Terrific article. Now how the hell do I get people like my twin, my right wing supporting neighbors to read it and comprehend even a small part of this?
I've watched this slow move since raygun, 2 shrubs and then trump. Clinton did his part by repealing the Glass Steagall Act and sadly while Obama did not literally have his hands shackled but given the gop he might as well have. Yeah, I brought that image in on purpose. I loved the fact he won and 2 terms tooπ₯° but i also knew this would cause a severe backlash from the racists in this country. Some I know literally lost their friggin' minds that there was a Black man in the WH.
Right wingers will never read it, much less agree with it. Don't waste your time on them.
I'm guessing this photo is from after the Highland Park parade mass shooting, after the crowd ran away in panic...
When folks say they don't bother to vote because both parties are the same, how fucking stupid or lazy can they be? Who let the ban on assault weapons expire, loaded the SCOTUS with nut jobs, and wreck the economy every time they get in power? Here is a hint, it ain't the Democrats!
@FvckY0u It is heading in the right direction. Going backwards is certainly not the answer, and reverses what small steps we do take forwards. Hillary wins and we have a much better response to the pandemic, and a very different looking SCOTUS. Both of those are major with long lasting effects.
@FvckY0u We do move forward. Small steps add up but everytime we put Republicans in we take two steps backwards. I don't know how old you are, but when l was a kid there were separate bathrooms and water fountains for White people and Black people. Women couldn't get credit cards,cand had difficulty having their own bank accounts. Societal change is generally slow, but one step forwards and two steps backwards really slows it down. I have never voted for a Republican in my life and never will. Conservatives HATE change. They are always pineing for the past, and never look toward the future. Always vote blue, period. Forward, no matter how small the steps is always better than the alternative.
@FvckY0u And this country doesn't demand those things, hence, it is small steps. Our left is conservative compared to the left in European countries. What this country calls the "radical" left, is just normal in most European countries. Most of the modern world has put religion in its proper place, but not us, and not the Middle East. Religion has a lot of influence in both.This will not change over night, especially small towns and rural America. In the last election, the urban/rural divide was drastically obvious.l have no idea how we get around that. In Texas, every major metro area voted blue except Ft Worth, and the state went red. This was true in many red states.
@FvckY0u We have only had radical change in the US, since the civil war, during two or three time periods. The first was the Progressive Era, when Teddy Roosevelt was president and there were many new immigrants to the country, including many socialists. The establishment major parties were afraid of the socialists and their growing popularity, so they allowed many progressive reforms early in the last century for a short time. The next major period was the Great Depression. There were tens of millions of Americans that were ready to vote for socialist candidates, including for president, capitalism was no longer credible or popular, and there were violent uprisings all across the country. So the ruling class allowed FDR and the Dems, at least for a while, to implement socialist policies to prevent violent revolution.
Same thing with the sixties, the threat of violent revolution, from violent groups like the Weathermen, Malcom X, and the Black Panthers, were as much or more what produced The Great Society Programs and the civil rights laws of LBJ, not just MLK and the non-violent anti war protesters. The powers that be were not scared of the non-violent groups and did not concede radical changes because of them. In none of these three time periods did voting Blue No Matter Who or asking nicely produce any radical or great amount of progress beyond incremental steps. We don't have time for incremental progress anymore, because we are facing a right-wing Christofascist enemy that plays for keeps with only hardball and scorched earth. We need warriors on our side in the political fight, not centrist corrupt sellouts like Biden, Pelosi, or Schumer.
Frederich Douglass said, quite rightly, that "Power concedes nothing without a fight. It never has and it never will". Asking nicely and accepting incremental steps, never gets it done. How many years have we been trying to get single payer or universal health insurance? The last radical progress we made on .that was Medicare, when I was 7. The ACA was a joke, merely a gift to the insurance companies and drug companies, and it has done nothing to reduce medical bankruptcies or improve our life expectancies for anyone below the top few income groups, or make needed, life-sustaining drugs like insulin available and affordable to all who need them.
@FvckY0u Do not underestimate the power of religion in rural America. Also, don't underestimate the power of greed and its influence on our politicians in this country. Also keep in mind, 49% of the people have double digit IQs. The Republicans do their best to keep America stupid, and they are damn good at it.
@FvckY0u I sadly think you're right. I think we will first have the triumph of fascism in the US and a lot of other countries, followed by a climate apocalypse, which will result in mass extinction of humans. After that, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the billionaires are able to emerge from their bunkers and survive on some level above the surface, but then again, even they may never be able to live above ground again. If they do emerge, it will be to start some new form of feudalism between them and their surviving servants. What the current group of bought and paid for pols in DC don't realize, is that after the shit hits the fan and civil war erupts, a lot of them are going to get slaughtered by the mobs, along with a lot of folks like us, and their money and status won't be enough to protect them. They will no longer be necessary anyway as the middlemen between the masses and the ruling class, once elections and open government are gone.
@FvckY0u, @Sticks48 Maybe all those other democracies looked at our system and saw how it only favored the rich and corporations, so they chose better systems, like parlimentary ones, for example, where it is easier for minority parties to actually have some power, instead of two corrupt major parties being able to hang on to power without being responsive to the masses.