OT 7-7-16: Let's Talk About Us....and Them
So I was driving along, listening to right wing radio, as I do sometimes when I think there might be a ballgame on the station. This poor hick was bemoaning Trump as the Repub candidate, saying "Ah've got a great life, ah love mah job, I've got a great family, this is America...but I don't think I'm gonna vote this time." He went on to say he didn't see "a Trojan Horse out there". He meant a White Knight. The host said "oh, there's a Trojan Horse all right". This confused the rube.
But it got me thinking how, sure, Trump's a ringer, in there to guarantee a Shills win. Obama was a Trojan Horse. We wheeled him in and out jumped a bunch of banksters and war profiteers.
Meanwhile, those rightwingers are blowing their tops, getting some of it right, some of it wrong. Some dude was flipped about Comey not indicting. There's all sorts of bad logic in letting Shills off. No reasonable prosecutor would have a case. How does he know? And why wouldn't one? If Manning is in jail, if Assange is holed up in England, Snowden in Russia, even Petraeus got fined, why in the world wouldn't a prosecutor have a case? And why, if none would, does Comey say if anyone else tries it they could be in big trouble. How? If Clinton is in the clear why would the next person not be? And if the next person isn't, then how could Her Ladyship be free to continue her reign of smugness?
The righwinger had this wrong, though. He said when Kills gets in as President some poor schnook will get thrown into jail and "it'll probably be a war hero or a Republican or a Libertarian". Unfortunately he stopped there when, if he were really a thinker, he'd say "or a true lefty".
Back to the first example, the backwoodsman who doesn't like Trump, the host said "they kept telling us we have to vote for this guy because he has a chance. Now they're telling us to vote for this other guy because he's not as bad as she is. We've been lied to." Dang right, you've been lied to! You and us!
My point (is there one?) is that those rightwingers are close to understanding the problem. They're blinded by this Christianity thing, along with whatever else they love. Guns, I guess. Right, Vayle? Well...anyway...They're blinded by their tribalism, just like the amoral dKos-ers are. But I think it'd be easier to discuss stuff with rightwingers, especially on the important subjects of government corruption and the game that the parties play in order to stay in or close to power so they can continue to be corrupt and on the take.
It might be possible to align with those people. We'd disagree on a lot but at least there would be principles being discussed. The current Dem Party is devoid of principles. As a famous lady once told me, the deliberate Obama strategy was to NOT talk about issues. Rather, the volunteers going door to door were encouraged to tell their own story, of why they'd come to love Big Brother Obama. And it worked! Other politicians have not had as much success with the strategy. Obama happens to be a great salesman. And now $Hills is running a similar campaign. Don't hold press conferences. Don't have real positions unless some other candidate proposed one that was well received, then claim it as your own. Otherwise, act like it's a done deal and people who don't realize it are trouble-making dead-enders who should be ashamed of themselves for being racists.
But those rightwingers...they're wrong on a lot of stuff but many are pretty smart. If you explain to them why affirmative action is a good thing they'll listen. If you explain why we need more education they'll listen. If you tell them the dangers of fracking they'll listen. They won't vote it down in a platform just to punish you.
I wouldn't mind a world where people actually sit down and try to work out problems that matter. Right now, as you all know, those in charge sit down and try to work out how to get more money out of the peasants. It's like that scene in Bedazzled, the real one from the 60s, where the Devil says "We've been hit very badly by this peace scare". He's worried that if it continues it would be so devastating that his company and others would be wiped off the face of the Earth. Oh how I chuckled at the absurdity of it in 1967. Oh how I see that it's today's reality.
So...to sum up...make up with the Dems? No, no way. Parlay with the 'wingers? Sure, why not?
Lastly...the times they have a-changed. I can't believe what they've got in the NY Times crossword puzzles these days! I came across the clue "whatever" and the answer was "screw it". Really! So in that vein, here's some music to wake up to.
Jerry Lee!
Rasta Man!
Los Beatles!
Rockpile! (listed as Dave Edmunds!)
Comments
Everything is relative...
Oh, they do. But first you need to define the "problems that matter" and who they matter to. For the current dominant members of the Center-Left Corporate Puppet Party and the Center-Right Corporate Puppet Party "what matters" is the problem of screwing over your constituents on the behalf of your corporate paymasters and still getting the rubes to reelect you every two, four or six years. They've done a pretty god-damned good job of sitting down and fixing that "problem"...
I want my two dollars!
The problem is
we all live on this planet TOGETHER. If that isn't a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is.
But yes;
It has been that way
my entire lifetime. The rubes elect the grifters to do a job, but the grifters are really ringers and Trojan horses. We (the rubes) pay their salaries with better benefits than all of us put together.
Good post.
I'd have no problem uniting with the wingnuts but what kind of candidate do we rally behind. Their big beef with Bernie was "free stuff" "I work hard for my money and he wants to take it and give it to freeloaders". Also, most of the wingers I know are deeply rooted in racism. And they don't believe in global warming. At all. And the gun thing. I don't even want to go there. I guess I'd rather capture the true Indies and try to form a party around us and them....
Certain Dems don't like freeloaders either
Earlier in the primary, I talked to a staunch Democrat about Bernie Sanders' issues. She said, "I love what Bernie says, but how are we going to pay for it?" I said tax the people who are doing very well. My neighbor didn't like what I said at all. BTW, she had just returned from vacation at Jackson Hole, WY. Many of these Repub wing-nuts are not doing well financially and they will listen to you if you explain how things work. The Dem and Repub parties do not want people getting together and talking. The Media is there to reinforce this division. When unions were 35% of the population in this country, racial, ethnic, or gender differences were not emphasized. What was emphasized were worker rights, compensation, job security, and benefits for all. Can't have that, can we?
hi shah
Have you actually tried this?
I have. For more than forty years. It doesn't work. They will never accept affirmative action. Ever. Because it promotes shiftless brown people, over worthy white people. Education is acceptable, so long as Jesus is in the classroom, and the brown people are out of it. Oh, and sex. Sex can't be in the classroom, either. Fracking, that is fine, because it means the Americans need import less energy from the scary overseas brown people. Etc. Etc.
And anyone who salutes a flag, is not smart. Sorry. ; (
Meanwhile, I have decided that The Mad Bomber, she doesn't really exist. She is just a show they have on the television. The Hairball—we know he is just a show on the television: he has been on there for years, firing people. They are like the soap operas that are on the televison in the afternoons—Days Of Our Lives, General Hospital, that sort of thing. Designed to get you all hooked in their fictional lives, to obsess over them, to the distraction and detriment of your real life.
They are like cigarettes. There is a little high. But mostly you just get addicted. They consume time, energy, money. You can't stop thinking about them. Your mental and physical health suffer, until arrives the day you can't even breathe. In the meantime, they make you always smelly and stinky.
What might people here say and do, if they weren't saying and doing The Mad Bomber & Co? Oh, the places they might go . . . .
you're probably right
my experience is limited to my college football chat group. I can almost agree on things with some of them. The least honest people in that group are the Hillary supporters, followed by the ones who share those absurd right wing lying emails. Or maybe it's the other way around.
there can
certainly be areas of agreement. But when you drill down deep enough, you invevitably crack the pot. For instance, some of the wingers around here, they see value in organic food. But that is because the government, it puts chemtrails in the regular food. And they need their food pure. So their precious bodily fluids, they will remain strong, and flowing. Enabling them to defend the farm, with all the accumulated guns, when the Black Panthers, they come over the hill in the dune buggies, slavering to rapine the white women.
Meanwhile, look at what they are doing on the television:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR50OlcO9O4]
Morning
I think we can learn from the RW. They moved right in and took over the GOP. The left is still wandering the desert aimlessly. There is common ground with the right in the details, not the philosophies. In fact, we have more common ground with the right than the .01%.
Bernie would be the candidate if the Clintons hadn't of gamed the system. They leave me with four choices. Vote for the corrupt Clintons, vote for their incompetent opponent, vote for a third party candidate who can't win, or don't vote. I see value in each of them but the first one. With globalization comes the irony that "we can check out, but we can never leave".
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I pretty much decided
to vote for Jill. The Greens represent me more than any party ever has. Maybe if all the Bernie supporters that absolutely will not vote for clinton would vote Green, people would take notice. Imagine if the Greens pulled in 20% or more of the vote...
I am tired of being confused -
so, if one has some critical thoughts about HRC's handling her emails, it means "you are a Republican"?
I am very seriously tired.
I'm not confused mimi
but I'm seriously tired. I seriously don'tgiveafuck or understand this obsession of partisans with the politics of persona, party and the caring's on of the all these bent murderous pols, the couturiers and the propagandists. The whole concept of other as the enemy makes people absolutely stupid and nuts. Good and Ungood.
Hillary said to the BLM people that even if their demands are met racism will still exist. Duh. This does not address what the BLM was talking about. She said they needed to get legislation passed to do anything about having their lives matter. They should but instead they give the pigs free rein to kill with impunity. The legislative bodies in this country retain power by fanning the hate, fear, bigotry, inequality, and dehumanizing of the culture war. It keeps people separate and living in fear of each other instead of focusing on what is being done by the 1% who own the place R's and D's . No Justice, No Peace.
When identity politics get to the point where your identification has nothing to do with what the persona of a pol or party is implementing or doing other then he/she is not them but one of mine it is a disconnect with reality. Hillary's e-mail handling doesn't address the real issue of the Clinton's global criminality. Bernie said nobody cares what's in your e-mails. Well I do. I care to know the extent of the corruption, human misery and killing she used her position as SoS to accomplish. Ignorance is strength.
Benghazi! screamed the R's and yet they completely overlooked SoS Hillary's bloody hand in Libya and Syria. Does no one look at the connection between the global endless war on terra and the economic neoliberal war on people and the victims who are fleeing for safety, the refugees and immigrants? No instead they blame the skinheads, Ukip or US rednecks, RW Republicans. They deal with the symptoms, the consequences and overlook the real villains of this piece. Cause and effect.
It seems to me we are fighting to give the real enemy cover because 'Republicans!'. You and I are not Republicans or Democrat's we are humans. Why should humans support and defend the inhumanity that all of these pols with power work hard to implement? Why vilify the other side the R's when they are complicit with and work for the same global agenda? All of them mean us harm. Why should I be blinded by hate or fear to the fact that all of them are responsible for the conditions that fan the hatred, xenophobia, racism, sexism, violence and death? Enough is Enough.
Perhaps your confusion comes from not being able to double think.
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oligarchical_Co...
Yep. It looks like both parties have adopted "1984" as an
instruction manual. And both parties are just two sides of the same power-focused coin. Only those at the top matter. The rest of us are just grist for the mill. We're consumable--meant to be used up.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
(No subject)
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
I heard this theory a few years ago.
At the time, I discounted it, but someone said that the Democratic institution has effectively been building itself in such away as to protect itself from progressivism. They have literally gotten ready for this for years. On the other hand, there have recently been signs out on the edges that populism is actually beginning to take root among some of the right wing candidates.
It was then said that their feeling was that in time, the party really advancing things like minimum wage increases and the problems of the common man would eventually be Republicans. That we are seeing what is a kind of total flip flop, where the parties are going to switch roles.
I don't know whether that's true or not, but I think it's a lot more likely than it used to be. If this does happen, it will be a very dangerous for America, because its times like this when nativism slips into movements. Huey Long did a lot of great things for Louisiana, but he was also a pretty despicable man who helped entrench racism and caused all kinds of injustices.
I feel that progressives have failed at making their message known to people. There are a lot of very confused people who have been told that if they just lower taxes on corporations and get rid of regulations, it would all pay off for them. We did that, and they are worse off ever then before.
We have to educate them and make them understand, that we are all in this together. We have to give them hope that if they get behind the common good of everyone, they can get their lives back.
Typo:
In the third graph from the bottom.
... it will be a very dangerous time for America,
Is how that should have read.
If populism takes root in the Republican party it could be a great thing, but we'd need to help educate these people, is what I'm saying.
RW allies
Back in the dark ages of my college education I became friends with a John Bircher. We were a couple of the few that were in AG school working toward small scale homestead farming and sustainability (in a time of growing ever bigger corporate farms and chemical agriculture). Politically we were worlds apart, but in lifestyle pursuit we were quite similar.
My circular thinking keeps leading me back to a corrupt corporate media that keeps the bulk of the populous blind. How can we ever attract allies if the sheeple are constantly miseducated?
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Anarcho-Communism
Sometimes I wonder ("think about") the idea that the federal government should be all but disbanded might be a better way than having the federal government involved in everything. We might be better off in many areas of the country if the feds were out of the way and our local governments took control of our local economies and social justice with the feds confined to protecting from invasion and protecting the Bill of Rights. Anarcho-Communism is a widely held ideology in Bolivia.
(Local anti-fracking movements are often successful, for example).
From the Light House.
Not quite.
Not quite. Here is an example of how Bolivia is politically superior to much of the USA. We've got far too many little Fascist Italies and Nazi Germanies among our localities. Or, to put it another way, there are no Confederates in Bolivia, while we've got plenty.
You wouldn't get Anarcho-Communism, but, all too often, Neo-Fascism of the worst sort. (I'm an Anarcho-Socialist myself; I've had to learn this lesson the hard way!)
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Probably the biggest lesson I learned
From my four plus years with the Peace vigil is that even self many described conservatives were willing to engage in the conversations we had. And even when we began worlds apart, we were able to find a lot of commonality. I think a very big part of Bernie's campaign approach recognized that which is why he was so willing to speak at Liberty University.
I also believe that the gulfs that we find between those of us on the left and those on the right are in part due to our own pre-judging of people who are not within the same political sphere as we are. With few exceptions, I am not willing to discount a significant portion of the population of this country without trying to reach out to them. They are still human beings who have often have been sorely mislead into the beliefs they hold. And reaching out means that we must be willing to listen to them in a non-judgmental way too so that we know where they are coming from and why they hold the views they do.
It is my very firm belief that we (the 99%) have far more in common with one another than we have in differences. I learned that from the conversations we had at the Peace vigil. The key is to open up the dialogue first so we can form alliances that are mutually beneficial. JMHO.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Thanks. However, I have enough trouble with the RW Dems
who call themselves progressives and liberals. Communication is excruciatingly difficult due to the lack of shared concepts, assumptions, and frames of reference. Toss in the lack of real compassion for all, based on the inability to empathize with "the other" and it is mind-bogglingly difficult.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
that last
is key.
Bedrock is recognition there are no Others. And the wingers can't go there. Because Othering, defines them.
They also have the problem with the screaming.
Peace is not had, through noisy effects.
Trump sans wig!
Over at our favorite conspiracy site:
http://www.infowars.com/hillary-visits-college-puts-everyday-iowans-on-l...
(scroll down to end of story)
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Drat, followed the link and
Drat, followed the link and saw no pic of Trump minus the visible tail of the squirrel which lives in his head and animates his features while babbling random stuff to see what the humans will swallow. Has the squirrel published his study yet?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.