(03-24-2020, 11:50 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: ...  Is it really progress when the interests of Wall Street consistently trump those of Main Street, as they have for the better part of four decades? And when fertil farmland is destroyed to make room for shopping malls and office buildings, which in a way are now themselves on the wane?

(03-24-2020, 12:00 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-24-2020, 01:28 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: With the Republicans still resisting the change to collective action, and Trump (who allowed the crisis to fester early on) now thinking of just lifting the directives to socially distance and allowing us just to go back to work with the illness still increasing, a lot of turmoil could be in the making from this possible "trigger" and it could be a trigger indeed. How long can our government dither while New York sneezes? Our new Nero/Mussolini and his cohorts will face the whirlwind.

The conflict of red and blue will thereby ramp up in the next week or so. The red want to use the crisis to further support the rich and allow everyone else to get sick and stay poor, while the blue want government to provide a more socialistic stimulus directed at most people and continue the restrictions on social distance as the only way to stop this pandemic. Given this choice, the people may start to turn towards the blues, so that the Republicans are turned out and thus progress can restart. I certainly hope the people make the right choice here for the blues.

It is not prophets standing in the way of solving problems. It is the reds. That could not be more clear. This is not a generational question, it is a political and ideological one.

Do you feel that this pandemic will end up doing what nothing else has been able to do, and that’s to put what is commonly referred to as Reaganomics on life support if not in its grave?

(03-24-2020, 05:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-24-2020, 12:00 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Do you feel that this pandemic will end up doing what nothing else has been able to do, and that’s to put what is commonly referred to as Reaganomics on life support if not in its grave?

Possibly, with any luck!

(03-24-2020, 04:20 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-24-2020, 11:50 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: ...  Is it really progress when the interests of Wall Street consistently trump those of Main Street, as they have for the better part of four decades? And when fertil farmland is destroyed to make room for shopping malls and office buildings, which in a way are now themselves on the wane?

The progress we get is not always the progress we desire.  The real question: does the new paradigm move us forward, backwards or in no particular direction?  Typically, only the first option on that list truly qualifies as progress, but the change may be tiny and unsatisfying and still qualify.  I suspect we'll be unsatisfied this time.  Assuming we're there, the transition from 4T to 1T will be overseen by an Artist or a reprobate Boomer.  Neither really qualifies as ideal … especially another 4 years of the Orange One.

(03-25-2020, 11:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: For years I have thought the red worldview selfish.  The tribal thinking has the government working for people like them rather than leveling the playing field.  Their response or lack thereof is rapidly becoming stark.

(03-25-2020, 01:10 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-25-2020, 11:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: For years I have thought the red worldview selfish.  The tribal thinking has the government working for people like them rather than leveling the playing field.  Their response or lack thereof is rapidly becoming stark.

I considered the red worldview delusional, so you're much more generous than me.  A conceptual model built on emotion rather than analysis can hold sway for a long time, but it can't actually prevail over the long haul. This pandemic may be the final straw … at least I hope it is.