Tyson and Snowden talk encryption and more:

[stanky]

Yup.
True enough about our so called liberal Presidents and their warmongering ways.
We were starting to get hip to it, too.
Hence, the amazing appeal of Bernie, and the subsequent screw job.

Even though, due to our bizarre anti-democratic flukes of voting, Hillary got a few more million votes than Trump,we pretty much hate her.
I still don't think she'd be an improvement,except possibly for the dismantling of regulations team Trump is hell bent on.

I think some people went for Trump because of his campaign promises....he was talking an anti-war theme....wanted to get out of the ME wars; Afghanistan; bring jobs; fix our infrastructure...that sort of stuff. Which, of course, he's reversed himself on with impunity.

And now there's a sense of a radical divide. Trump's base is becoming disillusioned, except for an extreme hardcore; a minority by a lot.
So, in some ways, it's a new show here.

It's revolution, or straight up fascism. Not to be taken lightly, imho.

But I weary of this sport.

I think I need to swear off of political opinion, if only because of it's lack of fun, and my inability to describe things here with eloquence...or in a way that resonates down under.

We were beginning to see through the bogus promise of an Obama or Clinton....but now we've got something new. Same bullshit, on steroids. Very unstable.
The way i see this now is that we need the intervention of saner nations.

While it is true that we got what we deserve, to a large extent, it's not what the rest of the world deserves.
Our cultural influence is fading, bigly...but our military machine isn't.
Our growing angst has made that fact more disturbing than ever.

I wish it was funnier.

I'm generally a lot funnier than this.

Anyway, I'm sick of my recent humorlessness, and plan to do something about it.

TBP, inc is launching a side project; a rock band called "T. Rump".

That's my new focus.

(Apologies for feathers ruffled. I blame me, if that's any consolation.)

[Shiner]

[Di Wundrin]

Don't do that Stanky, not blaming, explaining. ... well blaming a bit.   But it's not personal it's general.
My feathers were itching to be ruffled, I was in desperate need of an excuse for a good rant and this was too good to pass up.   I should have been more polite, more circumspect, but that was tried and didn't cut it.  It was dishonest too.
I think we know each other well enough to owe honesty.  
My views may well be based on incorrect information, may be biased due to our different culturally moulded viewpoints but it's how I see it from a distance.  

It used to piss me off that I was raised in a culture of "keeping up appearances".   I took it as a snobbish kind of thing, but there's a deeper reasoning too.   We are judged on how we appear whether we like it or not.  
if we give a wrong impression by poor choice of the way we appear to others then we can't blame them for holding what we deem to be an errored judgement of us.

If it waddles and quacks it's dubbed a duck.  I'm just describing why we see it as a duck.  

It's not your military/political thuggery that's at issue, that's obvious, it's the attitude we see that Americans hold about that thuggery, on all sides of politics, that's it's all okay as long as it's American thuggery.  That is what is burring me up,  and I suspect I'm not alone in that.

It's not the winners that annoy us, it's the attitude of the losers.  We are steeped in the Pommy culture, and the European, and even the Asian.  There is a different kind of unspoken response to humiliating defeat expected.
 
The Japs just gut themselves.   The Europeans get silently sullen, the Poms "stay calm"  retain as much dignity as they can muster, and carry on regardless as nothing has happened and last it out until it changes again. 

We tend to shrug, mumble obscenities, for a few weeks, and  settle in to wait and pounce on mistakes the 'wrong' Party makes once they blunder about in government.  We merely change seats at the circus.  And watch the new acts. 

But we don't cry like babies.  We don't launch concerted media campaigns and histrionic demonstrations against the Party which won a Democratic election! We do all that stuff before the election.

We mock our system but we seem to hold it in higher regard than the Americans do theirs, which is a puzzling contradiction to the rest of the world.

We don't show the world that we are so weak minded and (to their eyes) childish, that we can't accept and adapt to the fact that we didn't get the result that wasn't promised to us.  That would indicate that essentially we're babies in a  howling tantrum because the candy was snatched away.

... shit,  this was supposed to be reconcilliatory but there's apparently still fuel in the tank.  .  

Perhaps the real reason I'm so fired up is that I see our society being engineered back to babyhood too.
But no one wants to hear that.  They want to believe that surrendering their rights and responsibilities to fuel some bullshit surge of egalitarianism is intelligent.  Because it's easier and more comforting to shower themselves in warm and fuzzy virtue than take their eyes off Twitter for 5 minutes to have a good look around at what's it's really all leading to.  Melbourne on the Potomac.  I hope I die first.

We're growing our own species of 'snowflakes', we're already well into the 2nd generation.


Just noticed Shiner's post.   commiserations   over missing out on that band name.  dammit eh?

[stanky]

(08-25-2017, 03:01 AM)Shiner Wrote:  

damn you, Shiner.

Must you pop every balloon of my inflated self-esteem?

[stanky]

Di, I think I get it.
That's why it's so frustrating.
We seemed so close to over-coming out whinny little brat bullying ways.
And now were smack into a 180 on that.

Oh well...

At least "President Pence" has alliteration.

Maybe we'll bomb Venezuela. We haven't done that in a while.

[Di Wundrin]

Quote: Maybe we'll bomb Venezuela. We haven't done that in a while.

Funny you should mention that, just heard Donny has slapped sanctions on 'em or somesuch. 
Liberation looms?

[stanky]

They have oil.

We need practice.

People get wealthy from war. Not many. But the few that do tend to get very wealthy.
And they can buy elections now.

Hence, a self-perpetuating shit storm is nearly guaranteed....minus a real resistance.

(Liberal dems ain't gonna cut it; that seems certain.)

[Di Wundrin]

You can't solve a problem by supporting half of what's causing it.

That is pretty astounding what's happened in Venezuela, and so fast! Seems no time ago they were being spoken of for their booming economy. So is their "dictator" leader to blame for the collapse? Or did the collapse offer the opportunity for a dictator to slide into the opening? I've never taken much notice of what was happening there and how.

[Shiner]

(08-25-2017, 09:05 AM)stanky Wrote:  

(08-25-2017, 03:01 AM)Shiner Wrote:  

damn you, Shiner.

Must you pop every balloon of my inflated self-esteem?

Technically, the band name is still open.