Is the civil war already here?

[Moonbeam]

The point is that Democrats do not suck. They are far from perfect but they are also far from sucking. The only reason they haven't fixed most of everything is that they have not been given the power to change anything for 40 years, except a few months where they were able to push the ACA through. It isn't messaging. It isn't their flaws. It is a fucking sick population susceptible to misinformation and lies. Period.

May I just comment on this one point. If, as you say, the population is sick and susceptible to misinformation and lies that make real change a hopeless task, then it is the responsibility of the Democratic Party to address that issue. This would mean, in my opinion, that it would be stupid to try to counter that misinformation by pushing ideas and platforms about which there already exists information. That just throws fuel on the fire. If you want a population that does not respond to propaganda think about why that never happens. People do not want to hear the truth. Our whole culture is propped up by propaganda. How many things do you buy in a supermarket and how many are there. How are we going to run an economy without creating a massive feeling of need in people to buy junk they do not really need. Our whole culture is maintained by the scientific study of the psychology of manipulation, principles that psychopaths grasp almost instinctively. The whole enterprise is built on the manufacture of need created by greed and fear of loss, lack of social status and other fears.

All of these are used by political parties. They can't function without money and will never bite the hands of the propagandists that feed them. Perhaps the only hope there really is lies in the fact the rich who control the system realize they are committing suicide. Or maybe somebody will tell them. But it will need to happen before we have luxury palaces on Mars in the service of which the poor will be offered the opportunity to work off their debts.
,

 

[dank69]

May I just comment on this one point. If, as you say, the population is sick and susceptible to misinformation and lies that make real change a hopeless task, then it is the responsibility of the Democratic Party to address that issue.

How can they change anything if they don't have the power? I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall sometimes.

This would mean, in my opinion, that it would be stupid to try to counter that misinformation by pushing ideas and platforms about which there already exists information. That just throws fuel on the fire. If you want a population that does not respond to propaganda think about why that never happens. People do not want to hear the truth. Our whole culture is propped up by propaganda. How many things do you buy in a supermarket and how many are there. How are we going to run an economy without creating a massive feeling of need in people to buy junk they do not really need.

...

Change the strawberry in one of your favorite tales to an Oreo and maybe you'll understand that "junk" isn't the fucking problem. Sure, excess materialism is bad, but don't forget to enjoy a Twinkie from time to time.

 

[Grey_Beard]

I agree, it isn't rational to assume everyone on the left hates police. But my point is that the media is presenting an apparent cultural zeitgeist where that seems to be the case. Because the activists who they quote DO hate the police. So as I said, one can be forgiven for assuming it even if the reality of actual rank and file liberals is different.

Just take one example. That Minneapolis council woman who was interviewed on CNN that summer, who wanted to defund the police, and in response to a question about about what happens if someone breaks into your house, and instead of reassuring her constituents of their own safety, she says that expecting 911 service is an example of "white privilege." I mean, why did they even interview that imbecile to begin with? How many votes did that interview cost the dems in November, so that CNN can boost its ratings and ad revenue by giving air to the most extreme views out there?

If liberals start to speak out more about this, the media will shift. Because conservatives left MSM a long time ago, liberals are their market. And that is all they are doing is playing to a market.



Good practice.

You are conflating the issues here. It is amazing that we take these individual things and say, “…well the media said…” like everything is this factual straight line. Well it is not. There are examples of the changes, but that is how critical thinking works. The fools may say something emotionally at one point, but to think that that opinion or perspective never changes is ridiculous. The media gets way more credit and way more blame than it deserves. It’s lazy to think that they are some knowledge orb when in reality they are one of our inputs. As bad as it is, they are much more reliable than these “other” sources that continue to cloud the discussion which are based on no facts, although the opinions are presented as fact based.

This is the problem here. One side makes mistakes and sometimes is over zealous, but the other is dogged on the lack of facts, based everything on hate and anger, while pointed out every flaw without even acknowledging their flaws. This is evident with the January 6th commission, as every Republicon said one thing that but since has said the complete opposite and never even cares to reconcile it.

 

[gothuevos]

It won't end until voters punish them for it.

No sign of that happening. In fact the voters are giving them more power.

"I'm afraid the fault, dear Tain, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Bonus points if you can tell me where that quote is from!

 

[Jaskalas]

This is exactly what I was talking about. People complain? They are rioting. If it is too peaceful, a little tear gas can fix that.

The "Left" confusing protesting and rioting and openly endorsing the latter is a great way to abandon reason for madness.
There is no discourse for arson and looting on the streets. Force will simply be met with force. If that is what you want. Just keep calling it protesting. We'll get there.

 

[ch33zw1z]

It won't end until voters punish them for it.

No sign of that happening. In fact the voters are giving them more power.

"I'm afraid the fault, dear Tain, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Bonus points if you can tell me where that quote is from!

And states where voters aren't giving the power, republican gerrymander legislatures are setting up to just keep taking it no matter what the voters says.

 

[ch33zw1z]

The "Left" confusing protesting and rioting and openly endorsing the latter is a great way to abandon reason for madness.
There is no discourse for arson and looting on the streets. Force will simply be met with force. If that is what you want. Just keep calling it protesting. We'll get there.

Yea, that's why we consistently saw peaceful protests being met with force, and bad faith right wing actors inciting violence.

Don't mind the slew of propaganda about all those cities burning to the ground.

You talk about reason, and all the while the right jumped on the crazy train decades ago. Full speed ahead.

 

[Moonbeam]

How can they change anything if they don't have the power? I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall sometimes.

Change the strawberry in one of your favorite tales to an Oreo and maybe you'll understand that "junk" isn't the fucking problem. Sure, excess materialism is bad, but don't forget to enjoy a Twinkie from time to time.

Fortunately, and atypically, some people also agree with me that Democrats are partially to blame. The narrow focus on race, for example and the absurd idea of de funding the police rather than the more messaging more generally on the almost universal injustice the middle and lower classes face at the hands of the rich and that the latter can buy their way out of prosecution for crimes by the use of expensive legal defense just further exacerbates the programming done by the GOP. It plays right into their hands. Many in this thread have diagnosed the problem that the American voter is very often quite brain dead but rather than hoping they can be brought around by argument they need to be told how lost they are and why. They need to be told that if they get all they want with a fascist government in place they will still be miserable. I am trying to do that with Democrats by telling them they are fucked and why. They are listening to the wrong message from the radically dissatisfied

Some on the left understand we are fucked, the right thinks victory is in sight, unaware that where we are headed they will be fucked worse there than here. And you, are you not absurdly angry at people whom you should pity?

 

[Moonbeam]

It won't end until voters punish them for it.

No sign of that happening. In fact the voters are giving them more power.

"I'm afraid the fault, dear Tain, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Bonus points if you can tell me where that quote is from!

The fault is that we hate ourselves, don't know it, don't want to know it, and don't want to know we don't want to know.

You refer to Shakespeare but long before him a school of the wise understood the problem of guilt and a volunteer stepped forth to give his life so that, have you faith, you might actually experience inwardly at the deepest level that you have been forgiven. That's because because you in fact were never really guilty of anything, but only made to feel that way.

 

[dank69]

Fortunately, and atypically, some people also agree with me that Democrats are partially to blame. The narrow focus on race, for example and the absurd idea of de funding the police rather than the more messaging more generally on the almost universal injustice the middle and lower classes face at the hands of the rich and that the latter can buy their way out of prosecution for crimes by the use of expensive legal defense just further exacerbates the programming done by the GOP. It plays right into their hands. Many in this thread have diagnosed the problem that the American voter is very often quite brain dead but rather than hoping they can be brought around by argument they need to be told how lost they are and why. They need to be told that if they get all they want with a fascist government in place they will still be miserable. I am trying to do that with Democrats by telling them they are fucked and why. They are listening to the wrong message from the radically dissatisfied

Some on the left understand we are fucked, the right thinks victory is in sight, unaware that where we are headed they will be fucked worse there than here. And you, are you not absurdly angry at people whom you should pity?

Just look at all the Democrats at the federal level talking about race and/or defunding: oh look there aren't ANY. Fuck outta here. This is the fucking problem. Even a person as informed as you can't tell the difference between Democrats and random internet trolls.

 

[VashHT]

Yea, that's why we consistently saw peaceful protests being met with force, and bad faith right wing actors inciting violence.

Don't mind the slew of propaganda about all those cities burning to the ground.

You talk about reason, and all the while the right jumped on the crazy train decades ago. Full speed ahead.

The cities being burned to the ground thing is funny, I went to St Paul earlier this year for a skating half marathon and we ended up going into the area that was affected. There were still boarded up windows and such, and a burned out abandoned police station nearby (think it was abandoned before that). Anyways, people were just walking around living their life, we went to a brewery right down the street from that police station that was in pristine condition, everything around there seemed fine despite the allegations of it being "burned to the ground".

 

[MrSquished]

The cities being burned to the ground thing is funny, I went to St Paul earlier this year for a skating half marathon and we ended up going into the area that was affected. There were still boarded up windows and such, and a burned out abandoned police station nearby (think it was abandoned before that). Anyways, people were just walking around living their life, we went to a brewery right down the street from that police station that was in pristine condition, everything around there seemed fine despite the allegations of it being "burned to the ground".

An ex colleague of mine lived in Seattle - he had some relatives saying the same thing to him. Seattle was pretty damn ok. I had people I know on FB in Portland saying no, we are not burning down, we are going to brunch. The Fire Chief of Portland had to hold a press conference that the only thing they fire department had to respond to was to send out one truck to a minor event where nothing happened. People were saying NYC was burning down. All fiction. I rode dozens of miles each week through three boroughs and there was no burning. I was dating in NYC as normal as one could do in a pandemic. It was all propaganda.

 

[nickqt]

It's refreshing seeing mainstream-ish liberals finally seeing the writing on the wall and not immediately demonizing the safe owning and operation of firearms.

The ongoing "civil war" isn't going to be pitched battles. It's going to be multifactional Balkan/Syrian style faction vs faction stuff.

An ex colleague of mine lived in Seattle - he had some relatives saying the same thing to him. Seattle was pretty damn ok. I had people I know on FB in Portland saying no, we are not burning down, we are going to brunch. The Fire Chief of Portland had to hold a press conference that the only thing they fire department had to respond to was to send out one truck to a minor event where nothing happened. People were saying NYC was burning down. All fiction. I rode dozens of miles each week through three boroughs and there was no burning. I was dating in NYC as normal as one could do in a pandemic. It was all propaganda.

Rurals are used to a 2-3 square block of 1-2 story chain stores as their downtowns, so when they see a block in an actual city on fire, for all intents and purposes the entire city has burned down.

 

[sportage]

Yes, and some of that is directly the fault of the left. For example, the way that supporting the 2020 summer rioting and "defund the police" hurt the democrats in the election.

Again.... just another fake right wing Foxed News bunch of BS.
There WAS NO organized "attempt" by the left to support the rioters nor to defund the police.
Why then do so many people believe this, including some on the left?
Why?
Because Fox, Hannity, right wing loons made this up and then, repeated it over and over and over and over again until fiction becomes the delusion of fact.
Righties are very good at pulling off this crap. In fact, they are sooooo good at pulling this that people will forget just how terribly awful it really was under Donald Trump.
Pulling off this delusion is some pretty good PR stunt at work.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Rurals are used to a 2-3 square block of 1-2 story chain stores as their downtowns, so when they see a block in an actual city on fire, for all intents and purposes the entire city has burned down.

Yep, it's the same thing with Detroit's image. Get a few clips of videos of an abandoned factory or some boarded up homes, it looks like the whole city is a wasteland. Apparently the 3/4ths of a million people there live underground where it's still warm.

 

[VashHT]

An ex colleague of mine lived in Seattle - he had some relatives saying the same thing to him. Seattle was pretty damn ok. I had people I know on FB in Portland saying no, we are not burning down, we are going to brunch. The Fire Chief of Portland had to hold a press conference that the only thing they fire department had to respond to was to send out one truck to a minor event where nothing happened. People were saying NYC was burning down. All fiction. I rode dozens of miles each week through three boroughs and there was no burning. I was dating in NYC as normal as one could do in a pandemic. It was all propaganda.

Yeah it's amazing and sad to see how easily right wingers eat it up.

 

[SMOGZINN]

The "Left" confusing protesting and rioting and openly endorsing the latter is a great way to abandon reason for madness.
There is no discourse for arson and looting on the streets. Force will simply be met with force. If that is what you want. Just keep calling it protesting. We'll get there.

No. The left endorse protesting. We just know that there is always some that take advantage of the chaos to do bad. There looters and rioters are a extremely small number of people, but when one person does something the police use it as an excuse to attack the entire protest. Once you start using violence against a large group of people it devolves into more chaos, which give more opportunity for bad actors to act bad, and the police escalate their tactics against not the few bad actors, but the entire protest. Eventually you end up with a group that came to be peaceful protesters fighting the police because the police are outright, and from the protesters point of view, unprovoked, attacking them.

 

[nOOky]

An ex colleague of mine lived in Seattle - he had some relatives saying the same thing to him. Seattle was pretty damn ok. I had people I know on FB in Portland saying no, we are not burning down, we are going to brunch. The Fire Chief of Portland had to hold a press conference that the only thing they fire department had to respond to was to send out one truck to a minor event where nothing happened. People were saying NYC was burning down. All fiction. I rode dozens of miles each week through three boroughs and there was no burning. I was dating in NYC as normal as one could do in a pandemic. It was all propaganda.

I was in Portland in September. While we did not encounter any trouble downtown, the edges sure seemed trashy. Apparently they have a major homelessness and trash problem, which they are trying too address. I would suspect that someone driving through would look outside their car window and their first thought would be "shithole".

 

[HomerJS]

The "Left" confusing protesting and rioting and openly endorsing the latter is a great way to abandon reason for madness.
There is no discourse for arson and looting on the streets. Force will simply be met with force. If that is what you want. Just keep calling it protesting. We'll get there.

Why don't you tell all of us what was going on in Washington DC the day Trump held a bible upside down in front of that church.

Protesting or rioting? Since you are the resident expert.

 

[Grey_Beard]

The "Left" confusing protesting and rioting and openly endorsing the latter is a great way to abandon reason for madness.
There is no discourse for arson and looting on the streets. Force will simply be met with force. If that is what you want. Just keep calling it protesting. We'll get there.

It amazes me how these misconceptions eventually become “alternative facts.” Keep it up and you will soon be under the boot of the fascist.

If you spent anytime in the “real world” you would know that there is always a couple of folks who hide behind these protests to then perform a mischievous act. Others have explained this.

If we do not protest, then please explain how we air our grievances?

We protest police brutality by then being met with police brutality. The irony there really escapes you. A mental wizard you are not. Keep trying though, you’ll get there.

 

[HomerJS]

Just for clarification

BLM rallies were protests where violence broke out in some. I know that for a fact because I attended.
Jan 6 was an insurrection using violence to thwart the Constitutional transfer of power.

Two completely different things. The right tries to conflate them to minimize what they attempted. The violence that broke at some BLM protests were similar to violence that sometimes breaks out after cities win sports championships. BLM protestors did not bring guns and pipe bombs looking to kill people.

 

[alien42]

Just for clarification

BLM rallies were protests where violence broke out in some. I know that for a fact because I attended.
Jan 6 was an insurrection using violence to thwart the Constitutional transfer of power.

Two completely different things. The right tries to conflate them to minimize what they attempted. The violence that broke at some BLM protests were similar to violence that sometimes breaks out after cities win sports championships. BLM protestors did not bring guns and pipe bombs looking to kill people.

The BLM protests were also organic and not created by politicians and based on a big lie.

 

[MrSquished]

I was in Portland in September. While we did not encounter any trouble downtown, the edges sure seemed trashy. Apparently they have a major homelessness and trash problem, which they are trying too address. I would suspect that someone driving through would look outside their car window and their first thought would be "shithole".

Ummm a homeless problem due to housing costs and other factors and a milder climate that makes outdoor homeless living more visible has nothing to do with claiming whole cities are burning down due to Antifa and BLM

 

[nOOky]

Ummm a homeless problem due to housing costs and other factors and a milder climate that makes outdoor homeless living more visible has nothing to do with claiming whole cities are burning down due to Antifa and BLM

No, but my point was that if you only were driving past it would certainly foster the notion that Portland was still under siege, or at least simply a typical trashy Democratically run city to a conservative.

 

[MrSquished]

No, but my point was that if you only were driving past it would certainly foster the notion that Portland was still under siege, or at least simply a typical trashy Democratically run city to a conservative.

These were not conservatives driving anywhere near Portland. These were conservatives on the internet saying that about not just Portland, but almost any major city they felt like which they were nowhere near.

On the NYC subreddit I was on multiple people were saying how conservative relatives and 'friends' were questioning how they could even leave their homes in what must have been anarchy with no police, fires everywhere. They don't exist in reality. It's bad.