BobDylan

Every projection is a confession, with THE LYIN' KING...

Don't blame the Nader voters for W. becoming president. He was appointed by the SC, after they stopped the election recount in FL, and that is well known, that Gore would have won if the recount had continued. So there... I'm so tired of the vote shaming of third party voters and the continued myth-spreading about the 2000 election and Nader being blamed for W.'s appointment by the SC... Way past time for Dem Party supporters and loyalists to give up that 💩, and admit the corruption and faults within their party...

I agree with you completely about Newsom being a corporate centrist Dem, who will always favor the rich and corporations over the masses, and of course I would vote for him over Vance, or any Repub prez candidate. I was aware of his support of Prop 50, but that is mere partisanship, not a position with our side in the class war. Even tho it's so clear that this country needs democratic socialism to solve our structural problems and restore our middle class, as well as get the working class to stop being drawn to fascism, you can always bet your ass that the Dem Party's leaders will never allow that to happen, no matter what most voters may want or most Dem Party supporters would want..

I don't really see Newsom as a fighter, just someone who's good at trolling THE LYIN' KING and saying the right things at times, and I sure as hell don't trust him to be president. But on the rest of your comment, I agree 100%. Most Americans, unfortunately, lost their revolutionary spirit at least a few generations ago... I don't see us ever voting our way out of the structural problems our system has, and I also have zero confidence the Repubs will allow free and fair elections in Nov.. A civil war is likely coming, as the only way we resolve the current divide. People had best be prepared for violence, whether they participate in it or not..

If Nader had won in 2000, I'm certain we would at least not have had the Iraq War or the war in Afghanistan, both of which were costly in money, lives, and with soldiers suffering permanent PTSD and brain injuries. Those things in themselves, count for more than "not getting much done".... And our national deficit would also be much smaller. We also would have gotten something better than the ACA...

Well said. Third parties can win, despite the opposition of the major parties and the corporate media, but only if the majority of eligible voters are willing to trust each other enough, research the third parties, instead of just accepting the propaganda and conventional wisdom, etc., of those self-serving groups. There is nothing in the law or election rules to prevent tens of millions of Americans electing third party candidates from winning fed elections. So I agree, that the majority of voters, who stay locked within the duopoly, get the fed govt. they deserve. I long ago got fed up with both major parties at the fed level, once they both had become sold out to corporate donors beginning in the early 90s. Since then, I have only voted for major party candidates in fed elections as a lesser evil, after voting for my real hopes and candidates that might actually represent me, in primaries. But most voters won't even bother to get informed and participate in primaries, so they only vote in general elections, after all the major party candidates are already pre-selected by the corporate donor class, not the voters.. If you stay within just voting for the major parties in general elections, you will be limited to only voting on culture war issues and identity politics, since those are the only things the major parties really differ on much these days. Those things do matter, but economic issues, foreign policy, war, civil liberties, and climate change also matter, even more than culture war stuff.

I don't blame you. Everything on the net is permanent, and out of your control once it's posted..

Heaven forbid the Dems ever act like they needed to earn anyone's votes, or show any real fight against the Repubs, instead of their usual arrogant mode of just assuming people will vote for them as the default choice of not being THE LYIN' KING or the Repubs. It doesn't work anymore, because people have caught onto their con, not just THE LYIN' KING's con... As the old saying goes, you can't beat something with nothing... I also thought it was useless and bull💩 for the Dems to just sit there, almost all the time, and silently watch THE LYIN' KING looking sad or concerned, instead of vocally confronting him. On camera, it looked weak and pathetic. Also, what was the point of having all the Erpstein survivors there, and not using them to actively confront THE LYIN' KING, and dare him to have them thrown out of the room? I know you can never shame the Repubs or THE LYIN' KING effectively, but it would have been very powerful for the survivors to have confronted him and shouted him down, and then been thrown out in front of the nation on camera. Finally, why the hell were the Dems not confronting THE LYIN' KING, on his Cadet Bone Spurs draft dodging, when he spent so much of the time hypocritically showing off law enforcement and military heroes? Same with shouting him down about his pardoning of J6rs after they beat up the Capital Police cops then? You need to show people some strong confronting of his hypocrisy, to his 🍆>🐱ing face on camera, if you want to look strong and get the respect of working class people, as all they respect is strength and courage, not moral superiority or seeming smarter than your opposition..

Agreed, I think we need more promotion, on a regular basis, of the new members introducing themselves, as well as encouraging more long-tenured members to introduce themselves, if they haven't done so yet..

True mac, I forgot sports, which for most Americans, are the opiate of the masses, along with religion. Sports are a religion for some. It does unify them, in a tribal fashion, same as religion, and distracts them from the class war..

Well said, Edward. Thanks for joining us and posting this.. Without the arts these days, all we would have for content in the public arena, besides social media, would be advertising and political propaganda, neither of which are good sources for people to use for reflection on their experience and observations, much less any sort of moral or ethical guidance. Of course, there is also religion and the news media, but don't get me started on all the faults of those institutions these days....

I think you and I are more alike than we'd like to admit to ourselves, lol...

Interesting stuff, mac..

I guess we are the same age, Lindy. No wonder we feel a lot the same about ourselves and the world, and see many things the same way. As for V.'s link on the neuroscience, it boils down to our side being more nuanced, deeper, and complex thinkers, compared to the right... Not sure if that's a blessing or a curse, these days...at least for the individual.

The girlfriend experience.....Charlie Harper would be so proud of you, mac, lol...

Sorry it went so badly for you. I guess you have much more patience and tolerance than I do. Also, I'm probably a lot older than you, and at least in my case, the older I get, the easier it is for me to cut out or cut off people who are toxic or simply frustrating to me, be they family or friends. Maybe it's part of having gotten conditioned to being fairly alone or on my own, or maybe it's because I've become fairly fatalistic, about how much hope there is to have about the future, or about how the rest of my life is going to go. Either way, I just no longer choose to use my remaining time or energy on people like your cousin, or anybody who doesn't get me, accept me as I am, respect me, or choose to live in reality, rather than their own delusions or fantasies of what is going on. As always, I'm glad you're here, and that you share your experiences and feelings with us.

I don't have any MAGA relatives, much less any friends of that cult, but if I did, I wouldn't even bother wasting my time, energy or breath with them. I choose not to voluntarily engage in personal interaction with people who refuse to deal in reality, rather than lies and fantasy...

I hear you on the GPS feature of smartphones, but I'm a longtime professional driver, including bus driving, who's pretty good at following my nose and maintaining my sense of direction regarding where I'm going. I also rarely leave my local metro area, all of which I already know very well by memory, of all the places I ever go to in that area. So the only time I really would benefit from a smartphone for directions, would be if I made a road trip to a strange city that I'd never visited before. Because if I fly somewhere, I'm not going to rent a car, but instead will use taxis. So if I visit a new city by car, I will just continue to print out directions to my place I'm staying or visiting specifically, such as a concert venue or a hotel, and then follow my nose to find a place to eat, etc.. I can't remember the last time I used my ATM/debit card, as my credit union has three branches in my suburb, so I just transfer money by phone from my money market account to checking, and otherwise visit the branches to get cash. In both cases, I use human tellers to get cash or make the transfers on the phone.

After taking a much needed complete break from dating sites for several months, I have recently started to dabble in occasionally using Match, but only as an unpaid member. And when I have made the rare connection that is allowed on there for non paying members, it has become impossible to tell which profiles are the usual romance scammer and which are probably Chat bots, because they both use the same sort of conversational patterns and tactics for trying to keep you engaged, even when there is never any prospect of actually meeting them in person or even doing a video or live voice phone chat.. Brave New World, here we are, already....

And it's also telling that America currently has a higher % of its inhabitants locked up, than did Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union in its gulag days... But you can blame all that false belief by most Americans, in our country being superior in all those categories, to the corporate media's propaganda, as well as our degraded public education systems, both of which have long preached the myth of American exceptionalism...

As for being open in public about my political beliefs, I recently bought a ballcap that says Keep Immigrants Deport Racists, and frankly I'm not afraid to wear it anywhere, even in my suburb, because if people have a problem with it, they pretty much would have to do it to my face and confront me directly, since all the public places that I park my car, all seem to have cameras these days in the lots, so anyone who connected my hat with my car, would leave video evidence for me to take to the cops for pressing charges for vandalism and also referring it to their insurance company.

I read some of the quoted passages from the linked article, but it was all stuff I or others I know had experienced. It could be worse, as I live in the state's largest city, the biggest blue dot, and I have the local Unitarian church, which is all libs, even tho most of them are classist, cliquish and snobby as hell. But at least I have that oasis of sanity, truth, honesty, and safety while living in a red state and in THE LYIN' KING's America.. I pity those living in worse places in America, or who don't have a safe or supportive church or social group they can be themselves in and find like-minded support.. As for the Trumpers, I really lost any pity for them long ago. Instead, I feel nothing but anger and hatred for them. But the diff between me and them is, I'm not trying to kill, beat up, or take away their rights, even if our side regains political power, tempting as it might be to disqualify them from ever holding political office or being able to vote again, because replacing one form of fascism for another is not the way to go. But I will gladly fight or even kill them, if necessary, in self defense once they come after me to attack or kill me. As for the south, I also see it as Ground Zero, and a region I have no use for nor any desire to ever visit again. It may as well be a hostile foreign country, as far as I'm concerned.. As to you living as a bicoastal progressive, you might enjoy the tongue in cheek humor of my fav local original music band, Brother Trucker. They play Americana, or what some might call roots rock or alt country. Anyway, they named one of their older albums The Flyover, in reference to how all the bicoastal Americans they encountered in their tours outside the midwest, referred to my region of the country, as "Flyover Land"... Another variation of that self reference to us living in flyover land, is another Iowa band of white musicians, whose name escapes me, that referred to their unique Iowa form of hip hop music as "Hick- hop".... Living in the most red suburb of my metro area, I long ago gave up on having bumper stickers on my car, esp. after THE LYIN' KING was first elected, since I don't want to deal with the inevitable vandalism it would bring, along with higher car insurance premiums, not because I would be afraid of violence against me. People on the right, where I live, are too chicken💩 to directly attack a man over politics, at least so far. Instead, they might say something to your face or insult you, or talk 💩 about you behind your back later, but are too chicken💩 to actually throw down against you or challenge you to a physical fight. It is an open carry state, but so far nobody is trying to go Old West on libs over their MAGA stands..

So true. Those who are affluent and privileged often forget about or disregard those less well off, as well as those who are old and not inclined or even capable of adapting to every new tech change that comes along, and is forced on all of us. In my case, I have the money to afford a smartphone, but have no interest and relatively little need, at least so far, to get one and learn how to use it. I would much rather stick to my trusty laptop for all my internet and use my cordless landline phone for almost all my phone calls, at least when I am home and available to talk to others. Anyway, I have so few people that I do voice phone calls with, that I have almost no need to ever talk to or be available for phone chats when I'm not at home. About the only thing that a smartphone would gain for me, would be to allow me to use Facebook Dating, which is free, but is not available in a web version, only for smartphones. As jaded as I am these days about dating sites, that gives me little incentive to get the smartphone just for that option, tho all my friends have and use smartphones for almost all their internet and all of their phone activity, as well as for keeping their schedules on it, while I stay with my $12 Staples appt. book. I'm not poor, nor am I really cheap, but I try to be wise and prudent about how I use my money and tech options, for both my welfare and that of the greater good. I guess part of me would be comfortable with being Amish...

Thanks for the props about my participation and writing, V., but I really don't think that any of those you named, including you, are great writers, etc.. I just think it's more that all four of us have something to say, feel free about saying it, and are passionate about what we choose to write about. Which should be all someone needs, or should need, to participate in this forum. Because at least so far, this site has not become a platform for meanness, harassment, ridicule, etc., like Facebook, reddit, etc.. People so far, both on the forums and several others that I've messaged with privately, seem to nice, decent, caring people. I just wish they would come out of the shadows, or maybe their online wallflower mode, to engage and participate with us and build a community. I saw that happen, at least for a few years, on Agnostic.com when I first joined there, so I know it's possible. But I also know that human nature of most people, even those on the liberal side of the spectrum, are more interested in finding romantic local partners, than meeting new friends, even online, that might actually add something else enriching and nurturing to their emotional lives, even if only a sense of solidarity, belonging, and being understood.. My brother got a Master's degree in English, specializing in Fiction Writing, from Syracuse Univ.. And when I asked him why people become professional writers, he said it was not because they were great writers, but because they all have something to say. Interestingly, he realized after he graduated from there, that he needed another or better line of work than writing, so he went to law school, became a lawyer for several years, and then became a fed magistrate, a judge, following the same legal career path my father did. So whether it was talent or having something to say, I guess there's something in my genetics, when it comes to writing....

I also wanted to say, that I used to be active on reddit, and just like what you said, mac, about Yahoo's forums, there was so much constant posting and argument about the more trivial stuff of life on there, that like you, I was almost dumbfounded by the lack of intellect and seriousness among most folks on there. I know that reddit probably trends younger than this site, but it seemed like everyone was allergic to commenting seriously about anything, and instead it was all about who could post the best snark or be the top ridiculer of anyone who posted anything serious or vulnerable about themselves. In other words, online verbal dodgeball between middle schoolers...