Is nobody else terrified right now?

Yes-particularly with the firing last night of the Attorney General, and with his nominee for the SCOTUS coming up later this evening. It seems he wants to rule by fiat, like a Feudal Lord or something-and a conservative SCOTUS and a GOP held Congress may just let him do so as far as they are able to. I think there is at least a 50% chance he gets us into a war or gets himself impeached and removed, hopefully the latter.

I also can see Federal troops 'policing' in cities that have a blac...er...I mean 'crime' problem-as seen by Trump-not only in Chicago but Memphis, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc. etc.

 

Not in the least worried, losing sleep or anything else. As I've told some younger CA folk, a lot of you aren't old enough to have the generational long video view, so if you were born in the late 80s, early 90s, all you really know is Dubya/Obama. I think a lot of people on the left have developed Trump Derangement Syndrome like Tea Party people had Obama Derangement Syndrome (although I'd say ODS was uniquely conjoined at the waist with white insanity). When you really know American history, Trump is nothing. Hell, his election wasn't even the most contentious in US history (that honor belongs to 1824).

The other thing is that the black nationalist strain (cultural or economic) was largely left out of the education of many younger blacks, even ones that went to HBCUs. So all you see representing black DIY is idiot hoteps like Umar Johnson as opposed to the rich tradition of black self determination from early free blacks to Tulsa to the independent black press of the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam (both of whom the Federal government stole ideas last like free lunch programs and charter schools). You need MLK types, but my generation and those before us knew you also needed the Marcus Garvey, Booker Ts, and Black Capitalists. The 1963 March was formally titled "The March for Jobs and Freedom" not "The March for Eternally Waiting on White America to Have a Change of Heart."

Sorry for the tldr but I swear it's bad enough to see young white snowflakes (or older ones cough cough) act like they can't go on (maybe instead of emotional do nothing protests they need to organize and learn to GOTV), but when I see black folk react to Trump as is if he's the omnipresent God of The Universe I just want to go Don Corleone on them


Alright enough politics we return you to your regularly scheduled instagram thots and dick picks...

 

I've lived through shit like this before...This is not just mass hysteria. Americans have a good reason to be worried! No country or civilization on Earth is too powerful to collapse, even the mighty USA might if the people don't watch out.
(1) have a demagogue too full of himself as president, surrounded with nationalists as "advisers" (2) two branches of government are controlled by one political party and the third, will be very soon (3) the media has started being scrutinized and is at risk of being silenced. So, this is getting way too "Dictatorship 101". If you're from anywhere outside of Western Europe and North America, you've probably seen this in some form or the other.

Thankfully though from my observation: The US is too big and too decentralized for any president and his cronies to do any real irreversible damage (case in point, Washington State resisting the ban/suing the government) . Second, the executive branch itself is also a maze of process and regulations. Just working for a federal agency for a few months has shown me that it is not that easy for any one, president or not, to wave their magical wand and get things moving. I am not sure if it was by design, if so, then I guess it'll keep things relatively stable as intended.


However, going back to my point, no country on Earth is sheltered from collapse . This cycle happens every few hundred years. What worries me sick is that ultimately the US of A's collapse will be a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

 

Much respect to you. Hope it didn't come off like the intellectual discussion equivalent of Fred Mertz yelling "get off my lawn you kids!" Lol.

In a nutshell, I don't view these things from a partisan perspective (I'm too idiosyncratic and a psychological anarchist) but from social psychology and systems behavior. No president gets what he wants and ideology always gives way to reality as we are not a nation of hunter-gatherers under a Mongrol King; I don't care if you're Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Dubya or Obama, you're gonna get yours eventually from reality, and get it good and hard.

Trump already has to deal with a party that is not wholly behind him. His first weeks remind me of Reagan's first weeks from when I was a kid and first started paying attention to these things intellectually; the bumbling of having to go from the wish fulfillment of ideological campaign rhetoric to the realities that we are a nation of multiple groups, factions, businesses, interests, etc. No president is infallible or omnipresent (see Dubya 2001 then compare with Dubya 2008) so all the drama and Chuck Schumer tears are nothing but theatre and agitprop. 2017 is no different than 1981. Black folk screaming back then when I was a kid (the parents) about how Reagan was going to put us all in concentration camps like Schindler's List, subsisting off USDA government cheese blocks. Yet here we is....

We're too damn emotional as a population and not very strategic as time goes on. We have to psychologically and intellectually grow a pair as people. I'm not saying be Bobby McFerrin in the face of Trump, but at least channel the spirit of Bebe's Kids

 

1. You ain't slick lol. I will go on-probably get myself arrested or put in some camp before it is all over smh.

2. And I did not vote. Waited till the day of the election, but knew Ohio was a goner so why do it-why go and hold my nose and vote for Hillary when I did not really want her and thanks to our electoral system and Electoral College my. vote. would. have. meant. nothing! Pisses me off. At least I got 3 people to also not vote for Trump. I hate our two party system which is the unofficial rule now. It is not enshrined somewhere is some glorious old legal document that it has to be that way-and we can't do anything about our crappy two party system at the top until we do something about it at the local level where we might be able to at least start influencing Congress.

3. I envy your intelligence and breadth of knowledge-I think it is too much for just 'being older' and I suspect some kind of demonic activity or pact with the devil, which would also explain the nihilistic attitude LOL.

*edit* and Reagan was not as bad as he could have been, but was bad enough and set precedents that we are still suffering from, in both actions and thoughts. And let us wail and get over it now, so we can come together to act and fight this thing called Trump at every turn. I agree that the time for crying is over, he is in now, and it is time to organize and fight and shake off the depression and disbelief and start. fighting. back. A good place to start is with the new SCOTUS nominee-he is too young-will be in there for 30 years minimum!

*So whatcha think Fred? (more like Sanford than Mertz...and these young people on here are not going to know who Fred Mertz was lol.)

 

Envy? For what? Every human being has intelligence and breadth, if they would use it. Some of us just learned early to listen to the words not just dance to them

SCRATCH

 

You do not really believe that-intelligence(and the ability to capitalize on it, and then to express it with eloquence) are not handed out evenly in the genetic lottery now are they? Say hi to Lamont for me lol.

 

Yes everyone has potential most remain underdeveloped. Reading Jawanza Kunjufu, Walter Rodney and Stephen Jay Gould taught me that. Everyone is not going to be Tesla or Einstein but everyone has more potential that they usually manifest.

 

I agree, but my point still stands as you suggest with the 'everyone is not...' part, which is basically an elaborate 'but'. I think we disagree on the extent of the disparities in both innate capacity and in the ability to develop it and then to express it to others(or time, or ability to get the resources to develop that capacity, etc.) One has to hit the lucky trifecta of relatively high intelligence, the ability and resources to develop it, and the(what I think is often a gift)of the ability to express ideas to others in a captivating and persuasive way(call if the gift of gab in written and oral form.) Hell I have to google some of the stuff you post, I can't imagine what the average Joe Schmoe on the street would have to do. You would go far over the average person's head, and to dumb it down so they would 'get it' would water down the message or info being conveyed as well.

*Maybe I will get lucky and Trump will put us in the same camp? lol.

 

Well, as usual, you and I have flogged a thread to death.

Sorry, @acessential

Summation: as you joked, you need to Google some of my cites; that's the point. Read and study. this is the Golden Age (for now) of information. As I always tell my nieces and nephews, you have more power in your hands---a smart phone and web search engines---than literally all the great minds in the known universe from Hammurabi to Einstein could have dreamt or imagined. No one in the 21st Century, who isn't medically developmentally disabled, has an excuse to be stupid. If you choose to use it for nothing more than instagram and TMZ, then your cognitive success or failure is not simply racism or "The Man", it's your lack of character and will.

And it's sad that Trump, a man with access to more resources than most, reduces the whole of knowledge power and communication to Twitter bursts. But once again, that shows that white liberal elites have either no real problem with Trump or no imagination. Prior to this election cycle, no one one was even interested in Twitter as a buyout investment including Microsoft. All Tim Cook, George Soros, Mark Zuckerburg, or Jeff Bezos would have to do is spend their lunch money, buy Twitter, shut it down or delete Trumps account, problem solved. But phony liberals like the SAG whiners or Bono always want other people to put skin and money in the game, while they only put in lip.

 

^^^ I threw the Trump/camp thing in as a nod to @acessential lol. And on that point yeah I am scared a bit and depressed about Trump and Trumpism, but I am also determined to oppose it and him(well, it and it), and am frustrated and angry-you can feel more than one emotion at the same time, you just have to decide which ones to embrace-and that is the frustrated and angry and determined part which I am trying to put my emotional energy towards(the sad and depressed emotional shit is draining as hell and I am trying to stamp that out, Fuk Trump!)

 

I have to say that I am a little worried. I changed my occupation status on here because I know the capabilities of the NSC. Good thing, I am a nobody. I am worried because there are things that we should legitimately fear with our new President. I think Americans, in general, are unfamiliar with what authoritarianism looks and feels like. Authoritarian regimes do not pop up overnight, they are slow, methodical, and calculated. Securing power is the first step, launching a massive propaganda and misinformation is the second step, seizing control through active and passive force is the third step, silencing the opposition by jail, communications controls, and worse is the fourth step, toppling long-standing institutions is the fifth step and so on.

I am worried that despite the resilience of the American people and our ability to work through crises that this time is different. The new Administration is threatening civil servants who generally do the work of the American people. As you may have read over 1000 diplomats and State Department personnel signed on to a grievance, fortunately, we are protected by statute but that doesn't mean retaliation isn't coming. That is just on the domestic front. The US faces some significant challenges, and what keeps me up at night is the potential for the North Koreans to launch some kind of nuclear test and an overreaction from the Administration. I hear that given all Anti-Muslim rhetoric our allies Pakistan will call our bluff if you didn't know Pakistan is currently engaged in a Cold War with India. I am also worried about Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, what if a Nato Member activates Article Five of the Nato Alliance? There are so many unknown knowns and a potential for catastrophic missteps.

It becomes hard to walk about my daily life and not think about the people who will suffer from reckless decision-making. I am worried, I have developed a mild anxiety. However, I am hopeful that with enough pressure and mobilization we can use our institutions to check power when need be and use the Courts to make corrections. We are certainly moving into a dangerous era.

 

Once again, reading is fundamental. David Hume wrote the principles THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO behind why Trump will fail (i.e. the macroeconomic futility of tariffs and protectionism). Nothing is new under the sun in Human behavior. Remember all that bullshit in the 90s about the "New Economy" and " New Economics"? That tech bust in 2000 was a very real OLD fashioned recession. Trump cannot defy the laws of physics or human economic behavior....

 

Valid points. But since we both work for the same employer I'm not going to lie and pretend I haven't enjoyed the schadenfreude of watching certain civil servants in my chain get their asses kicked by the new administration. Because I work in a snowflake and white feminist saturated office, The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that...

So while I intellectually disagree with the president, the war vet repressed masculine male in me is perfectly content with some public sector candy asses get beat down on the playground...

 

What are you babbling about you old capitalist? So what if some guy wrote about this or that...it means nothing in how it applies now. You are going to apply principles that were written THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO about of all things, economics, to situations now? And plenty new in human behavior when it comes to economics...how about Marxism and Central Economic Planning?(yes it does not work in advanced economies but it sure made a huge impact in the world since David Hume wrote those principles.) And you seem to forget that with human behavior there is no 'normal' and it is wildly unpredictable-google 'the rise of Hitler' for an example of that. With human behavior anything can happen, like Trump pulling a Putin and looking for outside 'boogymen' to blame when the economy tanks, and maybe getting us into a war?

I am surprised at your lackadaisical attitude towards all of this. There is a huge amount of unpredictability that you seem to be ignoring.

*Those principles written three hundred years ago did not stop the entire world from falling deeper into depression in the thirties by enacting those very things-tariffs and protectionism-and not that long ago. And what ended it? WAR. People are generally stupid and ignorant of history and learning lessons from history anyway-why do you think we keep repeating the same sh@t even when anyone with any common sense knows it will not work? People's intellect and common sense is often overruled by irrational emotions, just look at what we just elected to see how that happens.

Hell look around you at the snowflake third wave feminists from liberal arts colleges to see irrational emotions. 'I don't agree with that, it is a micro aggression and I need my safe space AND those words or actions need to be banned!'-there goes freedom of speech and expression and the idea that college is a place to actually debate different ideas and learn critical thinking skills and intellectually 'toughen up' smh.

*I know, tl; dr but I also have been cleaning and just discovered a Trump Game from 1989 still in the box unopened with the plastic still on it-I wonder how much that thing is worth now? Want to buy it? LMAO!


And damn, people are dap-stingy as hell to me anymore...fuk y'all lol. Oh the indignities one must endure being a minority on this board. lol

 

Sigh, you're lack of knowledge about economics is most distressing.

True Principles are eternal. Wage and price controls blew up in Richard Nixon's face exactly like they blew up in the faces of ancient Roman leaders. Dubya era home buyers got bubble blasted like Tulips did for Dutch Middle Age buyers. Tariffs and protectionism will blow up in Trump's face like every other ignorant leader who thought they could ride them to "prosperity."

As for your unissued daps, they're probably sitting next to that unissued 40 acres and a mule my great great great grandfather was waiting on

 

I am not saying, and did not say, the principles are invalid or do not generally hold true, what I really said was that people are irrational and act irrationally and will often act in opposition or in ignorance of the truth. And yes, the whole idea of an economic bubble is in the name-'bubble'-all bubbles burst. Oh how I tried to get people to get out and miss the dot.com bubble burst-how could anyone not see that one coming-but none of them got out in time. You know why? Despite their knowledge of 'True Principles' they did not act on that knowledge-they acted on their greed-'just a little longer to make a little more before I get out...'

You say I am being ignorant of 'True Principles'-I am saying you are being ignorant of human nature.

And that last part was just nasty and rude! lol. So racism in the past makes racial bigotry ok in the present. Gotcha. And yeah, some time ago someone inadvertently( I really don't think they realized what they were revealing in what they said) let it be known in a private message that they got some 'heat' from other members for 'dapping me to much'. So yeah, I don't have a pot to piss in but let me take the blame for what white people lied about when my white ancestors had just arrived here to escape war in what was to become Germany(which had no slaves, colonies, or blacks there) and famine in Ireland(which was more of a British slave state of it's own). Ok. And so what if I had three ancestors with my own very unusual last name who had just arrived in the US and who fought in the Civil War-for the Union. And so what that none of my relatives every lived in any state that even allowed slavery. All whites are equally guilty and must pay. I got it now. I guess I am no better than that bitch who lied about Emmet Till. ok.

I am glad that despite my(admitted more than a few) faults that I am at least independent enough in my thoughts and actions on here to just be myself and like and not like what I want based on the merit of what is posted.

*on topic, I would not be broken hearted if Trump dropped dead from a heart attack, and landed on Pence, breaking his neck as well.

 

Oh Jesus, I was joking not unleashing a racial manifesto. I wouldn't know what to do with 40 acres if you threw it at me...unless it was in Oxnard, CA and I could get some of those illegal aliens to pick my strawberries for me...

As for someone being concerned about how many daps you or anyone else here is getting...that's just some petty pre-school-age girl shit I don't even want to waste time wrapping my brain around. Really? Are CA daps transferable or fungible? Cause I've been wanting to get into block chain currency and just need to know the exchange rate.

 

LOL I know you were joking. When I keyed out that response I could almost smell the bullsh@t through the computer lol. I really don't care about the daps-this is the first board I have been on that even has the feature-which is just a popularity contest really. Surprising though that most sites seem to have that now...up votes or downvotes, likes, etc. of course I predate all of that so no big deal. lol.

How do you know about Oxnard and it being surrounded by strawberry fields? With it's demographics, crime/gang problems and being fairly small and dense surrounded by prime agricultural lands it kind of reminds me of Salinas.

*on topic, Trump is terrifying, especially to look at. *shudder*

I did dap it for the unique Oxnard reference. Have not been in that area since 1975 though...would love to go back. Plus I always liked the name 'Port Hueneme' and how it is pronounced.