[One Degree]

That is nonsense OD, the British were the first people in the world to industrialise, the south is almost the opposite of us in everyway, they are more like Spain or Ukraine or some other barely European backwater.

Oh well, this was common knowledge accumulated by me before internet days, so I am not going to try to find sources. Southerners are very proud of their British aristocratic heritage. They are landowners, not shop people. The peasants were in the North, the Aristocrats in the South. This is basic American history.

Edit: Where do you think the money came from to build those huge plantations in the wilderness? Not to mention the fortune required to purchase slaves.

[Dave]

Stereotype fail. The Scots are more industrious and competent than the English are Dave, well the lowlanders anyway. The ones who are only good for violence and sheep rearing are the highlanders who comprise a tiny minority of the Scottish people.

The movie Braveheart has ensured that the entire world believes the Scots are all highland warriors.

I'm not sure that lowland Scots are more industrious than the English either--at least these days. Seems like everyone in Scotland with something on the ball left Scotland in the past two hundred years, and then your favorite prime minister Margaret Thatcher finished the job.

That is nonsense OD, the British were the first people in the world to industrialise, the south is almost the opposite of us in everyway, they are more like Spain or Ukraine or some other barely European backwater.

Southern whites are nearly all of British descent. The only parts of the South which received any appreciable numbers of non-British settlers were South Carolina (they got some Germans, which is why their barbecue uses mustard) and Northern Alabama (coal and steel area so various Germans, Irish, Slavs, etc.).

In the North your friends the Germans outnumber British-descended people.

The South is also by far the most Anglophilic region of the country, and in the run-up to the Civil War many Southerners had come to view the American Revolution as a mistake. In fact during the Revolutionary War Georgia briefly left the Continental Congress and rejoined the British Empire.

The South's culture and economy was imported from Barbados, which in those days was the wealthiest British colony in the world.

[blackjack21]

What a timely article (for me ) since I just completed the trilogy documentary which is all about this (trailer here) how neocons are still pulling the strings as far as foreign policy is concerned and how they wanted fellow neocon Hillary to win the last election.

This is why I wrote "Trump calls it like it is; the establishment can't take it." Even the moderators here think that if they can somehow stop the discussion, the neocons will somehow get back into power. Their game is old and tired now. Even their Russia story line and the Mueller investigation is seen as pathetic by people who are no longer defending the neoconservatives.

People did though, remember? A lot of people wanted Bernie Sanders to be the nominee for the Democrats, but Clinton in collusion with the DNC, stole the nominee.

Exactly right. They also were soft on Trump, because they thought he was a sure loser. Frankly, the neocons just suck, and they're extremely violent.

No, he lost fair and square. He lost by more in places with higher turnout and he never broke into African american voters.

The DNC and Soros co-ordinated with Black Lives Matter to stage protests at Sanders rallies. What they didn't count on is that this was offensive to a lot of white working class people who decided to vote Trump instead.

I think a better candidate, like Elizabeth Warren, can do better in the next primary and even win by learning the lesson.

She will lose badly. The electorate is tired of identity politics.

Well if you say so I'll just pretend that the 3.5 million more people who voted for her don't matter somehow because the democratic party used illegal immigrant votes or whatever.

That doesn't matter. The big cities on the coasts won't get you around the electoral college. That's why running Elizabeth Warren is a time waster. You should be trying to get someone like Steve Bullock on the ballot so you can at least win Montana, Colorado, and peel off a mid-West state like Indiana. If you're going to go with the identity politics candidate, you've not learned the lesson of why Trump was able to beat a Democrat in their own states.

Anyway, back on topic: I think it's time to hang the neocons. Or at a minimum, stop them in their tracks.

Well, they certainly need some time in the woodshed. They've fucked things up around the world, and people are tired of their game.

However they did get caught trying, and when the news went public, I'd strongly suspect allot of Dumbocratic-inclined voters, finally felt they just could not continue to support such crap. Et voila...instant Donny-Boy.

Well that, and basically only Sanders and Trump spoke to the effects of neoliberal/neoconservative trade policies and their effect on jobs and household income.

This Russia hysteria is getting on my nerves. When did your average boneheaded liberal become a cheerleader for imperialism? America and its cronies overthrew democratically elected leaders like Mossadegh, Arbenz Allende and tried to overthrow Chavez but a bunch of Russians somehow managed to subvert the most powerful country in the world.

Yes, it's pretty tiresome. They did overthrow Saddam Hussein's government, are trying to do the same to Assad, and overthrew the government of Ukraine plunging it into civil war. Russia may be the largest country on Earth, but even Mexico has a bigger economy.

The neocons have been pushing the anti-Russia hysteria for quite some time. Of course the Dems, who have aligned with them would continue with it, plus it helped distract from Dems shit-awful corrupt-as-fuck candidate who lost the election to someone even worse.

Right, but as you were saying earlier, don't vote for the neocon. Trump isn't a neocon.

The city of Atlanta opposes Jim Crow. Do they have a right to oppose the state's local law by being more local?

No. In the United States, the states are sovereign. Cities are just municipal corporations.

Apathy and idealism is Mike's code for not voting for a right wing Tyrant who handed Libya to jihadis. Why would anyone on the left want anything to do with Killery or the Democrats? They are on the hard right by the developed world's standard.

Very good point. That's why Sanders had so much traction.

American politicians get $$$$$$$ from health insurance companies and big pharma so write laws that serve them instead of the people.

This is yet another reason Trump is making the establishment look pathetic.

The same people are still buying the same politicians.
Thus the public has little to no say in the direction the USA takes.

Yes, but they elected Trump. A guy with zero political experience was preferred over pretty much everyone else. What does the establishment do? They come up with this ridiculous Russia story and try to prosecute him. It still hasn't even occurred to them why they lost. They are so used to rigging elections, that they don't understand voter anger at the neocon/neolib cabal.

There is no solution for a health care system that demands more than the public can pay. Trying to figure out who should pay for it is senseless, when no one has the money.

That's exactly why talking about nationalization, public options, or single payer is a time waster. Until the cabal is broken, anything like a public option would simply bankrupt the US.

Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) admitted that Congressional Republicans didn't think Trump was going to win, and therefore they didn't bother having any legislation at all ready.

Exactly. That's why I wrote "Trump calls it like it is; the establishment can't take it." Very few people seem to understand why Trump won, and why he'll likely win again.

You'd think that maybe at some point in time in the past eight years they could've written a few bills to enact as soon as a Republican President came into office again, but I guess that would be too much work?

Yep. The Democrats are doing exactly the same thing. The Russia story is just an excuse to do nothing for two years and collect a pay check.

Wishful thinking is all the democrats have.

Well that, and the Republicans are fucking up mightily.

The GOP is likely to lose seats in the mid-term elections for the banal reason that the incoming President's party nearly always loses seats in the subsequent mid-terms.

Well that, and Trump has exposed them as a bunch of liars. He openly taunts them for voting to repeal ObamaCare for 7 years and now won't do it. People who voted straight repeal are afraid of what? Democrats won't vote for them? They already don't. Wanting the Democrats to like you is a time waster. They are a coastal party now.

It's possible that it's simply too late to save the United States of America and the country will not exist in its present form a half century from now.

That is an inevitability. You cannot have open borders and free trade and a welfare state. If we continue with open borders and free trade, Social Security and Medicare will inevitably die. You simply cannot outsource your tax base and expect to fund a welfare state.

When was the last time any modern nation had a period of total political stagnation that lasted for 50 years?

Cuba?

The US government will massacre as many of its own people as it needs to massacre in order to prevent states or combinations of states exercising any kind of self determination let alone breaking off and forming new nations.

That ultimately means the right will win, because the military is primarily composed of red state Americans. Leftists in America view military service as beneath their dignity.

Do you really think the rednecks would be able to run a state that would function at a first world level? It would be like Poland but with less history and culture.

There's always West Virginia...

[Decky]

I'm not sure that lowland Scots are more industrious than the English either--at least these days. Seems like everyone in Scotland with something on the ball left Scotland in the past two hundred years, and then your favorite prime minister Margaret Thatcher finished the job.

The jocks are extraordinarily tight with money and good at business probably thanks to their mental Calvinism and are also responsible for a hugely disproportionate number of British inventions compared to how few of them there are.

Southern whites are nearly all of British descent. The only parts of the South which received any appreciable numbers of non-British settlers were South Carolina (they got some Germans, which is why their barbecue uses mustard) and Northern Alabama (coal and steel area so various Germans, Irish, Slavs, etc.).

Tut tut you are posting like PoD now. Reply to what I actually said not to what you imagine I said. I never said anything at all about the ancestry of the southerners go back and look if you don't believe me, I merely pointed out that they have very little in common with English people and far more in common with other backwards agrarian regions of the earth. Their lifestyle is totally alien to us.

[One Degree]

Tut tut you are posting like PoD now. Reply to what I actually said not to what you imagine I said. I never said anything at all about the ancestry of the southerners go back and look if you don't believe me, I merely pointed out that they have very little in common with English people and far more in common with other backwards agrarian regions of the earth. Their lifestyle is totally alien to us.

@Decky
Today's white Southerners are what the British aristocracy evolved into after the government confiscated their property. This should be of extreme interest to Communists. See, the landowners simply switch to being the revolutionaries after the Communist revolution.

[Decky]

Communists (real communists, Leninists) are interested in the Proletariat not the peasantry, I am not a god damn Maoist. Peasants only exist to be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity.

[Dave]

The jocks are extraordinarily tight with money and good at business probably thanks to their mental Calvinism and are also responsible for a hugely disproportionate number of British inventions compared to how few of them there are.

Yes, I recall this from my dealings with Scottish & Southern.

That said, the Scots don't seem to be doing much of anything now and haven't for a long time. As I said earlier my basic theory is that all the talented Scots left the country in the past two centuries.

Many of the American robber-barons were Scots, and to this day Scottish-Americans are eight times more likely to be millionaires than other Americans (not that a million is that much money but still only 8% of the population manages to reach it).

Tut tut you are posting like PoD now. Reply to what I actually said not to what you imagine I said. I never said anything at all about the ancestry of the southerners go back and look if you don't believe me, I merely pointed out that they have very little in common with English people and far more in common with other backwards agrarian regions of the earth. Their lifestyle is totally alien to us.

Southern culture is comparable to all of the plantation societies created by Englishmen. The difference is these other societies (remember, there were twenty-six British colonies in North America, not thirteen) because the local English were too thin on the ground to maintain civilization after their property was foolishly set free by 19th century SJWs.

The way of life is obviously different than England since the climate and economic basis are totally different. Much of older Southern culture is also based on an English social system which no longer exists since the English land-owners were wrecked by the repeal of the corn laws.

Communists (real communists, Leninists) are interested in the Proletariat not the peasantry, I am not a god damn Maoist. Peasants only exist to be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity.

The peasantry has already been dragged kicking and screaming into modernity. We have no peasants and neither do you.

[Decky]

The peasantry has already been dragged kicking and screaming into modernity. We have no peasants and neither do you.

Carrot crunchers/ sheep shaggers/ country bumpkins. You know exactly who I was referring to.

We have little in common with any of the barbarians west of the Atlantic of course but we are closer to the north than to the south. At least they live in cities in the pale imitation of a proper civilisation.

[One Degree]

@Decky would it matter they were also a large portion of our Wild West? we try to hide that because British cowboy gives the wrong image

[Decky]

I don't really worry about the wild west, it is an overrated bit of history.

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

Well, when the left rejects any realistic means to achieve their goals and tries to tear the party down from within then of course the center-right, which has been the core of the Democratic Party since Clinton, is going to look elsewhere for unity. The left represents a small segment of the Democratic constituency. Leftists are over-enthusiastic in their ideology but underwhelming in their organization and their motivation. They won't sully themselves by attempting to see through any realistic political action so instead they come off as dreamers and idealists. Nobody wants to work with either of those groups.

Say what you will about the right-wing but at least they can recognize a mutually beneficial arrangement when they see one. The left had a shot of consolidating their power in 2016 and instead chose to be spiteful over perceived slights and conspiracy theories.

[skinster]

Liberals get ever-so-bitchy towards people who have principles and refuse to support obviously corrupt warmonger politicians who only serve themselves (e.g. the Clintons)

[Buzz62]

One of the problems I have, is that I sit up here in The Great White North, watching what appears to be a massive population of really fuckin' stupid people, in that odd country just to our south. I see patriotism gone fanatical. An openly and obviously bought and paid for political system. A constant defecation on the masses in order to squeeze just 1 more buck outta the pockets of the middle class, so that this quarterly report shows even more profit for those at the top of the wealth-heap. An education system that is poor and under constant attack. Same for that laughable healthcare system. Dumbocrats...so incensed by the election of The Donald, that they've completely taken leave of their senses and are carrying on for the last 6 months like a pack of blubbering spoiled little brats. And Republicans like McConnell, who IMO should be taken out...completely. Mitch McConnell is just about the ugliest human I've ever heard speak. He's a devious, lying, ignorant, self-serving bastard that needs a fuckin' good spanking!

Now the Dumbocrats are working with the Gawd-Damned neo-cons.
And it begs the question:
Are you all fuckin' stupid?

[skinster]

Gross: