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wvParticipantI understand your philosophy of the subject and the clear end game. I just don’t ever see that happening in this country. For better or for worse we are a country of wolves-at least in the economic sense. It is the price we pay for what we perceive as “freedom”. Unfortunately, that price is often devastating to the disadvantaged. No system of governance has perfected a way to prevent the wolves from eating the sheep or even their young.
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Well, thats an interesting paragraph. Lots of food for thot/disagreement/agreement there.
If we are a ‘nation of wolves’ how did we get that way? Does the system teach people to be wolves or nurture that kind of wolfishness? Is there a kinder-gentler system that would be more sustainable and biosphere-friendly?
You would probly say, “Capitalism is the best we can do. Its far from perfect but its the best we can do.”
I’d probly say, “Corporate-capitalism is destroying the biosphere, crushing and dehumanizing the poor, obliterating meaningful democracy, and fostering a culture of Lies”
I do think there’s a better approach. Guess I’m an idealist 🙂
w
vwvParticipantMy take on the Shallows? I agree with PA…it sucked.
****Beware – here there be spoilers***
If a 20 foot white shark is trying to kill you, you would be killed and there is not a thing you could do to prevent it. The result of such an encounter would not be a seven inch wound that can be mended with jewelry. There were many other lapses in logic but these bugged me the most.,,,
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But see this is EXACTLY why taking away surfers’ semi-automatic-assault guns
is the wrong thing to do.How are we supposed to defend ourselves from 29 foot White Sharks ?
With butter-knives? Maybe call 911 and wait for the police?
You cant even answer that can ya.
And before you say, how is a shark going to get to appalachia, i have
one word for you — flood waters.Your silence is deafening.
w
vwvParticipantGood addition I think. He wasn’t ready to be a Head Coach,
but Singletary can help them this year.w
vwvParticipantSeems a bit high to me. 22nd. Dunno about that.
w
vwvParticipantWV,
Going back to your mention of lots of “socialisms,” which is spot up. Makes me think of the knee-jerk reaction I always hear:
“Every time it’s been tried, it’s been a disaster!! Look at Russia!!” etc. etc.
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Yup, thats the mainstream-meme. And its a powerful one.
Its in the heads/hearts of joe and jane citizen. Especially the college-educated citizens.
Try finding a major corporate-newspaper that even covers stories on the little nations that have strong socialist policies.
Otoh, the newspapers do keep up on Prince, Bowie, Abortion, and Horoscopes. So there’s that.
w
vwvParticipantWV,
I haven’t really either, to any close degree, other than noting how the crash of oil prices has really hurt them. And by noting the usual way these things go. Leftist comes into power in Latin America. Capitalists freak out. Capitalists call Daddy on phone to get help. Daddy answers in ways subtle and overt. Forcing capital flight, capital boycotts, gets the IMF to call in loans, sets up sanctions, embargoes, may try a quiet coup or two or three. Hires street thugs to start protests. Gets capitalist media in on the deal.
Eventually, leftist is toppled, blamed for everything that happened to nation, and everyone starts the counter for economic catastrophe on the leftist’s watch, forgetting about all previous decades of right-wing governance and poverty, inequality, hyper-inflation on their watch, not to mention all the “disappearing.”
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LoL, well-said.
Thats pretty-much what i figured but i havent bothered to read up on it.
These things always seem to follow a blueprint. Figuring out the blueprints iz a big part of being politically-educated in theze Dr Strangeluvy times.
w
vwvParticipantGreat quotes. All of them. But especially the first. I read Malraux’s Man’s Fate and Man’s Hope a long time ago. Favorites of mine. Took a class on French Existentialism and the Age of Alienation when I went back to school in the 1980s, too. He was a big part of that class. The man also walked the walk and fought fascists, bravely. Risked his life, constantly, like Orwell and Camus.
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Some folks around here know i save quotes. I’ve saved over a thousand of em, i suppose.
Bout a year ago, i decided to try to classify them ‘hierarchically’. Ie, list about a hundred of them in order of how much i liked’em. My favorites, in other words.
Them three made the top 20 🙂
w
v
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that
in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson“It’s a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human
problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than‘try to be a little kinder.’ “ Aldous Huxley“We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.” ― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
wvParticipantDepressing read.
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“…The Obama administration has built more nuclear weapons, more nuclear warheads, more nuclear delivery systems, more nuclear factories. Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president. The cost over thirty years is more than $1 trillion.
A mini nuclear bomb is planned. It is known as the B61 Model 12. There has never been anything like it. General James Cartwright, a former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said, “Going smaller [makes using this nuclear]weapon more thinkable.”
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What makes it all even more surreal and nutso,
is the rightwingers argue Obama is soft on defense, blah blah blahsigh
w
vwvParticipanti think we’re at a point of no return. this world has 2 options.
either we somehow get off this planet which i think is a real possibility. and somehow humanity is able to keep stumbling forward.
or we destroy this planet. or the planet is destroyed by some cataclysmic non-human event.
right now i’m hoping for the latter.
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Well, i am not rooting for a cataclysm, because it would destroy the innocent luna-moths, tapirs, and banana-slugs. Plus it would wipe out all recordings of ‘the tackle’.As far as getting off the planet, Nittany and his science-people are working on that. From what i’ve heard the latest testing involves a giant frisbee (that will hold over ten thousand people) and a great-big catapult.
w
vwvParticipanti don’t know. just cuz i think it’s hopeless doesn’t necessarily mean i want to stop trying while i’m still alive.
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Yes. Exactly. Just cuz its probably “hopeless doesn’t mean i want to stop trying”.That-there notion is what gives human-life its poignancy,
and richness. Or somethin. I think. I dunno.w
v“The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between this profusion of matter and the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.” Les Noyers de l’Altenburg: Andre Malraux
“Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham.” ― Joseph Conrad
“The sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity. And he is
not insensible who pays them the undemonstrative tribute of a
sigh which is not a sob, and of a smile that is not a grin.” Joseph ConradwvParticipantAs for Chavez. I think you’re portraying him as the American media want him portrayed, and, again, while adding metaphors like wolves and sheep straight out of 1950s red-baiting. That said, he took over a terrible economy, with massive inequality and unemployment — something his critics conveniently forget. It wasn’t as if he inherited some thriving, prosperous nation and then destroyed it.
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Whats really happened in Venezuela, btw. I havent kept up.
w
vwvParticipantI don’t agree at all, particularly with the first paragraph, but I’m not going to argue it.
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Oh. I have sinned. I thot i was agreein with one of BillyT’s posts up there, but i must have clicked on the wrong post.So I now disagree with wv,
and agree with BT,
and I think Waterfield should apologize for causing so much confusion
and chaos.w
vwvParticipantBad plot, bad writing, bad acting.
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Well just from the cover-photo in that vid,
I can honestly say, that woman is the finest
actress I’ve ever seen on a surf-board.w
vwvParticipantTrump will eviscerate her.
She doesn’t even know how to tell the truth. Even with the moderator agreeing with and vouching for her lies Trump will still get his message through to the people. Its about jobs. Its about accomplishment. Its about trustworthiness. Its about being in touch in that our people and much of the western world is now repudiating globalism.———————–
Well, it will be so totally surreal, i may have to watch some of the
Great Hillary v Donald Debate Of the Century.I havent watched any debate since Bobby Riggs debated Billie Jean King, but i might actually watch some of this Trump vs Hillary thing. It will be like Jason vs Freddy. Or the Alien vs Predator.
Its going to be a spectacle.
And the Dems will think Hillary won, and the Reps will think Trump won…and the undecideds? I dunno. I dunno who they are. Will they like either one? Trust either one? Will they like Trumps tone? Hillary’s system-itis ?
My gut tells me they will go for Hillary very slightly. But i dunno. I’m just guessing the undecideds will lean slightly towards the ‘safer’ candidate.
w
vwvParticipantI suppose when it comes to politics and religion we all become “dogmatic”. Nevertheless, I genuinely believe that those on the “left” and those on the “right” tend to follow what has been called a process of “group think”. Meaning there is a far greater consensus on political issues than one might find in a group of so called centrists. At it’s worst there can be the “let me know what my group thinks of this so I can be consistent and won’t ruffle the feathers of those I know”. By definition a “moderate” or “centrist” does not have a “group” to measure his views on issues. I suspect when it comes to abortion rights, affirmative action, gun control, etc there is far more divergence among moderates than you would find on the “left” and the “right”, especially as one approaches the polar ends of both these bodies.
As far as “socialism” goes-your right it’s far more complicated than what we give it. Growing up in the 50s words like “communism”, “socialism” were dirty words that few of us knew anything about other than these were the bad guys. Today with globalization we see bits and pieces of socialism everywhere including here in the U.S. The word doesn’t carry with it the stigma it once did-although talking to some of my friends my age you wouldn’t know that.
My problem with it is the ideology not the end game. To me the weakness in the system is in the “planners”. A collectivist planned economy means there must be central planners. And the only way that will work is if there is total commitment to the “plan”. And how does that exactly work in a society of free people. What do you do with the dissenters or those who disagree? Who will choose the planners and what plans take priority when there are competing legitimate interests? Who will make these decisions. And those dissenters cannot get in the way if the system is to work. Would there be debate or would that be looked upon as subversion? Would dissenters be eliminated? (not an entirely shocking expectation) Somewhere I read that collectivism and individualism are political oil and water.==============
Agreed. Preachin to the choir comrad 🙂
w
vwvParticipantI think you have a bit of a blind-spot when it comes to this “leftists are dogmatic” thing. Just because we dont agree with what YOU call ‘moderate dems’ or ‘moderate reps’ doesn’t make us ‘dogmatic’ — it just mean we disagree totally, and completely with Dems and Reps on some very fundamental policies. THEY disagree with us too — why dont you call the ‘moderates’ dogmatic ?
w
vWell, he is in a minority on this board, and probably feels besieged every time he posts politics here. I think Waterfield is as honest in his views as can be reasonably expected of humans, and he practices what he preaches by working with charities and fundraisers and neighborhood/community building stuff. It must be a little odd to him to step into this particular corner of the world and find his politics criticized by a tag team of leftists.
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Agreed, Zooey. We all like Waterfield. Heck i like anybody that likes dogs and surfing and the Rams.But still, he’s a moderate-centrist-capitalist-californian-lawyer,
and thus, i think we are gonna have to torture him until he confesses
and then he’ll have to be burned at the stake to purify his soul.
Its for the best, really.w
vwvParticipantWhy do you take criticism of Hillary so personally? You actually seem to get invested emotionally, as if critiques of HC were attacks on you. Or that’s the sense I get.
That’s a valid criticism . It’s a fault I have and wish I didn’t.
Okay fair enough.
Have some pie.
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Is that a capitalist pie or a socialist pie? Or a moderate pie?Because i only eat socialist pies.
w
vwvParticipant1)Speaking for myself I am not in favor of a socialistic form of government. That’s a biggie.
2)Also I find that the “progressives” are very dogmatic in their views not willing to give an inch when it comes to the views of moderate Republicans or moderate Democrats. In fact in my experience there is real contempt for those who are not in their camp.
3)OTOH there are many views expressed on this board that I agree with totally and I consider myself..
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Well, the word ‘socialism’ is real real complicated once its untied from abstract notions and actually tied to real examples in the real world. I mean there’s no one ‘socialism’ — there’s been various experiments with it in various forms in various places of various sizes, having various results.
So, i am never content saying “I’m a socialist” — it has very little meaning to me, divorced from actual examples or policies.
In the ‘abstract’ if i were to imagine a wv-utopia, there would probably be a mix of a large amount of socialism (health care, dental care, energy, education, transportation, big-projects like Nasa, etc),
but there would be a bit of anarchism and capitalism mixed in, and i can imagine a nice-utopia with some private property rights. But thats all pie-in-the-sky, speculation, entertainment-thinking.In the real world of our corporotacracy we have to start with what we have and where we are. So, we dont get to be pure ‘socialists’ even if we want to be — we can be in favor of socialist POLICIES which can be fit into a corporotacracy. Like, say National Health Care or something like that.
Enuff about socialism. As far as progressives being dogmatic — I dont see it that way at all. I dont see anymore dogmatism among progressives as any other group. Every political group is gonna have some folks that are more…oh…strident and stubborn than other more conciliatory members of the group. There’s plenty of different personalities among “progressives” as well as rightwingers and centrists and other “ists”.
I think you have a bit of a blind-spot when it comes to this “leftists are dogmatic” thing. Just because we dont agree with what YOU call ‘moderate dems’ or ‘moderate reps’ doesn’t make us ‘dogmatic’ — it just mean we disagree totally, and completely with Dems and Reps on some very fundamental policies. THEY disagree with us too — why dont you call the ‘moderates’ dogmatic ?
You yourself agree with what you call moderates. You disagree with leftists. Why doesnt that make you dogmatic?
w
vwvParticipantI asked progressives yesterday if there have been any Presidents of this country who if running today they could support. Any takers?
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Hmmm, i dunno. Generally speaking the system eliminates all but the pro-corporate-anti-poor candidates.Lets see…no to Obama, no to Bush, no to Clinton, no to Bush1, no to Reagan, no to Nixon…
Maybe FDR? Yeah, I’d probably vote for FDR.
w
vwvParticipantThese are the things that bother me. Even more than rather Hillary is actually a neo -conservative or not.
There is-across this country-a sweeping movement of racist nationalism that threatens our very fabric. We can all intellectually pontificate here about socialism vs capitalism as we continue to march toward the destruction of the very core of what this country was founded upon.
At its essence the American people don’t understand and don’t care about the differences in capitalism, socialism, communism, etc. In fact most do not understand the difference in the ideologies. Our only interest is self interest. We have lost our compassion for those who suffer whether it be here or in other parts of the world. We are far too interested in being on the “right side” of political movements.
In my opinion what we can do is -instead of debating the intellectualism of whether socialism is a better form of government than capitalism or whatever etc-is to look across the street at our neighbor who is less fortunate and suffering and say: what can I do.
Once we actually begin to actually involve the suffering-instead of using them as a political weapon we just might be able to accomplish something that would bring happiness to a few. I honestly don’t care about winning an intellectual debate in a classroom. If this is a classroom and that means I’m excluded from the fraternity here. So be it.===================
Well, no-one is going to argue against helping real people in real ways. Sure, everyone should do that on a local level. No argument.
People around here are doing things for the flood victims for example.
But man, its often impossible to simply divorce good-works from politics, Waterfield. I mean there is a relationship between the politics/ideologies of the Clintons/Trumps/Reagans/Bushes and what happens on the local level, in the real world.
I dont care about ‘winning an intellectual debate’ either, fwiw. But i have opinions, and this is where i often spout them.
You are not excluded from the class-room here, btw. Your political views are just in the minority here. Like bnw’s. Its no big thing, right. Savor it 🙂
w
vwvParticipant<
Well-I don’t know if I’ve ever called leftists “extremists”. I’ve said there is the far right and the far left. I’ve called the “left” “progressives” but I doubt I’ve ever used the language “extremists”.Another thing: I’ve never claimed “moderates” have the “truth” and the only truth as some have accused me. I have however called crazy right wingers extremists. And I mean that in a dangerous way.
As far Hillary being a neo-con or even supported by neo-cons I look at those who during Bush administration got us into these wars. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rice, Perle, Feith, etc. I have never heard or read any compliments from these people for Clinton. Lots of despicable assertions but never anything that would leave one to believe she is part of that camp. The vote for war in Iraq. Sure – in retrospect she and most of Congress wishes that could be a do-over. But not the neo-cons that I listed. The would do the same and more over again.
And yes I expect my Secretary of State to be aggressive in protecting the interests of this country and its citizens. That’s part of the damn job.
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Ok, well i thot you used the word ‘extremists’ for both the ‘far left’ and ‘far right’ and i thot you equated the two. Its no big deal either way, but thats what i thot you thot.I dont like to quibble anymore of little stuff, and labels and stuff. I am more interested in getting to the crux of things. The heart of our differences.
What would YOU say are the clear, fundamental differences betwixt the ‘leftists’
on this board, and yourself (centrist?), for example?
I mean, dum it down for me — what’s the crux of it. In a couple of sentences.w
vwvParticipantWhat do the progressives think of her compared to Jill Stein ?
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Warren is not as progressive as Jill,
but she’s a “progressive Democrat”.
I’d definitely support her if she was running for Prez.If Hillary loses, then I would hope Warren would run
next time.w
vwvParticipantI dont give legatron any slack for missing 52 yarders.
If you are gonna be a legatron you have to make 52 yarders.54, 55, I give him some slack. But 52? Gotta make those.
Thats my arbitrary cut-off — 52 yards. I expect my kicker
to make everything from 52 and under.w
vwvParticipantBtw,
I really hate zombie shit. I’ve had this debate with SanfRAM and we differ on the subject. I can’t explain it well, but zombies just ruin stuff for me. The undead ruins stuff for me. So I won’t watch what are supposed to be other “prestige TV” shows like AMC’s Walking Dead. That’s an aesthetics thing for me. And philosophical. I can deal with monsters, as long as there is something behind the eyes. Nothing behind the eyes? Pure emptiness? Um, no thanks. I’d rather watch Trump make an ass of himself than lifeless eyes.
But the GOT has altered this with the Night King and their other undead folks like Jon Snow.
It’s . . . . maybe, complicated. ???
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I never much liked zombie shit until the Walking Dead series
came along. I have enjoyed many of the episodes on that show.
It’s a lot more than a ‘zombie show’.w
vwvParticipantI don’t know what the answer to this is because even if we had stricter gun laws, this kind of crap would happen anyway.
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Yup.
The NRA will say, the best approach would be to arm
all the children of gun-owners.You watch, they’ll say somethin close to that 🙂
w
vwvParticipantWell-I “think” it depends on how we define “thinking”. IMO thought can only occur through a language…
…Maybe I am a communist.
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Yeah, i suppose it depends on how we define/use ‘thinking’ and ‘language’.
If by ‘thinking/feeling’ we mean somethin purty close to human experiences,
then thats an issue science can help answer.When i toy-around with ideas like “do galaxies think/feel” I do not use the word ‘think’ or ‘feel’ to mean anything similar to the human-experience.
And thus, science is probably no help, and its all just wild-speculation. Which i enjoy 🙂Perhaps quarks and universes and planets and galaxies and water and plutonium,
think/feel in some unique ‘beyond-human-science-and-understanding’ kinda way.The Gaia idea, for example. Who knows.
….what was the question again? …oh yeah…dogs. The thing about dogs is, only Big dogs can think. Those little yappy, nervous, quivering dogs dont
really have brains. They have bladders inside their skulls. Its a proven fact, comrad.w
vwvParticipantIt’s a very strange mix — the folks whom Hillary has pissed off to no end.
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One of the interesting/exasperating problems is the label “extremist”
Like, for Waterfield, and other “mainstream-centrists” the leftists are ‘extremists’. And so are the Trump supporters. Both, equally “extreme”.
I mean that IS the ‘mainstream’ view. The corporate-network-view. The CNN view, the ABC view, the NBC view, the NPR view, the NY Times view, the mass-corporate-media-view.
How does that work exactly? How do Bernie and Trump supporters get thrown in the same boat? And how do leftists become ‘extremists’ ? And how does a closet-neocon like Hillary become a “non-extremist” to the mass-media ?
Its all quite strange.
w
vwvParticipantYeah, dogs think and feel. They just do it in their own way. Dog-thinking. Dog-feeling.
The ‘feeling’ issue links to the animal-rights issue. Should humans be exerimenting on other beings that feel pain? Dogs? Cats? Monkeys? Rabbits? Mice? Etc.
I like to wonder about other ‘reality-experiences’ btw. Do galaxies ‘think’ ?
Do they ‘feel’ ? Universes? Quarks? Well, who knows.w
vwvParticipantSeems to me that there is more vitriolic hatred toward Hillary from those on the left than for that idiot Trump. I don’t get it. I understand disagreements over her policies. That’s natural. But I don’t get what to me borders on personal malice. I’ve seen it here and I’ve seen it with friends who call themselves “progressives”.
Something else I don’t get. For those on the far right and those on the far left there is more contempt for those in the middle than those with polar opposite views and policies. Maybe it’s as simple as anarchists -either right or left-don’t really care for non-anarchists. When did “moderate” become such a filthy word?
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Well, i dunno. It seems pretty clear to me, the ‘leftists’ around here
loathe Hillary for all kinds of reasons, and they loathe Trump for all kinds of different reasons.Lots of vitriol? Yup. Indeed there is.
As far as issues with ‘the middle’ or ‘centrists’ — and issues the middle has with righties and lefties — thats a big subject. I dont even know where to begin with that one, because it also implicates ‘individuals’ and their distinct personalities and not just general-political-groups.
I’ll grant you this election is bringing out a lot of significant
differences among the electorate. I dont really ‘care’ about the vitriol. What is most salient to me is simply the Vast gulfs and differences among
the world-views out there in Amerika. Is it even possible to govern a country of people with such vast differences?w
vwvParticipantAnd that was without Q.
w
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