Turns out this is about more than the GOP just embracing policies that lead to disease and death - those same policies also win elections while making their morbidly rich campaign donors even richer
On the flip-side of this, everything that has made my life bearable has been fought for by big "D" and little "d" democrats: child welfare, public education, women's rights, labor laws, financial protections, Social Security, and Medicare. The list goes on, but most importantly they have and continue to fight for human rights and civil rights.
Good connections, though as I used to say in my statistics class, "Correlation is not causation." It is entirely possible that many of the poorest, sickest and least educated populations who are still able to donate money and are willing to vote were that way before the GOP went crazy. By a likely combination of accident and cynical design, Republicans found that they could whip up such people by pretending to be their friends and also blaming "The Other" for their ills. The fact that they have done nothing for them--in fact made their situations worse--is irrelevant to marginalized folks looking for scapegoats. You would think that they would figure this out, but it's easier to stay in denial than admit you've been had. It also leaves you with no one to blame, and that's something most people don't want to accept.
Forty years Thom? I think you meant to type 245 years of greed and racism: these are exactly what America was founded on, not Christianity, as some would have you believe.
The eternal war on truth, history, the scientific process, and just plain old thinking... These casualties are a deathblow to the foundation of actual, practiced freedom. I don't think the Generators Of Psychosis constituency are aware of their peril. That one word slogan - "Freedom" - used as often and with the same level of respect afforded toilet paper, has been reduced in meaning to a mangled puff of wispy smoke. This spells the death of more than a word. This fundamental tenet of a productive, functional, and largely peaceful society atrophies quickly to nothing more than a "heil" when it is co-opted by a powerful few in their quest for a perverse form of Lordship.
Always grateful to Thom for his levelheaded and tenacious effort in accurately ordering and disseminating the truths that brought us to this otherwise nonsensical present.
Thom, Thanks again for a logical, concise summary that shows the historic underpinnings of our current situation. In this case, the manipulation of the masses by the few, to the detriment of the many.
I think you've got something with the "reality tv" angle. Truly. False grievance gives way to truthful tellings of being had. We all love to air our victim status. It would be a fascinating human interest production and a great debut to the healing of those punked by Trump.
That's brilliant, Dave. Every part. I agree - if I'm understanding correctly - that we need a moral reckoning which bypasses the landmines of political bitchery.
The infrastructure of religion is vast and well-entrenched. Time for new leadership.
A lot our professional politicians behave completely irrational, rant, rave and call everyone names, if they don't happen to believe in the same political, psychological or philosophical slogans.
"Senator Marco Rubio says he won’t attend the State of the Union address because it requires a Covid test and he’s too busy to swab his nose. Rubio’s bizarre behavior is right in line with the GOP’s embrace of poverty, disease, and death."
The solution is fairly easy: Don't keep re-electing any of these politicians.
Somehow we need to figure out how to look across the Divide before it gets too wide and too big; otherwise America as a United Nation simply cannot continue to exist: We will have a very real repeat of the Civil War. Sure we have had 40-50 years of super conservative elected leadership in the US, but, somehow voters kept electing these people, and somehow money kept buying up all our newspapers. And corporations became country-sized monsters. But, we were lazy and allowed the world's best democracy to collapse.
As an independent voter I think both liberals and conservatives, as well as Mr. Hartman, will gather more consensus by sticking to respectful, polite and factual discussion of issues with all the people we think we disagree with.
At this moment the we have over 30 million registered independent voters in the US, and probably 20 million swing voters, with 10 million on each side of the divide. Most of us are sick and tired of both the Democratic Party's brand of liberalism and the Republican Party's brand of support for only the top 1%. People in the South of the US are, in general, pretty decent people, but they will never embrace the liberal politics of California, Oregon, Washington or New York. However, they sure can agree on quite a few common sense public policies. Perhaps if we focused on what we can agree on we might regain control of the Commons in America. Most US citizens can agree that we need Healthcare for All, and most agree that the pension system of old has disappeared in the US- thus most people will agree to lift income limits on Social Security to capture more contributions from people making more than $147,000 (2022 limit). Most people would probably also agree that the costs of pharmaceuticals have become ridiculous and would agree the pharmaceutical corporations need to be reigned in, have full liability for their remedies and should be prohibited from advertising. All the other extreme liberal, or conservative issues simply can't muster enough consensus to become national policy, and mostly serve to keep us from moving forward in any manner. Personally, I pray we will try very hard to become better listeners.
On the flip-side of this, everything that has made my life bearable has been fought for by big "D" and little "d" democrats: child welfare, public education, women's rights, labor laws, financial protections, Social Security, and Medicare. The list goes on, but most importantly they have and continue to fight for human rights and civil rights.
It's very clear to me who is pro-life.
Good connections, though as I used to say in my statistics class, "Correlation is not causation." It is entirely possible that many of the poorest, sickest and least educated populations who are still able to donate money and are willing to vote were that way before the GOP went crazy. By a likely combination of accident and cynical design, Republicans found that they could whip up such people by pretending to be their friends and also blaming "The Other" for their ills. The fact that they have done nothing for them--in fact made their situations worse--is irrelevant to marginalized folks looking for scapegoats. You would think that they would figure this out, but it's easier to stay in denial than admit you've been had. It also leaves you with no one to blame, and that's something most people don't want to accept.
Forty years Thom? I think you meant to type 245 years of greed and racism: these are exactly what America was founded on, not Christianity, as some would have you believe.
The eternal war on truth, history, the scientific process, and just plain old thinking... These casualties are a deathblow to the foundation of actual, practiced freedom. I don't think the Generators Of Psychosis constituency are aware of their peril. That one word slogan - "Freedom" - used as often and with the same level of respect afforded toilet paper, has been reduced in meaning to a mangled puff of wispy smoke. This spells the death of more than a word. This fundamental tenet of a productive, functional, and largely peaceful society atrophies quickly to nothing more than a "heil" when it is co-opted by a powerful few in their quest for a perverse form of Lordship.
Always grateful to Thom for his levelheaded and tenacious effort in accurately ordering and disseminating the truths that brought us to this otherwise nonsensical present.
Thom, Thanks again for a logical, concise summary that shows the historic underpinnings of our current situation. In this case, the manipulation of the masses by the few, to the detriment of the many.
Amen. Brilliant.
I think you've got something with the "reality tv" angle. Truly. False grievance gives way to truthful tellings of being had. We all love to air our victim status. It would be a fascinating human interest production and a great debut to the healing of those punked by Trump.
That's brilliant, Dave. Every part. I agree - if I'm understanding correctly - that we need a moral reckoning which bypasses the landmines of political bitchery.
The infrastructure of religion is vast and well-entrenched. Time for new leadership.
The Golden Rule... All this madness and it really comes down to just that.
A lot our professional politicians behave completely irrational, rant, rave and call everyone names, if they don't happen to believe in the same political, psychological or philosophical slogans.
"Senator Marco Rubio says he won’t attend the State of the Union address because it requires a Covid test and he’s too busy to swab his nose. Rubio’s bizarre behavior is right in line with the GOP’s embrace of poverty, disease, and death."
The solution is fairly easy: Don't keep re-electing any of these politicians.
Somehow we need to figure out how to look across the Divide before it gets too wide and too big; otherwise America as a United Nation simply cannot continue to exist: We will have a very real repeat of the Civil War. Sure we have had 40-50 years of super conservative elected leadership in the US, but, somehow voters kept electing these people, and somehow money kept buying up all our newspapers. And corporations became country-sized monsters. But, we were lazy and allowed the world's best democracy to collapse.
As an independent voter I think both liberals and conservatives, as well as Mr. Hartman, will gather more consensus by sticking to respectful, polite and factual discussion of issues with all the people we think we disagree with.
At this moment the we have over 30 million registered independent voters in the US, and probably 20 million swing voters, with 10 million on each side of the divide. Most of us are sick and tired of both the Democratic Party's brand of liberalism and the Republican Party's brand of support for only the top 1%. People in the South of the US are, in general, pretty decent people, but they will never embrace the liberal politics of California, Oregon, Washington or New York. However, they sure can agree on quite a few common sense public policies. Perhaps if we focused on what we can agree on we might regain control of the Commons in America. Most US citizens can agree that we need Healthcare for All, and most agree that the pension system of old has disappeared in the US- thus most people will agree to lift income limits on Social Security to capture more contributions from people making more than $147,000 (2022 limit). Most people would probably also agree that the costs of pharmaceuticals have become ridiculous and would agree the pharmaceutical corporations need to be reigned in, have full liability for their remedies and should be prohibited from advertising. All the other extreme liberal, or conservative issues simply can't muster enough consensus to become national policy, and mostly serve to keep us from moving forward in any manner. Personally, I pray we will try very hard to become better listeners.
Because it's trickle down on the people's head & it ain't $$$
GQP depraved indifference.