My fears for my country

The BBQ Pit
41

Granted, this is The Pit… but my I have a cite for this please?
And, if I’m getting, my wish, the cherry on top would be for me to insist that it be from a reputable source and not some fat sweaty ranting maniac who sells clay for pregnant mothers to eat on the side for healthier ‘farmer-babies’ or is dying a slow and deservedly painful death from lung cancer.

Money just keeps them fat, lazy, and stupid. Money doesn’t create loyalty, however. Mobsters knew that; it’s why new krew members were required to ‘make their bones’ so the Fear of prison would keep them in line.
Fear. Fear is the single and only selling point of the GOP.
Why do you need to to look cool by smoking? Fear.
Why do you need more money than 4 generations could spend? Fear.
Why do you need a gun? Fear.

Now what is it that over-rides fear…? What is it that the GOP derides most? Courage and Ethics. (Romney’s vote is my cite)
What will make a GOP Mob turn on you faster than saying ‘Oy Vey’ at a Nuremburg rally? A public display of Courage and Ethics.

I choose the Democratic Party… and I choose it because I have courage and ethics. Also, their product is Hope for the future. Personally, I prefer a life with Hope over a life with Fear, but maybe that’s just me.
I prefer to work for candidates who want to make differences in America which both unify us as a people and add hope for us as a country. I’m not afraid of losing my personal time to march in the rain for causes I believe in and candidates who offer America hope. I find that it beats the Hell out of anything thats on TV anyway.
Maybe its how I want to be remembered: working for change instead of wearing out a couch.

YMMV
PS- The OP showed pictures of the ghetto uprising… and we’ve seen pictures on the news of brave masked men with their AR15s dressed up in their 4XL sized tactical uniforms.
I may not have a degree in history, but may I point something out?

When you were a kid playing RISK, and everyone had ‘cards’… did the first person who used them ever win?
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: In the end, who won…?
Shay’s Rebellion: In the end, who won…?
Whiskey Rebellion: In the end, who won…?
Nat Turner’s slave rebellion: In the end, who won…?
The Taos Revolt: In the end, who won…?
John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry: In the end, who won…?
The Civil War: In the end, who won…?
New York City draft riots ( aka ‘Gangs of NY’) In the end, who won…?
Just a subtle reminder to the ‘Oh Ma Guns, Oh Ma Guns!’ crowd that armed insurrection virtually never wins in America.
Oh, and since this is The Pit: Fuck You Trump.
Also, Fuck You Putin (and the horse you rode in on).

42

It’s called sarcasm, dude, if you were hoping for a signed mash note that read, “Dear Manuel, I really like you. Do you like me? xxxxxxxxx Bernie.”

Still, changing three planes, flying fourteen hours, and listening while a crowd chants they want to kill your countrymen pretty much requires sarcasm.

Sorry for the source; it’s some shitty little rag.

Then again, I have somebody pitting me because I said Trump is a hatemonger, which is like objecting to calling whorehouse employees enthusiastically affectionate.

43

Actually you were pitted for saying that Bernie worships Noriega and Castro, but sure, lie about it. It makes you look good.

44

Yeah, because hyperbole = lies. Because Saint Bernie’s incredible gaffes must be judged only according to his fanboy’s standards.

You bros really are proving me right. That asshole called me Trump but you little shitstains don’t have a problem with *that. * OH NO A BAD WORD.

45

Bullshit.

46

Oh, dear, did someone say something about Bernie that the savior did not endorse first?

47

So… 35 Years Ago? Think about that… 35 years… what were You writing 35 years ago and would it pass muster here?
"Dear Mrs. Jones,

On my summer vacation I learned that I like girls who wear shoulder pads and Flock of Seagulls. And I wanna 10mm like Sonny Crockett so I can shoot those funny-speaking Brown people.
They’re all drug dealers anyway…"

48

I admire and applaud your efforts. If I were still in my 40’s or 50’s and lived in the U.S. I’d likely be out marching with you.

But I’m less hopeful than you. The Left is too disorganized; it fights among itself, and selects the wrong issues to emphasize. Look at the utter collapse of OWS several years ago.

… However let me defend the man I am proud to call my 1st cousin 6x removed! :slight_smile: The Civil War became a horrid bloody war, and many in the North thought it should be ended. But Brown’s martyrdom inspired many Northerners with a Cause that they pursued with almost religious fervor. It might well be that Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry led to the Emancipation of America’s slaves.

49

Pick one standard and stick with it. If his little adventure with Noriega is off limits, then he has to shut up about that one march fifty some years ago.

Which is it?

Bernie Bros call Hillary a Goldwater Girl but neglect to mention she was a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl living with her parents and a private citizen. Bernie’s skeezy essays about “Old Bitches” and thirteen-year-olds having sex and babies because “nature” decided that was the right time for it is off limits. He was in his thirties at the time and a deadbeat dad, but again, something thirty five years ago is irrelevant while something fifty odd years ago must be brought up and burnished at every opportunity.

50

Or half your country anyway. For me the tipping point was the Senate voting to acquit President Sit On My Yammering, Festering Piehole.

ba-dum-dum

I’m sure we can say the same about a lot more countries than just Poland and Venezuela.

Uh, yeah: this.

If I lived down there, I would too. More people will need to galvanize themselves into a waaaaaaaaaaay more activist mindset, without question. (Hey - it’s your democracy, or what will soon be left of it.)

Woah.
With clothespinned nose I’ll look into this.

51

i’ll save you the trouble.

Nature does not, in fact, design thirteen-year-old girls for sex and babies. As long as they have the narrow pelvis of childhood, a pregnancy could kill them far easier than an adult woman. I’m assuming anyone seeing “thirteen-year-old” automatically thinks, “child,” so I needn’t point out how a kid that age is, well, *
a kid*. Plus, if “Nature” intended, why are girls’ periods that age so eccentric and irregular?

When you see “thirteen-year-old” there’s all that there, and so much more, so it’s not just mentioning an age. Girls that age still play with dolls, and good for them. Just about every woman.can tell you of getting creeped on by adult men when they themselves were obviously children.

52

The single most worrisome aspect of the entire Trump era, even more worrisome than Trump himself, has been the general lack of apparent outrage. There are some individual groups who have taken to the streets to protest, like when the women’s march was organized after the inauguration and the immigration protests. But there’s been no protest in reaction to the president’s conduct of office, and that is nothing short of horrifying. Shit, the president registered some of his highest approval ratings the day he was acquitted of his obvious high crimes.

I went to a pro-immigration protest last year (might have been 2018 now that I think of it), and it felt good just to be around other people who had decided collectively that they weren’t going to just sit back and watch as children get put into cages. We need more of these protests - and I say, join one if there’s anything near you in the near future. Voting is great. Canvassing is great, and necessary. But in the end, after the machinery of democracy has rusted itself into disrepair, after nearly everything has failed, it’s mass protest that is the final check on the abuse of power. It’s the ultimate sign that the people send to those in power when they want to renegotiate the social contract.

53

This is how democracy dies — in full view of a public that couldn’t care less

54

Don’t need a shrink to clearly see the OP’s disconnected ramblings serve merely as panem et circenses for the paranoid masses.

55

Thanks for linking to this poignant all-too-true message. (I’m almost even tempted to fight the WashPost’s cookie/jscript wall to read the whole article.)

56

Which mass? Paranoid of what?

57

You could try opening in an incognito window/tab.

58

I notice that in neither this thread nor the one attempting to pit you have you attempted to provide a cite or justification for this nonsense, one of the stupidest statements I have ever read.

Yes, the first part is right. Trump worships Putin; this has been clear for years, and was amply evident even to the most oblivious at the infamous Helsinki summit. Trump puts his love of Putin ahead of America’s interests and clearly aspires to be just like him – a self-serving corrupt dictator with unlimited power. Same reason he also worships Kim Jong Un and has openly admired the absolute authority and royal respect the man receives (or else off you go to the labor camp), wishing that his own toadies would treat him just like that (Trump later claimed this was a joke, but all his actions prove otherwise, including wishing that the judiciary’s checks on the presidency could be made to disappear).

The part about Bernie is gibbering nonsense, even making allowances for the fact that you probably meant Daniel Ortega, not Noriega. Bernie is well aware that Castro was a ruthless dictator, but Castro also overthrew a corrupt regime and genuinely tried to improve conditions for his people, such as introducing universal health care which is a hell of a lot more than Bernie’s critics will ever do. Likewise Bernie sided with Ortega and the Sandanista revolutionaries in Nicaragua, and correctly stated that just because Reagan hated both didn’t mean that Castro and Ortega didn’t have at least some good intentions for improving conditions in their respective countries, as indeed they did.

The argument of some of Bernie’s critics, of which you seem to be one, is that if he had his way, Bernie would turn the US into some version of Cuba or Nicaragua – or, according to others, more like Venezuela. No. Bernie is not a communist nor, unlike Trump, is he a narcissistic blithering moron with aspirations to dictatorship. Bernie is a social democrat, and if he had his way, his ideal model would be something like Sweden. But since political and cultural realities would make this impossible, a Bernie presidency with strong Congressional support would actually turn the US into something that looks more like … Canada! Canada, with universal health care and relatively strong social services, but otherwise full-out capitalism (and hockey). Trump, meanwhile, is planning billions in cuts from even the most basic US social services, like food stamps. In his ideal, the US would look more like Russia, except that instead of “president” his title would be either “dictator for life” or “King Trump”.

59

I provided a link to an obscure little rag called The New York Times, describing how Saint Bernie flew fourteen hours and changed planes three times to listen to people chant, “Here, there, the Yankee must die,” but like so many Bernie Bros, only dreamy worship of your savior is allowed.

Here’s a variety of videos and cites which depict Bernie saying JFK’s criticism of **Castro **nauseated him among other things, but how about that consistancy his fans like to brag about?

I especially like being told by another Bro that that was thirty years ago, so it doesn’t count, but his great civil rights hero march was fifty-odd years ago, so pick one, because if one matters, so does the other. My all-time favorite Bernie Broism is watching them rage that Hillary being a “Goldwater Girl” at sixteen is totally relevant while whining that Bernie’s “Old Bitches”/little girls need to fuck & have babies essay at thirty is just a youthful indiscretion. Taken together and placed in the context of the Roman Polanski sixties, the juxtaposition depicts BS and his fans unwittingly as hippie misogynists, the sort of guys who raged about war and civil rights but laughed that “womens’ position” in the rebellion was ‘prone.’ Women in the movement were pointing out, “Just as the average white doesn’t realize he assumes he’s superior, so too the average SNCC worker finds it difficult to discuss the woman problem because of the assumption of male superiority,” while men were coining slogans like, “Women say yes to men who say no.”

I could go on but you won’t read any of it or watch videos because Bros have a tendency to believe what Bernie brags about himself without facthecking, so hello ignore list.

60

From the section you quoted, dasmoocher:

In fact, this is a sign that his party is, in all likelihood, becoming smaller and smaller – but more extreme. It’s dangerous to assume that the dwindling size of the republican party is necessarily a good sign. It’s still one of two mainstream political parties that functions viably in all states, counties, and municipalities in the United States. All over the country, the republican party is still quite capable of nominating judges, attorneys general, district attorneys, mayors, city managers, chiefs of police, sheriffs, constables, assessors, state representatives, state senators, and of course US representatives, US senators, and presidents. It’s the more extreme part that should concern you: membership in this smaller, but still very powerful party, requires what is effectively a pledge to uphold the extreme. Fail to live up to that pledge, and you’re out. For a reference, see Nazi Germany, and on that note, I bring up another late Weimar parallel:

Indeed.

The ever-dwindling Republican party, and a president with only 43% approval rating still has a chance to maintain, and possibly even expand their power later this year. Why? Because the parties are no longer big tents; they’ve splintered into smaller factions that increasingly find it difficult and painful to work with each other, even with members of their own party and with people whom they have mostly shared interests. The Republicans solved that problem: they exile anyone who fails to uphold the pledge. The Democrats, OTOH, are still trying to fight through some of their disagreements, but it’s increasingly difficult. The progressive voter’s or politician’s equivalent may not be exile; it just might be staying home and dropping out of the process altogether until someone more palatable comes along: subverting and sabotaging intra-party opposition with an effective no-confidence vote with their feet. And this, my friends, is what worries me about Bernie Sanders’ intrusion - yes, intrusion - into the Democratic politics.

People frequently point out that Trump’s inability to maintain a high favorability rating is a sign of his weakness, and they’re not completely wrong: he is historically the most unpopular president in the modern era. But because politics has become Balkanized, he can still win. The Republican party can still win. And it can win because it’s about which tribe can energize its voters the most. Yes, the Democrats have potentially a larger coalition – a potentially much larger coalition, in fact. But that coalition has to agree to work together, and it starts by agreeing to support each other at the polls, regardless of who is nominated to carry out that mantra. I believe that Sanders means it when he says he will support his current rivals should they win - I’m not bashing Sanders the man. But I worry like hell that his surrogates won’t be there, that his supporters won’t be there, that they will sabotage their current rivals instead of agreeing to cooperate with the much more venomous rival that progressives will face in November.

I’ll remind people: Nazi Germany wasn’t a military coup; it was an elected government - it won with just 37% of the actual vote, and it represented an even smaller minority of actual eligible voters. The Nazis began and for the longest time existed as an extremist faction - one that obstructed and created constitutional crises, just like the Republicans are now. One that conservatives thought for the longest time that they could use for their own purposes, just like now. One that gradually festered like a ravaging parasite within its ailing host and eventually consumed the entire system, perhaps like now.

37 percent.

And yet I think a lot of people do care - they care a lot. But we have perpetually underestimated this threat, and we are under-responding to the ill-intentions that are perpetually manifest. Nixon was thrown out of power, but it wasn’t just because both parties agreed on reality; in fact, I’d argue that there were two different realities back then just as there are now. I think there are many differences between now and then, but one critical difference that stands out in my mind is that information was massified, and they valued truth: there wasn’t a parallel purveyor of alternative reality acting alongside Woodward and Bernstein when they uncovered Watergate. Not the case anymore.

But an even more important difference is that standards were higher. Expectations were higher. People expected more out of public office than what they get now. It doesn’t mean that people were naive back then and that they assumed that politicians never strayed in their marriages or fail to pay back taxes; they just didn’t make it the centerpiece of political discussion, but there was an expectation that public office was reserved for people who were responsible, mature, intellectual, and capable. Now there are no such expectations. We did elect a guy who bragged about groping women on a hot mic, after all.

Why was Nixon really thrown out of power? Because 1974 was on the heels of the Civil Rights marches, the anti-Vietnam war protests. People got out in the streets back then. They were willing to swell the local jails with scores of activists - and both republicans and democrats damn well knew it, too. That’s just not the case now. In fact, republicans are banking on you not to get out into the streets. They’re hedging on the assumption you won’t.