All Along Trump's Watchtower

Submitted by Big Al on Fri, 03/03/2017 - 11:21pm

There must be some kind of way outta here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief

Business men, they drink my wine
Plowman dig my earth
None were level on the mind
Nobody up at his word
Hey, hey

During a conversation with my brother about the war OF terror, he observed that the southern border wasn't protected and anyone could get in if they wanted. In effect, he was defending Trump's wall.

I said, "how do you know the wall is to keep them out?"

[video:https://youtu.be/TLV4_xaYynY]

I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps.

I wish that was true George. But it isn't. We aren't learning. We keep doing the same damn things over and over. Now we have Donald Trump and a bunch of assholes in charge of our country and our lives. It's not like it's any different, other than being worse. That's the best I can describe those who are leading this country. It keeps getting worse, we surely are not learning.

Weep that guitar, man.

[video:https://youtu.be/A8CivPhu0fw]

I think of eight years ago and Barack Obama. March 2009, he's a fresh democratic party president, on the verge of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Many were hopeful he would end the Bush wars and curb the emerging police state. Instead he continued the wars, tacked on a few on his own (Libya, Syria, Yemen), deemed himself "Assassinator in Chief", bombed seven muslim countries, and lied his ass off the entire time. Political analysts at that time were debating on what Obama would do and not do, trying to interpret his actions, his appointments, what did it all mean? They're doing the same thing now with Trump.

I was fervently antiwar during the Bush years but did support Obama for President in 2008, thinking he would "change" things. I wrote an essay within his first 60 days on the Daily Kos stating basically it was over, he was the same fucking thing, there would be no change. Not alot of agreement at the time of course, not on a democratic party blog, but his appointments and early actions told the story to me. I had also progressed in my overall knowledge level regarding geopolitical actions and history, so it didn't take long for me to understand the long term agenda of America's ruling class was still in place and moving forward.

It still is. Now we have Trump and everyone's trying to figure out where he's going to take us. Let me just interrupt this message to state we're fools for allowing one person to "take us". That's one thing we need to change. Anyway, the analysts are trying to get a gauge on what Trump is going to do in Syria, how he's going to deal with Russia and China, whether he will be a warmonger killer like his predecessors or not.

Does it all matter? I remember a conversation I had with a friend a number of years ago. We debated the question, don't we know enough already? We the Serfs I mean?

We know we don't live in a democracy, isn't that enough? We know Trump has proposed greatly increasing the defense budget and build more nuclear weapons, isn't that enough? We know he has appointed a staff of ideological billionaires, generals, and misfits who could do anything. His Secretary of Defense is nicknamed "Maddog". We know nothing will change for We the Serfs, the rich will get richer and we'll get the shaft. What else do we need to know?

I'm not in favor of a movement revolving around a third political party. It goes without saying I'm not in favor of any movement of any kind that has any involvement of the democratic party, but I'll say it anyway. But if a third party is the only way to get enough people jazzed to take on the Duopoly and the Deep State, then we'd better get on with it. I don't see where trying to take down Trump will change the fundamental problem We the Serfs face, which is that this political system does not provide democracy let alone representation. I believe we should go for the gusto. It can be said that we're at a critical juncture in human history, right now. We the Serfs have a unique opportunity, with 7-8 billion people now on the planet, to make major advances in human civilization and the planet we live on. It can also be said that if we don't, we and the planet are toast.

This feels like when you're remodeling your kitchen and you can't decide on which kitchen cabinets to buy so you keep putting it off. Eventually you have to make a decision. Except this is a lot harder because we don't know who's supposed to make the decision. We're hoping it will just happen.

Maybe it will, happen. Pretty amazing times we're living in, the changes in the last fifteen years, this century, alone have been astounding. There's no indication change is going to slow down.

Keep hope alive.

Tags:

freedom

Donald Trump Wall

fascism

Vote

Comments

Submitted by janis b on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 12:29am

We need more practice

to learn how to build something more lasting out of the opportunity crises offer. It’s difficult, but I still have to believe possible. And in some ways we are.

From Leonard Cohen and Philosophy …

Cohen’s attitude of calm and practice; helpfulness in the midst of strife is also evident in his response to 9/11. He counts himself among the “we” who were attacked, but refuses to indulge in a tirade of offences (or self-recrimination), as theoretically justified that might be. Instead, he just holds the “fort” and asks simply whether you “went crazy” or “reported”. Did you succumb to rancour and the desire for revenge, or did you lend a hand to those saving lives and preserving order? Are you part of the problem, or part of the solution?

[video:https://youtu.be/6wRYjtvIYK0]

Submitted by Big Al on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 1:11am

"Opportunity crisis offers"

@janis b Good way to put it janis. Things have become so blatantly wrong on so many levels it does present opportunity for great change. In some ways maybe that is happening.

Submitted by janis b on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 1:41am

...

@Big Al

[video:https://youtu.be/1XSvsFgvWr0?list=PLxqGcOj3iagBWFoq3Mzi0YNx7B4tJk_nJ]

Submitted by Wink on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 11:07am

The "good news" is

@Big Al
the RW has moved as far to the Right as is possible. There now is only one way to move and that is to the Left.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by Ellen North on Sun, 03/05/2017 - 9:55pm

@Wink

@Wink

Naw, they can still topple off the edge, taking us with them, which is what both sides of the Two-Faced Corporate Party Trade-off seems intent on... they'll be clutching stock options all the way down, and apparently the machines will be able to continue high-speed trading for some time after life is gone from the planet, so they're happy.

—

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.

Submitted by eyo on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 1:55am

There is already a third party called independents

It is bigger than both Rs and Ds now, according to Gallup three years ago so that is for sure ha ha.

In my view we do need a single one person, because "too many cooks spoil the broth" and go nowhere without coalitions to gain power. Bernie screwed the pooch by staying comfy in his senate seat to caucus with Ds, and now has to keep talking like work is getting done. That is how "the system" destroys morale, I think. Assimilating everything to the collective oligarchy. Book deal! Vacation home! Who can resist? Be consumed or be killed that is the choice I guess.

Rather than talk about a third party, talk about the issues. 2016 I voted for an R first time in my life, if I recall correctly. Also voted for a Green and a Libertarian so there. If I do join another party it will be Peace and Freedom because why not? Issues are issues, there needs be a voting block, multiple coalitions inside the duopoly, to beat the system.

Thanks for diverting existential nihilism for a minute, cheers. Peace & Love

Submitted by Ellen North on Sun, 03/05/2017 - 10:37pm

@eyo

@eyo @eyo

Just to mention, the vacation home was purchased due to an inheritance and Bernie's last book deal went to help children.

https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/bernie-sanders-comes-clean/

Voters should be grateful for the government transparency laws that required Senator Bernie Sanders, a rival to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, to reveal how much he made last year in speaking engagement fees. The total is $1,867.42 for three appearances, a grand sum that is chump change in presidential politicking but enough for the senator to respectably donate the money to charity. ...

... He has delighted leftist political junkies for the past decade with his iconoclastic broadsides. But the senator doesn’t milk his signature New England contrariness for money, not yet anyway. ...

https://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/bernie-sanders

Bernie Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont, and is running for President of the United States in the 2016 election.

Sanders began campaigning for civil and minority rights in the 1950s. While in high school he aimed to raise scholarship funds for Korean orphans, and he called for gay equality 40 years ago while running for office in Vermont. Bernie was arrested in 1962 for protesting against segregation in schools, and in 1963 he joined the March on Washington. An article on Alternet lists 19 ways Sanders has stood up for civil and minority rights.

He has also supported parent-child centers and senior citizens groups. In 2011, he gave his book royalties, nearly $23,000, to the Addison County Parent/Child Center. In October, 2015, Sanders refused to keep a campaign contribution donated by a pharmaceutical CEO who controversially raised the price of an AIDS medication. Instead, he donated $2,700, the maximum amount allowed from a private donor, to Whitman-Walker Health, a clinic that specializes in the treatment of HIV patients.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/03/bernie-sanders-net-worth-money-raised-sala...

... Bernie Sanders’ public disclosures place his net worth at between $194,026 and $741,030, Politico reported. Some media sources just take the highest number and report his net worth at $700,00, but this is inaccurate. The total is likely around $300,00, since as early as 2013 he had an estimated net worth of $330,000, NPR reported. This is far below most members of Congress, where the median net worth in 2013 was $1 million. In the Senate, the median was $2.8 million. ...

... He had many varied jobs before moving into politics. He worked as an aide at a psychiatric hospital in New York and taught preschoolers for Head Start. He had a job registering people for food stamps with a non-profit. In the 1970s, he lived in a small duplex with his son, of whom he shared custody, and sometimes worked as a carpenter. Friends told Politico that the home was sparse and “stark and dark.” One friend said, “The electricity was turned off a lot. I remember him running an extension cord down to the basement. He couldn’t pay his bills.” In 1971, Sanders received unemployment benefits for a few months.

He also worked quite a bit as a freelance writer for local publications, ranging from a low-budget paper to an alternative weekly and a glossy state magazine. Friends said he was “always poor” and “just one step above hand to mouth.” He even made low-budget films for awhile about people and events in Vermont.

A meme began circulating in February, called the Bernie Sanders Loser Meme, that said he was a loser for having a low net worth and living off welfare for a time. But Snopes disputed the meme, pointing out that he worked hard even if he didn’t have an official “9-to-5” job. In fact, Sanders spent most of his free time campaigning, working for what he was most passionate about — helping the less fortunate, even to his own detriment. ...

... Most of Sanders’ income has, now and historically, come from his political jobs. When he was elected mayor in 1981, the salary of $33,800 was more than he had ever made, Politico reported. In 2014, his household took in more than $205,000, paying nearly $28,000 in taxes. Most of this is from his Senator salary of $174,000. He also receives a yearly pension of $5,000 from his time as Burlington mayor.

Some of his income comes from investment funds. Sanders also receives royalties from his book, “The Speech,” but he donates all of these to charity. In 2011 and 2012, he made $26,000 in royalties from his book and donated it all to charity. ...

... He has two homes, a joint rental property in Burlington and a condo in Washington, D.C. The rental property earned him $5,001 to $15,000 in income in 2012. Meanwhile, he’s had the D.C. condo since 2000 and it has a 30-year mortgage of $50,001 to $100,000. He’s definitely not living lavishly. ...

Yet suddenly he's supposed to have changed his life-long spots and 'sold everyone out' for a vacation home which he sold a house he inherited to buy - because an army of trolls paid by those desperate to kill enthusiasm for the democratic ideals Bernie espouses has been smearing him all over the internet?

Hey, I have a lovely bridge, some lovely Florida lots with endless water supplies and a few Spanish Prisoners due to bring in big ransoms, if you're interested in purchasing any of these at a fabulous discount?

Edit: other than that mostly agree with you. But The People cannot count on having a savior who will do it all for them - a new party must be created by The People, to work for the people, to consist of the people and they need to start forming and working in each State now under a binding platform covering the most widely shared and desperate issues to build enough sweeping country-wide support that cheating the people out of their electoral wins against the Corporate Duopoly would be too obvious even for Homeland Security to plausibly achieve.

And this needs to be started now, in the knowledge that the internet is not likely to be left as a useful rool for the people much longer, and with contingency plans in place for a lot of door-to-door and public leafleting and discussion in all possible areas by those interested in even short-term survival of humanity and life on the planet.

It's democracy or die time, because we're dealing with suicidally murderous crazy-people who'd kill and die for just a little more money drained from the rest of us and the dying Earth, despite already having far more than they could ever possibly spend.

The other options seem to be a bloody revolution or to just passively knuckle under and wait to be drained of all remaining life-blood a drop at a time, while being polluted to death and poisoned by unregulated and unsafe everything you eat, drink, breath, use and work in/with, or go perhaps more suddenly (if fortunate) with a nuclear bang. Why not fight for life, while we still have any?

—

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.

Submitted by peachcreek on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 2:56am

"I believe we should go for the gusto."

How'd that go? Go for the gusto or don't go at all?

Yeah, well it's all there it seems to me.
Along with the marvelous L. Cohen above.
The gusto = The pleasure.
So, go for the gusto sounds pretty much like "the pursuit of happiness" to me.
In the past, we found these truths to be self evident.

Submitted by Wink on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 11:32am

I believe he meant,

@peachcreek
instead, that we should crash the gates. Not some pursuit of happiness.
And I agree. At the very least point at "them" and cry, "Shame!" when we see one of "them" on the tv bellering some bull$h!t to the cameras. Even better in a public place, a bar or pub. A good way to start a debate, let "them" know we're not going away.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by peachcreek on Sun, 03/05/2017 - 12:21am

Sorry I was so obtuse..

@Wink I agree. I was kind of pointing out that to some of us Crashing the gates, going for the gusto, whatever you want to call it..will be in the pursuit of happiness (for us and all beings on this here little blue ball we call home).

Submitted by janis b on Sun, 03/05/2017 - 12:40am

Hi peachcreek.

@peachcreek

I didn’t find you obtuse. As a matter of fact, I found you refreshingly insightful.

So, go for the gusto sounds pretty much like "the pursuit of happiness" to me.
In the past, we found these truths to be self evident.

Crashing the gates, going for the gusto, whatever you want to call it..will be in the pursuit of happiness (for us and all beings on this here little blue ball we call home).

Submitted by Wink on Sun, 03/05/2017 - 10:16pm

Airports. I'm thinking airports

@peachcreek
are good places to express our resistance. They usually have Fox or CNN on. Whenever we see the Trumpster or one of his henchmen bellering their horse$h!t on the airport tv we call them on it. Out loud. "Horse$h!t!" "The asshat is talking bull$h!t. Resist!"
Guaranteed to get something started. Anyone happens to agree with your sentiments send them here to C-99.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by eyo on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 2:28am

Mexico has an oligarchy too

Big Al thanks a lot for writing. I'm from California where our criminal actor governor president reagan said "tear down this wall", because he was for freedom or some such. Things are always changing nothing stays the same.

Been reading http://mexiconewsdaily.com/ more often lately. I am living around immigrants from Mexico these last four years. The people in the house are from Laos, and that made me learn more about Vietnam and Cambodia and omg our government has been evil forever.

I guess if the Mexican oligarchs want a wall it will happen, else they are going to fight U.S. oligarchs about it behind the scenes until all are happy. As the purple mainstream catches fire daily about ... ~whatever~.

How about some boycott? Divest? LOL! good luck getting people to give up their precious tech or car addictions for some world peace. How many actual human beings did snapchat employ? How many times do cars fill up at the gas pump? "That's the system." Perhaps the way to starve it is to not feed it? Wishing for more cognitive dissonance now. Heh

Thanks

Submitted by the_poorly_educated on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 6:53am

Americans have no discipline. It has disappeared. Bad.

@eyo @eyo @eyo @eyo @eyo @eyo @eyo People don't even want to take responsibility for their own lives, their own health, their own carbon footprint, their own consumer choices ...... there is ALWAYS some sort of excuse why they CAN'T do it. We as a nation are WEAK. To make up for our weakness, we live vicariously thru our military. As they say, we've gone from a nation of pioneers to a nation of plaintiffs. I will not bet on America anymore. It really is hopeless.

UPDATE: And BTW, Nothing will change as long as people are backing up their opinions with links to the Corporatocratic MSM. TOP almost required it. People screaming and yelling that you didn't back your opinions up with the "facts" of the Corporatocracy. It's lunacy.

—

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

Submitted by Oldest Son Of A... on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 8:09am

Good Questions...

@eyo

"How many actual human beings did snapchat employ?"

Not very many...
Gotta love these overpriced, low overhead, web IPO's...

—

"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,

Submitted by eyo on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 8:23am

Wow those must be expensive employees

@Oldest Son Of A Sailor $24 billion for 1,849 jobs is that what that says? How many of those high wage-earners in California will now expatriate, because taxes? LOL! "That's the system."

Yeah new tech provides the emptiest most disappearing content-free distractions evah! YOLO

squirrels

Submitted by Wink on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 3:28am

Yes, one gets the

sense that this change we're all looking for will just happen. And it might! There is some momentum. But, maybe not in the direction we're hoping for. To move it in the direction we more favor we're at least going to have to guide it there, if not flat out push it there. Were going to have to work to make the change we want happen. Actually get out of the house.

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by orlbucfan on Sat, 03/04/2017 - 9:39am