No thanks; I think I made my point.Originally Posted by Odin
Of course, my comments probably don't apply to your friends, and not to you.
And by the way, how would you refute my comments? You know what the voting record is. Seems indisputable to me.
And dude, I guess you can't be a "hipster" if you know more than one Republican.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 12-04-2010 at 01:42 AM.
But in states supposedly more progressive, people voted for politicians who pandered to the 'ignorant hicks' as if of somewhere else. My Congressional district has one of the nation's largest and respected state universities (Michigan State, famous for agricultural research) yet voted for someone who supports the Lysenkoism of America -- creationism. Pennsylvania voted for a Senator who was the head of a far-right political cult (the Club for Growth). If such is the trend, then America is headed into the sewer. Everything that America ever achieved will be used solely for repression, exploitation, and intellectual fraud that debase the vast majority for ends that people will never understand elsewhere.
Have people lost all ability and willingness to exercise critical judgment? Or do they think that they must vote for the worst so that they can get the intellectual thugs to shut up for about eighteen months? Nevada came close to voting in a racist demagogue as its junior Senator. When people like Jim DeMint, Rick Perry, David Vitter, and Saxby Chambliss have the gall to claim that they are the Real America, then something is very wrong with America.
Who knows? Maybe it started when educated people quit learning of antiquity. The learning of Latin got one exposed to the history of a political system that eventually failed spectacularly; such was a warning to educated peoples of modern times.
We have just undergone some of the most critical elections of American history -2006 (challenging the authority of a failed and corrupt Presidency). 2008 (establishing whether Americans could put race aside in deciding what was best for America, and now 2010, which has demonstrated what happens when a party that once brought freedom to slaves and had decent leaders in the past (Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower) could go very bad and adopt the hectoring of a totalitarian movement, if not the violence. If it doesn't get its way in 2012 will it resort to violence? Will it co-opt inner city gangs, outlaw motorcycle clubs, and politicized militias to get its way?
By most accounts, Austria is a country of spectacular beauty. Its largest city has spectacular architecture that elevates the human spirit as that of few other cities can. Austria is the home of the composer -- the writer of music that can be as easily American or Japanese as it is Austrian because it is that good. People want to claim the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and the Waltz Kings as their own. Sure, the monumental symphonies of Bruckner suggest the Alps -- but having lived in California they seem to suggest the Sierra Nevada just as easily. Had I been living in Utah they might evoke the Wasatch and Uinta Ranges.Lots of states have lots of beauty and charm, and the differences are very interesting, as our discussion shows. But if in spite of their charm, or lack thereof, the majority of voters in those states choose absolute lunatics to govern them who are destroying our country and our world, and throwing people out of the street to starve, then that does not reflect well on those states. If you vote like an "ignorant hick," then your record speaks for itself. And if people there don't vote, for whatever reason, that doesn't speak well for them either. The majority of people in the flyover, heartland states have now reverted to exactly how Sinclair Lewis described them during the last 3T in its later years. Provincial indeed.
Yet Austria produced Adolf Hitler, the vilest political figure of all time; Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Nazi secret police; Adolf Eichmann, logistical master of the Holocaust; and Arthur Seyss-Inquart, brutal overlord of Holland. Just across the border in Bavaria, which has much the same culture and scenery as Austria, were born Herrmann Goering, Gestapo chief, initiator of terror bombing, patron of cruel experiments upon concentration camp inmates, and the greatest art thief ever; and Hans Frank, colonial lord of Poland and of course the fetid holding cells (ghettos) for helpless and doomed Jews.
We Americans are not safe from the worst vileness of politics, especially if we fall for vile leaders. Don't let the religious posturing of right-wing politicians fool you; their Jesus calls for unqualified obedience to corrupt, rapacious oppressors much unlike the Jesus that those who have actually read the Gospels know. American exceptionalism hardly exempts Americans from the horrific consequences of government by ferocious, dishonest, corrupt people who demand uncritical obedience.
When people vote for politicians who believe that Big Oil should have all power to dictate the policies of energy, transportation, and environment, then they deserve to see most of their income going into commuting costs with $10-a-gallon gasoline and $5-an-hour wages. When they vote for politicians who deny evolution they deserve to see the scientific achievements of their country vanish. When they vote for racist demagogues, they deserve race riots. If they vote for politicians who promise wars for glory and command of resources or markets, then they almost deserve to see their children returning in body bags. If America goes bad, then the rest of the world will have as much sympathy for us as it did for the Axis Powers of the last Crisis.I can only hope and pray that they wake up soon. People all around the world are fast running out of water, according to current, reliable reports. And it's directly because of how the people of the heartland are voting that will make things much, much worse; and we will ALL have to pay. Talk about insular and provincial; most people in those states can't even make the connection! The Andes or Middle East or China and India are just too far away; the majority of heartland Americans are only concerned about their own tax bill, and in upholding trickle-down economics and traditional values.
And, by the way, voting is the subject of this thread, not insularity or geography.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
-sigh-
No more than 50%-1 would. And no less. Those two hypothetical people who flip have impact on the culture practically indistinguishable from "not at all".
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
So let me get this straight Eric. You make your travel choices based solely upon how the majority of the indigenous population votes? When you dine at a restaurant, you must look at the menu and ask yourself, "How does this sandwich define me politically?"
You know Eric, something just occurred to me. I kind of pity you. Imagining a life so shallow and devoid of curiosity that every decision must be filtered politically is really pretty sad.
You are extrapolating beyond what I said.
Well said pbrower! (other post above)
Huh, speaking of water... well, they certainly are going to run out in Southern Cal and the rest of the desert Southwest, with the aquifers being depleted, and the Colorado River reduced to a trickle at its mouth from all the aqueducts coming out of it. So many millions of you folks living in an area that would naturally support so few. There are things I like about the desert climate, but I like that I live in a water-abundant, albeit chilly, state (Minnesota), while I see water wars coming to you folks fairly soon....
(I remember one Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico suggesting we somehow divert water from the Midwest/Great Lakes region to the Southwest, and that instantly turned me off to his bid for the Dem Prez nomination. The Soviets tried something like that with their Central Asian territories, with pretty nasty ecological consequences.)
I know, you're talking about global climate change and reduced glaciation in the mountains that source many of the world's great rivers. Just saying though, there's a little pot-kettle thing going on in this post, with so many millions of y'all living where millions weren't meant to live (in a country where mobility and choice of location is far easier than most, and with a wider variety of ecosystems and climates than most to choose from).
(Edit: Actually, it looks like you're from Northern California (San Jose), so I guess this wouldn't apply directly to you, as Northern Cal is naturally much more sustainable water-wise--but it does apply to much of your state.)
Last edited by Alioth68; 12-04-2010 at 08:28 AM.
I would have to amend this somewhat. While Clinton won comfortably, he never won a majority of the voters--Perot took significant numbers. More seriously, the demographic trends, in practice, have not been in the Democrats' favor for much of this period. GIs, who voted, have died off and been replaced by Millennials, who hardly voted at all this fall, and whose behavior next time around is uncertain. I would go a lot further than Jenny about that list of states--North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin look pretty definitely Republican to me right now.
I'm sure you all saw that unemployment is up.
David Kaiser '47
My blog: History Unfolding
My book: The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
A conservative ascendancy looks possible. To be sure, if 2T conservatives who had some conscience and no demagoguery (which rules out Ronald Reagan, a demagogue with little conscience and whose only political decencies were compromises that liberals could force upon him), such would be no problem. Swings between pro-worker and pro-business politics have ordinarily been benign in part because those swings did not involve cruel, selfish, reckless people as the norm for either. Unfortunately, middle-to-late-wave Boomers and early-wave X are in the ascendancy, and with the right we seem to see the worst -- take a look at the worst traits of Idealist (arrogant, ruthless, and selfish -- like Rush Limbaugh) and Reactive (amoral, pecuniary, and anti-intellectual -- like Sarah Palin) generations, and notice how bad much of America can get.
If Americans could insist upon the best of Idealist traits (vision, principle, and culture) and the best of Reactive traits (enterprise, savvy, and perception) then we would be in good shape in the Crisis. Such seemed so in 2008. Instead the 2010 election shows that the worst in American life can prevail. If those prevail, let alone intensify in 2012, then we are in for a very nasty Crisis, most of its worst either self-inflicted or provoked (the latter perhaps criminally). If you thought Dubya was bad, at least he wasn't a religious or racial bigot, and he didn't enrich himself from the Presidency.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
When it comes to water resources, California south of about Monterrey, southern Nevada, the populous parts of Arizona, and western Texas (including the Panhandle and greater El Paso) are clearly overpopulated. They are going to need fresh water from elsewhere just to support the populations that they now have. What sources? Canada? The Great Lakes?Huh, speaking of water... well, they certainly are going to run out in Southern Cal and the rest of the desert Southwest, with the aquifers being depleted, and the Colorado River reduced to a trickle at its mouth from all the aqueducts coming out of it. So many millions of you folks living in an area that would naturally support so few. There are things I like about the desert climate, but I like that I live in a water-abundant, albeit chilly, state (Minnesota), while I see water wars coming to you folks fairly soon....
(I remember one Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico suggesting we somehow divert water from the Midwest/Great Lakes region to the Southwest, and that instantly turned me off to his bid for the Dem Prez nomination. The Soviets tried something like that with their Central Asian territories, with pretty nasty ecological consequences.)
I know, you're talking about global climate change and reduced glaciation in the mountains that source many of the world's great rivers. Just saying though, there's a little pot-kettle thing going on in this post, with so many millions of y'all living where millions weren't meant to live (in a country where mobility and choice of location is far easier than most, and with a wider variety of ecosystems and climates than most to choose from)
(Edit: Actually, it looks like you're from Northern California (San Jose), so I guess this wouldn't apply directly to you, as Northern Cal is naturally much more sustainable water-wise--but it does apply to much of your state.)
Buffalo and Detroit may be miserable places, but at least they have copious water.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Folks better not DARE take our water unless they want shot at.Huh, speaking of water... well, they certainly are going to run out in Southern Cal and the rest of the desert Southwest, with the aquifers being depleted, and the Colorado River reduced to a trickle at its mouth from all the aqueducts coming out of it. So many millions of you folks living in an area that would naturally support so few. There are things I like about the desert climate, but I like that I live in a water-abundant, albeit chilly, state (Minnesota), while I see water wars coming to you folks fairly soon....
(I remember one Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico suggesting we somehow divert water from the Midwest/Great Lakes region to the Southwest, and that instantly turned me off to his bid for the Dem Prez nomination. The Soviets tried something like that with their Central Asian territories, with pretty nasty ecological consequences.)
I know, you're talking about global climate change and reduced glaciation in the mountains that source many of the world's great rivers. Just saying though, there's a little pot-kettle thing going on in this post, with so many millions of y'all living where millions weren't meant to live (in a country where mobility and choice of location is far easier than most, and with a wider variety of ecosystems and climates than most to choose from)
(Edit: Actually, it looks like you're from Northern California (San Jose), so I guess this wouldn't apply directly to you, as Northern Cal is naturally much more sustainable water-wise--but it does apply to much of your state.)
Oh, hi, fellow Minnesotan!
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
A conservative ascendancy looks possible. To be sure, if 2T conservatives who had some conscience and no demagoguery (which rules out Ronald Reagan, a demagogue with little conscience and whose only political decencies were compromises that liberals could force upon him), such would be no problem. Swings between pro-worker and pro-business politics have ordinarily been benign in part because those swings did not involve cruel, selfish, reckless people as the norm for either. Unfortunately, middle-to-late-wave Boomers and early-wave X are in the ascendancy, and with the right we seem to see the worst -- take a look at the worst traits of Idealist (arrogant, ruthless, and selfish -- like Rush Limbaugh) and Reactive (amoral, pecuniary, and anti-intellectual -- like Sarah Palin) generations, and notice how bad much of America can get.
If Americans could insist upon the best of Idealist traits (vision, principle, and culture) and the best of Reactive traits (enterprise, savvy, and perception) then we would be in good shape in the Crisis. Such seemed so in 2008. Instead the 2010 election shows that the worst in American life can prevail. If those prevail, let alone intensify in 2012, then we are in for a very nasty Crisis, most of its worst either self-inflicted or provoked (the latter perhaps criminally). If you thought Dubya was bad, at least he wasn't a religious or racial bigot, and he didn't enrich himself from the Presidency.
To avoid political and economic disaster, Americans must reject the right-wing Hate Machine that flooded the political scene of 2010. If Americans don't, then America will become a monstrosity that the rest of the world fears and loathes. The hate Machine will be back. Let us hope that conscience and reason also come back.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
People forget how expensive it is to move water around. There is no chance of taking water from Minnesota to the desert southwest. I haven't done the calculations, but I bet that it would be cheaper to desalinate water near where it is needed in California than to bring it from Minnesota even if the Minnesotans would agree - which they never will.Folks better not DARE take our water unless they want shot at.
Oh, hi, fellow Minnesotan!
James50
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
Send in the Romans. They'll aquaduct it for you.
And if my cats could stop getting in the way of the screen, I might be able to see what I type.
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
Sorry, but they did it mainly with slaves and usually over distances of 50 km or less.
Can't help you with the cat.
James50
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
There's one set of Aquaducts that went from the Austrian Alps all the way down to Rome, (with some also going to Vindehbona--Vienna) giving Rome fresh Alpine water (which is to die for, if you're ever in the Alps). That went for a longer distance than 50 km.
As for the comment, I was being a tad facetious.
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
Desalination of course requires a huge input of energy and the disposition of the salt separated from the water.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Hate to tell you this Odin, but people are already taking your water.Folks better not DARE take our water unless they want shot at.
Oh, hi, fellow Minnesotan!
I don't see what's wrong with them getting water from the Great Lakes...
as long as they aren't causing us to overdraw past the replenishment rate
Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal -Phil Ochs
INTP 1989 Millenial
Aral Sea.
It's not a good thing. The beds of seas and deep lakes tend to accumulate a whole bunch of unpleasant crap that we really quite genuinely benefit from not having up and blowing around in the air we breathe. And that's just one of many reasons.
And once drawdown infrastructure is in place, it becomes nearly impossible to regulate draw to replenishment rate. Plus let's not forget you'd be changing the whole dynamics of the Saint Lawrence. Lots and lots of people and stuff are already there.
It's only right that it be difficult to live in the desert. We are organisms that need water, and there's not enough of it for us in some places. We do ourselves no good -- and no small harm -- by setting up systems of subsidies to hide that fact. If there is a solution for the people living in southern california, it needs to be a solution in that area.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
I think it's plenty possible to regulate the draw. Or at least it's no less possible to regulate draw going to the Southwest versus going to the immediate areas.
Oh, I don't mean subsidies. I mean they buy it at fair market value for what it costs to do.It's only right that it be difficult to live in the desert. We are organisms that need water, and there's not enough of it for us in some places. We do ourselves no good -- and no small harm -- by setting up systems of subsidies to hide that fact. If there is a solution for the people living in southern california, it needs to be a solution in that area.
No reason to put up a market barrier if someone figures out a way to do it in a cost effective way.
Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal -Phil Ochs
INTP 1989 Millenial
Except that the stuff going to the surrounding areas makes its way back into the watersheds. Stuff going across the continental divide sure as hell isn't. And while it is theoretically possible to regulate, it is neither practically, nor politically possible to do so. Once the water starts getting supplied, the region getting it will become in an eyeblink dependent on it. Growth will occur around, an up to the limits of, the assumption that the water will continue to flow at a relatively consistent rate. Which means you will end up plugging a consistent rate of outflow to a system that may or may not have a sufficiently consistent level of inflow. It's a good way to make everyone fucked all together.
Problem is, in the world we live now, there is absolutely no way to do that. A few items off the top of my head:Oh, I don't mean subsidies. I mean they buy it at fair market value for what it costs to do.
How will the water move from MN to CA?
Road? - subsidized.
Rail? - subsidized.
Air? - subsidized.
Pipeline? - across whose land? Maintained how? Built how? Easements alone are impossible without subsidization either financial-direct or through eminent domain.
Security? -- You're talking about over a thousand miles of transport over a fixed infrastructure (road and air aren't serious solutions; I just included them above for the example). Who is going to protect it from vandals and thieves? That's another anti-market-pricing subsidy.
The list goes on and on. Ultimately, whatever price would emerge would represent a less-than-true-cost one. Which means the draw would, on balance, work at the expense of the supplier-region, since only the region at the end of the pipeline would get their water subsidized, while the people right by the lakes would have to pay something closer to the "true value" of their water.
This is a big part of the reason, btw, why massive infrastructure projects often backfire so stupendously. They are generally all done in the context of severely distorted feedback.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
There's the rub. I'm not sure this is happening.
Wow, such dire expectations. As an independent, I don't see much, if any, difference between the hate speech of the worst of the left or the right. in my opinion, there is too much harsh rhetoric on both sides when we have more than enough problems if we were united and working together to solve our economic problems. I hope that we can find some basis to encourage reason and truth.
I agree. It even seems to me that "hate speech" i.e. loathing the speaker as much as or more than the message itself, is what defines a person as hard-left or hard-right... because, when you talk to some of these people, they aren't all hard-wired communists or fascists at all. People are scared for the future of their families, feel backed into the corner like tooth-bearing wounded animals, and are seizing on vitriolic politics as an identity of sorts, for their defense.
"Better hurry. There's a storm coming. His storm!!!" :-O -Abigail Freemantle, "The Stand" by Stephen King
So what is the highly-publicized hate speech of the Left? The Hard Right has its well-organized, well-funded machine. The lunatic fringe that FDR spoke of nearly eighty years is back, and it has cable TV (including one supposed news channel) behind it.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
