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    'Destiny Pictures presents ...'

    The Trump movie trailer is AWESOME!

    FIFA meets insurance company ad meets bad satire. Just ... amazing.

    Comment


      Originally posted by WOM View Post
      This is to nobody's benefit but him. Listen to the other voices coming out of Washington.
      "Sorry, Canada". Very lovely letters written by Americans, published by The Globe and Mail.

      https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...sidents-words/

      Comment


        Yeah. I posted them on the previous page. Really nice.

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          Oh, dang. So you did.

          Comment


            Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
            I too do try to remain hopeful. I don't often experience the negative traits you mention in most of my friends, nor — more reassuringly — my students. It's been a particularly bad week here, what with the G7 debacle, and the Ontario election result so I'm possibly overreacting. Normally I think I'm what Bertrand Russell described as a pessimistic-optimist but, on the eve of my seventieth birthday, I find the latter quality tested much more than in the past. It's compounded by the knowledge that, though I and my wife likely won't reap the consequences of the present malignant idiocy, we've kids and grand-kids who will. I can't shake-off the feeling that, in some sense, we've let them down.The very least you hope for is leaving the world in a better state than you found it, but that isn't likely to be the case.
            Me neither, thankfully I don't often experience those traits in most of my friends, colleagues and sixth formers (when I used to teach) (the traits you write in yr previous post– lack of empathy etc. – and those I exemplified in my previous post). I wouldn’t expect many students to be like that anyway, maybe quite a few will grow into mean selfish cunts later when they are properly corrupted by society or/and their environment but students in their late teens/early 20s are generally thoughtful and considerate, all-round good apples.

            I suspect that we all know quite a few people like that though. I have relatives/people on both sides of my family who do fit that profile; my wife has, or had, colleagues like that; I have met a number of parents like that, I have and had neighbours like that etc. But helping out in the community and regularly doing volunteer work as I’ve done on & off since the early 1980s (started at 16), I’ve seen many acts of altruism, selflessness and kindness which offer reassurance about the state of humanity, it does restore one's faith in humanity.

            That said, like you, from what I’ve been able to see and read about in the last half-decade say, I‘m now wondering if Westerners deserve democracy and that is not a question I was asking myself only a few years ago. Society has become hugely polarised and that goes for personalities too I find.

            Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
            The very least you hope for is leaving the world in a better state than you found it, but that isn't likely to be the case.
            What time frame do you have in mind here, do you mean (that things were generally better) when you grew up in the 1960s compared to now or now compared to what things might be like in, say, 30-40 years’ time?

            Comment


              Originally posted by Pérou Flaquettes View Post

              What time frame do you have in mind here, do you mean (that things were generally better) when you grew up in the 1960s compared to now or now compared to what things might be like in, say, 30-40 years’ time?
              That's a very good question, and one I've thought about a lot recently. Unfortunately it's only possible to give an accurate answer if one was the same age at every stage of one's life. In my teens and early twenties (the 1960s) there was possibility, hope, optimism — but that is probably true for everyone at that age at any period, it's also true that distance magnifies the good stuff and diminishes the bad. Having said that, my sense is that our social fabric is in worse shape now than it was then, and the decline can be objectively mapped over the past fifty years. I think many of us recognised this change by the early-70s, and figured it was just a swing of the pendulum which, soon enough would reverse itself. But that hasn't happened, in fact things just incrementally got worse for most people. My grandparents and parents, materially, had much less than I did in their youth but they had an unquenchable belief that things could and would get better for them — and more importantly for their kids — and they did.

              In 30 or 40 years, I dunno. Young people, in any circumstances, have tons of energy, enthusiasm and self belief. The question is how long into adulthood can they retain those qualities in a society that's doing it's best to strip them away? The 60s were an idealistic period. Individually many of those ideals turned out to be paper thin, but they created a heady atmosphere that arguably was more fruitful than the inevitable cynicism that succeeded them. As I said up-thread I tend to be fundamentally optimistic, so I think/hope my grandchildren will have fully come to terms with the radical changes that technology has wrought over the past thirty years in ways I never can, and use their knowledge, not just to their personal benefit (which has been the case in recent times) but for that of the entire planet. Sorry that's a long answer to question I'm not even sure you actually asked!

              Comment


                I totally understand your angle about the 1960s Amor, this hope, optimism etc. that today’s millennials have seemingly been deprived of. Likewise when you write about the social fabric being in worse shape now, it’s undeniably true I think, more on this at the end of this post.

                The bit I’m not sure I agree with you is this: "But that hasn't happened, in fact things just incrementally got worse for most people." I think we have to take things holistically here, and on a worldwide scale.

                Let’s leave the professional/workplace side of things aside, as I would probably agree with you, the situation of the workplace now vs 40-50 years ago is mixed in terms of results/achievements. But on balance, I do think the world is in a much better state today that it was half a century ago, eg China, Asia and Africa. Europe too, far much more peaceful, democratic, tolerant and inclusive. Yes, religious fundamentalism, populism and illiberalism are either a serious threat or a reality on most continents, and still plenty of dictatorships/autocracies but contrast that with the horrors of the past, period 1950-1980: the Soviet Union & Iron Curtain era, Maoism in China, the Central & South American juntas, Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, most of Africa, the Apartheid in South Africa, Idi Amin Dada in Uganda, Mobutu in Zaire, Saddam Hussein, the non Soviet Euro dictatorships (Salazar, Franco, the Greek military junta) and so on.

                So many barriers have tumbled down, or are being broken down, all over the world since the 1950-60s. Nothing is ever set in stone of course, progress and societal advances are always at risk of being undermined, and people the world over will always have to fight to preserve their rights, human or otherwise, but we can only judge the situation as we see it today.

                Yes, I know, today’s great thinkers (the likes of Éric Zemmour, Katie Hopkins, Rod Liddle, Jordan Peterson) keep telling us that modernity is pants because PCness is a scourge on society and they may have a point on this PCness issue, to a certain extent, hardcore PCness can be maddening and counter-productive, few people who have to deal on a practical level with PCness find it enlightening (I should know, teachers – I’m an ex teacher – often have to face the worst sides of PCness, things along the lines of this sort of insanity), but let’s keep things in perspective and look instead at what’s been achieved since the 1950s. People, either wilfully or not, are taking for granted the huge progress made across the board.

                Without even mentioning the USA and the racial segregation enshrined in law in some states (eg the Jim Crow Laws) right up to the 1960s as you, as an American, will know the situation much better than I do, imagine being a woman, a black person/s.o from an ethnic minority, a homosexual or anyone not white and "mainstream" in England or France in the 1950-60s… (I strongly recommend The Back Flash, The Albert Johanneson Story, written by Leeds United supporter and journalist Paul Harrison, also of course Paul Canoville’s Black and Blue etc. but Johanneson's book is also about racism at large in Leeds) eg I remember my MiL telling me years ago that women needed their husband’s permission to open a bank account in the 1960s. Discrimination, sexism, hyper-patriarchy, "casual" racism were rampant and uninhibited (that is coming back quite a bit now, as hatred are being mainstreamed and trivialised through the mass media. I mean, why the hell does Farage have a slot on LBC? What the hell was Hopkins doing in the Mail or the Sun - can't remember - up to a year ago before she was sacked? What the hell is Zemmour in France doing on RTL? etc.).

                Freedom of expression is much broader nowadays whatever the new reactionaries say about restriction of free speech (they don’t seem to suffer too much from that themselves, they’re ubiquitous in the media and Internet). In the 1960s in France for instance, the ORTF (the government-controlled media agency) pretty much decided what could be said on TV (only 2 channels). I bet the same goes for many other Western countries too. Overt xenophobia/racism was common on TV. Homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1967 in England & Wales and 1981 in Scotland, and only fully decriminalised in 1982 in France. Abortion in France was only legalised in 1975. "Paki-bashing" incidents in England and ratonnades in France were a regular occurrence right up to the 1980s. (cf the 1975 French film Dupont Lajoie, a classic; great actors in it too, Jean Carmet, Isabelle Huppert etc.). I know, we still have them but they are nowhere near as widespread as they used to be.

                Nostalgia is all well and good but it plays dirty tricks on people's minds, so many things were pretty shit in those days, and victims were on their own, no anti-racism organisation to defend them and celebrities to stick up for them, empowerment came much later. It doesn’t mean that the situation is fine and we shouldn't worry, God no, eg what happened in Rotherham from the late 1980s to 2013 where the authorities turned a blind eye, absolutely appalling. Progress will forever be a work, well, in progress.

                Prosperity and then globalisation have been good on many levels (eg travelling, Christ, it used to be so expensive and limited; work opportunities are generally much better today) but this commodification of everything and rampant materialism have naturally generated very noxious effects too. If we leave aside the huge inequalities capitalism has created as it relates more to the economic side of the debate (but we could also counter-argue that what the West has lost in terms of economic equality, China, Eastern Europe, Africa and the rest of the developing world have gained), the main drawback in today’s society, brought to a degree by full-on neoliberalism (and we go back to what I wrote on Bourdieu’s anomie and alienation in the Jordan Peterson thread) is the distinct lack of solidarity in general, at work, in our neighbourhoods this general indifference and lack of belonging that neighbours who don’t know each other’s names even after years of living next to each other.

                Indifference sounds pretty tame compared to most modern-life ills and afflictions (especially as it has its upsides, eg self-sufficiency), but make no mistake, it is a vile beast. It slowly compartmentalises society, it creates lots of little bubbles and fragments which end up de-socialising and marginalising people, it’s the fertile ground on which wilful ignorance, anger, hostility and various forms of subjugation (eg at work) can thrive.

                It does work two ways though, looks like many people are very happy to be left totally alone and that’s fine, loneliness has lost its stigma, and I suppose that’s a social progress, of sorts. I had an elderly neighbour in the 2000-10s who totally rejected my initial offers of help (shopping, garden etc.) and she knew me reasonably well, she knew who I was, she knew I wasn’t a thug or something, she was frail but compos mentis. For the best part of about 15 years, she could have done with occasional help, particularly in the winter, but seemed happy to be left totally on her own (and never go anywhere) apart from the gardener she occasionally used and her daughter who’d briefly visit weekly/fortnightly in the evening to bring the shopping and then, later, the carers who’d visit her every day for 20 mns. One day, an ambulance came and took her away. A few days later, her daughter turned up, didn’t inform anyone of what happened, didn’t talk to anyone, seemed to clean up the house. A week later, a For Sale sign went up. That’s when we knew she may have been taken to a care home or a hospice or even died. We never found out what had happened.

                Comment


                  The 'world' has many facets so maybe it's too broad to say better/worse, unless you mean environmentally, in which case of course it's a given that catastrophe is going to happen, whereas in 1950 it was still avoidable (unless the damage had already been done and its effects take time to appear.

                  Culturally, it's more of a mix. Better for blacks, gays and women, yes, but three steps forward, two steps back, and the gains are reversible.

                  Progressive taxation - clearly worse. The New Deal is now portrayed as a leftist delusion and we are losing socialized medicine in the UK.

                  The worst balance sheet is in relation to what had seemed to be possible circa 1965-75 and how little of that was actually achieved, especially if we lose Roe v Wade and (so-called) affirmative action.

                  Comment


                    I'm definitely at the Panglossy end of the spectrum. There are things that are still fucked up, and a handful that are more fucked up now than before, but mostly, and for most people, things are less fucked up now than they were a half century ago. Of course there are certain things that are unavailable to the kids of today which were available to young white western straight moderately wealthy blokes in the 60s or 70s or 80s. Free education, the security of knowing you weren't at risk of losing your job any time, knowing you'll have a pension, that sort of thing, along with a more solid sense of community (for those who did fit in). But the gains far outweigh those losses for most people, because most people aren't middle class white blokes in the western world, like I am. And even for people like me, there are benefits to the gig economy that come with the downsides; there are different communities; communities are longer exclusive and based purely on whether you're willing to go along with, say, your church or whatever.

                    We've lost stuff, but we've gained far more. And even Trump can't really undo much of it.

                    Comment


                      The bit I’m not sure I agree with you is this: "But that hasn't happened, in fact things just incrementally got worse for most people." I think we have to take things holistically here, and on a worldwide scale.

                      You're absolutely correct. As much as I may not want this to be true I'm aware it's an error of my age, class, and experience.

                      Britain in the fifties was far from multi-cultural, at my junior school there were a couple of Irish kids, maybe half a dozen from Scotland and that was it. My best friend Alex's Mum was Italian (war bride), Alfred, another friend, had a German Mum. The only black people in the world were my friend Keith, who I'd trade copies of The Beano with, and his Mum. In my school atlas 'Great Britain' was approximately a third the size of Europe and half the world was pink. We learned how intrepid Englishmen brought us silk from China, rubber from Malaya, grain from Canada and so on. It was all about us really, because who else mattered after all?

                      To some extent Brits my age still live with the consequences of that, as is all too obvious today. We carry a latent unworldliness chained to our ankles like so many Marley's Ghosts, and will for our remaining years however open-minded and pluralistic we believe ourselves to be.

                      What I was clumsily trying to express was that the political culture, within government and out, particularly in the countries I know best has deteriorated since the 1960s, markedly so in the US and UK, less so in Canada. That's the barometer I was referring to, which wasn't at all clear I realise.

                      Comment


                        I think even on the political side, you might be being pessimistic, Amor. The 60s was the era of George Wallace and Strom Thurmond in the US. In the UK it was Enoch Powell and "Nigger for a Neighbour" stuff. Sure, Trump and Sessions and Brexit and Farage are hardly giant leaps forward, but the worst of the 60s and 70s is just as bad as the worst of today.

                        And in the US, even on the Democratic side, the country was led by the famously corrupt LBJ, continuing disastrous wars in South East Asia. The current era's most recent Democratic president is world's apart from, and ahead of, either LBJ or JFK.

                        We're not doing great, but I really don't think we're doing that badly.

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                          Thurmond and Wallace never had the slavish support of a national television network, nor did they ever control (let alone steal) a seat on the Supreme Court.

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                            This. Everything seems volatile and stupid as fuck. Post 73 widespread faith in social democracy, judicial activism etc has all but disappeared. Even in effin Sweden, those fuckers have been more interested in inflating property booms and starting profiteering scams like free schools as govt policy than adhering to the hair shirt liberal stereotype.

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                              LBJ also did fucktons more than effing Kennedy on civil rights and redistribution. The Great Society doesn’t atone for Vietnam or any of that shite, any more than setting up the EPA lets Nixon off the hook. But the pre 73 Nixon once semi seriously talked of introducing a maximum wage. If Obama governed as left as Nixon’s first term (Not the evil dog whistle shit, just on domestic policies) he’d have been called a raging communist. The hope of curtailing the power of the elites is something that had gone by my time on earth. Tinkering Blair/Clinton was all that was left. It’s no wonder folk got folk got pissed off and listened to simplistic idiots when the wheels came off.

                              Comment


                                Older people tearing up the structures that helped them advance (the new deal/LBJ legacy in the states, welfare state in Europe)is really fuckig depressing. The lies people tell themselves, that they made it on their own, that young people don’t know they are born. Most all older voters now grew up under Keynesian orthodoxy. Could expect govt freebies in education, housing or health (at least if the right colour or not a despised single mum). If born white from mid 40s to late 50s, one of the luckiest generation s that ever lived (North America and Western Europe of course). And kissed it away when cunts like thatcher and Reagan appealed to their wallets. The culture wars of Trumpism and Brexit completing the process of denying goodies to the next gen, through greed or blind stupidity and nastiness.

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                                  So, the Republicans have nominated a neo-Confederate to challenge Tim Kaine for his Senate seat from Virginia.

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                                    Slightly to the left of Kane then.

                                    drumroll

                                    Comment


                                      Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                      Older people tearing up the structures that helped them advance (the new deal/LBJ legacy in the states, welfare state in Europe)is really fuckig depressing. The lies people tell themselves, that they made it on their own, that young people don’t know they are born. Most all older voters now grew up under Keynesian orthodoxy. Could expect govt freebies in education, housing or health (at least if the right colour or not a despised single mum). If born white from mid 40s to late 50s, one of the luckiest generation s that ever lived (North America and Western Europe of course). And kissed it away when cunts like thatcher and Reagan appealed to their wallets. The culture wars of Trumpism and Brexit completing the process of denying goodies to the next gen, through greed or blind stupidity and nastiness.
                                      It's also demographics. The baby boomers are unique in that they have always been in the majority (born after a load of people died, and a couple of decades before contraception was brought in), so they have been able to decide how everything is run. For their entire lives, politicians peddled to their whims. Free college? Cheap housing? Here you go. Oh, you are now older and would like your cheap house to now increase in value and to pay less tax? Here you go. Baby boomers think they are property investment superstars because the entire world has been tweaked to their needs their entire lives. I'm fed up of them telling me to invest in housing and that you can't go wrong.

                                      However, if any other generation had ended up with a massive electoral majority for their entire lifespan, would they have acted any less selfishly?

                                      Democracy is mob rule, it is what it is.

                                      Comment


                                        Any chance of a Democrat win here in November? Republican Congressman narrowly lost the primary.

                                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_...ional_district

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                                          Things aren't going to go on, Millennials are going to make sure of that. In some places that means tacking right, in some places that means tacking left.

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                                            Charleston seems to be doing OK. Are those the sort of suburbs where Republicans might struggle?

                                            Comment


                                              Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                                              Any chance of a Democrat win here in November? Republican Congressman narrowly lost the primary.

                                              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_...ional_district
                                              It would take a very big wave. If I were guessing on South Carolina districts likely to change, I'd have guessed at Charleston - it's a wealthy, well educated sort of city. And has a reasonable black population. But they still love their civil war patrician South airs, so it's very unlikely.

                                              Sanford's a fascinating character.

                                              A former governor, who had to quit because he literally couldn't be found when he claimed to be walking the Appalachian Trail, only to be discovered in Argentina with his mistress.

                                              Somehow he managed to get re-elected to Congress. But has been very critical of Trump, almost all from the right. Claiming that Trump's budget borrows too much, that sort of thing.

                                              He's such an outlier of a person, you really shouldn't read too much into it.

                                              It is, though, yet another incumbent gone, which will presumably just add to the Republicans problems.

                                              Comment


                                                Yes, SC-1 has Charleston, but it also has industrial quantities of gated communities surrounding coastal golf courses

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                                                  53-41 to Trump in 2016. That's probably too big a lead, even with no incumbent.

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                                                    As always, the result is massively dependent on who turns out.

                                                    Trump won the Western Pennsylvania district that Conor Lamb flipped to the Democrats in March by 58-39

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