I couldn’t bring myself to watch this year’s inauguration and from what I’ve heard about it, it was a good choice, blood pressure and all that.
I mean that’s the next President up there on the Dias in front of our Capital building and what was there this quadrennial?
A scowling vindictive narcissist telling the world:
"From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first."
The image is out of a nightmare, but we are living this one and the damages will be irreversible.
Trump declared we are no longer the United States of America, we are from this day forward the Corporation of Amerika.
Going forward the amoral business interests of a rare few are the only things that matter in this government.
The genuinely horrifying overriding reality I’m struggling with is that such an outrageously self-destructive childish attitude appears to sit okay with most Americans.
What happened to us? How have we forgotten that we are a country of immigrants with loved ones and family connections to every country in the world?
Weren’t we the proud leader of the world not that long ago? America set the inspiration and moral standards for other countries to follow and now this?
It’s true that we have long since lost our absolute world supremacy, but we were still the cornerstone to a civil (if frazzled) global community.
Now rather than learning from our mistakes and taking a sober assessment of our Earth and the future we are inexorably moving into,
we wrap ourselves in a child’s temper tantrum: “It all about me, me, me!"
How is it that so many Americans are on board with that? Have we become such a nation of scared citizens that we run into the arms of the first strongman
with easy answers who comes along? Someone who pretends all our problems can be blamed on others, rather than being the legacy of a string of short-sighted
self-interested choices.
In these days when the reality of global warming and biosphere destruction and social disintegration is knocking ever harder on our door, what Trump is offering
America and his corporate buddies, is akin to the American Indian’s Ghost Dance - a dying people’s last desperate attempt to return to better days when Earth was a
cornucopia and opportunities were boundless. It didn’t work for them, and it won’t work for us or our corporate overlords now.
We have got to make it here on this living planet that We The People and our avarice is mangling beyond redemption.
I know we are always supposed to end on a hopeful note, but I’m done with progressive daydreaming.
We’ve handed our government over to people who have contempt for our government and want to destroy it.
It’s worse, many are faith-shackled and literally want to see End Days of Earth and seem more than happy to help it alone.
Imagine, it’s going to be even worse than you dare imagine.
Then take a sober look at how we collectively allowed this to happen.
The next two and four years could be our greatest hour, or it could be the final nail in the coffin.
America, it’s your move.
I think those of us who have these questions aren’t looking at the world the way most people do. Most people are frightened, don’t want to know about anything outside their circle and will allow civility to break down very quickly when threatened. This was kept in check because you couldn’t get anywhere without going through the school system and you couldn’t get information without it being filtered through a media system that had responsible editors. Argue all you want about the quality of those editors, it was what everyone at least knew about. There were fringes, people who were kept away from all that, by chance or design, but when they tried to break in to civil society, they were quickly identified and dispatched.
Then some of them figured out how to use the TV, then cable, now internet. That, and home schooling and private schools, and there are a lot more ways to avoid the reasonable filters, the experts. Those experts are no longer trusted by millions of people. People who have any strings on any of this love it. These idiots are their play things. They get rich off selling the guns and sex toys. I’m not sure we can get that genie back in the bottle.
I'm not sure we can get that genie back in the bottle.
Yup hard to imagine how this can get turned around.
My first inkling of utter hopeless, was seeing how easily we absorbed all the lies and unnecessary horrors of the Iraq War of Profit as simply politics as usual.
Then Prez Bush gets re-elected.
We didn't care.
And the masters of war, certainly didn't give a damned about the carnage, it was just business.
Profitabe business at that.
And the DNC remained as inept and timid as possible.
:down:
I'm not sure we can get that genie back in the bottle.
Yup hard to imagine how this can get turned around.
My first inkling of utter hopeless, was seeing how easily we absorbed all the lies and unnecessary horrors of the Iraq War of Profit as simply politics as usual.
Then Prez Bush gets re-elected.
We didn't care.
What do you mean WE. Kemosabe?
And the masters of war, certainly didn't give a damned about the carnage, it was just business.
Profitabe business at that.
Indeed!
And the DNC remained as inept and timid as possible.
:down:
I couldn’t bring myself to watch this year’s inauguration and from what I’ve heard about it, it was a good choice, blood pressure and all that.
I mean that’s the next President up there on the Dias in front of our Capital building and what was there this quadrennial?
A scowling vindictive narcissist telling the world:
"From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first."
The image is out of a nightmare, but we are living this one and the damages will be irreversible.
Trump declared we are no longer the United States of America, we are from this day forward the Corporation of Amerika.
Going forward the amoral business interests of a rare few are the only things that matter in this government.
The genuinely horrifying overriding reality I’m struggling with is that such an outrageously self-destructive childish attitude appears to sit okay with most Americans.
What happened to us? How have we forgotten that we are a country of immigrants with loved ones and family connections to every country in the world?
Weren’t we the proud leader of the world not that long ago? America set the inspiration and moral standards for other countries to follow and now this?
It’s true that we have long since lost our absolute world supremacy, but we were still the cornerstone to a civil (if frazzled) global community.
Now rather than learning from our mistakes and taking a sober assessment of our Earth and the future we are inexorably moving into,
we wrap ourselves in a child’s temper tantrum: “It all about me, me, me!"
How is it that so many Americans are on board with that? Have we become such a nation of scared citizens that we run into the arms of the first strongman
with easy answers who comes along? Someone who pretends all our problems can be blamed on others, rather than being the legacy of a string of short-sighted
self-interested choices.
In these days when the reality of global warming and biosphere destruction and social disintegration is knocking ever harder on our door, what Trump is offering
America and his corporate buddies, is akin to the American Indian’s Ghost Dance - a dying people’s last desperate attempt to return to better days when Earth was a
cornucopia and opportunities were boundless. It didn’t work for them, and it won’t work for us or our corporate overlords now.
We have got to make it here on this living planet that We The People and our avarice is mangling beyond redemption.
I know we are always supposed to end on a hopeful note, but I’m done with progressive daydreaming.
We’ve handed our government over to people who have contempt for our government and want to destroy it.
It’s worse, many are faith-shackled and literally want to see End Days of Earth and seem more than happy to help it alone.
Imagine, it’s going to be even worse than you dare imagine.
Then take a sober look at how we collectively allowed this to happen.
The next two and four years could be our greatest hour, or it could be the final nail in the coffin.
America, it’s your move.
Sorry Lois, I’m no mood to ‘excuse’ anyone. This is a collective failure at least 20 (actually more like 40) years in the making.
I tried my damned best
and no one gives a flying fuck about any of the ideas I've tried arguing or bringing to the surface.
Obviously it wasn't my damned best.
Too many day to day obligations and distractions kept me from driving it home doing the kind of work I'm capable of if only I were given the freedom of time to devote to it.
Bottomline is it wasn't enough and I along with all the rest of not-near-enough efforts that added to one huge failure of vision and communication.
Maybe some failures were more egregious than others, but here we in the shit storm and the DNC, nor from what I can does anyone else, has a clue what to do about it.
So now - how to confront these absolutist rightwing pigs with egos so big they mistake them for God?
And CFI with organization and meetings all over, involving who knows how many,
Yet this international blog is a dead cemetery with a few lonely souls wandering around trying to keep it from totally folding and dreaming of some good conversation.
What's the point of proclaiming innocence? - This shit show is going to turn out worse than any one cares to image,
because we are always too busy thinking positive and so fucking shallow I could puke.
I’m beginning to lose hope, too. Two days ago on Facebook one of my long-time friends (he took photos at my wedding almost 32 years ago) posted a rant about liberals painting him as a racist because he supports Trump. I explained how this was a straw man argument, then went on to say he isn’t a racist but he does support a racist. Somehow the thread drifted to discussing the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration. One of the participants posted an aerial shot from CNN showing an empty scene, said I probably believed that was the truth and posted a near ground level photo obviously shot with a telephoto lens that showed stands filled with hundreds of people. He then accused me on not facing reality.
Sigh.
What can you do? I didn’t bother replying, as several other people piled on and started calling me “libtard” and saying I am part of the problems with this country. They won’t listen to anyone outside their echo chamber and facts do not matter to them.
I read an article on his signing of an executive order. Some video popped up that was hard to watch. He was being handed orders from a stack, he would look at them as if it was the first time he’d seen it, then speak in his usual way, saying things like, “we’re going to negotiate the pipeline, on our terms” and “we’re going to build it using US steel, gonna put steel workers back to work”. Then he would hold it up to the cameras. That was a minor thing, but one among many of the non-presidential stature of the man. He seemed to have no prepared remarks for what he was doing, as if he told some underling to “make an executive order about pipelines, then I’ll sign it.” Not really caring about the details. It was like Radar O’Reilly getting his C.O. to sign things.
I read an article on his signing of an executive order. Some video popped up that was hard to watch. He was being handed orders from a stack, he would look at them as if it was the first time he'd seen it, then speak in his usual way, saying things like, "we're going to negotiate the pipeline, on our terms" and "we're going to build it using US steel, gonna put steel workers back to work". Then he would hold it up to the cameras. That was a minor thing, but one among many of the non-presidential stature of the man. He seemed to have no prepared remarks for what he was doing, as if he told some underling to "make an executive order about pipelines, then I'll sign it." Not really caring about the details. It was like Radar O'Reilly getting his C.O. to sign things.
Of course he doesn't care about details, christ the guy doesn't even read books.
He doesn't have a clue what he's doing, but the Republican extremist and puppies of the oligarchs they sure as hell know what they are doing and
Democrats are stuck looking stupid with their dicks in their hands looking more like Hot Lips Houlihan when the canvas dropped-
than anything our Founding Fathers would recognize.
The more I think about, the more it seems a fitting metaphor
With the folks sitting there having their cocktails waiting for the show McConnell, Ryan, Kochs and then rest.
Our grand Democratic Party being aptly represented by Hot Lips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYTl9G6HoW0
Now what?
Be respectful? Republicans want to destroy our government, for the cause of saving the white supremacist power structure.
What is there to “respect” about the trumpesters and their hate on for the rest of our pluralistic nation? Sure they are also humans, but they want to bring America into the Stone Age, so what’s to respect?
What is there to “respect” about someone like Mike Yohe and his ilk who believe it’s okay to lie, misrepresent, confuse climate science so much so that nothing happens to mitigate the damage we are inflicting - to the point of allowing ourselves to destroy our natural global life support system.
And make no mistake we are only at the beginning of the self destruction people have designed for ourselves and the rest of the fantastical planet’s biosphere.
I would like to hear that. The despicable William F Buckley was the other side when I was much younger, but I would gladly trade him for the current Right Wing of the right wing. I miss Jeb Bush, who is still alive, I think. There are Republican representatives who quit or who were “primaried” out that I’m I’d like more than what we have now. The game is being won by obscuring the lines.
Trump singled out election official. Hear the horrific voicemails he received
September 8th of this year.
What do we do if one side, only ever has civility in their PR Talking Points in glitzy ads -
while in the real world, this is happening?
Rachel Maddow looks at how Republicans have made Donald Trump’s Big Lie that his 2020 loss was fraudulent so central to their political identity that candidates are crying fraud as their campaign message before any elections even take place.
You’re right. They need to be, but they aren’t. We need the million marm march. A million little ladies with their hair buns walking through DC, shaking their fingers at all the bad little boys and girls.
You’re getting troll-ish. You make a vague statement about being respectful, then you make some weird sideways insult when I talk about one of the ways respect is taught. How do we get our leaders to return to the respectful discourse they once had 50 years ago? How we undo the changes to the rules of order in Congress that have institutionalized gridlock? How do get to the principles of including everyone in the democratic process?
How do we get our leaders to return to the respectful discourse they once had 50 years ago? How we undo the changes to the rules of order in Congress that have institutionalized gridlock? How do get to the principles of including everyone in the democratic process?
Anonymity . That old adage of looking someone in the eye has long passed.
Definition of look (someone) in the eye:
to look directly at (someone who is also looking at one)
“I wasn’t afraid to look him (right) in the eye and tell him just what I thought of him!”
