[late]

Republicans, if it ain't lies or BS, they aren't talking about it:

[Rancid]

The Republican party doesn't deserve any votes. Yet, we have a bunch of fucking retards that vote for these asshats.

[skinster]

^ he thinks there's much difference between the parties beyond on social issues.

Bless.

[Potemkin]

^ he thinks there's much difference between the parties beyond on social issues.

Bless.

The Democrats fuck you over while smiling at you, and the Republicans fuck you over while sneering at you. Apart from that, I can’t discern much difference between them. @Rancid seems to see something in the Democrats which I can’t see.

[Godstud]

Democrats are just better at virtue signaling. They're the same.

[Rancid]

DEmocrats are pieces of shit as well, of course, but to say they're the same washes away all nuance in how things work.

More than that, and more importantly than that, it's a nihilistic position that in itself, is pointless. In taking that position, you are giving away all your power to the powers that be. It is a position that is even more flawed than being a self-proclaimed democrat or republican. It's a bullshit pseudo-intellectual position to take.

In other words, you're kind of a loser @skinster, and just because I'm saying Republicans are a bunch of shitheads, doesn't by default I don't think Democrats are shitheads either. Or that I support democrats. What kind of dumb shit are you posting here?

but.. you have demonstrated an inability to think critically numerous times here.

[Godstud]

Same same, but different. - Thai saying.
I think it applies perfectly to American political parties.

[Potemkin]

Same same, but different. - Thai saying.
I think it applies perfectly to American political parties.

Precisely. The wheel turns, and first one party is on top, and then the other party is on top. But it is the same wheel. Instead of trying to turn the wheel again, the wheel itself must be broken.

[Rich]

Precisely. The wheel turns, and first one party is on top, and then the other party is on top. But it is the same wheel. Instead of trying to turn the wheel again, the wheel itself must be broken.

I've been watching a bit of GOT again, but one thing that's getting to me is so much of the magic. I'm not talking about the Dragons, the White Walkers or the resurrections. No that all seems totally believable. No I'm talking about the really miraculous stuff. How does Daenerys support that massive army? Supply it with equipment? And what about her entourage. It all seems to happen by magic. Rather than frittering away her time, energy and resources on freeing slaves, I would have thought she would have needed to focus on extracting surplices from the population in order to keep herself, her hangers on and her army in the style to which they've become accustomed.

And what's this obsession with abolishing slavery anyway?. Now I was brought up to be a Christian and the tenth commandment is very explicit that we shouldn't covet our neighbour's slaves, which very obviously means we should try to free them. But that aside historically the big obsession with slavery was in the European colonies. Here there was a massive surplice of land and a massive shortage of labour. A free poor person in the colonies had great opportunities lacking to the mass of the population in the old world. This meant that slavery was a big deal both for the slave owners and the slaves. While the abolition of slavery and sefdom in the old world really wasn't that big a deal. It certainly didn't require wars or the vast military expenditures that Britain spent closing down the Atlantic slave trade.

Really GOT does display the same old idealist claptrap.

[Potemkin]

I've been watching a bit of GOT again, but one thing that's getting to me is so much of the magic. I'm not talking about the Dragons, the White Walkers or the resurrections. No that all seems totally believable. No I'm talking about the really miraculous stuff. How does Daenerys support that massive army? Supply it with equipment? And what about her entourage. It all seems to happen by magic. Rather than frittering away her time, energy and resources on freeing slaves, I would have thought she would have needed to focus on extracting surplices from the population in order to keep herself, her hangers on and her army in the style to which they've become accustomed.

I always thought the realities of extracting food from peasant farmers and looting and taxing conquered cities was simply hidden behind the scenes, to avoid offending the delicate moral sensibilities of a modern liberal audience. George RR Martin, of course, would have been fully aware of the logistics of maintaining armies in the field, but simply chose to hide it from us.

And what's this obsession with abolishing slavery anyway?. Now I was brought up to be a Christian and the tenth commandment is very explicit that we shouldn't covet our neighbour's slaves, which very obviously means we should try to free them. But that aside historically the big obsession with slavery was in the European colonies. Here there was a massive surplice of land and a massive shortage of labour. A free poor person in the colonies had great opportunities lacking to the mass of the population in the old world. This meant that slavery was a big deal both for the slave owners and the slaves. While the abolition of slavery and sefdom in the old world really wasn't that big a deal. It certainly didn't require wars or the vast military expenditures that Britain spent closing down the Atlantic slave trade.

I agree that it’s out of place in the world of GoT, and would likely have been taken by her contemporaries as an early symptom of her incipient insanity. The ancient and medieval world accepted slavery and serfdom as inevitable and foundational facts of reality. There weren’t many Abolitionists in ancient Rome, and even philosophical luminaries like Plato or Aristotle thoroughly approved of the institution of slavery.

Really GOT does display the same old idealist claptrap.

Indeed, but it had to do so if it wanted to attracted a large modern audience. Any attempt to portray a morally authentic version of the ancient or medieval world would simply have revolted most modern people.

[Rich]

I agree that it’s out of place in the world of GoT, and would likely have been taken by her contemporaries as an early symptom of her incipient insanity. The ancient and medieval world accepted slavery and serfdom as inevitable and foundational facts of reality. There weren’t many Abolitionists in ancient Rome, and even philosophical luminaries like Plato or Aristotle thoroughly approved of the institution of slavery.

Its not that no one opposed slavery in the Medieval world. I would imagine that there were people who opposed it in the ancient world. There were people who wanted radical equality. The difference was that in the new world colonies and particularly the new world English and Dutch colonies, there was such a stark difference between free born and slave born.

We tend to think of free / slave as a simple binary, with all sorts of rights presumed to come along with the free. After independence the northern US states tended to move quickly to universal male suffrage, for those that weren't Indians or slaves. In the ancient / medieval Old World there were all sorts of murky partial states between freedom and total slavery. Various forms of serfdom, various "feudal" obligations, military conscription, indentured labour and debtor prisons. Many people voluntary entered slavery and serfdom for sound economic reasons, where as in Anglo North America, no sane rational person would voluntarily choose to be a plantation slave.

When Elizabeth I abolished serfdom there was no rebellion by the aristocracy. When Somerset vs Stewart happened there was no civil war in Britain. People only really cared about its implications for the colonies. The great moral crusade of the abolitionists only made sense in the colonies. And hence makes absolutely no sense in the world of Daenerys Targaryen.

[Tainari88]

@Potemkin @Rich

It all seems utterly fake, but in the end societies run by humans all have MYTH in the center of it. Running the rest of the psychological hold that is necessary in humankind to get them to feel some artificial loyalty to a society of strangers to them.

Who feels strong bonds to a bunch of unknown people out there in the world unless you believe in the power of MYTH?

[Potemkin]

@Potemkin @Rich

It all seems utterly fake, but in the end societies run by humans all have MYTH in the center of it. Running the rest of the psychological hold that is necessary in humankind to get them to feel some artificial loyalty to a society of strangers to them.

Who feels strong bonds to a bunch of unknown people out there in the world unless you believe in the power of MYTH?

Absolutely right, @Tainari88. It’s a myth that the Democrats are fundamentally different from the Republicans, yet the entire system depends on the voters believing in that difference. In other words, the whole system is founded on a myth, the myth that there is real political choice when there isn’t. And all the anger and bellicose rage in American politics is precisely directed at propping up that myth, driving an imaginary wedge between two parties which both believe in essentially the same things.

[Rancid]

must be broken.

How shall we break it?

It certainly takes more than just saying "same wheel" and walking away.

[Potemkin]

How shall we break it?

It certainly takes more than just saying "same wheel" and walking away.

[Deutschmania]

@Potemkin @Rich

It all seems utterly fake, but in the end societies run by humans all have MYTH in the center of it. Running the rest of the psychological hold that is necessary in humankind to get them to feel some artificial loyalty to a society of strangers to them.

Who feels strong bonds to a bunch of unknown people out there in the world unless you believe in the power of MYTH?

This notion of the power of myth seems to me to suggest a Sorelian character. Georges Sorel himself postulated the idea that influential myths shape societal development throughout history. I wouldn't be surprised if @Tainari88 has been familiarized with his work.

[Tainari88]

This notion of the power of myth seems to me to suggest a Sorelian character. Georges Sorel himself postulated the idea that influential myths shape societal development throughout history. I wouldn't be surprised if @Tainari88 has been familiarized with his work.

No, I have never heard of Georges Sorel. I am basing it on reading all of Joseph Campbell. He wrote books on the Power of Myth. Also there was a PBS series. Many cultural anthropologists analyze myths throughout human history. Also sociologists do that too. There is also Jungian archetypes that show up in many different human cultures throughout human history.

I was in a presentation about Mayan mythology and why they had human sacrifices in their religious practices. It was a way of control of the subjugated populations but it symbolized the need to sacrifice to keep a balance between nature and human needs. The thing is that they outstripped what the natural world could provide comfortably for their own environments. Drought ensued and they did all the rituals and the drought continued unabated. Rain would not come. The crops failed. The people stopped believing in their priests and rituals and became rebellious and they disobeyed. The cities were abandoned to the jungle. Why? They were faced with the realistic consequences of taking more from their environments than they were giving back. The smaller tribes who had their members snatched from their families and sacrificed to the gods so they could live prosperously as slave labor and tribute to the gods forged deep resentments and hatreds of the elites...also mass starvation due to not respecting the land and what it can produce naturally. Forcing things from a land that was hard to cultivate in from the beginning. The jungles in the Yucatan, are hard to grow crops in. Not like Mexico City and the Valley of Mexico. So they had a series of disasters due to badly managed human failures.

Our modern societies use another sort of mythology. The Myth of Technology and of Capitalist American Exceptionalism. Patriotic ideals of being the society with the most freedom. Yet like the Mayans before them they too have myths that do not jibe with reality on the ground. They contradict their own constitution, they do not follow real precepts if it interferes with profit and exploitation. They got a lot of lies and few consistencies with their principles. It creates resentments. Within their own populations and with the societies they war with and manipulate to control so they can keep their profits flowing in. The elites in the USA do not share their bonanzas with the lower classes. They let them deteriorate with impunity. Until it gets to the point where there is dysfunction.

It is a human story. But the issue is that they do not think of themselves as humans first. They are the exception to the rule. All of those arrogant elites have that sin. Hubris. Conceit. Arrogance. Blind ignorance of what is important for productive and sustainable human living. They break the rules of sustainable and just balance between nations and human needs. And like the old Mayan Empires they will wind up with nothing in the end. For the only ones who survived into the future were the humble Mayans who never warred or liked warring. They went back to what they knew. Something less complicated and less exploitative. Until the Spanish arrived with their arrogant demands.

When will humans learn what they need to learn to avoid disaster eh? Once they stop letting the elites with egos in positions of power and learn to filter out those people forever. Do not let them be in control. They only ruin life for everyone. That is the story of human life. Learn from mistakes. Do not fail to recognize what goes wrong. Make the adjustments in time. Because we are not in an age of sticks and stones, arrows and bows, muskets and 19th-century rifles or Tommy guns anymore. It is about millions being bombed from above. Incinerated in minutes and nuclear winter and extinction of all life on Earth for centuries. If we do not change in time? We chose death. And most people never choose death. But they fail to check the crazy elites who do.

[Steve_American]

Absolutely right, @Tainari88. It’s a myth that the Democrats are fundamentally different from the Republicans, yet the entire system depends on the voters believing in that difference. In other words, the whole system is founded on a myth, the myth that there is real political choice when there isn’t. And all the anger and bellicose rage in American politics is precisely directed at propping up that myth, driving an imaginary wedge between two parties which both believe in essentially the same things.

Potemkin, yes there is a choice. You are keeping the people from seeing it with your positions.

The other choice is for 30 million progressives to meet in the street this summer and demand progressive alternatives be on the ballot in 2024.
Yes, the corp Dems are economically much like the corp Repuds, and both are very different from the MAGA Repuds.

Public opinion polls tell us that a solid majority of likely voters and even more unlikely voters are in favor of many "Progressive policies and laws". We can if we work at it get progressives on the Primary Dem ballot and then on the General election ballot and vote them into office. We have to minds of the voters, we just need to get them to believe that we can win.

There are a few real progressives in Congress, like Sen. Sanders. We just need 59 more in the Senate and 220 more in the House.

The corp Media is not at all progressive. It is anti-progressive. You can't wait for them to tell you what to do. You need to act when I tell you what to do. You need to find another way to communicate with other progressives. Social media can be blocked. Form phone trees. Get phone numbers. Get creative.
I live in Thailand, so I can't get in the street. You-all need to do that now. Next year is too late. You need to win Primary elections next winter and spring.
Getting 30 million progressives into the street is the 1st intermediate goal.
.

[late]

Democrats are just better at virtue signaling. They're the same.

When Obama pushed through Obamacare, they all knew it was going to hurt Demcrats massively.

But it was the right thing to do, so they did it.

Republicans fought it. When they got close to killing it, the Republicans got so much hostility from their voters that they went into hiding. My gal, Collins, does very few, very safe, local appearances to this day.

You are not completely wrong. When Republicans corrupted the government, everything got corrupted. But ignoring the differences is mindless posturing, as well as sabotaging your self interests..

[wat0n]

How did Obamacare hurt Democrats?