Not only did he abolish it, but it was one of the highest priorities of the GOP once Reagan came in. Haynes Johnson writes extensively about this in his frighteningly-prescient book 'Sleepwalking Through History'. The GOP was already following the lead of Roger Ailes (later of Fox News) after he polished the turd named Nixon and the GOP understood if they controlled the narrative, they could stay in power. Newt Gingrich, and the shitshow that followed, was the natural extension of Ailes's methodology. Abolishing the Fairness Doctrine will be studied for centuries as one of the single greatest acts of self-destruction in world history.

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

This movie has not aged well at all. It's got a few funny moments, but it really wasn't that prescient.

I fell for it too when I watched it first.

But people aren't turning into the kind of slack-jawed stoner idiots this movie portrays. Even "stupid" people are knowledgeable.

The problem isn't that "dumb people are reproducing too much", the problem is that we have access to a vast swathe of information and there's little in the way of critical thinking.

But this movie feels very much like "ha, look at all the dumb yokels". It just doesn't work.

Relevant! Prescient!

Well then, I somehow, quite presciently, manage to miss all of the departments that are easily stereotyped by caustic British humour.

That was really my only motivation for getting a Master's in Peace and Conflict Studies - nobody knows what the hell it is.

He has since been expelled (prescient of him).

I understand that's the second school he's been suspended from and at least his third arrest for this sort of behavior.

This is the most terrifying a prescient quote you can imagine. Either it is a deliberate turn of phrase they use in order to get the right ears perked up... OR it's a horrible choice of words that will go down in history when these robots become armed.

To quote the great Wittgenstein "meaning is use". Language and meaning are nuanced and complicated, but most of all, subjective and instrumental (by which I mean something we make up). This is why we frequently use otherwise restrictive and oversimplified analogies to illustrate specific points, and sometimes arbitrary (and always artificial) terms to sum up otherwise much more expansive phenomena.

In this case @Babymech used one to quite neatly surmise the different ways we interpret accidental puns and double meanings. Crude vs Prude was just a succinct way of labelling the two predominant archetypical responses to a potential double entendre.

One is to tend to overlook or ignore it (Prude)
One is to recognise and even call attention to it (Crude)

There were no value judgements implicit in the way @Babymech did this. You brought those yourself, projected them outwards and rather rudely set about insulting Babymech for the perceived slight/prejudicial remark.

The fact you got a rude response back was not validation, it was retaliation. You called him/her a dick basically without provocation!

"In some countries / regions, saying someone is crude is quite the insult."

A term charged with historical prejudicial hatred indeed! Absolutely no room for interpretation or innocent intention there. (And God forbid anyone anywhere ever be offended by something because they might have different associations with a words meanings and associations)

But let's just assume @Babymech was making a value judgement anyway. "Prude" and "Crude" create wildly varying emotional responses. From pride to shame. Who takes prescient? Who's right to not be offended counts most?

Much like considerably more sensitive words (like ones beginning with N and F for instance), context is absolutely everything. Words have no meaning outside of their context, they are entirely relativistic things. Even the cold hard definition in a dictionary is a contextual arrangement (in this case the dictionary & the linguistic paradigm which is documents).

If there was hatred in Babymech's heart when he/she made their comment I certainly did not recognise it. The same point made in a different way might have raised my ire too, but here I can only see a slight you brought to the table yourself so to speak.

I've done it myself before, but then I've also apologised for starting shit that wasn't really there before too

You would be correct if you detected a slightly snotty attitude in my reply, it pops up mostly when people start throwing around unsolicited abuse (or say unspeakably dumb things but I'm certainly not accusing you of that here, just a needless conflict). You'd be amazed how fast it can disappear though!

Much love.

@BoneRemake
i am a man of faith.
do you feel as strongly about me as you do @bobknight33.
do you speak about me in the same tone?

everything i do.
everything i say.
every minute of every waking hour is based on my faith.
is born from my faith.

maybe it is because of my faith i read bobs commentary different.
when he states that human morality has moved on from biblical morality..he is correct.

and i thought it very prescient of him to recognize that fact.

in his second commentary i watched him attempt to express how the picture had become so much larger..and grander,which only served to cement his faith even stronger.he was not dismissing science,he was incorporating it into his faith.

which some here viewed as a dodge.
now maybe that is due to a pre-conceived idea of who bob actually is.
if you think bob is a fundamentalist then yes..his commentary may seem a tad...off.

but if you see bob as a man of faith,then his comment revealed a curiosity and desire to understand and an absolute awe at the way of things unfolding before us.

if we look at science as the understanding of the physical universe by way of theory,testing and repeatable applications of said testing.then science is actually the search for god/creator (from a faith viewpoint).

were you aware that 60% of surveyed scientists regarded themselves as people of *gasp* faith?

i see a lot of people making assumptions and presumptions about other sifters here on this thread.

so you need to ask yourself one question:
how did you come to your assumption in regards to anothers:motivations,intent,feelings,faith?

what tool did you use?

was it a crystal ball?
ouija board?
did you fall into a vat of nuclear waste and gain the super power of peering into another humans soul to discern their true intentions?

as humans we all assume to differing degrees,but if you are not a person of faith,then try to avoid those assumptions.

why not just ask bob?
he is usually gracious enough to interact with those he is full aware disagree with him..almost always.

ok.
enough ranting today.
you kids stay awesome,im off to get my pool ready !

The throw away comedy bit at the end was by far the most prescient.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

"Even though my official title was president of the United States, I can't be held responsible for the last four years. See, what had happened was... I took a leave of absence for a little while, then I decided to do something else, so I back-dated my resignation to 2012. See?"
- Mitt Romney, 2016


Too true to be funny... prescient.

She looks like Farrah Fawcett at the end. Isn't Lindsay at least a little younger? That SNL bit where Rachel Dratch played Lindsay from the future come to warn Lindsay about partying too hard seems eerily prescient now.

Sadly prescient, I fear. I'd hate to be in a warzone when they weaponize all those autonomous flying drones everyone's making now...

Not to mention when someone has the bright idea of strapping pipe bombs on them and flying fleets of GPS-guided flying bombs into crowded places.

And I'd be surprised if smugglers weren't already using those to get contraband across borders. From what I can tell, currently you can get a kit for a couple of thousand dollars that includes GPS and autopilot with waypoints, with half an hour of flying time and a top speed of about 80 kilometres per hour...

@NetRunner

I don't really believe the "blackmail" theory. It just speaks to how sudden and drastic his about-face seemed to me. I mean, this guy had a HUGE progressive mandate when he got elected. Landslide victory, both Houses, 60-40 in the Senate (although sabotaged by "blueblood" prags). Then, Obama chastising the Repugs that "elections have consequences", and the optimistically prescient Nobel Peace Prize. Finally, some change I can believe in! Go, Obama, go!

And then... he just started caving. Offering compromises when compromises weren't called for or necessary in my view. And then failing to learn very quickly, if at all, that the opposition wasn't interested in anything but opposition. I agree that their "personal courtesy" was truly "partisan posturing", and he may has gotten suckered to a point.

Maybe part of the problem is that he has surrounded himself with people that have never shared his vision. Maybe this is some brilliant plan to expose the Republicans and the system for what it is so he has the support to proffer true progressive change in a second term, but I don't think so.

You can point to the list of his many accomplishments and tell me I'm wrong, but the big picture in this country hasn't changed. His victories are little more than election year bullet points. Very little has changed overall. Health care and financial reforms are a joke. Corporations are still raping this country's middle class by sending jobs and cash overseas while paying very little or no taxes. Unions, the very fucking organizations that created the middle class and kept it strong, are legally and financially weaker and have lower participation than ever. Environmental protections are being stripped at alarming rates, the country's infrastructure continues to crumble, students and teachers alike are being hamstrung by budget cuts, 1 in 50 Americans are in prison or on probation, and although we were walking on the fucking moon forty years ago, we currently have to rent space on Russian rockets just to get American astronauts to low earth orbit. Yeah, we have no money for roads, bridges, schools, health care, or Orion spacecraft, but we spend (borrow) many times that needed to fund these things for three useless wars and an entire Empire of hundreds of bases around the world. I'll spare you the Eisenhower reference.

Something fundamental has to change in this country, and I think that any change that matters is going to have to be HUGE change, even revolutionary.

I see a completely different Obama than the one I supported in 2008. Rhetoric that you want to hear is still just rhetoric. Palliatives for the disenchanted, and dogma for those who should be. Yeah, I know it's "yes, we can", not "yes, he can". That's what OWS is all about. Obama failed. OWS is Plan B.

I hope I'm absolutely wrong. I hope he does well and effects positive, substantive change. Unfortunately, I'll be voting for him not because I think "he can", rather, as the best of a bad lot.

All Christian codes of conduct (its ethics) can be traced back to Greek philosophers

Jewish ethical philosophy was existant before the Mycenaean age, let alone the Classical or Hellenistic. Christ was Jewish, and there is no record of him receiving secret ethical training from Greek philosophers. This statement is absurd prima facie.

But – as I said before – I never claimed that religions (the organizations) were perfect or ideal. I merely stated that they provide ethical training to people in an organized fashion, and that is beneficial to the concept of “making better people”. I even predicted your hostility (or at least its potential) because I know there are those who are hostile towards “churches” for a variety of reasons.

communities other than churches have made good people long before religion got involved

No one is saying that religion is the sole originator of societal good. I merely stated it is AN important source of societal good and should be fostered rather than treated with hostility. Or if “fostered” is impossible for some to whom religion is not acceptable, then it should at least be treated with deference rather than anger.

Of course there are lots of places people can do good things. However, it must be said that churches have one of the most organized and systematic approaches. For example - let’s say you volunteer at a soup kitchen. Cool – you’re ‘doing good’. But in what way does a soup kitchen train you to understand WHY you’re doing something? You are pouring soup. A monkey could do that. Just as important is the moral philosophy behind why you’re doing it. You do not get that sort of training from soup kitchens, book clubs, softball league, art house, chat groups, or even most actual charities. I participate in a lot of state & municipal groups, and not once have I ever received “moral training”. But every Sunday in church I get some.

Again – I’m not trying to tell you such things are not possible. Of course they are. However, church is just one of those places where “morality” is taught as a matter of necessity rather than as an incidental suggestion or inference. Isn’t that something we should be supporting rather than attacking?

You cannot speak for all churches no matter how much you would like to.

If you go around the country and eat at a bunch of diners, you are then able to report certain facts about them without claiming that you are “speaking for all diners”. And thus it is here. You’re complaining about something that doesn’t matter here.

Their point is not to make people moral, it is to teach their religion.

I’ve been in a lot of them, and I’d say your characterization is inaccurate. I would say that their first objective is teach a morality system, and that their second objective is to obtain converts to THEIR specific organization.

The first thing that happens when I sit down in any particular denomination is I get a belly-full of moral instruction. They talk about faith, good works, Christ, love, sacrifice, turning the other cheek, being a good Samaritan, and that sort of thing. If you keep showing up at their building, then they will start inquiring about whether or not you are a ‘member’ of their denomination. It is at THIS point that people like yourself & Enoch start parting ways with them.

And it is true that a lot of religions place more importance on being a ‘member’ than on learning the morality. Which is really too bad. I don’t disagree that this kind of “join us” pressure is distasteful. Ideally, religions would do nothing more than teach their morality beliefs and “invite” those who wish to join them at their own pleasure. Quite a lot of them do this. But there are those who are much more insistent, and it is a bad thing. Totally on your page in that regard. But I disagree when you say that their only purpose is to push a specific denomination. I’ve seen dozens of churches that have sermons, help people, teach gospel – and ask nothing in return.

You are blatantly misrepresenting the purpose of a church and acting like the unquestioning following of a supposed supernatural entity isn't the entire point of the organization.

I disagree with your opinion that the purpose of a church is to foster unquestioning belief because I’ve seen otherwise. Many good religions encourage seeking and questioning – so your premise here is false.

This is a straw man that has nothing to do with what I'm saying

No, it’s a great example that has everything to do with what you’re saying. You just don’t like how effective it is, which is why you entirely ignored the substance of the argument.

Religion isn't needed for people to do good.

Of course not. I never said so. But religion does lead people to do good things. Even if you don’t agree with “religion”, isn’t that beneficial? Why stop it?

And in what way am I hassling you or your religion?

I didn’t say you were. If you’re feeling guilty on this point, then it is entirely from your own conscience that this is originating.

You brought it up and suggested that everyone should be religious

No. I never said that. Again, you’re using absolutes to imply meaning that does not exist. All I said is that churches teach morality, and that morality instruction is what a lot of people above said was necessary to “make better people”. I went on to suggest that such a thing should be encouraged, rather than treated with hostility. And I also predicted that some people would react hostilely to the suggestion. As usual, I was 100% correct. It is a burden to me sometimes to be so prescient, but such is my lot.