Open Thread-02-21-25 - Politics of Hate
I was born in 1954 and began observing politics in the mid 60s. Even though politics has always been contentious the current level of vitriol is over the top. I'm well aware of how volatile various periods of US history were, to the point of violence, but in my lifetime, current politics have reached a crescendo of hate that I think may end up with bad consequences.
Thinking back on it all, I believe the recent trend started back in the Clinton and Gingrich era and has steadily grown ever since. That's when the impeachment tit for tat began and has become a feature of modern politics. It didn't use to be this way. Members of both houses of Congress used to work across the aisle, oh sure they had their differences but at the end of the day they'd go out together and have dinner and drinks and were friendly towards one another. It's quite different today.
Attribution: Wikimedia Commons
We've all heard the phrase, "politics is a blood sport", maybe so, it seems we're now approaching that level for real. The players act like they truly hate each other and it is accelerating accordingly upon which party holds the power. The last couple of weeks we've witnessed calls ringing out from congressional figures to "take out" members of the opposition and for their constituents to take to the streets. It's being ramped up to 12 on a scale of 10.
Another old phrase we hear is, "the fish rots from the head down". The hatred among politicos has spread to the hoi polloi. Families and friendships are broken up over politics. The political divide has never been deeper in my lifetime. The advent of the internet has widen the chasm, we've all seen it, it only helps to divide us even further. There are talks all across the country about secession, counties splitting from states and states splitting from the Union.
Where will it all end?
The concept of divide and conquer has never been more prevalent, in my day anyway. One would probably have to go back to the run up to the Civil War to find more divisiveness. American is no longer about we the people, it's more about we the party. The US constituency has been stealthily herded into pens of hatred towards one another.
The question I ask myself and I ask of you, is this hatred organic or is it manufactured? If it's manufactured then that means that there is a plan in place to take us all into a time ahead that we probably wouldn't want to go into if we had foresight into the future.
I can't escape the feeling that our politics of hate are by design.
The Youngbloods: Get Together (4:41)
Comments
Good morning Free Rangers...
the hatred transcends party lines, there is hatred among the different party factions. Conservatives hate the RINOS and progressives hate the DINOS.
And the hatred transcends not only party factions, it also extends to policies and issues. In the 1860s the divisive issue was slavery, today it's any number of contentious issues that split the parties themselves.
I have to blame much of the hatred on the media and the internet, especially the internet where every person that is connected can voice their opinion no matter how acerbic it may be. It's the old double edged sword thing.
Hate and fear are kissing cousins,
and the drums of fear have been beating madly. I too believe that this inculcation is intentional, and effective.
On a more positive note, I would like to share a recent X post of Jeffery Tucker (@jefferytucker):
“ Still, people don't entirely realize what has happened. The party now in control of the US executive branch is a third party built out of the corpses of two prevailing parties.
It goes by the name Republican but that is nearly a historical accident. Nearly all the top people are refugees from the Democrat Party and were never welcomed and even hated by the legacy establishment of the Republicans.
So far, there is every indication of the intention: to dismantle government as we've known it for a century or more. I consider that a good thing in general.”
“The story around the world gives a silent testimony:
— The Beresovka mammoth, frozen in mud, with buttercups in his mouth…..”
The Adam and Eve Story, Chan Thomas 1963
well said
.
.
a few years ago on this board had posted a screed
about anarchy as being a viable possibility
it was not well received at the time, still see it as an
alternative to marching to more madness.
cheers
question everything
I hesitate to describe
our current ruling junta as being the face of a "new party". They represent an aberration, a surprisingly successful (at the moment) insurgency. Only if their temporary successes prove to be repeatable in the coming election cycles will I begin to consider them representatives of a party.
I think this unlikely, as the owners of both facets of the Uniparty do indeed hate the insurgency, and are deliberately (and gleefully) pumping their utterly-enslaved supporters to ever higher levels of reflected hate and fear. One need only listen to the agonized squeals from the Circle-D corp, and the debased grumblings from the pseudo-libertarian elephant fetishists, to realize that the insurgents have a long way to go to achieve anything resembling repeatability.
I'm not at all sure that the leaders of the insurgency will survive this initial term. And right now, all they have is a rather limited cult of personality: it is fairly obvious that the removal of either of the primary personalities would nip that insurgency in the bud. And I'm quite certain that there are wetwork specialists just chomping at the bit to be assigned the task.
In short: we'll see how long they survive once they decide to audit and/or downsize the CIA. And if they simply decide not to do so out of entirely-justifiable fear for their lives, that just moves them further into the sights of a completely different set of wetwork specialists, within the crime family that is our corporately-owned government- let alone the homegrown, nascent stochastic-terrorists-to-be currently being cultivated by the facets of the Uniparty.
We shall see. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown", as the Bard once wrote.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
That's an astute...
observation by Mr. Tucker. Here's the problem I see:
Politics swing like a pendulum, we're witnessing an extreme example of that swing right now. If the current changes that are being made, many for the better in my opinion, aren't codified by law then the next oppositional party, whatever that may be, will simply reverse all of Trumps executive orders and most likely to the polar opposite.
That's how this iteration of politics work, extreme swings back and forth with each swing being worse for We the People than the pendulum swing before it. Although, granted, this swing may help us a little, but that remains to be seen.
It's like, cycle after cycle, we're being driven into an unknown future.
Surely, more than 4 years will be necessary
to durably establish a new paradigm such as what has just been put in motion. Should a significant amount of UniParty maladministration and Deep State shenanigans be rooted out, I for one would surely want the process to play out through four more years with DOGE & company, even without the “Republican” tag or Trump in the Oval Office.
A return to UniParty recidivism (hopefully) is not an option.
“The story around the world gives a silent testimony:
— The Beresovka mammoth, frozen in mud, with buttercups in his mouth…..”
The Adam and Eve Story, Chan Thomas 1963
Agreed...
whole heartedly.
now hate to admit it
.
.
like you, grew up in the fog feelies of the sixties
'love is the answer' which may still be true
seems it is easier to hate 'the other' than try to
compromise and negotiate in good faith in these times
perhaps we are being manipulated for bigger concerns
like global control, but on a personal level, being different
does not make one an enemy
thanks for the OT!
question everything
The human dichotomies...
love/hate, good/evil, ying/yang are part of our nature. Until we learn to transcend those dichotomies, it looks like we'll be stuck in the rut. We've been stuck in that rut from the dawn of civilization, let's hope we pull ourselves from it before it's too late.
Which comes first?
Anarchy or a dictatorship?
We decide.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I cast my vote for...
Peace, Love and Understanding.
is this hatred organic or is it manufactured?
My answer is both. Politicians have been bumping the boobs with racism, anti-communism, and "patriotism" since Christ was a corporal. In this cursed century, countless technological "advances" make it easier than ever to bump the boobs.
I certainly agree that today's politicians have gone very public with their contempt for each other and the drinking buddy relationship between Jack Kennedy and Barry Goldwater is unthinkable today. I attribute this to the transformation of "news" from once a day newspaper delivery to 24/7 talking head yammering and the need for constant stimulation of net surfers. This societal revolution was accompanied by the skyrocketing cost of electioneering, obliging politicians to "raise" ten or more times the money than it took to win in the 1960s. And they can't allow themselves to be seen in public socializing with the evil guys whose evil nature is the rationale for fundraising.
There was plenty of hate in the 1960s. Our wingnut neighbor across the street was overt about his contempt for us, our yard signs and my father's job as a union official. George Wallace had a lot of support in our neighborhood and in 1972, it took an attempted assassination to keep him from making it a three-way race.
This is not to disagree with the OP, just to put it into perspective. Nothing new under the sun.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
unfortunately a three way race is one too many
.
for the dichotomy intellect being force-fed
to the sheeples. it is either-or or nothing at all.
Consider a five way race with ranked-choice
voting for instance. The politicians in power
would not allow that. Too many loose marbles
on the table for them to control.
question everything
Well said...
and well reasoned.
I knew when I was writing this morning that there were many times in the past that political upheaval was probably worse than it is today, for instance congress members actually fighting in the chamber during the run up to and during the Civil War.
It certainly crossed my mind about the turmoil of the 60s, I lived it, and I figured someone would call that out, but I truly think that today's politics are worse because of the intramural fighting among members of all three branches of government, whereas, for the most part, it was We the People vs. the government back then.
Agreed
that the politics of today is more rotten than ever as all authoritative voices are telling easily debunked lies and backing them up with attitude and censorship.
In the 60s, mainstream journalism still honored impartiality and objectivity -- at least rhetorically. Lots of manipulative bullshit and outright propaganda did come out of TV screens and in newsprint, but corporate news was never in-your-face militant about claiming that to question the news was per se dishonesty and subversion.
That is much worse now than ever before.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Gaty Webb Redux, sort of - a good read and must read
https://sputnikglobe.com/20250221/how-the-cia-gave-birth-to-the-modern-d...
be well and have a good one
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 --
Great article...
thanks for the link.
Good mornng Johnny, et. y'all. Why is Sierpinski's Triangle
on my mind? Let's have a quick look at it. Sierpinski Triangle by
Paul Bridgestock posted on Flickr creative commons 2.0 attribution, noncommercial, no derivatives
draw a triangle, connect the midpoints of the sides, generating smallet, embedded, similar rangles. Repeat for each resultant embedded triangle.
OK, after a few iterations step back and look at the product. Draw a line across the workspace that is an extension of the uppermost triangle. The triangle as a whole is the US body politic. Those above the line control almost all the wealth, power and access thereto. Those below the line lack such access. It is critical to the successful perpetuation of this situation that the bulk of the populace do not fully see, appreciate, and understand this fact and the implications thereof, else they might see both the wisdom and opportunity for what might be called "class warfare". (Actually the triangle is the result of successful class warfare by the elites) All of the lesser triangles are instances of characteristics ot ehe masses that the elites can, have and will call out as grounds for the masses to resent, fear, or hate eash other. People must always remember that any such differentia are irrelevant to the reality of their situation, that the only relevant distinction among and between people is class, and class at the highest, grossest level. We must intellectually and ideologically merge all the endless differences that they spit out as grounds for division and focus on the one that really matters.
be well and have a good one
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 --
Yes, yes, yes...
it is class warfare, always has been and always will be. All the propaganda, divide and conquer tactics and psyops are subsets of that fact.
The struggle is not horizontal, it is vertical.
Thanks, mi hermano, for that thought provocative figure.
I think you're right
The Clinton/Gingrich era is where I would peg it. Before that the libs latched on to the hyphenated American and womens movement, leaving labor behind. Clinton started his triangulation with shifting stances to keep in power. The Limbugh/Murdoch machine turned into a rw moneymaker spreading fantasies and anger. After Clinton the dems turned into what we have today, the victim Olympics and bigbiz fluffers. People are angry because it's been decades of the 99% losing ground, and hell, it's someones fault, right? Unfortunately, the 1% and hired politicians point at our neighbors and say it's their fault.
Yes there are racists, Nazis, and crappy people of all backgrounds, but a decent job, a better life for you kids, healthcare and some way to retire is what everyone wants. Somehow, taking care of that seems to be low on the priority list. Capitalism wins every time.
Amen brother...
Gingrich's Contract
withon America coupled with Clinton's assault on the working class from the left via Nafta and welfare cuts were just two of the offending programs he pushed through. From there on it just got worse for the working class.Capitalism wins every time, indeed!
Hmm! Interesting concept but in reality it is not likely to
happen.
Well...
that might work, but you're right, it will never happen. It's easy for Tucker to say that, he has the moolah to buy things outright, sans a loan from a bank. The average Joe, not so much.
It’s not just the people from opposite parties
.
fighting each other, but even people in the same party fighting against their leaders. I’ve long seen republicans calling their leaders RINOs, but now it’s democrats who are calling their leaders names for not standing up against republicans and Trump. I’ve been surprised that after all the dem party betrayals of their base many took it and defended it. No longer.
They are especially mad that democrats send them emails telling how serious the fight is, but we need money to do it so won’t you send just $$$$?
And it’s not that democrats don’t know how to fight or stand up to republicans. We have seen how well they fight when someone like Bernie runs for president or the grassroots are trying to get progressive legislation passed. Then the bring a gun to the knife fight.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
The Dems might be done...
as a party, but I'm sure they'll find a way to weasel themselves back into relevancy. It takes two to make a uniparty, as contradictory as that sounds, heh!
so true
They'll fight to the death, with the republicans, conservative and MAGAs to make sure the left is marginalized. So, they can fight, just not for the 99%.
The Nation on dems lack of spine
.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-party-fecklessness/
Oh, but dear the democrats will always have a Joe Manchin. He just goes by different names such as Lieberman or Nelson or whomever democrats pick to be the rotating villain to be a road stop for passing decent legislation that would help the working class. If not then they can hide behind the parliamentarian.
Good read.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
That's right...
there's always some reason for not passing legislation for the benefit of the working class.
Now, when it comes to passing a bill for a pay increase for Congress, well, that's a totally different situation, donchyaknow.
Sharing this because it made me chuckle.
Heh...
[chuckle, chuckle].
End of Civil Rights movement was the start of hate/violence
Growing up during the Civil Rights movement there was a belief in the universality good of humanity and things like civil liberties for all. MLK's most stirring speech as about the unity of humanity and the goodness in each person.
One important part which is rejected now is nonviolent actions/protests. Violence including intimidation, vandalism, slander, forcing job losses, property damage have become an accepted form of legitimate response to whatever grievances groups or individuals may have. Ghandi and MLK are intellectually and practically dead.
The concept of divide
and conquer, the flip side of that coin being united we stand, is as old as human history. It goes all the way back to cave dwelling days. It spawned the "clan" and was used for both defense and offence in the days when human lifespans was in a couple of decades. Maybe three if you were in the right location.
How many millenniums has it been improved upon and perfected?
Almost every human endeavor can be condensed down to one or the other of this most basic survivalist trait. From the nuclear family to small town competitions for that new factory or Walmart.
Corporations banding together as associations or bars. Even labor unions are whole cloth united we stand. Whole countries, as in United States of America, United Kingdom, or United Arab Emirates are basic caveman writ large.
The united we stand side is being fractured by the divide and conquer side and there is no movement to bolster the united side.
So, essentially, you are correct. It is being manufactured by forces that already have enormous resources and power. The only hope for us is to turn the tables on these forces and divide them into smaller targets for which to defeat one by one.
I believe this is what Trump is trying to accomplish, whether for malevolent purposes or benevolent ones is to be revealed.
IMHO
Thanks for the OT.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
tonight we are being treated to a glorious
view of Venus in the western sky
almost as bight as the moon!
What does this mean I wonder?
question everything
If Tolkien is correct (and he might be),
it's a symbol of hope and an indication that darkness does not last forever.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I like that
it sounds positive
thank you
question everything
Violence and capitalism
Early capitalism, one remembers, was a period of nonstop warfare. Wikipedia has a long list of them. There's a 19th century list too. The 20th century featured big, spectacular wars, world wars. Some historians argue that the Second World War was merely an extension of the first one, with the inter-war period being a mere hiatus. Also, arguably, the Second World War had been going on for two years already when Germany invaded Poland in 1939.
US involvement in Vietnam killed, what, 2.3 million? Iraq, what, 600,000? The authorities like to lowball this stuff because they don't like it when people are shocked into endorsing peace.
Joe Biden might have given us World War Three. It seemed quite possible. And there's still a genocide going on. Who'da thunk.
"The Democratic Party has been focused too much on pleasing people who matter too little in this society." -- Chris Cuomo
hmm, if the fish rots from the head, what would you
chop off first ?
https://www.euronews.com/live
mimi,
your quirkiness is so funny. You haven't lost a beat for as long as I have known you.