So registering what is essentially a protest vote, as it's obvious to most that observers Bernie has almost zero chance of being the Dem nom, is "doing something" ?
Yeah, that's a really effective "doing something".
This is probably the best endorsement of Hillary that I've heard. There is a lot of good in America that many of the citizens seem to forget in their rush to nuke the government. You could do a lot worse than vote for the status quo.
Um...maybe I wasn't clear enough. Not an endorsement of Hillary.
Location: No longer in a hovel in effluent Damnville, VA Gender:
Posted:
Mar 1, 2016 - 4:54pm
kurtster wrote:
This is no different than what we had back in the late 60's and early 70's with the exception of the media. We still had a real working Fourth Estate that did work on behalf of the people. Now it is in cahoots with the .gov, damn near a partner in crime. The crisis in confidence in the government was actually worse then than now, but that does not mean that now is good at any level.
I believe that the government is a corrupt, out of control bureaucracy whose sole mission is to justify its own existence at the expense of the people it is supposed to serve. There is no one who can expose it and prosecute it. Everyone is in on it. That is the status quo as I see it.
It must be derailed and simply destroyed. That can only happen with an outsider swinging the hammer. Then rebuilt from scratch.
I think it to late for "fixing" the gov now because too many people want it to go in another direction. I think the only thing that could happen short of civil war would be if the country split into two, one that wants it the way the founding fathers intended and the other that wants "Euro Socialism" or some equivalent. Otherwise we are f^cked though many of us old timers may not live long enough to see it. Or as enough of us old farts fie off the current generations will get their utopia of shared misery.
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Mar 1, 2016 - 4:43pm
kurtster wrote:
This is no different than what we had back in the late 60's and early 70's with the exception of the media. We still had a real working Fourth Estate that did work on behalf of the people. Now it is in cahoots with the .gov, damn near a partner in crime. The crisis in confidence in the government was actually worse then than now, but that does not mean that now is good at any level.
I believe that the government is a corrupt, out of control bureaucracy whose sole mission is to justify its own existence at the expense of the people it is supposed to serve. There is no one who can expose it and prosecute it. Everyone is in on it. That is the status quo as I see it.
It must be derailed and simply destroyed. That can only happen with an outsider swinging the hammer. Then rebuilt from scratch.
That is too bleak a view, from my perspective. it portends a Mad Max kind of imminent future. if we are at that point, the election of Trump — assuming, as I believe you do, that he is a potential savior — would be akin to sticking a finger into the proverbial crumbling dike.
I also disagree with your assessment of the media.
Lastly, given your bleak assessment, why should we place any trust or have any belief in our fellow Americans?
You have nailed it. We are suffering greatly in relatively recent years from a constantly decreasing trust in any of our institutions or institutional actors, be it the media (or "mainstream media," as the critics like to say), "Wall Street," or, of course, government. We are reachng the nadir.
The question becomes: What do we believe in?
This is no different than what we had back in the late 60's and early 70's with the exception of the media. We still had a real working Fourth Estate that did work on behalf of the people. Now it is in cahoots with the .gov, damn near a partner in crime. The crisis in confidence in the government was actually worse then than now, but that does not mean that now is good at any level.
I believe that the government is a corrupt, out of control bureaucracy whose sole mission is to justify its own existence at the expense of the people it is supposed to serve. There is no one who can expose it and prosecute it. Everyone is in on it. That is the status quo as I see it.
It must be derailed and simply destroyed. That can only happen with an outsider swinging the hammer. Then rebuilt from scratch.
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Mar 1, 2016 - 2:44pm
haresfur wrote:
This is probably the best endorsement of Hillary that I've heard. There is a lot of good in America that many of the citizens seem to forget in their rush to nuke the government. You could do a lot worse than vote for the status quo.
You have nailed it. We are suffering greatly in relatively recent years from a constantly decreasing trust in any of our institutions or institutional actors, be it the media (or "mainstream media," as the critics like to say), "Wall Street," or, of course, government. We are reachng the nadir.
You do enjoy vigorous hair splitting, don't you? No, they didn't genetically "create" him, but prepared the soil in which he flourished. OK?
I have an aversion to sloppy thinking. It leads to bad conclusions.
You don't like Republicans. I get it. Honest.
Some of that dislike is justified. That doesn't make every charge you want to fling at them true. Demonizing people blinds you to what you have in common—a common humanity, and whether you're willing to admit it or not, a common moral basis. You have vastly more in common with the Republican party of today than the Democratic party of 1830, and the Republican friends I have (yes, I have friends I disagree with) have more in common with you than with Donald Trump, to bring this around full circle.
This is probably the best endorsement of Hillary that I've heard. There is a lot of good in America that many of the citizens seem to forget in their rush to nuke the government. You could do a lot worse than vote for the status quo.
You do enjoy vigorous hair splitting, don't you? No, they didn't genetically "create" him, but prepared the soil in which he flourished. OK?
I have an aversion to sloppy thinking. It leads to bad conclusions.
You don't like Republicans. I get it. Honest.
Some of that dislike is justified. That doesn't make every charge you want to fling at them true. Demonizing people blinds you to what you have in common—a common humanity, and whether you're willing to admit it or not, a common moral basis. You have vastly more in common with the Republican party of today than the Democratic party of 1830, and the Republican friends I have (yes, I have friends I disagree with) have more in common with you than with Donald Trump, to bring this around full circle.
Translation provided. No matter how hard you, or Ross Douthat, or any other pundits try, you're not going to get sensible people to buy into nonsensical political revisionism. The GOP made him. Let them suffer the consequences.
This is soft-headed. They didn't create him; the GOP accepted Trump's help when he looked useful to them, just as the Democrats have welcomed their own demagogues into their big tent when it suited them. Trump is attempting a hostile takeover of the party machinery that has looked at him the same way the Democrats have looked at Michael Moore and Al Sharpton: bomb-throwers who were useful as long as they concentrated their fire on the External Enemy and had plausible deniabilty.
Bernie Sanders is (sort of) Trump's Democratic mirror image. A crony capitalist on one side, a leftist ideologue on the other. Attempting a putsch from the outside with foot soldiers owing no particular allegiance to the party. Both have roused rabbles who see the machinery they want in corrupt hands, and who aren't bothered by the consequences of their actions to the parties in question. If Trump fails in his bid his supporters will slink off back under the rocks they came from; if the Sandernistas don't prevail they (for the most part) won't become loyal Hillary supporters.
Both parties are reaping not what they intentionally sowed but the result of dissatisfaction from their fringes. I blame this most on the efforts to suppress third parties that both the incumbent parties have engaged in for the last hundred years. Sanders doesn't belong in the same party as Clinton. Trump doesn't belong in the same party as Mitt Romney. Rand Paul doesn't belong in the same party as Mitch McConnell. But step outside those two big tents and a campaign for office gets much, much harder.
So the fight is going on inside the big tents because they made it hard to live outside. Maybe this will lead to schisms, with the Republicans spawning a UKIP-style right-wing party and the Democrats spinning off an openly socialist party. The Main Street centrists can have what's left and we can have an honest four-way discussion for a change. I don't see this happening; both parties will do their best to co-opt the radical fringes and will risk burning down those tents rather than lose influence. But a guy can dream.
You do enjoy vigorous hair splitting, don't you? No, they didn't genetically "create" him, but prepared the soil in which he flourished. OK?
Translation provided. No matter how hard you, or Ross Douthat, or any other pundits try, you're not going to get sensible people to buy into nonsensical political revisionism. The GOP made him. Let them suffer the consequences.
This is soft-headed. They didn't create him; the GOP accepted Trump's help when he looked useful to them, just as the Democrats have welcomed their own demagogues into their big tent when it suited them. Trump is attempting a hostile takeover of the party machinery that has looked at him the same way the Democrats have looked at Michael Moore and Al Sharpton: bomb-throwers who were useful as long as they concentrated their fire on the External Enemy and had plausible deniabilty.
Bernie Sanders is (sort of) Trump's Democratic mirror image. A crony capitalist on one side, a leftist ideologue on the other. Attempting a putsch from the outside with foot soldiers owing no particular allegiance to the party. Both have roused rabbles who see the machinery they want in corrupt hands, and who aren't bothered by the consequences of their actions to the parties in question. If Trump fails in his bid his supporters will slink off back under the rocks they came from; if the Sandernistas don't prevail they (for the most part) won't become loyal Hillary supporters.
Both parties are reaping not what they intentionally sowed but the result of dissatisfaction from their fringes. I blame this most on the efforts to suppress third parties that both the incumbent parties have engaged in for the last hundred years. Sanders doesn't belong in the same party as Clinton. Trump doesn't belong in the same party as Mitt Romney. Rand Paul doesn't belong in the same party as Mitch McConnell. But step outside those two big tents and a campaign for office gets much, much harder.
So the fight is going on inside the big tents because they made it hard to live outside. Maybe this will lead to schisms, with the Republicans spawning a UKIP-style right-wing party and the Democrats spinning off an openly socialist party. The Main Street centrists can have what's left and we can have an honest four-way discussion for a change. I don't see this happening; both parties will do their best to co-opt the radical fringes and will risk burning down those tents rather than lose influence. But a guy can dream.
That's one of the best posts I've seen here in a long time. It's a real shame it will be buried under a bunch of brain dead C&P spam posts from the trolls.
Translation provided. No matter how hard you, or Ross Douthat, or any other pundits try, you're not going to get sensible people to buy into nonsensical political revisionism. The GOP made him. Let them suffer the consequences.
This is soft-headed. They didn't create him; the GOP accepted Trump's help when he looked useful to them, just as the Democrats have welcomed their own demagogues into their big tent when it suited them. Trump is attempting a hostile takeover of the party machinery that has looked at him the same way the Democrats have looked at Michael Moore and Al Sharpton: bomb-throwers who were useful as long as they concentrated their fire on the External Enemy and had plausible deniabilty.
Bernie Sanders is (sort of) Trump's Democratic mirror image. A crony capitalist on one side, a leftist ideologue on the other. Attempting a putsch from the outside with foot soldiers owing no particular allegiance to the party. Both have roused rabbles who see the machinery they want in corrupt hands, and who aren't bothered by the consequences of their actions to the parties in question. If Trump fails in his bid his supporters will slink off back under the rocks they came from; if the Sandernistas don't prevail they (for the most part) won't become loyal Hillary supporters.
Both parties are reaping not what they intentionally sowed but the result of dissatisfaction from their fringes. I blame this most on the efforts to suppress third parties that both the incumbent parties have engaged in for the last hundred years. Sanders doesn't belong in the same party as Clinton. Trump doesn't belong in the same party as Mitt Romney. Rand Paul doesn't belong in the same party as Mitch McConnell. But step outside those two big tents and a campaign for office gets much, much harder.
So the fight is going on inside the big tents because they made it hard to live outside. Maybe this will lead to schisms, with the Republicans spawning a UKIP-style right-wing party and the Democrats spinning off an openly socialist party. The Main Street centrists can have what's left and we can have an honest four-way discussion for a change. I don't see this happening; both parties will do their best to co-opt the radical fringes and will risk burning down those tents rather than lose influence. But a guy can dream.
I think you nailed it. Well said.
fwiw ... I was talking to hippie a couple of weeks ago and he said the same thing about Trump and Sanders and I agree with you as well. The crony capitalist part about Trump remains to be seen. That being said, he does have Icahn in the wings.
Translation provided. No matter how hard you, or Ross Douthat, or any other pundits try, you're not going to get sensible people to buy into nonsensical political revisionism. The GOP made him. Let them suffer the consequences.
This is soft-headed. They didn't create him; the GOP accepted Trump's help when he looked useful to them, just as the Democrats have welcomed their own demagogues into their big tent when it suited them. Trump is attempting a hostile takeover of the party machinery that has looked at him the same way the Democrats have looked at Michael Moore and Al Sharpton: bomb-throwers who were useful as long as they concentrated their fire on the External Enemy and had plausible deniabilty.
Bernie Sanders is (sort of) Trump's Democratic mirror image. A crony capitalist on one side, a leftist ideologue on the other. Attempting a putsch from the outside with foot soldiers owing no particular allegiance to the party. Both have roused rabbles who see the machinery they want in corrupt hands, and who aren't bothered by the consequences of their actions to the parties in question. If Trump fails in his bid his supporters will slink off back under the rocks they came from; if the Sandernistas don't prevail they (for the most part) won't become loyal Hillary supporters.
Both parties are reaping not what they intentionally sowed but the result of dissatisfaction from their fringes. I blame this most on the efforts to suppress third parties that both the incumbent parties have engaged in for the last hundred years. Sanders doesn't belong in the same party as Clinton. Trump doesn't belong in the same party as Mitt Romney. Rand Paul doesn't belong in the same party as Mitch McConnell. But step outside those two big tents and a campaign for office gets much, much harder.
So the fight is going on inside the big tents because they made it hard to live outside. Maybe this will lead to schisms, with the Republicans spawning a UKIP-style right-wing party and the Democrats spinning off an openly socialist party. The Main Street centrists can have what's left and we can have an honest four-way discussion for a change. I don't see this happening; both parties will do their best to co-opt the radical fringes and will risk burning down those tents rather than lose influence. But a guy can dream.
So, what does it mean to this "truth" if Trump is not elected President?
In some way, shape, or form, a succeeding President always is a reaction to the preceding one.
Yes but the choice of candidate reflects just how pissed off the electorate was. If Trump fails to become POTUS, and not due to fraud or assassination, then fair play. But the final result will still show that the establishment GOP candidates got BTFO.
