Independence Day 2022

[BoSoxGal]

I saw a meme on Facebook that said celebrating July 4th this year feels a lot like celebrating a birthday for someone in hospice care.

Since I work in hospice care and my current client just had a birthday a few months ago, I’d have to say the comparison does apply. It’s weird to do the birthday thing with someone who tells you at least weekly how ready she is to get done with all this nonsense already.

It certainly feels like the rabidly patriotic MAGA/QAnon/January 6 crowd is chomping at the bit to be done with this pesky constitutional republic ASAP! And oh the irony.

I seriously doubt we are going to make it to our 250th. This year I’m as excited for the holiday as my dog is. (She ain’t, at all.)

[Econoline]

[Scooter]

I posted this four years ago. I REALLY want it to still be true, but I'm not so sure, since freedom seems to be losing on so many fronts. How long can I exhort my American friends to keep the faith when, if they are women, they have been told that they serve no purpose higher than brood mare, if they are LGBTQ, they are being set up as child molesters, if they are immigrants, they are refuse unworthy of protection, if they are Black, then a foot (literal or figurative) will always be on their neck, and if they are non-Christian, that religious freedom is not for them?

How far does the clock have to roll back before it can never advance again?

[BoSoxGal]

I posted this four years ago. I REALLY want it to still be true, but I'm not so sure, since freedom seems to be losing on so many fronts. How long can I exhort my American friends to keep the faith when, if they are women, they have been told that they serve no purpose higher than brood mare, if they are LGBTQ, they are being set up as child molesters, if they are immigrants, they are refuse unworthy of protection, if they are Black, then a foot (literal or figurative) will always be on their neck, and if they are non-Christian, that religious freedom is not for them?

How far does the clock have to roll back before it can never advance again?

Given the ages of the right wing conservatives on the court I’d say we are in the desert for 40 years with that gang.

Your 4 year old post was nice but right after you the first replies are from Lord Jim and RayThom so that made me sad/nostalgic.

I don’t think things are going to get better any time soon. The SCOTUS just turned the clock back decades on a bunch of stuff put the worst in the long term was the gutting of the EPA, which will hurt the whole planet. It feels more than ever like the fix is totally in.

[Jarlaxle]

Went relatively well for me. Nephew visiting, he is thrilled to be around his beloved "aunt Liz" this weekend. I did my part to drive my sister crazy, he now has most of Red Sovine's discography saved on his tablet, along with the Streets of Fire soundtrack. (My sister HATES country music.) I did pump $45 worth of gas into my car, which kind of sucked. Wife enjoyed her birthday.

My uncle reports a bunch of fireworks and a very, very confused beagle.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Claudia Conway who is apparently the progeny of George and Kellyanne - and thus probably confused from birth - got in on the act, and of course the Daily Mail got the money shot:



And of course and as usual, the folks at the DM get the wrong end of the stick or just can't read or both. The Scouts have a lot to answer for but I'm not sure they deserve this.

[BoSoxGal]

Mass shooting at parade, bunch of people dead couple dozen hospitalized in critical condition HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY AMERIKKKA!!

[Joe Guy]

They caught him and here he is. He should be hung immediately but our country is too civilized...

[BoSoxGal]

I don’t care about him or his reasons. I wouldn’t know anything about him if it wasn’t so easy to get guns in Amerikkka. Yay freedom!

[Joe Guy]

Apparently, he's a Trump supporter. How long will it be before people use that against Trump? Also, there are already people online claiming the shooting was staged by our current administration in order to make a case for firearms restrictions. (in case you haven't already noticed, the world has gone nuts)

For quite some time the U.S. has been a good place for anyone who is interested in shooting a lot of people at once.

Happy Independence Day...

[BoSoxGal]

We’re in a moderate drought but despite the illegality our neighbors are raining fire down on all our roofs and yards while putting on a nothing special to see but lots of terrific booms and a cacophony of car alarms being triggered by every M-80.

I’m kind of rooting for the sound of an ambulance siren to show up soon.

[BoSoxGal]

America Is in Denial

Too many Americans are blithely dismissing threats that could prove cataclysmic.

Mitt RomneyJuly 4, 2022, 6:15 AM ET
Illustration of a bald eagle wearing a blind fold.
Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Getty
Too many Americans are blithely dismissing threats that could prove cataclysmic.

Even as we watch the reservoirs and lakes of the West go dry, we keep watering our lawns, soaking our golf courses, and growing water-thirsty crops.

As inflation mounts and the national debt balloons, progressive politicians vote for ever more spending.

As the ice caps melt and record temperatures make the evening news, we figure that buying a Prius and recycling the boxes from our daily Amazon deliveries will suffice.

When TV news outlets broadcast video after video of people illegally crossing the nation’s southern border, many of us change the channel.

And when a renowned conservative former federal appellate judge testifies that we are already in a war for our democracy and that January 6, 2021, was a genuine constitutional crisis, MAGA loyalists snicker that he speaks slowly and celebrate that most people weren’t watching.

Read: America is growing apart, possibly for good

What accounts for the blithe dismissal of potentially cataclysmic threats? The left thinks the right is at fault for ignoring climate change and the attacks on our political system. The right thinks the left is the problem for ignoring illegal immigration and the national debt. But wishful thinking happens across the political spectrum. More and more, we are a nation in denial.

I have witnessed time and again—in myself and in others—a powerful impulse to believe what we hope to be the case. We don’t need to cut back on watering, because the drought is just part of a cycle that will reverse. With economic growth, the debt will take care of itself. January 6 was a false-flag operation. A classic example of denial comes from Donald Trump: “I won in a landslide.” Perhaps this is a branch of the same delusion that leads people to feed money into slot machines: Because I really want to win, I believe that I will win.

Bolstering our natural inclination toward wishful thinking are the carefully constructed, prejudice-confirming arguments from the usual gang of sophists, grifters, and truth-deniers. Watching angry commentators on cable news, I’m reminded of H. L. Mencken’s observation: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

When entire countries fail to confront serious challenges, it doesn't end well. During the past half century, we Americans have lived in a very forgiving time, and seeing the world through rose-colored glasses had limited consequences. The climate was stable, our economy dwarfed the competition, democracy was on the rise, and our military strength made the U.S. the sole global hyperpower. Today, every one of those things has changed. If we continue to ignore the real threats we face, America will inevitably suffer serious consequences.

What clears the scales from the eyes of a nation? Pearl Harbor did. 9/11 did. A crisis can shake the public consciousness. But a crisis may come too late for a course correction that can prevent tragedy. The only cure for wishful thinking is leadership. Winston Churchill emboldened a complacent Britain and rallied the world. Abraham Lincoln held the Union together. Ronald Reagan shook us from our malaise. Lech Wałęsa inaugurated a movement that brought down the Iron Curtain. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired us to “believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.” And Volodymyr Zelensky’s stunning display of courage—“I need ammunition, not a ride”—showed us what real character looks like.

Read: Liberation without victory

President Joe Biden is a genuinely good man, but he has yet been unable to break through our national malady of denial, deceit, and distrust. A return of Donald Trump would feed the sickness, probably rendering it incurable. Congress is particularly disappointing: Our elected officials put a finger in the wind more frequently than they show backbone against it. Too often, Washington demonstrates the maxim that for evil to thrive only requires good men to do nothing.

I hope for a president who can rise above the din to unite us behind the truth. Several contenders with experience and smarts stand in the wings; we intently watch to see if they also possess the requisite character and ability to bring the nation together in confronting our common reality. While we wait, leadership must come from fathers and mothers, teachers and nurses, priests and rabbis, businessmen and businesswomen, journalists and pundits. That will require us all to rise above ourselves—above our grievances and resentments—and grasp the mantle of leadership our country so badly needs.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... on/661468/

[Big RR]

What clears the scales from the eyes of a nation? Pearl Harbor did. 9/11 did.

I agree with Pearl Harbor, but 9/11. I think we learned nothing from it; we kept our same international policies, and all it did was encourage our chicken hawks to enter sneseless war after senseless war with not clear objective, and to crack down on civil rights at home. We embraced "enhanced interrogation tactics" and called anyone who protested against them disloyal, even treasonous. We spied on our own people with the cheering support of much of the electorate. And it enabled our executive branch to more firmly entrench themselves in power in the name of security, whether the president was democratic or republican. Personally, I think 9/11 just clouded our collective vision more.

[Sue U]

What clears the scales from the eyes of a nation? Pearl Harbor did. 9/11 did.

I agree with Pearl Harbor, but 9/11. I think we learned nothing from it; we kept our same international policies, and all it did was encourage our chicken hawks to enter sneseless war after senseless war with not clear objective, and to crack down on civil rights at home. We embraced "enhanced interrogation tactics" and called anyone who protested against them disloyal, even treasonous. We spied on our own people with the cheering support of much of the electorate. And it enabled our executive branch to more firmly entrench themselves in power in the name of security, whether the president was democratic or republican. Personally, I think 9/11 just clouded our collective vision more.

As I say every year, the tragedy of 9/11 is that we didn't learn a goddam thing from it. And with 20+ years of perspective I agree with Big RR that it has actually made things worse in both domestic policy and international relations.

ETA:

Also, Mitt Romney can go fuck himself with that both-sides bullshit. The most immediate major crisis facing America is his own political party. Why is he content to merely "wait [for] leadership"? Why doesn't he step the fuck up and fix the "sickness" in the GOP? He personally had a hand in giving political legitimacy to Trump within the party. Trump now holds no office in either government or the Republican Party. Why does Mitt Romney -- an actual Senator whose niece is chair of the Republican National Committee-- let Trump continue to be the de facto leader of his own party? Genuine leadership in the GOP calls for wholly excising the cancer of Trumpism and treating it with sufficient radiation and chemo so it doesn't return -- which he is obviously too cowardly or otherwise unwilling to do. But I guess it makes someone feel good to have him whining in The Atlantic.

[Econoline]

THIS.

Mitt Romney can go fuck himself with that both-sides bullshit.

[BoSoxGal]

I’m not a Mitt fan - who makes a dog travel on the top of a car on the highway in a crate OMFG - but some of what he says there is on point. However I guess it doesn’t matter to anyone but old school never Trumper Republicans because in the MAGA Party people like him are worse than garbage they are traitors and should hang with Mike Pence.

I just listened to a podcast from a couple weeks ago Bill Maher had Kellyanne Conway on and I wanted to vomit several times listening to her despicable lying. One of the worst things about the coming likely redux of the Trump Reich will be having her at the helm of messaging when they go about eviscerating our democracy.

[liberty]

Well, if you’re so disappointed, how about a structure change. I recommend the switch to two federations, one red and one blue, united in a confederacy for national defense and foreign affairs with its capital in Washington. That way, liberals and conservatives plus moderates could live the way they wish, and everybody gets what they want. Over time liberals could move to blue states, and conservatives plus moderates could move to red states, and everybody would be happy. We would take the Constitution as it is since we like it and liberals don’t; as a matter of fact, the Blues would probably get rid of their confederation and have a Unitarian system like France; they’re inclined to concentrate power and total control. And in the future, we will see which approach works better.

[Burning Petard]

Yeah, but there is a host of anti-liberals with money moving to New Hampshire, certain they know better than everyone else how to be a community and want impose their will on everyone else. They seem to desire the tyranny of the masses. A condition where their view will be the bare plurality and can be forced on everyone and defended with superior financial resources. That seems to be the condition you seek, Mr. Liberty

snailgate.

[liberty]

Yeah, but there is a host of anti-liberals with money moving to New Hampshire, certain they know better than everyone else how to be a community and want impose their will on everyone else. They seem to desire the tyranny of the masses. A condition where their view will be the bare plurality and can be forced on everyone and defended with superior financial resources. That seems to be the condition you seek, Mr. Liberty

snailgate.

No, Mr. BP, that is not the case. One of the advantages of a federation is that people in different states can have different cultures and live the way they want. They don’t have to conform to somebody else’s idea of how to live. It is liberals that want to impose their standards on everyone else.

Take abortion, for example: As you know, I am pretty moderate when it comes to abortion but not so my wife; she sees abortion as murder, and she does have some points. Whether you’re talking about an embryo, a fetus, or a baby, all these stages of life are human; they all have human DNA. if you take an action that terminates the living, you kill. I only differ with my wife on the distinction of whether it’s murder or killing and I believe sometimes killing is necessary, even the innocence. I have asked her, and she said that she sees no difference between an abortion clinic and a Nazi death camp; they both do the same thing.

I think that sometimes ending a life is the lesser of two undesirable outcomes; of course, I would never say that to my wife. The last time I did, I was in the doghouse for almost 20 years. I’ve also concluded not to take abortion lightly. I feel God punished me for my arrogance, so I will never be arrogant again. I now see that abortion is a solemn thing.

[Joe Guy]

........... It is liberals that want to impose their standards on everyone else.

Take abortion, for example: .........

You couldn't have chosen a worse example than abortion to make your point regarding "liberals" imposing their standards on everyone else.