The second civil war has already begun, There is nothing to wait for, There is nobody to vote for, You have no constitutional rights, You can forget about either party, You can forget voting the bums out, You can forget about the mass media, This revolution will only be televised, Once the people recognize, They simply don't have to take it anymore, And they can say so as loud as they want. Once they are all screaming in the streets, Some of them will discover how to actually listen. You can run, you can hide, but you cannot deny your own truth.
Its empire baby, where everything is fake news, And this train ain't never stopping until she derails! When the people cannot trust their own government, Can't even trust their own established electoral system, There is no other choice, but to learn how to listen yet again. Or, risk the lowest of the lowest of mindless depths of the mob, Either way, when harmony is lost, balance will always be restored. Those who demand Armageddon is real, are determined to make it happen. Its what some hippies like to call Never-ending Three Stooges Armageddon! The more irrational they become, the less anyone wants anything to do with them. Even their own children are moving to cities and abandoning their fucked up churches, While their base continues to age and only care about all the money they make, Investing in the stock market, like senile Scrooges watching Professional Wrestling. Their worst fear is someone will steal their money, making it inevitable! When money and the gun are the only things you truly respect, You have become predictable and there is no honor among thieves.
But the U.S. President is hardly a figurehead. He has enormous power, especially if he doesn't observe the traditional constraints and a compliant majority of his party controls congress. And this one is quite exceptional in his low character, thinness of knowledge about the world, lack of government experience, admiration for authoritarians, erratic behavior, and unwillingness to accept the norms of decent behavior. He's promising a strike in Syria that could put us in conflict with Russia and Iran, and there is real danger that he's about to fire the Special Prosecutor, which would precipitate a constitutional crisis in which our republic might not survive. The U.S. has had a long run of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but our forefathers recognized it doesn't come without responsibility and struggle. You seem to be living in a fool's paradise.
The irony is, the president is the figurehead for the mindless mob. Even in reality TV, wherever you go, there you are!
What the Cambridge Analytica scandal brought to light for all to see is how well psychological propaganda works on these people. They discovered that when people respond EMOTIONALLY to hot button issues, it completely bypasses the rational, mental thought processes, in favor of knee jerk reactions. And because the emotional center is deeply rooted in our subconscious (learned behaviors/instincts honed over millions of years of evolution, something Trump supporters apparently don't believe in), it's nearly impossible to think clearly about the issues. So Trump's campaign took advantage of these known weaknesses in human personality to flood the voters with endless LIES known to elicit emotional reactions. And that is something the Obama and Clinton campaigns didn't do, even though it had access to similar demographic data. Obama's campaign did not reach for the hot button issues and cover them with outright lies geared to get people to respond emotionally. Big difference there, so don't believe the superficial comparisons between Obama's use of data and Trump's campaign use of data!
Sometimes change for the better takes a combined effort of citizens. It is actually how your country was shaped for a large part too. How it became great If you insist on only doing things by yourself societal changes that seem nice and worthy but impossible to accomplish by you, it may seem better to let go. And hey, either way it should of course be ok to distance one self from combined efforts to improve society (without being set away as a dubious or antisocial person by default). But the argument that you don't at all just because you can't change shit is mute. Seems more like an excuse than the real reason.
Some of the things I don't try to change are things like other people's opinions on what constitutes changing society for the better and how to go about it, and removing a sitting president before the next election regardless of how I feel about him or her. So I accept those and other things without letting them take up too much of my time, and continue to do what I can to improve the/my world. Sometimes it's alone, maybe a donation. Sometimes with a few people at a local park or home. Sometimes a larger group, like a church effort to positively affect a needy community overseas. Sometimes with a much larger group, like the NRA, to help make sure no rights are taken from anyone for no justifiable reason. I voted Trump because the option made me sick for many reasons, not because of all the stereotypical traits given to right leaning voters. I don't make excuses, I make my world better how, when and as I see fit. Me not being on your particular bandwagon doesn't make me anything except not on your bandwagon.
At least he's out and they don't want to cut SS and Medicare. Things were looking even bleaker for a while there.
So you seem to claim to be concenered mainly with your private life and your small sphere of local personal interactions. Big problems, like national politics and policies are things you supposedly let be, and you don't try to change "other people's opinions on what constitutes changing society for the better and how to go about it, and removing a sitting president before the next election regardless of how I feel about him or her." Yet here you are, on an international public forum, obviously trying to change opinion toward the man you called your "buddy" Trump in a favorable direction. Is your speech about accepting things as they are intended to influence us to do the same, become complacent and non-involved, and accept a really vile person as our President? With more voters like you, the country would be in worse shape than its already in.
I'm not sure how you read what I wrote and came up with that assessment, but I'll respond... First, without your personal life in order, what can anyone expect to accomplish? Second, I do care about national and even worldly issues. My greatest concern for my country is spending more money than it's collecting and the cycle it creates with interest adding more debt. I voted how I thought best to fix that. We'll see how it goes. Third, I'm not trying to change anybody's opinion, that's generally a waste of time. I'm only expressing mine and why they're mine. Lastly, I don't recall calling Trump my buddy, I don't know the man. And I'm not complacent and uninvolved, I direct my limited resources to where they'll do the best as I see it. I certainly won't get so worked up over the murkey world of politics that I condecend or label as part of the problem a person with opposing views. You want to hold a banner and scream? Go ahead. I'm more of a be the change you want to see kind of guy.
For the "buddy" remark, scroll backward to Post #4. "My money has made more money than me the past year, I'm ok with what's going on. Why would someone war with their best buddy?" I'm glad you're concerned that our "country is spending more money than it's collecting and the cycle it creates with interest adding more debt", but it seems you're backing the wrong horse on that one. Trump brags about the $1 trillion in tax cuts mainly for the rich that the Republicans passed, and he went along with a $ trillion budget. To paraphrase the late Sen. Everett Dirksen: a trillion here, a trillion there soon adds up to big money. (Dirksen said billion; I've adapted for contemporary realities) So be the change, and feel free to express your opinions, but when you express them on behalf of personalities and causes that are as controversial as Trump and the NRA, expect some blow back.
He was referring to Skip's OP where he initially said Trump considered Putin a best buddy. He didn't quote Skip and Skip edited that out afterward.
Why would someone go to war with with their best buddy was a question based on the parts of the original post quoted above. Not because I somehow don't want to war with Trump. I definitely could have been clearer. We'll see how the deficit looks after his term, not predict it beforehand. I've learned that blowback is all but assured when the views expressed are more right than left. I can live with it.
Latest shenanigans.......Deflection away from investigation of him to show how wonderful he is to mindless masses......and i also would not be surprised if Russia was not in on the ruse. "Let's show 'em that we are at odds and they will surely know we are not in cahoots..." I don't believe anything Trump says or does. He does not fool me.
Unlike crazy Americans voting for whoever advertises the most, in the name of patriotism, the Russians understand authoritarian governments. When the Duck failed to gain the support of his own party leaders, most Russians immediately wrote him off as being of absolutely no use to them whatsoever. The Duck has no friends and is lucky if he can find his own ass with both hands, much less, recognize a true friend. Making an enemy of Russia, at least in public, is the only way the Duck can possibly survive in office. Ducks all know when to duck, even if they are not that sharp, because when Julius Caesar stood up they killed him on the senate steps.