Don Jon Un

Denial is an ugly, ugly, thing.

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons
Destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum
Of challenge and danger
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin
Leaving the carcasses to rot
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes
Thanks for the American dream
To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through
Thanks for the KKK
For nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches
For decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces
Thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers
Thanks for laboratory AIDS
Thanks for Prohibition
And the war against drugs
Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind their own business
Thanks for a nation of finks
Yes

Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal
Of the last and greatest of human dreams

-old bull-

We've lived this for decades, if not centuries, it just became very, very acute recently.

What's happening in America now is not business as usual. This is a special kind of Hell, but the forces that led to the Trump presidency have been gathering for decades, maybe since the beginning. America's culture was born out of racism, exploitation, and genocide, but the government was established under Age of Enlightenment principles that have allowed for considerable progress, especially since the civil rights era of the sixties.

Right now, what we're seeing is a resurgence of the old culture of racism and exploitation. Genocide is not far off, but we're not literally there yet.

If the thought of Trump as president terrifies you (it terrifies me), examine that feeling of terror and understand that what you're feeling is what it felt like to be a white racist and to see Obama in the White House. "Make America Great Again" is the ultimate dog whistle. If you think that America was great when white people were on top (not that they aren't still on top), that's what you hear.

Now, the culture of most of America has changed dramatically since the days of slavery and smallpox blankets. Trump has never had a support of the majority. He's a hugely unpopular president pushing unpopular policies. He's also incompetent. The electorate seems ready to rebuff the man. If the 2018 election were held today, I think Republicans would lose the house, but the election isn't being held today. I'm not normally conspiratorial, but I wouldn't rule out some kind of manufactured crisis between now and November. I don't doubt that Trump is dishonest and arrogant enough to resort to such tactics... but is he competent enough to pull it off? I think it's going to be an interesting year.

I know it's a cliche, but 2018 may actually be the most important election of our lifetimes. No kidding. Trump is moving to impose voter ID laws that just might give the republicans a permanent majority. A Democratic House would be willing to peek into Trump's closet. And that would keep him busy for two years.

You're both right.

It's business as usual and we've cranked it up to satirical levels. We all decided that if we must live in the Captain Planet universe, it's not going to be a big budget production written by competent people. It's shit animation written by hacks.

That is the closest America can do to saving the world, by making itself a cartoon villain. The rest of you have to figure out how to destroy us safely and we'll try to keep actually smart monsters out of power.

"What's happening in America now is not business as usual."

Disagree, it's just that now you old-ass, middle-class, white-americans are finally experiencing a little taste of the several centuries of pain your elites gave to practically everyone else 'beneath you'.

In case that comes off as gloating, it isn't but all you dumb fucking centrist 'consider-yourself-left-but-in-practice-you're-center-right' cunts bitching that -everyone- should have lined up to vote for Hillary should consider how little Obama or the first Clinton did for PoC (unless you count accelerating their journey to the prison-industrial complex a positive? Or was it giving them a job drone-bombing brown people that you think was so great? Or treating them like vermin for requiring foodstamps?) and ask yourself why you still think anyone with the slightest bit of sense would vote for the Dem chosen you think of as 'well at least they're not trump!' ergo they should all 'unify' over.

Decades, no centuries of ignoring those at the bottom and still you expect they'll just line up and do as YOU want because 'oh this guy's worse'.

Ultimately, the mango mussolini's ludicrous, corrupt regime makes no difference to those already fucking shit upon from on high, they're gonna get shit on with hillary, trump or the next dem/rep horror your masters at JP Morgan and co dig up to take over the franchise.

The incessant wailing is from you people whose comfort built on their backs is finally a tiny iota less comfortable.

I look forward to all of you centrist-can't-pick-a-fuckin-side dem fuckers losing everything tbqh, the republicans are absolute, unashamed murderous rats but you fucking suburban LINO pharisees screeching about who should vote for whom while ignoring their legitimate concerns, watching your own drone bomb everywhere, keep gitmo open etc etc etc etc and never once practicing what the fuck you preach are LONG overdue a reckoning.

As I said back in 2016: America gets the president it deserves.

Eat shit.

It's definitely not business as usual, but mainly in terms of degree and shamelessness.

Everything Trump has tried to do so far has been standard GOP platform stuff for ages, but in the past the GOP was comparatively incrementalist in their approach, whereas with a puppet president (albeit an unplanned and dangerously unpredictable, mentally ill puppet president) in office everything is being pushed through without any concern for convention or process, and if it that doesn't work he/they adapt. Muslim ban? pretty much happened in all but name. ACA repeal? Pretty much happened in all but name. Massive acceleration of upward wealth redistribution? Slam fucking dunk. But he isn't doing anything the GOP hasn't been trying to do since Nixon, he's just doing it in the most irresponsible and incompetent ways possible.

Bawbag, you are right about Obama and Clinton but completely, inarguably, shamefully wrong about the general election. For all your talk about caring about nonwhite people you seem to really be thrilled by the idea of throwing them (and the poor in general, and the mentally ill, and any non-millionaire with any kind of serious health issues, and anyone who relies on what minimal social safety net we had) under the bus because you think that a PROTEST VOTE (or a protest abstention) means anything at all.


Even if, like me, you live in a state that's so blue that the only votes that actually count are local elections, it's still a pointless, meaningless gesture. I think the proper term would be "a fart in a hurricane."

If you want to do something that actually matters, run for local office (or actively work in support of a progressive candidate for local or state office if you can't run yourself) in a swing state or put yourself on the street in Washington. A "protest vote" is less than nothing at best, and actively working for your opponent at worst.


I consider myself center left (maybe a bit left of Bernie Sanders, who is pretty much a centrist) but I doubt most people would in this country today, but I was really alienated from politics for quite a while during the bush and Obama years simply because it seemed like everyone became either center-right party line democrats or "lets burn it down maaan" types like you, and most of the active socialists I encountered at the time were ideological rather than practical and seemed to have a deep authoritarian streak when you talked to them for very long. I still don't consider myself a socialist and never did, but I have always found Marxist and socialist criticisms of capitalism generally very strong even if I am highly skeptical of their ability to not become just as corrupted by power as capitalists are in the world as it is now. I've got no idea if you would think I was a centrist or not, but I'll throw out a few positions I hold that in my opinion are pretty moderate, common sense stuff (not in the current political climate but in a more general sense) and you can decide:

-Proportional wage caps
-Strict limits on property ownership (I'd say two physical properties of modest size are probably OK)
-relatively low threshold for number of employees, above which a company should be legally required to become a co-operative. Probably somewhere between 10 and 30, if not lower.
-Direct democracy
-Universal Basic Income in addition to (and ONLY in addition to, not in place of) a comprehensive portfolio of social programs. That said, I do think certain areas of funding for the arts should be redirected to funding for art EDUCATION, because direct funding of specific artists entails the government defining what is and isn't art and allocating funds based on subjective criteria of artistic quality, which is deeply problematic because it is a form of means testing (and I strongly oppose means testing for any part of the social safety net) and also because state sponsorhip of art almost inevitably becomes propagandistic, because the government is elevating the voices of those it deems worthy over those it doesn't. State sponsored art is no different than state sponsored journalism. This is the one area where I think UBI should replace the existing system rather than augmenting it, and I want to be very clear that I am coming to this from a very, VERY different direction than the typical Slicon Valey Libertarian argument against public funding for the arts (and again, I don't want to eliminate it at all, I jsut think it should be redirected away from public grants for individual artists and into funding for art education). I am giving it extra attention here because the arts are one of the most undervalued facets of society under capitalism.
-protection and expansion of the commons
-A full ban on public advertising. Marketing in general is and should be treated as a public health threat.
-An end to all forms of prohibition, release and reparations for the political prisoners of the War On Drugs (i.e. anyone imprisoned on possession or small scale distribution charges - trafficking and large scale distribution are a trickier matter because of the ties with organized crime, which is of course the purest form of capitalism there is; I am including the pharmaceutical industry under the banner of trafficking here, of course).
-reparations for the ancestors of slaves and the victims of the genocide of the native peoples.
-Free public education - all of it, including the state colleges and universities (duh).
-Fully socialized medicine (double duh).
-Reversal of the current system of upward wealth redistribution.

That's enough for now. I don't consider any of those ideas particularly far left, much less radical (while recognizing that in a society where the Overton Window is as far right as ours they look that way to most people). And you?

And just to be crystal clear here, I'm not trying to deny my own personal hypocrisy I'm not nearly as politically active as I should be, and chronic underemployment and anxiety issues aren't really a good excuse. I have the opportunity to noncombatively discuss this stuff (I reserve combativeness for politics bullshit on this site, pretty much) with a lot of older, upper class centrist-liberal types and hopefully open their eyes to some stuff at work, and do some volunteer audio work for a little, local African American History museum and bookstore sometimes but I haven't marched on anything in ages, I don't contact my representatives very often and when I do it's electronically rather than by phone (an email means almost as little as a protest vote), I haven't done much of anything for any local campaigns. I'm not saying there's anything particularly special or honorable about me, I'm saying your opinions about electoral politics are bullshit.

Oh, and of course comprehensive campaign finance reform, that's so fundamental I didn't even think to mention it.

I might even go so far as to say federal elected officials, at least in the legislative and executive branches, should be legally barred from receiving private sector income of any kind after leaving office, and should be granted a reasonable government income instead, maybe pegged to median individual income. If not for life then at least for a decade or two.

" For all your talk about caring about nonwhite people you seem to really be thrilled by the idea of throwing them"

Wrong.

Here we see a standard Dem trope, using the experiences of the american 'underclasses' as an emotional cudgel all-the-while implying the dems were some sort of bulwark against the harm to the poor.

They weren't, they aren't. Every dem president has presided over just the same horrors as the openly rapacious republicunts, in the case of the clintons and their acceleration of young, black men into the prison system, they actually, demonstrably made America worse for black folk in particular.

To be clear: I'm not looking forward to -them- suffering more (but under your broken system that is absolutely assured regardless of who you vote in, whether it be in dumb wars, opioid crises, cops gunning them down for no reason, the prison-industrial complex, lack of decent healthcare or myriad other reasons...) no I don't look forward to -their- suffering, I look forward to the -rest of you- getting a fucking taste of it for once. Maybe there'll finally be some long-needed radical change once you all figure out how America is for the rest of your people... probably not but I live and hope.

All the policy ideas you got there sure are nice, but never in your life will a dem enact all, hell even a fraction of that, as proven by their own record of tiny, incremental bullshit that realistically mostly helps the rich and occasionally the middle-class in their comfy lil bubble.

>>>Here we see a standard Dem trope, using the experiences of the american 'underclasses' as an emotional cudgel all-the-while implying the dems were some sort of bulwark against the harm to the poor.

Well, duh.

Here's how it is. You have two parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans represent the interests of the rich. The Democrats strive to represent the interests of everyone... including the rich.

>>>Disagree, it's just that now you old-ass, middle-class, white-americans are finally experiencing a little taste of the several centuries of pain your elites gave to practically everyone else 'beneath you'.

I don't think I've ever talked about this before, but I have mental health problems. For most of my adult life, I washed dishes for a living. Now I live on Social Security, HUD supplements, and food stamps. My apartment is a boxy little attic that's like an oven in the summer. I've never owned a car. My computer cost me fifty dollars. My monitor is someone's else's cast-off CRT.

And I don't ask for anything more than that. I feel damn grateful for what I've been given, and sometimes I feel ashamed in the presence of people with a job. The world doesn't owe me a living; I just don't want to die. I owe the world my best possible service. In recent years I've tried to pay my debt by taking care of an older disabled woman. That was my friend Cynthia, who died before Thanksgiving. I changed her socks, and the bandages on her bedsores. Before that, I took care of her disabled brother. They can put "asswiper" on my tombstone. I'd be honored.

This is NOT business as usual. Past republicans used the press as a foil. Trump and his media stooges are actively working to destroy the independent press, and any sense of reality. This is huge. The press is dealing with changing technology. Newspapers are still our greatest source of investigative reporting, and they're starving. People complain that the press is lazy, but their resources are being decimated. And Trump doesn't care about lying. Past presidents were at least a little embarassed. As John Oliver said: "REAL POLICY BASED ON FAKE FACTS." This is a horrible precedent. There are a lot of reasons why Trump must fail, but the most important is just to SAVE REALITY.

The Democratic Party will move to the left when poor people come out to vote. End of story.

"Here's how it is. You have two parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans represent the interests of the rich. The Democrats strive to represent the interests of ... the rich" - FTFY

The problem isn't one party or the other, it's the entire rotten system and none of you people tacitly arguing for the status quo 'glory days' of say Obama or 90's Billo seem to get that the lower rung were just as fuckin shafted under those as anything Trump can manage.

They've nothing left to lose, it's you guys (as a group rather than you specifically) who are finally feeling what it is to be absolutely, unrelentingly shat on by those in power.

It's absolutely laughable to look at modern US political history and pretend like the Dems have truly different (or left-er) priorities than the Reps.

Of course, they absolutely will tell you they have different priorities, but in practice? How many opportunities have they had to reel in the worst excesses of wall street, the military-prison-industrial complex and all the other shit? What have they done about it other than -continue all of it- with a focus-grouped customer-service smile rather than the open disdain of Trump and friends?

Instead for much of history they've doubled down on it, given a tiny bit of what people scream for (civil rights is the prime example) after decades of escalating pressure from left and right FORCING them to act rather than be subsumed by real radical changes to the power structure, then they've sat on their laurels and taken credit like benevolent gods when the people they claim to have helped are still 100% in the same/a similar boat?

That you think it was better in [insert era] is a sign of what little privilege you did benefit from, but it was never enough for those at the bottom, never has been.

"The Democratic Party will move to the left..."

'Never' is the correct ending to that sentence, Americans hardly even seem aware how right-wing your Dems politics are as compared to practically every other country in the world.

Congrats, you played yourselves and as long as you all refuse to reflect on the Dems being the main reason the cartoon bad guy won, as long as you insist the Left or Sanders/Stein or fucking-who-ever was to blame; as long as -that- continues you can expect the whole shitty cycle to repeat itself time and again. Merry fuckin Xmas!

Can I just point out that you’re all idiots for fighting amongst one another instead of joining together to accomplish the things you all support

>>>Congrats, you played yourselves and as long as you all refuse to reflect on the Dems being the main reason the cartoon bad guy won, as long as you insist the Left or Sanders/Stein or fucking-who-ever was to blame; as long as -that- continues you can expect the whole shitty cycle to repeat itself time and again. Merry fuckin Xmas!

I really don't think it's either, but when I hear there's not much distance between Trump and Obama, that's some bullshit right there.

Don't talk to me about the bottom rung. I'm the fucking poor, and I'm about to take it up the ass. Sometimes what I hear from these angry white revolutionaries sounds like it's okay if I lose my food stamps and my social security and my medicare, and my shitty attic apartment, BECAUSE GODDAMNIT, YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE A POINT! Tell me, Susan Sarendon, is YOUR ass in the crosshairs, like mine is?

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/the-governing-cance r-of-our-time.html

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Old Zircon ****************************************************************** ****************************************************************** *********************etc

"I really don't think it's either, but when I hear there's not much distance between Trump and Obama, that's some bullshit right there."

Not what was said. Reading is hard.
What I said was that for those who have nothing left to lose there is practically no difference in their day to day, it's YOU who have x, y or z still to lose who're now feeling there's such a gulf of difference.

In fairness, I guess there -is- a clear difference: Trump hasn't yet murdered nearly as many brown children abroad with drones, or stacked nearly as many 'suspects' in Gitmo but I'm certain he'll try his best for the high score, and soon.

"Sometimes what I hear from these angry white revolutionaries sounds like it's okay if..."

Again, not what's being said but waa fucking waa you have had some hardships, jesus christ you're delusional enough to think that as a white guy even with a roof over your head etc that you're at the very bottom rung in America? Ludicrous.

How very white america of you JHM. No one is saying you're fuckin daddy warbucks by any means, but "food stamps and my social security and my medicare, and my shitty attic apartment" are honest-to-god 'privileges' denied many of those at the very very bottom, so YEAH "GODDAMNIT, YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE A POINT" and you are too busy carping about your particular (and honestly I won't deny it, shit situation) to bother to understand that there's whole generations NOW who have it so much fucking worse, which -is- the fucking point.

The system is rigged and still y'all don't have the balls or imagination to do anything other than dutifully line up and vote 'the usual' in spite of there being no fucking hope OR change.

"but "food stamps and my social security and my medicare, and my shitty attic apartment" are honest-to-god 'privileges' denied many of those at the very very bottom, so YEAH "GODDAMNIT, YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE A POINT" and you are too busy carping about your particular (and honestly I won't deny it, shit situation) to bother to understand that there's whole generations NOW who have it so much fucking worse, which -is- the fucking point."

Wow, is it impossible for you to have compassion? The man has nothing. He just told you he has nothing. And you're trying to tell him that he has it better off than who again? I mean he's not homeless but he's pretty fucking close. It's one thing to preach gratitude and it's another to live it. You're trying to shame him so that he doesn't complain about his station in life because you don't feel he DESERVES that right. How fucking elitist of YOU, brother.

When you go out and feed and clothe the homeless, you can come back here and say something. I've done those things, so I'm going to tell you to stop bitching people out. Shaming people doesn't help anyone. He has every right to complain and voice his opinion. No one deserves to be born poor. No one deserves to be silenced. What is it with revolutionaries decreeing it's okay for SOME people to have an opinion but others aren't allowed? Jesus wept.

Sure RoUS 🙄

For thirty years, they absorbed the belief that the only thing that would make them happy was this. Then, they got it. Most are content to pretend their consolation is forthcoming. The rare few are honest enough to admit they were tricked, but not many.

I want to have an open mind, and I'd be willing to open myself up to conservative media, if conservative media wasn't so dishonest and deranged.

Other than inflating the stock market with corporate tax cuts, trump hasnt done shit for the economy.

It was all Obama’s doing.

But idiots like you don’t know shit about the economy and willfully ignore reality so I don’t know why I even bothered

Wait... Are you saying that Enjoy isn't being ironic? Are you sure?

Nice troll post enjoy, hope you and your kids get cancer and die

I look forward to all of you being not breathing in 2028. :)

What's with the troll accusation? Trump's first year has been a tremendous success by any measure. I know you walk around with a hate boner for anyone who identifies as Republican but that doesn't change facts.

"Trump's first year has been a tremendous success by any measure."

😂😂😂

It is terrifying that that statement made me consider its validity. In no rational universe would that happen.

One big plus for trump instead of palin is that he’s so old and his health so terrible that he may not make it the full 4 years without keeling over from a stress induced heart attack or aneurism

"Are you saying that the Democrats WOULDN'T move to the left if the poor voted in greater numbers?"

I'm saying the onus is not on 'the poor' to overcome the fucking myriad hurdles put in their way regarding voter ID, Voter registration etc to vote for corporate America's chosen 'next in line of succession' and that the policies of every successive dem since Lyndon B fuckin Johnson have caused just as much disenfranchisement, poverty, imprisonment and death as even the most rapacious republican ratfuck can manage.

It takes an insane level of denial not to see how much democrat policies also led to overwhelming prison numbers, opened up surveillance, all the fucking wars (on drugs or otherwise) they've held their nose and dived into willingly.

As for this bullshit: "The Bernie Brats could have formed an alliance."

Bernie openly supported hillary and co, but all the dem voters did was screech and cry about berniebots or what-the-fuck-ever (very welcoming, meet-in-the-middle stuff! weird that they spent decades appeasing reps but can't swallow one iota of pride to do the same for 'Bernie' people huh?) while not bothering to chase up the fact that clinton wasn't pursuing Wisco and elsewhere, you know, the ACTUAL reasons she lost to such a comically inept opponent.

Also why on earth would -anyone- with sense still look to the dems for change? No one fucking owes you or them their vote, that's not how democracy works regardless of the 'what if' bullshit you're all sobbing about now.

If Hillary hadn't fucking ignored Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and more, if she hadn't fucking ignored all the warning signs that she did not have it in the bag she might have had enough to win not just the popular vote but the entire race.

The blame starts and ends with the dems, they lost it by choosing their most hated candidate in a long time, ignoring the message they were getting from a significant number of traditional dem blocs, ignoring the places that could have not just swung it but hammered the trump campaign into the dirt. The dems lost on their own lack of merit and no amount of casting blame at 'the left' 'the blacks' or what-the-fuck-ever convenient scapegoat can erase their absolutely glaring mistakes.

But nah, blame it on those with the sense to vote beyond your hilariously broken-by-design two-party puppet show, surely if they'd all just 'not voted with their conscience', we could have... if wishes were horses.

American power is fading, the new american century is reaching its conclusion by any objective, external appraisal and you libshits on the centre right and centre-left of the very right-leaning US political milieu still hang on like barnacles to the idea that the system, the long-forgotten 'enlightenment principles' or the dems will surely fix things this time, or the next, or the one after next when they've given no indication for HALF A FUCKING CENTURY or more of ever doing so in anything but the most token of fashions. The eternal pushme pullyou of dem bullshit, giving something grudgingly with one hand, only to take away repeatedly with the other.

By all means though, continue to swallow hook, line and sinker the same shit y'all were coached to believe after Nader, as if all 3rd party voters would necessarily have voted Dem to begin with. I'm fairly certain no Johnson voter would ever vote hillary, but hey jill stein, muh bernie hurrf durrr blurf

This: "Can anyone say that Bill Clinton's agenda wouldn't have been different if the Republicans hadn't taken congress in 94?"

Yes, we can look at his record as governor and see that he didn't require reps in congress to enact grisly fucking execution-happy policies or to have literal slaves in his mansion among other things, but sure let's once again find all the reasons in the world not to pin dem mistakes on the dems, it's apparently super important that they're never once held to account for their repeated failures in office, out of office at any point in history.

What I'm FOR is getting poor and minority people to the polls. Can't we get together on that?

Absolutely, were it just that, we'd have no disagreement but you're not just asking them to vote, you're asking for unearned faith in the dems, blind faith in the 'lesser of two evils' system when as mentioned, the Dems have shown the exact same propensity for 'evil' as the others.

"More than two parties is how Hitler got elected..."

lol no, that's not it at all (the fall of the Weimar republic, the post-WWI humiliations, the specific conditions of the economic crash etc etc had a lot more to do with it) but that's an aside.

Practically every other (for example) European democracy currently has multiple parties, a variety of types of representation (proportional and otherwise) and yet they function just fine. America could stand to learn from it, but US liberal politics is instead pursued with religious zeal, rather than admitting that maybe, based on several centuries of the gears jamming up on the bodies of the have-nots... maybe, it's just not working?