A Warning to America

[kentuck]

The division is destroying our country.

Republicans blame Democrats. Democrats blame Republicans. There is enough blame to go around, they say.

But, maybe there is another source for the division? Perhaps there is a third party sowing much of the division? Perhaps Democrats and Republicans don't disagree on every issue?

Donald Trump is just a tool. He is most likely an unwitting tool, but a tool just the same. He is being used to divide America and to turn our people against each other. He is almost the perfect propaganda asset.

In a foxhole, there are no Democrats or Republicans.

There is a simple message.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall.

[raging moderate]

1. Yes, right! United we stand, divided we fall!

You are right. I have wondered lately whether there may be several groups sowing division deliberately. Some people just like to watch other people fight. And some people just want to make things as fair as possible. We must all try to keep our tempers.

[watoos]

2. You forgot to say,

Democrats blame Democrats but Republicans never blame Republicans.

[beachbum bob]

3. we have always had divisions, the difference today? Its clearly based on racism and nationalism,

and if we want to make a change, we need to all get off our asses come every November election.


We got here from apathy, we got we deserved for sitting back

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Yup. The divisions are based on racism and nationalism.

It doesn't matter who allowed this genie out of the bottle. It's out and their side embraces this difference like they've finally come out and they're never again going back into the closet.

Personally, I could no longer socialize with "friends" who hold onto this subculture, because it is a subculture. They do think they are entitled in their way of thinking. The only way to beat them is one issue at a time. Take the pro-choice issue. We need to make this point very clear: They risk nothing of themselves in being anti-choice. They need to put up or shut up. If they really care about ending unwanted pregnancies, pony up with tax dollars to pay to support young mothers and their babies. Because, life choices will have consequences--for many it will be negative as plans for college will be postponed or cancelled. So it will mean a life time of poverty.

And that's the key. Let these Republicans fully understand the consequences.

[beachbum bob]

34. we beat them by overwhelming at the polls in 2020, 2022,2024, etc...sitting out NO longer

an option.

We can a be country based on rule of law and make the haters go back into the shadows

[ck4829]

4. When Blitzer asked if a man without health insurance should die, right wingers heckled with "Yeah!"

That was in 2011... years before Trump became President.

Maybe there is a third party, maybe there isn't. But it's clear it's not all we should be worried about, there is a destroyer right here in the US.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. The toxic partisanship is the result of Movement Conservatives within the Republican Party.

It's been a concerted effort since the Seventies, with a crescendo at this point in time.

Yes, Donald Trump is the catalyst, but there will be another tool in the future. Letting a minority within a political party determine our democracy and destroy our democracy must be addressed and changed.

[vlyons]

6. No it's the super-rich greedy 1% monopolistic corporations and Wall Streeters

who buy politicians to cut gov services, public education to the bone, buy judges, keep the war machine working, and ignite culture wars, suppress the vote, and turn the rest of us into minimum wage slaves.

[watoos]

8. Well said,

I am 71 years old, retired. I was the only wage earner in my family while my wife worked being a home maker. I get a pension, I also enrolled in my companies 401k, I get SS and Medicare. I retired after 42 years at age 63 because I had union health insurance to bridge the gap to my turning 65.

I worked in a factory that made glass bottles then worked in a shop that built the bottle making machines. The company's headquarters was in our small town of 2,000 people. It would not be uncommon for the president of the company to stop in to our factory to say hello to our workers.

Something changed; companies turned into corporations, our headquarters moved to Jacksonville so that our CEO could be close to a nice golf course. When we were a company our workers were looked upon as assets, when we became a corporation our workers became a liability to the corporate bottom line.

I asked a question in a local home town blog a couple of years ago; who are more important, workers or shareholders, the majority answered shareholders. I live in central Pa. in the middle of Trump country, my friends have been brainwashed and I believe it started with Reagan. Private sector union membership is down to like 6%, the greenskeeper at our local golf course calls me a Socialist. I worked at a grocery store while going to high school, I worked my way through college, I took any job I could until I found a good job and worked there for 42 years. My friends call me a Socialist because I'm a Democrat. The benefits that I got and still get today are because I was a Democrat. My younger Trump friends will never see a pension, will never see union provided health insurance, will have to work longer than I did to get Medicare and Social Security if those programs are even still around when they retire. Ronald Reagan convinced the unwashed to vote against their own best interests. A big part of the blame lies with the corporate controlled M$M, it pushes the far right corporate narrative.

One of the main topics at Davos this past year was doing away with the unwashed, was going to robots and AI. The super rich are looking for ways to eliminate millions of workers, to eliminate workers altogether.

I told my golf course buddy my definition of Socialism. Giving tax dollars to the poor is Socialism while giving tax dollars to the rich is Capitalism. He said I was wrong. I asked him what it was called when Trump gave billions of taxpayer dollars to soy bean farmers because they lost their markets because of Trump's tariffs. He did agree that that was wrong. Hey, one small step to un-brainwashing a Trumper.

[kentuck]

9. Work, as we have known it, is vanishing.

It is being replaced with robots and AI.

We will have to adapt if there is massive unemployment. Some believe the market will always create enough jobs for everyone but I am not sure that will be the case in the future?

In my opinion, we will have to become more "socialistic", with a guaranteed minimum income and affordable housing. The government may have to create jobs, much like they did during the Great Depression?

[vlyons]

14. actually it started way before Reagan

I lived in Calif, when Reagan was governor. I well remember when he closed the insane asylums and turned thousands of insane people out on the street to fend for themselves. It started way back in the 1950s, when Ayn Rand published her novel "Atlas Shrugged" that preached the "virtue of selfishness" to the greedy. That being a monopolistic capitalist/industrialist was heroic. That having compassion for poor people, disabled people, old people was evil. She preached that people who depended on gov social benefits and services were moochers. That everything should be privatized, except the military. All of which was music to the ears of the greedy.

It's not for no reason that the starving women of Paris marched to Versailles and captured Louis XVI and his family, or that the starving Russian people arrested the Czar and his family. We live in degenerate times.

I'm glad that I'm 72 yrs and won't live all that much longer. Unless young people can change this country, it's definitely heading for some kind of fascist society.

[watoos]

24. Yes but Ayn Rand herself proved how wrong she was.

She railed against Social Security and Medicare but in the later stages of her life she needed them. She tried to hide the fact that she needed them by applying for them under her husband's name. Ayn Rand should be used as an example of how wrong her philosophy was.

[Lonestarblue]

13. Business schools are a huge problem.

I earned my MBA in 1976. At that time, we were taught that corporations had three constituents: the management of the corporation, the workers, and the shareholders. In the decades since I was in school, that has changed to a single focus of increasing shareholder value. Nothing else matters. Corporate managers make decisions solely to keep Wall Street investors hapoy, with a secondary goal of feathering their own nests with huge corporate bonuses of cash and stock. Thus CEOs make decisions that keep stock prices high because it benefits them. A perfect example is the Boeing 737 Max disaster. Boeing managers knew they were taking a risk with public safety and potential deaths, but they did it anyway because they were losing market share to Airbus.

Like many corporations that think they have a guaranteed market, it appears that Boeing was resting on its laurels and not investing in new, more efficient planes. Thus, when Airbus offered a much better plane, they tried to react quickly by bootstrapping new engines on an old design not equipped to handle them. And over 300 people have died as a result. So why could Airbus afford the investment in a new plane and Boeing could not (or did not want to spend the money)? In late 2018, Airbus reported third quarter adjusted operating profit of $3.1 billion, while Boeing reported $6.8 billion. It isn’t that Boeing didn’t have the money, it was their management’s lack of foresight into future needs and investment in new product development, which cuts into operating profits and affects stock prices/shareholder returns and CEO bonuses. Airbus is now being rewarded with new orders at Boeing’s expense, a result of the damaging short-term business decision making driven by Wall Street in this country.

Business schools have done great damage to our country, including the top business schools in the country. With Milton Friedman’s economic theories, the Chicago School of Economics has long taught policies that exist to reward shareholder greed. The Koch brothers have funded any number of business programs at lesser universities to teach the libertarian view of no regulation, no taxes, and little to no government intervention into whatever corporations want to do to increase their profits. I don’t know how we counter this, but we need to start talking about the role of corporations. They are needed because they provide a lot of jobs, and to do that they need to make a profit. The question is how much profit and at what cost to workers and the country as a whole.

[defacto7]

43. A great point I haven't thought about.

[CrispyQ]

45. We need to revoke corporate personhood & get money out of our electoral process.

There was a time when the corporate charter was to serve the community, not the shareholders. Now it's the opposite. There has to be some kind of balance.

Lot's of good links here: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-personhood/

"Slavery is the fiction that people are property; corporate personhood is the fiction that corporations are people."

[lastlib]

49. We need to require corporations to become more "social" in their outlook,,,

as opposed to their current bottom-line, for-shareholders-only outlook. This will require massive changes in our legal approach to current corporation laws, and with repugs packing the courts, it ain't gonna come soon. I hope some great legal minds will work on this in the years to come, and give us some solutions/approaches that can help dig us out of this trench.

[The Wizard]

28. The Republican bottom line is

greater wealth for the already wealthy (the bribing class) on the backs of the working class that is forced into working for less money because of unemployment or underemployment that creates pressure on labor as the competition for jobs allows employers to find people who will work for less to avoid homelessness and starvation.

[lastlib]

50. I've often asked the question "What are conservatives trying to conserve?"

After much study and thought, the only answers I could come up with were:
1) wealth for the wealthy;
2) power for the powerful;
3) comfort for the comfortable;
4) poverty for the poor; and
5) affliction for the afflicted.

When you look at the history, EVERY conservative policy in our entire history has been been about these goals.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

41. All so true. I have a theory that it was the advent of business news channels that is a root cause.

Before instant news, companies could think more long term, keep employees happy, and the stock holders were happy with steady, incremental growth. They may have picked up a paper and glanced at a stock price every couple weeks. Now, companies react hour by hour. No one wants their name smeared across CNBC because they missed their earnings by a fraction. So what did they do? Slashed benefits, pensions, and every other expense regardless of who got hurt.

[CrispyQ]

47. Ask your golf buddy if the trillions of dollars in bank bailouts were socialism.

Are the billions in annual federal subsidies to some industries socialism? Why is there so much anger toward people who are on food stamps, but very little anger at the giant corporations who pay sub-standard wages & very little income tax? Why is it always socialism when we spend treasury dollars on The People, but it's never socialism when we bail out the corporations?

"Slavery is the fiction that people are property; corporate personhood is the fiction that corporations are people."

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-personhood/

[Afromania]

10. They don't believe we are "in" a foxhole.

Last edited Sun Apr 7, 2019, 09:59 AM - Edit history (1)

Republicans, by and large, are lapping this insanity up. They desire to do whatever insane shit they have cooked up has completely overridden obvious, and completely observable, realities. When we tell them about what's going on they cry fake news and run in circles. Screaming about how whatever cherry picked data they have is the full and complete picture of the situation.

So, here we are. Having to have one eye outside the foxhole trying to watch for those that don't have our best interests as a country in mind while the realities of a rapidly changing environment make themselves known. All of that while our own domestic problems steadily make it more difficult to keep track of the first two.

Meanwhile, the other eye needs to always be kept on Republicans due to their glib willingness to shoot us, and oddly themselves, in the back. The usual reasons being for extra rations/ammo, but far too often the real reason is that they do it just because they don't particularly like the unit of the person next to them.

As I said before, Republicans simply don't believe themselves to be in a foxhole with us. Not only do they not understand they are in a foxhole, but they get a perverse joy from trying to make us that there is no foxhole. There is no amount of placating them that's going to get them to join us here for this battle. For a little while, maybe a big while, we're going to need the sane folks to stop pretending that we can ever rely on a significant portion of Republicans to finally see the light. We are going to have to do this alone, and at some point when nobody is paying them any attention they will too, maybe.

They had a chance in 2016 to do the right thing, and do to their negligence have had a chance every day since. STILL, they persist in ignoring what's going on despite the fact it takes big smelly dumps in their yards daily. By the time they get a clue do this country will be in complete ruins.

I know this is a bit longwinded, but it frustrates me, so damn much. I think about it everyday with every single act of crass inanity by trump and his minions. How can Republicans completely ignore reality the of the damage the way they want to govern brings about???? How can they miss the wrongness of what's being done and how its being done????

*screams into the void*

[plimsoll]

18. Given how much of the GOP seems to want a civil war.

"Sharing a foxhole" seems like suicide doesn't it?

[vlyons]

19. You ask how they can not see what's happening

I'm a Buddhist, and I see the world from that view point. The main problem that keeps people trapped in endless suffering is mental ignorance -- delusion and confusion. The 3 mental poisons are ignorance, greed, and hatred. They are the impetus that drives people to make bad decisions and do harmful acts. The super rich are mainly greedy. No matter how much they have, it's never enough. They manipulate the working and middle classes with fear, anger, and hatred. Even the Christian Church is busy preaching prosperity and punishment. Compassion to work for the benefit and well being of others seems to have gone out of fashion, when the Ayn Randers started preaching the virtue of selfishness.

I'm 72, so I am not long for this world. I am encouraged by today's young people, who seem to not fall for the Ayn Randers vision of utopia. I hope the democratic socialist young people completely take over the Dem party.

[Ferrets are Cool]

26. How can they not see?

All they see is Faux (news) telling them what to think and do and say.

[watoos]

27. Wasn't it the Buddha who said the cause of all misery is wanting.

[vlyons]

46. in the human realm, yes

desire is considered the cause of suffering. Buddhism is not really a religion, it's a practice to control the mind and see reality as it actually exists. Essentially, it's all about one's point of view. What we tell ourselves about what we perceive and experience. We see the world as we have been enculturated, educated, our personal history, and what we tell ourselves about all of that.

The super-rich captured the Republican party, ya know the party of Lincoln, when Lyndon Johnson signed all the civil rights acts of the 1960s. The south did not, and mostly does not now, want to desegregate. Racists view non-white people as less-than not-as-good-as in almost every way, except to do low-level, low-pay jobs. So it has been very easy for the super-rich to buy politicians to feed Southern racist fears that their children might one day present them with a brown grandchild.

But the numbers are simply not in favor of white racists. Personally I believe that Asians will one day rule the world. The USA has 320M people. China has 1.38B. India has 1.4B. Republican oligarchs can only see as far as the next quarterly stock report. Republican voters only see the version that Faux news presents, where their egos are stroked to believe that they are better-than non-whites.

and yet, each and every one of us has the capacity, if not the ability at present, to open our minds to other possibilities.

It is my experience that Trump voters don't want to see. They would rather cling to their belief systems. There is something about their egos and sense of self, a tribalism, that cannot accept the ugly reality of Trump and the KGOP.

I had a little bit of a conversation with a Trumpster, who actually asked me why I said that Trump was a racist. When I quoted Trump's latest bete noire about immigrants being animals, it was if my worlds just flew into a black hole. When I cited how Trump had and still is violating the emoluments clause, and how he violates congress privilege to allocate and raise taxes, again my words went nowhere. They simply don't want to know. I can only assume, as a Buddhist, that having their delusions exposed and busted up would be experienced by them as the death of their ego, and hence the same as physical death. For them, pretty scary. that's why they are continually stuck in suffering samsara.

What we have to do, as rational people, is figure out what is best for the most people. Not just Americans, but worldwide. Then press forward to work for it with enthusiastic perseverance.

[FailureToCommunicate]

21. Very well stated. Trumpsers can "ignore reality" largely because FOX and hate radio tell

Last edited Sun Apr 7, 2019, 12:37 PM - Edit history (1)

them a very different story line of any given event or Trump misstep. The Republican leaders are not so gullible yet they go along to surf the wave of power they're enjoying.

As long as we have two 'news' tribes (one real and one totally nuts) we will continue to hold two very different views on our foxhole.

But may I join you in 'screaming into the void'?

[Afromania]

22. Yes

[vlyons]

48. that doesn't explain why they believe Faux News

I can listen to Faux News and not buy-in to their bullshit. I can check and verify what Faux says. I can search out listen/read other points of view. I can reason. They could too if they tried.

See my post above in this thread.

[FailureToCommunicate]

52. WHY they believe FOX 'news' is the $64,000 question. FOX dishes out crap and

they eat it up. Others, like you and I, can look at that same crap and be totally disgusted.

It may be partly like you stated:"Republican voters only see the version that Faux news presents, where their egos are stroked to believe that they are better-than non-whites."

It may also be just upbringing and some mental differences on how their brains sort it out.

Whatever "IT" is, that fundimental difference will always hamper any hope of change to actually make American great again (from the damage of the last few decades of right wing deconstructionism)

[Honeycombe8]

11. Hints don't work with me, or cryptic messages. What are you saying? nt

[KY_EnviroGuy]

12. The source is the global plutocrats, a global third party of sorts.

They're clearly well on their way with merging with the US GOP, UK Tories, and others. They're quietly, slowly buying out control of the world's political systems and destroying any remaining democracy - which they hate.

I hold that the Republican Party would have been relegated to the margins of our system of government long ago without massive contributions and clandestine operations of the invisible super-wealthy. And, what hurts is that they do it with money that came from all of us.

They lie their way into power, create massive chaos in the public's thinking and then quietly go on with their destruction. Unfortunately, our press only talks about the chaos part.

..........

[plimsoll]

17. If they didn't get to decide what was legal and what wasn't.

We could call them criminals. They own the politicians so theft and bribery are OK as long as it benefits then.

You should read Kickback by David Montero. We hear about this, but don't understand how endemic this is to what we currently call capitalism.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. You know what adds credence to trump purposely being

a divider? That he makes zero attempt to say or do anything to appease or attract outside his base. Especially since doing so makes infinite sense. He doesn't care about an agenda that could assure he has a second term. Why?

[Smackdown2019]

16. Difference between

Yes we all blame each other; but we Democrats had the backing of evidence of doing good for America. Republicans have the evidence of doing bad for America, but they all agree it was their fault. It was evident back before they got Paul Ryan to step to the plate; they still blame Obama for everything.

Difference is that Democrats owe up to screw ups, Republicans cover up the screw ups and blame Democrats for catching them.

[zentrum]

20. Nope.

Republicans don't agree with us on Medicare for all, forgiving student debt,raising the minimum wage, protection of asylum seekers, justice reform, tax reform especially to bolster SS, addressing climate change ASAP and on and on and on.

It's not about our team vs. their team. It's about the actual welfare of people.

[roamer65]

23. The SALT deduction limitation is what will split the country apart.

Soon, some more progressive states will realize its better to separate than stay in the union.

[mtngirl47]

25. The third party is large, international corporations and the very rich.

Any questions? Read Jane Mayer's book "Dark Money."

[paleotn]

35. interestingly enough....

many in that group are having a serious "oh shit" moment....

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/founder-of-worlds-biggest-hedge-fund-says-capitalism-needs-urgent-reform-2019-04-05

45 was the logical extension of their decades long manipulation of fundigelical Christians, authoritarians and racists to further tax cuts for the rich and unregulated capitalism, but now it's like Louis XVI is whispering in their ears..."remember me and Marie...it could happen to you". And don't let them fool you. It's not the left they're as concerned about. It's the radical, populist right.

The problem with 45 is he doesn't need the western monied class to hold on to political power such as Reagan, the Bush's and most mainline Rethuglican legislators. The rubes have gone far beyond their daily dose of Fox News propaganda. They now truly believe 45 is sent by god, right out of biblical prophecy. He's the white answer to a browning of America. And he has another funding source....foreign powers who have no love for the western monied class. Their agenda is the dismantling of western hegemony, and 45 could are less as long as they stroke his ego. It's a match made in hell.

The western monied class created the environment for Shitler and his cult to take root. Now it's growing like kudzu and it scares the crap out of them.

[sharedvalues]

40. Yes and

The western monied class is tighter with Russian oligarchs than they are with western working people.

This is nothing less than a fight against oligarchy, here and abroad.

[1democracy]

29. The vector for hate and lies, killing democracy is Murdoch media

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/new-fox-corporation-disney-deal.html
6 Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation Into Rupert Murdoch and His Family

"But that empire has given him influence over world affairs in a way few private citizens ever have, granting the Murdoch family enormous sway over not just the United States, but English-speaking countries around the world.

Fox News has long exerted a gravitational pull on the Republican Party in the United States, where it most recently amplified the nativist revolt that has fueled the rise of the far right and the election of President Trump.

Mr. Murdoch’s newspaper The Sun spent years demonizing the European Union to its readers in Britain, where it helped lead the Brexit campaign that persuaded a slim majority of voters in a 2016 referendum to endorse pulling out of the bloc. Political havoc has reigned in Britain ever since.
…
And in Australia, where his hold over the media is most extensive, Mr. Murdoch’s outlets pushed for the repeal of the country’s carbon tax and helped topple a series of prime ministers whose agenda he disliked, including Malcolm Turnbull last year."

[sharedvalues]

38. +1 Murdoch and rightwing radio

[NNYCDN51]

30. Valid points .........

but the MOST valid point is that tRump is a TOOL


Keep On Thinking Free

[roamer65]

31. I think we are going to fall.

All empires rise and fall.

[NurseJackie]

32. Thank you.

It's difficult for me to imagine this nation having a "Tri-Centennial" celebration.

[roamer65]

42. I am skeptical we will see the 250th in 2026.

Quite frankly speaking, I think states like mine would be better off in the Canadian confederation. We would have more flexible spending as a province than a US state, also much more progressive government.

In Canada, provinces can run deficits.

[Perseus]

33. Sorry, but the division IS being caused by republicans

All the bills they want to pass are meant to affect the people in very negative ways, it is their greed, their lack of compassion, their lack of patriotism, etc, etc...If we get rid of republicans in politics we will eliminate the division because we can then change the rhetoric to one of unity, patriotism, conservation of the earth, climate change solutions, equality, better social services, etc.

[NurseJackie]

44. It's also caused when anyone claims that Democrats are the same as Republicans. Or...

It's also caused when anyone claims that Democrats are the same as Republicans. Or when anyone claims that the Democratic party is "the party of the elite" or "the party of the one percent". It causes division when anyone claims that Democrats are "ideologically bankrupt" and "corrupt". It causes division when anyone claims that Democrats "don't care about climate change". It causes division when anyone calls the Democratic party an "absolute failure" or that Democrats are "do-nothings". It's causes division when anyone claims that the Democrats "focus too much" on diversity and it creates distrust when anyone claims that people "aren't racists" just because they refuse to vote for someone because of their skin color. It harmful and divisive for anyone to falsely claim that the Democrats who "are very big into diversity" aren't "particularly sympathetic" to the working class.

That type of hate-speech serves no good purpose. Showing such open contempt and hostility for the Democratic party is a GIFT to the GOP.

All I'm trying to say is, when anyone repeatedly smears the Democratic party with that type of negativity it generates apathy. When you have apathy, that discourages voter turnout. When you have low voter turnout that gives Republicans a chance to steal the elections.

[duforsure]

36. That's why every day

Trump picks a fight on twitter or with his statements and accusations with people and groups. Then he uses it to divide people up with and incites them , and sits back and watches them fight , and as they get weaker. As long as people interact with him , it gives him more power because of it. The media also promotes it , and repeats his propaganda for him daily. As long as people let him do this to them it will continue.

[sharedvalues]

37. No. Rightwing propaganda is destroying our country. Fox and Limbaugh

Fox
Limbaugh
WSJ
Mark Levin
Daily Wire
Sinclair
Daily Caller
Breitbart
IJR
The DC RW press: Wash Examiner, Wash Times
Newsmax
All of rightwing radio.

THIS is what is dividing the country and harming it. Trump is a great propaganda weapon, but he wouldn’t exist without the rightwing propaganda media, which is largely owned and controlled by billionaires.

[FailureToCommunicate]

53. Yup.

[paleotn]

39. It was once the monied classes

sowing division by demonizing the left in order to reap tax cuts for the rich and unfettered capitalism. What better way to do that then by getting rubes to vote against their own interests in the name of god, fear and racism. It's gone well beyond that now. The current divisions are being sowed by foreign powers with no love lost for the western rich. The destruction of western hegonomy is what they're after and the rubes and Shitlers of the US and Western Europe are playing right along. Brexit, the rise of nationalism within the EU, the election of a failed con man in the US weren't home grown aberrations.

[Rizen]

51. This plays into false equivalencies

Republicans blame democrats yet try to repeal Obamacare over 60 times with no alternative plan.

[flying-skeleton]

54. So .... What's your solution to the ShitGibbon .....

[The Wizard]

55. Privatize the profis and socialize the risk. (NT)