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REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS
A thread for Democrats Only
Friday, June 18, 2021 7:27 AM
SECOND
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Quote:Originally posted by 1KIKI: I think people need to rethink their assumptions about the US and its various levels of government, and what they should and should not be focused on.
Friday, June 18, 2021 9:07 AM
1KIKI
Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.
Friday, June 18, 2021 12:38 PM
SIGNYM
I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.
Quote:SECOND: How America Fractured Into Four Parts People in the United States no longer agree on the nation’s purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible? Nations, like individuals, tell stories in order to understand what they are, where they come from, and what they want to be. National narratives, like personal ones, are prone to sentimentality, grievance, pride, shame, self-blindness. There is never just one—they compete and constantly change. The most durable narratives are not the ones that stand up best to fact-checking. They’re the ones that address our deepest needs and desires. Americans know by now that democracy depends on a baseline of shared reality—when facts become fungible, we’re lost. But just as no one can live a happy and productive life in nonstop self-criticism, nations require more than facts—they need stories that convey a moral identity. The long gaze in the mirror has to end in self-respect or it will swallow us up. Since then, the two parties have just about traded places. By the turn of the millennium, the Democrats were becoming the home of affluent professionals, while the Republicans were starting to sound like populist insurgents. We have to understand this exchange in order to grasp how we got to where we are. The 1970s ended postwar, bipartisan, middle-class America, and with it the two relatively stable narratives of getting ahead and the fair shake. In their place, four rival narratives have emerged, four accounts of America’s moral identity. They have roots in history, but they are shaped by new ways of thinking and living. They reflect schisms on both sides of the divide that has made us two countries, extending and deepening the lines of fracture. Over the past four decades, the four narratives have taken turns exercising influence. They overlap, morph into one another, attract and repel one another. None can be understood apart from the others, because all four emerge from the same whole. ... More about fractured American Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 at https://web.archive.org/web/20210609154909if_/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/ Impatient readers jump to the end of the essay: All four narratives are also driven by a competition for status that generates fierce anxiety and resentment. They all anoint winners and losers. In Free America, the winners are the makers, and the losers are the takers who want to drag the rest down in perpetual dependency on a smothering government. In Smart America, the winners are the credentialed meritocrats, and the losers are the poorly educated who want to resist inevitable progress. In Real America, the winners are the hardworking folk of the white Christian heartland, and the losers are treacherous elites and contaminating others who want to destroy the country. In Just America, the winners are the marginalized groups, and the losers are the dominant groups that want to go on dominating. . . . we remain trapped in two countries. Each one is split by two narratives—Smart and Just on one side, Free and Real on the other. Neither separation nor conquest is a tenable future. The tensions within each country will persist even as the cold civil war between them rages on. This essay is adapted from George Packer’s new book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374603663
Quote: SIGNYM: People work for reward. Our old narratives are breaking down because we are actually living in the realm of a FIFTH narrative, one which the elites have been steadily imposing on us for decades, and that is WORK DOESN'T PAY. BECOME A CONSUMER/USELESS EATER. GO INTO DEBT. WHINGE ABOUT "OTHERS" HAVING MORE PRIVILEGE. But here's the thing: Three (and a half) of the four narratives actually overlap. You can create a unifying narrative out of them if you want something for America, BUT IT DEPENDS WHAT YOU WANT. Do you want an America to exist, or do you want to be part of a (non-democratic) globalist structure? Do you want America to be independent and strong? Do you want America to be united? Do you want America to be for the people? Do you want America to have a viable future? If you want those things, then you will want, and reward: America the FREE. A nation that doesn't make anything, but has a huge negative trade balance and depends on imports for everything cannot possibly have an indpendent economic, financial, foreign, and military policy. Work - specifically making things- should be rewarded. You will NOT create a society of people who feel they can consume without producing. America the JUST. You can't have a unified America if some people are able to participate and other people are shut out. That is how you generate a widespread division. If you want a unified America, the benefit of meaningful work and the reward from it should be equally available to everyone who can participate. And you will provide a safety net for those who can't: the elderly, disabled, and sick. America the REAL. In order to have an America that is for the people, you must have a narrative that says this is so. A narrative is based on the ethics of work, fair share, and precepts like the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, NOT on the ethics of greed, and endless vicious quest for power. (Half of) America the SMART. Currently, Smart Americans are simply Useful Americans who have wormed their way up the anus of the elite an are willing to scrape off 90% of everyone else in their quest to mmaintain their warm, quiet, cozy spot. But if America is to have a viable future, we need people who are TRULY smart, not just technologically-capable quislings. The presmed disunity of the four narratives doesn't really exist. They can be united, and they can be united in a way that brings us together instead of driving us apart, creates a solid economic and ethical foundation for America, and paves the way for a better future. But, the elites would lose out. Pobrecito!
Friday, June 18, 2021 6:46 PM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: YOU'RE the crank. Let go of your sick vendetta, SECOND. You've got a bug in your head and it's eating your brain. Let it out: You'll feel better.
Friday, June 18, 2021 7:11 PM
Quote: SIGNYM: YOU'RE the crank. Let go of your sick vendetta, SECOND. You've got a bug in your head and it's eating your brain. Let it out: You'll feel better. SECONDRATE: If this was 1860, I could easily judge people based on only one facet of their jewel-like character -- slavery. Nowadays I know much more about people's character.
Quote: SECOND: I get to examine their personality...
Quote: SECOND ... pick up that jewel, turn it every which-way and see all the cut facets and flaws deep inside the diamond. Too bad for your superiority, but I know hundreds of Trumptards and many of their biographical secrets.
Quote:SECOND: You guys
Quote: SECOND ... are insane, right down there with Confederates for people burdened with flawed personalities and crazy beliefs. It is no surprise how flawed people found the most flawed man, Trump, to back.
Friday, June 18, 2021 10:06 PM
Quote:SECONDRATE: If this was 1860, I could easily judge people based on only one facet of their jewel-like character -- slavery. Nowadays I know much more about people's character.
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: How? Because you hire PIs to dig into people's private lives? If that's the case, then you KNOW I'm neither a Russian troll nor a Republican, and yet you kept pushing those lies (otherwise known as libel) over and over again.
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: Yep, you hire PIs to snoop into people's private lives. Did anyone tell you you're a twisted fuck with a megalomaniac personality?
Saturday, June 19, 2021 5:52 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 1KIKI: The only thing he has against republicans . . .
Saturday, June 19, 2021 10:12 AM
Saturday, June 19, 2021 10:22 AM
6IXSTRINGJACK
Quote:Originally posted by 1KIKI: I've already posted my priorities at least a dozen times. I had 2. I think it would be really interesting if people were able to choose broad categories for how their tax dollars get spent when they filled out their 1040's. I wonder how much would go to the military. Or to fossil fuel company subsidies.
Saturday, June 19, 2021 10:23 AM
Sunday, June 20, 2021 6:52 AM
Sunday, June 20, 2021 8:30 AM
Sunday, June 20, 2021 2:20 PM
Sunday, June 20, 2021 4:31 PM
Sunday, June 20, 2021 5:15 PM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: Tim is just a virtue-signalling idiot trying to connect words together that don't really connect. Guns, conservatives, whites, slavery ... all goes into the mixmaster. ----------- Pity would be no more, If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake THUGR posts about Putin so much, he must be in love.
Monday, June 21, 2021 5:13 AM
Monday, June 21, 2021 9:28 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: The Republican Party has a problem with political violence: It’s not sure whether it’s for it or against it.
Monday, June 21, 2021 9:49 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by second: The Republican Party has a problem with political violence: It’s not sure whether it’s for it or against it. Not going to talk a single second about January 6th until you admit that the bullshit BLM and Antifa pulled all year in 2020 was violence and riots.
Monday, June 21, 2021 10:31 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: But what about the Democrats? Don’t they have a violent fringe, too? Not really. The antifa movement, which conservatives point to as an example of left-wing violence, isn’t part of the Democratic Party; its militants don’t wave Biden flags, show up at Biden rallies or, in most cases, support Biden at all.
Monday, June 21, 2021 11:59 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by second: But what about the Democrats? Don’t they have a violent fringe, too? Not really. The antifa movement, which conservatives point to as an example of left-wing violence, isn’t part of the Democratic Party; its militants don’t wave Biden flags, show up at Biden rallies or, in most cases, support Biden at all. You claimed them. Your Leftist media and your Democrat politicians all over the country ran defense for them for an entire year... going on two now. As we fucking speak, the DA in both Chicago and NYC is still letting 2020 criminals out free to commit more acts of violence and murder. They don't need to be waving around Biden* flags. Their black masks are a flag for the Democrats. Black Lives Matter is a Democrat slogan. It was even painted all over the streets of Democrat ran cities at one point. So what now? Are we finally admitting that they were violent riots in 2021? Is the new tactic to just pretend like the Democrats didn't openly embrace them and run protection for them since they can't pretend that they weren't violent criminals anymore? You fucking hypocrites. All of you. -------------------------------------------------- Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 7:23 AM
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 8:03 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: The real reason Republicans are blocking voting rights legislation
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 8:06 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Republicans are forever in fear for their lives because of crime. Being fearful is just another Trumptard trait, along with stupid and insane. In another country, fearful, stupid and crazy would make it impossible to stay in the middle class. In America, it only makes it difficult. Murder rate usually rises and falls in tandem with the violent crime rate. Just how closely do they follow each other? FBI data only goes back to 1986:
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 8:26 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by second: The real reason Republicans are blocking voting rights legislation ...brought to you by the liars at CNN.
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 8:28 AM
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 8:38 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Mail-in fraud election was fraud.
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 8:44 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Mail-in fraud election was fraud.That has already been covered by FOX News: "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again." www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-gop-election-fight-never-another-republican-president The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Wednesday, June 23, 2021 6:40 AM
Wednesday, June 23, 2021 7:00 AM
Quote:“If the election was fraudulent, people are gonna have to make up their own mind. It’s not gonna be up to me. It’s gonna be up to the public. It’s gonna be up to, perhaps, politicians. I don’t think there’s ever been a case like this where hundreds of thousands of votes will be found. So we’ll have to see what happens.”
Wednesday, June 23, 2021 7:44 AM
Thursday, June 24, 2021 6:14 AM
Thursday, June 24, 2021 8:02 AM
JO753
rezident owtsidr
Thursday, June 24, 2021 10:26 AM
Friday, June 25, 2021 4:31 AM
JAYNEZTOWN
Friday, June 25, 2021 5:12 AM
Friday, June 25, 2021 11:14 AM
Saturday, June 26, 2021 8:37 AM
Saturday, June 26, 2021 9:22 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: $10.00 for a 2x4. $3.30 for a gallon of gas. That's why.
Saturday, June 26, 2021 10:20 AM
Quote:Originally posted by JO753: I can vouch for this vid The Liarz Club Yootoobrz I rote about are all over CRT like a cheap shirt.
Saturday, June 26, 2021 10:22 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: $10.00 for a 2x4. $3.30 for a gallon of gas. That's why.When hurricanes hit Texas, wood and gasoline prices skyrocket. The rich sellers, not the minimum wage employees working for the rich and parroting what the rich told them, say it is only because of the hurricane. The truth is that the rich sellers can arbitrarily and capriciously raise their prices when buyers are stupid enough to believe that it is the hurricane, not the seller, raising prices for gullible buyers who don't have the commonsense to know that the guy who controls supply raised the prices, not the hurricane. I know that Trumptards believe the Invisible Hand and Supply/Demand set prices, but those are fairy tales told by rich people to poor people who cannot understand, for psychological reasons or just general stupidity, how markets actually work.
Saturday, June 26, 2021 11:19 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: $10.00 for a 2x4. $3.30 for a gallon of gas. That's why.When hurricanes hit Texas, wood and gasoline prices skyrocket. The rich sellers, not the minimum wage employees working for the rich and parroting what the rich told them, say it is only because of the hurricane. The truth is that the rich sellers can arbitrarily and capriciously raise their prices when buyers are stupid enough to believe that it is the hurricane, not the seller, raising prices for gullible buyers who don't have the commonsense to know that the guy who controls supply raised the prices, not the hurricane. I know that Trumptards believe the Invisible Hand and Supply/Demand set prices, but those are fairy tales told by rich people to poor people who cannot understand, for psychological reasons or just general stupidity, how markets actually work. So your argument is that nobody wanted to make money while Trump was President and they waited until Biden* got elected*?
Saturday, June 26, 2021 11:22 AM
Saturday, June 26, 2021 11:49 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: You're arguing microeconomics are macroeconomics. It's a fallacy. We've got some heavy inflation going on because of the Biden* administration now. Don't tell me to "pay attention". I read your words, but they're bullshit.
Saturday, June 26, 2021 12:01 PM
Saturday, June 26, 2021 12:15 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 1KIKI: The people over at ZH have been debating which way the economy was going to fail for years ... inflation, or deflation? A number of years ago people were agape with wonder about the near zero interest rates: why weren't they leading to inflation? Then somebody FINALLY noticed that the $$ wasn't landing in the consumer's wallet, it was going straight to banks, and corporate lenders, and corporations, and being funneled directly into the stock market, corporate buy-backs, and so on - ie blowing stock-market bubbles. That's one example of how the economy's been unstable for YEARS. Which is to say, that Biden* didn't do this all on his own.
Saturday, June 26, 2021 1:16 PM
Saturday, June 26, 2021 1:22 PM
Quote:6IXSTRINGJACK: You're arguing microeconomics are macroeconomics. It's a fallacy. We've got some heavy inflation going on because of the Biden* administration now. Don't tell me to "pay attention". I read your words, but they're bullshit. SECOND: 6ix, you have no fucking idea what micro or macro economics are.
Saturday, June 26, 2021 2:46 PM
Saturday, June 26, 2021 3:31 PM
Quote: I can't understand why anyone would imagine that the economy would wind up with deflation. "The people", they say "aren't getting the created money, and therefore they can't afford to buy anything, so prices will fall". That's assuming that producers HAVE to sell to USA customers.
Sunday, June 27, 2021 7:38 PM
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