Michael Bloomberg runs for presidency

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

.


Sorry I’m a bit tired and ranty. I agree pretty much everyone who’s going to be against Trump already is.

I’m just frightened and frustrated by what the right wing people are willing to do to others, and the way so many people are not willing to stop them.

 

[Pamela]

Its been so since the Rev. War, when the southern colonies were Loyalist. Same group tried seceding. Same group during Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Vietnam, etc.

 

[Brenda Archer]

The problem is that Donald Trump is a bull shit big bang. He's producing so much bullshit day by day, on Twitter or anywhere else he goes that most people have just given up trying to refute it. So he keeps on spitting his bullshit all along, which blurs and clouds the reality more and more while his real agenda is hidden somewhere deep underly that gigantic bullshit universe he created and grows every day.

And while he might look like a simpleton - if you want to get heared, then your language should be simple. Nobody fancies words the majority cannot understand at once when he wants to win an election.

George Orwell wrote in his essay "Politics and the English language" this: "Never use a long word where a short one will do. "

The demographic I’m thinking of is mostly not on Twitter, and except for Facebook, they are mostly not on social media at all. They are still getting their information from TV.

This is driving a generational divide - Democrats can talk online all day, they’ll never see it. They will see only whatever gets reported on TV news.

They may not understand the old standards for journalistic integrity are long gone. So if Fox or a mainstream channel lies to them, they don’t have any way to catch it. This reminds me of the way I had to correct the misconceptions of a friend in east Texas about California. Fortunately I could say, “I’ve been there,” because if it had just been my news source versus hers, she would have ignored it.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

They will see only whatever gets reported on TV news.

Well yes, and Chomsky recently said that the USA now do remind him of the last days of the USSR - lies and propaganda everywhere.

For me the difference though is that in the USSR many people were used to the propaganda for decades, but still able to spot it and see through it. That's what seems to be missing a lot in the USA, or the propaganda has reached a whole new level.

 

[Brenda Archer]

Well yes, and Chomsky recently said that the USA now do remind him of the last days of the USSR - lies and propaganda everywhere.

For me the difference though is that in the USSR many people were used to the propaganda for decades, but still able to spot it and see through it. That's what seems to be missing a lot in the USA, or the propaganda has reached a whole new level.

People aren’t used to it, and don’t expect it. The TV is basically the authority figure and sets norms. You will get funny looks if you say something like this out loud. People don’t want to think they’re gullible or followers. Journalistic standards, and a certain decorum, used to push most people toward the center-right. The lack of it is pushing some of the same people to the right, but most of them don’t have the theoretical constructs to describe it. They just want to be “normal,” and normal is on TV.

Younger people aren’t necessarily any different, but their news sources are more diverse, and they’re online arguing with each other. This is pushing most of them leftward, except for a small group pulled to the alt-Right.

It’s a big generation gap.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

People aren’t used to it, and don’t expect it. The TV is basically the authority figure and sets norms. You will get funny looks if you say something like this out loud. People don’t want to think they’re gullible or followers. Journalistic standards, and a certain decorum, used to push most people toward the center-right. The lack of it is pushing some of the same people to the right, but most of them don’t have the theoretical constructs to describe it. They just want to be “normal,” and normal is on TV.

So in other words they are going through this, which is out of 1984 from George Orwell:

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

and

War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and Ignorance Is Strength.

 

[Brenda Archer]

Its been so since the Rev. War, when the southern colonies were Loyalist. Same group tried seceding. Same group during Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Vietnam, etc.

Yes. I think this culture is being deliberately spread by media propaganda, using the bigotry that is still everywhere as a hook, and by misrepresentation to people with little awareness of their own history. For example, they seem to have forgotten that pro-democracy politics once had a strong anticlerical and anti-aristocratic component.

I think churches have been spreading it too. Most of the people I know who are in Protestant churches now believe the Dominionist version of history, and it’s completely Neo-Confederate.

 

[Brenda Archer]

So in other words they are going through this, which is out of 1984 from George Orwell:

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

and

War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and Ignorance Is Strength.

They’re not that totalitarian - this is a post-republican society (small r republican, in the sense of the eighteenth century democracy movements).

The flaw in the society here is that the old aristocratic thinking was admired by the slaveholders and then this slaveholder culture was transmitted in the churches. This is old for us, and it’s what I’m calling Neo-Confederate Dominionism because that’s the new, virulent mutation. It’s taken over the Republican Party and its media mouthpieces include Fox and Sinclair.

It’s on TV and radio. For the most part, the people in this audience are not very online and don’t see themselves as ideological. To the extent they have any ideas, they are theocratic.

 

[danielravennest]

People aren’t used to it, and don’t expect it. The TV is basically the authority figure and sets norms. You will get funny looks if you say something like this out loud. People don’t want to think they’re gullible or followers. Journalistic standards, and a certain decorum, used to push most people toward the center-right. The lack of it is pushing some of the same people to the right, but most of them don’t have the theoretical constructs to describe it. They just want to be “normal,” and normal is on TV.

Younger people aren’t necessarily any different, but their news sources are more diverse, and they’re online arguing with each other. This is pushing most of them leftward, except for a small group pulled to the alt-Right.

It’s a big generation gap.

Traditional pay-TV is dropping off a cliff as the oldest generation is dying off. To some extent that is being replaced by streaming services, but those don't always include the news channels:

 

[Anya Ristow]

Younger people aren’t necessarily any different, but their news sources are more diverse

The plutocracy knows where these sources are. They are busy burying them with algorithms, discrediting them with propaganda, and co-opting them through "investment".

By the time "younger people" start to think of other adults as "younger people", their news sources will be the same old propaganda, and their handlers will be busy co-opting and destroying the next gerneration's news sources.

 

[Cristalle]

The plutocracy knows where these sources are. They are busy burying them with algorithms, discrediting them with propaganda, and co-opting them through "investment".

By the time "younger people" start to think of other adults as "younger people", their news sources will be the same old propaganda, and their handlers will be busy co-opting and destroying the next gerneration's news sources.

Yeah, like seeing Russians everywhere. People couldn't possibly be sick of the same corrupted neoliberal order, like Chile, Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Colombia, France, the Netherlands, Peru, Haiti, etc.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

The problem is, Boomers and Silents tend to see 'news' and assume its legit. I've been watching an older cousin [distant, but she's local], spouting all sorts of news stuff on FB - even if they are online, they still, from their youth, remember journalists, and don't question 'news' from any source, unless they've been told that its left-leaning media.

 

[Brenda Archer]

The plutocracy knows where these sources are. They are busy burying them with algorithms, discrediting them with propaganda, and co-opting them through "investment".

By the time "younger people" start to think of other adults as "younger people", their news sources will be the same old propaganda, and their handlers will be busy co-opting and destroying the next gerneration's news sources.

The cure for this is education in media literacy. Not everyone gets it, but on average, it seems to me the Millennials are getting more skeptical. If this were not so, they wouldn’t be moving leftward, but they are. Outside of white male gaming spaces, the younger people are saying things you had to be a conscious leftist to say aloud in my generation (young Boomers and older Gen X.) It *is* different, not because people are smarter, but because they’re *talking to each other* so that they’re both the publishers and consumers of information.

In a typical political cycle someone like Bernie would have been finished with his last loss. The comeback he’s making is unusual. And younger people are less and less white Protestants, so the old fascism can’t recruit them directly as often. I’m an optimist. Information war is eternal, but it’s still less centralized than broadcast, and produces a different society.

 

[danielravennest]

It *is* different, not because people are smarter, but because they’re *talking to each other* so that they’re both the publishers and consumers of information.

The younger generations *are* smarter, because they didn't grow up with leaded gasoline and lack of pollution controls. There's a clear relationship between when unleaded gas was introduced, and crime rates 20 years later. One of the effects of lead is reduced impulse control.

 

[Tracer]

Bloomberg: Legalizing Marijuana Is Stupid

"Today, incidentally, we are trying to legalize another addictive narcotic, which is perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done," Bloomberg said.

www.newsweek.com

 

[Kara Spengler]

My personal fave would be Bernie. My least fave would be Bloomberg.

But whoever polls best against the mobster in the White House is who I will support.

Because four more years means democracy and the rule of law are dead.

ps The two bases are set in concrete. The independents will decide. They Voted Democratic. Now They Support Trump.

Yeah, never thought I would find someone less on a fave than Biden.

 

[Kara Spengler]

The problem is, Boomers and Silents tend to see 'news' and assume its legit. I've been watching an older cousin [distant, but she's local], spouting all sorts of news stuff on FB - even if they are online, they still, from their youth, remember journalists, and don't question 'news' from any source, unless they've been told that its left-leaning media.

Yes, media is not like what it once was. When Cronkite was on you could trust him but not this new batch. They may or may not be correct, but for most their job titles now are closer to pundits (or entertainers) than reporters.

Interestingly, comedians have taken over the role of most trusted news source and they do not WANT the role. Think Jon Stewart or pretty much anyone that worked for him. Which actually fits with the old role of court jesters, often they were the only adults that could get away with speaking the truth.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Yes, media is not like what it once was. When Cronkite was on you could trust him but not this new batch. They may or may not be correct, but for most their job titles now are closer to pundits (or entertainers) than reporters.

Interestingly, comedians have taken over the role of most trusted news source and they do not WANT the role. Think Jon Stewart or pretty much anyone that worked for him. Which actually fits with the old role of court jesters, often they were the only adults that could get away with speaking the truth.

Totally - funny, was talking about this with the spouse and we were talking about Cronkite and Rather, and the elder Wallace. Oh sure, there was probably still bias, but it was fought, you felt, in the interest of trying to remain 'just the facts'.

And for a long time, I've trusted the Comedians for news, sure its not always facts, but its still truth.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Yeah, like seeing Russians everywhere. People couldn't possibly be sick of the same corrupted neoliberal order, like Chile, Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Colombia, France, the Netherlands, Peru, Haiti, etc.

Yes, actually I also saw some Russians today by chance - which happened to be on a field trip here, so I showed them around and we had a good time and fun.

 

[Essence Lumin]

If you live in a certain place in Alaska you can see Russia from your house.