Chaos and the Anti-Thread

[Emil El Zapato]

I suppose depending on one's point of view they might seem all the same...I chose one that is a little different, if for no other reason it should give a least some historical chronology. :)

[Emil El Zapato]

I don't even see how what you have said is relevant? Or well it is too bare of any information or points.

So in speculation of meaning..

Historical chronology? lost in 3rd dimensional illusion? Who's chronology?
Which manipulated history written down by hands of the aforementioned poisoned victors of wars?
Why choose some tale to follow? Surely you know enough in your heart and can let your spirit guide you without having to turn to the shackles of fraternities created to bend your will to unwholesome purpose?


As even shown in this thread, people only want to discuss what is wrong and untrue with other religions and try to convince them that theirs is the only way. Others who dont, will sit on their mountain top smuggly and effect the same response.

Are you referring to St. Malachy video...if so, maybe I should have listened to it...The St. Malachy thing requires at least a long article but I didn't say that before huh...but I was thinking it...It really has nothing at all to do with religion or even eschatology...it is merely a retelling of what could simply be a legend or factual...it's kind of like pick your poison.

I use to work with a guy...a very bright guy but one had to be very specific when conversing with him because...I don't know why really...it was just the way he was. We did a lot of partying together... :)

[Dreamtimer]

Ellicott City is getting hammered again. Water rescues are happening. It was devastated by flooding a couple years ago. We're not too far away though it doesn't flood exactly where we are.

There's a stationary front over Maryland and some places have gotten more than four inches today.

More to come.

From last time:https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fnp 5qd81SHY4%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&sp=7db7664c1992e5284a4014b0fd391609

[Dreamtimer]

Well, looks like that again this time. So tragic. I hope less lives have been lost.

In 2016 they called it a one in a thousand years storm.

I recall one of the symptoms of climate change being more frequent and severe storms.

Perhaps we should all start investing in insurance companies.

[modwiz]

Ellicott City is getting hammered again. Water rescues are happening. It was devastated by flooding a couple years ago. We're not too far away though it doesn't flood exactly where we are.

There's a stationary front over Maryland and some places have gotten more than four inches today.

More to come.

From last time:https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fnp 5qd81SHY4%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&sp=7db7664c1992e5284a4014b0fd391609

And so it begins. The cleansing has waited long enough for people to awaken. Frivolities like politics, and other things, need to end. Disasters tend to bring the survivors together. And, if not, another disaster will come. Gaia is a being, not a concept. The false father's time is ending.

[Emil El Zapato]

yayy for Amerika:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY

[Dreamtimer]

It was possibly worse this time than 2016. Less than two years.

https://i1.wp.com/weatheroptics.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Screen-Shot-2018-05-27-at-9.19.35-PM.png?zoom=2&resize=1170%2C508&ssl=1

[Emil El Zapato]

It was possibly worse this time than 2016. Less than two years.

https://i1.wp.com/weatheroptics.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Screen-Shot-2018-05-27-at-9.19.35-PM.png?zoom=2&resize=1170%2C508&ssl=1

damn! that is bad...

[Elen]

It was possibly worse this time than 2016. Less than two years.

https://i1.wp.com/weatheroptics.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Screen-Shot-2018-05-27-at-9.19.35-PM.png?zoom=2&resize=1170%2C508&ssl=1

Those two cars leaning up against the pole tells you how bad it was/is. My goodness. There's something really heavy going on here in Britain as well. 60 000 lightening strikes all over UK and Birmingham had a months worth of rain in a few hours. Here in Scotland...dry, sunny and calm. This is a bit crazy.

[Dreamtimer]

Wow. I saw a video pop up about lightening in London, lots of flashes.


Here's a video I just happened to find from Mr BB333.

The numbers aren't quite as high as what he's saying. The river rose 17 feet in two hours. There were 12 inches of rain over 10 hours:

Rescuers came up from Virginia (and likely Delaware). People had to retreat to second floors, there were water rescues, and one man escaped a collapsing building and had to struggle through flood waters to safety.

The reason the water would be more muddy is because we just had four days of rain last week and it's still spring. The ground was already saturated and stuff has only just been growing and filling out. (a lot of fields are still newly tilled. or were.)

The flood two years ago came after dark in July.

This morning one person was unaccounted for.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ppiWyXMoo

At 3:56 where he's comparing the color of the water the shot is from the next morning. Not during the flood. It happened the previous evening. I'm a little surprised he didn't get that information straight.

The comparison is meaningless. More than 12 hours had passed.

[Aragorn]

Just for the record I wonder how many of our US American members would be aware of the shooting that took place here in Belgium. :hmm:

For those who haven't heard, yesterday, a 31-year-old petty criminal — mostly drug-related stuff, although there was one charge of assault and robbery as well — was let out on penitentiary leave for the 14th time. He was scheduled to be released from prison in 2020. Even though he was a born-and-bred Belgian of West-European ethnicity, it has come to the surface in the meantime that he had converted to Islam while in prison.

While out on penitentiary leave from the prison in Marche-en-Famennes yesterday, the perpetrator first sought out his former cellmate and murdered him. Then he went to the city of Liège, where he attacked two female police officers with a knife, took both of their handguns — two 9-mm pistols with 17 rounds each — and killed them both in cold blood from point-blank range. He then shot and killed a 22-year-old young man in his own car, in front of the young man's mother, who was sitting next to him.

At that point, a police squadron had already arrived on the scene. The perpetrator then shouted "Allahu Akbar" and proceeded to open fire at the police squadron, thereby injuring four more police officers. The police returned fire and were eventually able to incapacitate him. He died of his injuries a short while later.

[Dreamtimer]

That's awful. The more people do that, the less great they make Allah look...


I was speaking to a friend last night who's worried. She works with a man who is married to a very jealous and highly controlling woman. This woman has guns and likes to shoot at the range a lot. My friend is concerned that this woman is so jealous she might do something like come over and open fire or come to the work place and do something crazy.

No doubt, five or ten years ago my friend wouldn't have quite had the same level of concern.

[Wind]

What is the impulse that drives people to go crazy like this? Religion is one factor for sure, but it's only a part of the equation. Many of the school shooters aren't religious, they just have access to guns. What is happening to human consciousness or is this just how we are? Violence is a way of expressing one's self too.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC2qEuel6Y

[Melidae]

Just for the record I wonder how many of our US American members would be aware of the shooting that took place here in Belgium. :hmm:

I live in the US and was aware of the shooting in Belgium...although you gave a lot more detail than I could dig up.

I deliberately search online for world news from other countries. If it doesn't fit the 'narrative', the people here would never know what goes on in the rest of the world.

[enjoy being]

The news story was broadcast in NZ, but no direct mention of him shouting out those words. Which I personally don't jump to belief in necessarily happening. Such is the landscape, that my opinion of the media and manipulation of public scripting would just as likely have that part inserted or embellished to add to the desire to create division and animosity.

[Aragorn]

Just for the record I wonder how many of our US American members would be aware of the shooting that took place here in Belgium. :hmm:

I live in the US and was aware of the shooting in Belgium...although you gave a lot more detail than I could dig up.

I deliberately search online for world news from other countries. If it doesn't fit the 'narrative', the people here would never know what goes on in the rest of the world.

The thing is that the media over here now have their mouths full about who's to blame. They can't blame it on guns at large, because first of all, the firearms regulations here are ludicrously strict, so there are very few civilians anymore who own guns, and secondly, the two pistols used by the perpetrator were the service handguns of the two policewomen he murdered. He attacked them with a knife first and then took their guns and shot them. (They were 45 and 53 years old respectively, by the way.)





The news story was broadcast in NZ, but no direct mention of him shouting out those words. Which I personally don't jump to belief in necessarily happening. Such is the landscape, that my opinion of the media and manipulation of public scripting would just as likely have that part inserted or embellished to add to the desire to create division and animosity.

He did shout those words. There is video footage of it. However, as I wrote higher up already, he was not of Arabic or Turkish ethnicity. He was a born-and-bred francophone Belgian — with, as is funnily enough often the case among Belgian francophones, a Flemish name — and he had only converted to Islam while in prison. And that in itself is not all that exceptional, given that many inmates are actually of Arabic or Turkish ethnicity as a result of the various waves of mass immigration over here. So he probably converted to Islam under the influence of those other inmates.

The guy had been a drug-related delinquent ever since he was 16, and had repeatedly been involved in other petty crimes — plus one robbery with assault. So it's safe to say that this was not a mentally stable individual. Therefore, it is highly likely that he had indeed converted to Islam — according to the warden, he prayed every day — and that he simply used Islam as a cover for his aggression.

It was obvious that he sought to confront the police, even though I don't know why he killed his former cellmate, nor why he killed that young man in his car. Perhaps more details regarding the perpetrator's psychological profile that would explain all of this will be surfacing via the news media later. :hmm:

[Emil El Zapato]

Just for the record I wonder how many of our US American members would be aware of the shooting that took place here in Belgium. :hmm:

For those who haven't heard, yesterday, a 31-year-old petty criminal — mostly drug-related stuff, although there was one charge of assault and robbery as well — was let out on penitentiary leave for the 14th time. He was scheduled to be released from prison in 2020. Even though he was a born-and-bred Belgian of West-European ethnicity, it has come to the surface in the meantime that he had converted to Islam while in prison.

While out on penitentiary leave from the prison in Marche-en-Famennes yesterday, the perpetrator first sought out his former cellmate and murdered him. Then he went to the city of Liège, where he attacked two female police officers with a knife, took both of their handguns — two 9-mm pistols with 17 rounds each — and killed them both in cold blood from point-blank range. He then shot and killed a 22-year-old young man in his own car, in front of the young man's mother, who was sitting next to him.

At that point, a police squadron had already arrived on the scene. The perpetrator then shouted "Allahu Akbar" and proceeded to open fire at the police squadron, thereby injuring four more police officers. The police returned fire and were eventually able to incapacitate him. He died of his injuries a short while later.

me, I've never heard you mention any of these sorts of events in Belgium...I didn't expect to see this...Now I'll read your post...

I'm wondering if you consider it 'terrorism'...

[Aragorn]

Just for the record I wonder how many of our US American members would be aware of the shooting that took place here in Belgium. :hmm:

me, I've never heard you mention any of these sorts of events in Belgium...I didn't expect to see this...Now I'll read your post...

I'm wondering if you consider it 'terrorism'...

Well, I doubt whether the mainstream media would care one iota about what I consider this to have been, but what's interesting is that the Dutch media were already calling it a terrorist attack before the Belgian media ever did. And now the Belgian politicians are also calling it a terrorist attack, and they are supposedly investigating whether there is a link with Islamic State. As if Islamic State regularly comes over to Belgium in order to visit Belgian inmates with the intent of indoctrinating them and deploying them as suicide terrorists, right? :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong. There's no doubt on my mind that Islamic State has infiltrators in Belgium, and considering that a large percentage of all Belgian inmates is actually of Arabic ethnicity — with varying degrees of religious fanaticism — there is indeed a chance that someone might become indoctrinated and/or radicalized while in prison. Furthermore, this guy was known to the Belgian State Secret Service — not because of his criminal actions, but because of his contacts with other criminals who were also on the watch list.

But what I myself do think, is that religions are dangerous, and that fanatic Islam in particular is nothing short of an infectious kind of insanity. And it is a given that this was a mentally unstable person with a past of recurring drug-related crimes. So what I think is that this guy had simply gone off the rails (once again), aided therein by his newly found religious convictions, and that he decided to start a one-man crusade against that aspect of society which he probably hated the most — i.e. the police, because after all, they were the ones who had arrested him time and time again with each of his crimes. He was probably mentally using Islam as an excuse for channeling his hatred against society, and against the police in particular.

Now that I'm thinking about it, it is quite possible that he only killed the young man in the car so as to trigger an alert situation and have the police come over to where he was, because witnesses have reported that he was simply waiting for them to arrive. Quite obviously, they were the real target. That's why he also murdered those two policewomen in cold blood. He also held a woman hostage for a short while, but she was a Muslim and so he let her go.

Either way, I think that the word "terrorism" is being thrown around a bit too gratuitously here in the West these days, and especially when the perpetrator turns out to be either a Muslim or someone of Arabic ethnicity. Of course, it's not all paranoia. Sometimes it's simply politically convenient to apply that moniker. And other times it's actually legit.

But in this case? Nah, I don't think so. Again, we're talking about a drug addict with a long history of recidivism, and one who was on the watch list of the Belgian State Secret Service to boot. Not exactly the kind of guy you would consent to letting out on penitentiary leave, and especially not when there was already the observation that he had converted to Islam while in prison. So they screwed up — what else is new? — and now somebody's head's gotta roll. Might as well make it a big diversion then and turn the whole thing into an act of terrorism by Islamic State against the Belgian state, right? :hmm:

[Emil El Zapato]

Well, I doubt whether the mainstream media would care one iota about what I consider this to have been, but what's interesting is that the Dutch media were already calling it a terrorist attack before the Belgian media ever did. And now the Belgian politicians are also calling it a terrorist attack, and they are supposedly investigating whether there is a link with Islamic State. As if Islamic State regularly comes over to Belgium in order to visit Belgian inmates with the intent of indoctrinating them and deploying them as suicide terrorists, right? :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong. There's no doubt on my mind that Islamic State has infiltrators in Belgium, and considering that a large percentage of all Belgian inmates is actually of Arabic ethnicity — with varying degrees of religious fanaticism — there is indeed a chance that someone might become indoctrinated and/or radicalized while in prison. Furthermore, this guy was known to the Belgian State Secret Service — not because of his criminal actions, but because of his contacts with other criminals who were also on the watch list.

But what I myself do think, is that religions are dangerous, and that fanatic Islam in particular is nothing short of an infectious kind of insanity. And it is a given that this was a mentally unstable person with a past of recurring drug-related crimes. So what I think is that this guy had simply gone off the rails (once again), aided therein by his newly found religious convictions, and that he decided to start a one-man crusade against that aspect of society which he probably hated the most — i.e. the police, because after all, they were the ones who had arrested him time and time again with each of his crimes. He was probably mentally using Islam as an excuse for channeling his hatred against society, and against the police in particular.

Now that I'm thinking about it, it is quite possible that he only killed the young man in the car so as to trigger an alert situation and have the police come over to where he was, because witnesses have reported that he was simply waiting for them to arrive. Quite obviously, they were the real target. That's why he also murdered those two policewomen in cold blood. He also held a woman hostage for a short while, but she was a Muslim and so he let her go.

Either way, I think that the word "terrorism" is being thrown around a bit too gratuitously here in the West these days, and especially when the perpetrator turns out to be either a Muslim or someone of Arabic ethnicity. Of course, it's not all paranoia. Sometimes it's simply politically convenient to apply that moniker. And other times it's actually legit.

But in this case? Nah, I don't think so. Again, we're talking about a drug addict with a long history of recidivism, and one who was on the watch list of the Belgian State Secret Service to boot. Not exactly the kind of guy you would consent to letting out on penitentiary leave, and especially not when there was already the observation that he had converted to Islam while in prison. So they screwed up — what else is new? — and now somebody's head's gotta roll. Might as well make it a big diversion then and turn the whole thing into an act of terrorism by Islamic State against the Belgian state, right? :hmm:

Good explanation and probably accurate..

[Dreamtimer]

This is the road we would use to go to Ellicott City and the parking lot that we would park in. The pipe under the road clearly wasn't up to one-in-a-thousand year standards.:P

There were five catastrophic floods from the 1800s up to the end of the 20th century.

There have been five such catastrophic floods starting year 2000.:omg:

https://s17-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs.abcnews.com%2Fimage s%2FLifestyle%2FWireAP_bbcdcda3a9e74441989299a6bd0 2b65e_12x5_992.jpg&sp=d1959df2e07e5a8d2dc026f879170afa

The huge pile of rocks in front of the house on the left are from the last flood. They found this flood moving:P

[enjoy being]

*

[Dreamtimer]

It was part of our founding ideology to conquer nature. (In America) It's all over our literature.

Humans are attempting to engage in weather control all over the world. I'm pretty sure we don't understand the complex global weather systems enough to actually succeed.

But I guess local cloud seeding is perceived as successful enough that it's done regularly.

[enjoy being]

*

[Dreamtimer]

Arizona Sentinal gets props for headline:

Miss America Dropping Swimsuits and Won't Judge on Looks.

(I come from there...)

[Dreamtimer]

62 ongoing conflicts around the world according to Wonkypedia.

The country with the most deaths by quite a bit is Syria.

I was wondering how much of the world is at war.

[Wind]

And yet I still keep on dreaming about global peace...

One day I tell myself, one day.

[Aianawa]

Getting it shoved in my face at present, Be at peace within yourself, for then it will nature-ly spread

[Emil El Zapato]

Getting it shoved in my face at present, Be at peace within yourself, for then it will nature-ly spread

lol, Aianawa...you really are a lovely person...I know you are and I mean that...

[Dreamtimer]

Rather than derailing the Thoughts thread, I will post this here.

Sean Hannity was at work (https://twitter.com/Section_131/status/1004537763868356608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2 018%2F6%2F6%2F1769978%2F-Sean-Hannity-Breaks-The-Law-On-TV-Telling-Mueller-Witnesses-to-Destroy-Evidence) last night:


Hey remember when Assange DM'd Hannity asking him to reach out on an encrypted app?

Tonight Hannity is freaking out about Mueller searching encrypted apps and "advised" all Mueller witnesses to "bash" their phones "into itsy bitsy pieces"


18§1512 Whoever corruptly persuades another person or attempts to do so with intent to alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in official proceeding shall be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years.

Sean must have had an emergency commercial intervention because he readdressed the issue by saying he was joking.

Ain't nothin' big enough to cover that ass.:rolleyes:



Between this and Giuliani saying that Trump is above the law, I'm concerned the chaos has entered their very brains. They impugn themselves and malign the Constitution.

[Dreamtimer]

I just watched the clip and Hannity tells listeners to give the bits to Mueller and speak Hillary's full name.

You really can't get a better example of the vengeful/vendetta drive of Republicans. It's not about law, the Constitution, tradition, protocol, policy, honor...

[Dreamtimer]

I came across the gif again of Trump turning around to look at his family during the Inauguration. The one where as he turns back Melania's smile falls away.

Instead of focusing on her I looked at him. He was smiling when he turned around and looked at his daughter, but his cheek goes straight as he seems to look at Melania and when he turns his face is unsmiling.

Makes me wonder what he said to her. She surely was unhappy.

[Emil El Zapato]

Another good human bites the dust:

Anthony Bourdain, may you find the peace you deserve...

[Dreamtimer]

Suicide. I would have to be pretty despairing to do such a thing. I can't imagine doing it when children are still around. I stuck out all kinds of pain and despair while I was raising my son.

Something about depression and bi-polar, which I don't suffer from, is beyond my comprehension. I feel great compassion for people who are suicidal or have mental illness. I hope we can find a way out for people who suffer from this.

I don't know Mr. Bourdain's situation...

[Dreamtimer]

Boy did Macron give Trump a firm handshake. He left a thumb-print.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DfNRfPXWsAEyEQ9.jpg

[Dreamtimer]

Here's some real truth:


History does, in fact, show that a president cannot pardon himself. Days before Nixon resigned in 1974, the Justice Department issued an opinion that echoed centuries of American and English law by declaring, “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself.“

[Dreamtimer]

Regarding voting numbers, which is where any political wave would come from:


[In Iowa] with a little over 90% of precincts reporting, Democrats already have a turnout of 175,000 in today’s primary. They will almost certainly surpass the turnout for the 2016 Iowa Caucus as well. That is, quite frankly, incredible.

(previous numbers were 100.000 in 2016 and 73,388 in 2014)

[Emil El Zapato]

This is a test. Use your imagination and always remember the word 'conspiracy' Watch closely as if it were a puzzle to piece together:

What is going on here?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0EHlfTgGUU

[Emil El Zapato]

The author of this video is a 9-year old boy of Indian ethnicity from Austin TX. He is considered a child prodigy and as such I suppose no one wants to touch the Cyber-Shaolin but hasn't anyone informed hm that painting the bad guys as dark-skinned is not politically correct...Hah, gotcha. The moral of the story is that this 9-year old presumably informed but innocent child is compelled from a subconscious level to paint bad guys as the 'others' and not paint them their proper color within the current context - Russian.

My question is why?

[Emil El Zapato]

Tis' Kryon speaking:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtbZW1ni34I

[Dreamtimer]

Republicans have all three branches of the government. The executive, judicial and legislative.

And they're still going around waving the 'Don't Tread on me' flag and talking about civil war.

It's a dangerous illness.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oud_sdaPWyg

[Dreamtimer]

I've earned three badges now.

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.californiacentralv alleysurveyors.org%2Fimages%2Fboyscoutsurveying.jp g&sp=022c6a22baefbb0b2e034fdf5a26f499https://s16-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fce.uwc.edu%2Fuploads% 2Fcourse%2Fcommunications-badge.jpg&sp=bda240b4326df8ab9891100ae1970b6dhttps://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbonlacfoods.com%2Fimag es%2Foriginal-57-merit-badges%2Foriginal-57-merit-badges-17.jpg&sp=ec31bbe09efc0aec53cb97636a0c0798

(it has been implied I would turn a blind eye, that I take sides, and that I'm brainwashed)

[Dreamtimer]

Since this is off-topic for the thread where Mr. Scott Adams came up I'll post it here.

Of Trump, he wrote: “There is an eerie consistency to his success so far. Is there a method to it? ... Probably yes. Allow me to describe some of the hypnosis and persuasion methods Mr. Trump has employed on you.”

Hypnosis controls the mind to the point that people do things they aren't aware of and sometimes can't recall.

Scott Adams offers up: ‘access to the admin passwords for human beings.’ 

Access to admin passwords certainly can be called mind control.

This is a man who says that his written words can bring people to orgasm. That's pretty good mind control.

[Dreamtimer]

Adams paints a dim picture of human rationality. Rather than using facts and logic to make decisions, he maintains, most of us decide based on emotion and various illogical heuristics. Human beings are “moist robots” who can be reprogrammed by “master persuaders.” Adams also believes that “mass delusions are the norm.” Among the drivers of human decision-making are reality filters like confirmation bias, with which we interpret new data to uphold what we already believe. “Confirmation bias isn’t an occasional bug in our human operating system,” Adams writes. “It is the operating system.” We also tend to elevate in importance whatever we’re paying attention to, which helps explain the power of the media, which can’t necessarily tell us what to believe but can move certain issues to the top of the agenda. Trump won in part because he made his issues—the border wall, for example—a focus of the debate.


This makes it so easy to just ignore people and pretend they're the ones who are mind-controlled. Nice trick.

Leads to a serious lack of dialogue though.

Dialogue isn't what Mr. Adams is interested in. He wants persuasion that programs the moist robots.

He has their admin codes.

[Dreamtimer]

lolololololol kekekekekekek

Speaking of headlines...

Religious leaders, former judges asks DC to revoke Trump Hotel's liquor license (http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/393282-complaint-asks-dc-to-revoke-trump-hotels-liquor-license-on-grounds-of) due to president's 'lack of good character'

Documentation here (https://www.scribd.com/document/382150793/2018-06-20-Complaint-to-Request-Hearing-to-Show-Cause-Why-Liquor-License-Should-Not-Be-Revoked).

[Dreamtimer]

I understand how it goes. People don't like their spells being broken.


For instance: Who's talking about the Parkland students in the alternative community other than to call them some kind of fake and controlled? That's the spell. That's what needs to be believed. Badly.

How is that creative or interesting? It isn't. But it is very emotional and triggering.

So when it turns out that a sea change is occurring and young people are getting active like they haven't since the 80's, people under their comfortable spells will miss it.

They'll think it's fake.

And they'll be sideswiped when it happens, off guard, disbelieving, and vulnerable to incitement.


It's an old game.

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, that's some good thinkin' there DT...the enlightened crowd would call it 'deep insight' into the truth and then you would be declared awakened and no longer a dutiful sheeple... :) IF, you were conjuring images of a red-eyed and horned Obama as you were speaking your truth...otherwise it wouldn't count for sh*t.

[Dreamtimer]

I got a lifetime of "Oh honey, we should have listened to you" under my belt.

When the damage is already done, the nice words come too little too late. So I won't be waiting around for them.

It is what it is.

Even though the two 'clubs' are supposed to be a hoax, I'm still not in the right one. (ha ha, that's punny)

[Dreamtimer]

This is a story about a conversation from a handful of years ago.

I was out west to help my brother celebrate his birthday. We were at our house, sitting around the dining room table with some friends.

They began to discuss an incident that they thought was outrageous. It went like this:


A young lady was in college. Her parents were well off, were footing the bill without any financial aid and they were demanding she major in the subject of their choice. She had wanted an artsy kind of major, they wanted her in a money-major.

So she did as they asked. She majored in the subject they wanted, did reasonably well and was on her way to graduating.

During her last semester the parents somehow found out that she had gotten a second major that they didn't know about. They were incensed.

How dare she go against their will? They were paying the bills. How dare she defy them?

So they decided to yank her out of college and not allow her to graduate.

And then the unthinkable happened.

The university decided to cover tuition for her last semester.

How dare they? The parents were infuriated and told their daughter that they weren't going to pay for her housing and she was going to be out of luck.

And the university said they'd cover her housing as well.


To a person, everyone at the table was outraged and kept repeating the same question:

How dare the university take away the rights of the parents?!!


I was confused. What rights? The parents got their money back. The daughter is not underage. The university can spend it's money as it chooses.

So I asked, "What rights?"

The answers I received generally were just repeating the phrase "take away the rights of the parents".

I asked if she was underage. Nope.

So how was the university taking away any rights?


At this point my brother got up from the table, said "You can't tell me...pfftt!" He literally made that sound, waved dismissively and walked out of the room.

So I said, "Well that's interesting. My brother has just walked out on me saying I can't tell him something when I'm not saying anything, I'm just trying to understand what rights are being taken."

One person at the table decided to listen to my questions.

What was the student's GPA? Did she have a job offer? Did she have an offer for graduate school?

How did the parents not manage to notice paying for the extra credits? They're paying all the bills as they keep emphasizing.

Did she earn the credits herself through hard work?

Did she pull the wool over her parents' eyes and get them to pay without noticing?

Nobody had any clue. No answers.


The parents got their money back. The girl is an adult. The university clearly believes she's a good investment or they wouldn't cover housing and tuition. Universities don't have money lying around to just do whatever with. She will be an alumna, and will be a much more likely source of future financial support than the parents. It makes perfect sense for the university to invest in her.

The response I got was, "I see what you're saying. I just don't agree with you."

This from one member of a couple who run their own business and know all about investing. I looked at the other spouse and saw that classic blank face.

I've seen it so many times. No acknowledgment, no response.

But an hour, day, week, month or year later that person will be repeating the exact same words only as if it were their idea all along.


Group think. From successful, supposedly smart people. Definitely wealthy.

Emotions get in the way of clear thinking. Very easily.


Oh, and I can add that a couple years later, when the time came for their children to be in school and the university was willing to offer financial help they were only too happy to take it.

[Emil El Zapato]

Don't know if this is real...I just watched the 1st portion but it is weird


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VQolNgNJjc

[Wind]

Good quality information produces good quality (personal & societal) decisions, I hope.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=ONvyz1AThLc

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, man's ultimate destiny...

rather like law-enforcement however...

the smarter the good guy gets, the smarter the bad guy gets...Yeah, that's kind of backwards but one gets the idea...

[Maggie]

I've earned three badges now.

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.californiacentralv alleysurveyors.org%2Fimages%2Fboyscoutsurveying.jp g&sp=022c6a22baefbb0b2e034fdf5a26f499https://s16-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fce.uwc.edu%2Fuploads% 2Fcourse%2Fcommunications-badge.jpg&sp=bda240b4326df8ab9891100ae1970b6dhttps://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbonlacfoods.com%2Fimag es%2Foriginal-57-merit-badges%2Foriginal-57-merit-badges-17.jpg&sp=ec31bbe09efc0aec53cb97636a0c0798

(it has been implied I would turn a blind eye, that I take sides, and that I'm brainwashed)

where are those earned?

[Maggie]

I got a lifetime of "Oh honey, we should have listened to you" under my belt.

When the damage is already done, the nice words come too little too late. So I won't be waiting around for them.

It is what it is.

Even though the two 'clubs' are supposed to be a hoax, I'm still not in the right one. (ha ha, that's punny)

I kind of know what you mean about feeling no one listens
Examples are so numerous for people who can observe and make logical conclusions.

Lately people I know are having numerous gut issues and I am sure it all goes to the need to reintroduce microorganisms missing AND let there be a healthy relationship the BUGS themselves have to create over some time
And we need to stop poisoning them

I have always known that we need to have an environment which allows us to contact LOTS of microorganisms
I have always known that superbugs are a result of wiping out the balance of microorganisms.

PEOPLE ARE MICROROGANISMS IN A GROUP.
It's the ground stupid.

No one listens to me.

Maybe this is also a metaphor for how war does not allow the healthy work out of macro organisms
I think the reason the concept like the United Nations was infiltrated and made useless is that WAR is the profiteer's cow.
If we don't let that cow breed, they lose all the milk.

If only we realized that cow should remain a very tiny little pet that may tustle one on one in the dirt when someone feels a snit.

[Maggie]

this is exactly what I think is valid as to the present chaos

E5fNgr-eDQk

[Emil El Zapato]

this is exactly what I think is valid as to the present chaos

E5fNgr-eDQk

Very positive message...very refreshing and what I love to hear... :)

[Dreamtimer]

Joe Rogan was talking in his show with Duncan Trussell about how stupid it is for parents to be so controlling of their children. He said, "I know someone whose parents won't talk to them because they changed their major."

Seen that attitude in action.

[Dreamtimer]

Two sports things recently happened.

Betting on sports is now legal.

LeBron James just announced he's gonna play in LA with the Lakers.

Hmmmm...

Should be interesting.

I'm not really a basketball fan and it's usually college ball that I watch when my husband is watching.

I am waiting for the betting to expand a bit so I can get a bookie and start betting on weird things.:shapeshift::garden::flame:

(I don't play the lottery or gamble in games. And I never bet people money)

[Dreamtimer]

Here's a page from a playbook by a man who has been hero to many. It's NLP laid out all nice for you.

I'm posting it in the chaos thread because this work that has been so carefully constructed for so long now is coming undone, imo.


Language: A Key Mechanism of Control

Newt Gingrich's 1996 GOPAC memo

As you know, one of the key points in the GOPAC tapes is that "language matters." In the video "We are a Majority," Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning. As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: "I wish I could speak like Newt."

That takes years of practice. But, we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases.

This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media. The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.

While the list could be the size of the latest "College Edition" dictionary, we have attempted to keep it small enough to be readily useful yet large enough to be broadly functional. The list is divided into two sections: Optimistic Positive Governing words and phrases to help describe your vision for the future of your community (your message) and Contrasting words to help you clearly define the policies and record of your opponent and the Democratic party.

Please let us know if you have any other suggestions or additions. We would also like to know how you use the list. Call us at GOPAC or write with your suggestions and comments. We may include them in the next tape mailing so that others can benefit from your knowledge and experience.



Optimistic Positive Governing Words

Use the list below to help define your campaign and your vision of public service. These words can help give extra power to your message. In addition, these words help develop the positive side of the contrast you should create with your opponent, giving your community something to vote for!

active(ly)
activist
building
candid(ly)
care(ing)
challenge
change
children
choice/choose
citizen
commitment
common sense
compete
confident
conflict
control
courage
crusade
debate
dream
duty
eliminate good-time in prison
empower(ment)
fair
family
freedom
hard work
help
humane
incentive
initiative
lead
learn
legacy
liberty
light
listen
mobilize
moral
movement
opportunity
passionate
peace
pioneer
precious
premise
preserve
principle(d)
pristine
pro- (issue): flag, children, environment, reform
prosperity
protect
proud/pride
provide
reform
rights
share
strength
success
tough
truth
unique
vision
we/us/our


Contrasting Words

Often we search hard for words to define our opponents. Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.
abuse of power
anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
betray
bizarre
bosses
bureaucracy
cheat
coercion
"compassion" is not enough
collapse(ing)
consequences
corrupt
corruption
criminal rights
crisis
cynicism
decay
deeper
destroy
destructive
devour
disgrace
endanger
excuses
failure (fail)
greed
hypocrisy
ideological
impose
incompetent
insecure
insensitive
intolerant
liberal
lie
limit(s)
machine
mandate(s)
obsolete
pathetic
patronage
permissive attitude
pessimistic
punish (poor ...)
radical
red tape
self-serving
selfish
sensationalists
shallow
shame
sick
spend(ing)
stagnation
status quo
steal
taxes
they/them
threaten
traitors
unionized
urgent (cy)
waste
welfare

[Dreamtimer]

I have Scottish blood. This, from Burns:


Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev'n to the Scottish name,
Sae fam'd in martial story.
Now Sark rins over Solway sands,
An' Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England's province stands-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro' many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor's wages.
The English steel we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane -
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
O would, ere I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay,
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll mak this declaration;
We're bought and sold for English gold-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation![3]

[Aragorn]

I have Scottish blood.




Dugal MacLeod:
Connor MacLeod:
Angus MacLeod:
Dugal MacLeod:
"Are ya scared, Connor?"
"No cousin Dugal, I'm not."
"Don't talk nonsense, man. I peed my kilt the first time I went into battle."
"Aye, Angus pees his kilt all the time."





("Highlander", 1986)

:ttr:

[Dreamtimer]

Now we know what's up his...:ttr:


I just learned that Dave Rubin changed directions and became a 'libertarian' after he got a sweet six-figure salary from the Kochs. That was revealed by a woman who used to work with him for years named Ana Kasparian.

[Emil El Zapato]

Two sports things recently happened.

Betting on sports is now legal.

LeBron James just announced he's gonna play in LA with the Lakers.

Hmmmm...

Should be interesting.

I'm not really a basketball fan and it's usually college ball that I watch when my husband is watching.

I am waiting for the betting to expand a bit so I can get a bookie and start betting on weird things.:shapeshift::garden::flame:

(I don't play the lottery or gamble in games. And I never bet people money)

Houston was hoping to get him...

I've always been a Kansas fan, but switched to Wichita State Shockers, a few years ago...my brother has season tickets... :)

[Wind]

Now we know what's up his...:ttr:


I just learned that Dave Rubin changed directions and became a 'libertarian' after he got a sweet six-figure salary from the Kochs. That was revealed by a woman who used to work with him for years named Ana Kasparian.

Ana is a news host from The Young Turks (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks/videos), their news are the only "mainstream" ones that I regularly watch, even though per American standards they are quite left leaning, I'd just say that they are sane and normal.

[Dreamtimer]

Yes, The Young Turks. I didn't realize they were considered mainstream. Definitely left.

And of course it was conservatives who told me about The Young Turks. (life's like that)

[Wind]

They sure had a feud with Alex Jones during the election and now they've been calling out Rubin too as he was formerly part of them. The conservatives truly seem to despise the Young Turks, but maybe that's just a good sign.

[Dreamtimer]

I missed their feud with Alex though there was a video clip posted here of Roger Stone crashing one of their shows - at a rally maybe - and Cenk got up and yelled and Roger, calling him out for interrupting their show.

Some people were calling Cenk a snowflake, but it was an appropriate reaction. He'd be a wuss if he'd just let Roger be a jerk.

[Wind]

They both were there.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4pX53AqpUs

[Dreamtimer]

Alex was inciting from the get-go. Egging him on, smiling, bending over and laughing into the camera. What was his motive?

It doesn't look like anyone from TYT went over to their spot and started trouble. I see several of Alex's people in their space stirring things up. It's super unprofessional of Alex and I'm surprised Cenk stayed seated as long as he did.

[Aragorn]

Alex was inciting from the get-go. Egging him on, smiling, bending over and laughing into the camera. What was his motive?

It doesn't look like anyone from TYT went over to their spot and started trouble. I see several of Alex's people in their space stirring things up. It's super unprofessional of Alex and I'm surprised Cenk stayed seated as long as he did.

I myself am now fairly convinced that Alex Jones has succumbed to the same mind-altering virus as what took over our former colleague bsbray. Sure, Alex has always had a typical US-conservative leaning, but lately he's really been going off the deep end, with the full-on Messiahfication — I've just made that word up, and I claim the copyright :p — of Donald J. Trump. :rolleyes:

Brainwashing and brainwashing attempts always become hyper-evident when they start evangelizing by way of metaphors and/or apparent controversy. Alex manifested this not too long ago when he published a video in which he seemingly appeared to be rejecting Trump, only to then make it clear after about 5 or 10 minutes of ranting that he was being sarcastic. It doesn't always have to be sarcasm, though, but there's a certain discernible pattern to it all, i.e. that which they appear to be rejecting or exposing and what they are ranting about will always turn out to be only a superficiality in the narrative, while there is a deeper "truth" and meaning to it all.

It's a propaganda tactic I first encountered when debating with Jehovah's Witnesses and looking at their propaganda leaflets. They single out a certain theme or word, and then build a narrative around it — which could be sarcastic, seemingly criticizing, or otherwise apparently controversial — the allegedly trivial nature of which is then made clear in the final point, which is that they still stand by whatever they've been promoting all along. It's a cult management tactic that politicians, advertising bureaus and media spin doctors have already long begun deploying as well.

I personally find it an insult to my intelligence, but hey, who am I, right? :ttr:

[Dreamtimer]

I heard Alex talking about that technique. He used it to explain the several minutes calling Hillary...(won't repeat it) before then explaining that he was using this technique.



On another note, I came across this Corbett Report with Chaos in the title. It's actually James answering questions from his subscribers. In the course of the question answering he mentions Joe Six Pack two times.

Both times he doesn't say anything other than that it would be an average person.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1810&v=agGYGgBIaQQ

[Dreamtimer]

Don't ever let anyone tell you Baltimore doesn't have culture, hon.


hon – a popular term of endearment, often used at the end of a sentence (short for "honey"). This phrase has been a popular marker of Baltimore culture, as represented in the annual Honfest summer festival (http://honfest.net) and in landmarks such as the Hontown store and the Café Hon (http://cafehon.com) restaurant.[9]

Anyone seen "Hairspray"?

[Emil El Zapato]

No... :)

but my daughter and her mother did... :)

[Elen]

Don't ever let anyone tell you Baltimore doesn't have culture, hon.


Anyone seen "Hairspray"?

I sure did see it and LOVED IT to boot. :ha: That's how I learned about the Baltimore "language", hon...:D


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK501nU5C70

[Dreamtimer]

Joe Rogan interviewed a guy from Baltimore and in the beginning they discuss the oddity of the Baltimore accent. It was Ryan Sickler.

[Emil El Zapato]

Go Red Devils... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

I read the other day that individuals have been imprisoned post wwII for shouting 'Nazi' at others. We don't often hear about that.

[Dreamtimer]

Sticks and Stones...

Name-calling, shaming, denouncing, these are tools. Tools I don't like to use.

Use them too much you become a tool.

[Emil El Zapato]

you took the words out of my brain... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

i'm reading an interesting book right now...it's called 'An Anxious Age'. It is a treatment of the extreme polarization of American society in the last 40-45 years. There are two main themes that run through the theory, one he calls the Erie Canal Thesis and the other he calls the Swallows Fly Back to Capistrano. The Erie Canal Thesis revolves around mainstream Protestantism, the lack of really, and The Swallow revolves around young intellectual Catholics. The Catholics are kind of peripheral in influence as are the Jews, they live on the banks as the authors says.

In any case, conservative rank-and-file view the former mainstream Protestants as the elite having only changed in their cultural identity by jettinsoning a religious foundation. This, of course, is a misnomer because the vast majority of this cultural group has expended its historically endowed resources. They are left only with New Age 'spiritual' philosophy. The evangelicals are born of a 'lower social class' and as a practical matter moved from a more conservative type of religious philosophy such as the Baptists to a more lucrative kind in fundamentalism.

The Swallows From Capistrano are depicted as JPII (John Paul II) Catholics whom hold an egalitarian type Catholic Dogma, but again Catholics outside that group have no true religious underpinning (I'm surmising that because he hasn't actually talked about that, yet.)

--- I'll finish later ---

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's an interesting conundrum to think about:

One Christopher Lasch was considered a preeminent 'leftist critic of the left'. He was quoted as saying 'we need a revisionist interpretation of American History, one that stresses the degree to which liberal democracy has lived off the borrowed capital of moral and religious traditions antedating the rise of liberalism.' The author states that some kind of financial metaphor is needed to demonstrate the past generations status quo but it is inaccurate in current times because the post-protestants have dwindled assets. The critical thing is that rightly so, the 'financial elite' of past times had opinions that were not of necessity reflective of the populace of say rural Michigan, As one noted contemporary (and truly intellectual) right wing blogger stated, "This is not Michigan, the elites decry...the Tea Party has the elites on the run." Problem is, there are no 'financial elites left in mainstream society'. Possibly one could view the educated as elite but for certain, they by and large are not financial elites, rather intellectual elites. So Lasch, after his death in 1994 was discovered by the right and became their champion voice against a class that no longer exists.

The traditional voice of the right, William F. Buckley famously quoted, "I should sooner live in society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University". Woo Hoo, this from a true member of the elite...Buckley.

Even more twisted is the fact that it was a 'communist' philosopher that formed the foundation of the right's belief that a parasitic form of governmental functionary and bureaucrat (can we say politicians) have come to control and rule by property as power and all this caused by an 'incomplete social revolution'.

It is obvious that this is the bedrock of the current right/left battle and not surpising to me, at all, is that it is predicated on mistaken, if not patently false grounds.

In the process of living Thesis->Antithesis->Synthesis, it occurred to me that I really don't see these battles in a political way, I see them completely as moral battles. A battle that is being lost by those that compromise what should be an unsullied sense of right and wrong.

[Emil El Zapato]

A couple of religious jokes:
"If India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden is the least, then the U.S. is a country of Indians ruled by Swedes" woowoowooowooo!
"The "nones' feel it is more Christian to state that one is not a Christian" Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!

So what does this mean for the great mainstream America and its cultural identity. The former Protestant elites might have lost their sense of financial and educational elitism, but they havent lost their sense of spiritual superiority. They that are spiritually awakened are better than the unwashed rabble (<snicker> we might even call them unwashed sheeple>). Their moral rightness is unquestioned.

The anti-religious, a.k.a. the libertines and the uber-religious, a.k.a., the prudes are locked in a life and death struggle for the soul. Modern sociologists believe the source are sexual mores, but here we find MY classic double-bind. Pro capital punishment vs pro-life for the right, pro sexual revolution, yet quesy about LGBT for the left. But those aren't the intractable problems facing them, the intractable problem is they are both incapable of understanding the social benefits of religion. The caveat is that the religious group must actually have a binding belief to facilitate the benefits. Religion, or literally any 'social organization' standing alone, as a vehicle for social benefit or progressive movement is a losing proposition.

[Emil El Zapato]

This is fascinating to me:

One Max Weber wrote two sociology/religious books in the 1930's, The Protestant Ethic and the The Spirit of Capitalism. His goal was 3-fold. First, to counter Karl Marx's assertlion that 'economics caused modern Christianity, rather Weber maintained the opposite, that Christianity shaped economics. Second, to give a less abstract 'goal' to Protestants, in particular the hard sells like the Calvinists. A salvation reward was not practical enough for Calvinists so Weber postulated, not in a vacuum as he had Benjamin Franklin as a model. For example, 'A penny saved is a penny earned, etc...ad nauseum, that to strive for economic reward and NOT waste or spend was not only God-like but the source of certain salvation. And third, to eschew the Catholic emphasis on helping the poor, piety, and separation of self from the foibles of modern society. (Does this sound familiar to anyone?)

Obviously, something went horribly wrong down the spiritual economic path when the beneficiaries kept the economic impetus and lost the religion.

[Emil El Zapato]

Walter Rauschenbusch (/ˈwɔːltər ˈraʊʃənbʊʃ/; October 4, 1861 – July 25, 1918) was an American theologian and Baptist pastor who taught at the Rochester Theological Seminary. Rauschenbusch was a key figure in the Social Gospel and 'Single Tax' movements that flourished in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also the maternal grandfather of the influential philosopher Richard Rorty and the great-grandfather of Paul Raushenbush.

ok, now this guy was very influential in the time period noted above (from wikipedia)

His relationship with his father, a native born German, was described as such: "Augustus would whip his son for explaining such things as 'skepticism' to fellow students but at the same time insisted that his son have an intellectual knowledge of all things religious and social." hmmm...I hope the point is not lost for lack of explanation.

I will say about this guy he did have a relatively decent social consciousness in that he spoke in favor of help for the poor.

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's a little self-test - sociopsychological:

Here's the answer grid.

Do you hate the Vatican? - Do you hate fascism?
Yes Yes You are a good liberal
No No You are a good conservative
No Yes You are confused and a good alt-righter
Yes No You are confused and a good alt-righter

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's another one for you:

What is Truth?

The experimental determination of future consequences...I've been saying that for years and no one person ever said thank you.

Apparently William James was held in higher regard than me....hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha....woowowowo wowowwwoooooooooooooowoo


Not done yet...

My cat was sitting on the floor just staring off into space, and since I was in the middle of a migraine headache, I thought, what the heck, that's as good as any altered state so I'll try to read his mind. All I got was 'chicken' and I don't think the damn thing was blue either... Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!

[Aragorn]

Not done yet...

My cat was sitting on the floor just staring off into space, and since I was in the middle of a migraine headache, I thought, what the heck, that's as good as any altered state so I'll try to read his mind. All I got was 'chicken' and I don't think the damn thing was blue either... Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!

Are you sure it didn't read "cheeseburger"? :ha:



http://harry.enzoverder.be/cats/i-can-has-cheezburger-you-can-has-laptop.jpg

[Emil El Zapato]

Are you sure it didn't read "cheeseburger"? :ha:



http://harry.enzoverder.be/cats/i-can-has-cheezburger-you-can-has-laptop.jpg

funny...a happy kitty....

[Maggie]

What is Truth?

The experimental determination of future consequences...I've been saying that for years and no one person ever said thank you.

Apparently William James was held in higher regard than me....hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha....woowowowo wowowwwoooooooooooooowoo



Listening to this again and I love Neville's words here. I think so too...the future consequences are experimental.

AHQ8OFTEKyg

[Emil El Zapato]

Listening to this again and I love Neville's words here. I think so too...the future consequences are experimental.

AHQ8OFTEKyg

cool

[Aragorn]

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/81/4c/1e/814c1e3c031ebf02c5fc7342d135c3bd--funny-things-funny-stuff.jpg

[Dreamtimer]

Or...It's life, Jim, but not as we know it. ;)

[Dreamtimer]

There are a lot of video mash-ups to this song:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=59&v=QUq9Hxqad24

[Emil El Zapato]

cool

you know I tried to see an alternate reality for awhile...not much happened beyond what my imagination produced...I figured I better stop or i might lose it... :)

yeah, I love some of those biblical stories...they really are inspiring and I truly believe them (have faith in them) Old fashioned Jesus is telling it like it is...

[Wind]

Why criticizing Israel is OK. In fact any sane, well educated and empathic human would do that.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180424-its-time-to-admit-that-israel-is-an-apartheid-state/
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/why-calling-israel-apartheid-or-settler-colonialism-not-antisemitic-1906631735

https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/26240557_10156087702136926_8725495138654051919_o.p ng?_nc_cat=0&oh=62becb50eb94877eb6dd8ba4f557ac46&oe=5BD3C432

[Emil El Zapato]

Why criticizing Israel is OK. In fact any sane, well educated and empathic human would do that.

there really is no justification for blatant crimes against fledgling humans.

[Emil El Zapato]

Ok, this one has me worried:

Last night I let my two cats in, locked the back door, and went to bed. When I woke up this morning I got up to let them out and they both ran into the house from outside?

My first and only guess. I slept walked them out sometime last night.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=7Ex12GECA_E

[Elen]

Ok, this one has me worried:

Last night I let my two cats in, locked the back door, and went to bed. When I woke up this morning I got up to let them out and they both ran into the house from outside?

My first and only guess. I slept walked them out sometime last night.


Cats have abilities that we know nothing about yet. They can have special doorways and be in two places at the same time. :D I love it!

[Emil El Zapato]

lol, I know what you mean... :)

[Dreamtimer]

I like that report, NAP. Is this something that is normally released to the media? That American Airlines pilot has a nice Southern accent.

[Emil El Zapato]

I like that report, NAP. Is this something that is normally released to the media? That American Airlines pilot has a nice Southern accent.

I was just looking for some recent UFO news and I hit on that one - Google.

So here I am doing a little housework and suddenly a white orb about the size of a flashlight pops into my vision and then disappears. I figured it was a reflection of something so I tried to recreate it and couldn't.

Oh yeah, Cliff High is a jackass.

[Dreamtimer]

I happened to catch this moment and I think it's hilarious. That is, Ana's reaction and Cenk's utter poker face. I've watched this moment several times now. :lol::lol::lol:

The moment is at 52:19.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcre727ibP4&feature=youtu.be&t=3141

(I'm not a subscriber or regular consumer of the channel)

[Wind]

Oh yeah, Cliff High is a jackass.

You don't like many people, now do you? :p

[Emil El Zapato]

There are a lot of people Wind...it's not really that I dislkike him, I just think he's addle-brained...so I guess I should have posted not that he was a jackass but rather addle-brained.

Truth is, the vast majority of people that get Youtube video space are lunatics...not all, of course, but many many. It's like dating on online sites. Check that one out if you want an eye-opening experience. :)

p.s. I absolutely love C.W. Chanter... :) I could watch him for hours...literally.

[Wind]

Haha, you sure a more cynical than even I am and sometimes I think that I can be too pessimistic when it comes to people.

[Aragorn]

p.s. I absolutely love C.W. Chanter... :) I could watch him for hours...literally.

With Chanter, you kind of have to if you want to hear the actual message. He's so full of himself and he so loves hearing himself talk that he simply can't get to the point without going all over the place first — and during, and after. :p

[Emil El Zapato]

With Chanter, you kind of have to if you want to hear the actual message. He's so full of himself and he so loves hearing himself talk that he simply can't get to the point without going all over the place first — and during, and after. :p

say wha'! My impression is that most time he really doesn't take himself that serious...he has a very good mind though, articulate and thoughtful and 'funnee'


Haha, you sure a more cynical than even I am and sometimes I think that I can be too pessimistic when it comes to people.

I probably dislike 1 in 100 flesh and blood beings. But I never give up on them. One decent turn and all history is gone. In truth, that even includes my ex-wife... :) it's never happened, though.

[Dreamtimer]

Here's some images to help you get your religion started, NAP. :p;):whstl::flame:

https://s15-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmaxiwina.files.wordpr ess.com%2F2017%2F11%2Fchrist-consciousness-cover.jpg%3Fw%3D924%26amp%3Bh%3D0%26amp%3Bcrop%3D1&sp=b4b3ed1b01c7210963e5d328aab4da0e

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https:%2F%2Fstatic1.squarespace.com %2Fstatic%2F52d56114e4b0777503350b77%2Ft%2F59a989a 6d55b41693d510070%2F1504283068779%2Ftorus16.jpg&sp=3037854ecafbbf8d3d108d733dc79b43

https://s15-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F-Npy4BjLyCI%2Fhqdefault.jpg&sp=9c8d887fa0c2b1cbb772cc9e592f043d

[Dreamtimer]

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slate.com%2Fconten t%2Fdam%2Fslate%2Farchive%2F2007%2F04%2F1_123125_2 164556_2164978_070425_brain_rosarytn.gif.CROP.orig inal-original.gif&sp=1ae3180416a224b97cd0314b33e59233

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's some images to help you get your religion started, NAP. :p;):whstl::flame:

https://s15-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmaxiwina.files.wordpr ess.com%2F2017%2F11%2Fchrist-consciousness-cover.jpg%3Fw%3D924%26amp%3Bh%3D0%26amp%3Bcrop%3D1&sp=b4b3ed1b01c7210963e5d328aab4da0e

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https:%2F%2Fstatic1.squarespace.com %2Fstatic%2F52d56114e4b0777503350b77%2Ft%2F59a989a 6d55b41693d510070%2F1504283068779%2Ftorus16.jpg&sp=3037854ecafbbf8d3d108d733dc79b43

https://s15-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F-Npy4BjLyCI%2Fhqdefault.jpg&sp=9c8d887fa0c2b1cbb772cc9e592f043d

lol...thanks...I just saw a video by Steven Greer claiming he was asked by President Trump and the Kremlin to draft a disclosure letter...really! I looked for it on general youtube and couldn't find it...it was dated 08/09, 2018

[Emil El Zapato]

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slate.com%2Fconten t%2Fdam%2Fslate%2Farchive%2F2007%2F04%2F1_123125_2 164556_2164978_070425_brain_rosarytn.gif.CROP.orig inal-original.gif&sp=1ae3180416a224b97cd0314b33e59233

damn, DT, you nailed it with that one... :)

[Dreamtimer]

damn, DT, you nailed it with that one... :)

The title was something like, achieve spiritual ecstasy through electromagnetic stimulation.

[Wind]

https://s15-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F-Npy4BjLyCI%2Fhqdefault.jpg&sp=9c8d887fa0c2b1cbb772cc9e592f043d

I think this might have been my first avatar on Avalon about seven years ago, lol.

[Dreamtimer]

Tuesday was the day of eights.

Eight guilty indictments.

Eight guilty pleas.

Eight fails on pronouncing CBP by dear leader.

[Emil El Zapato]

oh man, meet the real Kryon speaking about post-modernity and the polarization around the culture wars, Jordan Peterson, and one of my personal favorites...Ken Wilber. Not coincidentally it appears that I feel about Jordan Peterson the same way that Wilber does and the zen master, Kryon... :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABWeA203Q-c

[Elen]

oh man, meet the real Kryon speaking about post-modernity and the polarization around the culture wars, Jordan Peterson, and one of my personal favorites...Ken Wilber. Not coincidentally it appears that I feel about Jordan Peterson the same way that Wilber does and the zen master, Kryon... :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABWeA203Q-c

I REALLY enjoyed this conversation NAP, and I agree with everything they said. Thank you for sharing...:tiphat: Namaste...Grüss Gott...I see the Buddha in you...etc. etc.

Adding a "one-hand clapping" for you.....:h5:

[Wind]

Another mass shooting, just another day in the US, eh?


http://youtu.be/f4KbuMxP2oY
Look at this assclown too, reminds me a bit of the Joker from The Dark Knight.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNMGzsxJgkM
Their modus operandi is just to cause chaos and havoc in society. Jordan Peterson keeps on talking about people like these.
No doubt that often demon possession has something to do with these things, because society at large is demonic anyways.

Then there are those retards in the conspiracy community who claim that all of these shootings are hoaxes, there are no victims and that all of the shooters would be patsies. Yes, I'm sure that sometimes the governments create bigger terror attacks with their CIA or Mossad trained wet-teams like it was with 9/11. The key word is sometimes. Not all the damn time.

Someone said this modern wave of mass shootings in US started around 1998. 20 years of constant mass shooting and virtually nothing has been done about it. Mental health care has failed, gun control has failed. These things are just getting more intense actually, what a weird world we live in. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[Dreamtimer]

The dude who did it had won last year. I don't know what else was going on with him, but he lost this year and then lost it.

[Dreamtimer]

There's been a deep blonde conspiracy...

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stevedennie.com%2F wp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F01%2Ffoxnewsblonds-950.jpg&sp=65052018a43da42057f22ffe64d3a95c

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Fst atic.politifact.com%2Fpolitifact%2Fphotos%2F104203 72_10154346967465444_1330357103174353568_n.jpg&sp=ebaa3e2e76f2001aa363a6ad3d865614

They had to put dudes and black folks on the list to get enough brunettes for a quorum:

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Ft0.gstatic.com%2Fimage s%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcQLeTQ-4SmBToCwzjJAINd2GLnVLLtPDT_kczcWwtFTRul-OAXY9A&sp=790f0e0f496932750595bafaf98703f6&anticache=789276

[Aragorn]

There's been a deep blonde conspiracy...

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stevedennie.com%2F wp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F01%2Ffoxnewsblonds-950.jpg&sp=65052018a43da42057f22ffe64d3a95c

https://s14-eu5.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Fst atic.politifact.com%2Fpolitifact%2Fphotos%2F104203 72_10154346967465444_1330357103174353568_n.jpg&sp=ebaa3e2e76f2001aa363a6ad3d865614

And now for the big question: are there any women at all among those shown here-above whose natural hair color is blonde? :D

[Dreamtimer]

I looked at the image with the most faces and perhaps second row, fourth from the left, with the bright red background might be natural. She's quite pale and her eyebrows are light.

[Emil El Zapato]

My laptop and streaming tv keep turning themselves off...it's starting to get annoying.

[Dreamtimer]

oh man, meet the real Kryon speaking about post-modernity and the polarization around the culture wars, Jordan Peterson, and one of my personal favorites...Ken Wilber. Not coincidentally it appears that I feel about Jordan Peterson the same way that Wilber does and the zen master, Kryon... :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABWeA203Q-c

So I finally got around to listening to this. I enjoyed the whole thing but he really nailed it at the end.

The bit about respecting everyone but trust has to be earned. So spot on.

Also a bit of revelation for me about AA. I didn't understand that Jung influenced the founders of AA.

"A realignment with some power that's greater than ourselves. This is the medicine for narcissism."

My brother-in-law was unable to do that. That was the stumbling point for him. He is no longer with us. He was only a couple years older than me.


Final quote: "If we can't awaken something greater than ourselves we're not going to survive."

[Emil El Zapato]

In the past week I have some good lengthy discussions with a Palestinian and a Venezuelan. This is what I gathered of things relevant to me:

Palenstinian: They feel compelled to be strong, forceful (authoritarian) to protect themselves against Israeli influence. (no real surprise there)

Venezuelan: Blames Cuba, Russia, and China for their economic plight. They promised Venezuela perks to allow them to 'shape' their philosophical, economic, and social agenda. In turn, the perks became mandates through government infiltration by their benefactors. Cubans apparently dominate civil organizations and enforce their will by policy. The United States is looked upon as the 'honey spreaders' with the intent to entice the populace to 'rebel' against the enforced policies of the 'sovereignty usurpers' (i.e. Cuba, Russia, and China (is actually more of a honey spreader than an infiltrator)

[Aragorn]

I'm not sure whether the following demands a dedicated thread, so I'm going to post it here... This is after all a chaos thread. :p

For anyone old enough to remember Burt Reynolds — and he has been in a lot of movies, but the best known of those would be "Deliverance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliverance)" and the first two of the "Smokey And The Bandit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_and_the_Bandit)" movies — has passed away. He was 82 years old.



https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Burt_Reynolds_1991_portrait_crop.jpg/330px-Burt_Reynolds_1991_portrait_crop.jpg

Burt Reynolds in 1991


By the way, that's a toupé he's wearing there. :p He already had a strongly receding hairline in his movies of the 1970s, and I remember reading that he was almost fully bald by the 1990s. ;)

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, he was bald and a cool character...

[Aianawa]

I met with him when he was doing a movie here in NZ, gosh 15 years ago maybe ( without a paddle was the movie name ), liked him, he was quiet.

[Wind]

https://i.redd.it/krsplw0r72l11.png

[Emil El Zapato]

gawd, if you insist... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Mainstream Media is at it again... :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG4uwQke_i8

[Dreamtimer]

This dude was on Joe Rogan's show (https://jandeane81.com/showthread.php/10588-Joe-Rogan-Experience?p=841995738&viewfull=1#post841995738) early in the summer. It was very interesting.

[Emil El Zapato]

Everyone knows this equation:
E = mc2

But how many of us know this one:
E2 = (mpc2)2 = p2c2 + m2c4

Translated to non-mathematical lingo it is the answer to what we've all been seeking and also will put us all on easy street :): (i.e. spoken language...though it might be fun to go through our day speaking in only equations (I think I tried that one time with a smart-aleck board denizen))

"To create a physical reality is simple. Learn to move by staying as close as possible to a balance of energies"
- not me -

[Dreamtimer]

Someone's gettin' real desperate:

https://images.dailykos.com/images/589465/story_image/DnMFyMtU0AAzwSa.jpg?1537099079

Let's intimidate voters into donating. Yeah, that's the ticket!

[Emil El Zapato]

Someone's gettin' real desperate:

https://images.dailykos.com/images/589465/story_image/DnMFyMtU0AAzwSa.jpg?1537099079

Let's intimidate voters into donating. Yeah, that's the ticket!

that's Ted Cruz...the only person on the planet that could out disgust him was Trump...

[Aragorn]

that's Ted Cruz...the only person on the planet that could out disgust him was Trump...

Oh, I don't know about that, NotAPretender. It's a very big planet, you know. :p

[Dreamtimer]

Now Cruz is saying that if Beto is elected he'll outlaw BBQ in Texas. MEGA LOL.

He said this after seeing some PETA activists handing out tofu BBQ. As if PETA activists would ever give out meat for anyone.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=HuxJqIs2a-Y

[Dreamtimer]

I have a hypothesis. I think that when society truly advances, it becomes more and more run by women. They are the better communicators: much more verbal and socially aware at a much younger age; much more prone to networking and cooperating; much more inclined to look to the future and long-term results rather than short-term gain.

I think that advanced societies which visited earth would be led by females.

And I think that leaders in our world still can't handle that.

It's like when the Europeans came to the New World and tribes sent their sachems, often women, to meet the leaders. The European men couldn't handle meeting with leaders who were women. Sometimes they couldn't even accept the reality of it. It was seen as weakness by Native Americans.

And it was weakness. The ego leads to this kind of weakness. Men, perhaps due to high T, are more vulnerable to the ravages of the ego.

In fact, I bet if we knew our real history as humanity, we'd discover many advanced ancient civilizations that were run by women.

Modern military men would not want to announce that the aliens were women. They wouldn't even know how.

[Elen]

I have a hypothesis. I think that when society truly advances, it becomes more and more run by women. They are the better communicators: much more verbal and socially aware at a much younger age; much more prone to networking and cooperating; much more inclined to look to the future and long-term results rather than short-term gain.

I think that advanced societies which visited earth would be led by females.

And I think that leaders in our world still can't handle that.

It's like when the Europeans came to the New World and tribes sent their sachems, often women, to meet the leaders. The European men couldn't handle meeting with leaders who were women. Sometimes they couldn't even accept the reality of it. It was seen as weakness by Native Americans.

And it was weakness. The ego leads to this kind of weakness. Men, perhaps due to high T, are more vulnerable to the ravages of the ego.

In fact, I bet if we knew our real history as humanity, we'd discover many advanced ancient civilizations that were run by women.

Modern military men would not want to announce that the aliens were women. They wouldn't even know how.

;)

[Chris]

I have a hypothesis. I think that when society truly advances, it becomes more and more run by women. They are the better communicators: much more verbal and socially aware at a much younger age; much more prone to networking and cooperating; much more inclined to look to the future and long-term results rather than short-term gain.

I think that advanced societies which visited earth would be led by females.

And I think that leaders in our world still can't handle that.

It's like when the Europeans came to the New World and tribes sent their sachems, often women, to meet the leaders. The European men couldn't handle meeting with leaders who were women. Sometimes they couldn't even accept the reality of it. It was seen as weakness by Native Americans.

And it was weakness. The ego leads to this kind of weakness. Men, perhaps due to high T, are more vulnerable to the ravages of the ego.

In fact, I bet if we knew our real history as humanity, we'd discover many advanced ancient civilizations that were run by women.

Modern military men would not want to announce that the aliens were women. They wouldn't even know how.

It sounds good, but actual evidence in human societies points to the opposite conclusion. Matriarchal societies, led by women, tend to be stuck at a stone-age level, though admittedly they are a lot more harmonious and peaceable, existing in balance with nature. Our modern society, with its exploitation and destruction of the planet is clearly tied to patriarchal attitudes and ways of thinking. Traditionally, matriarchal societies could not compete with the warlike and exploitative nature of patriarchal societies, so they were generally swept away after a while. Every nation that exists today is patriarchal and the people who ended up living where they are today generally did so by invading the territory of someone else, killing the men and taking the women as slaves or wives. I'm not aware of any counterexamples.


That said, this may be a sign of our savage and primitive nature. I can certainly imagine that other species are very different (we are basically a subspecies of Chimpanzee, a particularly nasty and violent species of primates, especially compared with Gorillas and Orangutans) and there is no reason why they wouldn't be, on other planets. Even on this one, there are many species that live in matriarchal societies, such as Hyenas for instance and possibly Bonobos, though I'm less sure about the latter.

[Elen]

Matriarchal societies, led by women, tend to be stuck at a stone-age level.

What's wrong with stone-age level...(if it ever existed). ;)

[Dreamtimer]

Considering the amount of history that has been wiped away, i.e. we only recently learned of Hatepshut, I think high civilization could easily be achieved by matriarchies.

They would still have men, and men would be protectors.

Conquest is certainly not the only way to civilization, there are many paths.

Most people aren't violent, that's how we have almost seven billion. We don't have those numbers because of rape and violence. We have them because of family and community.

If we were like Bonobos we'd be even more horny. I'm not sure how that would pan out other than that our main enemy would be STDs. Bonobos have them in spades.

[Aragorn]

I have a hypothesis. I think that when society truly advances, it becomes more and more run by women. They are the better communicators: much more verbal and socially aware at a much younger age; much more prone to networking and cooperating; much more inclined to look to the future and long-term results rather than short-term gain.

It sounds good, but actual evidence in human societies points to the opposite conclusion. Matriarchal societies, led by women, tend to be stuck at a stone-age level, though admittedly they are a lot more harmonious and peaceable, existing in balance with nature. Our modern society, with its exploitation and destruction of the planet is clearly tied to patriarchal attitudes and ways of thinking. Traditionally, matriarchal societies could not compete with the warlike and exploitative nature of patriarchal societies, so they were generally swept away after a while. Every nation that exists today is patriarchal and the people who ended up living where they are today generally did so by invading the territory of someone else, killing the men and taking the women as slaves or wives. I'm not aware of any counterexamples.

What's wrong with stone-age level...(if it ever existed). ;)

Oh boy, here comes the age-old battle of the sexes again, and neither of the two combatants seems to understand what's going on. :p So here's a bit of wisdom, from the mind of none other than your friendly administrator, Aragorn — not from any talking head on YouTube, and certainly not from of any books on psychology. ;)

On the one hand, you've got raw emotion, and on the other hand, you've got pure and unadulterated logic. Men will say that women are illogical and too emotional. Women will say that men are too practical and too insensitive. Neither is true.

Here's how it works... In a man, raw emotion and unadulterated logic are wired together in parallel, whereas in a woman, they are wired together in series.



A woman's response to any situation always comes from within the emotional part of her being, and then passes through the logical part of her mind. This does two things. First of all, it colors her logic with emotion, and therefore, her logic isn't "pure" anymore. But on the other hand, her logical and analytical mind will then buffer these emotions, so that her communicative skills are far more sophisticated. That is why a woman can sometimes say the opposite of what she means — e.g. "Yes" when she means "No", and vice versa.


A man's response to any situation always comes from both the emotional part of his being and the logical part of his being at the same time. That is why men are better capable of separating their emotions from their rational thinking, but at the same time, it also means that they can easily be swayed over to one side, i.e. too much reason and too little emotion, or too much emotion and too little reason. After all, in a man's mind, the logic doesn't act as a buffer for the raw emotions, as it does in a woman's mind.


The bottom line is that neither of the two is the better one. Both genders have their strengths and their weaknesses, and it is only when they work together that progress can be made.

Sadly enough, in today's society, this is still strongly discouraged, because female leaders think they have to compete with men, and old-school men would rather keep the women subdued, given that they recognize the potential of the female input, which would lead to an outcome that's undesirable for those bent on conquest and subjugation. On account of the distribution of socio-political power, it is indeed still a man's world.

And when we're talking of the USA specifically, then we're looking at a nation that has been perpetually at war since at least as early as World War II, and that still glorifies masculinity and conquest. Among other things, that is why the USA is constantly flirting with fascism and militarism. After all, it is a nation founded by conquerors and so-called pioneers.

The masculine drive is also still very strong in religiously led countries such as in the Islamic world, even though this is not a consequence of Islam itself. When it comes to the subjugation of women, Islam only builds upon something that already existed in the Arab world long before Mohamed came along, and which can also already be found in the much older Jewish scriptures. Judaism originated somewhere around 5'200 years ago, and the original scriptures — which can still be found in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible — already depicted women as subordinate to men. In other words, this was a phenomenon typical to that particular region, and it has been able to sustain itself up until this very day through the spreading of Islam from the 7th century of our time count onward.

If on the other hand you look at the traditional Chinese and Japanese cultures as they existed before the political turmoil of the 20th century, then China has for most part always been far more sophisticated on account of gender roles. Sure, the leaders were still men, but the role of women in Chinese culture was quite different. Women enjoyed the deep respect of all men, even in feudal Japan.

For that matter, things were quite different in the Mediterranean region as well. Both the Romans and the Greeks had pantheistic religions, with many female deities. The Greek oracles were also always female, as were many Greek poets.

Here in the West and compared to the USA, Europe has already long begun warming up to female leadership, but in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. Two possible exceptions to that rule in today's Europe would be Angela Merkel and Theresa May. And in the past, there was Margaret Thatcher. I am not talking of the political agendas/vantages or the personalities of these women now, but of the fact that all three can be regarded as true stateswomen, as opposed to women who are (or have been) in positions of power because they are still mentally and secretly competing with men.

The latter are either women with a chip on their shoulder or else they are career politicians and opportunists — a path of moral corruption paved by equally depraved men — but they either way do not possess the qualities needed for making good policy. For them, being in a position of power is a matter of ego, rather than of a commitment to serve society. Love them or hate them, but Merkel and May are both doing what they believe is right for their respective countries.

We live in a competitive world, where cooperation is just a means for becoming more competitive. What we should be headed toward is a cooperative world, where competition is merely recreational and ultimately leads to more cooperation. And that goes for the battle between the sexes as well. Men and women work well together. Extremely well. So that is what they should be doing, instead of competing with one another.

None of the above comes out of any books or was inspired by any talking heads. This is my own mind, my own observation and analysis, and my own life experience. This is me being creative with the information I have gleaned, as opposed to parroting some self-important talking head.

:tiphat:

[Elen]

Men and women work well together. Extremely well. So that is what they should be doing, instead of competing with one another.

I agree with you Brother...this is what we do here on TOT. But when somebody says something to the contrary I do step in and "up to the plate." :thup::smile2:

[Fred Steeves]

Balance is the key to success.

[Dreamtimer]

Working together is definitely what I'm talking about which is why men would be protectors, among other things. It's the same dynamic, imo, as why they make great friends. They protect without trying to own/control.

There were male and female sachems.

Competition is but one dynamic of society and gender differences are quite fluid in humanity, imo.

The best people to 'greet aliens' are not military types anyway. The best suited would be diplomats. Diplomats are usually both male and female. (early sign of advancement?)


We do need to keep some off those 'stone age' skills, eh Elen?

I think we're in the very beginning of changing the current very male dominated dynamic. I think a lot of the cooperative models have been lost to history. And history does repeat itself.

So maybe advanced civilizations from elsewhere will make themselves known once we have a more balanced (matriarchal or not) world.

[Chris]

What's wrong with stone-age level...(if it ever existed). ;)

Yes, good point. I think a lot of us would prefer to live like that, simply and close to nature. I do envy those indigenous tribes that managed to maintain that lifestyle. I could really get used to living a life like that and wouldn't mind living in a matriarchal society either. From the studies I've read about an existing matriarchal tribal society in China, everybody's much happier and more peaceful in that environment. The big problem I see with this kind of society is competition from technologically more advanced societies and as far as I know, all of them are essentially patriarchal. When men (and they always are) with bulldozers, pickaxes and shovels start moving into your neighbourhood, chopping down trees and digging up whatever they can find in the ground, you're on borrowed time. The aggression and warlike nature of patriarchal societies is really a problem and nobody has been able to find a solution to that, just yet. Perhaps Northern Europe has made some progress, as those countries are quite egalitarian and very peaceful at the same time. I am hopeful that some balance will be found, at least in these societies and the rest of the globe will eventually follow suit.

[Chris]

Considering the amount of history that has been wiped away, i.e. we only recently learned of Hatepshut, I think high civilization could easily be achieved by matriarchies.

In theory, yes, though there are no concrete examples I know of. I suspect there might have been some in the distant past, that we haven't yet discovered.



They would still have men, and men would be protectors.

I don't think that anyone would honestly want to live in a society without either men or women. It would be pretty dire. In fact, there was an excellent polish sci-fi movie comedy that depicted exactly such a distopian future. I forget the title, but it was pure genius.


Conquest is certainly not the only way to civilization, there are many paths.

At least in the case of Homo Sapiens, that doesn't seem to be the case. There is not one advanced earth civilisation I can think of that didn't get where it is today through copious amounts of violence.


Most people aren't violent, that's how we have almost seven billion. We don't have those numbers because of rape and violence. We have them because of family and community.


I wish I could share your rosy view of our species. Unfortunately the evidence shows otherwise. Sure, when there is plenty to eat, like now, and competition for resources is pretty amiable and civilised, we do look pretty good. As soon as you take away the food, the heat and other creature comforts, people turn into raging, murderous chimpanzees pretty quickly.


If we were like Bonobos we'd be even more horny. I'm not sure how that would pan out other than that our main enemy would be STDs. Bonobos have them in spades.

I believe the Neanderthals were like that. They were also matriarchal. We ate them.

[Emil El Zapato]

I have a hypothesis. I think that when society truly advances, it becomes more and more run by women. They are the better communicators: much more verbal and socially aware at a much younger age; much more prone to networking and cooperating; much more inclined to look to the future and long-term results rather than short-term gain.

I think that advanced societies which visited earth would be led by females.

And I think that leaders in our world still can't handle that.

It's like when the Europeans came to the New World and tribes sent their sachems, often women, to meet the leaders. The European men couldn't handle meeting with leaders who were women. Sometimes they couldn't even accept the reality of it. It was seen as weakness by Native Americans.

And it was weakness. The ego leads to this kind of weakness. Men, perhaps due to high T, are more vulnerable to the ravages of the ego.

In fact, I bet if we knew our real history as humanity, we'd discover many advanced ancient civilizations that were run by women.

Modern military men would not want to announce that the aliens were women. They wouldn't even know how.

you obviously haven't been exposed to the same women as I have... :). in fact, take my current supervisor...please!

[Emil El Zapato]

Where would religion be without the Archontic authoritarianism?

[Aragorn]

Guys, I know this is the chaos thread, but I've been thinking about whether it would be of merit to split off the Battle Of The Sexes™ debate onto a separate thread, to go under the Society & Civilization subforum. :hmm:

Your thoughts, please? :)

[Dreamtimer]

No need for a battle. I put it on the chaos thread so there wouldn't be any kind of battle. It's just a hypothesis, not a theory.

Although, I do like the thoughtful responses.

The women in power now have gotten there in the current system. That won't remain the same. It's changing and new women are coming in who are part of a new dynamic, a new paradigm.

It's that old arc of change that bends slowly upwards.

[Elen]

We do need to keep some off those 'stone age' skills, eh Elen?

Oh yeah...we do. I'm not as scared of the stone-age as some people are, Dreamtimer...that's when we really had skills! (This knowledge didn't come from "a book" either).

Hey...I'm glad to be back! And noooo....there will be noooo battle here. :ha:

[Aragorn]

Guys, I know this is the chaos thread, but I've been thinking about whether it would be of merit to split off the Battle Of The Sexes debate onto a separate thread, to go under the Society & Civilization subforum. :hmm:

Your thoughts, please? :)

No need for a battle. I put it on the chaos thread so there wouldn't be any kind of battle. It's just a hypothesis, not a theory.

And noooo....there will be noooo battle here. :ha:

Um, I wasn't insinuating that it is the participants of this exchange who would be involved in a battle. ;) I was referring to a discussion about The Battle Of The Sexes™ as a historically social phenomenon. :)

But if you guys want to keep it here on the thread, then that's fine by me. ;)

[Dreamtimer]

Fisticuffs!

[Emil El Zapato]

well here's my blow...a 26-year old woman went bazooka yesterday...

[Dreamtimer]

Bubblegum?


Kavanagh looks like a squinty Bejoran. (pretty non-PC, eh?)

[Elen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne0DcWlB62o

[palooka's revenge]

well here's my blow...a 26-year old woman went bazooka yesterday...

is that like a melt down?

[Dreamtimer]

Democrats (progressives) are now doing something they had failed to do for a couple decades. They're getting out into voting districts and getting to know the people. They're doing a lot of leg work. It used to be that people would say, "I haven't seen a democrat in my district for years." Not anymore.

Luke Wochensky grew up in rural Western New York and is the proud son of a town highway worker and a substitute teacher. Luke is endorsed by Run for Something, a group set up to support young progressives running for down-ballot races. He is also endorsed by the top elected Republican in his district, Doug Berwanger, chairman of the Wyoming County Board of Supervisors.

So this past Tuesday , Luke climbed on a late model Farmall 400 tractor and embarked on a 250-mile journey across the 147th. One small town at a time.

https://images.dailykos.com/images/591222/story_image/IMG_0168.JPG?1537529051

Vote it forward.

[Fred Steeves]

Luke is endorsed by Run for Something, a group set up to support young progressives running for down-ballot races.

Does this mean real change is finally coming to Washington? :lol:

I'm sure this guy is probably a well meaning good ole boy as advertised, but he probably has zero clue what he's getting himself into. Results from a quick cursory search of "Run for Something" reveals, rather unshockingly, more of the tired same old same old party line spear bearers:

Amanda Litman - Hillary Clinton’s email director.

Ross Morales Rocketto - Progressive political operative with 15 years of experience in campaign management, grassroots organizing, and data/analytics.

Leslie Hauser - Politically energized in 2016, maker of 57 pussyhats (Stupid, but atleast original...)

Sarah Horvitz - Deputy Organizing Director for Hillary Clinton’s Virginia team

Robert Wrasse - Grassroots fundraising staffer on Barack Obama’s re-elect.

Derek Eadon - Former Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. Worked for the Obama Campaign and Organizing for America for most of 2007-2012

Marsha Gonzalez - Formerly organized a variety of events for RAND Corporation

Amanda Clarke - Voter Registration Director and Deputy Organizing Director for Hillary Clinton's campaign in North Carolina

Amanda Brown - Political and Organizing Director, Democratic National Committee

Teddy Goff - Digital & tech for Obama 2008, Obama 2012, and Hillary 2016

Caitlin Mitchell - Chief Mobilization Officer, Democratic National Committee

Charles Olivier - Global Financial Operations, Google
https://runforsomething.net/about/



So the tractor gig is a good marketing idea harkening back to the "he coon" Senator Walkin Lawton Chiles of Florida back in the day, but aside from furthering the social justice warrior gig, hard to see any new profound ideas coming from the dems this go around.

[Dreamtimer]

An observation I've been hearing/seeing a lot over the last couple years is that districts that haven't seen a democrat come to talk to them in decades are seeing it now. And they will continue to.

Whatever this change means in terms of leadership, it will take some time to manifest.

Both parties, for better or worse, are changing drastically.

[Emil El Zapato]

is that like a melt down?

that's my fully bilingual WWII veteran father's term for 'berserk'. He's still mad that I used to laugh out loud whenever he said it... :)

A San Antonio Texas district that has been a bastion for blue for decades went red...godd*mn 2nd generation Mexicans! :) Dey still trying to be white...

[Fred Steeves]

An observation I've been hearing/seeing a lot over the last couple years is that districts that haven't seen a democrat come to talk to them in decades are seeing it now. And they will continue to.

Whatever this change means in terms of leadership, it will take some time to manifest.

Both parties, for better or worse, are changing drastically.

Talk is cheap, action/demonstration means everything.

They are both continuing deeper into their desperate death spiral of blind, polarized allegiance and radicalization according to party identity, and the zombified faithful on both sides continue marching dutifully according to their program. Nothing new under the sun, nothing to see here folks, just keep shuffling along with your gimmicky hope and change fix every 2 and especially 4 years.

Now someone like a Jimmy Dore type? I could work with that, an independent thinker and not just another homer. I could do business with that kind of progressive despite some key disagreements we have.

Glenn Beck on the other side would be someone I could do business with as well, but to a lesser degree. Atleast he's willing to listen and talk somewhat reasonably.

Someone like a Joe Rogan more towards the middle, (actually leaning more Left but with an open and questioning mind), well now we've got ourselves something going on. There's a natural born thinker and man of reason if I ever saw one, again despite some of those irrelevant differences in opinions we have.

The only politician in D.C. I can think of that I could do business with in the real world would be Rand Paul.

Bottom line however, as many of us should have learned some time ago, is that the machine rules, and the machine is a two winged bird. Nothing more of substantive positive change will occur until we are able to transcend this wee little problem.

Other than that, it's more lipstick on a pig coming from that beauty pageant.

In summation, I still like the "image" of tractor guy, even though I have no idea what his actual opinions are! Isn't that something?

[Dreamtimer]

The action going on is the people getting out into the districts and talking to constituents. Doing leg work. Taking time. Talking with people rather than at them.

I like that you mentioned Jimmy Dore. I've listened to him a few times recently. His rants about the left make much more sense than most of the drivel that comes from the right.

The wings on that bird are broken or breaking. Either a new bird will rise from the ashes or we'll have a mutant bird with more than two wings.

[Fred Steeves]

The wings on that bird are broken or breaking. Either a new bird will rise from the ashes or we'll have a mutant bird with more than two wings.

The bird is safe, fat and happy, things are going just as it likes them, and more wings are not allowed.

[Dreamtimer]

Change happens a lot slower than we like. Too much too fast and things fall apart. There are many who think (are deluded imo) that Civil War is necessary. It's not, but that two winged bird has changed before and it will change again.

We got rid of slavery. Women got the vote. Those two things alone are YUGE looking at where we came from.

More change is happening now, esp. since we elected Trump.

The main thing is people can't predict how it will happen though they try.

[Fred Steeves]

We got rid of slavery. Women got the vote. Those two things alone are YUGE looking at where we came from.

We still have slavery, it just shapeshifted into entities such as ghettos, and the U.S prison system.

Yes, women can vote now, but what do they have to choose from? The right wing of empire, or the left wing.

[Dreamtimer]

True about the slavery. And there's way more human trafficking than most people know.

I still believe in the positive arc of change. Overall there is less despair and crime in the world though it's hard to feel the reality of that.

[Chris]

Hate to spoil the party on slavery, but in absolute terms, there have never been more slaves in the world than right now. From the numbers I've seen, there could be a hundred million people in that position today. Most of them are in the third world, particularly in South Asia and Africa, but there are millions of them in the first world too. It is probably the biggest misconception about slavery, that it basically ended in the 19th century. It may have gone largely underground, but it continues to exist and even thrive, unfortunately.

[Dreamtimer]

One of humanity's worst traits, imo.

[Elen]

One of humanity's worst traits, imo.

Amen to that! :h5:

[Emil El Zapato]

I had another one of those 'you tell me moments' yesterday.

In the morning I went shopping at a wholesale store and was dealing with an ongoing urge to buy an extra pair of 'tv watching' glasses. So I was in the store when I realized I had missed my turn at the spectacles aisle. As a running joke against me my daughter always teases me about my 'never turnaround' philosophy. I live by it, so when I missed my turn I thought to myself, 'oh well, never turnaround'

Later, I went out to mow my lawn and my new electric lawnmower wouldn't start...damn...So I hauled out the other gas lawnmower that had stopped working which had prompted me to buy the new one. It started up like a champ and so with my 'tv glasses' on (so I could see what I was doing) I started mowing. My next door neighbor had been outside all this time but on the phone so I didn't bother him until he was finished with his conversation. When he disconnected I walked over to him just to converse and we hashed over a number of things we have in common. During the convo, unprompted by me he started talking about saving money on frivolities like HD tvs. He mentioned that he watches tv without glasses so he can't tell if what he is watching is HD or not, so why pay for it. I replied that that would never work for me cause I gotta see my tv as gooded as possible. As we spoke, I reached down and felt for my glasses and sure enough they were safe and sound on my person. We finished and went about our business.

I went back to mowing and at a moment when I needed the glasses I reached down and they were gone. I checked every square foot of my yard and his once, twice, three times, and even four or five times. Nothing, they were gonzo!

Now, I have been absent minded since childhood and one of the reasons for this is that I always felt it was cool to not pay attention to 'sh*t' but then again maybe it was ADD talking to me. Age hasn't helped I suspect. BUT, I KNOW, I had those glasses on my person! Just like I know I will never see them again...

[Dreamtimer]

Go buy a pair of HD glasses and then go looking for them and you'll find them.

Unless you mowed them.:cracky:

[Emil El Zapato]

Go buy a pair of HD glasses and then go looking for them and you'll find them.

Unless you mowed them.:cracky:

lol...I looked for the remnants...still could find no traces. Today I went back over the area...not more than 12 paces away from ground zero, with my 'reading' glasses...No ting. :)

[Dreamtimer]

I lost a whole post! GRrrrrrr... I'll try again.

The purpose of these posts is to show the trends that are happening as they're happening. Failing to do so with Trump led to a lot of surprises. True to his name, he's causing great change, though not necessarily the kind that he wants...

First Virginia:


Every election season (which in Virginia is every year, since they hold their state elections in the off-years) we get a sense of where the state is heading electorally, just by watching the yard signs. In 2016, for instance, we were horrified by how many Trump signs we saw, though we weren’t that surprised — the route we take, while nominally in “northern Virginia,” is fairly rural and pretty red.


I checked the map this morning, and we drove through part of four congressional districts (the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 10th). I can’t tell you how many Kaine signs we saw — easily in the dozens — but we only saw three signs for Corey Stewart!


For the congressional races, though, the Democratic candidates’ signs far outnumbered their opponents, probably at a 5:1 or 6:1 rate!


And in Texas...

There were far too many districts that didn’t even field Democratic candidates for local and federal office in 2016 — including Miguel Levario’s northwest Texas district, TX-19.


"In the 19 months we've been running, I've met more independents than in the first 11 years I lived here"

I have Republicans telling me, 'I can't believe I'm meeting with a Democrat and I like you.'"

When Levario began his campaign, he heard from plenty of old-school Democrats...hat he had to play it safe to have a shot.


"I listened, but then as I said, when we go and talk to people, they don't want 'moderate,' they want what they want. They want healthcare, they want funding for their schools. They want their teachers to get paid.

So we've spent time in the neighborhoods that are predominantly Latino and African American. They know us and they said, yeah, you're the first and only candidate that's been out here in God knows when."


The new batch of Democrats, progressives really, has learned from the vast stupidity of Democratic leadership and are not following suit. They're getting out and talking to people. They're going to districts (whole states even) that Democrats haven't been going to for years.

It will make a difference.

[Emil El Zapato]

I just watched Kavanaugh and his wife talk about the charges (On Fox News).

She was lying her ass off and he went along for the ride...it's sad...they have compromised themselves...perhaps solidied their relationship with a mutual skeleton in the closet. Pretty unfortunate...

[Maggie]

I just watched Kavanaugh and his wife talk about the charges (On Fox News).

She was lying her ass off and he went along for the ride...it's sad...they have compromised themselves...perhaps solidied their relationship with a mutual skeleton in the closet. Pretty unfortunate...

IMO Kavanaugh lies as easily as he speaks.
He is being pushed through because I think he has been aiding and abetting the break down of the democratic process for his whole career. I have been following this story because I am certain he is being pushed forward absolutely to help the puppet masters. IMO it may be he is a raging alcoholic? IMO he is so compromised for some reason that he can be black mailed for any purpose the PTB choose?

There is an aspect of this confirmation hearing that is OUTING the cultural system of jowly (white in the US but not necessarily) men who are the predominant law makers in the world and the mouths of the masters. IMO the system is one ruled by people who all share something in common. They all really dislike other people and especially women at a deep level. I don't know why the deep suspicion and need to subjugate but it seems plain they have it.

One example is coming up in the hearings. It has to do with the elites who all recommend and share the world's spoils..... they have clubs that are only for the boys (mostly) and all include debasing and abusing one another as well as others. Hazing is an example. How far are people willing to take debasing to be a "man" among "men" is amazing.

And women are just objects.


women are not equals in the eyes of the Greek system—among other things, the system generally prohibits sororities from throwing their own parties with alcohol, and so sororities rely on fraternities to provide booze—and they frequently become a casualty of this dynamic. In college, fraternity costume parties, engineered to encourage women to dress as sluttily as possible, felt to me as distant from actual sex as Trump’s remark about Tic Tacs: men seemed to be getting women to doll themselves up as “tennis hoes” to their “golf pros” just to prove that they could. It was common, in some frat houses, to deliver a collective slow clap to the girls who sneaked out the morning after a party. As Syrett writes, fraternities implicitly frame sex with women as something engaged in “for one’s brothers, for communal consumption with them.” Women’s bodies become the tools with which men perform intimacy and solidarity with one another; at least at first glance, women are not potential partners so much as potential means for upholding male self-interest. Under these conditions, the lines between boorishness and sexual assault are quickly blurred and easily crossed.

Historically, Syrett explains, white fraternities have served to solidify élite male power and entitlement. In the nineteenth century, wealthy men separated themselves from their poorer classmates through the Greek system; in the twentieth century, men used frat houses to preserve an exclusively male space in an “increasingly mixed-gender world.” Of course, fraternities are not the only institutions like this—they are not the only structures that attract men who value other men more than women, that allow their members to serve élite interests at the expense of a more just and equal society. On Thursday, a man who has been accused of sexual misconduct by two women, and who has been nominated for a position on the Supreme Court by a President accused of sexual misconduct by twenty women, will attempt to persuade eleven Republican men that he deserves that position—a position that would give him the authority to help decide, among other things, what options are available to women if they get pregnant after being sexually assaulted. What more damning demonstration of the solidification of male entitlement could we possibly get? https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/brett-kavanaugh-donald-trump-and-the-things-men-do-for-other-men


If they let girls in to the ranks of the powerful, they have to be "good ole girls". They are compliant with the ways things work. That was high lighted when it came out that Chau at Yale literally groomed the candidates for clerkships for Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh mentors lots of "model" women clerks. These women will dress for men and also follow the leader so they can have the power they think is rewarding. Lots of people have started decrying feminism. I think the femisnist movement is NOT about being the same but about making equality a real factor in social experience. I think that this whole male/female system has never been about equality. It is about wresting the power to make decisions about the cultural landscape. Women were always pawns and SO WERE MEN. The good ole boy network is NOT obsolete at all in 2018. The Good Ole Boys are those who were made humane-less successfully. This network is as willing to kill millions as to blink. if one gets to be "old" it is because of the collateral "kills" that one succeeded in making along the way IMO.

With-holding contraception and out lawing abortion is not about how much "people" care about children. The care and concern is not about women either OR morality. It is about just one facet IMO of cremation of care that is the ONLY way the players can remain in their games.

Maybe a sea tide change is happening inside people who may speak out and then gather others and maybe end the good ole boy system?


But no matter how it plays out from here, Kavanaugh’s moment in the public eye has already shined a light squarely on America’s elite institutions and their attendant cultures of sexual violence. It’s a world I got a close look at myself when covering a rape trial sparked by events at St. Paul’s Prep in New Hampshire a few years ago. Suffice it to say this is a dark place, and it sometimes seems like the fancier or more rarefied the surrounds, the more depraved the twisted rituals of sexual cruelty—and the better the chances perpetrators will get away with it.

“What happens in more prestigious institutions is the institutional response of protection, and the institutional response of, ‘These young men have their lives ahead of them,’” Lisa Rocchio, a clinical and forensic psychologist, told me in an interview. “Like in the Catholic Church, and media and entertainment industries, there is this idea that the institution itself is deserving of protection." In these cases, the powers that be somehow rationalize protecting the accused, and in turn the institution, "without recognizing what they are actually doing is sacrificing the victim to their priorities and goals."

Rocchio said Ford’s response since she exposed herself to relentless public scrutiny has been consistent with someone who experienced abuse—remembering the traumatic event in vivid detail, but not every detail surrounding it. That didn’t stop President Trump, himself a man accused of sexual violence by at least 16 women, from tweeting dubiously, asking why she didn’t report it at the time, spawning a hashtag of survivor stories on Twitter.

Jennifer Freyd, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, gave the phenomenon of abusers turning around and attacking those who accuse them (as Trump has done) a name: DARVO, which stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." It's a form of what in psychological literature is called "institutional betrayal." Freyd said she first noticed the phenomenon during Hill’s testimony against Clarence Thomas, whom she accused of sexual harassment, in 1991. “If somebody is accused of something, they might attack, they might say they’re lying or they're crazy," she told me. Then they cast themselves as the victim. “It's actually an effective strategy for a perpetrator to use,” Freyd added, noting it engenders public sympathy and can increase the chances that the accuser will blame themselves, and that she coined the term to "defang" the strategy.

As the people sharing their stories under the #WhyIDidntReport hashtag exemplify, assault among teens—while horrific—occurs regularly, including at elite institutions like the ones where Kavanaugh received his most polished credentials, and where America’s leaders come of age.

“What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep,” Kavanaugh joked in a 2015 speech at Catholic University's Columbus School of Law. "That's been a good thing for all of us, I think."

What happened at Georgetown Prep, exactly?

Ford has alleged that Judge, another Georgetown Prep student, was in the room at a party where Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped and tried to undress her, and covered her mouth so she could not scream. She was only able to escape when Judge jumped on the bed too, she said. Judge has claimed he did not remember the event, and (with the help of GOP senators) has rebuffed calls to testify about what happened.

But it’s clear Kavanaugh and Judge—who wrote a memoir about his drunken prep school escapades—were good friends who spent a fair amount of time together. And among many other disturbing things, Judge wrote in his high school yearbook that “women should be struck regularly, like gongs," quoting a playwright. Meanwhile, Kavanaugh’s own page contained a cryptic reference to a “Devil’s Triangle.” It’s impossible to know what, exactly, either was referring to, but the language has the hallmarks of the kind of ritualistic abuse, paired with written accounts and inside jokes, that I saw in the St. Paul’s trial.

Avenatti went on to claim the “FFFFFFFourth of July” reference on Kavanaugh’s yearbook page meant, “Find Them, French Them, Feel Them, Finger Them, Fuck Them, Forget Them.” That sounds like a vintage version of "THE LABREAZY SLEAZY METHOD,” which former St. Paul’s student Owen Labrie—who was convicted of using a computer to lure a child for sex at the elite school—described as “feign intimacy... then stab them in the back," later exclaiming, "THROW EM IN THE DUMPSTER.”

Leaving aside Kavanaugh’s own alleged crime, four years before his speech about letting the past be past, in 2011, Garrett Orr, a former priest who taught at Georgetown Prep, pleaded guilty to fondling two teenage students between 1989 to 2003. Prosecutors compared the school's handling of the initial report to the coverup at Penn State University

"They were not interested in dealing with Orr,” Eric Ruyak, a survivor of Orr’s abuse told the Washington Post at the time. “They wanted it to go away.” More recently, Ruyak told USA Today that Ford’s claims rang true to what he experienced there. “What she’s describing, I saw at parties in 2003 and ’04,” Ruyak said. “Boys trying to take advantage of girls who were drunk.”

Brett Kavanaugh has been a member of prestigious institutions like these his whole life. After Georgetown Prep he went to Yale and Yale Law School, where he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. You may remember the Yale chapter’s infamous chant, "No means yes! Yes means anal!" for which they were suspended for five years in 2011.

During Kavanaugh’s time, DKE pledges were “fondly known as ‘buttholes,’” according to a caption of a photograph in the school paper showing recruits waving a flag woven from women’s underwear. Kavanaugh was not photographed, but was a sophomore at the time the photo was taken on January 18, 1985. He was also a member of one of Yale’s secret societies, Truth and Courage, known by the nickname, "Tit and Clit."

Bizarre and possibly criminal elite white male coming of age clubs and rituals aside, Kavanaugh has of course for much of his adult life been a member of another institution, often overlooked and even more untouchable: the judiciary itself.

Take Alex Kozinski, the federal judge Kavanaugh clerked for and authored books with—the man who was once his most vocal mentor, the man who introduced him to the Senate when Kavanaugh was nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2006. Kozinski retired last December after several of his former clerks came forward to the Washington Post to accuse him of myriad sexual misconduct, including touching, kissing and showing them porn. One woman noted he showed her a chart Kozinski and his friends kept of all the women they slept with, which is almost exactly the kind of sexual tallying system that was in place at St. Paul’s. He resigned shortly after these incidents came to light, effectively shutting down the investigation into his misdeeds and allowing him to keep his $200k plus pension.

Meanwhile, Kozinki’s “Easy Rider Gag List,” which he encouraged clerks to sign on to under pseudonyms, and included jokes about topics like anal sex, has been public since at least 2008.

Kozinski once called the relationship between a judge and a clerk “the most intense and mutually dependent one outside of marriage, parenthood, or a love affair.” Not only did Kavanaugh clerk for Kozinksi, he clerked for Anthony Kennedy—whose seat he is gunning for—on Konzinski’s recommendation. (Kozinski also clerked for Kennedy.) And Kozinski’s son clerked for Kavanaugh.

In other words, this is the good ol’ boys club and then some.

But in his hearings, before he had been publicly accused of sexual violence, when Kavanaugh was questioned about Kozinski’s email list and comments, he said he couldn’t remember a thing.

They have an old saying at St. Paul that might apply here, too: "Deny till you die."https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4383bd/kavanaugh-shows-the-disgusting-underbelly-of-americas-elite-schools

[Dreamtimer]

There was a group of guys I knew in college, frat boys, and they had a well orchestrated machine operating which drew girls into S&M parties and the guys were quite brutal. They got away with it because they called it consensual and because of the atmosphere in the 80's. They continued into their adult years, probably still to this day. I was smart enough to avoid them, barely.

[Maggie]

There was a group of guys I knew in college, frat boys, and they had a well orchestrated machine operating which drew girls into S&M parties and the guys were quite brutal. They got away with it because they called it consensual and because of the atmosphere in the 80's. They continued into their adult years, probably still to this day. I was smart enough to avoid them, barely.

When I was in college, it was not at a frat kind of school with sports as it's culture. I have learned a new phrase: homosocials. I did not ever hang out with them personally. I still do not befriend men who don't see me as a real person. There are MANY men who see women as partners but they are the minority and the institutions cannot even see their bias. I think you might see a cultural persuasion to reward male homosociality because the good ole boy network is obviously the networking fact, mostly including men who see women as care givers, breeders and sluts, not partners or god forbid more powerful.

I think homosociality is embedded in the culture of male/female dynamics globally. I think women may aid and abet it because there is a matching belief system that women really are nothing without a man?


Trump is, ...... staunchly homosocial. That is, he appears to almost exclusively prefer men for intimate, meaningful (nonsexual) relationships, while he thinks of women as pretty much just for sex, as decorative accessories, or in traditional roles that do not put them on equal footing.

Trump shows a consistent pattern of viewing women as far beneath him, which makes him incapable of the kind of relationship in which he and a woman are intellectual equals. Whenever a woman rises to challenge him as an equal, he appears threatened and tries to slap her down ― from Hillary Clinton (who Trump said doesn’t have “stamina” or a presidential “look”) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (whom he demeans with a racial slur) to Rep. Maxine Waters (whom he’s attacked as a “low IQ person”) and, pathetically, grieving gold star mothers who’ve had the courage to criticize him.

Sociologists and psychologists have long discussed homosociality as distinct from homosexuality. One can be homosexual, for example, but heterosocial or bisocial ― having intimate, nonsexual relationships only with the opposite gender or people of both genders, respectively. And there are definitely homosexuals who are mostly homosocial ― only hanging out with other gay (or even straight) dudes, period. The world of gay men has its share of misogyny, too.

While sexual orientation today is considered an innate characteristic by most medical professionals and social scientists, social preference is learned within culture ― it’s literally about how people are socialized. Feminists have written about homosociality in societies: how it privileges men in the workplace and in familial and social settings where men and women have often been segregated. There are entire societies that are homosocial to the extreme, such as Saudi Arabia, and they are societies in which women are often brutally oppressed.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-signorile-trump-homosocial_us_5b4d3407e4b0fd5c73be241a

[Emil El Zapato]

yeeouch...lot of truth, unfortunately...

[Dreamtimer]

I've made an effort my entire life to befriend men. It works pretty well and they make great friends. I've had debates with some men who insisted men and women couldn't be friends. It mostly boiled down to, "They just want to have sex with you, they're not really friends."

Aside from the fact that men degrade their gender by saying that, it's stupid anyway. Human relations are complex, not one-dimensional.


Maybe a sea tide change is happening inside people who may speak out and then gather others and maybe end the good ole boy system?

This, imo, is what is under way.

You can see it with the Kavanagh mess. The old guard are just a callous as ever, treating these women as badly, possibly worse than Anita Hill. And the women of America are up in arms. And many men are as well.

Trump is a kind of catalyst but he can't control how the change happens.

[Aragorn]

I've made an effort my entire life to befriend men. It works pretty well and they make great friends. I've had debates with some men who insisted men and women couldn't be friends. It mostly boiled down to, "They just want to have sex with you, they're not really friends."

Aside from the fact that men degrade their gender by saying that, it's stupid anyway. Human relations are complex, not one-dimensional.

I wholeheartedly agree with that. As a strictly heterosexual man, I've always had non-sexual/non-romantic relationships with girls/women throughout my adult life — I was quite a loner before I reached adulthood — and at some points in my life even more so than that I had male friends.

There are indeed multiple factors involved in that. Upbringing and social culture are definitely important in that regard, but I think it's also related to one's intellectual level. I've worked in environments where most people had an IQ that was smack on or even below the null meridian, and in environments like that, you get lots of one-sided thinking.

If it's an environment with predominantly men, then women are considered dumb sex objects. If it's an environment with predominantly women, then men are considered insensitive and clumsy nuisances — no different from a misbehaving dog that needs to be taught manners — except if it happens to be a celebrity, because then they'll automatically see him as a lust object. And this is quite often even far more the case among married women or women in a long-term relationship than among single women.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb here, but a recent scientific study has revealed that when a woman has given birth — and especially if it's more than once — then the hormones circulating through her body during the pregnancy will have physically altered her brain structure. From that moment on, the woman becomes a full-time mother, and to a mother, her children are the most important thing in the world. The husband — or if they're not married, the partner — becomes relegated to a lower position on the woman's priority list, and quite often it's not even the number-two spot. And it's even worse if her partner is not the biological father of her children.

Hopefully I'm not going to be chided over the above statement by our feminism-inclined members, but it is something I myself had already noticed from long before the above-mentioned scientific study was published, both from my own experiences with former girlfriends who already had children from a previous relationship, and from seeing this phenomenon manifest in other couples. It is true.

I also know couples who've consciously decided not to have children, and they are still as much in love now as when they got married twenty or thirty years ago. The romantic love between couples with only one child is also still comparable to that. But in couples with two or more children, the romantic vibe usually dries up and dies within a year after the second child is born, if not already during the second pregnancy itself.

Couples like that will still maintain a sexual relationship with one another — or at least, if their marriage hasn't broken down yet to the point where they start contemplating divorce — but then that sexual relationship will only be purely physical anymore, and then it'll usually also be more of a routine than an actual desire for intimacy.

And it's always because of the woman's change in priorities, caused by that physical change to her brain structure during the pregnancy. Men are usually not affected by whether they have children or not, because — as I've recently explained already (https://jandeane81.com/showthread.php/11510-Chaos-and-the-Anti-Thread?p=842000854&viewfull=1#post842000854) — their mind works differently, with emotion working in parallel with their rational thinking, while in a woman, emotion and reason are wired in series.

And what's worse is that society even stimulates this behavior through the subtle "moral compass corrections" embedded in soap operas and advertising — "corrections" which are not intended to actually bring about sanity, but rather so as to manipulate the public into a consumer behavior favorable to the broadcasting network and their commercial sponsors.

Returning to the subject of non-sexual/non-romantic relationships between both genders, I've also worked in environments where most people had been properly educated, and where virtually everyone had a higher IQ score. And in those environments, sex isn't even being talked about all that much, if at all.

Even the children— which is a far more popular subject among women than among men — don't come up all that often. Instead, people will talk about politics, about their jobs, about their experiences in college, or about any kind of abstract topic. And then generally, men and women consider each other as equals. There might be some jesting and teasing between members of the opposite sex, but even then it's usually not even flirtatious in nature. It'll rather be friends teasing each other in non-gender-specific ways.

Over the years, I have had many female friends whom I would address as "Sister", and on a few occasions, I've even introduced them to other people with the line "This is my sister." And those friendships are often more fulfilling and enriching than my friendships with other men.

Sure, there are things of which it is easier for a man to talk about with another man, or for a woman to talk about with another woman. But there are also things of which it is easier for a man to talk about to a woman, or for a woman to talk about to a man. Guys don't often talk about their deepest feelings to other guys, but it's easier for a man to pour out his heart with a woman. Likewise, a woman might find more support and comfort with a man in certain situations.

This is a public thread and therefore I'm not going to get into any details, but my homies in the mod room know that I'm involved with such a situation right now, in which a dear female friend has been pouring out her heart to me regarding something she can't talk about with anybody else — not even her husband, because he's rather insensitive and blunt when it comes to things like this.

Again, I think the most crucial aspect with regard to non-sexual/non-romantic relationships between men and women would be the intellectual level of both parties. It allows them to talk and think in more abstract and more academic ways and to forego the platitudes and stereotypes. Culture is important too, and in that regard, the USA is still running far behind on Europe, given that the USA has a culture in which raw masculinity is still heavily revered, thereby creating a subtly misogynistic social and corporate atmosphere. That's why all of the US' tech giants score so high on misogyny. This is far less prevalent in Europe.

I won't even begin to address the Arab world, where women are still considered inferior and subordinate in the 21st century. Something we unfortunately see over here in Europe as well among the many immigrants from countries with a predominantly Muslim culture. We even see it among our Turkish immigrants, who, although Muslim, are not an Arabic people.

As is so often the case with humans, people tend to remain stuck in either the thesis or the antithesis, without ever coming to the synthesis. The sexual revolution in the West of the 1960s has not fully led to a synthesis yet, not even here in Europe, although things are better here than in the US.

In the Arab world and other Muslim countries, they're all still stuck in the thesis of female subjugation, due to the fact that this thesis is being enforced by a dogmatic and often fanatic religion. Islam didn't create that situation — it already existed from beforehand, as I've explained in my other post on this subject (https://jandeane81.com/showthread.php/11510-Chaos-and-the-Anti-Thread?p=842000854&viewfull=1#post842000854) — but it is definitely still propagating this injustice.

Like Albert Einstein, I'm not so sure whether the universe we live in would be infinite, but mankind's stupidity has certainly already long proven itself to be.

[Fred Steeves]

Two ponderings on the Kavanagh circus:

1) What would the FBI be able to uncover about a couple of high school drinking parties back in the early 80's?

2) Would the current roles of Senate Democrats and Republicans playing cowboys and Indians be reversed, were this President Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court nominee?

[Dreamtimer]

Young progressives are calling establishment Democrats "The Assistance". How astute.

They are the New Wave.

https://s17-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.post-punk.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F01%2FValentines-80sMusic-2017-FINAL-Website-800x1036.jpg&sp=899c8dd8c0c8bf319ef0fe6b8f754631

[Maggie]

Two ponderings on the Kavanagh circus:

1) What would the FBI be able to uncover about a couple of high school drinking parties back in the early 80's?

2) Would the current roles of Senate Democrats and Republicans playing cowboys and Indians be reversed, were this President Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court nominee?

They are mostly all supporting the same world view. The most interesting idea in all this is IMO the light on the elite GOBs. Once an Indian, always an Indian... Indians R US IMO. And the FBI may not find anything. IMO Kavanaugh is a tool for someone who knows how useful. Kavanaugh may be seated?


This positive image obfuscates the real purpose of elite schools: From their inception, the core function of elite schools is to make, remake, or advance the socioeconomic status of each student. They provide students access to a social circuit that allows them to go from one elite institution to another and eventually on to high-paying and high-power positions.

Elite school culture encourages the sense that success comes at the expense of others
Within this circuit, elite schools cultivate privilege — a lens through which students come to understand themselves, others, and the world around them. Students’ values, perspectives, assumptions, and actions are shaped and sustained through this lens. It helps them survive and thrive within the elite circuit.

Above all, these lessons teach students that hierarchies are not only natural but necessary. They learn that there is a winner and therefore a loser in every situation and interaction. Hierarchies enable and propel them to success. Their success, it is worth noting, always comes at the expense of others.

As a teacher once told me during my research: “The most important thing we do here is prepare our students to become tough competitors. Competition is not a dirty word at our school. There are winners and there are losers. We teach them to be the former.”

Privilege is reinforced in every aspect of students’ educational experiences: the school’s ideals, missions, and standards; admissions practices; interactions within classrooms; involvement in extracurricular activities; the rigors of a demanding curriculum; and participation in sporting competitions, social events, and rituals. Rituals, in particular, are effective in transmitting and reinforcing unspoken cultural expectations, behavioral norms, and values that cultivate privilege as a collective identity and further impose hierarchies.

When these rituals become public, such as an alleged rape that occurred at the annual “Screw” dance at the New Hampshire prep school St. Paul’s in 2014, we learn what some of these rituals are truly about: celebrating male sexual conquest.https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/9/27/17909926/brett-kavanaugh-hearing-yale-georgetown-prep

[Dreamtimer]

I've seen enough not to buy the false parallels. The right didn't even give Obama a hearing for Garland. They couldn't even do their job of advice and consent. One seat was open for more than 400 days. How many excuses did they use? The Democrats have mostly been wusses.

[Dreamtimer]

Those Good Ol' Boys were remarkable cowardly today. They had to bring in a woman to do their job, yet when it came time to question Kavanagh they sent her away.

Effing cowards.

[Emil El Zapato]

Two ponderings on the Kavanagh circus:

1) What would the FBI be able to uncover about a couple of high school drinking parties back in the early 80's?

2) Would the current roles of Senate Democrats and Republicans playing cowboys and Indians be reversed, were this President Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court nominee?

probably, with one significant difference that history would suggest. The Bluebies would be telling the truth and the Redsky's would be lying. A good FBI investigation would demonstrate the accuracy of my statement.


I feel bad for Kavanaugh...but he has a red face...Why?


Young progressives are calling establishment Democrats "The Assistance". How astute.

They are the New Wave.

https://s17-us2.startpage.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.post-punk.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F01%2FValentines-80sMusic-2017-FINAL-Website-800x1036.jpg&sp=899c8dd8c0c8bf319ef0fe6b8f754631

I hadn't heard that...I really like it... :)


They are mostly all supporting the same world view. The most interesting idea in all this is IMO the light on the elite GOBs. Once an Indian, always an Indian... Indians R US IMO. And the FBI may not find anything. IMO Kavanaugh is a tool for someone who knows how useful. Kavanaugh may be seated?

yeah, I think they are going to do it...they don't care...plain, simple, and in yo' face. They are soulless amoralists. It's about the power...that's all. They are scary!

[Fred Steeves]

So I tuned into the whole entire circus today, all 8 hours worth between radio at work, and t.v. later at home.

I give both parties a D- on both their ever downward spiral into shameless tribal hacks, only reason both didn't get a straight out F is because in the rarest of moments, both sides spoke undeniable truths that the other, in their own respective blind partisanship, never will.

As to the accuser I give a good solid B, she started out admitting she was terrified, yet kept her composure throughout like a champ. Even though I only caught her part on the radio, she never let me see her sweat, and by and large came across as very authentic. Despite lack of any evidence, she impressed me.

The accused, in his long opening statement, however partisan it was, started off for me as in the A category. However, upon being subjected to questioning he quickly began to unravel before my eyes. I'm not talking here about the charge, I'm talking about what's called "military bearing", basically the ability to demonstrate grace under pressure.

Of which the accused demonstrated pretty much a big fat zero for me: Whining, complaining, interrupting, being belligerent, dodgy (especially on the alcohol question!), and not even appearing to be a competent trial lawyer to boot... Even if he were just a local county judge, I wouldn't trust his personal judgment to settle something as simple as a property line dispute between me and a neighbor, much less some of the most important issues of the day.

Were I a Senator previously inclined to vote YES, but on the fence pending, I would now vote NO (career be damned!). Not on the likely never to be determined "he said she said" merry go 'round, but on the grounds of his piss poor personal demonstration, of someone supposedly worthy of the highest levels of governmental power. Dude, at least make a good show of it like most of your brethren. Minus the one who nominated him of course...

Having said all that though, here's what bothers me a lot more than even this latest D.C. "Swamp" spectacle: It's the ever increasingly polarizing gap in this country, even in supposedly enlightened forum would, that believes to their very cores that either one wing of this bird or the other, is the way out of this embarrassing mess. And that the other wing simply needs to be obliterated to make this happen.

[Dreamtimer]

Of which the accused demonstrated pretty much a big fat zero for me: Whining, complaining, interrupting, being belligerent, dodgy (especially on the alcohol question!), and not even appearing to be a competent trial lawyer to boot... Even if he were just a local county judge, I wouldn't trust his personal judgment to settle something as simple as a property line dispute between me and a neighbor, much less some of the most important issues of the day.

Were I a Senator previously inclined to vote YES, but on the fence pending, I would now vote NO (career be damned!). Not on the likely never to be determined "he said she said" merry go 'round, but on the grounds of his piss poor personal demonstration, of someone supposedly worthy of the highest levels of governmental power. Dude, at least make a good show of it like most of your brethren. Minus the one who nominated him of course...


My impressions as well.

I've been tuning into the next generation, which is not an integral part of either wing, and they see through the BS pretty easily. Social media gives them the opportunity to share feedback in real time unlike the young and politically active of my generation.

This is where the change is going to happen and those of my generation don't understand theirs. Maybe I'm wrong, but my generation has written off the younger generations, because they were not active, and hasn't learned to adjust to the new crop.

And then there are the women.... Just like me they're sick of the shite. They're going to make change as well.

When the winds pick up, new sails are unfurled. I see a Spinnaker or two coming.

[Dreamtimer]

The ABA and the Jesuits have withdrawn support for Kavanagh. And Graham is a lying SOB. imo.

(And I'm a GD Acronymian)

[Dreamtimer]

Good Ol' Boys (https://twitter.com/Scout_Finch/status/1045434445703057408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5 Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1045434445703057408&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2 018%2F9%2F28%2F1799568%2F-Lindsey-Graham-and-the-good-ol-boys-say-Dr-Ford-has-a-problem-and-needs-to-get-therapy) "at work"...

[Fred Steeves]

I've been tuning into the next generation, which is not an integral part of either wing, and they see through the BS pretty easily. Social media gives them the opportunity to share feedback in real time unlike the young and politically active of my generation.

This is where the change is going to happen and those of my generation don't understand theirs. Maybe I'm wrong, but my generation has written off the younger generations, because they were not active, and hasn't learned to adjust to the new crop.

I'm just not seeing it. To me, this supposed wave of millennials that's going to roll in and change everything, is no different than the long awaited star children, rainbow children, or indigo children.

Much like the ever imminent prospect of mass arrests. It never actually happens, but it's always just around the corner.

The end is near would be yet another.

Anyway, I see nothing more special about this current young generation coming of age than any other, but as always, time will tell. :)

[Chris]

This whole Kavanaugh debacle is a domestic US issue, so I would normally stay away from it, but James Howard Kunstler (a leftist democrat most of the time) is really close to my opinion on the Issue, so will post his thoughts here:

http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-fog-of-bad-faith/

The Fog of Bad Faith

There’s a lot to unpack in the national psychodrama that played out in the senate judiciary committee yesterday with Ford v. Kavanaugh. Dr. Ford laid out what The New York Times is calling the “appalling trauma” of her alleged treatment at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh 36 years ago. And Mr. Kavanaugh denied it in tears of rage.

Dr. Ford scored points for showing up and playing her assigned role. She didn’t add any validating evidence to her story, but she appeared sincere. Judge Kavanaugh seemed to express a weepy astonishment that the charge was ever laid on him, but unlike other questionably-charged men in the grim history of the #Metoo campaign he strayed from his assigned role of the groveling apologist offering his neck to the executioner, an unforgivable effrontery to his accusers.

The committee majority’s choice to sub out the questioning to “sex crime prosecutor” Rachel Mitchell was a pitiful bust, shining a dim forensic light on the matter where hot halogen fog lamps might have cut through the emotional murk. But in today’s social climate of sexual hysteria, the “old white men” on the dais dared not engage with the fragile-looking Dr. Ford, lest her head blow up in the witness chair and splatter them with the guilt-of-the-ages. But Ms. Mitchell hardly illuminated Dr. Ford’s disposition as a teenager — like, what seemed to be her 15-year-old’s rush into an adult world of drinking and consort with older boys — or some big holes in her coming-forward decades later.

For instance, a detail in the original tale, the “locked door.” It’s a big deal when the two boys shoved her into the upstairs room, but she escaped the room easily when, as alleged, Mark Judge jumped on the bed bumping Mr. Kavanaugh off of her. It certainly sounds melodramatic to say “they locked the door,” but it didn’t really mean anything in the event.

Ms. Mitchell also never got to the question of Dr. Ford’s whereabouts in the late summer, when the judiciary committee was led to believe by her handlers that she was in California, though she was actually near Washington DC at her parent’s beach house in Delaware, and Mr. Grassley, the committee chair, could have easily dispatched investigators to meet with her there. Instead, the Democrats on the committee put out a cockamamie story about her fear of flying all the way from California —yet Ms. Mitchell established that Mrs. Ford routinely flew long distances, to Bali, for instance, on her surfing trips around the world.

Overall, it was impossible to believe that Dr. Ford had not experienced something with somebody — or else why submit to such a grotesque public spectacle — but the matter remains utterly unproved and probably unprovable. Please forgive me for saying I’m also not persuaded that the incident as described by Dr. Ford was such an “appalling trauma” as alleged. If the “party” actually happened, then one would have to assume that 15-year-old Chrissie Blasey, as she was known then, went there of her own volition looking for some kind of fun and excitement. She found more than she bargained for when a boy sprawled on top of her and tried to grope her breasts, grinding his hips against hers, working to un-clothe her, with his pal watching and guffawing on the sidelines — not exactly a suave approach, but a life-changing trauma? Sorry, it sounds conveniently hyperbolic to me. I suspect there is much more psychodrama in the life of Christine Blasey Ford than we know of at this time. She wasn’t raped and her story stops short of alleging an attempt at rape, whoever was on top of her, though it is apparently now established in the public mind (and the mainstream media) that it was a rape attempt. But according to #Metoo logic, every unhappy sexual incident is an “appalling trauma” that must be avenged by destroying careers and reputations.

The issues in the bigger picture concern a Democratic Party driven by immense bad faith to any means that justify the defeat of this Supreme Court nominee for reasons that everyone over nine-years-old understands: the fear that a majority conservative court will overturn Rowe v. Wade — despite Judge Kavanaugh’s statement many times that it is “settled law.” What one senses beyond that, though, is the malign spirit of the party’s last candidate for president in the 2016 election and a desperate crusade to continue litigating that outcome until the magic moment when a “blue tide” of midterm election victories seals the ultimate victory over the detested alien in the White House.

[Maggie]

This whole Kavanaugh debacle is a domestic US issue, so I would normally stay away from it, but James Howard Kunstler (a leftist democrat most of the time) is really close to my opinion on the Issue, so will post his thoughts here:

http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-fog-of-bad-faith/

The Fog of Bad Faith

I always like reading the comments on articles. The comment here is priceless. It is really close to my opinion


For many, the election of Trump was like a date rape, but Kavanaugh is the intractable case of Herpes for the rest of your life to remind you of it.

and this one is true IMO though I do bet he groped the girls he could corner when drunk in HS.




On Kavanaugh’s side, yeah it was all BS against him, but he’s a 100% pure swamp creature. His wife was the PERSONAL secretary for Baby Bush. Personal secretary! And he was a White House counsel during Bush’s time – that’s how these two hooked up. That wife was neck deep in the perversion and filth of the Iraqi war planning, the Patriot Act, and all the other perversions of Bush and Cheney. All this Catholic do-goodery is a fucking show. How much under-the-table cash does she have stashed away from her insider dealings?

Kavanaugh will throw a few bones to the social conservatives once he’s in, but then he’ll be like all the other justices: toe the corporate line, allow the police / surveillance state to keep expanding, and keep trashing what’s left of the biosphere.

and these speak to my concerns.


Kavanaugh will most likely be seated on his well-credentialed seat. He’s carried countless buckets of water for the right people at the right time. He’s “earned” it; it’s “his turn”.

BUT, if he’s not, some other cynically chosen character of the same “principles” will be ushered in. It’s quite clearly a brightening day for the corporate grifters and a snickering sop to the evangelical voting bloc of delusional non-thinkers.

Now we must ask ourselves what kind of court system we want in this country… who do we want punished and why. What kind of resources are we willing to commit in order to mete out that punishment?

Think very carefully before you answer, because it will determine whether you engage or disengage with institutions of fading faith and trust that you have no power over whatsoever. Secondly, how much anxiety/paranoia and cognitive dissonance are you willing to endure in the face of a legally tightening noose?

Proponents of the Uber-State are everywhere and becoming more numerous and consensus is rapidly being manufactured and agreed to. (Especially on this blog space. Blabberings for constraining rights and freedoms abound, as well as gleeful calls for deadly violence…. just as long as “my” preferred principles take precedence. Those would be the principles that enhance the power and reach of the Uber-State. Beware.)

....................

That’s the thing. Some of the more glittering publications are starting to see the light. Just starting. Because they’re saying that the Trump phenom and a lot of the “populism” we see here and there, are push-back from the egregious failures of the US and other national justice systems to do what had to be done in the wake of the 2008 collapse.

What happened? The malefactors, the ones committing stupendous, country-wrecking frauds, got off scot-free, that’s what. Too big to jail in Holder’s infamous estimation. And, not only that but they got rescued. And in some cases, like in the case of AIG, got massive bonuses.

And everyone else? Tens of millions got fucked out of work and income and houses and wealth and pensions, their prospects going bye-bye.

Two systems of justice IOW, three if you count the ludicrous miscarriages involving Blacks. If you’re black and smell a bit iffy and you’re anywhere near a serious crime, you get picked up.
Or even if you’re not. Who was that big fat Black guy that was hustling smokes? Why did he die? Not because he was doing damage to the economy and the social fabric, but because he wasn’t doing ENOUGH damage. If he’d been a White banker in a sharp ten thousand dollar suit, who was hawking financial garbage using the most laughably fraudulent and nonsensical selling shtick that no ten year old with an ounce of sense would believe, he’d get wined and dined and celebrated as the best and the brightest.

So, to the point, who do we want punished and why?

and also


Speaking of “fogs of bad faith,” Lindsey Graham claims that the Kav hearing was the most “unethical sham” since he has been in politics.

Not kids in cages? Not thousands without food and water in Puerto Rico? Not world leaders laughing at Trump at the UN? Not the tax cut for the super rich? Not the exploding US deficit that is 242 billion higher in 2018? Not the death of the planet and end of the human species?

[Wind]

The end is near would be yet another.

Anyway, I see nothing more special about this current young generation coming of age than any other, but as always, time will tell. :)

One "age" is ending for sure though. After some years and decades we will see how... Rough the transition period will have been.

When it comes to astrology, it has interesting things to say about the younger generations.

[Dreamtimer]

One "age" is ending for sure though. After some years and decades we will see how... Rough the transition period will have been.

When it comes to astrology, it has interesting things to say about the younger generations.

What are those things? I ask because I believe the change I've seen is but a drop of what's to come.

[Wind]

What are those things? I ask because I believe the change I've seen is but a drop of what's to come.

Pluto in Scorpio generation for example.

https://nightssky.wordpress.com/pluto-in-scorpio/
https://in5d.com/pluto-in-scorpio-generation-born-between-1984-1995/

God only knows what the younger generations after that have in store for us.

[Emil El Zapato]

oh goodie, two people in agreement that I can rub in the wrong way.... :)

I agree also, which made me realize that at least 'somebodies' don't think that 'presentation' is the critical characteristic for a Supreme Court Judge. Perhaps, for 'somebodies' the more critical skill is acting ability. The ability to act angry when confronted with a truth that cannot be confronted. It was a classic display of projection and a breakdown of an already fragile self. He was destroyed for all to see. Painful, but many 'somebodies' really, really, really, really, really don't care.


b.t.w. Freddie you forgot to thank my riposte to your earlier post... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm just not seeing it. To me, this supposed wave of millennials that's going to roll in and change everything, is no different than the long awaited star children, rainbow children, or indigo children.

Much like the ever imminent prospect of mass arrests. It never actually happens, but it's always just around the corner.

The end is near would be yet another.

Anyway, I see nothing more special about this current young generation coming of age than any other, but as always, time will tell. :)

I'm taking it you have no one in that generation...if not, you might be in for a shock...

Looking at the millennials is looking at one generation to early. It's the Z's that are going to rock the U.S.

[Emil El Zapato]

"I always like reading the comments on articles. The comment here is priceless. It is really close to my opinion"

The author missed the point by about 15 miles...He's as blind as any human I'm familiar with...This guy needs lessons on 'leftism' Maybe not really...'sexism' is a different paradigm altogether and I used to be among the best of them. But, I grew a healthier ego and a daughter that means the world to me...

[Dreamtimer]

Pluto in Scorpio generation for example.

https://nightssky.wordpress.com/pluto-in-scorpio/
https://in5d.com/pluto-in-scorpio-generation-born-between-1984-1995/

God only knows what the younger generations after that have in store for us.

Wow. I clicked on the first link and it was really relevant to what I just listened to which was Jason Louv's intro for the latest video I posted on his thread.

[Dreamtimer]

There’s nothing particularly strange about a congressman’s family moving. But what is strange is that the family has apparently tried to conceal the move from the public—for more than a decade. As far as I could tell, as of late August, neither Nunes nor the local California press that covers him had ever publicly mentioned that his family dairy is no longer in Tulare.

So the media is in on the lie. Hmmm... who owns the media? Why is he still seen as a California farmer when he's not?


And there’s another secret Nunes has been keeping about his actual farm. Nunes, who once upon a time was a moderate on immigration, has in his Trump today version morphed into a big supporter of the wall, limiting immigration, and cheerleading for every creative cruelty invented by ICE.

The Nunes farm, like every other Iowa dairy farm, depends on undocumented labor.


That puts Nunes — and his Trump-supporting Iowa neighbors — in the hyper hypocritical position of screaming about the problem with immigration, while benefiting from the issue. And pounding the table about good jobs of Americans, while quietly making sure those jobs don’t exist. And congressmen like Nunes aren’t just aware this is going on, they’re directly involved.

Ryan Lizza wrote a piece (https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/amp23471864/devin-nunes-family-farm-iowa-california/?__twitter_impression=true) for Esquire.


Anyway, he tried to interview some of the Nunes family for the piece but instead they tailed him while he was researching the piece, refused to talk to him, and generally tried to scare him off. It’s a good piece of writing with a lot of twists and turns.

One more thing to add is that while he was working on the article, the Nunes family had the local publication delete the only existing news story which mentioned that they had moved to Iowa from California. Shady as heck.

[Aragorn]

According to The New York Times, the Trump administration is preparing to weaken the rules on mercury emissions (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/climate/epa-trump-mercury-rule.html). Earlier they have also already abandoned the Endangered Species Act in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Apparently human health and the balance of the ecosystem are less important than the bank accounts of the big industries.

Take a good look, all you Trump supporters who are reading this. That's right, I'm looking at you, "A Voice from the Mountains" over at Project Avalon. There's your Messiah for you — the savior of God Bless America™. The only ones he's saving are the parasites who take the money out of your wallet while you're not looking and then poison you for gratitude.

Always beware of populists. There were people cheering for Adolf too when he rose to power in Germany in the 1930s. And some of them are still alive to beat themselves over the head over that every day. Granted, it won't be all that many anymore by now. After all, the witnesses have to have all disappeared in order for history to become ignored and then gleefully repeated by the exact same breed of fools.

[Chris]

According to The New York Times, the Trump administration is preparing to weaken the rules on mercury emissions (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/climate/epa-trump-mercury-rule.html). Earlier they have also already abandoned the Endangered Species Act in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Apparently human health and the balance of the ecosystem are less important than the bank accounts of the big industries.

Take a good look, all you Trump supporters who are reading this. That's right, I'm looking at you, "A Voice from the Mountains" over at Project Avalon. There's your Messiah for you — the savior of God Bless America™. The only ones he's saving are the parasites who take the money out of your wallet while you're not looking and then poison you for gratitude.

Always beware of populists. There were people cheering for Adolf too when he rose to power in Germany in the 1930s. And some of them are still alive to beat themselves over the head over that every day. Granted, it won't be all that many anymore by now. After all, the witnesses have to have all disappeared in order for history to become ignored and then gleefully repeated by the exact same breed of fools.

Comparing Trump to mr Hilter is perhaps a step too far, I don't think the two have anything in common. For one, mr H was a socialist and a failed artist, which Trump is most certainly not. I am personally wary of comparing Conservatives to Nazis, I think that is completely disingenuous. It's not often that I agree with my PM, mr Viktor Orbán, but he did make speech a couple of years ago pointing out that there were two main strains of socialism in the 20 th century, National Socialism and International Socialism, and in their combined effort they managed to murder hundreds of millions of people. Don't forget that Hitler and Stalin were best buds before Hitler betrayed him and would have happily carved up the world between them, if it wasn't for Hitler's certified insanity. The China and North Korea of today are actually taking on most of the characteristics of National Socialism and I'm convinced that at some point we will have to fight them (as in the "West" if such a thing still exists), to stop them taking over the world and making it into a Tyranny.

I actually agree with some of Trump's economic policies, especially how he has taken on China's ridiculously unfair and discriminatory trade practices. His bromance with Kim is ridiculous though, that guy can genuinely be compared to Hitler, unfortunately. Like I said, National Socialism remains a genuine danger to world peace, coming from these two countries, and I doubt we can avoid confronting it head-on.

[Fred Steeves]

Take a good look, all you Trump supporters who are reading this. That's right, I'm looking at you, "A Voice from the Mountains" over at Project Avalon. There's your Messiah for you — the savior of God Bless America™. The only ones he's saving are the parasites who take the money out of your wallet while you're not looking and then poison you for gratitude.
They won't listen. Hell man they can't, they're unable to with that part of the thinking brain on lockdown due to blind, fanatical loyalty to their tribal colors and strict ideology.

Same with the side that seeks to not only depose them, but destroy them.

We are basically in some contrived political death spiral here, and when a people begin seeing their political opponents as monsters they are hereby dehumanized, setting the stage for the real possibility of some very dark things to start happening. I see no political solutions any more, we are beyond that now.

When fighting "the devil" in a "holy war" there is no talking about it, no compromise, no rules, and no mercy.

[Chris]

As usual, I appreciate the inside view JHK gives me on the current goings-on in the US. Since I don't live there, I really have to rely on commentators who have proven their worth over the years. From an outside perspective, it seems the US has gone mad and is going through some sort of periodic convulsion that in this case harkens back to the divisions of the Civil War era. I am particularly disturbed by the hysteria about sex, which has taken a decidedly puritanical turn and the breakdown in male-female relations and between pretty much every minority and special interest group in America. If I'm honest the whole atmosphere in the US currently reminds me of Weimar Germany, with those on the far Left and Far Right battling it out on the streets. We shall see where this will lead, but I'm more than a little concerned that the US will end up taking either a hard-right or hard-left turn, none of which is desirable from my perspective.

http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/imaginary-monsters-and-the-uses-of-chaos/

Imaginary Monsters and the Uses of Chaos

The Kavanaugh hearing underscored another eerie condition in contemporary USA life that offers clues about the combined social, economic, and political collapse that I call the long emergency: the destruction of all remaining categorical boundaries for understanding behavior: truth and untruth, innocent and guilty, childhood and adulthood, public and private. The destination of all this confusion is a society that can’t process any quarrel coherently, leaving everyone unsatisfied and adrift, and no actual problems resolved.

One element of the story is clear, though. The Democratic party, in the absence of real monsters to slay, has become the party devoted to sowing chaos, mainly by inventing new, imaginary monsters using the machinery of politics, the way the Catholic Church manufactured monsters of heresy during the Spanish Inquisition in its attempt to regulate “belief.”

“I believe her” is the new totalitarian rallying cry, conveniently disposing of any obligation to establish the facts of any ambiguous matter. It was stealthily inserted in our national life during the Obama years, when Title IX “guidelines” originally written to correct imbalances in college sports funding for men and women were extended to adjudicate sexual encounters on campus. The result was the setting up of officially sanctioned kangaroo courts where due process was thrown out the window — by people who have should have known better: college presidents, deans, and faculty. That experiment produced not a few spectacular injustices, such as the Duke Lacrosse team fake rape fiasco, the University of Virginia fake rape fraternity incident (provoked by a mis-reported story in Rolling Stone Magazine), and the Columbia University “Mattress Girl” saga — all cases eventuating in punishing lawsuits against the institutions that allowed them to spin out of control.

The spirit of the kangaroo court has since graduated into business and politics where it has proven especially useful for settling scores and advancing careers and agendas dishonestly. Coercion has replaced persuasion. Coercion is at the heart of totalitarian politics. Do what you’re told, or else. Believe what we say, or else. (Or else lose your reputation, your livelihood, your friends….) This plays neatly into the dynamics of human mob psychology. When the totalitarians set up for business, few individuals dare to depart from the party line. It’s the perfect medium for cultivating mendacious ideologies.

And so many Americans may be wondering these days whether the ideas and principles that have held this country together, even through a disastrous civil war, can endure through a long emergency of exogenous events so overwhelming that we dare not even debate them publicly. These are climate change, the crack-up of a debt-based money system, the winding–down of techno-industrial economy, and the ecological destruction of the only planet that human beings call home.

Of course, the lives of societies, like everything else in a living universe, unfold emergently. Which is to say that circumstances are in the driver’s seat taking us where they will whether we like it or not. What humans can do is decide how to ride these events. For the moment, America has opted for a grand circus of sexual hysteria. It’s really an easy, lazy choice because sex is full of easily manipulated tensions and ambiguities prone to melodramatic misrepresentation.

Next on tap for this beleaguered nation will be a constitutional crisis and a financial crisis. It’s difficult to predict the order of their unfolding, except to say that these will open up a maelstrom of losses which will then be hard to either adjudicate or correct, once our system of law is compromised. As this occurs, all the raging hysteria over sex will be overshadowed by real existential issues as the people lose their homes, incomes, and futures and desperately search for a way out of more chaos than they bargained for.

[Dreamtimer]

Bryan Fisher, televangelist, was just saying yesterday that it's the demons of hell trying to keep Kavanaugh off the Court. It's a holy war, just like Fred says.

One little problem though: there is no left parallel to the Christian Coalition, the mega churches, the KKK, the alt-right...

Not even close.

One Soros to two Kochs, two Mercers, and a whole truckload more.

[Aragorn]

According to The New York Times, the Trump administration is preparing to weaken the rules on mercury emissions (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/climate/epa-trump-mercury-rule.html). Earlier they have also already abandoned the Endangered Species Act in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Apparently human health and the balance of the ecosystem are less important than the bank accounts of the big industries.

Take a good look, all you Trump supporters who are reading this. That's right, I'm looking at you, "A Voice from the Mountains" over at Project Avalon. There's your Messiah for you — the savior of God Bless America™. The only ones he's saving are the parasites who take the money out of your wallet while you're not looking and then poison you for gratitude.

Always beware of populists. There were people cheering for Adolf too when he rose to power in Germany in the 1930s. And some of them are still alive to beat themselves over the head over that every day. Granted, it won't be all that many anymore by now. After all, the witnesses have to have all disappeared in order for history to become ignored and then gleefully repeated by the exact same breed of fools.

Comparing Trump to mr Hilter is perhaps a step too far, I don't think the two have anything in common.

Au contraire, mon frère, they actually have quite a lot in common...:



Donald Trump qualifies as a clinical narcissist, and so did Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is a populist, and so was Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is a nationalist, and so was Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is a racist and a misogynist. So was Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is a megalomaniac, and so was Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is too mentally unstable to make any decisions on his own, so he badly needs his advisers. The same was true for Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump wants the USA to rule the world — as if it wasn't doing that already :rolleyes: — by way of its economical policy if possible, but by military force if not possible. Adolf Hitler simply skipped the economical step and went straight for the military force.


The only difference I can really think of on account of their respective personalities is that Donald Trump is also a nepotist. Hitler did assign all strategic positions within his government to his trustees, but they were not his actual relatives. Donald Trump has made his administration into a family business — which is quite common among Mafia dons.



For one, mr H was a socialist and a failed artist, which Trump is most certainly not.

Donald Trump is indeed not a failed artist — he's not an artist, period. But the age-old spin that Hitler would have been a socialist is a horse beaten to death, and it's still dead-wrong even today, no matter how many times people keep on reiterating that same old fable.

Hitler's national-socialism contained certain elements of socialism, but only to the extent that socialism allows the government to take control of previously privately held resources. But the idea is then to proclaim those resources as belonging to the people. Hitler didn't claim those resources for the people. He claimed them for the NSDAP.

Hitler was most certainly a corporatist, and both the SS and the SA — which was absorbed into the SS later — were private militias. They were not part of the official German military — i.e. the Wehrmacht — even though they were most definitely the (para)military arm to the NSDAP.

Hitler himself and the NSDAP as a political party originally took their inspiration from Benito Mussolini's fascism in Italy, before Hitler decided to play his ethnic purification card, then started World War II and then degraded his former role model Mussolini to a mere puppet.

Adolf Hitler was not a socialist. He was most definitely a fascist. And so is Donald Trump. In a fascist system, the power rests in the hands of the corporations and is made to appear somewhat democratic through a party-political system, whereby everyone who matters is on the corporate payroll. The only difference between an overtly fascist regime and the crypto-fascist regime of the USA is that in an overtly fascist regime, you've got only a single political party — something the US Republicans have already been lobbying for for a very long time.

There are also other tell-tale signs that the USA is in fact a crypto-fascist regime, but those have already been in place from long before Donald Trump. I'll give you just a few examples, even though I've already iterated all that elsewhere on the forum quite a while ago...



Emphasis on militarism. If you want social status/respect, then you have to join the US military — with bonus points if you join the US Marines. Great spending on the military-industrial complex. The militarization of police forces with fully-automatic weapons. Overt display of military power by the police forces, with gratuitous violence, especially against unarmed citizens, and even more so if they are of non-Caucasian ethnicity.


The privatizing of military and law enforcement duties through so-called "security consultants" — read: "mercenaries" — which are all private corporations. Blackwater/Xe/Academi et al.


Emphasis on citizenship — "You must serve your country!" — and nationalism. False patriotism — "They've attacked our great country", and "Our troops are fighting for freedom and democracy."


Emphasis on masculinity and machismo — especially in the appearance of the military outfit and the military vehicles — with the socio-economical discrimination of women as a side-effect. Anecdotally but true, during the Vietnam War, the USAF was deliberately dropping boxes of oversized condoms on the Vietnamese jungle, so as to make the Vietnamese people believe that US Americans were all "more than well-endowed". I kid you not.


Pervasive propaganda, starting as early as in preschool.


American Exceptionalism, i.e. the belief that US Americans and US culture are superior to all other peoples of the world.


A pervasive surveillance culture. Patriot Act, anyone?


The violation of human rights, both within the country's civilian society — again: Patriot Act anyone? — and by the US military abroad. The USA have also never acknowledged the authority of the International War Tribunal of the United Nations, and under the Bush administration — and most specifically, during the war in Iraq — then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld boycotted NATO by categorically vetoing every single NATO decision until NATO dropped an internal clause that allowed for NATO member states to be prosecuted over war crimes.


Corporate control over the government.


Imperialism.



I am personally wary of comparing Conservatives to Nazis, I think that is completely disingenuous.

As the matter of fact, I was actually not comparing the US Republicans to Nazis. I was only drawing parallels between the way Donald Trump rose to power and the way Adolf Hitler rose to power. And then I didn't even address the very similar social distrust in the respective countries as the backdrop against which these two men, each in their own time, rose to power.

But that said, even though I didn't mean to literally imply it in my post as you quoted it, the hardliners within the US Republican Party do indeed favor fascism, and "socialism" is still considered a dirty word by the vast majority of US Americans, notwithstanding that there are almost no US Americans who actually know what socialism really is. They simply hate it because it's a leftover of their programming with anti-Soviet propaganda during the (first) Cold War.


It's not often that I agree with my PM, mr Viktor Orbán, but he did make speech a couple of years ago pointing out that there were two main strains of socialism in the 20 th century, National Socialism and International Socialism, and in their combined effort they managed to murder hundreds of millions of people.

I'm sure that Mr. Orban will have made that statement, but being a politician, he's still lying about the facts. National-socialism had nothing to do with true socialism. In fact, they are diagonally opposed political ideologies. National-socialism is every bit a form of fascism. It just looks a bit like socialism on the outside, because that's how it's being sold onto the people. National-socialism uses the initial appearance of socialism as a front so as to allow the wannabe-dictators to seize control of the nation's resources.

True socialism on the other hand has never really succeeded anywhere due to the corruptible nature of the human mind, as well as due to the fact that the entire world is dominated by a capitalist economical system. No country in the world is ever logistically self-sufficient, and therefore proto-socialist countries always have to exist as an enclave within, and trade with, the global capitalist system.

This is why proto-socialist nations tend to want to band together, as has historically been the case with the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. But even then things don't always work out well, and inevitably, such nations have to engage in trade with the capitalist world in order to still be able to survive both financially and logistically. That's why China has for a while already been investing a lot of money and resources into companies abroad from the Chinese mainland.


Don't forget that Hitler and Stalin were best buds before Hitler betrayed him and would have happily carved up the world between them, if it wasn't for Hitler's certified insanity.

That had nothing to do with either socialism or national-socialism. They were both dictators and mass-murderers, and they had a non-aggression treaty between them, which Hitler violated when he invaded Poland.


The China and North Korea of today are actually taking on most of the characteristics of National Socialism and I'm convinced that at some point we will have to fight them (as in the "West" if such a thing still exists), to stop them taking over the world and making it into a Tyranny.

Neither North Korea nor China are national-socialist countries — far from it. What they are is proto-socialist dictatorships, with the dictatorship being just a little bit more overt in North Korea, because they have only one "Fearless Leader".

In China, the illusion is held up that there is somewhat of a democratic election process. But it's very subtle. Korea on the other hand maintains more of a tyrannical culture than China in that regard.


I actually agree with some of Trump's economic policies, especially how he has taken on China's ridiculously unfair and discriminatory trade practices.

China's trade practices only came to be as a strategy because of the US' earlier economical embargoes. China was trying to survive, so they had to adopt a different strategy on account of international trade and investment planning.


His bromance with Kim is ridiculous though, that guy can genuinely be compared to Hitler, unfortunately.

Comparing someone to Adolf Hitler on the basis that they are a dictator is a mistake all too often made. If you're going to compare Kim Jong-Un to another dictator, then Joseph Stalin would be a more accurate choice. Kim's politics are decisively proto-communist.

Of course, ultimately, when you're dealing with dictatorships, the line between the far left and the far right becomes blurred. But there is a distinct difference between national-socialism and socialism proper, and I'm afraid, mi amigo, that you do not understand the difference between the two. ;)


Like I said, National Socialism remains a genuine danger to world peace, coming from these two countries, and I doubt we can avoid confronting it head-on.

National-socialism is indeed very dangerous, but it's not coming from the countries you are eyeballing. The country that it's coming from — and that it has been coming from since the end of World War II — is none other than the US of A.

Don't allow yourself to be fooled by the false left/right paradigm in the US. The US Democrats are considered "the left" because they are ethically more liberal, economically globalist — but only insofar as the USA gets to sit at the top of the food chain — and somewhat more environmentally aware. In terms of authoritarianism, militarism and international economical policy however, even the US Democrats sit firmly in the top right quadrant of the political compass, and only but a smidgen away from the US Republicans.

I defer to my brief and only tentative summary of the properties of a fascist regime higher up in this post. ;)






Take a good look, all you Trump supporters who are reading this. That's right, I'm looking at you, "A Voice from the Mountains" over at Project Avalon. There's your Messiah for you — the savior of God Bless America™. The only ones he's saving are the parasites who take the money out of your wallet while you're not looking and then poison you for gratitude.

They won't listen. Hell man they can't, they're unable to with that part of the thinking brain on lockdown due to blind, fanatical loyalty to their tribal colors and strict ideology.

Same with the side that seeks to not only depose them, but destroy them.

We are basically in some contrived political death spiral here, and when a people begin seeing their political opponents as monsters they are hereby dehumanized, setting the stage for the real possibility of some very dark things to start happening. I see no political solutions any more, we are beyond that now.

When fighting "the devil" in a "holy war" there is no talking about it, no compromise, no rules, and no mercy.

Tribalism is indeed the name of the game, Brother. Even within this self-proclaimed "alternative community". :fpalm:

[Chris]

Au contraire, mon frère, they actually have quite a lot in common...:



Donald Trump qualifies as a clinical narcissist, and so did Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is a populist, and so was Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is a nationalist, and so was Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is a racist and a misogynist. So was Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is a megalomaniac, and so was Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump is too mentally unstable to make any decisions on his own, so he badly needs his advisers. The same was true for Adolf Hitler.


Donald Trump wants the USA to rule the world — as if it wasn't doing that already :rolleyes: — by way of its economical policy if possible, but by military force if not possible. Adolf Hitler simply skipped the economical step and went straight for the military force.


The only difference I can really think of on account of their respective personalities is that Donald Trump is also a nepotist. Hitler did assign all strategic positions within his government to his trustees, but they were not his actual relatives. Donald Trump has made his administration into a family business — which is quite common among Mafia dons.

A lot of people compared Bush to Hitler, when he was in power and that turned out to be BS. Now they're doing the same with Trump and I suspect it will be just as wide off the mark, in retrospect. I admit that there are a superficial parallels between the two, but I still don't see T as another H. Unlike H, T isn't actually evil, I sincerely believe that.



Donald Trump is indeed not a failed artist — he's not an artist, period. But the age-old spin that Hitler would have been a socialist is a horse beaten to death, and it's still dead-wrong even today, no matter how many times people keep on reiterating that same old fable.

Hitler's national-socialism contained certain elements of socialism, but only to the extent that socialism allows the government to take control of previously privately held resources. But the idea is then to claim those resources as belonging to the people. Hitler didn't claim those resources for the people. He claimed them for the NSDAP.


The only difference I can see between Nazism and Communism is that whilst the Nazis only murdered and robbed the Jews and a few other assorted minorities, the communists extended that to everyone with a bit of wealth. It really didn't matter whether you perished (and still do in the case of China and NK) in a Communist or Nazi concentration camp, the end result was the same. China has actually evolved in this respect, because they have moved from a Communist (international socialist) model, to a National Socialist one, where private wealth is allowed to flourish, as long as you don't belong to one of the persecuted minorities (Uighurs, Tibetans, Falung Gong practitioners, etc...). Many articles and books were written about this, but the CCP now survives on militaristic nationalism and a policy of aggressive expansionism, especially in regards to the South China Sea. Mark my words, armed conflict between China and the US and its allies is now unavoidable.



Hitler was most certainly a corporatist, and both the SS and the SA — which was absorbed into the SS later — were private militias. They were not part of the official German military — i.e. the Wehrmacht — even though they were most definitely the (para)military arm to the NSDAP.

Hitler himself and the NSDAP as a political party originally took their inspiration from Benito Mussolini's fascism in Italy, before Hitler decided to play his ethnic purification card, then started World War II and then degraded his former role model Mussolini to a mere puppet.

Adolf Hitler was not a socialist. He was most definitely a fascist. And so is Donald Trump. In a fascist system, the power rests in the hands of the corporations and is made to appear somewhat democratic through a party-political system, whereby everyone who matters is on the corporate payroll. The only difference between an overtly fascist regime and the crypto-fascist regime of the USA is that in an overtly fascist regime, you've got only a single political party — something the US Republicans have already been lobbying for for a very long time.

And that would describe today's China and Russia very well, but not the US. I understand the appeal of comparing the US system to fascism, I have been guilty of it plenty of times in the past. However, it is simply not true, the US may be a flawed democracy with a lot of problems, but it is not fascist.



There are also other tell-tale signs that the USA is in fact a crypto-fascist regime, but those have already been in place from long before Donald Trump. I'll give you just a few examples, even though I've already iterated all that elsewhere on the forum quite a while ago...



Emphasis on militarism. If you want social status/respect, then you have to join the US military — with bonus points if you join the US Marines. Great spending on the military-industrial complex. The militarization of police forces with fully-automatic weapons. Overt display of military power by the police forces, with gratuitous violence, especially against unarmed citizens, and even more so if they are of non-Caucasian ethnicity.


The privatizing of military and law enforcement duties through so-called "security consultants" — read: "mercenaries" — which are all private corporations. Blackwater/Xe/Academi et al.


Emphasis on citizenship — "You must serve your country!" — and nationalism. False patriotism — "They've attacked our great country", and "Our troops are fighting for freedom and democracy."


Emphasis on masculinity and machismo — especially in the appearance of the military outfit and the military vehicles — with the socio-economical discrimination of women as a side-effect. Anecdotally but true, during the Vietnam War, the USAF was deliberately dropping boxes of oversized condoms on the Vietnamese jungle, so as to make the Vietnamese people believe that US Americans were all "more than well-endowed". I kid you not.


Pervasive propaganda, starting as early as in preschool.


American Exceptionalism, i.e. the belief that US Americans and US culture are superior to all other peoples of the world.


A pervasive surveillance culture. Patriot Act, anyone?


The violation of human rights, both within the country's civilian society — again: Patriot Act anyone? — and by the US military abroad. The USA have also never acknowledged the authority of the International War Tribunal of the United Nations, and under the Bush administration — and most specifically, during the war in Iraq — then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld boycotted NATO by categorically vetoing every single NATO decision until NATO dropped an internal clause that allowed for NATO member states to be prosecuted over war crimes.


Corporate control over the government.


Imperialism.


No, no, no and no. I'm sorry Aragorn, but you're creating a false equivalency here. If anything this list would make the US very similar to the British Empire, which it most certainly is. However, the British Empire was in no way fascist or comparable to the Nazis. Just ask anyone who has lived under both British Empire rule or US occupation versus Nazi/Imperial Japanese occupation. They'll all tell you it was light and day. I've talked to plenty of people like that and every one of them preferred to live under British or American rule, rather than a fascist occupation. Just look at how Germans, Japanese and South Koreans live today as opposed to the 1930s and 40s.


As the matter of fact, I was actually not comparing the US Republicans to Nazis. I was only drawing parallels between the way Donald Trump rose to power and the way Adolf Hitler rose to power. And then I didn't even address the very similar social distrust in the respective countries as the backdrop against which these two men, each in their own time, rose to power.

But that said, even though I didn't mean to literally imply it in my post as you quoted it, the hardliners within the US Republican Party do indeed favor fascism, and "socialism" is still considered a dirty word by the vast majority of US Americans, notwithstanding that there are almost no US Americans who actually know what socialism really is. They simply hate it because it's a leftover of their programming with anti-Soviet propaganda during the (first) Cold War.

I wasn't referring to you specifically, but it is a general rule on the Left that conservatives are often compared to Nazis / Fascists, especially nowadays. I think that doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny.



I'm sure that Mr. Orban will have made that statement, but being a politician, he's still lying about the facts. National-socialism had nothing to do with true socialism. In fact, they are diagonally opposed political ideologies. National-socialism is every bit a form of fascism. It just looks a bit like socialism on the outside, because that's how it's being sold onto the people. National-socialism uses the initial appearance of socialism as a front so as to allow the wannabe-dictators to seize control of the nation's resources.

True socialism on the other hand has never really succeeded anywhere due to the corruptible nature of the human mind, as well as due to the fact that the entire world is dominated by a capitalist economical system. No country in the world is ever logistically self-sufficient, and therefore proto-socialist countries always have to exist as an enclave within, and trade with, the global capitalist system.

This is why proto-socialist nations tend to want to band together, as has historically been the case with the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. But even then things don't always work out well, and inevitably, such nations have to engage in trade with the capitalist world in order to still be able to survive both financially and logistically. That's why China has for a while already been investing a lot of money and resources into companies abroad from the Chinese mainland.


It may be an oversimplification, but the gist of it is factual. Socialism is about taking from those that have and giving it to those that don't, preferably murdering the haves in the process, or at least reeducating them. National socialism does it on the basis of race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion and similar factors. International Socialism does it on the basis of class, mostly, though there are plenty of examples of using religion or ethnicity as the criteria by which discrimination, theft and murder take place.



That had nothing to do with either socialism or national-socialism. They were both dictators and mass-murderers, and they had a non-aggression treaty between them, which Hitler violated when he invaded Poland.


Slight correction there, the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact was about dividing Poland between the two socialist dictatorships. My Grandfather was there at Katyn, where one set of socialists murdered all the officers in the Polish army and blamed it, on the other set of socialists. The pact was actually only broken when Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union itself. Stalin was so distraught at Hitler's betrayal that he barely came out of his room for weeks. I think the trust between them is a clear indication how close they were in the way the viewed the world.



Neither North Korea nor China are national-socialist countries — far from it. What they are is proto-socialist dictatorships, with the dictatorship being just a little bit more overt in North Korea, because they have only one "Fearless Leader".

In China, the illusion is held up that there is somewhat of a democratic election process. But it's very subtle. Korea on the other hand maintains more of a tyrannical culture than China in that regard.

North Korea in particular has been described time and again as a modern day version of Nazi Germany and for good reason. It's not me that made this comparison but major publications. The same actually applies to China, but I don't have the time to go into why that is the case, it is very complex and complicated.



China's trade practices only came to be as a strategy because of the US' earlier economical embargoes. China was trying to survive, so they had to adopt a different strategy on account of international trade and investment planning.


Actually, China's trade practices are classically mercantilist and are the same ones that European colonial powers applied to their colonies, to destroy their local economies and flood their markets with their own cheap, mass-produced products. US corporations were complicit in this, since they benefited from the offshoring of jobs. This is where I agree with Trump, he's completely right to crack down on these unfair trade deals and practices. This has long been suggested by economists such as Dr Paul Craig Roberts, who was the father of Reaganomics.


Comparing someone to Adolf Hitler on the basis that they are a dictator is a mistake all too often made. If you're going to compare Kim Jong-Un to another dictator, then Joseph Stalin would be a more accurate choice. Kim's politics are decisively proto-communist.

Of course, ultimately, when you're dealing with dictatorships, the line between the far left and the far right becomes blurred. But there is a distinct difference between national-socialism and socialism proper, and I'm afraid, mi amigo, that you do not understand the difference between the two. ;)

I do and my country has had the "benefit" of living under both regimes. In most cases, they didn't even bother changing the people that ran the two regimes. Nazi capos were just as useful working as communist henchmen. In most cases they were literally turncoats, changing uniforms from one day to the next one and continuing on just as before. The difference between Communism and Fascism is overrated. It is a difference without a distinction.


National-socialism is indeed very dangerous, but it's not coming from the countries you are eyeballing. The country that it's coming from — and that it has been coming from since the end of World War II — is none other than the US of A.

Don't allow yourself to be fooled by the false left/right paradigm in the US. The US Democrats are considered "the left" because they are ethically more liberal, economically globalist — but only insofar as the USA gets to sit at the top of the food chain — and somewhat more environmentally aware. In terms of authoritarianism, militarism and international economical policy however, even the US Democrats sit firmly in the top right quadrant of the political compass, and only but a smidgen away from the US Republicans.

I defer to my brief and only tentative summary of the properties of a fascist regime higher up in this post. ;)




Honestly man, you can't be serious about that. I know a lot of Western Europeans (and some Russians) believe that, but it is utter rubbish. America is in no way, shape or form comparable to Nazi Germany and neither is Britain. It is another example of false equivalency and just a cursory glance at the facts or talking to people who experienced both regimes can disabuse you of this notion. Every single country or region that was liberated by America and Britain still considers itself lucky that it is no longer under Nazi or Communist occupation. When Hungarians rebelled in 1956, against all odds, they kicked out the Russians (who did leave for a short while) and invited the Americans in to help them. It didn't happen due to the Yalta agreement at the end of WW2, but then this invitations was repeated in 1991, after the Russians left for good. Even now, Poles for instance want more American troops in their country and have even offered to pay for a new military base, which will be called "Fort Trump". I'm not even joking. Do you think if the Americans were really Nazis as you say, countries would be fighting with each other over who gets to host their military bases and missile defence sites?




Tribalism is indeed the name of the game, Brother. Even within this self-proclaimed "alternative community". :fpalm:

I noticed that, but I really don't care about political affiliation. All I care about are facts and those are in short supply all over the mainstream and alternative media, which is a great shame.

[Aragorn]

I have neither the time nor the energy at this point to debate this any further with you, Chris, but I'm afraid we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this topic then.

You do not agree with what I have presented to you, and I do not agree with your own assessment of the situation either. So let's just leave it at that then. Neither of us is ever going to be able to change anything to either of the countries we've been discussing anyway. We don't even live there.



:flag:

[Chris]

I have neither the time nor the energy at this point to debate this any further with you, Chris, but I'm afraid we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this topic then.

You do not agree with what I have presented to you, and I do not agree with your own assessment of the situation either. So let's just leave it at that then. Neither of us is ever going to be able to change anything to either of the countries we've been discussing anyway. We don't even live there.



:flag:

Alright, we are all entitled to our own opinions. The only thing I would like to point out is that I fully understand your arguments and point of view, that is how I used to think as well, a few years back. I changed my views on a lot of things as new facts came in to challenge my previous views. That is why we are here, to contrast and compare views, even if they are sometimes very different. I for one, really enjoy debating people on that basis. I hope it doesn't come across as combative or arrogant, I am simply trying to get to the bottom of facts, concentrating on the fine detail and little-known facts and data.

I believe the devil is always in the details and it is very easy to get the wrong impression by creating parallels between things that are only really alike on the surface. I'm as guilty of this as anyone else, though I'm trying to avoid this cognitive trap as much as I can these days. I could bring up many examples, but one of my favourites is people drawing parallels between Christianity and Islam as if they were somehow equivalent. No, they never have been and never will be. Another one would be the one we discussed here, but enough words have been said about it, so let's close the topic.

[Fred Steeves]

Do you think if the Americans were really Nazis as you say, countries would be fighting with each other over who gets to host their military bases and missile defence sites?

I reckon that would depend on which countries we're talking about? I don't see the two most heavily bombed countries in history, Laos and Afghanistan, clamoring to get a U.S. military base. Nor places like Iraq, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Mexico, or any country in Central or South America. Any presence we have in Central or South America is a result of gunboat diplomacy, not welcoming us with open arms. For good reason:


I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier



One little problem though: there is no left parallel to the Christian Coalition, the mega churches, the KKK, the alt-right...

Not even close.

Both sides are extremely susceptible to their respective party line propaganda memes that their righteous cause is out gunned, and out flanked, by a dirty rotten conniving enemy who is free from moral constraint. No different than our war propaganda, except this is deployed directly at America's own population. Divide, divide, divide, let me count the ways...

[Chris]

I reckon that would depend on which countries we're talking about? I don't see the two most heavily bombed countries in history, Laos and Afghanistan, clamoring to get a U.S. military base. Nor places like Iraq, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Mexico, or any country in Central or South America. Any presence we have in Central or South America is a result of gunboat diplomacy, not welcoming us with open arms. For good reason:


You are talking about plain old colonialism / imperialism. Whilst that is hardly an ideal situation, it is a thousand times better than living under a fascist or communist regime. This is something many Asians found out the hard way, when the British (and Americans) were kicked out by the imperial Japanese. They were quite happy to live under colonial rule, with some murmurings about independence, but when the Japanese came in with their fascist regime they quickly realised how much worse it was than anything the British or the American had ever done. In fact the main reason the British had to leave this region after WW2 is that they have proven themselves unable to defend their colonial subjects. I could tell you a lot about what a horrible experience Singaporeans had during the war and when the British army finally left them to their own devices, they built up a very serious armed forces, modelled on Israel's and with a similar strike capability (Singapore is even smaller than Israel and similarly surrounded by much larger Islamic countries, who are not always that friendly). Despite this, every Singaporean I talked to is pro-British and very grateful for what they received from their erstwhile colonial masters, especially in terms of the language (though Singaporeans have their own Singlish dialect), the infrastructure, the legal system, education, etc... The only thing missing in Singapore that would make it a truly Western country is democracy, but apparently Singaporeans are happy that way as long as they have prosperity, which they do in abundance.

Incidentally, Singapore has a very close relationship with the US and is regularly host to docking US navy ships. Singaporeans have an entire squadron of jet fighters based in Texas and many in the Singaporean armed forces spend time in the US, Australia or Taiwan, usually 6 months out of their 2-year compulsory military service. If Singapore felt that it was ever oppressed or disrespected by the US or Britain, I'm sure they would never do that.

[Fred Steeves]

Chris, like Aragorn we have our differences of (but by no means across the board!) opinion here, however I *do* sincerely appreciate your perspective.

[Emil El Zapato]

So the media is in on the lie. Hmmm... who owns the media? Why is he still seen as a California farmer when he's not?





Ryan Lizza wrote a piece (https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/amp23471864/devin-nunes-family-farm-iowa-california/?__twitter_impression=true) for Esquire.

Nunes is another one of those 'types' that has much to hide...plain and simple...

[Emil El Zapato]

As usual, I appreciate the inside view JHK gives me on the current goings-on in the US. Since I don't live there, I really have to rely on commentators who have proven their worth over the years. From an outside perspective, it seems the US has gone mad and is going through some sort of periodic convulsion that in this case harkens back to the divisions of the Civil War era. I am particularly disturbed by the hysteria about sex, which has taken a decidedly puritanical turn and the breakdown in male-female relations and between pretty much every minority and special interest group in America. If I'm honest the whole atmosphere in the US currently reminds me of Weimar Germany, with those on the far Left and Far Right battling it out on the streets. We shall see where this will lead, but I'm more than a little concerned that the US will end up taking either a hard-right or hard-left turn, none of which is desirable from my perspective.

http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/imaginary-monsters-and-the-uses-of-chaos/

Imaginary Monsters and the Uses of Chaos

The Kavanaugh hearing underscored another eerie condition in contemporary USA life that offers clues about the combined social, economic, and political collapse that I call the long emergency: the destruction of all remaining categorical boundaries for understanding behavior: truth and untruth, innocent and guilty, childhood and adulthood, public and private. The destination of all this confusion is a society that can’t process any quarrel coherently, leaving everyone unsatisfied and adrift, and no actual problems resolved.

One element of the story is clear, though. The Democratic party, in the absence of real monsters to slay, has become the party devoted to sowing chaos, mainly by inventing new, imaginary monsters using the machinery of politics, the way the Catholic Church manufactured monsters of heresy during the Spanish Inquisition in its attempt to regulate “belief.”

“I believe her” is the new totalitarian rallying cry, conveniently disposing of any obligation to establish the facts of any ambiguous matter. It was stealthily inserted in our national life during the Obama years, when Title IX “guidelines” originally written to correct imbalances in college sports funding for men and women were extended to adjudicate sexual encounters on campus. The result was the setting up of officially sanctioned kangaroo courts where due process was thrown out the window — by people who have should have known better: college presidents, deans, and faculty. That experiment produced not a few spectacular injustices, such as the Duke Lacrosse team fake rape fiasco, the University of Virginia fake rape fraternity incident (provoked by a mis-reported story in Rolling Stone Magazine), and the Columbia University “Mattress Girl” saga — all cases eventuating in punishing lawsuits against the institutions that allowed them to spin out of control.

The spirit of the kangaroo court has since graduated into business and politics where it has proven especially useful for settling scores and advancing careers and agendas dishonestly. Coercion has replaced persuasion. Coercion is at the heart of totalitarian politics. Do what you’re told, or else. Believe what we say, or else. (Or else lose your reputation, your livelihood, your friends….) This plays neatly into the dynamics of human mob psychology. When the totalitarians set up for business, few individuals dare to depart from the party line. It’s the perfect medium for cultivating mendacious ideologies.

And so many Americans may be wondering these days whether the ideas and principles that have held this country together, even through a disastrous civil war, can endure through a long emergency of exogenous events so overwhelming that we dare not even debate them publicly. These are climate change, the crack-up of a debt-based money system, the winding–down of techno-industrial economy, and the ecological destruction of the only planet that human beings call home.

Of course, the lives of societies, like everything else in a living universe, unfold emergently. Which is to say that circumstances are in the driver’s seat taking us where they will whether we like it or not. What humans can do is decide how to ride these events. For the moment, America has opted for a grand circus of sexual hysteria. It’s really an easy, lazy choice because sex is full of easily manipulated tensions and ambiguities prone to melodramatic misrepresentation.

Next on tap for this beleaguered nation will be a constitutional crisis and a financial crisis. It’s difficult to predict the order of their unfolding, except to say that these will open up a maelstrom of losses which will then be hard to either adjudicate or correct, once our system of law is compromised. As this occurs, all the raging hysteria over sex will be overshadowed by real existential issues as the people lose their homes, incomes, and futures and desperately search for a way out of more chaos than they bargained for.

:) that all happened in 2010...after 40 years of turning right...the great fear underlying it all is a fear of cultural death. I've been showing fearmongers pictures of my familial descendants for years to try to SHOW them what the future looks like...For the most part the future looks pretty blond and blue-eyed.

A very hard turn to the left would leave the U.S. solidly in the middle of western civilization.

[Emil El Zapato]

A lot of people compared Bush to Hitler, when he was in power and that turned out to be BS. Now they're doing the same with Trump and I suspect it will be just as wide off the mark, in retrospect. I admit that there are a superficial parallels between the two, but I still don't see T as another H. Unlike H, T isn't actually evil, I sincerely believe that.




The only difference I can see between Nazism and Communism is that whilst the Nazis only murdered and robbed the Jews and a few other assorted minorities, the communists extended that to everyone with a bit of wealth. It really didn't matter whether you perished (and still do in the case of China and NK) in a Communist or Nazi concentration camp, the end result was the same. China has actually evolved in this respect, because they have moved from a Communist (international socialist) model, to a National Socialist one, where private wealth is allowed to flourish, as long as you don't belong to one of the persecuted minorities (Uighurs, Tibetans, Falung Gong practitioners, etc...). Many articles and books were written about this, but the CCP now survives on militaristic nationalism and a policy of aggressive expansionism, especially in regards to the South China Sea. Mark my words, armed conflict between China and the US and its allies is now unavoidable.




And that would describe today's China and Russia very well, but not the US. I understand the appeal of comparing the US system to fascism, I have been guilty of it plenty of times in the past. However, it is simply not true, the US may be a flawed democracy with a lot of problems, but it is not fascist.




No, no, no and no. I'm sorry Aragorn, but you're creating a false equivalency here. If anything this list would make the US very similar to the British Empire, which it most certainly is. However, the British Empire was in no way fascist or comparable to the Nazis. Just ask anyone who has lived under both British Empire rule or US occupation versus Nazi/Imperial Japanese occupation. They'll all tell you it was light and day. I've talked to plenty of people like that and every one of them preferred to live under British or American rule, rather than a fascist occupation. Just look at how Germans, Japanese and South Koreans live today as opposed to the 1930s and 40s.



I wasn't referring to you specifically, but it is a general rule on the Left that conservatives are often compared to Nazis / Fascists, especially nowadays. I think that doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny.




It may be an oversimplification, but the gist of it is factual. Socialism is about taking from those that have and giving it to those that don't, preferably murdering the haves in the process, or at least reeducating them. National socialism does it on the basis of race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion and similar factors. International Socialism does it on the basis of class, mostly, though there are plenty of examples of using religion or ethnicity as the criteria by which discrimination, theft and murder take place.




Slight correction there, the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact was about dividing Poland between the two socialist dictatorships. My Grandfather was there at Katyn, where one set of socialists murdered all the officers in the Polish army and blamed it, on the other set of socialists. The pact was actually only broken when Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union itself. Stalin was so distraught at Hitler's betrayal that he barely came out of his room for weeks. I think the trust between them is a clear indication how close they were in the way the viewed the world.




North Korea in particular has been described time and again as a modern day version of Nazi Germany and for good reason. It's not me that made this comparison but major publications. The same actually applies to China, but I don't have the time to go into why that is the case, it is very complex and complicated.




Actually, China's trade practices are classically mercantilist and are the same ones that European colonial powers applied to their colonies, to destroy their local economies and flood their markets with their own cheap, mass-produced products. US corporations were complicit in this, since they benefited from the offshoring of jobs. This is where I agree with Trump, he's completely right to crack down on these unfair trade deals and practices. This has long been suggested by economists such as Dr Paul Craig Roberts, who was the father of Reaganomics.



I do and my country has had the "benefit" of living under both regimes. In most cases, they didn't even bother changing the people that ran the two regimes. Nazi capos were just as useful working as communist henchmen. In most cases they were literally turncoats, changing uniforms from one day to the next one and continuing on just as before. The difference between Communism and Fascism is overrated. It is a difference without a distinction.



Honestly man, you can't be serious about that. I know a lot of Western Europeans (and some Russians) believe that, but it is utter rubbish. America is in no way, shape or form comparable to Nazi Germany and neither is Britain. It is another example of false equivalency and just a cursory glance at the facts or talking to people who experienced both regimes can disabuse you of this notion. Every single country or region that was liberated by America and Britain still considers itself lucky that it is no longer under Nazi or Communist occupation. When Hungarians rebelled in 1956, against all odds, they kicked out the Russians (who did leave for a short while) and invited the Americans in to help them. It didn't happen due to the Yalta agreement at the end of WW2, but then this invitations was repeated in 1991, after the Russians left for good. Even now, Poles for instance want more American troops in their country and have even offered to pay for a new military base, which will be called "Fort Trump". I'm not even joking. Do you think if the Americans were really Nazis as you say, countries would be fighting with each other over who gets to host their military bases and missile defence sites?





I noticed that, but I really don't care about political affiliation. All I care about are facts and those are in short supply all over the mainstream and alternative media, which is a great shame.

I always thought Dubya was a harmless idiot...his henchmen were the SS. Chief among them was Dick Cheney


You are talking about plain old colonialism / imperialism. Whilst that is hardly an ideal situation, it is a thousand times better than living under a fascist or communist regime. This is something many Asians found out the hard way, when the British (and Americans) were kicked out by the imperial Japanese. They were quite happy to live under colonial rule, with some murmurings about independence, but when the Japanese came in with their fascist regime they quickly realised how much worse it was than anything the British or the American had ever done. In fact the main reason the British had to leave this region after WW2 is that they have proven themselves unable to defend their colonial subjects. I could tell you a lot about what a horrible experience Singaporeans had during the war and when the British army finally left them to their own devices, they built up a very serious armed forces, modelled on Israel's and with a similar strike capability (Singapore is even smaller than Israel and similarly surrounded by much larger Islamic countries, who are not always that friendly). Despite this, every Singaporean I talked to is pro-British and very grateful for what they received from their erstwhile colonial masters, especially in terms of the language (though Singaporeans have their own Singlish dialect), the infrastructure, the legal system, education, etc... The only thing missing in Singapore that would make it a truly Western country is democracy, but apparently Singaporeans are happy that way as long as they have prosperity, which they do in abundance.

Incidentally, Singapore has a very close relationship with the US and is regularly host to docking US navy ships. Singaporeans have an entire squadron of jet fighters based in Texas and many in the Singaporean armed forces spend time in the US, Australia or Taiwan, usually 6 months out of their 2-year compulsory military service. If Singapore felt that it was ever oppressed or disrespected by the US or Britain, I'm sure they would never do that.

I used to work on their jets...avionics systems...Multi-Function Display Systems...

[Dreamtimer]

It may be an oversimplification, but the gist of it is factual. Socialism is about taking from those that have and giving it to those that don't, preferably murdering the haves in the process

Allow me to quote my brother, "Most people are pennies. You could just throw them away and you'd never miss them. They don't make any difference."

And, "Why are those people in the inner cities. They don't do anything. They don't contribute anything."

Have you missed the fact that American conservatives have been talking about rounding up black American citizens and sending them "back to Liberia'?

Did you miss the fact that we have children in concentration camps, some of whom have died due to neglect and worse?

Just how bad does it have to get before we call it what it is?

We've had corporate welfare and military jobs programs (i.e. weapons the Pentagon doesn't want) for my whole lifetime. There's plenty of middle class wealth going upwards. To the point that the middle class is disappearing.

[Dreamtimer]

A Record 800,000 People Registered to Vote on National Voter Registration Day.

It takes things getting bad before Americans truly get worked up.

[Chris]

Allow me to quote my brother, "Most people are pennies. You could just throw them away and you'd never miss them. They don't make any difference."

And, "Why are those people in the inner cities. They don't do anything. They don't contribute anything."

Have you missed the fact that American conservatives have been talking about rounding up black American citizens and sending them "back to Liberia'?

Did you miss the fact that we have children in concentration camps, some of whom have died due to neglect and worse?

Just how bad does it have to get before we call it what it is?

We've had corporate welfare and military jobs programs (i.e. weapons the Pentagon doesn't want) for my whole lifetime. There's plenty of middle class wealth going upwards. To the point that the middle class is disappearing.

I'm not sure what your point is, but if you are really comparing ICE detention facilities to Concentration camps, you are simply creating a false equivalency. I'm not even American, but I find that comparison highly misleading.

I'm aware that there is a history of racism in America, I certainly have no illusions about it, but there is a big difference between rhetoric and action. There is a similar issue here in Hungary with the far-right, who were until very recently openly anti-semitic and talked about creating a registry for Israeli-Hungarian dual citizens and barring Israelis from acquiring land in Hungary, that kind of thing. There is certainly danger in racist rhetoric, as there is a potential of it turning into action, but it serves no purpose to overstate the dangers. I do not think there is any real danger of expulsion of African-Americans from the country they have called home for centuries, unless some sort of Hitler-like figure comes into power. And no, Trump most certainly isn't in that category. I am aware of some in the US that would represent that kind of danger, but they are on the extreme fringes and there is no real possibility of them coming into any sort of position of power.

In contrast, the openly racist and anti-semitic Jobbik party in Hungary regularly gets around 18 percent of the popular vote, which is not much less than Hitler's NSDAP got in Germany (33 percent I think), before they seized power. They even had a paramilitary arm which held marches in heavily Jewish and Gypsy-populated areas to intimidate the local population. Thankfully the current Orban government shut them down and the Jewish community in Hungary (about 1 percent of the country's population, but closer to 5 percent in the capital, Budapest) enjoys levels of safety and protection not seen in the likes of Britain and France, where they are effectively in hiding and have to mask their Jewish identity to stay safe. There are no need for armed guards to protect Synagogues in Hungary. However, I must admit that the way Gypsies are treated not just in Hungary, but all over Europe is atrocious. Their plight is probably as bad, if not worse than that of African-Americans.

[Dreamtimer]

Has anyone heard of Micheal Lewis and his book The Fifth Risk?

I love this quote from an interview on Face the Nation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=368&v=8-j0MfBUSN8):


"If we were gonna 'Money Ball' American society, and try to identify where people are really radically mis-valued, it's in the public sector, right there."

[Fred Steeves]

Have you missed the fact that American conservatives have been talking about rounding up black American citizens and sending them "back to Liberia'?

Did you miss the fact that we have children in concentration camps, some of whom have died due to neglect and worse?

Just how bad does it have to get before we call it what it is?

This is a beaming example of the "holy war" I'm talking about. Each side screaming at the other from the confines of their respective echo chambers. Generalizing them, marginalizing them, demonizing them, which serves to ultimately de humanize them.

"Liberals to this!". "Conservatives do that!!". "Something must be done!". Problem, Reaction, Solution. What does the final solution sometimes wind up being in this type of situation, historically? "Get them!"

What's happening here is light years beyond politics. We're being played to be at each other's throats as pawns on a much larger chess board than Right v. Left. There be spelling some dark magick in the air, as one Age yields to the next.

[Dreamtimer]

I didn't hang any labels, Fred. Not anywhere.

Small steps, Chris.

[Wind]

What's happening here is light years beyond politics. We're being played to be at each other's throats as pawns on a much larger chess board than Right v. Left. There be spelling some dark magick in the air, as one Age yields to the next.

You are of course right, Fred. The game of division works so well...

If there is "us and them" then that would be the common (awakened) man vs. the elite scum who are trying to control everything through their chaos magic. Of course the elite too has been divided into several different factions so there is not just one "Illuminati" who would be ruling over the world like Sauron. The military industrial complex surely plays a big part though.

[Fred Steeves]

I didn't hang any labels, Fred. Not anywhere.

Come on now sister, is not this recent example I cited below the very definition of hanging generalized labels on a particular group of people? You and NAP do it consistently, like cheerleaders with pom poms for the home team: Boiled down it's basically "Left" wears the white hats, and "Right" wears the black hats. End of story.


Have you missed the fact that American conservatives have been talking about rounding up black American citizens and sending them "back to Liberia'?

Did you miss the fact that we have children in concentration camps, some of whom have died due to neglect and worse?



If there is "us and them" then that would be the common (awakened) man vs. the elite scum who are trying to control everything through their chaos magic. Of course the elite too has been divided into several different factions so there is not just one "Illuminati" who would be ruling over the world like Sauron. The military industrial complex surely plays a big part though.

Well, that to me is where things get a bit on the tricky side. The deeper I get into this thing, the more with snake eyes I look at even the "us vs. them" narrative concerning "us vs. the controlling elite". I'm thinking it's much more nuanced than that, and maybe worthy of some Socratic type of questioning:

- What do they want, beyond the obvious lust for total control?

- Just how long has this been going on?

- What was the original motivation?

- What is their end game?

- Do they have one?

- Who might they in turn be subjugated to?

- And then a pivot to if most of us have indeed chosen to be here, why?

- Are we just lost, crazy, gluttons for punishment, trapped, or is there something deeper? Perhaps something in it for us as well?

- If we ever dare look it in the eye?

- What if we are they? (Invoking "As above so below, as below so above").

[Emil El Zapato]

"Boiled down it's basically "Left" wears the white hats, and "Right" wears the black hats. End of story."

Now there's a statement that doesn't even require utterance. At this point in time the truth is vociferously screaming "Amen, brother!"

[Emil El Zapato]

Come on now sister, is not this recent example I cited below the very definition of hanging generalized labels on a particular group of people? You and NAP do it consistently, like cheerleaders with pom poms for the home team: Boiled down it's basically "Left" wears the white hats, and "Right" wears the black hats. End of story.






Well, that to me is where things get a bit on the tricky side. The deeper I get into this thing, the more with snake eyes I look at even the "us vs. them" narrative concerning "us vs. the controlling elite". I'm thinking it's much more nuanced than that, and maybe worthy of some Socratic type of questioning:

- What do they want, beyond the obvious lust for total control?

- Just how long has this been going on?

- What was the original motivation?

- What is their end game?

- Do they have one?

- Who might they in turn be subjugated to?

- And then a pivot to if most of us have indeed chosen to be here, why?

- Are we just lost, crazy, gluttons for punishment, trapped, or is there something deeper? Perhaps something in it for us as well?

- If we ever dare look it in the eye?

- What if we are they? (Invoking "As above so below, as below so above").

The end game is no mystery...those that have power and money want it all...One of my favorite phrases from the right is "They" are trying to steal our children's future. Get it, it comes from the depths of Jungian shadowland...Genes are running the minds of the low vibe folks.

Incidentally, Mind is consciousness that emerges from the vacuum in those people's brains. They have no idea where these notions come from, only that they are there. It is the 'resistance to life' energy taking precedence over 'life'. It is completely contradictory and self-destructive. It's the vibe man, the vibe.

[Dreamtimer]

As Aragorn has so eloquently pointed out, most all of America is conservative. Therefore, what I said is a mainstream attitude, not part of one side.

The beast has one big mutant wing, or maybe ten. It doesn't really matter.

We're still ripping children from their families and threatening US citizens. That's what's wrong, not whether there are two, four or six wings on the beast.

And that argument is a poor substitute for dealing with these issues.

I've seen several rants about the left/right crap and not one single word about these kids.

It's a distraction.

My brother was paraphrasing an early 20th century industrialist. What team was he even on? Does it matter?

It's an attitude that's a century old and instead of addressing it, people spew about teams and left/right.

It's sad.

[Dreamtimer]

The both sides myth is exactly that. A myth. And it has been for almost the entirety of my life.

Revolution or Civil War part II?

Thomas Friedman wrote in the NYT today:


I began my journalism career covering a civil war in Lebanon. I never thought I’d end my career covering a civil war in America.

In his piece (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/3/1801131/-Thomas-L-Friedman-Acknowledges-The-American-Civil-War-Part-II-but-omits-a-key-element?utm_campaign=recent) "Friedman calls on the center-left and the center-right to come together and vote for politicians to put a stop to this. The problem with that is that there is no center-right any more, just an increasingly extreme minority consolidating power by every means they can get away with, whether it’s rigging FBI investigations, stealing a Supreme Court seat, or colluding with Russia to steal an election. They are openly looting the country, trashing the rule of law, and using racism and worse to energize their base."


In essence, we’ve moved from “partisanship,” which still allowed for political compromises in the end, “to tribalism,” which does not, explained political scientist Norman Ornstein... In a tribal world it’s rule or die, compromise is a sin, enemies must be crushed and power must be held at all costs.

It would be easy to blame both sides equally for this shift, noted Ornstein, but it is just not true. After the end of the Cold War, he said, “tribal politics were introduced by Newt Gingrich when he came to Congress 40 years ago,” and then perfected by Mitch McConnell during the Barack Obama presidency, when McConnell declared his intention to use his G.O.P. Senate caucus to make Obama fail as a strategy for getting Republicans back in power.


My friend retired Marine Col. Mark Mykleby stopped by for a chat after the Kavanaugh hearing last week, and as we bemoaned this moment, he remarked: “When I walked out of the Pentagon after 28 years in uniform, I never thought I’d say this, but what is going on politically in America today is a far graver threat than any our nation faced during my career, including the Soviet Union. And it’s because this threat is here and now, right at home, and it’s coming from within us. I guess the irony of being a great nation is the only power who can bring you down is yourself.”

"What Friedman fails to note is that it’s not just Newt Gingrich that has got us where we are today. This Civil War II has been building a long time. Its opening rounds begin with things like the Powel (https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/)l memo. It was advanced with moves like the end of the Fairness Doctrine, and the rise of talk radio and Fox ‘News’. It was fostered by the end of meaningful anti-trust action (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/20/antitrust-was-defined-by-robert-bork-i-cannot-overstate-his-influence/?utm_term=.3f919b9752a5), and with the consolidation of corporate power. It scored a strategic victory with the Citizens United decision, and now Janus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME).

If we want to be honest, Friedman’s Civil War II really began as the Reagan Revolution. People remember the kind, smiling face — but forget the racism and corporatism behind it, and the outright criminality like Iran-Contra."


Steve Kornacki just came out with a book (https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062438997/the-red-and-the-blue/) that examines the work of Gingrich to bring about his revolution.

[Dreamtimer]

My old phone which has no service received the new Emergency Alert.

[Aragorn]

My old phone which has no service received the new Emergency Alert.

I read about the alert on Slashdot just a few hours ago (https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/10/03/140248/cellphones-across-the-us-will-receive-a-presidential-alert-at-218-pm-eastern-today). ;)

[Fred Steeves]

The both sides myth is exactly that. A myth. And it has been for almost the entirety of my life.

Revolution or Civil War part II?

Thomas Friedman wrote in the NYT today:



In his piece (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/3/1801131/-Thomas-L-Friedman-Acknowledges-The-American-Civil-War-Part-II-but-omits-a-key-element?utm_campaign=recent) "Friedman calls on the center-left and the center-right to come together and vote for politicians to put a stop to this. The problem with that is that there is no center-right any more, just an increasingly extreme minority consolidating power by every means they can get away with, whether it’s rigging FBI investigations, stealing a Supreme Court seat, or colluding with Russia to steal an election. They are openly looting the country, trashing the rule of law, and using racism and worse to energize their base."





"What Friedman fails to note is that it’s not just Newt Gingrich that has got us where we are today. This Civil War II has been building a long time. Its opening rounds begin with things like the Powel (https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/)l memo. It was advanced with moves like the end of the Fairness Doctrine, and the rise of talk radio and Fox ‘News’. It was fostered by the end of meaningful anti-trust action (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/20/antitrust-was-defined-by-robert-bork-i-cannot-overstate-his-influence/?utm_term=.3f919b9752a5), and with the consolidation of corporate power. It scored a strategic victory with the Citizens United decision, and now Janus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME).

If we want to be honest, Friedman’s Civil War II really began as the Reagan Revolution. People remember the kind, smiling face — but forget the racism and corporatism behind it, and the outright criminality like Iran-Contra."


Steve Kornacki just came out with a book (https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062438997/the-red-and-the-blue/) that examines the work of Gingrich to bring about his revolution.

Dreamtimer,

According to this the Right is still the sole problem here. What can't you just admit that this is how you see things like NAP?

Also, perhaps the international news stations in Belgium didn't inform Aragorn that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote here this go around, a black guy entered the White House in 2009 with a 68% approval rating, and his fellow Dems owned the House and Senate for his first two years.

This hardly sounds like America is mostly Conservative. That's because it isn't.

[Emil El Zapato]

It took the time with a majority in congress for Obama to realize that trying to be "America's President" left him with only half a country. The possibility for compromise did not exist which he soon realized after being slapped in the face as his response to an outstretched hand. Plain and simple truth. The right's 'underground' money did more propaganda damage than the Russians have done. It is just not a level playing field when one is playing against the dark side.

[Fred Steeves]

It took the time with a majority in congress for Obama to realize that trying to be "America's President" left him with only half a country. The possibility for compromise did not exist which he soon realized after being slapped in the face as his response to an outstretched hand. Plain and simple truth. The right's 'underground' money did more propaganda damage than the Russians have done. It is just not a level playing field when one is playing against the dark side.

There, see how easy it is?

[Aragorn]

Dreamtimer,

According to this the Right is still the sole problem here. What can't you just admit that this is how you see things like NAP?

Also, perhaps the international news stations in Belgium didn't inform Aragorn that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote here this go around, a black guy entered the White House in 2009 with a 68% approval rating, and his fellow Dems owned the House and Senate for his first two years.

This hardly sounds like America is mostly Conservative. That's because it isn't.

Well, it is conservative from the European and even the global perspectives, because both the US Republicans and the US Democrats sit firmly on the right of the political horizon — which shouldn't surprise anyone, given that both parties are owned and controlled by the corporate world, and not in the least by the bankers.

Just because there is a movement of so-called social justice warriors — American culture is really good at coming up with buzzword monikers that can then be abridged into acronyms — who are most likely not going to vote for the US Republican Party, doesn't make this movement left-wing yet. It's a step in that direction, yes, but it's not quite the same thing yet, given that social justice warriors are more about ethics and social equality than about economics and political liberation. Apples and oranges both count as fruits, but they're still different types of fruit.

True socialism is a negligible political orientation within the USA, and those who were accusing Barack Obama of being a socialist were invariably all to be found among the adherents of the US far right. It was just a hyperbolic knee-jerk reaction to Obamacare, because the US far right is simply so self-absorbed that it considers anything outside of their own ideology as socialist or communist, and those two words are still considered expletives in the USA, given that the anti-Soviet propaganda of the (first) Cold War has made sure that there are nary any US Americans who understand what socialism and communism really are.

In addition to that, if political orientation were to be mapped out on a two-dimensional compass with a North-South axis representing authoritarianism versus libertarianism respectively, then both the Democrats and the Republicans would be located in the North-East corner of the compass, i.e. authoritarian and decidedly capitalist-corporatist.

The Democrats are more globalist than the Republicans, but for both parties, the conditio sine qua non is that it must be the USA which sits at the top of the globalist food chain. Or otherwise put, it is actually imperialism shrouded in globalism, whereby the Republicans carry a thinner globalist shroud than the Democrats and allow more of the underlying nationalism to shine through. George H. Bush for instance was a US Republican, but he too was a globalist, albeit with the same underlying principle that the USA — and specifically, the US banking world — had to come out on top of that New World Order.

This nationalism is also reflected in US American culture, in part because of American Exceptionalism and in part because the vast majority of middle class Americans hasn't got the faintest idea on what living in any other type of culture is like, courtesy of the poor US American education system, which was itself engineered to stimulate nationalism and American Exceptionalism.

So the bottom line is that, yes, as a nation and as a society, the US is actually far more conservative than what meets the eye. It's engrained within US culture itself, even though it has gotten there through artificial means — through the stimulation of consumerism, through an insular education system, and through pervasive nationalist propaganda during the (first) Cold War.

Lastly, what the US is now seeing in terms of societal unrest, is that you've now got a far-right president again — similar to how it was under Bush Jr., but with (so far) less beating on the war drum — and that therefore the relatively peaceful middle ground between Republicans and Democrats is starting to disappear because of the extreme polarization. The only ones who are happy with that situation are the far-right bigots themselves, like Alex Jones, while the rest of your country is in turmoil.



Just my two Eurocents, for whatever they're worth. It's all I can spare at the moment, because my government is trying very hard to mimic yours. :p

[Fred Steeves]

I get ya Aragorn, and I've always appreciated the more overall global view from cruising altitude that you offer on US politics. However, here on the ground not many people give a rat's ass about the overall view of things, as you well know this is a very arrogant and self centered nation.

Here on the ground, inside the confines of this arrogant and self centered nation, as I've mentioned before, is a virtual holy war ramping up between Our Right, and Our Left. Both sides see it as a life and death struggle against pure evil, both sides are deepening their polarization and hatred of the other, and both sides feel perfectly justified in doing whatever it takes to vanquish the other.

The latest shining example is the ridiculous food fight in the US Senate over this Supreme Court nominee. So far as I'm concerned anyway there ARE no good guys in this, and both sides are full of shit.

[Chris]

This time I completely agree with Aragorn :)

It's in the name really, the Democrats are actually the equivalent of Christian Democratic parties in Europe, they are to the right of Angela Merkel or Theresa May on most issues. The Republicans have very few equivalents in Europe, they are quite unique in that respect. Even Sinn Fein, which is the Irish Republican Party, (front for the erstwhile IRA) is to the left of the US Republicans on most issues. On current form, the DUP (which is rabidly anti-catholic and anti-European), part of Theresa May's conservative coalition, is the closest thing we have and everyone considers them a bit mad.

I watched Bernie Sanders' campaign very closely. I really liked the guy, even though he considers himself a socialist (he's not, trust me. I grew up under "real" socialism, with the careful and loving tutelage of the United Soviet Socialist Republic). I really don't like it when politicians throw this word around carelessly, it is a swearword in my part of the world and we have the mass graves and concentration camps to prove it. What Bernie actually wants and he should be more clear about it, is a Western-European style social democracy. That is a very different beast and probably the best form of government currently known to us, in that it combines a capitalist market economy with heavy regulation and a rules-based system, to curb its worse excesses. In that regard, it is almost the opposite of socialism, which is about exploiting workers to the max and killing everyone who gets in the way of total control and exploitation by the military-industrial machine.

[Dreamtimer]

I just read the Best word. We (Americans) live in a ‘gerontophallocracy’. :lol:

[Chris]

I just read the Best word. We (Americans) live in a ‘gerontophallocracy’. :lol:

That's a good one! Although gerontoalbaphallocracy would be more accurate in the case of the US...

But gerontophallocracy would describe the whole world pretty much, I'm not aware of any exceptions :)

[Dreamtimer]

It's not hard to see that the 'both siderism' is a crock of poo. When you actually take a look you can see that "both sides" are not doing the same thing. It's been a one-sided thing for a long time.

I can't help the language. I could hang new labels on things but when people characterize themselves as conservative or liberal I'll use the terms they use. It make for easier understanding.

When I speak mere common sense and logic I get called liberal. Does that mean I really am? When I have the same person tell me for decades that I'm not as liberal as they thought I was, what am I then?

Answer? It doesn't Effing matter. What matters is the issues. And when a person can't talk about an issue without having a label hung around their neck, what are they supposed to do?

Answer? Keep on talking about the issues and pointing out the Bullshit Both-siderism.

Because that's what it is. BS.

[Aragorn]

This time I completely agree with Aragorn :)

Hallelujah, a miracle has come upon us! :ha:


It's in the name really, the Democrats are actually the equivalent of Christian Democratic parties in Europe, they are to the right of Angela Merkel or Theresa May on most issues. The Republicans have very few equivalents in Europe, they are quite unique in that respect. Even Sinn Fein, which is the Irish Republican Party, (front for the erstwhile IRA) is to the left of the US Republicans on most issues. On current form, the DUP (which is rabidly anti-catholic and anti-European), part of Theresa May's conservative coalition, is the closest thing we have and everyone considers them a bit mad.

In Belgium, one of the strongest parties at the moment is the N-VA — Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, which translates to "New-Flemish Alliance". It is a strictly Flemish party, in that they have no counterpart in the francophone part of the country. It is a Flemish-nationalist and rather authoritarian party that strives for Flemish independence, and they are somewhat comparable to the US Republicans.

There is also another, somewhat similar party here in the Flanders, called Vlaams Belang — which translates to "Flemish Interest" — but this party is not allowed into the federal or regional governments by virtue of the "cordon sanitaire", which is French and roughly translates to "sanitary buffer". It is an agreement between all existing political parties that they would never enter into a coalition with Vlaams Belang, and given that Vlaams Belang, like the N-VA, is an exclusively Flemish party, they would never be able to win the absolute majority needed for the formation of a government without coalition partners.

The official reason for this "cordon sanitaire" is that Vlaams Belang was convicted of racism. Like N-VA, Vlaams Belang is an authoritarian Flemish-nationalist party, but they go even farther in that than N-VA by openly pleading for secession, whereas N-VA seems to want to settle with a reform of the Belgian state into a confederation, as opposed to the federal state it is now.

And, of course, Vlaams Belang is also highly xenophobic, with the occasional quasi-racist slogans here and there and the just as occasional chanting of Nazi war songs at their conventions. They are also known to have ties with Blut Und Boden — which is a neo-Nazi movement in Germany — and with the Ku Klux Klan in the USA. As per what Fred stated higher up about the holy war, Vlaams Belang is also engaged in a holy war against anything that isn't Flemish and of European ethnicity.

The unofficial reason for the cordon sanitaire agreement is of course that the existing political parties in the Flanders region are all aware of Vlaams Belang's massive success among the lower-educated classes, and that they were afraid to lose their age-old positions of power to Vlaams Belang. All of the tradional parties are thoroughly corrupt, and it has even already leaked out to the press that the three largest traditional parties had already been making coalition agreements and dividing the respective offices among themselves weeks before the elections.

Compared to the USA, Vlaams Belang would be the Belgian counterpart of Breitbart, and perhaps of the Tea Party. For most part, it is a populist and ultraconservative agitation party, condemned to an eternal existence in the opposition role. Yet, the insidious part of this is that many people have in the meantime left Vlaams Belang and joined up with the N-VA, which means that many of Vlaams Belang's ideals — such as the increase in surveillance and authoritarianism with zero-tolerance — are now seeing practical application already, in spite of said party not being in government.


I watched Bernie Sanders' campaign very closely. I really liked the guy, even though he considers himself a socialist (he's not, trust me. I grew up under "real" socialism, with the careful and loving tutelage of the United Soviet Socialist Republic).

Um, the USSR was not socialist. It started off as a proto-socialist regime, but it never actually reached the stage of true socialism, and it devolved into essentially a military dictatorship. And this is what has so far always been happening with each of the so-called socialist revolutions.


I really don't like it when politicians throw this word around carelessly, it is a swearword in my part of the world and we have the mass graves and concentration camps to prove it.

And those are the very best evidence you can find for proving that it was never socialism to begin with.


What Bernie actually wants and he should be more clear about it, is a Western-European style social democracy. That is a very different beast and probably the best form of government currently known to us, in that it combines a capitalist market economy with heavy regulation and a rules-based system, to curb its worse excesses.

This is essentially Keynesian liberalism, also known as neo-liberalism. And that's only marginally more to the left from the US Democrats.

In Belgium concretely, the Keynesian liberals are represented by Open VLD in the Flanders and MR in the francophone region. Both regions also have so-called socialist parties, but there is a difference between them.

The Flemish socialist party is called SP.a, and they are in essence closet liberals with the proto-socialist obsession of wanting to perpetually have a hand in everybody's cookie jar. They can be considered fairly authoritarian — less authoritarian than N-VA or Vlaams Belang, but more authoritarian than LDD, which is an economically right-wing but ethically left-wing libertarian party.

The francophone socialists are much more old-school and sit a lot closer to the original ideals of Karl Marx, while at the same time they are also fraught with all the corruption scandals that all proto-socialist regimes have so far always had to deal with. They don't need to have their hand in everybody's cookie jar because the corporations are lining their pockets already.


In that regard, it is almost the opposite of socialism, which is about exploiting workers to the max and killing everyone who gets in the way of total control and exploitation by the military-industrial machine.

Chris, if you honestly, truly, verily believe that socialism is about — and I quote — "exploiting workers to the max and killing everyone who gets in the way of total control and exploitation by the military-industrial machine", then I must unfortunately repeat that you do not understand what socialism really is. You are equating the behavior of the Soviet regime (and that of its vassals like the former DDR and other former East Block countries) with the ideology itself.

Socialism is an ideology in which all of the nation's resources belong to all people of the nation, and not to any government institution or any private entities — no more, no less. Socialism does not require that there would be a government or a political party, and even less a dictator. Perhaps the best way to visualize it would be to look at how the Native Americans used to live before The White Man™ stole the land from underneath them in the name of Manifest Destiny (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny), except that the Native Americans never stuck a name to their type of society — it was merely what they considered the natural way of doing things.

Either way, none of the revolutionary movements that sought to bring socialism to their respective nations have succeeded, which is why all of them can at best only be described as proto-socialist. And of course, due to the corruptibility of the human psyche — whether it's megalomania, narcissism, dictatorial tendencies or just financial corruption — virtually all of these revolutionary efforts have always stagnated at the point where the old government was ousted and a new government was instated that would then seize control over all of the nation's resources, and that would then keep those resources to itself, thereby exploiting the workers to the fullest, as you say. ("All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." -- George Orwell, "Animal Farm")

This is why socialism has gotten a bad reputation in the West, but this has nothing, zero, zilch to do with the ideology of socialism.

[Aragorn]

Given that this is the anti-thread, I'll just throw in a US-political joke I've just received via email. :p






Donald Trump is on an official state visit in Israel. While visiting Jerusalem, he suddenly has a heart attack, and he dies.

The Isreali government informs Trump's American entourage that they can either have Trump's remains buried in Jerusalem for a mere USD $100, or that they can arrange for his body to be flown back to the USA, which would cost USD $50'000.

The Americans think things over carefully, and then they inform the Israelis that they've decided on having Trump's body flown back to the USA.

When the Israelis ask the Americans why they have opted for the most expensive offer when their president could have been buried in the Holy Land for only USD $100, the American reply was this...:


"Two-thousand years ago, a man was buried here in the Holy Land, and three days later, he stood up from the dead again.

We've decided that the risk is too great."





:ha: :hilarious:

[Wind]

As I've often said before, here in Scandinavia we have social democracy and that has been so far probably the best form of governance in the world.

However, that doesn't make this place a paradise or an utopia, it's very far from it. Life is just as rough as anywhere else if not more and many people like me have had to live in (relative) poverty. That being said, at least we have the basic things covered. Free healthcare (almost), food to eat and roofs over our heads. The system could be much more better, but as the politicians are as they are, the system remains the same or is actually getting worse.


http://youtu.be/d99DY1jcGqI

[Fred Steeves]

Hearing about the different forms of parties does nothing to alter my view of politics in general: No which one you vote for, you're voting for corruption.

When someone figures out how resolve that inherently unavoidable problem I'm all ears, but I really don't think that's possible though, I think the only way to solve that problem, is to transcend the problem.

[Aragorn]

Hearing about the different forms of parties does nothing to alter my view of politics in general: No which one you vote for, you're voting for corruption.

When someone figures out how resolve that inherently unavoidable problem I'm all ears, but I really don't think that's possible though, I think the only way to solve that problem, is to transcend the problem.

I agree. Unfortunately here in Belgium, one cannot boycott the elections by not showing up. They've covered themselves in, because we've got compulsory voting, and while there have been several proposals over the years for doing away with this medieval practice, the system still remains in place as we speak. And as it just so happens to be, we've got municipal and provincial elections coming up again on Sunday 14 October 2018 — that's less than two weeks from today. I hate it, but I cannot afford the fine and I have no desire to go to jail. :hmm:

The best you can do is cast a blank vote, which would allegedly be the same thing as casting an invalid vote, even though I'm not so sure that it would be. But it's all done by way of computers, so there are no other options anymore.

Your vote itself is anonymous, so they cannot ascertain who voted for what, but you do have to show up — they check your identity card against a list. Likewise, the people who man the polling stations — which are always school buildings — are neither public servants nor volunteers. They are drafted from a certain age group within the local municipality's population by a computer.

The fines for not showing up on election day are quite severe, and even more severe for the people summoned to man the polling stations. The only ways out from underneath the voting or manning the polling station are if...


You have a doctor's voucher — to be sent in in advance — that you are too ill to leave the house;
You are at work and you are either not in the ability or not allowed to temporarily abandon your job in order to go and vote;
You are either on vacation abroad or you are working abroad;
You are in prison; or
You've died in between the sending of the summons and election day.

In order to make sure that as few people as possible have an excuse for not showing up, elections are always held on a Sunday, and the polling stations are open from 08:00 until 15:00. I'm not sure how long before and after that time slot the stations are still manned.

I've been voting blank for many years already.

[Wind]

I haven't even bothered to vote in years, next election of the parliament is coming in the spring.

I ask myself, why bother? By not voting I'm voting against the system which isn't really working.

[Chris]

These remarks about voting reminded me of Russell Brand's appearance on Bill Maher's show a while ago, where he put it rather more eloquently than I ever could. I don't know if there's anyone alive today who can talk his mind so freely and with such effortless poetry than this guy.

His bit about voting starts at 3:00


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkFJvHepN2g&t=131s

This other clip from the same appearance is also worth watching:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NaJdHZSPqM

[Dreamtimer]

"Government of, by and for the People".

Sounds like a phrase which could easily be spun into "horrible evil" socialism.

[Aragorn]

"Government of, by and for the People".

Sounds like a phrase which could easily be spun into horrible evil socialism.

Why is everyone here condemning socialism as something evil when they obviously don't even know what socialism is? :fpalm: