Why the shift to the right?

Speech.. I think Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was pretty "on".

I remember when the right-wing would say, "Don't like it, start your own company" or "Love it or leave it".. Then, the other party said, "It's a private corporation" not a monopoly anymore? Our Justice Department hasn't gone after anti-trust laws since The Kennedy Administration, when they sent GE executives to prison for price fixing, so the Sherman Anti-Trust is worthless (just like any other law not applied equally).. Then this CEO of a car company buys Twitter, and it's.... still a private corporation?

I want to be given the choice to make my choice (about speech). I can decide for myself if I want to block someone, etc... Remember, when day it'll be your side, "And then there was no one left to speak for me"

"The power" wants the working-classes to fight each other while they run to the bank laughing.... I promise you this. I've never heard a politician discuss ideology. It's usually which comments are private or public. Endorsements and a trail of similar things you can imagine. Quid pro quo.

I just want the country to go back to the people. And if it fails, we can always get a new government, but give us a chance. But this justifying murder machine for profit is something I want no part in. A superpower should lead by example, not by the end of a gun.... After I alluded, I want to stress how effective humor can be. I like the Political Satire thread, too... Satire should be a literate and humorous x-ray into society that reflects the truth... A movie that moves the human heart could get you thinking. I sincerely want to put myself in other's shoes, but I'm afraid of the self-censorship. I used to get private messages all the time on fakebook, "I agree, but it's a headache man. These people won't understand"... How do you know? Aren't you a person? It's always, "Yeah, me and you aren't dumb, but it's the others who advertising works on!" - because companies would continue to spend millions of dollars on 30-second commercials if they didn't work. If they spend 30 million, they're expecting to get back 300 million.

Thanks for the encouragement above! I wish I didn't care, but I'm here, and I do. I'm a very affected person, and wish I could shrug things off, but I wish I had more control on what goes on in my mind non-stop.. Personally, I would never want my ego to get into the way of my curiosity. I guess I don't like group-think and the more I disagree with something, the more I want to know why...

 

Sounds like the U.S and Europe have more in common than I'd thought. In 1960, S.M. Lipset, a political sociologist who was one of the reigning gurus, published Political Man in which he noted that the U.S was one of the most politically stable democracies in the world. This, Lipset explained, was the result of the fact that unlike some countries, there were no real class divisions in the U.S. Practically everybody in the U. S was middle class such political issues as there were involved disputes over portions of the material pie instead conflicts over values that weren't resolvable by compromise. Ah, those were the days!

Soon things began to change. We had the Civil Rights Movement in the early 60s, followed by the War in Vietnam, followed by the Environmental Movement. There were hippies and Yippies in the streets of major cities, and the Weather Underground. When that died down, militias and "sovereign citizens" groups appeared on the Right to challenge federal authority..Some of these are still around and showed up on January 6, 2021, to lay siege to the Capitol. In 1965, the Hart-Cellar Act abolished the national origins quota system, exposing the U.S. to new kinds of brown, black, and yellow immigrants. Roe v. Wade om 1973 added a new "wedge issue" to the politicians' arsenal. Televangelist Jerry Falwell, who cut his teeth as a segregationist, was able to gain a mass following by exploiting the issue to build his "Moral Majority" Ronald Reagan broke the back of the unions, and with it the blue collar middle class, and his pro-business policies created new class divisions. as the upper 1% came to hog an increasingly large share of the GNI and yuppies became conspicuous exemplars of the good life unattainable by most of us. Free trade added new issues to the fray, as Clinton joined forces with Republicans to advance NAFTA and the WTO. Newt Gingrich, master of political division, held training camps for Republicans on how to exploit these issues to take over the House in 1995, making politics thereafter an ongoing game of political warfare..

Even religion, which was once a uniter, became a divider. The U.S., unlike its Western European Allies, remained an exception to the trend toward secularization, changed rapidly after 2007--more rapidly than Europe, so rapidly that it added to the polarization between the new secularists and True Believers left behind. (R. Ingelhart (2021) Religion's Sudden Decline. He sees the biggest factors accounting for this as: (1) greater "subjective existential security" , as affluence shifted attention from survival to a sense of greater individual control over the future; and (2) a shift from pro-fertility norms to self actualization norms, as people gained more control over the reproductive process. But these changes tend to be more pronounced in the blue states than the red states, which are closer to Saudi Arabia and Nigeria in their religious orientation.

 

When in fact, the shifting done by the Rght was a bit more dramatic--quite a bit. The Right in the U. S. has shifted dramatically toward Trumpism, which is a borderline facist authoritarian movement. I used to think Nixon and G.WE. Bush were as bad as it could get, but they're lookin' better and better. most of the Republican centere-right have resigned. Conservatives like Liz Cheney are pilloried by the MAGA crazies. Naturally the richest man in the world would have this skewed perception of reality, or pretend to.

 

I was kind of with you up to here, but this seems confusing. I think it's good to criticize those who "rule over us " when they're doing something wrong, but we need to keep in mind that politics in the U.S. is a binary choice. As Biden likes to say, and I agree with him, we need to compare him with the alternative instead of the Almighty. Otherwise, we'll get stuck with Trump, an authoritarian crime boss, and may never get a chance to criticize our rulers again. As I think I said in an earlier post, I used to think G.W. Bush was as bad as it gets in American politics--two wars, a recession, and torture--but compared with the Orange One, he's lookin' better & better. Pelosi probably didn't try to impeach Bush because: (1) it takes grounds to do so (treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors), and (2) the House apparently believed and accepted the WMD story, so there would have been insufficient votes for impeachment in any case. So your blame seems misplaced. Trump, on the other hand, tried to extort Zelinsky to dig up dirt on Biden's son. Subsequently, Putin, Trump's bosom buddy, launched a Hitler-style invasion of Ukraine.

I'm unclear what you think the U.S. response should be to that. I think there's a real danger that voters will put Trump back in office again, in which case we might end the war sooner by letting Putin have his way with the country and then stand by and watch as he moves on to bigger things, like Moldova.Trump said at the outset of the invasion that he thinks Putin is a genius. Are we "peace at any pricing" it, or should we try to help Ukraine defend itself short of actually entering the war as a combatant?

 

I think W. is the worst ever.. But I can't say I've admired a single President in my lifetime... You say it's a binary choice, but the largest group are Independents. It seems forced. Gotta start somewhere.

As for Ukraine, there should have been a cease-fire by now. This is bullshit. The US is happy to give Ukraine money to do our dirty work, but I'm tired of people dying for Raytheon and the warfare state. That issue is a 20-page thread!

There's a ton of Americans struggling, and eventually, people will have to revolt. Biden says something during pressers, about how (paraphrasing) "The world looks at us and thinks they never get anything done. They just argue".. If half the country treats the other half as enemies, we'll only go backwards. We lost more in The "Civil" war than WWII (400-450k)... Murder is not a way of life. It's not how economies should be built. And it's easy to throw blame, but I think I and others need to take more responsibility why our world is the way it is.

 

That's great! I love answering questions. Out of curiosity, and I like people who do because it shows they care, too.

I'm not pro either party.. I'll just say I've never voted Republican.

 

Where there is power and money there is usually greed and corruption
…as zen said it eloquently You cannot just label one party as the same since within that same party there are good guys and bad guys and vice versus
So that is why there is always hope and a reason to keep believing

 

It's also all the "good" people who stay silent. A quote of how "Evil can only be done when good men remain silent" and I agree with it.

I worked for Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders, and in the last couple of years, I'm losing hope and beginning to think direct action is the only way, or to post something like this where people who are reading might learn (by questioning) their own values, especially when we split hairs. It causes people to ask, "Hmmm, well how do I feel about this?" or "I never looked at it this way" and hopefully having more self-awareness.

 

Unfortunately, you can register Independent but you can't vote for Independent.

Yes, there "should" have been. Whose fault do you think that is? Do you think Raytheon is somehow behind Putin's invasion, or is the point that we should just roll over and let Putin have his way?

I agree, there's too much cavalier talk about Civil War. It would be awful. There are t hings worth fighting for, though, and too precious to give up without a fight. I'm thinking of democracy, imperfect as ours is. I find it shocking that Americans can take the coup attempt on January 6, 2001 so lightly. Keep wringing our hands, and we'll have a fascist dictatorship before we know it!

 

What direct action did you have in mind? Protest demonstrations? Those might work, up to a point. If you worked for Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders, those ideals lack a large popular following or even a sizeable armed minority to back them up. Sometimes the idealists have a way of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

 

Bernie Sanders had a HUGE following. I don't think they were interested in his hair - it's the ideals. Things that help the 99%.

By direct action, it could be anything. If it was a protest, I would make it very focused. For example, "Increase The Median Wage", and you find people with good ideas, use them for signs. Local think-tanks that can brainstorm about methods, how they worked recently, lots of grunt work, someone to simply copy/paste onto those "social" media accounts. Passing out information, like an e-book, which you can do endlessly, since it's not a physical property.

I don't know if you're familiar with the young people against Vietnam who got "Clean For Gene" (Senator Eugene McCarthy).. Basically, the idea was for them to get a haircut, shave, and say the same exact thing. It worked. Middle-America became against the war, because the kids knocking on the door were sincere, and weren't disrespecting them or simply making a spectacle. "Never Trust Anyone Over 40" baloney. Even discussing things on a message board. Posting free things for those in your community, possibly being a buffer to get items one doesn't need, to a family that needs a fridge. It takes such a short amount of time. By posting onto sites like this.. It's good to hear what people from all over the world (like on this site) feel, what bothers them, etc... I like Nader's left-right alliance. There's a ton of things people agree on, but it's easier to control people when they are divided in so many groups and sub-groups.

 

After Raygun (it's what I call him, too), Clinton's Telecommunications Act of 1996 essentially killed our free press. In 1960, we had over a thousand media companies. Now 5-6 control 90%. It's very Hegelian - control both sides.

So many 180s concerning speech.. The GOP used to always say, "Don't like it, start your own corporation" then the Democrats said it, then this Elon fella takes over, and the Democrats started to sound like 2021 Republicans. I think it's more about the in-group vs. the out-group.

 

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