Discussion for article #223910
Coal faces a double whammy. First, the coal extraction industry has to capture its local political agencies and politicians, as well as try to keep the discourse focused on jobs and economic benefits. Second, the coal-burners have to do the same thing, including convincing people of the existence of âclean coalâ (which runs on phlogiston, perhaps), as well as the need for cheap electricity and all that. The amount of hogwash one has to take in has simply become overwhelming for most. Eliminating all coal-burning globally would solve over half of the global warming problem right out of the gate (as long as we donât start burning something else.) In a reversal of roles with our Neanderthal ancestors, mankind is now on a Quest for an Alternative to Fire.
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Thanks for making me look up the word â[phlogiston][1]ââŚ
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston â also a + for the Quest for Alternative to Fire. Loved that movie when it came out in '81.
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"I can't imagine them shutting down the government one month before midterm elections," said a Democratic congressional aide.
You donât have much of an imagination, do you?
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I double-dog dare these Pukes to force a second govât shutdown a month before the midterms over a legislative maneuver, or poison pill, when the Presidentâs actions are overwhelmingly popular with the public in curbing greenhouse gases as a whole. That should go over swimmingly. Seems to me the President has the upper-hand if he refuses to sign that legislation.
A forced govât shutdown would only cement the negative association with Republicans unable to pass legislation in the country when necessary. It would clearly foreshadow what these Pukes are more than willing to do should they get both houses of Congress.
The President wouldnât sign it if they put a poison pill in the legislation over Obamacare. So I hope he stays vigilant and shows his resolve on this issue as well. This should be an example of just how far the Republicans would let the country fail by continuing to obstruct even the most basic legislation to fund the government.
Eggrollian said â(as long as we donât start burning something else)â and thatâs just what these Republicans are planning to do here in Michigan by using the legislative processâŚGet a load of this entry at DailyKos:
Thatâs exactly what these Pukes in the States are going out of their way to do with the help of ALEC, especially here in Michigan where even burning petcoke and plastic now is considered a renewable energy by them. Totally insane. Wherever legislatures and Governorships are kept red with Republicans, expect to see more and more of this type of legislation at the State level.
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This perfectly captures why Democrats are so constantly on the defensive when dealing with the GOP. They assume that Republicans are like them, and wonât do crazy things. Frankly, I think itâs a problem with liberals in generalâtheir assumptions about how the world works is predicated on the notion that the rest of the world is like them.
As should be blindingly obvious to anybody not living in a bubble of self-delusion, the world is chock-full of sociopathic assholes, and the main task is to make sure they have as little power as possible.
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Do it. Oh, please do it.
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Itâs the rare person who really understands thatâs not true. And maybe the worst offenders are the tea baggers themselves. Thatâs why theyâre capable of any crazinessâthey think everyone agrees that weâre in desperate times and have to take desperate measures to hold back the rampaging tyranny, suicidal spending, etc. etc. Remember how shocked they were at their unpopularity after the last shutdown? Of course they learned nothing from it because learning stuff is not their style.
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As usual, Ron Perlman killed in that movie.
I agree that conservative wingnuts are more deluded about the world, largely because of their wholesale rejection of documented fact, scientific or otherwise, when it doesnât fit their ideology.
A huge part of winning battles, whether itâs actual military conflict or political contests, is anticipating what your opponent is going to do, and then constructing well-thought out responses to a variety of scenarios so that you can respond immediately while keeping your ultimate goal in view.
Being able to anticipate correctly requires a clear-eyed assessment of exactly who (or what, in the case of the GOP) your opponent is, based on their record. Thatâs where the natural inclination of liberal Democrats to want to see the best in others can overwhelm reality, and it leaves Dems in the constant position of being astonished, gob-smacked, and unprepared for Republican sociopathy.
In short, Dems too often appear to play the role of Charlie Brown attempting to kick the football held by Lucy, and always getting surprised when she yanks the ball away at the last second.
The Republican Party has been a target-rich environment for well over a decade, and itâs endlessly frustrating to me to see opportunity after opportunity to really hammer them squandered by Democrats.
One weakness that the Dems suffer from is the refusal to accept the fact that American politics has always been hugely affected by the theatrical aspects of retail politics, which is something that Republicans seem to instinctively gravitate to. Dems want to believe that calmly-presented 20-page position papers on serious issues will be sufficient to sway the electorate, while GOPers understand the power of what Dems typically deride as political stunts and meaningless PR.
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GOP Plots Attack on Obamaâs ----------- Rules
Fill in the blank and reuse over and over.
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The Democratsâ version of the delusion is rooted in their denial of the frightening reality that the Republicans have ceased to be a political party in the traditional American sense of the word and have instead degenerated into a movement party more akin the kind of thing you saw in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Theyâve become a nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-democratic movement financed by elites that speaks to (and fans the flames of) the sense of discontent, fear and economic dislocation of a specific segment of the population that simultaneously conceives itself as entitled majority and beleaguered minority. Institutional Democrats think in terms of policy and think the objective of power-seeking is to make policy. They cannot get their heads around the idea that Republicans are a post-policy party that deals in solely in facile symbols and has objectives that are basically nihilistic.
Thatâs the reason every half-hearted Republican attempt to fashion a substantive policy proposal collapses into debacle and internal acrimony. Their symbols are designed to persuade people to transcend the surly bonds of reality and follow the flag to a greater destiny which necessarily involves destroying the existing order. Thus, when they try to develop an âalternative to Obamacare,â they end up with a thing that either looks just like Obamacare or a thing that results in their base being very obviously screwed six ways from Sunday, either of which results in intramural strife. Same thing happens with revenue and appropriations proposals.
The Republican version of the delusion that everyone is basically like them is that all white people think and believe and act as they believe, or can be made to believe as they believe. Itâs that stubborn 1/3 of white people who will not, under any circumstances, ever come around to their way of thinking that just baffles them to the point of denying their existence as anything other than a tiny minority on the âextreme left.â
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Letâs see:
- Something good for the country: Check
- Something good for he world? Check
- Something that most Americans want? Check
- Something that will help the economy of the US? Check
- Supported by Obama? Check
Thatâs five MAJOR reasons to NOT do it!!!
MUST. STOP.
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What is the best method of hammering?
Is anbody - Warren, Sanders, maybe? - using a hammer?
What other influences might have kept Party Dems from effectively responding?
What will it take to bring over/wake up some of the 2/3s?
Crazy wants to stay crazy, but can be isolated and defanged, but perhaps only when the apathetic & uninformed begin to take notice? What in Godâs heaven will it take.
You have exquisitely exposed the Rosetta stone needed to understand todayâs Republican party. Nicely done.
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Come on and do it, you worthless traitors. Demonstrate to everyone a month before the election exactly what kind of scumsucking pieces of shit you are.
Superb analysis, Steve. What makes it difficult is that this is the first time anywhere that a major, mainstream, national conservative party has been taken over by the far right revolutionaries from within. Those European movement parties you speak of were outside the traditional political mainstream. Itâs hard to understand what you have never seen before, like what happened to the European monarchies during the first ten years of revolutionary France, when their professional armies got their asses kicked by the new-form âcitizenâs army.â
Iâm reminded of a well-known (legendary) Hollywood director who spent his 20s in Berlin in the 1920s, who I had the privilege of knowing when he was still with us. He saw the Nazis for the danger they were about 1928 and by 1933 was considered by his friends to be a âcrankâ on the subject of Hitler and his âNazi clownsâ as they were seen by his friends. As he told me, the night Hitler became Chancellor, he packed everything in a steamer trunk, caught a taxi to the rail station and bought a one way ticket to Paris. âI came back twelve years later, and all my friends who had considered Hitler to be a clown had died in his prisons and concentration camps.â
As another friend I have who lived through the âtwelve bad yearsâ in Germany once explained to me: âThe Nazis didnât elect Hitler, the conservatives put him in power because they believed him when he told them he was one of them, a lie they discovered too late.â
Keep shouting it from the rooftops Steve, we âcranksâ do know what weâre seeing with these Republican fascist traitors.
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Itâs a problem with people in general. Itâs reflected clearly in conservatives as well - they think that liberals are making up data to support their positions on climate change and Obamacare, because thatâs what theyâre doing to oppose them.
How could it be a sneak attack? The GOP is losing on all fronts and these kamikazes are crashing into the ships of public policy.