So it's Us vs. Them now, huh?
Submitted by JtC on Thu, 07/18/2019 - 9:34am
OOOOkay.
It appears the spirit of caucus99percent is dead. It took 4 years for the experiment to be done in by factionalism. I always thought that the left/right divide would be the undoing, I guess I was wrong. It was a good try though.
I now fully understand why political sites have hard standing rules.

Comments
Not sure what ‘s
Coming down, but if there is anything I can do let me know please. Thank you for all you do. ( I mean it. )
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Thanks magi
To be clear the site itself is not going anywhere. The spirit is dying though, post by post, comment by comment. I've been watching it in real time for a while now. I don't know for sure myself what may be coming down, that's mostly up to the members here.
The site is 'not going anywhere'.
Where is it supposed to go?
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
Quick!
Back to the roving HR gangs at Daily Whatsitsname!!
That's what I'm afraid of.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
FWIW someone over at JackPine Radicals gave us a shout-out today
https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/how-the-democratic-netroots-died/
I think it'd be fair to say that C99
Is the beneficiary of both:
Amen to that.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I feel guilty for having caused the civility
to be destroyed and divisiveness increased. As I am not an American and now thrown into Germany since 2 1/2 years in which my morals and civil conversation degraded and disappeared slowly but surely, I would like to say that all of it was my fault since quite a while.
I have started to see many issues differently from how I saw them before 2017, when I was still in the US.
I can't express my changed view points clearly or calmly. It also shouldn't be of any interest for Americans, so I should not try to let my huge political frustrations hang out and express them like I did.
If Us versus Them is killing the spirit of this site, I am willing to never talk here again.
I don't want to be the one who caused "the idea" to be killed. I believe I was. I am sorry for that.
I will be gone for at least twelve weeks. Time to recover the spirit for all of you, I hope.
Feel like crying now. Bye.
mimi
mimi, don't go
Your world view is valuable because of an independent mind set, since you were not indoctrinated in Amerika and Amerikanism as a child.
Gustav Mahler wrote a song cycle about the great Amerikan experiment on educating young children, called Kindertotenlieder. The title refers to the minds of the kinder. I heartily recommend this musical enterprise to anyone feeling down in the dumps if you wish to become suicidal.
Das hast Du sehr nett gesagt ... Danke Schön !
PS I just go into a hospital and into a long rehabiliation care afterwards. I use that time to not be connected, because there is no way to be connected to the intertubes inside the hospital anyway.
Die Ärzte sagen, ich sollte mal abschalten. Und das tue ich auch. Verstanden? Vielleicht gehe ich ja einmal in den Zoo und schaue mir die Krokodile an. Dann denke ich an Dich.
mimi
Bitte schön.
yeah, but I am afraid of your teeth
so if I am going to see you in person, I imagine you as a Krokodil. Let's meet us in the middle. If you come to Germany, you will be my Krokodil, If I come to the US, you will be my beloved alligator.
In the spirit of civility ... I think we are doing fine.
mimi
You got a deal!
The Soviet humor and satire magazine was named “Krokodil” !!
http://journal-club.ru/?q=image/tid/72
Oh-oh . . . Rachel Maddow and the Washington Post’s PropOrNot people are gonna see this thread and think, "Aha! — knew it all along — proof positive their little so-called ‘caucus’ over there is Putin’s parrot 99 percent.”
Well done!
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
lol ... I am going to think how Putin's parrot looks like now /n
mimi
Hope everything will be okay
Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl
Be better soon, mimi.
Aloha — hoping & praying all goes well — Gute Besserung! n/t
Mimi, you are not the problem. But on another note....
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
Gott, helfe mir!
Sehr geehrter Herr Alligator
Lou Andreas Salome )
Absolut nein. Meine Mutter war Deutsche und Elsässerin. Deshalb habe ich drei Jahre Deutsch für Ausländer studiert bei Portland Community College und Lewis und Clark College. (Deutsche Sommerschule am Pacifik - da mit H. F. PetersLeider war es vor über dreißig Jahren ohne viel Übung.
Mein Vater war total Sizilianisch.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
Well hold on there..
Of course, I'm the type, when I'm in close proximity for instance to the po-lice, I always think: Well, the time had to come. They've finally found me. Might as well make it easy on all concerned and turn myself in.
The couple of problems here are NOT you.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
Same here. n/t
That's ominous
Can you add some details?
I did...
in my response to magi above.
Factionalism?
Is that related to capitalism and imperialism?
Seriously. Could you identify the factions please. I think some of the arguing going on here is great! And often funny. Most are kidding around with each other or catching up on pet news. Others are getting into good side bar discussions on topics like Ronald Reagan.
I think there still is a community, although a loose one, and I certainly would not agree with any obituary writings.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
There goes...
my eyeballs again.
The Captain of our store
Empties out the communal refrigerator in our break room every Sunday. He's been doing it for as long as I can remember. Each Sunday. Same time. With a warning over the loudspeaker. Yet, he still hears complaints that he threw out someone's half eaten sandwich, or soda bottle.
The other day he said he was going to stop emptying out the refrigerator because he doesn't want to be the Father to 100 kids anymore.
I suspect right now you might sympathize with the Captain of our store?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I don't get the eyeballs link.
But while I'm here replying to you, I want to know what you mean by understanding why political blogs button up on the rules. What rules did you have in mind?
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
Who said anything...
about changing the rules?
Not changing the rules....
You said that you understood why political sites have 'hard standing rules'. I wondered what you meant by that and what rules you were referring to.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
It's by design...
that I'm almost always measurably vague in these meta essays. That's my style. These (meta essays) usually have a cathartic effect in opening up discussion among the membership as is in full display in these threads.
I do admit that sometimes I may come off as being a jerk, which is many times true, but that's OK by me if it leads to the membership talking it out among themselves.
Your cathartic agitation reminds me of Homage to Catalonia
Orwell wrote about life and politics in the trenches during the three months he spent with the Anarchist POUM militia during the Spanish Civil War. In Chapter Three, there's this wonderful portrait of how megaphones are more important than bullets. But the most powerful weapon of all was the promise of buttered toast:
There seemed no hope of any real fighting. When we left Monte Pocero I had
counted my cartridges and found that in nearly three weeks I had fired just
three shots at the enemy. They say it takes a thousand bullets to kill a man,
and at this rate it would be twenty years before I killed my first Fascist. At
Monte Oscuro the lines were closer and one fired oftener, but I am reasonably
certain that I never hit anyone. As a matter of fact, on this front and at this
period of the war the real weapon was not the rifle but the megaphone. Being
unable to kill your enemy you shouted at him instead. This method of warfare is
so extraordinary that it needs explaining.
Wherever the lines were within hailing distance of one another there was
always a good deal of shouting from trench to trench. From ourselves: 'Fascistas
--maricones!' From the Fascists: ''Viva Espana! Viva Franco!'--or, when they
knew that there were English opposite them: 'Go home, you English! We don't want
foreigners here!' On the Government side, in the party militias, the shouting of
propaganda to undermine the enemy morale had been developed into a regular
technique. In every suitable position men, usually machine-gunners, were told
off for shouting-duty and provided with megaphones. Generally they shouted a
set-piece, full of revolutionary sentiments which explained to the Fascist
soldiers that they were merely the hirelings of international capitalism, that
they were fighting against their own class, etc., etc., and urged them to come
over to our side.
This was repeated over and over by relays of men; sometimes it
continued almost the whole night. There is very little doubt that it had its
effect; everyone agreed that the trickle of Fascist deserters was partly caused
by it. If one comes to think of it, when some poor devil of a sentry--very
likely a Socialist or Anarchist trade union member who has been conscripted
against his will--is freezing at his post, the slogan 'Don't fight against your
own class!' ringing again and again through the darkness is bound to make an
impression on him. It might make just the difference between deserting and not
deserting.
Of course such a proceeding does not fit in with the English
conception of war. I admit I was amazed and scandalized when I first saw it
done. The idea of trying to convert your enemy instead of shooting him! I now
think that from any point of view it was a legitimate manoeuvre. In ordinary
trench warfare, when there is no artillery, it is extremely difficult to inflict
casualties on the enemy without receiving an equal number yourself. If you can
immobilize a certain number of men by making them desert, so much the better;
deserters are actually more useful to you than corpses, because they can give
information. But at the beginning it dismayed all of us; it made us fed that the
Spaniards were not taking this war of theirs sufficiently seriously.
The man who did the shouting at the P.S.U.C. post down on our right was an artist at the
job. Sometimes, instead of shouting revolutionary slogans he simply told the
Fascists how much better we were fed than they were. His account of the
Government rations was apt to be a little imaginative.' Buttered toast!'--you
could hear his voice echoing across the lonely valley--'We're just sitting down
to buttered toast over here! Lovely slices of buttered toast!' I do not doubt
that, like the rest of us, he had not seen butter for weeks or months past, but
in the icy night the news of buttered toast probably set many a Fascist mouth
watering. It even made mine water, though I knew he was lying.
_____________
I believe you too, JtC, are such an artist.
Thank you, my friend
Thanks Leveymg for adding some much needed perspective.
from the trenches.
And it’s one, two, three, four,
what are we fighting for?
I see... thanks.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
Compassion is important but is being killed off in
our so