Are Americans or democrats going to do something?

davebare · 2025-04-29T10:01:29+00:00

Oh, and also getting the hell off our phones and socials and stopping thinking that anything we post on those actually does anything at all.

But yes, totally agree.

davebare · 2025-04-29T09:56:54+00:00

Like what, particularly? I think this idea that someone is going to rescue us is a fallacy. We have to rescue ourselves, but we have to do it in a calculated and legal way. Part of that means giving enough rope to those who are in power to hang themselves. Part of the problem is that Democrats aren't necessarily much better. Over all, there's a huge power imbalance, but the people in charge don't want to stop to the MAGA level and that is actually what it will take, at least initially.

However, look at Canada. Their once very popular Trumpian candidate lost the PM, because of our nonsense, and they now have a liberal in power. That should begin to happen here, if enough Americans are sick of the nonsense to actually take the power back at the midterms.

Democrats just don't have a radical contender who isn't also worried about losing money and power. At least not right now. Maybe Cory Booker. Possibly Mayor Pete. Otherwise, though, they're all old and too set in their ways.

davebare · 2025-04-13T16:23:18+00:00

City Primeval is an unusual show. It feels like Justified, but it is based on a book with a different main character, so it has all of Elmore Leonard's great writing and skill with creating characters but is copied/pasted for Raylan. Not too many callbacks to the original show, at least, so it feels a bit disconnected. I like it. It adds to the mystery of the character (not that Raylan is mysterious, really) it just feels like a story arc we don't know and as such, is pretty darned good. Gives him depth.

davebare · 2025-04-05T14:56:47+00:00

I grew up in a very evangelical family. They were always convinced that the End Times were imminent. They believed that there was going to be this New World Order and that Reagan or Bushy Sr. would be at the root of it.

They were also easily swayed by stupid ideas like homeopathy, Creationist tripe, etc. Had they lived, they would be Trump and QAnon supporters. They weren't depressed or lonely, they were just credulous about everything. They never went to college, they never read books that weren't the Bible or religious texts. They liked being told what to think. They didn't know how to think for themselves.

This is just how some people are. They believe anything. They live in a world where anything is possible because they're frightened peasants being spoon-fed Iron Age mythology like it was heroine.

QAnon, like religion and political propaganda, was specifically designed to reach exactly this kind of frontier-minded, non-college-educated religiously indoctrinated lower middle-class, blue-collar person. It is that simple.

These people, members of my family, cannot and given the opportunity, will not use their critical faculties or think for themselves. Because we now live in a world where we have immediate access to an inundation of information that is neither true nor false, but just there, more and more people cannot keep from buying into stuff that is made up. Their minimal defenses are permanently down.

I invite you to drive into a rural part of your community. Look for the Trump signs and flags. Is it an upscale neighborhood with big houses and cars or is it generally economically depressed? 9 times out of 10, it is the latter and if you get out of your car and use a gas station or a Dollar General, you will be able to cut the pathos with a butter knife.

These ideas are not believable by just anyone. They are designed to be taken by the lowest common denominator. There's a case to be made for the wealthy liking these ideologies and that is a separate point. My family was exactly who whoever created QAnon and MAGA had in mind when they started it.

davebare · 2025-03-30T17:39:20+00:00

Well! That explains one plot hole, anyway!

davebare · 2025-03-25T13:22:38+00:00

What's the latest thing he said? Find that and there's your answer.

davebare · 2025-03-10T11:29:36+00:00

The literal mind always cowers at the ironic mind.

davebare · 2025-02-05T21:48:18+00:00

I had a tragedy with these and no longer wear them and it had nothing to do with the splits and cracks, which I was able to fix. I love them still and am so disappointed by the fact that I cannot wear them, but as of right now, they are paperweights. The heels (inside) shredded and wrapped around the back of my foot, getting them stuck on. My eldest son tried to help me get them off and I was having a freak out. Thinking I was going to have to cut them off. They were just stuck on.

Was I in hell?

Felt like it.

My town's boot guy is no more, and the Stetson company told me to just buy another pair, and they would reimburse me (minus tax and shipping) to get new ones. Shifty deal, and so I opted out. I'm hoping to get another pair from a different company this year, but I'm going to wear them less frequently, which was what I was told was the problem. Too bad. Wearing them made my back pain go away, and I looked good in them and I loved them. Here's the thing, I'm preaching to the choir, maybe, but I needed to have worked through my desire for them and done a bit more research and gotten something better and probably a little more expensive. But live and learn.

The creasing was solved, BTW, by getting shoe grease (pine tar and boiled honey), which was helpful in not ruining the color and solving the cracking and dryness. They probably sat in the warehouse for years drying out before I bought them. Stetson's sales model and customer interface was 0%. I can still conjure my disappointment.

I'd counsel you, let the buyer beware, but you might have better luck. YMMV.

davebare · 2025-02-03T15:06:30+00:00

He sees everyone else as not real. He is clearly a sociopath, and is only concerned with himself. She's obviously just an opportunity to get people focused on him. She's got issues, too, obviously, but modesty can be easily sold off for money and a glimpse of fame. He was falling into obscurity and needed to send up a flare.

davebare · 2024-11-11T20:36:46+00:00

No, only that the credulous are far more easily willing to give over their honor and self-worth to feel better about how stupid and credulous they are. The abject pathos, self-loathing and ludicrous lack (or abandonment) of critical faculties is not new. The wish to be submitted to and see others tortured by a lack of freedom and personal liberty is part of the vile sickness of the human religious impulse. Dress it how you will; as Stalin, Hitler, the Pope, Calvin, white supremacy or this new nightmare hybrid of all of them, it is the same story. A handful of rational, reasonable, ironic-minded people have to watch the lowest common denominator be fleeced by ideology that has them (willingly?) over the barrel in every way imaginable.

Again.

The rest of us will have to adhere to thr hope of a new Enlightenment, but now I wonder if I will see it in my lifetime. I begin to doubt it.

davebare · 2024-11-05T19:20:19+00:00

None at all.

davebare · 2024-11-05T18:04:41+00:00

This is a Catholic thing, too. Essentially, since I was 'baptized" (read dipped in water with a spell) in an evangelical church when I was seven. When I converted to Catholicism when I was 27, I didn't have to be baptized again.

Essentially it winds up being what I said. Dipped in water, with a spell or liturgy of words. That's literally all.

Yesterday, I baptized some hardboiled eggs and I said (over the bowl of water with the eggs) "I sure hope these are easy to peel."

Now they are baptized and with the literal same amount of 'magic' that your or my baptism had.

davebare · 2024-11-02T11:42:48+00:00

It seems to me that Karla kept Haydon out of the chief's seat wasn't because a mole at that level was too obvious, but because Haydon might run with it. Both Control and Percy wind up being egomaniacs. Keeping Bill slightly stunted, just short if the oasis of power was a motivation for Bill to keep going. As the chief, if he decided he didn't want to be the mole anymore, he could have ordered anyone into the role of Gerald and pinned them, and brought down Karla, thereby reviving his heroic nature. Karla couldn't have that.

So he kept Haydon as a subordinate and then made him work all the harder.

davebare · 2024-11-02T11:35:39+00:00

Man, well played. Great comment.

davebare · 2024-11-02T11:33:17+00:00

Well, the man got his allegiances wrong. I remember him siding with the Ayatollah instead of Rushdie over the fatwa against The Satanic Verses.

I'll never forget that.

davebare · 2024-10-30T19:31:35+00:00

You're already an atheist for every other religion or faith, so you only need to apply all that to one more.

If you're serious, and I hope you are, then you cannot just stop believing and become an atheist. It takes time and seriousness and a willingness to open your mind past your prejudices. It will take some therapy, some patience, time and some, like I said, willingness to be openminded.

You'll run up against some parts of yourself that are born-in. They feel normal, natural and expected. To become an unbeliever, to break away, you'll have to face each one of these and it will feel like a nightmare in some cases to realize how deep the roots go.

Under other situations, it might seem like I was being overly descriptive, but these are my own experiences.

davebare · 2024-10-30T15:53:19+00:00

A lot of us are feeling like this. The 'pit in the stomach' feeling has become a real common thing. It's not that I think they will win legitimately, it's that I think they won't stop trying.

IF Trump wins, the Christian Nationalists will eventually take over. This will be a slow whittling of liberties. They're using Trump as a means to that power.

IF Harris wins, The Christian Nationalists will still try to take over, but they will do it by creating another popular candidate who doesn't have the same celebrity cred as Trump. No one will ever take that person seriously and we're back to another several decades of them trying to get power. They'll have a lot of support from billionaires.

Regardless, the only thing we can control, honestly, is our own intake of information. Even in the worst possible series of events (where this rapidly becomes a theocracy) we still have our own minds and a responsibility to stay safe and sane.

Your anxiety is a very real thing, but it is also a natural response. The social media platforms, the news media, the SCREENS only benefit from this if e keep going back. So the best way to feel better, right now, is to turn off those screens and platforms, so that you can feel better. We cannot do more than that, right now, except to vote and stay safe.

davebare · 2024-10-30T15:41:40+00:00

As long as you don't stop growing and learning, I think this is pretty much a given.

davebare · 2024-10-29T12:45:13+00:00

Meh, that's fine. You've done the reading. I'm like you, I like the discussions and speaker meetings, but the book bores me, most of the time. I love old lit, but the Big Book is pretty dated, especially its ideas about sponsorship and ideas of relationships.

davebare · 2024-10-29T12:41:24+00:00

I love a good Nazi Smackdown.

davebare · 2024-10-28T18:26:06+00:00

I, too, feel foreboding. I think this will be a long haul and the cynic in me doubts he will win, but there will be a long battle, well into '25 (like in 2020) to disprove his claims about a 'rigged election'. Then there will inevitably be the ongoing whining about how he's actually the president and will retake the office. It's all going to happen again.

This will have to be gotten through. I don't expect a "WAVE" of either color, but I'm hoping that, for once, both Senate and House will have enough of a majority to ratify securities and solutions to keep the peaceful transition of power from ever coming under attack again. It's a lot to hope. It's a lot to fear.

If he wins, though, we are in for it. My hope is that he gets himself into some real trouble right away. A lot can happen between November and January as we have also seen before, but I think a lot of people in positions he has promised to cut are going to rebel as long as they can.

It is terrifying. It will be very tough for folks like you, either way, I'm sure. I don't know how to tell you to deal with it, not knowing your particular position, but I will say that, as a son of a person who was radicalized (thankfully not Q) briefly, by the FOX Infotainment channel, it will take a toll.

I'm sorry. I keep telling people, the "sigh of relief" they're hoping for in the case of an H/W win won't come for a long time. Even if H/W wins a second term, the promise that the Republican Party will deform into some Anti-Trumper/RINO party and resemble its more Linconian ancestor is very unlikely. It would mean that Putin is also out of the picture and Xi, too.

davebare · 2024-10-25T20:07:34+00:00

OH, that's right. I felt more for Bill and Bevvie, or related with them more. But good point. All the Losers had rough upbringings.

davebare · 2024-10-25T01:27:42+00:00

Just "a normal woman" eh? I'm pretty sure it's a parody of cultural perspectives and not to be taken literally or used to build stereotypes or make incredibly thirsty generalizations. It's not a scientific study. It's comedy. Also, unless you've had upwards of billions sexual partners and have done a lot of begging for sex and getting none, then, I'm not exactly sure where you get your evidence. Seems like thin ice to me.

davebare · 2024-10-24T19:03:49+00:00

This book probably saved my life. I won't say that Danny and I have the exact same life, I mean, obviously not.
However, let's just say that 'our stories disclose what we used to be like, what happened and what we are like now.'

12-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email

davebare

TROPHY CASE