BobDylan

Democratic socialism is the only way out of this trap..

Seems like everyone in the power circles of DC these days, and in the past few decades, are probably all in the Epstein files, because they are all part of the same class, the Epstein class.. Where political party connections or affiliations don't matter, because all of them are in the same big club, the wealthy elite..

I have little doubt of that. The corporate media were a big help to him in the last election cycle, and they wanted the Epstein files to remain buried, as far as exposing the guilty men. At the same time, the corporate media loves covering the uproar about the files, and the ratings it drives for them. The corporate media doesn't care at all about justice or helping justice be achieved, only about the public battles regarding justice.. As Lily Tomlin would say, you can never be cynical enough, when it comes to the corporate media or those with great power or money. Trust them only by their actions, not on their words..

Nah, Repubs are allergic to the truth...

Like it says on then new hat I bought from Etsy, " Keep Immigrants Deport Racists"....

Maybe more the latter than the former, but in the end, does it really matter? The bottom line is, I am part of a very small cultural minority in my state, even tho I'm a straight, white cis male. So in the end, I feel just as outnumbered and alienated, as I would if I were black or queer. BTW, Iowa is 97% white, racially, to give you an idea of how much of a minority I am, culturally rather than racially.. and that's without even getting into politics, where I am a socialist in a solid red state... In case you're wondering why I've stayed here my whole life, it's because it's where all my friends are and have been my whole adult life, and I'm not interested in moving somewhere else where I don't know a soul. It's not easy to make a whole new set of friends, even after you're retired, in a new state... and the cost of living is low.. I'm a music and cultural snob, and proud of it!

Country music sucks, always has, as far as I'm concerned. Just one of multiple reasons that I'm an alienated outcast, at least culturally, from most people where I live.. But I do like K. D. Lang's music. I also would not classify her or Bonnie Raitt as country, but suit yourself..

I hear you, Violet, and I think a lot of us feel the same way. But I'm glad you're here and that you city is holding strong against the fascists there.

I agree. Maybe that's why the Matrix trilogy of movies were so popular, because they resonated with people on how the vast majority of us live in the Matrix, the first level, without even knowing it..

Yeah, Tom Waits's voice has always been that way, on purpose. And I love it as it is!

Anyone who still listens to and takes these serial liars at face value, is not even worth engaging with, much less arguing with...

Actually, most of the Webb songs I'm familiar with, were recorded and sung by Art Garfunkel, who had a long working relationship with Webb writing songs for Art's solo albums.. Such a great voice when he was younger, but he sounds like 💩 now, even worse than Simon...

Oh thank goodness. When I first saw the song title, Summer Nights, my mind instantly went to that song of the same name, from the musical Grease, that I've grown to hate, because of all the drunken butcherings I've heard of it over my many years of karaoke at bar shows. What a relief to use your comment's link, and hear the enjoyable song she sings on it. To be honest, I had only heard a couple of her songs before, As Tears Go By, and also a song by Kurt Weil, that she recorded for an album of his songs with her and other artists covering them.. The song was Ballad Of The Soldier's Wife, on the album Lost In The Stars.

I personally am thinking of buying a handgun and learning to shoot, not to defend or protect others, but for self defense I fear I will need in the coming year. I fear that it won't be long before anti Trumpers like me will be prohibited from buying guns, and will need them against the authorities, or even MAGA private gangs hunting us in public. But having said that, I don't intend to ever bring it to a protest, despite my 2nd Amendment right to do so, and despite all the many examples of right wing groups bringing rifles and handguns to past political protests, as a way of bullying and intimidating their opponents. Even tho I know that in the future there will be a very real possibility of the cops or the military deciding to open fire on whole groups of protestors with live, lethal ammo, in the meantime, before we get to that point, I'm not going to show up at a protest armed, since I know that during my whole lifetime, that there has been a double standard on which side is allowed to carry firearms at public protests without being shot at by the authorities, ie right wing groups, and left wing groups that have been shot at, with the excuse that they were armed, even when they weren't.. The lefty groups have never gotten fair or equal treatment on this issue by the cops and military, and they never will. So I will accept that reality and not give them the excuse, as we saw with Mr. Pretti, who I feel they were going to kill anyway, but finding the gun on him was their excuse and later justification created for the whole episode of grabbing him, beating him, and then executing him, even tho they didn't know he was armed until they were already beating him on the ground.. 6 on 1, pussies... As for your motto on your comments, mac, of dying on one's feet, I'll just say I would rather be judged by 12, than carried by 6. A phrase I borrow from the old time 2A supporters, who are now proving their hypocrisy in spades.... Don't get me wrong, mac, I am very much in favor of having much greater gun control in America, always have been. But in the present situation, where the feds are acting totally lawless, selectively violent based on completely whether you're part of the in-group or the out-group, I will choose to exercise my rights to self defense until such time as our system is reformed enough that we are no longer threatened by this current fascism, if you're not part of MAGA. Until then, the time for reforming our gun control laws needs to wait...

I agree with recharging your brain and the need for it. And I do practice the solitude and quiet thing, as a way to calm down and recharge. But I've never really gotten into meditation, since it bores me and makes me sleepy. So instead, I just read and listen to music while I do it, as that seems to do the trick for me, same as meditation does for most folks. Whatever works for the individual, is all that matters... As for the Nov. 11th exchange between you and mac, I concur that he's a cool guy, even tho he would probably never admit to it or accept the compliment, lol... He's a loveable curmudgeon, same as me, I suppose... I can just hear him retorting back, " I don't have to take that from you!...."....

Thanks V., I'm far from perfect, but I do try... It's in all of our interests for this site to succeed, whether it's as an online forum community, a dating site, or both... I wish I had more and better suggestions for the site, but I think I've already given all the ones I can think of...

You're welcome, V., and I will try to abide by your suggestions here.. And I also appreciate the tolerance and patience you have shown so far, as moderator of this site. I only wish reddit and FB, for example, were also so... These days, my fav source of commentary and news, besides Commondreams.org, is Substack, not only for the many commenters, but also the seeming lack of moderation, which still seems to result in respectful and intelligent comment threads accompanying the posts. Whodu thought it, that maybe people can respectfully participate in social discussion, without the usual FB or reddit flaming and childish insults, etc.? Or it could be that the MAGA idiots just stay away from there, realizing they are just way too outnumbered and outgunned intellectually on Substack...

Exactly. How much longer are we supposed to wait? We're already in practically full fascism, so we have nothing to lose at this point, same as most people were during the Great Depression, when most Americans had nothing to lose, economically, by voting for a democratic socialist, FDR, who was a Democrat. And you know what else? That also was the greatest, most successful time for union organizing in our country's history, because workers finally realized they had nothing to lose by joining unions, since they otherwise were already being treated as slaves working for poverty wages, and often in dangerous jobs that were fatal or at least ruining their long term health. Terrible times are exactly when to take political risks and swing for the fences, because that seems to be the only times that Americans wake up and realize that they have nothing to gain or even hold onto, by supporting the status quo... And the Dem Party has more than proven, since the 1990s, that they aren't to be trusted with our civil liberties, endless wars of choice, or our side of the class war, as they constantly are Repub lite on everything but identity politics and culture war stuff. When it comes to power, and who it's used for and who it's used against, they have not been on our side, only that of the rich and corporations. And that's never going to change... The last progressive candidate we've had for prez, from the Dems, was McGovern in 1972. Since then, the polling consistently shows that the public is way ahead of the major parties on the issues, as far as wanting progressive policies, but the Dems always go back to pointing out that 1972 landslide loss to Nixon, as proof that a progressive can't win that office. It's dishonest and terribly outdated and self-serving, when you look at the polling on issues, that is separated from party labels. And that's because the voters don't trust the Dems to actually fight for progressive policies, and rightly so. So that's why the support for progressive policies is so much higher among the public than their political support for Dems..

I understand. I have always tried to fight the good fight, refusing to settle for corporate Dems as leaders, whenever possible, and protesting against our country's constant move to the right since the 1970s, but to no avail. We lefties of conscience are just too outnumbered, outspent, and muted in the mass media... And also, our side has never had any lasting, viable political representation, and I'm including Bernie, since he never had the guts to start a viable third party when he was still young enough to do it, and had the name recognition and popularity to make it happen. But instead he played it safe and stayed in his comfortable role as the congressional gadfly, because he was also too afraid of being labelled as someone who caused the election of THE LYIN' KING, the way Nader was wrongly blamed for W. being appointed by the SC..

I agree with the bulk of your comment, mac, but to be fair, I think V. is using the word "we" more in a collective sense, of Americans in general, than specifically about himself or anybody else on this site or on our side of the current fight. Of course, he has the right to speak up for himself on that to clarify, or explain his intent with his comment..

I have zero doubt that many ICE goons are members of Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and pardoned J6rs, which is why they don't want their identities known and won't show their faces..

And the video from the woman in the pink coat, who was filming across the street from the donut shop that the first video was filmed from, shows even clearer, how the ICE goons grabbed him for no reason, jumped on top of him as a group and were beating him up, before the first shot was fired. It was an execution, straight up, with them shooting him after the beating was going on, just for sadistic pleasure, and then scattering like rats once the shots were all fired, because they realized they had committed a crime and were afraid of getting caught or shot by someone who saw it. Together, the two videos totally blow out of the water the whole bull💩 ICE cover story that was immediately put out to blame the victim and defend ICE. And I bet the ICE goon in the gray coat will never be investigated by DHS for his role in the shooting. They will deny his involvement and his taking the gun from the victim and running away with it, etc... He will be treated like some phantom..

Looks like the civil war is finally here, after most of us saw it coming for several years now, and esp. after THE LYIN' KING got back in power and started sending ICE to blue cities to terrorize and hurt people. As R.E.M. used to sing, " Welcome To The Occupation".. The Dems have sold us out, and were complicit in bringing us to this point, and they wouldn't even unite to shut off funding to DHS and ICE, even after Renee Good's murder and the continued ICE occupation of blue cities. They will not save us, and only revolt by the blue states, with their Dem governors being willing to send their Nat. Guard troops to fight ICE and THE LYIN' KING, along with the people rising up with their own guns, is going to stop the fascist regime. We should have had a blue state secession many years ago, and now we will have to have civil war, blue states against THE LYIN' KING and his red states, to stop this fascist clampdown. Won't be much longer, until even MS Now starts self censoring and not covering the civil war honestly and accurately. Will soon be like Putin's Russia, if we don't have a blue state revolt fighting back.. I dare THE LYIN' KING to keep sending ICE to Maine, since they have tons of armed citizens, who are independents or even lefty, that will not hesitate to shoot at ICE, if they try occupying their state and beating people up... As for the active duty military, they are going to back THE LYIN' KING, not fight for us. Only the blue state Nat. Guard troops might fight for our side. Our best bet is the citizens of blue states using their own guns and protecting themselves... Short of that or THE LYIN' KING dying of natural causes, I think we are cooked, as far as remaining a free country...

Exactly! Sustained disruption of the machine, businesses, work strikes, boycotting, schools being shut down, all of that needs to happen at the same time and be sustained, not one day protests once a month. The more of it that disrupts the economic machine, the more effective it is..

Agreed, it's esp. futile to do those sorts of protests, when you're fighting fascists who have no conscience and, at least nowadays, a public that also has lost most or all of their conscience, compassion, empathy for others, and even their humanity. The protests of the 60s were probably more effective than they would be now, because back then, the public had more of a conscience, more capacity for outrage, more engagement in politics and hope for positive change. Nowadays, way too many people see politics as simply entertainment or background noise that really doesn't matter to them anymore.. In the 60s, most mass media was family-owned, more local and independent, as well as balanced between left and right, so the reporting was more fair and balanced. Also, the leaders were more people with consciences, who more often acted in good faith in dealing with conflicts and problems. Those days are long gone... Nowadays, the right makes heroes out of people who hurt others, like Kyle Rittenhouse, while the left mainly creates martyrs, out of people like Renee Good, who get killed or hurt. So guess which side most of the public sees as strong and worthy of admiration, rather than seen as weak and masochistic? Comes back to what you said about Patton, most people will go with admiring the person who kills their enemies, than who sacrifices for some abstract principle...