In every culture there are warnings about people like Trump, archetypal representations that intend to prevent seduction and loss of direction....

[Moonbeam]

stories, myths, legends about the dangers one faces on the Hero's Journey, as it is sometimes referred to, obstacles we face on the path to spiritual attainment, self mastery, enlightenment, so many different names. Within such wisdom from a path less traveled but psychologically compelling to some who develop a sense of smell that something is not as it should be in our normal world.

What can you draw on from your own cultural education that in your opinion, contains such vision.

Two that come to my mind immediately are a Biblical description of the Anti-Christ and the story of the Pied Piper.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Well, all I can say is we must crush the rebellion before the start of the rainy season!

Otherwise they will head to hills with Che Guevara.

 

[Moonbeam]

Well, all I can say is we must crush the rebellion before the start of the rainy season!

Otherwise they will head to hills with Che Guevara.

The kinds of cultural wisdom I had in mind are aim to effect individual consciousness but if you can think of material on how to conduct mass resistance, I would be interested to hear them.

 

[Jaskalas]

but if you can think of material on how to conduct mass resistance, I would be interested to hear them.

It comes in three forms.

1. Street protests turn to riots and just keeps escalating.
2. Democrats learn to form militias and claim pieces of both city and rural land, preferably in blue states. Places where red = dead and MAGA has no enforcement.
3. Military remembers its oath and a coup resolves the threat to the constitution.

Listed in order of how likely they are. I do not expect #3 to ever happen, especially not successfully. Two is closer to secession, and is entirely possible. Just don't know if anyone has the stones to stand up for their rights and to put down anyone who comes for them. Cannot be a small group. Needs to grow to become very large. Finally, riots are almost certain.... the damage they cause, who knows.

 

[Jaskalas]

What can you draw on from your own cultural education that in your opinion, contains such vision.

Two that come to my mind immediately are a Biblical description of the Anti-Christ and the story of the Pied Piper.

The kinds of cultural wisdom I had in mind are aim to effect individual consciousness

As I have to assume we are of the same American culture, those two are both known and are sufficient for the purpose. Additional ideas do not immediately come to mind.

However, if the notion is to serve as a warning... if you wish to use those as an appeal to reason, sadly you are wasting your breath. Humans do not primarily use reason. And you will not reason them out of a position that they did not first reason themselves into. No, America does not face a difference of opinion. This runs much deeper than that. Into the core of the human condition. We broke and severed as a people, as a nation. America is sundered by a schism of belief. Differing ideas of faith and belief in things, including cold hard facts that should be objective, beyond reproach, yet remain split upon loyalty. Biggest example... the party of Reagan... of anti communism... has taken up arms for Russia.

You are not talking your way out of that one.

The problem is 90%... probably more, are not reachable in any capacity. Now, you might wonder if I am a hypocrite given my story and my conservative upbringing. The difference is I sought to challenge my beliefs. Because my core belief was not loyalty to a party or a person. My core was loyalty to my country, its ideals and the institutions that uphold them. The corruption lead me to a difference of opinion on where reason should lead us. It was not an abandonment of reason altogether.

Your notion of reaching out and drawing upon cultural warnings... it would work if people's core drive was reason. If they could look at these subjects objectively. They cannot. You cannot teach a caveman general relativity anymore than you can teach a MAGA Nazi that abandoning America's place in the world order is suicide. Or that the Measles vaccine is real. The foundations are not yet laid for a common understanding and basic comprehension. Then there is the active corruption. Religious like zeal and faith in our opponents. In a Cheeto Jesus that tells them to jump, they beg to know how high. They will not abandon it for you, me, or anyone or anything. Not even the existence of America. They will burn this country to the ground before they let you teach them.

I am sorry, but they must be conquered first. Militarily defeated and their agency seized by force. The only way forward is through them.

 

[Moonbeam]

As I have to assume we are of the same American culture, those two are both known and are sufficient for the purpose. Additional ideas do not immediately come to mind.

However, if the notion is to serve as a warning... if you wish to use those as an appeal to reason, sadly you are wasting your breath. Humans do not primarily use reason. And you will not reason them out of a position that they did not first reason themselves into. No, America does not face a difference of opinion. This runs much deeper than that. Into the core of the human condition. We broke and severed as a people, as a nation. America is sundered by a schism of belief. Differing ideas of faith and belief in things, including cold hard facts that should be objective, beyond reproach, yet remain split upon loyalty. Biggest example... the party of Reagan... of anti communism... has taken up arms for Russia.

You are not talking your way out of that one.

The problem is 90%... probably more, are not reachable in any capacity. Now, you might wonder if I am a hypocrite given my story and my conservative upbringing. The difference is I sought to challenge my beliefs. Because my core belief was not loyalty to a party or a person. My core was loyalty to my country, its ideals and the institutions that uphold them. The corruption lead me to a difference of opinion on where reason should lead us. It was not an abandonment of reason altogether.

Your notion of reaching out and drawing upon cultural warnings... it would work if people's core drive was reason. If they could look at these subjects objectively. They cannot. You cannot teach a caveman general relativity anymore than you can teach a MAGA Nazi that abandoning America's place in the world order is suicide. Or that the Measles vaccine is real. The foundations are not yet laid for a common understanding and basic comprehension. Then there is the active corruption. Religious like zeal and faith in our opponents. In a Cheeto Jesus that tells them to jump, they beg to know how high. They will not abandon it for you, me, or anyone or anything. Not even the existence of America. They will burn this country to the ground before they let you teach them.

I am sorry, but they must be conquered first. Militarily defeated and their agency seized by force. The only way forward is through them.

The problem with your way of thinking in my opinion is that it is useless. You have described humanity as 90% unreachable which means that your call for revolution will fall on deaf ears. This is why, as I said before, the Hero's Journey is a solitary affair. Buried deep within our culture are stories that are guide posts to a different reality, freedom within, the attainment of the waters of life, the golden fleece, enlightenment,etc. In all of your posts on the nature of humanity you describe man as he is, not as he can be, and you want to use force to change what you see. But it always depends on somebody else doing the killing while you cheer them on. You are one of the 90% who believes the answers are out there rather than within. The world you see is a self reflection. It is the creation of an attitude that can has a potential to change.

Imagine the enemy is a many headed serpent that turns you to stone if you see it. You will need a mirror and a sword to cut off those heads and the serpent is an attitude, a creation that can be defeated because it does not exist. The wise have found their way and left directions for you.

Spinoza said this is the best of all possible worlds. Why did he say it and why don't you believe it.

 

[Greenman]

It comes in three forms.

1. Street protests turn to riots and just keeps escalating.
2. Democrats learn to form militias and claim pieces of both city and rural land, preferably in blue states. Places where red = dead and MAGA has no enforcement.
3. Military remembers its oath and a coup resolves the threat to the constitution.

Listed in order of how likely they are. I do not expect #3 to ever happen, especially not successfully. Two is closer to secession, and is entirely possible. Just don't know if anyone has the stones to stand up for their rights and to put down anyone who comes for them. Cannot be a small group. Needs to grow to become very large. Finally, riots are almost certain.... the damage they cause, who knows.

Number one is always a huge hit. Everyone knows the best way to get people to agree with you is by wreaking their homes and city's.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Number one is always a huge hit. Everyone knows the best way to get people to agree with you is by wreaking their homes and city's.

Riots are the voice of the unheard.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Riots are the voice of the unheard.

What about Quiet Riot?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

What about Quiet Riot?

They should just remain unheard.

 

[Moonbeam]

Riots are the voice of the unheard.

Are they not also the acted out frustrations of the aggrieved, people who see others as the cause of their own misery?

And with respect to misery, does it not come as two kinds, suffering imposed on us as the madness of others blaming us for their own misery, and the misery we manufacture in our own minds as a product of imagination, thought, and the anxiety and fear they can manufacture out of thin

As I said, the experience of existential suffering is as ancient as humanity and signpost oftranscendences of that condition litter our cultural history buried in story and myth. I think that is the case? Do you have any similar feelings?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Satan in "Paradise Lost" -- flying around all night, unable to sleep and implicitly tweeting on the cell-phone or blackberry that should've been part of pre-history.

 

[Moonbeam]

Satan in "Paradise Lost" -- flying around all night, unable to sleep and implicitly tweeting on the cell-phone or blackberry that should've been part of pre-history.

Interesting choice I knew only by name as an uncultured ignoramus who never got into poetry. Seems to be about the evolution of consciousness from sympathy for to abhorrence of the devil over time, something Republicans need and may even be experiencing.

 

[Moonbeam]

Trumpty Dumpty builds walls
For his pleasure in dividing the nation
Using the power of high rank and station
Unaware of the gravity of his situation
And all the sadder today
With the elevated price of eggs.

 

[Moonbeam]

Give someone enough rope and they'll hang themselves. Why, because we hate ourselves for behaviors we exhibited as children that were natural and instead of lovingly guiding us to grow out of then we were punished for having them. The result is adult behavior itching to allow those so called evils to run wild but without any rope to allow them to express we do not do so. They remain repressed by fear of punishment. Some comes along like Trump telling you you will be great acting like an asshole and now you have what you want, permission to act in ways that others will hang you for. Trump supporters will therefore be psychologically driven to fuck themselves

 

[Jaskalas]

The problem with your way of thinking in my opinion is that it is useless. You have described humanity as 90% unreachable which means that your call for revolution will fall on deaf ears.

About that 90% figure. I did clause "or more". And it's a direct reference to MAGA who have already hardened themselves as hostile to our Institutions, our Bill of Rights, our Constitution. Everything we value - they seek to destroy. It is their determination for diametric opposition.

But that's MAGA specific. Humans at large, while still absent reason as a primary motivator, are not set as a kill or be killed opponent by default. Other nations are much easier to live with. We have a great many examples of that. So while the wider notion may apply to all of us, this specific instance is far more narrow. Some 70-80 million voters to be exact.

It's like... what are the potential outcomes if... you come across a stranger and invite them over for dinner. Could be bad. Could be good. It's all neutral and there are no hard feelings.
But, what if it's a known person who has declared every intent on killing my loved ones? They even carry the weapon. I'm not inviting them to dinner, no, I'm grabbing my weapon. We're going to settle this.

Perhaps you expect a third option. So you think force being met by force is "useless".
If you are seeking to devise coexistence with MAGA.. then I completely agree that my view does not see how that is possible.
But I have also tried explaining the reasoning behind it. The alt-reality, the cult following, the zealous passion to destroy. On their side.

It's not a revolution dear Moonbeam. It is simply war. As humans do.
I pray you, and all of us, see it avoided. But I am sure that's how the Dinosaurs felt when the meteor made itself apparent. Destiny arrived all the same.

 

[Moonbeam]

About that 90% figure. I did clause "or more". And it's a direct reference to MAGA who have already hardened themselves as hostile to our Institutions, our Bill of Rights, our Constitution. Everything we value - they seek to destroy. It is their determination for diametric opposition.

But that's MAGA specific. Humans at large, while still absent reason as a primary motivator, are not set as a kill or be killed opponent by default. Other nations are much easier to live with. We have a great many examples of that. So while the wider notion may apply to all of us, this specific instance is far more narrow. Some 70-80 million voters to be exact.

It's like... what are the potential outcomes if... you come across a stranger and invite them over for dinner. Could be bad. Could be good. It's all neutral and there are no hard feelings.
But, what if it's a known person who has declared every intent on killing my loved ones? They even carry the weapon. I'm not inviting them to dinner, no, I'm grabbing my weapon. We're going to settle this.

Perhaps you expect a third option. So you think force being met by force is "useless".
If you are seeking to devise coexistence with MAGA.. then I completely agree that my view does not see how that is possible.
But I have also tried explaining the reasoning behind it. The alt-reality, the cult following, the zealous passion to destroy. On their side.

It's not a revolution dear Moonbeam. It is simply war. As humans do.
I pray you, and all of us, see it avoided. But I am sure that's how the Dinosaurs felt when the meteor made itself apparent. Destiny arrived all the same.

I have no problem responding to an eminent threat with deadly force if need be. But I don't have to convince millions of others to do the same. You want to call the 'other side' the source of evil, but look at how Democrats have responded. Ten of them voted to censure their one and only outspoken protestor at Trump's recent speech. I would sway that more than 90% of the nation is passive when it comes to violent action to prevent him from destroying the country. This is why I call your position useless. More that 99% of use will never even get close to Trump. And the threat of prison will deter pretty much everyone from violent protest. What everybody could do is turn their backs on the attention seeker but we are wired to watch horror unfold. It's all I can do, surrounded by screaming reactionaries, to avoid being drawn in. Everyone around me is screaming look at that. I would rather not. Strikes me as mental masturbation.

From a snake expect snake behavior. I don't see snakes very often, but when I do, I pay attention to the pattern of the scales and the shape of the head and tail.

 

[Amused]

Number one is always a huge hit. Everyone knows the best way to get people to agree with you is by wreaking their homes and city's.

How Ironic. Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.

For years LBJ was trying to push through a civil rights act/fair housing bill. GOP in the house and senate held it back.

MLK marched peacefully for years in support of the act.

Nothing.

MLK was assassinated April 4th 1968. For 5 days 100 cities in America burned in massive protests.

The civil rights act of 1968 was finally passed on April 10 1968.

It took MLK's murder and cities to burn with violent protests.

Your post in awash in ignorance. Peaceful protests gain nothing. Burning every fucking thing down is the only thing that brings change to the oppressed.

The broligarchs have two choices:

1. A 90% top tax bracket.
2. Guillotines.

So far, they seem to be choosing door number two.

 

[Moonbeam]

How Ironic. Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.

For years LBJ was trying to push through a civil rights act/fair housing bill. GOP in the house and senate held it back.

MLK marched peacefully for years in support of the act.

Nothing.

MLK was assassinated April 4th 1968. For 5 days 100 cities in America burned in massive protests.

The civil rights act of 1968 was finally passed on April 10 1968.

It took MLK's murder and cities to burn with violent protests.

Your post in awash in ignorance. Peaceful protests gain nothing. Burning every fucking thing down is the only thing that brings change to the oppressed.

The broligarchs have two choices:

1. A 90% top tax bracket.
2. Guillotines.

So far, they seem to be choosing door number two.

Careful the Democrats don’t censure you for intemperate speech. Seems to me what you are saying is that things are hopeless by the very nature of the rules you maintain as truth. If the only way change can happen is by burning things down, that’s a recipe for stasis. I hear shouting at clouds rather than here coms the smoke.

Again, you are depending on others to light the fires while you stew in frustrated rage.

And another thing, from where I stand, how is it not happening just as you say, only it’s conservatives that have taken to burning everything down? Who is the revolutionary and who is the counter revolutionary? All I see is people thrashing in their sleep at horror taking place in their dreams as if it were reality.

Reality only is when the seer and the seen are one. Some seers I’ve heard of say there is only love.

The Perhaps there is a revolution that can happen within rather than raging at the machine.

Do I accept what is. Yes and no. There is real misery in the world. There is love that is violated, loss, death, physical suffering etc. Some of this is existential and some we do to others having learned the art from others still. One revolution might be to be awake to curbing the desire to get even, to believe that others are not simply asleep but guilty. If you can’t wake up, how do you justify burning others alive who blame and want the same for you?