In the West we are enduring the end stage of the 16th century individualist privateer colonialist perpetual expansion world view. The destruction of human culture by a manmade profiteering machine is only different in kind, not intent, to the choice to deploy the combustion engine to further wealth extraction and exploitation at the expense of the extinction of other living beings. The truth is that all things are ever in flux.
Believing in progress as a material noun is a lie. Just as the destruction of the great library of Alexandria instigated centuries of individual’s valuable searching for lost philosophical systems, therein creating unique ones of their own reflecting their own particular time and place, AI’s destruction of capitalist common good will break the collective spell of belief in spiritual human cultures being the same as their material forms.
Yeats always seems to have written a most apt poem as in ‘Lapis Lazuli’ (1938).
You mention, tongue in cheek, what might finally get the public’s attention: banning credit cards. Margaret Atwood has beaten you to the punch on that one. A woman unable to use her credit card to make her usual purchase at a coffee shop is the first hint that women are in deep, deep trouble in The Handmaid’s Tale.
A well deserved verbal smack in the proverbial face of America. Unfortunately, many people are inured to the deceit and corruption rampant in our government today. I, too, wonder what the breaking point will be.
This was a lot to digest. On the subject of democrats, it seems like individuals like Talarico who set themselves apart are doing well. The two party system is stifling progress.
People who vote blue are waiting for the Democratic Party to break the glass ceiling it has put itself under. Moderate Democrats have been shrinking, and Progressive/Liberal voters have been growing. Republican/MAGA voters attracted new supporters because they were changing with voter sentiment, while the Democratic Party has been stuck in the mud. In my eyes, parties like the Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists are not the same as the Democratic Party. These parties have evolved beyond the old-school traditional Democratic Party.
My grandfather told me that you only need to be right 50.1% of the time. I've found you can be right even less often if you focus on getting the big things right.
We are actually far stupider, far lazier, and far more self absorbed than you give us credit for; people wouldn't even cancel amazon or paramount. Our country is morally bankrupt and hypocrisy is our norm.
Awakening comes from deep desire for something??? Each individual has its own unique experience but collectively the needle can be moved for a better tomorrow for ALL
Do I see November as the turning point of newly elected local, state and federal government representatives as a turning point of retaining democracy in the country as a whole? No.
A map of blue and red states alone with the monumental amount of red is a Hercules task to flip enough to make a significant difference.
Red states aren't flipping enough seats when the old guard are winning party nominations to stay seated or winning to move into another position during midterms.
Another reason the outcome probably will not materialize as many expect goes beyond politics.
Humans aren't solitary creatures. We form groups in our society just as many other creatures on the planet. The term group has been sectioned off into subgroups just like mammals are divided into vegetarians and carnivores. These two are broken again into separate groups with identical characteristics. Human groups are divided by cults, tribes, culture, skin color, regional origin and human created ideology etc.
Until humans understand we maybe, not are, superior intellectually above our animal co-occupuntants as science has focused on [rather than education of the similarities], we are in an evolutionary change of adapting to a non-divisional change for our species, humans. A lion, cheetah, jaguar, or domesticated house cat does not recognize themselves as all belonging to the same biological family of Felidae and will act according to remain separate via generational learned behavior or brain structure to only process the differences in size, frame, coloring and abilities.
Humans do recognize each other as one species and in the creation of a new group, America was the pot human evolution would advance out of animalistic group division and behavior. Democracy was the formulary ingredient to build upon the advancement of evolutionary change.
Those that do not want to give up their animalistic behavior for thousands and thousands of years have ruled. Creation of better tools that has modern humans to this date and time where we are, is not a testament for the betterment of human behavior. It is a testament to how little humans have evolved beyond seeing each other as an enemy to destroy. Just not with teeth and claws.
Maybe within the next few hundreds of years if mankind hasn't brought itself to the edge of extinction, humans will figure out how to build back but a stronger system where Democracy was the foundation for all humans are seen as an equal with the same quality of life without the hierarchy in the animal kingdom incorporated.
In the West we are enduring the end stage of the 16th century individualist privateer colonialist perpetual expansion world view. The destruction of human culture by a manmade profiteering machine is only different in kind, not intent, to the choice to deploy the combustion engine to further wealth extraction and exploitation at the expense of the extinction of other living beings. The truth is that all things are ever in flux.
Believing in progress as a material noun is a lie. Just as the destruction of the great library of Alexandria instigated centuries of individual’s valuable searching for lost philosophical systems, therein creating unique ones of their own reflecting their own particular time and place, AI’s destruction of capitalist common good will break the collective spell of belief in spiritual human cultures being the same as their material forms.
Yeats always seems to have written a most apt poem as in ‘Lapis Lazuli’ (1938).
A quote from one section:
On their own feet they came, or on shipboard
Camel-back, horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword,
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callinachus
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise,
When the sea-wind swept the corner, stands,
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day
All things fall and are built again
And they that build them again are gay.
Thank you for this valuable contribution to the conversation. I absolutely concur - Martin
🙏
Ignorance is bliss has never applied more than this moment in history!
Wake up people. Put your credit cards away and sacrifice a little for the sake of sanity.
Yes, don’t support Trump’s desire for the American public to help him by buying the way out of the debt HE incurred.
You mention, tongue in cheek, what might finally get the public’s attention: banning credit cards. Margaret Atwood has beaten you to the punch on that one. A woman unable to use her credit card to make her usual purchase at a coffee shop is the first hint that women are in deep, deep trouble in The Handmaid’s Tale.
A well deserved verbal smack in the proverbial face of America. Unfortunately, many people are inured to the deceit and corruption rampant in our government today. I, too, wonder what the breaking point will be.
This was a lot to digest. On the subject of democrats, it seems like individuals like Talarico who set themselves apart are doing well. The two party system is stifling progress.
People who vote blue are waiting for the Democratic Party to break the glass ceiling it has put itself under. Moderate Democrats have been shrinking, and Progressive/Liberal voters have been growing. Republican/MAGA voters attracted new supporters because they were changing with voter sentiment, while the Democratic Party has been stuck in the mud. In my eyes, parties like the Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists are not the same as the Democratic Party. These parties have evolved beyond the old-school traditional Democratic Party.
Maybe Winston Churchill was wrong, Americans will find a way to do the wrong thing even after trying everything.
Winston Churchill was often, if not usually wrong. His legacy was salvaged by his leadership in the Second World War
My grandfather told me that you only need to be right 50.1% of the time. I've found you can be right even less often if you focus on getting the big things right.
We are actually far stupider, far lazier, and far more self absorbed than you give us credit for; people wouldn't even cancel amazon or paramount. Our country is morally bankrupt and hypocrisy is our norm.
Awakening comes from deep desire for something??? Each individual has its own unique experience but collectively the needle can be moved for a better tomorrow for ALL
Do I see November as the turning point of newly elected local, state and federal government representatives as a turning point of retaining democracy in the country as a whole? No.
A map of blue and red states alone with the monumental amount of red is a Hercules task to flip enough to make a significant difference.
Red states aren't flipping enough seats when the old guard are winning party nominations to stay seated or winning to move into another position during midterms.
Another reason the outcome probably will not materialize as many expect goes beyond politics.
Humans aren't solitary creatures. We form groups in our society just as many other creatures on the planet. The term group has been sectioned off into subgroups just like mammals are divided into vegetarians and carnivores. These two are broken again into separate groups with identical characteristics. Human groups are divided by cults, tribes, culture, skin color, regional origin and human created ideology etc.
Until humans understand we maybe, not are, superior intellectually above our animal co-occupuntants as science has focused on [rather than education of the similarities], we are in an evolutionary change of adapting to a non-divisional change for our species, humans. A lion, cheetah, jaguar, or domesticated house cat does not recognize themselves as all belonging to the same biological family of Felidae and will act according to remain separate via generational learned behavior or brain structure to only process the differences in size, frame, coloring and abilities.
Humans do recognize each other as one species and in the creation of a new group, America was the pot human evolution would advance out of animalistic group division and behavior. Democracy was the formulary ingredient to build upon the advancement of evolutionary change.
Those that do not want to give up their animalistic behavior for thousands and thousands of years have ruled. Creation of better tools that has modern humans to this date and time where we are, is not a testament for the betterment of human behavior. It is a testament to how little humans have evolved beyond seeing each other as an enemy to destroy. Just not with teeth and claws.
Maybe within the next few hundreds of years if mankind hasn't brought itself to the edge of extinction, humans will figure out how to build back but a stronger system where Democracy was the foundation for all humans are seen as an equal with the same quality of life without the hierarchy in the animal kingdom incorporated.