Just to be clear, the DNC is composed of dozens of different coalitions, each with its own agendas and goals and policy positions. The left often has a very hard time getting all these coalitions on the same page, because they are often pulling in very different directions. So it’s not much of a “package deal”. It’s one of the biggest reasons the Left has such a hard time getting “on message”, because there is no hierarchy in their organization that controls the message and pushes it down through the ranks.
The GOP, on the other hand, has four primary components: Christian fundamentalists, plutocratic lobbyists who are capturing all our regulatory institutions, the MAGA personality cult, and a tightly-managed right-wing media machine that engages in the very same “never apologize, aways double down” tactics. And all of these march in lockstep together. It is a much more tightly-packed “package” than anything we see on the left. It’s mono-perspectival and belief-based – if you don’t share our beliefs, you are driven from the party. Which is how they are able to continue lying about the 2020 election being stolen, and how they were able to drive the ultra-conservative Liz Cheney from their party, because she refuses to go along with the lie.
You’re right – all the conservatives used to live in the North, and all the progressives lived in the south. And then, after slavery was cancelled, everyone switched places — all those northern Democrats picked up their families and moved south, and all the southern families dug up their roots and moved north.
That’s why it’s always Democrats waving the confederate flag!
As a 2A proponent wouldn’t you say carrying firearms is legal?
Carrying firearms is legal. Brandishing them openly in order to intimidate is not.
How much burning and looting have the Proud Biys done?
Enough to be recognized by Canada as domestic terrorists.
Who wants to judge a man by the color of his skin, not his character? Yup. It’s the Far Left Progressives.
But certainly not the Far Right conservatives, correct? Because all conservatives are now “post-racial”!
Well, except for all those domestic terrorists. The exception just proves the rule! They were probably the FBI anyway.
Oh wait, then you have Lauren Boebert (who, let’s remember, married a convicted sexual predator who exposed himself to minors [she was one of the minors!] and is now somehow making millions of dollars as a “consultant” for the oil and gas industry ever since Lauren’s election) actively calling a fellow representative a terrorist because of – wait for it – her ethnic and religious heritage.
And let’s not even get into the other bright bulbs of the right, Marjorie Taylor “Jewish Space Laser” Greene, or even Madison “Stolen Valor/Lied About My Disability” Cawthorn.
Man, we need some better nicknames for these guys, they just don’t have the same ring as “Dementia Joe” or 'Kackles".
Either way, when the GOP sends their people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
My greatest wish is for the good, smart, worldcentric conservatives I know to take back their party. This ain’t grandpa’s GOP any more!
Ah, now I see how the Democrats are the Inclusive Integral party.
Based on polling data going into 2022 it would seem the Far Left Regressives have in fact become the clear leaders of DNC. We will see how many of the 14 factions are still Democrats in 2022.
But back to Integral Community building I would seem like picking up some of 1 of 4 blocks would be easy enough to sort out.
It’s an interesting take, since Bernie is much further to the left of Biden, but lost the nomination to Biden. Seems like the moderates like Manchin are still running the show, thought the progressives are indeed starting to get louder.
Remember all Conservatives are suckling Trumps big toe looking for validation and deliverance. Right?
The world is shifting away from you Corey. Come say mid 2023 you will find yourself so far out in left field it will take a telescope to spot you. Trust the Intelligence of the Collective.
And no, the Democrats are not the “inclusive integral party”. They just consist of more worldcentric factions than the GOP currently. Which is not to say they don’t have their ethnocentrists as well.
Glad you are finally seeing it and owning up to it.
How does that Trump Jam taste, toe boy?
Sarcasm always has an element of truth or it would not be sarcasm.
You finally actually stated your deepest truth and it all makes sense now.
The reason you keep posting here is you desperately seek validation to wash the taste of that hang nail 75 year old man toe taste out of your mouth.
No, convincing your voters with an onslaught of lies that an election was stolen, and then demanding party-wide fidelity to that lie, is not “the way it’s supposed to work”.
Amazing you can’t even call your own party out for this lie, and you can’t admit how much this damages the legitimacy of our entire republic. You seem unwilling or unable to say “boy howdy, do we have some crazies on this side too, I wish we could all find a way to drive the crazies out of our politics.” But I also understand the GOP is stuck between a rock and a crazy place, and absolutely cannot risk the MAGA/Q base turning against them, which is why they have no choice but to play along with the 2020 election lie and other internet conspiracy theories.
My overall thesis, again, is that we are experiencing a massive cultural regression on both the right and the left. And I believe this is largely due to the new selection pressures that came with the “web 2.0” social media paradigm (the flattening of perspectives feeds anti-intellectualism, and the lack of enfoldment/curation creates aperspectival madness), coupled with the rapid drop of the average “center of gravity” of the internet as soon as every idiot bought a cell phone in 2008.
And I think there are obvious examples of this happening on both the left and the right — but that this also creates an opportunity, as the regression helps peel back the surface layers and helps lay bare the systemic dysfunctions that lay beneath. And one of the things I think it reveals is that both parties are fundamentally in terrible shape — but in the end, any genuine “public servants” who remain tend to be democrats, because the Republicans continue to operate on the Reagan neoliberal belief that citizens should never ever come to see the government as being in any way benevolent.
All of which makes me hopeful for the possible corrective measures that may come with Web 3.0.
I see it more as an evolutionary kind of thing.
I see great progression and great regression depending on the individual and the community.
The social “left” as a whole is re-defining itself as separate from the political left and from there is dividing into those with a solid “anchor” and those without who are being swept up in the whirlwind and losing their bearings.
The social right has anchored itself to the political right, which is anchored to the “whirlwind” and has no concept of up what is up or down. Some are jumping from this ship of craziness, but risk getting pulled under in the wake of the spinning ship of neoRight spin. Or executed for not being loyal enough.
I think this reinforces the need for people to understand they are not their party nor their movement regardless of the extremists’ attempts to define everyone in those narrow terms.
But this is how it should be - the party has to adjust to society as is happening more on the left, not backwards as on the right with one crazy man driving the party off a cliff and everyone in that party adjusting their social lives to the party line to self destruct with him.
In my personal leftists social structures, nothing is prohibited for re-evaluation. My housemate, a life long Seattle native who participated in the Battle of Seattle, nudity marches, the works - she actually watched FOX news nonstop for about a week to try and figure out the Kyle Rittenhouse thing. We joked in our little liberal social circle with mock voices “Gee, FOX is staring to make a lot of sense.” We laugh because we recognize how complex he issue is and it’s not just cut and dried - but at the same time we know it’s not a “slippery slope” or “all or nothing”. Yeah, on one topic we can see the complexity - but stop when it starts going to spin.
I totally agree, all of this is part of the unfolding, and hopefully in the long run this will be the civilization-wide equivalent of “regression in service of the ego”. If anything, all of this is creating all the right problems and life conditions for Integral to emerge more fully.
I think this reinforces the need for people to understand they are not their party nor their movement regardless of the extremists’ attempts to define everyone in those narrow terms.
Yeah, I definitely think one of the primary failures of the 2.0/social media paradigm is how it caused us to completely fetishize our identities, particularly our political identities. (The political right likes to pretend this is only a problem of the left, when they have themselves been mastering identity politics for decades.) And this has enabled the larger social regression to politics-as-religion (or politics-as-cult, as is the case with MAGA/Q). At this point I think we need something like population-wide cult deprogramming, because few people are willing to set aside their narrow ideological beliefs and filters.
Either that or a UFO invasion. That might shake things up a bit.
In my personal leftists social structures, nothing is prohibited for re-evaluation.
It’s anecdotal, but my experience has been mixed here. I know left-leaning people and groups I would describe in a similar way, and I know some groups – even in integral spaces – who have become anything but ‘pluralistic’ and are embracing censorship, in many ways abusing the paradox of tolerance in order to create their own confirmation silos. My concern is that most of what passes for ‘woke’ these days more resembles the latter than the former. And yet, they are shining a light on many important babies that we don’t want to flush with the bathwater. As I said, the regression is peeling back the surface layers a bit, so we can get a better sense of the broken beams and struts and gear works behind it all.
But yeah, your housemate sounds cool, and exactly the sort of multi-perspectictival mindset we need right now.
Which gets us back to your original point – alongside this regression, maybe even because of this regression, I am also seeing more people beginning to take these sorts of meta views.
Yes, I experience this, too.
I’ve survived a few cancel attempts. Heck - one in this forum, lol.
What I observe is there there are micro groups and within these micro groups there is a “cancel rating”. If you witness a person being cancelled in a microgroup then best not to invest any “eggs” into that social basket. Just don’t participate in that social microclimate (don’t go to their events). Then when an individual or clique with a high “cancel tendency” tries to cancel someone in group with a low cancel rating - yeah there is drama but the attempt to cancel usually backfires. On the other hand, a social group with zero cancel rating can attract the undesirables - so there needs to be a balance.
Yep, this is the really difficult line to find. I can’t help to think that eventually we’ll figure out how to create platforms that will allow “communities of the adequate” to better preserve their adequacy. I’d like to see something like a way to quantify depth and/or expertise, and to assign weighting to comments and discussion threads according to that depth/adequacy. The first comment you see should be the most adequate comment, according to the standards of the community. Instead it is often the case that the least adequate comments receive the most attention, which can distort the discussion and throw it way off track.
I am eager to see what sorts of solutions Web 3.0 can bring to this – I have one friend, for example, who is trying to figure out whether it’s possible to do something like a “Dharma coin” that mines and distributes crypto not by hoarding GPUs and heating the planet, but through community-verified social practice. Such a fascinating idea, if he can figure out how to prevent it from being gamed! I think there is going to be a big speculative rush to find these ideas and solutions very soon, playing with interior/exterior value, decentralized management, new models of stakeholder ownership, etc. Hopefully Integral can get itself on that wave!
I mean, why not? After all, we were already doing Web 2.0 way back in 2003, before “blogs” and “podcasts” became a well known thing
I am intrigued by the different ways you and I see the world. I regarded myself as a “progressive” back in the 1990s… progressive first, leaning left. And yes, I supported feminism. “Spiritual but not religious” resonated with me. Of course, back in those days, progressive meant something very different to what it means today; back then, “progressive” implied innovation, soul-searching and a genuine spirit of enquiry. Back in the 1990s, progressives weren’t the toxic scolds that dominate today’s narrative. Since then, it seems that you (Ray) and I, have swapped polarities.
What changed me was observation. I began to notice the hypocrisy of the left and the hypocrisy of feminists. Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance” was, for me, the inspiration that planted the seeds of enquiry. I became acquainted with theories of mind and semiotic theory. I began to research the role of culture in shaping our beliefs and our gender roles. It is by virtue of my research that I’ve done a complete 180 reversal. Quite independent of any fashion or trend. You won’t be able to pigeon-hole me because a pigeon hole for me does not exist.
I see straight through the hypocritical bigots masquerading as anti-bigots… you know, the Fasctifa and BLM woke extremists. They project their bigoted assumptions onto those whom they hate, masquerading their fake moral high-ground. The woke talk about tolerance. But can you really be “tolerant” if you regard yourself as superior to those whom you decide are “intolerant”? I doubt it.
Woke “tolerance” lol! Projection is the key to understanding this modern incarnation of the pitchfork-wielding scolds that previously manifested, in another era, as Puritan fundamentalists. They make assumptions about the thoughts of others, and that those whom they hate are racists - they don’t get it that their hatred of “the other” is its own racism. The ugly thoughts that they assume in others spring from the self-same ugliness that they fail to recognize in themselves. Projection… very few people escape the cultural narrative that shapes their thoughts. Culture is our original sin. That was the gist of Robert Pirsig’s message; it was, in its day, a progressive insight. In this context of culture, I don’t disagree with your previous comment (re Darrell Brooks):
How is it that you, a former “conservative” and I, a former “progressive”, have arrived at such radically polarized positions? Whodathunk, at one time in the past, you a conservative, me a progressive? Interesting and fascinating.
I wish you were right. But I don’t share your optimism. We’ve had Dark Ages before, and I fear that we might be entering one again. The neo-Darwinian, because-genes paradigm has wrought enormous damage to the foundations of culture. Neo-Darwinism is the not-God response to the because-God of Judeo-Christianity, and shares with it the same indulgent, humans-r-speshul anthropocentrism. From it springs all the broken narratives of the Left and the Right, from victim culture to indulgent materialism. It will be extremely difficult to turn this cultural behemoth around.
A Copernican scale of revolution is required to shift our anthropocentric perspective, with our assumption of nature created for our consumption. The universe is a big place inhabited by many cultures at many stages of development. We are far more expendable than we realize, and given the horrific way that we treat our livestock (this Judeo-Christian/neo-Darwinian human exceptionalism again), the universe won’t miss us, in all our profound ignorance. The universe has plenty of time, and at its scale, we are less than the blink of an eye… and just as consequential.
Do you have to conflate everything on the right with Election Fraud and Qanon? It’s highly reductionist, inaccurate, and chilling on communication and understanding.
What I said is WV, AZ, UT and yes WY will “provide feedback” in their next elections on Manchin, Sinema, Gosar, Romney and yes Cheney. Do you want West Virginians or Utah’ers to dictate how your Senators and Congressmen should represent you and Colorado?
And yes it’s a complex “system” of both formal and informal responsibilities and powers. Someone runs as a Democrat, caucuses as a Democrat, yet votes with Republicans. Should the DNC Senate leadership be able to limit Manchin or Sinema’s roles on Committees? I personally would like to see Manchin and Sinema on every single committee as another often Conservative vote, but I don’t whine about it because DNC leaders wouldn’t want that and work to limit their cancerous influence.
And on the Election Audits - why are you so opposed to auditing elections? Are you opposed to balancing your checkbook? Checking your credit card statement for unknown charges? Looking at the restaurant bill for accuracy?
Me thinks doth protest too much. Did you protest Hillary’s 4 year new circuit claims of election fraud? How about Gore’s claims? Or were those “legitimate” claims?
Why not be respectful of the balancing act that all political parties have to balance? DNC embraces their Wickedly Mean Greens like Virtuous Gurus, then claims to be “Moderate”.
I think every Conservative here on Integral Life (2 that are still around) has said they don’t ascribe to most of or any the “beliefs” you claim they worship. Just as do I think you promote, fund and worship the Muslim Brotherhood’s, ISIS, Taliban, Al Queda, or Chinese activities both here and globally? Of course not Corey. So why do you keep cycling on a Stelzer/Lemon sound bite?
As an example, can we not trigger your MAGA/QAnon/Trump Response when I type the following?
The Right sees US as the single greatest primary Actor in the world. Do we step up, as we have in the past to help make the world a better place (all those women in Afgahnistan that were in university, driving cars, building careers, girls unafraid of trafficing is a near at hand example). The Left’s “America is no better and perhaps worse than Uganda or Laos” approach is perhaps the most regressive bullshit going around today. And we’ll bandy about in Integral circles “oh those Mean Greens are not quite right, but at least they’re Integral Green”.
And just simply look at it from the angle of effectiveness to manifest your Integral noosphere. Can you create more change in the world by making a “Weaker America” or a “Stronger America”?
While I know you simply cannot see it, the Right/Conservatives are moving into an Enlightenment, a Renaissance if you will. What’s great about it this time around is it’s truly a Green Meme Renaissance across all of US and much Western civilization.
Absolutely agree that the dysfunction has been laid bare. The Citizenry of every economic level, race, religion, identity “gets it” now. Just think if the Leftist authoritarians had not effectively blocked 45 from keeping our schools and economy open with their “scare science” leading up to the election. All those Moms and Dads likely would have never clued in to what your beloved Leftist “public servants” were up to with their children.
Are you opposed to a dishonest thief doing these things? Or just some random stranger with absolutely zero qualifications who you know nothing about?
It’s not a question about if elections should be audited - they are audited ALL THE TIME IN ALL ELECTIONS.
But giving unethical people access and the opportunity to corrupt or falsify data - no, they cannot conduct an audit. Are you willing to let the homeless guy at your local buss stop or local drug dealer to balance your checkbook?
