The Dems are really two parties, the Reps are united.

"The center can not hold..."

quote:

That's a nation-ending situation, right there. But is it mentioned in the campaign? Nope.

"Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you".

My mother says that a lot, "we' or "us" and the like.
I really do not affiliate with either party, or wih politics, or late-stage capitalist nations in spasmodic apraxis from post-world domineering.

Wait... what did you want to know?

How you win?

Rhetoric, my friend, the democrats need more rhetoric and to hold to a unified party line.

They should play the idiocy factor up, if you are supporting the republicans, you are probably stupid. They need to play up the incompetence of the current administration not as humor but as some sort of social disease no one want to be associated with.

Patriotism, empire building and jingoistic invasions need to be seen as passe, unhip and they need to get enough young people behind them to do it.

They need a strong leader who condemns the current party leaders who do nothng, who are weak.

People are attracted to power, the democratits evoke weakness. They are the fat kid in the shark infested water, or Piggy, on the island.

They have to project the same strength that republicans do.

They have to make it clear that Republicans are "hard on terror" because they are too stupid and inbred to know how to be oblique about it.

Probably not this time around, but the future is in those who can turn their backs on nationalism and embrace the socialist structures now popular in much of Europe. Late stage capitalist societies are headed toward moderate socialism, not radical jingoism. We are in growing pains and lament the loss of imagined empire.

quote:

Originally posted by jbx:

quote:

Originally posted by Trogdor:


People don't pay attention. Under GWB, we've (the treasury) borrowed more from foreign concerns than under all previous presidents, combined.

Yes, combined.

And our congress went right along with it.

That's a nation-ending situation, right there. But is it mentioned in the campaign? Nope.

I've seen this idea before. Can you describe it to me?

I mean, "nation-ending", what happens?

The Saudis and the Chinese just divvy us up? Auction off the states to the highest bidders?

You don't understand a nation ending? How about Rome? The U.S.S.R.? The entire Balkan region?

Or do you just not understand how it could happen to us?

Because we're so fucking special.

I'm not special. I think?

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:
My mother says that a lot, "we' or "us" and the like.
I really do not affiliate with either party, or wih politics, or late-stage capitalist nations in spasmodic apraxis from post-world domineering.

Wait... what did you want to know?

How you win?

Rhetoric, my friend, the democrats need more rhetoric and to hold to a unified party line.

They should play the idiocy factor up, if you are supporting the republicans, you are probably stupid. They need to play up the incompetence of the current administration not as humor but as some sort of social disease no one want to be associated with.

Patriotism, empire building and jingoistic invasions need to be seen as passe, unhip and they need to get enough young people behind them to do it.

They need a strong leader who condemns the current party leaders who do nothng, who are weak.

People are attracted to power, the democratits evoke weakness. They are the fat kid in the shark infested water, or Piggy, on the island.

They have to project the same strength that republicans do.

They have to make it clear that Republicans are "hard on terror" because they are too stupid and inbred to know how to be oblique about it.

Probably not this time around, but the future is in those who can turn their backs on nationalism and embrace the socialist structures now popular in much of Europe. Late stage capitalist societies are headed toward moderate socialism, not radical jingoism. We are in growing pains and lament the loss of imagined empire.

But they don't project that strength now. That's so pre '06.

quote:

Originally posted by Trogdor:

quote:

Originally posted by jbx:

quote:

Originally posted by Trogdor:


People don't pay attention. Under GWB, we've (the treasury) borrowed more from foreign concerns than under all previous presidents, combined.

Yes, combined.

And our congress went right along with it.

That's a nation-ending situation, right there. But is it mentioned in the campaign? Nope.

I've seen this idea before. Can you describe it to me?

I mean, "nation-ending", what happens?

The Saudis and the Chinese just divvy us up? Auction off the states to the highest bidders?

You don't understand a nation ending? How about Rome? The U.S.S.R.? The entire Balkan region?

Or do you just not understand how it could happen to us?

Because we're so fucking special.

Right on, Trog. Also: Read Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" and "Parable of the Talents." Be prepared.

Man, I figured I would have sparked some sort of debate.

Sigh...

I think you have a reasonable sense of how much I know and don't know about American history, culture and politics, Split. I'd say much less than you and most commentators here, much more than many of the Americans who'll be voting. I read a lot, and think a lot, and look at the party platforms and the speeches and the news, from a number of different sources.

KL has me right in that my comment related mostly to foreign policy: I don't care all that much if the American president screws up America, frankly - I'd rather he didn't because of the economic consequences, but at least the majority of consequences would fall on the people who made the choice. But foreign policy is where the rubber hits the road for me, and McCain's enthusiastic and long-running support, contra all the facts, for the war in Iraq, and his belligerence toward Iran, read to me exactly as continuation of Bush's most disastrous failures in that realm.

Would McCain be as bad as Dubya? Hard to see how anyone could be. Would he be an absolute disaster for America and the rest of the world. Yes, I believe there's ample evidence to say so. And he would be a disaster for the same reasons as Bush.

I guess the other way to go at the issue is that I spoke emotionally, from what feels true, which may not jibe with what is true in some more objective sense. To progressives in the rest of the world, it *feels* as if America has been fucking us hard for the past 8 years, and it also *feels* as though McCain is nowhere near enough of a break with that to even stop it hurting, let enough start any healing. I don't thin the two are identical, by any means, but they're similar enough in the areas where it matters to us that electing McCain would feel like one more pistol-whipping.

quote:

You don't understand a nation ending? How about Rome? The U.S.S.R.? The entire Balkan region?

Rome was an empire, as was the USSR, and the entire Balkan region is, well, an entire Balkan region.

Germany, a nation built through centuries of transformation of kingdoms, containing persons with cultural/linguistic affinities, into the Teutonic monolith, survived one of the the most bloody and ignominious defeats in history. Likewise Japan. Both humbled, devastated, overran: both still viable nations, both stronger and more liberal than ever before.

We are probably headed for a major adjustment (as Wall Street wags so gently put it), but I do not see America the nation collapsing anytime remotely soon.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kenmeer livermaile,

quote:

Man, I figured I would have sparked some sort of debate.

To do that, you need to be on far more wigber Ignore lists.

quote:

Bravus say:
I don't thin the two are identical, by any means

Fine. My objection was to your earlier comment:

quote:

Seriously, if y'all elect Bush for a third term (wearing a McCain suit), you'd be showing the rest of the world that the last 8 years were not just a horrible, horrible mistake that you regret deeply... they were what you wanted all along.

Which states the opposite, and implies we're all idiots if we don't see it. If you were being flip the first time around, that's fine. We all do it from time to time.

quote:

and implies we're all idiots if we don't see it.

Not idiots. How about "deceived"?. Nothing to be ashamed of. Happens to everybody, from time to time.
But enough is enough. How about 4 years of Good Cop? That would be good.

As I've said before, I'll likely be voting for Obama.

I know it's considered gauche in America to defend a political opponent against lies told about him, but I've always been contrarian that way.

You can go back to picking your nose now.

quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:

KL has me right in that my comment related mostly to foreign policy: I don't care all that much if the American president screws up America, frankly - I'd rather he didn't because of the economic consequences, but at least the majority of consequences would fall on the people who made the choice.

I still am unconvinced that public will has anything to do with the unfolding of history, even in a democracy. I do not mean this in a cynical "all politicians are the same" but rather in a pervasive way in which I have seriously begun to disbelieve in free will, particular as they relate to historicity.

Nor do I believe that history is "the biographies of great men" but rather that the biographies of great men are the zenith points of memetic zeitgeist.

It is a situation in which the collective force of humanity is greater than the will of all it's collective participants.

Or, perhaps it is merely that collective will is neither willful nor collective but is merely fragmented bits of the common zeitgeist incorporated into a psychological necessity of the belief in choice.

I am beginning to believe we have as much influence on the unfolding events of our own age as we do on those of the Roman Empire, which is to say, merely how to contextualize and speak about them and so very far after the fact.

quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:
I guess the other way to go at the issue is that I spoke emotionally, from what feels true, which may not jibe with what is true in some more objective sense. To progressives in the rest of the world, it *feels* as if America has been fucking us hard for the past 8 years, and it also *feels* as though McCain is nowhere near enough of a break with that to even stop it hurting, let enough start any healing. I don't thin the two are identical, by any means, but they're similar enough in the areas where it matters to us that electing McCain would feel like one more pistol-whipping.

See, here again,. I don't think that the Americxan People decided to elect Bush. Let's set aside my philosophy of history for a moment and simply look at what happened. He stole the first election for sure, the impartial recount proved Gore won and he isn't exactly winning by landslides, he's winning by the skin of his teeth.

What it proves is that a democracy can be hijacked by a smaller, devoted base who believe in a monolithic cause. It proves that more considered individuals can easily be subverted by mongrel, d0gh-pack methodology.

Bush didn't win because the majority of people wanted him in office, he won because the stupid and obtuse are far easier to get on the same page than are the intelligent and the broad-minded.

He and his people project a single bandwidth of intent, a pure strain of rhetoric while the opposing factions actually attempt to address more complexity. They often fail in doing that but the very attempt has curbed their ambitions. This is why Obama is smart, not because he can think complexly (which he can) but because he realizes he must speak directly and consistently (change! change!) if he is to get through the wall of conservative base (and I mean low, not foundational) dogma.

Voting for McCain, IMO, is tantamount to admitting you are an angry, petulant child who has no idea how the world operates nor why your favorite toys have been admonished by your parents as being "too dangerous for kids."

MCCain is like a big kid in PTSD, he's one of these throwbacks (like Bush) who still believe the concepts that the 20th century is alive and well. He still seems to genuinely believe that jingoism is a good thing.

The Republicans and their supporters have seemed to me of late to be terribly frightened and confused in a world that has suddenly jumped out of their reading level, like moving from Judy Blume to Pynchon and they just get mad and throw the books down screaming.

The problem with America in the last eight years is that it has been operating reflexively, out of fear, as if we've surrendered our frontal lobes to the limbic core and are happy to see our dinosaur rage stomping out the other kid's sandcastles whilst we believe it makes us safer.

Here is my prediction: Obama will win and after a short while the country will turn on him when it's revealed that his image of change doesn't conform at all to any ideas of of The late Great American Empire but instead looks like a prosperous European socialist government.

The worm turns, the stomache churns, they're all clones...

The only thing this system will ever accomplish is perpetuating itself. Only the most corrupt can raise the money, only the most believable liar can ever hope to even get a nomination.

The lowest common denominator will out.



At least with Obama, we're not already sick of his voice, face, and brand of lies...

...yet.

quote:

Obama will win and after a short while the country will turn on him when it's revealed that his image of change doesn't conform at all to any ideas of of The late Great American Empire but instead looks like a prosperous European socialist government.

A bit of sea change, that. Lovely post.

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
The worm turns, the stomache churns, they're all clones...

The only thing this system will ever accomplish is perpetuating itself.

I don't think it is "this system" so much as it is the nature of systems. They do what they are evolved to do, perpetuate the DNA of the founders, spin out the human tale unto another generation. They are, taken for all, a radical reaction against death and impermanence.

What I find troubling is that as a species we rarely are cognizant of being in a system and, would that we are, there is very little we may do about it, for the system doesn't merely exist around us, but in us, as part of that same strand of DNA...