02-03-2022, 03:05 PM
(02-03-2022, 12:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(02-03-2022, 11:40 AM)David Horn Wrote:(02-03-2022, 11:24 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:(02-03-2022, 10:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:(02-02-2022, 10:54 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Is the 2026 midterms / 2028 general election just way too far off to consider as another chance for the reforms the US needs if we can't do it in 2022 / 2024?
I'm sure Eric will respond too, but I'll take a quick shot here. Can we hold-out for 6 or even 4 years? Maybe, but the intensity is growing so fast that it seems unlikely to be played-out in a democratic contest by then. The right has done their homework well, and the intent to corrupt the political system and tilt the field in their direction is already well advanced at the local, state and national levels. If they gain power again, they will certainly try and maybe succeed in killing democracy for a long while -- much beyond the impending 1T.
Sadly, I've been in the massively contentious 2T camp for a long time, and I'm seeing no reason to believe otherwise. If there is no correction until the next 4T, the correction will be to a world we wouldn't recognize, I'm afraid.
Certainly, someone living in the 1950s who fell asleep for the past six decades or more certainty wouldn’t recognize the world of today. Therefore we are already there.
Good point. There was an argument made in the past that no one living in the post-WWII world would be comfortable living in any era prior to the 1920s. We might consider moving the goal posts again. In fact, we're approaching the VR world that was only sci-fi until recently. Once we're fully there, I'm not sure 'today' will be modern enough.
I like your first paragraph David above that begins "I'm sure Eric will respond too".... I think unless reforms are made in the 2020s the correction in the next 2T would be made by mother nature, and it will not be to our benefit. As for "we are already there," yes we are already approaching tipping points toward destruction. But whether some tech has changed is very-much beside the point. That is not real change. Real change is what has been resisted for 40 years: political change, social reform. Such has not been made yet.
I was thinking about that watching a Perry Mason episode, filmed in about 1960. Sure, people had to pick up a telephone when it rang, or dial numbers to make a call. Now we put a mobile phone up to our ear. And I think, big fu*king deal. Just a little change to how we operate physically, but this is not a change in the way we live or in our real conditions. Some things changed in the 1960s and 70s; less restrictions on diverse groups and more opportunity for them, and in the 1980s, when inequality started moving back to what it was in the 1920s. And all the good actors I saw on Perry Mason are gone and none have replaced them. Beyond that, not much change at all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-jpj_-q50nY
Attached here is a song Linda Ronstadt did before her mega-music superstar days. Much of what has been said on this particular thread brought this song to mind. See if you feel that the lyrics describe quite accurately where we are at in our world today, even more so than when it was released during the turbulent late 1960s.