Thanks for sharing the military viewpoint, Fred. It's quite horrid, isn't it, but I suppose that's the mentality governments need their fighters to have if they plan to send them into war. They need to arouse hate because people won't fight their friends.
The state of US politics (and the legal system) is very sad, and it's having a huge …
Thanks for sharing the military viewpoint, Fred. It's quite horrid, isn't it, but I suppose that's the mentality governments need their fighters to have if they plan to send them into war. They need to arouse hate because people won't fight their friends.
The state of US politics (and the legal system) is very sad, and it's having a huge influence on politics around the world with Trump copycat politicians making the most of an emboldened far right. It will be interesting to see where the world is in 20 years from now.
Trump is the symptom and not the disease. Ditto all the other populist-fascist movements. Political change is happening faster them social and cultural change. This caused a counter-reaction which energized the politically apathetic. Politicians and influencers take advantage of sentiments and fan the flames. They don't create the sentiment. There has to be a sensitive nerve in a large population for them to strike.
There is a very large demographic that has not moved on from the 1950s.. (The folks from the 1950s have morphed into today's MAGA movement.) There is also a radically opposed progressive/woke movement that rocketed ahead in political power. The MAGA crowd view progressives as an existential threat, both personally and nationally. They are desperate to stop what they see as the US equivalent of the the Fall of Rome. Progressives view conservatives in general as troglodytes to be overruled and MAGA in particular as something to be expunged and overwritten..
I saw exactly the same rhetoric in the 1960s. My parents were part of the radical right of the time. The New Left and the counterculture were the progressives they reacted against. I had my own little closet I lived in until I was able to move to California.
I now live in both the MAGA conservative and progressive worlds.. I am probably most comfortable in a socially liberal but fiscally conservative environment. I do not know where that is to be found. I'm vaguely libertarian in sentiment.
To this day, my surviving relatives have not moved on from an isolationist hyperconservative stance. They live in "rural white poverty." They won't change until their very real needs are addressed.
I agree with you about our politicians being symptoms of social sentiment. They only get to where they are if we enable them.
I've been fortunate to have traveled slowly through much of the US and can picture the scene you paint of rural white poverty. Thank you for sharing it.
Thanks for sharing the military viewpoint, Fred. It's quite horrid, isn't it, but I suppose that's the mentality governments need their fighters to have if they plan to send them into war. They need to arouse hate because people won't fight their friends.
The state of US politics (and the legal system) is very sad, and it's having a huge influence on politics around the world with Trump copycat politicians making the most of an emboldened far right. It will be interesting to see where the world is in 20 years from now.
Trump is the symptom and not the disease. Ditto all the other populist-fascist movements. Political change is happening faster them social and cultural change. This caused a counter-reaction which energized the politically apathetic. Politicians and influencers take advantage of sentiments and fan the flames. They don't create the sentiment. There has to be a sensitive nerve in a large population for them to strike.
There is a very large demographic that has not moved on from the 1950s.. (The folks from the 1950s have morphed into today's MAGA movement.) There is also a radically opposed progressive/woke movement that rocketed ahead in political power. The MAGA crowd view progressives as an existential threat, both personally and nationally. They are desperate to stop what they see as the US equivalent of the the Fall of Rome. Progressives view conservatives in general as troglodytes to be overruled and MAGA in particular as something to be expunged and overwritten..
I saw exactly the same rhetoric in the 1960s. My parents were part of the radical right of the time. The New Left and the counterculture were the progressives they reacted against. I had my own little closet I lived in until I was able to move to California.
I now live in both the MAGA conservative and progressive worlds.. I am probably most comfortable in a socially liberal but fiscally conservative environment. I do not know where that is to be found. I'm vaguely libertarian in sentiment.
To this day, my surviving relatives have not moved on from an isolationist hyperconservative stance. They live in "rural white poverty." They won't change until their very real needs are addressed.
I agree with you about our politicians being symptoms of social sentiment. They only get to where they are if we enable them.
I've been fortunate to have traveled slowly through much of the US and can picture the scene you paint of rural white poverty. Thank you for sharing it.