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Post by millring on Mar 4, 2016 19:51:27 GMT -5
This Trump thing is real. For whatever reason, tens of millions of people are ready to say "fuck it" to the whole system. I don't really understand why, but I do know they are not going away. They can be beaten down, but they can not be "defeated". Whatever it is that Trump is tapping in to is not going away. I've had several minor epiphanies that have led me to my current state of observer rather than participator. None more profound, though, than the one that came when I realized that the old saw I'd heard since childhood... ...was not a warning of something it was possible to steer clear of, but rather, merely an observation of an inevitability. The nuances of how we got to this point are interesting, I suppose (credit played perhaps the biggest role -- both personal credit, but especially governmental borrowing), but in the end, it's just defining what we were told all along. Another epiphany came upon realizing that 51% of people who read that quote will take comfort in being able to argue its validity on the basis of its attribution -- thereby allowing an easy escape from acknowledging or discussing its probable truth.
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 4, 2016 20:02:01 GMT -5
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Post by Fingerplucked on Mar 4, 2016 21:18:55 GMT -5
...was not a warning of something it was possible to steer clear of, but rather, merely an observation of an inevitability. The nuances of how we got to this point are interesting, I suppose (credit played perhaps the biggest role -- both personal credit, but especially governmental borrowing), but in the end, it's just defining what we were told all along. Another epiphany came upon realizing that 51% of people who read that quote will take comfort in being able to argue its validity on the basis of its attribution -- thereby allowing an easy escape from acknowledging or discussing its probable truth. It’s an interesting opinion and worth some thought, but it has a lot of holes in it. As far as people dismissing it because of its source, I don’t know why you use it. I think you’ve used it before. But why pick something that you know is bullshit? You don’t have a problem expressing yourself. Take the idea and put it in your own words. Elaborate and modify it further, or don’t. It seems factually wrong. If we have the longest existing constitution, aren’t we outlasting the others? What am I missing? I don’t know a whole lot about Greek history, but they had democracy thousands of years ago. They have democracy today. (As much as we do, anyway.) They had a short bout of dictatorship 40 years ago, but it didn’t last. What am I missing? What do you call a non-military coup with a minority dictating policy and law to the majority? It’s not a democracy or a democratic republic. I’m assuming there’s a term for it. That is what the Tea Party and TP sympathizers have been advocating with their no-compromise attempts to either take over the government or completely destroy it. Whatever it’s called, it’s not democracy.
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Post by millring on Mar 5, 2016 5:46:24 GMT -5
Well, that's confusing. I thought you did agree with the "authoritarian" article to which Russell linked.
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Post by jdd2 on Mar 5, 2016 6:19:11 GMT -5
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Post by Marshall on Mar 5, 2016 9:57:47 GMT -5
. . . , Which brings me to sympathy (probably more precise to say "empathy") and my current and quite vague sense of the Trump phenomenon. I don't think I ever considered how many people in this country feel profoundly detached from what we have become. They are profoundly disaffected. They feel entirely powerless. More than that, they feel attacked. They feel that government no longer exists to support and protect them, but to correct and remediate them. And there are millions of them. . . . , This Trump thing is real. For whatever reason, tens of millions of people are ready to say "fuck it" to the whole system. I don't really understand why, but I do know they are not going away. They can be beaten down, but they can not be "defeated". Whatever it is that Trump is tapping in to is not going away. Probably a solid grain of truth in there. I suppose it's always been that way; that only a small percentage of the public understands and cares about what is going on in the world beyond their front door. But in recent years the media assault; hungry for news; is all too happy to publicize the reality-TV-like histrionics of political discourse. If we ever read about history, debates in Congress have always been over-the-top crazy contentious. But the public never saw that. It's just now we see it played out on daily news like that latest Survivor episode. And with the rise of reality TV, the media has blurred the distinction between entertainment and life. So much so that the previously sleeping masses now see it all played out vividly on our viewing screens. And like Survivor, we see politics as a strange world inhabited by creatures that don't resemble us. More like Batman and the Joker than like our image of ourselves. So, we give up all pretense of caring about the issues. They are too big and complex to truly understand. So, instead we "vote" for who to kick off the island on personality alone. And, yes, I think John Q Public probably sympathizes with Trumpy a little. He's not polished and packaged like everybody else. He says what he thinks. Much like us.
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Post by Marshall on Mar 5, 2016 10:21:42 GMT -5
And I'd like to see Democrats stand up to the "activists" who say that all the ills of the black community are the sole fault of us evil white people and maybe suggest that some of their problems are self inflicted. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. It's in their interest to pander to it and make sure nothing gets better. A lot of what is called "racism" these days is not even close. I've seen racism. I lived in the segregated South. I just saw my friend Clarence Osbin the other day. He was the first black male to graduate from Carriere High School. He was in my graduating class. He experienced real racism. Despite that, he graduated, got a good job, raised a son who became a Navy Seal, and recently retired (while I still spin the hampster wheel). He told me that the black community has wasted all that he went thru. You can't even list the self inflicted problems of the contemporary black community without being labeled a racist. This is not going to get better anytime soon. The more you call for others to renounce their "racism", the more they will turn away from you with some choice expletives and anatomically impossible imperatives. But.... like you said yesterday, we all see what we wanna see. My son-in-law is black. But he is an immigrant, not a descendant of slaves. His mother came here from Jamaica to make a better life. She cleaned houses. When she got enough money, she brought her husband and children here. Trevor was 8. They lived in a high-rise housing project for a few years. Remember "Good times"? She drilled her children to work hard and succeed in school. Trevor got a scholarship to parochial high school. Went on to college and grad school and has an MBA from Michigan State. He's worked hard and moved up the corporate ladder and is a great father and husband. Not to toot his horn. But he is hard on his nieces and nephews to NOT fall into being cool and dressing gangsta. He chides them to succeed in school. He tells them that the world judges you harder as a black. You have to be even more concerned about the image you project in the larger world. He's actually very down on typical American black culture as being self centered and counter productive to getting on in life. The immigrant experience.
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2016 10:31:04 GMT -5
The best pithy summary I've seen is that Trump could be good or bad. But everyone else is more of the same.
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Post by AlanC on Mar 5, 2016 11:29:47 GMT -5
And I'd like to see Democrats stand up to the "activists" who say that all the ills of the black community are the sole fault of us evil white people and maybe suggest that some of their problems are self inflicted. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen though. It's in their interest to pander to it and make sure nothing gets better. A lot of what is called "racism" these days is not even close. I've seen racism. I lived in the segregated South. I just saw my friend Clarence Osbin the other day. He was the first black male to graduate from Carriere High School. He was in my graduating class. He experienced real racism. Despite that, he graduated, got a good job, raised a son who became a Navy Seal, and recently retired (while I still spin the hampster wheel). He told me that the black community has wasted all that he went thru. You can't even list the self inflicted problems of the contemporary black community without being labeled a racist. This is not going to get better anytime soon. The more you call for others to renounce their "racism", the more they will turn away from you with some choice expletives and anatomically impossible imperatives. But.... like you said yesterday, we all see what we wanna see. My son-in-law is black. But he is an immigrant, not a descendant of slaves. His mother came here from Jamaica to make a better life. She cleaned houses. When she got enough money, she brought her husband and children here. Trevor was 8. They lived in a high-rise housing project for a few years. Remember "Good times"? She drilled her children to work hard and succeed in school. Trevor got a scholarship to parochial high school. Went on to college and grad school and has an MBA from Michigan State. He's worked hard and moved up the corporate ladder and is a great father and husband. Not to toot his horn. But he is hard on his nieces and nephews to NOT fall into being cool and dressing gangsta. He chides them to succeed in school. He tells them that the world judges you harder as a black. You have to be even more concerned about the image you project in the larger world. He's actually very down on typical American black culture as being self centered and counter productive to getting on in life. The immigrant experience. He sounds like a great guy.
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Post by RickW on Mar 5, 2016 11:32:24 GMT -5
Jeff, I don't think it's too hard to figure out. Society, the entire world, has gone through more massive change in the last 50 years than at any point in human history. Most humans over the course of time were born grew up, lived and died within several miles of one spot. They lived the lives their parents lived. Their children lived their lives. And that is what people like the most. Things not changing. A stable reality where they feel safe, everything outside that realm is strange.
Whether you can say that the masses of folks who make up the Trumpites are uneducated, not knowing, easily led, I don't know. But they sure are not in the world their parents grew up in. Most folks really don't want to know what's going on outside their circle. And truthfully, what is "going on" is other peoples' opinions, not facts.
I think they see Trump as the one who will be strong and make the bad stuff go away. Whatever that is.
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Post by TKennedy on Mar 5, 2016 12:38:19 GMT -5
I like Marshall's concept of (and I paraphrase) "This shit has been going on since the dawn of time" (and I am including wars and genocide). It's just that we see it all in real time now and we are appalled.
The media has turned a political race into a cheap sporting event and is cashing in like gangbusters with more and more debates and marketing them like a WWF event. Pre-fight trash talk and panels of "debatecasters" that try to stir up the muck and analyze it at halftime and post game. What's next, chick reporters in the locker room?
The format is so superficial and contentious that it has really become a waste of time and during the primary process has the potential to destroy a decent candidate that is not a "TV debate athlete"
Maybe during the primaries, televised one hour one on one Q&A sessions with qualified questioners would be more helpful. Allow the candidates time for detailed answers to the tough questions we expect them to answer knowledgeably. Each hour would cover only one topic.
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 5, 2016 13:59:56 GMT -5
Society, the entire world, has gone through more massive change in the last 50 years than at any point in human history. Most humans over the course of time were born grew up, lived and died within several miles of one spot. They lived the lives their parents lived. Their children lived their lives. And that is what people like the most. Things not changing. A stable reality where they feel safe, everything outside that realm is strange. On the other hand: My late father (and two of my uncles) went off to war before I was born. They saw not only the war itself but other places and people. (Dad convoyed to Africa and Brazil, served through kamikazi attacks in the Pacific, and was on-site at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki weeks after the bombings.) Younger uncles served overseas in the fifties and sixties, and one of my brothers served offshore during Vietnam (with lots of liberties in the fleshpots of the Phillipines). I watched both the Korean and Vietnam Wars on the TV news. We've had three generations of exposure to the rest of the world and to the varieties of awfulness it harbors, so "the world" is only part of the equation in the formation of Tea Partiers and Trumpites (or UKIP or National Front members). Dad would have nothing but contempt for either bunch, and of my surviving uncles, I know that one shares that attitude. (The other I haven't seen since Dad's funeral.) That's why I find the authoritarian-personality model so persuasive-- any crucial change can trigger the urge to look for a Big Man leader. The GOP has spent decades with their bait-and-switch game aimed at the religious right, while steadfastly dismantling labor laws and undermining (and demonizing) unions and cooperating across the aisle to cripple post-New-Deal controls on the financial sector (thanks, Bill Clinton and Phil Gramm). At the same time, right-wing media (Fox News is a convenient nonce label for this complex) serves as the faux-respectable front side of the on-line paranoia/conspiracy mill that reinforces every crackpot meme infesting Facebook and your elderly auntie's chain e-mails. Add bad data to fear & loathing and a loudmouth sociopath and you get mobs with torches and pitchforks.
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 5, 2016 15:10:08 GMT -5
Society, the entire world, has gone through more massive change in the last 50 years than at any point in human history. Most humans over the course of time were born grew up, lived and died within several miles of one spot. They lived the lives their parents lived. Their children lived their lives. And that is what people like the most. Things not changing. A stable reality where they feel safe, everything outside that realm is strange. On the other hand: My late father (and two of my uncles) went off to war before I was born. They saw not only the war itself but other places and people. (Dad convoyed to Africa and Brazil, served through kamikazi attacks in the Pacific, and was on-site at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki weeks after the bombings.) Younger uncles served overseas in the fifties and sixties, and one of my brothers served offshore during Vietnam (with lots of liberties in the fleshpots of the Phillipines). I watched both the Korean and Vietnam Wars on the TV news. We've had three generations of exposure to the rest of the world and to the varieties of awfulness it harbors, so "the world" is only part of the equation in the formation of Tea Partiers and Trumpites (or UKIP or National Front members). Dad would have nothing but contempt for either bunch, and of my surviving uncles, I know that one shares that attitude. (The other I haven't seen since Dad's funeral.) That's why I find the authoritarian-personality model so persuasive-- any crucial change can trigger the urge to look for a Big Man leader. The GOP has spent decades with their bait-and-switch game aimed at the religious right, while steadfastly dismantling labor laws and undermining (and demonizing) unions and cooperating across the aisle to cripple post-New-Deal controls on the financial sector (thanks, Bill Clinton and Phil Gramm). At the same time, right-wing media (Fox News is a convenient nonce label for this complex) serves as the faux-respectable front side of the on-line paranoia/conspiracy mill that reinforces every crackpot meme infesting Facebook and your elderly auntie's chain e-mails. Add bad data to fear & loathing and a loudmouth sociopath and you get mobs with torches and pitchforks. Man, it's got to be tough living with that much hatred.
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2016 17:13:59 GMT -5
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 5, 2016 17:39:12 GMT -5
Hatred, Bruce? I'll put my blood pressure and peace of mind up against yours any day.
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 5, 2016 18:09:01 GMT -5
Hatred, Bruce? I'll put my blood pressure and peace of mind up against yours any day. I'm about 120/80 and I sleep just fine. The left really seems to "HATE" the right whereas the right just thinks the left is ill-informed probably because they were schooled in anti-American propaganda for the past 80 or 90 years. The right merely feels sorry for the left because they fail to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by capitalism. Leftist equality seeking makes them seek the lowest common denominator of society. What a waste or potential that is. Politically, the right merely wants to have everyone try to better themselves and eliminate the barriers to that process. The left doesn't want people to have to work that hard apparently so they make the bottom rung of society livable with freebies as long as they'll vote for the left. It never gets better on the left. It's better over here on the right.
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Post by millring on Mar 5, 2016 18:27:32 GMT -5
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 5, 2016 19:51:23 GMT -5
Re: hate
I look forward to a nation led by a Trump who tries to actually please his followers with dismay, disbelief, disappointment, discouragement, and a degree of disquietude and dread. I may find myself distressed, disheartened, disturbed, or even disgusted, (though not to the point of detestation). I might (but not often) feel disillusioned, but at 70-plus that one's harder to achieve, as much of a downer as the news can be.
(In the 16th century, this was called "coursing of a letter." It's more fun than arguing politics.)
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 5, 2016 19:55:05 GMT -5
Re: hate I look forward to a nation led by a Trump who tries to actually please his followers with dismay, disbelief, disappointment, discouragement, and a degree of disquietude and dread. I may find myself distressed, disheartened, disturbed, or even disgusted, (though not to the point of detestation). I might (but not often) feel disillusioned, but at 70-plus that one's harder to achieve, as much of a downer as the news can be. (In the 16th century, this was called "coursing of a letter." It's more fun than arguing politics.) Being an eternal optimist, I still hope to not have to look forward to a Trump lead nation.
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