The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Politics in many countries, including the USA, seem to have taken a turn for the worse, Joe. In my own little country, Ireland, I’m tempted to stop voting in elections, things have become so nonsensical.

I think this apparent decline seems to have begun long before Trump. I believe it started to happen after the fall of the Soviet Union. Western so-called democracies have been always in fact plutocracies/kleptocracies. The proof of that is in the old question, “cui bono” (who benefits)? The answer is the rich.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, with the fear of communism gone, the “Left” lost it’s leverage and the plutocrats had a free rein. The mainstream “left” parties, such as the Democrats in the USA and the Labour Party in Britain abandoned their working class supporters and, led by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair respectively, they adopted neoliberalism.

“Bread and butter” politics was replaced by identity politics and culture wars, which were used as a tool by the plutocrats to divide and conquer the masses. Hence, the election of Barack Obama, whose election could, ironically, be viewed as racist, since it was based to a large extent on the colour of his skin. After all, as shown in the documentary film, Inside Job, his economic advisers were recruited from the Wall Street buccaneers who had helped “engineer” the crash.

In this situation many working class people who had been abandoned by the erstwhile mainstream “left” (the “deplorables” as Hillary Clinton called them) turned to people like Donald Trump.

Things aren’t helped by the fact that in my country at least the effect of the “education” system is to destroy children’s ability to think independently. Philosophy, including logic and ethics, isn’t on the curriculum and the arts are marginalised. It seems designed primarily to mass produce subservient wage slaves who won’t challenge the plutocracy, who are incapable of engaging in rational dialogue and who instead get sucked into idiotic culture wars.

That’s the only sense I can make of the mess we’re in.

 

I agree with you on most all your points JC.

When I was a kid in the 1950's and early sixties tens of millions of American middle class workers were finally and for the first time realizing the American dream due to the fact that their labor unions had enough power and influence to make this happen. 

They could afford homes, new cars, education, food, rent, medical bills etc. And they even had good to decent retirement benefits.

The percentage of Americans in labor unions at their peak was what ... over 65%?

What I noticed in the next 40 years however was how the corporate 1 to 5%  "oligarchy"

 gradually but steadily weakened and finally destroyed these labor unions ( Reagan was their final labor union busting henchman ) where now I think what...only 10% of Americans are unionized?

Police unions are the most powerful. There are still nurse and teacher unions. Government workers to a degree.

What I see is the American middle class struggling now. Especially young people just trying to get a start in their lives.

The cost of every basic has inflated 5X to 6X more than average working class wages.

Our top 5% have done great over these last 50 years. More wealth gain than even they imagined.

Remember one of the first things Trump did when he took office was to get the 1% tax break bill through?

The one that increased Warren Buffet's wealth by 23 billion dollars the second the bill went through?

Over riding every other issue stressing America in my opinion is the ever widening gap between the rich and the rest of America. A divide that has been calculated and implemented by the super wealthy since the 1970's.

Add to that the shipping out of 10's of millions of decent wage and benefit American jobs overseas the last 40 years to slave wage countries.

Remember when Mike Bloomberg just out of the blue decided to enter the 2020 Democratic primary race? He was a very late entry and knew by his own polls he didn't have a knats chance at getting even 10% of the vote?

His "not a chance" entry was totally illogical except for one major reason imo.

He was trying to slow or stop the steam out of Elizabeth Warren's vote gaining machine.

Warren was doing way better than Biden and anyone else. In fact, many pundits were writing off Biden due to his growing number of 3rd place primary finishes.

Bloomberg was quoted in a private meeting talk with Goldman Sachs wealthy as Warren was gaining vote strength.

In his talk he is quoted as stating to them...that Elizabeth Warren was more dangerous for the country ( his Wall Street country) than even Donald Trump!

Bloomberg then pumped 1 billion of his own dollars...yes, 1 BILLION ... into a month and a half long entry into the Demo primary campaign.

1 billion dollars? The largest private monies amount "ever" into a primary campaign and only a month and a half long one.

What Bloomberg was trying to do was blunt the Warren and Sanders vote...even if by just 5 to 10%. Not for him...but to help get Biden back into the race!

Biden was Bloomberg's man all the way.

Then comes Super Tuesday. Biden wins just enough to pull ahead of Warren. Warren was finished at that point.

Bloomberg got what he wanted for his billion dollars and illogical entry into the Democratic primary race.

And I am guessing Biden also made a deal with the black American vote machine.

Promising them he would choose a black to be his vice presidential running mate in return for them giving Biden several huge black vote states on Super Tuesday.

This is all my surmising. For what it's worth.

Yet Biden is still 10X better than having Trump win a second term imo.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[John Cotter]

13 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

I agree with you on most all your points JC.

When I was a kid in the 1950's and early sixties tens of millions of American middle class workers were finally and for the first time realizing the American dream due to the fact that their labor unions had enough power and influence to make this happen. 

They could afford homes, new cars, education, food, rent, medical bills etc. And they even had good to decent retirement benefits.

The percentage of Americans in labor unions at their peak was what ... over 65%?

What I noticed in the next 40 years however was how the corporate 1 to 5%  "oligarchy"

 gradually but steadily weakened and finally destroyed these labor unions ( Reagan was their final labor union busting henchman ) where now I think what...only 10% of Americans are unionized?

Police unions are the most powerful. There are still nurse and teacher unions. Government workers to a degree.

What I see is the American middle class struggling now. Especially young people just trying to get a start in their lives.

The cost of every basic has inflated 5X to 6X more than average working class wages.

Our top 5% have done great over these last 50 years. More wealth gain than even they imagined.

Remember one of the first things Trump did when he took office was to get the 1% tax break bill through?

The one that increased Warren Buffet's wealth by 23 billion dollars the second the bill went through?

Over riding every other issue dividing America in my opinion is the ever widening gap between the rich and the rest of America. A divide that has been calculated and implemented by the super wealthy since the 1970's.

Remember when Mike Bloomberg just out of the blue decided to enter the 2020 Democratic primary race? He was a very late entry and knew by his own polls he didn't have a knats chance at getting even 10% of the vote?

His "not a chance" entry was totally illogical except for one major reason imo.

He was trying to slow or stop the steam out of Elizabeth Warren's vote gaining machine.

Warren was doing way better than Biden and anyone else. In fact, many pundits were writing off Biden due to his growing number of 3rd place primary finishes.

Bloomberg was quoted in a private meeting talk with Goldman Sachs wealthy as Warren was gaining vote strength.

In his talk he is quoted as stating to them...that Elizabeth Warren was more dangerous for the country ( his Wall Street country) than even Donald Trump!

Bloomberg then pumped 1 billion of his own dollars...yes, 1 BILLION ... into a month and a half long entry into the Demo primary campaign.

1 billion dollars? The largest amount "ever" into a primary campaign and only a month and a half long one.

What Bloomberg was trying to do was blunt the Warren and Sanders vote...even if by just 5 to 10%. Not for him...but to help get Biden back into the race!

Biden was Bloomberg's man all the way.

Then comes Super Tuesday. Biden wins just enough to pull ahead of Warren. Warren was finished at that point.

Bloomberg got what he wanted for his billion dollars and illogical entry into the Democratic primary race.

And I am guessing Biden also made a deal with the black American vote machine.

Promising them he would choose a black to be his vice presidential running mate in return for them giving Biden several huge black vote states on Super Tuesday.

This is all my surmising. For what it's worth.

And Biden is still 10X better than having Trump win a second term imo.

 

 

Well said, Joe.

[Kirk Gallaway]

22 minutes ago, John Cotter said:

Bread and butter” politics was replaced by identity politics and culture wars, which were used as a tool by the plutocrats to divide and conquer the masses.

I'll go with that.

I agree with you about Obama , particularly in some areas that many here don't know about. But in the U.S., the parties have pushed each other into their ideological corners, so while the Democrats with a big corporate funding base, they  have a voter base emphasizing bread and butter issues in the midterms about keeping a safety net the R's want to cut drastically.

Beyond culture wars,  Issue wise the only people would vote Republican should be people making over half million a year and a handful of people who rationalize that they're trying to get their businesses off the ground. Still there's worldwide inflation, But no party can just turn that around. So in the midterms right now, that should only give the Dems continued control of the Senate but will probably lose the House.

Some of it is a working class feeling of  betrayal by  Democrats, but given their alternatives. Some of it is just plain stupidity as the average American is not political and simply doesn't vote in their interest.

maybe not the answer you were looking for?  ...... Sorry

"We're not sheep! We just have the exact same viewpoints as Fox News by coincidence! Now where's that Kool Aid?"

 

 

 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

[Matthew Koch]

 

TDS bros, can you please translate?
lol, I can't understand him anymore.. 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

Breaking News: Angela Lansbury has died at 96. She was a formidable Hollywood and Broadway actress who won new fans on “Murder, She Wrote.”

 

NYTIMES.COM

 

Angela Lansbury, Star of Film and Stage and TV’s Favorite Sleuth, Dies at 96

She was a Hollywood and Broadway sensation, but captured the biggest audience of her career as Jessica Fletcher in “Murder, She Wrote.”

 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

I'll go with that.

I agree with you about Obama , particularly in some areas that many here don't know about. But in the U.S., the parties have pushed each other into their ideological corners, so while the Democrats with a big corporate funding base, they  have a voter base emphasizing bread and butter issues in the midterms about keeping a safety net the R's want to cut drastically.

Beyond culture wars,  Issue wise the only people would vote Republican should be people making over half million a year and a handful of people who rationalize that they're trying to get their businesses off the ground. Still there's worldwide inflation, But no party can just turn that around. So in the midterms right now, that should only give the Dems continued control of the Senate but will probably lose the House.

Some of it is a working class feeling of  betrayal by  Democrats, but given their alternatives. Some of it is just plain stupidity as the average American is not political and simply doesn't vote in their interest.

maybe not the answer you were looking for?  ...... Sorry

"We're not sheep! We just have the exact same viewpoints as Fox News by coincidence! Now where's that Kool Aid?"

 

 

 

 

I defer to your greater knowledge of US politics on those issues.

I should have said in my earlier post that, in keeping with the theme of this thread, the rot probably really began with the JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations, since they were left-leaning politicians who were concerned with mitigating the worst effects of economic inequality.

 I have no doubt that it was the plutocracy in some shape or form that “sponsored” those assassinations.

[Matthew Koch]

20 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

The Crimea Bridge was illegally built and is nothing more than the supply line for Putin's military and illegal occupation of Crimea.

But keep pretending everyone is too stupid to already know that; it's worked out so well for you and Putin so far...

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/10/10/ukrainian-kerch-bridge/


"While the affected section was quickly repaired and traffic resumed the next day, Western media has celebrated the incident as the latest Russian embarrassment and failure in the conflict with Ukraine. In some cases, journalists openly cheered and joked about what could plausibly be categorized as a war crime that claimed civilian lives."
 

Matt you did the same,
Apparently it's still a war crime to blow up civilians on a civilian bridge wether Putin built it or not.. 
 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Matthew Koch

[Douglas Caddy]

18 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/10/10/ukrainian-kerch-bridge/


"While the affected section was quickly repaired and traffic resumed the next day, Western media has celebrated the incident as the latest Russian embarrassment and failure in the conflict with Ukraine. In some cases, journalists openly cheered and joked about what could plausibly be categorized as a war crime that claimed civilian lives."
 

Matt you did the same,
Apparently it's still a war crime to blow up civilians on a civilian bridge wether Putin built it or not.. 
 

Reuters reported yesterday:

Traffic was initially suspended after the incident but by Saturday evening cars and buses were allowed to start crossing the bridge in alternating directions on the remaining intact lanes, while heavy goods vehicles waited to cross by ferry.

Railway traffic also later resumed.

 

[Douglas Caddy]

Rare footage of the explosion on the bridge:

Rare video that came to us presents the moment of the bridge explosion that connects Russia and the Crimea (cnnbc.com)

 

[Benjamin Cole]

6 hours ago, John Cotter said:

Politics in many countries, including the USA, seem to have taken a turn for the worse, Joe. In my own little country, Ireland, I’m tempted to stop voting in elections, things have become so nonsensical.

This decline seems to have begun long before Trump. I believe it started to happen after the fall of the Soviet Union. Western so-called democracies have been always in fact plutocracies/kleptocracies. The proof of that is in the old question, “cui bono” (who benefits)? The answer is the rich.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, with the fear of communism gone, the “Left” lost it’s leverage and the plutocrats had a free rein. The mainstream “left” parties, such as the Democrats in the USA and the Labour Party in Britain abandoned their working class supporters and, led by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair respectively, they adopted neoliberalism.

“Bread and butter” politics was replaced by identity politics and culture wars, which were used as tools by the plutocrats to divide and conquer the masses. Hence, the election of Barack Obama, whose election could, ironically, be viewed as racist, since it was based to a large extent on the colour of his skin. After all, as shown in the documentary film, Inside Job, his economic advisers were recruited from the Wall Street buccaneers who had helped “engineer” the crash.

In this situation many working class people who had been abandoned by the erstwhile mainstream “left” (the “deplorables” as Hillary Clinton called them) turned to people like Donald Trump.

Things aren’t helped by the fact that in my country at least the effect of the “education” system is to destroy children’s ability to think independently. Philosophy, including logic and ethics, isn’t on the curriculum and the arts are marginalised. It seems designed primarily to mass produce subservient wage slaves who won’t challenge the plutocracy, who are incapable of engaging in rational dialogue and who instead get sucked into idiotic culture wars.

That’s the only sense I can make of the mess we’re in.

 

Posted 6 hours ago (edited)

  12 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

This "psychic contagion" phenomena applies perfectly to the Trump support base.

They have been brainwashed and blinded into believing Trump's 10,000 times repeated delusional lie that the 2020 election was rigged. 

And that the violent January 6th, 2021 Capital building attack which injured hundreds and even resulted in deaths...and Trump's purposeful 3 and 1/2 hour delay in sending help and telling his mob to stop...was no big deal.

Expand  

Politics in many countries, including the USA, seem to have taken a turn for the worse, Joe. In my own little country, Ireland, I’m tempted to stop voting in elections, things have become so nonsensical.

This decline seems to have begun long before Trump. I believe it started to happen after the fall of the Soviet Union. Western so-called democracies have been always in fact plutocracies/kleptocracies. The proof of that is in the old question, “cui bono” (who benefits)? The answer is the rich.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, with the fear of communism gone, the “Left” lost it’s leverage and the plutocrats had a free rein. The mainstream “left” parties, such as the Democrats in the USA and the Labour Party in Britain abandoned their working class supporters and, led by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair respectively, they adopted neoliberalism.

“Bread and butter” politics was replaced by identity politics and culture wars, which were used as tools by the plutocrats to divide and conquer the masses.--JC

Amen, and in spades. See post on Tulsi Gabbard. 

[Benjamin Cole]

Tulsi Gabbard Abandons 'Elitist, Woke, Anti-White' Democratic Party

"I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.

I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people.

Unfortunately, today’s Democratic Party does not.

Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite.

I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party."---Tulsi Gabbard

 

She doesn't have to call on me; I left 10-20 years ago. I did cast a vote for Obama, even the second time around...but then no more. 

You may disagree with Gabbard on this or that, or her views on Ukraine (as do I).

But largely, she has nailed it. 

The Donkey Party left the stable a long time ago, and left behind only, well, donkey manure. That is worth voting for? 

 

[Matt Allison]

Gabbard was pegged as a Russian asset years ago, so it sounds like it was finally time to drop the facade that she was a Democrat.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/russia-s-propaganda-machine-discovers-2020-democratic-candidate-tulsi-gabbard-n964261

[Guest]

13 hours ago, John Cotter said:

Matt, I know it’s a waste of time trying to engage in rational discourse with you because, among other things, you constantly ignore and misrepresent what your opponents say.

I’m just stepping in here to illustrate that point by saying that in Chris’s post immediately preceding your reply, he stated that he was against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting conflict there. And yet in your reply you asked him to decry specific actions by Putin.

Are you so brainwashed and blinded by jingoistic Russophobic propaganda that your cognitive faculties are seriously impaired? This is a common and indeed pervasive phenomenon in times of war and social upheaval. It’s known as psychic contagion.

Carl Jung used the term “psychic epidemic”:

"Indeed, it is becoming ever more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer but man himself who is man's greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes." (Carl Jung, 'The Symbolic Life', the transcript of a seminar given in London in 1939.)

Nietzsche and Goethe also understood this well, its been called everything from a sickness of the minds, to a mass psychosis. Dutch psychologist, Joost Meerloo wrote a great book about this called “The rape of the mind.” The persecution of witches is a great case study which shows how rational, educated, thinking human beings with all of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks could suddenly abandon critical thinking and revert to groupthink, herd instincts, and follow figures they perceive as higher in status than them, unquestioningly. The key ingredient to trigger this phenomenon is usually fear. It stops humans using the neo-cortex to think for themselves and has the masses reverting back to the amygdala, the older primitive part of the brain, that basic animals function with (fight, flight, feed, fornicate etc). Basic emotions rule their behaviour, mechanisms designed to help them survive. The sad part is; the masses can be out in this state at any time if enough fear is supplied. Afraid human beings will always position themselves at the centre of the herd, as their survival instincts tell them that its the safest place. The way the US is divided, the centre of the herd becomes the centre of party opinion (their tribe). I am sure you get all of this, John. I am mentioning it again for those in the gallery. The truth is; people in this psychosis will often only change their stance if a greater fear is supplied. You can’t reason with them, as entertaining opposing points of view would cause them a great deal of mental anguish. People like to think they have answers for everything, or a state that is protecting them, the concept that this isn’t true would destabilise them. 
 

Matt’s actions or behaviour is very typical and explained succinctly here. 
 

“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.”

Gustave Le Bon