I'm often amazed at how often some posters post. Life is so interesting and there is so much to do I find myself busy all the time. Work, family and whatnot keep me busy but I thought the thoughts expressed below worth sharing. Where are we going when Trump, Carson, Fiorina are the best we can do?
"What this means at the level of legislative tactics is that the faction that wants to shut down the government in the name of budgetary responsibility and the protection of fetuses, is doing so knowing that this move is but a barely disguised means for further marginalizing the increasingly non-white population of the United States, a minority which threatens to become a majority within the next decade. Destroying the remnants of the social safety net is by design a way to make those people suffer. For some of the members of the coalition imposing such suffering is an end in itself, what they perceive to be an appropriate punishment imposed on those who they believe are parasites. In that sense Planned Parenthood is but an example of the outsourcing of health services to a private entity: the real meat cleaver is to be major budget cuts that are to be taken exclusively from social welfare programs, which were demonized by Mitt Romney in 2012 as the government giving things to people, a sentiment echoed this past weekend by Jeb Bush." The Contemporary Condition: The End of Boehner
43% of Republicans could imagine supporting a military coup in the United States'
"A recent poll of American voters asked respondents if they could imagine circumstances under which they could support a military coup in the United States. 43% of Republican respondents said yes, while only 32% said no. Overall, 29% of Americans could support a coup, while 41% could not. As frightening as this poll result is, it is embedded in a survey of attitudes toward major American institutions. In response to a question asking if the military wants what is best for the country, 70% said yes, while 12% said no. Asked if Congress wants what is best for the country, the numbers were practically the reverse: 12%, yes, 71%, no." YouGov | Could a coup really happen in the United States?
"In Undoing the Demos, Wendy Brown explains how democracy itself is imperiled. The demos disintegrates into bits of human capital; concerns with justice bow to the mandates of growth rates, credit ratings, and investment climates; liberty submits to the imperative of human capital appreciation; equality dissolves into market competition; and popular sovereignty grows incoherent. Liberal democratic practices may not survive these transformations. Radical democratic dreams may not either." Undoing the Demos
"Many of the explanations given for Trump’s enduring appeal as a candidate are convincing: he is expressing the frustrations of the right-wing white male nationalists and racists that now compose the core constituency of the Republican Party, doing so without any subtlety, subtlety being yet another sign of weakness for that subsection of the electorate; he is skilled at self-presentation, a natural on television as only someone long practiced in the free-form art of “reality” television can be, and hence is not thrown off message by challenges to the truth of what he says; his enormous wealth and decades of building the Trump brand have made him both familiar and widely admired among the Ayn Randians who compose so much of the core constituency of the GOP; his cheerful hatred, on display in every public appearance, mocking his competitors, denigrating anyone who disagrees with him, demonizing those he knows are hated by racists who seek someone to represent them in their hatred—all this provides psychic pleasure to those who love him and those who do not, stimulating a Lacanian jouissance as a core response to his persona by both those who hate the capital O Other and those who hate him. "The Contemporary Condition: Degraded Fascism, Nihilism, and Donald Trump
"What this means at the level of legislative tactics is that the faction that wants to shut down the government in the name of budgetary responsibility and the protection of fetuses, is doing so knowing that this move is but a barely disguised means for further marginalizing the increasingly non-white population of the United States, a minority which threatens to become a majority within the next decade. Destroying the remnants of the social safety net is by design a way to make those people suffer. For some of the members of the coalition imposing such suffering is an end in itself, what they perceive to be an appropriate punishment imposed on those who they believe are parasites. In that sense Planned Parenthood is but an example of the outsourcing of health services to a private entity: the real meat cleaver is to be major budget cuts that are to be taken exclusively from social welfare programs, which were demonized by Mitt Romney in 2012 as the government giving things to people, a sentiment echoed this past weekend by Jeb Bush." The Contemporary Condition: The End of Boehner
43% of Republicans could imagine supporting a military coup in the United States'
"A recent poll of American voters asked respondents if they could imagine circumstances under which they could support a military coup in the United States. 43% of Republican respondents said yes, while only 32% said no. Overall, 29% of Americans could support a coup, while 41% could not. As frightening as this poll result is, it is embedded in a survey of attitudes toward major American institutions. In response to a question asking if the military wants what is best for the country, 70% said yes, while 12% said no. Asked if Congress wants what is best for the country, the numbers were practically the reverse: 12%, yes, 71%, no." YouGov | Could a coup really happen in the United States?
"In Undoing the Demos, Wendy Brown explains how democracy itself is imperiled. The demos disintegrates into bits of human capital; concerns with justice bow to the mandates of growth rates, credit ratings, and investment climates; liberty submits to the imperative of human capital appreciation; equality dissolves into market competition; and popular sovereignty grows incoherent. Liberal democratic practices may not survive these transformations. Radical democratic dreams may not either." Undoing the Demos
"Many of the explanations given for Trump’s enduring appeal as a candidate are convincing: he is expressing the frustrations of the right-wing white male nationalists and racists that now compose the core constituency of the Republican Party, doing so without any subtlety, subtlety being yet another sign of weakness for that subsection of the electorate; he is skilled at self-presentation, a natural on television as only someone long practiced in the free-form art of “reality” television can be, and hence is not thrown off message by challenges to the truth of what he says; his enormous wealth and decades of building the Trump brand have made him both familiar and widely admired among the Ayn Randians who compose so much of the core constituency of the GOP; his cheerful hatred, on display in every public appearance, mocking his competitors, denigrating anyone who disagrees with him, demonizing those he knows are hated by racists who seek someone to represent them in their hatred—all this provides psychic pleasure to those who love him and those who do not, stimulating a Lacanian jouissance as a core response to his persona by both those who hate the capital O Other and those who hate him. "The Contemporary Condition: Degraded Fascism, Nihilism, and Donald Trump
