Watched the Democratic Debates

[BikerDude]

Reminded me of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kDso5ElFRg

[Rev Nicholas Rehfeldt]

Bunch of amateurs trying to find reverse on a soviet tank... Most of the guys up there are not worthy adversaries.

I like that Bernie Sanders a great deal, but can he win? Well Dudes, I just don't know.

[BikerDude]

Bunch of amateurs trying to find reverse on a soviet tank... Most of the guys up there are not worthy adversaries.

I like that Bernie Sanders a great deal, but can he win? Well Dudes, I just don't know.

It's Bernie's time and place.
I think he might be able to win. But I'm not sure that's a great idea.
The plane has so crashed into the mountain (actually both sides of the mountain) that people of all stripes are willing to consider positions that would never be on the table.
I'm fine with it when Bernie talks about euro style socialized medicine and stuff like that.
But when it goes to Worker Collectives and all that ilk it's a bit too close to actual communism. Sure there are a lot of communities that have lost all businesses and fallen on hard times. Which is it's self a downward spiral. They have nothing to attract new Businesses. So the idea of community owned and run businesses sounds like a solution. But just think about something of the ilk of the local school board controlling the entire community's income and employment. Yikes!
It's only because so many people have taken it in the backside by big corporations that this sort of thing gets traction.
Having communities use "eminent domain" to buy and build businesses that would be publicly owned sounds very nice. But I don't think ideally it's a road we should hope to go down.

https://www.usworker.coop/about/what-is-a-worker-coop
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/worker-owned-businesses-2014

Oh and the current state of desperation is exactly she same reason why people are going to Trump. People get all reactionary and funny in the head when times get tough. Their generally held principles get taken to extremes. Far left or far right.
And both are bat shit.
IMO the general populace needs to gather around sensible solutions.
We might start by taking back the government rather than reinventing it.
If working people (by far the majority of the populace) actually had representation in government then the government would be taking steps to stop things like off shoring of jobs. It's only because our government is bought off that we find ourselves in this mess. When I hear dissatisfied people rail about government, in a democracy I just think "congratulations, they have won." That is exactly what they want you to do.

So basically in times like these we are likely to get a choice between 2 ridiculous extremes. Ideally I'd take Bernie's bullshit over Trumps but I'd like to have some choice that seems truly inspirational. Makes you feel like they have real ideas and determination. That hasn't happened in my lifetime. Certainly not since JFK.
Everything they say and do sounds like it was first vet'ed by a committee.
Bernie comes the closest to not being 100% pure bullshit. And sadly Trump also.
No committee would OK half the shit that comes out of his mouth.

[LotsaBadKarma]

The problem with our current system, and the reason it has to be reinvented, is that the system itself has been corrupted and will not allow honesty to have a voice. When a new guy or girl comes in talking about getting the money out of politics they have to learn the old lesson "if you want to get along you gotta go along". So his first 2 years he sits in the back of the hall, doesn't get to chair any committees, shit he probably doesn't get to sit on any. He sits there with his dunce cap on watching how the big boys play the game. After it is determined that he has learned the give and take of 'Murican politics he might get a chance to stand up at the podium and address a mostly empty hall about some inane manner of tripe. And when he has finally been beaten into submission, in other words he has learned how to play the game, he gets to start sitting on committees, maybe even gets to chair the committee that makes the decision on whether to change the color of stripes in the parking lot.

The problem with making laws that allow for rooting out corruption and getting the money out of the system is that the very cocksuckers that write the laws are the same cocksuckers that will be hurt by them. The game is all about money and it always will be until the entire system is scrapped, and bearing in mind our debt and the fact that empires only last 200-250 years before they implode, won't be too fuckin' long. And then it's time to resort to cannibalism.

This is the reason that I have absolutely sworn off of voting. I just don't see the point any longer in shit like voting for the lesser of two evils or, even worse, voting for a good person who seems to have the interests of the people at heart and then watching him turn to absolute diarrhea when the promises he made during the campaign are forgotten.
At this point, for me, if I happen to watch any of the master-debaters in action it will be only for entertainment and to watch as an uninterested observer with no dog in the fight. Because no matter who gets into the system they will quickly learn that you don't change the system from the outside and you don't change the system from the inside, the system changes you. Kinda like the abyss.

The American public is, by and large, so fucking stupid when it comes to politics that we continually vote against our own best interests and then feign shock and dismay when things like Citizens United become the law of the land. We have allowed the powers that be to divide us into ever smaller splinter groups that can's get along with each other no matter how important getting along is to our very survival. So I say Fuck It! with two big middle fingers pointed skyward.

Like Stalin said, "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

Do I sound cynical?

[Reverend Al]

...This is the reason that I have absolutely sworn off of voting. I just don't see the point any longer in shit like voting for the lesser of two evils or, even worse, voting for a good person who seems to have the interests of the people at heart and then watching him turn to absolute diarrhea when the promises he made during the campaign are forgotten.  At this point, for me, if I happen to watch any of the master-debaters in action it will be only for entertainment and to watch as an uninterested observer with no dog in the fight...

I agree.  The politicians in this country are jerking off the American public manually without the benefit of a happy ending.

[jgiffin]

Until this two-party oligarchy is shattered, there will be no meaningful change. The two parties will not voluntarily allow their regime to be overthrown. Ergo, the cycle continues until it doesn't (i.e., revolution).

I disagree with Sanders on a great many things. But he understands and articulates this point very well...though withoutacknowledging the two-party system as the underlying problem.

[BikerDude]

Until this two-party oligarchy is shattered, there will be no meaningful change. The two parties will not voluntarily allow their regime to be overthrown. Ergo, the cycle continues until it doesn't (i.e., revolution).

I disagree with Sanders on a great many things. But he understands and articulates this point very well...though withoutacknowledging the two-party system as the underlying problem.

The underlying problem is that people settle for the choices they are given.
Each cycle they march out the latest set of clowns making the same old promises and people never get it through their heads that what they say has nothing to do with what they do when they get into office. And mostly people don't even know they've been lied to.
People have no idea what is going on. Mostly because the media is a joke. Just as bought off as the government.
They live in a television supplied bubble of misinformation. They pick a party like a sports team and root for it.
The wealthy and corporations understand that they get as much representation as they are willing to work for.
By employing lobbyists and contributing cash to campaign funds. The general public sits back and takes what they are fed.
And will actually defend the fuckers who are responsible for their slide. And next time they will believe the same bullshit.

[LotsaBadKarma]

The underlying problem is that people settle for the choices they are given.
Each cycle they march out the latest set of clowns making the same old promises and people never get it through their heads that what they say has nothing to do with what they do when they get into office.

This is the fallacy of our so-called "free elections". We are presented with a number of choices, none of which are worth a shit while the candidates who might actually accomplish something that makes this country better are prohibited from presenting their arguments before the general public. One example that springs to mind for me is Ralph Nader. In my opinion he was a guy who wanted to do things that would have benefited the majority of the American people but wasn't allowed on the stage with the big boys. So we get handed watered down substitutes and the expectation is that we'll vote for who they give us. I figure this country is pretty much finished as any kind of real world power so it doesn't really matter who the president is, we're going down. All this election time bullshit is pretty much like rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic. So for me I tend to say Fuck It! But that's pretty much my answer to everything.

[Rev Nicholas Rehfeldt]

Until this two-party oligarchy is shattered, there will be no meaningful change. The two parties will not voluntarily allow their regime to be overthrown. Ergo, the cycle continues until it doesn't (i.e., revolution).

I disagree with Sanders on a great many things. But he understands and articulates this point very well...though withoutacknowledging the two-party system as the underlying problem.

Agreed... But I don't see a revolution happening anytime soon. The situation would have to get much much much worse before I see the common man (including myself) actually be willing to resort to the kind of physical violence that would be required.

It's hard for me to stand here and blame just the system for this situation were in. We have tools in our hands right now that could make a viable third party candidate possible if we wanted, with the internet and what not. a real grass roots campaign. The real problem is the american people just don't give a shit to make change, the amount of people that actually pay attention to current events is staggeringly small.

However, I'm more optimistic that we won't see a "fall of the empire" type deal, at least not without some sort of outside aggressor taking over. From my understand we're rapidly heading towards machine automation. Our burger kings will have machines that serve us food, and eventually machines that replace those machines. And it'll be like this for most jobs. Okay, downside is the entire capitalist system collapses but on the plus side an actual socialist society could develop where no one has to work!

I suppose you could say we are heading towards a big change at some point, but if that change is bad or good? Ya know it'll be ups and downs.