2020 Presidential Election

[C0LLETTE]

I keep wondering whether it is worth writing this post but decided I'd try just this once.

There was nothing mocking about my post it was simply an ironic reference to all the other mass murders that have come and quickly gone: Parkdale, Las Vegas, Charlottesville , etc etc...they stretch back hundreds of years...and then people move on...AM I REALLY THE FIRST PERSON WHO HAS EVER COMMENTED ON THIS??? OR IS IT THE FACT, LIKE JONATHAN SWIFT'S "MODEST PROPOSAL" I should have left the irony lie and just been so literal no fool could have possibly misinterpreted the intention of the post.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

I keep wondering whether it is worth writing this post but decided I'd try just this once.

There was nothing mocking about my post it was simply an ironic reference to all the other mass murders that have come and quickly gone: Parkdale, Las Vegas, Charlottesville , etc etc...they stretch back hundreds of years...and then people move on...AM I REALLY THE FIRST PERSON WHO HAS EVER COMMENTED ON THIS??? OR IS IT THE FACT, LIKE JONATHAN SWIFT'S "MODEST PROPOSAL" I should have left the irony lie and just been so literal no fool could have possibly misinterpreted the intention of the post.

I wish I could block your arrogant dismissive insulting posts

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

I wish I could block your arrogant dismissive insulting posts

You can put anyone on ignore, and you will not see their posts.

For the sake of my health, I have put finally put someone on ignore.

[cathexis]

Originally Posted by MsTinkerbelly

We are all numb and grieving over 200+ instances of mass shootings JUST THIS YEAR.

We do not need this shit from you! Why is it that instead of having helpful solutions, or sympathy for our grief, you feel the overwhelming need to come here to make fun of us for our fluff posts!

I have lost all respect for you, take a flying leap off of a very short pier.

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

I keep wondering whether it is worth writing this post but decided I'd try just this once.

There was nothing mocking about my post it was simply an ironic reference to all the other mass murders that have come and quickly gone: Parkdale, Las Vegas, Charlottesville , etc etc...they stretch back hundreds of years...and then people move on...AM I REALLY THE FIRST PERSON WHO HAS EVER COMMENTED ON THIS??? OR IS IT THE FACT, LIKE JONATHAN SWIFT'S "MODEST PROPOSAL" I should have left the irony lie and just been so literal no fool could have possibly misinterpreted the intention of the post.

Your words are being heard loud and clear, C0LLETTE. Perhaps, you have picked the wrong time to remind us of a flaw we are acutely aware of. We are too raw to pick at that scab.

Analysis of the long term problem would be better when the wound is bleeding a bit less.

Right now, what Americans need is compassion, support, and help. IMO, you have just chosen the wrong time for discussion on the historical perspective.

A physician would not address lifestyle changes with a patient having an acute and possibly lethal injury.

[MsTinkerbelly]

I would like to get back to the 2020 election if at all possible, anyone else?

Did you all see the news this weekend regarding Booker, Sanders and Harris stumping at a church where the Pastor has said that LGBTQIA folks are going to Hell and that we are all child molesters?

Are the candidates so out of touch that they just go where they are told to go, or do they just not care?

***edited to add...the story was on LGBTQ Nation.****

[C0LLETTE]

Ok Cathexis, I'm writing to you, in particular, because I think you understood the essence of my post.
But, Cathexis, it is never the "right time".

We all feel compassion and sympathy, no question, but as the people of Dayton are crying out they've had enough of the words, prayers, expressions of grief, etc..and saying "Do Something". This patient may die but when exactly do you figure is the right time to start talking before the next patient is lying there. It's always the wrong time.

There is no easy answer, no easy solution but the work has to start somewhere and immediately, the anger must not be allowed to die down before no one again can remember when El Paso and Dayton took place. Most people don't even remember when Sandy Hook took place...and that is what must never be allowed to happen.

So you can all blast me much as you like but I do remember Sandy Hook. I did grieve Sandy Hook and I can remember the names and faces of all those victims.

[Kätzchen]

So...… tonight I dedicate my post to all the members in our community who somehow aren't around anymore (you know who you are!! I miss reading your posts and articulate points of view).


I've been reading news articles from the website for progressive news coverage: Common Dreams (click the title, it takes you to their website).

Here are a few things I have noticed that haven't gotten much coverage in the news, which might be good ideas for current Democratic Presidential Candidates to speak up about:

1) FEMA (have any of the victims of climate change weather tragedies received any monetary benefit since 2016?);

2) Does the current administration owe your city money due to them visiting your city and incurring outrageous public safety fees, like it owes El Paso (T^^^P admin owes El Paso $500K)???

3) Did anyone else see the news byte from MM which has created some buzz around former 1st Lady Michelle Obama, running for President? I heard it on NPR today.... and read about it elsewhere online.



5) I'd like to see the Castro brothers annihilate the current administrations vitriol surrounding racially motivated hate directed toward Mexico and it's citizens and any individual from any Central or South American country who wants to immigrate to the US. Here is a current research article from The Pew Research Center (non-partisan think tank) which presents scientific data that people of Mexican ethnicity/nationality are NOT illegally immigrating to the US (See Link Below).

5 Facts About Illegal Immigration In The US
(The Pew Research Center, June 12th 2019)


The El Paso tragedy is, in my mind, more than just a tipping-point issue on Gun Control and Immigration and that infernal load of baloney about the 'wall' that the DC administration is hell bent on building across the southern border of the US and all the other troubling issues concerning locking up and caging up countless children and adults who left their own country due to crushing levels of poverty created by the so-called 'Free Trade Policy' which has done nothing to help anyone but line the pockets of the filthy rich and used in tit-4-tat trade war crap by the current monster in office.

So many critical policy issues at stake. I won't be surprised if the GOP has been raiding PENSION policy plans and setting up a coup to take down every policy that protects the common and not so common workers in America.

That's all I got tonight. Just a mountain of concerns and a boat load of sadness and grief for all the people who are suffering tonight due to horrific tragedies around the country.

[dark_crystal]

I Beto having a moment out there or is it just in Texas?

He said "what the fuck" over the weekend and everyone swooned all over social media.

[Martina]

As a native of the Dayton area, who went to school and worked in Dayton, I don't think Dayton needs people from outside our nation's boundaries advocating for us. We will do fine, thank you very much. Dayton was the Ohio city most affected by the opioid crisis, but is now the model city for reducing deaths from opioids. We don't need others patronizing us.

I also think if you're going to make a point about remembering, you might get the names right. It's Parkland, not Parkdale. I don't think too many U.S. citizens would have made that error because the lives lost were our own.

[Allison W]

Originally Posted by cathexis

Perhaps, you misunderstand what I mean by Far Left. In my understanding, the Far Left are the parties that include the Trotskyists and Left Anarchists not what is being referred to in popular political rhetoric today. If you are indeed speaking the same parties as I am, then we need to have a real conversation.

The U.S. is not, in any way, in shape to have a revolution. The true left does not have the support needed. Now, if you're talking Sanders and Democratic Socialism, maybe the country can entertain the idea. Only maybe, but Bernie doesn't have the backing, polls reveal that centrists would be more likely to be successful.

I feel that we need to, above all, defeat Trump else this current Fascist course continue. However, there are leftists who believe that the more right-wing a climate, the more likely a revolution will succeed. Personally, I prefer not to tempt fate.

I mean, long-term? Liberal capitalism is a sinking ship and will give way to either socialism or fascism. I agree that right now we don't have the right conditions for revolution, but it's not because we're not far enough to the right, it's because right-wing propaganda that survival interests are determined by racial tribe rather than by economic class has been extremely successful. There's a reason I back the candidate who speaks of forbidden ideas like the class consciousness: the more people are aware that an elite class of users that can be defined by the power they have over resources and their ability to control others' access to resources, not any racial or ethnic grouping, is what's killing us, the more likely socialist revolution will succeed.

Also, centrism isn't a solution, because the status quo that centrists want to return to is the disease. Because the status quo, the center, is that the rich continue to get richer, the poor continue to get poorer, and the planet continues to choke to death on an endless spew of carbon, methane, and other greenhouse gases, and, oh, we continue putting immigrants in concentration camps because Trump didn't start that; it was happening under Obama too. That is the norm; that is our default. The right wing sublimates our fears into a fear of the brown and queer Other, and blames the brown and queer Other for the hopelessness looming in the mind of everyone who isn't in a bubble, and that's what put Trump in office in 2016. If we put a centrist in office in 2020, all we do is kick the can down the road for four more years and then get someone even worse than Trump in 2024 because only the fascists are offering even the pretense of an escape from the diseased status quo, even if it's a false one.

But yeah. The fascism is not something Trump created. It already exists at the heart of our political status quo, and that status quo resulted in Trump, not the other way around.

Also those polls don't measure the masses of disillusioned who only show up to vote if there's a candidate worth voting for; they are calibrated around the people who will show up even if the menu is absolute shit, because it's a lot harder to predict how many irregular voters a candidate will mobilize if they get nominated. Hell, they don't even measure people without landlines, which is to say, voters under 40 are largely excluded. But suffice it to say there are far more irregulars and young people to win over than there are "centrists" to win over.

Originally Posted by MsTinkerbelly

I would like to get back to the 2020 election if at all possible, anyone else?

Did you all see the news this weekend regarding Booker, Sanders and Harris stumping at a church where the Pastor has said that LGBTQIA folks are going to Hell and that we are all child molesters?

Are the candidates so out of touch that they just go where they are told to go, or do they just not care?

***edited to add...the story was on LGBTQ Nation.****

I can't speak for Booker or Harris, but this is... a little extreme for Sanders but otherwise on-brand. Like, this isn't the first time he's gone into a right-wing venue to spread left-wing ideas, because besides the young and the dispossessed, his campaign doesn't work by simply attempting to parrot agreement with someone's existing stances (either by moving to the center or preaching to the choir) but rather by winning over converts, frequently by way of priming non-rich cultural conservatives to vote for their economic interests rather than on cultural grounds. He won't win over that pastor, but he might win over some of the congregation.

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

I Beto having a moment out there or is it just in Texas?

He said "what the fuck" over the weekend and everyone swooned all over social media.

I mean I did gain a little respect for him when he had that candid explosion about what the source of our gun violence problem is, yes.

Speaking of that gun violence problem, I gotta say that very few of the ideas we actually have on the table now will have the desired effect. The only one currently in circulation that might actually help would be tightening restrictions on people convicted of DV charges having guns to give the DA and other local authorities less ability to let the perp weasel out of it. A lot of others would just make it more difficult for poor people (like minorities at risk of right-wing violence) to own guns. Also fuck Andrew Cuomo's stupid proposal for a mental health registry. That's all we fucking need, a centralized list of people to stigmatize for needing mental health care, when mental illness has no relationship to our current mass shooting crisis. We already know who our mass shooters are and they're not mentally ill: they're largely domestic abusers and the politically motivated, particularly white nationalists.

tl;dr If we banned domestic abusers and white nationalists from owning guns, we could stop mass shootings and abolish the police at the same time, this is extremely efficient policy-making.

[C0LLETTE]

Originally Posted by Martina

As a native of the Dayton area, who went to school and worked in Dayton, I don't think Dayton needs people from outside our nation's boundaries advocating for us. We will do fine, thank you very much. Dayton was the Ohio city most affected by the opioid crisis, but is now the model city for reducing deaths from opioids. We don't need others patronizing us.

I also think if you're going to make a point about remembering, you might get the names right. It's Parkland, not Parkdale. I don't think too many U.S. citizens would have made that error because the lives lost were our own.

How do you know what the people of Dayton "need" ? Are you really speaking for "the people of Dayton" because you once lived there? I don't speak for all Canadians even though people here try to keep shoving me into that corner

What is it you actually know/remember about the Holocaust? But I sure as Hell wouldn't hate you for referencing that pain, even 70 years later. I wouldn't ask you to prove you were Jewish or show me where you live..even if you misspelled the name of every single Concentration Camp.

There was nothing patronizing about my post except what you demagogically tried to stick in there.

As for Parkdale/Parkland... Why are you so unable to accept that even if one person outside America remembers those crimes it is something to acknowledge positively. The murder of children, even if those children are American, is not a crime only against America.

Do you really think that only citizens of Somalia can speak out on the massacres there, only citizens of Hong Kong can speak out on the repression there, only Saudis can speak out about the murder of reporters there?

You don't need to be able to spell every name right, every chronology exactly, to have a right to express an empathy for the central issue...

otherwise you end up with an ever diminishing circle of nodding heads and no one else feels a right to speak out...even in the most innocuous way.

And please stop looking for the tiniest reference to try to diminish larger points...it just looks impotent .