I find it funny that Trump doesn’t realize Ayatollah Khomeini has been dead for 30 years and sanctioning him is pointless. Ditto for the current leader Khamenei who lives humbly and doesn’t even have a driver’s license.
But sanctioning Mohammad Javad Zarif just pissed off the Moderates who have all fallen in line with the Hardliners in stating there will be no more negotiations and no further attempts to talk to America.
And now the Europeans are revealed to be weak puppets, which everyone knew, but now they have proof of it as they wouldn’t take decisive action against the unilateral pullout of the US from the nuclear deal.
There needs to be a poll test, and I don’t give a good goddamn if it does have a disproportionately negative effect on the white trash. Send ’em back to school.
…and I don’t give a good goddamn if it does have a disproportionately negative effect on the white trash.
I don’t give a good goddamn either, believe me.
A Make America Great Again deplorable hit my daughter’s car last week and fled the scene of the accident. She’s attending summer classes at the college she’s attending in the Deep South. In the heart of Trump Country.
The coward is a Trump Deplorable in every conceivable way, including rapist, predatorial tendencies.
He drives a huge pick-up truck with the giant wheels and raised body. He was parked in an area where these trucks are prohibited by law for all the obvious reasons.
My daughter was emotionally distressed immediately subsequent to the accident and some fine folks at a shop that sells cannabis oil came to her aid after she pulled over to investigate and settle matters with the driver of the pick-up that tore off the side of her car. Much to her dismay, the coward fled the scene and was nowhere to be seen. She had a very important chemistry test she had to take in less than half an hour. This is a weed-out course she had failed the first time through and was taking again. She couldn’t afford to miss the test because her scholarship hangs in the balance.
As it turns out, the blond-haired, blue-eyed redneck devil may have come back to the scene of his crime five minutes later but surreptitiously to determine the scope of his liability and to manipulate the outcome. The fine folks from the cannabis oil shop offered to call the cops. Concomitantly, this blond-haired, blue-eyed redneck shows up out of nowhere acting concerned and he says, and I kid you not, “I don’t want you to call the cops. Don’t call the cops.” He never announced he was the driver of the truck and my daughter was so emotional at the time and off-balance, she didn’t fathom that this cowardly, criminal MAGA deplorable prick could very well have been the driver of the pick-up truck.
My wife accompanied our daughter to police headquarters yesterday and reported the hit & run accident. They have security cameras so this guy will be caught and charged accordingly. My wife and I are concerned that this coward fits the profile of someone who would seek retaliation against our daughter and here’s the rub. The law protects him from me defending my daughter. He’s guilty, there is no question. Will there be justice? What if he doesn’t have insurance? What if he retaliates? Can I administer my own brand of justice to someone who should never have been born and is a menace to society? To someone who is damaged and incapable of rehabilitation and/or transformation? To someone who is a mistake and doesn’t deserve to exist in this realm?
Make America Great Again. This is the reality of that absurd meme. The return to a time when white trash could be white trash without recourse. Deplorable is too nice of a description for these cretins and going back to school cannot and would not transform them. They are abominations from the day they were conceived and I agree, despite my feelings about voting our way of this, that they should not be allowed to vote. The hogs and cows and chickens we consume en masse deserve better and more humane treatment than these despicable, loathsome creatures because at least the cows and hogs and chickens provide some form of value whereas the deplorables, for lack of a better term, not only don’t provide any value but are in fact Less Than Zero.
If only the better people have a say in governance, it’s authoritarian. If everybody has a say in governance, it’s democracy. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, but I’ve had enough of other people with supreme self esteem making decisions for me for my own good, so I’ll take democracy.
Let’s blame the people in charge for creating a society with so many jerks. (I say this as one whose car was totaled by a jerk running a red light as he texted away and who then claimed he had the green, so the insurance companies couldn’t decide who was at fault. I’m still angry and freak out at intersections.)
…but I’ve had enough of other people with supreme self esteem making decisions for me for my own good, so I’ll take democracy.
Great idea, but let’s extend that democracy to the entire planet and all that inhabits it because it’s all at stake considering the ramifications of climate change and civilization in general.
The swine and cows and fowl and fish, all of the countless species that are exponentially going extinct every day, they all get a vote. Sure, they’re incapable of critical thought but then so too are the deplorable Trump supporters.
If we’re going to do democracy, let’s do it all the way.
Fyi, the Muslim Brotherhood loves it some democracy too. It was a huge advocate of democracy in Egypt and it’s what allowed it to gain political power there. Once in power, the Muslim Brotherhood suddenly was no longer interested in democracy and instead was more interested in dismantling democratic processes and replacing it with tyrannical Sharia Law. That’s one of the many inherent failures of democracy. It can be too easily gamed and is by the psychopaths who use it to gain power and then hollow it out once they’re in power to the point it’s a tyranny with the lipstick of democracy.
“There needs to be a poll test, and I don’t give a good goddamn if it does have a disproportionately negative effect on the white trash. Send ’em back to school.
Too many stupid people vote. It needs to stop.”
I’m surrounded by PhDs and can guarantee that a poll test would only get you President Hillary Clinton and no farther with them.
I prefer democracy, not authoritarianism that calls itself democracy (like Brazil, Egypt, Ukraine, or frankly, the U.S.) or that others claim is democracy (as the U.S. claims that the installed governments of the color revolutions are or as they wish to impose in Iran and Venezuela). The first step towards democracy is to accept that our fellow citizens have equal right to participate in self-governance. Our adventures abroad denying citizens of other countries the right of self-governance when they make decisions our leaders don’t like have come home.
Surely there are plenty of women ready to tell their accounts of how Joe Biden raped them, right? It’s a fact. Powerful men rape women. It’s as absolute as Einstein’s Law of Relativity.
I surmise the accusations about Biden’s rapes will surface when he becomes the nominee, so we have another year until they manifest.
Then, the flood gates will open and we’ll see Biden and Trump have much in common despite their alleged ideological differences.
When that time comes, Biden can say to Trump, “see, Donald, #MeToo.”
What has been starched out of us and what we need to redevelop is political consciousness. Trump and the Republicans are like negative space. The current Democratic contest is completely vacuous. It should be far less about the personalities and the horse race and far more about them being with us, standing with us, fighting beside us, and doing what we want them to do. Solidarity may seem quaint and old-fashioned but it speaks to that real connection we need to have with each other and that those we elect need to have with us.
Don’t know if it’s still so, but you used to have to take a civil service exam to deliver the mail. Is that too much to ask, a simple demonstration the potential voter has a modicum of understanding of just what the fawk is going on? That can read and write and has a grasp of the good of the many …
Why are y\’all so focused on building a poll test to shatter this already fragmented populace, when you can just fix the fucked education system and eliminate the need for a test while making literally everyone\’s life better at the same time?
I mean yeah yeah Trump voters are bigoted back-row inbred retards, but maybe if their life was less shit they\’d be less shit?
Is that too much to ask, a simple demonstration the potential voter has a modicum of understanding of just what the fawk is going on?
Maybe voting is the test. If you are smart enough to realize that that system is rigged against you, you do not bother to vote. Lots of people who are eligible do not vote.
“Trump voters are bigoted back-row inbred retards” – TheOPG
I’m somebody who voted for Trump, in fact, I told my high level [D] friends how to stop me me from voting for Trump…but did they listen? No. No…they did not, instead, they did the one thing that insured that I would go out and vote for Trump.
Who is more of a “bigoted back-row inbred retard”, a person who voted for Trump, or, a Democratic operative who went out of their way to make sure that millions of ex-[D]’s would vote for Trump? I’d argue the latter.
An IQ test only allows the stupid people to get off. The problem is 2-fold: the reactionary party wants Trump to push the right, the leaders of the conservative party want things to stay the same. The are no liberals, so vote with the conservatives.
I can identify, S Brennan, somewhat. I hold the democrats as responsible for the mess we are in as the republicans. The democrats, in spite of tens of millions of voices yelling from the top of their lungs DON’T DO IT! chose to run a candidate because “it’s her turn” that couldn’t beat the celebrity clown friend of the family candidate who was actively campaigning to get her elected. Had the dems not chosen to ignore the tens of millions of voices yelling from the top of their lungs DON’T DO IT! and ran a candidate because “it’s her turn” Trump would not have made it past the first debate, if he were in the debate at all. And no amount of blame-game finger-pointing belittling, condescending denigrating Republican-Lite behavior will change that.
And it looks like they’re gonna’ do it again.
What’s interesting is of the couple a’three places I beta-d this here (surprising) has been the only reasonable discussion, everyone else is too busy bickering over Bernie. Moreso though: I think the subtlety is lost, I am perhaps a bit too obtuse. My suggestion of a poll test is to turn it back in their faces, to use the same tools and strategies so successfully used against the rest of us down through the years against “them”. I don’t care if the white-trash can’t pass the test, I can. That’s the point. Not unlike the subtlety lost when I suggest we round them all up, stuff them into cattle-cars and ship them off to a reservation somewhere out in the hinterlands. They just don’t get it.
We have to stop doing what we’re doing. It isn’t working.
Maybe voting is the test. If you are smart enough to realize that that system is rigged against you, you do not bother to vote. Lots of people who are eligible do not vote.
Great point. Clearly my tongue is in my cheek when I agree there should be a poll test. As I’ve said, there is no way we’re voting our way out of this mess.
The last time I voted, I naively & reactively voted for John Kerry as a protest against Bush’s invasion & occupation of Iraq.. When Kerry lost, it dawned on me that he expected to lose and wanted to lose. At that point, I finally came to the realization that the system is rigged. Hell, I had to hold my nose to vote for Kerry because he really didn’t inspire me all that much. He was not a fighter. He had no passion. He was happy to be the loser because when it was all said and done, he really didn’t lose, did he? He and his ilk are still in the catbird’s seat regardless of who sits in the Oval Office so it’s really no sweat off their backs.
Obviously, those who support Trump or those who voted for him in 2016 are an amalgam. They’re not a monolith, in otherwords. S. Brennan certainly isn’t representative of the coward I described in my earlier comment. But that cretin I described is someone I will never find solidarity with. NEVER. He is part of a recalcitrant culture that has persisted since America was formed and even though it had its ass handed to it in the Civil War, it still persisted and persists to this day. It’s vile & evil and there is nothing redeeming about it. It’s time for it to be eliminated considering all of the harm it’s done. But who’s going to eliminate it entirely and with what will it be replaced? Will it be replaced, if its eliminated entirely, with something as equally onerous from the so-called “Left?” If so, no thanks. It’s a conundrum, for sure. Sisyphus comes to mind. Hercules, like God, is dead.
Sharia Law has been on the books in all MENA Countries with the exception of Turkey since their foundation. It is an utter myth that those Nations are/were secular prior to 2011.
You can’t go into any of those nations except Turkey and openly insult the Prophet Muhammad and not get thrown in Jail and tortured. Civil Law is handled by Sharia Courts in each of those nations except Turkey which has a fully secular constitution which Erdogan has preserved and which everyone keeps ignoring to score cheap points to drive an agenda.
As it is, Erdogan abided by the Democratic Process, as the recent elections showed after YSK (not Erdogan as everyone outside of Turkey keeps forgetting) ordered the Istanbul Mayoral Elections redone after clear illegalities were proven to it from the first round. As soon as it appeared Ekrem had a commanding lead, Yildrim conceded and Erdogan congratulated Ekrem on his victory.
Morsi did not introduce Sharia and did not enforce it either, spending his short time trying to bring a peaceful end to the Sinai Conflict, reform the Bureaucracy so it worked for the people and establishing civilian control over the military. At every step of the way, he was giving the Egyptian People Referendums to decide on the course of their country and giving local autonomy to the religious minorities so they could establish their own civil courts outside of the Sharia Civil Courts that had always existed in Egypt. During all of this, the Mubarak Bureaucracy he inherited was actively sabotaging him and preparing to overthrow him.
Sissi by contrast is actively policing belly dancers who dance too provocatively, throwing pop singers in jail for sucking on bananas in music videos, torturing and executing people with show trials, and driving the economy into the ground with corruption. On top of that, his policies are causing the country to slide into full scale civil war as previously peaceful protesters realize the only way out is to use force to end Sissi’s regime and kill him for his crimes.
Also out of curiosity have you ever actually researched Sharia Law and understood its historical context and/or complexities and schools? It isn’t monolithic and varies widely in interpretation across Muslim Communities.
Back to the subject of Democracy itself, it is the guiding principle that people have the right to vote the bastards out. That Trump is president is the result of the D&Rs constantly refusing to address the profound structural problems of America. If the D&Rs had not sinned so much, Trump would not be in office.
So don’t blame the voters, blame the politicians for failure to do their jobs.
Sanders is building a movement. That’s what is most impressive about his campaign and why he is the candidate who has the best chance, by far, of effectuating substantial positive change in favor of the working class. He’s got a lot of support among young voters who are intelligent, invigorated, and aware of what is at stake. The building strength of the DSA is tied to his popularity. Without the growth of the DSA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would not have won her seat. That was a critical election that went in the working class’s direction.
Warren worries me in that she seems to have a much stronger belief that the structure of the system is okay and it’s primarily the process that has to be improved upon. She’s not even openly supportive for Medicare-For-All. Process can be defeated and if she doesn’t have a movement behind her, she’s not likely to get much done in Congress. A lot of her policy would be limited to executive orders.
Power has to be seized, the system is too far corrupted. This bill that Sanders is proposing to extinguish all student debt by directly making Wall Street pay for it with a transaction tax is an assault on Wall Street’s power. Warren’s proposal doesn’t forgive all student debt, she wants to qualify it by how much the person is earning, so she still wants to keep the debt and maintain that financial structure and wants to pay for the debt forgiveness through a wealth tax, not a tax focused on Wall Street.
I think Warren would make a great vice president because she’s more attune to process than Sanders is. But I think she would be an unsuccessful president because the fight, the outrage, is not in her to the extent it is in Sanders. She still relates too much to the rich IMO and to meritocracy. Remember she did teach at Harvard. Sanders does not relate to the rich at all, he relates to the working class. In some ways, she is still playing the dnc/dccc game by being willing to compromise in order to have their backing, or at least avoid their open opposition.
Over 200,000 deaths due to opioids directly attributable to judges working to keep corporate misdeeds out of the public eye. Just in case there was a branch of government that you thought wasn’t corrupt.
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg’s (that’s his full name, no lie) recent dustup with black constituents in South Bend reveals and underscores the contradictory folly of special interest politics.
Black lives matter squares off against lgbt in South Bend. But I bet blm has no problem with Biden who, if he were to win, would be the third black potus after Clinton and Obama.
Isn’t it horrible how oppressed Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is and how much he’s suffered his entire life because he was and is lgbt? Someone should make a documentary or movie about it. It’d break records at the box office. I have the perfect name. South Bend.
I think Peter Paul Selma Buttigieg sounds better, don’t you? If his parents named him Selma versus Montgomery, perhaps the dustup in South Bend could have been avoided. Optics are important, afterall. Right?
In a comment on another thread, I drew attention to a post on Crooked Timber where Henry, a college professor (I believe), builds liberal resentment against Sanders’ proposal. It is quite a piece of work, showing how easily class ideology and resentments can be motivated even by a highly educated person who ought to know better to torpedo the most sensible reform. I emphasize that Henry is a college professor at a state university (open to correction on that point) so he ought to deeply familiar with the myriad problems attending the financialization of college education. Indeed, I think he’s complained about them in the past. But, given a chance to back reform, he goes all squishy.
It is not just that he lacks militancy. I would not expect it. What is shocking to me is that he isn’t even embarrassed by making an economically stupid argument that no educated person ought to be making. He’s arguing that money financed from taxes (or not as MMT would have it — not important) spent on debt relief in a pure wealth transfer cannot be spent on real goods and services. It is craziness. But, his determination to see the lower classes screwed overcomes his intelligence and education.
That’s what Sanders’s candidacy (and movement) is up against.
Sorry to be a downer. It is a steep, slippery hill he’s climbing.
The growth of DSA, AOC’s shocking defeat of Crowley, AMZN’s HQ2 Headquarters reversal in New York, and now Caban’s win as DA in Queens, all these came directly or indirectly out of the Sanders 2016 campaign.
And now student debt forgiveness, medicare-for-all, $15 minimum wage are all issues that the democratic party presidential candidates have been forced to take a stance on, and most of them are at least claiming that they are leaning in the direction that Sanders is calling for.
He’s also giving public speeches explaining and proudly defending democratic socialism.
The Overton window has moved to the left and no one has played a larger role in that movement than Sanders.
“Bernie Sanders has finally made it official, endorsing Hillary Clinton in rousing fashion as they appeared on stage together Tuesday — but will his supporters join him?”
“Bernie Sanders has finally made it official, endorsing Joe Biden in rousing fashion as they appeared on stage together Tuesday — but will his supporters join him?”
Bernie is put forth as virtuous compared to Trump and his deplorables but I contend Trump doesn’t hold the patent on deplorables. There are deplorables on the so-called right and deplorables on the so-called left.
I have direct experience with a deplorable on the so-called left who was a higher up in Bernie’s 2016 campaign who now works for a political consulting firm, Aristotle, helping school candidates on how to adroitly manipulate the fools who delusionally believe their candidate is the answer to what ails them.
Of course, this former Bernie higher up supports canceling student loan debt when you consider after a review of their criminal record they skipped out on a $3,500 Victoria Secret bill and didn’t show up to court when Victoria’s Secret pressed. $3,500!! That’s a lot of sexy panties. What on earth would someone need all that sexually evocative & titillating lingerie for? Unless.
This same Bernie higher up has openly supported a goon who has been accused by a slew of women of sexual harassment and rape and one of the women has claimed he said he would kill them like he killed his girlfriend who went missing 15 years prior and has never been found. Let that sink in. A person who is good friends with Bernie Sanders supports a rapist and potential murderer and this person does so arrogantly & defiantly.
Oh, and this Bernie higher up also filed a false police report and used D.C. police, under false pretenses, as a tool to harass a citizen in the hinterlands. Did you know that the D.C. police are affiliated with the DOJ and a quasi extension of the DOJ? Did you know that the Washington D.C. establishment, all the crooks that enable the political chicanery, are protected by the DOJ? Did you know they are immune from the law and that the law not only does not apply to them but they can use the law under false pretenses to disavow you of your rights?
Just as you are what you eat, a politician is his staff. Consequently, Bernie is this higher up until he openly excoriates the immoral cretin and apologizes for ever being affiliated with them in any way and shows that he/she has taken steps to prevent & avoid such affiliations in future.
And yes, I have brought all of this up to Bernie and he has ignored me. Considering that, I can only assume he not only plans on canceling all student loan debt but all Victoria’s Secret debt as well and he will institute legislation where all rapists and murderers will have their sentences dropped and there will never again be crimes such as rape & murder.
Tom
I find it funny that Trump doesn’t realize Ayatollah Khomeini has been dead for 30 years and sanctioning him is pointless. Ditto for the current leader Khamenei who lives humbly and doesn’t even have a driver’s license.
But sanctioning Mohammad Javad Zarif just pissed off the Moderates who have all fallen in line with the Hardliners in stating there will be no more negotiations and no further attempts to talk to America.
And now the Europeans are revealed to be weak puppets, which everyone knew, but now they have proof of it as they wouldn’t take decisive action against the unilateral pullout of the US from the nuclear deal.
Ten Bears
There needs to be a poll test, and I don’t give a good goddamn if it does have a disproportionately negative effect on the white trash. Send ’em back to school.
Too many stupid people vote. It needs to stop.
450.org
I don’t give a good goddamn either, believe me.
A Make America Great Again deplorable hit my daughter’s car last week and fled the scene of the accident. She’s attending summer classes at the college she’s attending in the Deep South. In the heart of Trump Country.
The coward is a Trump Deplorable in every conceivable way, including rapist, predatorial tendencies.
He drives a huge pick-up truck with the giant wheels and raised body. He was parked in an area where these trucks are prohibited by law for all the obvious reasons.
My daughter was emotionally distressed immediately subsequent to the accident and some fine folks at a shop that sells cannabis oil came to her aid after she pulled over to investigate and settle matters with the driver of the pick-up that tore off the side of her car. Much to her dismay, the coward fled the scene and was nowhere to be seen. She had a very important chemistry test she had to take in less than half an hour. This is a weed-out course she had failed the first time through and was taking again. She couldn’t afford to miss the test because her scholarship hangs in the balance.
As it turns out, the blond-haired, blue-eyed redneck devil may have come back to the scene of his crime five minutes later but surreptitiously to determine the scope of his liability and to manipulate the outcome. The fine folks from the cannabis oil shop offered to call the cops. Concomitantly, this blond-haired, blue-eyed redneck shows up out of nowhere acting concerned and he says, and I kid you not, “I don’t want you to call the cops. Don’t call the cops.” He never announced he was the driver of the truck and my daughter was so emotional at the time and off-balance, she didn’t fathom that this cowardly, criminal MAGA deplorable prick could very well have been the driver of the pick-up truck.
My wife accompanied our daughter to police headquarters yesterday and reported the hit & run accident. They have security cameras so this guy will be caught and charged accordingly. My wife and I are concerned that this coward fits the profile of someone who would seek retaliation against our daughter and here’s the rub. The law protects him from me defending my daughter. He’s guilty, there is no question. Will there be justice? What if he doesn’t have insurance? What if he retaliates? Can I administer my own brand of justice to someone who should never have been born and is a menace to society? To someone who is damaged and incapable of rehabilitation and/or transformation? To someone who is a mistake and doesn’t deserve to exist in this realm?
Make America Great Again. This is the reality of that absurd meme. The return to a time when white trash could be white trash without recourse. Deplorable is too nice of a description for these cretins and going back to school cannot and would not transform them. They are abominations from the day they were conceived and I agree, despite my feelings about voting our way of this, that they should not be allowed to vote. The hogs and cows and chickens we consume en masse deserve better and more humane treatment than these despicable, loathsome creatures because at least the cows and hogs and chickens provide some form of value whereas the deplorables, for lack of a better term, not only don’t provide any value but are in fact Less Than Zero.
nihil obstet
If only the better people have a say in governance, it’s authoritarian. If everybody has a say in governance, it’s democracy. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, but I’ve had enough of other people with supreme self esteem making decisions for me for my own good, so I’ll take democracy.
Let’s blame the people in charge for creating a society with so many jerks. (I say this as one whose car was totaled by a jerk running a red light as he texted away and who then claimed he had the green, so the insurance companies couldn’t decide who was at fault. I’m still angry and freak out at intersections.)
Lvqt
Nowadays, Max Headroom is more plausible than Edison Carter.
450.org
Great idea, but let’s extend that democracy to the entire planet and all that inhabits it because it’s all at stake considering the ramifications of climate change and civilization in general.
The swine and cows and fowl and fish, all of the countless species that are exponentially going extinct every day, they all get a vote. Sure, they’re incapable of critical thought but then so too are the deplorable Trump supporters.
If we’re going to do democracy, let’s do it all the way.
Fyi, the Muslim Brotherhood loves it some democracy too. It was a huge advocate of democracy in Egypt and it’s what allowed it to gain political power there. Once in power, the Muslim Brotherhood suddenly was no longer interested in democracy and instead was more interested in dismantling democratic processes and replacing it with tyrannical Sharia Law. That’s one of the many inherent failures of democracy. It can be too easily gamed and is by the psychopaths who use it to gain power and then hollow it out once they’re in power to the point it’s a tyranny with the lipstick of democracy.
Robotpliers
“There needs to be a poll test, and I don’t give a good goddamn if it does have a disproportionately negative effect on the white trash. Send ’em back to school.
Too many stupid people vote. It needs to stop.”
I’m surrounded by PhDs and can guarantee that a poll test would only get you President Hillary Clinton and no farther with them.
nihil obstet
I prefer democracy, not authoritarianism that calls itself democracy (like Brazil, Egypt, Ukraine, or frankly, the U.S.) or that others claim is democracy (as the U.S. claims that the installed governments of the color revolutions are or as they wish to impose in Iran and Venezuela). The first step towards democracy is to accept that our fellow citizens have equal right to participate in self-governance. Our adventures abroad denying citizens of other countries the right of self-governance when they make decisions our leaders don’t like have come home.
450.org
Surely there are plenty of women ready to tell their accounts of how Joe Biden raped them, right? It’s a fact. Powerful men rape women. It’s as absolute as Einstein’s Law of Relativity.
I surmise the accusations about Biden’s rapes will surface when he becomes the nominee, so we have another year until they manifest.
Then, the flood gates will open and we’ll see Biden and Trump have much in common despite their alleged ideological differences.
When that time comes, Biden can say to Trump, “see, Donald, #MeToo.”
Apropos of nothing but it did and does make me laugh because it’s so wittily true.
450.org
Well then, we need to design a more effective poll test, don’t we?
Hugh
What has been starched out of us and what we need to redevelop is political consciousness. Trump and the Republicans are like negative space. The current Democratic contest is completely vacuous. It should be far less about the personalities and the horse race and far more about them being with us, standing with us, fighting beside us, and doing what we want them to do. Solidarity may seem quaint and old-fashioned but it speaks to that real connection we need to have with each other and that those we elect need to have with us.
Ten Bears
Don’t know if it’s still so, but you used to have to take a civil service exam to deliver the mail. Is that too much to ask, a simple demonstration the potential voter has a modicum of understanding of just what the fawk is going on? That can read and write and has a grasp of the good of the many …
mago
en tus suenos amigos.
TheOPG
Why are y\’all so focused on building a poll test to shatter this already fragmented populace, when you can just fix the fucked education system and eliminate the need for a test while making literally everyone\’s life better at the same time?
I mean yeah yeah Trump voters are bigoted back-row inbred retards, but maybe if their life was less shit they\’d be less shit?
bruce wilder
Is that too much to ask, a simple demonstration the potential voter has a modicum of understanding of just what the fawk is going on?
Maybe voting is the test. If you are smart enough to realize that that system is rigged against you, you do not bother to vote. Lots of people who are eligible do not vote.
S Brennan
“Trump voters are bigoted back-row inbred retards” – TheOPG
I’m somebody who voted for Trump, in fact, I told my high level [D] friends how to stop me me from voting for Trump…but did they listen? No. No…they did not, instead, they did the one thing that insured that I would go out and vote for Trump.
Who is more of a “bigoted back-row inbred retard”, a person who voted for Trump, or, a Democratic operative who went out of their way to make sure that millions of ex-[D]’s would vote for Trump? I’d argue the latter.
Stirling S Newberry
An IQ test only allows the stupid people to get off. The problem is 2-fold: the reactionary party wants Trump to push the right, the leaders of the conservative party want things to stay the same. The are no liberals, so vote with the conservatives.
Ten Bears
I can identify, S Brennan, somewhat. I hold the democrats as responsible for the mess we are in as the republicans. The democrats, in spite of tens of millions of voices yelling from the top of their lungs DON’T DO IT! chose to run a candidate because “it’s her turn” that couldn’t beat the celebrity clown friend of the family candidate who was actively campaigning to get her elected. Had the dems not chosen to ignore the tens of millions of voices yelling from the top of their lungs DON’T DO IT! and ran a candidate because “it’s her turn” Trump would not have made it past the first debate, if he were in the debate at all. And no amount of blame-game finger-pointing belittling, condescending denigrating Republican-Lite behavior will change that.
And it looks like they’re gonna’ do it again.
What’s interesting is of the couple a’three places I beta-d this here (surprising) has been the only reasonable discussion, everyone else is too busy bickering over Bernie. Moreso though: I think the subtlety is lost, I am perhaps a bit too obtuse. My suggestion of a poll test is to turn it back in their faces, to use the same tools and strategies so successfully used against the rest of us down through the years against “them”. I don’t care if the white-trash can’t pass the test, I can. That’s the point. Not unlike the subtlety lost when I suggest we round them all up, stuff them into cattle-cars and ship them off to a reservation somewhere out in the hinterlands. They just don’t get it.
We have to stop doing what we’re doing. It isn’t working.
450.org
Great point. Clearly my tongue is in my cheek when I agree there should be a poll test. As I’ve said, there is no way we’re voting our way out of this mess.
The last time I voted, I naively & reactively voted for John Kerry as a protest against Bush’s invasion & occupation of Iraq.. When Kerry lost, it dawned on me that he expected to lose and wanted to lose. At that point, I finally came to the realization that the system is rigged. Hell, I had to hold my nose to vote for Kerry because he really didn’t inspire me all that much. He was not a fighter. He had no passion. He was happy to be the loser because when it was all said and done, he really didn’t lose, did he? He and his ilk are still in the catbird’s seat regardless of who sits in the Oval Office so it’s really no sweat off their backs.
Obviously, those who support Trump or those who voted for him in 2016 are an amalgam. They’re not a monolith, in otherwords. S. Brennan certainly isn’t representative of the coward I described in my earlier comment. But that cretin I described is someone I will never find solidarity with. NEVER. He is part of a recalcitrant culture that has persisted since America was formed and even though it had its ass handed to it in the Civil War, it still persisted and persists to this day. It’s vile & evil and there is nothing redeeming about it. It’s time for it to be eliminated considering all of the harm it’s done. But who’s going to eliminate it entirely and with what will it be replaced? Will it be replaced, if its eliminated entirely, with something as equally onerous from the so-called “Left?” If so, no thanks. It’s a conundrum, for sure. Sisyphus comes to mind. Hercules, like God, is dead.
Tom
@450.org
Sharia Law has been on the books in all MENA Countries with the exception of Turkey since their foundation. It is an utter myth that those Nations are/were secular prior to 2011.
You can’t go into any of those nations except Turkey and openly insult the Prophet Muhammad and not get thrown in Jail and tortured. Civil Law is handled by Sharia Courts in each of those nations except Turkey which has a fully secular constitution which Erdogan has preserved and which everyone keeps ignoring to score cheap points to drive an agenda.
As it is, Erdogan abided by the Democratic Process, as the recent elections showed after YSK (not Erdogan as everyone outside of Turkey keeps forgetting) ordered the Istanbul Mayoral Elections redone after clear illegalities were proven to it from the first round. As soon as it appeared Ekrem had a commanding lead, Yildrim conceded and Erdogan congratulated Ekrem on his victory.
Morsi did not introduce Sharia and did not enforce it either, spending his short time trying to bring a peaceful end to the Sinai Conflict, reform the Bureaucracy so it worked for the people and establishing civilian control over the military. At every step of the way, he was giving the Egyptian People Referendums to decide on the course of their country and giving local autonomy to the religious minorities so they could establish their own civil courts outside of the Sharia Civil Courts that had always existed in Egypt. During all of this, the Mubarak Bureaucracy he inherited was actively sabotaging him and preparing to overthrow him.
Sissi by contrast is actively policing belly dancers who dance too provocatively, throwing pop singers in jail for sucking on bananas in music videos, torturing and executing people with show trials, and driving the economy into the ground with corruption. On top of that, his policies are causing the country to slide into full scale civil war as previously peaceful protesters realize the only way out is to use force to end Sissi’s regime and kill him for his crimes.
Also out of curiosity have you ever actually researched Sharia Law and understood its historical context and/or complexities and schools? It isn’t monolithic and varies widely in interpretation across Muslim Communities.
Back to the subject of Democracy itself, it is the guiding principle that people have the right to vote the bastards out. That Trump is president is the result of the D&Rs constantly refusing to address the profound structural problems of America. If the D&Rs had not sinned so much, Trump would not be in office.
So don’t blame the voters, blame the politicians for failure to do their jobs.
Z
Sanders is building a movement. That’s what is most impressive about his campaign and why he is the candidate who has the best chance, by far, of effectuating substantial positive change in favor of the working class. He’s got a lot of support among young voters who are intelligent, invigorated, and aware of what is at stake. The building strength of the DSA is tied to his popularity. Without the growth of the DSA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would not have won her seat. That was a critical election that went in the working class’s direction.
Warren worries me in that she seems to have a much stronger belief that the structure of the system is okay and it’s primarily the process that has to be improved upon. She’s not even openly supportive for Medicare-For-All. Process can be defeated and if she doesn’t have a movement behind her, she’s not likely to get much done in Congress. A lot of her policy would be limited to executive orders.
Power has to be seized, the system is too far corrupted. This bill that Sanders is proposing to extinguish all student debt by directly making Wall Street pay for it with a transaction tax is an assault on Wall Street’s power. Warren’s proposal doesn’t forgive all student debt, she wants to qualify it by how much the person is earning, so she still wants to keep the debt and maintain that financial structure and wants to pay for the debt forgiveness through a wealth tax, not a tax focused on Wall Street.
I think Warren would make a great vice president because she’s more attune to process than Sanders is. But I think she would be an unsuccessful president because the fight, the outrage, is not in her to the extent it is in Sanders. She still relates too much to the rich IMO and to meritocracy. Remember she did teach at Harvard. Sanders does not relate to the rich at all, he relates to the working class. In some ways, she is still playing the dnc/dccc game by being willing to compromise in order to have their backing, or at least avoid their open opposition.
Z
ponderer
Regarding Pharma, the following article is very enlightening. It will raise your blood pressure though.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/06/how-judges-kill-sealing-corporate-records-showing-destructive-behavior-based-on-dubious-trade-secret-claims.html
Over 200,000 deaths due to opioids directly attributable to judges working to keep corporate misdeeds out of the public eye. Just in case there was a branch of government that you thought wasn’t corrupt.
450.org
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg’s (that’s his full name, no lie) recent dustup with black constituents in South Bend reveals and underscores the contradictory folly of special interest politics.
Black lives matter squares off against lgbt in South Bend. But I bet blm has no problem with Biden who, if he were to win, would be the third black potus after Clinton and Obama.
Isn’t it horrible how oppressed Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is and how much he’s suffered his entire life because he was and is lgbt? Someone should make a documentary or movie about it. It’d break records at the box office. I have the perfect name. South Bend.
I think Peter Paul Selma Buttigieg sounds better, don’t you? If his parents named him Selma versus Montgomery, perhaps the dustup in South Bend could have been avoided. Optics are important, afterall. Right?
bruce wilder
@ Z
In a comment on another thread, I drew attention to a post on Crooked Timber where Henry, a college professor (I believe), builds liberal resentment against Sanders’ proposal. It is quite a piece of work, showing how easily class ideology and resentments can be motivated even by a highly educated person who ought to know better to torpedo the most sensible reform. I emphasize that Henry is a college professor at a state university (open to correction on that point) so he ought to deeply familiar with the myriad problems attending the financialization of college education. Indeed, I think he’s complained about them in the past. But, given a chance to back reform, he goes all squishy.
It is not just that he lacks militancy. I would not expect it. What is shocking to me is that he isn’t even embarrassed by making an economically stupid argument that no educated person ought to be making. He’s arguing that money financed from taxes (or not as MMT would have it — not important) spent on debt relief in a pure wealth transfer cannot be spent on real goods and services. It is craziness. But, his determination to see the lower classes screwed overcomes his intelligence and education.
That’s what Sanders’s candidacy (and movement) is up against.
Sorry to be a downer. It is a steep, slippery hill he’s climbing.
Mike Barry
The way to handle student debt is to make it dischargeable through bankruptcy, like any other debt.
S Brennan
“Sanders is building a movement” – Z
Yeah…right. Here’s the New Yorker on the subject of Bernie’s movement; code named “folds like-a-cheap-suit”.
“Bernie Sanders’s Hard Fight for Hillary Clinton” – New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/bernie-sanderss-hard-fight-for-hillary-clinton
I’m not spreading hate here, just correcting an Orwellian re-write.
Z
Brennan,
The growth of DSA, AOC’s shocking defeat of Crowley, AMZN’s HQ2 Headquarters reversal in New York, and now Caban’s win as DA in Queens, all these came directly or indirectly out of the Sanders 2016 campaign.
And now student debt forgiveness, medicare-for-all, $15 minimum wage are all issues that the democratic party presidential candidates have been forced to take a stance on, and most of them are at least claiming that they are leaning in the direction that Sanders is calling for.
He’s also giving public speeches explaining and proudly defending democratic socialism.
The Overton window has moved to the left and no one has played a larger role in that movement than Sanders.
Z
S Brennan
“Bernie Sanders takes ‘umbrage’ when audience member says he didn’t support Hillary Clinton in 2016”
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/30/politics/bernie-sanders-umbrage-clinton-2016/index.html
S Brennan
“Bernie Sanders has finally made it official, endorsing Hillary Clinton in rousing fashion as they appeared on stage together Tuesday — but will his supporters join him?”
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/bernie-sanders-endorses-hillary-clinton-for-president-723820099799
metamars
Jimmy Dore interviews George Galloway:
“George Galloway Sacked by War Mongers & Smeared as Anti-Semite” @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3WLwEl7ywQ
“Free speech” not so free when it comes to Assange:
“Too hot to touch? MSM outlets stand united in rejecting op-ed on Assange by UN expert on torture” @ https://www.rt.com/news/462805-assange-oped-rejected-msm/
450.org
Good catch, S Brennan.
Let’s fast forward to the 2020 election and update Bernie’s invertebration.
And this.
You know what they say, once a zebra always a zebra.
450.org
Bernie is put forth as virtuous compared to Trump and his deplorables but I contend Trump doesn’t hold the patent on deplorables. There are deplorables on the so-called right and deplorables on the so-called left.
I have direct experience with a deplorable on the so-called left who was a higher up in Bernie’s 2016 campaign who now works for a political consulting firm, Aristotle, helping school candidates on how to adroitly manipulate the fools who delusionally believe their candidate is the answer to what ails them.
Of course, this former Bernie higher up supports canceling student loan debt when you consider after a review of their criminal record they skipped out on a $3,500 Victoria Secret bill and didn’t show up to court when Victoria’s Secret pressed. $3,500!! That’s a lot of sexy panties. What on earth would someone need all that sexually evocative & titillating lingerie for? Unless.
This same Bernie higher up has openly supported a goon who has been accused by a slew of women of sexual harassment and rape and one of the women has claimed he said he would kill them like he killed his girlfriend who went missing 15 years prior and has never been found. Let that sink in. A person who is good friends with Bernie Sanders supports a rapist and potential murderer and this person does so arrogantly & defiantly.
Oh, and this Bernie higher up also filed a false police report and used D.C. police, under false pretenses, as a tool to harass a citizen in the hinterlands. Did you know that the D.C. police are affiliated with the DOJ and a quasi extension of the DOJ? Did you know that the Washington D.C. establishment, all the crooks that enable the political chicanery, are protected by the DOJ? Did you know they are immune from the law and that the law not only does not apply to them but they can use the law under false pretenses to disavow you of your rights?
Just as you are what you eat, a politician is his staff. Consequently, Bernie is this higher up until he openly excoriates the immoral cretin and apologizes for ever being affiliated with them in any way and shows that he/she has taken steps to prevent & avoid such affiliations in future.
And yes, I have brought all of this up to Bernie and he has ignored me. Considering that, I can only assume he not only plans on canceling all student loan debt but all Victoria’s Secret debt as well and he will institute legislation where all rapists and murderers will have their sentences dropped and there will never again be crimes such as rape & murder.
Z
Brennan,
You always have all the answers, even when they don’t fit the questions, which is why you are such a slow learner.
It took you almost two decades to figure out that the Clintons were trash ….
Z