Toxic Nostalgia

The symptoms are straightforward; no differential diagnosis necessary. Most patients present with one of the following "complaints:"

"I never thought I'd agree with McCain, but ..."

"I never thought I'd miss W, but ..."

"I never thought I could like Paul Ryan, but ..."*

WTF, people??! Is it me, or is this an epidemic deliberately foisted on us by TPTB? It's all just far too coincidental: suddenly, all these repugnant snakes publicly appear at the same time to suggest some sensible policy issue some bombastic anti-Trump drivel and now they're supposed to be our allies? Are Americans completely unable to make an honest evaluation of the potential cause?

In my opinion, this is a deliberate psy-op to drive us all toward a mutually agreeable center -- where only the die-hard Trumpers and racist, misogynist, Putin-loving Bernie Bros are excluded. Then, the TPTB can screw us even harder as we all sing kumbaya together around the campfire guillotine.

I mean, it's gotten so bad that I'm beginning to wonder if Carter himself hasn't been infected.

22552860_10211880223455893_8969452587736979367_n.jpg

*This last complaint is rare and usually fatal.

(Edit: typo)

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Big Al's picture

I've seen a couple stories about how the left is warming up to George W. Bush or something like that, didn't read them. WTF is right. Pretty shallow thinking - they used to hate Bush but now they hate Trump and Bush came out against Trump so now they like Bush. Most people either have no idea or don't want to admit what's going on.

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WaterLily's picture

@Big Al Noted at C99 within the last day or two: Wouldn't it have been so nice if Mittens were President?

Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

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SnappleBC's picture

@Big Al

Clearly simply lying our nation into an illegal war which, in the end, causes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people is not a problem for "the left". Neither is the surveillance state. When you take those off the table, what was his big crime... well... bigger than any other politician anyway?

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

snoopydawg's picture

@SnappleBC

after spending 8 years protesting against Bush, they went silent once Obama was elected and continued doing the same things.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

WaterLily's picture

@snoopydawg They're convinced of their own moral superiority.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Big Al It's pro wrestling, Al. They're doing a face turn on George W. Bush, the Republican party (non-Trump) and even the CIA. It's working a lot better than it should, but I feel unsure enough about the data I'm given that I don't know how far it's spread, how many people on the left actually feel this way.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

WaterLily's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal It's pervasive in my own social circles. Nearly every self-identified Democrat I know has made similar declarations.

Frankly, it's frightening.

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@WaterLily I similarly responded to you in another thread, but that thread was a bit dated by then...as follows:

While I don't 'participate' on Facebook, I do have an account, and have real-life friends (as opposed to FB pretend-friends) that have posted that exact line (most notably, "I never thought I'd agree with GWB, but...").

The stupid is rapidly enveloping all in its path.

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WaterLily's picture

@ChezJfrey These are also my real-life friends, publicly regurgitating the shit they've digested.

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@Big Al Writers/tv reporters regularly cite "the left" when they should be saying dinos.

It isn't the left - it's the dinos who have the longing for republicans.

Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton are not the left.

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dfarrah

just because he had a nice smile and could speak in complete sentences. He was a bigger failure and bigger criminal than Bush imo.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich One of the emerging assumptions to give legs to the Russian conspiracy hysteria is that of a pristine an unsullied past which the Russians took advantage. The US never had any conflicts until the Russians purchased FB ads. Our election system was untarnished and honest until the Russians corrupted it. Our major media outlets spoke the truth and are not under attack by fake Russian news. According to the NYTimes Putin was behind resistance to the TPP. See people were for it until Putin interfered. According to this myth Putin made our very good race relations worse when he funded to the Ferguson riots according to one of the most followed and visible Russian conspiracist.

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detroitmechworks's picture

Yes, I am calling it a religion.
In this ideal, the "American Political System" is the god,
And Trump is the devil.

Therefore, everything that the system does is GOOD, because it is opposed to the devil, which is BAD.

This is the same logic the inquisitors use when tying people to the stake and piling up various pieces of wood.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

WaterLily's picture

@detroitmechworks

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WaterLily's picture

(Edit: that was supposed to be for dkmich but I accidentally deleted the code).

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Lily O Lady's picture

was part of this BS. TPTB keep playing us by first ripping us apart, but then binding up the wounds they inflicted with a round of warm fuzzies. It’s such a cynical ploy and I’m sick of it.

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"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"

WaterLily's picture

@Lily O Lady And everyone else seems sick with it.

We need heroic measures, I'm afraid, to save them from themselves.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

suddenly, all these repugnant snakes publicly appear at the same time to suggest some sensible policy issue some bombastic anti-Trump drivel and now they're supposed to be our allies?

Yes, that's what they're using Trump for: as a wet-wipe for the establishment's bloodstained hands.

This is what the Clintons have been aiming for for decades: drive the actual left out of public discourse, keep the populist far right around as the convenient enemy--kind of a domestic version of an Arab terrorist--and consolidate everybody's support behind a Clinton/Bush "center-right" money party.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

WaterLily's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Exactly. I'm just so (pardon me) fucking frustrated that so many people are willing stooges in this losing game. What do they think they're going to get out of it?

Last I checked, you can't eat, drink, or shelter yourself with self-righteousness.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@WaterLily They want to forget that they're in danger of not being able to eat, drink, or shelter themselves. The benefit here is specific amnesia.

It would be much better if they'd just play a computer game or watch a video.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Wow, that thar is some great word usage!

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dfarrah

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dfarrah Thanks. My diction seems to improve the angrier I get.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Raggedy Ann's picture

wishy-washy constituents. We can go this way or that way, up or down, side to side, back and forth, to and fro, shall I go on? We are sheeple and will go with the flow.

What a bunch of bunk! Anything coming out of the mouths of congresspeople - no matter the party - is not in the favor of the very sheeple they think have their noses in their butts.

I'm no follower. They can bite me. Diablo

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

WaterLily's picture

@Raggedy Ann I've always loved your way with words, RA!

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Raggedy Ann's picture

@WaterLily
Those darn words just fall into my head and out my fingers! Sometimes I wonder who's planting those ideas in my brain! Wink

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Richard Painter, the "ethics lawyer" for the George W. Bush administration, attacking Trump and saying the Bush administration would never have allowed such things...

OK, I finally found it (I wish the Jimmy Dore Show's videos were more easily searchable). Start at 10:53. There's the ethics lawyer for George W. Bush:

ethics lawyer.png

Here's the video.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
I reached the point where I was deeply and profoundly aware that the sentence "The US government would never do _____________" cannot be meaningfully completed. There is nothing I can think of that I could pencil into that blank space with reasonable assurance that I would be correct. That was true while GWB was in office and is still true of that administration in retrospect.

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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 --

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

they can build one that doesn't include George W Bush, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush's staff, the CIA and the NSA.

Otherwise, they can fuck themselves right in the ear.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal hysteria is absolutely hysterical. I don't know who to laugh at more - the stoopy dems or the repubs.

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dfarrah

Amanda Matthews's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
little fundie fuckwit Pence.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

It’s revisionist, straight up. That the left is finding so much in common with previously sworn enemies should be a cause for some major re-evaluation and soul searching, not celebration.

And yeah, I think it’s all by design, no accident.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Dr. John Carpenter people the left.

The lefties aren't buying this bs.

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dfarrah

@dfarrah Agreed, we need a way of differentiating "the left" from the left.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dfarrah They are liberals. And holy shit, have they gone off the rails.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Amanda Matthews's picture

the plebs, to play up to them while preying on them at the same time. They need a peaceful population of useful idiots to try to prevent their days of empire slipping away. And they need to rehab the reputations of some really disgusting, degenerate, and despicable specimens because they need to adopt the same ideals and ‘methods of operation’ these disgusting degenerates used when they began the process of turning this country into the biggest threat to the people of this and every other country on this planet.

The western PTB have seen the ‘shape of things to come’ and they are having to face the fact that BRICS is the future. Unless they can figure out a way to prevent it. And try to prevent it they will. All this bluster and bullshit over NK sure keeps the news that NATO is playing war games with nuclear weapons in Germany under wraps. We’re not at odds with NATO. Guess who's nuclear toys they are playing games with. Why, they’re fucking OURS and we are placing them in Non-nuclear countries!!!

NATO's Hidden Agenda: What's Behind Drills With US Nuclear Weapons in Germany
16:01 22.10.2017

NATO is holding an American nuclear weapons safety procedure exercise at a base in Büchel, Germany and in the Belgian town of Kleine-Brogel. The legitimacy of such actions and the deployment of nuclear weapons in non-nuclear countries raises several questions. The drills have also been criticized by Russia.

*

Signal to Russia

Retired Bundeswehr colonel Ulrich Scholz, who was involved in NATO’s air force planning, described the drills a "questionable affair" and said they are likely to be a political argument against Russia.

Scholz expressed serious concerns about Germany’s national security.

"If we’re abandoning nuclear energy due to safety concerns but stockpiling nukes on our soil and taking part in these drills, I’ve got one question: is anybody out there concerned about Germany’s security?" he said.

*

According to Nassauer, the US is interested in keep all of its allies bound together. For the first time, Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic have been involved in the exercise this year. Moreover, the exercise has been held at different military facilities.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sputniknews.com/amp/analysis/20171022105844...

Western economic and military elites must have a subservient and slavishly supportive source of warm bodies for cheap labor and cannon fodder to pull off their desperate plans to remain the economic powers upon which our world goes round. Our Ruling Class HAS to rehab the reps of some of the 20th and 21st centuries worst foulest supposedly human specimens. I include that lying SOB Barack Hopey-Changey Peace Price right with ‘em. In fact, I put him in there at the top of the list of all the serial sociopaths and psychopaths who have found it so easy to administer a foreign policy that is based on stealing another country’s assets and killing it’s people who happen to be foolish enough to be parked on assets or land that we want to commandeer. For things like an oil field or a route for a pipeline.

I think that the entertainment industry/media has always been a great indicator of the Amurikan agenda. In times of war or political upheaval, our entertainment industry retools itself to turn this country into war supporting super patriots celebrating every foreign ‘enemy’ death as a source of accomplishment and pride (while we now hide American kids when their bodies are brought into Dover to their families.) This is why I think Ken Burns sanitizer his saga on the CONFLICT in Vietnam..,

War by definition is a situation wherein two or more countries, states or parties within a country fight against each other over a period of time. In other words, it’s an open and armed hostility exemplified by active military operations, severe aggression and usually high mortality. By that definition, Vietnam was indeed a war. However, since the United States Congress never declared war against Vietnam, it was actually a conflict. In fact, the U.S Congress hasn’t declared any war since the World War II in 1942. So the Afghanistan (against al-Qaeda) or Iraq likewise is not a war but just a conflict.

https://thevietnamwar.info/was-vietnam-a-war-or-conflict/

This is why so many crazy shows about super-slick government agents and agencies, stuff like NCIS, Madame Secretary, , 24, Homeland. Then there’s another type of ‘war’ tale, like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones for example.

They sure as hell don’t want anything like Laugh In, The Smothers Brothers, That Was The Week That Was, or (Heaven forbid) All In The Family.

I personally think that we better be finding our courage and and start fighting back or our kids and Grandkids are looking at a Clockwork Orange future.

Third Party now.

EDIT: haven/have

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

ggersh's picture

Courtesy of NC

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/on-safari-in-trumps...

yep, in a capitalist economy the key to efficient distribution of goods and services is correct market pricing. central banks trying to engineer a soft landing for a burst bubble have seriously distorted the pricing function of the market.

There was another way the tour had been valuable: As Third Way argued its preferred course for the Democratic Party, its on-the-ground research was already lending crucial credibility to its claims, she said. In meetings with Democratic elected officials and presentations to the DNC, Hale told me, Third Way’s representatives could reel off anecdote after anecdote about the Real People of Middle America they’d met. “The fact that we now have this very direct experience that we can use to tell a story—we get listened to in a different way, because we’ve figured out a better way to say it,” Hale told me. I had no doubt this was true—that Beltway Democrats were eagerly swallowing Third Way’s claims, bolstered by their firsthand accounts of the mysterious heartland. Since the Wisconsin trip, Third Way has published an analysis claiming the Democratic Party cannot win back the House if it focuses on its base and ignores working-class whites, and another that says the party’s main problem is that “Americans don’t see Democrats as the party of jobs.”

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Bollox Ref's picture

"I never thought I'd agree with McCain, but ..."

"I never thought I'd miss W, but ..."

"I never thought I could like Paul Ryan, but ..."*

None of that has crossed my mind. I can't imagine a mind that would.

Oh, wait... DKos residents.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Bollox Ref I never thought I could like Paul Ryan...and guess what, I still don't.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Amanda Matthews's picture

@Bollox Ref
That they supported bush**s wars after the Empty Suit’s election and the Empty Suit started a few.

Why are troops in Niger? Again The Empty Suit.

They best not bitch about Trump and war. It’s been okay for the entire time President Peace Prize was in office.

What a bunch of moral/ethical bankrupts.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa