(04-17-2021, 06:10 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: ... Getting back to Coca Cola, the American brand of soda pop that I've been buys and drinking since I was a little  kid. Well, mighty old Coke bent its knee to us the other day like they should being they're an American based company and an American icon. It's a subtle sign, but it's a sign of a large corporation giving way to the fittest and the economic power we represent as a group of individuals. Guess what, I told you about our size and the economic power that we represent and that's just based on a thousand dollar contribution to the American cause.

(04-18-2021, 11:09 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 12:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It depends what is meant by "bubbling up." The Sanders and Warren campaigns were based around the division of wealth problem, and they had large followings because many people (especially young people) are motivated by this issue. We saw this in the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. But this trend doesn't seem to be expressed violently, so far. Yet, the neo-liberal, trickle-down, free-market ideology is the nub and the cause of the current crisis, in all its aspects, and many people are aware of this fact.

I see the COVID and systematic racism issues (including red violence and Jan 6) as rising to the crisis level.  Division of wealth?  Yes, some steps have been taken, but that is not the focus to the degree that it ought to be.  Where were the division of wealth protests last summer?  I suspect COVID and racism will no longer be distractions come the next awakening.  Division of wealth seems to be the next issue up.

(04-17-2021, 07:16 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 03:04 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 01:16 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 12:41 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'd say that's an illusion associated with money and I'll leave it at that. As far as it flowing in accordance with natural laws, it's pretty much true. The fittest either have or end up with most of it. There are some exceptions, Kamala Harris comes to mind. She must have a magic pussy to get where she is today. You know what a magic pussy is right. I'd say most if not all of the exceptions are directly related to the Democratic party these days.

Us Democrats have a way of seeing that some money flows away from whom you think are the "fittest." So, when we win, we interrupt that flow and steer some of the money away from the "fit" fat cats. So much for "natural flow" eh? Unless the state is pretty "natural" after all. Humans have never been without one. But as for Harris, yes I think she played her feminine assets very well, but I don't know if she is rich. Powerful, maybe a bit.

You must have missed this sentence. "The fittest either have or end up with most of it." Read my post again, you'll see it. I acknowledged that the laws of nature aren't always perfect. I mean, a corporal being granted ultimate authority over generals defies the laws of nature but nature prevailed.

Replace 'fittest' with either 'most aggressive' or 'greedy' if you prefer, but fittest is simply wrong.  Mahatma Gandhi was penniless but more than fit.  He is only one of thousands ... maybe millions.

(04-18-2021, 01:01 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 06:10 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: ... Getting back to Coca Cola, the American brand of soda pop that I've been buys and drinking since I was a little  kid. Well, mighty old Coke bent its knee to us the other day like they should being they're an American based company and an American icon. It's a subtle sign, but it's a sign of a large corporation giving way to the fittest and the economic power we represent as a group of individuals. Guess what, I told you about our size and the economic power that we represent and that's just based on a thousand dollar contribution to the American cause.

You seem to ignore the inconvenient fact that, purchasing power alone, your side of the equation has less than the other side.  The real money is in the cities.  And just what knee-bending did Coke do, exactly?

(04-18-2021, 01:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 11:09 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 12:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It depends what is meant by "bubbling up." The Sanders and Warren campaigns were based around the division of wealth problem, and they had large followings because many people (especially young people) are motivated by this issue. We saw this in the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. But this trend doesn't seem to be expressed violently, so far. Yet, the neo-liberal, trickle-down, free-market ideology is the nub and the cause of the current crisis, in all its aspects, and many people are aware of this fact.

I see the COVID and systematic racism issues (including red violence and Jan 6) as rising to the crisis level.  Division of wealth?  Yes, some steps have been taken, but that is not the focus to the degree that it ought to be.  Where were the division of wealth protests last summer?  I suspect COVID and racism will no longer be distractions come the next awakening.  Division of wealth seems to be the next issue up.

But it is on the table now, and politicians know it. It is an existential threat, one among several. And completely tied up with racism and covid. It will be acted upon this 4T, or our nation sinks irretrievably into banana republic status. It's on peoples' minds already, especially young minds. And neo-liberalism is the cause of it. The cure is to overturn it. Biden is taking big strides toward doing it already.

Awakenings are more about culture and spirit than civics. I am not sympathetic to idea that solutions will come up in the next Awakening. That just means that our generations are abdicating their place in the action, especially boomers. Our time is not past. Our time is now. It is not a virtue for us to "get out of the way." Blue Boomers: Speak up!

Late Silent John Lewis spoke up, stood up and made good trouble right to the end of his life. We can do no less.

(04-17-2021, 10:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You ignore that no single tradition defines America. Many different traditions have validity in America, and if you do not recognize this, then you do not fully understand America. 

There is plenty to despise about Donald Trump: his marital infidelity, his bigotry against many identifiable groups (including the handicapped), his sleazy history as a businessman, his suspect loyalty to America when Russia offered him more, his disdain for old decencies that make democracy work in America... were it not for his wealth, his business practices would have gotten him a prison term if he were not wise enough to allow his dreams to match what is allowed to people. 

The more that I saw of the Trump administration and of the personality behind it the more I despised and dreaded it. You saw the stunt in which he had unidentifiable forces attacking protesters so that he could carry a Bible (that he neither heeds nor reads) in front of a church that he does not attend and show the most pitiable display of fake devotion that I have ever seen. I look at the personality cult and I see a dictator. I look at the vans in Portland and Seattle that had Trump banners and a US flag that took away protesters, which is how a secret police operates. I mocked that inchoate secret police as "Trump-Trump Macoutes" after the brutal secret of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. I do not mock the Haitian people who deserve far better than that. 

In the end we had a President who denied his manifest defeat and sought to set aside electoral results that he disliked -- with people willing to use force and violence. In the end, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear that Joe Biden had won the election and would become President on January 20, 2021. They needed say no more and needed explain nothing.



Joe Biden may not be one of those people who runs on a law-and-order stance, but that's not to say that he needs to.

(04-18-2021, 08:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 10:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You ignore that no single tradition defines America. Many different traditions have validity in America, and if you do not recognize this, then you do not fully understand America. 

There is plenty to despise about Donald Trump: his marital infidelity, his bigotry against many identifiable groups (including the handicapped), his sleazy history as a businessman, his suspect loyalty to America when Russia offered him more, his disdain for old decencies that make democracy work in America... were it not for his wealth, his business practices would have gotten him a prison term if he were not wise enough to allow his dreams to match what is allowed to people. 

The more that I saw of the Trump administration and of the personality behind it the more I despised and dreaded it. You saw the stunt in which he had unidentifiable forces attacking protesters so that he could carry a Bible (that he neither heeds nor reads) in front of a church that he does not attend and show the most pitiable display of fake devotion that I have ever seen. I look at the personality cult and I see a dictator. I look at the vans in Portland and Seattle that had Trump banners and a US flag that took away protesters, which is how a secret police operates. I mocked that inchoate secret police as "Trump-Trump Macoutes" after the brutal secret of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. I do not mock the Haitian people who deserve far better than that. 

In the end we had a President who denied his manifest defeat and sought to set aside electoral results that he disliked -- with people willing to use force and violence. In the end, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear that Joe Biden had won the election and would become President on January 20, 2021. They needed say no more and needed explain nothing.



Joe Biden may not be one of those people who runs on a law-and-order stance, but that's not to say that he needs to.

Germany was a democracy before Hitler and the Nazi party were duly elected and sworn in and changed the rules/laws and took control over the country. A prime example of democratic socialism being used as means to gain control over a country. The most recent example of it being used for the same purposeis Venezuela. We ain't dumb or needy or naive or deaf and blind. So, of the 80 million who voted for Biden to save them from something, how many million are either dumb, impressionable or naive? How many are cream puffs who fear violence who don't have the courage to defend themselves or the heart to hurt anyone? How many are potheads who have little to no interest in working like Rags? How many have a mental illness of some sort that requires medicine for them to functions?

Quote: In his book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, journalist and historian William Shirer wrote that the DNVP's status as a far-right party rather than a mainstream conservative party was one of the main reasons for the Weimar Republic's downfall. In Shirer's view, the DNVP's refusal to "take a responsible position either in the government or in the opposition" during most of Weimar's existence denied Weimar "that stability provided in many other countries by a truly conservative party."[209] Along similar lines, conservative British historian Sir John Wheeler-Bennett wrote about in his book The Nemesis of Power about the DNVP the following:

Quote:Had the German Conservatives reconciled themselves to the Republic—bringing to it that wealth of experience and knowledge which they had accumulated in the past, and performing those invaluable services which are always fulfilled in the government of any country by an able constitutional Opposition, ready to take office should the occasion arise—they would have conferred a considerable benefit not only upon Germany—to whom they would have given that which she had so long lacked, a genuine Conservative Party—but also upon the cause of Conservatism throughout the world. They did not do this. Under the cloak of loyalty to the Monarchy, they either held aloof or sabotaged the efforts of successive Chancellors to give a stable government to the Republic. The truth is that after 1918 many German Nationalists were more influenced by feelings of disloyalty to the Republic than of loyalty to the Kaiser, and it was this motive which led them to make their fatal contribution to bringing Hitler to power. The sequel is to be found in the long list of noble names among those executed after the Putsch of July 20, 1944, when many expiated upon the scaffold the sins which they or their fathers had committed a generation earlier.[210]

(04-18-2021, 10:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 08:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 10:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You ignore that no single tradition defines America. Many different traditions have validity in America, and if you do not recognize this, then you do not fully understand America. 

There is plenty to despise about Donald Trump: his marital infidelity, his bigotry against many identifiable groups (including the handicapped), his sleazy history as a businessman, his suspect loyalty to America when Russia offered him more, his disdain for old decencies that make democracy work in America... were it not for his wealth, his business practices would have gotten him a prison term if he were not wise enough to allow his dreams to match what is allowed to people. 

The more that I saw of the Trump administration and of the personality behind it the more I despised and dreaded it. You saw the stunt in which he had unidentifiable forces attacking protesters so that he could carry a Bible (that he neither heeds nor reads) in front of a church that he does not attend and show the most pitiable display of fake devotion that I have ever seen. I look at the personality cult and I see a dictator. I look at the vans in Portland and Seattle that had Trump banners and a US flag that took away protesters, which is how a secret police operates. I mocked that inchoate secret police as "Trump-Trump Macoutes" after the brutal secret of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. I do not mock the Haitian people who deserve far better than that. 

In the end we had a President who denied his manifest defeat and sought to set aside electoral results that he disliked -- with people willing to use force and violence. In the end, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear that Joe Biden had won the election and would become President on January 20, 2021. They needed say no more and needed explain nothing.



Joe Biden may not be one of those people who runs on a law-and-order stance, but that's not to say that he needs to.

Germany was a democracy before Hitler and the Nazi party were duly elected and sworn in and changed the rules/laws and took control over the country. A prime example of democratic socialism being used as means to gain control over a country. The most recent example of it being used for the same purposeis Venezuela. We ain't dumb or needy or naive or deaf and blind. So, of the 80 million who voted for Biden to save them from something, how many million are either dumb, impressionable or naive? How many are cream puffs who fear violence who don't have the courage to defend themselves or the heart to hurt anyone? How many are potheads who have little to no interest in working like Rags? How many have a mental illness of some sort that requires medicine for them to functions?

German democracy was shaky. Germany had no responsible conservative party. The significant German National People's Party was far-right, and irresponsible. From Wikipedia:

Quote: In his book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, journalist and historian William Shirer wrote that the DNVP's status as a far-right party rather than a mainstream conservative party was one of the main reasons for the Weimar Republic's downfall. In Shirer's view, the DNVP's refusal to "take a responsible position either in the government or in the opposition" during most of Weimar's existence denied Weimar "that stability provided in many other countries by a truly conservative party."[209] Along similar lines, conservative British historian Sir John Wheeler-Bennett wrote about in his book The Nemesis of Power about the DNVP the following:

Quote:Had the German Conservatives reconciled themselves to the Republic—bringing to it that wealth of experience and knowledge which they had accumulated in the past, and performing those invaluable services which are always fulfilled in the government of any country by an able constitutional Opposition, ready to take office should the occasion arise—they would have conferred a considerable benefit not only upon Germany—to whom they would have given that which she had so long lacked, a genuine Conservative Party—but also upon the cause of Conservatism throughout the world. They did not do this. Under the cloak of loyalty to the Monarchy, they either held aloof or sabotaged the efforts of successive Chancellors to give a stable government to the Republic. The truth is that after 1918 many German Nationalists were more influenced by feelings of disloyalty to the Republic than of loyalty to the Kaiser, and it was this motive which led them to make their fatal contribution to bringing Hitler to power. The sequel is to be found in the long list of noble names among those executed after the Putsch of July 20, 1944, when many expiated upon the scaffold the sins which they or their fathers had committed a generation earlier.[210]

Hitler quickly suppressed the Social Democrats, his main opposition in 1933. Hitler used the word "socialism", but he even called himself a democrat -- a "real" Democrat unlike one of those Jewish-influenced or even Jewish democrats like FDR  (whom Hitler thought was Jewish). 


There was no alternative, and no way in which to say "no". That is little different from how things are done in North Korea today. 


Just because the ballot reads "Reichstag for Freedom and Peace" foes not mean that Germany was in any way free, and that peace and war were strictly the choice of the Fuehrer. The Nazi Party claimed to be Socialist, which like much else about the Party, its leadership, and its agenda were enormous lies. German workers would soon be serfs to their employers, unable to quit their jobs without the consent of their employers. Such was the arrangement between feudal lords and their peasants in the late middle ages.  Nazi Germany was socialist only in nationalizing property of Jews -- basically the "socialism of thieves".

Don't ask me to defend Hugo Chavez or his successor Nicolas Maduro. Chavez slowly degraded democracy in Venezuela and Maduro has kept the screws tight.  

...81 million Americans voted for Joe Biden in a way that got him 306 electoral votes, which is how he became President. Many of those voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but you didn't see them challenging the election even though she lost the Electoral College despite getting a plurality of the vote. Nobody can credibly accuse Donald Trump of winning through fraud, either his or that of someone else, so we were stuck with him. Claims that Trump got cheated in 2020 are shakier than those in which might have been used against the Trump election of 2016 (there were allegations of Trump getting help from his friends in Russia, but that can't quite be proven -- and it is too late to do anything about that. 

You can fault people for voting for someone other than Donald Trump for reasons that you consider specious. This said, President Trump did much to degrade American democracy, and enough people saw the danger of that in 2020. His attempted self-coup on January 6 demonstrates his contempt for Constitutional norms, in that he is much more like Hugo Chavez than you might want to believe, except that Chavez degraded Venezuelan democracy more slowly and effectively

Down with Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro alike!

(04-18-2021, 06:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 01:01 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 06:10 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: ... Getting back to Coca Cola, the American brand of soda pop that I've been buys and drinking since I was a little  kid. Well, mighty old Coke bent its knee to us the other day like they should being they're an American based company and an American icon. It's a subtle sign, but it's a sign of a large corporation giving way to the fittest and the economic power we represent as a group of individuals. Guess what, I told you about our size and the economic power that we represent and that's just based on a thousand dollar contribution to the American cause.

You seem to ignore the inconvenient fact that, purchasing power alone, your side of the equation has less than the other side.  The real money is in the cities.  And just what knee-bending did Coke do, exactly?

The real money isn't located in the cities these days. The cities are mainly transfer points of digital related wealth these days. I have some money located in Wall Street and Silicon Valley right now. I don't know a Republican voter who doesn't have money located in them today. If the real money was mainly located in the cities as you say, the cities wouldn't be as heavily Democratic or as heavily Progressive (Left Wing) as they are today. The fact is the cities are mainly banana republics with some pockets of real wealth these days. 

C-Xer Wrote:Coca Cola jumped on the Progressive band wagon without thinking about the consequences of being associated with the Progressives and their Marxist/ racist politics. A group of American right wingers gave them a heads up, educated them and Coca Cola decided that it was not in their to continue and find themselves being bankrupted and essentially eliminated from the American market. I prefer the imported Coke from Mexico myself. It's more expensive than regular Coke made from corn syrup. You know the Coke made with real sugar that we drank during the 70's. The Coke that Joe Green guzzled down before he tossed his jersey to the white kid my age who gave it to him to drink. Do you remember the commercial? You do know who Joe Green is right? If not, Joe Green was a famous black football player who played for the famous Steelers back in the 70's. The country was way more racist back then than today. But some how or another, the white supremacist system, or systemic racism as you call it, didn't stop him from succeeding and becoming rich and famous back then, No, he succeeded despite not having any black people associated with the union or management or ownership or coaching staff protecting him, favoring him or looking out for his interests back then. If I was a white supremacist, I would have been very upset. I would have been wondering how an all white system controlled by white people failed to stop him from entering and succeeding like he did and failed to stop Jesse Owens from doing it too long before Joe Green and Barrack Obama were born and became rich and famous as well.

• I know about sugar-based sodas.  We have them here too.
  
• I also know about Joe Green, though placing him in a race-context is foolish.  Athletes and performers have been given a "race pass" by the white community for a long time.  The color barrier fell with Jackie Robinson.
  
• Jesse Owens was a finger in Hitler's eye more than anything else. Other than a ob with Ford, he didn't gain much from his notoriety. 
  
• What does any of this have to do with anything?
  

(04-18-2021, 07:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 01:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Awakenings are more about culture and spirit than civics. I am not sympathetic to idea that solutions will come up in the next Awakening. That just means that our generations are abdicating their place in the action, especially boomers. Our time is not past. Our time is now. It is not a virtue for us to "get out of the way." Blue Boomers: Speak up!

Late Silent John Lewis spoke up, stood up and made good trouble right to the end of his life. We can do no less.

I just don't see it at the crisis level yet.  Strides might be taken.  I see with crisis wars becoming more rare, awakenings will take on a greater role.  We'll see.

(04-18-2021, 08:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Germany was a democracy before Hitler and the Nazi party were duly elected and sworn in and changed the rules/laws and took control over the country. A prime example of democratic socialism being used as means to gain control over a country. The most recent example of it being used for the same purpose is Venezuela. We ain't dumb or needy or naive or deaf and blind. So, of the 80 million who voted for Biden to save them from something, how many million are either dumb, impressionable or naive? How many are cream puffs who fear violence who don't have the courage to defend themselves or the heart to hurt anyone? How many are potheads who have little to no interest in working like Rags? How many have a mental illness of some sort that requires medicine for them to functions?

(04-19-2021, 12:39 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 10:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 08:53 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-17-2021, 10:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You ignore that no single tradition defines America. Many different traditions have validity in America, and if you do not recognize this, then you do not fully understand America. 

There is plenty to despise about Donald Trump: his marital infidelity, his bigotry against many identifiable groups (including the handicapped), his sleazy history as a businessman, his suspect loyalty to America when Russia offered him more, his disdain for old decencies that make democracy work in America... were it not for his wealth, his business practices would have gotten him a prison term if he were not wise enough to allow his dreams to match what is allowed to people. 

The more that I saw of the Trump administration and of the personality behind it the more I despised and dreaded it. You saw the stunt in which he had unidentifiable forces attacking protesters so that he could carry a Bible (that he neither heeds nor reads) in front of a church that he does not attend and show the most pitiable display of fake devotion that I have ever seen. I look at the personality cult and I see a dictator. I look at the vans in Portland and Seattle that had Trump banners and a US flag that took away protesters, which is how a secret police operates. I mocked that inchoate secret police as "Trump-Trump Macoutes" after the brutal secret of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. I do not mock the Haitian people who deserve far better than that. 

In the end we had a President who denied his manifest defeat and sought to set aside electoral results that he disliked -- with people willing to use force and violence. In the end, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear that Joe Biden had won the election and would become President on January 20, 2021. They needed say no more and needed explain nothing.



Joe Biden may not be one of those people who runs on a law-and-order stance, but that's not to say that he needs to.

Germany was a democracy before Hitler and the Nazi party were duly elected and sworn in and changed the rules/laws and took control over the country. A prime example of democratic socialism being used as means to gain control over a country. The most recent example of it being used for the same purposeis Venezuela. We ain't dumb or needy or naive or deaf and blind. So, of the 80 million who voted for Biden to save them from something, how many million are either dumb, impressionable or naive? How many are cream puffs who fear violence who don't have the courage to defend themselves or the heart to hurt anyone? How many are potheads who have little to no interest in working like Rags? How many have a mental illness of some sort that requires medicine for them to functions?

German democracy was shaky. Germany had no responsible conservative party. The significant German National People's Party was far-right, and irresponsible. From Wikipedia:

Quote: In his book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, journalist and historian William Shirer wrote that the DNVP's status as a far-right party rather than a mainstream conservative party was one of the main reasons for the Weimar Republic's downfall. In Shirer's view, the DNVP's refusal to "take a responsible position either in the government or in the opposition" during most of Weimar's existence denied Weimar "that stability provided in many other countries by a truly conservative party."[209] Along similar lines, conservative British historian Sir John Wheeler-Bennett wrote about in his book The Nemesis of Power about the DNVP the following:

Quote:Had the German Conservatives reconciled themselves to the Republic—bringing to it that wealth of experience and knowledge which they had accumulated in the past, and performing those invaluable services which are always fulfilled in the government of any country by an able constitutional Opposition, ready to take office should the occasion arise—they would have conferred a considerable benefit not only upon Germany—to whom they would have given that which she had so long lacked, a genuine Conservative Party—but also upon the cause of Conservatism throughout the world. They did not do this. Under the cloak of loyalty to the Monarchy, they either held aloof or sabotaged the efforts of successive Chancellors to give a stable government to the Republic. The truth is that after 1918 many German Nationalists were more influenced by feelings of disloyalty to the Republic than of loyalty to the Kaiser, and it was this motive which led them to make their fatal contribution to bringing Hitler to power. The sequel is to be found in the long list of noble names among those executed after the Putsch of July 20, 1944, when many expiated upon the scaffold the sins which they or their fathers had committed a generation earlier.[210]

Hitler quickly suppressed the Social Democrats, his main opposition in 1933. Hitler used the word "socialism", but he even called himself a democrat -- a "real" Democrat unlike one of those Jewish-influenced or even Jewish democrats like FDR  (whom Hitler thought was Jewish). 


There was no alternative, and no way in which to say "no". That is little different from how things are done in North Korea today. 


Just because the ballot reads "Reichstag for Freedom and Peace" foes not mean that Germany was in any way free, and that peace and war were strictly the choice of the Fuehrer. The Nazi Party claimed to be Socialist, which like much else about the Party, its leadership, and its agenda were enormous lies. German workers would soon be serfs to their employers, unable to quit their jobs without the consent of their employers. Such was the arrangement between feudal lords and their peasants in the late middle ages.  Nazi Germany was socialist only in nationalizing property of Jews -- basically the "socialism of thieves".

Don't ask me to defend Hugo Chavez or his successor Nicolas Maduro. Chavez slowly degraded democracy in Venezuela and Maduro has kept the screws tight.  

...81 million Americans voted for Joe Biden in a way that got him 306 electoral votes, which is how he became President. Many of those voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but you didn't see them challenging the election even though she lost the Electoral College despite getting a plurality of the vote. Nobody can credibly accuse Donald Trump of winning through fraud, either his or that of someone else, so we were stuck with him. Claims that Trump got cheated in 2020 are shakier than those in which might have been used against the Trump election of 2016 (there were allegations of Trump getting help from his friends in Russia, but that can't quite be proven -- and it is too late to do anything about that. 

You can fault people for voting for someone other than Donald Trump for reasons that you consider specious. This said, President Trump did much to degrade American democracy, and enough people saw the danger of that in 2020. His attempted self-coup on January 6 demonstrates his contempt for Constitutional norms, in that he is much more like Hugo Chavez than you might want to believe, except that Chavez degraded Venezuelan democracy more slowly and effectively

Down with Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro alike!

Actually, the Democrats were guilty of degrading democracy as you say.  It was the Democrats who got away with breaking the law by changing election laws with the use of lower level/local courts.  I don't expect a lowly partisan hack like yourself to be honest enough to admit it or view it as wrong/illegal or understand the consequences of going along and making excuses for them doing that shit. You are more of a Democrat than an American at this point and I don't see that changing as long as your alive.  Me, I tend to go by what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I lowered my standards by quite a bit to even up the playing field so to speak. I have no problem with the Republican party doing the same thing.

(04-18-2021, 07:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 01:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 11:09 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 12:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It depends what is meant by "bubbling up." The Sanders and Warren campaigns were based around the division of wealth problem, and they had large followings because many people (especially young people) are motivated by this issue. We saw this in the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. But this trend doesn't seem to be expressed violently, so far. Yet, the neo-liberal, trickle-down, free-market ideology is the nub and the cause of the current crisis, in all its aspects, and many people are aware of this fact.

I see the COVID and systematic racism issues (including red violence and Jan 6) as rising to the crisis level.  Division of wealth?  Yes, some steps have been taken, but that is not the focus to the degree that it ought to be.  Where were the division of wealth protests last summer?  I suspect COVID and racism will no longer be distractions come the next awakening.  Division of wealth seems to be the next issue up.

But it is on the table now, and politicians know it. It is an existential threat, one among several. And completely tied up with racism and covid. It will be acted upon this 4T, or our nation sinks irretrievably into banana republic status. It's on peoples' minds already, especially young minds. And neo-liberalism is the cause of it. The cure is to overturn it. Biden is taking big strides toward doing it already.

Awakenings are more about culture and spirit than civics. I am not sympathetic to idea that solutions will come up in the next Awakening. That just means that our generations are abdicating their place in the action, especially boomers. Our time is not past. Our time is now. It is not a virtue for us to "get out of the way." Blue Boomers: Speak up!

Late Silent John Lewis spoke up, stood up and made good trouble right to the end of his life. We can do no less.

I just don't see it at the crisis level yet.  Strides might be taken.  I see with crisis wars becoming more rare, awakenings will take on a greater role.  We'll see.

(04-19-2021, 09:59 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 07:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 01:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Awakenings are more about culture and spirit than civics. I am not sympathetic to idea that solutions will come up in the next Awakening. That just means that our generations are abdicating their place in the action, especially boomers. Our time is not past. Our time is now. It is not a virtue for us to "get out of the way." Blue Boomers: Speak up!

Late Silent John Lewis spoke up, stood up and made good trouble right to the end of his life. We can do no less.

I just don't see it at the crisis level yet.  Strides might be taken.  I see with crisis wars becoming more rare, awakenings will take on a greater role.  We'll see.

I agree.  If not for COVID, this Crisis era would not have lived up to former expectations - and that's not for lack of other pressing issues.  The pace of change is so fast now that concepts tend to be dealt-with immediately or they fall into the background noise.  Will that mean that 2Ts will now be the home to social and political change engines?  I guess we'll know soon enough.

(04-19-2021, 12:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: We will indeed, and what we'll see is that this decade is going to get hotter, with or without a crisis war, foreign or domestic. If 2Ts become the home of social and political change engines, then the cycle will flip and 4Ts will become home to spiritual and cultural change engines. The balance of actual life continues. I say 2Ts will not become 4Ts, and 4Ts will not become 2Ts, just because we were cowards and failed to fulfill our proper role in this 4T. We either fulfill our role in this 4T, or for the first time our 4T fails, and the USA becomes a banana republic with a very weak and meaningless saeculum cycle-- which is a huge turning wheel that only exists because there is forward progress. It is a hurricane, and without the warm water of human aspiration to feed it, it will become a tropical storm and fade away.

Our neo-liberal 3T actually did slow it down, and that may be a sign of future failure in this hurricane. But perhaps it is only the sign of the cosmic cycles, which ebb and flow.

(04-19-2021, 12:24 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Electoral rules were changed to accommodate the reality of a dangerous epidemic. Due to COVID-19, voting in person, like any mass meeting, could have become a spreader event. Early, absentee, and by-mail voting (the line between the three is hazy, but the controls against multiple voting  were still in place. State legislatures and the courts approved of the changes for 2020. 

If more people voted than usual... then at the lest there were portents, including the unusually-heavy voting in a midterm election in 2018.

Crookedness? It has never been more difficult to cast a dishonest vote or to invalidate  the votes of a disqualified voter. Someone who cast a vote on September 25 and died on October 25 was likely to have his absentee ballot disqualified due to death. My county clerk reads the obituaries, and someone who dies is automatically removed from the voter rolls. I asked about that with my deceased parents.

Results were slightly better than expected for the GOP. Polling just before the election suggested a D landslide, but the election proved close. You do not have a case on that. I saw the vote totals come in, and in general in the five states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and two other states that were close -- Nevada and North Carolina) a pattern emerged based on the order in which the votes were counted:  the rural votes that could be counted early and were strongly R were counted early and gave early advantages to Donald Trump. Urban and many suburban votes that could not be counted quickly were announced only upon completion of the count in precinct. In-person votes were counted first and posted as public results. Absentee votes which were typically cast earlier and were heavily D were counted later. In North Carolina the urban vote that came in late was not enough to give the state's electoral votes to Donald Trump. In the other close states, figures of the news media recognized that the last votes to be counted would be those from  Phoenix, Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. The votes from those cities had their usual results, and those overpowered what had been narrow Trump advantages in the early count.  

The order in which votes are counted reflects reality and state law. That the votes that get counted last go a way that you dislike them going (and, yes, Trump had an early lead in Minnesota, too  but that also vanished as the votes came in from the Twin Cities) does not disqualify them. 

America is changing, perhaps into something uncomfortable to you. Maybe you need to get out and about more. America is becoming less Anglo, white, and Protestant.

(04-19-2021, 04:07 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-19-2021, 12:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: We will indeed, and what we'll see is that this decade is going to get hotter, with or without a crisis war, foreign or domestic. If 2Ts become the home of social and political change engines, then the cycle will flip and 4Ts will become home to spiritual and cultural change engines. The balance of actual life continues. I say 2Ts will not become 4Ts, and 4Ts will not become 2Ts, just because we were cowards and failed to fulfill our proper role in this 4T. We either fulfill our role in this 4T, or for the first time our 4T fails, and the USA becomes a banana republic with a very weak and meaningless saeculum cycle-- which is a huge turning wheel that only exists because there is forward progress. It is a hurricane, and without the warm water of human aspiration to feed it, it will become a tropical storm and fade away.

Our neo-liberal 3T actually did slow it down, and that may be a sign of future failure in this hurricane. But perhaps it is only the sign of the cosmic cycles, which ebb and flow.

Part of it is obstruction.  Yes, conservatives are generally unwilling to deal with big issues, but the recent obstruction made it difficult to address anything.  If the filibuster is neutered or destroyed, if the Republican senators decide that helping the people is more important than screwing up progress, then many minor problems which have not risen to the crisis level might be solved too.

But more patience seems to be required.

(04-19-2021, 12:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 07:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 01:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 11:09 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-18-2021, 12:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It depends what is meant by "bubbling up." The Sanders and Warren campaigns were based around the division of wealth problem, and they had large followings because many people (especially young people) are motivated by this issue. We saw this in the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. But this trend doesn't seem to be expressed violently, so far. Yet, the neo-liberal, trickle-down, free-market ideology is the nub and the cause of the current crisis, in all its aspects, and many people are aware of this fact.

I see the COVID and systematic racism issues (including red violence and Jan 6) as rising to the crisis level.  Division of wealth?  Yes, some steps have been taken, but that is not the focus to the degree that it ought to be.  Where were the division of wealth protests last summer?  I suspect COVID and racism will no longer be distractions come the next awakening.  Division of wealth seems to be the next issue up.

But it is on the table now, and politicians know it. It is an existential threat, one among several. And completely tied up with racism and covid. It will be acted upon this 4T, or our nation sinks irretrievably into banana republic status. It's on peoples' minds already, especially young minds. And neo-liberalism is the cause of it. The cure is to overturn it. Biden is taking big strides toward doing it already.

Awakenings are more about culture and spirit than civics. I am not sympathetic to idea that solutions will come up in the next Awakening. That just means that our generations are abdicating their place in the action, especially boomers. Our time is not past. Our time is now. It is not a virtue for us to "get out of the way." Blue Boomers: Speak up!

Late Silent John Lewis spoke up, stood up and made good trouble right to the end of his life. We can do no less.

I just don't see it at the crisis level yet.  Strides might be taken.  I see with crisis wars becoming more rare, awakenings will take on a greater role.  We'll see.

The economic crisis and inequality crisis was at crisis level in 2008-2011. Protests and civil wars erupted worldwide from this. What we have are lingering problems from that, including the ongoing refugee crisis. So yes, strides are due, and are being taken. A reform decade has arrived, which is part of a 30-year cycle, which this time will coincide with a Crisis Climax-- and the House has already begun acting. 

I agree, Crisis total wars may become more rare; although we have 8 years left, and moments of potential war crisis in circa 2025 and 2028 still lie ahead. Still, 4Ts like ours, in which other kinds of crisis struggles occur, are likely to continue, so institutional actions will be needed such as reforms and revolutions. Much remains to be done in this 4T, with much resistance to overcome. Republicans still have too much power, and they have to be taken down, or we will slide into banana republic status in the USA. The Classic Xers (and Red Boomers and Red Millennials too), with their retrograde social worldviews, need to be politically defeated, or militarily defeated like the confederates were if they violently rebel in resistance to the reforms.

The main role of Awakenings remains a spiritual consciousness revival, so civic reforms are always secondary in 2Ts. People focus on culture. Ideals of how to reform society appear too in Awakenings, but it remains for 4Ts to bring them to greater institutional and civic fruition. In Awakenings, people focus on spiritual, religious and cultural remedies for our concerns, and discover how to be more alive and aware. Liberation is the theme. Awakeners won't be willing to give up those pursuits in order to make up for what we fail to do in Crisis periods.