I have said this before and it upsets some people because it is scary.

Civil war.

Scientifically applied mind fuckery. People are paid handsomely to create the alternative reality that suit corporate interests.

Edward Bernays
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

It works.

The gop has built a propaganda machine to get votes for their pro wealthy policies. The propaganda machine uses identity politics, fear, and hate to get Americans to vote against democrats and for GOP billionaires.


And the GOP has now lost control of that lying propaganda machine.

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country..."

I'll just sit back in my rocking chair and watch the world come to an end.

I like rocking on the porch.

feel bad for my nephews and nieces and other younger people,
so many of them have no idea what is coming...white walkers
and worse....

But I ain’t impaired. I don’t need no rockin’ Chair!

I am going to fight all this hate until I die! Starting by letting others know how A feel, instead of waiting on others to do that for me. Little tired of walking away from the rabid hate spewer!

Including those who send out hate in the name of Religion.

I'm like "why the hell would I want to survive that?!" The reasons I love this planet and this life are the beautiful places and beings on it (especially the non-human ones, to be honest).

I love to travel, I love to be in nature, I love to be around animals, I love to see other cultures and enjoy their food, art and music.

If all that gets sold off to oil companies, destroyed by climate change, driven to extinction by fucking trophy hunters and poachers, or nuked by the shockingly stupid and selfish "leaders" of this world, I don't really want to stick around among the ruins.

I would much more likely drive to ground zero or just finish myself and my pets so they don't have to suffer.

I'll fight on whatever I have left until I die.

a revalution or a great depression.

Young people should give you hope.

The tide is turning to the benefit of Democrats. I think we should take "winning" for an answer.

No, just no.

Religions say to be good and follow the precepts or something terrible will happen to you in this life or after you die. (Fear.)
Take this drug or you will die. (Which could be true but promoted to the point of fear mongering.)
Use our product or you will be left out of important social norms. (Fear of being shunned.)
Buy this life insurance so your relatives won't be destitute. (Fear)
Fear everything because you are being watched. (This is something that I think has created fear to the point of people going off the grid or stocking up on goods for the Apocalypse.)
The earth is flat and you are being used by the global elite. (Fear)

Society is permeated with so many different types of fear. To me it is the unspoken word used in public relations, advertising, politics and religion. Make someone afraid and convince them that you have the solution and can protect them and they will follow your every word.

Natural fears are good. Fear of fire keeps a person from being burned to death.

I think we're in the death throes of Republicanism and because they are desperate, they have been cheating to win for the last twenty years. And now they've gone to far and are going to be exposed. We have the opportunity to ride the fallout of that exposure to get real progressive change for the first time since the 1970s.

The majority of Americans favor gun control, single payer healthcare, more taxes on the rich to support a fair social safety net.

The problem is that the system is so rigged that Congress doesn't represent the majority of American people. And the 20% of the country hopelessly brainwashed by Fox News combines with the 40% of the country too disengaged to pay attention to politics and vote to hold up any meaningful progress.

We can focus on fixing the system by ungerrymandering districts, getting rid of Citizens United, regulating propaganda networks, radio stations and fake news, making it easier for people to vote, etc.

saying "we're doomed!". That's been going on since civilization existed.

My concern is the environment and that alone. Politics, economies, health care can all be manipulated for the better.

The environment is the "Uber-Issue". (Not talking about rides, folks. )

Without a livable environment, all the other "isms" and issues become moot. Unbreathable air and non-potable water will make it hard to fight any other battles.

Happily, there are so many creative and forward thinking people in different sciences and industries providing alternative and sustainable ideas on the use of different resources to meet the needs of future populations.

If we can get beyond the loud, stinking belch that is this present time's power players and their leader-- the younger generation coming along will embrace innovative solutions to basic human needs even as they embrace each other-- regardless of the surface demographics that the ruling elite have used for generations to divide the populace.

This may not be the first time that I have written this thought in this community, but let me state this again.

I do not care if "the brown" inherit the earth. I just want them to have a green and livable world to carry on the human legacy.

Good luck fixing all that in courts filled with Bush and Trump appointees (incl. SCOTUS).

I can envision a day when the Trumpublicans are beaten back and the corporate Democrats become the center right party and the progressive wing become the center left party. I'm afraid it's more likely we'll succumb to fascism of the Nazi variety. We already have concentration camps for immigrants. Who's next? What's next if the Russpublicans stea! the midterms?

That allowed for the rise of Fux News and all the attendant crazies.
Want to go back to the fairness doctrine, removal of Citizens United, and getting all the fucking money out of the fucking political process. Would love to get rid of all lobbyists.

Facebook Twitter, etc, are the real power players, and in turn they get played by Russians, Brad Parscale, the Mercers, who, with their micro targeting take their message manipulation directly to the exact individuals they want to influence, without any corporate responsibility (I know, oxymoron) on the part of the social media companies.

If one could control that we might have a chance.

and set ourselves up for another, even worse one. couldn't believe it at the time but, here we are--staring down the barrel of another economic collapse, not to mention an extinction level event

all in the name of protecting "the economy" and the system

He was declared the winner of an election even he said was rigged!

But I have a 12 year old son who is watching his parents closely through this shit show so I can’t embrace the end of our world thought process without stealing his hope and confidence for his own future. I tell him everyday that his generation will change the world. They already are. I am a firm believer that our thoughts manifest themselves. The tide is turning ever so slightly. I’m choosing to believe that if only to empower my child and to get myself out of bed in the morning.

I grew up in the 60 and 70s as well and it wasn't all roses. I remember breathing a sigh of relief that I got into college and my draft card was 1-H for deferment.
I walked through the combat zone in Boston with my family in the 60's and the racial tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Women who got pregnant and were under the age of 18 routinely got sent to halfway houses which were little more than prisons.
Drugs were everywhere and people that went to Vietnam came back with habits.
Child porn, abuse, and sex slavery happened back then, although you never heard about it happening
Ya, it was great... wasn't it
I think you wax nostalgic. Yes we have a lot of new problems that have replaced the old ones, but life's a struggle and everyone should do their part to make the world a little better and a bit more just.
I'm old, but I'm not too old to pick up a sign and protest or to help canvas for the next election.

So there....

I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Andim going to help us get to it.

It will be minorities and less privileged groups that will disproportionately be hurt, are hurting as we speak, by this burn it down bullshit. It will be women, the disabled, men and women of color. Another great depression will kill them in even greater numbers. War will kill them in even greater numbers. They are the ones being killed as we speak.

It is white men an white women who are to blame for the way the country is today. They overwhelmingly vote Republican, and overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Their privilege will protect them, men more than women, of course, but still, as a group... Oh, a number of them will lose their jobs and struggle financially, but their privilege will make it easier for them to find new jobs, and their economic heritage will provide a buffer African Americans can only dream of. The average wealth of African American families in the US is $17,000 whereas White families have an average of $171,000, after all. Who will be cannon fodder if there's another war? It will be men of color, and their families will suffer with them. At home, disabled people and LGBT people, and other minority groups will have increasingly hostile laws and policies enacted against them under the cover of war news and presented as us vs them.

Until we white people acknowledge our fault in how things are, and start pushing back against our own white friends and family, nothing will get better. Until we fight for minorities and their suffrage instead of chasing Trumpist deplorables and far left 'burn it down and the revolution will come' neo-progressives, the US will continue on its downward trajectory.

will make a correction.

The internet has brought info closer in, while it's also become a mess of loudspeakers directed at those who hear only what they want to hear.

Not even oligarchs want a real crashing of the economy, that would create more regulations for them all over again.

Heck yeah people are scared, and should be, and that fact alone is a wind in some sails.

They would LOVE this, draft all the minorities possible into the war to do some ethnic cleansing (white folks get bone spurs you know), and a Depression does nothing to the rich, they will cruise along just like they did in the 1930s, beaming with joy as "THE WEAK" lay dying in the streets from malnutrition and exposure to the elements.

Ammosexuals would be STANDING THEIR GROUND like crazy, blazing away at the hobos and destitute women and children knocking on their back doors looking for food, and it wouldn't affect most of them at all, because Mountain Dew and Funyuns, the cornerstone of their diet, would still be dirt cheap.

HEAVEN ON EARTH!

There have been a few pauses but no reversal of that momentum...

So we’ll roll over and let our rights go to hell until the actions of some other country determines our course? We might as well lie down because in spite of the fact that we’re on the side of respecting and caring for our fellow man and we outnumber them they’re tougher and louder and that’s something we can never equal?

Fine. Get out of the way. We’ve got things to do. Easily? Quick? Hell no. What’s easy is laying back and letting others determine the course of our lives.

depression when we've got a president who is aiding and abetting a foreign power.

I'm 68 years old. The 60's were were mostly because of civil rights and the Vietnam war (draft). Even then we were in the minority.

People of color historically have a low voter turnout and the vast majority of whites support this present day agenda. I suspect that until the Baby Boomer generation is replaced my a majority of millennial voters then things will probably get worse. We have left such a catastrophe for the younger generations that I feel for them.

Climate Change, Never Ending War, Guns, Greedy Bastards in control, Technology (robotics), and the White population becoming an angry minority do not bode well for our nation.

How did we get here - Dumb Ass White Voters....period.

Against who? We are all responsible for this country's problems. Will people divest
themselves of investments, stocks..mutual funds etc., in overseas companies that take our jobs from us?
Will smokers push to make tobacco illegal...killer of thousands? Will people start
exercising daily and eating right to cut down on health issues that push insurance
rates up? Do you think elected officials will back down from the money offered by
lobbyists and special interest groups..both democrats and republicans? These things
require an inner strength of discipline and responsibility. Sadly lacking in all walks of
life. Will the poor, starving to death african native stop killing rinos and elephants for
their tusks? To feed their children?
No....

The problem with conflicts is that often there is third-party who takes advantage of the chaos. Which in fact may be what is happening right now.

It's practiced, induced and deliberate. It comes out of the swamp of intolerance and racism, and it's all-consuming.

No I don’t think people go bad like spoiled produce.
In the 1960s one president was shot, his brother running for the presidency was also gunned down. The greatest civil rights advocate in the Nations history was murdered. Our Country was in a war of destruction that would ruin the lives of its soldiers for decades to come and obliterate numerous people from several Asian Countries.
Race Riots were destroying our largest cities and the President of the late 60s and early 70s destroyed lives and almost the institution of the Republic before he was stopped.
None of that made sense to me.
Right now we are not in Buchenwald. We certainly don’t need a nuclear war and Btw we have been at war in Afghanistan for some time.
We just need to fight for our beliefs. Things will change. It might take some work but it will get better.

Not a fan of cheering for a Great Depression or War. That could just lead to fascism or dictatorship.

Those events did little to nothing to really change America in the way that you want. America was more racist, sexist, homophobic AFTER those events than they were before.

It's easy to get depressed, but for every die hard Trump supporter, there are two Americans who disapprove of him. The key is getting those two Americans out to vote.

I see the American people, as a whole, like the boiling frog. It seems like sometime around the time of Reagan, people have been signing their own economic death warrants by voting based on bigotry, fundamentalist religious views, etc. I thought the effects of Bush 43's foreign and domestic policy disasters that people finally wised up for good. But look where we are now.

I think it has been, and will continue to be, death by a thousand cuts. By the time the shit really hits the fan (global warfare against who-knows-what alliance or a South American banana republic-like economic crisis), we'll be in such a weakened position that I don't even want to contemplate what would happen next.

George Carlin's routine on the American Dream says it better than I can, but even since then...
2000 -- the Supreme Court literally made FL stop counting votes when the guy they wanted was ahead - a few whimpers part basically no long-term consequences
2001 -- unified for just a few months after 9/11 and then back to the same BS
2004 -- Bush re-elected in part b/c somehow they made being a military veteran a weakness instead of a strength - and, just after FL 2000, we got Diebold
2005-2008 -- Katrina, Alito, the Great Recession in full force
2010 -- Citizens United, gerrymandering
2015-??? -- the literally exhausting shitshow that is Donald Trump -- as publicity-seeking asshole, then candidate, then President of the United States thanks to, for the 2nd time in 5 tries, a relic in vote-tallying from 200 years ago (a few protests here and there, but too little too late)


People are indeed too lazy to learn of their situation, willfully ignorant, tribal, and distracted by a lousy system that's helped cause their slowly declining standard of living. They've been underrepresented by the things above (in the original post and in this one), and Democrats aren't blameless. The party is recovering from an era of corporate centrism. Then there are tactical errors. Clarence Thomas could've been voted down, and Ginsburg should've retired before 2014. Nuanced messaging when people have no attention span. Obama trying to play nice and stay above the fray (surrounded himself w/ Goldman Sachs advisors, giving up on the public option too soon, not using the bully pulpit effectively re Sandy Hook, Garland, and Trump/Russia collusion and crimes).

Now, who knows what the US is going to look like once the Trump/Pence/Ryan/McConnell era mercifully ends. Will it be worth fixing?
Will it be fixable? People do have to rise up, hopefully not to the point of civil war and rioting, but certainly to the point that they can overcome the Kochs, the gutting of the VRA, gerrymandering, the Trump SCOTUS, etc. I've been very pessimistic ever since Election Night 2016, with one exception: The millennial and Generation Z's reaction to Parkland. They're engaged and willing to work. We have to do what we can to join them and keep them that way. I think that's the only way out of this mess.

I just don't see a nuclear war coming. I hope I'm right.

The direction our country is taking is sickening. Trump and his fascist followers are terrifying. How can there be so much hatred and stupidity in America?

The level of greed here is breathtaking. It must be like the robber baron era. And since the robber barons control the government, they determine the direction America takes.

I am heartened to see the high school students taking it to our leaders regarding guns. That's what can happen when we (the great middle class) are focused. If more Americans can speak up for what is best, we can defeat the corporate class. I hope it happens with health care too. It will take a lot of focus and the ability to get out to vote.

When the CEO of Disney makes as much as 10,000 employees combined and nobody cares, we're already fucked.

The first great depression happened because of shit like this. And we're already in one. If that doesn't get people woken the fuck up, what will?

I would like to add that Christie had a good chance to win the Presidency before Bridge-gate.
David Wildstein who orchestrated Bridge gate worked for Jared Kushner before he went to work for Christy at the NJ Port Athority. David Wildstein sold politickernj to Jared Kushner and was hired
to help run it until Christy hired him to work at the Port Athority. The story that bridge-gate was retribution for the mayor of Fort Lee not supporting Christy never made sense.
Jared was also friendly with Rupert Murdoch at the time.
If some person was cultivating a future candidate for president an 8 year term of Chris Christy
would have ruined their plans. Just saying it would make a good movie

as it's ever been, someone comes along to try to make me feel it's even worse.
The 60's and 70's included Nixon, the Vietnam war, assassinations of MLK, Bobby Kennedy, and John Kennedy. They were a time when being racist was normal behavior. It was an era when rivers were open sewers and air was visibly filled with pollutants--because of greed and stupidity. It was not better then, it was much worse.

In normal climates, I'd argue that the pendulum swing would eventually take us back to more idealistic times, but we no longer have the luxury of time.

No matter how bad you think things are now, they're going to get much worse. In coming decades you'll look back on even the Trump presidency as a better time, an era of relative calm and prosperity.

Climate change is going to kick our ass. And by "us" I mean everyone on the planet. It will disrupt distribution networks, trigger mass migrations, famines, wars, and global political upheaval as people finally realize we are under siege from an implacable force we cannot control.

Take time out from the political news to enjoy what you have now. Life as we know it won't be around for very much longer.

Yes, I believe there is a 36% base of very ignorant people, but then the people didn't elect drumpf, Russia did. The majority of Americans voted against the orange assface. Unfortunately, Russia and some of our oligarchs conspired to elect Putin's puppet because he's an oligarch too, and have turned one of the 2 national political parties into nothing more than an arm of a foreign hostile government. They control all arms of our government, and aim to ultimately change our constitutional government so that there are no constraints on oligarchs and big corps, no public education, no right to birth control no labor laws - just the serfs and barons model currently used in Russia. They want us to be ignorant, sick and compliant and die young, working for slave wages and hovels - just like in Russia.

The majority of Americans, indeed the democratic world, are very opposed, but have no voice in drumpfs regime and he cares nothing about anything except his own perceived profit and fame.

Really?

JFK's & LBJ's lies to get us mired in Vietnam, topped off with Nixon's collusion to torpedo the peace talks made sense?

COINTELPRO and Operation Chaos made sense?

The government conspiring to undermine, and at times murder, leading black activists made sense?


This sounds like hazy baby boomer nostalgia.

it's never made sense. Apartheid, wars, rampant discrimination, assassinations. No sense in any of it.

liquid cash. Most Americans who are NOT in the 1% do NOT have liquid assets. Thus, the 1% will be the ones to get even more wealthy from what you are "wanting" to happen.

All the business enterprises that were bought and sold during the depression by people with liquid cash are too numerous to mention, but because of the war effort, those with liquid cash who bought land, homes, companies, or invested in the stocks of the companies that made products that were in demand by our government for the war effort made millions. These industries included such products as:

1 – Metals: steel, iron and aluminum
2 – Communications: radios and parts
3 – Transportation: Aircraft, Tanks, boats and vehicles (and their parts)
4 – Armaments: Guns and munitions
5 – Boots, clothing, belts, backpacks, hats, blankets, tents and cots (and the textiles to make them)
6 – Containers
7 – Shipping – Truck Transportation – Railways
8 – Oil and petroleum and stocks in those oil wells (the Texas oil boom was a biggie!)

and nobody wants to address it, admit it, etc. You think *just* the US is messed up? Look around at the rest of the world and where it's heading as well. trump is just the orange canary in the coal mine. Hes the blaring horn warning - but hes a symptom as much as a problem.

The root cause of *all* of this is the way our money system works.

It is DESIGNED to concentrate wealth, and to reward people EXTRACTING value vs creating it. And for hundreds of years it has done that VERY well. The the actual world economy of gambling, speculation, waste, hoarding, extraction etc bears zero resemblance to any kind of "local" village etc economy that people *think* it represents.

*Nothing* will change until we realize this.

This system has wound itself into the very DNA of the world. It has debased the way humans interact and live their lives on an intimate scale.

It has resulted in treating people and the planet as little more than garbage to be used and exploited, in an every accelerating manner because the nature of the system *demands* ever expanding and accelerating pace to preventing its collapse.

Until we find a way to measure "value" by other means than $$ - nothing will change. We will continue to hoard and accelerate the imbalance until it **ALL** comes crashing down.

I've said for years that the largest enterprise we have in our world that represents free and fair markets is the local yard sale or roadside vegetable stand. Even then, you better get his phone number, LOL.

A system that extracts billions of dollars of natural resource from an area of the planet and yet leaves the residents of that zone in abject poverty and with a hopeless, worsened future is bound to eventually fail.

We humans are very good at traveling down one-way paths, with little or no ability to turn back, look back, or reverse course. Just ask any rich man to tighten his belt a bit or suggest he move into a smaller home for the planet's sake.

Well said, Locrain!........

...is that it brings people into line with the powers that be. Vietnam was a notable exception.

It's not really about economic scarcity anymore. Or even income inequality. The poor don't cause wars, they have little political power if any. Ego and competition cause wars. What would be the spoils of a new widespread war? Ideology and resources and technological innovation?

We don't educate citizens anymore. People aren't taught civics, history, freedom and responsibility, vigilance. We raise consumers. We don't even educate them about money. Wealthy people know this, c.f., Robert Kiyosaki. Consuming and slaving to reduce debt to pay the overlords is all that matters to the rich.

Is there a path for the little guy anymore? Even if austere, he stands little chance in our economic system without harnessing greed and exploitation as growth engines. Which feeds the system. We are no longer free. You can't be free if you're beholden to debt. Maybe frontier independence was all a myth anyway.

You complain about people? People don't even know what's happening. They're just cogs in a wheel. As long as there is ice cream and wheels and football, they don't care.

We are not citizens. We are a unit of consumption.

I'm a cynic but think degrees of power can still go both ways. But global climate change... that will do us all in I'm afraid. In the end the earth will reclaim itself and our politics along with humanity will be wiped clean as if we had never been.
We have more chance to change politics than to stop what we have set in motion with GCC.

Actually, the electors elected Trump.

If they didn't, we wouldn't have repubs in power right now. I don't think more kicks in the ass willwork. We have trump now and the elections are still pretty close. SMH.

I must admit I wonder what sort of upheaval or revolution it will take to put the country back on a good course.

We have decimated the unions and worker protections. Now, 45 is appointing a slew of reich-wing, white guys to the bench. The list of these people 45 has been given has been carefully selected. They are young, and very right-wing. Not conservative - right-wing ideologues. The last bastion of fairness in this country used to be the courts. Now, I fear, they are no longer going to be there for the average person.

There is no quick fix for the courts. With the President we get a do-over every four years. Now, I really am wondering how we can fix the problem short of a revolution by the people. If that sounds communist or socialist then so be it. I will accept those of the fascism we're currently entrenching into our society.