Election 2020

[pbrower2a]

(12-12-2020, 02:17 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-11-2020, 03:01 PM)CH86 Wrote: Classic is only incorrect in that he sees a purely GOP base movement leading the struggle against the DNC. Eric, Pbrower and B Butler Saying that democrats outnumber Trumps post-election diehards is only technically correct, and barely so. It is correct only based on the current alignments of november/december 2020 that exist as we currently speak. But the Great Realignment I speak of is relevant for 2022-2023, said realignment hasn't taken place yet. Moderates, Progressives, and Anti-Trump republicans have no reason to remain allied with Liberals if Trump leaves. The Only reason Kamala is part of the ticket is because the 60s radicals and church blacks threatened not to vote for their own nominee if she wasn't on the ticket.
 

We are leading it now and I expect that will continue throughout the struggle with the DNC.

Joe Biden will have the stage, and I expect him to offer a coherent alternative to Trumpism. Genuine conservatives who owe more to Burke, Churchill, or even Reagan than to Trump are going to recognize what is not so conservative about Donald Trump -- his vile lifestyle, his demagoguery, and his debasement of much that gives people a chance to escape grinding poverty (like formal education). Trump has used the Treasury to buy political support, which is a sick perversion of politics. Sure, he got his way, but if conservatives rail against liberals when they show a desire to increase welfare payments as (at least as conservatives understand it) an effort to get people to vote for them they might as well say the same thing about farm subsidies... which go heavily to bloated corporate farmers who have economies of scale that small farmers don't. 

(Had it not been for huge farm subsidies to more than offset the effects of Trump's trade war with China, Trump would have lost more like Walter Mondale in 1984 than like Mitt Romney in 2012.

The numbers will get worse for anyone with a Trump-like agenda. The thrill is gone with the shock jocks like Rash Libel, Glenn Dreck, and Sean Hannity.

The 1960's radicals, many of whom were Silent -- and the Boomers who were 1960's radicals were first-wave Boomers born in the mid-1940's -- are dying off. Their cultural influence is waning fast. Kamala Harris was born in 1964, so she is definitely not a '60's radical. The mainstream of the Democratic Party seems centered upon Barack Obama, and not on any 1960's radicals. Besides,  Boomers may have more of a reactionary influence upon American politics through their stay in executive suites in which they became some of the most blatant pigs in American history.

Donald Trump may not be your model of a Boomer, but he is one of the most influential. His influence is all for ill.

[pbrower2a]

(12-13-2020, 04:34 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who cares? The Republican base has already moved on. It won't be long and Democrats will be Democrats and everyone else around them will be more Republican. Back in 2016 during the Republican primaries, did you see any candidates trying to buy their way in with us? As far as I can see, the liberal side has no principles at this point. I'm telling you whatever integrity it had left it lost. The ingredient that holds the Democratic party together is the almighty tax dollar. I wasn't born yesterday. Unfortunately, Biden is the last chance and if I'm right about his condition which I assume was mainly hid from the Democratic electorate. History will record this 3t/4T cluster fuck with the faces of 4 US Presidents who were in office over the coarse of the next four years or possibly five if Harris turns out to be completely incompetent.

Republicans are going to need something other than the Trump agenda with which to win elections. The Democratic Party has morphed significantly from what it was in the 1970's (which should not be surprising, as getting crushed in three consecutive Presidential elections will cause a Party to change its agenda and appeal so that it can win, let it become a tiny and largely-irrelevant one that dies off. The Democratic Party could survive between the Civil War and the Great Depression largely as a regional party with outlier support among people that the GOP Establishment treated badly "up north", like largely-Catholic blue-collar workers who shared a disdain for Corporate America with Southern agrarians (whom high tariffs cost rural folk of any kind dearly).  

Trump is a man with no principle other than his ego, and much of the GOP seems to believe that we all have no purpose in life except to serve the power, indulgence, and gain (PIG) of economic elites. We liberals seem to believe in learning, social and economic equity, the reality of diversity, rational thought, and a respect for legal tradition. 

Meanwhile, as the core of the Crisis of 2020 comes to an end with mass vaccination against SARS-2, the tendency will be for the political focus to go from Boomers to X. Start by recognizing that Barack Obama was an above-average President, and that your only valid criticism of him if you are a conservative is that he was not a conservative on economics or reproductive rights. The PIG agenda is likely to result in mass poverty, wars for profit that go badly, and social unrest. Conservatism is not a suicide pact.

[pbrower2a]

If you want to see how clearly things can change in 32 or 36 years, depending on your taste, then contrast Carter's one win to Obama's two:

Carter 1976, Obama 2008/2012    



Carter 1976, Obama twice red
Carter 1976, Obama once pink
Carter 1976, Obama never yellow
Ford 1976, Obama twice white
Ford 1976, Obama once light blue
Ford 1976, Obama never blue

If anyone has any doubt that the Presidential Election of 1976 is ancient history for all practical purposes:

Carter 1976, Biden 2020  



Carter 1976, Biden  red
Carter 1976, Trump 2020 yellow
Ford 1976, Biden white
Ford 1976, Trump 2020 blue

[David Horn]

(12-13-2020, 05:38 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-13-2020, 04:34 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who cares? The Republican base has already moved on. It won't be long and Democrats will be Democrats and everyone else around them will be more Republican. Back in 2016 during the Republican primaries, did you see any candidates trying to buy their way in with us? As far as I can see, the liberal side has no principles at this point. I'm telling you whatever integrity it had left it lost. The ingredient that holds the Democratic party together is the almighty tax dollar. I wasn't born yesterday. Unfortunately, Biden is the last chance and if I'm right about his condition which I assume was mainly hid from the Democratic electorate. History will record this 3t/4T cluster fuck with the faces of 4 US Presidents who were in office over the coarse of the next four years or possibly five if Harris turns out to be completely incompetent.

I’m guessing you are wrong.  The Republicans had the advantage through the unraveling.  They ran on small government, not solving problems, low taxes, subtle racism that tried to walk back Martin Luther King’s gains, and shifting things in favor of the elites.  LBJ picked up the black vote, Nixon the racist, the racists won, and the progressive era ended.

Come the crisis, you have to solve the crisis problems.  Competency in problem solving is a key, where the Republicans are more used to obstructing attempts to solve problems.  One of the crisis problems is confronting racism.  With the economy messed up by the bug, I see no alternative to getting the elites to pay their share.  We could see the same sort of three turning progressive era as last time.

This doesn’t mean all conservative ideas are bad, that there should not be a counterweight to the progressives.  But, turnings turn.

Well said, er, written.  

[pbrower2a]

The Electoral College is underway, and Trump has no chance of winning any of the 232 electoral votes that Hillary Clinton got in 2016. With Pennsylvania and Georgia electors going for Biden and Harris, the Democratic nominees effectively got to an assurance of 268 electoral votes. Arizona assures 279 and the election. Wisconsin gives Biden and Harris the ten electoral votes that Trump thinks his.

Democratic electors in Michigan are getting a police escort due to threats of violence. People need to do prison time for such treachery.

...Michigan casts 16 electoral votes for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-14-2020, 12:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The Electoral College is underway, and Trump has no chance of winning any of the 232 electoral votes that Hillary Clinton got in 2016. With Pennsylvania and Georgia electors going for Biden and Harris, the Democratic nominees effectively got to an assurance of 268 electoral votes. Georgia assures 279 and the election.

Democratic electors in Michigan are getting a police escort due to threats of violence. People need to do prison time for that sort of thing.

I think CNN had a headline saying Trump looses... Again. All these little usually meaningless rituals, each one Trump looses, each one making Trump more of a looser. Maybe a few more?

[Einzige]

(12-13-2020, 12:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-12-2020, 06:33 PM)Einzige Wrote: Kautskyite social democracy and conservatism are functionally identical.

Kautsky, a social democrat and a pacifist of Jewish origin (and obviously an anathema to the Nazi) broke with Lenin on dictatorship. Socialism without democracy is a monstrosity as vile as fascism which makes no claim to social justice.

1. Communism makes no claims to abstract notions like "social justice". It makes, properly understood, no ethical claims at all. Marx himself didn't even consider capitalism unjust in an objective sense.

Quote: What is “a fair distribution"?’ he asks pointedly. ‘Do not the bourgeois assert that the present-day distribution is “fair"? And is it not, in fact, the only “fair” distribution on the basis of the present-day mode of production? Are economic relations regulated by legal conceptions or do not, on the contrary, legal relations arise from economic ones? Have not also the socialist sectarians the most varied notions about “fair” distribution?

- Marx, Gothakritik

2. Democracy is irrelevant. When control of the productive processes is held exclusively by proletarian society, then representative democracy ceases to be relevant, for every worker can Express his own interest through his own actions.

[Eric the Green]

(CNN)A constitutional ritual that is normally a little-noticed curiosity will Monday turn into a symbol of the US political system's durability while under assault from a defeated President seeking to overturn a democratic election.

Electors from 50 states and the District of Columbia are gathering across the country to cast their ballots, which will confirm Joe Biden as the rightful 46th president and California Sen. Kamala Harris as vice president.

A moment of historic resonance will activate safeguards stemming from the founders' fears nearly 250 years ago of a monarchical leader wielding unaccountable power to counter President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly spurned the fundamental principles of American democracy.

Earlier attempts by Trump to strong-arm local Republican lawmakers to produce delegations in swing states that would ignore the will of millions of voters and his election loss failed. So ballots cast Monday will confirm Biden will surpass the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. The ballots will be transmitted to Washington, DC, to be tallied in Congress on January 6, when a building -- but almost certainly futile -- rearguard by Republican lawmakers may expose a large rump of the party that has also turned against the democratic principles that underpin free and fair elections.

Despite the certainty of the constitutional choreography that will confirm Trump's loss, several rebukes from the Supreme Court and multiple court losses, he refuses to accept reality and put the country first by accepting defeat.

"It's not over ... we're going to continue to go forward," Trump told Fox News in an interview recorded Saturday, before tweeting on Sunday that the nation's top bench had "chickened out" by ruling Friday that Texas had no standing to file a case on his behalf.
Veteran Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Sunday that the blunt Supreme Court dismissals of Trump's cases were "the briefest and most summary of dismissals possible. That is a signal in lawyer talk about 'don't waste our time with these theories that you are spouting out.' "

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/politics/...index.html

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-14-2020, 03:11 PM)Einzige Wrote: Democracy is irrelevant. When control of the productive processes is held exclusively by proletarian society, then representative democracy ceases to be relevant, for every worker can Express his own interest through his own actions.

Humans work in groups. You advance a theory based on individuals acting alone, but doing so will cause you not to be followed. The theory just does not match the observed reality.

[Einzige]

(12-14-2020, 03:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-14-2020, 03:11 PM)Einzige Wrote: Democracy is irrelevant. When control of the productive processes is held exclusively by proletarian society, then representative democracy ceases to be relevant, for every worker can Express his own interest through his own actions.

Humans work in groups.  You advance a theory based on individuals acting alone, but doing so will cause you not to be followed.  The theory just does not match the observed reality.

Quote:Communism is quite incomprehensible to our saint (Max Stirner, individualist anarchist) because the communists do not oppose egoism to selflessness or selflessness to egoism, nor do they express this contradiction theoretically either in its sentimental or ‘it its high-flown ideological form; they rather demonstrate its material source, with which it disappears of itself. The communists do not preach morality at all, as Stirner does so extensively. They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoists, etc.; on the contrary, they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as selflessness, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals. Hence, the communists by no means want, as Saint Max believes, and as his loyal Dottore Graziano (Arnold Ruge) repeats after him (for which Saint Max calls him “an unusually cunning and politic mind”, Wigand, p. 192), to do away with the “private individual” for the sake of the “general”, selfless man. That is a figment of the imagination concerning which both of them could already have found the necessary explanation in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Communist theoreticians, the only communists who have time to devote to the study of history, are distinguished precisely by the fact that they alone have discovered that throughout history the “general interest” is created by individuals who are defined as “private persons”. They know that this contradiction is only a seeming one because one side of it, what is called the “general interest”, is constantly being produced by the other side, private interest, and in relation to the latter it is by no means an independent force with an independent history — so that this contradiction is in practice constantly destroyed and reproduced. Hence it is not a question of the Hegelian “negative unity” of two sides of a contradiction, but of the materially determined destruction of the preceding materially determined mode of life of individuals, with the disappearance of which this contradiction together with its unity also disappears.

- Marx, The German Ideology

Seems fairly realistic to me. I do not put forward a theory of individuals acting alone, but of removing the barriers that prevent them from acting together for their own self-interest. Communism is not collectivistic or individualistic: it abolishes these bourgeois abstracts in favor of the lived life.

[Bob Butler 54]

Having the common man have a check on the elites is important. Marx's theoretical ideas will remain irrelevant as long at that is missing and a method other than labor to distribute wealth.

[David Horn]

(12-14-2020, 03:57 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Having the common man have a check on the elites is important.  Marx's theoretical ideas will remain irrelevant as long at that is missing and a method other than labor to distribute wealth.

The last point will be very important when almost all labor is done by machines, and what remains will be done for enrichment or enjoyment. And the first point will define what that looks like to people like us. Marx was ahead of his time, but his time is now passing and will be passed long before his version of socialism could even be tried.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-14-2020, 12:59 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The Electoral College is underway, and Trump has no chance of winning any of the 232 electoral votes that Hillary Clinton got in 2016. With Pennsylvania and Georgia electors going for Biden and Harris, the Democratic nominees effectively got to an assurance of 268 electoral votes. Arizona assures 279 and the election. Wisconsin gives Biden and Harris the ten electoral votes that Trump thinks his.  

Democratic electors in Michigan are getting a police escort due to threats of violence. People need to do prison time for such treachery.

...Michigan casts 16 electoral votes for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Yep. The Democrats should be in power within a month. Do we need to carry on tradition and go through all the hoopla or can we just skip it all together this year? I say, fuck it and vote to place the Democratic government and all its misguided/clueless people on ignore. As far as Democratic electorates, who cares about them they're all senseless liberal fools anyway. Yep. Welcome to the 4T.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-14-2020, 03:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (CNN)A constitutional ritual that is normally a little-noticed curiosity will Monday turn into a symbol of the US political system's durability while under assault from a defeated President seeking to overturn a democratic election.

Electors from 50 states and the District of Columbia are gathering across the country to cast their ballots, which will confirm Joe Biden as the rightful 46th president and California Sen. Kamala Harris as vice president.

A moment of historic resonance will activate safeguards stemming from the founders' fears nearly 250 years ago of a monarchical leader wielding unaccountable power to counter President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly spurned the fundamental principles of American democracy.

Earlier attempts by Trump to strong-arm local Republican lawmakers to produce delegations in swing states that would ignore the will of millions of voters and his election loss failed. So ballots cast Monday will confirm Biden will surpass the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. The ballots will be transmitted to Washington, DC, to be tallied in Congress on January 6, when a building -- but almost certainly futile -- rearguard by Republican lawmakers may expose a large rump of the party that has also turned against the democratic principles that underpin free and fair elections.

Despite the certainty of the constitutional choreography that will confirm Trump's loss, several rebukes from the Supreme Court and multiple court losses, he refuses to accept reality and put the country first by accepting defeat.

"It's not over ... we're going to continue to go forward," Trump told Fox News in an interview recorded Saturday, before tweeting on Sunday that the nation's top bench had "chickened out" by ruling Friday that Texas had no standing to file a case on his behalf.
Veteran Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Sunday that the blunt Supreme Court dismissals of Trump's cases were "the briefest and most summary of dismissals possible. That is a signal in lawyer talk about 'don't waste our time with these theories that you are spouting out.' "

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/politics/...index.html

Well, unfortunately, their decision to ignore/dismiss with without taking time and looking at all the merits of their case will turn out to be the biggest mistake the Supreme Court ever made as a group. We're 4T, elitist judges shouldn't do arrogant/dismissive shit like that during 4T's. The court is chicken out, not all of it, just the one who makes the decisions for the court. However, the merits of the case over all will be taken up by it after Biden is in office. Like I said, if the government wants to keep its job and keep its revenues (payroll) and whatever power it was given long ago then the government is going to have to address it's serious lack of integrity and loss of support by most of it's people these days. Like I said, pulling the plug on arrogance and washing our hands of it isn't going to be all that hard to do with an unpopular, weak and mainly delusional, disoriented and dysfunctional government in power.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-15-2020, 01:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yep. The Democrats should be in power within a month. Do we need to carry on tradition and go through all the hoopla or can we just skip it all together this year? I say, fuck it and vote to place the Democratic government and all its misguided/clueless people on ignore. As far as Democratic electorates, who cares about them they're all senseless liberal fools anyway. Yep. Welcome to the 4T.

The opposed view? The trigger was the appearance of COVID late 2019. The crisis problems were COVID, the racist protests and the economy, with an honorable mention to global warming. Trump was the bad president who did not address the crisis problems. The federal regeneracy comes when Biden is sworn in as president on the 20th, and proceeds to address the problems. The first three problems don't look to take that long to solve, with global warming requiring a much longer term effort and looks difficult in the short term under the crippled economy. If the liberals prove successful in solving the crisis problems and have Trump's inaction and lies to blame for any failures, they may have enough capital for success with the never again phase. The never again phase, in response to Trump's games, might come before the next presidential election. A transition to the high mentality of hammering down the crisis lessons learned while building infrastructure would come shortly after.

I have no trouble putting Buchanan, Hoover and Trump together in the same bad president bucket. If anything, Buchanan and Hoover might justly object. I can hear the matching complaints echoing indignantly from the distant past even now.

My heart still isn't into putting Lincoln, FDR, Churchill and Biden together. Using the four names together in the same sentence doesn't feel right. Biden for gray champion??? Well, we will see how he handles the situation, or if someone else rises to become a prominent mover and shaker over the next few years. I'm not one to view the theory that rigidly anyway.

Still, the builder of coalitions who recognizes the opposition while holding firm to the vision might work. Lincoln and FDR were't viewed as saints without 20 20 hindsight anyway. One person personifying the big forces of history makes the telling of history more succinct and powerful. Maybe it will happen?

Time will tell.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-15-2020, 02:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Well, unfortunately, their decision to ignore/dismiss with without taking time and looking at all the merits of their case will turn out to be the biggest mistake the Supreme Court  ever made as a group. We're 4T, elitist judges shouldn't  do arrogant/dismissive shit like that during 4T's. The court is chicken out, not all of it, just the one who makes the decisions for the court. However, the merits of the case over all will be taken up by it after Biden is in office. Like I said, if the government wants to keep its job and keep its revenues (payroll) and whatever power it was given long ago  then the government is going to have to address it's serious lack of integrity and loss of support by most of it's people these days. Like I said, pulling the plug on arrogance and washing our hands of it isn't going to be all that hard to do with an unpopular, weak and mainly delusional, disoriented and dysfunctional government in power.

As I've said before, the best conservative judges are the ones that look at the meaning of the text and consider the intent of the authors.  The worst are those that believe in the political agenda of he who appointed them, and try to find a way to twist the law to implement that agenda.

Trump clearly didn't appoint judges with loyalty to he who appointed him in mind.  He instead went to a think tank who gave him names to appoint.  On what criteria?  Those appointed passed the handling of the election test at least.  I for one am not in a big hurry to do something about them until and unless they make more twisted opinions.

You are characterizing the Democrats as incompetent, while I am characterizing the Republicans as being unwilling to address the crisis problems.  We'll see who is right.  Historically, the regenerated crisis government is focused and strong for as long as it takes to solve the crisis problems.  Back in the 'Caesar' discussions we considered the advantages and disadvantage of strong man autocratic rule.  Some conservatives were all in favor of autocrats.  I thought that a strong government best during the crisis and ever weaker after was for the best.  Still do.

We'll see if the idea of strong Ceasar style government in the crisis goes beyond naming competent professionals to the cabinet level posts.  Trump's appointing for loyalty or nepotism sure didn't work.

Over on the Generational Dynamics thread, I again repeated that people will cling to their ideology above seeing reality most of the time.  It takes a really catastrophic event before people will the way they believe.  Think Hiroshima.  On top of having destroyed most every other city in Japan, that might do.

I remember a story about a camp full of American POWs stuck in Japan.  As you have likely read, [understatement] the Japanese at that time did not treat prisoners well. [/understatement]  As the allies after the surrender were in no hurry to liberate POW's from the POW's perspective, they liberated themselves.  They 'borrowed' a train, and headed to Tokyo, where the allies were known to have come ashore.

On the way to Tokyo, the POWs passed a Japanese city, or the ruins of a Japanese city.  Ashes, apparently.  The B 29s had done their work thoroughly.  Cheers.  Applause.  Celebration.  They passed a second such city.  Ashes.  Ruins.  Death.  Cheers.  Celebration.  They passed a third such city.  Silence.  Thoughtfulness.  If three out of three Japanese cities had been thoroughly destroyed, what does the rest of Japan look like?

It takes that much destruction to make someone think, to make someone committed to tribal thinking change.  Just as the Japanese during the war faced death and destruction in massive amounts before they changed their culture, I see you and so many others facing the ravages of COVID, the massive protests against murder and systematic racism, the ruined economy, the damage done by the changing climate, and no big surprise the degree of disaster has not reached a sufficient enough level to change the way of thinking.  The crisis has not yet reached sufficient destructiveness to change the culture yet.  Hospitals full nationwide with the curves going up, maybe we can get to that point.

Maybe.

Wake up.  A crisis is a time when a culture faces certain problems which cause death, destruction and mayhem.  The major problems are solved.  Whatever it takes.  Roll up your sleeve and get to work.  Ruthlessness is forgiven.  Not doing your utmost is not.

Welcome to the 4T.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-15-2020, 03:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-15-2020, 02:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Well, unfortunately, their decision to ignore/dismiss with without taking time and looking at all the merits of their case will turn out to be the biggest mistake the Supreme Court  ever made as a group. We're 4T, elitist judges shouldn't  do arrogant/dismissive shit like that during 4T's. The court is chicken out, not all of it, just the one who makes the decisions for the court. However, the merits of the case over all will be taken up by it after Biden is in office. Like I said, if the government wants to keep its job and keep its revenues (payroll) and whatever power it was given long ago  then the government is going to have to address it's serious lack of integrity and loss of support by most of it's people these days. Like I said, pulling the plug on arrogance and washing our hands of it isn't going to be all that hard to do with an unpopular, weak and mainly delusional, disoriented and dysfunctional government in power.

As I've said before, the best conservative judges are the ones that look at the meaning of the text and consider the intent of the authors.  The worst are those that believe in the political agenda of he who appointed them, and try to find a way to twist the law to implement that agenda.

Trump clearly didn't appoint judges with loyalty to he who appointed him in mind.  He instead went to a think tank who gave him names to appoint.  On what criteria?  Those appointed passed the handling of the election test at least.  I for one am not in a big hurry to do something about them until and unless they make more twisted opinions.

You are characterizing the Democrats as incompetent, while I am characterizing the Republicans as being unwilling to address the crisis problems.  We'll see who is right.  Historically, the regenerated crisis government is focused and strong for as long as it takes to solve the crisis problems.  Back in the 'Caesar' discussions we considered the advantages and disadvantage of strong man autocratic rule.  Some conservatives were all in favor of autocrats.  I thought that a strong government best during the crisis and ever weaker after was for the best.  Still do.

We'll see if the idea of strong Ceasar style government in the crisis goes beyond naming competent professionals to the cabinet level posts.  Trump's appointing for loyalty or nepotism sure didn't work.

Over on the Generational Dynamics threat, I again repeated that people will cling to their ideology above seeing reality most times.  It takes a really catastrophic event before people will reconsider and change.  Think Hiroshima.

I remember a story about a camp full of American POWs stuck in Japan.  As you have likely read, [understatement] the Japanese at that time did not treat prisoners well. [/understatement]  As the allies after the surrender were in no hurry to liberate them from their perspective, they liberated themselves.  They 'borrowed' a train, and headed to Tokyo, where the allies were known to have come ashore.

On the way to Tokyo, the POWs passed a Japanese city, or the ruins of a Japanese city.  Ashes, apparently.  The B 29s had done their work thoroughly.  Cheers.  Applause.  Celebration.  They passed a second such city.  Ashes.  Ruins.  Death.  Cheers.  Celebration.  They passed a third such city.  Silence.  Thoughtfulness.

It takes that much destruction to make someone think, to make someone committed to tribal thinking change.  Just as the Japanese during the war faced death and destruction in massive amounts before they changed their culture, I see you and so many others facing the ravages of COVID, the massive protests against murder and systematic racism, the ruined economy, the damage done by the changing climate, and no big surprise the degree of disaster has not reached a sufficient enough level to change the way of thinking.  The crisis has not yet reached sufficient destructiveness to change the culture yet.  Hospitals full nationwide with the curves going up, maybe we can get to that point.

Maybe.

Wake up.  A crisis is a time when a culture faces certain problems which cause death, destruction and mayhem.  The major problems are solved.  Whatever it takes.  Roll up your sleeve and get to work.  Ruthlessness is forgiven.  Not doing your utmost is not.

Trump came in as in outsider with a rag tag team of non-establishment people and very limited support from the GOP establishment. Well, how many blue cities being pilfered and more of less run into the ground will it take for people to figure out the Democratic party isn't good anymore? The good people of Minneapolis watched in horror as their city descended into chaos and violence and destruction but that didn't change the way they voted in November or change the Democratic representatives of their districts or the Democratic Senate in Washington DC. One must scratch their head and ask what's wrong with the Democratic party and the people who support it today? So, what's it going to take to change what's wrong with Democratic party and its obvious lack of support for traditional values and the poor choices/decisions/arguments that the Democratic party continues to make these days? So, how much death, destruction and mayhem is the Democratic party willing to inflict, watch, accept and indirectly support in order to remain in power and protect themselves from the law by changing the laws in their favor these days. War is hell Bob and we all understand that and should do whatever we can to prevent it. The Democrats are running on old laurels and taking advantage of tradition and more or less placing their careers and lives on the line and will soon be dancing and celebrating their hollow victory on top of a time bomb.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-15-2020, 05:30 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Well, how many blue cities in ruins is it going to take these days? The people of Minneapolis watched as their city descend into chaos and violence and destruction but that didn't change the way they voted or the person who represents their district in Washington DC. So, what's it going to take to change what's wrong with Democratic party and the choices/decisions that the Democratic party makes these days? So, how much death, destruction and mayhem willing to inflict, watch and support to remain in power these days. BTW, how did the Japanese soldiers respond to the American soldiers who cheered the first time they passed one their cities laid to ruin buy American bombers? Did they gather them up and execute them on the spot? Did they do it again the second time and did they have to do it again a third time or did the American soldiers left (Japanese prisoners of war) learn to keep their emotions to themselves while passing the next one? War is hell Bob and there is no right and wrong during times of war Bob and no one is off limits either. If you can't handle the fear of a pesky bug killing you then what are you going to do when we are essentially at war and we all have the right to kill you over your unwilling to recognize American sovereignty and the future of America itself. Wake up and come to grips with who and what you're messing with and trying to dismantle  these days.

Interesting question.  How many people have to die, or how many cities destroyed, for a culture to be considered failed, for the population to consider changing its worldview and values?

We have Pbower’s recent posts to draw on.  COVID has killed about 300,000 people.  He has got about half way through the 100 most populous US cities.  It seems reasonable to take 300,000 people as a city on a rough scale.

On a rough scale, Japan lost about 3,000,000 people in World War II.  That would be about 10 cities worth before they changed their culture.

If the red culture is as fixated and determines as the Japanese were, they will not change their values until about 3,000,000 die.  They will kill an awful lot of people before changing their way of thinking.  As we are likely to have effective vaccines in people’s arms before that level is reached, the red folk are likely to not change their behavior to take precautions?

Let’s take a look at systematic racism and racial murders.  How many cities worth?  Has the looting and violence in Minneapolis reached a level that even begins to compare with the nukes and fire bombings in Japan?  One or two people die in a recent incident?  One or two building are destroyed and soon built back?  As far as I know, Minneapolis is still there, and Portland, and Washington DC.  Sure a Portland police union building was torched, and the church in Lafayette Square was boarded up, but does that begin to compare?  The protests were big, sure, but was the violence anywhere near the change the culture threshold of 3,000,000?  Do the number of buildings destroyed even begin to compare to Hiroshima or the Tokyo fire bombing?

What about the red violence?  One or two people die per incident?  Is that going to cause the opposition to change their culture?  Is it far more likely to get the culture Pearl Harbor mad than Hiroshima level ‘I give up.’  It is far easier to get the opposing culture determined and upset rather than make them yield.

Now these numbers are absurdly rough.  The lynchings in the south at the hight of the Jim Crow period were not nearly as high.  If you have a terrorist intimidation as part of a status quo, you might see something different.  But still, people will cling to their culture in spite of a lot of death and destruction.  They will go through a period of sticking to their values before they will see that the death and destruction are not worth it.

As a side note, the US and Japanese cultures were very different in the early 1940s.  The US got very upset at the rape of Nanking, and the Japanese military convincing a civilian village on a Pacific island that it was better to jump of a cliff and into the sea rather than surrender to American soldiers.  Yet the Americans would bomb Japan.  On the other hand, the Japanese were obedient.  For example, they would jump off a cliff before they would surrender to American soldiers.  Before the surrender, they had plans to kill all the POWs on the home islands.  Once the emperor surrendered, the plans were dropped.  They were not hostile to the Americans.  You might not do the same, but the story as I heard it did not include after the surrender hostilities by the Japanese.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-15-2020, 02:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-15-2020, 01:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yep. The Democrats should be in power within a month. Do we need to carry on tradition and go through all the hoopla or can we just skip it all together this year? I say, fuck it and vote to place the Democratic government and all its misguided/clueless people on ignore. As far as Democratic electorates, who cares about them they're all senseless liberal fools anyway. Yep. Welcome to the 4T.

The opposed view?  The trigger was the appearance of COVID late 2019.  The crisis problems were COVID, the racist protests and the economy, with an honorable mention to global warming.  Trump was the bad president who did not address the crisis problems.  The federal regeneracy comes when Biden is sworn in as president on the 20th, and proceeds to address the problems.  The first three problems don't look to take that long to solve, with global warming requiring a much longer term effort and looks difficult in the short term under the crippled economy.  If the liberals prove successful in solving the crisis problems and have Trump's inaction and lies to blame for any failures, they may have enough capital for success with the never again phase.  The never again phase, in response to Trump's games, might come before the next presidential election.  A transition to the high mentality of hammering down the crisis lessons learned while building infrastructure would come shortly after.

I have no trouble putting Buchanan, Hoover and Trump together in the same bad president bucket.  If anything, Buchanan and Hoover might justly object.  I can hear the matching complaints echoing indignantly from the distant past even now.

My heart still isn't into putting Lincoln, FDR, Churchill and Biden together.  Using the four names together in the same sentence doesn't feel right.  Biden for gray champion???  Well, we will see how he handles the situation, or if someone else rises to become a prominent mover and shaker over the next few years.  I'm not one to view the theory that rigidly anyway.  

Still, the builder of coalitions who recognizes the opposition while holding firm to the vision might work.  Lincoln and FDR were't viewed as saints without 20 20 hindsight anyway.  One person personifying the big forces of history makes the telling of history more succinct and powerful.  Maybe it will happen?

Time will tell.

The COVID issues are COVID itself and all the damage caused by partial shutdowns of the economy and all the restrictions placed on peoples lifestyles and all the losses relating to tax revenues. The social unrest and BLM were a Liberal side show that really didn't matter to most people. Me, I don't really care if Minneapolis turns into a shit hole and don't really care if a bunch round heads don't feel safe outside their homes or inside their homes. Oh, one other thing, the mass hysteria media blitz also created a bunch of COVID crazies that may take years to pacify.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-15-2020, 07:59 PM)0 Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-15-2020, 05:30 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Well, how many blue cities in ruins is it going to take these days? The people of Minneapolis watched as their city descend into chaos and violence and destruction but that didn't change the way they voted or the person who represents their district in Washington DC. So, what's it going to take to change what's wrong with Democratic party and the choices/decisions that the Democratic party makes these days? So, how much death, destruction and mayhem willing to inflict, watch and support to remain in power these days. BTW, how did the Japanese soldiers respond to the American soldiers who cheered the first time they passed one their cities laid to ruin buy American bombers? Did they gather them up and execute them on the spot? Did they do it again the second time and did they have to do it again a third time or did the American soldiers left (Japanese prisoners of war) learn to keep their emotions to themselves while passing the next one? War is hell Bob and there is no right and wrong during times of war Bob and no one is off limits either. If you can't handle the fear of a pesky bug killing you then what are you going to do when we are essentially at war and we all have the right to kill you over your unwilling to recognize American sovereignty and the future of America itself. Wake up and come to grips with who and what you're messing with and trying to dismantle  these days.

Interesting question.  How many people have to die, or how many cities destroyed, for a culture to be considered failed, for the population to consider changing its worldview and values?

We have Pbower’s recent posts to draw on.  COVID has killed about 300,000 people.  He has got about half way through the 100 most populous US cities.  It seems reasonable to take 300,000 people as a city on a rough scale.

On a rough scale, Japan lost about 3,000,000 people in World War II.  That would be about 10 cities worth before they changed their culture.

If the red culture is as fixated and determines as the Japanese were, they will not change their values until about 3,000,000 die.  They will kill an awful lot of people before changing their way of thinking.  As we are likely to have effective vaccines in people’s arms before that level is reached, the red folk are likely to not change their behavior to take precautions?

Let’s take a look at systematic racism and racial murders.  How many cities worth?  Has the looting and violence in Minneapolis reached a level that even begins to compare with the nukes and fire bombings in Japan?  One or two people die in a recent incident?  One or two building are destroyed and soon built back?  As far as I know, Minneapolis is still there, and Portland, and Washington DC.  Sure a Portland police union building was torched, and the church in Lafayette Square was boarded up, but does that begin to compare?  The protests were big, sure, but was the violence anywhere near the change the culture threshold of 3,000,000?  Do the number of buildings destroyed even begin to compare to Hiroshima or the Tokyo fire bombing?

What about the red violence?  One or two people die per incident?  Is that going to cause the opposition to change their culture?  Is it far more likely to get the culture Pearl Harbor mad than Hiroshima level ‘I give up.’  It is far easier to get the opposing culture determined and upset rather than make them yield.

Now these numbers are absurdly rough.  The lynchings in the south at the hight of the Jim Crow period were not nearly as high.  If you have a terrorist intimidation as part of a status quo, you might see something different.  But still, people will cling to their culture in spite of a lot of death and destruction.  They will go through a period of sticking to their values before they will see that the death and destruction are not worth it.

As a side note, the US and Japanese cultures were very different in the early 1940s.  The US got very upset at the rape of Nanking, and the Japanese military convincing a civilian village on a Pacific island that it was better to jump of a cliff and into the sea rather than surrender to American soldiers.  Yet the Americans would bomb Japan.  On the other hand, the Japanese were obedient.  For example, they would jump off a cliff before they would surrender to American soldiers.  Before the surrender, they had plans to kill all the POWs on the home islands.  Once the emperor surrendered, the plans were dropped.  They were not hostile to the Americans.  You might not do the same, but the story as I heard it did not include after the surrender hostilities by the Japanese.

How large was Japanese culture compared to Red culture today at the time? Red culture is about 74 million strong today. Realistically, 300,000 deaths is less than a 1% of the total population. Blue culture is about 82 million strong today. 300,000 is less than a percent of the total population for size. It's pretty clear that Covid had a greater impact on Blue Culture than Red Culture and it still does today. In short, we have no reason to change our culture. Whatever bad that is said about us is largely untrue and repeated by people who don't have a clue about us. Like I said, you and I could be neighbors or business acquaintances or passer by's but I doubt that we'd ever be friends or give two shit less about each other.

The Japanese citizens were indoctrinated by years of Japanese government propaganda that portrayed American soldiers as brutal savages which is why so many of the jumped off cliffs vs surrendering and being taken alive by American soldiers.