The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(02-19-2020, 12:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-18-2020, 08:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I disagree with you on what the Mueller probe showed. Mueller put together a strong case that makes me believe that President Trump at the least is a fellow traveler of the dictatorial Russian Federation.  The military, CIA, or FBI would prosecute him if he were such a fellow traveler of a country hostile to American democracy and foreign policy.

Lets see, you have a Soviet believer as an option and an oligarch who places himself and his values above all in importance as an option. Are you cool with that? I'm cool with it because that seem to be your choices? You can pick your poison and determine your own fate at this point. I figure half the country has already decided that its moving on without the Progressives at this point. The Progressives haven't come to grips with that yet. So, do we really need win a nasty war with Progressives to make sure that happens or are you and every other liberal smart enough to go along and allow that to happen at this point. I'm sure the Progressives will have enough crumbs to keep you alive for a while but I can't guarantee whatever crumbs you get won't be taken away by some foreigner who is viewed as being more valuable or more preferential than you.

The first priority is in defeating Donald Trump. At this point I have come to regret that Obama won in 2012 because, although it was not obvious at the time, it made Donald Trump possible as President. Unintended consequences happen all the time. 

As for American Progressives being in what Lev Trotsky called the "dustbin of history"... it might take a meltdown as severe as the one of 1929-1932 or a catastrophic war to make us relevant again. I hope not; we Progressives may have a vital purpose in rooting out the rot in our system. 

I may have to resort to retail sales-clerking to survive until I can take the hypocrisy of deprivation in the midst of elite indulgence no longer and off myself when I give up all hope. Gilded economy with a secret police and numbing propaganda? That's how I see the legacy of Donald Trump's similarly-right-wing,  but evangelical successor who pushes the idea that the prole exists to suffer in This World for elites in This World so that God can reward them in Heaven -- where the rapacious overlords of economic sadism get to be bosses again.      

Quote:I'm sure the blue world loves you enough to help you survive.

My best hope is to win the Super Duper Megabucks Lottery or marry a rich widow at my age. Think of what I have to offer; you have seen my writing. One good thing about the recent poverty that I have endured is that I don't get the opportunity to indulge in vices readily available. Poverty can force some good habits, like buying generic merchandise when it is available cheaper, making sure that every trip has a purpose (probably several purposes) making do or doing without...

Some women actually like gentlemen who have some intellectual sophistication, renounce violence, and do not demand kinky sex.   

Quote:I mean they didn't love the Bosnian's enough or the Jews or the Assyrians enough  but I'm sure they'll love you enough because you are way more important to them  than any of those people. Once we are separated,   what you decide is best for and the country you end up with  isn't going to matter to us.

Pure bunk, not relevant to reality in America. As for what you want for America -- beware of what you ask for, as you might get it, as the fable goes. You stand for Gilded-Age politics but you cannot understand why a majority of Americans reject those. It's only a matter of time before white people of the Mountain and Deep South recognize that they have been had in voting for politicians who impose mass poverty and either initiate or bungle their way into wars for profit. To enforce the politics that you endorse the elites will need rigged elections, a secret police, torture chambers, and extrajudicial executions or concentration camps.

Don't fool yourself, Classic X'er: you need a prosperous middle class to have a desire for good HVAC systems in a place where they are desirable but not yet a necessity: greater Minneapolis. People can get away without air conditioning in the middle tier of Minnesota if it is too costly. As is true in southern Michigan, you are close to the Dfa/Dfb line that divides long summers with debilitating summers from those that are simply unleasant. Near the Cfa/Dfa line the summers are really hot and sticky -- and dangerous, as in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. People die in heat waves.

Oh, but you are in Minnesota and not Missouri, which makes a huge difference, right? Missouri weather is coming north.  Oh wait... the President says that global warming is a hoax, so it must not be happening. Well, I know what the weather is like here... and here in southern Michigan we have had a winter more typical of Kentucky this year. I saw the pattern eight years ago: we had a weak winter, the Great Lakes were not as chilled as usual, and we got a heat wave with 80 F temperatures in March. OK, 80 F in March isn't all bad -- but places that get that warm in March usually get unpleasantly hot. Dallas... Houston... Phoenix... Palm Springs?

When summer temperatures more typical of Kansas City and St. Louis become the norm where you live (and they will), you will need a prosperous community to be able to relieve them of the brutal summer heat. But if people are destitute because employers sweat them for starvation wages, people will simply die of heat-related ailments. Heat waves are the #1 climatic disaster in America from the standpoint of excess deaths -- more than hypothermia and even such storms as tornadoes and hurricanes. For the sake of the common man -- work for his prosperity and seek at the least a mitigation of climatic change.

Let's not forget something else about climate change -- food supplies. You are surely one of those city slickers who believes that food comes fully prepared, needing only a little preparation and cooking at your home. You ignore that most food grows on farms. Need I tell you that as is so in Battle Creek, Michigan (home of Kellogg's Corporation)... Battle Creek is about on the borderline between the corn belt and the wheat belt. Huge volumes of grain go into processing plants and become cereal. Minneapolis-St. Paul is a huge milling area, too... and much of your local economy depends upon it. What if the crops fail?

I once heard of something called "winter wheat" produced in the eastern High Plains; it was sown in the late summer or early autumn, germinated some, and quickly got covered by the snows that protect it from the fierce, brutally-cold and brutally-dry winter winds. After winter ends the crop grows rapidly as the sun gets higher and is up longer in the spring. 

Grain crops in Michigan and Minnesota (and the eastern Dakotas) depends upon winter blizzards to protect soil moisture and to provide moisture from the spring melt of snow. If those fail, so does much else. There is no technological fix for hunger. Hunger leads to riots and revolutions. Never count on a revolution to have gentle consequences for anyone.         
 

Quote:I mean, who knows you might end up living in Obamagrad or the former American city of Chicago or the nation of  Bloomberg with Bloomberg deciding what's best for you or god forbid the Peoples Republic of California or some Islamic State that gives itself  the power to round up and behead infidels. Yes, this sounds pretty fucked up but that's what happens when fucked up people give fucked up people power. Yes, you can point at Trump and criticize him about this or that and accuse him of being this or that as I point to your people and ask you about them and ask you why you're supporting people who represent ideologies and power mongers that you claim to hate and often claim to fear the most these days.

Yeah, sure -- Donald Trump is the wisest, most rational leader that we have ever had -- far better than Barack Obama.  Guess what?  The historical cycle suggests that Barack Obama is a portent of the sort of leadership that we will want soon after the Crisis is over. A chilly rationalist with a limited vision, someone who believes that integrity solves far more problems than does radicalism, someone respectful of science and technology, someone who honors learning? To spoof the song lead to All in the Family 

"Mister, we could use a man like Eisenhower again!"

Well, we did have Obama, who despite a very different curriculum vitae, appealed to much the same constituencies as Eisenhower won (blatant exceptions: ranching and extractive industries) -- twice.  In 2008, Obama even violated the common wisdom that Republican voting correlates with higher income.