Better than the State of the Union address by pizmobeach

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Wellll, enjoy the good feelings. I don't think it will make one iota of difference, myself. I'm glad you posted the speech so I can watch it. I've been sick as a dog since Wednesday...nastly little gastro bug that had me dozing for about two days, and I woke up once only to catch the end of it. It's been chewed over ever since, and I'm better today, so I've heard snippets, but not the whole thing.

I was impressed, it goes without saying. The man called a spade a spade, which was terribly refreshing. But the "civil nastiness" from the Republicans was pretty much what I expected, and as he even said at one point, they weren't so much asking questions as throwing out "talking points" for the cameras. I have no expectations any of them actually heard him.

Good for the country, tho', especially if anyone watched. He's an incredible speaker, and it's so damned refreshing to see someone actually speak the TRUTH instead of pussy-footing around in politi-speak. I loved how he nailed them back on some of their more obvious lies and exaggerations, but I noticed he also did a bit of "prevaracating" on his own...little stuff, not nearly as blatant as theirs, but it was there.

Again, just like with the State of the Union address, I wish people on the right could listen to the pundits on the right AND on the left. I didn't listen to the right, I knew what to expect, but from the left, just like the SOU, he got kudos for this and that, take-downs for other things, and both low and high marks overall. Honest review of the speech, while I'll bet over on Faux News there was nothing but bullshit negativity. I hear they even cut away for something else? If I'm wrong, apologies, but I'll bet dimes to donuts they didn't say one positive thing about him.

I wish both the SOU and this would get through to the Repubs and get them to work together on just a FEW things...anything at all would be nice. I found it interesting that they complained about being called the "party of no ideas", when some of their ideas HAD been incorporated, some compromises HAD been made...resulting in them voting no anyway. And I BELIEVE (correct me if I'm wrong) that it was the Repubs themselves who said they intended to be the "party of no", wasn't it?

It was pretty much "dipolomacy for the camera" all in all, but I'm betting the Repubs are kicking themselves for letting it be televised; from what I've seen so far, they didn't come across too good...

Thankx again, Pizmo, for the chance to see and hear the whole thing, which I didn't think I'd get.

Quote:
sitting in their trenches talking only to each other and speecifying to their base while they send sound bombs over the media dmz.

Hate to tell you, tho', I think it's right back to the trenches again for the right at least; I don't think it made one iota of difference. Am I a cynic, or a realist...?

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Saturday, January 30, 2010 10:24 AM

Slick.

The man talks a good game, I give him that, but he's a politician, that's what they do.

I am not entirely sure this was about trying to negotiate with the Rethugs, given how obviously futile it is, as much as it is encouraging them to stick their neck further and further out while the american people are standing around seriously annoyed with an axe in hand.

Watching the dessicated remnants of that pack of collective cretins get slowly but surely squashed into powder by public opinion is just the wheels of justice grinding slow by fine - although I'd be happier if they bumped the throttle a couple notches cause my political blade is itchin for Dimocrat spine and I'd like to get on with the business - but, once again, playin by bar fight rules here, and first things first, finish the one you got on the floor good and proper.

Make. Sure.

-F

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Saturday, January 30, 2010 2:49 PM

HKCAVALIER

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
...but, once again, playin by bar fight rules here, and first things first, finish the one you got on the floor good and proper.

Make. Sure.

It's not just the one on the floor, it's the vastly more aggressive and dangerous one. I'm reminded of Lord of the Flies here, with the Republicans being Jack Merridew and the Dems Piggy. There will always be time enough to deal with Piggy, but Jack is a problem right now. Which also brings me to Rue's story about all the most aggressive males dying in a baboon troop and things going a li'l better for the rest of 'em after.

A few short years ago everyone was talking about the death of the Democratic Party and the real threat of a "permanent" Republican majority ('course, that's still in the works thanks to the SCotUS last week). I don't feel nearly as threatened by a "permanent" Democratic majority, chiefly because they're not cohesive enough to make good on such an outcome. Were the Republicans to go belly up, the Dems would by no means assume control. They would splinter and there would be a third and fourth parties made up of ex-Republicans and Dem defectors by the next election cycle.

I sometimes wonder if having several viable parties in government would really change things much at all in this country. Even if we had a Progressive Party and a Far Right Party in addition to Dems and Reps, things would still be all effed up because some Mugwump majority in the middle concerned with nothing greater than cya and job security.

Europe has suffered and knows what it means to lose, but America has never lost, we have no ruined cities from the world wars to remind us of the cost of winning, so we still think winning is everything.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Saturday, January 30, 2010 3:15 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

This BBC story seems to fit here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8474611.stm

Why do people often vote against their own interests?

The Republicans' shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US.

Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why is there often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters.

Last year, in a series of "town-hall meetings" across the country, Americans got the chance to debate President Obama's proposed healthcare reforms.

What happened was an explosion of rage and barely suppressed violence.

Polling evidence suggests that the numbers who think the reforms go too far are nearly matched by those who think they do not go far enough.

But it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform - the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state - are often the ones it seems designed to help.

In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%.

Anger

Instead, to many of those who lose out under the existing system, reform still seems like the ultimate betrayal.

Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford?

Why are they manning the barricades to defend insurance companies that routinely deny claims and cancel policies?

It might be tempting to put the whole thing down to what the historian Richard Hofstadter back in the 1960s called "the paranoid style" of American politics, in which God, guns and race get mixed into a toxic stew of resentment at anything coming out of Washington.

But that would be a mistake.
Michael West
Drew Westen argues that stories rather than facts convince voters

If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them.

They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best.

There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots.

As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.

Stories not facts

In his book The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Westen, an exasperated Democrat, tried to show why the Right often wins the argument even when the Left is confident that it has the facts on its side.

He uses the following exchange from the first presidential debate between Al Gore and George Bush in 2000 to illustrate the perils of trying to explain to voters what will make them better off:

Gore: "Under the governor's plan, if you kept the same fee for service that you have now under Medicare, your premiums would go up by between 18% and 47%, and that is the study of the Congressional plan that he's modelled his proposal on by the Medicare actuaries."

Bush: "Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAMME
Turkeys Voting for Christmas
BBC Radio 4, Wednesday 27 January at 2045 GMT
Or listen via the iPlayer

"I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the internet, but he invented the calculator. It's fuzzy math. It's trying to scare people in the voting booth."

Mr Gore was talking sense and Mr Bush nonsense - but Mr Bush won the debate. With statistics, the voters just hear a patronising policy wonk, and switch off.

For Mr Westen, stories always trump statistics, which means the politician with the best stories is going to win: "One of the fallacies that politicians often have on the Left is that things are obvious, when they are not obvious.

"Obama's administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans' Depression, caused by the Bush administration's ideology of unregulated greed. The result is that now people blame him."

Reverse revolution

Thomas Frank, the author of the best-selling book What's The Matter with Kansas, is an even more exasperated Democrat and he goes further than Mr Westen.

He believes that the voters' preference for emotional engagement over reasonable argument has allowed the Republican Party to blind them to their own real interests.

The Republicans have learnt how to stoke up resentment against the patronising liberal elite, all those do-gooders who assume they know what poor people ought to be thinking.

Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America's poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.
Thomas Frank
Thomas Frank thinks that voters have become blinded to their real interests

Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

"You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining.

"It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy."

As Mr Frank sees it, authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made.

And the ultimate sin in modern politics is appearing to take the voters for granted.

This is a culture war but it is not simply being driven by differences over abortion, or religion, or patriotism. And it is not simply Red states vs. Blue states any more. It is a war on the entire political culture, on the arrogance of politicians, on their slipperiness and lack of principle, on their endless deal making and compromises.

And when the politicians say to the people protesting: 'But we're doing this for you', that just makes it worse. In fact, that seems to be what makes them angriest of all.

The image of seniors bitching they don't want government involved in their Medicad ( s government program ) comes to mind

Radio Program

Turkeys Voting for Christmas

Why is it that people so often vote against their own interests? Are pragmatic politics patronising or simply a turn off? David Runciman investigates the unpopularity of President Obama's healthcare reforms and he asks why so many Americans seem angry about efforts to make them better off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qgyfc

Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Saturday, January 30, 2010 5:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Which also brings me to Rue's story about all the most aggressive males dying in a baboon troop and things going a li'l better for the rest of 'em after.

*Points to the French Revolution*

Sure, they screwed it up from a reform aspect, but they managed to prettymuch effectively annihilate the rapacious aristocracy and most of their hangers-on, resulting in a pretty damned long period of relative prosperity when things calmed down, although the past decade or so has had em leaning right back in that same direction cause Government, the way it's structured, makes it all but inevitable.

I hate to sound brutal about it, but there's only *one* way to make sure these types don't keep coming back to haunt you, like they have with us, every time doing more and more damage we never fully recover from, like a decaying orbit into a star, and every time damned fools fail to finish the job and look what happens ?

Tolkien knew it, consider how much suffering would have been averted if someone had had the bloody sense to finish off Saruman when they had the chance ?

When you're dealing with Sociopaths, Mercy is a damned fool mistake, a credit to your humanity, sure, but because of that you have people like me, created by the damage those Sociopaths cause, and willing to do as much or worse to be rid of them.

Every time you forgive and forget, you condemn your own children and grandchildren to repeat the same misery - never, EVER, forget that.
So you gotta think about what the price of that forgiveness is.

-Frem

PS - Thomas Frank's book is especially reccommended, and while flawed, is at least SOME attempt at deconstructing the nonstop Neo-Feudo-Fascist propaganda (often enough from both parties in different words) we get deluged with 24-7-365

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Saturday, January 30, 2010 7:41 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

President Obama = oxymoron

The only thing that matters is that all police officers, soldiers and citizens immediately arrest Hussein Obama NOW, and arrest all who support his crime spree.

Their punishment shall be death, per US Code.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGIC_en___US351&tbo=1&q=bugl
iosi+bush+murder+alex+jones&aq=f&aqi=&oq=

Future hereditary dicktator J.E.B Bush at the Hussein White House today 30 Jan 2010

Mysterious Bush-Bush-Obama meeting at the Oval Office this morning, January 30, 2010
http://www.infowars.com/mysterious-bush-bush-obama-meeting-at-the-oval
-office-this-morning/

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Saturday, January 30, 2010 7:49 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

When you're dealing with Sociopaths, Mercy is a damned fool mistake

The Buddhist in me rejects this sentiment, Frem.
The realist in me says "Just shoot, ya fool!!"

The laughing Chrisisall

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 9:18 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Gino: You make a very good point. Why do people vote against their own interests? I think in this case there are multiple reasons. And I think the authors put their finger on some of them:
1.

Quote:
"the paranoid style" of American politics, in which God, guns and race get mixed into a toxic stew of resentment at anything coming out of Washington

Distrust of government, which has been growing for ages, and which the Dumbya administration showed all too well is justified;

2. I don't agree as much with

Quote:
Obama's administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans' Depression, caused by the Bush administration's ideology of unregulated greed. The result is that now people blame him

I think even if they HAD labeled the economic collapse on Bush, there's a natural reaction by human beings to fear and depression, i.e., loss of jobs, uncertainty about the future, etc., is to be angry...at someone, and Obama is now in "power";

3. Racism--which yes, IS part of it--and fear of a Black person in power making decisions which affect their lives;

4.

Quote:
stories always trump statistics

Right on. Excellent use of propaganda by the Republicans and Tea Partiers and Birthers and Deathers (tho' I believe they all sprang from the former) in heightening these fears and sirring up and turning that anger at Obama with visceral, simple stories, as well as

Quote:
The Republicans have learnt how to stoke up resentment against the patronising liberal elite, all those do-gooders who assume they know what poor people ought to be thinking

5. Obama administration doing a terrible job of explaining the health care reform, of effectively countering the idiotic, overblown lies about it;

6. Cow-towing and compromising done by the Dems to the point where it IS a bad bill, increasing distust of Congress--

Quote:
It is a war on the entire political culture, on the arrogance of politicians, on their slipperiness and lack of principle, on their endless deal making and compromises.

7. I disagree, however, with

Quote:
There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots.

I think the health care thing wasn't explained clearly ENOUGH--maybe it was explained wrong, but I didn't get that, I got that there was immense confusion because of the falsehoods running around, and nothing on the other side to clarify it;

8. Weakness and disharmony of the Dems, and Obama not getting in there, down and dirty, to throw his weight and his eloquence where needed early enough.

9. I agree that

Quote:
voters' preference for emotional engagement over reasonable argument

seems to have become the norm. Maybe it was always that way, but I don't THINK so...I think Dumbya ushered in (or continued) this concept, this "good old by" appearance which has become so appealing.

That's my opinion. I don't think, given all of this, that people are seeing this health care thing rationally enough to realize it IS in their best interests.

I don't think this can be generalized to other issues, tho' no doubt pieces of it can. I think it's more a matter of this being something that came along at a particular time, and the Republicans being so determined to stop Obama no matter what, that they put full effort into confusing the issue and stirring up the anger.

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 11:29 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:

Thankx again, Pizmo, for the chance to see and hear the whole thing, which I didn't think I'd get.
Quote:
sitting in their trenches talking only to each other and speecifying to their base while they send sound bombs over the media dmz.
Hate to tell you, tho', I think it's right back to the trenches again for the right at least; I don't think it made one iota of difference. Am I a cynic, or a realist...?

No problem Niki, I felt the same way, "had to see it."

My guess: The right media won't change for sure, they make too much money at hate and they'll continue their bias until it's not profitable. (When that happens Beck can write a book about how blind he was...)

And some of the more die hard right who get power from being anti-Dems/Obama will certainly resist (Boner and his dead end kids). But who cares about them? If it means people from each side are getting together and making progress, finding solutions? They'll set the tone and people will show their support from both sides.

I think some people wrongly expect that the thing that changes "politics as usual" will be some big event instead of something simple like this that just works and is really pretty easy to do.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 12:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Which also brings me to Rue's story about all the most aggressive males dying in a baboon troop and things going a li'l better for the rest of 'em after.

*Points to the French Revolution*

Sure, they screwed it up from a reform aspect, but they managed to prettymuch effectively annihilate the rapacious aristocracy and most of their hangers-on, resulting in a pretty damned long period of relative prosperity when things calmed down, although the past decade or so has had em leaning right back in that same direction cause Government, the way it's structured, makes it all but inevitable.

I hate to sound brutal about it, but there's only *one* way to make sure these types don't keep coming back to haunt you, like they have with us, every time doing more and more damage we never fully recover from, like a decaying orbit into a star, and every time damned fools fail to finish the job and look what happens ?

OK, I'm coming into this in the middle and I'm not sure what the original point was, but here goes:

I don't think that simply taking out those in power will fix anything. The proof is in the same history you're pointing to - sure, the French aristocracy was taken out, but people rose to the same place, the same separation in class is happening. We just keep coming back to this damned stratified system.

The problem is, rich people are nothing but poor people with money. Poor people are just rich bastards waiting for a chance to come into being. Of course, there's exceptions, but on both sides. What I mean is that there's no great depth of character to the have-nots, so that if we could skim off that top layer of wealthy prigs we'd be all right. In fact, the stereotype has it that new rich tend to be more defensive and elitist than old rich.

The only thing that can fix the problem is for our legal system to go in the opposite direction to where SCOTUS headed last week. (Which probably was part of your point Frem? Honestly, it's not clear to me what you were arguing there.)

Sadly, I don't see SCOTUS reversing course now. All I can do is maintain some small hope that Obama means to not be evil, and will fight for reducing corporate control and lobbyist influence.

Maybe I'm a fool. Not sure what else to do about it.

Quote:
Tolkien knew it, consider how much suffering would have been averted if someone had had the bloody sense to finish off Saruman when they had the chance ?
Tolkien also wrote: "Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends."

Quote:
Every time you forgive and forget, you condemn your own children and grandchildren to repeat the same misery - never, EVER, forget that.
So you gotta think about what the price of that forgiveness is.
And every time you refuse to forgive, you condemn yourself to a lifetime of bitterness.

Now, "forgetting" I don't adhere to. It's just damned foolish to forget that a snake has fangs. I don't have to stay mad at the snake for biting me once, but I can sure as hell keep clear of its reach. ("Fool me once... uh, won't get fooled again!"*snort*)

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:57 PM

Mal4 - While those that are so corrupted by power aren't gonna change even if you take it away, what my argument is (carried in other threads, mostly, which is why you might be confused without context) that we do not *have* to *become* that, that human nature isn't a railroad train to that destination, and instead of playing along with a social model which funnels us down that path, maybe we should jump the guardrails and explore other options than a social structure built by and for, those types.

Problem is, the psychology of such folk is such that they would destroy us all rather than see matters out of their control, and dealing with THAT requires some pretty ruthless measures.

Where the French screwed it, is like you said, skimming the top off over and over, treating the symptoms from the top down instead of the root cause from the bottom up, and that has *everything* to do with the way we condition our young to be warped, darker copies of us.

That said, while working on that problem, forgiving the sociopaths lets them come back for another bite, and another, and another, till we get chewed to death - look at how much of Shrubs cabinet was also Nixons, and if we had put them bastards under the prison instead of sighing with relief and letting them get away, we might not be in straits as bad as we are... and we let them walk AGAIN, didn't we ?

And 8-16 years from now, all over again, even worse - how many more times till the nukes start flyin and the biosphere is gone ?

Ruthless or not, it would be wise to act BEFORE that point.

Although the real path of wisdom is not creating people like that by breaking everything human in them in the first place.

-F

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 5:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Mal4 - While those that are so corrupted by power aren't gonna change even if you take it away, what my argument is (carried in other threads, mostly, which is why you might be confused without context) that we do not *have* to *become* that, that human nature isn't a railroad train to that destination,

Ah - I recall bits and pieces of this. Yeah, I agree that the average American upbringing leads to a mental state that, really, could be likened to insanity. I blame not only politics and fucked up parents but advertising. As a nation, we're so damned insecure and afraid. And cocky. It's a dangerous combination.

Quote:
Problem is, the psychology of such folk is such that they would destroy us all rather than see matters out of their control, and dealing with THAT requires some pretty ruthless measures.

That's where I don't agree. I think confrontation just makes people dig in their heels and absolutely refuse to change. I don't see a real solution that way, just a direct path to all that nasty violence.

Of course, saying "let's all just be friends kumbayah" doesn't work either, and I'm loving the level of confrontation that Obama pulled out. I think that might get somewhere.

It'll take a while though. At the moment, the only realistic solution I see is something like: you go there and I'll stay here and you live your way and I'll live mine. ("You" meaning the nutso right wingers, not you you.)

For example, I will never live in the middle of the country again. No, it's not all bad and individual people are lovely, but as a region the bright red midwest states freak me out. The insanity is thick and deep. And possibly spreading. I seriously started thinking about leaving the country after the SCOTUS decision last week. Really, if that truly becomes the law of the land, forget it. The triumph of the plastic suburbia stripmall way of life over anything with character will be complete. I refuse to live like that.

However, I do think there's a gradual upswing to things. Even though we keep going back to the same problems, each time we've moved forward a little. What we have now is far less extreme than what happened in France, or to all workers during the Industrial Revolution. Bush's time wasn't as insane as McCarthyism. The fight for gay rights, real power coming into the hands of people of color and women (hello - when I was a kid "Charlie's Angles" was the cutting edge image of "strong women." Puh-lease!). It's definitely progress. So I don't see the US spiraling down as far as you seem to.

Well, most of the time I don't. I do wonder sometimes, what it'll take to remove the corporate hands from our government. That one does scare me.

Quote:
That said, while working on that problem, forgiving the sociopaths lets them come back for another bite, and another, and another, till we get chewed to death - look at how much of Shrubs cabinet was also Nixons, and if we had put them bastards under the prison instead of sighing with relief and letting them get away, we might not be in straits as bad as we are... and we let them walk AGAIN, didn't we ?

That is one truly fucked up situation. I can't believe Bush and Cheney & co got away with it.

Anyone read this? http://harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368

Makes me so mad I could spit. The United States, acting in my name and with my money, kidnapped, tortured, and killed innocent people because some hoople heads needed to get their Jack Bauers on. And they got away with it.

Quote:
Although the real path of wisdom is not creating people like that by breaking everything human in them in the first place.

As a teacher, I agree. I'm lucky to work at a school where the well-being of the kids, even the really annoying ones, comes first. Because at that age, if they are acting up they have a reason. It's amazing. Every time. If I can just slow the kid down and find out what's happening, it's usually something that gentle words and empathy can help them past. I wish every school did this. It would take pennies. Compared to the wars and the bailouts and all that crap. Fixing schools would cost nothing.

Anyway, falling asleep and rambling. But it's nice to take a minute to ramble rather than lurking quickly by. Thanks for listening.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 7:02 PM

Actually falling asleep and rambling is a good way to get across to me, cause that's when your thought process goes a little sideways like mine and makes it *easier* for me to understand you.

And I did owe you one for lighting into you over a mutual misunderstanding, I've not forgotten that, and still feel terrible about it.

I often take a dim view cause I am usually right down in the pits with the worst of the ugly, something I am uniquely suited to doin cause the inner darkness and the Fury trumps any external horror hands down - you can't send decent folk to do some things, it's too psychologically destructive to good people.

That doesn't blind me to the hope, and frankly, the days of needing the level of brutality I am used to, they're gone, THAT end of the fight is done.

Not sure if you heard, but as of Feb 2009 I finally, and with lots of help, pounded the stake home on the hellcamps, Pathway Family Center went under and the whole infrastructure of these places crumbled since that was their feeder system and financial linchpin.

Not only does that cut out a huge source of abuse and all the related social ills that came of it, it also deprives those sociopathic leader types of a main source of dehumanised flunkies and shock troops, which is a nice bonus, cause you are correct in that direct confrontation is a fools bargain - it just provokes them to escalate, and THEY have all the guns, troops and bombs!

So you undercut them, deprive them of fools willing to LISTEN to them, cause without those enablers, they're nothing.

And then when they stand there alone railing and ranting and raving, you point and laugh and ridicule till they wither, dry up and blow away, kinda like McCarthy did, in the end.

We shoulda charged those jerks criminally though, and if not put em in the slam, which is kind of a waste, at the very least barred them from ever running for public office again as part of their sentence - which wouldn't stop em from trying to puppetmaster a proxy in, but folks like me can smell that a mile away and would be all over it.

So there's hope, and plenty of it, and as a teacher you will VERY much appreciate that we've been fully behind a structure of teaching similar to what you desire that has really taken off in recent years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school
http://www.sudval.org/

Really though, all we have to do is convince our kids not to listen to these maniacs, and that's *IT* for them - not so hard in theory, tougher than wrestling the legions of hell in practice.

Ridicule is the real stake through the heart for these types.

-F

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010 2:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
And I did owe you one for lighting into you over a mutual misunderstanding, I've not forgotten that, and still feel terrible about it.

If I recall correctly, I did some name calling myself. Water under the bridge, my friend.

Quote:
I often take a dim view cause I am usually right down in the pits with the worst of the ugly, something I am uniquely suited to doin cause the inner darkness and the Fury trumps any external horror hands down - you can't send decent folk to do some things, it's too psychologically destructive to good people.

That doesn't blind me to the hope, and frankly, the days of needing the level of brutality I am used to, they're gone, THAT end of the fight is done.

Frightening similar tale to the Operative, if you think about. Not that I'm not believing you. Ugly jobs do need to get done, and I know that plenty of ugly jobs get done for me, comfortably outside my view. Silly example: I eat meat, but I know I'd quit if I had to butcher animals myself. I killed a fish I caught once, and it freaked me out.

Hypocrisy? Maybe. We all have our sins. I'll take that one.

Quote:
Not sure if you heard, but as of Feb 2009 I finally, and with lots of help, pounded the stake home on the hellcamps, Pathway Family Center went under and the whole infrastructure of these places crumbled since that was their feeder system and financial linchpin.

I actually did read about those camps when you posted about them a while back. (Limited internet time - I lurk more than post.) Very frightening stuff. I'm glad as hell it's gotten shut down.

As horrible as that system you dealt with must have been, I think (I hope!) that it directly touched relatively few people. I think the bigger source of damage in terms of the whole population is the regular every day BS that happens in schools and homes. People just get trampled, but it goes on and on without being acknowledged. And here I could get philosophical, but I'll hold off. Got actual work to do tonight. *sigh*

Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school
http://www.sudval.org/

Interesting. Good lord, would I love to be able to teach without having to plan everything around a standardized test! It's scary, those kids really motivate to work hard when there's the Big Bad Exam coming that'll get them into the right college so they can live the right life. Meantime, some of them don't actually learn a damned thing.

I speak from personal experience. I was a terrible researcher because my education was based on getting the grades. Now that I teach I'm finally learning the stuff.

What was this thread about? Oh - Obama versus the Republicans. Wow, I got off topic.

Gotta say, some of my faith in BO is restored. I even wonder if he's done a wise thing: burn up a year trying to be bipartisan, and if still doesn't happen now he's got some grounds to force things his own way. (If that's possible - damned Blue Dogs!)

I am - and always have been - very glad Obama didn't come into office with an attitude like: "I won the vote and now I'm the decider and we're doing everything I say!" I might have liked the policies he'd have put forward, but the method would have been just like Bush, and just as fated to fail. We need someone to break the cycle of power swings, because it gets us nowhere.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010 5:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Frightening similar tale to the Operative, if you think about. Not that I'm not believing you. Ugly jobs do need to get done, and I know that plenty of ugly jobs get done for me, comfortably outside my view. Silly example: I eat meat, but I know I'd quit if I had to butcher animals myself. I killed a fish I caught once, and it freaked me out.

Hypocrisy? Maybe. We all have our sins. I'll take that one.

Don't I know it, and it bothers me, it always has, that in some ways I am like "them", but despite having such a dark psyche, it's actually Ghandis words which comfort me when I wrestle with that - he was a heck of a guy, and often misrepresented in what he was trying to say.

Boils down to, for me - TRY the open hand first, avoid violence and aggression whenever possible even if it is more difficult, and if you must, then do the least harm possible.

When it comes to that unfortunate necessity however, I take my cue from Colonel Hammer, from the books written by David Drake - if you use ENOUGH violence, swiftly enough, you wind up using less of it, a short, sharp strike does less collateral damage than a long protracted engagement, and collateral damage means harm to innocent people.

Quote:
I am - and always have been - very glad Obama didn't come into office with an attitude like: "I won the vote and now I'm the decider and we're doing everything I say!" I might have liked the policies he'd have put forward, but the method would have been just like Bush, and just as fated to fail. We need someone to break the cycle of power swings, because it gets us nowhere.

Picture it as a set of scales, sitting on a table.
I wanna cut one of them free, and watch the other plummet, to be rid of this disastrous status quo, but we really need to get it together and actually HAVE something worth replacing it with or it's a fools bargain, cause we have by no means come far enough in our mental, emotional, and social development to cast aside the structure of Government.

Won't stop me from trying to chop the supports out from under people who have OBVIOUSLY ill intentions though, which all too many do.

Not happy with Obama, not whatever, but I don't think his intentions are as vile as the Neocons, for example... I wish he'd get around to telling the war machine Military-Industry-Complex where to stick it though.

-F

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:22 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

“But who cares about them?” Pizmo, we have to care about them, sadly. More than “them”, the problem is the Republican party’s insistence on everyone sticking together in their resistance; if that didn’t exist, I’ll betcha dollars to donuts things could get DONE. Dems still have a huge majority, but just as long as all the Republicans of every stripe stick together little if anything can be done.

I’d like to see the Dems stand up, gather their balls and insist on the filibuster. On everything the Republicans want to filibuster. Not much would get done—but little is now anyway—and it would truly show them up, it would give the American people the clear illustration that yes, the Dems are trying to do things, but the solid Repub block is stopping everything. Then we’d see how the 2010 elections went. As it is, Americans are just pissed, “a pox on both their houses”, and don’t realize how little can be accomplished without SOME kind of bipartisanship—or even common decency to follow what they believe is RIGHT. Sure, many believe the things brought up in Congress go against the grain, but I’m willing to bet some of them would see sense in what Obama’s saying to at least the point where they’d be willing to work toward compromise. As it is: not so much. So yes, we do have to care about them, in that they hold the reins currently, and what they say happens.

The hard right holding the reins means people from each side WON’T get together and make progress. Simple as that.

Maybe, MAYBE, if Obama gets out there and keeps holding these sorts of things, SOME will hear him and demand change from their Republican representatives—or even demand the Dems stand up and face them down—and things might change, but these things are for public consumption, and only those willing to watch and listen MIGHT be moved. . . the politicians won’t.
Mal4, you make a valid point, BUT

Quote:
if we could skim off that top layer of wealthy prigs we'd be all right

isn’t the point, I don’t think any but the hard LEFT propose that, or even believe it. It’s the huge disparity that is the problem; we have the biggest disparity between rich and poor in history; when civilizations go that way, they fall. Just economically, if the poor can’t buy things, it hurts the economy. If people are too poor to go beyond survival, while they see the corporate rich, for example, getting bonuses in one year that they couldn’t achieve in a lifetime, resentment builds; and you get something like the French Revolution, which doesn’t evolve a society in any healthy way. By the way, Frem, some pundit last night made the same comparison, hee, hee, hee.

Sadly, however, I see the same things you do about SCOTUS. And you’re right about Tolkein, your quote embodied what he truly believed and tried to teach. Anyone who’s a true fan of LOTR can easily see throughout all three books where he urges compassion and abstaining from judgment. For all the horrors he created, one could say Saruman brought different members of Middle Earth together which had long been separated; so did Sauron, and if you take it from there, Middle Earth was a better place for ALL once those forces had been faced down and defeated. There’s also Gollum—if he’d been killed when they had the chance, would Sauron not have won?

You go, Frem; we need a few thousand more like you to make a serious dent, but even every little dent gives us more hope. For all that you think your vision is dark and you’re tempted into violence, if we could clone true activists like you a few thousand times, I’d be interested in seeing the result! And I mean that; I’m sure I wouldn’t approve of some of your methods, but you’re on the right track and you THINK and LEARN, which can make all the difference.

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010 8:28 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
NIKI2

I’d like to see the Dems stand up, gather their balls and insist on the filibuster. On everything the Republicans want to filibuster. Not much would get done—but little is now anyway—and it would truly show them up, it would give the American people the clear illustration that yes, the Dems are trying to do things, but the solid Repub block is stopping everything.

NOW you're talking my language! And that's exactly the kind of resistance I've been advocating. Sure, you can filibuster; we're just going to insist that you actually FILIBUSTER. Get in there, speak for days on end, bring your cots, cancel your plans, because we're going to be here for a long, LONG time, and every single word of it is going to be on C-SPAN. Then go home to your constituents and try to explain to them why you were against health care reform, funding for the troops, jobs programs and economic stimulus packages for your state, etc.

Let's stop quaking at the mere MENTION of the POSSIBLE THREAT of MAYBE THINKING ABOUT using a filibuster on some unspecified day in the future, and let's start calling them on it. And watch how fast they fold. You'll see that solid wall of "No" crumble like a sandcastle in a tsunami.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
You go, Frem; we need a few thousand more like you to make a serious dent, but even every little dent gives us more hope. For all that you think your vision is dark and you’re tempted into violence, if we could clone true activists like you a few thousand times, I’d be interested in seeing the result! And I mean that; I’m sure I wouldn’t approve of some of your methods, but you’re on the right track and you THINK and LEARN, which can make all the difference.

Thing about it is, Niki - my day is done, the ways and means I am most familiar with, they got no place no more, which doesn't really make me melancholy about it, cause good riddance to em!

Every one of them kids I pulled out, helped, talked to, had a chance to throw their shoulder to the wheel, and a damned lot of em took it, some even built their own groups, an avalanche from that one little pebble, so you're ALREADY seeing the result, save that I do try my best to teach em to be better people than me - really, that's the whole importance of the influence of one's elders, which falls a bit short when the pride and arrogance of those elders causes them to LIE to the youth and refuse to admit their own flaws and mistakes, which cannot be learned from if the youth is not aware of them.

So I make no bones about it, and in fact get called out on it by them, which I grudgingly tolerate - one reason they took to coming with me is knowin that I wouldn't rough someone up in front of em, for example.

I did try to teach them better, and then handed down the torch to their capable hands, so for now my primary purpose on that front is to be a deterrent force, which'll prolly work long after I am pushin up the daisies cause no one would buy that, as often as rumors of such have proven out untrue, and having predators and abusers who profit from it looking over their shoulder for a very bloody long time (especially with our ad-hoc AI) is about the best revenge a person could want.

But it ain't about revenge, past the first six months it wasn't - it was about makin sure no one else ever had to suffer things a human being shouldn't, and while we ain't there yet, at least there's self-sustaining progress in that direction, as opposed to maybe stronger progress in the other, temporarily, which human nature itself makes unsustainable.

So in the end, it's all but inevitable, I just hope it happens before we wipe out our own biosphere.

-F

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010 2:30 PM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

What you said, except that you're still educating, offering information, and putting OUT THERE things which need saying...for the sake of the children, and way beyond that.

How about we clone your BRAINS, and everything you've learned, and put 'em in a younger body, then clone THAT a few thousand times? Who you are now...think of the differences you could make!

Basic point is, I'm glad you're here, I'm glad to know you and to know there are people out there like you.

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
I’d like to see the Dems stand up, gather their balls and insist on the filibuster.

Here's my theory on that, which I didn't post last night cause I'd written enough. It may be just a repeat of what you posted, Niki, but it's rattling around in my head for some time so thanks for indulging me...

One year in we have no health care bill. Face it, it's dead. Despite polls that clearly supported most aspects of what was initially proposed, it's dead.

So why didn't the Dems in power (fuck the Blue Dogs), last summer, put up EXACTLY what needs to be done to kill the insurance company monopoly. Put up that bill that had no chance of passing. Public option and all. Write it up, put every detail in the news, and put it to a vote. Call in every reporter who'll show while the Republicans filibuster the stuff that the voters actually want. Televise it.

Let the bill die. We'd be in exactly the same place we're in now, except in the next election cycle Obama could go out and scream from the hilltops the name of every one the fuckers that filibustered. The growing group of independents would be leaning towards Obama's crowd, the crowd that's doing shit we like, not towards sneaky hide-the-R candidates like Brown.

Now, that would be government by the people.

I tend to be a slave for what seems logical, and I feel that the logic here points somewhere pretty strong. The logic says that, as good as Obama's intentions may be, our political system does not allow him to do something like that. He had to be aware of the option. The fact that he didnt' do that means, to me, that he can't act in the best interests of the people even if he really really wants to. He's got to keep one hand busy pulling the pudding of the corporate interests that own many of the politicians already. Wall Street's hold on the govt is that tight.

Now I'm depressed. I was much happier before I started paying attention to politics.

Quote:
Mal4, you make a valid point, BUT
Quote:
if we could skim off that top layer of wealthy prigs we'd be all right
isn’t the point, I don’t think any but the hard LEFT propose that, or even believe it. It’s the huge disparity that is the problem; we have the biggest disparity between rich and poor in history; when civilizations go that way, they fall.

You're preaching to the converted here Niki. The disparity is a big fucking problem, no doubt about that. But I can't blame the individuals as much as I do the system. I don't think that pulling out the guillotine and going after that top 1% is the answer, because the system will still be there, and new folks will step up. The system might even get worse.

I've been reading some Pearl S. Buck lately - stuff about Communist China in the 50s-60s. The revolutionaries, faced with a hugely unequal and failing system, took out the top layers. Hard core. But look what they ended up with.

I think the only solution lies with SCOTUS. Rule out this insane idea that corporations are individuals with rights, and make any form of lobbying absolutely illegal. Candidacy has to be a publicly funded thing. (I won't expand on this - it's been covered plenty elsewhere.)

The Judicial branch is the only thing that will fix our system. As long as the corporations have a tight hold on everyone, including Obama, nothing will get better. More than anything, I pray for new justices.

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:53 PM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Yes, Mal, in this house we screamed exactly what you suggested re: health care bill at the TV often, then gave up. That's what we believe should have been done, too.

But, wait, you're thinking of what should LOGICALLY be done/have been done, in terms of our politicians actually DOING it? Isn't there an oxymoron in there somewhere? Especially the "moron" part...?

Pretty much essentially "Yes to everything you said". Sadly, in my opinion if SCOTUS is where we look to save the country, we is screwed. Given the SCOTUS we have NOW, that is...can we off a few of them...hell, just one of Bush's appointees, and put someone with "logic" in their place? That might solve everything...

Campaign finance reform would be THE very first step, it seems to me...actually contributions of any kind by any PAC or lobbiest...no, wait, NO PACs or lobbiests...yeah, that's a start...

Hey, I'm allowed to dream. And yes, daily politics gets more depressing for me, too. I didn't expect miracles, or even have high hopes, but I had HOPES, which melt away one by one virtually every day...

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Thursday, February 4, 2010 6:11 AM

I'd say you've got that wish already, Niki.

Actually, the brains thing, that's what the AI is for.

Alas, although it *will* fool a Turing test, it's not really an AI in fact, but rather a personality engine front-ending a tactical/operations database, connected by redundant logic types, one of which I dunno you'd consider a logic type, since it's based on the sideways thought association a lot of my obscure humor is founded in, what Justin calls my "wiki-walk thought process", and it took a lot of effort to get that to ever work right.

The database was in comparison, quite easy but time consuming to build cause it's more or less based on the Red Books.

Back when the scale of this dawned on me and it became clear the job at hand was both nigh-impossible, would take years and years, and more people than just our little strike team, I got the notion to set up in advance a "plan on the shelf" for just about any situation we might face, from being sued, to handling a severely injured member hospitalised in a country they weren't supposed to be, just about any conceivable event, starting with the most likely.

So for each one, I made a flowchart, with several variations, which also tagged to each other in places since a "situation" can change on you, color coded by the general theme of response, and then put in those handy plastic protector thingies - which allowed them to be pulled out, tacked to the billboard and marked with grease pencil to where we were at on it.

And the binder they went in happened to be red, thus, the Red Book.
Time when on, the binder got full, and another was added, and another, till we had a damned bookcase full of them with a laminated index on a clipboard hanging from a nail hammered in the side.

When it came time to database the things, given how easy it is to convert a flowchart to program, and load the color code as a variable, we went for a reactive database rather than static - you punch in what just happened, it pulls the index, selects the closest scenario, and what the stock response options are with helpful visual cues including which way the color code will bias towards - damned innovative, even for it's time.

Still had it's flaws, of course, not the least of which is that it didn't have any kinda "feel" for a situation, nor the ability to take into account variables that weren't already present, personal concerns, stuff like that, so Justin and the Geek Farm got the bright idea of mating it with a personality engine, originally going to be based on Saraswati, but that still wouldn't be able to pull a "human" response, so they needed a human to base it on - and who better than the shyster-minded sumbitch who wrote them in the first damn place ?

I must say the end result is fairly convincing, but it does no wonders for my personal introspection that I consider the thing to be obnoxious - it's obviously gonna be snarky, and being a purpose-built machine, more than a little singleminded, but it's still unnerving to have your own flaws thrown back at you in such a fashion by a friggin machine, especially since I happen to be just a slight bit of a luddite, hell, I get snippy at those damned U-scan machines tellin me what to do, assuming imma moron, and then needing human intervention anyways when a scan fails or I don't do everything in the exact manner what needs be done to make it happy, bleh.

"Oh, and talking to you from this end is so very pleasant, is it ?"

And so on and so forth, I might not like the thing, but I do recognize it's value, especially since it's mere existence no doubt grinds the gears of those who'd rather see the end of me being a little more permanent.
It IS kinda satisfying to arrange your own haunting in advance, I'll say that much.

-Frem

PS. There's a betting pool on how long it takes for someone to take a blunt object to it, not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.

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Thursday, February 4, 2010 8:09 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Frem, what wish have I already gotten? I'd love to know--if you mean campaign finance reform, I sure don't see it...tho' I admit, the SCOTUS ruling might have such a backlash as to bring it about...like I said, I can dream...

As to the rest, I'm not sure to what you're referring...sometimes your posts get so involved and contain so much detail, yet don't state clearly at the beginning what they reference, so I'm left with my head spinning

What's the AI? The only thing I know is "artificial intelligence", but that doesn't seem to apply. I'd like to understand what you're talking about, but you'll have to give me a starting point my poor little addled brain can hang onto

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Thursday, February 4, 2010 9:44 AM

Oh, duh - okay, bear with me, couldn't sleep, had me a scotch, and I am too plastered to stand up, lol.

We developed a sort of half-assed AI based on my personality, and linked it to the database I originally developed as a set of flowcharts, and I swear it's almost scary close, albeit with certain technical limitations.

You talk to that thing, you'd almost think you were talkin to me, so long as it's in the general range of topics it's designed to deal with.

For the non-technical, it's basically an overbuilt server with an open chat window, and not only can discuss various topics in detail, but also can give tactical and operational "advice" complete with flowcharts, if-you-do-this, that-may-happen, or-this-might happen type predictions which are fairly accurate given that they are based on many years worth of real experience, and the "logic" I use to make those predictions.

In fact, it will within a 95% certainty give you the exact same answers asking ME would, and for the other 5% sometimes having two "right" answers can be damned useful.

Anyhow, it's about the best brain-clone modern technology can manage, and you can imagine the willies it's mere existence gives to folk like Sembler and Lichfield...

-F

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Thursday, February 4, 2010 10:38 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Wow...so I assume you do mean "artificial intelligence" by AI. That's SO kewl...we could use that in so many ways! I'm guessing you use it to train newbies into what you used to do? Hope so--those kids out there need all the help they can get!

I still wish we could clone you in a body, 'cuz people aren't as open to listening to anything AI. But it's a start...

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Thursday, February 4, 2010 10:39 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

@$#)&#%$@#

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Thursday, February 4, 2010 10:51 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

http://demandquestiontime.com/

Glad to see so many people excited by that exchange.

This has been getting a lot of press and more importantly, push from both parties. Maybe they're getting tired of getting no where too?

"We live in a world that increasingly demands more dialogue than monologue. President Obama’s January 29th question-and-answer session with Republican leaders gave the public a remarkable window into the state of our union and governing process. It was riveting and educational. The exchanges were substantive, civil and candid. And in a rare break from our modern politics, sharp differences between elected leaders were on full public display without rancor or ridicule.

This was one of the best national political debates in many years. Citizens who watched the event were impressed, by many accounts. Journalists and commentators immediately responded by continuing the conversation of the ideas put forward by the president and his opponents — even the cable news cycle was disrupted for a day.

America could use more of this — an unfettered and public airing of political differences by our elected representatives. So we call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly — and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries. We also urge the President and the Republican Senate caucus to follow suit. And we ask the President and the House and Senate caucuses of his own party to consider mounting similar direct question-and-answer sessions. We will ask future Presidents and Congresses to do the same.

It is time to make Question Time a regular feature of our democracy."

Please join us by signing the Demand Question Time petition.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHkyOUtmajQ1M3dzU21jc2
RBQ3ZfTmc6MA

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Thursday, February 4, 2010 10:58 AM