Lol! There was a cartoon from years ago, I think from the time of Dubya, of a bunch of Dems cowering in fear, pointing at a spine and saying "What IS it?" I wish I could find it.
That sounds familiar. Spineless really is their way of being now. When I read accounts of FDR there was a party movement, focus and mission unknown to us today. It's all been peed away for corporate money. The Democrats are so despicable
My parents were "late bloomer" Depression Era babies from North Texas. For them, Jesus sat on their god's right hand and FDR on his left. My mom grew up on a family farm in the Panhandle that was helped out immensely when the Federal government dug a well for them. All that and WWII and FDR was Da Man.
Shattering the color bar, women's rights, environmental rights, labor rights, opposing the establishment of a hereditary aristocracy, I remember when the Democrats stood for all of those things and accomplished some of them.
Now, they've become the worst of their Republican opponents in those bygone days. The party on the left has become the party on the right and the party on the right has become the party on the alt right.
Ah.... You've heard this too many times, OB, but I have never witnessed so much polarity between MAGA and Shit Libs. If I say Democrats, I'm not sure how many of them are still Democrats. I say this because I'm only a Democrat so that I have some primary voting "privileges". I don't think it's enough to keep me in any available party. Pennsylvania WANTS it that way... duh.
I also try to watch both ends of the bowl of nuts baiting us to click on/click off... When I DO watch, I endlessly get pissed off at the stupidity of the so-called liberals, a bad name for people who can't pop their head out of their ass long enough to look up facts of history, or contemporary events. When I'm on the exercise bike, it's a perfect time to cruise my smart TV's rumble app to see countless versions of Alex Jones hosts that promote that polarized mind frame, even the husband/wife team of Redacted, it's all the same... Everything liberal is bad. When I watch independent media like Jimmy Dore, Due Diss, Sabby Sabs, The Duran, Danny Haifong, Chris Hedges, and even some Status Coup, I get some focus that might be balanced, but still biased the other way. This works out perfectly for those waaaaayyyy at the top overseeing the future bug eaters, because THEY WANT IT that way!
When are both polarity tribes gonna decide to break away from this purposeful waste of effort? I got no place to go but inside my head or online communities?
I have a populist, democratic, anti-authoritarian bias, and freely admit it. All of the independent media you listed have their own biases, and that's fine because they know what they are and tell us what they are. Most of the time, anyway, I think.
There is no such thing as unbiased media whenever humans have anything to do with it. Of course, there's a big difference between those who are honest about where they're coming from and those who are anything but, and in this day and age we have to be wary of the phenomenon called audience capture.
If you're making a living from publishing on the internet, you know that a pissed off somebody is not going to keep paying you for your stuff, and that has its own effect.
I don't have a tribe, I have a class, and it's the working one. Enough of that. You mentioned the primary.
There is a strong possibility I will register as a Republican for the 2026 election so I can vote in their primary. Vivek Ramaswamy is trying to buy the Ohio governor's office so he can use it as a stepping stone to the White House, and he doesn't give one flying fuck about this state.
If he wins the primary, he'll win the general. The Democratic frontrunner is Amy Acton, the worst possible choice since she's the one who was the face of the lockdowns and mask mandates.
But he has to win the primary first, which means he has to get past Dave Yost, who was State Auditor for 8 years before being Attorney General for the same number. IMO, he actually did his job both times. He was the one who clawed back all that utility company bribery money that brought down the Ohio House Speaker, and he got it back in the form of lower utility bills for all of us.
For Yost, at least Ohio is a place with these people called Ohioans living in it, and he's one of them. For Ramaswamy, we exist for him to exploit for his own profit. The conventional wisdom is that Yost has no chance. I think it's WAY too early to start making predictions like that, ESPECIALLY when one of the candidates is somebody who made life noticeably easier for a lot of voters and the other one's a billionaire douchebag scumbag.
Good story. Vivek sounds like Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro. He's had the same aim after pretending to care as the fracking protector of PA as AG. They seem like they want to win the race, but not on behalf of the humans.
I'm baffled by the tariffs in this stage when no effort is made to bolster domestic production. It's like there's no plan here, just ending up looting our last monies in a form of an additional tax.
I agree. When Alexander Hamilton did it, we had a nascent manufacturing base. It was small, but at least it existed. What industries do we have to protect now?
All I know is I stocked up on Cholula hot sauce, made in Mexico. I love that stuff.
I've gone to Avery Island several times just to huff on the Tabasco fumes. No joke, as soon as you get out of the car, the tabasco air gets your mouth watering.
Also fun fact; Baton Rouge, which means "red stick" gets its name from the sticks dyed in deep red, given to pepper pickers so they would know to pick correctly ripened fruit.
I knew that one. I heard all about the Cajuns growing up in San Antonio, believe you me. Besides, I had another batch of French as ancestors. They left Canada a few years later, after the British conquered all of New France. Came down the Mississippi and ended up all over Missouri and Arkansas, but they visited New Orleans for generations.
So of course when I got interested in history I got interested in Louisiana's, which is unique among the 50 states. I've been to New Orleans a few times myself, all before the hurricane. Bourbon Street is a wonderful place.
My daughter and I went to NOLA Nov., 2022. We stayed on Dauphine (block from Bourbon) for a week. We did a different tour every day. Steamship, bus tour, French Quarter museum tour, Whitney Plantation, walking tour of the Garden Disrict. It was a very fun trip.
Elouse Slutkin is the most stomach turning so called Democrat the partyvomited up since the Camel.If they had any sense they would elevate the honorable representative Green,of Texas .He heckled Trump and Bernie walked out.That’s far more effective than holding up little performative kabuki signs. But no,the Democrats have to hold up a Reagan worshiping bitch to represent them.They love Reagan and secretly agree with Trump and Muskrat’s libertarian dreams.
Yah, heckling doesn't bother me. I think it's a grand American tradition which should be revived. Surely we can at least give Prime Minister's Questions a run for its money.
I don't think the Dems agree with Trump and the South African Muskrat's dreams, but only because they serve different masters in our power elite. They have an authoritarian bureaucratic vision, whereas Musk and Thiel and such have an authoritarian, technocratic & neofeudal vision.
Both visions are really bad trips and I don't want to have anything to do with either of them.
You're wrong about the Chinese not invading anyone, just look at the current world map, I was growing up in Kalimpong, West Bengal when the Chinese invaded Tibet and incorporated it entirely into what the world currently regards as China. Look also at Xingiang and compare with old historical maps of that part of the world and you will see that THAT was not part of China, look further into Chinese 'history' and you will find that there are reasons we have terms like outer Mongolia etc. Need I say more ?..
I do acknowledge that understanding of history is not a strong suite in the western world but, all too often, glossing over the finer points of history does seem all too convenient. To illustrate this point; it is galling to hear the allegation currently levelled at Russia that it 'invaded' the Crimean peninsula - it did nothing of the sort and is part of the western narrative supported by a lazy and corrupt media organisation. Need more ? in all the public discussion of Israel and Gaza, there is the constant charge that 'Hamas started it on October 7', it seems to me that the narrative is always skewed to gloss over and ignore the steady stream of murder of Palestinians going right back to the times of the British mandate - AND the world conveniently omitted to mention that, al least two former Israeli prime minister were, themselves members of terrorist organisations, just investigate the creation of the Irgun and the Haganah. When the world pushes back at those organs responsible for the dissemination news and information for their inadequacies the maybe, just maybe, the human race will have a chance at civilizational advancement.
Please read the entire sentence. I did say "since 1979."
The Russian Empire seized Crimea during the reign of Catherine the Great, right about the same time the American Revolution was going on. As an American, I'm certainly not going to question Russia's right to Crimea.
It no longer matters what they say about October 7. Most of it's been debunked, a growing number of us know it and soon the majority will as well. Now it's just another bad rerun, and there's nothing that will lose an American's loyalty to a network than a rerun of a bad show.
Israelis will learn what pushback means when they lose US government funding. They'll become intimate acquaintances with it. All of the effects of all of the boycotts before that happens, which ARE already having a real world impact on Israel's economy, will pale in comparison.
'Since 1979' ; That, my friend, is part of the problem. You see, if enough time is allowed to elapse, then, given human nature, it tends to become 'accepted' and one of my best friends at the time, was Tibetan, and lost both his parents to starvation in a Chinese concentration camp. So, for me, 'since 1979' is a glossing that I for one, dont accept.
I think we are otherwise of like mind with the Israel/Gaza thing, with the possible exception that I think it can only be resolved with a 'One State' solution. I believe that dissolution of the Jewish state is not only possible but necessary. I do also think that messrs Sykes, Picot and the Russian gentleman who were responsible for the way that part of the world was structured were irresponsible in the extreme. Their joint decision has already led to two genocides in the middle east.
The Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950, under Mao. Then they invaded Vietnam during the chaotic time after Mao’s death when the Vietnamese were fresh from defeating the US Empire; not exactly a brilliant stroke for the Chinese.
I look at it this way—the Chinese always expand to about where they are now when they’re strong, but they rarely go any farther than that. Influence, yes, military conquest, very unlikely.
We are of like mind concerning Gaza. The two-state solution cannot possibly work when one of the states is committed to the destruction of the other. I’ve thought the PFLP’s vision of a secular state with majority rule and protection for minority rights is the only way for many years now.
you may or may not remember the consistent 'salami slicing' both in the Philippines as well as in Northern India, Nepal and Bhutan. Indeed India was open about reporting this; 20 Indian soldiers died. China admitted to 4 chinese soldiers dead. Some background, many years before this chinese attempt, the Indian Army trained a massive amount of soldiers in unarmed combat and, after training, distributed them right across their armed forces. Each battallion has assigned to it, a complement of so-called 'gathak forces'. These people are lethal. Even though the chinese admitted only 4 soldiers died, I can assure you that their losses were more than double that of the Indian losses. Another reason why they were forced to capitulate was because they found that the heights (overlooking their base) around Pangong Tso had been seized by the SFF who consist mostly of Tibetan soldiers. This force was established after 1962, the vast majority of the Tibetan soldiers nominate the Dalai Lama as their 'next of kin' so that the Tibetan cause receive all benefits that might acrue from their death.
As usual, a tidy round-up of the total mess of America.
I have nothing intelligent to add but that last item made me think of this:
https://youtu.be/6rML96V66qs?si=oeSXzm3_90VbjFJr
You are so humorous. However, I'm an older lady that made poor career choices under dirtbag regimes in the US. Sooner or later, I'll buy you a beer. 🍺
Yuk! Beer is terrible stuff. 🤣
Different strokes...but thank you! I know the feeling.
Another recap from our favorite Barbarian, well aside from Conan.
My favorite comic book character that I never outgrew.
Nice 👍 Conan cool but I’m more of a Soloman Kane guy.
NEWS FLASH! CARTOON: Democrats Find Their Spine & Stand Up To Trump's Freeloading Billionaire Looters! https://mark192.substack.com/p/cartoon-democrats-find-their-spine
Lol! There was a cartoon from years ago, I think from the time of Dubya, of a bunch of Dems cowering in fear, pointing at a spine and saying "What IS it?" I wish I could find it.
That sounds familiar. Spineless really is their way of being now. When I read accounts of FDR there was a party movement, focus and mission unknown to us today. It's all been peed away for corporate money. The Democrats are so despicable
My parents were "late bloomer" Depression Era babies from North Texas. For them, Jesus sat on their god's right hand and FDR on his left. My mom grew up on a family farm in the Panhandle that was helped out immensely when the Federal government dug a well for them. All that and WWII and FDR was Da Man.
Shattering the color bar, women's rights, environmental rights, labor rights, opposing the establishment of a hereditary aristocracy, I remember when the Democrats stood for all of those things and accomplished some of them.
Now, they've become the worst of their Republican opponents in those bygone days. The party on the left has become the party on the right and the party on the right has become the party on the alt right.
Check out this great post. I think you'll resonate with it. I put a few comments in the thread: https://jstuckey.substack.com/p/on-the-benefits-of-hardship
Ah.... You've heard this too many times, OB, but I have never witnessed so much polarity between MAGA and Shit Libs. If I say Democrats, I'm not sure how many of them are still Democrats. I say this because I'm only a Democrat so that I have some primary voting "privileges". I don't think it's enough to keep me in any available party. Pennsylvania WANTS it that way... duh.
I also try to watch both ends of the bowl of nuts baiting us to click on/click off... When I DO watch, I endlessly get pissed off at the stupidity of the so-called liberals, a bad name for people who can't pop their head out of their ass long enough to look up facts of history, or contemporary events. When I'm on the exercise bike, it's a perfect time to cruise my smart TV's rumble app to see countless versions of Alex Jones hosts that promote that polarized mind frame, even the husband/wife team of Redacted, it's all the same... Everything liberal is bad. When I watch independent media like Jimmy Dore, Due Diss, Sabby Sabs, The Duran, Danny Haifong, Chris Hedges, and even some Status Coup, I get some focus that might be balanced, but still biased the other way. This works out perfectly for those waaaaayyyy at the top overseeing the future bug eaters, because THEY WANT IT that way!
When are both polarity tribes gonna decide to break away from this purposeful waste of effort? I got no place to go but inside my head or online communities?
I have a populist, democratic, anti-authoritarian bias, and freely admit it. All of the independent media you listed have their own biases, and that's fine because they know what they are and tell us what they are. Most of the time, anyway, I think.
There is no such thing as unbiased media whenever humans have anything to do with it. Of course, there's a big difference between those who are honest about where they're coming from and those who are anything but, and in this day and age we have to be wary of the phenomenon called audience capture.
If you're making a living from publishing on the internet, you know that a pissed off somebody is not going to keep paying you for your stuff, and that has its own effect.
I don't have a tribe, I have a class, and it's the working one. Enough of that. You mentioned the primary.
There is a strong possibility I will register as a Republican for the 2026 election so I can vote in their primary. Vivek Ramaswamy is trying to buy the Ohio governor's office so he can use it as a stepping stone to the White House, and he doesn't give one flying fuck about this state.
If he wins the primary, he'll win the general. The Democratic frontrunner is Amy Acton, the worst possible choice since she's the one who was the face of the lockdowns and mask mandates.
But he has to win the primary first, which means he has to get past Dave Yost, who was State Auditor for 8 years before being Attorney General for the same number. IMO, he actually did his job both times. He was the one who clawed back all that utility company bribery money that brought down the Ohio House Speaker, and he got it back in the form of lower utility bills for all of us.
For Yost, at least Ohio is a place with these people called Ohioans living in it, and he's one of them. For Ramaswamy, we exist for him to exploit for his own profit. The conventional wisdom is that Yost has no chance. I think it's WAY too early to start making predictions like that, ESPECIALLY when one of the candidates is somebody who made life noticeably easier for a lot of voters and the other one's a billionaire douchebag scumbag.
Good story. Vivek sounds like Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro. He's had the same aim after pretending to care as the fracking protector of PA as AG. They seem like they want to win the race, but not on behalf of the humans.
I'm baffled by the tariffs in this stage when no effort is made to bolster domestic production. It's like there's no plan here, just ending up looting our last monies in a form of an additional tax.
The plan is to deliberately crash the economy so Muskrat and his fellow oligarchs can buy it all up at fire sale
prices.
I agree. When Alexander Hamilton did it, we had a nascent manufacturing base. It was small, but at least it existed. What industries do we have to protect now?
All I know is I stocked up on Cholula hot sauce, made in Mexico. I love that stuff.
I've gone to Avery Island several times just to huff on the Tabasco fumes. No joke, as soon as you get out of the car, the tabasco air gets your mouth watering.
Also fun fact; Baton Rouge, which means "red stick" gets its name from the sticks dyed in deep red, given to pepper pickers so they would know to pick correctly ripened fruit.
I knew that one. I heard all about the Cajuns growing up in San Antonio, believe you me. Besides, I had another batch of French as ancestors. They left Canada a few years later, after the British conquered all of New France. Came down the Mississippi and ended up all over Missouri and Arkansas, but they visited New Orleans for generations.
So of course when I got interested in history I got interested in Louisiana's, which is unique among the 50 states. I've been to New Orleans a few times myself, all before the hurricane. Bourbon Street is a wonderful place.
My daughter and I went to NOLA Nov., 2022. We stayed on Dauphine (block from Bourbon) for a week. We did a different tour every day. Steamship, bus tour, French Quarter museum tour, Whitney Plantation, walking tour of the Garden Disrict. It was a very fun trip.
Elouse Slutkin is the most stomach turning so called Democrat the partyvomited up since the Camel.If they had any sense they would elevate the honorable representative Green,of Texas .He heckled Trump and Bernie walked out.That’s far more effective than holding up little performative kabuki signs. But no,the Democrats have to hold up a Reagan worshiping bitch to represent them.They love Reagan and secretly agree with Trump and Muskrat’s libertarian dreams.
Yah, heckling doesn't bother me. I think it's a grand American tradition which should be revived. Surely we can at least give Prime Minister's Questions a run for its money.
I don't think the Dems agree with Trump and the South African Muskrat's dreams, but only because they serve different masters in our power elite. They have an authoritarian bureaucratic vision, whereas Musk and Thiel and such have an authoritarian, technocratic & neofeudal vision.
Both visions are really bad trips and I don't want to have anything to do with either of them.
loved it
You're wrong about the Chinese not invading anyone, just look at the current world map, I was growing up in Kalimpong, West Bengal when the Chinese invaded Tibet and incorporated it entirely into what the world currently regards as China. Look also at Xingiang and compare with old historical maps of that part of the world and you will see that THAT was not part of China, look further into Chinese 'history' and you will find that there are reasons we have terms like outer Mongolia etc. Need I say more ?..
I do acknowledge that understanding of history is not a strong suite in the western world but, all too often, glossing over the finer points of history does seem all too convenient. To illustrate this point; it is galling to hear the allegation currently levelled at Russia that it 'invaded' the Crimean peninsula - it did nothing of the sort and is part of the western narrative supported by a lazy and corrupt media organisation. Need more ? in all the public discussion of Israel and Gaza, there is the constant charge that 'Hamas started it on October 7', it seems to me that the narrative is always skewed to gloss over and ignore the steady stream of murder of Palestinians going right back to the times of the British mandate - AND the world conveniently omitted to mention that, al least two former Israeli prime minister were, themselves members of terrorist organisations, just investigate the creation of the Irgun and the Haganah. When the world pushes back at those organs responsible for the dissemination news and information for their inadequacies the maybe, just maybe, the human race will have a chance at civilizational advancement.
Please read the entire sentence. I did say "since 1979."
The Russian Empire seized Crimea during the reign of Catherine the Great, right about the same time the American Revolution was going on. As an American, I'm certainly not going to question Russia's right to Crimea.
It no longer matters what they say about October 7. Most of it's been debunked, a growing number of us know it and soon the majority will as well. Now it's just another bad rerun, and there's nothing that will lose an American's loyalty to a network than a rerun of a bad show.
Israelis will learn what pushback means when they lose US government funding. They'll become intimate acquaintances with it. All of the effects of all of the boycotts before that happens, which ARE already having a real world impact on Israel's economy, will pale in comparison.
'Since 1979' ; That, my friend, is part of the problem. You see, if enough time is allowed to elapse, then, given human nature, it tends to become 'accepted' and one of my best friends at the time, was Tibetan, and lost both his parents to starvation in a Chinese concentration camp. So, for me, 'since 1979' is a glossing that I for one, dont accept.
I think we are otherwise of like mind with the Israel/Gaza thing, with the possible exception that I think it can only be resolved with a 'One State' solution. I believe that dissolution of the Jewish state is not only possible but necessary. I do also think that messrs Sykes, Picot and the Russian gentleman who were responsible for the way that part of the world was structured were irresponsible in the extreme. Their joint decision has already led to two genocides in the middle east.
The Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950, under Mao. Then they invaded Vietnam during the chaotic time after Mao’s death when the Vietnamese were fresh from defeating the US Empire; not exactly a brilliant stroke for the Chinese.
I look at it this way—the Chinese always expand to about where they are now when they’re strong, but they rarely go any farther than that. Influence, yes, military conquest, very unlikely.
We are of like mind concerning Gaza. The two-state solution cannot possibly work when one of the states is committed to the destruction of the other. I’ve thought the PFLP’s vision of a secular state with majority rule and protection for minority rights is the only way for many years now.
you may or may not remember the consistent 'salami slicing' both in the Philippines as well as in Northern India, Nepal and Bhutan. Indeed India was open about reporting this; 20 Indian soldiers died. China admitted to 4 chinese soldiers dead. Some background, many years before this chinese attempt, the Indian Army trained a massive amount of soldiers in unarmed combat and, after training, distributed them right across their armed forces. Each battallion has assigned to it, a complement of so-called 'gathak forces'. These people are lethal. Even though the chinese admitted only 4 soldiers died, I can assure you that their losses were more than double that of the Indian losses. Another reason why they were forced to capitulate was because they found that the heights (overlooking their base) around Pangong Tso had been seized by the SFF who consist mostly of Tibetan soldiers. This force was established after 1962, the vast majority of the Tibetan soldiers nominate the Dalai Lama as their 'next of kin' so that the Tibetan cause receive all benefits that might acrue from their death.
Thanks for the summary, haven't had the time to follow everything in detail this week.