Discussions with Trump supporters [Archive] - Page 2

kburgess

08-21-2019, 04:45 PM

Hi Occihoff,
I have heard interviews from folks who were working on this Plan that originally started around the 70's or around the Reagan era. This Plan was being developed by the patriotic military insiders, probably Navy and Marines as a means to completely unravel all of the deep state/globalist infrastructure that had been and was slowly taking over and destroying this country from the inside out in the areas of Banking, Media, Intelligence, Politics, Lobbies, Securities, and of course Govt/Politics.

Being developed through the military minds, it was a full blown system of intelligence, counter-intelligence, and contingency planning to get every last remnant of that system out of the USA.. I know that after Obama, they realized that this was the trigger point, and it had to be done now, or HRC would have been the final nail in the coffin of the USA in retaining its global leadership and sovereignty. After that we would have been plunged into major recession and WWIII to bring us down to a much more diminished state so that we could be more easily integrated into a one world govt as was attempted by the EU under a heavy handed socialist/communist rule.

As 2016 was the trigger point, and it being a military orchestrated plan, yes I suspect that they had plans for a military coup if HRC had won. I doubt they would have killed her, but prison would have probably been the choice. Thankfully they realized that the public was behind DJT enough that they did not have to pull that trigger, and that the rest of the cabal was so convinced and blinded in their own delusion that HRC was going to win, that they did not see any of it coming, and have been completely befuddled and enraged with everything that DJT has done and are sparing no expense to continually try to discredit him and get him out.

As in the video below, that was no ordinary election, and quite frankly the survival of the USA at stake. Clearly for the plan to be completed, we need to get the House, more of the Senate, and 4 more years. Otherwise they will probably do everything they can to destroy him and his entire family as payback.

I feel that it is pretty amazing that he took on the challenge knowing that this is what he was up against, but clearly he did it for Love, and trusted his backers to keep him alive through this process.

Thanks for the question,
Ken.
ps- The original interview was either on Coast to Coast or David Wilcock from a man who called himself Drake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qIXXafxCQ

What?! Are you actually saying that the Trumpsters were contemplating a military coup, and even killing Hilary?

kburgess

08-21-2019, 04:50 PM

Sorry, but that is what Democracy is, and in every situation where there has been a democratic representation, it degrades into Socialism and then Communism because everyone wants the free gifts w/o having to work for them, and then the nations go bankrupt, and then the ruling class takes charge and truly turns the people in to cattle for milking and slaughter. Thats just HISTORY and not my opinion.

As for rural vs urban, maybe the Founding Fathers realized that over time urban folks get stupid, and rural folks stay smart. I think that I agree. History again.
Cheers,
Ken.

I'm a bit shocked by your equation of democracy with mob rule! ...

kburgess

08-21-2019, 04:52 PM

Sorry to hear about your computer bugs, I have done IT for many years, so if I can help let me know,
I too have other things to attend to, so may not be quite as prominent as well,
Ken.

Thank you - and I think I've spent enough time on this topic. It's been interesting, but other things are calling for my attention.

~Cascade

podfish

08-21-2019, 05:53 PM

...I have heard interviews from folks who were working on this Plan ...ok, the red pill is strong in this one. Did it ever occur to you that three things are unlikely to all go together: someone working on this plan, someone willing to be interviewed, someone who's believable. Pick two and I'm with you. But I guess they let Jade Helm get leaked somehow, so they put that one off.

I'll regret my skepticism as they're putting me up against the wall, I suppose.

occihoff

08-22-2019, 12:20 PM

Wow! I just wish the current Republicans would embrace that Biblical command. They always tout themselves as Godly Christians,

Misattributed

God (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/God) gave us these things to use. After the last tree (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tree) is felled, Christ (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christ) will come back.

Attributed in Setting the Captives Free (1990) by Austin Miles, and widely repeated after appearing in "The Godly Must Be Crazy", by Glenn Scherer in Grist magazine (28 October 2004) (http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/index.html). Grist afterwards retracted and apologized for Scherer's comment, noting that the quotation appears nowhere in Watt's Congressional testimony or any other source it could find. Watt has responded:<dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><dd style="margin-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-right: 0px;">I never said it. Never believed it. Never even thought it. I know no Christian who believes or preaches such error. The Bible commands conservation — that we as Christians be careful stewards of the land and resources entrusted to us by the Creator.</dd></dl>

occihoff

08-22-2019, 12:27 PM

I totally sympathize, Cascade!

Thank you - and I think I've spent enough time on this topic. It's been interesting, but other things are calling for my attention.

~Cascade

sealwatcher

08-22-2019, 12:59 PM

I'll call it a draw. Ken couldn't be riled, no foamer or ranter he. But can you see the disconnet between the two conversations? Perhaps that's the place to focus. Anyone ready to join the fray? "Once more into the breach, dear friends ...."

I totally sympathize, Cascade!

kburgess

08-22-2019, 01:04 PM

At least they tout themselves as something, the Dems take no moral compass at all other than filling the air with a lot of talk about themselves. Look at the evidence of the cities and States that they run.

There are a lot of R's that actually do embrace it, but just not so much in the news.
Ken.

Wow! I just wish the current Republicans would embrace that Biblical command. They always tout themselves as Godly Christians,

kburgess

08-22-2019, 01:12 PM

Hi Sealwatcher,
Thanks for the recognition!!
I just really despise the type of conversation that degrades into flame and speculation, so I try to keep it on things that have some level of fact or reference and then we can discuss our interpretation of that.

As for the draw, this is not a contest, but more as an opportunity to learn and understand more for those who are willing to do so. I realize that I have studied this type of material for many years and have a bit deeper interest into the corners than most. Call it speculation, conspiracy, dreaming, or trying to get to the real facts behind the curtain is all a matter of perspective for the story is ALWAYS a LOT deeper than gets shown on the surface. Think of an iceberg painted to look like a tropical garden, a lot of bs and deception.

I may be all wrong, but for me, looking behind the curtain is the only thing that I have found that truly makes sense and connects the dots over many years and decades of degradation of society. Thus it makes sense to me.
Take care and thanks for the vote!!,
Ken.

I'll call it a draw. Ken couldn't be riled, no foamer or ranter he. But can you see the disconnet between the two conversations? Perhaps that's the place to focus. Anyone ready to join the fray? "Once more into the breach, dear friends ...."

kburgess

08-22-2019, 01:24 PM

Dear Mr Podfish,
If you had taken the time to actually look up the interview and listen to a part of it Before throwing out your blessed opinion to the crowds ...

You would have heard that Drake had been working on the plan and came to the interviewer to release the information as he was given permission to do so and felt that it was time to get this type of info out to the public. As for its plausibility, you may doubt it as a matter of course, but I think that you would agree that NOTHING is as it appears to be on the surface. It sucks that it is that way, but all the big decisions have a lot of undisclosed factors that are the real drivers for the move. So just acknowledging that and being willing to at least consider that possibility is what I am trying to present here. There are no winners or looser's in the discussion, but life will sort it all out soon enough.

For me, that is just a fact of life, like it or not, and even though I would love it all to be out in the open, evidence does not lend itself to that conclusion. There is a big difference to the issues of a move and the story of the issues to that move.
Thanks,
Ken.

ok, the red pill is strong in this one. Did it ever occur to you that three things are unlikely to all go together: someone working on this plan, someone willing to be interviewed, someone who's believable. Pick two and I'm with you. But I guess they let Jade Helm get leaked somehow, so they put that one off.

I'll regret my skepticism as they're putting me up against the wall, I suppose.

occihoff

08-22-2019, 01:37 PM

A truly fascinating dissertation, Ken! I appreciate this clearly expressed overview of the way you see the political world. It really helps me understand where you, and probably Ray, are coming from.

Of course to me it sounds like an absolutely paranoid reversal of reality. Your belief that it is the military insiders that are the last bastion of sanity and freedom in this country is absolutely mind-boggling. And the presentation of Donald Trump as an almost saint-like figure who is trying so hard to rescue this country due to his abundance of "Love" is incredible!

Donald Trump, who has worked so hard to enrich the already rich at the expense of our national debt, while showing utter disdain for the poor!

Donald Trump, who despises the would-be immigrants begging for help at our doorstep, and who happily snatches children away from their parents and throws them in children's prison, while even losing records of where those parents might be!

Donald Trump, who just hates the fact that Obamacare managed to squeak by, and is trying to do everything he can to eviscerate it!

Donald Trump, who brags about being so famous that he can get away with grabbing women by their pussy!

This is the Donald Trump that you apparently regard as some kind of savior to the United States of America?

And otherwise you sound like such a nice guy!

Hi Occihoff,
I have heard interviews from folks who were working on this Plan that originally started around the 70's or around the Reagan era. This Plan was being developed by the patriotic military insiders,...

occihoff

08-22-2019, 01:51 PM

Oh, I couldn't resist getting dragged in a little too much today...

I'll call it a draw. Ken couldn't be riled, no foamer or ranter he. But can you see the disconnet between the two conversations? Perhaps that's the place to focus. Anyone ready to join the fray? "Once more into the breach, dear friends ...."

kburgess

08-22-2019, 02:01 PM

Dear Occihoff,
I think that you are forgetting that all that you know about DJT is what has been presented by a media that is totally hell bent on destroying him at all costs, and thus what you are hearing might be just a bit... Tainted.

Are you saying that if you had a mic and camera for St Barack O, St Bill C, or St Hillary C for the same duration of their lives that they have tried to shred DJT that they would not have come up with a lot more mountains of crap to impress us with. I do not think so.

Please honor my intelligence even if you disagree with my opinions, and know that there is a big difference act to protecting that which you love vs acting to hate what you dislike.

Do you open up your home and family to strangers that you do not know?
Does that make you a hateful person?
Do you think that it is right to make judgements on a persons actions w/o really knowing what might be driving them to do so from their experience rather than what you might think is right?

It is easy to make a judgement of someone elses behavior, but a bit different to actually walk in their shoes and see why they do what they do in the moment.
Be well,
Ken.
ps- And yes, I Am a nice guy, :))

A truly fascinating dissertation, Ken! ...

kburgess

08-22-2019, 02:24 PM

Occihoff,
And please do not mock me for a reversal of my world, paranoia, divine Trump etc.
I thought you to be someone who valued the idea of a rational conversation so a bit surprised by your post here.

You may want to get votes w/in this community, but I am trying to give you solid and rational perspectives on what and why I think the way that I do. I do this not to think that I can change Wacco from being a Trump-Hating progressive group, but do think that we can have some type of reasonable discussion and thought that you were someone where that discussion could take place. In our own frames of mind, we are all rational people, REGARDLESS on what might appear on the outside.

It is our ability to walk in anothers shoes that allows a reasonable discussion to take place where we can first establish the facts, and then discuss our interpretation of those facts.
Thanks,
Ken.

occihoff

08-22-2019, 02:32 PM

You think the criticisms of the Trumpsters I have outlined in my post have been based on information tainted by the liberal media? Then please address my points and specifically tell me which are factually untrue.

As for opening my home to strangers I do not know, I point you to the Statue of Liberty that greets immigrants as they sail to our shores. Is that all just empty nonsense now?

My maternal grandparents saw that statue as they sailed in from their Jewish stedel in Russia around the beginning of the 20th century. They were fleeing poverty and antisemitic persecution. Starting from scratch, they gradually built a scrap metal business, and were able to send their three sons to college (although their three daughters had to work their way to college).

This is the America I love and believe in. I don't want the upraised hand of the Statue of Liberty bearing the torch of Freedom to be cut off and replaced by a hand raising its middle finger!

podfish

08-22-2019, 02:39 PM

Dear Mr Podfish,
If you had taken the time to actually look up the interview and listen to a part of it Before throwing out your blessed opinion to the crowds ...

You would have heard that Drake had been working on the plan and came to the interviewer to release the information as he was given permission to do so and felt that it was time to get this type of info out to the public. As for its plausibility, you may doubt it as a matter of course, but I think that you would agree that NOTHING is as it appears to be on the surface. It sucks that it is that way, but all the big decisions have a lot of undisclosed factors that are the real drivers for the move. we have a major disconnect on how we interpret things like Drake's interview seems to be. (Sorry, I have time to drop pearls of wisdom but not to do deep research into this. I have different hobbies. I'll gladly cop to being overly dismissive if anything actually ever happens). What you see as a glimpse into a well-planned, uh, not conspiracy, but some kind of complex and subtle plan, which we don't know because it's kept well hidden, I see as more likely a pareidoliac's (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pareidoliac) view of a complex, chaotic system. Damn, that cloud looks like a man's face, so it's god looking down at us.

Your point of view isn't new to me, and you're not the first person absorbed in your hobby I've talked with. Just because there's a dense web of information that mutually reinforces itself, doesn't mean it's a dense web of facts. To bring up symmetry again, I know people who dismiss climate change issues without bothering to understand the research that supports global warming use very similar arguments to what I just posed. Hell if I know how to convince anyone that those people are crazy and I'm right, but there it is.

occihoff

08-22-2019, 02:46 PM

Oh, come on, Ken! I am not mocking you, I believe I am only accurately restating what your post actually said, and telling you very factually how I react to it. Where do you think I went wrong? Instead of feeling insulted, why don't you just respond very clearly to the questions I raised?

Occihoff,
And please do not mock me for a reversal of my world, paranoia, divine Trump etc.
I thought you to be someone who valued the idea of a rational conversation so a bit surprised by your post here.

You may want to get votes w/in this community, but I am trying to give you solid and rational perspectives on what and why I think the way that I do. I do this not to think that I can change Wacco from being a Trump-Hating progressive group, but do think that we can have some type of reasonable discussion and thought that you were someone where that discussion could take place. In our own frames of mind, we are all rational people, REGARDLESS on what might appear on the outside.

It is our ability to walk in anothers shoes that allows a reasonable discussion to take place where we can first establish the facts, and then discuss our interpretation of those facts.
Thanks,
Ken.

kburgess

08-22-2019, 05:22 PM

Hi Occihoff,
I have responded to many of your requests individually, and over my many posts included a lot of other info as well.

I really grow tired of this continual debate and seeming endless requests to prove myself and state my opinion and facts, and do not hear anything of any type of equal level in return.

Got to run,
Please be well,
Ken.

Oh, come on, Ken! I am not mocking you, I believe I am only accurately restating what your post actually said, and telling you very factually how I react to it. Where do you think I went wrong? Instead of feeling insulted, why don't you just respond very clearly to the questions I raised?

cyberanvil

08-23-2019, 08:27 AM

As for opening my home to strangers I do not know, I point you to the Statue of Liberty that greets immigrants as they sail to our shores. Is that all just empty nonsense now?

My maternal grandparents saw that statue as they sailed in from their Jewish stedel in Russia around the beginning of the 20th century. They were fleeing poverty and antisemitic persecution. Starting from scratch, they gradually built a scrap metal business, and were able to send their three sons to college (although their three daughters had to work their way to college).

This is the America I love and believe in. I don't want the upraised hand of the Statue of Liberty bearing the torch of Freedom to be cut off and replaced by a hand raising its middle finger!

Do you differentiate between legal immigration and illegal "gate crashers"? Do you champion Open Borders?

podfish

08-23-2019, 08:31 AM

Do you differentiate between legal immigration and illegal "gate crashers"? Do you champion Open Borders?and is it that binary? if you haven't got the right paperwork, no matter your history and circumstances, you're deported as quickly as possible (and no cheating by fudging about what 'as possible' means)? if not that, it's Open Borders?

occihoff

08-23-2019, 12:22 PM

What is "legal" immigration depends on the attitude of whatever lawmakers happen to be in the majority at any particular time. As a person who is generally motivated by kindness, I'm inclined to be more liberal about immigration than those people who are more hard-hearted or uptight about new would-be immigrants.

I am also concerned about the things our government does to make things harder for poor people in other countries, such as exploiting cheap labor and supporting oppressive dictators. Then when people are driven by desperation to come to our country in hope of a better life, our current administration does everything it can to screw them yet again.

Do you differentiate between legal immigration and illegal "gate crashers"? Do you champion Open Borders?

occihoff

08-23-2019, 12:50 PM

Ken, instead of retreating into hurt feelings and lamenting that my responses are not "of equal level" to yours, why don't you do me the favor of just answering one of my oft-repeated questions right now:

How do you feel about the current administration's policy of separating children from their parents at the border, sometimes to the point of losing track of who belongs to who, and keeping even very young children in various sorts of foster conditions--conditions that congress members who have actually visited the border ;often find shockingly squalid?

I really grow tired of this continual debate and seeming endless requests to prove myself and state my opinion and facts, and do not hear anything of any type of equal level in return.

Mayacaman

08-23-2019, 02:17 PM

I opted to leave this thread last weekend, simply because I had to get out of the house. I went to the Cotati Accordion Festival - which was a whole lot more fun. Since then, I've been too busy to comment - though I've read much of what has been posted.

Once more, back into the breach. Here is a fine example of what is wrong in America today - it's about the cognitive dissonance in the narratives:

https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Cascade wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/cielo/buttons/viewpost-right.png (https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?p=228559#post228559)
...Do you remember James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Reagan? As I recall, he said something to the effect that God gave us this world to use fully, and so we should use it up before the end times. I tend to think that the major Trump supporters are like that, and don't care about what they leave for the next generations.

To which cyberanvil replied:
Misattributed

God (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/God) gave us these things to use. After the last tree (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tree) is felled, Christ (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christ) will come back.

Attributed in Setting the Captives Free (1990) by Austin Miles, and widely repeated after appearing in "The Godly Must Be Crazy", by Glenn Scherer in Grist magazine (28 October 2004) (https://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/index.html). Grist afterwards retracted and apologized for Scherer's comment, noting that the quotation appears nowhere in Watt's Congressional testimony or any other source it could find. Watt has responded:<dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><dd style="margin-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-right: 0px;">I never said it. Never believed it. Never even thought it. I know no Christian who believes or preaches such error. The Bible commands conservation — that we as Christians be careful stewards of the land and resources entrusted to us by the Creator.</dd></dl>

That's just one example of how left-cover spin-doctors spread disinformation among leftists about what the so-called "right" is about.

But this is a bi-partisan disease, here in Amerika. The "Right" has it's own litany of false beliefs about the term "Socialism" - and the history thereof. And what they don't know is actually a very important part of the puzzle of how we got to this point.

For, Once upon a Time, as the fairy tale begins, there were "Republicans" who were able to square the term "Socialism" with the language in the speech Abraham Lincoln gave after the battle of Gettysburg - you know, the one in which he spoke of "Government of, for, and by the People..."

Problem is, these left wing Republicans - who were known variously, as "sons of the wild jack-ass" or "Western Progressives" - were basically excommunicated out of the Republican Party in 1917 during World War One, on account of the fact that they had opposed America going into the war. This is a very important bit of American History that, by the powers-that-be has been conveniently buried, full fathom five. I wrote about it here (https://web.archive.org/web/20160324152213/http://www.paleoprogressives.org/lindbergh-the-elder.html). it - And here (https://web.archive.org/web/20160324155304/http://www.paleoprogressives.org/populist-socialism.html).

The Western Progressives were prairie populists, and thought of themselves as Republicans from the old Lincoln (http://saltofamerica.com/contents/displayArticle.aspx?13_366)mold. After being bell, booked & candled by the Republican party top brass, in 1917, two of the most prominent members of this set, Senator Robert LaFollette, Sr. (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Robert+LaFollette%2C+Sr.&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web), of Wisconsin, and Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Charles+A.+Lindbergh%2C+Sr.&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web)., of Minnesota, went off and founded alternative, third parties; the Progressive Party of Wisconsin (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Progressive+Party+of+Wisconsin+(1924)%2C+%22Robert+LaFollette%2C+Sr.%22+%2C&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web) (1918-1924) and the Farmer-Labor Party (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Farmer-Labor+Party&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web) of Minnesota (1918-1943). These were, in all regards, except the name, Socialist formations.

It is a fact that the old Republican Party, prior to 1917, had a wing which had definite "socialist tendencies."
Donald Trump, when he was running, appealed in his speeches, to the denizens of the Mid-West, in whom this old tendency lies dormant, and sleeping, in what we can properly call the collective unconscious. Steve Bannon, who is a very clever cookie - no matter what else one may say about him - cleverly crafted Trump's message to appeal to these people: the forgotten folks of the prairie.

In this, our earnest partisan Ken Burgess, we have a fine specimen of this tendency who, nevertheless has been conditioned, through programming, to view "Socialism" as a definitely negative quantity. I'll grant you, Marxist-Leninism, Stalinism, & Maoism turned up heaps of corpses. But I seriously doubt, had Robert LaFollette, Sr. won the presidential election in 1924 - and he gleaned five million votes - that the outcome would have been anything like the "liquidation of the Kulaks (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=liquidation+of+the+Kulaks&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&iax=images&ia=images)."

-And that's for the simple reason that the "socialism" of the old-school, left-wing Republicans was benign, and genuinely "progressive."

cyberanvil

08-24-2019, 05:37 PM

and is it that binary? if you haven't got the right paperwork, no matter your history and circumstances, you're deported as quickly as possible (and no cheating by fudging about what 'as possible' means)? if not that, it's Open Borders?

You got it.

Mayacaman

08-25-2019, 09:29 AM

Catching Up :

kburgess wrote:

I have heard interviews from folks who were working on this Plan that originally started around the 70's or around the Reagan era. This Plan was being developed by the patriotic military insiders, probably Navy and Marines as a means to completely unravel all of the deep state/globalist infrastructure that had been and was slowly taking over and destroying this country from the inside out in the areas of Banking, Media, Intelligence, Politics, Lobbies, Securities, and of course Govt/Politics.

Being developed through the military minds, it was a full blown system of intelligence, counter-intelligence, and contingency planning to get every last remnant of that system out of the USA.. ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qIXXafxCQhttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/images/youtube.png (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qIXXafxCQ)

That is a pure thumbnail summary of the Q Cult position, Ken. Thank you for the exposition. I think you will agree that it takes a certain amount of "faith" to believe it, all nine yards...

One thing I have learned from conversations with my old friend who moved to Oklahoma twenty-one years ago, and has since become, first an Okie and then a Trumpie, is that the denizens of the red states are "hip" in their own, peculiar way - a "Way" that runs counter to what passes for "hipness" in our own West County.

For instance, they of the Red states, many of them, voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. They were Dixiecrats, and had had enough of Reagan & Daddy Bush. Twelve years, after all, was a long time. But after just three years of Billy Clinton they had seen enough, and were thoroughly disgusted with his performance: of how he & Janet Reno played Ruby Ridge, Waco (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Clinton%2C+Janet+Reno+comment+on+Waco%2C+video&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=videos), & the Oklahoma City (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Clinton%2C+Janet+Reno+comment+on+Waco%2C+video&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=videos) bombing.

Furthermore, word had circulated among 'em of how Clinton had been involved with Bush in the nefarious doings around Mena, Arkansas (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22Clinton%22%2C+%22Bush%22%2C+Mena%2C+Arkansas%22%2C&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web). -And then there was the phenomena of what has been termed the "Clinton body count (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22Clinton+body+count%22&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web)." Folks in the states adjacent to Arkansas are perhaps a little more "hip" on that subject, than the folks in California who reflexively vote Blue.

So you've got a bunch of disaffected former Democrats, who were basically alienated from the political process. Also, they had "Christian" tendencies, without being (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=trump+supporters+christian%2C+but+not+especially+churgh-goers&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web) devout church-goers. This also has been noted by the social scientists. Trump appealed to these people. All, or most of the men in the Red states have served in the military. Most are veterans. Therefor they know how to use guns, and own them, too.

So there you have it - the perfect clientele for a designer Cult (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%22Q%22%2C%22QAnon%22&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss) - one which can "believe" the litany you have presented here, Ken. Those of us who are wary of the "Military-Industrial Complex (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Military-Industrial+complex&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web)" however, might find it difficult to obtain "faith" in this new form of "Millennialism (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22Q%22%2C++%22Trump%22+%2C+%22Millennium%22&t=osx&atb=v182-3__&ia=web)" - centering around the saving grace of the sitting POTUS.

occihoff

08-26-2019, 03:25 PM

Ken, you have complained about my actually quoting you in a way that makes you feel disrespected, yet you seem to have no problem dissing "the Dems"--which of course includes me although I'm really more of a "Green"--as having "no moral compass at all." What's up with that? Am I and my friends really that bad?

And you, like Ray, simply refuse to answer my very basic, clearly stated questions in regard to your feelings about some of the current Republican policies that seem so flagrantly cruel to us liberals. Why? Our discourse could be so much more clarifying if we posed specific policy questions to each other. I wish you would ask me more specific questions like that too.

At least they tout themselves as something, the Dems take no moral compass at all other than filling the air with a lot of talk about themselves. Look at the evidence of the cities and States that they run.

There are a lot of R's that actually do embrace it, but just not so much in the news.
Ken.

cyberanvil

08-26-2019, 07:09 PM

And of course there is corruption and people with some selfish motives in politics. Of course economics aren't what Adam Smith is presumed to have said; although he was actually quite the realist himself. I've said, and I suspect others have, that the solution, such as it is, is to push for more transparency, to vote for people with ethics, and to oppose inhumane and destructive policies along with those who support them. That seems like quite a specific set of 'solutions' to me.

You start out the Realist and end up as the Idealist. You are fated to never reach your Nirvana.

cyberanvil

08-26-2019, 07:18 PM

I'm a bit shocked by your equation of democracy with mob rule! And why should a voter in one part of the country have more power than voters in another part? And why should rural interests be any more or less important than urban interests? We all need food, and we all need industry. Rural voters tend to be more conservative than urban voters, and that would boost Republican power, but is that a valid reason for giving their votes more power than mine?

The tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness of majority rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_rule) in which the majority of an electorate can and does place its own interests above, and at the expense of those in the minority. This results in oppression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression) of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrant) or despot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Despotism), argued John Stuart Mill (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill) in his 1859 book On Liberty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty).

occihoff

08-28-2019, 05:28 PM

podfish

08-28-2019, 05:50 PM

cyberanvil

08-29-2019, 01:13 PM

True. But what is your solution? Tyranny of the minority? Which is what we already have now to some extent, isn't it, given the Electoral College system, which gives more vote power to conservative voters in Montana than liberal voters get here in California?

The Founding Fathers knew best.
"Representative democracy (also indirect democracy, representative government or psephocracy) is a type of democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_democracy) founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy). Nearly all modern Western-style democracies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy) are types of representative democracies; for example, the United Kingdom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) is a unitary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state) parliamentary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system) constitutional monarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy), France (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France) is a unitary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state) semi-presidential (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-presidential_system) republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic), and the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) is a federal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation) presidential republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_system)".

Barry

08-30-2019, 12:35 PM

The Founding Fathers knew best.
"Representative democracy (also indirect democracy, representative government or psephocracy) is a type of democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_democracy) founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people,...

Our democracy has gotten less democratic as time goes on. At the time of the first census in 1790, soon after the constitution was adopted, the ratio of the populations of the most populous state to the least populous state was about 12 to 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census), when each state was represented equally in the senate.

Now that ratio is 68 to 1! (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/us-states-by-population.html)

occihoff

08-30-2019, 04:26 PM

Wow--"psephocracy"! Never heard that word before. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. I appreciate your civics lesson, Cyberanvil, but it doesn't really respond to my question in regard to your complaint about the tyranny of the majority, which is: what alternative to majority rule would you prefer?

The Founding Fathers knew best.
"Representative democracy (also indirect democracy, representative government or psephocracy) is a type of democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_democracy) founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy). Nearly all modern Western-style democracies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy) are types of representative democracies; for example, the United Kingdom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) is a unitary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state) parliamentary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system) constitutional monarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy), France (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France) is a unitary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state) semi-presidential (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-presidential_system) republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic), and the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) is a federal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation) presidential republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_system)".

cyberanvil

08-30-2019, 07:20 PM

eddierosenthal

08-31-2019, 04:48 PM

seems to me we do not have a tyranny of the majority, but a tyranny of a minority. Is this not what you are seeing?
The following is representative of these opinions, from the article in the NYT by Michelle Goldberg (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/trump-electoral-college-minority.html).

"Since Donald Trump’s cataclysmic election, the unthinkable has become ordinary. We’ve grown used to naked profiteering (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dc-hotel-turns-2-million-profit-in-four-months/2017/08/10/23bd97f0-7e02-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?utm_term=.ec5da9683ecf) off the presidency, an administration that calls for the firing (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/13/white-house-espns-jemele-hill-should-be-fired-for-calling-trump-a-white-supremacist/?utm_term=.5d88894e9fcb) of private citizens for political dissent and nuclear diplomacy conducted via Twitter taunts (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/911789314169823232). Here, in my debut as a New York Times columnist (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/becoming-a-columnist-in-the-age-or-trump.html?module=inline), I want to discuss a structural problem that both underlies and transcends our current political nightmare: We have entered a period of minority rule.

I don’t just mean the fact that Trump became president despite his decisive loss in the popular vote, though that shouldn’t be forgotten. Worse, the majority of voters who disapprove of Trump have little power to force Congress to curb him.

A combination of gerrymandering and the tight clustering of Democrats in urban areas means that even if Democrats get significantly more overall votes than Republicans in the midterms — which polls show is probable — they may not take back the House of Representatives. (According to a Brookings Institution analysis (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/11/22/gop-seats-bonus-in-congress/), in 2016, Republicans won 55.2 percent of seats with just under 50 percent of votes cast for Congress.)
And because of the quirks (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-congressional-map-is-historically-biased-toward-the-gop/) of the 2018 Senate map, Democrats are extremely unlikely to reclaim that chamber, even if most voters would prefer Democratic control. Some analysts have even suggested (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/03/the-senate-map-just-cant-get-much-better-for-republicans-in-2018/?utm_term=.d0d30df3e247) that Republicans could emerge from 2018 with a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority."

Wow--"psephocracy"! Never heard that word before. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. I appreciate your civics lesson, Cyberanvil, but it doesn't really respond to my question in regard to your complaint about the tyranny of the majority, which is: what alternative to majority rule would you prefer?

cyberanvil

09-01-2019, 01:51 PM

Mayacaman

09-01-2019, 02:50 PM

cyberanvil quoted:

Michelle: Yeah, I think we’re learning that the Constitution may, in fact, be a suicide pact. It’s a source of constant astonishment to me that the country has handed over the means to destroy civilization on this planet to an unhinged lunatic who lost the popular vote and was installed with the aid of a hostile foreign power. It’s such an epic institutional failure that it calls everything we thought we knew about this country’s stability into question.

cyberanvil wrote:

Reading just this one statement, one wonders if the Alt-Left is cheering or sending flowers. Your agenda is obviously pandering to the Alt-Left. Your ongoing litany of TDS will do well at the Times.
Actually, the Constitution is one of the last bastions of protection we have against pure, undistilled fascism. Never mind that the document has been essentially neutered and is functionally caput. As long as it is still, in theory, the "law of the land" the tyrants - and they come in all shades along the "left/right" wavelength - can not practice the sorts of vicious deeds that the Nazis did as a matter of policy.

What many "progressives" do not know - or else are in denial about - is that the "mother ship" of the "New Left," the I.P.S., - the Institute for Policy Studies, {which was established with a grant of ten million dollars from the Chase-Manhattan Bank in 1962} - has been quietly working towards the dismantling of the Constitution ever since 1962.

It seems that the big Banks & the Owning Class have been weary for some time about the way the Constitution ties their hands. -And so, they subsidized a faction of the "Left" to work towards the dissolution of the old System. So now we have arrived at the moment of the denouement. The eulogy for the Constitution, written - as is fitting - by a correspondent for the New York Times.

-& the pretext for discarding the Constitution can be blamed
on the emergence of Trump! What a perfect foil that man is !-

cyberanvil

09-02-2019, 02:34 PM

Actually, the Constitution is one of the last bastions of protection we have against pure, undistilled fascism. ...
The Biggest danger to the Constitution are activist judges and their minions who believe the the Constitution is a living document.

pbrinton

09-03-2019, 05:35 PM

So what you seem to be saying is that mankind reached peak wisdom in the mid eighteenth century, and that the Founding Fathers were able to anticipate all exigencies that might arise after their work was finished. Odd that they included ways to amend the Constitution, and in many of their writings specified that it was essential that it be adapted to the ongoing needs of the people. They also provided for a judiciary charged with interpreting the document, for the obvious reason that words change their meaning over time, the needs of the people change over time, and new and unanticipated conditions arise over time.

Patrick Brinton

The Biggest danger to the Constitution are activist judges and their minions who believe the the Constitution is a living document.

occihoff

09-03-2019, 06:20 PM

Scary, yes, but don't forget how we came through the Civil War. That was really scary!

cyberanvil quoted:

cyberanvil wrote:

Actually, the Constitution is one of the last bastions of protection we have against pure, undistilled fascism. Never mind that the document has been essentially neutered and is functionally caput. As long as it is still, in theory, the "law of the land" the tyrants - and they come in all shades along the "left/right" wavelength - can not practice the sorts of vicious deeds that the Nazis did as a matter of policy.

What many "progressives" do not know - or else are in denial about - is that the "mother ship" of the "New Left," the I.P.S., - the Institute for Policy Studies, {which was established with a grant of ten million dollars from the Chase-Manhattan Bank in 1962} - has been quietly working towards the dismantling of the Constitution ever since 1962.

It seems that the big Banks & the Owning Class have been weary for some time about the way the Constitution ties their hands. -And so, they subsidized a faction of the "Left" to work towards the dissolution of the old System. So now we have arrived at the moment of the denouement. The eulogy for the Constitution, written - as is fitting - by a correspondent for the New York Times.

-& the pretext for discarding the Constitution can be blamed
on the emergence of Trump! What a perfect foil that man is !-

eddierosenthal

09-03-2019, 06:26 PM

occihoff

09-03-2019, 06:33 PM

Interesting to hear your opinion, cyberanvil. So do you think things like the women's vote and black slaves being 3/5 of the population should not have been tampered with?

The Biggest danger to the Constitution are activist judges and their minions who believe the the Constitution is a living document.

occihoff

09-03-2019, 06:37 PM

Dear me, Mayacaman, you are pessimistic!

cyberanvil quoted:

cyberanvil wrote:

Actually, the Constitution is one of the last bastions of protection we have against pure, undistilled fascism. Never mind that the document has been essentially neutered and is functionally caput. As long as it is still, in theory, the "law of the land" the tyrants - and they come in all shades along the "left/right" wavelength - can not practice the sorts of vicious deeds that the Nazis did as a matter of policy.

What many "progressives" do not know - or else are in denial about - is that the "mother ship" of the "New Left," the I.P.S., - the Institute for Policy Studies, {which was established with a grant of ten million dollars from the Chase-Manhattan Bank in 1962} - has been quietly working towards the dismantling of the Constitution ever since 1962.

It seems that the big Banks & the Owning Class have been weary for some time about the way the Constitution ties their hands. -And so, they subsidized a faction of the "Left" to work towards the dissolution of the old System. So now we have arrived at the moment of the denouement. The eulogy for the Constitution, written - as is fitting - by a correspondent for the New York Times.

-& the pretext for discarding the Constitution can be blamed
on the emergence of Trump! What a perfect foil that man is !-

podfish

09-03-2019, 06:37 PM

Well yes you could argue that man (person)kind had more wisdom then. For one they never experienced a culture that seems by way of capitalism or other means seems to be declining in intelligence, but only is addicted to things other than wisdom. We are not smart enough to know how that happened. As to the ongoing needs of the people is one of them an military assault rifle? There is another good example of declining morality as well as in increase in stupidity. Oh and the Judiciary, you can buy that, with enough senators in the pocket of the current craze, money. Or let's just chalk it up to greed shall we?you can argue anything. You'd likely be wrong if you took your position, though. It takes a pretty starry-eyed view of the past to make that case. Education, both formal and informal, was way limited. Sure, individuals could be 'wise' in terms of personal relationships, interactions with nature, etc, though if you look at how they typically behaved you'd probably not draw those conclusions. There was more interpersonal violence then, low respect for universal rights, lots of respect for things like the church's authority, incredibly heavy drinking by modern standards, etc.... And as for dishonest politicians and judges, I think they predate the enlightenment's end by quite a lot.

occihoff

09-03-2019, 06:41 PM

However, kings ruled the world and there was no democracy at all.

Well yes you could argue that man (person)kind had more wisdom then. For one they never experienced a culture that seems by way of capitalism or other means seems to be declining in intelligence, but only is addicted to things other than wisdom. We are not smart enough to know how that happened. As to the ongoing needs of the people is one of them an military assault rifle? There is another good example of declining morality as well as in increase in stupidity. Oh and the Judiciary, you can buy that, with enough senators in the pocket of the current craze, money. Or let's just chalk it up to greed shall we?

eddierosenthal

09-03-2019, 07:56 PM

well now you make me stand where i said one could. In that case i would like to point out how starry eyed i am. When reading once long ago, ( but not in the 1800's), one could learn, as John Adams did, Greek, and Latin and math as it was. He wasn't knowledgeable how to put together a computer, which is technique and not wisdom. They wrote the damn thing remember, so there is no way there is more wisdom now then back then.

We have technique, we have craft, we have little in the way of ideals, unless you start counting people like Hitler. (Oh we had the occasional Ghandi i suppose.). I must point out that last was ironical, in no way do I subscribe to those "ideals", for Hitler. So 1800's education yes was there, but that probably count towards wisdom, but further along the craft thread. Certainly in Europe there was some, but America is pretty young.

The word "wise" following likewise: and you have Emerson and Thoreau. They could still enjoy it before it becomes a dung heap among fracking enterprises. I guess one could, perhaps those on the other side of the aisle, call that progress and maybe the respect for the church as well, since they throw anything at you to win an argument. Inter personal violence back then meant only the possible death or injury in a dual, nowadays before yesterday you could purchase a gun at any Walmart and go out and kill dozens. And back there they had honor and all. Here for a crime committed at the highest levels, even against the constitution, there is no shame or justice.

I think i will pass on the use of the church for taking any side on any moral argument. If the church cared at all about real justice instead of their tax breaks, they would speak out more against their own moral failures, or more on the side of just plain ol' justice along the border. Today if you get drunk you were more likely , before it became an issue for moral justice, to kill many along the road or yourself on the way home. Then you might have to sleep it off at the stable.

Oh and as for Politicians, who have all the honesty of a Glenn Beck educated man, that is to say neither knowledgeable nor humble, the way they make them now, like Moscow Mitch, or even gasp the current president ( not mine in case you have not guessed), they can do more damage in simple utterances than all the dishonest priests and politicians thru the ages.

you can argue anything....

podfish

09-03-2019, 08:07 PM

well now you make me stand where i said one could. In that case i would like to point out how starry eyed i am. note the phrasing, it's deliberate: "You'd likely be wrong if you took your position, though. It takes a pretty starry-eyed view of the past to make that case. " I acknowledge your qualification/disclaimer.
.. one could learn, as John Adams did, .. and you have Emerson and Thoreau.... Inter personal violence back then meant only the possible death or injury in a dual,....of course there were men of distinction, I find it hard to imagine they weren't equivalent to the best we have today. But no, 'interpersonal violence' included things like lynching, domestic abuse, witch burning (at times) and lots of violent crime. There's a reason that life expectancy was short and it wasn't all lack of measles vaccinations.

I tend to react to any polyanna-ish views of the past, when life was brutal, ugly and short for most. Things can be quite horrible today, but despite MAGA it's really never been better, awful as it is to think. There's no time that on the balance I'd return to; I'd rather focus on fixing what we have now without somehow thinking we've somehow drifted from our normal, virtuous and wholesome state in the past.

wisewomn

09-03-2019, 08:14 PM

Years ago, I read that the Founding Fathers very well were wiser than we are today. They did not have TV, radio, cell phones, etc. Their evening entertainment most likely consisted of sitting quietly and staring into a fire, which has been likened to meditation in its effect on the brain. So there's a good chance they were much wiser than we are today.

Eddie, you left out MLK Jr. in your list of idealists. Just sayin'.

well now you make me stand where i said one could. In that case i would like to point out how starry eyed i am. ...

eddierosenthal

09-04-2019, 03:27 PM

We don't have a current leader capable of fixing what we have now. Is this a statement that you wish to take an opposing view? And we have to stay in the present to fix things, there is no time machine other than a book.
What are your suggestions for improvement, youth wants to know. I am trying to understand what is meant by "despite MAGA". And although we have had NO wholesome past ( suggestion for those who have not read, try Zinn on american history), NO virtuous government ( including Camelot), and if we ever entertained what was normal it would have to predate 2016.

I have made my position on wisdom perfectly clear: That is to say there is less of it now in government. Individuals need not apply to this principal. Individuals have wisdom, when there is capacity for it obviously. This would likely mean they are not involved in identity of the self thru some sort of authority, which to my mind is a self defeating prophecy.

Name any government official and i will check their wisdom credentials. After i check where they get their money from, who their authority in the sky is, and if they are fit. It seems to me i had something to say about violence, but it's missing from this thread. The violence today is magnified by armament which should belong in military armories, not in people homes. I think that is an obvious rendering of the situation. Obvious to me at any rate. To really compare violence now and when they did witch burning is an apples and oranges thing really... There has always been violence, everywhere and throughout time. Such is the wisdom of the normal human, so normal is not something we want in any case. What we want is peace in the world, in the home, and in our neighborhoods. This cannot come about with identity politics, and although this discussion could take place on another plane, as in the Self cannot be at peace until it undoes all the conditioning taking place in our minds from culture of identity.

note the phrasing, it's deliberate: "You'd likely be wrong if you took your position, though. It takes a pretty starry-eyed view of the past to make that case. " I acknowledge your qualification/disclaimer.of course there were men of distinction, I find it hard to imagine they weren't equivalent to the best we have today. But no, 'interpersonal violence' included things like lynching, domestic abuse, witch burning (at times) and lots of violent crime. There's a reason that life expectancy was short and it wasn't all lack of measles vaccinations.

I tend to react to any polyanna-ish views of the past, when life was brutal, ugly and short for most. Things can be quite horrible today, but despite MAGA it's really never been better, awful as it is to think. There's no time that on the balance I'd return to; I'd rather focus on fixing what we have now without somehow thinking we've somehow drifted from our normal, virtuous and wholesome state in the past.

occihoff

09-05-2019, 04:25 PM

Excuse me, I thought democrats already re-took the House of Representatives by a very sizable majority! Am I missing something? This was a great shock to the Trumpsters! It has put a huge legislative obstacle in their way, and does not seem to bode so well for their chances of maintaining the Senate in 2020. Meanwhile, gerrymandering is being challenged in the courts. Didn't a significant blow to gerrymandering just occur in North Carolina?

Trump's tax records are being relentlessly pushed for by the House, and how much longer can his absurd excuse about "auditing" hold up in court? What is he so desperate to hide? His vow to bring back manufacturing industry to the US seems to be going nowhere. Likewise for agricultural exports, and farmers are hurting and disappointed.

The Republican Party has thrown all its hopes and backing to this tweet-tweeting empty suit, Donald Trump. It's been like a great big political sugar high for them! But how long can this last? In the end even ordinary Republican-leaning voters need some real economic and political nutrition.

C'mon, liberals, buck up! There's many months ahead and it's way to early to throw in the towel!

seems to me we do not have a tyranny of the majority, but a tyranny of a minority. Is this not what you are seeing?
The following is representative of these opinions, from the article in the NYT by Michelle Goldberg (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/trump-electoral-college-minority.html).

"Since Donald Trump’s cataclysmic election, the unthinkable has become ordinary. We’ve grown used to naked profiteering (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dc-hotel-turns-2-million-profit-in-four-months/2017/08/10/23bd97f0-7e02-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?utm_term=.ec5da9683ecf) off the presidency, an administration that calls for the firing (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/13/white-house-espns-jemele-hill-should-be-fired-for-calling-trump-a-white-supremacist/?utm_term=.5d88894e9fcb) of private citizens for political dissent and nuclear diplomacy conducted via Twitter taunts (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/911789314169823232). Here, in my debut as a New York Times columnist (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/becoming-a-columnist-in-the-age-or-trump.html?module=inline), I want to discuss a structural problem that both underlies and transcends our current political nightmare: We have entered a period of minority rule.

I don’t just mean the fact that Trump became president despite his decisive loss in the popular vote, though that shouldn’t be forgotten. Worse, the majority of voters who disapprove of Trump have little power to force Congress to curb him.

A combination of gerrymandering and the tight clustering of Democrats in urban areas means that even if Democrats get significantly more overall votes than Republicans in the midterms — which polls show is probable — they may not take back the House of Representatives. (According to a Brookings Institution analysis (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/11/22/gop-seats-bonus-in-congress/), in 2016, Republicans won 55.2 percent of seats with just under 50 percent of votes cast for Congress.)
And because of the quirks (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-congressional-map-is-historically-biased-toward-the-gop/) of the 2018 Senate map, Democrats are extremely unlikely to reclaim that chamber, even if most voters would prefer Democratic control. Some analysts have even suggested (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/03/the-senate-map-just-cant-get-much-better-for-republicans-in-2018/?utm_term=.d0d30df3e247) that Republicans could emerge from 2018 with a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority."

occihoff

09-05-2019, 04:44 PM

Well said, podfish! And I certainly agree that there's no time in the past that I'd prefer to return to. But due to the fact that homo sapiens seems to be hell-bent on committing ecological suicide, as I've said in a previous post here I'm perversely relieved that I'm not gonna be around to see the worst of it, having just turned 80.

note the phrasing, it's deliberate: "You'd likely be wrong if you took your position, though. It takes a pretty starry-eyed view of the past to make that case. " I acknowledge your qualification/disclaimer.of course there were men of distinction, I find it hard to imagine they weren't equivalent to the best we have today. But no, 'interpersonal violence' included things like lynching, domestic abuse, witch burning (at times) and lots of violent crime. There's a reason that life expectancy was short and it wasn't all lack of measles vaccinations.

I tend to react to any polyanna-ish views of the past, when life was brutal, ugly and short for most. Things can be quite horrible today, but despite MAGA it's really never been better, awful as it is to think. There's no time that on the balance I'd return to; I'd rather focus on fixing what we have now without somehow thinking we've somehow drifted from our normal, virtuous and wholesome state in the past.

eddierosenthal

09-05-2019, 06:01 PM

By tyranny of the minority meant a 3 million vote majority should have led the dems to victory. Certainly we have the majority in the house, but still nothing can be done until the senate takes up those bills passed in the house, which will never happen until there is a majority of dems in the senate- 2020. The latest ruling of the supreme court was that "In the end, the Supreme Court decided, 5-4, that the question of partisan gerrymandering was a political one that must be resolved by the elected branches of government, and not a legal question that the federal courts should decide. " from the article (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/what-is-gerrymandering.html)in the nyt

Excuse me, I thought democrats already re-took the House of Representatives by a very sizable majority! Am I missing something? This was a great shock to the Trumpsters! It has put a huge legislative obstacle in their way, and does not seem to bode so well for their chances of maintaining the Senate in 2020. Meanwhile, gerrymandering is being challenged in the courts. Didn't a significant blow to gerrymandering just occur in North Carolina?

Trump's tax records are being relentlessly pushed for by the House, and how much longer can his absurd excuse about "auditing" hold up in court? What is he so desperate to hide? His vow to bring back manufacturing industry to the US seems to be going nowhere. Likewise for agricultural exports, and farmers are hurting and disappointed.

The Republican Party has thrown all its hopes and backing to this tweet-tweeting empty suit, Donald Trump. It's been like a great big political sugar high for them! But how long can this last? In the end even ordinary Republican-leaning voters need some real economic and political nutrition.

C'mon, liberals, buck up! There's many months ahead and it's way to early to throw in the towel!

cyberanvil

09-05-2019, 10:11 PM

eddierosenthal

09-06-2019, 06:47 AM

Those who object to the electoral college do so on several grounds, and yes one of them is electing someone who has not been given the majority of votes. and it is the electoral college itself that depresses voting, not the other way around. since each state is only entitled to the same number of electoral votes regardless of voter turnout, there is no incentive for it. The South is discouraged in their voter turnout. They have allowed a minority of citizens to decide. And there is over representation in rural areas as well.

in 1988 for example, the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least populous states ( alaska, delaware, d.c., North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming) had the same voting strength ( 21 electoral votes) as the 9,614,000) voting strength of Florida. Each Floridian potential vote then, had about one third the weight of the other states listed. And of course there is a possible turnaround of the Electors themselves.

There is the fact they may not vote the way they are representing to vote. The whole idea of a pure democracy would be one person one vote. On idealistic grounds it should be done away with, but who here is an idealist? Well if Bush hadn't won the presidency and Trump hadn't won the presidency, do you think we would be living in a post iraq era, a post moral era? I for one do not think so, we would have avoided the Iraq war, and we wouldn't be housing children in cages. Now you might say how do you know that? and i answer, how do you know how peoples votes would change under a different voting system?

occihoff

09-06-2019, 02:27 PM

sealwatcher

09-06-2019, 03:04 PM

Nor can I. Can you give a different explanation, cyberanvil - kinda scary name, btw - helping make clear your statement that Hilary would not now be Prez. People were fired up about the election - who, for instance, would have changed their votes if the popular vote rather than the electoral college were the decider? Thank you.

Sorry to be dense, cyberanvil, but ..

podfish

09-06-2019, 03:10 PM

Sorry to be dense, cyberanvil, but after reading through your entire post I still can't comprehend the logic in your assertion that it is "blatantly false" that if the 2016 election had been decided by popular vote, Hilary Clinton would now be president. She got more votes than Trump by a pretty wide margin--so why would she not be president?Oh, I think his argument is clear and makes sense. Right now, any California Republican with a hangover on election day might as well stay in bed; no need to drag his ass out for a pointless vote. But if there was no electoral college, all the Fresno voters might counterbalance the millions of illegals Trump says voted here.
Plus, the campaigns would be run differently -- Hillary may have actually bothered to go to Wisconsin, for example. So the whole idea is that you have way too many variables to extrapolate meaningful results from the specified situation.

It's not like the same group of voters, with the same exposure to campaigns, can be scored according to different rules.

That said, Trump would have been crushed without it.

cyberanvil

09-06-2019, 03:37 PM

...Well if Bush hadn't won the presidency and Trump hadn't won the presidency, do you think we would be living in a post iraq era, a post moral era? I for one do not think so, we would have avoided the Iraq war, and we wouldn't be housing children in cages. Now you might say how do you know that? and i answer, how do you know how peoples votes would change under a different voting system?

So maybe it's a guessing game, but one thing is certain Dems are crying because Hillary lost.
Before the election, many conventional experts scoffed at Trump’s decision to campaign so heavily in the rust belt. Couldn’t this amateur, this dolt, see that he had no chance in those states? But Trump had superior intel (Cambridge Analytica) and superior strategic vision. He had been pondering, developing, and honing his working-class, protectionist, America-first electoral strategy for over thirty years. Trump did not win because Hillary was “a bad candidate,” as so many people now like to intone. Her “badness” corresponds with the conventional wisdom of all the accredited cognoscenti before the election, who all confidently expected her to win. Trump won because he was an extraordinarily capable candidate. He out-generaled the highly competent yet conventionally-minded staff of Hillary Clinton. Trump beat Clinton by better science and deeper thought.

podfish

09-06-2019, 03:48 PM

.. But Trump had superior intel (Cambridge Analytica) and superior strategic vision. He had been pondering, developing, and honing his working-class, protectionist, America-first electoral strategy for over thirty years. ....Trump won because he was an extraordinarily capable candidate. He out-generaled the highly competent yet conventionally-minded staff of Hillary Clinton. Trump beat Clinton by better science and deeper thought.nah, don't buy it. Trump won for a variety of reasons, largely because a lot of people actually do watch 'dancing with the stars' and whatever reality show he was on. He seems perfectly normal to such people, and he cultivated them fiercely. That's not enough to win by itself, though. He had the team colors of almost half the normal voters, because he beat such scintillating candidates as Bush and Cruz in the primary. They weren't voting blue no matter what. The two groups were enough.

Nowhere is there any sign of generalissimoing, and certainly not of science or deep thought. Indeed, 'deep thought' was turned into a pejorative by people who fear the 'elite'. It's just good old fashioned American anti-intellectualism. So Trump was indeed a capable candidate, as proven empirically by his capability of winning. He's not a capable politician or leader, as we're seeing more clearly every day. His equivalent of the 'deep state' - the well-entrenched Republican power structure - is keeping him propped up but its collapse is pretty stunning to watch.

occihoff

09-06-2019, 03:57 PM

Hmmm...

Oh, I think his argument is clear and makes sense. Right now, any California Republican with a hangover on election day might as well stay in bed; no need to drag his ass out for a pointless vote. But if there was no electoral college, all the Fresno voters might counterbalance the millions of illegals Trump says voted here.
Plus, the campaigns would be run differently -- Hillary may have actually bothered to go to Wisconsin, for example. So the whole idea is that you have way too many variables to extrapolate meaningful results from the specified situation.

It's not like the same group of voters, with the same exposure to campaigns, can be scored according to different rules.

That said, Trump would have been crushed without it.

occihoff

09-06-2019, 04:25 PM

Trump was indeed an extraordinarily capable candidate. His wacky shooting-from-the-hip talk was and is so much more enjoyable to listen to than the careful droning of his opposing Republican candidates. He's always fun and entertaining. I always look forward to hearing his daffy deranged yacking, while realizing at the same time how this vicious nut has been placed in a position of such ghastly power to destroy the world. Fortunately, as the Mueller Report shows, his political handlers restrain him from "pressing the button" in various ways.

But to claim that Trump has "superior intel" and "deeper thought," cyberanvil, is to me simply a very very bad joke!

So maybe it's a guessing game,...

eddierosenthal

09-06-2019, 05:25 PM

I have no doubt that Hilary would have been a wonderful president, the most prepared to ever come our way. But i am not crying she lost, but will probably remain shocked. If i am crying, i am not alone. But the reason? I am ashamed and our country is humiliated every day by one of the most obviously corrupt individuals ever to call themselves successful. I need not elaborate with multiple syllable verbiage about his character, although everyday comes another shock on how low a standard he has in his "excellence". As to the depth of his campaign capability, i think its a rather slim reasoning about his data. I believe there are many reasons he won, but the lazy voters who backed him spent a lot of time watching the apprentice, and thought if he could run a business, he could be a good president. They were guessing and they won, but the country lost.

So maybe it's a guessing game, ...

cyberanvil

09-07-2019, 09:35 AM

nah, don't buy it. ....
I support your right to be wrong.

47699

cyberanvil

09-07-2019, 09:39 AM

...But to claim that Trump has "superior intel" and "deeper thought," cyberanvil, is to me simply a very very bad joke!

He wasn't personally responsible for every move. Trump was wise enough to put together a better team.

podfish

09-07-2019, 09:54 AM

He wasn't personally responsible for every move. Trump was wise enough to put together a better team.spin this. It's a perfectly well cast discussion of what trump reveals about himself. It's impossible to reconcile the idea of him as a 'wise' man with his actions, though I suspect you can try and convince yourself that there's a defense that makes sense. For those of us less inclined to believe that when things look totally incompatible they probably are, I doubt you have an explanation that would persuade us.

Washington Post: The smaller the issue, the more it reveals about Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/06/smaller-issue-bigger-revelation/)

cyberanvil

09-07-2019, 10:42 AM

I doubt you have an explanation that would persuade us.

A truism. I can only point out your inaccuracies. It's up to you to find the light.

47700

Mayacaman

09-07-2019, 07:44 PM

Trump seems to be slipping. -Not that this is necessarily a good thing. It may, in fact, be a very dangerous thing. But FOX NEWS has seen fit to distance themselves, somewhat, from the POTUS.

Case in point: Fox News Anchor Neil Cavuto Calls Out Trump (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2161750747281428)

(https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2161750747281428)

Glia

09-07-2019, 10:31 PM

Trump also was the beneficiary of a YUGE amount of free "mainstream" media coverage because he was (and is) so entertaining and made good TV and sound bites. Bernie got almost no free media coverage, and most of that was unflattering.

Trump is a good marketer... a lousy businessman and a scammer, but a good marketer. He tested various phrases and names for other candidates to find what got the best response from his basket of deplorable devotees.

Trump was indeed an extraordinarily capable candidate.

rossmen

09-07-2019, 10:56 PM

I agree that cyberanvils argument is clear and makes sense. Not being here to argue about anything really I appreciate it for helping me reflect on my own 2016 presidential choice. If my vote had mattered in anyway I might have voted differently. Perhaps not the libertarian clown. I do appreciate the electoral college. The founding fathers choice in creating the united STATES of amerika, while not purely democratic, does transfer power down to more local government entities. This is good.

Oh, I think his argument is clear and makes sense. ....

rossmen

09-07-2019, 11:14 PM

So much more fun to guess about the future than the past. I agree trump had better science, ie where to focus attention and dollars, I would describe his thought process as more creative than deep, he is a far better showman than any president before him, something different. But will he win again? I guess yes, because democrats still have no real response to his charge they are for open borders. Too many voters see the migrant future, and foolishly think a president can stop it.

occihoff

09-09-2019, 02:42 PM

But why do you think he was wrong?

I support your right to be wrong.

47699

occihoff

09-09-2019, 02:59 PM

The fundamental reason so many people are desperately trying to get in to the US is because of the horrible poverty, criminality, and violence in their own countries. And our foreign policy of supporting or tolerating oppressive dictatorial regimes and taking advantage of their dirt cheap labor has a lot to do with this! What might happen if our government seriously tried to improve conditions in Latin America instead of punishing terrified and impoverished migrants?

.... Too many voters see the migrant future, and foolishly think a president can stop it.

podfish

09-09-2019, 03:13 PM

But why do you think he was wrong?he didn't say that I was wrong :).

occihoff

09-09-2019, 03:16 PM

An awfully thin defense, cyberanvil. And the "wise" teams that Trump put together always seem to be either soon fired or departing to more preferable destinations.

He wasn't personally responsible for every move. Trump was wise enough to put together a better team.

occihoff

09-09-2019, 03:19 PM

I see. Just that you have a right to be wrong. Okay, I guess we can all agree on that...

he didn't say that I was wrong :).

occihoff

09-09-2019, 03:27 PM

Huh? I don't get this "transfer" bit. What's wrong with every citizen's vote having equal power?

I agree that cyberanvils argument is clear and makes sense. Not being here to argue about anything really I appreciate it for helping me reflect on my own 2016 presidential choice. If my vote had mattered in anyway I might have voted differently. Perhaps not the libertarian clown. I do appreciate the electoral college. The founding fathers choice in creating the united STATES of amerika, while not purely democratic, does transfer power down to more local government entities. This is good.

occihoff

09-09-2019, 03:34 PM

Ah, the spiritual side of cyberanvil. Thank you for your guidance...

A truism. I can only point out your inaccuracies. It's up to you to find the light.

47700

cyberanvil

09-15-2019, 08:36 AM

Huh? I don't get this "transfer" bit. What's wrong with every citizen's vote having equal power?

Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 10.” The Framers designed the American constitutional system not as a direct democracy but as a representative republic, where enlightened delegates of the people would serve the public good. They also built into the Constitution a series of cooling mechanisms intended to inhibit the formulation of passionate factions, to ensure that reasonable majorities would prevail.

The Atlantic: America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/james-madison-mob-rule/568351/)
The Founders designed a government that would resist mob rule.
They didn’t anticipate how strong the mob could become.

podfish

09-15-2019, 02:58 PM

Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 10.” The Framers designed the American constitutional system not as a direct democracy but as a representative republic, where enlightened delegates of the people would serve the public good. ...The Founders designed a government that would resist mob rule.
They didn’t anticipate how strong the mob could become.come on.. are you alluding to those terrifying mobs of lefties trying to get free stuff at the expense of helpless corporations? Anyway the concept of a representative republic does not require that certain groups are given wildly disproportionate representation. That's a bug, not a feature and conflating that flaw with its intended purpose is disingenuous at best

occihoff

09-16-2019, 03:03 PM

So do you think that the Electoral College serves those purposes? As far as I can see it only gives the "enlightened delegates" of low population "conservative" states like Montana and North Dakota far more power than liberal voters like me have.

And how well do you think those "cooling mechanisms" are working?

Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 10.” The Framers designed the American constitutional system not as a direct democracy but as a representative republic, where enlightened delegates of the people would serve the public good. They also built into the Constitution a series of cooling mechanisms intended to inhibit the formulation of passionate factions, to ensure that reasonable majorities would prevail.

The Atlantic: America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/james-madison-mob-rule/568351/)
The Founders designed a government that would resist mob rule.
They didn’t anticipate how strong the mob could become.

cyberanvil

09-17-2019, 04:12 PM

come on.. are you alluding to those terrifying mobs of lefties trying to get free stuff at the expense of helpless corporations? Anyway the concept of a representative republic does not require that certain groups are given wildly disproportionate representation. That's a bug, not a feature and conflating that flaw with its intended purpose is disingenuous at best

#1 Yes
#2 Living Constitutionalists need not apply - dismissed

47783

eddierosenthal

09-17-2019, 06:57 PM

Trump has said and believes what he says - "that Mexicans are criminals and rapists" and that there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. He also said that four congresswomen of color should “go back to the countries they came from", even though three were born in the United States and the fourth is a naturalized citizen.

47791In the meantime comments made by Biden corrected himself immediately realizing his gaffe, to say and make the point that all children deserve a fair shot, and children born into lower-income circumstances are just as smart as those born to wealthy parents. So the hopes of the cartoon is to aggressively bait and switch the reality that is more to the truth - The topic of racism is about Trump and some of his cultist followers and cannot be made about anyone else, no matter how much diversion is attempted.

The real question is for followers of the failed businessman who opt in to the con game played out in Washington everyday; what will it take for them to get their head out of their proverbial butt and come back to their what we hope were their original American values. We know it's hard for outliers and outsiders to admit their mistake, we can only hope they will give us a chance to forgive them. The cartoon is nice, and tells the inside story of how propoganda works. Be ironical, be aggressive, but never tell the whole story. The whole story is about the hate propped up by this type of lie.

cyberanvil

09-18-2019, 04:14 PM

While Gavin Newsom travels to El Salvador on a goodwill trip to encourage more "visitors", a wall is being built to protect us from these same people.
Thank you Mr. President for answering the requests from the Border Patrol and many others for help in stemming the tide of illegals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te-PDydWAcQ

cyberanvil

09-18-2019, 04:25 PM

The real question is for followers of the failed businessman who opt in to the con game played out in Washington everyday; what will it take for them to get their head out of their proverbial butt and come back to their what we hope were their original American values. We know it's hard for outliers and outsiders to admit their mistake, we can only hope they will give us a chance to forgive them. The cartoon is nice, and tells the inside story of how propoganda works. Be ironical, be aggressive, but never tell the whole story. The whole story is about the hate propped up by this type of lie.

One could take you seriously if your quotes weren't so inaccurate. Be that as it may, being a deplorable, what do I know. I of course disagree with all you say.

eddierosenthal

09-18-2019, 07:00 PM

You mean the people fleeing atrocities in their lives, and the crisis created by your leader? Of course if you stop the natural flow and prevent them from their legal requests you are going to create a humanitarian crisis. He planned that, or did he? Do you think he actually thought it out? These "criminals and rapists" are housewives and children. Having no compassion for others, and only being the witting tool of the "leader", i do not expect anything but savagery and no real argument. As for the argument they are peddling dope, we have the actual facts that they do not travel that way any longer. And as for being a deplorable, yes. One wonders what motivates the ignorance, and the willing stupidity of that "thinking". Do you actually have an answer for us? Or some more platitudes and angry memes? My president killed Osama Bin Laden, your president just signed a steel column with his name, a column that was built on a wall by my president.

While Gavin Newsom travels to El Salvador on a goodwill trip to encourage more "visitors", a wall is being built to protect us from these same people.
Thank you Mr. President for answering the requests from the Border Patrol and many others for help in stemming the tide of illegals.

eddierosenthal

09-18-2019, 07:03 PM

If you want to have a discussion have at it, but you have no facts, only some sort of magic wand. You wave it all you want, but have no words to discuss this thing called your "leader". Every day is an outrage to democracy and the well being of our citizens. That also includes you as well. Today he waives California rights to have decent air, tomorrow you will be breathing in and out and wondering what went wrong.

One could take you seriously if your quotes weren't so inaccurate. Be that as it may, being a deplorable, what do I know. I of course disagree with all you say.

sealwatcher

09-18-2019, 08:10 PM

Our governor should be offering amnesty and restitution to the families of the people who were murdered by the death squads in El Salvador, who worked with this country's CIA. It's frightening to see the refusal to look at the question of why are the people coming from the Americas, so many, and why now? The grim horsemen of the apocalypse who ravaged the country of El Salvador while rewarding the elites, were followed by failed harvests, children born into poverty, and now drought from the climate crisis that eventually will affect us all.

Not my president. Not at all.

While Gavin Newsom travels to El Salvador on a goodwill trip to encourage more "visitors", a wall is being built to protect us from these same people.
Thank you Mr. President for answering the requests from the Border Patrol and many others for help in stemming the tide of illegals.

Mayacaman

09-18-2019, 11:48 PM

I just must say that this dialog is important, whatever anyone may think; because We, as Americans, Must communicate, as citizens, and as neighbors, if we are not to engage in a bloody & unnecessary civil war. So I thank you, chilluns, for communicating. Again, Thank You. I am listening to your dialog... It is not in vain.

podfish

09-19-2019, 10:41 AM

... Today he waives California rights to have decent air, tomorrow you will be breathing in and out and wondering what went wrong.no, he won't, nor will most Trump supporters. This is also a discussion of values. Many people sincerely believe the world's resources need to be more effectively exploited. That group isn't going to be swayed by appeals to 'save the planet' -- not that they completely dismiss it, but it's secondary in their minds.

I think of Robert Duval in Apocalypse Now, admiring "the smell of napalm in the morning - it smells like victory!"

eddierosenthal

09-19-2019, 11:01 AM

Quite right; those that are home schooled by Fox News will not have it, as they are validated every day by right wing commentary. Spoon fed they have no other dish to their liking. On the other hand its not likely i will be swayed by it, as i am inoculated from it. What is funny is that i used to listen to Glenn Beck when he had a radio show, as i thought it was humor. And i also used to listen to Savage, although if i remember correctly i rarely agreed with him, it was entertaining. One wonders at what point entertainment becomes real, when fiction becomes reality.

For me, reality has at least two views, but in my case right wing views are not one of those. My two views are one external, fact based reality with evidence, statistics, and science based authority. My other view is internal, where those things do not apply, or at least i try not to let them in, it is a spiritual reality. In that view ambition leads to cruelty, which i try to avoid. On the outside you can see that ambitious people, become cruel, and people become objects of competition, not humane at all. It seems to me the right wing, the republicans, are very competitive, even evangelical about their point of view. So in their handling of the world they step on people as things that are in their way. I am not saying all dems are pure and angelical. But on the whole, money rules the principles the right stands for, whereas i find more idealism on the left.

no, he won't, nor will most Trump supporters. This is also a discussion of values. Many people sincerely believe the world's resources need to be more effectively exploited. That group isn't going to be swayed by appeals to 'save the planet' -- not that they completely dismiss it, but it's secondary in their minds.

I think of Robert Duval in Apocalypse Now, admiring "the smell of napalm in the morning - it smells like victory!"

cyberanvil

09-19-2019, 01:50 PM

Sebastopol, so self righteous, so pure. Don't you realise you live in a glass house? Sebastopol, heal thy self.

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

:waccosun::waccosun::waccosun:
From Barry: The article below is well worth a read!
Be sure to follow the link to the Sonoma West website for the rest of it!
:waccosun::waccosun::waccosun:

http://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2018-08-24_17-48-38.png (http://www.sonomawest.com/)
Neighbors revolt over homeless camping in residential areas
(http://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/news/neighbors-revolt-over-homeless-camping-in-residential-areas/article_0c90dc32-da3e-11e9-b14d-972189eac830.html)By Laura Hagar Rush, Sonoma West Editor, [email protected]
Sep 18, 2019

47807At last week’s Sebastopol City Council meeting, a parade of homeowners from Palm Avenue, a half-commercial, half-residential spur of a street just south of the hospital, spoke during public comment about the growing problem of homeless people living on their street in vans, campers and, most recently, a large white bus with blacked-out windows.

Jacob Parker Maloney, whose property is at the end of Palm Avenue in unincorporated Sonoma County, led the charge.

“I’m here because we’ve had a build up of homeless people on our street, some who live there (in vehicles) and also overflow from the bike path and also the Laguna Foundation property,” Maloney said.

“I’m cleaning up hypodermic needles. I’m cleaning up trash in the Laguna and on Palm Avenue. I’m cleaning up excrement and pee bottles that are left on Palm Avenue,” Maloney said. “I’ve done two dump loads with my flat bed from trash from homeless people — mostly people dragging beds back into the brush.”

He’s also found people sleeping in his backyard, including “a guy who was wearing a ski mask and all black who had a knife on him and a bunch of drugs,” Maloney said.

“It’s getting so where my wife feels unsafe running in the evenings,” he said, a sentiment that was echoed by another woman who also lived on Palm Avenue.

“There are a number of times where when I’m driving home, and it feels very unsafe with people kind of hanging out in the middle of the street,” said Rebecca Hochmann. “It feels like a dangerous situation for people driving … and it has definitely felt increasingly uncomfortable going out by myself, like walking to the store or going downtown.”

“It used to feel very safe in our little cul de sac, but it’s definitely turned a corner,” she said. “I am not unsympathetic to the needs of these people, but it’s become more of an issue.”

Another neighbor Robert Groves, a disabled Vietnam veteran who identified himself as “the old man of Palm Avenue,” said he’s had enough.

“I’ve lived there for 35 years. Three years ago a van pulled up there,” he said, and the street got its first homeless person. “He’s brain damaged; his name is Phil. I learned that from a police officer who came out because Phil shambled up to our house — my wife and I were going to lunch one day — and he came up to our car and started screaming gibberish at us, saying my flag is a terrorist flag, and that everybody who lives on this block are terrorists.

“I called the police. They came out and said, ‘Oh, that’s just Phil. He’s harmless.’ Well, Harmless Phil was able to come up to our house and make my wife cry sitting in the car,” he said, noting he doesn’t fly his flag anymore for fear it will set Phil off.

“How come Harmless Phil has to live on our street and terrorize us?” he demanded. “I don’t think that’s fair.”

Continues here (http://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/news/neighbors-revolt-over-homeless-camping-in-residential-areas/article_0c90dc32-da3e-11e9-b14d-972189eac830.html)

cyberanvil

09-19-2019, 01:57 PM

Our governor should be offering amnesty and restitution to the families of the people who were murdered by the death squads in El Salvador, who worked with this country's CIA. It's frightening to see the refusal to look at the question of why are the people coming from the Americas, so many, and why now? The grim horsemen of the apocalypse who ravaged the country of El Salvador while rewarding the elites, were followed by failed harvests, children born into poverty, and now drought from the climate crisis that eventually will affect us all.

Not my president. Not at all.

Can we assume that you are in favor of Reparations for Slavery?

podfish

09-19-2019, 02:06 PM

Sebastopol, so self righteous, so pure. Don't you realise you live in a glass house? Sebastopol, heal thy self.

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Neighbors revolt over homeless camping in residential areas (http://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/news/neighbors-revolt-over-homeless-camping-in-residential-areas/article_0c90dc32-da3e-11e9-b14d-972189eac830.html)
(http://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/news/neighbors-revolt-over-homeless-camping-in-residential-areas/article_0c90dc32-da3e-11e9-b14d-972189eac830.html)finally, I sort of agree with you. Of course, I haven't met "Sebastopol", so maybe she's of mixed minds. It might be the (admittedly few) trumpies who are at the forefront of the move to evict them. But probably it's not, probably there are people who generally are advocates for charity and fair treatment.
However, as long as it's not a response of "just get 'm out, I don't care how you do it" - which is indeed the way the current administration treats similar issues, like immigration - it's not essentially hypocritical. But sure, we have an obligation to live our ethics, and should be supportive of efforts to actually solve the problem.

cyberanvil

09-19-2019, 02:14 PM

no, he won't, nor will most Trump supporters. This is also a discussion of values. Many people sincerely believe the world's resources need to be more effectively exploited. That group isn't going to be swayed by appeals to 'save the planet' -- not that they completely dismiss it, but it's secondary in their minds.

I think of Robert Duval in Apocalypse Now, admiring "the smell of napalm in the morning - it smells like victory!"

Global Warming 101

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUVt1CWV8g&list=PL4k16X62ciwISWOIi0Y9CUcBFPTit-ApP&index=3&t=618s

Mayacaman

09-19-2019, 02:30 PM

cyberanvil wrote:
Sebastopol, so self righteous, so pure. Don't you realise you live in a glass house? Sebastopol, heal thy self.

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Neighbors revolt over homeless camping in residential areas (http://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/news/neighbors-revolt-over-homeless-camping-in-residential-areas/article_0c90dc32-da3e-11e9-b14d-972189eac830.html)

Thank you, cyberanvil for bringing up the issue of liberal hypocrisy, in the context of the issue of homelessness.

It seems to me that a long-range solution to homelessness would be to make designated areas open to camping & low-budget small house communities. Austin Texas (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=austin+texas+homeless+community&t=osx&atb=v182-1&ia=web) is doing this. There are a variety of solutions available. It would take a lot of energy from devoted social workers & homeless activists. But there is plenty of land in the Western regions of the United States -- areas that are relatively empty.

One of the first things that Ronald Reagan did when he became president was to rescind the Homestead Act of 1862. That was a very bad thing to do. Admittedly, many of the homeless are practically non-functional, and as a consequence, would not be successful at homesteading on their own from scratch. -But the option to make a Homestead on Public Land should be made available again, to the General Public.

Planned communities with gardens & activities would be a more humane way to deal with the homeless problem than has been done so far. That way the homeless would not clutter up the streets of the cities & towns, and they would have some place to call "home." This is a rich country. There is plenty of potential to grow the food to feed all; and plenty of land for all to dwell upon. Bottom line is this: No one should be homeless in America.

podfish

09-19-2019, 03:50 PM

cyberanvil wrote:

Thank you, cyberanvil for bringing up the issue of liberal hypocrisy, and the issue of homelessness.

It seems to me that a long-range solution to homelessness would be to make designated areas open to camping & low-budget small house communities. Austin Texas is doing this. There are a variety of solutions available. It would take a lot of energy from devoted social workers & homeless activists. But there is plenty of land in the Western regions of the United States -- areas that are relatively empty. that's the problem. Of course there's some liberal hypocrisy involved, but there are other forces that make this hard to solve. Especially when you bring in the idea of 'relatively empty' areas in the U.S. That's often a thought had by people who try to imagine themselves in such a situation, but doesn't seem to be one that's held by actual homeless people. Personally, yeah, Slab City seems like a solution if I had no money to live here. But I'm not likely (fingers crossed) to use that solution, and it doesn't work for any of the homeless people I know.

I don't know the breakdown, but I think a huge number of the homeless are 'working poor'. They can't just up & leave for elsewhere. Others, who can't function effectively in the hyper-competitive capitalist society we have, where you basically leak cash as you walk (car insurance, rent, various bills, all pile up on each breath you take), where the basics of life are costly, don't necessarily want to live separated from 'normal' society either.

Unless cities zone areas near town and subsidize creation of inexpensive housing, and unless businesses and residents agree that these 'undesirables' should be accommodated, we'll have homelessness. The people needing housing don't spend enough money to be valuable customers for local businesses, and some are likely to impact the quality of life of those who have the economic wherewithal to house themselves. Of course, plenty of those who do pay rent impact the quality of life of their neighbors too. So it's kind of a big ask for society at large to accept this as the right thing to do... but it seems to me that it is. Just don't imagine that there's some solution out there that won't require people to take some risk, and probably to give up some things they value.

rossmen

09-19-2019, 08:46 PM

While clearly there is a vast difference in style, obama and trump are substantially similar. Obama killed the father, Trump the son. Both deport and throw migrants under the bus, fund and build border security. The argument for such cruel policies is last man standing. This is the consensus of our security think tanks and spy agencies. It's why bush invaded Iraq. Today 70 million on the move, within a few years, 1.5 billion. Millions will be from florida. There is no real counter argument, except that the strategy probably won't work. But if serious about leading the us into the future, there is no other option. The reason trump can be a little more honest about the predicted grim future, and still get elected, even the horror, reelected, is because he is a far more entertaining lier than obama.

If you want to have a discussion have at it, but you have no facts, only some sort of magic wand. You wave it all you want, but have no words to discuss this thing called your "leader". Every day is an outrage to democracy and the well being of our citizens. That also includes you as well. Today he waives California rights to have decent air, tomorrow you will be breathing in and out and wondering what went wrong.

Mayacaman

09-19-2019, 09:35 PM

rossmen wrote:
While clearly there is a vast difference in style, obama and trump are substantially similar. Obama killed the father, Trump the son. Both deport and throw migrants under the bus, fund and build border security. The argument for such cruel policies is last man standing. This is the consensus of our security think tanks and spy agencies. It's why bush invaded Iraq. Today 70 million on the move, within a few years, 1.5 billion. Millions will be from florida. There is no real counter argument, except that the strategy probably won't work. But if serious about leading the us into the future, there is no other option. The reason trump can be a little more honest about the predicted grim future, and still get elected, even the horror, reelected, is because he is a far more entertaining lier than obama.

So true: "...Obama and Trump are substantially similar. Obama killed the father, Trump the son."

That's the core of a proper psychological analysis: Obama was under the sway of his Oedipus Complex; Trump, under the sway of the Saturn Complex. - Two sides of the same bloody coin.