In a Crisis period like ours, at some point a moment of decision will be at hand. A coalition will have to unite to defeat an evil threat to the nation. To me it is clear that this evil is coming from the Republicans. We need to recognize now that the key trait of our situation is the extreme danger of a powerful reactionary right wing, rather than a lack of progressives among Democrats. The salient feature of our politics is how bad the Republicans are, not how lackluster the Democrats are. The Great American Crisis every 80-plus years is a confrontation with a threat to the nation's survival. That is what we face today with the power of the fanatical, right-wing Republicans. The problem today is not that both parties are captive of the Establishment. The problem today is the extreme evil of one of those two parties. If we don't unite to defeat it, our nation will not survive, and neither will the world. It's that simple; it's that stark. And certainly no progress is possible at all, whether under Democrats OR another party, unless and until the Republicans are thoroughly and permanently defeated.

Given that this choice may indeed be on the ballot in 2016 (although also later on), we need to take a fresh cosmic look at the likely match up; and something strikes me that I don't always mention. It's true that Jeb Bush has a better chart for getting elected than Hillary does. The genetic makeup of the Bush family does seem to be reflected in their astrology charts, as is often the case with families. Marriage and legal connection doesn't always translate in the same way.

But Hillary does have that very significant new moon before election in her favor; but also something else. I don't have birthtimes for all the candidates; only some, so I don't always know if candidates have a strong Ascendant, and so I can't include the Ascendant in my scores for them. That's the famous "rising" sign on the East at the moment of birth. But I do know the birthtimes of most presidents, and some candidates; and I do know them for both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. And I know that planets in the first house are a big boost for candidates; they indicate charisma, the ability to project will and personality and to be larger than life. I have mentioned LBJ (half his planets in the first house) and Bill Clinton (4 planets there) as examples of candidates who had a strong first house or Ascendant/rising sign and planets.

Here the significant fact is that Hillary has a rising planet and Jeb Bush does not. And Hillary has Uranus rising, which is rare among US presidents, but which is common to two of our most revolutionary and visionary ones: Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is a powerful indicator that Hillary has more potential to be a charismatic leader than Bush. Jeb Bush's appeal is on the contrary that of someone who is stable, the "adult in the room," and very reliably conservative and steady without being too reactionary. But if the people want a leader, someone to inspire them to high achievements, then Hillary has some of the right stuff, because Uranus is rising in her horoscope (and trine to her Sun too). She will be able to outspeak and outshine Bush, and give more of the impression of leadership abilities. She will have the appeal, like Jefferson and Roosevelt, of someone who is breaking new ground: the first woman president, and possibly a liberal champion, in spite of her tendency and ability to deal with the powers that be.

And although she is less reliable as a progressive, she is also a more dynamic leader and speaker than Elizabeth Warren is. That doesn't mean I would support Hillary over Warren; I wouldn't. But when it comes down to a choice between her and Bush, I think there's reason enough to support her in a time of crisis and threat from the right-wing, if you live in a swing state.

At this stage in the Crisis Era we cannot achieve our dreams, but we can certainly realize some of our nightmares. All that is necessary for us to achieve our nightmares is

(1) to acquiesce in the suffering of others
(2) to exercise none of our capacity for critical judgment
(3) to treat vague threats as great menaces
(4) to consider people who intend to exploit us as benefactors
(5) to compromise on old standards of political decency in the name of economic growth
(6) to accept privileges in a vile and corrupt 'new order' as more precious than rights in a decent 'old order'
(7) to become complicit in the brutal deeds of economic and bureaucratic elites
(8) to identify with spurious measures of membership in an elite (as in "I am straight, white, and Christian")

Citizens United has debased the political process into something that the crusty oil billionaire (in the 1970s) H. L. Hunt described as his ethical optimum:

"I believe in the Golden Rule -- he who has the gold makes the rules".

The Koch brothers are more subtle than that, wise enough to allow the most polished liars (PR firms) and the experts most capable of corrupting the political process (such political fronts as Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, and Karl Rove's Crossroads America) to do the work. H. L. Hunt was a buffoon; the Koch brothers know what they are doing. The only good that I can say about the Koch brothers is that they have yet to endorse violence in the achievement of their dreams. There are corporate cultures that give indications of tolerating it so long as they get away with it:

In a decision made public on Wednesday, Geoffrey Carter, an N.L.R.B. administrative law judge, also found that a Walmart manager had illegally intimidated workers by saying, “If it were up to me, I’d shoot the union.” In addition, the judge said it was unlawful for Walmart managers to tell employees that co-workers returning from a one-day strike would be looking for a new job. [...]

Judge Carter ruled that one Walmart manager had engaged in unlawful intimidation when he told an Our Walmart supporter who had a rope tied around his waist, to pull a heavy load, “If it was up to me, I would put that rope around your neck.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/1...ts-judge-rules

People at the apex of power know enough to not say such things themselves. They are willing to let others do the dirty work and be sacrificed if caught. That's how things were done at Abu Ghraib under a President who to an extent unprecedented in time-span of a typical human lifetime, a President who believed as much as any President since at least Calvin Coolidge that no human suffering is in excess if it turns a profit or protects financial assets. The elites soon to dominate American politics for two, and perhaps indefinitely once they change the mechanisms of American electoral tradition, practice Machiavellian Realpolitik to an extent unknown in American history. They already use Orwellian doublespeak that debases the political discourse.

Our Founding Fathers despised the political techniques of The Prince, and they did not obfuscate on anything except slavery (their one destructive blindness).

Except on race and homosexuality we Americans are much nastier than the Americans of the 1930s. At least in the 1930s the mass culture was family-friendly. You can safely watch just about any American movie from the 1930s (except for some "stag" films that then had limited audiences) without having to shield a child's face from overt sexuality. Capone went to prison. Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Machine-Gun Kelly, and John Dillinger ended up dead -- and as models of how not to live.

Unfortunately you are wrong. The 1930s saw the rise of the gangster film, like Angels with Dirty Faces and stars like Edward G Robinson. The original Superman comics were actually quite violent, as Superman would fry his enemies vigilante style;A little later Batman was born and part of the reason that Batman has such an impressive rogue's gallery is because it needed to have one: people needed a place where they could cope with the antics of real life villains, the ones that occupied the night in real cities like New York, which at the time were overcrowded and rife with corruption, slumlords and kingpins like Lucky Luciano who were hidden in plain sight; then as now huge chunks of the population in major cities were of immigrant stock and in the absence of the chance of social advancement whole neighborhoods were recruiting grounds for gangs, gangs that plagued and victimized those least in a position to fight back.

Film noir began in this decade, and the stark and dramatic lighting typical of Humphrey Bogart films. There's a reason that the criminal detective in these films is cynical and a tough guy image is so popular when so many at the time felt powerless. And by the way, there were just as many of these as there were films like the Wizard of Oz or Disney cartoons with Mickey Mouse.

You are correct on sex being taboo, but largely that was a product of religious organizations censoring and applying pressure on filmmakers and studios: today that barrier is gone, and if I may be frank I'm in no mood to moralize about it. I grew up watching Baby Boomers have knock em dead drag 'em out battles over it and roll my eyes when I hear arguments like this because today it really is no hardship to get one's hands on the remote control or software to block content to keep certain things from children's eyes. A little girl is not going to die because she saw an image of a naked man. It is simply the parent's job to step up to the plate and explain to the child what she has seen –" Yes sweetheart, that is just what a man looks like without his underwear on. All boys look like that when they grow up, it is normal. The lady you see going into the bathroom to talk to him in the shower is his girlfriend, and sometimes when grownups have been boyfriend and girlfriend for a long time they have a relationship kind of like mommy and daddy's and are comfortable enough to be with each other even in moments that are usually very very private."

....pragmatic enough to recognize that the Flawed is far better than the Monstrous. I now consider the Republican Party a nearly-fascist party. We have a better chance of maintaining our freedom and our tradition of service-driven government if the Republican Party implodes. There are two other cases in which the second-largest Party imploded in American history with the Federalists and the Whigs, neither of which was as nasty as the Republican Party is now. The Democratic Party became the only game in town for a while, only to then split into two new parties of similar size.

And you have fallen hook line and sinker for the false dichotomy of Republican v. Democrat. You stupidly demonize one party as the cause of all our troubles when really it is simply the more overt evildoer of the two. You cannot conceive of a system in which both parties are no good, because little in American history points to it: perhaps you should look abroad in Latin America for when this happens, as the echoes and current American politics are chilling. Like Latin America, as I have said multiple times, neither party represents the people of the United States. If you do not believe me, Go take a look at the issues Pew Research polls for. Most Americans want reinvestment in infrastructure. Most Americans want a review of the tax code and the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. Support for Obama care is rising, as is support for some form of socialized medicine, especially among the young, a trend that has not changed in 10 years.


Now go take a look at C-SPAN and get out a pad. Realize that at any time any senator, one out of 100, could propose a bill with wide public support;it could be any one of these issues. There is absolute silence on the floor of Congress. I think you want to believe that continually voting for the lesser of two evils is a solution, but please excuse me: I have watched my elders try that tactic since I was a very small girl and it never made anything better. At best, you had one party become evil in slow motion and the other just become evil point blank. At best, you got politicians on one side of the aisle far too willing to negotiate in the hopes that a small piece of legislation would get through, when what was needed was all of it.( I am 32 now. I have watched in horror as Congress piddle twiddles and resolves over issues brought up when I was 12, to borrow a phrase from the play 1776.) And year after year, the choice of candidates at election time slowly got worse and worse. each election cycle featured the next politician being slightly more evil than the last one up for office. And each time, my elders told me to hold my nose.

it never occurrs to them that instead we should be demanding much more of our elected officials and a much greater say in who stands for office. It doesn't occur to them that in this sick game of red team versus blue team where it's all the fault of the other team is a flop, fraud, a failure. The only way justice will truly be done is by holding both red and blue team accountable for their crimes and for their corruption. Even if it means replacing both of them as national entities, accountability must be restored, and the people's voice must be heard after 30 years of being ignored. Both Republican and Democratic parties emerged in their current form at the end of the 19th century. We live in the 21st. Just waiting for the Republicans to implode might not be enough. It would still leave us with the Democrats.

PS – this has happened before in history, although not American history. It was also a crisis. You may remember a little fight between the Yorkists and Lancastrians. Neither side was truly fit to rule. And neither side recognized their own avarice. It took a whole new generation to stop the madness, one that had grown up in the shadow of their parents bickering like the Hatfields and the McCoys and tearing up England as a result. Henry Tudor was never supposed to be much of anything except a minor Earl with with a Welsh father but every time the wheel of fortune turned, no matter what happened, no matter if the white rose or the red rose won, it always affected Henry and members of his generation adversely. (look at poor Elizabeth of York: her mother was a nut and had a knack for pissing off every courtier she ever met, not to mention she had extravagant tastes that belied her inability in accounting skills. It is also possible that Henry hearing of the plot to have her wed to Richard and subsequently going into a rage is true, since Henry would have known her prior to his leaving England as a little girl, a tiny cute princess, and this crookback freak probably was wearing her father Edward's old robes while leering at Elizabeth, so hungry for power that little details, such as the fact that Elizabeth was his niece, didn't matter to him.)

Naturally they finally got tired of it and though they got support from disaffected others, they led the way to final victory, ultimately replacing both the Yorkists and Lancastrians. King Henry VII went to work and got rid of the old order with a lot of his friends from Bosworth and most often sent the Idealist archetype packing, literally in the case of Elizabeth Woodville.

Originally Posted by Mary Kate 1982

Unfortunately you are wrong. The 1930s saw the rise of the gangster film, like Angels with Dirty Faces and stars like Edward G Robinson. The original Superman comics were actually quite violent, as Superman would fry his enemies vigilante style;A little later Batman was born and part of the reason that Batman has such an impressive rogue's gallery is because it needed to have one: people needed a place where they could cope with the antics of real life villains, the ones that occupied the night in real cities like New York, which at the time were overcrowded and rife with corruption, slumlords and kingpins like Lucky Luciano who were hidden in plain sight; then as now huge chunks of the population in major cities were of immigrant stock and in the absence of the chance of social advancement whole neighborhoods were recruiting grounds for gangs, gangs that plagued and victimized those least in a position to fight back.

Angels with Dirty Faces -- a good example there. It was a morality play in that the contrast between being a Good Guy (Rocky Sullivan's brother) and a Bad Guy (Rocky Sullivan, played by James Cagney) was between a wholesome, if not fully-satisfying life, and taking a destructive course that ends in the electric chair. The corrupt attorney (Humphrey Bogart) gets his for being in on Rocky's crimes. The most violent characters in the movies were gangsters... and in the end they got theirs. Hard time in prison, death by the electric chair, or being ventilated by a hail of gunfire. It was nothing subtle.

The Jews who owned the studios (and really, Hollywood was never so Jewish since then) had their agenda -- to encourage the straight and narrow even if it implied great personal hardship. They heavily depicted Irish Catholics because there were so many of them and so many of them were on the margin between success and failure (like Jews at the time), and they gladly gave Catholic priests the roles as moral guides. There were clear heroes and clear villains.

New York City had the biggest gangsters, the exploiters of hard-working people... "Metropolis" of Superman and the "Gotham City" of Batman are undeniably New York City. New York City has always been a tough place to live due to its economic stresses, and crooks have always found ways in which to cut corners on the normal decencies of life. But there was also the Lone Ranger on the Texas frontier... in his serials, villains also meet bad ends, although we are left with no explicit description of the legal consequences. But the Lone Ranger is a lawman, and he delivers crooks to the formal system of justice. No lynchings.

Film noir began in this decade, and the stark and dramatic lighting typical of Humphrey Bogart films. There's a reason that the criminal detective in these films is cynical and a tough guy image is so popular when so many at the time felt powerless. And by the way, there were just as many of these as there were films like the Wizard of Oz or Disney cartoons with Mickey Mouse.

True -- and it is very good.

You are correct on sex being taboo, but largely that was a product of religious organizations censoring and applying pressure on filmmakers and studios: today that barrier is gone, and if I may be frank I'm in no mood to moralize about it. I grew up watching Baby Boomers have knock em dead drag 'em out battles over it and roll my eyes when I hear arguments like this because today it really is no hardship to get one's hands on the remote control or software to block content to keep certain things from children's eyes. A little girl is not going to die because she saw an image of a naked man. It is simply the parent's job to step up to the plate and explain to the child what she has seen –" Yes sweetheart, that is just what a man looks like without his underwear on. All boys look like that when they grow up, it is normal. The lady you see going into the bathroom to talk to him in the shower is his girlfriend, and sometimes when grownups have been boyfriend and girlfriend for a long time they have a relationship kind of like mommy and daddy's and are comfortable enough to be with each other even in moments that are usually very very private."

The movie magnates wanted their films to avoid offending the biggest taboos of the time -- sex, villains getting away with it, and mockery of religion. Such violations of the taboos might scare people from attending the next night at the movie theater... and remember -- going out to the movies was typically an event for the whole family. Maybe the kids would be asleep during the drama, but they would be awake for the cartoons and the comedy shorts. As for the mockery of religion, the studio bosses had good reason to treat all religion gently (according to Michael Medved): if people could mock a Christian church, they could just as easily mock the religion of the studio bosses. In the 1930s, the leadership of one country in central Europe went far beyond mockery of the religion in question.

Parents would be wise to put the R-rated (and often PG-13) content of their video collections under lock and key. I may think the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark in which sadistic Nazis and a corrupt collaborator of them experience horrific deaths a masterpiece -- but I would have trouble explaining it to some small children. (I don't know Hebrew, so I can only guess at the content of the prayer while the Ark is opened. My take:

Oh God our Refuge in times of greatest peril
Smite the enemy which knoweth not Thy Law
Let Thy Justice prevail
Bring us, who heed Thy Law, victory so that we might praise Thee again. Amen.)

Such a prayer would have been appropriate by those participating in the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion, but if uttered by evil people it would be blasphemous in the extreme. Asking God to do or bless evil is the worst blasphemy possible. Nazis would get exactly what they asked for -- their obliteration, and they would never have a clue. I could contemplate that; an eight-year-old child could not.

...American mass culture is far coarser today than it was eighty years ago, and that makes a huge difference. Just look at the support that Americans, especially Republicans, show for torture if it is done in the name of fighting terrorism. I have no problem with same-sex marriage, but I have plenty with children having access to violent video games and movies.

The Fundamental problem with the entire American system is that the political machinery in DC is designed and revolves around slow debates and lobbying. Politicians goals under the system is accumulating money and getting reelected. Any reforms by any side always end up having to go through massive time-consuming processes and even if they are made into law usually end up being extensively watered down. As a result usually the only reforms that get past are "reforms" that benefit the established political classes. No, I propose that there should be a complete replacement of our fundamental system and a complete revolution of what constitutes being American and what constitutes our rights and responsibilities. The goal being a fundamental change in our national character and collective national personality.

My Proposed new ideological lexicon; Restorationism, seeks to create this new society, not merely retooling the civic order; but a complete reformation of American thought and social interactions. My proposed reforms are as follows:

1) Reform the government by instituting anti-corruption laws and anti-lobbying laws. Create an equitable society by removing corporate domination of the political system. Remove the influence of special interest groups. Pass campaign finance reform, purge any politician of any party who does not comply. Institute anti-monopoly measures within both the economy and political system. Institute a purge of various money-grubbing pacifists and others who naively trusts foreign nations to abide by treaties

2) Reform the education system to provide an education for all regardless of race or income. These educational reforms will be supervised by the military. Education will focus not only on the traditional subjects but also includes emphasis on the history of war and on philosophy. Their would also be camp life where children and teenagers would learn survival and technical skills as well as emphasis on creating a society of friends and comrades in arms. These later reforms will effect both boys and girls. Children will enter school and once they reach roughly their sophomore year in high school will be screen into two main categories: potential administrative elite, and probable commoner. However both categories will be able to chose between three main categories, Military, Civil administration and finally economic participant.

3) Build up the military to over 10 million men and 60,000 nuclear missiles. Shift nuclear forces to offensive-defensive counterattack doctrine. Rival nations would be warned that the US has a countervalue retaliation policy. sign non-aggression friendship and arms control treaties with rivals and allies, but don't assume foreign compliance, secretly build up forbidden capabilities without foreign knowledge.

4) Vassalize Latin America, pacify the middle east. In the pacification of the middle east after regular forces and marines secure the cities, coastal facilities and roads, these will be followed by heavily armed "deislamization units". The Mideast would be divided into military regions each under the control of a US military governor. To administer these military regions settlement towns and settlement cities would be created and populated by American, Anglophone, Latin American, African and Israeli settlers. Although construction of these proposed cities would be carried out by Arab Muslim labor.

Ah, Utopians! Demonstrably the most dangerous form of societal pursuit!

Originally Posted by TnT

Ah, Utopians! Demonstrably the most dangerous form of societal pursuit!

Someone here takes Plato's Republic too seriously.

An attempt to vassalize Latin America would be the stupidest thing that America has ever done. Even if it succeeds it is the beginning of the authoritarian, corrupt, inflexible, and doomed Universal State that Arnold Toynbee sees as the final stage of a civilization.

Originally Posted by TnT

Ah, Utopians! Demonstrably the most dangerous form of societal pursuit!

I always jokingly ask him if he is off his meds, again!

Originally Posted by Mary Kate 1982

And you have fallen hook line and sinker for the false dichotomy of Republican v. Democrat. You stupidly demonize one party as the cause of all our troubles when really it is simply the more overt evildoer of the two. You cannot conceive of a system in which both parties are no good, because little in American history points to it: perhaps you should look abroad in Latin America for when this happens, as the echoes and current American politics are chilling. Like Latin America, as I have said multiple times, neither party represents the people of the United States. If you do not believe me, Go take a look at the issues Pew Research polls for. Most Americans want reinvestment in infrastructure. Most Americans want a review of the tax code and the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. Support for Obama care is rising, as is support for some form of socialized medicine, especially among the young, a trend that has not changed in 10 years.

What's your problem then? These are the things Democrats support. They are blocked by Republicans. The power of the Republicans is the only problem. If Democrats cave in too often, it's because they fear the power of the other party.

Now go take a look at C-SPAN and get out a pad. Realize that at any time any senator, one out of 100, could propose a bill with wide public support;it could be any one of these issues. There is absolute silence on the floor of Congress. I think you want to believe that continually voting for the lesser of two evils is a solution, but please excuse me: I have watched my elders try that tactic since I was a very small girl and it never made anything better. At best, you had one party become evil in slow motion and the other just become evil point blank. At best, you got politicians on one side of the aisle far too willing to negotiate in the hopes that a small piece of legislation would get through, when what was needed was all of it.( I am 32 now. I have watched in horror as Congress piddle twiddles and resolves over issues brought up when I was 12, to borrow a phrase from the play 1776.) And year after year, the choice of candidates at election time slowly got worse and worse. each election cycle featured the next politician being slightly more evil than the last one up for office. And each time, my elders told me to hold my nose.

The Republicans have been in power throughout your lifetime, and beyond. They have simply taken over. Everything moves toward what they want. The only opposition in the government is from Democrats, plus an independent who votes with them. Vote strategically and smartly. If you are in a swing state, then be concerned with the lesser of two evils, because the greater evil is very much more evil, and the other party can be good if it feels the wind of public support at its back. Too often, that is lacking; the people of America are at fault for this, more than the politicians. If you are not in a swing state, then you can afford to vote for another party, or stay home. Then you send a message with your vote.

I hasten to add though, that if the Republicans succeed in mucking up the electoral college to cheat their way to yet another ill-gotten win, then you may also have to pay attention to what congressional district you are in.

it never occurs to them that instead we should be demanding much more of our elected officials and a much greater say in who stands for office. It doesn't occur to them that in this sick game of red team versus blue team where it's all the fault of the other team is a flop, fraud, a failure. The only way justice will truly be done is by holding both red and blue team accountable for their crimes and for their corruption. Even if it means replacing both of them as national entities, accountability must be restored, and the people's voice must be heard after 30 years of being ignored. Both Republican and Democratic parties emerged in their current form at the end of the 19th century. We live in the 21st. Just waiting for the Republicans to implode might not be enough. It would still leave us with the Democrats.

Then the people need to demand more. They are not doing it. They vote Republican, stay home, or stay silent. Red vs. blue is the vital game. You have been fooled and bamboozled if you don't see this. It is vital that blue defeats red; there is no other way to progress again. It doesn't matter if the blue team is inadequate now; they can be MADE adequate. The other party cannot be made adequate, or anything other than evil.

PS – this has happened before in history, although not American history. It was also a crisis. You may remember a little fight between the Yorkists and Lancastrians. Neither side was truly fit to rule. And neither side recognized their own avarice. It took a whole new generation to stop the madness, one that had grown up in the shadow of their parents bickering like the Hatfields and the McCoys and tearing up England as a result. Henry Tudor was never supposed to be much of anything except a minor Earl with with a Welsh father but every time the wheel of fortune turned, no matter what happened, no matter if the white rose or the red rose won, it always affected Henry and members of his generation adversely. (look at poor Elizabeth of York: her mother was a nut and had a knack for pissing off every courtier she ever met, not to mention she had extravagant tastes that belied her inability in accounting skills. It is also possible that Henry hearing of the plot to have her wed to Richard and subsequently going into a rage is true, since Henry would have known her prior to his leaving England as a little girl, a tiny cute princess, and this crookback freak probably was wearing her father Edward's old robes while leering at Elizabeth, so hungry for power that little details, such as the fact that Elizabeth was his niece, didn't matter to him.)

Naturally they finally got tired of it and though they got support from disaffected others, they led the way to final victory, ultimately replacing both the Yorkists and Lancastrians. King Henry VII went to work and got rid of the old order with a lot of his friends from Bosworth and most often sent the Idealist archetype packing, literally in the case of Elizabeth Woodville.

I know this all pretty well, since I was 12 But it's irrelevant; a squabble among aristocrats for power is not what our current battles are about. The country and the world is at stake. The blue side must win, and then they must be prodded and required to do the right things. Those who thought electing Obama would fix things were sadly mistaken. He needed a congress, and it needed to be kept in power, not swept out the moment the conservatives wailed. And he needed the citizens to stay active and involved. They didn't. They voted and went home, for good. That's not an America that can move forward. The equivalent upper aristocratic class of today can't fight this battle; we live in a peoples' country, and it belongs to us, if we take it back from the upper class.

You don't appear to be cognizant of these facts, but I hope the people get it before it's too late.

No, Eric, YOU need to get it before it's too late.

Originally Posted by Odin

No, Eric, YOU need to get it before it's too late.

Ha ha, I don't live in a swing state. I can vote Green to my heart's content. But do you really think Americans are going to elect Bernie Sanders, or Jill Stein, etc.?

Or maybe you think we can have a riot and that will do the trick?

Dream on, Odin.

Originally Posted by Odin

No, Eric, YOU need to get it before it's too late.

I live in Michigan, so I dare not waste my vote. My alleged Representative well represents Amway (not in his district) and Koch Industries (consumer products, energy, polyester, and fascism).

A hint: having found that Koch Industries has no plants in India, I am delighted to buy textiles manufactured in the world's largest democracy. I forget -- is Indonesia or Japan the second-largest democracy? Plutocratic oligarchy as we are about to have in a few days is not democracy.

22 months until we vote out the Koch dynasty or 24 months until we get a full-blown dictatorship.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The Republicans have been in power throughout your lifetime, and beyond. They have simply taken over. Everything moves toward what they want. The only opposition in the government is from Democrats, plus an independent who votes with them.

Just a minor correction. there are two independents who caucus with the Democrats in the Senate.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Just a minor correction. there are two independents who caucus with the Democrats in the Senate.

Yes, although I don't know how reliable Angus King is as a progressive Democrat, or whether he votes with Democrats most of the time. I think he's pretty good from that point of view, but I'm not sure. The independent Lieberman also "caucused" with the Democrats, but often did not vote with them.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

In a Crisis period like ours, at some point a moment of decision will be at hand. A coalition will have to unite to defeat an evil threat to the nation. To me it is clear that this evil is coming from the Republicans. We need to recognize now that the key trait of our situation is the extreme danger of a powerful reactionary right wing, rather than a lack of progressives among Democrats. The salient feature of our politics is how bad the Republicans are, not how lackluster the Democrats are. The Great American Crisis every 80-plus years is a confrontation with a threat to the nation's survival. That is what we face today with the power of the fanatical, right-wing Republicans. The problem today is not that both parties are captive of the Establishment. The problem today is the extreme evil of one of those two parties. If we don't unite to defeat it, our nation will not survive, and neither will the world. It's that simple; it's that stark. And certainly no progress is possible at all, whether under Democrats OR another party, unless and until the Republicans are thoroughly and permanently defeated.

Given that this choice may indeed be on the ballot in 2016 (although also later on), we need to take a fresh cosmic look at the likely match up; and something strikes me that I don't always mention. It's true that Jeb Bush has a better chart for getting elected than Hillary does. The genetic makeup of the Bush family does seem to be reflected in their astrology charts, as is often the case with families. Marriage and legal connection doesn't always translate in the same way.

But Hillary does have that very significant new moon before election in her favor; but also something else. I don't have birthtimes for all the candidates; only some, so I don't always know if candidates have a strong Ascendant, and so I can't include the Ascendant in my scores for them. That's the famous "rising" sign on the East at the moment of birth. But I do know the birthtimes of most presidents, and some candidates; and I do know them for both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. And I know that planets in the first house are a big boost for candidates; they indicate charisma, the ability to project will and personality and to be larger than life. I have mentioned LBJ (half his planets in the first house) and Bill Clinton (4 planets there) as examples of candidates who had a strong first house or Ascendant/rising sign and planets.

Here the significant fact is that Hillary has a rising planet and Jeb Bush does not. And Hillary has Uranus rising, which is rare among US presidents, but which is common to two of our most revolutionary and visionary ones: Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is a powerful indicator that Hillary has more potential to be a charismatic leader than Bush. Jeb Bush's appeal is on the contrary that of someone who is stable, the "adult in the room," and very reliably conservative and steady without being too reactionary. But if the people want a leader, someone to inspire them to high achievements, then Hillary has some of the right stuff, because Uranus is rising in her horoscope (and trine to her Sun too). She will be able to outspeak and outshine Bush, and give more of the impression of leadership abilities. She will have the appeal, like Jefferson and Roosevelt, of someone who is breaking new ground: the first woman president, and possibly a liberal champion, in spite of her tendency and ability to deal with the powers that be.

And although she is less reliable as a progressive, she is also a more dynamic leader and speaker than Elizabeth Warren is. That doesn't mean I would support Hillary over Warren; I wouldn't. But when it comes down to a choice between her and Bush, I think there's reason enough to support her in a time of crisis and threat from the right-wing, if you live in a swing state.

As always you have notable observations and interesting ideas. Take it a bit further and engage in systems thinking. In systems thinking, there are no labels, pigeon-holes or stereotypes. There are only elements of the system, various inputs and outputs, and, the behavioral characteristics of the elements in how they respond to stimuli. No one political party is the whole of the system and there are no set boundaries between parties, and all other players in the system. Understand this and changing the system becomes far less daunting.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

As always you have notable observations and interesting ideas. Take it a bit further and engage in systems thinking. In systems thinking, there are no labels, pigeon-holes or stereotypes. There are only elements of the system, various inputs and outputs, and, the behavioral characteristics of the elements in how they respond to stimuli. No one political party is the whole of the system and there are no set boundaries between parties, and all other players in the system. Understand this and changing the system becomes far less daunting.

I don't disagree; there may be ways around the impasse and the brick walls, or they may collapse of their own weight and anachronism. I don't think we can depend on that happening though, especially when it comes to deciding how to vote. Myself, I can predict, but I can't say for sure what will happen. But in the rest of the world, sure, there are always ways and means, and rigid categories only go so far.

Deislamization would be carried out using a variety of methods. Mostly when our troops capture a given area of the middle east the front line forces would be followed by deislamization special task forces. These special units mission would be to liquidate Islamist and terrorist elements throughout the middle east; the Islamist cleric extremist class/caste must be eliminated. I'm confident that if the general pacification of the middle east occurs, the majority of the world would be relieved and say thanks that someone is finally doing something to remedy this scourge. Even many muslims themselves would regard our forces as liberators and as a vanguard of a civilizational reconciliation.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Deislamization would be carried out using a variety of methods. Mostly when our troops capture a given area of the middle east the front line forces would be followed by deislamization special task forces. These special units mission would be to liquidate Islamist and terrorist elements throughout the middle east; the Islamist cleric extremist class/caste must be eliminated. I'm confident that if the general pacification of the middle east occurs, the majority of the world would be relieved and say thanks that someone is finally doing something to remedy this scourge. Even many muslims themselves would regard our forces as liberators and as a vanguard of a civilizational reconciliation.

Off your meds, again?

An article By James Howard Kunstler on why the Dems won't save us, contra Eric.

The futility of politics in America these days has driven the public into exactly the dream-state of zombie blood-lust depicted in so many popular video fantasies, a nightmare of decay, powerlessness, and degeneracy matching the actual condition of a disintegrating polity that has lost collective consciousness and seeks only to infect the dwindling numbers of the still-sentient.

Almost nobody in this country believes we can manage our affairs anymore.

Well, can we? One of the hallmarks of an imploding culture is that people lose a sense of consequence. Things just seem to happen and unhappen, and nobody really cares about chains of decision and event. Anything goes and nothing matters.

One reason this is happening to us is that we allowed reality to be divorced from truth. Karl Rove wasn’t kidding back in the Bush-2 days when he quipped that “we create our own reality.” The part old Karl left out is that there’s a price for doing that. In the short run, it allows you to pretend that you have superpowers and can act in defiance of the way things really are. In the longer run, your view of the world comports so poorly with the facts of the world that things stop working.

The tragedy of Barack Obama is that he continued the basic Karl Rove doctrine only without bragging about it. I don’t know whether Mr. Obama was a hostage, an empty suit, or a fool, but he broadened and deepened the acquiescence to lying about just about everything. Did criminal misconduct run rampant in banking for years? Oh, nevermind. Is the U.S. economy actually contracting instead of recovering? We’ll just make up better numbers. Did U.S. officials act like Nazi war criminals in torturing prisoners? Well, yeah, but so what? Did the State Department and the CIA scuttle the elected Ukrainian government in order to start an unnecessary new conflict with Russia? Maybe so, but who cares? Was the Affordable Care Act a swindle in the service of insurance and pharmaceutical racketeering? Oh, we’ll read the bill after we pass it. Shale oil will make us “energy independent.” (Not.)

Has anyone noticed the way these incongruities percolate into the public attention and then get dismissed, like daydreams, with no resolution? I’ve harped on this one before because it was, to my mind, Obama’s greatest failure: When the Supreme Court decided in the Citizens United case that corporations were entitled to express their political convictions by buying off politicians, why didn’t the President join with his then-Democratic majority congress to propose legislation, or a constitutional amendment, more clearly redefining the difference between corporate “personhood” and the condition of citizenship? How could this constitutional lawyer miss the reality that corporations legally and explicitly do not have obligations, duties, and responsibilities to the public interest but only to their shareholders? How was this not obvious? And why was there not a rush to correct it?

Of course, this only begs the question: where are the opponents to the ethos that anything goes and nothing matters? Where are the political figures who can sustain a complaint long enough, and loudly enough, to keep it in the public consciousness clearly enough to make a difference? The more conspiracy-minded might say that the security apparatus (the NSA and its servelings) or Wall Street actually run the country and somehow suppress opposition. I don’t believe that. I do believe that cultures go through tragic periods when they lose their bearings and the will to be truthful to themselves.

The latest news is that Mr. Jeb Bush is way ahead among his Republican rivals for the presidential nomination, leading to a beautiful setup for the battle of the dynasties: Bush versus Clinton in 2016. I believe that insulting prospect would be the wake-up call that will hit the American people upside the head and wake them out of their zombie rapture. A third party will arise. It may be a good one or a bad one, but it will blow the existing order of things apart, as it should.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Deislamization would be carried out using a variety of methods. Mostly when our troops capture a given area of the middle east the front line forces would be followed by deislamization special task forces. These special units mission would be to liquidate Islamist and terrorist elements throughout the middle east; the Islamist cleric extremist class/caste must be eliminated. I'm confident that if the general pacification of the middle east occurs, the majority of the world would be relieved and say thanks that someone is finally doing something to remedy this scourge. Even many muslims themselves would regard our forces as liberators and as a vanguard of a civilizational reconciliation.

It seems like you will be in a race against the IS Islamists, who are carrying out the same general plan as you advocate, but against us "good guys."

It's IS against US. I guess it depends on what the definition of the word IS, IS. Or what the definition of the word US, WAS.

I never said the Dems will save us, of course (Odin can't read, I guess). It is up to us to save the Dems. Only then can the Dems save us; if we the people ARE the Dems. The Reps are beyond saving. And the people of America are not smart enough to support a progressive third party. So what, Mr. Kunstler thinks any 3rd party will do? Just break up the system, that will do the trick? No, only breaking up the old ideologies will do the trick. Then it doesn't matter what the party labels are.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I never said the Dems will save us, of course (Odin can't read, I guess). It is up to us to save the Dems. Only then can the Dems save us; if we the people ARE the Dems. The Reps are beyond saving. And the people of America are not smart enough to support a progressive third party. .

Just a few days ago I heard someone talking about this. I don't know what the guys name was, but he was from NYC and he pointed out that he knew that the Occupy movement of 2011 wasn't going to really change anything because they applied their tactics to the wrong targets. Specifically, he went to one of the general assembies and suggested that instead of just protesting Wall Street they take that protest down to the local Democratic Party headquarters.
He pointed out that the banksters of Wall Street fond it all amusing but not threatening nor an opportunity. For the Democrats a mass movement that gains traction would be BOTH a threat and an opportunity.
If we are entering a new Gilded Age blunting and eventually reversing the effects of the official program is going to take sustained organization and activism. And a lot of that activism is going to have to be within the system. We didn't get from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era by the masses remaining disorganized the first time, and we won't now either.

Originally Posted by Eric

So what, Mr. Kunstler thinks any 3rd party will do? Just break up the system, that will do the trick? No, only breaking up the old ideologies will do the trick. Then it doesn't matter what the party labels are

All a third party will do in our ''winner take all'' system is enable the Republicans to win elections that they should not be able to win. Until and unless we ever get to the point where an electoral system friendly to a multi party system is enacted this will remain an immutable truth of American politics.

If Eric the green and Pbrower is true to their principles, they will oppose the GOP in all elections. Therefore I no doubts of that I would eventually succeed In converting them to restorationism. Eric and Pbrower would ultimately become future Restorationist voters is that was the only viable alternative to GOP rule.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I never said the Dems will save us, of course (Odin can't read, I guess). It is up to us to save the Dems. Only then can the Dems save us; if we the people ARE the Dems. The Reps are beyond saving. And the people of America are not smart enough to support a progressive third party. So what, Mr. Kunstler thinks any 3rd party will do? Just break up the system, that will do the trick? No, only breaking up the old ideologies will do the trick. Then it doesn't matter what the party labels are.

James Howard Kunstler has been predicting doom and gloom since I first became aware of him, back in 2005 (actually, from a 4T poster). He basically believes that as we run out of cheap energy sources, the modern society is going to blow up and implode. God help us if he's correct, but so far, we've managed to muddle along...