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Shaman
2014 Jan 27, 7:35am
Yes, our government is not representing the people, at least on the issue that matter, which are not issues of love or h8, but are issues of POWER. Whenever a policy or decision must be made that will control the flow of power, neither party is for the people, but always for the side they truly represent: the people with power. Money has long been a stand-in for power, and it's what buys media corporations, politicians' votes, and bureaucrat policy decisions.
As I have said before, the gay marriage issue is a red herring, tossed out to blind the collective nose of the public to the sacking of our rights, our fortunes, and our future. I mention this one, because it's currently the smelliest issue, but others include abortion, racism, gun rights/laws, and perennial favorites like immigration.
These issues clog the information flow at critical times, allowing back room deals to be struck which steal that which we all hold most dear. In the age of the Internet, where authorities have less control over many alternative news sources, they can still distract the nation with a well-publicized trial where a black youth gets shot.
Stop being blind.
Ignore the herrings!
There is no act more vile than imprisoning innocent people. Its the mother of all human rights violations, and our federal governments policy and actions surrounding the war on drugs should be atop everyones list of priorities.
The horse running as 1A, is the federal governments approach to health in this country. Not health, in the sense of obamadoesntcare, forcing everyone to fork over hard earned wages to evil corporations. Health in the sense of willful ignorance. At its roots, the poor overall health of the populace doesn't come from people not having insurance (how could any thinking person ever come to such a conclusion), but rather decades of bad information about nutrition.
If there's one thing nice I could say about this admin, is kudos to michelle obama. While her husband works to harm the populace, she counters with the most helpful of messages. Get up, and move around. Dance, enjoy physical acticity. And eat less SUGAR. Not the disproven nonsense of just eat less calories and do more chronic cardio.
As with life, the only metric worth quantifying is quality of life, fuck off with torturous longevity. Same holds true for calories. The quantity matters none, the quality is the only thing that matters
curious2
2014 Jan 28, 3:10am
I'm curious about the sudden rash of Dislikes on this thread, but it's probably just a troll.
I never understood why patrick decided that likes would be published as to who liked a comment, yet dislikes are left anonymous. Not that they matter much, but I'm curious as to why
curious2
2014 Jan 28, 3:45am
I think the goal of that was to help people make friends without making enemies. Internet trolls are a special breed though, sometimes hiding behind multiple avatars to wreak mischief. The Aliases feature works sometimes, but not always.
Ceffer
2014 Jan 28, 5:05am
The Republican Party is no longer a voice of pragmatic conservatism, it has a covert agenda of religious hysteria, hate, paranoia and xenophobia parading as conservative values. There is currently no real party for the pragmatic conservative.
curious2
2014 Jan 28, 5:40am
Who did you piss off?
Someone so lost that he even Disliked a thread in memory of Pete Seeger.
MisdemeanorRebel
2014 Jan 28, 5:53am
Who did you piss off?
Someone so lost that he even Disliked a thread in memory of Pete Seeger.
If you're getting flak, it's because you're over the target.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. K Street prospers mightily, as do Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes, while most Americans disapprove of the two major parties that control government.
I've been reading PatNet trying to gain insight into what motivates people, and the answers seem to correlate with major party affiliation. Republicans have fallen into neo-McCarthyism, campaigning on fear and loathing, dividing people against each other; the most trollish commenters on PatNet tend to echo Republican talking points, to no purpose other than fomenting hatred and anger, driven by their own internal insecurities (e.g. Bop69). Democrats campaign on love, which is blind, and so support costly policies that aren't really helpful but sound maybe well intentioned, e.g. Obamacare. It is easier to make enemies than to make friends, and a majority within each major faction seems to hate the other faction enough to accept its own faction's myths, but overall numbers show neither party speaks for most Americans.
Most Americans disapprove of Obamacare, but most Democrats support it. To win a Democratic primary requires pledging allegiance to a policy that most Democrats opposed as recently as 2008, when then-Senators Obama and Biden campaigned against it, when it was called Hillary's Plan.
Most Americans oppose Republicans' culture wars, but a majority of Republicans insist on continuing them. Dan pointed out that half the Republican party consists of closet cases and their scared wives, a percentage that I had underestimated despite the conspicuous examples of Larry Craig and Michele Bachman. Most Americans support marriage equality, but most Republicans can't. Like 70% of Americans, Senator John McCain opposed his party's efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay couples from getting married; his party then censured him for being too "liberal". Again I credit Dan for providing accurate definitions of liberal and conservative, and pointing out there is no inherent conflict between them; the electoral conflict is between tribal labels divorced from logical meaning.
Americans have become so deeply polarized that there is minimal overlap between clear majorities. In a democracy, voters might expect to see at least one major party that agrees with them on the most widely discussed issues of the day, e.g. Obamacare and same-sex marriage. That hasn't happened. Even on the Supreme Court, only one out of nine voted consistently with a majority of public opinion on both issues: Justice Kennedy.
So, where are the Kennedy Republicans, and where are the Obama/Biden 2008 Democrats? A tsunami of money on both sides seems to have carried most of them away. Massive lobbying brought us Obamacare, while Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh trap the opposition in an echo chamber of anger that allows only heat, not light. As we approach the 2014 midterms, it looks like another contest between blinded love and blinding hate, with most people disapproving of the results.
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