The direction of society lately

[j44ke]

Answer this question without looking it up:

Is Congress currently in session?

[rwsaunders]

https://www.congress.gov/days-in-session

[thollandpe]

Answer this question without looking it up:

Is Congress currently in session?

https://www.congress.gov/days-in-session

That means they’re home and getting in front of the people they’ve been elected to represent, right? That not only do they understand what’s going on but they can explain it, right? And willingly getting an earful of our concerns, reservations, and priorities—right?

[gregl]

That means they’re home and getting in front of the people they’ve been elected to represent, right? That not only do they understand what’s going on but they can explain it, right? And willingly getting an earful of our concerns, reservations, and priorities—right?

Oh, I wish that was the case. One of my district's recent congressmen refused to hold public, in-person, town hall meetings. He only had "virtual" town halls. Anyone could listen, but only people approved by his staff could ask questions. Pandering to your base, anyone? Needless to say, he didn't get my vote.

Greg

[j44ke]

https://www.congress.gov/days-in-session

You looked it up.

My point being, you wouldn't know one way or the other without looking it up.

Awfully quiet.

[bironi]

And AP.news is censored.

[rwsaunders]

You looked it up. My point being, you wouldn't know one way or the other without looking it up. Awfully quiet.

I looked it up for you because I felt badly…the answer is recently, they’ve been in full session and in a long waiting line at Mar-a-Lago since November.

[j44ke]

I looked it up for you because I felt badly…the answer is recently, they’ve been in full session and in a long waiting line at Mar-a-Lago since November.

Thanks. I appreciate the sympathy. I think I’d be better off if the ice surround my house would melt. February is the longest month.

[BBB]

Ouch!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...bolsonaro-coup

[echappist]

We quite literally are outdone by two countries that were strongmen dictatorships as recently as 1985. Talk about resting on one’s laurels.

The ROK and Brazil put our present political system to shame…

[suspectdevice]

Dictatorships until 1985! Gasp!
I wonder what country armed and funded those dictatorships?

It’s almost like America’s “Anti Communism” was actually Pro-Fascism alll along!

The American Boot is finally on our own necks.

[echappist]

No quibbles on critique of U.S. involvement in the Western Hemisphere (e.g. Brazil, Chile, Argentina just in South America in the last 50 years).

But it would be quite the broad brushstroke to lump involvement in the Korea Peninsula in the same category. Unlike the strawman bogeyman in South America (democratic leftists), there bogeyman was real in Korea, and it quite literally was the communists (of Russia, China, and Korea), and those totalitarian communists are no less fascist.

But this is all a tangent to the main point that law and order has been severely degraded in the U.S.

[Marvinlungwitz]

DEI and Health equity are part of the woke agenda. Guilty as charged.

Funny thing is both Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic opened clinics in Abu Dhabi and Dubai as so many wealthy patients have health issues in those countries. Upon realizing everyone leaves the region and goes to London for the summer. We have brand new Cleveland and Mayo clinics in London now.

Woke = better health outcomes. Everyone should want woke healthcare.

Agree.

Woke healthcare is better than bro healthcare.

[suspectdevice]

No quibbles on critique of U.S. involvement in the Western Hemisphere (e.g. Brazil, Chile, Argentina just in South America in the last 50 years).

But it would be quite the broad brushstroke to lump involvement in the Korea Peninsula in the same category. Unlike the strawman bogeyman in South America (democratic leftists), there bogeyman was real in Korea, and it quite literally was the communists (of Russia, China, and Korea), and those totalitarian communists are no less fascist.

But this is all a tangent to the main point that law and order has been severely degraded in the U.S.

I appreciate your perspective, but The Communist International was a far, far, far smaller threat to America during the 20th century than MAGA is today. Heck, the Black Panther Party, SNCC and the Smothers Brothers and LSD were a bigger threat to American hegemony in the mid-late 20th century than International Communism.

Now that the mask is fully-off the American Empire, it really is time for boomers to start thinking critically about the imperialist propaganda they lived through.

Making the world “safe for democracy” is not a thing. American global force projection has always been profit-seeking for the Military Industrial Complex.
As America continues to burn and crumble, tens of thousands of people still unhoused from natural disasters on out mainland caused by unchecked carbon emissions from the world’s largest polluter, our global military footprint, Seabees are frantically rebuilding the b-29 runways on Tinian Island to “project force” against the “Chinese threat”.

The empire has always wanted YOU to be afraid of “authoritarian communists”. The Communists that are left… they sure aren’t the ones that are dousing the globe in jetfuel, are they? The patriots in Vietnam are executing corrupt bankers and lighting their carbon fiber bicycle factories on fire for better pay.

[BBB]

I'm siding with echappist on this issue.

The end of WW2 saw Europe divided. Though nominally allies, the Russians, after cutting a swath through the German forces (and Eastern and Central Europe), including raping and pillaging as they went, controlled half of Europe, with the Americans and British controlling the other half. The end result was a totalitarian government was toppled. But, at the cost of a totalitarian government controlling half of Europe. Which in turn set the cold war into motion. This was not all at the behest of the military industrial complex, but rather the end result of six years of brutal disgusting warfare that toppled Nazism, but at great cost.

Money was poured into the military industrial complex, but it was also poured into the reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan. As for threat, the US placed nuclear weapons in Turkey and the Russians tried to put them in Cuba. This led to a dangerous stand off, but ultimately led to withdrawal from Cuba and Turkey. This sort of brinksmanship seems a whole lot worse than a shallow angry man ranting on social media. I agree that Trump and what he seems to stand for (if he really stands for anything other than personal self-aggrandisement) is nothing short of appalling, but I don't think it is going to result in the world going up in smoke. We might go up in smoke for other reasons (climate change et al), but probably not through a nuclear exchange.

Trump seems intent on cosying up to Russia, and is seemingly attracted to the sort of authoritarian mafia state that Putin controls. We should be concerned at a proposed 'deal' that gives Russia a get out of jail free card for their invasion and retain land in the process and provides the US with valuable raw materials. All at the cost of driving the Ukraine into the ground.

[thollandpe]

I agree that tЯump and what he seems to stand for (if he really stands for anything other than personal self-aggrandisement) is nothing short of appalling, but I don't think it is going to result in the world going up in smoke.

Recall that Elon’s army of unripened incels seems to have compromised almost every one of our nation’s information systems. And are lying about what they found (labeling everything and anything they don’t like as fraud and waste), or simply don’t understand what they’re holding (150-year-old people enrolled in Social Security, or firing the experts in handling the nuclear stockpile and bird flu response and not knowing how to get them back).

So maybe some puke named “Big Balls” is now holding the football. And giggling about the tush push.

History: worth reading are the now-declassified transcripts from the Cuban Missile Crisis. When our HHS Secretary’s uncle John had to order one of his generals to stand down—three times. Gen. Curtis Lemay (a.k.a. Jack D. Ripper for those who have seen Dr. Strangelove), asked the President to let him launch his missiles. Called him an appeaser. Now imagine that there’s no sane party on the call. Or no call. Maybe just Elon.

[Saab2000]

thinking critically

Dude, please. So few people are capable of this concept now. Critical thinking and being called out for a lack of it was the best part of my liberal arts education. I got humbled and humiliated by a professor who asked me hard questions in class. I’m thankful for that today. Critical thinking is a rare art nowadays it appears. Don’t expect anyone to get religion on what’s happening until it personally affects them at the dinner table or gas pump or workplace.

I was once having a conversation with someone I encountered in my line of work and the subject of pilot education came up. I professed that I was in the extreme minority of pilots who have a liberal arts education. I was met with the response, “Well, I hope that doesn’t make you a liberal.” I didn’t know how to respond but was just shaking my head. I don’t like labels but if that’s the label I’m given I guess I’m good with it. I prefer ‘progressive’ as opposed to regressive.

[GeneK]

Dude, please. So few people are capable of this concept now. Critical thinking and being called out for a lack of it was the best part of my liberal arts education. I got humbled and humiliated by a professor who asked me hard questions in class. I’m thankful for that today. Critical thinking is a rare art nowadays it appears. Don’t expect anyone to get religion on what’s happening until it personally affects them at the dinner table or gas pump or workplace.

I was once having a conversation with someone I encountered in my line of work and the subject of pilot education came up. I professed that I was in the extreme minority of pilots who have a liberal arts education. I was met with the response, “Well, I hope that doesn’t make you a liberal.” I didn’t know how to respond but was just shaking my head. I don’t like labels but if that’s the label I’m given I guess I’m good with it. I prefer ‘progressive’ as opposed to regressive.

This makes me think of what my dad (who was a physician) told me when I was pursuing a pre-med track in college. He encouraged me take the minimum required science courses, and enjoy the greatest number of liberal arts courses. That advice served me well in life and in a 35 year career as a surgeon. To this day my fondest memories are of those non-science courses.

[suspectdevice]

As the professional wrestling people take over the Department of Education, the first goal is to hobble liberal arts education.

I believe tomorrow, Sunday, an unlawful ultimatum from the fuhrer comes due- if your institution of higher education remains focused on equitable outcomes for all americans, you will “lose your federal funding”.

Destroying higher ed is always part of a facist takeover- college, and the liberal arts, specifically, is where resistance starts.

You will wake up on Monday to a gut check- will the institutions that guide us obey in advance?

[vertical_doug]

Steve Cohen spoke at a conference in Miami yesterday. You may love him or hate him as the Mets Owner, but as an investor, he is sharp. He's negative on the economy for a few reasons tariffs etc, but ultimately, DOGE is just austerity by another name. A big reason Europe and UK lagged the US so much post Financial crisis, and post covid, is austerity. It's crushing.

Elon Musk is no idiot, he knows his austerity package of firing federal workers, cutting services and programs is going to cause massive hardship and people will begin to feel poorer much quicker. One thing Americans really hate is being poorer. Elon knows once this truth hits home, the anger from the masses will cause the poltiicians to fold.

How it will manifest itself in the US, I do not know but it will make the US a more miserable place. Under the Tories austerity programs, the UK became a much shittier place.