Politics has turned me into a mess

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Well, in my opinion the basic problem is that America is more and more split into two factions, divided by a big rift, which have less in less in common and to talk to each other.

The better part is the high functioning one, which was and is still doing well, so like Siliicon Valley, New York City, in short financial services, computer stuff, weapons, aviation industry etc. and you can find it at both shores.

The worser part, which has been redeveloping into a second world country at best, are the typically the more rural areas, or where former industry was located, like car manufacturing or the rust belt.

And when looking at the 2016 presidency election map, you can easily spot who voted for Trump (red) and who voted for Clinton (blue), and this is a pretty good fit: the better functioning parts mostly voted for Clinton, while the rest voted for Trump.

The thing is that Trump only cares about the faction which elected him; and he doesn't really give a damn about the rest. Trump is cracking the country apart, but the thing is: even if he's out of office, the underlying problem will remain - unless of course Trump was able to solve it which I don't think is going to happen.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Well, in my opinion the basic problem is that America is more and more split into two factions, divided by a big rift, which have less in less in common and to talk to each other.

The better part is the high functioning one, which was and is still doing well, so like Siliicon Valley, New York City, in short financial services, computer stuff, and you can find it at both shores.

The worser part, which has been redeveloping into a second world country at best, are the typically the more rural areas, or where former industry was located, like car manufacturing or the rust belt.

And when looking at the 2016 presidency election map, you can easily spot who voted for Trump (red) and who voted for Clinton (blue), and this is a pretty good fit: the better functioning parts mostly voted for Clinton, while the rest voted for Trump.

The thing is that Trump only cares about the faction which elected him; and he doesn't really give a damn about the rest. Trump is cracking the country apart, but the thing is: even if he's out of office, the underlying problem will remain - unless of course Trump was able to solve it which I don't think is going to happen.

It does not always map to rural/urban. Focus on NH for example though ..... the major correlation is in the northermost part of the state but the rest of it is all messed up on that map. It really comes down to voter turnout.

 

[Rose Karuna]

So I ran across this article and thought it was relevant to this discussion: Women Are Angrier Than Ever Before—and They're Doing Something About It

During the 2016 election, American experiences of depression and anxiety became so alarming that mental health professionals used the term Post-Election Stress Disorder, to capture the distressed responses to an onslaught of triggering and traumatizing news. For Democratic women, the cuts were even deeper, as Trump ascended to the White House despite multiple accusations of sexual assault. “We are experiencing not just the pain of political defeat but the grief of mourning something that feels irrevocably lost,” wrote Meghan O’Rourke for The New Yorker. This hardly seemed the dawn of a new era of empowerment, equity, and engagement.

It's a fairly long article but is summed wonderfully up by a 2006 quote from Maya Angelou:

Let us end with the wisdom of a departed elder, the essayist, autobiographer, and poet, Maya Angelou. During a 2006 interview she said of anger, “You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.”

I'm glad we have this space to talk about it.

 

[Kaimi Kyomoon]

I read somewhere (sorry) that between us and them are a whole lot of people who disdain "radicals" on both ends of the spectrum...

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I read somewhere (sorry) that between us and them are a whole lot of people who disdain "radicals" on both ends of the spectrum...

Guess who those are.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Most Germans didn't fully realize what was happening from 1932 onward, until they found themselves in a position where opposition was practically impossible. IMHO, the sane part of the US population has to make sure not to get in the same position as the sane part of the Germans did back then.

Maybe, maybe not. Or they just did not understand it, or even appreciated what was happening.

For example: I have visited last week the concentration camp memorial site in Dachau. Dachau was the first concentration camp ever to be erected by the Nazis, build shortly after Hitler became chancellor in 1933 and operational for fully twelve years. It was erected on the plot of an abandoned ammunition plant, and not far away from the city. Nowadays there is a residential area near the site, in fact so near that some parcels there have as border the historical concrete wall of the camp.

Dachau was being fitted for around 6.000 prisoners, later there were up to 45.000 in it though. Dachau was being run by the SS, and all the inhuman practices on how to run such a site were first being tried and developed in Dachau, later then exported as a blue print to all other concentration and death camps. It is the origin of it.

It also had a gas chamber, but this was not really used. People were instead being dragged to a firing range not far away for execution, or a specific castle in Austria, though the main operation mode of Dachau was forced labor.

Whatever... when Dachau was being build there was a press article in the local newspaper about it. Dachau was being described as a more or less normal prison for communists and socialists to obscure what's going on in there. Some of the first prisoners also were communists. Dachau had repeated press coverage, of course all stuff in propaganda style.

One of them was Hans Beimler, a former member of the parliament of the state and a communist. Beimler was - nobody really knows what lucky star shined upon him - only four weeks in Dachau, then the charges were dropped and he was a free man. Beimler immediately left the Nazi state, and went to Czechia which was back then still not occupied by Nazi Germany.

There he wrote in August 1933 the first eye witness report about what's going on in Dachau, where he described quite detailed which type of treatment he suffered. This report was quickly also translated into several other major languages, including English. The English title is "Four Weeks in the Hands of Hitler's Hell-hounds: The Nazi Murder Camp of Dachau", which really does not leave much room for imagination left.

Also in 1934 there was an SA orchestra playing music in the camp, and locals went nearby and could look into the camp. Of course they had no real contact, but were able to look at the plot.

So if anybody wanted to know what's going on in there in the beginning - this was quite open in the public. You just had to grab a copy of this report, if possible. Of course this was quite hard to do in Germany I guess, but not in other states.

I guess the ugly truth is that just most people didn't care about what's going on there, and during war cared even less. That's it.

By the way the visit left me somewhat ambivalent: it is a historical site, entrance is free and a good thing that it has been preserved for the coming generations. I've got though a serious issue with the whole site, and that is that this was a camp of inhuman terror. It had over 200.000 prisoners during the 12 years, 1/5 of them died due to the bad treatment in the camp or were executed.

Most buildings are not there any more, just one of the barracks for the prisoners and the main building. But when you go there the issue for me is that it's looking so nice, tidy and peaceful. If you don't know where you are you could mistake it for something else, less bad.

And the whole exhibition/presentation does not really a good job to transport the reality of the terror which happened at this site into the present. Other memorial sites like Buchenwald are doing a far more better job at that, the whole atmosphere there feels much more darker like it should for such a place. There you can almost feel the pressure of being a prisoner in such a site, in Dachau you just don't really have that kind of feeling. It is a much more watered down experience.

It is also a major tourist attraction with around 800.000 visitors per year.

 

[Isabeau]

I’m slowly retreading this thread and I see people who haven’t posted in a long while. I hope they’re doing alright.