"I honestly don’t think my respect for Democrats could sink any lower. It was very low already, but watching them try to bully people into supporting a genocidal monster these last few months has dropped me to a whole new level of disgust I didn’t know was possible."
Same for me. Having watched the Dems sink the Bernie Sanders campaign back in 2016, I had no false illusions that the Dems couldn't sink lower. But their trying to force genocide down voters' throats this time with Holocaust Harris... Well, that's going lower than anyone could have ever imagined. And worse yet, they don't even care! Screw them!
Or Gabbard in 2020. Even then Rs loved her. She would have clobbered Trump. Instead they kicked her out of the party. Now she got her revenge.
Screwing RFK Jr. so hard that he flipped was a very bad move. That must have cost millions of votes. I can't understand how the election was as close as it was.
A liberal is someone who wants to feel logically and morally correct without ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes."
Had lunch today w several depressed lib friends whom I love dearly, but want to throttle for their depth of unused intellect. "Che sarà sarà, stop inventing the future," I tried to sooth them, but also challenged them -- ever heard of Jeffrey Sachs? of Larry Fink BlackRock? No recognition; nor was there much interest in my preaching diplomacy with Russia, BRICS and a multipolar world --- why oh why, I thought do you get your info from such narrow propagandizing sources. Of course, I stuffed what I wanted to say which was “I don’t understand how you brilliant people could bring yourselves to vote for such a fucking jackass.” It's no wonder this country is so screwed.
I was hoping for Sachs, knowing all along they'd never get Fink. One of them got an advanced degree from Columbia so I presented Sachs in his role as director of Ctr. for Sustainable Economic Development, touting him as consulting worldwide as an economist and a fasntastic ambassador for diplomacy. I might have tickled a bit of interest; if so, a tiny win -- we do what we can to penetrate the armor.
I know several of the same types. They're no more accessible to critical thinking about any of this than Christian fundamentalists are. Groupthink, herd mentality, knee-jerk gaslighters, deniers of obvious reality.
The trolley meme is just a roundabout way of saying that brown people who never did a thing to us must suffer and die, so that we can have pronouns and whatever other crumbs might be tossed our way. "Oh, well, a genocide. It can't be helped!"
I also found that meme exceptionally repugnant. Though it is possible that the artist was indicting the system as a whole. It makes me feel better to believe that.
The trolly problem is a way to philosophically justify moral cowardice and pretend choices are binary, rather than as Caitlin states - the solution is to find and kill the prick tying people to trolley rails and pretending you have only two choices and both involve killing.
CJ>>"A leftist is someone with logically and morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel logically and morally correct without ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes."
Brilliant Caitlin! You have a fantastic way with words - I would love to read longer works by you (like a book perhaps) if you can manage the time. Food for the mind and soul!
Truth: "The reason US presidential elections are so close and US politics remain divided pretty much 50–50 is because both parties are constantly walking the tightrope of trying to give the donor class as much as possible while giving Americans as little as possible and still getting votes. As soon as they figure out they can make fewer concessions to ordinary voters and still have a chance at winning, they roll back those concessions to make concessions to the plutocrats who own them."
I liked that passage too. What concessions did the Ds make to ordinary people? There were a few little ones, but their record on following through is so poor I don't think anyone cared. The high price of groceries and rent killed their chances.
Reading hundreds of comments NO ONE said they were voting for the Ds because of anything they would do for the people. It was 100% "Trump is a fascist who will become a dictator". I don't understand how anyone could believe that. In the USA dictatorship has zero support from anybody. No one wants it. I guess if your trusted news sources say it hundreds of times and all your friends say it too then you will believe anything.
I'm amazed that they got 47% of the vote based on such untruth. It's a very unflattering view of human psychology.
I keep casting about for a flattering view of human psychology. Really can't find one. Since Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents," flattering humanity has been a tough sell.
"The only real solution to the trolley problem is to find and kill the prick who keeps tying people to trolley tracks and making people choose which ones die."
“A leftist is someone with logically and morally correct politics.”
WTF is that? Vs a rightist? What are the latest definitions now? Is a Voluntaryist not moral and correct? Are they rightist or leftist? They don’t support either stinking party, false left/right paradigm “politics” and don’t believe in voting to rob your neighbors. Choosing masters every few years doesn’t make you free. Government is organized crime. You know that I’m pretty sure.
Voluntaryists are a nonsense ideology more fringe than anarchists, based on the cult of individualism and a fantasy world of free contracts between individuals on equal footing. Guess what, collective power and institutions exist, and they have to be dealt with, and you're not going to be able to combat power with voluntarlsm. Grow up and become a Socialist or Communist.
Dear Caitlin, you know well that the fundamental issue is not the parties but the nation states themselves, which, since their origin, are instruments with which a narrow minority dominates and conditions the large majority. States were supposed to settle social conflicts and instead they foment social conflicts both internally and internally; they were supposed to establish the true, the beautiful and the just and instead they make rules that they are the first to violate; they were supposed to establish peace and make (wage) wars; they were supposed to eliminate violence and have arrogated to themselves the monopoly on the use of force (for this reason they have disarmed the peoples that they arm only to send them to be killed in wars); they were supposed to prevent thefts and robberies and instead they invade the territories where other peoples live. States are the cancer of humanity. And those who, through the banking system, control money and centralize wealth, consider peoples as mere instruments of their power. And the parties that should allow citizens to participate democratically in the management of "public affairs" promise the people what the people want to hear promised but, then, do not keep their promises. Because they too are tools of the economic, financial and military elite. They fuel class struggles by inventing problems and then demonstrating their function of solving them. Always on the shoulders of the weakest. These are the facts.
Give 'em shit Caitlin. Who knows? Maybe you will awaken a conscience in someone in Washington. At the worst you are making people think independent of their daily fix of bullshit.
i spent some time on tiktok on accounts of people identifying as communist advocating to not endorse the genocide. the dem reactions over there would probably get the respect a notch or two lower still.
That Trolley Meme, I believe, illustrates the concept of
False Choice.
The choice between Trump and Kamala.
Trump has warned us that it will mistreat everyone, everywhere if
re-elected POTUS;
whereas Kamala gave indication that she would be nice to most people, except for Palestinians, whom she would continue on with the Zionist Final Solution.
At least for the time being.....
Time to stop the Trolley.
The real trolley:
The 2024 election results were rigged. IMHO.
The vote spread is illogical, absurd and impossible.
20M fewer people voted than did for Biden.
And after 8 years of steadily escalating abuse, criminal indictments, and endless insane vicious irrationality on the part of Trump.
And They want us to believe that 70% of voters voted for Trump?!?
95% of Republicans voted Trump?!?
After multiple polls predicted Kamala would win ?!?
After legions of Republicans defected from Trump's government??
I do not believe that many voters are that stupid/trauma bonded.
This could have been written for writers like Caitlin:
Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language".
Bingo! The corporate media are so clueless, speculating if it is the cost of bread that caused this result, or was it the abortion question.? NO it is the white hot rage over the moral injury of genocide. Just like it was in 1968 when we denied LBJ and then Humphrey our votes due to the carnage in Vietnam.
American liberals are crying over four years of Trump.
Meanwhile in Gaza people don’t know if they’ll survive the next four hours.
Or four minutes. Sigh!
"I honestly don’t think my respect for Democrats could sink any lower. It was very low already, but watching them try to bully people into supporting a genocidal monster these last few months has dropped me to a whole new level of disgust I didn’t know was possible."
Same for me. Having watched the Dems sink the Bernie Sanders campaign back in 2016, I had no false illusions that the Dems couldn't sink lower. But their trying to force genocide down voters' throats this time with Holocaust Harris... Well, that's going lower than anyone could have ever imagined. And worse yet, they don't even care! Screw them!
It proves that despite their horror about Trump, they would RATHER lose to him than embrace sure winners like Bernie in 2016 and RFK Jr in 2024.
Or Gabbard in 2020. Even then Rs loved her. She would have clobbered Trump. Instead they kicked her out of the party. Now she got her revenge.
Screwing RFK Jr. so hard that he flipped was a very bad move. That must have cost millions of votes. I can't understand how the election was as close as it was.
Tulsi, yuck, I'd rather have Toosi in the White House. RFK JR. tho, I dig and he who laughs last laughs best.
A liberal is someone who wants to feel logically and morally correct without ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes."
Had lunch today w several depressed lib friends whom I love dearly, but want to throttle for their depth of unused intellect. "Che sarà sarà, stop inventing the future," I tried to sooth them, but also challenged them -- ever heard of Jeffrey Sachs? of Larry Fink BlackRock? No recognition; nor was there much interest in my preaching diplomacy with Russia, BRICS and a multipolar world --- why oh why, I thought do you get your info from such narrow propagandizing sources. Of course, I stuffed what I wanted to say which was “I don’t understand how you brilliant people could bring yourselves to vote for such a fucking jackass.” It's no wonder this country is so screwed.
I'd be willing to bet in excess of 90% of people have no idea who Larry Fink is. I also think it is by design.
Fuck Fink and all those Black Hearted Biitches on Wall $treet.
I was hoping for Sachs, knowing all along they'd never get Fink. One of them got an advanced degree from Columbia so I presented Sachs in his role as director of Ctr. for Sustainable Economic Development, touting him as consulting worldwide as an economist and a fasntastic ambassador for diplomacy. I might have tickled a bit of interest; if so, a tiny win -- we do what we can to penetrate the armor.
I know several of the same types. They're no more accessible to critical thinking about any of this than Christian fundamentalists are. Groupthink, herd mentality, knee-jerk gaslighters, deniers of obvious reality.
Every time I think you can't possibly get any better, Catelin, you out-do yourself.
The trolley meme is just a roundabout way of saying that brown people who never did a thing to us must suffer and die, so that we can have pronouns and whatever other crumbs might be tossed our way. "Oh, well, a genocide. It can't be helped!"
I also found that meme exceptionally repugnant. Though it is possible that the artist was indicting the system as a whole. It makes me feel better to believe that.
The trolly problem is a way to philosophically justify moral cowardice and pretend choices are binary, rather than as Caitlin states - the solution is to find and kill the prick tying people to trolley rails and pretending you have only two choices and both involve killing.
working for the day people understand caitlin's response and act on it.
CJ>>"A leftist is someone with logically and morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel logically and morally correct without ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes."
Brilliant Caitlin! You have a fantastic way with words - I would love to read longer works by you (like a book perhaps) if you can manage the time. Food for the mind and soul!
A quotation to remember!
Truth: "The reason US presidential elections are so close and US politics remain divided pretty much 50–50 is because both parties are constantly walking the tightrope of trying to give the donor class as much as possible while giving Americans as little as possible and still getting votes. As soon as they figure out they can make fewer concessions to ordinary voters and still have a chance at winning, they roll back those concessions to make concessions to the plutocrats who own them."
I liked that passage too. What concessions did the Ds make to ordinary people? There were a few little ones, but their record on following through is so poor I don't think anyone cared. The high price of groceries and rent killed their chances.
Reading hundreds of comments NO ONE said they were voting for the Ds because of anything they would do for the people. It was 100% "Trump is a fascist who will become a dictator". I don't understand how anyone could believe that. In the USA dictatorship has zero support from anybody. No one wants it. I guess if your trusted news sources say it hundreds of times and all your friends say it too then you will believe anything.
I'm amazed that they got 47% of the vote based on such untruth. It's a very unflattering view of human psychology.
I keep casting about for a flattering view of human psychology. Really can't find one. Since Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents," flattering humanity has been a tough sell.
Everyone is saying Trump saved us from WW3.
Since alot of my friends are Trump supporters, I won't try to change their minds.
Looking at the price of groceries, I understand their point of view.
Gaza is the worst case of cruelty most Americans have seen.
So they tend to not see.
Just like they don't see the millions of homeless people.
Their mind blocks it out.
"The only real solution to the trolley problem is to find and kill the prick who keeps tying people to trolley tracks and making people choose which ones die."
This is a gem right here, thank you Caitlin.
“A leftist is someone with logically and morally correct politics.”
WTF is that? Vs a rightist? What are the latest definitions now? Is a Voluntaryist not moral and correct? Are they rightist or leftist? They don’t support either stinking party, false left/right paradigm “politics” and don’t believe in voting to rob your neighbors. Choosing masters every few years doesn’t make you free. Government is organized crime. You know that I’m pretty sure.
Voluntaryists are a nonsense ideology more fringe than anarchists, based on the cult of individualism and a fantasy world of free contracts between individuals on equal footing. Guess what, collective power and institutions exist, and they have to be dealt with, and you're not going to be able to combat power with voluntarlsm. Grow up and become a Socialist or Communist.
Dear Caitlin, you know well that the fundamental issue is not the parties but the nation states themselves, which, since their origin, are instruments with which a narrow minority dominates and conditions the large majority. States were supposed to settle social conflicts and instead they foment social conflicts both internally and internally; they were supposed to establish the true, the beautiful and the just and instead they make rules that they are the first to violate; they were supposed to establish peace and make (wage) wars; they were supposed to eliminate violence and have arrogated to themselves the monopoly on the use of force (for this reason they have disarmed the peoples that they arm only to send them to be killed in wars); they were supposed to prevent thefts and robberies and instead they invade the territories where other peoples live. States are the cancer of humanity. And those who, through the banking system, control money and centralize wealth, consider peoples as mere instruments of their power. And the parties that should allow citizens to participate democratically in the management of "public affairs" promise the people what the people want to hear promised but, then, do not keep their promises. Because they too are tools of the economic, financial and military elite. They fuel class struggles by inventing problems and then demonstrating their function of solving them. Always on the shoulders of the weakest. These are the facts.
It is disappointing.
Give 'em shit Caitlin. Who knows? Maybe you will awaken a conscience in someone in Washington. At the worst you are making people think independent of their daily fix of bullshit.
Thank you, Caitlin.
"I honestly don’t think my respect for Democrats could sink any lower." I, too....
i spent some time on tiktok on accounts of people identifying as communist advocating to not endorse the genocide. the dem reactions over there would probably get the respect a notch or two lower still.
Regarding the Trolley Dilemma.
This is what I would do:
Stop trolley and shut off the motors. Set PKB.
Get off trolley and untie all those people.
Send them on their way.
Remember,
It takes a stupid person to make a stupid rule.
And a fool to mind it.
Do not be a stupid.
Do not be a fool.
That Trolley Meme, I believe, illustrates the concept of
False Choice.
The choice between Trump and Kamala.
Trump has warned us that it will mistreat everyone, everywhere if
re-elected POTUS;
whereas Kamala gave indication that she would be nice to most people, except for Palestinians, whom she would continue on with the Zionist Final Solution.
At least for the time being.....
Time to stop the Trolley.
The real trolley:
The 2024 election results were rigged. IMHO.
The vote spread is illogical, absurd and impossible.
20M fewer people voted than did for Biden.
And after 8 years of steadily escalating abuse, criminal indictments, and endless insane vicious irrationality on the part of Trump.
And They want us to believe that 70% of voters voted for Trump?!?
95% of Republicans voted Trump?!?
After multiple polls predicted Kamala would win ?!?
After legions of Republicans defected from Trump's government??
I do not believe that many voters are that stupid/trauma bonded.
SO MANY RED FLAGS.
All from Trump's mouth.
Projection=confession.
Deflection alloyed to distraction.
That is what malignant narcissists do.
Trump is clearly NOT the lesser of two evils.
There needs to be a thorough investigation.
Now and immediately.
I smell a rat.
And its dirty diaper.
This could have been written for writers like Caitlin:
Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language".
Bingo! The corporate media are so clueless, speculating if it is the cost of bread that caused this result, or was it the abortion question.? NO it is the white hot rage over the moral injury of genocide. Just like it was in 1968 when we denied LBJ and then Humphrey our votes due to the carnage in Vietnam.
the numbers say the white hot rage over the moral injury of genocide was negligible and did not contribute to the outcome.