My late husband was an MP. in a combat zone. Those soldiers were not thinking much about elections back home. From what I learned post deployment there wasn't much thought that any politician cared about anything but their own bank accounts. My husband listened to Imus every day and always called to me to come listen when MT was on.
Yep. When I came back from Vietnam, I made a decision to never vote again, as the only protest I thought I could make. Didn’t start voting again till the late nineties. Seriously thinking about stopping again.
Me three. I found that our most intense (and usually only) allegiances during this period were to our crew-members, the guys that all depended upon one another for their very lives. The most intense friendships too. Yes we took the oath, but we really were trying to stay alive, more than anything.
Poor Matt. Write up an article denouncing the latest stupid hoax, and by the time it's ready for publication there have already been two more stupid hoaxes.
There have been so many stupid hoaxes by the Party of Government we need a single word for the phenomenon. I will buy a year's gift subscription for the top two suggestions; readers of Screaming into the Void judge.
I knew about the landfill problem, because it was featured around the time they were slammed with the two hurricanes. But Tony had to realize that wouldn't be widespread knowledge. Joe Rogan mentioned Tony is into the environment and a bit obsessed with the garbage patch. Joe had heard him tell it before.
But whoever thought a week before the election it would be useful to have a comedian famous for his roasts and insult style be given free reign to insult key voting demographics has a most interesting strategy.
I didn’t think The Impaired were allowed to vote. Then again, we have a special needs DEI hire running for president with most of the media covering for her.
I find it troubling that the plight of the Puerto Ricans is lost in all of this uproar. I wasn't aware of the fact that all the PR landfills are full until I did a search. They are facing a rather desperate situation. You would think that one reporter or talking head would want to bring that to light rather than just clutching their pearls. But it seems politics and journalism are stuck on stupid!
Right? I mean, Puerto Ricans are American citizens, for crying out loud! Puerto Rico is an American territory, as this is how we treat it??? THAT would be a great closing point for the election - Trump ought to make Puerto Rico great again (whatever) and point out how DC ignores their plight.
Isn’t she the one who, uh, “slept with” Alex Rodriguez and Daredevil Affleck? She would have had the trifecta if she could have boned Jeffrey Epstein… 🤣
Exactly. Anybody who lives within 100 miles of NYC is fully aware of how much garbage is shipped out of that city. Hell, I didn't pay property taxes for 10 years because there was a landfill in my Township that was fully filled by trash coming from NYC. Now, imagine being on an island with nowhere to send it....
Wow, Dorothy, I follow the latest media manipulations pretty closely (I'm a details freak for msm propaganda), but I missed the context you share. Thanks for filling us in (no pun intended.)
I just want someone who doesn't support genocide. Who isn't a slave to the monied interests. Who actually cares about working people and issues like decent wages, better health care, and real peace, as in a lot less war and killing everywhere.
But the red and blue tribes don't offer much of a choice here. All they've got is GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.
Well said. And what really gets me is when some smug cocktail party pundit tries to sound smart and says something like, "We get the politicians we deserve." No we don't, and what a conveniently lame excuse to blame it on voters, when so much of the system that has created this mess is totally beyond the means of the average person to have any say-so over.
So very true. When was the last time a grass-roots candidate was on a primary ballot, either R or D. Answer, never. Heck, even the L masters vet their candidates. We're always left with hmm or haw. One exception, DJT threw a wrench in his first time.
They don't mind a certain level of crime, as it adds to the frisson they feel is part of city life. It is only when it gets above that certain level do they feel threatened by it.
Why would good people go into politics when your life and that of your family could be ripped apart and you could run up a hundred thousand in attorney fees to defend yourself because some loon you've never met crawls out from under some rock with an outrageous claim from decades ago that you have no way to defend yourself against? They claim that they were traumatized because you supposedly showed them your pee-pee when you were five or pulled their hair back in middle school or some other such rot. And where do you go to get your reputation back after that? What successful person needs or wants that aggravation? So, what do we get as a result? The lowest common denominator. Power-hungry frauds, narcissists, and sociopaths.
"The people" are not responsible for the quality of politicians or the inanities of the way the system of government works.
Individuals are not responsible for their addiction to opiates, especially those that began with prescriptions.
Americans are not responsible for the wars, and now a genocide, that their tax dollars fund.
It's almost as if a certain strain of American liberalism operates in the manner of a criminal defense attorney, turning every bad act into a passive verb with no actual perpetrator.
I suspect that since the only time "the average person" demonstrates any interest in either "the system" or "the mess" is once every 2 or 4 years and consists of walking down the street and marking a piece of paper of punching a button on a machine a rational person might conclude that you do indeed "get the politicians you deserve".
Said rational person might not even be at a cocktail party but at a meeting of loons who are trying to come up with a strategy for changing "the system" in order to clean up "the mess".
A good start would be repealing Citizens United and taking the big money out of elections. Let there be 5-10 candidates on the ballot that cover everyone’s perspective, maybe more regular people will run for office and not only career politicians who hope to profit by being elected and working for partisan think tanks when they are done. The Doupoly IS the problem
All Citizens United did was remove restrictions on campaign spending by corporations and unions. Even before this decision, companies and unions were already pouring millions into lobbying—and they still do. Neither political party wants to cut off the flow of lobbyist cash. In fact, most politicians who don’t stay in office for life hope to secure lobbyist jobs once their terms end.
Big Pharma continues to funnel money to the FDA and rewards cooperative FDA employees with lucrative positions after they retire. Additionally, they are among the largest advertisers on television, including on news programs, which discourages networks from investigating or criticizing them. And since Citizens United only applies to corporations and unions, overturning it wouldn’t stop billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or George Soros from spending freely to influence elections.
The real impact of Citizens United was negligible. The flood of cash from wealthy, well-connected interests to their government allies was huge before Citizens United, and it remains huge today. The decision just handed politicians an easy excuse for wearing “For Sale” signs—they now claim they’re forced to take money as if it’s an unavoidable requirement to stay competitive.
Until we remove the concentration of power in Washington and return it to the states and the people, as the Constitution intended, we’ll never get big money out of elections.
Agreed. The ideology of the mainstream media and its Uniparty for 70 years has been the centralization of power in Washington DC. Rejecting the mainstream media will be required for change. Trump is a canary in that coal mine.
yes, we have to actually remove power as that is the source of the corruption. Obama never got quid pro quo money from Netflix for pushing their pet project of Net Neutrality... but what they did was teh same only legal. Obama got the legal maxes of cash from their board members for elections... then as soon as he left office they announced Netflix was paying $ 30 million for "up to 4" documentaries from the Obama's... that right there gets arouond all possible campaign finance laws.
You will never be able to ban people paying politicians for speeches or book/movie deals after retirements... but that is one of the easiest ways that these turds use to get around the optics/legality of just taking money for voting how they want.
choke off the power in DC, and then it won't be worth it to spend tens of billions of dollars to bribe these vampires.
None that I'm aware of. With maybe a few exceptions, nobody in government wants to change the system. It's been good to them. It's brought them wealth, power and prestige.
At some point, people need to be responsible to support who they believe is the best candidate. Perhaps if we remove the big dollar motivations of these candidates, we see improvement? Garbage in, Garbage Out. As Matt implies, they are the garbage and we are putting them there to speak for us.
Corporate/Liberal media and conservative media shouldn’t have as much influence as they do - if people choose to mindlessly follow them whose fault is that?
The Republican party only worked because the Whig party had the decency to dissolve when it became terminally split over the question of slavery. What remained were two major parties, the Dems and the Republicans. So, yeah, totally delusional.
Yet they offer no other choices; if they want to vote they have the same choices everyone else does, however, they are not burden with being on a Party email or text list. Many choice to be an "I" as finger to the party the kept lying to them.
Spot on Bill. The people employed by the ruling classes "your governments" have brought you to the place. They're doing just fine and they intend to keep the party going... for THEM....sucker!
Of all the poisonous ideas that have leached down into our social soil from the New Left and its merger of radical politics and therapy, one of the worst and most toxic has been: THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL.
By erasing the boundary between our personal lives and the realm of the political (which ideally should be limited to being about the affairs of the state and our govt), this slogan has managed to poison our friendships, marriages, community groups, schools and churches etc. In fifty years we've gone from the narcissism of "I just feel like my hang-ups are keeping me from being a better soldier for the movement, mannn" to the stupid and hateful "If you don't share my opinions on party politics, you're my natural enemy that needs to be destroyed."
There is nothing more important in our one and only lives than our family and friends and the people we love as well as our personal, individual consciences and how we express them—the people who want you to mouth their slogans and share their hatreds are enemies and not allies.
THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL is totalitarianism with a heavy dash of emotional blackmail designed to let every aspiring Stasi narc and petty tyrant get their grubby hands on your brain and soul—not every thought or word or night in bed with someone is inherently "political". Preserving the realm of the personal is essential to preserving freedom and dignity.
That was a second wave feminist slogan. To me there is nothing worse than basing your politics around immutable characteristics. The New Left has had tremendous success with this strategy institutionally though. Not so much electorally but definitely institutionally. I believe in the universalism of the old left but it's mostly dead and buried. GEN X was right to be cynical about politics in reaction to the Boomers IMO.
I'm still the same Gen-X Democrat (see Liberal) I have always been. Except now, I am called an out of touch racist White Boomer by... whatever the left is today.
Because hippies were the one's who started the identity mess we're in now. The new left started it and Millenials continued it with "wokism" that's why.
And look at how the pollsters link our identities to how we're expected to vote. People take one look at me and make (false) assumptions about whether I'm friend or foe. Reasonable, decent people can disagree with one another. But when "the end of democracy" or "the end of America as we know it" are trotted out, the Others are demonic minions of Satan. Once upon a time, people who read the magazines about celebrity's personal lives were considered voyeuristic freaks. Now it's anyone with a news feed to their phone. Ditto with politics porn. We are mutating under the gamma rays coming from our devices and becoming angry Hulks.
They've pre-primed the revolution. It doesn't matter who wins, the loser is primed to strike. If Trump wins (still doubt it), Every Blue City in the country will burn, and the economy will be collapsed within a year. If Kamala wins, the Right will bitch, and maybe a few tantrums will be had, and BLM will make sure to make it look like the Right revolted, and a lot more people will go to jail for wearing the wrong clothing....
I'm afraid you are right about a pre-primed revolution being planned. The Left says that is what the conservatives will do, but they are the ones who will react. I understand that they had a practice evacuation of the White House on Monday. They want to keep the option open that if Trump loses we conservatives, aka domestic terrorists and Nazis will run amok!
There are so many people that the DOJ has arrested and jailed--without a trial. One day the truth will come out about that awful day. But not before we are all senile!
Yeah, all that "it'll be the end of America as we know it" is so much bullshit,,,,as if our country and society has stayed in some dormant state for 250 years and now there's a threat to a change coming. I remember reading an article in Spy magazine quite a while ago. It traced the history of Rock-n-Roll, I think. There was a very funny bit in the timeline; "When Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to pot it began the process of the end of western civilization as we know it",,,,,now, that observation may actually be true.
It worked out for some of us. I use it every day. People won't listen if they think you don't love them and aren't listening to them. Why this needs to be explained is the mystery.
My wife's uncle, a rabid Democrat with raging TDS, and a lifelong lover of sex drugs and rock and roll, died a few months back, and his dying message was, listen to the Beatles, love is all you need. He made peace with his conservative relatives and even with God before he passed. A shame he lived as long as he did without taking that message to heart sooner.
Our mainstream media used to do more to focus on and celebrate what unites us, not what divides us. Old media might have papered over cracks, or worse, but it felt like a better place overall when we didn't hate our neighbors. A hyper-focus on internal political differences since we stopped having an external enemy (i.e. the Soviet Union) has delivered us to this place. Tribalism reigns, one way or the other. No enemy without = enemy within.
The individual is anathema to collectivists. There is nothing they hate more than what they see as “excessive individualism”. Of course they try to conflate personal and political. The goal is to subsume the individual into the collectivist whole. It takes a village and all that.
The politicization of everything is typical of totalizing leftist collectivist movements. It’s the best way to create a society of snitches and schoolmarms who can serve as the eyes and ears of the state.
I’m weirded out because I got an e-mail from my .gov saying I didn’t vote in 2016. I did, but I wrote in who I wanted for Pres. There were other things on the ballot I voted for (or against)
11/01/24: Obviously, you didn't vote for The "Correct" Candidate. This is why my antediluvian election set up in the gym of the local high school where I live still maintains physical signature books in which I sign my name and write the exact date of the event. Of course, there is nothing to stop them from someday claiming that they never existed.
I voted in our local elementary school my son attended. I don’t remember a sign in book there though. Maybe the email was just about the presidential vote. Still - it had a space to write in a candidate. I once heard after that - if you don’t vote for a Presidential choice they count it as a spoiled ballot.
Went to a bar in Livingston, MT to watch the Yankee game the other night. Struck up a brief conversation about the delicious autumn salad with the lady sitting next to me at the bar. About a minute later, apropos of nothing, she blurted out "Ugh, I'm so damn stressed. Wait. Are you team red or team blue?"
"Team red. You?"
"Seriously? Are you kidding me? "
"No, why?"
The tirade that followed was remarkable. This woman was literally shaking with rage. A complete and total stranger with whom I had exchanged a few sentences prior.
On the plus side, I learned that I'm a "pathetic asshole who hates women" - based strictly on my support for Trump - so at least I know what I need to work on in my voyage of self-discovery, lol.
and of course, SHE had to bring up "what team are you on?" It says it all! What kills me is they can't accept that anyone has an opinion other than theirs (the sanctioned party line!)
Funny how she was cordial to you right up until you said you were Team Red. Then she immediately went to self-righteous indignation. If you hate someone because of “wrongthink”, or not voting for the right team, you need to re-evaluate you thinking.
At an art opening, my wife once introduced me to a man she had been talking to. His first words to me were "Are you Left or Right?" I'm politically non-binary (can I patent that phrase?) so I stood there nonplussed until my wife interjected "He's extremely independent!". I thought that was a nice thing to say about me, but to some people it's probably even worse than being "on the other side".
I don't know. When I tell people I'm independent (because I don't subscribe to the duopoly), they seem oddly perplexed, and move on to another topic of conversation. It's quite amusing that they don't seem to know how to talk about politics with someone who thinks independently.
I went down to our longtime friends and neighbors right after KH was nominated. Wanted to give them a huge organic onion that I had no need for. Wife said, sit down we haven't seen you in a while so I did. After a few seconds of chit she asked well what do you think of the Walz choice for "our Kamala." So I responded truthfully and laid it out. The husband stormed out(!) of the house after saying he would never speak to me again. Wife subjected me to a lengthy what is wrong with you tirade. I left saying, well at least enjoy that honker of an onion. My wife discovered it an hour later placed in our driveway. This really happened.
OMG….so sorry for your hostile neighbor’s shameful treatment. Glad to hear that you were bravely had the conviction to express your political opinion in the face of those bullies. I know how difficult it is to have genuine affection for people only to have them reveal that their tolerance isn’t mutual. I have some on my street too. Forge on with your integrity intact and know that surely there are others who would love to be blessed with your huge organic onions.
TMS- these people are SO effed up!! My husband gets deeply offended by that "our" business! Back when Obama won his first term we were at a friend's party and were greeted w/ "OUR guy won!" He left NO opening for anyone at his party to have voted for a different candidate!
I live in the bluest community in one of the reddest states. I'm a recovering liberal, with most of my friends still firmly seated in the progressive bandwagon: yet, so far, I've managed not to be disowned. They know my current political leanings (voting for RFK via Trump), but somehow, when they declare 'All of Trump's supporters are fascists and racist bigots', they don't seem to include me in there, for which I am grateful, but bemused.
I have a very good friend, very liberal, who, after a few glasses of wine, got off on a rant about how many Trump signs she had seen on the road back from an out of town football game. She said that couldn't believe how "ignorant" these people were and that their opinion must be due to their "isolation".
Do these people ever listen to themselves? So, the problem is that those people are ignorant and if they weren't, they'd think exactly the same way she does? WTF?! That's not only wrong, it's offensive. And, they're completely oblivious why people think they're arrogant, self-absorbed a--holes. Totally ruined my buzz.
11/01/24: Get it over with. Wear sweatshirts with Harvey Weinstein's glorious face on the front of them at the PTA meetings and Little League ball games. If anyone gets mad, just point to Sam Bankman-Fried's hot-to-trot puss on the back (pre-prison haircut) and remind them who financed the Dems in 2020 & 2022 (by looting his crypto-currency racket).
That's a good one! Personally- I don't see that it's anyone's business who I vote for. I live and work amongst these people. They are seriously mentally ill! Almost all they think about is being ANTI- Trump. In the past their obsession was being ANTI- Bush. I don't know how they survived the Obama and Biden years when they had no boogey-man!!
Yes. I had a door knocker dem & she asked what issue was most important to me. I said ending wars and she looked at her sheet & said so Foreign Policy. I said yes & it was cordial.
Yeah- she is an actress. I have been thinking about this for a while now- the changing accents, the affectations and gestures, the dramatic delivery of the most banal statements as if she is imparting wisdom. She is delivering lines like she practiced them in the mirror.
The woman is a cipher. If I were a Leftist, I'd be appalled that she was the nominee. As embarrassing as he can be, Trump is at least a person. She isn't.
How can it be that millions of Americans have become so oblivious to this that she may win?
I agree. She is an actress and not a very good one. Meryl Streep needs to do a better job at coaching Harris on those fake accents. BTW, Barack Obama employed a fake southern accent when he was exhorting black men to vote for Harris (EX: She went to school “witchoo.” That man is in no way southern and I hope no one fell for his fake “folksiness with da folx” crap.
"she is an actress"...She is so bad at public speaking that I can't believe she practices. Be honest, you just called her an actress as an insult to all the Hollylib actresses. Well done.
The demonizing of one side as the enemy is... the problem. We are all in this together and I believe we are all coming to recognize this. You can never be right by making someone else wrong. It is a simple truth.
If that were true, the polls, unsatisfactory though they are, would be showing the kind of 60/40 blowout we had in 1972 and 1984. They aren't. God, please be kind to us.
No civilized Country votes for a month, no voter ID, unsecured drop off mail boxes. These all promoted by Democrats, why? They certainly don’t have high regards for their constituents .
Perhaps Americans should vote like the Afghan voting system we established there. Paper ballots, purple fingers, that takes a few days to wear off. Afghanistan had more secure elections then we we do now.
Truth. I’m making myself sick and don’t have a voice to make the body politic hear a word . Because they don’t care. That’s the bottom line. They don’t give a shit about “ We The People”, only the Party and their masters.
The Democrats are so vicious, dishonest and hateful, though, that Trump is the only choice and the only way to regain sanity in America is a very expansive coalition admin representative of the people vs the party. Disgusted Dems turned Independent or Republican for convenience are the last hope. I’m not a partisan. Can’t stand the lockstep requisite ideological demands or loyalty pledges of either party. It has only led to extremism and gutted the pragmatic center left/center / center right. Media is dead, meritocracy is dead, free speech, the right to privacy, to be heard, to have a government “of, for and by the people” is being crushed,
Today , the biggest lie to date is being spread by the Dems and MSM, twisting Trump’s very clear commentary regarding Liz Cheney. In its full content, Trump spoke about Liz Cheney being a Warhawk. That she might feel differently about sending our youth to their deaths if she had nine barrels pointed at her face by enemy soldiers. She’d probably cut and run. -I couldn’t agree more- the Blob has spun it into “ Calling to shoot Cheney to point nine barrels at Liz Cheney and shoot her in the face! ( I wouldn’t shed a tear). Particularly when those of Cheney’s ilk provoked or created the enemy, which was done invading Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan ( thank Carter /Brezinzki for the Taliban, Bin Laden, Pol Pot-Khmer Rouge, the Ayatollah regime ) , ouster of Egypt’s secular, anti-Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas/Hezbollah Mubarak and arming ISIS in Libya, Syria, Egypt. Brezinzki/Carter/Kissinger/Wolfowitz for the insane anti-Russian zealotry that was neutralized post-Cold War by the wisdom of Moynihan, Haig and Goldwater who against every “ brilliant adviser”, pushed for non-NATO expansion beyond reunited Germany. Warning of exactly what would happen- a weakened, but nuclear Russia would feel threatened and align with Iran and eventually, China- two nations hated by Russia, but militant.
Invading Ukraine, our vassal state. The constant ostracization, scapegoating and provocation of Russia has finally brought it to fruition. One step from WWIii. Trump brought near peace to the Middle East, forged never thought possible alliances, no new wars and the Democrats, Deep State and globalists undid EVERYTHING! Deliberately.
It’s always the hawks who never set foot on a battlefield that are gung ho to send our children to die.Or the psychopaths who fought other people’s wars and loved it. Bloodlust.
It really came home to me how far we are down the road toward Ingsoc when my mother was ranting about the J6 "insurrection," and I said the only people who got hurt were the rioters who were guilty of nothing more than trespassing and she said she was glad they got shot and wished the mitary had opened fire on the crowd. I said then she will be glad when I'm murdered by the government for being a dissenter and I hung up. She tried to say "I love you," but now, who knows?
Sadly, people believe what they want to and are too righteous about their invest to see another side . You cannot reason someone out of something they were not reasoned into.
My late husband was an MP. in a combat zone. Those soldiers were not thinking much about elections back home. From what I learned post deployment there wasn't much thought that any politician cared about anything but their own bank accounts. My husband listened to Imus every day and always called to me to come listen when MT was on.
My condolences. My brother was MP in Iraq. Said the same thing basically. His job was to just get home. It wasn’t politics.
Yep. When I came back from Vietnam, I made a decision to never vote again, as the only protest I thought I could make. Didn’t start voting again till the late nineties. Seriously thinking about stopping again.
Husband there during Tet. Welcome home.
Thanks 1966-67. I’m old as dirt
Me three. I found that our most intense (and usually only) allegiances during this period were to our crew-members, the guys that all depended upon one another for their very lives. The most intense friendships too. Yes we took the oath, but we really were trying to stay alive, more than anything.
Welcome Home.
Yikes. My older brother too.
Tell him Racket News readers Welcome Him home. Matt Taibbi and Daniel Ellsberg doing the same work.
hang in there for at least one more
Thank you and your family for your service
I’ll bet he liked rush limbaugh too
no, not at all. Imus was the only talk radio we had on.
Imus was great, along with Bernard, Bo, and all the amazing music.
Miss him so much. He would have had so much fun skewering "Plugs" these past few years.
Poor Matt. Write up an article denouncing the latest stupid hoax, and by the time it's ready for publication there have already been two more stupid hoaxes.
Lol
There have been so many stupid hoaxes by the Party of Government we need a single word for the phenomenon. I will buy a year's gift subscription for the top two suggestions; readers of Screaming into the Void judge.
I think it's called news purporting.
Check the spelling again.
11/01/24: Three more. And a magnificent column. How did he know that I don't give a f*ck?
Why 'poor?' At least it's steady employment.
I knew about the landfill problem, because it was featured around the time they were slammed with the two hurricanes. But Tony had to realize that wouldn't be widespread knowledge. Joe Rogan mentioned Tony is into the environment and a bit obsessed with the garbage patch. Joe had heard him tell it before.
But whoever thought a week before the election it would be useful to have a comedian famous for his roasts and insult style be given free reign to insult key voting demographics has a most interesting strategy.
It’s one thing for a simple ass comedian to say such things.
And then there is our pathetically diminished President of the United States…..
Does anyone know if he’s still going to work or is he only alert when Jill or Netanyahu tell him to come to attention?
Watch him vote for Kamala.... LOL
I didn’t think The Impaired were allowed to vote. Then again, we have a special needs DEI hire running for president with most of the media covering for her.
I find it troubling that the plight of the Puerto Ricans is lost in all of this uproar. I wasn't aware of the fact that all the PR landfills are full until I did a search. They are facing a rather desperate situation. You would think that one reporter or talking head would want to bring that to light rather than just clutching their pearls. But it seems politics and journalism are stuck on stupid!
Oh dang it was a literal garbage joke not a population joke! Thanks
Right? I mean, Puerto Ricans are American citizens, for crying out loud! Puerto Rico is an American territory, as this is how we treat it??? THAT would be a great closing point for the election - Trump ought to make Puerto Rico great again (whatever) and point out how DC ignores their plight.
But.. but.. JLo and AOC were totally offended. You know.. JLo? The one very prominent person in the Diddy situation....
Isn’t she the one who, uh, “slept with” Alex Rodriguez and Daredevil Affleck? She would have had the trifecta if she could have boned Jeffrey Epstein… 🤣
Interesting. When Karen writes about women being "discounted, substandard excrement," this might be what she was referring to. But yes, it's "funny."
Exactly. Anybody who lives within 100 miles of NYC is fully aware of how much garbage is shipped out of that city. Hell, I didn't pay property taxes for 10 years because there was a landfill in my Township that was fully filled by trash coming from NYC. Now, imagine being on an island with nowhere to send it....
I used to drive by Mount Trashmore, the unofficial name for a large garbage dump half way out on Long Island.
Wow, Dorothy, I follow the latest media manipulations pretty closely (I'm a details freak for msm propaganda), but I missed the context you share. Thanks for filling us in (no pun intended.)
Thank you for this info.
Very well put, Matt. I watched my Dad drive himself to an early grave by obsessing too much over politics.
I follow politics, but it is not my whole life; I do take breaks from it to keep my sanity.
Whoever wins, I feel time for a break is coming.
Sanity!!! Good job.
11/01/24: Well, at least Dad's still voting! (!)
Tribalism--are you blue or red? Brat or MAGA?
I just want someone who doesn't support genocide. Who isn't a slave to the monied interests. Who actually cares about working people and issues like decent wages, better health care, and real peace, as in a lot less war and killing everywhere.
But the red and blue tribes don't offer much of a choice here. All they've got is GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.
As Trump might say: Sad.
Well said. And what really gets me is when some smug cocktail party pundit tries to sound smart and says something like, "We get the politicians we deserve." No we don't, and what a conveniently lame excuse to blame it on voters, when so much of the system that has created this mess is totally beyond the means of the average person to have any say-so over.
So very true. When was the last time a grass-roots candidate was on a primary ballot, either R or D. Answer, never. Heck, even the L masters vet their candidates. We're always left with hmm or haw. One exception, DJT threw a wrench in his first time.
Particularly true if one lives in a mono-party state such as WA.
Actually, WA east of the Cascades runs conservative/republican. It's just that they are outnumbered by the coasties.
CA is largely blue in its urban areas but red elsewhere. It is definitely a mono-party state.
Liberal coastal bobble heads love crime, homelessness and crappy schools.
They don't mind a certain level of crime, as it adds to the frisson they feel is part of city life. It is only when it gets above that certain level do they feel threatened by it.
Why would good people go into politics when your life and that of your family could be ripped apart and you could run up a hundred thousand in attorney fees to defend yourself because some loon you've never met crawls out from under some rock with an outrageous claim from decades ago that you have no way to defend yourself against? They claim that they were traumatized because you supposedly showed them your pee-pee when you were five or pulled their hair back in middle school or some other such rot. And where do you go to get your reputation back after that? What successful person needs or wants that aggravation? So, what do we get as a result? The lowest common denominator. Power-hungry frauds, narcissists, and sociopaths.
Yes but MY "Power-hungry frauds, narcissists, and sociopaths." are the good ones. /s
I see this a lot.
"The people" are not responsible for the quality of politicians or the inanities of the way the system of government works.
Individuals are not responsible for their addiction to opiates, especially those that began with prescriptions.
Americans are not responsible for the wars, and now a genocide, that their tax dollars fund.
It's almost as if a certain strain of American liberalism operates in the manner of a criminal defense attorney, turning every bad act into a passive verb with no actual perpetrator.
Breathe Michael. Just breathe.
Get off the meds, indo.
11/01/24: I haven't been to a cocktail party since Gerald Ford was on roller skates. Have I missed anything?
Only the cocktails. The rest is forgettable.
It's a cheap throwaway insult due to limited vocab.
They make the excuse that they “are just following the rules,” conveniently ignoring the fact that they themselves made the rules.
I suspect that since the only time "the average person" demonstrates any interest in either "the system" or "the mess" is once every 2 or 4 years and consists of walking down the street and marking a piece of paper of punching a button on a machine a rational person might conclude that you do indeed "get the politicians you deserve".
Said rational person might not even be at a cocktail party but at a meeting of loons who are trying to come up with a strategy for changing "the system" in order to clean up "the mess".
We really need a new political party for those of us who support common sense positions like those you describe here.
A good start would be repealing Citizens United and taking the big money out of elections. Let there be 5-10 candidates on the ballot that cover everyone’s perspective, maybe more regular people will run for office and not only career politicians who hope to profit by being elected and working for partisan think tanks when they are done. The Doupoly IS the problem
All Citizens United did was remove restrictions on campaign spending by corporations and unions. Even before this decision, companies and unions were already pouring millions into lobbying—and they still do. Neither political party wants to cut off the flow of lobbyist cash. In fact, most politicians who don’t stay in office for life hope to secure lobbyist jobs once their terms end.
Big Pharma continues to funnel money to the FDA and rewards cooperative FDA employees with lucrative positions after they retire. Additionally, they are among the largest advertisers on television, including on news programs, which discourages networks from investigating or criticizing them. And since Citizens United only applies to corporations and unions, overturning it wouldn’t stop billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or George Soros from spending freely to influence elections.
The real impact of Citizens United was negligible. The flood of cash from wealthy, well-connected interests to their government allies was huge before Citizens United, and it remains huge today. The decision just handed politicians an easy excuse for wearing “For Sale” signs—they now claim they’re forced to take money as if it’s an unavoidable requirement to stay competitive.
Until we remove the concentration of power in Washington and return it to the states and the people, as the Constitution intended, we’ll never get big money out of elections.
Agreed. The ideology of the mainstream media and its Uniparty for 70 years has been the centralization of power in Washington DC. Rejecting the mainstream media will be required for change. Trump is a canary in that coal mine.
yes, we have to actually remove power as that is the source of the corruption. Obama never got quid pro quo money from Netflix for pushing their pet project of Net Neutrality... but what they did was teh same only legal. Obama got the legal maxes of cash from their board members for elections... then as soon as he left office they announced Netflix was paying $ 30 million for "up to 4" documentaries from the Obama's... that right there gets arouond all possible campaign finance laws.
You will never be able to ban people paying politicians for speeches or book/movie deals after retirements... but that is one of the easiest ways that these turds use to get around the optics/legality of just taking money for voting how they want.
choke off the power in DC, and then it won't be worth it to spend tens of billions of dollars to bribe these vampires.
Nicely said.
None that I'm aware of. With maybe a few exceptions, nobody in government wants to change the system. It's been good to them. It's brought them wealth, power and prestige.
One sides voice would become even more prominent, as the MSM is owned and operated by the Democrat Party. Were that not the case, I would agree.
At some point, people need to be responsible to support who they believe is the best candidate. Perhaps if we remove the big dollar motivations of these candidates, we see improvement? Garbage in, Garbage Out. As Matt implies, they are the garbage and we are putting them there to speak for us.
Corporate/Liberal media and conservative media shouldn’t have as much influence as they do - if people choose to mindlessly follow them whose fault is that?
It would be quickly penetrated, co-opted, and paid off by the same hostile powers that control the current parties.
Yep. The third party fantasy is one of the greatest delusions in American politics.
Trump is creating a third party right under the Republicans’ noses! WITH THEIR HELP!
I hope that is true.
Not totally delusional. The Republican Party started out as a "third party" in the middle of the 19th century.
The Republican party only worked because the Whig party had the decency to dissolve when it became terminally split over the question of slavery. What remained were two major parties, the Dems and the Republicans. So, yeah, totally delusional.
How does your statement contradict my point?
3 referendums have passed in my school district in the last 5 years. $240M here, $62M there and $16M in perpetuity.
My mortgage will be paid up next year. My property taxes have gone up by a little over 50%.
I can't take referendums to pay for candidates I mostly loathe on top of that.
So Cornel West and Jill Stein are non starters? Not the solution
of course but they are out there but unfortunately convey too much
common sense for the elte.
Lol, Jill and Cornell are both idiots. Unserious people voted for by easily duped voters desperate for something different. But they both suck.
They are called "independents" and are numerous.
Yet they offer no other choices; if they want to vote they have the same choices everyone else does, however, they are not burden with being on a Party email or text list. Many choice to be an "I" as finger to the party the kept lying to them.
And, added bonus. If you live in PA, you don't even have to vote in the Primary, because, basically.. you can't.
Also, "independents" are just hipsters anyway. They all still vote the same way they did when they had D and R on their Voter Reg card.
Not me. 3rd party, write in, or sit it out now. '08 was the last time i voted D top of the ticket.
Nobody supports genocide. There are a number of people who don't know what the word means. We have a shortage of dictionaries and common sense.
So true.
Ok then, “against the thousands of children and in innocent civilians being murdered.” Does that work for you?
Blame Hamas, the government of gaza. Try to be honest. Just try.
Not.
Spot on Bill. The people employed by the ruling classes "your governments" have brought you to the place. They're doing just fine and they intend to keep the party going... for THEM....sucker!
Of all the poisonous ideas that have leached down into our social soil from the New Left and its merger of radical politics and therapy, one of the worst and most toxic has been: THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL.
By erasing the boundary between our personal lives and the realm of the political (which ideally should be limited to being about the affairs of the state and our govt), this slogan has managed to poison our friendships, marriages, community groups, schools and churches etc. In fifty years we've gone from the narcissism of "I just feel like my hang-ups are keeping me from being a better soldier for the movement, mannn" to the stupid and hateful "If you don't share my opinions on party politics, you're my natural enemy that needs to be destroyed."
There is nothing more important in our one and only lives than our family and friends and the people we love as well as our personal, individual consciences and how we express them—the people who want you to mouth their slogans and share their hatreds are enemies and not allies.
THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL is totalitarianism with a heavy dash of emotional blackmail designed to let every aspiring Stasi narc and petty tyrant get their grubby hands on your brain and soul—not every thought or word or night in bed with someone is inherently "political". Preserving the realm of the personal is essential to preserving freedom and dignity.
That was a second wave feminist slogan. To me there is nothing worse than basing your politics around immutable characteristics. The New Left has had tremendous success with this strategy institutionally though. Not so much electorally but definitely institutionally. I believe in the universalism of the old left but it's mostly dead and buried. GEN X was right to be cynical about politics in reaction to the Boomers IMO.
I'm still the same Gen-X Democrat (see Liberal) I have always been. Except now, I am called an out of touch racist White Boomer by... whatever the left is today.
Honest old school liberals see through the dung being shoveled by the empty husked parasites that now co-opt your label. It's pathetic.
Sigh. I'm a boomer and I can see your point..
Why fall for the "boomer" or "Gen-X" classification? Just another ploy to divide us, in my opinion.
Agreed. Making assumptions about a person based on age or other identity drives us apart. It's as though we are being forced to wear gang tattoos.
Gang tattoos--perfect analogy!
Because hippies were the one's who started the identity mess we're in now. The new left started it and Millenials continued it with "wokism" that's why.
Hey, man don't blame the hippies for identity politics. That's not cool.
😂
And look at how the pollsters link our identities to how we're expected to vote. People take one look at me and make (false) assumptions about whether I'm friend or foe. Reasonable, decent people can disagree with one another. But when "the end of democracy" or "the end of America as we know it" are trotted out, the Others are demonic minions of Satan. Once upon a time, people who read the magazines about celebrity's personal lives were considered voyeuristic freaks. Now it's anyone with a news feed to their phone. Ditto with politics porn. We are mutating under the gamma rays coming from our devices and becoming angry Hulks.
They've pre-primed the revolution. It doesn't matter who wins, the loser is primed to strike. If Trump wins (still doubt it), Every Blue City in the country will burn, and the economy will be collapsed within a year. If Kamala wins, the Right will bitch, and maybe a few tantrums will be had, and BLM will make sure to make it look like the Right revolted, and a lot more people will go to jail for wearing the wrong clothing....
I'm afraid you are right about a pre-primed revolution being planned. The Left says that is what the conservatives will do, but they are the ones who will react. I understand that they had a practice evacuation of the White House on Monday. They want to keep the option open that if Trump loses we conservatives, aka domestic terrorists and Nazis will run amok!
There are so many people that the DOJ has arrested and jailed--without a trial. One day the truth will come out about that awful day. But not before we are all senile!
You have a right to your opinion and your prediction. Weirdos will head the the streets. Normal Americans won't.
Pretty much exactly what I was saying.
I believe Turd was saying just that.
Sadly, that seems pretty accurate.
Yeah, all that "it'll be the end of America as we know it" is so much bullshit,,,,as if our country and society has stayed in some dormant state for 250 years and now there's a threat to a change coming. I remember reading an article in Spy magazine quite a while ago. It traced the history of Rock-n-Roll, I think. There was a very funny bit in the timeline; "When Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to pot it began the process of the end of western civilization as we know it",,,,,now, that observation may actually be true.
The Beatles helped create love, love, love. It's all we need.
11/01/24: That worked out like a 2008 mortgage...
It worked out for some of us. I use it every day. People won't listen if they think you don't love them and aren't listening to them. Why this needs to be explained is the mystery.
My wife's uncle, a rabid Democrat with raging TDS, and a lifelong lover of sex drugs and rock and roll, died a few months back, and his dying message was, listen to the Beatles, love is all you need. He made peace with his conservative relatives and even with God before he passed. A shame he lived as long as he did without taking that message to heart sooner.
Maybe because far too many people have nothing to give their lives meaning or a sense of belonging anymore.
There is a poisonous cousin with PERCEPTION IS REALITY.
and a deranged nephew called FEELINGS ARE FACTS!
Step cousin twice removed: IMMANENTIZE THE ESCHATON!
Damn... reaching back to William F. Buckley for quotes. I'd wager that one, or both of us are getting "a little long in the tooth".
Post modernism
The list is long
Our mainstream media used to do more to focus on and celebrate what unites us, not what divides us. Old media might have papered over cracks, or worse, but it felt like a better place overall when we didn't hate our neighbors. A hyper-focus on internal political differences since we stopped having an external enemy (i.e. the Soviet Union) has delivered us to this place. Tribalism reigns, one way or the other. No enemy without = enemy within.
The individual is anathema to collectivists. There is nothing they hate more than what they see as “excessive individualism”. Of course they try to conflate personal and political. The goal is to subsume the individual into the collectivist whole. It takes a village and all that.
🎯
Divide and rule or divide and conquer. Probably why we have many that refuse to vote, ever. On big finger to everyone else.
We should be (somewhat) " divided". I fear groupthink more
Pretty much a uniparty running the show. That's where the group think is.
The politicization of everything is typical of totalizing leftist collectivist movements. It’s the best way to create a society of snitches and schoolmarms who can serve as the eyes and ears of the state.
Walz
💯
11/01/24: My write-in vote on Tuesday will be for Coco McShevitz. Coco, go through The West Wing scripts. See what we can recycle in 2025.
I’m weirded out because I got an e-mail from my .gov saying I didn’t vote in 2016. I did, but I wrote in who I wanted for Pres. There were other things on the ballot I voted for (or against)
11/01/24: Obviously, you didn't vote for The "Correct" Candidate. This is why my antediluvian election set up in the gym of the local high school where I live still maintains physical signature books in which I sign my name and write the exact date of the event. Of course, there is nothing to stop them from someday claiming that they never existed.
I voted in our local elementary school my son attended. I don’t remember a sign in book there though. Maybe the email was just about the presidential vote. Still - it had a space to write in a candidate. I once heard after that - if you don’t vote for a Presidential choice they count it as a spoiled ballot.
Read the Maoist playbook.
Went to a bar in Livingston, MT to watch the Yankee game the other night. Struck up a brief conversation about the delicious autumn salad with the lady sitting next to me at the bar. About a minute later, apropos of nothing, she blurted out "Ugh, I'm so damn stressed. Wait. Are you team red or team blue?"
"Team red. You?"
"Seriously? Are you kidding me? "
"No, why?"
The tirade that followed was remarkable. This woman was literally shaking with rage. A complete and total stranger with whom I had exchanged a few sentences prior.
On the plus side, I learned that I'm a "pathetic asshole who hates women" - based strictly on my support for Trump - so at least I know what I need to work on in my voyage of self-discovery, lol.
and of course, SHE had to bring up "what team are you on?" It says it all! What kills me is they can't accept that anyone has an opinion other than theirs (the sanctioned party line!)
LOL! Some of these people make me wish that Xanax came in an aerosol. Here sugar, have a spritz. You'll feel so much better.
Funny how she was cordial to you right up until you said you were Team Red. Then she immediately went to self-righteous indignation. If you hate someone because of “wrongthink”, or not voting for the right team, you need to re-evaluate you thinking.
Glad you were able to escape without scratch marks and spittle all over you.
You may have met our commenter Karen in real life!
At an art opening, my wife once introduced me to a man she had been talking to. His first words to me were "Are you Left or Right?" I'm politically non-binary (can I patent that phrase?) so I stood there nonplussed until my wife interjected "He's extremely independent!". I thought that was a nice thing to say about me, but to some people it's probably even worse than being "on the other side".
I don't know. When I tell people I'm independent (because I don't subscribe to the duopoly), they seem oddly perplexed, and move on to another topic of conversation. It's quite amusing that they don't seem to know how to talk about politics with someone who thinks independently.
I live part time near Livingston Montana and it is a liberal town. Nor surprised.
Go East.
I went down to our longtime friends and neighbors right after KH was nominated. Wanted to give them a huge organic onion that I had no need for. Wife said, sit down we haven't seen you in a while so I did. After a few seconds of chit she asked well what do you think of the Walz choice for "our Kamala." So I responded truthfully and laid it out. The husband stormed out(!) of the house after saying he would never speak to me again. Wife subjected me to a lengthy what is wrong with you tirade. I left saying, well at least enjoy that honker of an onion. My wife discovered it an hour later placed in our driveway. This really happened.
OMG….so sorry for your hostile neighbor’s shameful treatment. Glad to hear that you were bravely had the conviction to express your political opinion in the face of those bullies. I know how difficult it is to have genuine affection for people only to have them reveal that their tolerance isn’t mutual. I have some on my street too. Forge on with your integrity intact and know that surely there are others who would love to be blessed with your huge organic onions.
TMS- these people are SO effed up!! My husband gets deeply offended by that "our" business! Back when Obama won his first term we were at a friend's party and were greeted w/ "OUR guy won!" He left NO opening for anyone at his party to have voted for a different candidate!
Have these people always been radical?
That's unbelievably petty and mean-spirited behavior. Their minds have been poisoned.
It's a sad statement!
I live in the bluest community in one of the reddest states. I'm a recovering liberal, with most of my friends still firmly seated in the progressive bandwagon: yet, so far, I've managed not to be disowned. They know my current political leanings (voting for RFK via Trump), but somehow, when they declare 'All of Trump's supporters are fascists and racist bigots', they don't seem to include me in there, for which I am grateful, but bemused.
I have a very good friend, very liberal, who, after a few glasses of wine, got off on a rant about how many Trump signs she had seen on the road back from an out of town football game. She said that couldn't believe how "ignorant" these people were and that their opinion must be due to their "isolation".
Do these people ever listen to themselves? So, the problem is that those people are ignorant and if they weren't, they'd think exactly the same way she does? WTF?! That's not only wrong, it's offensive. And, they're completely oblivious why people think they're arrogant, self-absorbed a--holes. Totally ruined my buzz.
11/01/24: Get it over with. Wear sweatshirts with Harvey Weinstein's glorious face on the front of them at the PTA meetings and Little League ball games. If anyone gets mad, just point to Sam Bankman-Fried's hot-to-trot puss on the back (pre-prison haircut) and remind them who financed the Dems in 2020 & 2022 (by looting his crypto-currency racket).
Wow. Not mine. I got banished.
I just say "I'm the anti-war voter and I don't vote for war" and allow them to contemplate that. Oddly, that seems to shut Democrats up.
That's a good one! Personally- I don't see that it's anyone's business who I vote for. I live and work amongst these people. They are seriously mentally ill! Almost all they think about is being ANTI- Trump. In the past their obsession was being ANTI- Bush. I don't know how they survived the Obama and Biden years when they had no boogey-man!!
We were too busy worshiping Obama. (Yes, I was one of the zombies at the time.)
Yes. I had a door knocker dem & she asked what issue was most important to me. I said ending wars and she looked at her sheet & said so Foreign Policy. I said yes & it was cordial.
There's a "door knockers" joke in here somewhere. Turn on the overhead light and let's take a look.
I only answered because I was expecting a package - like any normal person.
It's too bad for you that the FBI doesn't infiltrate leftists groups, you would make a great confidential informant!
I sincerely doubt they'd be interested in my community of a couple dozen people. We live in the middle of nowhere.
"that strange subset of people who define themselves by their votes."
Yes yes yes. It's like their identity or religion or something.
Cult.
If Harris has to further divide Americans in order to win, well, the only thing that matters for her is that she wins.
I would add that is what her handlers care about. She seems to be merely along for the ride as the face of the possible next President. Very sad…
She's an avatar, nothing more.
Yeah- she is an actress. I have been thinking about this for a while now- the changing accents, the affectations and gestures, the dramatic delivery of the most banal statements as if she is imparting wisdom. She is delivering lines like she practiced them in the mirror.
The woman is a cipher. If I were a Leftist, I'd be appalled that she was the nominee. As embarrassing as he can be, Trump is at least a person. She isn't.
How can it be that millions of Americans have become so oblivious to this that she may win?
HRC perfected the "chameleon" act, uttering cultural nuances of the locale in which her harangue was taking place. Sounded ridiculous.
I ain't in no ways tired.
It always mystified me. It was as if she thought it was 1920, and the entire nation wouldn't be seeing it within hours.
Yep, I've thought the same thing. It's mediocre, but besides ambition, it's about her only talent.
I agree. She is an actress and not a very good one. Meryl Streep needs to do a better job at coaching Harris on those fake accents. BTW, Barack Obama employed a fake southern accent when he was exhorting black men to vote for Harris (EX: She went to school “witchoo.” That man is in no way southern and I hope no one fell for his fake “folksiness with da folx” crap.
"she is an actress"...She is so bad at public speaking that I can't believe she practices. Be honest, you just called her an actress as an insult to all the Hollylib actresses. Well done.
As Biden is...
Biden more resembles the crypt keeper.
A BAD Avatar.
The demonizing of one side as the enemy is... the problem. We are all in this together and I believe we are all coming to recognize this. You can never be right by making someone else wrong. It is a simple truth.
If that were true, the polls, unsatisfactory though they are, would be showing the kind of 60/40 blowout we had in 1972 and 1984. They aren't. God, please be kind to us.
No civilized Country votes for a month, no voter ID, unsecured drop off mail boxes. These all promoted by Democrats, why? They certainly don’t have high regards for their constituents .
Perhaps Americans should vote like the Afghan voting system we established there. Paper ballots, purple fingers, that takes a few days to wear off. Afghanistan had more secure elections then we we do now.
What constituents? That is why all those promoted tools of the trade are required.
Truth. I’m making myself sick and don’t have a voice to make the body politic hear a word . Because they don’t care. That’s the bottom line. They don’t give a shit about “ We The People”, only the Party and their masters.
The Democrats are so vicious, dishonest and hateful, though, that Trump is the only choice and the only way to regain sanity in America is a very expansive coalition admin representative of the people vs the party. Disgusted Dems turned Independent or Republican for convenience are the last hope. I’m not a partisan. Can’t stand the lockstep requisite ideological demands or loyalty pledges of either party. It has only led to extremism and gutted the pragmatic center left/center / center right. Media is dead, meritocracy is dead, free speech, the right to privacy, to be heard, to have a government “of, for and by the people” is being crushed,
Today , the biggest lie to date is being spread by the Dems and MSM, twisting Trump’s very clear commentary regarding Liz Cheney. In its full content, Trump spoke about Liz Cheney being a Warhawk. That she might feel differently about sending our youth to their deaths if she had nine barrels pointed at her face by enemy soldiers. She’d probably cut and run. -I couldn’t agree more- the Blob has spun it into “ Calling to shoot Cheney to point nine barrels at Liz Cheney and shoot her in the face! ( I wouldn’t shed a tear). Particularly when those of Cheney’s ilk provoked or created the enemy, which was done invading Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan ( thank Carter /Brezinzki for the Taliban, Bin Laden, Pol Pot-Khmer Rouge, the Ayatollah regime ) , ouster of Egypt’s secular, anti-Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas/Hezbollah Mubarak and arming ISIS in Libya, Syria, Egypt. Brezinzki/Carter/Kissinger/Wolfowitz for the insane anti-Russian zealotry that was neutralized post-Cold War by the wisdom of Moynihan, Haig and Goldwater who against every “ brilliant adviser”, pushed for non-NATO expansion beyond reunited Germany. Warning of exactly what would happen- a weakened, but nuclear Russia would feel threatened and align with Iran and eventually, China- two nations hated by Russia, but militant.
Invading Ukraine, our vassal state. The constant ostracization, scapegoating and provocation of Russia has finally brought it to fruition. One step from WWIii. Trump brought near peace to the Middle East, forged never thought possible alliances, no new wars and the Democrats, Deep State and globalists undid EVERYTHING! Deliberately.
It’s always the hawks who never set foot on a battlefield that are gung ho to send our children to die.Or the psychopaths who fought other people’s wars and loved it. Bloodlust.
Thanks Matt, I needed that! Funny and serious as usual. I've already voted and should just back away from X for the next four days...
It really came home to me how far we are down the road toward Ingsoc when my mother was ranting about the J6 "insurrection," and I said the only people who got hurt were the rioters who were guilty of nothing more than trespassing and she said she was glad they got shot and wished the mitary had opened fire on the crowd. I said then she will be glad when I'm murdered by the government for being a dissenter and I hung up. She tried to say "I love you," but now, who knows?
One of my 'normal' friends and her husband said they wished that Trump had been assassinated. I couldn't believe it.
"the rioters who were guilty of nothing more than trespassing"
Some were nonviolent, some were violent.
Sadly, people believe what they want to and are too righteous about their invest to see another side . You cannot reason someone out of something they were not reasoned into.