Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

I already tried my best.
I think you're maybe a little too focused on sensationalized accounts of whiny loud types who serve as little more than attention whores.
There are PLENTY of those on the Left just as there are plenty on the Right.
Here...here at The Rant, there is absolutely ZERO payoff for a sick old f*** like me, so I assure you I have NO agenda.
So you can be sure that you are speaking to a genuine left leaner.

I am not here to "WIN an ARGUMENT". It won't pay any of my bills.
I am only here to discuss and learn.
If am right on something, then you get to learn something.
If I am wrong on something, then I get to learn something.

Leon Russell once did a song called "Magic Mirror" in which he penned the following phrase:

"The Left ones think I'm Right, the Right ones think I'm wrong."

I grew up in the 50's too. Did you know the population of the US was only 152 million people then? Jobs paid enough that my mom could stay home and take care of the kids. Steam trains were still plying the rails. The American manufacturing system was going gangbusters to supply everything that the world needed because their own productivity had been shattered by WW2. We were the only industrial nation still standing. Good times!

I remember apartheid. So maybe times weren't good for everyone. My queer uncle drowned himself. Girls who got pregnant were shunned, often driven from their families. Whatever boy knocked her up was lauded as quite the cocksman!

We've barely evolved beyond menstruation huts

It wasn't Democrats who made a big deal about transgenders and bathrooms, we just tried to let them take a pee at school without embarrassing themselves. It was conservatives that flew off the handle. Wasn't us in the bathrooms making them show us their genitals to be sure. It was yall. Funny thing was...it was dykey girls getting thrown out of girls rooms, the transgirls were too pretty for anybody to even question them.

It was an issue that needed to be addressed, where some sort of policy needed to be agreed upon. Cases were hitting the courts, and schools are government entities. The Centrist answer, as always was to do nothing. Like everything else, it will take care of itself, best if we just don't talk about uncomfortable stuff. How bout those Mets anyway...........

And straight down the center we go, a runaway train. Unable to turn right or left. Unable to slow down. Unable to react when there is a crisis. Unable to help the people we hurt. Unable to stop hurting them.

Yep. Marxist socioeconomic theory requires it. Look how close we just came to electing a self proclaimed socialist!

There have been setbacks along the way. Trump was one, Biden another, but the omnipotence of Marxism says we will overcome this and the leftward movement will continue. Leftists can't seem to see it as clearly as conservatives.

Actually, by 1949, at the latest, that whole "last man standing" thing was a memory.

The Italian Economic Miracle

The European Economy Since 1945



I've posted pictures of a few European goods owned by my parents and grandparents pre and postwar. My favorite, a grand old deluxe hi-fi radio, now long gone, was given to me by my grandmother, a Blaupunkt SW/LW/AM/FM receiver made in 1951.
How I wish I could have afforded to repair it.

Here's an identical one.



The entire reason "It's IMPORTED!" became such a well-worn phrase in this country is precisely BECAUSE firms like Bayer, AEC, Siemens, Telefunken, Fiat, Leica, Mercedes, Renault, Blaupunkt and thousands of others were able to rebuild and restart manufacturing within a few short years after the devastation of the war.

Yes...WITH OUR HELP, it is acknowledged. That we HELPED them is not in dispute. What is in dispute is some notion that somehow for thirty-five to forty years after the war we only enjoyed dominance due to the devastation of WW2.
Sorry, but from a manufacturing and export point of view, that only lasted maybe four or five years for most countries.
Even JAPAN restarted its manufacturing with a vengeance too.

That is the whole reason the United States suddenly began seeing the flood of imported cars, clothing, cameras, business machines, radios, foods and vast quantities of elegant luxuries from across the water.
Not to mention millions of those cute little death traps known as VW Bugs.
Every American suddenly wanted one of those cute little miniature Sony TV sets, too.

We were only "the last man standing" for a very short handful of months. By the the time Ike got elected in 1953, European manufacturing was in good shape, thanks in part to Truman's Marshall Plan.

PS: Today "It's imported!!" is largely meaningless because today, we IMPORT damn near EVERYTHING...even critical pharmaceuticals and defense technology.

As for the ACA, the people weren't ready to be taken out of their comfort zone. Numbers would have told the Democrats that. Sure the Democrats would be for it, the Republicans against it, but what about the 40% or so in-between? The non-affiliated. Most were comfortable with what they had. They didn't want the apple cart upset. Sure there needed something done for the uninsured. But how to approach that?

Go to a completely new and different system or to address the problem of the uninsured? A good period of education, information providing, keeping the people informed what it would do or wouldn't do was needed to prevent the disaster of 2010 elections. I look on this differently than most folks here. The people as a whole wasn't ready for the ACA when it was passed and signed into law. If they were, 2010 wouldn't have happened. Blame Frank Luntz if you will. But I more akin to Blame the Democrats for not informing the people the way they should have. But that is history. Sometimes these things take time, time the die hards can't wait on even if it would mean more success in the future.

I've always wondered if the Democrats and Obama hadn't rushed headlong into the ACA before the people were ready for it, what Obama could have accomplished in the grand scheme of things if the democrats still controlled the House. He got the ACA passed, but little else. Sometimes it takes time to bring the people around, especially with major legislation.

Get those in-betweeners on your side, then proceed. I'm sure there was a lot more that could have been accomplished by Obama and company if they'd been willing to take the time to convince the people about the merits of the ACA. Put it off for a couple of years, concentrate what could be accomplished without upsetting the balance.

I've seen this many times. A new president comes in thinks he has a mandate, over does it. Then suffers great losses in the first midterm or lose the house and sometimes the senate also.

Was it worth it, I suppose that is up to you all to decide. I personally think waiting a couple of years, slowly but surely bring the people on board while accomplishing other very important things in the mean time would have been preferable to basically one and done. That is except for executive orders.

But we view things differently. I in what might have been for the entire 8 years of Obama, you as in we got the ACA, to heck with all the rest.

We've been thru this already haven't we?

There were three left wing political purges in this country. (O.K. you could argue four).

The 20's, 50's and 70's.

There are no left wing political parties in the U.S. Of any account anyway.

there are only two right wing ones. One of them is O.K. with homosexuality and somewhat with race. Economically, there's not a great deal of difference, symbolized with the candidate the Democratic party/media is backing and the one it's kneecappings.

Unless your working off of another 'Left' template of identity politics while ignoring economics and class, I have seen no leftist progress, only regression economically and politically, IMO.

As far as going left I see no chance of that with political and media obstacles and no Leftists political parties large enough to take advantage of opportunities like there were in the 30's. AFL-CIO is a paid off shell, no Anarchists, socialist or communist parties as there are in other countries. I see fascism in our near future as a left wing option has been denied by the liberal party leaders.

Your speaking of your age group and class. Look harder at the numbers.

The very fact that Obama got the ACA passed at all was a miracle of time and pure luck. Obama lost the entire congress in the election of 2010. Remember, too, when Do Nothing Mitch declared, publicly, that he would stop any and all legislation with Obama's name of it. Mitch pretty much did just that. If you will remember there was a lot of talk about Obama governing by decree. The reason he was forced to do that is because legislation was impossible for the Dems. Turkey Trump figured out that was an excellent way to govern too as he didn't have to answer to anybody either. Another interesting thing, about the ACA, is that the Republicans wrote half of that bill (I think CSPAN still has the markup on that one you can watch although its now been years so maybe not). After writing half the bill not a single Republican voted for it. Anyway, even though the Dems still had congress for the ACA Obama had serious problems with the Dems as well.

Just thought I would mention this.

"The Left" is the political underground that fills the streets when streets need filling. That signs petitions when petitions need signing.
That build the barricades and light the fires.

America's last defense against corporate takeover. They rise up when needed. Corporate forces have stamped out the fires and torn down the barricades again, we are in retreat. Don't think you've heard the last of us though. In two short years there is another election and another chance to infiltrate parliament.

Take heart comrade Chunkstyle! We never win, but we never really lose either! MFA is coming. Free college is coming. Even one day, perhaps a living wage. I'll bet we see a minimum wage hike to $10 under Biden's careful and conservative watch. Too little too late. No Malarkey.

The war rages on with neither side gaining much ground.

Obama recapitolized the white collared criminals that caused the financial meltdown while millions got evicted. This also caused a reaction as I recall.

He was also to clean to get his hands dirty in a fight. Still is, preferring to work behind the scenes and use fixers instead of a public brawl like FDR. May have had different outcomes with respect to the ACA fights if he got off his arse and gotten in the ring.

I hear his house in Martha's vineyard is lovely though.