Mackeyser wrote:

What do we know?…
7) We’re all insane. Whether it’s Climate Catastrophe or this cycle of mass killings or institutional dysfunction (corporate or governmental) that allow for water poisoning in Flint, MI or Hoosick Falls, NY or umpteen other examples of entities where people in charge felt it was okay to put other people at risk for their own gain, be it monetary, power or something else. We’re all insane because we really COULD solve all of these problems, but as a citizenry, we’ve decided in absentia that solving our problems just isn’t that important. We can always point to systems and people at the top and some “other” and KNOW they are the cause of our collective demise. It may even be true. It doesn’t change that for the most part, we as a citizenry acquiesce to most of this garbage which the masters are all too happy with.

8) If we want the world to change, we have to BE the change. That’s not just a slogan. If we want grace, we have to be graceful. If we want peace, we have to be peaceful.

In light of all of this and likely other things I’ve missed, it would be all too easy to give in to sarcasm and pessimism. I won’t do that. …

—————
Well Mack, weve been discussing “how the people got this way” for a decade now.

I have a book I leave on a table close to my front door. I have to pass it to go out the front door. It’s called “Dont Blame the People”. I glance at the title everyday before i leave the house. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it dont.

Sometimes I remember the system shapes, moulds, creates these…’voters’ we are surrounded by. …I’m not sure if knowing that is a blessing or a curse though….I mean…what can we DO about an entire, omnipresent, white-noise of a system….What can we do?

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“….The last and most obstinate of the impediments in the way of forceful
political dissent is what Walter Karp understood to be the
“corrupting consolation of cynicism.” Karp employed the phrase
to describe the attitude of mind adopted by a generation of American
intellectuals responding to the Wilson administration’s harsh suppression
of unlicensed speech during and after World War I. Finding themselves
suffocated by a climate of opinion in which dissent was disloyalty
and disloyalty a crime, a good many independent-minded and once
outspoken citizens acquired the habit of looking at the national political
scene from the point of view of spectators at a tenement fire or a train wreck.
As compensation for their loss of a public voice, they retired to a library or
a lawn party and there contented themselves with private and literary
expressions of anger and disgust. Language served as an end in itself,
the imagination a vehicle for escaping reality rather than a means of
grasping or apprehending it.
The attitude is one that ive encountered often enough in myself to
recognize in other people — not only among the card carrying members of the
country’s various intellectual guilds but also among the well-to-do gentry
content to leave the business of government to the hired help. Our schools
teach marketing instead of history, and the prosperity of the last thirty years
has encouraged a disdain for politics on the part of people who imagine
liberty is an asset inherited at birth — together with the grandfather clock
and the house on the lake — rather than the product of hard and constant
labor….Lewis Lapham

—
another locus of this theme of the decline that shows up as pseudo renewal, is
the work of Don DeLillo, particularly his novel White Noise. The book is literally
a masterpiece, portraying as it does a busy commercial culture that Is riddled with
purposelessness and paranoia. …the central character Jack Gladney, a college
professor…stops in a shopping mall and thinks to himself: ‘I realized the place was
awash in noise. The toneless systems, the jangle and skid of carts, the loud-speaker
and coffee making machines, the cries of children. And over it all, or under it all,
a dull unlocatable roar, as if some form of swarming life just outside the range of
human apprehension. M. Berman quoting D.DeLillo’s novel.

“The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies,” he thinks to himself
appreciatively, after checking his bank balance at an ATM. “The system
was invisible, which made it all the more impressive…”

This notion of invisibility — of no one in this glorious new age of corporate cyberglobalism
being to blame because the system is not really located anywhere (but everywhere)
— is important for an understanding of the present crisis of American culture
M. Berman quoting D.DeLillo’s novel.

—

“…Because the schools serve an economic system rather than a
political or philosophical idea, they promote, not unreasonably
, the habits of mind necessary to the preservation of that system,
which is why an American education resembles the commercial
procedure that changes caterpillers into silkworms instead of
butterflies. Silkworms can be turned to a profit, but butterflies
blow around in the wind and do nothing to add to the wealth
of the corporation or the power of the state. “ L.Lapham

I’m not sure anything quite typifies what the Republicans have become,
more than the law they created barring scientific research.

I mean….just pause…and think about that.

Does anything say “Republican” more than that?

And i own a gun.

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bnw wrote:

wv wrote:

PA Ram wrote:

And yet Trump will benefit by convincing frightened people that this is just another part of the holy war and that the answer lies in building giant walls around our country.

And it won’t solve this problem.

—————-
Well if the majority of American citizen-voters thinks ‘like that’
and want Donald Trump to be President of the United States — what does that say about America, and how did those voters get ‘that way’ ?

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Provide proof that Trump has said he wants to put US citizens in internment camps! The real question is what does that say about those who won’t vote for Trump that they would fear monger such an outcome?

—–

I dont know anything about Trump talking about internment camps, but he shoots from the hip constantly, so: A) it wouldnt surprise me if he said it, and B) I wouldnt take him seriously if he did talk about it.

I know you like Trump. You are entitled to like Trump.

My own thing is to lump Trump and Hillary together. I see them both as
reflections of an electorate that has been propagandized to the point
we get voters thinking the are wasting their votes if they DONT vote
for the corrupt-corporate-puppet-warmongerer, or
the billionaire talk-radio-Republican.

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His main point was — the D will be fast and fine if we stay healthy.

I, agree, to state the fairly obvious.

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zn wrote:

wv wrote:

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

And why couldnt he drop the weight?

The impression I get from this is, it’s not “couldn’t”, it’s “didn’t.”

————-
Why do you think that? Seems more like ‘couldn’t’ to me.

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I wouldn’t say couldn’t because he did last year.

But in any event, it just randomly strikes me that we have a different discussion if we used: mustn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, shan’t, daren’t, hadn’t, hasn’t, needn’t, doesn’t, can’t, won’t, and/or oughtn’t.

Football can be so complicated.

=============
Yes, i know he lost weight last year (some posters thot it was a mistake)
So why would he want to lose even MORE weight ? Or did he gain it all back
again.

These are important matters. Matters of ‘mass’. I remember when Wistrom was so light he floated away one windy-game in Chicago. I always thought Pat Haden should have tried to gain some height in the offseason, but I guess the idiot-coaches wanted him to play short.

My goal this offseason is to develop powers like Dr Strange. I think if I had a big Cape
it would all fall in place. What is your offseason improvement program-goal ?

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I dunno that i agree with Mack, that this would benefit Trump.

I suspect Trump has already won-over the “anti-Islam crowd.” I doubt
there’s anymore folks to be won over from that piece of the voting-pie.

The election now, is down to a small slice of the pie,
and i dont know exactly who those uncommitted folks are.
But i doubt they are the anti-islam, anti-immigration folks.
They are already wearing Trump buttons.

What do i know, though. I’m just a meteor guy.

I dont have anything intelligent to say about the actual crime, cept,
there will be more. Every year there will be more. No matter which Replicant
or Duplicat is President.

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zn wrote:

The stupid governor of Texas quoted “reap what you sow” on this one.

Let’s hope that holds true for him saying that.

—————-
A Meteor would be nice,
maybe.

“Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump also weighed in on Twitter, calling the incident “really bad” and linking it to terrorism. Trump later said that he appeciated the congratulations he was receiving about “being right on radical Islamic terrorism,” but he instead wanted toughness and vigilance.”

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I dont know what it is. Mainly because ‘they’ dont agree on what “it” is.
There’s many kinds of conservatives, just like there’s many kinds of ‘christians’ and ‘anarchists’ etc.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/what-is-a-conservative/

What are our options btw? 🙂

What are the main political options open to us nowadays,
here, in America? We can be….what?

Conservative
Neo-liberal
Liberal
Leftist
Neo-Con
Whatever-the-Hell-Trump-Is
DNC-Democrat
Libertarian
Green Party Progressive

Whet else is out there?

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bnw wrote:

You can make that claim against any candidate by your logic. Trump isn’t bought going in. Just like Perot. But unlike Perot He is in it to win. He knows the parasitic realities of trying to get something done with parasite politicians demanding money. Better infrastructure is in all our interests.

————————-

I think its a fair point that he cant be ‘bought’ by money.
Like Perot.

But I also think its a fair question to wonder if he is intoxicated by “power”.
Ya know. What does Trump really want, and what is influencing him? I dunno.
Maybe its some sense of altruism, mixed with the usual darker stuff — narcissism, ego, ambition, etc. All the usual stuff, lies, distortions, that Shakespeare wrote about.

But then, like you noted, you could say that about all the National Politicos.

Which is why i dont pay much attention to the “personality” stuff, concerning Trump or Clinton or anyone. Its the policies to me. Just the policies. I dont even care how Trump got his money (inheritance, corruption, etc)

Anyway, its a fascinating election. Just fascinating. Surreal too, as usual.

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nittany ram wrote:

If he hasn’t learned anything from his time in Philly it could be a disaster.

http://www.csnphilly.com/the700level/new-eagles-regime-highlights-problems-chip-kellys-methods?p=ya5nbcs&ocid=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

—————-

I dunno. Mike Martz was asked in an interview about who the good offensive minds were
and if I’m not mistaken he mentioned Chip Kelly.

The NFC West has some interesting coaches for sure:

Carroll
Arians
Kelly
Fisher

How would you rank them?

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