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  1. #13816
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    Quote Originally Posted by A Small Talent For War View Post
    Despite apparent opportunities to really change the entire paradigm in our relationship with fundamental opponents like North Korea or Iran, Trump was an idiot. Everything he’s done has been clownish and tragic from any perspective.

    However, have any of us felt this motivated politically since 2007-08? Another pessimistic viewpoint is that a Biden presidency, like Obama, will simply take the wind out of most people. It will be easier to tolerate mediocrity and a familiar sort of neoliberalism than stay committed to helping our most vulnerable citizens domestically and the most at risk globally.
    Americans aren't ready for any kind of serious introspection into how we leverage our military and economic power to keep most of the world starving and destitute to secure the supply of natural resources and cheap labor, or how all of the ways that our sociopolitical system is supposedly broken are simply just natural consequences of the inherent flaws in how our racist, slave-owning forefathers set it up. People just want to be able to go to brunch and get their nails painted again, never mind the pandemic, global warming, institutional racism, or all that.

  2. #13817
    Ol' Doogie, Circa 2005 GindyPosts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    Americans aren't ready for any kind of serious introspection into how we leverage our military and economic power to keep most of the world starving and destitute to secure the supply of natural resources and cheap labor, or how all of the ways that our sociopolitical system is supposedly broken are simply just natural consequences of the inherent flaws in how our racist, slave-owning forefathers set it up. People just want to be able to go to brunch and get their nails painted again, never mind the pandemic, global warming, institutional racism, or all that.
    Basically, anything that makes America look bad is going to be swept under the rug because America will never be ready for that big boy talk.

  3. #13818
    The Undead One The Chou Lives's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by A Small Talent For War View Post
    Great point at the end. I think economics and think tanks miss the central fact that most of what is truly important in life cannot be determined by market forces. There is too much reliance on some theoretical invisible hand than real hands on work toward helping real people.
    Indeed. The super capitalist are crazy in thinking some magic force generates these resources for them to use to their benefit.

    It is all natural processes, the most valuable stuff takes a LONG time to come back and the right conditions met. So you can make a pretty penny but you better make it last because what you stole is gone, forever. THAT is why I am strong on climate change. It is not just the fact our biggest cities live on the water, but that shot is going to run out. Then what?!

    My last clip of the night.


    https://youtu.be/wXKxLkTo4do

    When your own programs news network, the one that soft balls you and you watch only it.. Implies this ****? You gotta go.

  4. #13819
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    Quote Originally Posted by JDogindy View Post
    Basically, anything that makes America look bad is going to be swept under the rug because America will never be ready for that big boy talk.
    Truth. We Americans have our heads up our asses thinking we are the best, does not matter the subject ( noir h truth) and that why should we change?

    Err Growth. It is more than stock market charts.

    Sadly, those who seek reasonable change are the real minority.

  5. #13820
    Ol' Doogie, Circa 2005 GindyPosts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Wayne View Post
    No the inability of American industries to compete with foreign firms except through cutting labor costs (breaking unions and shipping jobs overseas) is what doomed the rustbelt. They were simply not able to adapt to foreign competitors having an edge in the development of human capital and adaptation of newer/efficient technologies. The jobs aren't coming back especially if you factor in the automation craze. The education system has also not really developed the human capital/skilled labor for the types of jobs in this type of new economy. You see more people being absorbed into lower paying service sector/retail jobs.
    They pretty much figured that making the workforce dumber and more expendable was the solution in the cutthroat market, but they also should have had the foresight to recognize that the good times of the 50s and 60s weren't going to last forever. All those factories bombed and torn down during World War II were going to be rebuilt, and they were going to be more advanced, meaning they didn't have to "buy American" anymore.

    It's funny (but not in a "ha-ha" way) that people still argue that we need to bring back these jobs when we should be fighting for making it so it's easy for anyone to get into new, tech-based jobs, as well as protecting those that aren't going to be able to adapt so easily. Most folks are able to rustle up some elbow grease to build smartphones in a mass conveyer system, but the software to make those smartphones operational and useful, as well as security and repair is going to be more valuable and is where the big bucks are in the future.

  6. #13821
    Ol' Doogie, Circa 2005 GindyPosts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Chou Lives View Post
    Truth. We Americans have our heads up our asses thinking we are the best, does not matter the subject ( noir h truth) and that why should we change?

    Err Growth. It is more than stock market charts.

    Sadly, those who seek reasonable change are the real minority.
    The GDP is able to grow even during times of crisis. People have to spend money to eat and pay for shelter. Finances are much more complicated than just tuning into an episode of "Mad Money".

    My comment isn't to disparage America, because at the end of the day, I'm an American, and I want this country to be the best damn country in the world. However, we can't really progress unless we understand where we have screwed up in the past, and know what to try and avoid moving forward, but as long as folks just want to brag about the greatness of America in a nationalistic tone, we won't have that discussion since, if you're only viewing it from a nationalist's perspective, America is already perfect.

  7. #13822
    The Undead One The Chou Lives's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JDogindy View Post
    The GDP is able to grow even during times of crisis. People have to spend money to eat and pay for shelter. Finances are much more complicated than just tuning into an episode of "Mad Money".

    My comment isn't to disparage America, because at the end of the day, I'm an American, and I want this country to be the best damn country in the world. However, we can't really progress unless we understand where we have screwed up in the past, and know what to try and avoid moving forward, but as long as folks just want to brag about the greatness of America in a nationalistic tone, we won't have that discussion since, if you're only viewing it from a nationalist's perspective, America is already perfect.
    Which is a sad delusion. Perfection is a fallacy made by man to sell ****. Never have ”” considers anything perfect. For the universe is flawed. Just wish people actually gave a **** to fix the infreastructure if physical needs and such before we go back to the world stage.

  8. #13823
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Chou Lives View Post
    Which is a sad delusion. Perfection is a fallacy made by man to sell ****. Never have ”” considers anything perfect. For the universe is flawed. Just wish people actually gave a **** to fix the infreastructure if physical needs and such before we go back to the world stage.
    Well I think most Americans are at least able to accept that our country isn't perfect. The point where you lose most people is when you try to point out that all of the things that make America great are the exact same things that make it awful. America has prosperity and personal freedoms and opportunities precisely BECAUSE it was built on a foundation of slavery and genocide, not despite it, which means that solving all of our current problems isn't just a matter of hitting a reset button to a saner time, but will require basically rebuilding our entire society from the ground up.

  9. #13824
    The Undead One The Chou Lives's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PwrdOn View Post
    Well I think most Americans are at least able to accept that our country isn't perfect. The point where you lose most people is when you try to point out that all of the things that make America great are the exact same things that make it awful. America has prosperity and personal freedoms and opportunities precisely BECAUSE it was built on a foundation of slavery and genocide, not despite it, which means that solving all of our current problems isn't just a matter of hitting a reset button to a saner time, but will require basically rebuilding our entire society from the ground up.
    The genocide thing yeah. Both halves of my family have Native American heritage. I know. From what I can tell this land was pretty nice and Whitey from Europe came and fucked it all up.

    Sad fact: Whole natives have casinos, we have the highest infant death rate in the country, miscarriages (?” That tend to kill child and mother.) and yeah. People talk of racism as it’s only black. Racism applies to all who are not white. I mean hell I have seen their conditions. And yeah it’s like trying to wipe us out as we are a reminder that before then we were here. And our ways were actually different.

  10. #13825

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    Quote Originally Posted by The Chou Lives View Post
    The genocide thing yeah. Both halves of my family have Native American heritage. I know. From what I can tell this land was pretty nice and Whitey from Europe came and fucked it all up.

    Sad fact: Whole natives have casinos, we have the highest infant death rate in the country, miscarriages (?” That tend to kill child and mother.) and yeah. People talk of racism as it’s only black. Racism applies to all who are not white. I mean hell I have seen their conditions. And yeah it’s like trying to wipe us out as we are a reminder that before then we were here. And our ways were actually different.
    It even applies to whites actually. Laws in the South after the civil war and all during segregation that disenfranchised African Americans, Mexicans, Native Americans and the Chinese also kept poor and uneducated whites out as well. Obviously the majority of workers during the labor movement struggles were white working class. If you take a close look at police shootings, arrests and imprisonment, it’s not race that is the most common factor but poverty. What matters in American privilege vs oppression is not so much race and ethnicity as much as if a person is poor. Minorities have a larger percentage of their population in poverty, but the vast number of poor Americans are white, but racism is used to keep them from organizing with Poor minorities to oppose the policies that keep Them under the poverty line.

  11. #13826
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    Quote Originally Posted by A Small Talent For War View Post
    Honestly, Trump is definitely much more in the mold of Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama than any president before them. Especially Obama in the way his strongest supporters cannot accept any criticism of his Presidency. In my lifetime, the only president who had any vision beyond pragmatism was Jimmy Carter. After him, all the rest were pragmatic, realistic and sought limited effective policies.
    Trump is like Reagan and the Bushes, not Obama or Clinton. Obama is a flawed individual but he was a saint compared to Trump. There's nothing "realistic or pragmatic" about Trump. The reason Democrats follow this course is because it works, it's painfully slow but it is progress. Vision means nothing if you can't make it a reality.

    If he's accomplished anything, Trump will have broken the hegemony of the American dollar over the world. Despite all his America First rhetoric, intentionally or not, he tried his best to finally dismantle the dominance of American economic policy globally. Obviously, a devalued American dollar sounds pretty bad for us, but isn't that what led all our industry to move out of the country in the first place? It's just too damn expensive to live and work in America.
    That's not a good thing, not because America's hegemony is perfect or hasn't been disastrous, it's because other countries will do worse by filling in the gap.

    However, I imagine that any new administration's first priority will be to prop up that dominance and normally that happens in the sites of cruise missile. I am concerned that we will go back to the strong policy of selling "freedom" (i.e. favorable trade status) to the world through bombing campaigns and heavy propaganda promoting the vilification of China and Russia for a new kind of cold war.
    America's been in a cold war with Russia since Putin was elected. China's been having cold war with America, sort of, since Obama tried to do the TTP to limit their scope in the Pacific. China and Russia deserve the contempt thrown at them over the last few years. You hate Trump? They both want him in power. The investigations about Russia's interference in America's elections ands other countries, like Brexit, has been proven true.

  12. #13827
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Here's one for your next Clay Higgins update, WBE!


    https://twitter.com/repclayhiggins/s...216674817?s=21

  13. #13828

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tendrin View Post
    Here's one for your next Clay Higgins update, WBE!


    https://twitter.com/repclayhiggins/s...216674817?s=21
    I did hear that Lady Higgins is a pre-cog. It's no wonder Clay was so good at catching African American gangs. He had his wife helping him with the power of prophecy to do it Minority Report style.

    AND ALMOST ALWAYS ON MINORITIES!
    X-Books Forum Mutant Tracker/FAQ- Updated every Tuesday.

  14. #13829
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    I did hear that Lady Higgins is a pre-cog. It's no wonder Clay was so good at catching African American gangs. He had his wife helping him with the power of prophecy to do it Minority Report style.

    AND ALMOST ALWAYS ON MINORITIES!
    The jokes are writing themselves.

  15. #13830
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tendrin View Post
    Here's one for your next Clay Higgins update, WBE!


    https://twitter.com/repclayhiggins/s...216674817?s=21
    I want the monopoly on the drugs wifey’s taking. I’ll be richer than Warren Buffet inside of a week. By the way, Higgins sounds like a loon too.
    Avatar: Here's to the late, great Steve Dillon. Best. Punisher. Artist. EVER!

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