yep, still dream of going to NYC one day - trouble is, i want to go in the mid 70s
Yeah that takes about 121 gigawatts
It’s a wee bit of a joke. My brother uses it to refer to the Brexit imbroglio and general Tory manipulation of the proles. And, of course, now there is at least something of a Republic movement so maybe no “kingdom” at all in the future. Not that I’m betting on it. You’re possibly aware of Ian Jack’s The Country Formerly Known As Great Britain. The idea is going around.
A lot to unpack there. Briefly, from my perspective, the USA got whacked by Reaganism and has been in a spiral of descent ever since. However, undoubtedly, its popular culture has pretty much taken over much of the world as has its technology. Very broadly speaking. Lots of nit-picking could be done.
Great post mate
Good read here on what’s really driving the Trump spasm, it’s those women!
this is a great read. highly recommended.
i thought about trying to illustrate where all of the rifts began - but the question posed to me and my other reps on the board was really what was currently holding us together. there are no absolute definitively correct answers on either. and almost all answers have grains of reality in them.
my parents are interesting people to me, as they are juuuust the right age to be too old for hippies and vietnam and drugs and disco - but just young enough that they witnessed it all and were aware and had opinions, but kept doing the things that people a generation older than them would have - they tried to plant roots and build careers and trust that the system would work out for them. and for the most part, it did. they leaned left, but also valued education and the protestant work ethic and believed in the “american dream” (and as straight white people, with american momentum, they probably didn’t think too terribly much about who it empowered and who it didn’t).
i could be wrong about this and it’s probably horribly simple - but all them damn boomers thought everything was great until their dads had to go back and fight in korea, and a few years later, they were old enough to get drafted to go to vietnam. the era of civil rights probably looked righteous and good to people like my folks (especially when the wins were televised) but for those who were drafted, who had and who had-not started to become a bit more apparent. and obviously that ended poorly, with vets coming home to get called baby killers by the left, and failures and losers from the right. it’s certainly not the original sin, but it’s illustrative of where the fractures start to become unignorable.
and then we sat through a few years of malaise. america’s momentum had slowed, the infrastructure and grand government ideas of the new deal were starting to decay, and social stratification was really starting to turn into a visible us vs. them type of deal. and then - sigh - reagan. everything became televisionified. america wasn’t allowed to talk (in open spaces) about anything that wasn’t wealthy, straight and healthy. non-white people seemed to fall into cosby-esque american success stories, or crackheads. AIDS was devastating generations, but it only seemed like an american tragedy when it was killing young white blood-transfusion victims. evangelist christian leaders found that they loved the spotlight, even when they were there for all the wrong reasons. and the money - it started to accumulate and grow exponentially in the hands of a few.
and then - a couple of interesting things happened. we endured through the clinton years; the boomer avatar of selling out progressive beliefs for aggressive capitalism and careless globalization, and the fucking internet, which changed everything in ways i probably don’t have to explain here. now everyone had a voice, and an alarming amount of americans had disgustingly horrid voices. but hey - freedom!
aaaaaand then 9/11. weirdest time of my life on earth, bar none. nobody had a clue as to what to do, but americans united around something sort of terrible - revenge. someone, anyone, had to pay. the left side realized pretty quickly that this wouldn’t end well. the right put up with and encouraged wholesale changes to what the constitution defines as freedom, as well as who should be able to enjoy it. all of a sudden, people were deeeeply suspicious of non-americans and how they “hated our freedom”. it’s nearly 25 years ago, but how you felt about this and what came out of it (not much really, other than an unholy shitload of people killed and war crimes out the ass) feels like a deep rooted delimiter on what you think is “america: right” or “america: wrong”.
oh yeah, then we elected a black guy with a funny name! i honestly had no idea that was going to bother so many people - especially when the black guy was, by most definitions, successful and capable. again - how you felt about that, even if it didn’t seem that wild of a change at the time, clearly determined how vulnerable you might be for MAGA messaging. it’s baked into the simplicity of the message - “america was once great but sucks now, and you need to help unfuck it”. also “anyone who tells you that america wasn’t always that great sucks and should be defeated”.
anyhoo, i think i’ve typed for like an hour straight, so that’s enough and there’s cameron’s history of america post 1960 or so. shit, i didn’t even get into the kennedy assassination!
great post DC!
Thank you for not cheering me up today! Seriously, I think you about hit the essence of a distilled history of what’s been going on for too long. Mostly, I only survive by shutting out as much of it all as possible, staying inside listening to music, going outside and talking to the trees. Finding the very occasional people who are about on the same wavelength - but I think a lot of people are in denial about issues, either deliberately or as simple reflex to keep going another day. I’m old enough and experienced enough - and obstinate enough - to have seen much of it, but I could never really sign on. Human history seems to me to be a bogus sham. We dress ourselves up with all our big ideas and philosophies, but we forget what life is really about. Oops, what is life really about? I got suggestions, probably unpalatable suggestions.
I thought this was satire - but, No! It’s a real campaign by the moronic Repugnant party of Aridzona. 11 billboards!!! Life truly is stranger than fiction.
Maybe what’s most nerve-racking is that Harris is really just a bad candidate. Circumstances and all, I have feared we have entered Hillary Clinton 2.0. Is the sloganeering enough? Because that’s all she’s got.
I feel for Americans because the two choices are between something bad and something even worse. On the one hand, a complete psychopath who will accelerate American down its already shitty path, on the other hand the genocide supporting, crushing capitalism status quo party. No actual good choices, more just a hold your nose and vote for the least bad option. There aren’t any good prospects or upcoming contenders for a new direction either. No leadership or ideas for transformation. Depressing.
I’m going to disagree on there not being any meaningful candidates however both parties simply would not allow them to rise above the precipice. There are great people in congress who would take this country on a path of prosperity but apparently that isn’t the preferred method of leadership.
The fact that it is close shows what a truly reprehensible candidate the Cheetoh Nazi is.
But isn’t it all just theatrical rehearsed and played out like every other countries… Early WWF wrestling… votes don’t matter it’s already planned signed sealed and delivered till the next episode.
Like a friend pointed out, isn’t it slightly suspicious that a country this large always goes 51-49.
This is a fascinating listen. Enough information here for someone to have someone else eliminated in, let’s say, a prison cell…
Traditionally you would have said the 50/50 split was a result of how depressingly centrist US politics has become.
Now I think it’s more a 50/50 split between those that are supporters of conventional politics and those that believe themselves to be in the opposite camp.
This remains the problem in American politics, how to deal with a man who doesn’t play by the traditional rules of engagement and a terrible indictment of how disenchanted US citizens have become with the system
I disagree, There are still fiscal republicans who can’t stand the direction that the Republican Party has gone in but not enough to vote blue. Trump chose Vance, a head fudge manager, to appeal to this demographic. There are also one issue voters - see this as Catholics who believe that a vote for blue is a way to open up the floodgates on abortion - who may not agree with anything else but this one issue drives home their vote. Same can be said on the blue side. Americans by and large are very active politically, just look at voter turnout for municipal elections that mirror presidential election turnouts.
You’re generalizing too far by saying that people who appreciate conventional politics oppose those looking towards the outsider. The Democratic Party has many, many people who would staunchly say they don’t believe in conventional politics - just look at those that rode The Squad wave in.
It’s far more nuanced than that.