Hekate
Hekate's JournalAfter engaging in these back&forth arguments several times, I'm with you. If people cannot see...
… the problem with illegal grows, I am out of patience with them. They can take up the issue in their own damn states, and roll out the welcome mat in their own damn counties. See how they enjoy environmental degradation and the prospect of being shot for “trespassing” on public lands.
And if they don't like the taxes in California — gosh, this is a political board. They know what to do: get politically involved and bitch about it to someone who gives a damn.
I voted to legalize a product I can’t even use. I did it for social justice and to clear out the prisons. I had hoped it would put a crimp in the Mexican cartels, who are fcking dangerous no matter where they are. My heart just bleeds for people who say the cartels charge less. Da-yum. The cartels make up the difference in assassinations, beheadings, and human trafficking.
They are a totalitarian regime, or as we say today, an authoritarian government. Always have been.
They are in an expansionist mood, which Obama and his allies saw very clearly. It was stupid of American leftists to agree with American right wingers that the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a bad idea. It would have helped rein in China’s incursions in the Pacific.
Trump, the idiot, aggravated them for no good reason but his own ego and his base’s need for a racist whipping boy.
Biden has Xi’s number, though. He said early on that as VP he had spent innumerable hours with Xi, and that while “there is not a single democratic bone in his body”, Xi is no fool, but an intelligent leader with long term goals for his country. Personally, I think we are looking at the Century of China. Look up the Belt and Road Initiative, and the project to build islands in the Pacific in order to claim territorial rights around them.
One of the things we Americans often don’t understand is that there are vast swaths of the Earth where democracy has never taken root and likely never will, China and Russia being the most notable examples on the world stage — tho far from the only ones. Why ban movies, music, books, and other things from outside? Because they unsettle people and give them unauthorized thoughts. I did mention they were a totalitarian regime.
Over time I have seen that small groups of their citizens (and sometimes masses in protests) will demand more freedom and more rights, and while they may call it democracy, what they will settle for is an orderly and predictable society without random cruel oppression. I wish their people luck.
Finally, why Taiwan and why now? Taiwan is unsettled business from the Revolution. The anti-revolutionaries fled to Taiwan, those that could. China considers Taiwan part of China, and figures the Revolution is not over until they get it back. The US, otoh, has always kept Taiwan as a satellite for our own purposes (we can do propaganda, too) — keeping the plucky Taiwanese free from Red China and all that.
Why now? I don’t know, but I am sure Xi’s reasons are well thought out. And I am equally sure Joe Biden is aware of what they are.
Actually, that is exactly what you are suggesting. You want to spring the bad news on "adults" ...
They’ll call you a liar, because they’ve been taught all their lives that everything in this country is sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. Also they won’t be in school any more, right? So under what circumstances are they going to learn reality?
And that’s just the WHITE youngsters we’re talking about “protecting” from reality. Even more specifically, the straight, male, white young people.
Everybody else (which is most of the country, when you think about it) will be getting such a case of cognitive dissonance that they’ll start doubting their own sanity.
Well, those women are a very big chunk of the population of the country & need to be educated pronto
I don’t think they are incapable of learning. Do you think they are incapable? That they as presumed adults need to be mollycoddled?
As for your sorrow (I guess) over my learning things at a young age, a wise teacher parcels knowledge out in digestible increments according to age. We were all readers, and Mom said nothing in the house was off-limits; we just had to discuss it with her. She also made certain lessons personal, just one instance being the KKK, which was very active in her home state of Colorado when she was growing up. The KKK hated Roman Catholics, and her family was Catholic. Our neighbor across the street escaped the Holocaust. Another neighbor was a court stenographer for the Nazis.
And — funny thing about kids’ books in the 1950s and early 1960s — there was a sub-genre of them with a war theme specifically for elementary and middle school kids, with the lesson that even if your whole country (i.e. Denmark or France or Holland) is taken over by the Nazis, you can do your little bit to help the grownups resist. Did they scare me? No. They taught me even children can recognize evil and resist it.
Which reminds me of Harry Potter. Jo Rowling is at least a generation younger than I am, but clearly has read widely. I read her books as they came out, and read them all aloud to my grandson. I recognized more than one genre from my childhood: fantasy to be sure, but also English boarding school; and most importantly, that children/teenagers can recognize evil and organize to resist it. Dolores Umbridge is a perfect representation of a Nazi or any other totalitarian functionary.
How can children resist evil if they are never taught to recognize it and how to resist it — how can adults.
Gain knowledge. Fight back. Resist.
I learned about the Holocaust and other atrocities at my dear old mother's knee in the 1950s
It was fresh in people’s memories then. IT WAS FRESH IN PEOPLE’S MEMORIES THEN.
I learned about violence against black Americans by watching it on tv as it happened, and from the photos in LIFE magazine.
And I asked my mother to explain. She was a reader and a thinker and believed all people should be treated equally.
My mother was a suburban housewife back when “housewife” was just a job description. We were blue-collar. Our house was tiny and the budget was tight.
I think I saw your deleted post and passed it by in weariness. But since you want to defend it and brought it up again…
No, we don’t think suburban housewives are stupid here. But Mary, there is a consensus about the abysmal level of education across the country — a large swath of our citizens 45 and under either were sleeping in history class or were not taught it at all.
My mother used to quote the guy who said those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.
I would add, that especially applies to violence. What the ever loving whatever was going on at Abu Graig Prison? What did we think would happen when our local police were given military hardware? How the hell did we end up with a fascist for president?
I hope you get my point, because I have to exit for an appointment. I will be only too happy to belabor my point when I return.
WaPo on insurrection. Many many thanks. I have tried to download it to my e-books library as a pdf...
… and after a number of tries I think I have all the text. Well, except things like tweets, which for some reason don’t like this process. Also, it is a multi-media effort and can’t be captured in a static pdf.
This is humongously long, isn’t it? It’s hundreds and hundreds of pages. It’ll take quite awhile to read and digest, and I’m glad to be able to do that at my leisure without WaPo kvetching at me to subscribe. I’m adding this post to my DU Journal, in hopes that your link will still work if I try to go back.
GrapesOfWrath
13. Try this link
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[link:https://wapo.st/3w3vSZb|
TY, & recommend people read it all. Fascinating, dystopian, nightmarish. Infrastructure, dammit.
Some here keep tut-tutting about American overconsumption, but excuse me all to hell, all my family’s prescription medications are being shipped in as we speak, because it’s cheaper to make them on the other side of the globe than it is to make them in the US.
That, too, is a big part of the problem. America doesn’t make its own necessities any more.
Just got off the phone with my evacuated daughter. Her little place still stands, but she won't ...
… be able to move back until probably January due to the potential for rock slides and mud slides. She and her significant other have a certain array of options, though, thank gods. And they are philosophical: California burns, and their area shouldn’t burn over again for a number of years.
The search for goods & profits & trade routes (capitalism, so to speak) has been the driving force...
… for exploration for millennia. Military motives as well.
I am not disturbed by the Billionaire Boys’ Club Race to the Stars. Up to this point space travel has been funded by and controlled by the federal government & its military arm, & those chosen as crew have had to be in the absolute peak of health and condition.
When civilians finally got involved, it took money— piles and piles of money— which meant a self-selected group of billionaires.
But something else happened. When they started choosing passengers, they chose people who could pay, not young military jet pilots in the peak of condition. They chose, ultimately, an overweight 90 year old man.
Boldly going where no nonagenarian has gone before, William Shatner just proved that anybody can go to outer space now. Frankly, I am stoked. Talk about a great leap for humankind.
Kicktoons. "What country is this?"
I hope this toon goes right up there in the pantheon of Doonesbury greats, along with “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” (also uttered by Marl Slackmeyer)
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Central Coast, California
Home country: USA
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 90,828
