It's official. We have to be pricks to be successful in America.

[The Backlash Cometh]

What do Donald Trump and Chris Matthews have in common?

They have both written books which are meant to give us sage advise on how to get ahead. Incidentally, that's the title of Donald Trump's title. "How to Get Ahead."

Matthew's slogan is, "Life is a political campaign," and suggests that we, like politicians, should make every decision in our lives, like a politician would. And since there isn't much about politicians that we trust, it must mean that he's encouraging us to be phonies.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, goes on t.v. to plug his book, and with authority, trashes Rosie, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie. Frankly, I don't understand why the American public wastes their time with Donald Trump. He is a hateful person and very artificial. But, somehow, someone has decided that he is the face of American success and they keep giving him the leverage ($) to continue making outrageous investments in whatever scheme he likes. He's become a poster boy.

Anyway, I think we should brace ourselves because we are definitely becoming a meaner, more phony, selfish country. And unless someone comes up with a way to counter the messages that we're getting from the pillars of the community, I'm afraid that once people pass a certain level of cynicism, they can never be pulled back.

[izzie]

1. I never took to Trump either but I will say this about the rest.

Just as I told my children. One has to learn how to fit into society in some way to get along in this world. What level you do that is up to you but that is how things work.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. I said the same thing to my son.

But, then we all have to accept why our country is going to hell in a hand basket. And people shouldn't be wondering why it all fell apart. The signs are all there. We have become a country of sell-outs.

[izzie]

19. Must recall that at the start we had Royalist.

I do swear that some would love to see Bush pump water into the ditch around the palace and pull up the bridge but that is life. I am a little shocked at the number of people who seem to want a 'ruler' to tell them what to do. Heck I had trouble even having my father tell me what to do. Where do these people, who will obey so well, come from? Not from my family that is for sure. Once my whole family were in the GOP and none trusted their govt. people even than. I just can not figure out where the GOP found these sheep who will do just as they want.

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. Problem is, that we no longer have public servants running government.

The politicians who are "reaching out" to the people, are the ones that have people convinced they can fix every pot hole in their community. In other words, a system of patronage and cronyism. What the public doesn't realize, is that the politician is handing out the road repair work to their country club buddies and charging the public triple for the work.

[Chimpy McCokespoon]

23. That's easy, they found them in church.

[izzie]

24. I grew up in a church but I guess it was not the right one.

It is now called the United Church of Christ and it has been around for a very long time in this country. It did not like what the King was doing in the 1500's and I guess it is ingrained in my family. Not that the Church was always so good. After all they were the 'city on the hill' people. Like most church/states they could not make it work any better than any one else.

[flashl]

3. IMHO, America shows it true colors along the time of the movie "Greed"

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Yes. That's it exactly.

And because there is nothing to offset that image, I'm afraid that Greed is here to stay.

[WilliamPitt]

5. Rip Their Lungs Out

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.14B.WRP.Out.htm

Or not.

Just a thought. ;)

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Observations:

Clipped this quote:

"If you have a liberal bone in your body, then you have a dog in this fight. These people, who have spent the last ten years shattering every rule of decency and truth in an effort to gain power for the sake of power itself, and to avenge grudges held since the days of Abbe Hoffman, cannot be trusted to shepherd this country through this time of trial. There is too much at stake for people of such thin moral fiber to be allowed to run unchecked anymore.

"Forget what you know of fair play. Leave aside notions of decency. Ignore hypocrisy and scream at the top of your lungs until they burst. The soul of this nation is at stake, the culture war continues unabated, and it is time for the Left to storm the battlements. It is past time. If you are cowed by tall Presidential ratings, you are of no use. If you have no stomach for a dirty fight, you aid the enemy. If you cannot take joy in the sound of a sword striking meat and drawing blood, step aside."
- - - -

Here's the prob. They say if you are an activist, and are fervent in your cause, eventually, you alienate everyone. Family and friends included. Why? Because they don't "get it," nor want to "get it."

The only way these people will listen is if you manage to set an example that they envy. So, if we want change, we have to show them that you can still make sacrifices, and still get rich.

Is that possible? I really don't know. Can't say there are too many successful people out there who haven't ripped out a lung or two themselves. Generally of the people who got in their way.

[flashl]

9. Cult 101 ??

you alienate everyone. Family and friends included. Why? Because they don't "get it," nor want to "get it."

:shrug:

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Well, I see it this way:

Take that optical illusion that everyone was playing with yesterday to determine if you were right brain, or left brain oriented.It took some desire and effort to learn how to change your orientation, if you were strongly one-sided and couldn't switch at will.

Now, the more severely financially strapped a person is, the harder it is for them to even take their mind off their immediate need: Making it to the next paycheck. I've been around these people and noticed they have tunnel vision. Their humor is different and their enjoyment of artsy things are limited. Not because they are less capable, but because those kinds of things aren't priorities in their lives.

So, if they are concerned about making a paycheck, even worried about it, they aren't going to pay attention to you. Period. Not unless you can show them how they might lose more if they don't. Or show that you became successful AND were a lot happier when you did.

[flashl]

13. In the recesses of my mind ..

I remember something related to ??five fetters?? = shelter, food, clothing, family, acceptance. If these basics are unattainable, then it is impossible to get the attention of the individual.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. And we would do well to remember that.

What we could do is learn how to customize the message. One size does not fit all. For the lower classes, Dems should have policies or programs that will take care of the first three. For the middle class, the last two.

Of course, all these things take money, and that's how the Republicans will undue every effort the Dems put forth, unless it gets quick results. And, now that I think about it, they managed to even turn away people who needed welfare because of the "acceptance" tag. That's interesting. So, their character assassinations are specifically targeting a person's need for "acceptance."

[flashl]

16. Customizing message ...

That's a prob. When Dems became centrist they changed message and policies and moved away from their base.

Messages means nothing to people who are in survival mode, they need action. Progressive Dems history is full of missed opportunities to address its group real needs

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. Maybe I should have said, customizing POLICY.

What do they really want? Help when they need it, without being disrespected for wanting it.

Maybe if we ramped assistance the way we ramp incentives for salespeople? Give them bonuses each time they get just a little more independent?

[flashl]

27. In some instances motivating is not at issue ...

Repeatedly, while traveling around the states, I have gone to towns where time seem to have stopped.

City fathers, planners, and leaders have found creative ways of obtaining federal funding using their "low-income" populations. Although, officials reported no success and they need more money to "help" the under achieving, they seldom implemented programs for the target populations. The programs and funding only served to enrich those in power while the target demographics continue to suffer.

The target populations are voiceless and many times they are unaware that their cities, counties, municipalities, etc. are getting rich from their mere existence. When the target demographics becomes aware that there is away out, usually, they are eager for change.

Solving mispresentations in situations like this requires more than allocating more funding or increasing reporting requirements.

An example perhaps is prisoner of the census.

[The Backlash Cometh]

31. Interesting.

But you just confirmed what I already suspected. Local and State government is too damn corrupt to get the job done. They may be too close to the situation, and really have no love for the people they care for.

[Oak2004]

26. And if you look at what the fundamentalist churches have been up to

they've been providing, or at least promising, those five fetters to their followers. I don't think that is coincidental. I believe a lot of the loyalty among fundamentalists to their pastors and their most un-Christly agenda comes from the churches providing such things. Progressive organizations would do well to learn from them.

How many local Democratic Party organizations have food banks? How many make a systematic effort to help people in crisis? How many offer a way to socialize, to plug into an instant community? This is what the old Democratic "machines" did, and they were repaid with fierce loyalty. Unfortunately what happens today (with some praiseworthy exceptions) is wooing
corporate money in exchange for favors in order to run more 30 second ads in the mass media to promote a thinly disguised corporate agenda. Or, some token support is offered to a few charitable programs, run by "professionals" in a condescending manner and devoid of that one-to-one, community building, contact.

A few progressive leaders seem to be getting at least some of this. The rest, meh.

[flashl]

32. Agree

these communities know BS and respond accordingly, all the 30 sec ads in the world will not help.

[The Backlash Cometh]

33. You hit it on the nail.

To a young mother raising small children, the first organization she'll rely on is her church. She wants her kids to connect with other kids with equal or the same values. It's how my younger sister got sucked into a right-wing church organization and voted for George Bush because GB promised her a rebate. She thought 300 was 300 more than what she had before he was elected and it's how the rest of her church voted.

The Democrats are missing it completely, because they have no way to draw in people from cradle to grave, like the Republicans do -- through the church or through the community club house. i.e. civic centers. What I see in civic centers today, gives me the creeps.

[Buns_of_Fire]

28. Perhaps you're thinking of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...

It's always interesting to me that "excretion" is right there on the very first level. Hence, it would appear that neocons are obviously terminally constipated.

And that's why they're so mean!

[flashl]

35. Yes, similar

"terminally constipated" :rofl:

[PassingFair]

50. Google Maslow...

Hierarchy of needs:

[WilliamPitt]

15. Three things

I'm not saying "smash everybody." Just last night, in fact, I turned a commercial airline pilot captain/federal air marshall who was packing an H&K doomsday pistol loaded with some sort of bullet that will pass through a human target but won't continue flying into a window or cabin wall, because that would:

a) de-pressurize the plane and maybe bring it down, or

b) blast a hole in the cabin wall that would widen from air-suck until a whole side panel went bye-bye, which would almost certainly bring the plane down with far too much rapidity and far too sudden a landing, or

c) both

(bear in mind, all this was according to the cap'n, who is a genuinely excellent person, even when he shows off his Federal concealed carry "I-can-just-shoot-your-whole-ass-off-if-I-feel-like-it-and-make-up-a-story-later" license to use deadly force..."in defense," it said, which strikes me as a very malleable standard, but meh, I don't fly his airline anyway. ;) )

So, we got to talking while performing the Ritual Gulping of Brown Liquor Out of Small Glass Containers (amen), and he gets into what I now call "Iran Rant #3," which I've heard sixty-seven-thousand times in the last year..."Nukes"..."Dangerous"..."9/11"..."They're killing our troops in Iraq"..."They want Iraq for themselves..."

At which point I raised one index finger and said, "Yeah, but...may I ask you a question?"

"Fire away," he said.

"Do you know the difference between Sunni and Shia?" I asked.

"Nope," he said, completely unruffled, as though I'd asked if he knew the difference in atomic weight between rubidium and cesium; he couldn't have cared less, which was cool cuz a) I got the chance to explain it, and b) his lack of information is due to Bush & Co. (who don't know the difference either, from what I understand), TV news that has no real news, and crappy newspaper reporting to boot, so I didn't blame him or consider him un-smart...and, oh yeah, I got to explain it, i.e. "Opportunity To Run Mouth At Speed." Glorious. :)

"Why is that important?" he asked.

"Is the difference between Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland important?" I asked.

He was fully Irish. He got it. He got it in Technicolor.

The rest took me less than two minutes:

1. Dawa and SCIRI were the Iranian terror orgs that bombed and killed all those Marines at the Beruit Airport in '83 (after which Reagan "cut and run" out of the Mideast at light speed...and then invaded Grenada)...and now Dawa and SCIRI are the dominant majority organizations in the Iraqi government..."Why would Iran want Iraq for themselves?" I asked. "They already have it. They own it. Iran and Iraq are Shia; Saddam was Sunni, and the Sunnis are 23% of Iraq's population. The Shia in Iraq are 63% of Iraq's population, ideologically and religiously aligned with the real rulers of Iran...and when that "democracy" we promised came along, the Shia voted themselves and all of Iraq right into Iran's hip pocket."

2. Osama bin Laden is Sunni, al Qaeda is generally a Sunni crew, but both are Wahabbist Sunni...

"Wha habba?" he asked; "Super-duper right-wing religious," I replied, "the truly scary sect that a lot of people conflate with all the many millions of non-Wahabbi Muslims on the planet; the vast majority of Muslims, in fact, don't want to live like it's still the 7th century and women don't exist and all the gospels make Leviticus sound like Jim Morrison booze-poetry by comparison..."

"Hussein was Sunni, bin Laden is Sunni...sounds like they really might have been working together, eh?" he said. "On spec, it sounds sensible," I replied, "but for a few things. Hussein was not faithful to Islam in any way. He used the language of faith to bullshit an already beaten-down population. To Osama, that's a deadly insult right there: using the Prophet's teachings only to hold power and BS the mob? Also, Hussein spent thirty years killing every Wahabbist he could get his hands on; there were laws in Iraq that decreed, in paraphrase, "Wahabbist = shoot in head." No exceptions.

After Hussein invaded Kuwait, OBL went before the Saudi king and asked for assistance so he could reform his Afghani army, and asked if he could use that army against Hussein. The king said no and no, which was when OBL truly broke with Saudi Arabia (except for the financing to be found there), and besides, the king had invited and allowed US troops to guard Mecca and Medina, MECCA AND MEDINA!!!, allowed women to go around un-bourkaed, and furthermore allowed women to drive cars...so to OBL, the king was scum, America and Israel sucked, etc...butthe point was that OBL wanted to attack Hussein with his old badass army of mujeheddin warriors...yeah, the ones who kinda defeated a superpower decisively and comprehensively. OBL was no ally of Saddam; if Hussein had given him weapons, OBL would have used those weapons on Hussein.

3. Sunni Wahabbism is the state religion of Saudi Arabia...hmm.

...enough storytime for now, but I got him. Tossed in a little bit of the old black magic: "During Bush's January 2003 State of the Union speech, he claimed that Iraq had 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which is one million pounds) of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, plus 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, and uranium from Niger for use in a robust nuclear weapons program."

Shoots. Scores. No ripped lungs. I think... ;)

P.S. This was early 2002, and I was ready to run through brick walls...so.

:toast:

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. If I had your gift of gab & no.s, I'd be just as confidant in your "rip out the lungs"

methods. However, the reality is that few people really possess this ability to cut through the political walls that separate us and get their point across. Me, for example. I get way too frustrated because I cannot express myself in the same eloquent manner which you apparently can. Which is not to say, that I can't communicate at all and score points, just not in conversation.

That said, your posts always expand the knowledge base, and I know I've turned a few minds around with your Sunni vs. Shite information. Just, not enough to make a difference.

Thanks for the info.

[WilliamPitt]

18. Here's an odd truth

The best political conversations I've had this last year have all been with Republicans. One was with a retired sailor who'd served on the Coral Sea (last diesel flattop in service), another was with a retired Marine (who challenged me to an arm-wrestling match, and I beat him, peak experience I tellya), and yet another was with my girlfriend's central-PA-conservative dad.

Nobody really had their minds changed about policy and such...but by the time each of those conversations ended, we all were like, "The TV says I'm supposed to hate you, but you love the Constitution and don't much care for George & Co., and I can always respect a real patriot no matter who he/she votes for."

It was great...and I think I was able to point out one thing to all of them: Maybe...juuuuuuuuuuuuuust maybe...maybe the reason those TV guys prattle on about "partisanship" and "divided nation" and "Red/Blue" crap...maybe the reason they hype that shit all the way down the block...is so they can keep their cushy gig talking about crap that isn't even real.

Maybe.

Anyway, convincing people of political stuff is one thing. Finding common ground "across the aisle" is far more crucial...because we need those people to vote (D) if we can get 'em, and if you can convince any GOPers who seem somewhat sane that you're not the "Lefty fetus-smashing troop-spitting asshat" stereotype they've had drilled into their brains, that you love the Constitution and the idea behind it...that's a solid day's work.

:toast:

And thanks. That was really nice of you to say.

[Skidmore]

6. Pricks and corrupted by big money...

Add the DLC to that Axis of BS.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Yes. We're going to have a continuation of terrible role models, if the DLC

prevails.

[Vinca]

10. Tweety might want to rethink his tactics.

Last week I picked up an audiotape of his first book at the dollar store.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. LOL!

[spanone]

21. in america, winning is all that matters.....regardless

[redqueen]

25. It's true all over the world... not just here.

Primitive-thinking people respect 'strength' and confuse bullying tactics with strength.

Check out any place of employment and you'll see the evidence again and again. Heirarchical structures encourage this type of thinking.

[Evoman]

29. Amorality and power-grabbing used to be the province of royalty and nobiliity.

The powerful have used our own morality against us for centuries. The only difference is now we have access to their type of thinking....we should use it or not use it as we see fit.

Our countries have not become meaner, more phony, or more selfish. We are just not hiding it as much. Look back in history and show me any time in which human beings were any better.

[The Backlash Cometh]

36. The true legacy of the tricke down effect.

[Evoman]

39. Life is a game.

You can choose to play it or you can choose not to, but the game goes on regardless. That is the way it is, and that is the way it has always been.

[The Backlash Cometh]

40. Maybe it's time to change the rules?

[Evoman]

41. Problem.

You can't change the rules without any power. You can't have any power, if you don't play the game. You try to alter the rules once you have enough power, and the other players shoot your ass.

Besides that, you can change things temporarily, but the rules are mostly determined by human nature. There is a reason that many of the most powerful have so many admirers. In fact, some of the people you admire are probably no different than the ones you hate.

When your amoral, you can lead people to believe anything you want them to.

[The Backlash Cometh]

42. Maybe I said that wrong.

I should have said, Maybe it's time to enforce the existing laws?

[Evoman]

43. You can't enforce laws without power.

And you and I don't have power. If they don't like your law, they just change it or ignore it. The laws on the book now are simply meant to control the little people like you and I.

Or haven't you noticed?

[The Backlash Cometh]

46. We have power. There's power in numbers. But, unfortunately, we don't

have one unified idea that will bring us out to march in the streets, together.

[Avalux]

30. Freedom = Money.

In this country, people don't have the 'inherent right' to freedom. Freedom can only be obtained through wealth accumulation; every single commercial on TV reinforces this fact.

[The Backlash Cometh]

37. Very true. If you don't have the money to protect your civil rights, or

even your property through civil lawsuits, you're just a sitting duck for someone who is ruthless enough to take things from you.

[L. Coyote]

34. Define success!

If you mean, by success, accumulating goods at the expense of the remainder of the human community, your statement is true.

[The Backlash Cometh]

38. What else could it mean in America?

[baby_mouse]

44. Start building your own society.

Stop relying on the outer infrastructure to supply you with everything.

[The Backlash Cometh]

45. I've already done that. I call it Colony for the Socially Pragmatic.

Of course, it's a colony of one, so far.

[Initech]

47. America = founded by assholes, run by assholes.

Land of the free, home of the assholes.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

48. Domination and humiliation....that's what the game is.

Reality shows...people eating worms and insects to earn money and show how tough they are.
Trump screaming at people and humiliating them, and they tolerate it to earn money.

Absolutely pitiful. Nice guys don't get anywhere because it's not competitive. You have to lose all self respect on a reality show like that, and lose self respect because your boss is threatening to fire you every five minutes if you do not do the work of ten people, or if you have an emergency, get sick, have kids, or need to eat or sleep or use the bathroom.

Nice people are considered naive. Honest people are considered deluded.

Gordon Gekko rules.

[The Backlash Cometh]

49. My idea of the next hit show:

Track down all the people who were on those reality shows and see if they regret being so stupid for the cameras.