Pence

[Bonefish]

The place has been on fire for a long time. I guess you are smelling the smoke now, and it alarms you?

[mimekiller]

[Bonefish]

You know, I really do understand why so many of the disenfranchised resort to street violence, rioting and what not. Let's say you suggest that things in this country are rigged: that they are in a very real way set up, in a systematic way, to make it harder for those on the bottom rungs to get a fair shake. Now, let's then say that despite the obvious failings being pointed out, they continue to happen. Year after year, they happen. And the people who say they care about your suffering, they keep telling you that things are better now, or will be better, just give them time.

The lower classes have been shrieking "fire" for decades. And yet, it's only now that you start smelling the smoke, that you are very concerned. And you start pointing fingers at the guy who just moved in, because he is a complete ass hole. But the fire was started a long time ago. It has been fed by a succession of slick talking hucksters.

No wonder people want to burn it down. They are already being burnt, and they have to listen to self important people pat themselves on their back about how good they are and how much they care about those poor, poor, poor, poor people. But they keep throwing their bullshit on the flames, feeding them, and we are cooking down here.

[bralbovsky]

Two things:
There is a distinct difference between having a complex system that's broken, if you will, or at best limping along, and having someone personally driving the machine in such a way as to make sure it never operates properly. Ya, ya, how do you know a politician is lying.....? Given that, I don't expect much, except to leave your personal, and I mean truly personal, interests at the door, and at least pretend to keep your oath. 300 million opinions gives one a ton of leeway, but -- Don't enrich yourself beyond your salary, Don't abuse your inside information, Don't abuse your influence for personal profit. Would it be great if they all knew as much about public policy as some of the folks on this board? yes. Am I mostly disappointed that nobody in the very well paid congress suggested they could buy their own health insurance, instead of taking the really nice one they get on top of a generous salary? Absolutely. But what we have presently is not just folks not getting it right. We have oligarch style kleptocracy. I dislike the gov't to lobbyist pathways, but they at least acknowledge that there are rules that ought to be made and sometimes followed. These folks we got now? No rules, and who cares if there are any?

The rules have always been against the guys at the bottom. There are laws in VA before 1800 forbidding various lower class demographics from fraternizing, just to keep the man where he was.
The country, in slow, choppy steps, has been making modest progress ever since. The whole new deal tried to put a floor under even the lowest levels. This, despite the persistent efforts of bankers, insurers and investors who have been sipping more than their fair share every day. It's an organism, and evolution takes patience. It's a boat carrying 300 million people, and I'm not expecting the thing to run perfectly, and I understand that there's folks above deck and folks below. Most people understand there's a birth lottery, and we live with it, hell, we could have been born in Haiti the day after the earthquake. A fire on the boat is a fire on OUR boat. It better be worth it. Look, Kennedy and Bush shared a socio-economic class, but there's a distinct difference. In general, Prescott's kids and grandkids went into a life of serving themselves and people like them. Kenedy's kids chose instead to advocate, at least publicly, for people who had less than they had. It doesn't consistently suck the way it sucks now.

I'm going to add one thing. So far we have three presidents who have made secret, pre-election arrangements with foreign governments to enhance their chances of election. Nixon extended the war. Reagan kept the hostages in Iran, and Trump made deals with Russia. Those are the ones that have been unclassified. Any surprise that the party that waves the flag all the time is the one committing a brand of treason at a regular interval? This isn't consistent behavior for everyone either.

[Phoebe]

Trump goes around saying things like it's treasonous when Democrats don't clap for his speech. And instead of the rest of humanity laughing that nonsense off the stage, not only was he elected, but Republicans are completely proud and happy and supportive to have this person representing them. Who thinks it is un-American when people don't clap for him. This really just has not happened in my lifetime before, in this country.

[WillyGilligan]

It's not that they didn't clap for his speech*, it's the things in the speech they didn't clap or stand for. In the optics of this, the Dems made it way too easy to make them look bad. On the one hand, they signaled unity against Trump. On the other, it should have been easy to predict that there were going to be moments where they were stone faced while the President was talking about things the average American supports.

*For Republican voters not named Trump

[akiva]

[Bonefish]

Not to sound like a Nixon appologist, but are we just going to ignore that Nixon helped champion the 1957 civil rights bill? We just going to forget that when senators weakened the bill, including ole JFK, by attempting to insert legislation that would have allowed violators of the law recourse to a jury trial by all white southern juries, Nixon was instrumental in preventing that? Are we going to forget that Nixon ended the Draft? Or the creation of the EPA , and modern environmental policy? Are we going to ignore that he made it illegal for colleges to discriminate against female athletes by denying them funding?

Equally, are we going to ignore that Kennedy lead the escalation of the Vietnam war? That he authorized a massive covert invasion of Cuba, which has been cited as a major factor in the precipitation of the Cuban Missile Crisis, something that brought us to the brink of goddamned NUCLEAR WAR?! Are we going to do that, just to satisfy the needs of our extreme and polarized modern tribalism?

[akiva]

[Bonefish]

[mimekiller]

[Bonefish]

Well, JFK did like to play fast and loose with foriegn policy. He loved the special forces, he was very anti communist, he wanted to overthrow or assassinate Castro. Consider that he brought us to the brink of Nuclear war with the Soviets. I mean, that shit was closer than anyone at the time could have known: if one Soviet sub flottilla commander HADNT refused to use nuclear torpedos, if any other Russian sub had been attacked... Well, we could be battling super mutants and raiders in the wasteland, fall out style. Especially frightening when you consider that the nukes of that time period we're either smaller yield tactical nukes, or megaton city killers.

I don't think he would have been a 1 term president though. I mean, LBJ lacked his charisma and charm, and he was able to get reelected. Sure, some of that may have been on the strength of the Dead Kennedy, but I think LBJ gets shitted on for his accomplishments, especially in regards to Civil Rights.

I think LBJ was spot the fuck on when he talked about the necessity of lasting civil rights reform requiring a Southerner to enact it. The Dixicrats would have had so much ammunition to fling at a papist, Boston Yankee assaulting southern institutions. And I don't think Ole Johnny Boy had the Johnson to insist on civil rights reform as vehemently. I don't think he had the necessary firsthand experience of just how damn bad the southern states were in the 60s.

I just think that JFK is tremendously overrated. I get it, at the time he was the young and handsome cowboy/white knight, and he captured the hearts of Americans. And his death, well, damn. Of course it hit people hard. But what did he REALLY do? Did he make a historically bold move in visiting China? Did he sign the SALT treaties? What the fuck, did he do? Not a goddamned thing, other thank bone every piece of ass he could.

I think, if he was around today, people would be abhorred at his sexual conduct. Or, maybe not. Lord knows liberals love to fawn over Traudue for his good looks, and that guy has been fucking over First Nations, supporting globalized low intensity warfare and otherwise being a complete fucking asshole.

But, you know, people dig good looking assholes who say the right words. They overlook the roaming hands that would make them scream "RAPE" from a neckbeard.

[Phoebe]

In the "trying to restore faith in humanity in a more general sense" mode, I submit to you that I have found something quite good about Mike Pence: his dog. He has a really, really, really good dog. His dog is so good that it makes me think a person who had a hand in picking out such a dog cannot be entirely bad. Right? I'm searching here, I'm trying to gin up some inspiration against misanthropy. If Pence had to meet with me - not at a restaurant alone, mind you, not alone at all - we could discuss his dog at length.

[FlameBlade]

You could say that his dog is his lodestar.

[Bonefish]

Hitler both liked dogs and had a well trained one. A darling at that. Jus saying.

[bralbovsky]

Tyrants often treat their dogs (and those who behave or do tricks like them) very well.
They don't consider the dog (or the sycophant) an equal or a person, and the dog makes no demand that his master do so. It's a convenient arrangement.
I detest people who abuse dogs, but folks who keep an animal incarcerated gently don't really impress me much.

How does one treat someone who has little or nothing to offer? No tricks, no petting, no tail wagging.
How one treats the victim of a crime or a flood, who has needs but nothing to give in return...that's what makes karma. That's what makes civilization.
Murdoch's or Trump's attitude that profiting from interactions is the only reason to have them, drags us back to the stone age.