— X — wrote:

<
Fair enough. And maybe I was being over-sensitive, because I’ve been defending my choices and my POV for a few days, across multiple platforms, and to all kinds of people (in person). I have a lot of respect for you, Mackey Mack, and for everyone on this board, quite honestly. You’re all very smart and scholarly. Like wv said, it’s difficult to keep our animosities in check when discussing politics, but I had/have high hopes for this board in particular to do just that. So, going forward, I’ll try not to read ‘tone’ into the discussion, and I’ll do my best to elucidate in the same manner.

Re: Destroying Islamic terrorists once and for all:
That’s a nonsensical statement. That’s like saying you’d like to destroy racism once and for all.

It’s not nonsensical, and that’s a poor comparison. While racism and islamic fundamentalism are both ideologies, one of them (terrorism) is a movement that can be squashed by taking it apart from the top down. Not unlike Naziism. Instead of allowing them to grow and flourish, I’d like to see our tremendous military might, led by brilliant military strategists and Generals, and along with a coalition of States, systematically destroy their leadership and quickly put splinter cells into graves. I have a unique perspective on this, because I’ve seen hundreds of murders on LiveLeak, and I read about the atrocities they commit all the time. I seek it out. It’s on the same level as gassing the Jews, but with less mercy. They murder gays, they murder jews, they murder Christians, they stone women to death, they use children as human grenades, and they use human beings as shields. If you don’t think we have the power to assert our will against them, then okay. But doing nothing – or not enough – is akin to sponsoring their actions. Again, just like the Nazi’s, we need to destroy this movement before it grows. And we need to keep putting that flame out every single time it tries to reignite.

We all step on each others toes once in a while. It’s what happens when people have opinions, and in the case of politics, the only people interested in them are people who have them bound up strongly in their identity, their sense of values and morality. So. I personally wish the edit feature was available longer, and that we had a delete option. One of the boards we had once-upon-a-time allowed deletions. But here, once you said it, you have to live with the consequences. So sometimes we get pissy with each other.

On terrorism, this is from the Global Terrorism Index of 2014

This chart shows how 268 terrorist groups ended from 1968 – 2006.

Politicisation means that the terrorist group was somehow brought into the political system, its leaders getting seats in government etc.

Policing is the targeting (arresting or killing) of key leaders in the group.

In 10% of cases, the terrorists achieved their goals.

In 7% of cases, military action finished them off.

And I will just throw in…another way to fend them off is to stop abusing them with our foreign policies. Ya know. Invading Iraq was not really necessary.

sanbagger wrote:

PA Ram wrote:

Fisher can’t win here. If Goff sucks, fans will be jumping off the top of the stadium. If he’s great, they will want Fisher’s head for waiting so long to start him.

That’s a fact…it’s a lose-lose for Fisher.

I will say, it’s probably a good idea he is starting Goff because I think the fans in Cali would be brutal to CK from the first possession and they MTL will be a little more forgiving to Goff…for a while at least.

I have read this several places, and I don’t agree.

If Goff does well, people will be excited that Goff is doing well. There may be some criticism of Fisher for one news cycle, but people will soon forget the whole thing. And, if I’m Fisher, I will live pretty damn happily with that criticism anyway. So to hell with that.

Meanwhile, there will be voices countering those, arguing that it proves Fisher was right. Because Goff WASN’T ready. He wasn’t. If he is now, that only goes to prove Fisher did the right thing, doesn’t it? In the long run, everybody forgets it.

No, the only thing to fear is Goff sucking.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/no-1-pick-jared-goff-to-finally-start-for-the-rams-according-to-a-report/

Being 4-5 and coming off a 9-6 victory is as good a time as any to make a drastic change, so Jeff Fisher and the Rams are turning to rookie Jared Goff, according to a report from Chris Mortensen of ESPN.

Goff, taken No. 1 overall in the 2016 NFL Draft, has yet to attempt a regular-season throw for the Rams. Case Keenum started the first nine games for Los Angeles.

The rookie will get to begin his career in front of the home crowd — probably a pretty reasonable part of the equation to starting Keenum last week in New York — against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.

In terms of the timing for this start, things are a little weird. Many people believed Goff should have started out of the gates, and the play of Keenum pretty much justified that for several parts of the season.

Keenum’s game-ending interception in London against the Giants was horrific. Los Angeles has managed to score more than 20 points just twice this season.

Maybe Goff wasn’t ready to operate the offense, because of his transition from Sonny Dykes’ “Bear Raid” offense to whatever it is that the Rams run.

It’s hard to imagine that moving to a rookie quarterback, even one with 10 weeks of learning and nine weeks of clipboard holding, is going to magically transform the Rams offense. In other words, this doesn’t look like Los Angeles making some bold playoff push by going with the youngster.

The Rams were in limbo at 4-5, clearly not dangerous enough to really make a playoff run and clearly limited by their quarterback. Seeing what Goff can do and getting him live reps in games for the stretch run makes sense.

Pressure from outside was even more intense for Goff, because of the success of Carson Wentz with the Eagles (No. 2 overall) and Dak Prescott of the Cowboys (fourth-round) so far this season. Even the Browns have gotten an extended look at Cody Kessler in the regular season.

It’s hard to imagine Goff causes them to crater and miss the postseason. Maybe he’s better. If that’s the case, then suddenly he gets some momentum headed into his second year.

zn wrote:

Zooey wrote:

“I wanna live in a country which has more community oriented values (i.e. socialized medicine, maternity leave, retirement, vacation time…egalitarian quality of life), and this country just isn’t going to be that place.”

Well you can pine for your pie in the sky, “imagine all the people” utopia all you want, but aside from all the other developed democracies in the world, no such place exists.

…

It amazes me – when I bother to think about it – how Americans, who want to be #1 at everything in the world, ignore clearly superior ways of organizing society in the name of the myth of individuality and the belief that “government screws everything up.”

We pay far, far more for health care than ANY country with national health care, and get worse results: worse infant mortality, shorter lifespans, people going bankrupt because of illness or accident, and on and on. And we won’t change it. We fight against it. Fight against making the system better AND cheaper. Because we simply won’t believe it. Won’t believe the facts right in front of us that dozens of countries have had national health care for 60 years with better results.

Paid vacation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country

Yes. We are behind Albania, Nepal, Afghanistan…. The richest country in the world cannot afford to guarantee paid vacation.

Parent leave? Forget it.

One of the greatest outcomes of the propaganda system in this country is that the richest people have convinced the poorest people that pursuing their own interests is disastrous.

How many Trump supporters believe unions are bad in principle? How many oppose universal health care? How many think paid vacation is an outrageous idea that would bankrupt businesses, or make them flee? How many believe that increasing the minimum wage is bad?

And they wonder why their economic circumstances suck. All the money is going up, but they elected a guy who is going to cut taxes for the wealthy so that even MORE of the money goes up. Because wealth disparity wasn’t bad enough.

bnw wrote:

Zooey wrote:

bnw wrote:

Civilized? Really? Vandalism and assaults are civilized? Now a Cry In is civilized. It’s also pathetic.

You haven’t complained about police assaults on unarmed black people.

You haven’t complained about Trump supporters assaulting protesters.

You haven’t complained about racist graffiti (vandalism) that has emerged all over this country. You minimize it. You point the finger somewhere else.

Then you complain about the anti-Trump side protesting.

This is why your credibility is low. You are not, in principle, against assault. If your side does it, it simply isn’t assault. Or it’s the fault of the victim. Or whatever.

Killory’s people were coordinating fomenting violence at Trump rallies. As for credibility it is yours that is low. A grown man claiming Trump will be the end to the biosphere! Get a grip on reality.

Yeah. Well. I will just stick with the children at NASA http://climate.nasa.gov/ over your adult perspective. Thanks, though.

Rumor is seizures.

Remember he had a brain tumor.

InvaderRam wrote:

and that’s not to say there isn’t an element of racism among trump supporters. there is. it certainly plays a significant part. misogyny and homophobia. there’s that too.

but i also don’t like how clinton minimized other issues and reduced it down to vote for us or side with racism and misogyny and homophobia.

bernie would not have done that. i truly believe that.

There was a great article during the primaries that was posted here that argued that Dems should nominate Sanders precisely because of this. Because against Hillary, Trump would go low, and she couldn’t leave the “Crooked Hillary” stuff alone, and would have to go low back at him, and that she would inevitably lose a mud-slinging contest. Whereas Sanders would have just kept banging away on wealth, health care, and college education. He would have no need to go to the gutter, and Trump would just look bad in contrast. That was the argument.

— X — wrote:

wv wrote:

I sure would have loved to have seen a Trump vs Bernie election. That woulda been somethin ta see. An actual, real, choice.

Bernie would have forced some introspection. He would have made people take a hard look at his policies. He would have touched the working class of the right. But he was too far removed from some of the issues that were important to Conservatives. Personally, I would have worked really hard to understand his positions, try to decipher the practicality of them, and the practicality of how he would finance them. He might have even had a minute chance to flip my vote. To that end, all the people who are out there protesting, burning shit, and screaming and yelling about democracy, should be pissed at the DNC. Not the people who voted for Trump or even Trump himself. Their anger is misdirected, IMO. Their party was sneaky, underhanded, condescending, and offered nothing substantive to the electorate. What did they expect would happen? Change, or no change? That was their choice. With Bernie it would have been [this] change vs [that] change.

I bet if you interviewed 100 protesters, you would hear a bunch of different motivations. Some may be pissed at Trump supporters, but I’m sure a lot are pissed at the DNC. A lot of Sanders supporters are pissed at the DNC, that’s for sure, and at a DNC meeting this weekend, there were some harsh words and at least one person did a “mic drop” on Donna Brazile, and walked out.

Found this one:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/decaying-weapons-world-war-II-threaten-waters-worldwide-180961046/?no-ist

zn wrote:

Zooey wrote:

zn wrote:

Okay, I hear you. And I still agree with the original comment. The hell we inflicted on several client states by propping up dictators really does come to mind for me when I hear people wishing to leave because they get a president they don’t like.

I say, if you don’t like it, do something constructive about it.

See, if I were the family of an El Salvador citizen who got his eyes gouged out by US-backed (and often US trained) torturers, I would say “yeah tell me about it.”

I understand that they would well think that.

But, by that logic, no Jews should have emigrated to Palestine in the 30s because the German government was rotten to East Africans. I bet Elie Weisel wished his family had pursued the option of moving.

Jews emigrated because they were a persecuted minority.

There are americans who face prejudice, and it has its own death count, but it has not reached that level.

It’s better IMO to stand with your allies and reclaim the place.

…

Okay. But once it reaches that level, it will be too late for many of them. By definition, once you are a persecuted minority, you are already persecuted. And for some of them, that will be devastating.

It may be better to stand with allies and reclaim the place, but some people feel it is better to leave than be arrested or killed. And I don’t blame them.

In Weisel’s case, the first warning was that foreign Jews were deported.
Then a Fascist government comes to power in Budapest.
Then Jewish leaders were arrested.
Then there was a 3-day curfew for Jews.
Next, authorities seized their assets.
Then, 3 days later, the yellow star.
Then came ghettoes.
Then…

So, tell me, when would you have left?

And remember, it wasn’t just “ethnic minorities.” As I recall, communists, socialists, and labor union leaders were among the first to be rounded up. And Habeas Corpus has already been effectively suspended for years.

Well, crap, ya know…Keenum isn’t why they are losing. They can’t run the ball. They cannot run. The running game is not working.

Goff could come in and elevate the Rams some…maybe. But at best they will still be #6 and out after one game.

They need to fix the running game. From 1st and goal 1 yard out…and no TD?

From Fisher?

WTF is wrong with the running game?

Seriously, if Gurley was averaging – whatever – 80-90 ypg – what would the Rams’ record be?

It isn’t Keenum. At least, he isn’t the main reason.

wv wrote:

—————-

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
v

Well, I don’t have any books to recommend. All I have is what I already said. If the goal is to escape bad feelings, science says exercise, and religion says focus on someone else. That’s all I got. Sorry. I don’t think there is a magic book out there, and even if there was, it would resonate with some people, and not with others.

Jesus, 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.

Ooo. That Statue of Liberty one took some chutzpah to draw. Wow.

(I wanted to say took some “balls,” but under the circumstances….).

— X — wrote:

zn wrote:

Democrats 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.

I completely agree.

The white supremacists did endorse Trump, but for all the attention they got, they just aren’t that big of a bloc. And they would never vote for a democrat anyway since Democrats are allegedly the party of color.

I believe it is completely the fact that the Democrats have abandoned the working class, and Trump appealed to them.