@newtboy
i like the 'failing liver" analogy.
appropriate and easily understood.

and i can understand where milkmandan is coming from,but my perspective is more aligned with yours newt.

what consistently baffles me,is how so many people are willing to simply accept this short term strategy from our politicians.

there is no surprise when corporations push for this,they are just focusing on their own interests and bottom line,which is short term profit.

or the politicians who bow to their neoliberal masters to receive those tasty campaign contributions.

or even the banks,who again focus on their short term gains.

these players are all behaving as they always have:for their own self interest.so there should be no shock or surprise when they act exactly as they have always acted.

but when i see everyday,normal people defend the behavior and actions of oliticians,financial institutions and multi-national corporations.it baffles me as to why they would choose to do such a thing.

we can understand why those players seek to retain a system which benefits them,their shareholders and their bottom line,but that system no longer serves the interests of the people,community and society as a whole.

so why make arguments defending it?

it is,quite frankly,killing us slowly as a species.

look at germany.
that country has slowly been recruiting,educating and now poised to corner the market in:new energy,renewable energy and are leading the world in breakthrough technologies in all energy fields.

germany has long played the long game.
they now dominate the entire EU in finance,and are now focusing on dominating the globe with new energy technology.

and what are we doing here in america?
pushing through more and more neoliberal policies that immiserate the working poor,both here and abroad.desperately continuing our destruction of entire ecosystems to exploit our natural resources for:oil and gas.military conflicts,which only make this country less safe,all to exploit other nations and extract THEIR oil and gas,and the cost in human lives is absolutely indefensible.

all of it.
every single bit of it for short term gains for an extremely small minority.

and here we are,with trump opening the flood gates to further exploit and destroy our natural resources with no thought or plan for the future.no investment in our communities,nor our society as a whole.

and for those who wish to make an argument that hillary would be better.i will only concede that on a domestic level this may have been true,but hillary is a neoliberal corporatist,and she would have pushed for even MORE military intervention in the middle east.MORE sanctions against countries unwilling to play ball,in order to politically squeeze them out,and even MORE of this countries policy of "regime change" to exploit and extract from those countries their precious resources.

i strongly suspect Iran would have been next on her agenda.

so when are some of these people going to step up,and realize that both trump AND clinton are (or would have been) disasterous for us as a community,a nation and as a species?

because they both only offer short term solutions to long term problems.and those short term solutions only benefit a minority of the population.

we could turn this ship around TODAY,right now,if we so choose.
we need more politicians like elizabeth warren and tulsi gabbard.we need more integrity in our media and journalists willing to do their job and criticize power,not bow to it just for access.we need the people to become engaged and confront their representatives,and make them uncomfortable,not treat them as celebrities.

and we need to reject the system where rich people choose who we get to vote for,and begin to dismantle this two party duopoly.

because trump vs hillary?
this election cycle has just revealed that both these candidates are not the disease,but rather the symptom of a very broken,and dysfunctional political system.

we need to begin to invest in the future.
and reject the status quo as no longer being viable for the continued existence of the human species.

and with the newly energized american public,who are growing in numbers daily,and is a direct response to the unmitigated disaster that is trump.there may be hope for us yet.

because if we stay on this trajectory,we are fucking doomed.

@eric3579
agreed,and i suspect most people struggle with this,but i think he made a really important point that we all need to address,and that is our own bias.

too many people for far too long have sought information that aligns with their own narrative,their own,personal and subjective understandings.we see those who identify as conservative reject anything that does not adhere to their own,narrow worldview,and we see those who identify as progressive do the exact same thing.

and yet if challenged,BOTH will stubbornly declare that their information is solid and without reproach.this is statistically impossible.

another great point he makes is how some people have been conditioned to accept opinion and conflict as somehow being "news".

he also makes a point on how some news outlets have done shoddy and poor work,but we should not throw the baby out with the bath water.while this may be true,i feel he was far too lenient on those who profess to be journalists.he gives them a pass for doing mediocre work,because that is what many journalists do in this new climate of:partisan hackery,access and propaganda.

so when we talk about "mainstream media",we are talking about only a few,monolithic corporations who DO have an agenda,and that agenda is PROFIT.

so we can look back to the run up to the iraq war,and see how phil donahue was fired from MSNBC for being critical of the war.the highest rated show on that network at that time.so if PROFIT is the model,then donahue being fired makes no sense..UNLESS you consider that the owners of MSNBC were general electric,who at that time were heavily invested in military contracts on the dawn of a new war.

so the profit was not from advertising from donahue's show,but rather the billions in defense contracts general electric was poised to receive from the impending iraq war,and donahue's criticisms of that war had the possibility to affect the profits of general electric.

and that is the one point that is missing from mr green's take on the mainstream media:their inability or outright refusal to criticize the current corporate establishment,and how many journalists kneel at the altar of their corporate masters.

so while he makes a lot of great points.that particular glaring omission is disturbing.

speaking only for myself i tend to only consume independent media,and focus on journalists who have earned my trust.

ultimately it is up to us to decide who we trust and who we are suspicious of,and to discuss those important issues among ourselves to better refine our understandings.

Interesting tale, but smiths strike their anvils to insure that the hammerhead is pointing in the direction you strike. Hammer handles being round, over the course of hammering it's very easy for the head to slip out of alignment with the arm wielding it. So you tap the anvil with the hammer to straighten the face.

No, the teabaggers invaded the republicans and took them mostly far right but really deep into insanity, where they aren't right or left, just angry and lashing out while accepting no responsibility for their parts in problems. They are anti tax, but pro spending, anti big government unless it's a government project they support, then big government is what's needed every time, anti regulation unless it's a regulation against something they dislike (like abortion, relaxing drug policies, marriage, equal protection under the law, etc).

Every teabagger I've met (and there are many) has been at least as if not more racist, homophobic, and bible thumping than the media makes the 'party' out to be, including (sadly) many of my own family members. They are not the fringe, they are the base, you're either lying or don't know your own group. They are also just as dumb and/or stupid as they are portrayed, my favorite slogan is "keep your government hands off my medicare", clearly the woman carrying it was so dumb she didn't understand that medicare is a government program, just like 1/2 of you don't know that the ACA is Obamacare, but HATED Obamacare with a passion while insisting the ACA is great. Not racist? Then what? Just brain dead? It's this disconnect from reality and sanity that made me run from them as soon as it was clear where the party was going....it didn't start out like it ended up, it started out more like OWS.

Haven't you been the one saying all left wingers are in perfect alignment with SJWs recently....repeatedly and smugly? Yes...that was you.

*facepalm

So the Republicans left the Conservatives and took the party to the left, meanwhile the SJW's took the Democratic party and drug it out to the WAY WAY out to the left?

In any effect, I agree with him in just about every way, and welcome him to come join us "tea baggers". We aren't nearly as racist, homophobic, or bible thumping as the media makes us out to be.

Not saying those people don't exist, but they are a really, really small fringe, and putting their identity on a whole group of people is like saying all left wingers are in perfect alignment with BLM or OWS groups.

I've been watching a lot of anti-SJW stuff lately, mostly because I am a rabid supporter of freedom of speech and I don't like the authoritarian direction a lot of the most vocal (and yes, it's a minority) of SJW's seem to be calling for.

And you know the really hilarious thing? Gays like Milo Yiannopoulous (who has to be the most conflicted gay guy on the planet), or trans like Blaire White? They are accepted. Milo drinks the kool aid a little (okay, he bought the company and consumes their entire output), but Blaire seems fairly centered, and they are accepted by fucking right wing college guys who you would think would be the first ones to yell "OMG get away faggot" or some such shit.

People are still bigoted and I have a sneaking suspicion they always will be in certain aspects, but sometimes tolerance comes from the most unlikely of places. Maybe it's acceptance due to ideological alignment, or perhaps the current generation has the exposure such that gay/trans etc isn't really that big a thing anymore, I don't know.

ps. I think Trump cashed in on riding the Bernie wave of discontent with the establishment, mostly tantrums just make you look like a dumb cunt. ; )

pps. I think my greatest disappointment with the post Trump tantrums is that the total electoral turnout is somewhere around 30-40% of eligible voters in the US? So it's not even a quorum picking the leader of what is still pretty much the biggest and most dangerous nation in the world. There's tonnes of blame to go around here unfortunately, and part of that goes to people who don't give a shit either way, something the DNC really has to own. I think Bernie would have seen record voter turnouts, whereas Clint-bot... /facepalm

I haven't done as much reading on the subject as you have, so maybe the story is bullshit. But I don't think the idea that sometimes God smiles, the stars align and everything just falls into place is all that crazy. So I just try to shut up and be happy that it did happen.

i am just going to add to the opinions and perspectives that @MilkmanDan ,@ChaosEngine ,@dannym3141 and especially @newtboy who i agree with so clearly that i swear we are related.

since many dynamics have already been covered, i.e:police culture,racism,incompetence etc etc.

i shall offer a historical perspective in the ways of the power dynamic.

while this is a power vs powerlessness dynamic dealing with agents of the state,it helps to understand just how we got to this point,and it is NOT the first time we have been here.

see:labor movement of the 30's and the labor strikes,and the response from not only the business community but our own government.

see: the civil rights movement and segregation,and how demagouges used political power to divide by way of racism,and then used police to intimidate,beat and imprison.

there are many MANY examples here in america where the police have been used to suppress and oppress a people or community for less than altruistic reasons,and most certainly not aligning with the ideology we were taught in school the function of police.nevermind the syrupy sweet,idealized picture shoved down our throats since an early age.

so we see on our facebooks,our twitters and/or whatever social media you prefer,that black lives matter...and the counter point,that NO..ALL lives matter.

now this would make sense in a world that never took history into account,or a growing cultural norm of violence and oppression that had been slowly seeping into poor communities (mainly black and latino).

oh wait..
that's right.
social media pundits NEVER fucking consider any of those factors,because just like bill o'reilly,those are pesky nuances and context conflict with their own narrow narrative.

but let us consider them and how they may possibly be a major driving factor in americas current climate.

let us take ferguson as an example,that is a good place to start.
and let us go back to 2008,where we can see the boiling begin to take place in this extremely impoverished community which was already struggling.

the population is a black majority,poor to working poor.home ownership is low,food stamp recipients are high and the future is pretty bleak.

in 2008 ferguson received approximately 18% of it's total fiscal revenue from misdemeanor infractions i.e:traffic,parking,moving violations.small time stuff.basic fines for small infractions.in 2008 that number jumped to 66%.

why?
what happened?
what changed?

well the comptroller of ferguson (and greater st louis),along with HUNDREDS of other smaller municipalities across the country,had bought the rotten fish that wall street was selling in the form of bullshit derivatives.

now wall street and the big banks got their tax payer bailout,but towns like ferguson did not.they lost millions,sometimes billions.this meant pensions were either reduced or outright denied,because there was NO money!

but a town still has to pay police.
fire fighters and school teachers,
clerks and judges,
keep the roads paved and the street lights working.

so what is a local government to do?
can't tax the working class who own homes.you already jacked their property tax to the roof.
can't tax the local business,you already squeeze them as well.
how about those non-property owning people in ferguson?
they need to pay up as well,and let's use the police force to relinquish them of the paltry money they don't have.

to the tune of 66% of all of fergusons revenue.
that is insanity.

so what if you live in ferguson?
chances are you are black,and either poor or working poor.

you make,if you are lucky,20 grand a year and by one man's testimony he paid over 2,000 in traffic tickets in one year.the majority of americans dont see those kind of numbers their entire lifetime.

and what if you began to realize that it was not just you.that almost every person you know or talked to had similar stories.

would you begin to feel a tad bit targeted?

what if the city of ferguson started to become very creative with not only their rules but how they enforced those rules?

what if every year the fines went up?
not remained the same,but actually UP? every year.

what if,as a community people began to actually fear the police? to experience anxiety just by the sight of a patrol car,even though they were not engaging in anything illegal? and who knows...maybe there is some new ordinance on the books that you are unaware of?

would you become paranoid and suspicious of law enforcement?

and then..what if....you started losing friends to cops.people you grew up with being shot in the street,and every time the mayor comes out and calls it a "justifiable killing".

would that make you feel any better?
any less paranoid or anxious?

there was ONE police shooting in ten years and then..as if by magic ..(which is how the media seems to always portray this..shocking news..at 11)..you lose 5 friends in a year.all to cops..all "justifiable".

would you begin to think there was a conspiracy?
targeting you and your neighbors?

i BET you would.
i know i would.

now lets look at the cops.

they are just a tool.
an instrument for the state to uphold the law and write citations for infractions.they dont MAKE the laws,nor the infractions,not even the fines.

they just do what they are told.

and they are told to go into these poor and working poor neighborhoods and write tickets,a LOT of tickets.

do you really think they are unaware of the growing hostility towards them? the looks of disgust,fear and apprehension?

but...this is their job,and they do what they are told.

they see.
they know.
they are aware of the growing hatred towards them,and this makes them anxious..and defensive..and in some horrible,tragic cases...trigger happy.

a natural and normal response to heightened stimuli in the face of great uncertainty.

so they react impulsively and out of fear in a way that ten years ago would have been unheard of.

they think themselves good cops.
they do a good job.
they do what they are told.
and the people hate them for it.
so they respond instinctively and with poor judgement.

we..as citizens,respond with disgust and indignation when a cop abuses his/her authority.we see this as a major moral breach in the citizen/cop relationship,because we feel as agents of the law they should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us...and rightly so,but when you put a human being in a tense and dangerous situation,not of their making,they will fail at some point to react correctly and with sound judgement.

they SHOULD be held accountable,but so should the city council members and the mayor and all the local representatives who created this toxic climate in the first place.

the lesson to be learned here is that nothing is a binary situation when people are concerned.

so when black lives matter protestors address people to make them aware of the situation,this is what they are talking about.the police killing are only a last stage manifestation of a situation that began in 2008 on wall street.

and we need to be aware,because right now it is the predominantly black communities,but soon coming to a neighborhood near YOU.

the poor and working poor have become expendable.no longer relevant to the system.which is why police shootings are being handled the way they are.our value is ever increasingly being judged on how well we can feed the system.

until this disparity is addressed there will continue to be police shootings.people will die and there will be no indictments.

because police do what they are told.

it is up to us to make policy makers accountable for their actions,and in doing so address a toxic climate that both the poor,working poor and cops alike have to swim in.

stop forcing cops to write tickets to fund a city that lost it's savings due to fuckhead bankers.

this blood..all of it..is on those bankers hands.

Loved this rant. Not much different from US politics - the two (or three...) political elites are only interested in (re)gaining power. Voters are no more to them than the mechanism to do that. The political elites have lied to them (the voters) and their economic options are being progressively eroded - so why shouldn't they be pi$$ed and be primed to grab onto any outsider promising them a better future ("Make America Great Again"...) - but of course they are being lied to by that faction as well. Where is the media in all this? They have lost any sense of neutrality (and integrity) and become party to the political elites. They have no credibility outside of the political faction they have aligned themselves with. So we end up with mob rule (democracy by another name) led by whomever is best able to tap into the ignorance and fears of the masses...

I read an interesting article on the BBC's web site on exactly this question - http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160404-why-some-animals-have-venoms-so-lethal-they-cannot-use-them

It makes some of the same points as this video, but also has an additional one in regards to why some animals are so toxic to humans: Bad luck! We aren't their targetted prey, so it's pretty much irrelevent to them whether their sting can kill one or 1,000 humans.

Bad luck comes into it as well. A bite from a Sydney funnel-web spider is extremely dangerous for humans, whereas rodents are relatively unaffected by their venom. Since these spiders evolved to eat neither rodents nor humans, this can be seen as nothing more than an unfortunate alignment of the spider's neurotoxin with a receptor on some of our cells.

It's been a while since I posted. I also rarely spew politics on the Internet anymore, but the arguments in the video are just weak.

Most gun control arguments amount to a bunch of cherry picked statistics, and then a complaint about other cherry picked statistics supporting the other argument. For example, you can't cherry pick the Chicago argument, that's just showing a lack of nuance, but let's go ahead and cherry pick the Australia and CDC arguments.

There was a ban on assault rifle sales in the US. Violent crime has dropped since it was repealed. How's that for a cherry picked argument?

Chaos's reasoning is aligned with my own. The issue is cultural, not legislative.

I'm also particularly peeved about the defense of a free state argument. I believe in the second amendment for this reason. You can't hold a block of houses with f16s. You do it with boots on the ground worn by soldiers bearing arms. To me, the second amendment is one of the last remaining checks on executive authority in this country. Tell the black panthers that bearing arms did nothing to protect them against abuses of state. Any policy maker considering a radical and unpopular extension of executive authority (ahem, Trump) needs to consider the logistical ramifications of an armed populace, wielding millions of firearms, the locations of which are unknown. That's a deterrent, plain and simple. Spend all you want on the military. The military is made up of people just as hesitant to wage war against their own countrymen as you or I. Especially so if there is a real possibility they are putting themselves at considerable risk in the process.

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/dsausa/pages/1599/attachments/original/1454007704/BernieWantsYouPoster.pdf?1454007704



The Democratic Socialists of America fully support Bernie.

So why do they fully ideology align themselves with Bernie? A socialist is a socialist.

There's a huge difference between a candidate that doesn't align perfectly with one's ideals and candidates diametrically opposed to one's ideals. You will NEVER find someone that aligns perfectly with your ideals except yourself.
If ALL candidates on the ballot are diametrically opposed to your ideals, the best solution is to write in the name of the candidate that DOES align at least mostly with your ideals, the second best idea is to simply not vote. Casting your vote for someone you think will be disastrous in order to deny someone you think will be apocalyptic is a terrible way to vote, IMO. I understand it, but I disagree with it.

If we order pizza, and the choices are limited to 4 types of mushroom pizza, or pizza with mushroom, onion, and sausage, and you are deathly allergic to mushroom, sitting in the corner and pouting and refusing to eat, while complaining to the room that they inappropriately completely excluded you from the process is the right choice.
Yes, it would be better to become more involved at the 'choose the toppings' level, but not everyone has that ability, and doing so is no guarantee of success.

If neither nominated candidate offers even some of what you want, what then?
I don't advocate not voting at all, but voting for the slightly lesser of two evils is not the only choice, supporting candidates that don't have a chance of winning THIS TIME can set up the next election so they do have a chance...it's a long game, but still better than 'boycott', and better than voting for certain disaster, even if that disaster is inevitable.
The notion that YOUR candidate is the only right choice and everyone else is being manipulated just might be reality in this instance, and not naïve in the least. Voting for someone just a step below apocalyptic seems naïve to me. If you think that the candidate is the only right choice BECAUSE that candidate is your choice, and not because they exhibit the qualities and positions you think are absolutely necessary, unlike all other candidates, then I agree, that's immature and naïve, but I don't think many made their decision that way.

Yeah...no.

We can't only vote for candidates that align perfectly with our ideals. We can support those candidates but if they don't make it to the general election then you vote for the candidate that most closely matches your values. I cannot even conceive of the level of self entitlement I would need to feel to endorse the idea that only my first pick is deserving of my vote.

We can order one pizza. I want sausage but I do not like onions. Everyone else wants onions. I sit in the corner and pout and refuse to eat.

The only mature position is to encourage people to do more to actively support their preferred candidate. That is positive action. To advocate boycotting elections when you don't get your way is untenable...because everyone CAN'T get their way. You have to accept that your views will not always be in the majority. You have to be prepared to get some of what you want if you can't get everything.

This notion that YOUR candidate is the only right choice and everyone else is being manipulated....its just immature and naive.