(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.  

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

(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.

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.

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.

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

(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.

(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.

(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.

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

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

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?

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.

(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.

(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.

(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.