I was so mad by about 15 minutes into it watching the speaker of the house. That I went to Twitter, and tweeted at the speaker that he was a fool and did he think his hands would break if he clapped for children getting an education. He looks like a petulant child, the entire speec. I can’t fathom these people, and it makes my head hurt.
That’s a perfect description: a smug little child. With a dash of deer in the headlights, because he has nothing to be smug about. The hyenas will set upon him at one misplaced step.
"Any member of the GOP who isn’t clinically stupid" Yeah, that. We are so sincerely fucked I cannot even form a cogent simile. The lack of any sensible throughline--I dare not invoke LOGIC--in their rhetoric is terrifying. Their followers' utter credulousness in the face of what amounts to fantasy...
I don't know how we can fight it other than to keep moving forward. Remember when the popo got body cams, and they murdered that guy (RIP Eric Garner) ON CAMERA and the popo got off scot free? I knew the fix was in. You can kill a person for no reason other than BECAUSE I CAN and if you have a badge, you will be exonerate. Fox News will make it seem like you were endangered! IMMIGRANT MAN ATTACKED POLIS! Oh, wait, that guy was NOT EVEN THERE!
I am getting the vapors here at my desk, Michael. I have to have a beer with my dinner now.
I shall be having one too ;-) Something's changed in the ether since the race was finally confirmed as being who we knew it was going to be. It's like Republicans are taking the masks off.... argh.
From a Brit perspective (and I know we’re hardly angels here) it just seems that all the GOP are so unworthy of the office. From the Orange gibbon to Marjorie TG (or Lauren Boebert) they just (were I a US citizen) are so inappropriate to represent their country.
I spend a lot of time either furious or terrified. I live in DC (well, the suburbs just outside); Jan. 6 felt like a very personal attack and I can't believe how many of my mild-mannered neighbors don't seem to grasp that this election is an existential showdown. We've long had this sort of after-hours political truce here, and that kinda worked back in the days when Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill could share a beer and sing Danny Boy together, but that was another era. And it wasn't 'both sides' that dragged us here.
Every single bit of this. I laugh, then cry, then yell, then laugh again. I’m wrung out, so thank you for being so articulate when I am not. And the rebuttal? What was that breathy, whiny “we’re in so much danger” bullshit? Does she even live in the US?
The Fundie Baby Voice was horrifying. I was in the next room and caught very little of it, but what I heard was enough, delivered in near sobs like those old Sally Struthers "for the cost of a cup of coffee" ads.
I let my dog take me for a walk until I got thirsty and made him take me for a beer. I'm almost calmed down now.
That rebuttal, that woman in the kitchen. That lady is a multimillionaire, NFL wife she has never spent any time in the kitchen. I guarantee you PS I am not saying women need to be in the kitchen. Lol.
I get a lot of shit on LinkedIn for trying to challenge the reality altering crap talked by MAGA cultists.
You're a Brit so it's got nothing to do with you etc.
Unfortunately the style of politics has crossed the pond and it seems the lowest common denominator can now control an election.
"When one with honeyed words
But evil mind persuades the mobh
Great woes befall the state. "
Euripides, Orestes
"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honour, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it, it required no brains at all.
God, that CATCH 22 quote is *great*. I read that book over and over when I was a teenager. Must do so again. And bollocks to that "You're a Brit" nonsense. It's an international plague. It's just worse here for the time being...
Yes, keep yelling! Whatever fuckery those GOP people are up to, unfortunately affect the whole world. I will never understand how they got to where they can do so much damage to their OWN people. Biden will prevail b/c the alternative is unimaginable.
I grew up in a staunch Republican household, one that held fast to a central tenet of "tax less/spend less"...but then, after Reagan courted the fundamentalists and corporate heads, the Republicans slowly veered away from their core values and under Trump they completed their metamorphosis from political party to full-blown cult. I certainly am not a Republican (I split with my family on that in the '80s), but it makes me sad to see how a former political party has become THIS bastion of deceit, racism, and anti-intellectualism.
So much so. One used to be able to disagree with Republicans on a sane, measured level: you value this, I value that, okay. Now there's nothing of substance to disagree with because it'll change on a dime. It is, as you say, a cult.
Ha :-) Thank you. And thankfully I overwrote onto the first draft, so it doesn't exist. Just imagine a lot more swearing and a deeper sense of wild-eyed fury.
Joe did do it, and I'm so relieved. A lot of things are going to have to go right to save our union. And I think it's going to take more than just voting to stop this shit show. The evil clown and his circus are in town. This is fiction, right?
Bravo, well put and spot on. And I learned two new words: febrile and praxis.
While most media (and many individuals) have become, to varying degrees, normalized to the maga descent into cult delusion, I am not inured to any of this madness. The actions and words of this dangerous cult shock me to the point of disbelief daily. The SOTU was masterful, so needed right now. Let’s keep the momentum!
The lies over here in the UK are also infuriating, so much so that I’ve given up on any change due to the collective brainwashing via GB News and other such platforms. I’ve abandoned all hope and now just wait, glass in had, for the total collapse of western society. Cheers 🍷
If it’s any comfort at all, the exact same thing is happening here in the UK with the Tory bastard party. The Guardian newspaper is doing a fantastic job of reporting on the corruption, lies and cover-ups going back decades. You’re right that a revolution is required, and we’re definitely in a position worldwide for that to happen. As a biological scientist who basically lived in libraries in a child, I believe that we are actually seeing Gaia theory (Dr James Lovelock) in action now. All of life can only exist in an Equilibrium, and humans have well and truly fucked up our home planet ever since the days of the Victorian Empire when capitalism and communism became the ways of controlling the masses (probably even before that). The maths proves it. In statistics, the bell curve applies to a normal population, and outliers are rare. We evolved to be apex predators, possibly that’s the reason we are so keen to follow a leader as a representation of a god. Fear of death is hardwired into us. As Charles Darwin said in his brilliant book the Origin of Species, only those who can adapt to change and find a suitable niche to live in will survive. Change is a constant. It has to be. Have a look at all recorded history and the fall of civilisations. Until we evolve sufficiently, this pattern will keep going. All the enlightened ones can do is get off the wheel and create change for the better.
I was so mad by about 15 minutes into it watching the speaker of the house. That I went to Twitter, and tweeted at the speaker that he was a fool and did he think his hands would break if he clapped for children getting an education. He looks like a petulant child, the entire speec. I can’t fathom these people, and it makes my head hurt.
He really did. Like an insufferable, smug little child.
That’s a perfect description: a smug little child. With a dash of deer in the headlights, because he has nothing to be smug about. The hyenas will set upon him at one misplaced step.
Now come on Michael, don’t keep sitting on the fence like this.
Ha :-) Though you should have seen the FIRST draft. This is tempered down.
BRING IT!!
"Any member of the GOP who isn’t clinically stupid" Yeah, that. We are so sincerely fucked I cannot even form a cogent simile. The lack of any sensible throughline--I dare not invoke LOGIC--in their rhetoric is terrifying. Their followers' utter credulousness in the face of what amounts to fantasy...
I don't know how we can fight it other than to keep moving forward. Remember when the popo got body cams, and they murdered that guy (RIP Eric Garner) ON CAMERA and the popo got off scot free? I knew the fix was in. You can kill a person for no reason other than BECAUSE I CAN and if you have a badge, you will be exonerate. Fox News will make it seem like you were endangered! IMMIGRANT MAN ATTACKED POLIS! Oh, wait, that guy was NOT EVEN THERE!
I am getting the vapors here at my desk, Michael. I have to have a beer with my dinner now.
I shall be having one too ;-) Something's changed in the ether since the race was finally confirmed as being who we knew it was going to be. It's like Republicans are taking the masks off.... argh.
From a Brit perspective (and I know we’re hardly angels here) it just seems that all the GOP are so unworthy of the office. From the Orange gibbon to Marjorie TG (or Lauren Boebert) they just (were I a US citizen) are so inappropriate to represent their country.
They absolutely are. And a lot of them are only in Congress as a result of dogged gerrymandering for years...
I spend a lot of time either furious or terrified. I live in DC (well, the suburbs just outside); Jan. 6 felt like a very personal attack and I can't believe how many of my mild-mannered neighbors don't seem to grasp that this election is an existential showdown. We've long had this sort of after-hours political truce here, and that kinda worked back in the days when Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill could share a beer and sing Danny Boy together, but that was another era. And it wasn't 'both sides' that dragged us here.
It absolutely was not. And "furious and/or terrified" is the only sane response.
Every single bit of this. I laugh, then cry, then yell, then laugh again. I’m wrung out, so thank you for being so articulate when I am not. And the rebuttal? What was that breathy, whiny “we’re in so much danger” bullshit? Does she even live in the US?
You know, I've not been able to get through the whole of that rebuttal. I've tried twice. OMG.
The Fundie Baby Voice was horrifying. I was in the next room and caught very little of it, but what I heard was enough, delivered in near sobs like those old Sally Struthers "for the cost of a cup of coffee" ads.
I let my dog take me for a walk until I got thirsty and made him take me for a beer. I'm almost calmed down now.
That rebuttal, that woman in the kitchen. That lady is a multimillionaire, NFL wife she has never spent any time in the kitchen. I guarantee you PS I am not saying women need to be in the kitchen. Lol.
That whole thing was SO WEIRD.
Absafuckinglutely!
I get a lot of shit on LinkedIn for trying to challenge the reality altering crap talked by MAGA cultists.
You're a Brit so it's got nothing to do with you etc.
Unfortunately the style of politics has crossed the pond and it seems the lowest common denominator can now control an election.
"When one with honeyed words
But evil mind persuades the mobh
Great woes befall the state. "
Euripides, Orestes
"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honour, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it, it required no brains at all.
It merely required no character."
Joseph Heller, Catch 22
My wife just called me a pretentious twat.
Don't make me laugh when I'm pissed off ;-)
God, that CATCH 22 quote is *great*. I read that book over and over when I was a teenager. Must do so again. And bollocks to that "You're a Brit" nonsense. It's an international plague. It's just worse here for the time being...
Yes, keep yelling! Whatever fuckery those GOP people are up to, unfortunately affect the whole world. I will never understand how they got to where they can do so much damage to their OWN people. Biden will prevail b/c the alternative is unimaginable.
I truly, truly hope so...
I grew up in a staunch Republican household, one that held fast to a central tenet of "tax less/spend less"...but then, after Reagan courted the fundamentalists and corporate heads, the Republicans slowly veered away from their core values and under Trump they completed their metamorphosis from political party to full-blown cult. I certainly am not a Republican (I split with my family on that in the '80s), but it makes me sad to see how a former political party has become THIS bastion of deceit, racism, and anti-intellectualism.
So much so. One used to be able to disagree with Republicans on a sane, measured level: you value this, I value that, okay. Now there's nothing of substance to disagree with because it'll change on a dime. It is, as you say, a cult.
Disagreement of the past: Democrat: "We need to tax more to fund social programs!" Republican: "We need to tax less to keep the middle class healthy!"
Disagreement now: Democraft: "Your party is racist!" Republican: "No, it's not - we're just trying to keep America's blood pure!"
I want to see the original draft…. I couldn’t agree more with you.
Ha :-) Thank you. And thankfully I overwrote onto the first draft, so it doesn't exist. Just imagine a lot more swearing and a deeper sense of wild-eyed fury.
Joe did do it, and I'm so relieved. A lot of things are going to have to go right to save our union. And I think it's going to take more than just voting to stop this shit show. The evil clown and his circus are in town. This is fiction, right?
God, me too. I was on tenterhooks. I expected him to be fine, but that was far better than that. And who knows what will stop the other monster...
Bravo, well put and spot on. And I learned two new words: febrile and praxis.
While most media (and many individuals) have become, to varying degrees, normalized to the maga descent into cult delusion, I am not inured to any of this madness. The actions and words of this dangerous cult shock me to the point of disbelief daily. The SOTU was masterful, so needed right now. Let’s keep the momentum!
Absolutely! That SOTU came at a very good time... as since Super-Tuesday it had felt like the curtains were coming down... onwards!
The lies over here in the UK are also infuriating, so much so that I’ve given up on any change due to the collective brainwashing via GB News and other such platforms. I’ve abandoned all hope and now just wait, glass in had, for the total collapse of western society. Cheers 🍷
That seems like a pretty sensible solution TBH 🍻
If it’s any comfort at all, the exact same thing is happening here in the UK with the Tory bastard party. The Guardian newspaper is doing a fantastic job of reporting on the corruption, lies and cover-ups going back decades. You’re right that a revolution is required, and we’re definitely in a position worldwide for that to happen. As a biological scientist who basically lived in libraries in a child, I believe that we are actually seeing Gaia theory (Dr James Lovelock) in action now. All of life can only exist in an Equilibrium, and humans have well and truly fucked up our home planet ever since the days of the Victorian Empire when capitalism and communism became the ways of controlling the masses (probably even before that). The maths proves it. In statistics, the bell curve applies to a normal population, and outliers are rare. We evolved to be apex predators, possibly that’s the reason we are so keen to follow a leader as a representation of a god. Fear of death is hardwired into us. As Charles Darwin said in his brilliant book the Origin of Species, only those who can adapt to change and find a suitable niche to live in will survive. Change is a constant. It has to be. Have a look at all recorded history and the fall of civilisations. Until we evolve sufficiently, this pattern will keep going. All the enlightened ones can do is get off the wheel and create change for the better.
Who’s with us? 😉
I'm with you, and the time for jumping off the wheel may be fast approaching...
I used to be mad that my parents moved back from San Diego. I could have been an American!
Ha :-) Well, a lot of the time that's a good thing, but...