US Politics: For Whom the Bell Tolls

[Reny of Storms End]

7 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

You could always work in coal.  Or wait around for coal to come back.  Or else get on welfare and complain about the welfare queens ruining the country.  Or be a youtube star.

I'm in PA now and I know I shouldn't have been surprised but I still kinda am at how 'in your face' confederate flags are around here.  They were ubiquitous in the south, but they are just as much up here too.  Plus all of the Trump/Pence/MAGA and overt racism stuff.  We were looking at property in a small town and the dude comes walking up with a trump coffee mug and spits his chew on the ground in front of us and asks if we planned to send our negro kids to school in town.  Um...not anymore!

Bummed to hear it's the same in upstate NY as I'm considering looking in that area as well.  I love small towns.  Or rather, I love the idea of small towns.  I just can't stand the idea of living near these nasties.

I’m in PA too and you know what they say, “Philly in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, Alabama in the middle.” 

[Dr. Pepper]

1 hour ago, Reny of Storms End said:

I’m in PA too and you know what they say, “Philly in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, Alabama in the middle.” 

Meh, I'm coming to learn that Alabama wraps fully around Pittsburgh, too.  There's like a tiny speck of Not Alabama on the convergence of three rivers.  Then it's like Upper Crust Alabama.  Then it's full on redneck alabama for everything else. 

But it's really pretty.  So pretty.  I love it, if only none of the people were here.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Meh, I'm coming to learn that Alabama wraps fully around Pittsburgh, too.  There's like a tiny speck of Not Alabama on the convergence of three rivers.  Then it's like Upper Crust Alabama.  Then it's full on redneck alabama for everything else. 

But it's really pretty.  So pretty.  I love it, if only none of the people were here.

They had a quite other attitude though when Lee brought his Army of Northern VA to PA .  What people forget .... 

As for upstate NY -- a whole lot of it was copperhead during the War of the Rebellion. There was a corridor there of spies and plotters that flowed from Jeff Davis in Richmond all way up into Canada.  What still puzzles me about this, and which I haven't dug out of the history, is why.  This region of NY wasn't where the insanely wealthy old Dutch and early Republican English families had their huge principalities, worked with slave labor, whether black or indentured whites.  I keep wondering if this might have something to do with the building of the Erie Canal, where so many free people of color made a living -- and so, doubtless were paid less than white people looking for the same jobs.

I have a friend who retired from Mississippi to a small town upstate, and he was shocked to learn there were more stars and bars displayed there than back down home.  I'd told him what the politics were there, but until they actually moved in, they didn't believe me.

 

[Ormond]

Well, if you all want a little belated minor good news from upstate New York, my latest edition of Locus magazine informed me that Adrienne Martini, who often writes reviews for them, won a seat on the Otsego County board as a Democrat by defeating a Republican incumbent. Locus quotes her: "Like a lot of women after the election of 2016, I thought I couldn't just be a passive observer of democracy."

So maybe Oneonta, where Martini lives, would be a good small upstate New York town for you all to consider.

[Larry of the Lawn]

11 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

 

Bummed to hear it's the same in upstate NY as I'm considering looking in that area as well.  I love small towns.  Or rather, I love the idea of small towns.  I just can't stand the idea of living near these nasties.

There are actually a bunch of more liberal small communities nearby, I just seem to have landed right in the middle of the assholes.  Western Massachusetts also has some really great small towns.

[Zorral]

There's a brilliant small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland which has been deeply progressive since so-called hippie days.  And this is the heart of slave breeding Maryland -- where Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman came from.

I love this place so much.

This isn't to say there aren't the elements who wouldn't mind slavery coming back, and who think the orange #$%(( is the bees knees.  But the struggle here is anything but one-sided.  It's also a matriarchy, thus there are a LOT of victories for humanity and common sense.

The worst are wealthy people moving in from Elsewhere, and their fantasy is that moving to Tara and Gone With The Wind and they HATE any talk at all about the slave history of the county, town and region, and the ongoing struggle for equality and Civil Rights.

O! and let me hasten to edit and add: lest I get too self-congratulatory about my own carbon footprint, w/o car, etc. -- I fly on jets all the time, to other parts of the country and to other countries.  That contributes a huge amount to destruction of the atmosphere.  And though I heroically keep fighting to keep my dinosaur flip fone, I have two laptops and a desktop computer.

[drawkcabi]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

There's a brilliant small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland which has been deeply progressive since so-called hippie days.  And this is the heart of slave breeding Maryland -- where Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman came from.

I love this place so much.

This isn't to say there aren't the elements who wouldn't mind slavery coming back, and who think the orange #$%(( is the bees knees.  But the struggle here is anything but one-sided.  It's also a matriarchy, thus there are a LOT of victories for humanity and common sense.

The worst are wealthy people moving in from Elsewhere, and their fantasy is that moving to Tara and Gone With The Wind and they HATE any talk at all about the slave history of the county, town and region, and the ongoing struggle for equality and Civil Rights.

O! and let me hasten to edit and add: lest I get too self-congratulatory about my own carbon footprint, w/o car, etc. -- I fly on jets all the time, to other parts of the country and to other countries.  That contributes a huge amount to destruction of the atmosphere.  And though I heroically keep fighting to keep my dinosaur flip fone, I have two laptops and a desktop computer.

Pretty sure I know the town you're talking about.

The small town I live in, I just keep my mouth shut about politics. Like Dr. Pepper says, sometimes you just have to for your own well being. I believe I would be honest if asked directly and argue my position if a debate was started but it just hasn't come up and I won't bring it up to start things.

I don't know if I haven't been out enough or what but I've only noticed one confederate flag in a yard around here (still one too many though) though I saw more than a few Trump/MAGA signs and banners all around during 2016 though fewer than the Romney signs I saw in 2012. But it was rare to see an Obama sign around here and I never saw one Clinton sign in 2016.

At least I'm close to the only big city around here, not big enough to turn the county blue except in the largest of wave years, like 2006. But it's good to know liberals still exist which sometimes is something I wonder when the whole country arund me seems red.

[Martell Spy]

INSIDE TRUMP’S
HOUR-BY-HOUR
BATTLE FOR
SELF-PRESERVATION
With Twitter as his Excalibur, the president
takes on his doubters, powered by long spells
of cable news and a dozen Diet Cokes. But
if Mr. Trump has yet to bend the presidency
to his will, he is at least wrestling it to a draw.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/politics/donald-trump-president.html?referer=

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Martell Spy said:

INSIDE TRUMP’S
HOUR-BY-HOUR
BATTLE FOR
SELF-PRESERVATION
With Twitter as his Excalibur, the president
takes on his doubters, powered by long spells
of cable news and a dozen Diet Cokes. But
if Mr. Trump has yet to bend the presidency
to his will, he is at least wrestling it to a draw.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/politics/donald-trump-president.html?referer=

Dear Lord. Even if he had started off as a sane and reasonably compassionate person, absorbing 4-8 hours of Fox News every day would turn a person into a paranoid, resentful bigot. We're being poisoned as a nation by our President's TV habits.

[Martell Spy]

Doug Jones Tries to Make the Alabama Senate Race at Least Partly About Him

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/doug-jones-tries-to-make-the-alabama-senate-race-at-least-partly-about-him

I'd just like say, Trump is an enormous coward. Almost as big as Paul Ryan. He loves to pretend that he'll do what he wants and do the most outrageous thing. Yet for some reason he won't cross state lines into Alabama. He'll endorse the pedophile. But he won't give us the photo of him embracing the pedophile on stage. Why the sudden weak knees?

[Altherion]

27 minutes ago, Triskele said:

This article is a few weeks old, but I find it to be a pretty damning take on the Clintons.  I still marvel that the party leadership went so out of the way to clear the field for someone with such serious question marks electorally.  

The article is not wrong, but it makes the situation sound like the Clintons were alone in what they were doing and thus leads to your marveling. This is not the case: the Democrats didn't help the Clintons because they were mesmerized by the latter, they did so because the Clintons not only controlled the power and wealth, but also shared it. As all of the people who were defending the Clinton campaign's agreement with the DNC pointed out, the DNC was mostly broke and this bargain saved it. The Clintons helped route campaign donations via fundraising, helped people to cushy positions at foundations, think tanks and other organizations and helped their allies in intra-party conflicts. A lot of Democrats currently in power owe something or other to the Clintons.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

31 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The article is not wrong, but it makes the situation sound like the Clintons were alone in what they were doing and thus leads to your marveling. This is not the case: the Democrats didn't help the Clintons because they were mesmerized by the latter, they did so because the Clintons not only controlled the power and wealth, but also shared it. As all of the people who were defending the Clinton campaign's agreement with the DNC pointed out, the DNC was mostly broke and this bargain saved it. The Clintons helped route campaign donations via fundraising, helped people to cushy positions at foundations, think tanks and other organizations and helped their allies in intra-party conflicts. A lot of Democrats currently in power owe something or other to the Clintons.

Why did the Democratic Party put itself in a position where the Clinton’s could hold the party and its leadership hostage?

[Zorral]

27 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Why did the Democratic Party put itself in a position where the Clinton’s could hold the party and its leadership hostage?

Why has the RNC put itself in the position where lobbyists, the NRA, Israel, Saudi, Russia, Murdoch, the Kochs, etc, etc. etc. hold them hostage?

[Darth Richard II]

I always assume its because people are dumb.

[Mexal]

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

32 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Why has the RNC put itself in the position where lobbyists, the NRA, Israel, Saudi, Russia, Murdoch, the Kochs, etc, etc. etc. hold them hostage?

Because politicans like having moneynto operate with?  Isn’t it dangerous for a political party hitch its wagon to two people?  

You have a laundry list of bad parties who hold markers on the Republicans, but they all have competing interests.  Isn’t being as dependent upon two people as the article indicates foolish and dangerous?

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Why did the Democratic Party put itself in a position where the Clinton’s could hold the party and its leadership hostage?

I don't think any one person can tell you that even if you could get any of them to be honest with you. It's the outcome of the interplay of party bureaucrats, politicians and big donors trading money, favors, positions and support with each other. Obviously, the Clintons weren't the only ones trying to grab power and in fact Obama outplayed them back in 2008, but after that they appear to be the best at the trading game right up until the point when Clinton lost. When that happened, a whole lot of promises and rewards were suddenly irrelevant which no doubt contributed to the dramatic increase in the ranks of H. Clinton detractors among the Democrats.

[Larry of the Lawn]

10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because politicans like having moneynto operate with?  Isn’t it dangerous for a political party hitch its wagon to two people?  

You have a laundry list of bad parties who hold markers on the Republicans, but they all have competing interests.  Isn’t being as dependent upon two people as the article indicates foolish and dangerous?

Scot did you even read the link?  Your making a false equivalence here.  It's not like the Clinton's are the equivalent of factions Zorral listed.  They've been influential but it's not like the Democratic Party gets all its funding from them.  

It's not like they dictate what policies congressional dems will get behind.  The Clinton's should have been dropped a long time ago, yes, but their relationship to the DNC is quite different from the relationship between Zorrals list and the RNC.

[Martell Spy]

President Trump Tries to Pick a Twitter Fight With the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/12/trump_calls_for_the_washington_post_to_fire_dave_weigel.html

[OldGimletEye]

On 12/9/2017 at 3:55 PM, drawkcabi said:

The small town I live in, I just keep my mouth shut about politics. Like Dr. Pepper says, sometimes you just have to for your own well being. I believe I would be honest if asked directly and argue my position if a debate was started but it just hasn't come up and I won't bring it up to start things.

I pretty much live in redneckville too and pretty much don't bring up politics or don't bring it up first. But, often, conservative sorts of people just can't help themselves and I get their unsolicited opinions and if I get annoyed enough, tell them pretty bluntly what I think of their opinions.