Joe Walsh

Governments can declare things open all they want. The public will decide when that happens.

Only two?!
 
Piker!
 
 

 
 

Despite how deeply disappointing politics in general, and in the United States in particular, have grown, I believe it would be a huge disservice to tar all politicians with the same brush. I'm convinced there are still some who care about their constituents, who want to do the right thing. Because that's human nature -- there are always heroes among the bastards. We've seen it during this pandemic crisis -- for all the political a-holes who make things worse, there have been others who have risen to the occasion. And they need our support and our hope, more than ever.
 
Giving up, giving in to despair, is natural, and it's easy. But it never made anything better. We have to keep fighting to make things better, because our children and grandchildren will live in the world we leave them. And we have to recognize and back those among our would-be leaders who are fighting too, even if they're not perfect.
 
I remember hearing a lecturer on "the greatest generation," those who came of age during the Great Depression and WW II. He said what made them great was that they weren't afraid. They weren't afraid to care about others. They weren't afraid to put themselves on the line to help and protect. They weren't afraid to open themselves to the world. There are political and social forces in the world now who thrive on fear. They stoke it to try to beat us down, to make us give up and hand ourselves over to them. Don't let them.

It does sometimes seem like our options are a quick slide or a slow walk.

I have family members with pre-existing conditions and totally understand! I'm glad you were able to get coverage. But I'd love it if everyone could have health care like in other industrialized nations.

The American federal government gets most of the public attention, but a great deal of the business of governance occurs at the state and municipal level, which rarely receives the same level of scrutiny. But the recent medical crisis has underscored how much constitutional power state governments actually have when they choose to exercise it. Looking at how states have been banding together to develop coping strategies, it's possible the crisis may prompt states to form broader alliances to fill the vacuum of leadership from the federal level.

I agree.  For our corporate overlords, greater rights for LGBT and racial and ethnic minorities are cheap consolation prizes to hand out as they tighten their grip on our nation's money and power.  The ever growing income income divide that separates the rich from the rest of us has gone from being an disturbing and odious reality to an existential threat.  The climate scientist of the world have let us know that quick and drastic action is required to prevent the worst possible affects of climate change from coming to pass.  Yet, still the billionaire class and their political and media flunkies resist efforts to address climate change because to address it might in the short run make them a little bit less wealthy.
 
So we agree about the problem.  The question become how to solve it.  With the largely unfettered privilege of the rich, our current age if often likened to the Gilded Age of the late 1800s.  It was the 4 year depression known as the  Panic of 1893 that strengthened the Progressive Movement and allowed for the election of a Republican controlled House and Senate (back when Republicans were still kind of the good guys) and Teddy Roosevelt.  Although Teddy was born into wealth and supported corporations, he did believe that federal controls were needed to curb the excesses of corporations and extremely wealthy.  From this desire, Roosevelt's Square Deal was born.
 
I think that Biden might want to be Teddy Roosevelt (after all what US president doesn't want Teddy), but I don't really think he has the charisma to pull it off. He might surprise me though, or maybe in 2024 or 2028 we might get president that is up to the challenge.  It isn't enough though to get the right president. Republicans are no longer the good guys, and both houses of congress need to be flipped for any sort of progressive agenda to be passed.  Right now the electoral drubbing Democrats took in 2010 still weighs against that.  It gave Republicans control of state houses across the country in time to allow them to draw the electoral maps following the 2010 census and gerrymander the districts.  
 
With the 2020 census we have a chance to redraw the congressional maps, if we can win back the statehouses.  The current gerrymandered maps make that a tall order but not impossible.  The trick to gerrymandering is to win as many districts as possible with the fewest possible votes.  This is accomplished by creating a handful of districts which your opponent wins by landslide while creating bunch of districts that you have just enough voters to reliably win.  The downside to this is strategy is in sea change elections you can loose almost everything because you have created a large number of safe(ish) districts and no truly safe districts.  We need to make 2020 a sea change election, so that once we get our Teddy Roosevelt they have a congress willing to pass the Square/New/Green Deal.
 
tl;dr - If it bothers you, forget the White House. Just make sure that we win the state houses.  

MY biggest worry is that the Dems main only grip with that is the fact they aren't the ones in charge to do it.  The one common demonimator I seem to find with the 2 parties is that they both like authoritarianism (or at least with the seesaw of authoritarianism vs libertarianism-the much fatter kid is on the former side).  And seem to differ mostly on the issues they want to inflict with it.  One side may or may not have more benevolent intentions or at least their issues might be more benevolent for such a take.  But, past a certain line, I don't feel comfortable with such.

I have family members with pre-existing conditions and totally understand! I'm glad you were able to get coverage. But I'd love it if everyone could have health care like in other industrialized nations.

I want to compliment my fellow forumites on holding a measured, respectful, intelligent debate on these issues, allowing contrary viewpoints to be expressed and countering them with reasonable arguments. This is as rare as hen's teeth on the Internet, and a testament to the quality of the community we've built here.

I'm struggling with this election as well
 
On the one hand, I've been voting for the lesser of two evils since 1988, and things have just gotten worse and worse. In each election we're told that next time we'll have a better choice, but right now, we have to choose one of these two, so choose the lesser evil. But the next time it's always the same story. Every time someone even mildly progressive starts to gain traction in the presidential race, the party elites and media unite to put and end to their campaign.
 
On the other hand, the evidence suggests Trump could be an existential threat to American democracy. One that our sociopolitical system seems unable to deal with. Do I want us to end up like Hungary or Russia? Absolutely not. Coming back from that costs blood, not votes...and may not be possible with today's surveillance technology.
 
I'll be voting for down-ballot progressives where possible (and giving what I can to down-ballot progressives in other districts). I know the weight of the party will be against them in every case, but sometimes it works. And that gives me hope.
 
And I suppose I will reluctantly vote for Biden. But goddamn, I can't help but feel that's part of the problem. Every time we vote for the lesser of two evils, we move the center further right. Voting for the lesser of two evils made Trump's rise possible. What was crazy right-wing stuff when I was a kid is now mainstream. And it's partly my fault.

It's absolutely true that socially we have had real progress. Not uniformly across the country, and there is still resistance to all of it -- widespread resistance, even. But the support ratio has definitely flipped on a lot of things. And that is unqualifiedly good.
 
But on the issues that the wealthy care the most about, the movement is ever in their favor. Sure, after they get a large tax cut, the D's may come in there and give them a tiny tax increase, but then the next R will just give them another large cut. The D's may do a little regulation here and there to clean up the environment or some such, but the R's will just undo that and more. And so on.
 
And all the while things that would do the most to help people move up the ladder are off the table. At best, we get funhouse mirror versions of those things, like the Heritage Foundation inspired ACA. Or we fight like hell, finally get a small win on some issue legislatively, and then it's undone by the courts.
 
To be clear, I'm not saying everything is terrible and hopeless. I'm not saying Biden will be uniformly bad. He will probably do what he can, within the limits of what his campaign donors (insurance companies, banks, wall street, etc.) will allow.  Which is better than we're getting now, and will be critically important for some people. Which is why I always vote for the lesser evil...making me complicit in evil.

It's absolutely true that socially we have had real progress. Not uniformly across the country, and there is still resistance to all of it -- widespread resistance, even. But the support ratio has definitely flipped on a lot of things. And that is unqualifiedly good.
 
But on the issues that the wealthy care the most about, the movement is ever in their favor. Sure, after they get a large tax cut, the D's may come in there and give them a tiny tax increase, but then the next R will just give them another large cut. The D's may do a little regulation here and there to clean up the environment or some such, but the R's will just undo that and more. And so on.
 
And all the while things that would do the most to help people move up the ladder are off the table. At best, we get funhouse mirror versions of those things, like the Heritage Foundation inspired ACA. Or we fight like hell, finally get a small win on some issue legislatively, and then it's undone by the courts.
 
To be clear, I'm not saying everything is terrible and hopeless. I'm not saying Biden will be uniformly bad. He will probably do what he can, within the limits of what his campaign donors (insurance companies, banks, wall street, etc.) will allow.  Which is better than we're getting now, and will be critically important for some people. Which is why I always vote for the lesser evil...making me complicit in evil.

Oh, socially speaking? Yes, we've moved the needle left in a number of ways. I'm not ungrateful that people have put their reputations and lives on the line to ensure that the everyman isn't going to be discriminated against if they are gay or possess a skin tone darker than Morticia's Addam's...er...you know what.
 
The economic factor troubles me most. It is a trifling matter for a modern day politician or business to chant about diversity and "We're all in this together" and all that fuzzy-wuzzy kumbaya type pablum. No, what happens is that the social inequality which is invariably tied to dire economic straits gets focused on...but it's just the one angle: one facet. Minority populations (ethnic minorities, to be clear) that have been chronically disadvantaged for decades aren't necessarily going to get ahead if all you do is you tell people they're equal to everyone else. You can eradicate a good portion of this malignance if you address the underlying rot instead of dousing it with gallon upon gallon of perfume before declaring "Mission accomplished". "Socially liberal but economically conservative" (or any close enough description) quickly becomes a self-evident contradiction once you recognize that the latter attitude hinders or even outright reverses reconstructive attempts based around the former.
 
 

I'm struggling with this election as well
 
On the one hand, I've been voting for the lesser of two evils since 1988, and things have just gotten worse and worse. In each election we're told that next time we'll have a better choice, but right now, we have to choose one of these two, so choose the lesser evil. But the next time it's always the same story. Every time someone even mildly progressive starts to gain traction in the presidential race, the party elites and media unite to put and end to their campaign.
 
On the other hand, the evidence suggests Trump could be an existential threat to American democracy. One that our sociopolitical system seems unable to deal with. Do I want us to end up like Hungary or Russia? Absolutely not. Coming back from that costs blood, not votes...and may not be possible with today's surveillance technology.
 
I'll be voting for down-ballot progressives where possible (and giving what I can to down-ballot progressives in other districts). I know the weight of the party will be against them in every case, but sometimes it works. And that gives me hope.
 
And I suppose I will reluctantly vote for Biden. But goddamn, I can't help but feel that's part of the problem. Every time we vote for the lesser of two evils, we move the center further right. Voting for the lesser of two evils made Trump's rise possible. What was crazy right-wing stuff when I was a kid is now mainstream. And it's partly my fault.

Your mistake is looking for logic and consistency in a landscape where neither is native.

I would love to get one in HC again. While I still have my old BBB, it's seen better days.

Imagine if it were made with some of the modern conventions. Having a nice HC GM Screen would be sweet! Especially with that Perez art on it.

I appreciate your perspective, but I've had this conversation too many times already.
 
Besides: not the point.

I'd like to think Bernie Sanders' supporters favored him because of his policies (as well as his principles) and wouldn't unquestioningly obey him merely because he spoke.

Softcover 4e BBB is full of win.