trump off the CO ballot

[President Bush]

And I can understand and forgive the voters in 2016, and even the voters in 2020 who stood by him. I don't agree with them, but I don't think voting for Trump in either 2016 or 2020 made you a bad person. However, his post-election shenanigans are unforgivable, and people should see it. It's sad they don't.

A part of the US population loves him for doing exactly that.

[sparks]

A lot of peeps in this country are enamored of the lone wolf rebel as depicted on idiot TV shows. That's why these idiots support Mango Mussolini. They don't have the brain power to understand just how dangerous that Orange Twat can be.

[stanky]

Yeah, a frightening prospect, spark-plug. That fear is spreading nicely, along with an extra measure of contagious respiratory diseases for this winter, in America, if not everywhere.
In this age of nothing can be trusted, i'm seeing the constant fear-selling by the media as a tool of manipulation. It's a tried and true method of social control and restraint. The other beauty in the method is to make that which is sold to us as desirable or even normal, enforced by banks and even laws, essentially out of reach. Ideally, for the greed agenda to rule, its citizens are kept in a state of constant debt and fear....feeling powerless to effect change or find contentment. All this could be easily eliminated, along with homelessness. Health care could be good, but it isn't on purpose. Why?
Money? Homelessness, same. Real easy to fix. Cheaper than a year of pointless war in, say, Afghanistan. So why aren't these issues that hurt the average citizens ever resolved? Is it by design? For a purpose?

I don't think it makes sense in any other light. We aren't too stupid to achieve these things...we're too obedient and afraid to give serious challenge to it. We've become placid and fat; bland entertainment and constant deception in ads has adversely affected our mo-jo. The most we can muster is an occasional protest...but we need to be scared of that too, as the new fascist rules deem protests as fair ground to arrest anyone considered to be a terrorist...and that definition is wide open...to be determined by those in power. labeled as such, these newly defined 'terrorists' can be incarcerated indefinitely, with no access to legal representation....a stunning move by the emerging far right in the U.S...giving them unprecedented power over would be revolutionary efforts. Naturally, surveillance has increased exponentially in recent years, to better serve this agenda of extreme control.

To fathom resistance to the new vaccines, for instance, it may help to understand that lock downs and mandatory jabs and masks and such, set off the alarms of those concerned about heavy handed and dark agendas. Once one accepts the evil intent of power today, it's easy to see how a pandemic, or even the rumor of one, would be the ultimate tool of social control...should there be questionable back ground intent.
Doesn't take a big leap of logic to entertain such possibilities. Government has a history of rounding people up and moving them, even in this bastion of freedom. Trail of tears; Japanese internment camps; slaves; refugees; imminent domain; loony bins; prisons, etc. There's many opportunities to find oneself being shuffled to and fro by authority, for dubious or odious reason. The proliferation of dark conspiracy theories, aided by the internet, are certainly plausible, in general, to all who learn history...beyond the sanctioned propaganda we were force fed in public school. That tool was so useful, Florida's leadership is taking it a further step, and dis-allowing unpleasant history; replacing it with an offensive, white-washed version.

Imagine being a young, gay, educated black man in Florida. To be paranoid of the new flavor of power there seems like a sane approach.
Leaving that state would hardly be an over-reaction to the trend. Yes, the man is out to get you. And there's a version of 'the man' that looks like you now. He's not your brother. His skin color is meaningless. Justice Clarence is a great example: the black community got a man in the Supreme Court. Yipppee! Justice is surely coming. Except, no. Color really is as superficial as we thought. Evil comes in a rainbow of options. Liberals often get misled by their innate need to boost the downtrodden underclass; giving extra slack to minority politicians, when we're actually all about the same...overly effected by superficial differences.

(christ, stanky...what's up with all the long rants today?)

summing up another spontaneous emission, there's two kinds of people worth noting: Regular and sociopathic. It's the later we should learn to identify and beware of.

(damn...ended with a preposition.)

[stanky]

damn. talk about tl/dr...
I didn't even read that. Looks like work.

[Meadmaker]

That's why these idiots support Mango Mussolini. They don't have the brain power to understand just how dangerous that Orange Twat can be.

They simultaneously take democracy for granted, and demand it, while supporting the one politician in my lifetime (which now covers 25% of the existence of my country) who is a genuine, actual, threat to democracy.

I think the image that really stood out for me on January 6 was the moron wandering the halls of Congress, having successfully delayed the counting of electoral votes, holding a bullhorn shouting "Defend the Constitution!"

[stanky]

I decided to read it.
made me miss Di.
She would have read it, as i would hers. We actually made that deal.
Didn't mean we had to suck up to one another; she'd blast my ass good. Because i don't type; i do two fingers, arthritic, clumsy; hit typos every other word; lose 1/2 the shit by hitting wrong key, etc, there was no way i could keep up, in a competitive word count. No chance of changing her mind, totally normal, so we could just argue here, as friends from a different world. Opposites. Except, we both liked to write. And made that deal. R.I.P. love.

as i read the post (I barely register the words as i peck them) i was looking for offensive bits; maybe over-stated something, ect.

Then he says, fuck no, stanker. You didn't even mention that for all your public school years, you and all the kids were made to stand at attention and pledge allegiance. And that seems to flush ok. But, shit...that was 13 (years) times 180 days (per school year) and that's a lot of what we get the creeps from if we see it in another country. mandatory uniforms and or strict dress codes added some punch to the pledglings. God forbid you were male and had one of those lazy boners that happened when you doze off. Dress code didn't allow that zone to be obscured. Shirts tucked in.
Trump's authoritarianism is like an exaggerated smoke screen for a government that had already accomplished what we fear he'd do.
Generally, he didn't do shit. No massive damage. Nothing special. If he got elected again, he wouldn't do shit. In fact, if all his efforts were in prosecuting his enemies, that would be ideal. He'd be the star of a mostly harmless daytime reality tv show. If he was able to ease back on the war stuff, which is possible, if only because he looks down at the fools that become soldiers; losers...and the rest of his policy was to put all those enemies in jail and his fans would yell "lock her up!", then i'd say that would be great. Because they wouldn't be doing worse stuff...which the more competent and serious dems would. Because activity itself, within that frame work, is bad. it can only fuck stuff up more.
The job is to impede progress. And to make it impossible to live sustainably. The rules insist on a minimum size house that is too big to afford. Bank loan dept insist on perversely huge McMansions. Rules against sharing a house with another family, or building a shack in the yard that someone could sleep in (Granny shacks they were called. They were commonplace in burbs in the 50's. People would care for Grandma there. She'd have privacy and autonomy of sorts and security that now has been forced into nursing homes and big debt. Not allowing those shacks is a much bigger deal that it first seems. And similar actions have fairly eliminated free camping; living in a boat on a lake or river or even at a marina. Camping on public beaches. Walking, riding a horse or bike on most main access routes, all gone. No option to be elegantly poor and debt free. You can be homeless. It's illegal, but there's nothing to be done about it, so go ahead. It sucks. But you aren't allowed to live within your means, if you don't need much. jail, yes. You can get a "tiny house" substitute there. It often beats homelessness, esp in north winter.

[Admin]

Wind it out further and it goes back to a thread I started probably 29 years ago, about wage slavery.

Almost everyone is a wage slave, whether that choose to believe that or not. They don't have the ability to lay down their livelihood for the sake of change and nobody's provided a compelling reason for them to do so.

A good example is that we're pretty much in a home rental crisis across the globe, where landlords are getting rich on the back of poor cunts.

If only 10% of renters went on a rent strike, landlords would have no option but to reduce rent, but will any renters actually go as far as cutting off the supply of money to those that keep them in servitude?

(no)

[sparks]

They're scared to death of ending up under a bridge in a tent.

Perhaps stanky could write a how-to book and make his first million?

[stanky]

laws keep being made that make life more expensive. Cars became a necessity in the burgeoning burbs. homes doubled in size while families shrunk. That idealized middle class life was possible (No car; small house; one job, acceptable standard of living) because it didn't need so much stuff. or energy. when i was a kid, most families in the area didn't have a car or tv. Most had a phone, but not two. Kids didn't have phone bills or computer internet service stuff or the need to wear better clothes to school; certainly no patches on pants or d.i.y. hair cuts. way less hot water needs then, snacking hadn't become a way of life yet; no microwave oven or the ghastly contents of the quick meal concept...it cost a whole lot less than now to get by and debt free, in what was called the middle class. That sector no longer exists. Nor do (that i've seen) the rooms for rent signs people would have in the window. Helped for rent after sis moved out or gramps died. common. clotheslines; laundry mats in burbs, not every house...on and on; gone. illegal. idiotic.

of course, there are 3x as many people now. that's a huge jump in a hurry. mindless reproduction with no provisions for it, we asked for it.

[Admin]

They're scared to death of ending up under a bridge in a tent.

That's exactly it.

I don't see it as much of an improvement from the serf tenants at the whim of their masters.