Religion, politics, sex .. and other taboo subjects

Yes, as Fallen A. has just pointed out, there are massive protests in NYC and elsewhere. Is this a surprise? I would hardly think so.

Sorry, I deleted my post because I couldn't find a good link to a webcam, but yes, 5th Avenue in NYC is totally blocked, with more people streaming in.
 
Thank heaven. (So to speak)

I'd be especially worried if there were no protests!

Trump is as repugnant as any [fill in the blank] as there ever has been. Same with his sick, pathetic followers.

Even the Republicans don't like him on average. And that's saying something!

The folks who voted for him are mostly misogynists, homophobes, racists, thugs, fools, creeps and illiterate idiots. Sadly, that's a lot of "Americans" -- though if we follow the Greg Palast story carefully we may conclude that the "election result" was as a result of ... let's just call it tampering with the vote. Not an actual "win" at all.

This is why we have protests everywhere. It doesn't pass the sniff test.
 
Could it be you have no sympathy for Muslims because of your religion?
I've already addressed your other points, so I'll let those be. I'm not sure how you extrapolated this out of what I said, but I don't care to debate this further because the claim is simply unfounded.

Trump got 27 percent of the Latino vote, 14% of the gay vote , 42% of the women's vote and 8% of the black vote, so there's got to be more going on than hate-voting. Instead of devolving into name calling and demonizing, I'm choosing to understand better the positions of those who favor Trump and why these people in particular voted as they did.
 
American Right pre 11/9 - "We can't let Obummer take our guns... how will we defend ourselves against an oppressive government?"

American Right one day past 11/9 - "Those (gun-less!) protesters are animals, they should be rounded up and put in cages, don't go soft on them. They clearly don't repect democracy!"


You can't even parodize this shit.
 
I've already addressed your other points, so I'll let those be. I'm not sure how you extrapolated this out of what I said, but I don't care to debate this further because the claim is simply unfounded.

Trump got 27 percent of the Latino vote, 14% of the gay vote , 42% of the women's vote and 8% of the black vote, so there's got to be more going on than hate-voting. Instead of devolving into name calling and demonizing, I'm choosing to understand better the positions of those who favor Trump and why these people in particular voted as they did.

I agree with FA. As easy as it is to just paint all Trump voters with a broad brush, there are many reasons why voters chose Trump. The reasons are as varied as the voters. I live in a state that is very red. This election was a sweep - president, governor, senate, and house (in my district) all went red (voting out two incumbent democrats.) My vote for those offices didn't make any difference....but I'll continue to vote anyway.

Many of the people that I know who voted for Trump are not any of the labels many of you are throwing around. Some are, but most aren't. I disagree with their choice but I respect their right to make that choice. Protesting is great. Working to change the system is great. As is working to ensure voting integrity. But name calling does nothing but divide us further. Choosing to lay aside biases and trying to understand why so many chose to vote for him makes most sense to me....especially if democrats hope to take the next election. (And I really hope we do!)
 
River, I am more than a little apprehensive about delving into the Palast story, as I am shaken enough already. I feel like that would be diving down the rabbit hole. Maybe when I'm a bit more level-headed about the results, I can dispassionately read about it.

I do see the value in what Fallen Angelina is saying. It is easy to simply deride those who voted (or not????) the way they did, but I don't want to believe that half of the population who voted (I read somewhere that 46.9% of voting age Americans did NOT vote, but I didn't carefully fact check) are racists, bigots, and misogynists. Sure, there are more than we would care to admit, but I don't want to paint with that wide a brush.

My family doesn't even have a dog in this fight, technically speaking, except for the fact we aren't rich and some of us are female. All white, straight, cis-gendered, mostly college-educated members in this family (as far as I know). BUT, even my WWII veteran grandfather was firmly in the camp of "live and let live" and did not go to war to see others have their civil liberties trampled on. I am proud to say that my white 40-something year old straight, male, corporate lawyer cousin is raising holy hell about what is happening and my white 40-something year old brother is doing the same.

The outcome of this election has really hurt my 18-year-old stepdaughter and 10-year-old daughter. We went to early voting together and really felt like we were participating in history being made. Unfortunately, just as for Dubya, our state of Florida went Red. The part of Hillary's concession speech to "all the little girls out there," made me cry.

I feel sad for the women who lived through the ratifying of the 19th amendment and were so happy to cast their ballots for Hillary. They were hoping to see that final glass ceiling shattered, and it was stolen from them.

BUT, I don't believe that all is lost. The 18-25 year old population overwhelmingly chose Clinton over Trump. An infographic showed that, if only that age range was represented, over 500 electoral votes would have gone to her.

The "old guard" is on its way out. No matter what Trump and the GOP want, this country will continue to diversify. The country has elected an Indian-American woman, a Latino woman, and a Vietnamese-American woman to the Senate this election (and I don't think I've exhausted this list!). An openly bisexual woman was elected governor in the state of Oregon. There is reason to have hope.

Things will probably get worse (maybe MUCH worse) before they get better. It's all a cycle. I believe we will get through this.
 
Oh please, forgive me for not giving a damn about the precious hurt feelings of the extreme right. Germans have been living with getting blamed and namecalled for Hitler for over 80 years, including Germans who were born after '45.

I think Republicans alive today have absolutely no right to complain until at least a decade in of being blamed for the catastrophe of 11/9, and they sure won't get a shred of sympathy from me. Shame on them. Shame on them every day. Make them face what they have done, bring them to the point where they're nauseous to look in the mirror.

Everyone who voted Trump was 100% free to vote Clinton or Johnson instead, neither of which was a left-wing candidate. Every conservative who didn't make their cross for either of these two has made a deplorable choice, and have disgraced themselves and their country. Fullstop, end of. They need to show some humility, and apologize to their compatriots - especially to those who aren't straight, white, Anglosaxon Christian males.

(Sweet irony, btw: Muslims who had nothing to do with terrorism constantly get called out for "not distancing themselves" enough, again and again. And now we're supposed to spare Republicans who actively voted for Trump? That's pathetic, so fuck that noise, and spare me the calls for misplaced empathy. Check your goddamn privilege, GOPpers, and apologize.)

Don't tolerate the intolerable. Draw a line, and, as peacefully as possible, see today as day one of trying to chase Trump out of office with all the means your as yet still existent, but existentially threatened, freedoms grant you. Start bring that man down, and showing that since yesterday, the territory between Mexico and Canada is no longer your country, and you demand it back.

And once you got rid of Trump, change your damn election system. It worked in the 18th century. It's dangerously outdated in the 21st.
 
Gloria Steinem said, this election was all about nostalgia, an attempt to return to the past. It doesn't matter, "The future will come anyway."
 
I get listening to the right in an attempt to understand how this could happen, because you thought it was unthinkable.

You do not want to believe that so many of your countrymen are misogynists, racists, bigots. You want to grok the reasons, and hey maybe, we can, by addressing any legit concerns those folks might have, prevent Trump from getting another term, prevent this kind of crazy from happening again, etc.

Like make damn sure the next blue candidates have got a handle on whatever the fuck drove so many folks to vote Trump.

Well this article was illuminating: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

Like many Cracked articles, it starts out with a premise that is kind of upsetting and confronting, but by the time you get through it, you'll be like well...alright, I guess I can see why some folks might feel this way...

So there is that. And then there is the massive proliferation of tinfoil hat thinking. So here's the issue we've got in modern America. Because we no longer rely on "the news" being a few well established edifices of journalism considered to be basically beyond reproach, and because we are all encouraged SO MUCH to be "individuals"...people basically form whatever opinions out of a blend of self interest and the stuff they hear around them. From their friends, families, and so on. And once they get their own bias solidly in place, they only believe whatever confirms it. Period. Everything else is lies, propaganda, etc. It does not matter where it comes from. No source is safe from attacks upon its credibility. The biggest most solid names are all part of the secret society, Jew run, big power/big money, mind control machine. I'm not even joking. So many Conservatives think this.

And you know what, to some degree in a "yes and no" sort of way, I agree with them. I do think that there are a few very old, powerful families, some (but certainly not all) Jewish, that do hold a great deal of power and influence.
EDIT: I should point out, my personal opinion is that no matter if a few of the big old money families are traditionally Jewish, that really just has nothing to do with anything at this point. I'm sure a few are Catholic, some probably atheist, at this point it's irrelevant. The tinfoil hat folks think it matters, but it doesn't. I know for a fact that regular Jewish folks are regular folks. There's no overarching conspiracy at work there. I know some people who think otherwise. They are idiots.

However, unlike my tinfoil hat friends, I do NOT assume that it's like the plot of a movie, where they are some sort of dark cabal hell bent upon the destruction of our freedom and humanity, pulling the strings to some awful end, necessarily. I actually think that what probably benefits the ones at the very top the most, is a productive working society that is divided enough within itself that we will never band together to challenge anyone in authority or power, but not SO divisive as to have chaos and unrest take completely over...after all, we need the workers to keep working, breeders keep breeding, life to go on. The peasants must toil the fields so that the lords can enjoy the spoils.

I think that in one way or another it has always been that way, and maybe it always will. Our "Democracy" is kind of a joke.

The mistake that the red voters have made however, is to think that because Trump has not been in government, he is not part of this machine, that he is something NEW. No, he's part of it alright, because government and business, media and big religion, the big institutions and their leadership have been so incestuous for so long (with few exceptions, I rather like the new Pope) that you cannot say that a big business guy is not part of the big government monstrosity. They go to the same parties!

But back to listening or not... As I've said, I've heard enough. And this is having a tremendous effect upon my social life. I used to be part of a big community surrounding the band GWAR, and that is going away for me. There were many Trumpers in that group...I mean, we're talking a few hundred people here, so there were bound to be some. But listening to them is listening to TROLLS. They are all like, "liberal tears, what's the matter, someone grab you by the pussy? lolololol" That is what you get to hear if you listen to Trumpfans. And if you choose not to listen to them, they say you "can't handle" what they have to say. You're too weak.

I was in an abusive relationship for 18 years, as many know. He never hit me. But he broke my mind and spirit. Honestly I wish he had hit me.

Listening to these people...they would force cruel, schoolyard bully behavior and speech into your face, and if you choose to shut them out of your own space, or get up and quietly leave, they will chase you if they can, trying to MAKE you hurt. MAKE you hear them. And when it hurts, it is your own fault for being weak.

Donald Trump is King Pig of this barnyard. These are not reasonable people, many of them. Too many of them.

When you are in an abusive situation, you've got every business trying to leave, and when your "friends" are abusive friends, you should not be friends with them anymore, and when people are not being reasonable, I do not have to listen. My time has more value, as does my peace of mind.

So some are wondering, "What can we do?" And a couple of the most brilliant minds on the left that I know of have had some helpful things to say about this. Give your compassion, energy, kindness, time, money, whatever you have to give, to those who might need it the most. It was suggested to volunteer at charities, donate to rape crisis centers and domestic abuse shelters, LGBTQ+ community resources, ethnic and religious minority connected charities, etc...to try and reach out and be there for our most vulnerable citizens during this time. Reassure them that their entire society has not turned its back. We have to try and survive the next 4 years somehow. We'll get by with a little help from our friends.
 
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I just find the thought of reviling half of the population who casted a ballot to be too exhausting. Being an agent for and supporting positive change is the best course of action for me. I think I agree with Magdlyn's post quoting Gloria Steinem. Progress HAS happened and will CONTINUE to happen, but it's not linear. There will always be setbacks.
 
I just find the thought of reviling half of the population who casted a ballot to be too exhausting. Being an agent for and supporting positive change is the best course of action for me. I think I agree with Magdlyn's post quoting Gloria Steinem. Progress HAS happened and will CONTINUE to happen, but it's not linear. There will always be setbacks.

Yes.

To agree in my own way with what you're saying here, I believe that my own sphere of influence is only as big as it is. Within my own bubble, I can make changes. I can withdraw my friendliness and my own positive energy from those I no longer trust or believe deserve it, though I will not stoop to hate or violence. They are just dead to me, except insofar as whatever professional interactions I absolutely must tolerate. I don't owe them anything more than that.

I can instead give my positive energy to the people who not only deserve it, but will NEED it the most going forward.

This is the personal policy that I can live with.

There is a woman who works here, who I know to be a Trump supporter. She is a white, very religious, married straight woman. She has a lesbian daughter that she's explained to me she cannot maintain a loving relationship with, because "she believes in the Bible" and that while you might be born gay, you can choose not to engage in sin, and her daughter's life of sin not welcomed by her, not in her heart or her home.

I used to at least keep a veneer of friendliness in place for this woman. I can't do that now.

Moments ago, I passed her coming back in from break. She smiled at me and said hi. I broke eye contact with no response in my facial expression and walked past without a word. I have nothing for her. Not hate, but no more bullshit niceness either. It was sad and unfortunate when it was just her being a bitch to her own child...it is bigger now. I'm over it.

I am not a fighter. I am usually and generally a force of positive energy in the lives of those around me. I'm just being more selective now. If I can't cut down that vile and thorny weed, I will at least not feed it.
 
...change your damn election system. It worked in the 18th century. It's dangerously outdated in the 21st.
Well, this is something we can agree on. It would take a constitutional amendment, which is very hard to pull off, but it can be done and has been done. So we will see.





It's Finally Time to Retire the Electoral College
By Dan Abrams, ABC News legal analyst.

"As of right now, it looks like Hillary Clinton won the presidential election, at least in terms of votes cast. Yes, it seems that once all the votes are tabulated, more Americans will have voted for Clinton than for Donald Trump by roughly 200,000 votes. Let that marinate for a moment. To be clear, I am not suggesting that Trump didn’t win fair and and square. He did, and Trump, is, and should be, our president-elect. Period. But now it’s also high time to change our anachronistic electoral system for selecting a president.

Imagine for a moment if the tables had been turned and Trump had won the popular vote but lost the election. I am guessing that many of his supporters would have been far less forgiving about this little historical quirk in our voting system. Overt disdain and distrust for the “rigged” system would likely have been far more prevalent. And rightly so. Clinton supporters (and Al Gore supporters for that matter) and many in the media, appear to be far more accepting maybe because the numbers indicate Clinton voters were more highly educated and therefore may better appreciate the history behind the electoral college.

Phooey.

They, we, should all be outraged not because Trump won but because the majority of voters lost. After covering the 2000 election I said the same thing (interestingly, as did Clinton) to mostly deaf ears and was going to echo it here if this scenario played out on either side (insert disbelief in comment section from those who refuse to believe anyone could have a principled, rather than partisan view of this issue).

Our electoral college was implemented, in part, based on many founding fathers distrust of uneducated “common people” voting for the President directly. That fear of direct democracy and what became dubbed the “tyranny of the majority” drove them to devise a system to allow for individual input but where ultimately state electors or more accurately “elites” had the final say in who took over the most important position in the land. One of many compromises between federalists and anti-federalists enacted to ensure a unified republic often at odds over how best to move forward as a nation (not to mention the fact that they needed to get the proposed Constitution ratified by the delegates and the states themselves).

Regardless of the framers' noble intentions, these days empowering state officials and party bosses while literally disenfranchising individual voters, should be a historical footnote. In addition to smaller states having disproportionate representation, voters in what have become known as “swing states” end up with inequitable power and influence. In a nation that prides itself on its democratic principles, how do we justify a single vote from Pennsylvania becoming so much more valuable and important than one from neighboring New York or West Virginia?

Abolishing the electoral college would still allow smaller states to retain disproportionate influence just by having two senators out of 100 no matter how small or uninhabited that state happens to be. But this will be the fourth time (and fifth if you count the more fractured election of 1824) that the will of the people has been subverted in this country by the electoral college. With today’s technological advancements the various arguments for the electoral system become indefensible. It’s time for us to agree that the system is rigged, not for a particular candidate but in favor of voters in particular states.

In the words of America's 45th president, let's make America great again, by making all votes equal."
 
We're in troubled and troubling times.

Most of us grew up believing that journalists, newspapers, "the media"... was at least sincere and good enough to report on the news and do so with some fair degree of honesty and accuracy. Then -- for many of us -- we discovered that it just isn't so. Instead, ours turned out to be some kind of weird propaganda state in which the "news" which favored by certain folks got reported while the news which doesn't favor them gets ignored and/or distorted beyond all recognition by those who actually witnessed the happenings being reported.

Take for example Kyle Thompson, in his relation to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests / protectors. This man shows up at a peaceful demonstration with an assault rifle and begins pointing it at the peaceful protesters -- all unarmed. Now, you've probably never heard of him -- and may never have heard of the Dakota Access Pipeline contraversy.... This is because the "News Media" would rather that you knew nothing of any of this. They prefer to talk about what celebrities are doing and what's the new, latest, hot fashion. Distraction and ... smoke and mirrors are their game. Bread and circuses you might say. Pay no attention to the man behind the assault rifle.

Kyle Thompson was most likely meaning to stir shit up so that innocent people got real bullets for his folly. Or maybe not. Who knows?! But the interesting thing is that this man shows up at a major political resistance event carrying an assault rifle and pretending (masked) to be someone he is not. Unarmed people resist him even at his gunpoint because they are willing to risk death for their cause.... and yet this is not "mainstream" news -- not even close. You have to dig in deep to find any evidence of it having happened. Or public questions about who and what and why ... and the sort of things real journalists ask about.

I'm just saying.

America is not what it appears to be, folks.

Stuff happens which is actually big news which doesn't even get reported deep in the papers ... or in any of the alphabet soup media (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.). Faux....

If you want to know what's really going on you have to become like a journalist. You have to ask "What's really going on here"... "why?"... Who, what, where, when and why?

And you have to put yourself on the line ... and care. And risk.... This is the American way. Isn't it?
 
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In the words of America's 45th president, let's make America great again, by making all votes equal."

Maybe you don't understand that Trump would be (intends to be, demands to be...) America's narcissist in chief, or what that means, or why I would suggest that it is so. That's not my problem. What I don't understand is why you'd quote him as if what he says is rational, honest, or even sane. The man is a lunatic, a freak, a fraud -- and hollow and empty. Just like narcissists and sociopaths in general.

Donald Trump is a "reality tv" star, a con man, an illusionist -- and a billionaire fraud who probably is barely a billionaire at all. A sucker is born every minute, say people like him. He's not my president, and he's no one else's. I don't care what the KKK says about it. Nor the neo-nazis -- all of which are thrilled by this "president's" election.

You think this is normal and whatever. It's not. It really isn't. We just got hit upside the head by some of the most repugnant of the repubnicans. That's all. Same old story, different ugly hairdo.

The people who voted for trump -- most of them -- can't even spell their own middle name. They are illiterate, uneducated ... and very very angry about non-white (and non-male, non-straight...) people living in "our country." Nor do they much like women and their reproductive rights, or gays, or anyone not male, white and dumb.

Pardon my doubling up on certain things, but I don't want to be too subtle here.

Trump has zero interest in "making all votes equal". Seriously! LOL.
 
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@River... I wish there was a "Like" button on here. Much agreed.
 
Maybe you don't understand.

You are quoting Dan Abrams, the legal analyst at ABC News, not me. He is talking about the efficacy of the Electoral College. Please attribute quotes accurately and within context. Thanks.
 
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The people who voted for trump -- most of them -- can't even spell their own middle name. They are illiterate, uneducated ... and very very angry about non-white (and non-male, non-straight...) people living in "our country." Nor do they much like women and their reproductive rights, or gays, or anyone not male, white and dumb.

I am curious what accounts for his getting 14% of the gay vote, 13% of the black male vote, 29% of the Latino vote and 43% of the women's vote. That's an awful lot of people who would seem to have reasons other than being angry at "non-white (and non-male, non-straight...) people." Don't you think it's worth trying to understand what the reasons for these votes might be?
 
You are quoting Dan Abrams, the legal analyst at ABC News, not me. He is talking about the efficacy of the Electoral College. Please attribute quotes accurately and within context. Thanks.

My apologies for the blunder. I lost track of the fact that the entire post was a quote of Abrams.
 
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