further to flyover states

Post #390,502 by rcareaga 6/9/14 3:33:20 PM Reply	further to flyover states The GOP will exploit every advantage it can, and the smaller the popular vote margin, the louder will be their cries of illegitimacy regarding the opposition's victory. The Teeming Millions are being groomed for outright fascism. You want to feed that in the service of your personal virtue, you go a-fucking head. I'm voting self-interest, even if the Lollipop Guild and the Fairy Ponies don't approve. cordially,
Post #390,504 by mmoffitt 6/9/14 3:56:19 PM Reply	And after the rise of Fascism comes what? Revolution. I won't live long enough to see it, but my daughters will. A post-Revolution America gives them a chance that a slow, steady slide does not. So, I'll be selfish myself. I will not vote for a slightly-Right-of-Ike Republican in order to avoid the Batshit-Crazy brand of Republican because the batshit crazy one will spark a revolution faster and thereby yield at least some small hope of a better future to my daughters. The Wall Street democrats are worse than the batshit crazies because the former should know better. And leave us not forget who was responsible for throwing gasoline on the fire that led to the meltdown. I don't know if you read the article linked above, but this is worth reading in order to refresh memories: Secretary Timothy Geithner recalls visiting Bill Clinton at his Harlem office and asking his advice, as Geithner puts it, on "how to navigate the populist waters" and respond to the American public's anger about bailouts and Wall Street. The former president didn't seem to have much sympathy for these popular sentiments and replied by referring to the CEO of Goldman: "You could take Lloyd Blankfein into a dark alley and slit his throat, and it would satisfy them for about two days. Then the bloodlust would rise again." IOW, "You can't do anything with the great unwashed. They just don't understand the importance of us oligarchs." And THAT from a former Democratic President.
Post #390,505 by rcareaga 6/9/14 4:18:51 PM Reply	I absolutely want to hear, in broad outline, the great life your daughters are gonna have once the Lollipop Guild takes charge and the Confectioners' Soviets have the running of our day-to-day affairs. I can still remember how great things were in the 1980s after we "heightened the contradictions" in the 1968 election! Wooo! Good times! scarcely containing my excitement,
Post #390,508 by boxley 6/9/14 6:29:57 PM Reply	just finished reading "Conspiracy" by Robert Harris The facts are historically correct. Too bad most of the country can't read and probably wouldn't understand it if they could read it. Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #390,513 by Another Scott 6/9/14 7:26:35 PM Reply	If one has daughters, one should read Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale - http://www.amazon.com/The-Handmaids-Tale-Margaret-Atwood/dp/038549081X If one doesn't have daughters, one should read it also, too. Cheers, Scott.
Post #390,515 by boxley 6/9/14 7:31:48 PM Reply	one is historical fiction, the other one is a dem wet dream :-) Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #390,535 by dmcarls 6/9/14 11:15:02 PM Reply	Thanks, Scott - a great story. She's one of my favorite authors and a wonderful poet. Here's one about aging: The Visit http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/margaret_atwood/poems/329
Post #390,537 by Another Scott 6/9/14 11:23:59 PM Reply	Moving. Thanks.
Post #390,545 by mmoffitt 6/10/14 8:32:32 AM Reply	I remember the 1980's, too. The 1980's started this death march. Then the democratic party decided to join in lockstep and elected Bill Clinton. It moved further right with Obama. The democratic party's evolutionary path of the last 30 years leads directly to the Tea Party. Sure, it will take time, but if we do as you suggest and keep voting for the "less Right Rightist" then we get the democratic party as tea party in, perhaps, 2084. Then my daughters in their old age will have to endure the mess that is always revolution. In a nutshell, I'm saying, "Let's just get on with it and hope something better emerges after all the blood." This pseudo-democratic oligarchy is corrupt almost beyond redemption. It cannot be reformed by continuing to elect the sort of slime that is responsible for the American politics of the past 33 years. But as long as well-informed, well-intentioned, reasonable people like you and Scott argue for doing just that in the name of "not throwing away your vote for someone who cannot win" but instead "holding your nose and voting for the lessor of two evils" there is no hope of ridding ourselves of the neo-fascists in government. Worse, following your counsel does nothing but delay the inevitable. No one can say if my daughters will have a "great life" after the fall. To be sure, things are going to get much worse for them and anyone who doesn't live on that little island between the Hudson and East rivers in the short term. I just want to shorten the interval of that demise. Am I certain that revolution will give them a better life? Of course not. But I do know what their lives will consist of if we continue our path of the past 33 years and I know it could be better. It just cannot be better in the current framework. Food is going to get more expensive this year. That's always first. Stay tuned.
Post #390,547 by folkert 6/10/14 10:04:14 AM Reply	Re: I remember the 1980's, too. News Flash, Food HAS been getting more expensive all the time. It'll just get more expensiver. You wonder why they cut the SNAP and other benefits? They didn't really have to to make the same effects. They could have just left the funding where was. Cutting Social Security is a given and just makes the eldery even more home bound. It is all about Voter suppression and turning the spending to the Military and Industrial complexes. Who cares about the bottom 80%... combined only have about 7% of the money, they are using it to subsist, nothing important like buying (not leasing) a new $100K Cadillac/Ferrari/BMW/Porsche/Corvette every two. -- greg@gregfolkert.net "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." --Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Post #390,549 by rcareaga 6/10/14 1:49:51 PM Reply	eloquently stated ...and I come to the issue with no hostages to fortune. Odd to think that a direct chain of apostolic DNA succession beginning, perhaps, in one of Darwin's "warm little ponds," with each humble generation contriving not to expire before passing the sequence forward, ends at last in this dry hole. I have nieces and nephews (and nine so far of their offspring) regarding whose futures I feel a certain foreboding, but no direct skin in the game. Your position, in your words, is "Let's just get on with it and hope something better emerges after all the blood." But how many revolutions in living memory have proceeded from bloodbaths to the benign social democracy of the Fairy Princesses and the Lollipop Guild? Are the bloodbaths not apt to be prolonged? Do the revolutions not tend toward internecine strife and the violent purges of the original cadres? Does not the Man on the White Horse almost inevitably appear, and does not a new rank of powerful men usually spring up, variously from or supplanting the previous generation of privilege, to squeeze the proletariat? And your revolution will deviate from historical experience how? Your hoped-for "revolution" looks from here far likelier to be a fascist revolution, and to hell with Godwin's Law. If it pukes like an Ebola patient and if it bleeds like an Ebola patient, it's diseased and contagious, and we're all in trouble. I no longer hope for reform. And I am "well-informed, well-intentioned, reasonable," which is why I oppose my information, my intentions and my reason to the kind of lunatic idealists who put their virtuous shoulders to the 2000 Nader campaign (let's just stipulate here that you and I disagree with respect to the election fourteen years ago. You're delusional, of course, but nothing will be gained by revisiting that argument) because they were too fucking pure to vote for Al Gore. The perfect is not merely the enemy of the good, but it's all too often the midwife of the worse. I respect your own reasoning while rejecting your premises, and while I might enjoy life under the Confectioners' Soviets, I fear the consequences (successful or otherwise) of your revolutionary purity more. cordially,
Post #390,551 by mmoffitt 6/10/14 2:12:14 PM Reply	Thank you. Especially for this: You're delusional, of course, but nothing will be gained by revisiting that argument Gave me quite a chuckle. For what it's worth, I did vote for Gore in 2000.
Post #390,552 by rcareaga 6/10/14 2:28:46 PM Reply	You did vote for Gore ...but you are on record, I believe, as absolving Saint Ralph. cordially,
Post #390,602 by mmoffitt 6/11/14 10:36:41 AM 6/11/14 10:37:02 AM Reply	Absolutely. It was all Leibermann's fault. Edited by mmoffitt June 11, 2014, 10:37:02 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #390,554 by rcareaga 6/10/14 3:14:14 PM Reply	and I'd still like to see ...in broad outline, the essentials of the humane and just society you believe that your daughters will inherit if only we stop enabling the craven compromisers and let the fascists have their way in the short term. Please be as detailed as you like. cordially,
Post #390,567 by boxley 6/10/14 5:34:29 PM Reply	you mean the facists aren't having their way now? Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #390,568 by folkert 6/10/14 5:51:18 PM Reply	Please... at least make it tough for me... to read your blathering troll speak. Buy it in a post rather than all in the subject. Sheesh. -- greg@gregfolkert.net "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." --Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Post #390,570 by hnick 6/10/14 7:26:03 PM Reply	Sorry, the troll has a real point. "Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable." ~ AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914)
Post #390,571 by folkert 6/10/14 8:23:59 PM Reply	If you think so, I'm feeling very sorry for you. -- greg@gregfolkert.net "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." --Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Post #390,591 by pwhysall 6/11/14 8:29:38 AM 6/11/14 8:32:43 AM Reply	Actually, he's right. The definition of "fascism", in simplistic terms, is a society where the state is more important than the individual. I agree that there's a lot more to it than that, but the essentials - authoritarianism, anti-liberalism, ultra-nationalism, extreme militarism, a political monoculture - are there. Given the absolute dominion of the military industrial complex (and I include the intelligence agencies in this) over the affairs of the US Government and its organs of state, and given the tendency on both wings of US politics for authoritarianism, I think it's harsh-but-fair to describe the current establishment as "fascist". The ongoing and unceasing militarisation of the police is one bellwether for this. The desire by all of the right-right wing, AKA the GOP, and much of the rest of the establishment (itself well to the right of centre, by any non-US-centric assessment), to take state control of what women may do with their wombs, is another. The media goes to some trouble, both in its fictional and factual output, to paint the agents of this authority (most notably the police) as noble figures, selflessly devoted to their thankless job of Keeping America Safe. Despite the wailings otherwise, the US citizen of 2014 lives in a police state where even minor infractions are harshly punished; the irony is that even where the machinery of control doesn't exist, the citizens gleefully create it, in the form of home owner's associations and their analogues, with the power to foreclose on your home if you don't cut your grass just so. Edit: and software patents, and the (RI\|MP)AA. And so on. The cognitive dissonance is remarkable. You folks have got a nice Constitution, but it's clear to an outside observer that it's for display purposes only, these days. Edited by pwhysall June 11, 2014, 08:30:56 AM EDT Edited by pwhysall June 11, 2014, 08:32:43 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #390,593 by boxley 6/11/14 9:31:01 AM Reply	ta Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #390,596 by folkert 6/11/14 9:38:11 AM Reply	Thanks for doing the trolls work for him. He never does this, always wants others to do his work for him. You've complied and gotten a thanks for it as well. Please remember, I'm trying to dial it back in dealing with him. Just so you all don't have to suffer through it. And yes, you are right about the state of our state. I can go back into outright challenge mode again, if you'd like. -- greg@gregfolkert.net "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." --Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Post #390,600 by rcareaga 6/11/14 10:19:39 AM Reply	tepid defense of you-know-who A troll he may be, contributing way less signal than noise, but he's way more benign than some of the creatures routinely afflicting other blogs and boards, and an order of magnitude or two less toxic than a couple of former IWT regulars of years past, both of whom (one for very sound reasons) will go unnamed here. cordially,
Post #390,598 by rcareaga 6/11/14 10:08:25 AM Reply	Certainly as you define "fascism" ...the country is there. It's my understanding that among historians and political scientists the definition is considerably more nuanced and complex. A few years into the Cheney Shogunate, when our tighty-righties were pushing the notion of Islamofascism (I believe that the late Christopher Hitchens was particularly taken with this meme), the noontime NPR chat show did an hour on the subject, and the two guests agreed that, however unattractive Wahhabism might appear to liberal western sensibilities, it did not rise to the proper definition of fascism. A caller then raised the point, "Forget Islam, I say we've got fascism right here in the US of A." One of the guests (a countryman of yours, I believe), somewhat exasperated, told the caller he hadn't been listening. "You do not at present have fascism in this country. You have what I call an Oligarchic Authoritarian System." Which is not to say we haven't grown ourselves a proper police state. Back in the early/mid 1980s I was at a fish & chips joint in Berkeley. As I waited for my order the proprietress and the single other customer, both English, were lamenting some lager lout-related outrage at a football match, and deploring how bad this was making Old Blighty look in the world's eyes. They agreed that the solution would be the application of some good old-fashioned American policing methods. The brutality of U.S. police methods, they agreed, was well-known, and putting a bit of the boot to these hooligans would go a long way toward restoring public order. Ah, to see ourselves as others see us! But most Americans have had the "freest nation in the world" line fed to us on an intravenous drip the diameter of a fire hose from infancy forward, and cognitive disconnect comes easily to us. I do not mean by any of this to suggest that we may not drift, or permit ourselves to be pushed, or even march outright into conditions that would meet a more rigorous definition of "fascism," and we are indeed far closer to that undesirable abstract today than I ever expected to find us, but if the compromised/violated liberties of Obama's America in 2014 are "fascism," however shall we refer to today's conditions, what vocabulary may we deploy, to distinguish these from the presumably much harsher political climate to be endured, let us say, eight years hence under President Ted Cruz? cordially,
Post #390,605 by boxley 6/11/14 11:03:28 AM Reply	a better definition would be a kleptocracy there are two main mob families called democratic and republican who divide up the territories after sitdowns with their soldiers every few years. Their enforcement against those who don't pay use no rules but their imaginations. Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
Post #390,601 by mmoffitt 6/11/14 10:29:23 AM 6/11/14 1:07:25 PM Reply	I make no predictions about post-revolution America. I cannot possibly know what would happen in America post-revolution, but if I understand your question, you're asking me what I'd hope happened. I can speak to that a little. In my view, the United States is a failed experiment. The form of government enshrined in the US Constitution could (and did) work very well for a nation of 6 million. It almost became completely undone when the population hit 31 million in 1860. It does not perform well at all for a nation of 320 million. One could argue, I suppose, that it is still working very well for the 10 million or so who live in Manhattan, New York and Boston. There seems to me to be some critical population size for which democracy no longer functions well. If we include Russia and drop the Vatican in our definition of "Europe" we end up with around 12.8 million people per country. Drop Russia (with its population of roughly 143 million) from the definition and we end up with fewer than 10.5 million per country. Countries of the size of 10-20 million in close geographic proximity have a much better chance of sanity in their governance. So, a better post-revolution US would be a loose confederation of new, independent states. A common government with no power save "the common defense" could be configured with the existing armed forces remaining roughly unchanged. The states would all contribute to the funding and manning of these forces. Basically form a US "EU" + NATO with new nation states (having nothing to do with the old states of the US) consisting of no more than 20 million or so. I think this, or something very like this, is ultimately what will happen and I genuinely believe it will be better. But I know it's not "right around the corner" and I'm not going to live long enough to see it. Perhaps my daughter's won't either, I can't say. But I'm convinced what I've laid out here in broad strokes is the end game of the dis-USA. I hope it comes to pass and soon, but I'm doubtful. This disfunctioning oligarchy will drag on for as long as Progressives can find the stomach to continue voting for enemies of the People because they are "less bad than someone else." Edited by mmoffitt June 11, 2014, 01:07:25 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #390,615 by rcareaga 6/11/14 12:09:08 PM Reply	intriguing notion Perhaps we can enlarge upon this presently in a fresh thread. Minor nit: 2014 population is estimated at a bit under 320 million. cordially,
Post #390,618 by mmoffitt 6/11/14 1:07:39 PM Reply	Corrected. Thanks.
Post #390,686 by Ashton 6/12/14 6:53:39 AM Reply	Seems a sensible hope, tempered by an equally rational probability. (ie not very.. high) You may be right that Size Matters (ignore other associations.) I don't see much happening until there is a (commanding) plebiscite agreeing/disagreeing with only One question, ~~ Is it your belief that, considering all the matters on your personal agenda re the current U.S.Constitutional mandates, the current conduct of the three branches of Government and your assessment of current living conditions in this, your country, that: Our System of Government has become irremediably dysfunctional? Well, something like that: it is conceivable (and referenced by the Founding Mothers) for there to occur a somewhat orderly demand to convene a Constitutional Convention ... and try to do better than [some future crisis-of-Confidence.] Unfortunately this course demands participation of a basically-educated group of authentic Citizens (even to understand-the-Question.) And, it's a real crap-shoot that such would be the case. Given the %mouth-breathers du jour: I punt, again. Doesn't matter 'what I'd prefer' in the way of a less-bloody yet effective Revolution. I don't believe we have enough authentic Citizens for any such pipe-dream. I also don't think I'll miss at all, not being around to watch squads of real-pieces-of-work -vs- sincere non-predatory Good guys n'gals playing Lexington & Concord. With heat-seeking missiles, IEDs and dum-dums. (There are some real scum out there who, as in the current Corporatocracy, give not-a-shit about construction, when destruction is what gives them a stiffie.) Anyone who saw Wednesday's NOVA, Earth from Space, employing unprecedented coordination of data from all orbiters, synthesized into beautiful, educative graphics: will see Why a bunch of testosterone-crazed militants will kill not merely the dis-USA, but disrupt [n+1000] feedback-loops essential for maintenance of a livable Earth. It's bleak, maybe Hopeless but, fortunately: it's all about a future series of good/bad/indifferent choices we can't imagine at all. Carrion.

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