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wvParticipantI mean…the truth is Trump won, and Republicans control the Senate, Congress, and will soon control the Supreme Court.
And in 2018, things will possibly get worse because the Dems have 5 Senators up for re-election in red states, and 4 up for re-election in purple states, so the Republicans could get a filibuster proof absolute majority in the Senate.
I don’t know what to say. “Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul” isn’t going to have much impact in the face of that. I’m sorry I was so blunt. I obviously struck the wrong tone.
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Nah, not with me you didnt. I got no problem with anything you said or the ‘tone’.I got no book recommendations either.
w
vwvParticipantJesus, I swear the Clinton supporters (or anti-Trump people, I guess) are going through the five stages of grief, or whatever it is.
Recently, there has been a bunch of Denial…articles and op-eds reassuring us that Trump can’t be as awful as he wants to be. All the Anger in the protests.
And yesterday, I don’t know what it was, I got into the car a couple of times and had NPR on, and there was like this collective mourning going on, some sad commiseration with a woman who went to buy a bunch of hats because she’s afraid to wear a hijab, and interviews with cops and military people whose loyalty to their comrades outweighs their political differences, and I don’t know. All the NPR people just sounded so sad, and bleeding heart, I wanted to throw up, but didn’t have to because I didn’t listen for more than a few minutes at a time as I ran errands.
So they want something positive to read?
Tell them to fucking set down their reading material, and go play with their kids, or take a hike along a river with a friend, or lend a hand in some charity. Get back to living life, and make some positive connections with other humans.
Stop all this mopey bullshit and make a stranger smile somewhere.
Seriously.
It will shake the grief faster than any prescriptive book will.
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Yeah, ok, i have the same reaction to the NPR-liberal crowd.
But the blog i was reading had a post by a school counselor and she was really
talking about young people. Teens looking for inspiration, reasons to BE, etc.w
vwvParticipantOkay, so I am preparing a lesson on War Poetry, and I already have this one, and the Thomas Hardy one in mind. I think it’s “The Man I Killed.”
Any other memorable war poems anyone can think of?
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Death of the Ball Turret GunnerFrom my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.Randall Jarrell
w
v
=========“1) Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
2) Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
3) Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
4) Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
5) Had they an epic poem?
6) Did they distinguish between speech and singing?1) Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone lanterns illumined pleasant ways.
2) Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
but after the children were killed
there were no more buds.
3) Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
4) A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
5) It is not remembered. Remember,
most were peasants; their life
was in rice and bamboo.
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
and the water buffalo stepped surely along terraces,
maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
When bombs smashed those mirrors
there was time only to scream.
6) There is an echo yet
of their speech which was like a song.
It was reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.”
― Denise Levertov, Poems, 1960-1967===========
Army Burn Ward
This poem was written about the pain of Vietnam;it could be about tomorrow. Please. Peace.
First the doctor peels dead skin away.
“Debriding,” like a teacher, names it.
(Like a virgin, like a pockmarked whore.)
Then the whirlpool, pain-pull spiralling down
like fire, like broken birds inside him.
(Like a winter wedded to the bone.)
Then the grafting, four long strips of skin.
“Rebriding,” in his shock he giggles,
(Gagging like a schoolboy, like a groom.)
gagging as his new skin wrinkles, worms,
rejecting him. Again the whirlpool
(Like an April pain in soft swarms twirled.)
wheels and stops. The sink-plug pulled, he stares
(Like an empty coat, a burned-out star.)
unblinking as the brides inside him die.
Martin Galvin
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Trying to Write a Poem Against the War
My daughter, who’s as beautiful as the day,
hates politics: Face it, Ma,
they don’t care what you think! All
passion, like Achilles,
she stalks off to her room,
to confide in her purple guitar and await
life’s embassies. She’s right,
of course: bombs will be hurled
at ordinary streets
and leaders look grave for the cameras,
and what good are more poems against war
the real subject of which
so often seems to be the poet’s superior
moral sensitivities? I could
be mailing myself to the moon
or marrying a palm tree,
and yet what can we do
but offer what we have?
and so I spend
this cold gray glittering morning
trying to write a poem against war
that perhaps may please my daughter
who hates politics
and does not care much for poetry, either.
Katha Pollit————–
After Viewing the Holocaust Museum’s Room of Shoes
and a Gallery of Plains’ Indian Moccasins, Washington, D.C.
By Tiffany Midge
The portrait is clear;
one is art
the other evidence.
One is artifact
the other atrocity.
Each is interned
behind glass,
with diagrams
and panels,
a testament to miles
walked. Both
are worn,
each are a pair,
one is cobbled
the other beaded.
At my tour’s end
can I buy a key-chain shoe?
Will I be assigned
the ID card
of one of the perished
at Wounded Knee?
The moccasins
are beautiful. Seed pearls
woven intricate as lace.
We don’t mourn
the elegant doe skins,
we admire the handicraft.
We don’t ask from whose soles
do these relics come from?
We don’t look for signs of resistance,
or evidence of blood.
We don’t wonder
perhaps he was of a ripe
old age and died in his sleep.
Perhaps this child
traded for a stick of candy
or a pinch of dried meat.
We don’t assume
any original ownership at all.
Their deaths weren’t curated
not part of an installation. We
don’t absorb their violent
or harrowing ends under soft
lights or dramatic shadows.
We look right
through them,
more invisible
than the sighs
of ghosts.
And then we move
on to the next
viewing,
to another
collector’s trophy
lying
under the glass
==============More Light! More Light!
by Anthony HechtFor Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt
Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses, and being brought at that time
Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus:
“I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime.”Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible,
The sack of gunpowder failing to ignite.
His legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap
Bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light.And that was but one, and by no means one of he worst;
Permitted at least his pitiful dignity;
And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ,
That shall judge all men, for his soul’s tranquility.We move now to outside a German wood.
Three men are there commanded to dig a hole
In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down
And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole.Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill
Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse.
A Luger settled back deeply in its glove.
He was ordered to change places with the Jews.Much casual death had drained away their souls.
The thick dirt mounted toward the quivering chin.
When only the head was exposed the order came
To dig him out again and to get back in.No light, no light in the blue Polish eye.
When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth.
The Luger hovered lightly in its glove.
He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death.No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.
————wvParticipantBryce Petty starting for Jets, i read.
w
vwvParticipantIf they don’t win this game, I just don’t know anymore.
It’s like Lombardicus, the God of Football, is trying to gift us this one.————–
Well all I know is the path to 7-9 goes through New York.
w
vwvParticipant—————–
Trump Kids Join Transition Team – and Trump Organization Management TeamRead more: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201611121047376564-Trump-kids-join-transition-team/
Link:https://sputniknews.com/politics/201611121047376564-Trump-kids-join-transition-team/US President-elect Donald Trump has shifted his children and relatives from his campaign to his transition team, naming daughter Ivanka, sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and son-in-law Jared Kushner on November 11 to the 16-member executive committee that will help choose his cabinet and guide his early strategies.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence is heading the team, having taken over for Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. Protestors are detained by Los Angeles Police Department officers after a march and rally against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in Los Angeles, California, U.S © REUTERS/ Kevork Djansezian #NotMyPresident: US Response to Anti-Trump Protests Shows Double Standards in Full Play Trump’s administration will need to make thousands of political appointments in the coming weeks.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, retired Lieutenant-General Michael Flynn, Goldman Sachs veteran Steven Mnuchin, former Senator Kelly Ayotte, JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin are among those whose names have been floated for high level positions in the new administration. “The mission of our team will be clear: put together the most highly qualified group of successful leaders who will be able to implement our change agenda in Washington,” Trump said in a statement. The Trump Organization said the same day that it intends to transfer management control of the company to Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr. and a team of executives. “This is a top priority at the organization and the structure that is ultimately selected will comply with all applicable rules and regulations,” the statement said.
Trump had said during the campaign that he would put his assets in a blind trust, as most presidents do. Typically, a blind trust uses an independent financial manager with no relationship to the owner: having one’s children as managers does not fit that description. “It doesn’t meet any of the standards of a blind trust if the kids are running the company,” Kenneth Gross, a Washington lawyer who advises political clients on compliance and ethics, told Reuters. “If they’re going to be involved in government functions – and they’re starting down that road – and running the business, that’s going to make it very difficult to separate the government and business functions and deal with the conflicts of interest,” Gross said. Flags of the US and China © AP Photo/ Ng Han Guan, Pool ‘Adjusting the Strategy’: Trump Signals US Wants Broader Economic Cooperation With China There are reports that Trump’s team seems unready for the actual tasks of governing.
The Los Angeles times reports that after Trump’s November 10 meeting at the White House, Obama officials noted that the president-elect and his staff seemed unprepared to discuss staffing issues and not fully aware of the scope of the process. A follow up meeting scheduled between aides of the incoming and outgoing administrations was cancelled. A Republican source told Reuters that with the GOP bracing for a loss throughout the campaign, little solid transition planning had been done. “I was on [2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt] Romney’s transition team, and it was a well-oiled machine months before the election. Now there’s a scramble,” the source said.
Read more: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201611121047376564-Trump-kids-join-transition-team/
November 12, 2016 at 7:27 pm in reply to: Robert Reich: The Democratic Party Needs To Clean House #57996wvParticipantDemocrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security. Both Bill Clinton and Obama ardently pushed for free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.
I submit that it’s THAT, and not some sort of White Supremacist movement, that got Trump in. And Killory appeared to offer no substantive change in the status quo. Just cliche’s and regurgitated ‘feels’. And she had the audacity to Champion the state of the Nation and the glorious job Obama had done up to that point. Really? Maybe to the Hollywood elite things were all sunshine and lollipops, but I don’t think she made a concerted effort to really *iisten* to the people. Trump did, and he probably structured his whole campaign around saying the things they all wanted to hear. As bad as that is (if true), how stupid do you have to be to argue against the things he was saying about the economy, and insult the very people who were buying into it? Any one of you on this board could have done a better job advising her throughout her campaign in the general. I’m 100% sure of it.
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Well i think Reich is Right about what got Trump in,
but my own view is that the powers-that-be are just fine with Trump. Or Killery.Neither threaten the power structures and both will/would increase inequality
and enrich the banks and corporations.I know you disagree. We shall see in the next four years.
w
vwvParticipantSomebody ought to do one with Hitler having a view on the Fire Fisher v Keep Fisher
controversy.As you wish.
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LoL. Orange Fanta??
w
vwvParticipantSomething for NMR, bnw, and X
🙂
w
vwvParticipantOh, that’s a good one, WV!
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Somebody ought to do one with Hitler having a view on the Fire Fisher v Keep Fisher
controversy.w
vwvParticipantyes. many many different sides.
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You dont get into long hostile fights with politically-different-posters, Invader.
Care to share your approach? Or your purpose in posting pol-thots?
w
vmy approach. i just try to go in with an open mind. i think the reasons everyone here is upset actually overlap in some places. and there are wide chasms in others. i guess i am not willing to stubbornly cling to my own ideas. more just curious as to why people believe what they believe? i guess ultimately. on a philosophical level we’re all just completely lost. we have our own belief systems. we have our own experiences that have shaped us, and i just sit here in wonderment at all the different opinions being put out here on this board. cuz i believe everyone here is decent (or at least decent as a human can be). i believe that on some level all the pain here and frustration is born out of caring. even if that can often be misguided.
and even if it does come from a place of hate. for some reason i’m ok with that too.
don’t ask me why. i don’t know. i can’t really explain it, and maybe it doesn’t even make any sense. maybe it’s cuz in the end i think that none of this even means anything.
i do know that people in general are hurting on both sides. just want to see where all that hurt is coming from. on both sides.
——————
Interesting thoughts, Invader. I will mull them over.Btw you said everyone on the board is ‘a decent human being’ — you are not including Zooey in that are you?
w
vwvParticipant___________________________________________________
So, you’re saying it’s ok for the “right” to compromise, but not the “left?”
See, I don’t see compromise as “throwing in the towel.” I see it as negotiation. Both sides get something out of it they can both feel good about (again, remember I know there are more than 2 sides to politics, but bear with me please). Just pushing and ramming through things all the time is tiring and creates friction before the next fight even begins. IMO, this is where Obama failed as a President.
I know extreme rightists will be disappointed in Trump and probably say the same thing about him, that he will “give in” too quickly and not fight. Just watch.
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No. Nowhere in this thread or any other did i say anything like “The right should compromise and the left should not”.I said there are different subjective ‘truths’ here.
You — as a person of the right — think Obama ‘forced things through without compromising’.
I as a person of the far-left, see Obama as a person that never rammed anything through and didnt fight for anything and constantly compromised with the Right.
My point isnt even about Obama or Politics. My point is about POSTING.
Since people of the right honestly, sincerely see things one way.
And people of the left honestly sincerely see things a different way — there will always be differences. And we can either bash one another on the heads trying to ‘prove’ something and getting our ‘egos’ all involved.Or. We can share our opinions (like i just did about Obama),
listen to the opposing view.
ACKNOWLEDGE the DIFFERENCES.
and then agree to disagree and move on to the next…disagreement 🙂I get tired of the long drawn-out bickerfests. Thats another way of saying
what I’m tryin to say 🙂I’m not pointing fingers at anyone — just venting.
w
vNovember 12, 2016 at 4:21 pm in reply to: Ross & Greg discuss the Chiefs, Jared Goff, & preview the Ravens Browns game. #57968wvParticipantRoss & Greg discuss the Chiefs, Jared Goff, & preview the Ravens Browns game.
my confidence is eroding. if not in goff then in fisher.
I don’t buy the stuff they’re peddling there, IR.
well. we’ll see.
I should be more specific.
Cosell sez, either (1) he’s a mistake, he’s not that guy, or (2) somehow what they’re teaching is not getting across.
The reality is, it doesn’t reduce to just those 2 options.
It’s their mistake that they believe it all reduces to JUST those 2 options. Their entire analysis is tilted by that first mistake.
Other possibilities (which I happen to believe):
1. Fisher just takes his time with qbs, and he believes in doing that having done it that way before.
2. Unlike most teams that pick a qb that high, Rams are not a 1-15 or 3-13 etc. type rebuilding team that earned that pick with their record. They are a more established team than that and traded up. That means 2 things. First, they can afford to be in win-now mode (which is not the same as saying they actually do win. It’s what they;re trying to do). Second, unlike a rebuilding team, they don’t have to just accept the losing that (the vast majority of the time) comes with starting a rookie qb.
And of course Prescott himself says the Dallas offense is very similar to what he did in college, and Wentz…who has gotten a little shakier btw…was heavily pro-ready coming out. So I don’t necessarily think those examples apply.
IMO? Fisher will take his time because Fisher takes his time.
…
Wentz, qb rating. Games 1-8.
1. W, qb rating 101.0
2. W, qb rating 86.6
3. W, qb rating 125.9
4. L, qb rating 102.8
5. L, qb rating 77.7
6. W, qb rating 52.4
7. L, qb rating 91.4
8. L, qb rating 64.5===============
Yeah, i agree with all that.
I think Fisher just mainly has a patient approach to a lot of things.
And to me, btw, without a running game, I dont know what Goff could
do anyway.I’m fine with Goff sitting out almost all the season btw. I do think he
should start a coupla games though near the end. I just think it would help
him get ready for next year.w
vwvParticipantOK, I’m cutting back in to make one last comment.
I know the GOP increased the use of fillibusters. I knew that when I posted my link. I believe that to be the result of a president who tried to force things through rather than negotiate. He is the one who said “elections have consequences.” That should be a red flag for any party to hear. I want to see a President who will take the time to discuss with the other side and find ways to compromise
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Well you are coming at that from a point of view on the ‘right’. You know how us leftists see it? — Obama didnt fight hard enough for ANYTHING. He was MR COMPROMISE. Or actually MR THROW IN THE TOWEL WITHOUT FIGHTING FOR ANYTHING. Honestly thats how leftists view him.
So, different ‘truths’ based on where we stand politically.
Different views.
I will not try to change your mind though. I’ll not hammer you with a gazillion reasons why you are ‘wrong’ and why you should change your mind, etc. THAT is where political boards always simmer and boil over.
We all gotta stop trying to prove the other person WRONG about stuff. Just share
yer view, listen to the opposing views, and acknowledge the difference and…..next topic.w
vwvParticipantyes. many many different sides.
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You dont get into long hostile fights with politically-different-posters, Invader.
Care to share your approach? Or your purpose in posting pol-thots?
w
vwvParticipantHitler on the Election
wvParticipantNo what I meant was, I need your help keeping X in check.
I’ll try to rein it in a little out of respect for your rules.
No what I meant was, I need your help keeping BT in check.
I am a reformed basher myself
No what I meant was, I need your help keeping zn in check.
..
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R.E.L.A.X.
Relax….peaceful people communicate more peacefully. This chapter explains the physiological basis of relaxation and provides practical strategies for creating internal peace within minutes.
Empathize…care about the outcome for your conversation partner as well as for yourself. But what part of empathy is genetic and what part learned? Learn how to validate your speech partner’s situation.
Listen…everyone has a story. Practice strategies for listening interactively and following up on what the speaker has said.
Accentuate the positive and reverse our psychological autopilot that causes us to stereotype, blame and focus on the negative.
Examine your goals and rephrase. What is the purpose of the conversation? Are cultural differences in speech styles causing roadblocks to effective communication? This critical chapter provides practical strategies for peaceful conversations when criticizing others and offers practice in flipping negative self-talk.
http://gailnemetzrobinson.com/featured/peacefulconversationswvParticipant….Fuck this shit.
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Hey, what happened to the BT that wanted to get back to some spiritual grounding?
Dark Times, comrad. For sure. But…be a light
Channel all that anger into some Art or Music or…drugs or somethin 🙂Are you near an Ocean? Lake? Mountain trails? Get away from humans for a while. Recharge.
w
v
“…Every man, plant and creature in Existence,
Every woman, child, vein and note
Is…A harbinger of joy,
The harbinger of
Light.
Hafiz – “The Subject Tonight is Love”wvParticipantGood article, WV.
But I’m seeing an excess of self-flagellation happening on the left the last coupla days, and I don’t think all of it is productive. Some, definitely. But it’s selective, etc.
And all of these “You brought it on yourself!!” pieces and $5.00 may get us a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I just don’t see most of them achieving much beyond maybe making the writer feel temporarily superior. And I’m guilty of that “told you so” urge as well. On another website, dominated by Clinton supporters and centrist Dems, I clashed with them before the election repeatedly, but decided to end that futility a coupla months back. Too tired of feeling hopeless in the face of their acceptance of neoliberalism, Republican-Lite and Clintonian, crackpot realism.
You should read the article linked, btw.
To me, now is for the left to “come together.” Bigly.
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I dont see it that way at all, Billy. I dont think the ‘real left’ is blaming ‘themselves’ at all — i think the are blaming the DNC and Neoliberals.w
vwvParticipant————————–
link:http://www.sodiumhaze.org/2016/11/10/it-was-the-rise-of-the-davos-class-that-sealed-americas-fate-naomi-klein/
It Was the Rise of the Davos Class That Sealed America’s Fate |
Naomi Klein
Submitted by admin on November 10, 2016They will blame James Comey and the FBI. They will blame voter suppression and racism. They will blame Bernie or bust and misogyny. They will blame third parties and independent candidates. They will blame the corporate media for giving him the platform, social media for being a bullhorn, and WikiLeaks for airing the laundry.
But this leaves out the force most responsible for creating the nightmare in which we now find ourselves wide awake: neoliberalism. That worldview – fully embodied by Hillary Clinton and her machine – is no match for Trump-style extremism. The decision to run one against the other is what sealed our fate. If we learn nothing else, can we please learn from that mistake?
Here is what we need to understand: a hell of a lot of people are in pain. Under neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatisation, austerity and corporate trade, their living standards have declined precipitously. They have lost jobs. They have lost pensions. They have lost much of the safety net that used to make these losses less frightening. They see a future for their kids even worse than their precarious present.
At the same time, they have witnessed the rise of the Davos class, a hyper-connected network of banking and tech billionaires, elected leaders who are awfully cosy with those interests, and Hollywood celebrities who make the whole thing seem unbearably glamorous. Success is a party to which they were not invited, and they know in their hearts that this rising wealth and power is somehow directly connected to their growing debts and powerlessness.
For the people who saw security and status as their birthright – and that means white men most of all – these losses are unbearable.
Donald Trump speaks directly to that pain. The Brexit campaign spoke to that pain. So do all of the rising far-right parties in Europe. They answer it with nostalgic nationalism and anger at remote economic bureaucracies – whether Washington, the North American free trade agreement the World Trade Organisation or the EU. And of course, they answer it by bashing immigrants and people of colour, vilifying Muslims, and degrading women. Elite neoliberalism has nothing to offer that pain, because neoliberalism unleashed the Davos class. People such as Hillary and Bill Clinton are the toast of the Davos party. In truth, they threw the party.
3500_7
Trump’s message was: “All is hell.” Clinton answered: “All is well.” But it’s not well – far from it.
Neo-fascist responses to rampant insecurity and inequality are not going to go away. But what we know from the 1930s is that what it takes to do battle with fascism is a real left. A good chunk of Trump’s support could be peeled away if there were a genuine redistributive agenda on the table. An agenda to take on the billionaire class with more than rhetoric, and use the money for a green new deal. Such a plan could create a tidal wave of well-paying unionised jobs, bring badly needed resources and opportunities to communities of colour, and insist that polluters should pay for workers to be retrained and fully included in this future.
It could fashion policies that fight institutionalised racism, economic inequality and climate change at the same time. It could take on bad trade deals and police violence, and honour indigenous people as the original protectors of the land, water and air.
People have a right to be angry, and a powerful, intersectional left agenda can direct that anger where it belongs, while fighting for holistic solutions that will bring a frayed society together.
Such a coalition is possible. In Canada, we have begun to cobble it together under the banner of a people’s agenda called The Leap Manifesto, endorsed by more than 220 organisations from Greenpeace Canada to Black Lives Matter Toronto, and some of our largest trade unions.
Bernie Sanders’ amazing campaign went a long way towards building this sort of coalition, and demonstrated that the appetite for democratic socialism is out there. But early on, there was a failure in the campaign to connect with older black and Latino voters who are the demographic most abused by our current economic model. That failure prevented the campaign from reaching its full potential. Those mistakes can be corrected and a bold, transformative coalition is there to be built on.
That is the task ahead. The Democratic party needs to be either decisively wrested from pro-corporate neoliberals, or it needs to be abandoned. From Elizabeth Warren to Nina Turner, to the Occupy alumni who took the Bernie campaign supernova, there is a stronger field of coalition-inspiring progressive leaders out there than at any point in my lifetime. We are “leaderful”, as many in the Movement for Black Lives say.
So let’s get out of shock as fast as we can and build the kind of radical movement that has a genuine answer to the hate and fear represented by the Trumps of this world. Let’s set aside whatever is keeping us apart and start right now.
wvParticipantYes, so now our Vice President and Secretary of Education are “young earth creationists”.
Science class will look like this…
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Everytime i read something new about Trump-Hillary i think…well, we’ve hit bottom….and then, i read something even lower 🙂I’m just goin to keep repeating my slient mantra: “I voted for Jill, I voted for Jill, I voted for Jill…”
w
v“the first quality of an honest man is contempt for religion, which would have us afraid of the most natural thing in the world, which is death; and would have us hate the one beautiful thing destiny has given us, which is life.”
― Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?” ― Mark Twain
“Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.” ― George Carlin
wvParticipant————————–
Amerian Liberals Unleashed The Trump Monster
link:https://www.newcoldwar.org/american-liberals-unleashed-trump-monster/By Jonathan Cook, published on Jonathan Cook, Nov 9, 2016
The Earth has been shifting under our feet for a while, but all that liberals want to do is desperately cling to the status quo like a life-raft. Middle-class Britons are still hyper-ventiliating about Brexit, and now middle-class America is trembling at the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House.
And, of course, middle-class Americans are blaming everyone but themselves. Typifying this blinkered self-righteousness was a column yesterday, written before news of Trump’s success, from Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland, Britain’s unofficial stenographer to power and Washington fanboy. He blamed everyone but Hillary Clinton for her difficult path to what he then assumed was the White House.
Well, here is some news for Freedland and American liberals. The reason Trump is heading to the Oval Office is because the Democratic party rigged the primaries to ensure that a candidate who could have beaten Trump, Bernie Sanders, did not get on the ticket. You want to blame someone, blame Clinton and the rotten-to-the-core Democratic party leadership.
But no, liberals won’t be listening because they are too busy blaming Julian Assange and Wikileaks for exposing the truth about the Democratic leadership set out in the Clinton campaign emails – and Russia for supposedly stealing them.
Blame lies squarely, too, with Barack Obama, the great black hope who spent eight years proving how wedded he was to neoliberal orthodoxy at home and a neoconservative agenda abroad.
While liberals praised him to the heavens, he poured the last U.S. treasure into propping up a failed banking system, bankrupting the country to fill the pockets of a tiny, already fabulously wealthy elite. The plutocrats then recycled vast sums to lobbyists and representatives in Congress to buy control there and make sure the voice of ordinary Americans counted for even less than it did before.
Obama also continued the futile “war on terror”, turning the world into one giant battlefield that made every day a payday for the arms industry. The U.S. has been dropping bombs on jihadists and civilians alike, while supplying the very same jihadists with arms to kill yet more civilians.
And all the while, have liberals been campaigning against the military-industrial complex that stole their political system? No, of course not. They have been worrying about the mass migrations of refugees – those fleeing the very resource wars their leaders stoked.
Then there is the liberal media that served as a loyal chorus to Clinton, trying to persuade us that she would make a model president, and to ignore what was in plain sight: that Clinton is even more in the pocket of the bankers and arms dealers than Obama (if that were possible) and would wage more, not less war.
Do I sound a little like Trump as I rant against liberals? Yes, I do. And while you are busy dismissing me as a closet Trump supporter, you can continue your furious refusal to examine the reasons why a truly progressive position appears so similar to a far-right one like Trump’s.
Because real progressives are as frustrated and angry about the status quo as are the poor, vulnerable and disillusioned who turned to Trump. And they had no choice but to vote for Trump because there was no one aside from him in the presidential race articulating anything that approximated the truth.
Sanders was ousted by Clinton and her corrupt coterie. Jill Stein of the Greens was made invisible by a corrupt electoral system. It was either vote for Clinton and the putrid status quo, or vote for Trump and a possibility for change.
Yes, Trump is very bad. He is as much a product of the plutocracy that is now America as Clinton. He, like Clinton, will do nothing to fix the most important issue facing humankind: runaway climate change. He is a climate denier, she is a climate evader.
But unlike Clinton, Trump understood the rising popular anger at the “system”, and he was articulate enough to express it – all it took was a howl of pain.
Trump isn’t the antithesis of liberal America. You liberals created him. You unleashed this monster. It is you in the mirror. You stayed silent, you took no stand while your country was stolen from you. In fact, you did worse: you enthusiastically voted time after time for those who did the stealing.
Now the path is clear and the route fast. The precipice is ahead, and American liberals are firmly in the driving seat.
Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001. He is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Also by Jonathan Cook:
No, Hillary Clinton is not less evil than Trump, Nov 7, 2016
Tomorrow, Americans get the chance to vote for a system – resource-hungry, war-peddling corporate capitalism – in two iterations: one has funny hair and a permatan, the other wears lipstick and trouser-suits. Yes, there are some policy differences too, or rather emphases – and Hillary Clinton’s supporters are desperately exploiting them..
wvParticipantI’ll put this one here, just because its ‘tone’ is so completely different from article in the original post, but the substance is not all ‘that’ different, really. Just substitute the word ‘neoliberal’ for ‘predatory capitalism’.
w
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Deplorables 1, Empire 0
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45833.htmBy Paul Edwards
November 11, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – It’s done. The foolish, arrogant propaganda excreted by the captive press of the Imperial Establishment is flushed, and they and their owners are eating their hubris, choking down the bitter, toxic medicine they inflicted on themselves. The nightmare they swore could never win is the Chosen One.
What this may mean to them, to all of us, and to The Empire, no one can guess. The origin, though, of what Michael Moore called the greatest “#### You” in our political history, is clear behind the shock and awe of the elite.
Between them, Trump and Clinton diligently stripped away the last shreds of the rent and ragged camouflage that disguised our zombie body politic.
Behind the mantra of Exceptionalism, the American Empire has behaved with exactly the same solipsistic arrogance all empires have embraced.
Internationally it has raged, as imperial China did, as if with a “Mandate of Heaven”, flaunting self-interest with no regard for other nations or the laws of war. It has inflicted misery, chaos, and death on many millions of the poor and helpless for a Full Spectrum Dominance it could never impose. America’s Capitalist War Machine has raped and destroyed many countries for its profit, and destablized the entire world in its megalomania.
Schumpeter said it best, of Imperial Germany’s military industry: “Created by the wars that required it, the Machine now creates the wars it requires.”
America has been transformed over time from a civil democracy with imperial economics to a militarist empire with vaudeville democracy. This was accomplished by binding both wings of the duopoly to the exclusive interest of Predatory Capitalism with corrupting money. A corporate state imposed via political and military power is the essence of Fascism.
For generations, Americans have been dosed with the ultra-nationalist poison of Exceptionalism, with its implicit racist subtext, and its sexism buried in a hoo-rah masculinity cult, but it has always been flavored with the sweetening agent that We, The People, were both masters and beneficiaries of our benign, patristic system. The last several decades have painfully taught any conscious observer that this is a cynical fiction.
In this election, the threadbare mythology of the duopoly was ripped away in a manner that left no doubt, in even the least informed, most credulous minds, that the American political system was a dead, stinking fraud. Each party, with its purblind lack of understanding of, and connection with, the mass of American people, suffered uniquely humiliating public pantsings.
Having stealthily, assiduously cultivated and nurtured the most regressive, dim, and hateful elements in its Redneck Wing for decades, the CEO Wing gaped impotently as Dogpatch was appropriated by a vulgarian who spoke to peckerwoods directly, not in code. He jettisoned the few Silverspooners and Coupon Clipper Bosses, stole their ground troops and mobilized their outrage. He only succeeded then due to the universal rage of the working class that has been dealt out and bankrupted, its jobs and prospects stolen and its lives sunk, for the benefit of a tiny clique of professional criminals.
The Republican Party is done, killed because Trump grabbed its posse.
Democrats, confident of being lesser evils, opted for selbstmord. After Occupy’s warning, exposes of record financial inequality and the rapid unravelling of democracy, one might have thought a show of fight against those evils would be mandatory, but no: they pre-selected the candidate who embodied them instead. As the long, impassioned cry went up across the country, from the young, working people, the ill and poor, disabled and elderly, for an old man who would be their champion, Party commissars chose to freeze out Bernie’s burn and go geriatrically into that good night. Then, when caught out in their shoddy chicanery, they Hitlered Putin.
The Democratic Party is done, dead of peritonitis from undigested hubris.
The failure of faction, the implosion of coherent parties, means more, not less division and acrimony. America faces now the same degree of crisis that has blown the senile Parties in pieces. The time ahead is fraught with tremendous and unknown perils and challenges with no precedent. Our Republic stands a good chance of becoming ungovernable.
Franklin said, with the tough days in Philadelphia over and the Constitution signed, that we had a Republic, if we could keep it. We’re about to find out.
wvParticipantYup. I think i’ve read about fifteen articles now, basically saying that same thing.
And yet — i fully expect the DNC-NeoLiberals to go right back to the same ole sorry ass policies. I dunno whether they are simply ‘benefiting’ from those policies or if they are ‘true believers’. Not sure about that.
w
vwvParticipantWhatever side you want to blame, it is really important for Trump to come out and make a speech, reassuring Americans of color that he has their back, and distancing himself from white hate groups. He must condemn those groups in the harshest terms. He must find a way to calm this down.
———————
Well, its an interesting dynamic for Trump. I mean he knows that one of his core support-factions is the Haters. The white supremicists, KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, etc. We know that. He knows that. He has plenty of other, respectable factions but he courted, gathered and motivated THAT one too.
So when Hate-groups are part of your political coalition…and they help you get elected, and you need them to get re-elected — what happens AFTER you get elected? What do you say to them?
I see he gave Ben Carson a job, btw. wv-mom will be very happy about that. I wonder if Pat Robertson will be secretary of transportation.
w
vwvParticipantWell, most of the mountains have been blown up by the out-of-state-coal-barrons
or fracked into toxic-soup by the out-of-state-Oil-barrons.So there’s that.
I’m very sorry to hear that.
————-
Thats ok. folks around here can still lay on their backs
and look up at the moon and the stars.w
v
“The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago… had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.
~Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life,wvParticipant“Now and again it is necessary to seclude among deep mountains
and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life.You’re surrounding by that stuff, aren’t you?
————
Well, most of the mountains have been blown up by the out-of-state-coal-barrons
or fracked into toxic-soup by the out-of-state-Oil-barrons.So there’s that.
w
v
“I am often asked the question How can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them.”
― E.L. Doctorow, RagtimewvParticipantI also attended a taping of “The PTL Club” with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
My mother was a big fan so we stopped at their studios in Virginia on the drive back from a vacation in Florida. I was only 14 or so at the time. I don’t remember much but what I do remember was surreal. We were seated in upper part of the balcony. I remember a young boy walking down to the front of the balcony to take a picture of the stage where Jim and Tammy Faye were. Before he could even get the viewfinder to his eye, a couple security guys grabbed it from him and confiscated it. The boy ran crying back to his mother. I don’t know if they ever gave the camera back to the kid. I just know I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It felt very ‘cultish’ to me.
In college I dated a girl who said she was a witch. She told me she was 400 years old. She was a computer science major. Very smart and pretty. I went to her apartment once and she had lit candles everywhere. She dumped me pretty quickly though. She was into motorcycle guys and I was a VW Beetle guy.
————
“Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?”
― Annie Dillardw
vwvParticipantLove your dumbass neighbor.
———–
Ahh. I like it. Common ground, finally. 🙂
I would add
“love your dum-ass self,
and love your dum-ass neighbor”Then again, those nice sayings fall apart
when it comes to choosing political polices and systems, dont they?I mean some folks dont want to spend tax dollars on ‘welfare’ right?
All those nice sayings dont help anyone resolve political differences. Do they? Yes? No?
Ah well.
w
vwvParticipantI’m just gonna drink my tea, slowly, and eat my toast. If someone has a better suggestion
let me know.Smell the toast.
Smell the tea.
Hear the birds outside.
Be aware of yourself.
Breathe in the universe.
Breathe it back out.
Butter and jelly. Always butter and jelly.—————
“Now and again it is necessary to seclude among deep mountains
and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life.
Breathe in and let yourself soar to the ends of the Universe;
Breathe out and let the Cosmos back inside. Next, breathe
up all the fecundity and vibrancy of the earth. Finally
blend the breath of heaven and the breath of earth
with that of your own, becoming the breath of Life itself.” M. Ueshiba—-
“Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God. Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God. ~Krishnamacharya
——–
Moyers: Is that why you begin (Meditation training) with something as simple as eating a raisin?
Kabat-Zinn: …so we say ‘Look the first the first Meditation exercise we’ll be doing isnt
breathing, it isnt sitting in the lotus posture….We’re just going to eat a raisin — but
to eat that raisin mindfully, with awareness. You look at the raisin, feel it, smell it,
and with awareness bring it to the mouth gradually, and see that the
saliva starts to get secreted by the salivary glands just as you bring it up.
Then you take the raisin into the mouth and you begin to taste this thing that
we usually eat automatically.Moyers: And usually a handful at a time.
.
Kabat-Zinn: Yes, and you’re onto the next handful before you’ve finished
chewing this one…Your life is the sum of your present moments….
Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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