Pontius Pilate crucified Jesus to keep the Jews from revolting - sacrificial lamb if you will - which resulted in a transformation of both Judaism and the Roman Empire. The Swamp is essentially both Pontius Pilate (in charge) and those being threatened (ancient Jews) combined. Makes for a one stop shop.
Agree that Trump is not a direct analogy to Jesus.
Doesn’t most everyone have their view on root causes, there if only’s?? In Integral terms it’s been stated simply as Amber/Orange fighting to stop progress of Green/Teal Utopia. Crush Orange and Green/Teal can flourish which is seemingly one and the same with the Swamp in a “Get Trump” mode.
Question - So North America is in a 4th stage cancer. Where on the planet should we look for examples on how to “do it right”, not that we would do it?
There currently isn’t a cure for cancer, either literally or in the analogy. When you have it, it’s to late.
As I’ve said many times - you have to pick ala carte bits from here and there. No society on the planet has all the answers. It’s also not absolute, but shades and degrees along a range of good to terrible.
And mankind has never survived by doing exactly what another country is doing. Humanity has survived by innovating - doing what has never been done before. Democracy at one point was some wild idea. Personal hygiene was as well. Someone in the middle ages might have asked similarly “Tell me one country where people wash themselves every day. It doesn’t exist, so it can’t work. Humans are supposed to be dirty and smelly. It’s natural.”
The answer to a problem isn’t to look within the problem for the solution.
And yet here we are. I don’t doubt that we very well could go through upheaval or anarchy just as we have on the rare occasion in the past. Looking at Western world, we had the Bronze Age collapse in 16th century BC and then Roman/Eastern Roman collapse in 6th century AD. And of course many other less impact full versions.
Are you predicting one of these cataclysmic SHTF collapses or a minor shtf version?
Or is there any hope we can just have a speed bump event?
I’m a proponent of the boiling fish scenario.
It goes like this - if you have a fish in cool water and heat it up only in increments of less than 20%, it won’t get alarmed and won’t try to escape. It will die not realizing how hot the water had become.
In our world today, how hot exactly is the water? We don’t know because we are all fish in the same water. Whether the Republican fish or the Democrat fish are more “right” or have more “truths” is irrelevant. But remember 99.99% of fish don’t even realize there is such a thing as water.
In this analogy, “water” is anything that is not easily directly observable and measurable and so as a result science and your average human is blind to.
In the 1990’s certain conservative radio hosts called it “the quickening” when they observed stuff happening at an increased rate. They wanted to believe the Christian “Rapture” was nigh and they’d be sucked into heaven. Or maybe it’s “Agent Smith” trying to balance the equation, lol. Or just plain old entropy. Who knows?
What I think is that as our global economic system shows more and more cracks but most people won’t remember past the last one and won’t see the trend. I see one trend quite clearly with microoganism - especially virus and bacteria. Nobody want’s to talk about them and there is a definite financial interest against talking about them or even recognizing the problems. So these problems don’t hit the news cycle. For example, are you aware that STAPH infections are now just kind of normal? Don’t go swimming in lakes or rivers with open sores. I have several tubes of that anti-staph ointment but then also MRSA is also getting more common so that’s just putthing a finger in the dike. There are several other things like this that I know about, and probably dozens that I don’t have a clue about.
It’s interesting you mention the 1990’s claims that “Rapture” was nigh which I remember well :-). The Phoenix, the rebirth after collapse is a very common theme throughout history. It seemingly is part of the human collective to predict cataclysm with promise of utopia emerging on the other side.
Creating Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt then providing a pathway to Safety or Utopia in the re-birth is a powerful tool. I view this as a “faith” for the “unknown”.
I personally don’t see much difference between the '90’s “Rapture” from today’s “Existential Cataclysmic Crises”, other than the specific name on the existential crisis being used to raise money and coalesce power. Be it “moral decadence leading to being Smote by God” or whatever the latest “Existential Crisis” (global warming, transsexuals suffering microaggressions, etc) might be. Extreme religious people talk “Smote by God” while a-theists claim “Cataclysmic event” or “Existential Crisis”.
You mention entropy - that’s the stuff of life, life force, religions, fear… Life itself organizes the cosmos into more complex forms while the cosmos looks to break everything down into more basic components with more chaos - “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.
This brings us around to the threats we face as humanity. Agree completely with viruses being one of the greatest threats we face. But have hope - humanity has faced viruses throughout history - and yet here we are talking about these viruses.
Well, yes, humanity survived the Black death, bubonic plague and many others. But remember that after the black death there was then a period of economic catastrophes and wars. The aftermath of the black death produced the psychopaths we used to call the “Great Explorers” when I went to school.
The black death was itself caused by over industrialization and concentration of populations in large cities. It’s a direct link: overindustrialization - economic hardship - health crisis - famine - war - “progress” aka conquest and genocide as written by the conquerors.
It’s a messy cycle that makes me suspect there may be a better way.
Speaking of cycles, there seems to be an absurd cycle in US politics where Republicans accuse a Democrat of something and are so eager to harm the Democrat that they don’t even realize they themselves are the most likely to get trapped in their own web.
It’s with even more irony that the FBI was originally formed by Republicans to counter organized leftist groups in the 1960’s. Now Republicans are the criminals and are getting a taste of how the FBI operates when you break the law. Good law or bad law, the FBI doesn’t care. In posession of weed - federal crime. Hide top secret government jobs in your house - federal crime.
The third layer of irony in this is that Trump was so determined to keep Hillary out of office that they specifically added that you could not hold office in the United States if guilty of mishandling such documents.
2022 is going to be know as the golden age for C-SPAN, lol.
The impact of bubonic Plague was amplified by population concentrations, but not caused by it. In sparse populations, a small village might be wiped in isolation thus not impacting overall much.
But, population centers enable specialization - like a bunch of intellectuals spinning theories 99% of which never see reality - or rocket scientists launching satellites to listen for ETs.
Good news is that when we do “collapse” it’s only 2 steps back with much progress maintained - if you think not living in subsistence livelihoods good.
Niven/Pornelle’s Mote in God’s Eye series were excellent sci-fi on this cyclical collapse/reimergence.
There will only be a civil war if Americans can fight it from their Lay Z Boy armchairs.
Here is the self perpetuating circle:
1 -Watch TV
2 - Get angry / sad / fearful
3 - Consume products to feel better as suggested by TV advertisements (including politically associated products)
4 - Work harder to afford more products
5 - Get stressed at work
6 - Watch TV to disassociate from work
rinse, repeat
Here’s the thing about that model - it only applies to those who are dependent on the mass media for their solution to destress from work. Those who have a different method to destress from work are not in the cycle.
So, the only people wanting to participate in this Civil War will be the people who turn to their TV and Lay Z boy as the solution to all life’s problems. Yet these very people don’t participate in anything except through their TV or computer.
It’s the same old problem every revolutionary has had through the ages. The malcontents most wanting a revolution are also mostly the incompetents who have failed in the current system. Hitler’s first followers were drunkards and thugs and he later had to purge them from his organization to actually have a competent. Lenin had sent all the Trotskyites and true believers of Marxism to Siberia to die.
The difference with this current rabble screaming for civil war is that they are not rough brawlers meeting in working class drinking halls. They are mostly keyboard warriors and armchair quarterbacks.
Here’s what people don’t understand:
Military service =/= combat readiness.
Yes, everyone in the US military gets some degree of basic training which apparently is far and above what other countries such as Russia give their “professional” military.
But only about 10% of the military is actual combat branches. The 90% are supply, logistics, admin and support. The US military is the best because this 90% is really good. Yes, they do have some kind of training. But don’t count on them to fight, lol.
Then even out of that 10%, most were not trained as Infantrymen. They might be tank crew or artillery, for example.
Then finally, we get to the actual Infantrymen who had extensive training and even experience in hand to hand combat and tactics. Well, many of them committed suicide or suffer from severe PTSD.
And all of these men - their service was 20 to 40 years ago, lol. That’s the demographic raging about civil war. The generation who can’t figure out the modern world and want to be angry at anything and everyone rather than just learning to adjust to changing society.
Yes, in Hollywood movies actors over 60 can do everything just as well as professional athletes. But that’s pure fantasy.
And that is much of the root of the problem. Too many people think they can be Rambo.
Now, on the other hand - if Trump does get elected and according to his plan purges all the competent people out of law enforcement and military leadership who refuse to cow tow to him, and replaces them with the deplorables - that would be a more serious problem.
If you turn FBI agents into criminals just because they executed a legal warrant. Well, suddenly you have a lot of very well trained “criminals”.
Wouldn’t they just become private sector citizens?
Wasn’t necessarily clear in the question.
How much of active duty law enforcement, national guard and military would take up arms against Americans that they very well agree with?
How many would join the revolution?
So if Trump and Republicans Impeach Bidens Cabinet, then slash most agencies budgets/head count, and outlaw CRT Racism will the Lefties Revolt?
No. The only group talking armed revolt are the Trump supporters.
We see that they in fact are doing just that. As Trump supporters break the law they are being arrested. Whether a man in the FBI agrees with Trump is irrelevant.
So, with a Democratic president yes - Military and (most) Law enforcement will continue to do their duty and enforce the law. As we see with the Jan 6 attempt to overthrow the government, police officers that joined in are also facing criminal charges.
If anyone besides Trump is elected, few to none.
If Trump is elected, that is where it gets crazy because that is when we will descend into banana republic status. The law will be whatever the man in office decides that day, and soemthing else the next day. When Hillary of Biden’s son mishandle classified info, lock everybody up. When a Republican does it, act outraged that anyone would question his imagined authority.
I thought it was the Leftist Media and Swamp Rats that are talking “armed insurrection”, with a smattering for Antifa and BLM to spicy up the narrative.
You are seemingly stuck in the News Cycle. Do you not see the higher level game afoot?
This is pure conjecture on your part since IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. It’s as if you publish a continually morphing political fiction novel or made-for-TV series with plot twists.
What? I specifically heard “lock her up” being chanted at rally after rally. Are you saying this never happened? I watched it and heard it with my own eyes and ears. And are you saying that in the debate Trump didn’t promise to put Hillary in jail as a campaign promise because of the server incident? Again, a promise I hear live with my own ears. Who is publishing a continually morphing plot, lol?
I see this today: FBI agents (probably many who voted for Trump in 2016) shot and killed a MAGA fanatic.
It was even a hill that at least one MAGA fan was literally willing to die on. Ricky Shiffer, a hard-boiled Trump stan who was enraged by the Mar-a-Lago search, was shot dead on Thursday after attempting an armed break-in at the FBI’s Cincinnati office. “Kill the F.B.I. on sight, and be ready to take down other active enemies of the people and those who try to prevent you from doing it,” an account using Shiffer’s name wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-details-emerge-on-fbi-search-warrant-for-raid-on-donald-trumps-mar-a-lago-home.
What is significant is that the MAGA person who was starting the “revolution” was a whacko and probably untrained (or at least one Federal Agent would have been at least injured). Despite whatever political leanings FBI agents may have, they have taken an oath and I trust most professional Law enforcement and Military Officers will continue to support the party that is in power. Where it goes off the rails will be if Trump is elected in 2022.
That is the false narrative that was being pushed in 2020, including by you yourself. There is now evidence that many people posing as Antifa were in fact the alt right vandalizing property and blaming it on Antifa. Then there are the mysterious bricks that suddenly appeared from nowhere, trying to entrap people into grabbing a brick and using it (but nobody did).
One big problems I have with the Trump Republicans is their complete lack of originality. They accuse Democrats of having an idea (which usually isn’t even accurate) and there is a cylce where Republican first criticize it visciously. Then in a few years Republicans come out with 100% the same idea. They don’t even change the words.
It really does come straight out of 1984.
“Defund Law Enforcement” = bad (2020)
“Defund Law Enforcement” = good (2022)
A nation simply cannot function if knuckleheads are in charge who willy-nilly can’t even remember what their positions was on an issue 2 years ago and flip-flop on major policies depending on which way the wind blows. This is exactly why I’ve been saying for the past 6 years that if Trump gets a second term it will be the end of the United States as anything resembling an efficient organization and won’t even be able to conduct even the simplest of operations.
I think we’re dealing with some serious political nihilism and sunken cost on the right these days. In this very thread we have calls to investigate and impeach Biden, while Trump is actively being investigated for espionage. We have concerns that the left will “revolt”, posted the same day one of Trump’s Truth Social minions attacked the FBI, and while the Jan 6 hearing continue to prevent hard evidence of Trump’s failed attempt to overthrow our constitution. We have signs reading “we are domestic terrorists” at CPAC. We have Fox News airing fake photoshopped pictures on live tv in order to rile up the base, and Breitbart naming the FBI agents who were involved with the raid. And now the FBI is reporting an unprecedented number of violent threats being made against them.
We are seeing the results of lunatics being allowed to run the GOP asylum for too long — and it’s likely going to get worse before it gets better.
Whats’ wrong with it? It’s my career field and I see a lot of people getting away with Tax Avoidance. People seem to think (especially the rich) that they are entitled to settle for “pennies on the dollar” and not pay their tax debt at all.
Note that these ads seem to run on conservative media and I don;t really hear them on liberal media. So predominantly it’s listeniers of conservative media who ask about this concept. As a side note, the national companies advertising on these conservative media are complete scams. The figures are that 90% of all IRS Offers fail, which means most of these companies are a waste of money and only a few of us are the reason for the 10%. My OIC record is very good because I won’t take cases I know are doomed to fail, but the National companies will take $5,000 for an offer and they don’t even know if it will go through and don’t care because they already got the $5,000 up front.
Trump is among that crowd and I’m all in favor of the IRS having more manpower to sock it to these people not paying their tax debt.
Note I represent them profesionally but personally I really dislike them as people. Few things are more annoying than someone who makes 300,000 a year and has 2 million in assets trying to find ways to avoid their tax debt that they have been ignoring for 10 years. So I charge them lots of money.
Though with trump there is increasing evidence of Fraud.