What If The Republicans Win?

[Woodsman]

Re: Crossing Over

How about a real Secretary of State with brains and looks:

How 'bout it.





[ed: My mistake, Kennan was the best we never had]

[vt]

Re: Crossing Over

http://www.americanheritage.com/cont...state%E2%80%A6

George Keenan was never Secretary of State but his impact still puts him at the top of this list. I have always felt he was number one in foreign policy, so I do agree with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan

[dcarrigg]

Re: Crossing Over

I can't decide who was prettier: Daniel Webster or Hamilton Fish...

[shiny!]

Re: Crossing Over

How about a real Secretary of State with brains:

There. Fixed it for you.

[shiny!]

Re: Crossing Over

I can't decide who was prettier: Daniel Webster or Hamilton Fish...

Thank you! We women just love being trivialized based on our looks.

It's a sad commentary that when it comes to determining a woman's fitness for leadership, her looks are still considered appropriate fodder for comment. I don't give a flying fig if Condoleeza Rice is "pretty" anymore than I care that Barak Obama is black. Most of the men in politics are old and wrinkly, jowly, balding, just butt ugly! They're judged on their policies and positions, not their looks.

But a woman in politics? It's still, "Look! She's pretty and smart!" Or, "Well, she might be smart but who'd want to go out with that!"

[vt]

Re: Crossing Over

Shiny,

You are totally correct about how women are treated in politics, business, professions, and especially Hollywood.

The discussion is more about more age than looks, but Hollywood only brings youth and looks. My posting of Condi Rice's picture was to show she is just as photogenic as anything Hollywood can come up with, and eons smarter.

As to age men and women are treated equally as we see in the comment in many phases of life: " a fresh, young contender" This may be one reason Kennedy was so popular, and tipped the nomination in favor of Obama over Hillary in 2008.

[don]

A Ray of Sunshine?

Neither Republicans nor Democrats Top 40% Favorability in Latest Gallup Poll for First Time Ever








Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
It's not warm when she's away.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And she's always gone too long
Anytime she goes away.

Wonder this time where she's gone
Wonder if she's gone to stay
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And this house just ain't no home
Anytime she goes away.

And I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know,
Hey, I oughtta leave young thing alone
But ain't no sunshine when she's gone

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
Only darkness every day.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And this house just ain't no home
Anytime she goes away.

[don]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

yadda, yadda, yadda . . . .

[lektrode]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

yadda, yadda, yadda . . . .

ayuh..
dat one is almost as funny as dis one, brah:

---

with THE COMMENTS being the most....
uhhhhh..

hillarious part

kinda seems to be why this one is also true:

https://homes.yahoo.com/news/heres-w...151657541.html

and the 'millennials are a dems best friend'

[dcarrigg]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

Those comments aren't all that surprising, though.

Something like 30% of the 26-35 y/o set have no health insurance. And that usually means they're working enough to not get a freebee, but not earning enough to afford the outrageous BS health stuff. Tough to feel like waiving your pom-poms for the free market when it prices you out of coverage. And they hear online every time they talk about it from someone in UK or Canada or Ireland wherever someone speaks English that the US system is crazy and they've never worried about it. Easy to say, "This is stupid." So most kids do.

Then you gotta figure the fattest part of the echo boom graduated college the most indebted in a generation smack into the great recession. And tons of fines got levied, but nobody went to jail. And instead of saying, "Somebody has to go to jail," most of the GOP said, "Deregulate finance!" Obama let's them get away with it. Other party wants to reward them for it. That's gotta smart.

Between growing up with crazy financial speculation, Wall Street crooks, growing inequality, years without health coverage, completely unaffordable housing, and a 5-6 figure student loan nut at 8% right out the gate, it's no wonder you get polls saying American kids are okay with socialism and fine with calling themselves working class:



And the old specter of class consciousness is actually growing:



It's the same old story it ever was. The capitalist class had a good thing going. They had free reign. They got greedy. Obama was their boy, and most of them don't realize it or care. The more hard-line they get, the bigger the backlash will be if/when tide goes out.

The media narrative is all about kids and social issues. But that's because they don't want to admit the hard truth. People don't think of themselves as middle class anymore.



Kids go on rich kids of instagram to make fun of rich kids. And the comments aren't mostly jealousy or sour grapes. More ridicule and pity.

The internet puts it all in your face. Gone are the days of stoic wealth, drab suits, and posh accents at quiet weekends at Groton or Exeter. Teenage kids now are lighting piles of hundred dollar bills on fire in Dubai in front of a Lamborghini Aventador and posting it on Youtube while yelling that they're "hard from the street" and making their private traveling tutors give them As from the Yacht.

What the hell, man, they gave Shaq a doctorate for fuck's sake. Not an honorary one. They say he "earned it." He did a "video dissertation." He "took classes" by flying instructors to his mansion.

21st century free market, baby. Nothing's sacred. We even got Shaqademics. You got the cash, they'll give you the degrees.

Or you can be a rich kid and go drunk driving, kill 4 people, and get sentenced to "rehab." Do that working class, and see what happens.

Or look at Robert Durst on HBO's the Jinx. Billionaire serial killer heir never worked a day in his life. Wife goes missing under shady circumstances, and it's swept under the rug. Gets caught with the saw he used to chop his neighbor up after cross-dressing and pretending to be a mute woman to rent a low-rent apartment. Goes to court and admits cutting the guy up. Gets off on "self-defense." Kills again. Gets an HBO series made out of him.

Point is, the fact that the rich are above the law and completely immune to justice is really in your face in popular media these days.

Maybe everything has always been for sale.

But I'll be damned if it doesn't seem to get griftier and sketchier all the time. We're in post-Citizens United America. Nothing's sacred. Nobody has shame.

And in a world of spiking inequality and decreasing mobility, if the one thing you can have a little pride in is not being as crooked as the bastards with the cash and the power and doing things in life the right way, then I wouldn't be shocked to see fewer and fewer fence sitters thinking of themselves as middle class.

I've said it for years now. What the power players want is GINI .55 by 2025. And they're right on course to get their US of Bananica - more billionaires, more broke people, more corruption. But that's a package deal. They get to buy their grades, and never serve, and break the law, and do whatever they want, and not work, and get richer than ever. But politics are going to get dicier and you're going to get more conflict at the same time. Action, reaction.

They set out to loot the middle class out of existence. And it's working. But that just means there's going to be one huge working class. No more buffer between the folks on the hill and folks across the tracks. We'll see where it goes.

I tell you one thing, today reminds me an awful lot of old Will Rogers talking about the '32 election:

Why after that twenty-eight election there was no holding ’em. They
really did think they had “hard times” cornered once and for all. Merger
on top of merger. Get two nonpaying things merged and then issue more
stock to the public. Consolidations and “Holding Companies.” Those are
the “Inventions” that every voter that had bought during the “Cockoo” days
were gunning for at this last election.


Saying that all the big vote was just against hard times is not all so.
They was voting against not being advised that all these foreign loans was
not too solid. They was voting because they had never been told or warned
to the contrary that every big consolidation might not be just the best in-
vestment. You know the people kinder look on our Government to tell ’em
and kinder advise ’em. And many an old bird got sore at Coolidge, but
could only take it out on Hoover. Big business sure got big, but it got big
by selling its stocks and not by selling its products. No scheme was halted
by the Government as long as somebody would buy the stock. It could have
been a plan to deepen the Atlantic ocean and it would have had the in-
dorsement of the proper department in Washington, and the stocks would
have gone on the market.


This election was lost four and five and six years ago not this year.
They dident start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started
out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the
hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer.
He knew that water trickled down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach
the dryest little spot. But he dident know that money trickled up. Give it to
the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night
anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.
They saved the big banks but the little ones went up the flue.


No Sir, the little fellow felt that he never had a chance, and he dident
till November the eighth, and did he grab it? The whole idea of Government
relief for the last few years has been to loan somebody more money, so
they could go further in debt. It ain’t much relief to just transfer your debts
from one party to another adding a little more in the bargain. No, I believe
the “Boys” from all they had and hadent done had this coming to ’em.

[Southernguy]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

Excelent post, dcarrig.

[Woodsman]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

...Maybe everything has always been for sale. But I'll be damned if it doesn't seem to get griftier and sketchier all the time. We're in post-Citizens United America. Nothing's sacred. Nobody has shame.

And in a world of spiking inequality and decreasing mobility, if the one thing you can have a little pride in is not being as crooked as the bastards with the cash and the power and doing things in life the right way, then I wouldn't be shocked to see fewer and fewer fence sitters thinking of themselves as middle class.

I've said it for years now. What the power players want is GINI .55 by 2025. And they're right on course to get their US of Bananica - more billionaires, more broke people, more corruption. But that's a package deal. They get to buy their grades, and never serve, and break the law, and do whatever they want, and not work, and get richer than ever. But politics are going to get dicier and you're going to get more conflict at the same time. Action, reaction.

They set out to loot the middle class out of existence. And it's working. But that just means there's going to be one huge working class. No more buffer between the folks on the hill and folks across the tracks. We'll see where it goes.

DC, this one we should keep for the "Best of" reel. Excellent post. But we know where it goes without a reversal of the trend.

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared with that of the rich."

John Kenneth Galbraith
The Age of Uncertainty

[don]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

No middle class - or even the illusion of one - no pressure relief valve . . . .

[Woodsman]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

No middle class...

"We have reached a tipping point. Inequality in OECD countries is at its highest since records began,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria.

[don]

Re: A Ray of Sunshine?

as the lower classes continue to swell with once-middle class recruits, exceeding by many the need for a reserve army of unemployed, the meme 'surplus population' will become increasingly pervasive . . . .