The death of diversity and civility

[pan6467]

This is MY opinion and MY opinion only. It is not fact but how I see the world today. Perhaps, it is how the world is, or perhaps it's just my own perception of reality.

There is a thread "What has happened to TFP?" I have read it and posted in it and since it's inception I have watched posts, applied those observations to the media and then people in real life.

I have come to the conclusion what is wrong with TFP, is the same thing that is wrong in our society today. That is a lack of diversity, understanding, tolerance and the build up of angst, hatred and the "you either agree with me or fuck you, you are ignorant" extremism.

No longer is there any middle ground. If you are a "Dem." you are a fucking liberal, freedom hating scumbag, who hates America". If you are a "Rep." you are a fascist, prejudiced, intolerant asshole, who believes Bush can do no wrong."

It's not that those labels are remotely true it's just the way perceptions are today and unfortunately the hatred stemming from politics has bled into every other aspect of society and life.

Everyone is now of the opinion you must agree with them, if not then they must attack you because their belief is the only way there is.

We, as a society, and here in TFP have made EVERYTHING a black and white issue, a battle ground of opinion of right and wrong, and of hate, prejudiced and bias.

When someone comes along and says there is a gray matter and that there is truth to both sides or offers an alternative not A or B.... they are dismissed by both sides as being flippy floppy, uneducated or just ignored. It seems we have become a nation of 2 choices and that is it. Anything else cannot nor will not be tolerated. If you take one side for one issue then you must take the same prejudged view for everything.

I have stated once in politics that it seems we have become a nation of extremists GOP, Dem, Lib. because being extreme is the only way to be heard and everyone wants to be heard. Noone wants to be ignored.

The above view on politics, I believe, has now imbedded itself throughout our society not just in this country but possibly everywhere else.

Instead of letting world leaders be peace makers and work on compromises, we have to have leaders that refuse to bend in any way or we view them as weak.

Instead of having friendly discussions on any range of subjecrs from education, sexuality, even nonpolitical headlines and sports, people are taking sides and saying "you either agree with me or fuck you".

In the end it seems to me that TFP and our society is coming to a very serious crossroads. We either accept differing opinions, stop the attacks or we face a perilous end.

But even that observation leaves no middle ground, although I am sure there is, and someone will point it out and demand that they are right and how dare I make such a close minded statement and blah blah blah.....

I was always taught life is full of compromises and yet lately, I am seeing from our leaders down to just the minions like ourselves that we are becoming increasingly less compromising and more filled with anger, hatred and intolerence.

It's time to find ways to stop this runaway train. TFP can be a great place to start. We once prided ourselves on it..... now we have lost those diverse voices, the civility and understanding..... let's try to get them back. Not just here but in the part of society each of us touches.

If enough of us regain the civility, truly listening to each other and not just hearing what we want, and the idea that everyone can contribute ideas and perhaps there can be compromise, maybe we can change that little part of the world we touch, and in turn others who see us do it can change their little parts and someone sees them and so on and so on.

What have we got to lose? It is becoming more and more apparent that all we accomplish now is hatred, prejudice and negativity.

PS..... I do not want anyone to believe I am trying to be pious or self righteous. Just in case I am adding this addendum to the above.....

I am just as guilty and moreso at times of the above as anyone. I want to believe in what I believe and I can only see black and white and I will get defensive and may not need to, but do just because I felt threatened.

So, when I say the above I may have ione finger broadly going around the room, but I truly recognize I have 3 fingers pointed back at myself.

[ratbastid]

It's funny--as I read this, I kept jumping to "And you know whose fault that is?"

Look: human beings are righteous, inflexible, stubborn creatures. We want to be right above all things. We'd much rather be right than happy. Even when we're wrong. It's human nature.

I'm not convinced that now is a particularly special time in history for that. It could be that a veneer of civility that has been there in the past is now not there. In some ways that's a good thing. You have to deal with what's really there before anything can be done about it, and sugarcoating or veneering civility over it is a great way not to deal with what's really there.

Only question is whether people are committed to doing anything about it.

[pan6467]

Originally Posted by ratbastid

It's funny--as I read this, I kept jumping to "And you know whose fault that is?"

Smartass.............

Look: human beings are righteous, inflexible, stubborn creatures. We want to be right above all things. We'd much rather be right than happy. Even when we're wrong. It's human nature.

I'm not convinced that now is a particularly special time in history for that. It could be that a veneer of civility that has been there in the past is now not there. In some ways that's a good thing. You have to deal with what's really there before anything can be done about it, and sugarcoating or veneering civility over it is a great way not to deal with what's really there.

Only question is whether people are committed to doing anything about it.

Ah, but is it really human "nature" or a learned element that is becoming more and more confrontational and not just about being right, but winning because winning means everything today.

I think there is a little bit of both in society.

I am not just looking at world leaders but the way we communicate just with each other. Maybe in my Pollyanna world growing up neighbors just talked to each other, got along for the most part and communities strived for the common good of all to better themselves.

Today, what I see is everyone out for themselves. If you dare to do something I don't agree with or find offensive, I will sue your ever loving pants off, if I see you punish your child in anyway I'll call Children's Services, but if you are too scared to punish your child then I will label him a brat, who has no manners, label you as bad parents and tell everyone in the community just how eveil you are no matter which scenario happened.

If you cut me off in traffic your an asshole, who is out to kill someone and I hope you crash, yet if I cut you off it was because you are moving too slow, even though I got no further than 1 car length ahead of you and will not make my destination that much noticably faster.

And so on. Don't get me wrong there are still acts of kindness and good people around, but anymore it gets rarer and rarer and people are looking for ulterior motives and seeing kindness as weakness, rather than seeing it for what it truly is.

[Cervantes]

We are seeing the same trend over here aswell all over society, people are less forgiving less patient. It is as if the whole society has woken up on the wrong side of the bed.

I agree, things has become very black and white noone want's to even acknowledge the existance of a middle ground.
Maybe it is not as bad here as it is in the US but still, it is a noticable difference from just a couple of years ago.

Part of it lies, I would think, in the political situation today. Leaders becoming more extreme (Bin Laden, Whoever is in charge over in N Korea, Bush etc. etc.) everybody is hardballing it and I would imagine that it spills over into the public.
Either you are with us or you are against us, noone is allowed to be in the middle.
People who speaks of peacfull solutions, compromises and understandings are being conciously ignored.

Why? Human nature? Political climate? A bit of both I would imagine, that and a sever lack of selfdistance, inability to look upon oneself critically.
People seem so wraped up in what vthey are doing they seem to stop wondering about what they are doing and why they are doing it even what the outcome of what they are doing will be. (Nuclear weapons tests in N Korea for example).

Wheter we like it or not the political climate of the world finds it's way into our homes and workplaces. Into ourselves.

[Ustwo]

Why does everyone assume that its somehow worse in their lifetime than in the past?

Same shit different century.

The only real difference is how fast we can get the information we need to form our biased opinions.

We have had endless wars, endless horrors, endless exploitation since civilization began, and if anything its far BETTER now than in the past.

Its what it is, its who we are, to deny it is lying to ourselves.

[Seaver]

We are seeing the same trend over here aswell all over society, people are less forgiving less patient. It is as if the whole society has woken up on the wrong side of the bed.

Really? Our society 200 years ago would have a gun fight over things today friends say to each other.

People would be hung on treason for things people do today fully protected under the same document used back then.

I am seeing from our leaders down to just the minions like ourselves that we are becoming increasingly less compromising and more filled with anger, hatred and intolerence.

When were they not? When we were expanding westward, and were encouraged by our leaders to massacre the Indian women and children? When governors of many southern states completely refused to integrate? When the dogs and teargas were sent on those wanting equality? How about when we were calling for a second war against England in 1812, when it was mostly about trying to annex Canada?

Sorry to simply state exactly what Ustwo said, but we're not reaching an all new low.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Seaver

Really? Our society 200 years ago would have a gun fight over things today friends say to each other.

Well on the flip side you could argue that led to more civility. Words had consequences. I think a little old fashioned dueling could be a good thing, plus think of the media coverage.

[roachboy]

it's funny reading all these vague references to some vague history that functions to vaguely demonstrate in a vague kinda way that everything is always basically the same from then to now it is always the same human beings do not make anything new they do not create anything situations just repeat.

this is a strange time, then, in an 1812 kinda way.

there is considerable polarization in a 1969 kinda way over political questions (the political is a category constructed around the works of machiavelli, and so we are also still repeating the period of the borgias) the rise and continuous collapse of the american extreme right in a weimar 1928 kinda way is of a piece with the fragmentation of the left in a very 1848 kinda way and the collapse of civility therfore unfolds within the bourgeois public sphere in a very 1787 manner.

except of course for television, which links everything happening now to the 1950s.

and so there is turmoil in a 1936 sense linked to anomie in a 1919 kinda way and as a function of that we are living through a period of ideological incoherence that is all very very 1956.

so folk worry about fragmentation in a kinda 1215 way but also in a kinda henri iv period way except with a certain 1984 perspective mixed in.
people worry about fragmentation and this worrying about fragmentation makes them nervous: it is all most 1923 except that 1923 was not one thing it was different things in different places so maybe it is now less 1923 than it is 1973 it is hard to say.

well there is iraq, which turns out to have been very spanish-american war in that the case for war was as much a fabrication as the blowing up of the maine but maybe its more tonkin gulf so more 1964 it is probably a bit of both 1898 and 1964 with a bit of 1915 (remember the lusitania) thrown in. except of course there is television so all this is very 1958 which means obviously that none of the stuff about the fraud that was the case for the iraq war could be true so the problem must be those who say it is they sow division and really should be dealt with, a line of thinking that is very ussr 1936 don't you think?

yes, what we need is unity, national unity in a very 1941 kinda way or maybe it's more 1940. dissent is bad in a 1951 sense and so there is the haymarket scenario which we wonder about and there is the paris commune that we are worried about and so extraordinary rendition, which is both very 2006 and curiously very james bond, so 1966, an important aspect of the past we repeat that we had not previously been able to work into this. we learned about the importance of the general will from rousseau's writings of the 1770s which we repeat or would if the 1770s were one thing but they weren't so maybe 1696 france would be better except we don't like the french, which is very 2001 which was also a movie that came out in 1971 so we repeat that too.

people wish that more people liked each other more in a very summer of love manner 1967 but there is the hard reality of geopolitics and that is typically 1815 and so which history are we repeating repeating?

not knowing the answer is very 1788 except that 1788 was not one thing either so maybe 2006. maybe the way to deal with all this is to simply go out and get drunk, which rabelais also recommended so we repeat the 1630s each time we do. how do we feel about the 1630s? how do we feel about repeating the past?

that is an important 1989 question and i am glad you brought it up.

same shit different day.

but what are you talking about?
o nothing--you know, nothing in a meister echkhardt sense in a basho sense so something vaguely 15th century or 17th century japan maybe.

wait, i feel a gertrude stein quote on the horizon:

let us say what history teaches. history teaches.

isn't that terribly 1926 oxford?
were you there too?
i am here now so yes i was there.
same shit different day.
nothing ever changes.

[Cervantes]

Originally Posted by Seaver

Really? Our society 200 years ago would have a gun fight over things today friends say to each other.

People would be hung on treason for things people do today fully protected under the same document used back then.

Well, I'm not talking 200 years ago I'm talking at max 5 years ago. The difference is noticable, not an all time low, not outrageous, not in any way "It was better when I was younger" *creak creak, puff puff on the pipe*, just noticable.

See this is exactly the thing this thread is about, overreaction.

And no, I'm not attacking you, I'm not insulting you, the only thing I do is point out the pattern I see emerging both in my real life and in my net life.
I'm not innocent in this either.

[pan6467]

I find that in the past communities strove to move forward and people cared about one another.

It could be argued and rightfully so, that privacy was almost non-existent, in these cases.

However, today, people are more worried about themselves. You see it in education levies, tax cuts, what is cut, in job loyalty from both sides, in pay diferentials between upper management and everyone else and the list can go on and on.

You see it in bumper stickers that say "he who dies with the most toys wins."

You see it in the media.

As a student of history, it has never been this bad on such a large scale.

The polarization is truly becoming more and more entrenched.

Even in the 60's, there were peace makers and compromises between leaders and political parties...... now there is none, and no it wouldn't matter which party was in power right now.

[Gilda]

Most of the time the moderate position gets lost in the debate, which focuses on the extremes. Moderates can come under attack from both ends for not agreeing completely with their end of the issue.

Sometimes the extreme position is the reasonable one. Sometimes the moderate position seems extreme because it is in opposition to an extreme position, and the opposite extreme is completely off the table.

I do think that it should be possible to argue any point starting from a position of civility. I insist on it in my classroom, regardless of the point of view being expressed, even if I agree completely with it.

Disagreeing with someone else, even strongly, does not mean abandoning common courtesy.

-----------------------------------------

Originally Posted by pan6467

I find that in the past communities strove to move forward and people cared about one another.

We've moved far beyond the era of the nation-state (with a few exceptions). Many Western countries, and the US specifically, are not in any sense of the word communities. The US is instead a collection of communities and subcultures, where individuals belong to some by chance and others by choice, and few are members of just one. Sometimes communities may have conflicting interests, while others, while not having conflicting interests, desire growth through the spread of their ideals to others, through persuasion or coercion.

It's a web of communities interacting and affecting each other in sometimes strange and unexpected ways.

There's nothing wrong with this vast community of smaller communities. The diversity brings opportunities that don't exist in otherwise.

Part of the problem of civility is that different subcultures are going to have different standards of behavior, and these will come into conflict with the standards from one are applied to another or within another. For this reason, we need to have an overall guideline for such interactions to minimize conflicts, a standard set of expected behaviors for all members of the overall community.

What that should be is where we're going to run into conflict. I think showing a general respect for others should be the baseline from which we start.

Gilda

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by pan6467

Instead of letting world leaders be peace makers and work on compromises, we have to have leaders that refuse to bend in any way or we view them as weak.

Speaking for myself, I look to leaders who are flexable becuase they are a lot less likely to snap. It's those rigid creatures in office that end up making the biggest mistake because they are unable or unwilling to change course when it is in the best interest of their constituants.

[stevie667]

Its spelt grey you fucking inbred hick! Not gray!

I think of the TFP as the most civilized and informed board i know of, if you compare it to somewhere like webrats or spacebattles we all look like a bunch of old grannies in our rocking chairs comparing dictionaries.

In my opinion the TFP is just going through a downturn, not so many people posting, less active members, but give it a while until it picks up again and we'll be fine.

That and we're all just stubborn gits

[roachboy]

let me put it this way, then, repeating at another level what already repeated above...i think there is little moderation because the existing political frameworks, all of which were linked to the history of the nation-state, are coming apart. folk act like there is some middle to be represented, but what is the middle? what is the middle a middle of? the previous spirits of compromise (a very hegel turn of phrase, that) operated in very different socio-economic contexts--for example, in late 1960s america, there was a significant political crisis sparked by a pile-up of factors that nonetheless unfolded at the end-phase of the fordist period, which was built around the nation-state--and so the political frameworks--right, moderate, left--all still made sense--but that period is over and has been for quite some time--the period of the domination of nation-states is coming undone and politics has not caught up yet. in the states, this is no surprise--it seems that the slowest to adapt sector in the states is the educational system and that system in the broadest sense is still ideologically mired in the fordist era, still socializes students in wholly outmoded categories and wholly outmoded ways of thinking--it does not, in short, provide people with the conceptual toolbox (which is what deleuze---who i normally would not reference--used to define philosophy) that would enable them to cope with fundamental change.

i think we are in a phase of collapsing frameworks.
my more optimistic side keeps telling me that new ways of thinking and functioning could come out of such a phase---my less optimistic side thinks that while this would certainly be desirable, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that anything like this result will unfold and we cold find ourselves tanking in a serious, protracted and potentially very ugly way.

and i do not think anyone--at all--stand outside of this situation.
everyone, one way or another, is caught up in it, peforms it, reacts to it or against it.
i certainly am not outside it. i find it hard to generate descriptions even. that is maybe why my posts read as they do.

so compromise, the spirit of....well, folk need to work outside of the existing frameworks and experiment with other ways of thinking. people need to make new stuff. new social logics are not handed to us by any god, who, if she exists, probably has other, more pressing things to tend to in this vast system of systems we call the universe.

meanwhile, there is a social system that requires very significant adjustment and i do not know if that system really can afford to wait around until groups of people nobody yet knows about begins to develop the germ of a different type of political thinking, which may then be elaborated practically by others into a viable post-nation-state type of political action.

so i don't know....

as for civility, it is a nice thing.
it reminds me of a joke i heard last night while watching a bill brown short on dvd:

canadians could probably take over the world, but they are just too polite to start.

maybe that's equally true of all of us.

[stevie667]

Originally Posted by roachboy

it reminds me of a joke i heard last night while watching a bill brown short on dvd:

canadians could probably take over the world, but they are just too polite to start.

maybe that's equally true of all of us.

Us brits could take over the world (again), but the EU would want us to do a health and safety assesment before hand.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Cervantes

Well, I'm not talking 200 years ago I'm talking at max 5 years ago. The difference is noticable, not an all time low, not outrageous, not in any way "It was better when I was younger" *creak creak, puff puff on the pipe*, just noticable.

It started in 2000, we know why, and I know who I blame, but still its no worse than in the past, its just the latest and it will fade and return again.

[host]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

It started in 2000, we know why, and I know who I blame, but still its no worse than in the past, its just the latest and it will fade and return again.

Amazing coincidence.....we agree about something....finally:

(Post #19) http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=103610

Perhaps I was remiss, by making my own statements and the documentation that I provided in this thread's OP, too brief. Possibly, I made statements that I did not thoroughly back up with references in news reporting, linked to published news articles on web pages owned by prominent MSM news departments. Live and learn.....my bad!

I'll let Al Kamen of WaPo, help clarify my core point:

In the context of the above Al Kamen column and the phoio embellished doucmentation that it offers, consider rereading the report about John Bolton, located in my OP...here's an excerpt........

The news reporting of that time....in mid to late November, 2000 stated conclusively that the Gore campaing tried to win the Florida vote in the courts, and the Bush campaign.....

Read the following article, linked in the next quote box. All references to the November, 2000, post election Florida protests and accompanying organizing and support, describes republican activity as party managed and driven. There was apparently no "grass roots" (eminating from the people) protest activity or "voice" from the republican side. All republican participation was financed and managed by the party, and conducted by party officials and party activists, staff members of elected officials, and other "careerist" republicans or wannabees.

Contrast the descriptions of those who supported Gore. Some were organized and bussed by efforts of partisan clergy (Jesse Jackson) and by union organizations (AFL-CIO).....but....none apparently were seeking political payback via an appointed, post election job, they were not staff members of elected officials...

The Bush campaign was first to launch a "protest Op", solely engaged in a disinformation campaign to portray the recount process as "in chaos", attacked and shut down the Miami-Dade recount with the "folks" in the above photo, in which <b>Joel Kaplan</b> was one of their number, and directed John Bolton to rush from South Korea, to Florida, to burst into the room where the Miami-Dade recount has resumed...to order it stopped.

When you add the following to the "mix"....

This....is the "point".....the 2000 Florida vote contest resulted in the closed thing to coup that resulted in the "installation" of a POTUS who lost the popular, nationwide vote, by 500,000. He promised to be a uniter, not a "divider". He appointed 2000 Fla vote recount "intimidator", John Bolton. last year to an interim UN ambassador job that his own party's senators would not approve Bolton to hold. Now....a revamp of the white house staff is touted.
Fake 2000 "local protestor" in the Miami-Dade vote recount gets appointed to take Karl Rove's principle government job.

At what point is it appropriate to stop protestation against this...and end attempts to educate people as to the history of the 2000 Fla. vote....???
...when Bush stops appointing the thugs who broke the rules to put him in office, there would be nothing new to comment on!

The "running mates" were reported to have "laughed" about the thugishness of their own "organiz"-ation:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a22c0f25339.htm
Protest in Miami-Dade is a Well Organized GOP Effort

News/Current Events Breaking News News
Source: Wall Street Journal
Published: 11/27/00 Author: Nicholas Kulish and Jim Vandehei
Posted on 11/27/2000 12:15:46 PST by Freedom of Speech Wins

Election 2000 GOP Protest in Miami-Dade Is a Well-Organized Effort Bush Campaign Pays Tab For Aides From Capitol Hill Flown in for Rallies

By NICHOLAS KULISH and JIM VANDEHEI

Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MIAMI -- When outraged Republicans raised a ruckus outside the Miami-Dade County elections office last week, some protesters at the door weren't local citizens. <b>They were Capitol Hill aides on all-expenses paid trips, courtesy of the Bush campaign.

Right up front on television images of the event last Wednesday were Thomas Pyle, an aide to GOP Rep. Tom DeLay, and Michael Murphy, who works for a DeLay fund-raising committee. Doug Heye from California Rep. Richard Pombo's office also was in the fray.

Shortly after the door-kicking, window-banging protest, the Miami-Dade canvassing board made a sharp U-turn, suspending a recount that was expected to help Vice President Al Gore chip away at Texas Gov. George W. Bush's lead.</b> Mr. Gore's inability to secure these votes was a key to Mr. Bush's certification as the Florida winner Sunday night. Miami-Dade canvassing-board members, while denying that the crowd cowed them, decided they couldn't complete the count by Sunday's 5 p.m. deadline without using a room that the protesters complained limited public access.

Their work in Miami done, the Republicans headed to Broward County, where they joined a platoon that included about 20 other congressional staffers, who had watched the Miami-Dade commotion on CNN and wildly cheered their compatriots' televised antics. The protests grew in Fort Lauderdale, with hundreds of placard-wielding Republicans protesting the recount for several days.

Sunday, some of these same staffers were involved in a confrontation with Democrats, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, in West Palm Beach. Tensions heightened momentarily as Democratic volunteers squeezed through the mob of GOP protesters to gather their campaign signs, but cooler heads prevailed. Behind the rowdy rallies in South Florida this past weekend was a well-organized effort by Republican operatives to entice supporters to South Florida. The protests drew angry denunciations from top Democrats, with several congressmen requesting a Justice Department inquiry. Vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman said the "orchestrated demonstrations ... were clearly designed to intimidate and to prevent a simple count of votes from going forward."

Bush operatives deny trying to intimidate. But they readily acknowledge that shortly after Election Day they began recruiting Republicans nationwide to come to the three predominantly Democratic South Florida counties then considering manual recounts.....

<b>.....Democrats say they haven't flown staffers or operatives down to Florida to protest, and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.</b> This has allowed Republicans to quickly gain the upper-hand, protest-wise.

In Washington, several GOP aides say the office of Mr. DeLay, the House Republican whip, took charge of the effort on Capitol Hill, passing on an offer many staffers couldn't refuse: free air fare, accommodations and food in the Sunshine State -- all paid for by the Bush campaign. <b>Aides who accepted took advantage of liberal congressional workplace rules that allow them to jump from government jobs to political tasks at a moment's notice by declaring themselves on vacation or temporary leave.</b>

"Once word leaked out, everybody wanted in," says one GOP operative involved in the effort. Participants estimate that more than 200 staffers signed on, some spending more than a week in South Florida. Many stayed in Hiltons by the beach and received $30 a day for food, as well as an invitation to an exclusive Thanksgiving Day party in Fort Lauderdale.

"They needed help down there," says GOP Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri. "A lot of people in Washington wanted to be a part of that." He adds that the collaboration has fostered a new sense of unity between congressional Republicans and Mr. Bush, who often ignored Washington Republicans during the campaign to bolster his outsider image. "The unfairness of [the Democrats' recount] effort has really brought Republicans together," the congressman said.

The camaraderie was on full display at the glitzy Thanksgiving night party featuring free food and libations at the Hyatt on Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale -- "a festive family mood," says one protester. Entertainer Wayne Newton crooned the song "Danke Schoen," until a group of frenzied female fans rushed the stage. The night's highlight was a conference call from Mr. Bush and running mate Dick Cheney, <h3>which included joking references by both running mates to the incident in Miami,</h3> two staffers in attendance say..

....Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker declines to estimate how much the operation will cost or exactly how many people have been enticed to Florida. <b>Others say about 750 people have rotated in and out.</b> This weekend, few were still involved in the somber recount-monitoring of the early days. "All we are doing is rallying and protesting," says one GOP aide. "We are blowing the Democrats away."

Bush supporters sometimes outnumbered Gore backers by 10 to one outside the Broward County Courthouse in the Democrat-leaning community. A block to the north, a recreational vehicle festooned with Bush-Cheney signs served as operation central, having recently been transferred from similar duty in Miami.

Not all out-of-state demonstrators came from Washington. Several New York Republicans paid for their own plane tickets, while the Bush-Cheney campaign footed the hotel bill. "They told me to send an invoice for our bills, and I told them we need the check by Sunday night, in case he loses," jokes one of them.

Rick Nelson, a vascular surgeon from Oklahoma City, recalls arriving in Miami and being told by a GOP official that he and several other volunteers were going to become protesters. "Okay, we've never done this before," Mr. Nelson recalls the operative saying. "Anybody know how to put together a protest?"

The report of Bush and Cheney, "laughing" about the intimidation "event" captured in the photo, above, meshes nicely with the following reporting:

http://web.archive.org/web/200208041...mi/3657764.htm
Posted on Sat, Jul. 13, 2002
<b>Bush gave plum jobs to supporters who worked recount, paper reports</b>
By CAROL ROSENBERG
Knight Ridder Newspapers

....._Three members of <b>the window-pounding crowd</b> that on Thanksgiving Eve helped persuade the Miami-Dade County canvassing board to abandon the recount are now members of the White House staff: Matt Schlapp, now a special assistant to the president; Garry Malphrus, deputy director of the president's Domestic Policy Council; and <b>Joel Kaplan</b>, also a special assistant to the president.

Schlapp and Malphrus, both of whom declined to talk to The Herald, were first identified in 2000 in The Washington Post as part of the Miami-Dade demonstration. <b>Kaplan described his role</b> in a lecture at the Harvard University Institute of Politics, calling the demonstration the ``Brooks Brothers Protest,'' a reference to the way the demonstrators were dressed.....

...and....this memory and it's continuing consequences is gonna move us to seek the "middle" ground? This was a "bloodless" coup d'état, IMO, and keeping our domestic political relations, "bloodless", is the best we're gonna do. The thugs in Miami in 2000, are still being rewarded, this year:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12387465/
NBC News and news services
Updated: 8:54 a.m. ET April 20, 2006

..........But now, the job of deputy chief of staff for policy is being given to <b>Joel Kaplan</b>, the deputy budget director.

The move signals a broad effort to rearrange and reinvigorate Bush’s staff by new chief of staff Joshua Bolten. Bolten moved into his position last week; Kaplan was his No. 2 person at the Office of Management and Budget.

<b>“Joel Kaplan</b> is a man of great talent, intellect and experience who possesses a deep knowledge of policy and budget processes,” Bush said in a written statement.

At least for the time being, the promotion of <b>Kaplan</b> would leave Bush with three deputy chiefs of staff: Rove, Kaplan and Joe Hagin, who oversees administrative matters, intelligence and other national security issues.

[Ustwo]

Hey cool host, good to see you outside of politics...oh wait...nm

Who started protesting idioticly in Florida?

Who riots and causes a lot of damage at every WTO meeting?

Who tried to bend election laws which used your lovely above photo?

Who tried to get military votes invalidated?

Who still whines about a stolen election that was anything but stolen?

Who decided to turn this into a Bush thread with lots of cut and pasting as usual?

Who is going to go get his house all cleaned up for the grandparents for his sons 2nd birthday?

Mmmmm cake.

[jbw97361]

Well to figure this out lets look at what has changed in the last 50 years, from when middle class america was preceived as much more docile (ignoring the south and other extreme examples)

People were more religious then.
Families consisted of a working parent, a stay at home parent.
Society wasn't so preoccupied on safety.
People went outside instead of watching the television/internet.
People weren't raised on the philosophy of "you are special"

Basically people today don't really believe in anything, are overprotected from any actual danger, and sit on their asses all day.

Go outside, play some frisbee. Things will be better!

[host]

You posted this....

Originally Posted by Ustwo

It started in 2000, we know why, and I know who I blame, but still its no worse than in the past, its just the latest and it will fade and return again.

....and you posted this.....

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Hey cool host, good to see you outside of politics...oh wait...nm

Who started protesting idioticly in Florida?

Who riots and causes a lot of damage at every WTO meeting?

Who tried to bend election laws which used your lovely above photo?

Who tried to get military votes invalidated?

Who still whines about a stolen election that was anything but stolen?

Who decided to turn this into a Bush thread with lots of cut and pasting as usual?

Who is going to go get his house all cleaned up for the grandparents for his sons 2nd birthday?

Mmmmm cake.

Without any documentation to support your claims, both of your posts stike me as being a collection of unfounded rants. I've checked and doublechecked what I think, and what I've posted....I've shared with you, and with anyone else interested, the information that has shaped my opinions....opinions that are the polar opposite of yours.

From where I sit, viewing this thread, I believe that my opinions are well founded, and reasonably close to being accurate, with six years of MSM reported hindsight now, to back them.

How about you.....what have you got, to support the tones of certainty and taunting, in your posts?

[Ustwo]

The cake was good.

[SugahBritches]

Originally Posted by jbw97361

Well to figure this out lets look at what has changed in the last 50 years, from when middle class america was preceived as much more docile (ignoring the south and other extreme examples)

People were more religious then.
Families consisted of a working parent, a stay at home parent.
Society wasn't so preoccupied on safety.
People went outside instead of watching the television/internet.
People weren't raised on the philosophy of "you are special"

Basically people today don't really believe in anything, are overprotected from any actual danger, and sit on their asses all day.

Go outside, play some frisbee. Things will be better!

I like this post. Short, sweet, and direct. Even though JBW might of been picking on us southerners.

Too much media/current issues at our disposal. Oh it's great to know what is happening, but it use to be only 30 minutes of news every night with Walter and 30 minutes of local news on the radio at lunch and with nice tid bits from Paul Harvey. And on Saturday's you had Face the Nation for another 30 minutes and Sundays it was an hour and a half of Sunday Morning. Unless we were "away" from the radio and tv, we got about 8 to 10 hours of news weekly. An average guess. And now we can get 24 hours in one day, if we choose. If it's not on the news/tv, you have access on the internet. It's like overkill.

I'm with JBW, let's step away from this stuff for a little while. Jeeze.

[pan6467]

Interesting. I put forth an opinion told everyone it was just opinion and how I saw things.

In the process there is fingerpointing and personal attacks between member (don't need to tell you who).


There is the "give it time, TFP just on a downturn", "too much media, no beliefs and such" and the "I look for leaders who don't compromise.... Moderates get attacked" threads.

Everyone is just as qualified to their opinion as me, that's a given.

Noone offers solutions except:

Go outside, play some frisbee. Things will be better!

Which may very well be the solution. Perhaps we have taken everything so seriously that we panic when our values or personal beliefs are so much as questioned.

AGAIN THIS IS JUST MY OPINION, IT IS NEITHER RIGHT NOR WRONG, IT IS JUST MY OBSERVATION AND IS NOT MEANT AS ANYTHING ELSE BUT MY OWN OPINION.

I think one of the downfalls to all the technology is the fact that we become more insular, we are now able to seek out those who most resemble us and give us the false courage and beliefs that only our opinions, values and ideas are the answers.

No longer do we have to face our neighbors and work out compromises, no longer do we have to go to PTA meetings, or getting involved.

We don't, we have our instant involvement through here, where we can be anybody we want, have whatever degrees we want, and say we are anything..... who knows differently? Noone.

Thus, we go to jobs we don't like, we get traffic jams, we get shitty service from people who could care less about their jobs and barely make a living, and so on. We get home read the newspaper, websites and mags, watch the news, whatever, and get barraged with news and issues we cannot change in any way.

We get slammed with negativity in every way shape and form:

The shows we watch are wrong and studies show make us more violent or hateful to women or....

The water we drink is contaminated because the Big Industry had a spill, but the spill was caused partly by protesters outside protesting that company's ethics.....

We have kids that aren't learning and schools close to bankruptcy but we vote down levies that can help them, because we hear of all the waste that we truly don't know if it exists or not..... but we are told that by the people we trust on a national scale, who give diddly about our communities and care more about their ratings then they do about the country.

We see people having to live on shitty wages, those workers are at fault because there are better jobs and it's their fault they don't have the education..... but if someone isn't paid what they believe they need to live on, they are only going to put forth that much energy and loyalty, especially when raises are 25 cents in a year and so on.

Factories are closing down to go overseas, but those workers were at fault, because they knew those jobs weren't going to last and they're pay is tohigh and so on..... yet these people because of the wages had disposable income to keep small shops open, to pay taxes and to keep the economy moving forward without too much debt.

So where does all this leave us?

It is my contention and belief that we seek out those that share our beliefs and refuse to find compromise because we are able to be who we want, and say what we want and find people who will agree with us, to support our views and those who don't we can bully, bring out made up credentials and not have to worry about ever being found out.

In essence, we can control everything we need and want to here, that we can't do in our own lives. We can have a voice here, that in our lives because of being beaten down, stressed out, feeling hopeless and so on, we don't have.

Therefore, we don't have to compromise, try to envision what would work better, try to help each other..... and then this cyber made up ego takes shape because we find media figures who can stroke it and tell us more of what we want to hear, truth be damned, and we don't have to worry about local issues, we don't have to look at the factories leaving, the taxes lost that we, taxpayers, will have to absorb somehow....... we don't have to care about anything.... because we have our views justified every time we turn around..... we have the pats on the back, our egos stroked and our views held up as the only solutions needed.... everyone else is an asshat, mmonbat, whatever......

[Halx]

Oh my god.. host killed the thread.

[SugahBritches]

I have a tendency to have a light post. Not meaning I am taking your information "lightly", but that I've come to the understanding that the public wants instant gratification...............in ALL things.

It takes alot of patience to not go into a defensive mode. Therefore, alot of energy is expelled on giving ones own opinion. And many aren't going to go through that much energy. So, then you have the slams and attacks that are made on "your" person, and if you don't want a confrontation, you strive for more patience. Which means you will need more energy and tact.

You wanted a solution. Patience is your solution. But, no one wants to put forth that much energy. For Patience takes up a lot of energy and looking at today's society, who wants to go through that? Not when they can get pretty much everything at their finger tips.

[pan6467]

Originally Posted by SugahBritches

I have a tendency to have a light post. Not meaning I am taking your information "lightly", but that I've come to the understanding that the public wants instant gratification...............in ALL things.

It takes alot of patience to not go into a defensive mode. Therefore, alot of energy is expelled on giving ones own opinion. And many aren't going to go through that much energy. So, then you have the slams and attacks that are made on "your" person, and if you don't want a confrontation, you strive for more patience. Which means you will need more energy and tact.

You wanted a solution. Patience is your solution. But, no one wants to put forth that much energy. For Patience takes up a lot of energy and looking at today's society, who wants to go through that? Not when they can get pretty much everything at their finger tips.

I like this post it most resembles my ideas.... very true

I have my gratification and my views are now justified. I can proceed to now flame anyone who doesn't agree. (Sarcasm plain simple sarcasm)