TrickstaPriest

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
---Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

Not sure when I realized that the Democratic party was never going to do anything serious about global warming.  That was my own, shall we say, moment of despair.

So would everyone.  Every Democratic presidential candidate is on record as intending to end the war in Afghanistan, for instance.
 
 
I'm unaware of any Democratic proposal to provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants.  Every candidate has proposed at least a public option, though as I see it nothing short of universal healthcare (for citizens) will really begin to fix the healthcare system in the US.
 
 
Virtually every Democratic candidate has proposed some kind of student loan forgiveness and/or free public college tuition.
 
 
Thank heavnes it's not just me.
 
 
The best way to enforce this is universal healthcare, which would create a healthcare provider with enough clout to negotiate better pricing.
 
 
 
Agreed.  I haven't seen any candidate propose this specifically (oddly enough) but many Democratic candidates (Sanders and Warren in particular) have made proposals to increase benefits at the expense of the wealthy.
 
(Sorry it took so long to get back to this; I knew it was going to be a relatively long post, and I have to work it in between new jobs and barfing kids.)
 

This is the hard part.  I used to vote Republican (sometimes) back before I realized that "low taxes" and "fiscal conservatism" and "trickle down economics" weren't cynical lies.  Similarly, on race, the GOP has convinced their base that CEOs giving their jobs to minorities and illegals is somehow the fault of the minorities and illegals.  And so on.  I don't think I really figured this out until 2003 or so, to my everlasting shame.  It was a tough realization.

I remember when I was in graduate school, having an instructor who was a German immigrant, and a teenager when the Nazis came to power. He said he used to listen to Hitler's speeches on the radio, and thought them compelling and inspirational; but when listening to recordings of them decades later, they sounded to him like rambling, incoherent nonsense.
 
Listening is an active function -- to a large extent we hear what we want to hear. We can learn to hear with a more critical and dispassionate ear, but never completely escape our subjectivity. Donald Trump isn't smart, knowledgeable, or articulate, but he has a grifter's instinct for where people are vulnerable and exploitable. He found such a niche in the American public consciousness, and continues to sell that fraction of Americans what they're already inclined to believe.
 
One day, with time and distance, many of them will realize they were conned; but for others their egos will never let them admit it.

I believe he does speak to how they feel. His white male supporters were used to considering themselves the top of the heap. Now they have to fight for their place along with everyone else, and they don't like it. They feel they shouldn't have to, because they're the "true Americans."
 
Archie Bunker can see George Jefferson closing in in his rear-view mirror. Only today it's not so much George as Jorge.

And there's tons of people who chalk it up to 'liberal hysteria'.  As if every scientific body on the planet doesn't know better.
 
Seriously.  I want to put together a list of all the jobs and fields of study that have had to actively change and compensate for the global warming and carbon levels we've already had.

Actually there's a great deal of interest, and at the same time the resistance to it is highly organized and extremely well funded.  

Great article.  And I agreed with the author's insights.
 
I've been on the side of having a doctor afraid to continue medication and finishing off my shoulder reconstruction (bone dissolving screws and all) was VERY painful.  I was only a few weeks into the pain meds and they reduced my dose to something slightly less effective than thinking happy thoughts.
 
Let the doctors sort it out.  Keep the politicians and threats of taking medical licenses away from healthcare and let people in pain get the medication they need.
 
The great political art of changing the laws to make it look like you're doing something is usually worse than not doing anything at all.

Not a land war yet -- official sources suggest the troop deployment would be in the "hundreds."
 
I've come to suspect all of Trump's contradictory signals, suggested policy reversals, ill-considered comments, may actually be a deliberate tactic to try to confuse everyone as to his real intentions, because he thinks that strengthens his bargaining position. How it weakens America probably doesn't cross his mind.
 
OTOH his real intention has become clear by now -- to get re-elected. He'll say and do anything he thinks will get him to that goal.

Emphasis added.  As I watched these events unfold, I started to question whether I retained any right to criticize the US political situation.
 
If you can only justify Justin Trudeau's behaviour by comparing it to Donald Trump's behaviour, I submit that this demonstrates only that the behaviour of neither one can be justified. 
 
Trudeau campaigned, back in 2015, on a platform of open, transparent government that was a complete change from what had gone before.  Maybe we got a change, but  the implied promise was a change for the better - honesty and integrity.  That is definitely not the change we got.  We definitely did not get openness or transparency. 
 
I do not believe he won the election on a promise to be "no worse than Donald Trump", even the Donald Trump we had seen to that point.
 
You are 100% correct that the electorate is ultimately responsible. 
“The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”  (attributed to Winston Churchill).

Perhaps more appropriate as we head to the polls, "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."

Yes, "all of this" should include all those things. And I stand by my statement. Donald Trump has done as much and more, but he brushes all of it off and ignores or blusters and bullies his way through those who criticize him about it. We know he won't apologize for or try to change any of his actions or behavior, because he clearly has no shame or conscience. Neither Trump nor Trudeau will choose to step down because of their conduct; and if our other elected officials are unwilling to take an ethical stand due to their self-interest, neither leader can be forced out, short of being voted out. And even that isn't guaranteed, because principle doesn't carry as much weight to a voting public grown understandably cynical.
 
Like I said, all the rules and laws in the world mean nothing if the people entrusted with upholding them lack conscience and shame.

While I am not a Trudeau fan, this latest "controversy" is hardly what he should fail for.  Is anyone who ever dressed in drag an unforgiveable sexist pig too?
 
But a lot of commentators are bringing up the issues I consider deal-breakers for Mr. Trudeau and anyone supporting him. 
 
The SNC-Lavalin affair (no, it is NOT OK to look the other way for criminal activity because they are a big business, or because the Quebec pension plan has a lot of bucks invested in that corporation);
 
The Jody Wilson Raybould debacle which sprang from it (yup...way to support your female and indigiinous MP's...or just your MPs doing their jobs properly) which also cost the Trudeau Liberals Jane Philpott ( I have more respect for those two ladies than I will ever have for any Liberal MP who remained silent and remained in caucus - I hope they are re-elected in a landslide for representing Canadians, including their constituents, instead of their "boss");
 
the ongoing refusal to allow access to permit a thorough investigation of the issues - yes, your actions are legal - are they appropriate displays of integrity and leadership? - a lot of reprehensible things are legal;
 
spending my taxpayer money criss-crossing the country to make "spending announcements" that were clear campaigning before calling the election sits poorly with me as well (and just how much carbon did that pump out, Mr. "climate change must be addressed at all costs"?).
 
"Oh, he's a different person now".  Yeah, well, at least he left off the makeup in 2018...https://globalnews.ca/news/4037948/trudeau-family-criticized-for-indian-outfits/ but that gaffe was as a representative of Canadian leadership, not at a private costume party with friends and/or co-workers.
 
ASIDE:  This was also really not what I thought all those comments on our Prime Minister being a Disney Prince were suggesting
 
 
Even then, we will never really know what causes the average voter to cast a ballot one way over another.
 
Yes, he "apologized" (I find his apologies do not ring with sincerity, in this or any other arena).  He had no hesitation vilifying past leaders for behaving like "people of those times" did, and apologizing on their behalf.  I don't see his own actions as leading by example.

That depends if people actually believe that person has 'become a better person'.

I've lived in a lot of rural areas, and this isn't necessarily the case. I've also lived and worked in several major cities, and have seen quite a number of highly educated boneheads in that environment. The real issue, IMO, is that the VAST majority of people make major decisions based on emotions rather than facts or sound reasoning. City mice are NO better in that regard than country mice.

My (limited) understanding of that has to do heavily with the huge rural versus suburban/urban population divide in the US.  Anyone in a rural environment is much more vulnerable to getting limited education, information, and social influence (separately from religion-directed influence), and (to me) appears entirely vulnerable to bad actors spreading misinformation.
 
You can tell I love our radio show/political news environment in the US, can't you.

Propaganda 101: If you tell people a flat-out lie which matches how they already think, they're probably going to believe you and not accept contrary evidence.

Solemn reminder for 9/11: The current generation of high-schoolers has never seen our country not at war.

White House pressed NOAA to repudiate weather forecasters who contradicted Trump

"You know, the American system of government seems broken, maybe we should have gone with a parliamentary sys..." *Glances over at the UK* "Great Martial arts tournaments, great tournaments to determine our leaders would at least be entertaining"
 
 

It's pretty common in conspiracy theories. For instance, I am told that in the Middle East it's not unusual to find people who believe simultaneously that the USA is an all-powerful overlord that controls everything their own government does, and a cowardly, decadent country that folds like a cheap suit as soon as troops start dying.
 
Conspiracy paranoia is a defense mechanism to puff up the paranoid's ego. The more powerful and dangerous you proclaim the Enemy to be, the braver you must be to dewfy them. So why hasn't the Enemy killed you to shut you up? They must also be cowards. Also, courage is a virtue, and the Enemy must be completely lacking in admirable traits.
 
<shrug> People are funny.
 
Dean Shomshak

Why do folk hate me and want to defraud me!!??!
 
🙂

It did sound like Boris, though.

I am feeling slightly better - the first element to my existential crisis (the PM telling his party that they might not be welcome to vote for the party) was a spoof news story that sucked me in.  Is a sign of how extraordinary times are that I was willing to believe such an outrageous statement...I only found out because I was determined to get primary sources for it (good habits).
 
Doc

Meanwhile Boris Johnson is not having fun in Parliament
Part 1. MPs back a bill aimed at blocking a no-deal Brexit with the European Community
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49580185
Johnson said if this happened then he would call a general election for mid-October. However he needs 2/3 of all the MPs in Parliament to do this. The Labour party abstained from the vote.
So Part 2 did he get other MPs to agree ? What do you think
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49584907