Let's talk about the "F" word.
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!! It Doesn't Matter - They're All The Same !!
- Thread starter Jayhawker Soule
- Start date
tytlyf
Not Religious
MAGA is nothing more than a slogan, there's no substance behind the concept. The same with "America First."
Most Americans dislike the MAGA concept for what it stands for. Bigotry and hatred.
MAGA = Extremist ideology
It has nothing to do with policy.
One can only note that conservatives at CPAC gave a rousing ovation to this guy who says openly that "western civilization" is white and denounces "mixing races."
The "it couldn't happen here" crowd should take notice.
PureX
Veteran Member
The problem isn't the republicans, it's the poison of capitalism that the Republican Party is so actively trying to further. And is the reason the democrats are having so much trouble countering it. Because they have been poisoned by it, too. As have many of the citizenry. The lies and poison of a culture and system of commerce based on greed and competition has so fully infected the population, and so fully corrupted the government that it's become catastrophic and irreversible. It's a kind of collective insanity that will destroy us by our own hand.
Unfortunately, we humans are susceptible to this kind of deliberate self-destruction. Perhaps the psychologists can tell us why, but what good would that do? It won't stop us from being what we are.
Tis a better poison than whatever your alternative de jour is.
I think that we do have to come to terms with who and what we have been, while stressing that we do have the capacity and the strength to change. We can be better than we were. We can move forward and progress. There are still plenty of progressives and liberals whose hearts may still be in the right place, but whose minds are somewhere else. Or maybe it's the opposite; I don't know. They talk the talk, but they don't really walk the walk.
I'm reminded of a scene from Three Days of the Condor which is somewhat prophetic:
- Higgins : It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. Maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?
Joe Turner : Ask them?
Higgins : Not now - then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!
They don't want to be asked how. They don't want to know how. They just want the Powers That Be to get all the stuff for 'em, just like when America was the land of plenty.
PureX
Veteran Member
The problem with greed is that it's so contagious. To defend oneself against it one has to become it. Or so it seems to nearly everyone. Once we see "Bob" grabbing up everything he can get hold of, regardless of his need, we feel we must quickly do the same, or we will be left without. We don't necessarily want to do that, or to live like that, but we do it, anyway. Because we can see that if we don't, we'll be crushed by the greed and selfishness of everyone else.
So it becomes a self-perpetuating, fast-spreading poison. And how DO we stop it once it starts, and gains momentum? No one knows. We were able to put the brakes on it after the Great Depression because we learned two big lessons about social unity from both the depression and WW2. That we need each other to survive. And that got us over that fear-driven selfishness that capitalism fosters long enough, and just enough, to get us to act on behalf of each other. To institute some socialist policies that enabled a middle class and limited the greed of the capitalists. But just barely. And they have been chipping away at it ever since. Especially the through republican party. To the point where we are quickly falling all the way back to the way things were before the depression. Such that we have effectively learned and achieved nothing from it. We bought ourselves some time, and then we did nothing with it to change the way we think or behave. So here we are again, facing the dissolution of our democracy, or of what's left of it. And once it's gone, things will get very ugly very quickly.
Recent Hungarian history is pretty informative on how democratic processes can be lost over time, without a requirement for any particular violence or 'moment of decision'.
And the parallels between some of Orban's rhetoric and policy with some of the more recent GOP history is pretty startling. Building a wall and trying to get someone else to pay for it didn't start with the Don.
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
There was a taste of this with covid lockdown. Despite the pleas to only buy the normal amounts of food and essentials, there were enough people who ignored this and bought up (eg a month's worth of loo roll) stuff to cause empty shelves and subsequent rationing. All within a couple of weeks...
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
That just doesn't work anymore because only one side has thus far attempted to overturn an election, did nothing to avert, put down or punish an insurrection, widely believe the election was stolen, and denied a president his rightful Constitutional duty and turned hypocrite over it to ensure we have no more Roe v Wade.
20-30 years ago sure. They were all warhawks and corporate prostitutes. They basically still all are, but one side wants a guy as their president someone who wants total control but very fortunately lacks the drive to do it (just as unfortunate his supporters seem to not realize this either and he's basically running a show in ways that at times are similar to how Vince McMahon runs his shows).
PureX
Veteran Member
We've been long since trained to think this way by living in a system that rewards greed and selfishness at every turn. We call it "ambition" and "healthy competition" and we blame all the suffering and hardship it causes on the victims: on their being "losers". For their not joining in the frenzy (even as we've locked them out). So we can pat our own selves on the back and exonerate ourselves for benefiting from the system that causes their suffering.
See....this is a perfect example of refusal to see any bad
traits in common. It blinds one to sins of one's fellows.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
It's not. The Dems have not been repeatedly for years now harping about election boogeymen, there is not widespread belief they had the election stolen by boogeymen, and they didn't have anyone telling them to fight like hell or they won't have a country anymore as Congress began officializing the vote. They aren't trying to redo election laws to make it easier to cast out election results, they aren't ousting people who people the election was stolen, I can go on all day.
And I use boogeyman because they believed it all despite some of the worst evidence I have ever seen presented to make a case. I would put it up there with Kirk Cameron's lunacy of a banana being the ultimate refutation of the atheist religion.
And keep in mind I wasn't mentioning the wrongs of both sides but where there is only a malignant cancer that threatens democracy on one side. Also keep in mind I don't ignore or refuse to see the wrong of Dems.
Election issues are indeed major Pub probs lately.
But politics has a longer history with many more issues
involving bad actors on both sides.
For you it's one sided. My derision is broader.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
To a certain degree, yes. But what the Republicans are doing now has not occurred for a hundred years.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
As you posted, "on one side".
I look at more issues over a longer time frame.