop this voter subversion at this point. The Democrats do not have the Senate majority that we thought they might have. The Courts in red states will support whatever the tyrant Republicans do. The Supreme Court will not stop gerrymandering. The House is likely to revert to Republican control, ending all reform proposals. How much more damage will the white power faction do to our climate and our inequality while they can still block all progress? How much can strong campaigns for congress do to offset the gerrymandering in 2022, and can Democrats retake the Senate too, now that Biden is unpopular?

According to my astrological reading, progress was indicated to restart this year after the long period of reaction. But the Lord of Spirit in the Cosmos cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The USA may simply too backward and ignorant ever to make any progress ever again. If it doesn't restart in the 2020s, we are toast, and we can have no hope for any future turning.

I still see this as a next-2T issue.  The GOP is selling the easy short term by creating the terrible long term.  The voters giving them that power are aging, but the problems are only growing.  How will this resolve?  Good question.  It may turn violent.  There may be a Great Schism.  Society may collapse entirely (a really bad idea for a country armed with nuclear weapons).  I just don't see it getting resolved before the next 1T, but I see it getting resolved. 

It will be the Millennials and the following 2 gens carrying the load, because it has to be them.  The Millies have worked overtime to avoid real issues in favor of more artificial touchy-feely culture issues.  That will also collapse.  Eventually, navel gazing creates its own probems.

[Eric the Green]

(01-17-2022, 09:46 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-16-2022, 01:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The demographics look good for the Democrats in the future, but this advantage is becoming more doubtful. The white rural areas that have so much disproportionate power are usually able to brainwash their young to their extremism. Most of the immigrants are hispanics, and they are only marginally more Democratic or liberal. The right-wing is solidifying its power with extreme gerrymandering and takeover of election officials. I'm not sure there's anything that can be done to stop this voter subversion at this point. The Democrats do not have the Senate majority that we thought they might have. The Courts in red states will support whatever the tyrant Republicans do. The Supreme Court will not stop gerrymandering. The House is likely to revert to Republican control, ending all reform proposals. How much more damage will the white power faction do to our climate and our inequality while they can still block all progress? How much can strong campaigns for congress do to offset the gerrymandering in 2022, and can Democrats retake the Senate too, now that Biden is unpopular?

According to my astrological reading, progress was indicated to restart this year after the long period of reaction. But the Lord of Spirit in the Cosmos cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The USA may simply too backward and ignorant ever to make any progress ever again. If it doesn't restart in the 2020s, we are toast, and we can have no hope for any future turning.

I still see this as a next-2T issue.  The GOP is selling the easy short term by creating the terrible long term.  The voters giving them that power are aging, but the problems are only growing.  How will this resolve?  Good question.  It may turn violent.  There may be a Great Schism.  Society may collapse entirely (a really bad idea for a country armed with nuclear weapons).  I just don't see it getting resolved before the next 1T, but I see it getting resolved. 

It will be the Millennials and the following 2 gens carrying the load, because it has to be them.  The Millies have worked overtime to avoid real issues in favor of more artificial touchy-feely culture issues.  That will also collapse.  Eventually, navel gazing creates its own probems.

How can there be a 1T or a 2T without a proper 4T preceding it? That's not how the cycle works. If nothing is done in this 4T, climate change and inequality with all the social and health problems that go along with these will be so engrained and democracy so destroyed that no-one in the 2040s and 50s will have any means or any hope of correcting these problems. 1Ts are stand pat eras; 2Ts are about cultural change; 4Ts are supposed to be the time when we fight it out on so-called "real issues" and make the institutional changes. This is the job of the prophet, nomad and civic generational combo. Others cannot do it. Two senators are blocking us right now. We have to find a way to break through this in this decade, or we die. We are toast and we are through.

Biden is right; we are at a deciding point. He may have to find a way to work with some Republicans and get half a loaf for now. 4Ts don't have to solve all the problems; just enough so we can continue to function and resolve the conflicts so that our republic survives and progresses. If we can do something, then the people of the next 2T (especially early in the 2T) will have a chance to make further reforms along with opening up the culture to real spirit and real free and embodied experience again, and to propose ideals and values to be acted on in the following 4T and beyond.

Another point is that neoliberalism and other reactionary ideologies have been so dominant for so long, that if not overturned in this 4T after such a long 40+ year conservative period, the USA will have (and already is to a large extent) become so used to the Reagan model that it will just become the norm forever. The pendulum is supposed to swing. If it no longer swings, our politics and our civics is dead and the turning pendulum is broken too.

This is now longer than the period in the romantic age of 1815 to 1850 when all change was prohibited and all ideals were frustrated by restored monarchs after the French Revolution and Napoleon. The only way it was broken was by opening a period of realpolitik industrial nationalism with some reforms thrown in, leading to the eventual death of the old European civilization in a 30-year holocaust in the 20th century.