On 2016-11-19 09:25 AM (-4), Dave Blandston wrote:
> Cousin Ricky <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
>> Yesterday, while trying to distract myself from the realization that
>> almost half my fellow citizens hate my guts
>
> You have piqued my curiosity! What country do you live in? Why do people who
> don't know you hate you? What are you basing this statement on? I'm very
> curious! When a population turns against the educated, intelligent members of
> it's own society there's a big problem! Whoever you are, whatever country you're
> in, I consider you my friend (for what that's worth).

I agree: it is a big problem.

I belong to more than one of the demographic groups that the 
president-elect of the USA has maligned, mistreated, and/or 
discriminated against during and before the election, and has promised 
to discriminate against in the future. I have friends who belong to even 
more of those groups.  It is said that his candidacy has given 
previously closeted bigots permission to say hateful things that had 
become socially unacceptable.  And now, the sharp upswing in hate 
incidences less than a day after his election has shown that they feel 
they have permission to act on that hate.  The behavior of the people in 
his campaign rallies (behavior that he encouraged--let's not deny it) 
and the aftermath of the election have shown me that a large proportion 
of the people who elected him would assault or even kill me if they 
thought they could get away with it.

OK, so I exaggerated a little in the OP.  His chief opponent observed 
that only /half/ his supporters were deplorable, and the remainder 
supported him because they felt shortchanged by the current economic 
situation.  To those remainders, I have a message: I now know what the 
underside of a bus feels like.

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I don't check the off-topic section very often so I just noticed your post.

All I can say is that I found none of the candidates acceptable. Let's buckle up
for a bumpy ride my friend...

Regards,
Dave Blandston

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"Dave Blandston" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> I don't check the off-topic section very often so I just noticed your post.
>
> All I can say is that I found none of the candidates acceptable. Let's buckle up
> for a bumpy ride my friend...

It's been a bumpy year already.  The consensus on my Facebook feed, for example,
is that 2016 sucked.

In 2016, it's become more clear than ever that the USA is not run by people,
it's run by corporations.  The most qualified of the presidential candidates
loses to a maniac, and passes off the blame to everyone except her own arrogant,
dismissive attitude towards those whose vote she should have been courting.
Then, to rub right in our face how out-of-touch they insist on being, her party
gathers a bunch of millionaires in a posh Palm Beach hotel to figure out how
they can buy the next election.

We now see that whoever has the most money gets to use the local police force to
prove that NOTHING has changed in America's relations to her indigenous people.

In 2016, we lost David Bowie, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, Sir Neville Marriner,
Gwen Ifill (whom I'm unfamiliar with, but she was described as one of the few
remaining true journalists among a crowd of--to turn Michael Wolff's words back
on him--stenographers for the powerful), and Florence Henderson, among others.

Then there was the 12 year old girl I saw last June, though I didn't get to meet
her.  I find out that *she* is dead a month and a half later.

And now, Doctor John.  :-(

Yet, all of the former candidates are still with us.  The bright side is that
Bernie Sanders is one of them.  I've long given up hope for the Republican
Party, but there is a chance for the thorough top-to-bottom house cleaning of
the Democratic Party that the party so desperately needs and deserves.

....If the republic survives in its current form.

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"Cousin Ricky" <rickysttATyahooDOTcom> wrote:
> In 2016, it's become more clear than ever that the USA is not run by people,
> it's run by corporations.

Oh cool, you have brought up one of my favorite topics! The fact that entities
other than the American people control the government is information that was
known in the past and has been aggressively suppressed, to the point that few
people today are knowledgeable about it. I guess it's being rediscovered by a
few.

You may be surprised to know that in past decades it was actually more clear to
the average American citizen than it is today due to the fact that the methods
of control have become more sophisticated, universal, subtle, and deceitful.
Techniques of incrementalism, propaganda, manipulation, and psychology have been
developed and perfected to an incredibly effective level, and employed against
the populace with devastating success. Plus we have grown up in this false
reality not knowing the difference. If you're interested in this topic, I can
recommend two books: "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" by Gary Allen (a short book
about the Federal Reserve) and "None Dare Call It Treason" by John Stormer (a
fascinating,  comprehensive description of the Communist subversion of America).

The dumbed-down, economically devastated, divisive, chaotic state that America
is in today is not the result of a series of unfortunate coincidences or even
the corrupt behaviour of the two prominent political parties; it's the result of
a carefully planned and orchestrated conspiracy spanning many decades which has
been perpetrated by the most evil one of all.

Just my humble opinion...

Regards,
Dave Blandston

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On 11/30/2016 11:26 AM, Dave Blandston wrote:
> it's the result of
> a carefully planned and orchestrated conspiracy spanning many decades which has
> been perpetrated by the most evil one of all.
>
Hmm. Some of it is decades. The rich lost power, multiple times, in the 
US, when the economy crashed badly enough, or their excesses grew too 
great, for the populace, and even the government, to ignore. So, yes, 
the last fall, and subsequent rise, of these has been mere decades.

The problem, I would argue, is that there is a much longer running one, 
going clear back to the founding - between those that wished for 
changeability and true equality, and those who sought absolute authority 
over some ideals. They lost, badly, early on, not just when separation 
of church and state became a corner stone, but soon after, when vast 
amounts of their wealth and land was taken, due to them deciding to try 
to run large parcels of it what amounted to independent states, in which 
the church made the law, and raised the taxes. It hammered the principle 
of separation in hard. But, it took less than a decade before actions 
where being taken by the super-religious to undermine this, a tiny 
nibble at a time.

Now, yes, we have massive misinformation, and fear mongering, and the 
two sides, the oligarchs, and the, as one person on the net seems to 
have coined it (since I can't think of the proper term that sounds right 
as well) religiarchs have decided to side together. This isn't going to 
be a nice fit, at all, and they will fight each other. Its inevitable, 
since you cannot profit, without someone religious deciding they don't 
like what you are profiting from in some manner. but.. sadly, for now, 
too many involved are "both".

So, not sure what "most evil one" you are talking about, but.. no.. That 
much I don't agree with. This has all been brewing, among the self 
defined elite, both that that think this because they are richer, and 
thus, in their minds, more deserving, than everyone else, or those that 
demand we recognize their "moral superiority". Never mind that they seem 
to trade humanity, compassion, sympathy, and especially anything like 
real justice for this "superior morality". Just as the rich trade, 
"fairness", for, "con artistry".

Nah, we have a fun fight now. If one where to, generally divide these 
people up into three groups, by their different levels of belief in 
religion, vs. pure capitalism, and gave them a man dying of thirst, the 
first would demand he convert, lest he be not allowed to drink from the 
well in the church the built over the only source of water. The second 
would still build the church, but they would demand by what right the 
man thought he should be allowed to enter, when he obviously had done 
nothing to afford the tithe to get it. And the last - would ask him why 
he did not simply threaten his servants to give him the money, to buy a 
bottle from the bottling plant they built instead, or baring that, 
failed to step up, and find a means to cheat someone else, possibly a 
friend, out of the money needed to pay. (These are actually things that 
one of the Trump's admitted to doing, when their allowances became a 
"hardship").

None of these people are "new". They have been around as long as the 
country, and as long as industry and commerce, they just, until now, in 
this country, been denied the power they always demand as being somehow 
"entitled to them". Is it a wonder that, when speaking of those they 
would deny, they claim that everyone is trying to "take away" the same 
things - entitlements, privileges, unfair advantages? Nope, those things 
are only for the "worthy", and prosperity for the unworthy is always 
unfair treatment of those more deserving, in their twisted fantasy world.

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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On 12/3/2016 8:27 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
> None of these people are "new". They have been around as long as the
> country,

Interesting Thread. But...
You left some behind. :)
In the remoter parts of Britain the religious "Taliban without AK45's" 
still exist. The elementary school I went to was associated with the Wee 
Free Kirk. They rule the Western Isles with the Word Of GOD.
You can do nothing on the Sabbath except go to church and read the bible.
Then again the Pilgrim Fathers didn't leave Britain for America seeking 
Religious freedom. They were driven out because their Calvinistic views. 
Even the Netherlanders wouldn't let them stay and they all smoke dope. :-P

So you got off to a bad start. Then there was the gold rush.

<Ducks and runs>

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 12/3/2016 4:57 PM, Stephen wrote:
> So you got off to a bad start. Then there was the gold rush.
>
And then there where work camps, and the women arrived, to find a lot of 
horny men, so became prostitutes, made loads of money, used it to build 
banks, saloons, hotels, general stores, schools, etc. Then they used 
that money to gain the right to vote in Wyoming, which demanded they 
keep that right, when becoming a state. During this time something like 
90% of all towns and cities had a law not dissimilar to that of some 
European nations, when it came to guns - if you enter our city, you a) 
lock them up, and b) get them back, when you leave, and not before.

Now.. we have open carry advocacy, some wack jobs trying to pass laws to 
equate "porn" with sex trafficking, which was itself redefined from 
"trafficking through the use of coercion, violence, etc., to force 
anyone to do *any* job they don't want to.", to, "Anything involving 
paying for sex, even indirectly, like running a web site, allowing ads, 
or renting someone as room, if they use it for sex." Oh, and they are 
trying to end public schools, and give everything to the banks and the 
corporations, almost none of which are, today, owned by women.

Yeah.. When you look at things from a certain perspective, all you can 
do is say, "WTF happened????"

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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