Absolutely. I fucking hate hearing people bitch about elections that they do not take part in. Next week is so important, we are literally fighting for our democracy to survive and some people do not seem terribly concerned.
Exactly... Which is why I think that voter registration should be automatic as soon as you reach voting age and that casting your vote should be as easy as possible. Surely in a DEMOCRACY it shouldn't be *difficult* to vote!
But, in November & in 2024 I guess we'll see if the USA wants to *remain* a Democracy.... I'm not convinced (as yet) that enough people care. You guys should be getting ready for 10-25 years of profound political instability.
Democracy? We don't have a democracy. We have two competing cabals of special interests who use mob rule to see which interests prevail. Some of the interests have partial control of both cabals (the finance industry, for instance), so whoever loses...they win. We've spent the last two and a half years being dictated to by un-elected technocrats at all levels, so spare me the tears about 'democracy'.. :p My fear is that as things continue to go south (as they will), then the red-wave takeover will be blamed instead of the geriatic fool in office and the cop-lawyer-who-pretends-that-she-didn't'-make-a-career-jailing-black-men-for-marijuana-posession beside him who is little better. I was hoping DeSantis would run, but it looks like he's going to avoid competing with the Big Bad Orange Man and wait. That's probably good -- no point dividing the FJBs between them. That's how Lincoln and Wilson got elected, from a divided opposition.
Well, your Democracy could certainly be improved. Getting rid of the Electoral College would be a very good start and then do something with the Senate to make it more representative.... Agree that there are far too many 'interest groups' and FAR too much money sloshing around Washington.
What would you suggest to fix things? Or has it gone beyond that for you? Can things be 'fixed', whatever that means? I don't think ditching the present system wholesale is the way forward though. I do shudder to think what will happen if the MAGA crowd get back into power. I really don't think that it will end well, for anyone.
Totally against giving getting rid the electoral college. It's one of the few things keeping the coasties from dominating the country. Imagine the people in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and New York -- overwhelmed by crime, homelessness, violence -- trying to tell the rest of us what to do.
I think DC and what's left of the Republic (NOT a democracy -- heaven help us from more mob rule) are well beyond the point of no return. I don't think people appreciate how massive, ineffective, and contradictory the State is. DC isn't a monolith -- it's too big to use effectively, which is why we have multiple government agencies supporting contradictory aims. You might remember an essay I wrote a few years ago, "The Emperor Drives an AT-AT"? That's still my thinking but more so. Ideally, the government will become so ineffective that people say "Screw it", and start a revival of locally-oriented action. That's the only long term hope: localism. A political body is like any other thing, it needs healthy cells. It needs strong families creating strong local communities which can eventually reconstitute a healthy larger polity. There's also a strong chance ineffectivness will lead us into outright tyranny, since people Want Something Done. That's happened more than a few times in history. That would delay the resurrection-by-localism, but tyrannies tend to destroy themselves -- chiefly because they usually destroy their economies, which are the lifeblood of everything, including families. Only the Chinese party has managed to wed tyranny and some degree of economic liberty.
I've heard the idea that the US is a Republic and not a Democracy. Can't you be both? As far as I'm aware they're not mutually exclusive. People, I think, generally *believe* you're a Democracy....
What you seem to be advocating (or at least predicting) is what I believe is called a 'failed State'. Such places are generally not good places to live - for anyone, including those who have managed to hold on to some form of power. If things continue as they are (which I think they will for a while longer) I think you're going to have low level political conflict (including political violence up to and including acts of terrorism) until people get sick of it or until one 'side' or the other becomes too weak to remain a systemic threat. After that will be a long 'tail' of sporadic and random acts of terrorism as 'background noise' before a new steady state is achieved. I'm guessing that will take somewhere between 25-50 years possibly longer.
At least that's my view so far. Obviously, not being a US citizen I'm unaware of a LOT of the subtlety of your culture etc so am probably missing some obvious things but I'll see if my future 'research' can help there.
I'm not advocating for a failed state. It WILL fail. I'm just thinking like Hari Seldon: what happens afterward? Best case scenario is we rebuild from healthy cells. We're so polarized at the moment that people think a mid-term election spells doomsday. I'm a little more concerned about Biden and Putin's nuclear dick-measuring contest, and the fact that the Chinese uber-state has no real resistance: the US is conflicted, the EU is in an energy crisis with riots on the horizon, and Russia is its little brother.
But it doesn't HAVE to fail. History is just the result of people making choices. We just need to make good, or better, ones. If the US does fail it won't be pretty and it won't be quick. Any recovery won't be either. Plus the fact that a LOT of people will die in the process. I wouldn't call that a preferred outcome for anyone.
I think the odds of nukes being lobbed around because of Ukraine is VERY low. There's certainly zero advantage to the Russians by using one. The Ukrainians certainly won't give up and the West's non-nuclear response is not something the Russian's can take. It's a LOSE-LOSE for Russia. China has lots of its own problems to deal with right now. Most of its economic planning isn't looking great. I don't think they're as much of a threat as some make them out to be. But we're in a multi-polar world these days (much like Medieval times) so we're going to have political/economic rivals all over the place. We're not back in the Cold War days. The EU will cope with the energy crisis one way or another. This winter is definitely going to hurt but it'll get better after that as we adapt to not having Russian energy supplies on tap. Russia is pretty much toast for a host of reasons. There's already internal tensions on the edges as those states start flexing their muscle knowing Russian armed forces are deeply involved elsewhere and are nowhere near as scary as everyone thought they were. It wouldn't surprise me much if Russia started breaking apart in the next decade. All in all we're definitely living through interesting times. I think that the next 100 years will be make or break for us to be honest....
9 comments:
Absolutely. I fucking hate hearing people bitch about elections that they do not take part in. Next week is so important, we are literally fighting for our democracy to survive and some people do not seem terribly concerned.
I concur with Sarah.
Exactly... Which is why I think that voter registration should be automatic as soon as you reach voting age and that casting your vote should be as easy as possible. Surely in a DEMOCRACY it shouldn't be *difficult* to vote!
But, in November & in 2024 I guess we'll see if the USA wants to *remain* a Democracy.... I'm not convinced (as yet) that enough people care. You guys should be getting ready for 10-25 years of profound political instability.
Democracy? We don't have a democracy. We have two competing cabals of special interests who use mob rule to see which interests prevail. Some of the interests have partial control of both cabals (the finance industry, for instance), so whoever loses...they win. We've spent the last two and a half years being dictated to by un-elected technocrats at all levels, so spare me the tears about 'democracy'.. :p My fear is that as things continue to go south (as they will), then the red-wave takeover will be blamed instead of the geriatic fool in office and the cop-lawyer-who-pretends-that-she-didn't'-make-a-career-jailing-black-men-for-marijuana-posession beside him who is little better. I was hoping DeSantis would run, but it looks like he's going to avoid competing with the Big Bad Orange Man and wait. That's probably good -- no point dividing the FJBs between them. That's how Lincoln and Wilson got elected, from a divided opposition.
Well, your Democracy could certainly be improved. Getting rid of the Electoral College would be a very good start and then do something with the Senate to make it more representative.... Agree that there are far too many 'interest groups' and FAR too much money sloshing around Washington.
What would you suggest to fix things? Or has it gone beyond that for you? Can things be 'fixed', whatever that means? I don't think ditching the present system wholesale is the way forward though. I do shudder to think what will happen if the MAGA crowd get back into power. I really don't think that it will end well, for anyone.
Totally against giving getting rid the electoral college. It's one of the few things keeping the coasties from dominating the country. Imagine the people in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and New York -- overwhelmed by crime, homelessness, violence -- trying to tell the rest of us what to do.
I think DC and what's left of the Republic (NOT a democracy -- heaven help us from more mob rule) are well beyond the point of no return. I don't think people appreciate how massive, ineffective, and contradictory the State is. DC isn't a monolith -- it's too big to use effectively, which is why we have multiple government agencies supporting contradictory aims. You might remember an essay I wrote a few years ago, "The Emperor Drives an AT-AT"? That's still my thinking but more so. Ideally, the government will become so ineffective that people say "Screw it", and start a revival of locally-oriented action. That's the only long term hope: localism. A political body is like any other thing, it needs healthy cells. It needs strong families creating strong local communities which can eventually reconstitute a healthy larger polity. There's also a strong chance ineffectivness will lead us into outright tyranny, since people Want Something Done. That's happened more than a few times in history. That would delay the resurrection-by-localism, but tyrannies tend to destroy themselves -- chiefly because they usually destroy their economies, which are the lifeblood of everything, including families. Only the Chinese party has managed to wed tyranny and some degree of economic liberty.
I've heard the idea that the US is a Republic and not a Democracy. Can't you be both? As far as I'm aware they're not mutually exclusive. People, I think, generally *believe* you're a Democracy....
What you seem to be advocating (or at least predicting) is what I believe is called a 'failed State'. Such places are generally not good places to live - for anyone, including those who have managed to hold on to some form of power. If things continue as they are (which I think they will for a while longer) I think you're going to have low level political conflict (including political violence up to and including acts of terrorism) until people get sick of it or until one 'side' or the other becomes too weak to remain a systemic threat. After that will be a long 'tail' of sporadic and random acts of terrorism as 'background noise' before a new steady state is achieved. I'm guessing that will take somewhere between 25-50 years possibly longer.
At least that's my view so far. Obviously, not being a US citizen I'm unaware of a LOT of the subtlety of your culture etc so am probably missing some obvious things but I'll see if my future 'research' can help there.
I'm not advocating for a failed state. It WILL fail. I'm just thinking like Hari Seldon: what happens afterward? Best case scenario is we rebuild from healthy cells. We're so polarized at the moment that people think a mid-term election spells doomsday. I'm a little more concerned about Biden and Putin's nuclear dick-measuring contest, and the fact that the Chinese uber-state has no real resistance: the US is conflicted, the EU is in an energy crisis with riots on the horizon, and Russia is its little brother.
But it doesn't HAVE to fail. History is just the result of people making choices. We just need to make good, or better, ones. If the US does fail it won't be pretty and it won't be quick. Any recovery won't be either. Plus the fact that a LOT of people will die in the process. I wouldn't call that a preferred outcome for anyone.
I think the odds of nukes being lobbed around because of Ukraine is VERY low. There's certainly zero advantage to the Russians by using one. The Ukrainians certainly won't give up and the West's non-nuclear response is not something the Russian's can take. It's a LOSE-LOSE for Russia. China has lots of its own problems to deal with right now. Most of its economic planning isn't looking great. I don't think they're as much of a threat as some make them out to be. But we're in a multi-polar world these days (much like Medieval times) so we're going to have political/economic rivals all over the place. We're not back in the Cold War days. The EU will cope with the energy crisis one way or another. This winter is definitely going to hurt but it'll get better after that as we adapt to not having Russian energy supplies on tap. Russia is pretty much toast for a host of reasons. There's already internal tensions on the edges as those states start flexing their muscle knowing Russian armed forces are deeply involved elsewhere and are nowhere near as scary as everyone thought they were. It wouldn't surprise me much if Russia started breaking apart in the next decade. All in all we're definitely living through interesting times. I think that the next 100 years will be make or break for us to be honest....
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