You sure have to hand it to the Rethug fascists...

[PCIntern]

they sure have a lot of balls, and if you're weak-kneed, politically-correct, polite, willing to listen and attempt to understand the other side's POV, willing to negotiate, willing to accept blame, willing to admit mistakes, willing to concede defeat, then they wouldn't want you. Sorry folks, we lose these kinds of battles exactly because we won't use the term "LIAR!" when they actually do lie (which is always), won't directly confront them without mealy-mouthed explanations for our statements which completely undemine our premises, such as "although my esteemed colleague etc. etc.", and won't call a spade a bloody shovel as one of my professors used to say - repeatedly. Yes yes, those folks on the ground often do these things, but the "spokespeople" for our party are just so goddamned nice and jovial all the time it makes me queasy. What we need are good-looking versons of James Carville sans the creepy wife/cryptofascist who will speak in whole sentences which are short, to the point, and filled with words that average Americans respond to, and say what is going on.

Oh yes, and one more thing...a certain path to victory lies in doing exactly the opposite of whatever Bob Shrum says to do. He's actually a valuable resource since he's always exactly wrong - like a Bizarro version of Cassandra or the Seinfeld episode where Jason Alexander does the opposite of what his instincts tell him to do and winds up with the perfect job with the NY Yankees.

I'm almost out of strength having tried to fight politically for almost 50 years and now I'm witnessing the imminent demise of trade unions, of public education, of assistance to the needy, of sentimentality, of the culture in general. We have become isolated by our technology inasmuch as face-to-face interaction has been minimized...Hell, people won't even talk on the phone anymore, they just text. No conversation necessary, just put on your earbuds and while away the day...

Makes me ill.

[DAngelo136]

1. Now is not the time to get tired

We still have a fight on our hands and plenty of fight left in us. We can fight them here and now or in the ghettos and concentration camps. I see them for what they are; protofacsist brownshirts in waiting. Governor Rick Scott (a.k.a Governor Skeletor, a.k.a. Governor Screaming Skull, a.k.a Governor Poison Warning)is deliberatly violating the law; we'll see what the Justice Department (a.k.a. Holder's Honeys) are going to do about it. Meanwhile, we have to resist, organize and agitate. Like Freddy D. said:

“Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.”


'Nuf Ced

[lame54]

2. People do nothing BUT talk on the phone...

but you do have some great points

speak the truth

simple and blunt

repeat

win

[PCIntern]

4. Actually, they're texting more and more...

the kids almost never talk...I have many in my practice who tell me that the only people they talk to routinely on the phone are their parents and only if they have to.

[lame54]

7. everybody in a car has the phone glued to their head...

they drive so slow

they are the new drunk drivers

people in stores are yammering away

you see ' em walking down the street

they are everywhere

[shcrane71]

3. Americans are just mean.

I was recently speaking with a Swede who was explaining that after 40, you get two extra weeks of mandated vacation time per the state. My response (conditioned by my being American), "So those over 40 are the first to be laid off and the last to be hired?". The Swede just looked sad. He said his country didn't work that way. Ours does.

[zeemike]

5. I am with you on all of that.

But to be honest I don't thing things are going to change any time soon...and in fact you and I may be dead before the power is taken from their hands...and when it is it will be the youth that does it...not our old tired bodies.
It is our fault...we allowed and bought in to this policy of being nice and virtuous because it is the right thing to do...the Rethugs don't feel that way at all...to them the end justifies the means and the only virtue they care about is the virtue of selfishness.
And when they lie cheat and steel they use the old trick of accusing the other guy of what you just did and put the nice guy on the defensive and keep them there. And our leaders spend most of the time defending and apologising and seldom ever attack.
And they have used these tricks for years and no one has ever suggested to our leaders that they need to change and meet fire with fire that has been taken seriously...we continue to play their no win game and pretend that it will work if we do it just one more time.

[stupidicus]

6. Indeed

I've been making that case for the better part of the last decade on the "internets" to my lefty brethren, every since they started in with the "you hate the troops, love the terrorists" and related lines of BS in defense of their Fuhrer. I've long thought and argued that "civility" is way overrated, and is actually counterproductive, given the enabling aspects of it. It's analogous to "being nice" to racists, homophobes, etc -- the silent enabling it represents does nothing to discourage their undesirable conduct and rhetoric, and actually reinforces it, because they pay no price for it.

The sad part is, a large majority of them would befriend and tolerate their intolerance, incivility, etc, in their many and varied forms, and then turn around and give me an attitude for having one and being unwilling to tolerate them. I'm tolerant of just about everything but intolerance.

The rationale for this enabling conduct has always been reduced to "but they are fellow americans with different povs, who love their family and friends, and little puppies, and kittens too!" Well, the same could be said about the nazis. This is why I was so pleased to read about how the fight in WI resulted in divorces and splits of various sort between family and friends, as I experienced back in the VN War days. Accompanying that rationale, was of course the "it's just politics as usual", like the various "Let them die/eat dirt", racism, homophobia, warmongering, torturing, the threats from global warming, etc, are just trifling ideological diffs, as opposed to the stains upon our collective soul that they are.

What I've been most curious to see the result of currently, is the "blame game" that appears to have been launched regarding the willful undermining of our economy and republic by the dems against the repubs. Now, if the dem leadership truly believes this to be the case, which would be tantamount to a connotative case for "treason", shouldn't their rhetoric and descriptive term use reflect that?

Of course it should.

Great post, and I wish I could see more of them, because I came to believe a long time ago that civility poses an existential threat to this republic. It's done nothing but enable and embolden the fascists, and discouraged those like you and I.

What you're talking about here is this http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-day/08/24/huxley-vs-orwell-infinite-distraction-or-government-oppression/

While many are familiar with Orwell, the reality is the powers that be have placed as many if not more eggs in the Huxley basket.

[PCIntern]

8. Great post - well said! n/t

[just1voice]

9. Repukes should be shamed at every opportunity, public and private

When repukes aren't called out for being exactly what they are we all become liars.

[PCIntern]

10. We have enabled them by our relative silence...

pisses me off no end.