This is precisely why a large part of me actually wants Trump to win.

We're way too complacent. There has been a slow, steady, gradual decline that has lulled us into apathy -- even though the state of politics and "democracy" in the US (and arguably globally as a result) is absolutely pathetic and appalling at this point.

It is looking more and more likely that the general election will be Trump vs Clinton.

First of all, that alone demonstrates just how fucked we are. Our final two choices are likely to be the two people with the highest negative opinion numbers out of all the candidates. The cream didn't rise to the top, and instead the two biggest turds managed to avoid being flushed. South Park seems oddly prophetic; we have really ended up with turd sandwich vs. giant douche. I just can't tell which is which.

Second, I notice that a LOT of people (including "establishment" Republicans) are scared shitless by the prospect of a Trump presidency. In a Trump vs Clinton election, they say that they would easily prefer to vote for Clinton -- perhaps couched with the "lesser of two evils" descriptor, but still vote for Clinton.

I agree with the idea that Clinton is the lesser of those two evils. But that, in combination with our current level of apathy, makes me MORE afraid of a Clinton presidency than a Trump one. Clinton is a slick, dirty politician. People think they are going to dodge the Trump bullet by voting for her, but she is the archetype of what got us into this situation. She tells people only what she thinks they want to hear, while doing exactly what her donors (megacorporations) want her to do whenever the camera isn't on. A Clinton presidency will keep the masses just placated enough to NOT boil over.

Meanwhile, Trump seems like enough of a perfect storm that he could actually screw things up bad enough to make the masses stand up and take notice. Maybe that kind of slap in the face is what we need.

Clinton presidency: "Fuck it."
Trump presidency: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"


In a hypothetical scenario where the general election was Trump vs Sanders, it would be much harder for me to be "pro" Trump. Because Sanders seems like maybe he's got the right mindset to change things for the better the *right* way. On the other hand, I kinda felt the same way about Obama. So, even in a Trump vs Sanders scenario, a big part of me would be "hoping" for Trump to win. Because *something* has got to snap us out of our apathy.

I disagree completely. Labling him a criminal before a trial is perhaps a little premature - whether or not he broke the law is the question that should be asked at the trial...only it seems that the answer would likely be yes because his whistle blower status, or lack thereof, sure as hell isnt going to protect him.

I'm not sure why supporters of what he did would demand he martyr himself further. Do you really put so much trust in the justice system? You saw what they did to Manning. You think that is justice? How selfish of him to want to avoid that same fate rite? If it was me I would sacrifice myself to their little ritual in a flash and then sit in a cell for god knows how long hoping that the American people can pull themselves away from MTV and fastfood long enough to give a fuck about me. Lol nop. US citizens don't seem to need a trial to decide his guilt or not. Is anybody actually thinking to themselves "gee, I wonder if that snowdon guy had a point. Too bad I won't know until he hands himself in!". No, everybody made up their minds long ago and I don't think I need him to publically crucified to get mad as hell.

Was immediately reminded of this
http://videosift.com/video/Im-Mad-As-Hell-Scene-from-Network

What gets me and should get everybody mad as hell, is that it took Dr. Guppy here and a so-called news network to rile the alleged intelligentsia as to the 70-plus-year dupe of otherwise practical, common-sense humans. What a fucking ruse. The fact that CNN's latest ratings-blasting segments from Dr. Dickcheese here has the fans of reason gushing proves only that the duping of another generation is still alive and well.

I say we kidnap this tool Gupta and inject him with some black-tar heroin for a few weeks while he's tied to a fucking rusty, mattress-less box spring, then put his paltry ass on-set in front of the cameras...

You say; "Oh yeah, and I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore, Hail Satan, Hail Eris, Jesus Saves."
Hmmm. o....k, keep calm, and take your meds.
Seriously though, it's desk top fatalists like you, who envisage dystopia, and gleefully await Armageddon, that the security services are right to monitor. I'm done.

I do have some anger issues-The crux of that issue perhaps possibly, my perception that I might be living in an era of mass-hypnotism of the planet's inhabitants through technologies envisioned originally to afford power now hi-jacked (and historically so) by charlatans posing as world leaders?

Another obvious turd lodged in my craw? How about a social-evolutionary path akin to Bradbury's "Fahrenheit" or Orwell's "84" turning an entire continent of what formerly consisted of self-determined, practical, and classically educated hard-working sorts into a cast of extras from "Idiocracy?"

Yeah, it pisses me off that so many people are distracted by what they are being told about some illusory process in which the common citizen might take part to imagine some bright future for mankind falling somewhere between the golden rule and the code of Hammurabi. The planet is being hi-jacked by a new breed of criminals frighteningly similar to the most egregious of old-For everything there is a season my friend, Solomon's wisdom in Ecclesiastes 3 it just as pertinent today as it will be for humans for the next 10,000 years-"a time to kill and heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up."

I'd like to imagine the new-construction-upon-the-ashes to include projects both organic and nano-technological in nature with the transformation of our specie's bodies, minds, souls and spirits as a prime objective.

You are living in these wonderful and frightening times, consider this incarnation your most favorable having been born when, where, how, why, and what you are-You are an amazing collection of cellular consciousness manifest in the wonder of flesh.
It's pretty fucking cool actually, and these are the ideas upon which I try to meditate upon every waking hour.

Oh yeah, and I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore, Hail Satan, Hail Eris, Jesus Saves.


(BTW, to answer your inquiry as to the "knowledge" that administrations keep in the dirty-little-secrets folder? Do you really have to ask about need-to-know information that would end the lives of yourself and everyone you know, because that's what the United States can do for you alla-Hoover, alla-Bush, alla-New World Order Über Alles.
What you think you know you don't, and you can't form an opinion or come to a conclusion on a subject for which you have incomplete data with which to arrive at those opinions or conclusions. Simple deductive reasoning or even a pragmatic model of the scientific method should make this screamingly clear to anyone who distrusts the anemically hostile Babylonian system .

Sure, there is no need to speak in terms of civil war. Unless you're one of these guntoting, armed to the teeth nutjobs who think it would be a good idea. You know, the kind of people who buy an *assault rifle* for self defense.
However, no matter how well trained your riot police is, their less than lethal tactics are only useful up to a certain amount of people, they can become rather useless if the crowds get too big to contain or simply too violent themselves. That's when it gets interesting, that is when protest can turn into riots.
When the cops face huge, somewhat peacful crowds, they might enter Tiananmen Square. At what point would american cops or military personnel start thinking that it's unwise or inhuman to start firing into the crowd? Before the first shot? After the second magazine? On day three?
It's not the 1960s anymore but the sixties are not forgotten. Not by those who faced police officers willing to fire into the crowd. You know, black people. The kind of people whose parents and grandparents are still alive to tell them about their fight against oppression. This is still alive in the american concious, it shaped your country and it won't go away soon. Just ask Barak about his birth certificate.
Civil unrest is part of your recent history, the seed is there. Even under a President Stalin all you'd need go from isolated, contained riots to complete and irreversible shitstorm is a Martyr, a Neda Agha Soltan or a Treyvon Martin. No matter what ethnicity (although african american would be nice), that would present a tipping point.
Your police can bring out the tanks on Times Square if they want but if half of NY shows up, these guys inside the tanks might want to get out ASAP.
The Erich Honecker regime of the German Democratic Republic was basically brought down by somewhat peaceful demonstrations of people shouting "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore" in east german accents.
The StaSi, the Ministry of State Security, who was efficient enough to make *every* citizen a potential informant in the eyes of their opposition, ran from the protesters like little girls. They used to imprison and torture people who spoke up.
The east german border used to be the most secure in the entire world. It was protected by minefields and guards who shot and killed anyone who tried to cross it. Before David Hasselhoff even had a chance to put on his illuminated leather jacket the government caved and just fucking opened it. People just strolled through Checkpoint Charlie and bought Bananas as if it was Christmas.
This was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. You know, the guys who lost over 20 Million people in WW2 and still kicked the Nazis in the nuts.
Nobody brought a gun. All the east germans had was shitty cars and lots of anger. They tore down not just a dictatorship, they tore down the iron curtain.
And they didn't even have a Nelson Mandela. Or Lech Walesa.
I still stand by my point: strength in numbers, not caliber.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'm mad as hell and I'm ... probably just going to complain about my slow connection for a bit, and then have a sandwich.

That would make me mad as hell and I wouldn't be able to take it anymore.

That Dupe came up and I saw what it had been replaced by and sifted it.

This makes it awkward. I'd be happy to have someone replace the incorrect vid with this one - it took a while to find one whose embed had not been disabled.

Awesome film, otherwise. >> ^radx:

Dupe of this one, which was incorrectly fixed with an embed of another clip.

Dupe of this one, which was incorrectly fixed with an embed of another clip.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

A person who spends a good deal of his time taking care of his body may find it slightly repulsive to pay for the care of someone whom has not taken care of himself, and perhaps rightly so.

But what's the real root of that objection? Is it that they think it'd be more helpful overall if there was also money going into programs designed to encourage people to take better care of themselves? Or is it just a fundamental rejection of the idea that they should bear any responsibility for other people?

The former I'm sympathetic to, the latter not so much.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
For instance, if I were mad about jobs, the last thing I would do is OWS, I would instead seek to create a job fair.

Right, but job fairs don't fix anything if the problem is that you have more people who want a job than there are openings. It's not that we have 10 million job openings, and 10 million unemployed people, and all we need to do is help them find each other. The problem is that we've got 10 million unemployed, and barely 1 million openings (or maybe the ratio is even worse).

I suppose the unemployed could try giving each other jobs, but they don't really have any money to hire people -- that's why they're looking for jobs in the first place. And the people who do have money have been laying people off rather than hiring more people -- that's why we have so many unemployed people. And the people with money are doing that because their sales are down, and their sales are down because people don't have any money because they lost their jobs...

The people who're suffering need help from the people who aren't. And the people who aren't suffering are saying "don't blame us, blame yourselves," and generally lashing out at anyone who implies they have a moral obligation to help.

So of course there are protests. Hell, in the grand sweep of history, this kind of protest has rarely ended peacefully.

These people aren't just whining about having to pay taxes, they're incensed about having worked all their lives to get a modest amount of prosperity, and lost it all for reasons that were beyond their control. They're mad as hell and they're not gonna take it anymore.

>> ^mgittle:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^mgittle:
@dannym3141
That's the point of this occupywallst thing. It doesn't require an inspiring figure or a set of demands or goals to achieve. It's like when someone who's always thought there was something wrong with their religious beliefs meets an atheist and has that realization that there are other people out there who are having the same thoughts as they are. It's a pretty powerful thing.
I agree that protests seem more effective when they have specific goals, but why does this specific protest need a goal today . I think it's better to stand up and say the whole "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore". Work out the details later.
The Arab protest movements didn't start with any inspiring figures or well thought out sets of goals. Sure, they were probably a little more geared towards getting rid of their governments, but those governments had figureheads. Wall Street has no single figurehead at which people can direct their anger. How do you kill a beast with no head?
I think we're seeing something new here...a protest with no head to kill the beast with no head. A true battle of mindsets. This is the new culture war.

The Arab spring had a very clear goal, to remove a dictatorship and replace it with democracy. They weren't just mad at the world and burn it all down. They had a very specific alternative already in mind that they were demanding. You demean their plight and deaths for the right to vote by claiming kinship between it and this vague, I'm mad cause I wanna be rich too rumbling.

Yeah, maybe it's a first world plight and it's not as "fight or flight" "life and death" as the Arab spring, but I don't think it's right to differentiate struggles against the concentration of power the way you're suggesting. That's like how people argue that soldiers with PTSD shouldn't get a purple heart because they didn't shed blood. Yes, it's different, but it's still an injury. You can argue that health care is a life and death struggle as well. Hell, I'd almost rather we were fighting for our lives in the literal sense...then maybe people would realize that dying from lack of health care is still dying. The fact that you didn't get shot or die in a terrorist attack doesn't change that. Dead is dead.
I don't think the wall st. protesters are just "rumbling", nor do I think they want to just "burn it all down". It's also ridiculous to say that they "wanna be rich too".


Your missing my central point. The Arab spring protesters were not just opposing something worse and more sinister, the equally important point is that they were protesting to advocate for something better.

Please articulate for me what it is that the occupy wall street crowd wants. Do they have a solution they are advocating for? Without advocating for a solution to the problem, they are just rumbling and lobbying to fix the problem by burning it down. Or maybe in terms that you'd more willingly agree with, without advocating for a solution, they are leaving it in the hands of the elite to come up with the solution. That kind of paternal attitude though is at the heart of the problem.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^mgittle:
@dannym3141
That's the point of this occupywallst thing. It doesn't require an inspiring figure or a set of demands or goals to achieve. It's like when someone who's always thought there was something wrong with their religious beliefs meets an atheist and has that realization that there are other people out there who are having the same thoughts as they are. It's a pretty powerful thing.
I agree that protests seem more effective when they have specific goals, but why does this specific protest need a goal today . I think it's better to stand up and say the whole "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore". Work out the details later.
The Arab protest movements didn't start with any inspiring figures or well thought out sets of goals. Sure, they were probably a little more geared towards getting rid of their governments, but those governments had figureheads. Wall Street has no single figurehead at which people can direct their anger. How do you kill a beast with no head?
I think we're seeing something new here...a protest with no head to kill the beast with no head. A true battle of mindsets. This is the new culture war.

The Arab spring had a very clear goal, to remove a dictatorship and replace it with democracy. They weren't just mad at the world and burn it all down. They had a very specific alternative already in mind that they were demanding. You demean their plight and deaths for the right to vote by claiming kinship between it and this vague, I'm mad cause I wanna be rich too rumbling.


Yeah, maybe it's a first world plight and it's not as "fight or flight" "life and death" as the Arab spring, but I don't think it's right to differentiate struggles against the concentration of power the way you're suggesting. That's like how people argue that soldiers with PTSD shouldn't get a purple heart because they didn't shed blood. Yes, it's different, but it's still an injury. You can argue that health care is a life and death struggle as well. Hell, I'd almost rather we were fighting for our lives in the literal sense...then maybe people would realize that dying from lack of health care is still dying. The fact that you didn't get shot or die in a terrorist attack doesn't change that. Dead is dead.

I don't think the wall st. protesters are just "rumbling", nor do I think they want to just "burn it all down". It's also ridiculous to say that they "wanna be rich too".