Notes? Questions? For someone like you, I add the seduction of the JFK unresolved issues. LB knows what she's talking about re that thing. Mob + IC. My guess is IC supplied Irv as Shaw's defense attorney.
Is it Capitalism that is the problem or Anarcho-Capitalism and income inequality? I certainly would like to see more of our tax money applied to infrastructure, education, R&D, and social programs that help Americans and the planet and address root causes. There are no easy answers, but lack of regulation or enforcement of regulation and lack of accountability re: corruption are issues that must be addressed for democracy to survive. There is such a thing as Champagne/Chardonnay Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_socialist
I see people down on capitalism regularly, but I see self serving officials as the bigger problem because when regulations were passed, and enforced it worked pretty well. It didnt work well for minorities or the indigent, but that doesnt require a whole new system does it? Anyway, I'm exhausted, but apparently unable to give up on us , I guess until I can no longer see a way for us to try to prevent it. 4 years ago when i figured out trump wouldnt be leavimg, or try not to, i started telling ppl on twitter. After the 3rd "you're crazy", or "get help" i saw that clearly I was going about it the wrong way. So everytime something happened or didnt happen i tried to point it out along with what should have happened to try to get ppl to see that our govt is broken and we need to get busy. Biden was a much needed short break, and I agree with you that he's done pretty well considering. But ppl either dont know it's up to us to us in the end , or dont care. Watching social media gets me furious, so that's my sign to take a week off. watching Ted f*cking Lieu tweet a photo of himself standing outside the chamber doors with a bag of pop corn is the last straw for today. We are a one ignorant country. It's almost as bad watching ppl focus on every little thing
as painful to see as it was to learn about what trump & the gop were planning. It's bad enough when so many lack courage, but that can be overcome. But all the "pooh I'll have the popcorn ready" , & those that laugh about it dont allow for much hope. I'm tired of being the heavy all the time. Like you, my original twitter account got shut down, except I was never told why, and couldnt find out when I asked. I can access that account right now, but its useless bc they deleted the names of ppl I followed, & those that followed me. So I made a new one, but I dont have a large following so when I'm sharing unpopular things I dont have much reach. but Idc about popularity even a little. It wasnt a loss comparable to when they you down bc you are a resource, the most I can do is be vigilant, then try share what's up, and hope for the best. Timing was awful too. I thought your acct was really starting to gain steam. Anyway, it appears as tho wherever the young ppl with ideas are, they will be using it for their own benefit and not that of the nation. J6 committee is an epic failure. IF trump sees consequences at all, it's not enough now. Maybe a couple of years back it would have been, but the gop doesnt need him anymore. I email the POTUS a few x most weeks , my own senator, and every now and again I choose a senator I hope gives a hoot, find an address in their area and plead with them as well. Sorry for venting here. I'm fed up too. The idea that I keep trying over, and over, and over, while literally unable to walk across the street while millions of able bodied but apparently feeble minded wont lift a finger is too much, again. I appreciate you though. There were too few resources that showed receipts pre-musk, there are almost none now. I mean there's Gal of course and a couple of others but hes killed it. I try not to dwell on that either tho bc he should never have been permitted to get it in the first place. After a break I will feel much better, and I hope you wont give up either. I kinda dont think you can either 😜. Thank goodness for that. Thx for all.
I certainly respect your opinion on all this, but, yes, the real question is "If not capitalism/free markets, then what?" And I also have no good answer. I don't want power concentrated in the hands of a few government officials any more than in the hands of a few billionaires. And anarchism is IMO totally naive and dangerous if combined with the idea of violent revolution, which might be the only thing more certain than capitalism to elevate socio/psycopaths to power. I think free markets regulated by a social democratic political order is still the best way. What we need though is to revisit Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting and Franklin Roosevelt's steep graduation of the income tax to re level the playing field for small businesses vs. corporate chains and avoid the wealthy from becoming uberwealthy oligarchs capable of rigging the system to suit their endless pursuit of greater wealth and power. The biggest obstacle imo to getting there is Citizen United and it's a catch 22 that the very institutions we need to overturn CU are in the hands of people who benefit politically from the dark money funding it allows. It's a sticky wicket, but that's the challenge IMO. We either find some way to elevate to power people willing to cutoff the dark $ spigot or we descend into total kleptocratic oligrachy/fascism.
I feel you Jim but don’t despair. You’re one of these new leaders and you’re doing an amazing job shining a light on psychological warfare being waged against the USA, the world’s greatest superpower.
They are waging this warfare Because the US military and the Western alliance are so thoroughly dominant, no one can even pretend to be its equal. So hybrid warfare pushes to change things such that these goons can continue their crimes another generation.
The Russian mob merged with KGB to bring Putin to power as they “privatized” the massive Soviet economy. Meanwhile, Putin would expect tribute and oligarchs that DONT pay it get jailed or worse, like Bill Browder found out (check out his best seller Red Notice). Putin and his post-Soviet goons created the top heavy Oligarchy to milk them - to create Putin’s new monstrosity, this neofascist predatory kleptocracy. They try to export it here and assisting Trump was an effective part in furthering that strategy
The beautiful thing tho, is that while we do need leadership, we have a ton more of us than them. We all should contribute to the effort however we can. Contribute understanding, awareness, volunteer in politics, elections, ideas, policies, philanthropy, helping out a stranger in need even. This is how we mend our society, by all of us pitching in (online and offline) however snd whenever we can.
psst - on that note, please check out my free philosophy blog by clicking through my avatar. 🍻
They were exported way before trump and our own officials are responsible , as well as other nations but had we not legitimized him on the world stage they likely wouldnt have as well. Also I'd like to add that they're cementing their rule for every future gen, not only the next one. I happen to believe it's worse than that even but I just cant right now. ✌
We were primed for this for quite some time. There are most definitely factions within our right wing that have been working towards similar objectives and were co-opted into this or just interested in similar kleptocracy. Sarah Kendzior’s recent book “They Knew” is an excellent account of this and I recommend. Some really convincing stuff demonstrating this stuff goes back to the 50s if not earlier.
Stacking scotus, eliminating campaign finance protections etc. The Koch bros network, the Murdoch news empire, the Mercer political machine all converged on Trump. But he would never have gotten over the top without Putin’s help. Kendzior traces the strain all the way back to McCarthy and the Red scare of the 50s, really McCarthy’s attorney, Roy Cohn. But I suspect we’ve always had such strains.
Don’t forget Henry Ford and MANY American industrialists were Nazis. Fascism is fundamentally appealing to many, thats literally what it is - tyranny of the majority (on steroids, because of cult of personality of leadership). It is fundamentally taking advantage of “in-group” dynamics, which became possible to exploit on a massive scale with propaganda+mass media. Hitler was the first but Stalin never stopped.
Since 2014 however, after EuroMaidan and Ukraine, there has been this sort of warfare coming from the post Soviets now exported as an offensive weapon to help gin up fascism here. They honed this same thing on Ukraine, having learned from Venezuela’s Chavez who had exploited the internet effectively to help capture power as an extremist not long before.
But consider this is the eternal battle of humanity - there’s always pricks and for much of human history they have indeed won and ruled the globe. But we’ve passed those dynamics if we can just shine some light on the reality - few want to be ruled by tyrants and we have a really resilient culture against such nonsense we should take some comfort in, scary as things have been.
This last midterm election and the recent gains in Ukraine are both good reasons to be hopeful. Cheers
Part of the way out is leveraging the green economy. If the democracy-capitalism combo is constantly going into the negative when accounting for Earth's limited resources, other nations might be concerned to adopt a similar consumption based model. America is kind of trying to push a system that consumes 4 times more resources than it can produce. If America and it's dollar represent destruction of the planet, eventually folks aren't going to want either. Countering by arguing for, and using the green economy, by us and green tech leadership is one way to convert these fascist's absurd narratives. I believe the green economy is such a threat to them, and we see how much they lobby and work against it for short term gains.
Challenging Citizens United and pressuring justices of SCOTUS with impeachments, passing anti-corruption regulations would also help. We'll see if the other side puts a moderate in the House leader position.
And keep eyes and resources on 2024 election efforts. Much of this can be fixed if we can work with moderates and hold the houses and presidency in '24.
Great ideas but officials are unwilling to do any of it. I'm not privy to the details of their plan so Idk if another 1/6 is to be expected or not. But I do know that gop led states are stealing it slowly at the state level.
We've got to stop creating freaky narcissists. It's our terrible achilles heel. Nurture, nurture, nurture is the way to get out of this. It will be about 25 years to re-build humanistic humans.
My kids are 7 and 11 and they seem pretty awesome. As long as we convincingly frame things like the Trump presidency as appropriately BAD examples, we can turn the page (and bring in a New Year).
But yes, we also need to stop worshipping and empowering spoiled little Emperors and that requires changing culture, one of the hardest things of all. We’d better start trying now tho. And raising kids better and less spoiled is one of the biggest steps I agree. Cheers
But it's not just trump, and convincing ppl that have been heavily manipulated isnt as easily done as you may think. Some wont be convinced with proof. How do we work with that?
Welp, for one, we have a free society here and hopefully want to keep it that way. So we don’t need to convince everyone, just keep a plurality with the good guys.
I hear you the threat is massive and its especially hard for people to accept they’ve been conned. On the other hand, people are fundamentally decent for the most part. The ones that fell hardest for Trump are not reachable for sure but thats only like 15%. The vast majority are decent and will do better with a little separation from the daily onslaught of 2016-2020 under Trump.
We need to avoid any temptation for radical or forceful changes or actions that appear threatening, that only feeds into the unraveling.
I'm not into forcing anything. At first I was some bc it's not like I ask my friends to take my word for anything. I was showing them. But I have a very low tolerance for b.s.. I just spoke to them less frequently, and when I did we didnt discuss anything political. When we've reached a point where I'm frustrated, then they arent listening anymore so it's useless.
Did you see that 15% somewhere, and can you share a link possibly? It's definitely not 15% in my state. There are a lot of hate groups here tho, and extremists not associated with them. They are growing, not the other way around. I saw on 60 minutes a while back where they had the preacher of some church and he said he knew of a couple/few churches that have incorporated parts of q-anon theory into their sermons. He said the cities, and they are all between 15mins & 30 mins from my house. And if it's happening there I can assure you it's happening much more in the southern end of the state. I hope you are right though, and it's very possible that most states are not as crazy as mine is. Statehouse is very extreme as well.
Thats not to say Trump and Republicans don’t have support higher than that amount overall, its just there only that many willing to buy extreme BS or willing to accept political violence a d so forth. Thank goodness, we do actually have a resilient culture of dogged individualism and freedom loving even if its often hypocritical and sometimes oppressive. Most people just won’t stand for that shit.
Yes, its scary for sure. And I’m really sorry to hear you’re feeling friends have been infected. I know the feeling. There’s not much you can do but keep expressing skepticism at conspiracy bullshit, try not to totally disassociate so you can keep influencing them if its not too painful.
Jim has a guide on here somewhere for confronting those lost in QAnon BS, I can’t speak to
Jim, I'm officially writing a memoir and storing it on my old blog that nobody reads. I fleshed out The Scream some more. https://algonquinonthebayou.blogspot.com/
Currently obsessively pencil-whipping this: https://algonquinonthebayou.blogspot.com/2022/01/my-life-among-new-orleans-royals.html
Notes? Questions? For someone like you, I add the seduction of the JFK unresolved issues. LB knows what she's talking about re that thing. Mob + IC. My guess is IC supplied Irv as Shaw's defense attorney.
I love you Jim. Ask Mrs. Stewartson if I can be a sister wife.
Huh?
Also, I have Sarah K's books including the latest. The last 2 are must read.
Is it Capitalism that is the problem or Anarcho-Capitalism and income inequality? I certainly would like to see more of our tax money applied to infrastructure, education, R&D, and social programs that help Americans and the planet and address root causes. There are no easy answers, but lack of regulation or enforcement of regulation and lack of accountability re: corruption are issues that must be addressed for democracy to survive. There is such a thing as Champagne/Chardonnay Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_socialist
I see people down on capitalism regularly, but I see self serving officials as the bigger problem because when regulations were passed, and enforced it worked pretty well. It didnt work well for minorities or the indigent, but that doesnt require a whole new system does it? Anyway, I'm exhausted, but apparently unable to give up on us , I guess until I can no longer see a way for us to try to prevent it. 4 years ago when i figured out trump wouldnt be leavimg, or try not to, i started telling ppl on twitter. After the 3rd "you're crazy", or "get help" i saw that clearly I was going about it the wrong way. So everytime something happened or didnt happen i tried to point it out along with what should have happened to try to get ppl to see that our govt is broken and we need to get busy. Biden was a much needed short break, and I agree with you that he's done pretty well considering. But ppl either dont know it's up to us to us in the end , or dont care. Watching social media gets me furious, so that's my sign to take a week off. watching Ted f*cking Lieu tweet a photo of himself standing outside the chamber doors with a bag of pop corn is the last straw for today. We are a one ignorant country. It's almost as bad watching ppl focus on every little thing
as painful to see as it was to learn about what trump & the gop were planning. It's bad enough when so many lack courage, but that can be overcome. But all the "pooh I'll have the popcorn ready" , & those that laugh about it dont allow for much hope. I'm tired of being the heavy all the time. Like you, my original twitter account got shut down, except I was never told why, and couldnt find out when I asked. I can access that account right now, but its useless bc they deleted the names of ppl I followed, & those that followed me. So I made a new one, but I dont have a large following so when I'm sharing unpopular things I dont have much reach. but Idc about popularity even a little. It wasnt a loss comparable to when they you down bc you are a resource, the most I can do is be vigilant, then try share what's up, and hope for the best. Timing was awful too. I thought your acct was really starting to gain steam. Anyway, it appears as tho wherever the young ppl with ideas are, they will be using it for their own benefit and not that of the nation. J6 committee is an epic failure. IF trump sees consequences at all, it's not enough now. Maybe a couple of years back it would have been, but the gop doesnt need him anymore. I email the POTUS a few x most weeks , my own senator, and every now and again I choose a senator I hope gives a hoot, find an address in their area and plead with them as well. Sorry for venting here. I'm fed up too. The idea that I keep trying over, and over, and over, while literally unable to walk across the street while millions of able bodied but apparently feeble minded wont lift a finger is too much, again. I appreciate you though. There were too few resources that showed receipts pre-musk, there are almost none now. I mean there's Gal of course and a couple of others but hes killed it. I try not to dwell on that either tho bc he should never have been permitted to get it in the first place. After a break I will feel much better, and I hope you wont give up either. I kinda dont think you can either 😜. Thank goodness for that. Thx for all.
I certainly respect your opinion on all this, but, yes, the real question is "If not capitalism/free markets, then what?" And I also have no good answer. I don't want power concentrated in the hands of a few government officials any more than in the hands of a few billionaires. And anarchism is IMO totally naive and dangerous if combined with the idea of violent revolution, which might be the only thing more certain than capitalism to elevate socio/psycopaths to power. I think free markets regulated by a social democratic political order is still the best way. What we need though is to revisit Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting and Franklin Roosevelt's steep graduation of the income tax to re level the playing field for small businesses vs. corporate chains and avoid the wealthy from becoming uberwealthy oligarchs capable of rigging the system to suit their endless pursuit of greater wealth and power. The biggest obstacle imo to getting there is Citizen United and it's a catch 22 that the very institutions we need to overturn CU are in the hands of people who benefit politically from the dark money funding it allows. It's a sticky wicket, but that's the challenge IMO. We either find some way to elevate to power people willing to cutoff the dark $ spigot or we descend into total kleptocratic oligrachy/fascism.
I ask the POTUS weekly to bust them up. Maybe you could too? Also the 15% tax took effect today, which is much needed good news. ✌
I feel you Jim but don’t despair. You’re one of these new leaders and you’re doing an amazing job shining a light on psychological warfare being waged against the USA, the world’s greatest superpower.
They are waging this warfare Because the US military and the Western alliance are so thoroughly dominant, no one can even pretend to be its equal. So hybrid warfare pushes to change things such that these goons can continue their crimes another generation.
The Russian mob merged with KGB to bring Putin to power as they “privatized” the massive Soviet economy. Meanwhile, Putin would expect tribute and oligarchs that DONT pay it get jailed or worse, like Bill Browder found out (check out his best seller Red Notice). Putin and his post-Soviet goons created the top heavy Oligarchy to milk them - to create Putin’s new monstrosity, this neofascist predatory kleptocracy. They try to export it here and assisting Trump was an effective part in furthering that strategy
The beautiful thing tho, is that while we do need leadership, we have a ton more of us than them. We all should contribute to the effort however we can. Contribute understanding, awareness, volunteer in politics, elections, ideas, policies, philanthropy, helping out a stranger in need even. This is how we mend our society, by all of us pitching in (online and offline) however snd whenever we can.
psst - on that note, please check out my free philosophy blog by clicking through my avatar. 🍻
They were exported way before trump and our own officials are responsible , as well as other nations but had we not legitimized him on the world stage they likely wouldnt have as well. Also I'd like to add that they're cementing their rule for every future gen, not only the next one. I happen to believe it's worse than that even but I just cant right now. ✌
We were primed for this for quite some time. There are most definitely factions within our right wing that have been working towards similar objectives and were co-opted into this or just interested in similar kleptocracy. Sarah Kendzior’s recent book “They Knew” is an excellent account of this and I recommend. Some really convincing stuff demonstrating this stuff goes back to the 50s if not earlier.
Stacking scotus, eliminating campaign finance protections etc. The Koch bros network, the Murdoch news empire, the Mercer political machine all converged on Trump. But he would never have gotten over the top without Putin’s help. Kendzior traces the strain all the way back to McCarthy and the Red scare of the 50s, really McCarthy’s attorney, Roy Cohn. But I suspect we’ve always had such strains.
Don’t forget Henry Ford and MANY American industrialists were Nazis. Fascism is fundamentally appealing to many, thats literally what it is - tyranny of the majority (on steroids, because of cult of personality of leadership). It is fundamentally taking advantage of “in-group” dynamics, which became possible to exploit on a massive scale with propaganda+mass media. Hitler was the first but Stalin never stopped.
Since 2014 however, after EuroMaidan and Ukraine, there has been this sort of warfare coming from the post Soviets now exported as an offensive weapon to help gin up fascism here. They honed this same thing on Ukraine, having learned from Venezuela’s Chavez who had exploited the internet effectively to help capture power as an extremist not long before.
But consider this is the eternal battle of humanity - there’s always pricks and for much of human history they have indeed won and ruled the globe. But we’ve passed those dynamics if we can just shine some light on the reality - few want to be ruled by tyrants and we have a really resilient culture against such nonsense we should take some comfort in, scary as things have been.
This last midterm election and the recent gains in Ukraine are both good reasons to be hopeful. Cheers
Part of the way out is leveraging the green economy. If the democracy-capitalism combo is constantly going into the negative when accounting for Earth's limited resources, other nations might be concerned to adopt a similar consumption based model. America is kind of trying to push a system that consumes 4 times more resources than it can produce. If America and it's dollar represent destruction of the planet, eventually folks aren't going to want either. Countering by arguing for, and using the green economy, by us and green tech leadership is one way to convert these fascist's absurd narratives. I believe the green economy is such a threat to them, and we see how much they lobby and work against it for short term gains.
Challenging Citizens United and pressuring justices of SCOTUS with impeachments, passing anti-corruption regulations would also help. We'll see if the other side puts a moderate in the House leader position.
And keep eyes and resources on 2024 election efforts. Much of this can be fixed if we can work with moderates and hold the houses and presidency in '24.
Great ideas but officials are unwilling to do any of it. I'm not privy to the details of their plan so Idk if another 1/6 is to be expected or not. But I do know that gop led states are stealing it slowly at the state level.
We've got to stop creating freaky narcissists. It's our terrible achilles heel. Nurture, nurture, nurture is the way to get out of this. It will be about 25 years to re-build humanistic humans.
My kids are 7 and 11 and they seem pretty awesome. As long as we convincingly frame things like the Trump presidency as appropriately BAD examples, we can turn the page (and bring in a New Year).
But yes, we also need to stop worshipping and empowering spoiled little Emperors and that requires changing culture, one of the hardest things of all. We’d better start trying now tho. And raising kids better and less spoiled is one of the biggest steps I agree. Cheers
But it's not just trump, and convincing ppl that have been heavily manipulated isnt as easily done as you may think. Some wont be convinced with proof. How do we work with that?
Welp, for one, we have a free society here and hopefully want to keep it that way. So we don’t need to convince everyone, just keep a plurality with the good guys.
I hear you the threat is massive and its especially hard for people to accept they’ve been conned. On the other hand, people are fundamentally decent for the most part. The ones that fell hardest for Trump are not reachable for sure but thats only like 15%. The vast majority are decent and will do better with a little separation from the daily onslaught of 2016-2020 under Trump.
We need to avoid any temptation for radical or forceful changes or actions that appear threatening, that only feeds into the unraveling.
I'm not into forcing anything. At first I was some bc it's not like I ask my friends to take my word for anything. I was showing them. But I have a very low tolerance for b.s.. I just spoke to them less frequently, and when I did we didnt discuss anything political. When we've reached a point where I'm frustrated, then they arent listening anymore so it's useless.
Did you see that 15% somewhere, and can you share a link possibly? It's definitely not 15% in my state. There are a lot of hate groups here tho, and extremists not associated with them. They are growing, not the other way around. I saw on 60 minutes a while back where they had the preacher of some church and he said he knew of a couple/few churches that have incorporated parts of q-anon theory into their sermons. He said the cities, and they are all between 15mins & 30 mins from my house. And if it's happening there I can assure you it's happening much more in the southern end of the state. I hope you are right though, and it's very possible that most states are not as crazy as mine is. Statehouse is very extreme as well.
Here’s some support for maga extremism being only around 15%: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/02/trump-republicans-biden-maga/
Thats not to say Trump and Republicans don’t have support higher than that amount overall, its just there only that many willing to buy extreme BS or willing to accept political violence a d so forth. Thank goodness, we do actually have a resilient culture of dogged individualism and freedom loving even if its often hypocritical and sometimes oppressive. Most people just won’t stand for that shit.
Yes, its scary for sure. And I’m really sorry to hear you’re feeling friends have been infected. I know the feeling. There’s not much you can do but keep expressing skepticism at conspiracy bullshit, try not to totally disassociate so you can keep influencing them if its not too painful.
Jim has a guide on here somewhere for confronting those lost in QAnon BS, I can’t speak to
Its effectiveness but I’d definitely
Give it a shot.